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the Reflections on the French Revolution' are the best monument of her political sagacity and comprehensive grasp of the law and order of history, but the L'Allemagne' is the strongest proof of her philosophic insight, penetrating to the ultimate forces and issues of life, and unfolding in advance of all her countrymen the most subtle and eccentric speculations that the world had known from the time of the neo-Platonists. Fifty years have scarcely diminished its value; the leading chapters on general questions of society, literature, philosophy, and religion remain among the most important of those enthusiastic and spiritual writings which extinguished ideology and revived faith in France, and her special criticisms on the various departments of German literature, even her pioneer re views of the great philosophers of the transcendental school, have been in very few respects superseded. The notes which Mr. WIGHT has appended from various sources supply all that is necessary to make the volume complete, as far as its design goes, according to the latest judgments. It is the design of the publishers to produce a uniform edition of translations of her principal works.

REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. BY GEO. C. BALDWIN, D.D. New-York: BLAKEMAN AND MASON. 1860.

It would be a curious study to trace the varying conceptions of the Gospel story and the Gospel characters through successive centuries, as revealed in the more genial and poetical of the Christian writings, and thus to note the various postures of the Christian spirit successively in the ages of persecution, turmoil, and barbaric invasion, in the mediæval ages of intellectual quietude, devotional sensitiveness, and poetical religious fancies, and in the late Protestant centuries of dialectic devotion and severity of dutiful life. The simplicity of the Gospel narrative would remain a constant element, but its kaleidoscopic reflections, its phases and adornments, would change with every change of period. The sacred lessons would be repeated in different forms according to the different mental and sentimental states of mankind. Dr. BALDWIN has developed from the New Testament a series of representative characters for the nineteenth century. The 'sensual man,' the 'impulsive man,' the 'avaricious man,' the 'beloved man,' the 'doubter,' the 'religious inquirer,' the 'nameless moral young man,' the almost Christian,' the converted man,' are all characters of the present time, though the author imagines that they are Gospel heroes. The abstract elements are in the New Testament, the concrete impersonations belong only to the present impetuous, inventive, progressive, and rather reckless and break-neck era. The same characters were doubtless developed by medieval monks in quite another spirit. Something of the temper of the volume may be inferred from the fact that PAUL is presented as the type of the great man, and PERICLES, DEMOSTHENES, and DANIEL WEBSTER are depreciated in order to give prominence to the power of analysis, breadth of thought, irresistibleness of argument, wealth of illustration, weight of pathos, graphicness of picturing, energy of denunciation, sublimities of imagination, depth of tenderness, bursts of enthusiasm, and power of practical appeal of the tentmaker of Tarsus.

EDITOR'S TABLE.

EDITORIAL NARRATIVE-HISTORY OF THE KNICKERBOCKER MAGAZINE: NUMBER EIGHT. By reason of a necessity which is laid upon us, we must impose upon the reader some self-talk' in this stage of our editorial narrative: and although we shall try to be brief, perhaps we shall not be able altogether to escape the charge of bald egotism.

The 'EDITOR'S TABLE' of this Magazine, in variety and in its accustomed dimensions, may be said to have commenced at about the period of WASHINGTON IRVING'S Connection with the work. It has been continued from that time up to the present moment, with no diminution as to quantity, and we may perhaps suppose, with about an 'average' of quality. One thing is quite certain: it has been deemed individual and natural: and we can take our 'davy,' that from first to last, in our familiar chat with readers and correspondents, we have written nothing which we should not have said to them, face to face, if we had had the happiness to have had them by our side in the sanctum. Sitting there alone, or circulating in the society of a great metropolis, or sojourning at intervals in the country, we for years have seen much that awakened mirth, and felt much that elicited tears: and in jotting down these thoughts and emotions, we have had occasion invariably to find, as we have said before and elsewhere, that any one man who feels and enjoys – who can neither resist laughter nor forbid tears, that must out, and will have vent — is in some sort an epitome of the public.' This, at least, we do know: that we never heard any thing that shook the walls of the sanctum with laughter, or brought the tears into our own eyes, which did not have precisely the same effect upon the general public, when it had been naturally and appropriately recorded. And so it was that our 'TABLE' and 'GoSSIP' grew up and expanded, 'even unto this present:' praised much, and quoted, beyond its deserts; at the same time affording us, meanwhile, the utmost pleasure in the concoction; enhanced not a little by the thought, that if our readers should happen to be bored, they would not be bored long; for the subjects were various, briefly touched upon, and 'dispatched at once;' Gossip,' literally sad thoughts and glad thoughts, influenced by all seasons and jotted down at all seasons; scenes and incidents in town and country, and all over the country; familiar home-views, anecdotes and stories not a few; many and multifarious matters, in short, that made the writer laugh, and many that moistened his eyes as he wrote and read or re-read them.

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When we began to make these departments a 'feature' of our work, twenty-two years ago, there were no editorial 'TABLES' set in native periodicals, and we were quite alone in our GOSSIPRY: ' but there are imitators enough now, even to the minutiae of typographical arrangement. But after all, our 'Table' set itself—and our 'Gossip' gossipped itself. If we wrote at all, 'the thing was done :' we could not choose but write as we chat with friends -and that every one who knows us will testify. 'Happy they,' (therefore,) says a Spanish proverb, who can close their ears to a book.'

But it was the commendation of those whose praise 'tickled the very cockles of our heart,' which kept us up to our work' in these desultory pages. The journals throughout the country were flatteringly kind: they have continued to be so to this hour; and surely no one can be more grateful than we are, for this long-continued favor. Yet, when a relative of 'GEOFFREY CRAYON, Gent.,' told us that he heard that golden-hearted author laughing in bed early one morning over a little sketch of ours in the 'Gossip ;* and Mr. TOWNSEND, then of 'STRINGER AND TOWNSEND,' publishers, coming from behind the green office-curtain of their private sanctum, one day, said to us: 'That laugh is from Mr. COOPER, who is rejoicing over your story of the ugly man who was pitted against another ugly man, and had attempted to improve upon Nature by grimace;' why, these things gratified

*OUR present theme is certainly a not very savory subject; but the untimely misfortune described in such unmincing Anglo-Saxon by a correspondent, tempts us to record a simi lar accident which we recently heard depicted by a friend, a French gentleman, whose unostentatious but princely hospitality adds (what one could hardly deem possible) even a new charm and grace to the lovely banks of the St. Lawrence, along the most delightful reach of that resplendent stream. It ees twànty year,' said he, since zat I was in NewYo'k; and I go up one night in z' upper part de cité, ('t was 'most in de contree,) to see a fraande. Ah! oui! W'en I com' by de door-yard, I see som'sing - I not know what he ees, but I s'ought he was leetil ràbeet; but he was ver' tame. I go up sof❜ly to heem: 'Ah, ha!' I say to myself, 'I'av' gots you!' So I strike him big stroke vis my ombrel on his necks. Ah, ha! sup'pose w'at he do? B-a-a-h!!! He strike me back in my face wis his D-n! I cannot tell: it was awfuls! DREADFULS! He s-m-e-l-l so you can. not touch him and I de saàme! I s'row myself in de pond, up to my necks; but it make no use. I s-m-e-1-1 seex wee-eek! I not like go in ze room wis my fraànde. I dig big hole to put my clo'es in de grounde: it not cure zem! I dig zem up: bah!--it is de saàme! I put zem back-and dey smell one year; till zey rot in de ground. It ees fact!' And so it was a fact; for no man born of woman could ever counterfeit the fervor of disgust which distinguished the graphic delineation of that sad mishap.'

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† 'THE West is a great country, Friend C—,' writes a clever correspondent. 'Tall things happen there now and then. Here is a specimen: Having occasion to pass through the Upper Lakes last June, I was happy enough to find myself a passenger on board that palace of a boat the Empire,' Emperor Howe commanding. My travelling companion for the time happened to be a thorough-bred 'Hoosier,' a prince of a fellow; one who feared GoD and loved fun and the ladies, but who was withal a most abominable stammerer. We had n't been long aboard, when the captain called our attention to a most remarkable-looking individual seated at the end of the cabin. I am not myself particularly handsome, and have seen some ill-looking men in my day; but so ugly a man as this had never crossed the scope of my vision. Howe declared him emphatically 'the ugliest man that ever lived;' whereupon my friend Tox offered to wager a half-dozen of champagne that he had seen a worse one in the steerage. The bet was at once accepted, and To

us; they satisfied us, that what pleased us, would please others: and when Mr. IRVING did us the honor to call upon us one evening, at our little cottage at 'DOBB, his Ferry,' and to remark of the following little subsection of 'Gossipry' in the number of the KNICKERBOCKER for the month, that it was 'graphic,' 'masterly,' and calculated to do more good than a whole sermon upon the wages of sin,' why, it made us anxious to 'emulate ourself' a little more, and do what we could to deserve such praise from such sources. Suppose we quote this latter passage? it is very short:

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'WE passed an hour in the Sing-Sing State-prison the other day; and while regarding with irresistible sympathy the wretched inmates, we could not help thinking how little, after all, of the actual suffering of imprisonment is apparent to the visitor. The ceaseless toil, the coarse fare, the solemn silence, the averted look, the yellow-white palor of the convict; his narrow cell, with its scanty furniture, his hard couch; these indeed are ‘visible to the naked eye.' Yet do but think of the demon THOUGHT that must eat up his heart' during the long and inconceivably dismal hours which he passes there in darkness, in silence, and alone! Think of the tortures he must endure from the ravages of that pleasantest friend but most terrible enemy, imagination! Oh! the height, the depth, the length and breadth, of a sensitive captive's sorrow! As we came away from the gloomy scene, we passed on a hill, within the domain of the guard, the Prison Potter's-Field, where lie, undistinguished by head-stone or any other mark, the bones of those who had little else to lay there, when their life of suffering was ended. There sleeps MONROE EDWARDS, whose downward fate we had marked in successive years.

'We first saw him when on his trial; a handsome, well-dressed, black-whiskered, seeming self-possessed person, with the thin varnish of a gentleman, and an effrontery that nothing could daunt. Again we saw him, while holding court with courtezans at the door of his cell, at The Tombs,' the day before he left for Sing-Sing; clad in his morning-gown, with luxurious whiskers, and the manners of a pseudo-prince receiving the honors of sham-subjects. The next time we saw him he was clad in coarsest 'felon. stripe; his head was sheared to the skull; his whiskers were no more; a dark frown was on his brow; his cheeks were pale, and his lips were compressed with an expression of remorse, rage, and despair. Never shall we forget that look! He had a little while before been endeavoring to escape, and had been punished by fifty lashes with a cat-o'-nine-tails; four hundred and fifty stripes on the naked back!

'Once again we saw him, after the lapse of many months. Time and suffering had done their work upon him. His once-erect frame was bowed; his head was quite bald at the top, and its scanty bordering-hair had become gray. And thus he gradually declined to his melancholy west of life,' until he reached his last hour; dying in an agony of terror; gnawing his emaciated fingers, to convince himself that he was still living; that the appalling change from life to death had not yet actually taken place!

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started for his man, who was to be brought up for comparison. He found the fellow a bit of a wag, as an intolerably homely man is apt to be, and, after the promise of a 'nip,' nothing loth to exhibit himself. As they entered the cabin-door, my friend, with an air of conscious triumph, turned to direct our attention to his champion, when he discovered the fellow trying to insure success by making up faces. St-st-st-stop!' said he; 'no-nonone of that! You st-st-stay just as God Almighty made you! You ca-ca-ca-can't be beat!' And he was n't!'

And now he sleeps in a felon's grave, with no record of his name or fate. Is not the way of the transgressor 'hard?''

There we have had all our say' about ourselves, and our own peculiar' departments of the KNICKERBOCKER: and if only a less authority than Mr. CRAYON had flattered us by praising the 'sallies of humor, the entertaining incidents, and the touches of tender pathos so frequently to be met with among the multitudinous leaves of the Gossip,' we should scarcely have dared to have the vanity to allude to the matter at all. Turn we now to our correspondents.

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Among the many excellent writers who contributed to our pages many prose papers at this period in the history of the KNICKERBOCKER, was Rev. WALTER COLTON, author of 'Ship and Shore,' and other works, which acquired deserved popularity. He possessed a quiet humor, with great tenderness and pathos at times, and exceeding ease and grace of style. Not unfrequently, in close juxtaposition with thoughts which would bedew the reader's cheek, he would surprise him with the oddest and most quaint conceits; such, for example, as is contained in four lines of his, describing a 'meddling PAUL PRY' sort of man in the vessel in which himself was chaplain; who, he said, he had no doubt, at the general resurrection would be found getting out of somebody else's grave!' Mr. COLTON, in connection with a Mr. SEMPLE, published at Monterey, the first weekly newspaper which was ever issued in the Golden State,' not then 'El Dorado'- 'The Cali fornian: a diminutive sheet, containing eight columns in all; the first number of which, for August 15, 1846, now lies before us. What a contrast between the little sheet and the large and well-conducted weekly and daily journals which now do honor to San Francisco, and other cities and towns of our Pacific sister State! 'The Californian' may be said to have been evoked from chaos. The materials on which it was printed were found in the public buildings of Monterey, (of which Mr. COLTON was at the time an Alcalde ;) had been used for the Spanish language; and were greatly injured by neglect; many of the necessary letters having been wasted or mislaid. Mr. COLTON has been dead for several years. We last saw him at Lake George, looking off from the piazza of our friend SHERRILL'S 'LakeHouse' upon the clear waters, and the 'blue mountains round,' and devouring the beautiful scene with an eye ever open to the beautiful in Nature, but upon which, even then, it was evident DEATH had set his solemn seal. Peace to the ashes, and repose to the spirit, of a man of genius and a Christian gentleman!

Among the more popular correspondents of our Magazine, 'about these days' was NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, now so well known and honored in both hemis pheres. He was one of those contributors, too, whose pacquet of 'copy' was placed on the top of our pile of letters from the post-office, opened and read through, before the envelopes of the rest of the 'mail' were broken. Very freshly remein bered,' even at this long lapse of time, is the pleasure with which we first perusol, in the neat manuscript of the author of The Scarlet Letter,' The Fountain of Youth,' 'A Bell's Biography,' 'VIOLET FANE'S Rosebud,' 'The Town-Pump,' and other now Twice-Told Tales,' since each and all were subsequently included in a volume thus entitled: a volume, portions of which are almost as striking and ef fective as any segregated chapters of the author's best writings. Take, for ex

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