MEMOIRS OF WILLIAM WORDSWORTH, Poet-Laureate, D. C. L. BY CHRISTOPHER WORDSWORTH, D.D., Canon of Westminster. In two volumes. Edited by HENRY REED. Boston: TICKNOR, REED AND FIELDS.

THESE are two very pleasant and readable volumes; authentic and particular, so far as regards its facts, and containing numerous letters from the Poet of Nature' to his friends, which open the secrets of his inner man, and show the reader the moving impulses which governed his life, and were the well-springs of his poetry. The work has been carefully edited, and with excellent taste, by Professor REED, of Philadelphia. WORDSWORTH Was his intimate friend and correspondent, and many of the most interesting letters in the volume are addressed to him. From one of these we take the subjoined passage, descriptive of a scene which will remind those who were present, of the late pic-nic at Jamaica, Long-Island, to which we adverted in our last number:

In your last letter you speak so feelingly of the manner in which my birth-day (April 7) has been noticed, both privately in your country, and somewhat publicly in my own neighborhood, that I cannot forbear adding a word or two upon the subject. It would have delighted you to see the assemblage in front of our house, some dancing upon the gravel platform, old and young, as described in GOLDSMITH's travels; and others, children I mean, chasing each other upon the little plot of lawn to which you descend by steps from the platform. We had music of our own preparing; and two sets of casual itinerants, Italians and Germans. came in successively, and enlivened the festivity. There were present upward of three hundred children, and about one hundred and fifty adults of both sexes and all ages, the children in their best attire, and of that happy and, I may say, beautiful race, which is spread over this highly-favored portion of England. The tables were tastefully arranged in the open air; oranges and ginger-bread in piles decorated with evergreens and spring flowers; and all partook of tea, the young in the open air, and the old within doors. I must own I wish that little commemorations of this kind were more common among us. It is melancholy to think how little that portion of the community which is quite at ease in their circumstances have to do in a social way with the humbler classes. They purchase commodities of them, or they employ them as laborers, or they visit them in charity for the sake of supplying their most urgent wants by alms-giving. But this, alas! is far from enough; one would wish to see the rich mingle with the poor as much as may be upon a footing of fraternal equality.'

In a letter describing a visit to poor SOUTHEY, after his intellect began to desert him, WORDSWORTH Says: 'He is past taking pleasure in the presence of any of his friends. He did not recognize me until he was told who I was. Then his eyes flashed for a moment with their former brightness, but he soon sank into the state in which I had found him, patting with both hands his books affectionately, like a child. Having attempted in vain to interest him by a few observations, I took my leave after five minutes or so.' We can cordially commend this memoir of WORDSWORTH as a work well calculated to reward an attentive perusal. It sets before us, that we may read and profit by it, the familiar, every-day life of a simple-minded good man, in whom the elements of poetry were so mingled that they became part and parcel of his very existence.

FRESH GLEANINGS: OR A NEW SHEAF FROM THE OLD FIELDS OF CONTINENTAL EUROPE. In one volume: pp. 336. New-York: CHARLES SCRIBNER.

THOSE who have encountered in the journals heretofore any of the chaste and graphic sketches which compose the work before us, will be delighted to find them brought together and presented in the shape of a tasteful and beautiful volume, such as Mr. SCRIBNER has learned by experience to produce. As touching the merits of Mr. MITCHELL'S writings, the time has gone by when it could be necessary to declare them. Under his sobriquets of ‘IK. MARVEL' and 'JOHN TIMON' he has established a permanent reputation as a keen, watchful observer, a man of true feeling, delicate and refined sensibility, and a versatility of thought, if not of style, which is as remarkable as it is refreshing. We present a single picture, from our author's description of a scene at Torquay:

"It is worth mentioning, that five-and-twenty years ago, Torquay was as humble a little fishing-place as when HARY of Richmond landed in the bay with his army; but it came to be known, some way or other, that no where on the British coasts were the winter suns so soft and warm; and, presto, sprung forth little cottages and villas on every shelf of the hills, and the inns where one could buy only a stoup of fisherman's ale will now make you a bill as long as the bills at Bath.

The hills sweep round the bay so as to shut off every rude wind of the north; and the sun goes glancing over their green sides now here, now there-but never leaves them from morning till night. I lost myself, wandering in the little valleys among them; along the bosom of each were walks made, and from under the tangled limbs of fir-trees I would now and then climb suddenly upon a level spot where the sunshine lay, and where sat a gem of a cottage; and from the paling round the cottage I would see the town lying along the lip of the bay under so new an aspect that I would look two or three times before I could be sure that it was the same town of Torquay. Some old church-tower that had grown familiar would have disappeared, and a new and taller tower would rise from the houses, that I did not know; and as I went to other openings upon the hills, the old tower would come back and the new one vanish- but always the bright waters of the bay sleeping below.

Here and there came upon me companies of invalids, luxuriating in the sun. One face I saw that of a sick girl-comes to me now much oftener than it ought.

'She was sitting in one of the little Bath chairs, and a serving-man was drawing her up the hill. Her mother was walking on one side, and her brother, or he may have been her lover, the other if he was a lover, I pity him, for she must be dead before now. Her hair was flaxen, and once or twice she laid it back with a gentle motion, from her cheek; her eye was bright, too bright, and swimming with a tender expression, that seemed to me a tender thankfulness for so glorious a day.

The man drew her to the edge of the cliff where I was standing, and her expression grow more earnest as she looked out over the sea, where the sun lay in a flood. There was no ripple, only a gentle waving motion that did not break the surface, but which at intervals came rocking up to the beach, and the low murmur it made was all that broke the stillness.

The sick girl looked out upon the water and from that turned to the face of her mother - and then to the face of the young man and then to the sea again and from that up to the sky - and her small hands met together, and were clasped for a moment — and I thought a tear or two fell from her eyes.

'I turned away as if I had seen nothing of it; but I did see it, and it made a different man of me for a week.'

are.

Now here is a little scene, with no lack of still-life,' 'action,' and 'character,' which might be transferred at once to canvas; and there are a dozen others, equally felicitous, in other portions of these 'Gleanings.' We would suggest to our author, however, in a spirit which we are sure he will appreciate, a more frugal husbandry of his dashes, long and short. They seem natural, and doubtless in most cases they If it be art, then is there the 'ars celare artem' to hide all; yet there was a 'dashing' fellow who wrote aforetime, 'which his name, we'll not denyges of it,' as Mrs. GAMP would say, was LAWRENCE STERNE; and kindred thought, though wholly original, may lose something of its real desert, by being wedded closely to a style which, however spontaneous and indigenous, may still be deemed to partake of the exotic. And now that the biographical researches of THACKERAY have shown how merely mechanical, and not from the heart, were the 'emotions' indicated by these pauses and starts, one can hardly regard STERNE as a model of a writer, any more than he was a 'model of a man.'

AN INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF NATURAL DEATH, or Death from Old Age. By HOMER BOSTWICK, M.D., author of The Family Physician,' Hints to Young Physicians,' etc. In one volume: pp. 149. New-York: STRINGER AND TOWNSEND.

THIS little volume, which, whatever else may be said concerning it, is written with a COBBETT-like correctness and directness of style, is intended to develop a new and certain method of preventing the consolidation or ossification of the body, and of thus indefinitely prolonging vigorous, elastic, and buoyant health, and of rendering parturition easy and safe.' Its several chapters divide the work into an elaborate and yet succinct consideration of the following matters: The changes in the body during its progress from the womb to the grave, involving the nature of healthy and unhealthy blood, its circulation, and the natural and unnatural fluids of the body; the causes of the changes which occur in the body during its progress to old age, accessories to which are given, an analysis of the blood and bones, and the chemical difference between young and old animals; the nature of the solid earthy matter, which by gradual accumulation in the body brings on those changes which terminate in old age and natural death; the source of the phosphate of lime, which chokes up and consolidates the body, producing old age and death, with an analysis, etc., of different kinds of food, and their particular characteristics; proofs, various and at large, that the calcareous earthy matter of the body is derived solely from the food and drink; other proofs, that the duration of life is proportionate to the amount of earthy substances presented in said 'victuals and drink;' various opinions respecting the preservation of life, the nature of calculi, gravel, and bladder disorders, cause of stone in the bladder, gouty diseases, etc.; cause of motion, secretion, digestion, nature and composition of the brain and nervous system, etc.; together with a 'curtailed abbreviation compressing the particulars' of the whole argument, in the shape of a general summary and practical suggestions, of and concerning' the scope and tendency of the book. Now of the inculcations of this work we are indifferently prepared to speak. We have always (thanks to a kind PROVIDENCE) enjoyed robust health. Yet we have taken our food, animal and vegetable, 'cum grano salis;' but salt, according to Dr. BOSTWICK, is the very 'p'isonest thing' going forgetting that, according to JOB, it's impossible to do without salt, in certain articles of provant - the white of an egg, for example. Taboo salt, Dr. BOSTWICK, when a man's case is made hopeless by the verdict that salt can't save him!' Look at Lor's wife has n't she 'lived to a most numerous age,' and was n't she all salt? Did n't the Dead-Sea Expedition people see her, and find her in 'excellent preservation,' even in this our day and generation?' The great CALHOUN, when dying, said, figuratively, of course, to that clever writer, and his firm friend and favorite, Mr. JOSEPH SCOVILL, that 'man was like a tree;' but he did n't mean, we fancy, that the natural laws which would apply to a tree would in the same degree apply to a 'human.' Nevertheless, we cannot deny that there is much, very much, in the present work that is worthy of especial heed and warm commendation. In the chapter containing proofs that the duration of life is proportionate to the amount of earthy substances presented in our food and drink, we find this sketch of 'old Parr:'

OLD THOMAS PARR was born in Winnington, in Shropshire, in the year 1483, and although in his youth he was greatly afflicted with the king's evil and bloody flux, lived to the age of one hundred and fifty-two years. He was first married at the age of eighty-eight, and seemed no older than at forty-five; he married a second time at the age of one hundred and twenty; at the advanced age of one hundred and forty-five he was able to run races, thresh corn, and accomplish any kind of laborious work. He frequently ate by night, as well as by day, and always preferred the plainest food. He might be seen early in the morning:

LUSTY as health, come ruddy to the field,

His body was found to be in the most perfect condition when opened after death, as it was by the celebrated HARVEY. TAYLOR, the water-poet, thus describes his habits:

Goop wholesome labor was his exercise,
Down with the lamb, and with the lark arise:

In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day,
And to his team whistled time away;

He was of old PYTHAGORAS' opinion,

That green cheese was most wholesome with an onion,
Coarse meslin bread, and for his daily swig,
Milk, buttermilk, and water, whey, and whig:
Sometimes metheglin, and by fortune happy,
He sometimes sipped a cup of ale most nappy:
Cider, or perry, when he did repair

To Whitsun' ale, wake, wedding, or a fair;
His physic was good butter, which the scil
Of Salop yields, more sweet than candy oil;
And garlic he esteemed above the rate
Of Venice treacle, or best mithridate."

The body of old PARR' is said to have been covered with hair:

FROM head to heel, his body had all over

A quick-set, thick-set, nat'ral hairy cover."

It would be interesting to know the general diet of METHUSALEH. He must have sowed all his 'wild oats' by the time he reached the age of five hundred years; and the excesses of his youth aside, some account of his regimen would supply an important desideratum. NEBUCHADNEZZAR was seven years at grass, and throve, although he ‘neglected his nails,' which was not gentleman-like;* and it is barely possible that METHUSALEH also flourished upon a vegetable diet. But he never could have survived 'GRAHAM-Crackers!' Enough, however, 'on this p'int.'

GENEVRA; OR THE HISTORY OF A PORTRAIT. By an AMERICAN LADY, a Resident of Washington City. Complete in one volume. Philadelphia: T. B. PETERSON.

We learn that this is the work of a young lady, only eighteen years of age at the time it was written; and as the creation and composition of one so young, it must be regarded as a remarkable production. Both in the descriptive portions, and in the dialogues of the characters, the language is easy and flowing, and for the most part, natural: somewhat over-fervid, indeed, sometimes, in scenes which indicate, by their external sensuousness, a fervid and excited imagination, but in the main, as we have said, natural and forceful. Without entering upon an analysis of the narrative and autobiography, for which we have neither time nor space, and which we can only briefly designate as being full of various and often exciting incident, we shall content ourselves with two extracts, illustrative, as we conceive, of the comments we have made upon the style of our fair authoress. The first involves a few very natural reflections upon old age and its effects, and a very graphic picture from 'behind the scenes' at the San Carlo opera-house in Naples:

'THE door closed, and I was left alone. I set my little lamp in the fire-place, and after I had undressed and repeated the rosary, I stepped into the pretty bed, draperied with white, and drew its curtains close around me. I could scarcely realize that I was not in Madame SCHILLER'S dormitory; and at dawn I started suddenly from my slumber, imagining I heard her voice calling the girls to rise. Finding myself wide awake, I thought I would get up, and did so; all was quiet in the house, no one stirring; faint hues of morning sun were rising slowly in the east. I heard the sound of deep, sonorous breathing, as I passed a door at the head of the stairs, which I justly concluded were the nocturnal tones of my guardian. I went into the parlor, and finding

SPEAKING of nails: It would seem that careful experiments have shown that a man's fingernails grow their complete length in four months and a half. A man, therefore, who lives seventy years, renews his nails one hundred and eighty-six times! Allowing each nail to be half an inch long, he has grown seven feet and nine inches of finger-nail on each finger, and on fingers and thumbs an aggregate of seventy-five feet and six inches! 'Given' the foregoing, to ascertain the length of NEBUCHADNEZZAR's nails at the end of the time he was out on grass.' ED. KNICKERBOCKEN.