_The Falcon Family; or Young Ireland. By the author of the Bachelor of the Albany. Boston: T. Wiley, Jr._
We should judge the author of the present amusing work to be a young lawyer, extensively read in miscellaneous literature, and disposed to make the most of his wit, rhetoric and acquirements. His style of thinking and composition is that of a first rate magazine writer rather than novelist. He is a brilliant sketcher and caricaturist, without any hold upon character, and with little power of conceiving or telling a story. He is ever sparkling and clever, without weight or depth. But he has many elements of popularity, and unites a good share of shrewdness with an infinite amount of small wit. The object of the present work is to ridicule Young Ireland in particular, and Young Europe in general, including hits at Young England, Young Israel, (the children of Israel,) and _La Jeune France_. All of these, Mitchell, D'Iraeli, Moncton Milnes and the rest, are classed under the common term of _boyocracy_, a very good phrase to denote the ridiculous portions of the young creed. Though the author has no view of this class of sentimental or termagant politicians except on their ludicrous side, he exposes that side with a brilliant remorselessness which is refreshing in this age of universal cant. Though something of a coxcomb himself, he has no mercy on the fop turned politician and theologian. The mistake of his satire on Young Ireland consists in overlooking the reality of the wrongs under which that country groans, and the depth and intensity of the passions roused. In regard to style the author is a mannerist. The present novel reads like a continuation or reproduction of the Bachelor of the Albany.
_Researches on the Chemistry of Food, and the Motion of the Juices in the Animal Body. By Liebig, M. D. Lowell: Daniel Bixby & Co. 1 vol. 12 mo_.
This volume is edited by Professor Horsford, of Harvard University. It is an acute and profound work of science, worth all the common books on the subject put together. The author considers his investigation, as recorded in the present volume, the most important he ever made. His theory is this: "The surface of the body is a membrane from which evaporation goes uninterruptedly forward. In consequence of this evaporation, all the fluids of the body acquire, in obedience to atmospheric pressure, motion toward the evaporating surface. This is obviously the chief cause of the passage of the nutritious fluids from the blood-vessels, and of their diffusion through the body. We know now what important functions the skin (and lungs) fulfill through evaporation. It is a condition of nourishment, and the influence of a moist or dry air upon the health of the body, or of mechanical agitation by walking or running, which increases the perspiration, is self-evident." It will be readily seen that this discovery has an important bearing upon the preservation of health.