An interesting feature in this biography is the number of poems it contains not included in any edition of Campbell’s works, and the original drafts it gives of many of Campbell’s well-known productions. The “Battle of the Baltic” originally contained twenty-seven stanzas, and in that shape was enclosed in a letter to Scott. We extract a specimen of the omitted verses:
Not such a mind possessed England’s tar; ’Twas the love of nobler game Set his oaken heart on flame, For to him ’twas all the same, Sport or war.
All hands and eyes on watch As they keep; By their motion light as wings, By each step that haughty springs, You might know them for the kings Of the deep!
’Twas the Edgar first that smote Denmark’s line; As her flag the foremost soared, Murray stamped his foot on board, And a hundred cannons roared At the sign!
This Life of Campbell, and the Life of Southey, now in course of publication by the same house, are the best literary biographies we have had since The Life of Mackintosh, edited by his Son. We wish the Harpers would reprint the latter, as there has been no complete American edition of it ever published. It contains more matter than any similar work since Moore’s Life of Byron.
_The National Cook Book. By a Lady of Philadelphia, a Practical Housewife. Philada.: Robert E. Peterson. 1 vol. 12 mo._
This is, on all sides, admitted to be the very best of the many cook books that have been issued by the press of late years. The editor, be she whom she may, understands the art of preparing a delicious meal, of any material, it seems, and our taste has passed favorable judgment upon a fruit cake of most inviting look, and of quality the best. A lady, in whose judgment we have the most unbounded confidence, pronounces this “the only cook book worthy of a housekeeper’s perusal.”
Next to the intellectual feast, which is spread before the reader of Graham each month, we suppose, will come a snug breakfast, a glorious good dinner, or a cozy, palate-inviting supper of birds, with mushrooms. Now, without Peterson’s Cook Book, the meal cannot be perfection. Of this we feel convinced.
_The Gallery of Illustrious American Daguerreotypes by Brady. Engraved by D’Avignon. Edited by C. Edwards Lester, assisted by an Association of Literary men. 205 Broadway, New York._