University of Virginia Library

The well-deserved popularity of this charming book, has led the publisher, Mr.
Scribner, to issue an edition with highly-finished illustrations by Darley, who has
shown himself as much the artist in some of these quiet, dreamy, thought-pervading
scenes, as in the more stirring pictures for which he is so distinguished. The
volume is not only exquisitely embellished, but printed and bound in elegant style,
thus securing for it a prominent place among the presentation books of the season.

The designs are by Darley, and certainly the work could have been intrusted to
no one more competent. It was a delicate task he had to perform, to embody the
tender and beautiful fancies of his author, but he has done it with a grace and skill
which leave nothing to be desired. He has surpassed himself, and evinced a talent
for embodying sentiment beyond what seems indicated by his previous productions.
The whole book is, in fact, a perfect work of art, “beautiful exceedingly.”

He has so chimed in with the Bachelor's prevailing tone, that gentleness,
tenderness, and grace are reflected from the printed to the engraved page. It is no
slight merit for an artist thus to catch the hue of the author; the engravers, also,
deserve high credit for doing justice to Mr. Darley's designs; and, in short, this
octavo volume is beautifully complete in all respects.

The illustrations by Darley are in admirable keeping with its varied themes.
They are illustrations, characteristic of the subject, some of them in excellent
point. Aunt Tabithy scratching her head with her disengaged knitting needle,
your “second flame” presenting to you her two charming boys, the dreamer
soliloquizing over the wood fire, with his favorite dog beside him, the cattle reposing
at noon-tide in the shade, the grief-stricken father drooping in cheerless agony,
the love-scene in the woods, are all happy conceptions of the artist, and are finished
with capital effect.

Mr. Darley has shown his usual command over the expression of character and
feeling—he is generally not so successful in the effects of light and shadow as in
form; but these illustrations are certainly better in the quality we allude to than
the drawings for Irving's Works, or any of the Artist's previous productions.

This book should be read by all who can appreciate a style full of grace, in a
composition replete with original and striking thoughts.”

Agreeable, quaint, humorous, philosophical, pathetic, charming, glorious Ik.
Marvel! It is as refreshing to the mind, wearied with the thrice-told insipidities
of continental travel to dip into his fresh sparkling pages, as a plunge, this hot
weather, into the cold, diamond, deer-haunted waters of some mountain lake. We
have turned over his soft, thick, dainty pages, and our eye has glided along the
stream of his bright descriptions, pleasant thoughts, humorous expressions, and
characters painted with a few light touches, like daguerreotype portraits—very
Sterne-like and exceedingly fine—until arriving at the end we are startled at the
rapidity with which the feet of Time, flower-muffled, have trodden.

A series of the liveliest, newest, most taking and most graphic sketches of out of
the way scenes, character, and incidents, that were ever done up between a pair of
bookbinder's covers.

This is decidedly the most agreeable book of the season. It reminds one by an
occasional association of ideas, rather than resemblance, of imitation of Sterne's
Sentimental Journey, and some of Longfellow's Transatlantic Sketches; but its
freshness, its variety, graphic descriptive power, and genial sympathies, are all its
own.

It is a series of pictures—sketches of scenes which passed under the author's eye.
It is most ably done, and shows the hand of one gifted with genius and destined to
make his mark on the literature of his country.

The book is filled with a series of pictures and sketches more graphic it would be
difficult to find.

Like a talented and enthusiastic artist, he placed himself in the best positions,
and caught the lineaments of each scene to be transferred to his canvas. * * *
In truth, he has furnished a gallery of portraits which are very life like.

An elaborate history would fail to convey so vivid and truthful a conception
of the rise, progress and manner of the `second reign of terror' as is to be obtained
from this work.

It is by far the most able and most impressive account of the scenes in Paris,
and reveals a power of description that will give the author a name.