enemy are hissing about his ears, he puts on a pretty girl's slipper for her. "Such," he remarks, with a pensive air, "are some of the few happy scenes that brighten a soldier's life."
Colonel Gilmore, who has the diffidence of Major Gahagan, has also the engaging artlessness which lends so great a charm to the personal narrative of Mr. Barry Lyndon. He does not reserve from the reader's knowledge such of his exploits as stealing the chaplain's whiskey, and drinking the peach-brandy of the simple old woman who supposed she was offering it to General Lee. "Place him where you may," says Colonel Gilmore, "and under no matter what adverse circumstances, you can always distinguish a gentleman." He has a great deal of fine feeling, and can scarcely restrain his tears at the burning of Chambersburg, after setting it on fire. Desiring a memento of a brother officer, he takes a small piece of the dead man's skull. It has been supposed that civilized soldiers, however brave and resolute, scarcely exulted in the remembrance of the lives they had taken; and it is thought to be one of the merciful features of modern warfare, that in the vast majority of cases the slayer and the slain are unknown to each other. Colonel Gilmore has none of the false tenderness which shrinks from a knowledge of homicide. On the contrary, he is careful to know when he has killed a man; and he recounts, with an exactness revolting to feebler nerves, the circumstances and the methods by which he put this or that enemy to death.
We think we could hardly admire Colonel Gilmore if he had been of our side during the war, and had done to the Rebels the things he professes to have done to us. As it is, we trust he will forgive us, if we confess that we have not read his narrative with a tranquil stomach, and that we think it will impress his Northern readers as the history of a brigand who had the good luck to be also a traitor.
RECENT AMERICAN PUBLICATIONS.
The Structure of Animal Life. Six Lectures delivered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, in January and February, 1862. By Louis Agassiz, Professor of Zoölogy and Geology in the Lawrence Scientific School. New York. C. Scribner & Co. 8vo. pp. viii., 128. $2.50.
History of the Life and Times of James Madison. By William C. Rives. Vol. II. Boston. Little, Brown, & Co. 8vo. pp. xxii., 657. $3.50.
The Physiology of Man; designed to represent the Existing State of Physiological Science, as applied to the Functions of the Human Body. By Austin Flint, Jr., M. D., Professor of Physiology and Microscopy in the Bellevue Medical College, N. Y., and in the Long Island College Hospital; Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine, etc. Introduction; the Blood; Circulation; Respiration. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 502, $4.50.
Poems. By Annie E. Clarke. Philadelphia. J. B. Lippincott & Co. 16mo. pp. 146. $1.00.
The Living Forces of the Universe. The Temple and the Worshippers. By George W. Thompson. Philadelphia. Howard Challen. 12mo. pp. xxiv., 358. $1.75.
Jealousy. By George Sand, Author of "Consuelo," &c. With a Biographical Sketch of the Author. Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 304. $2.00.
Stories told to a Child. By Jean Ingelow. Boston. Roberts Brothers. 18mo. pp. vi., 424, $1.75.
Canary Birds. A Manual of Useful and Practical Information for Bird-Keepers. New York. William Wood & Co. 16mo. paper, pp. 110. 50 cents.
The Origin of the Late War, traced from the Beginning of the Constitution to the Revolt of the Southern States. By George Lunt. New York. D. Appleton & Co. 12mo, pp. xiv., 491. $3.00.
False Pride; or, Two Ways to Matrimony. A Companion to "Family Pride." Philadelphia. T. B. Peterson & Bro. 12mo. pp. 265. $2.00.
