e, which we
believe are now published for the first time. The biography itself has
the interest of a romance, for few heroes of novels ever were, in
imagination, subjected to the changes of fortune which Louis
encountered in reality. Mr. Poore's view of his character is not more
flattering than that which commonly obtains--on both sides of the
Atlantic. To sustain this disparaging opinion of his subject, however,
he is compelled to suppose policy and hypocrisy as the springs of many
actions which a reasonable charity would pronounce virtuous and
humane. It must be conceded that the conduct of the king during the
last few days of his reign was feeble, if not cowardly, but his
uniform character in other periods of his life was that of a man
possessing singular readiness and coolness in times of peril, and
encountering obstacles with a courage as serene as it was adventurous.

_The Tenant of Wildfield Hall. By Acton Bell, Author of
Wurthuring Heights.. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1
vol. 12mo._

The appearance of this novel, so soon after the publication of
Wurthuring Heights, is an indication of Mr. Bell's intention to be a
frequent visiter, or visitation, of the public. We are afraid that the
personages he introduces to his readers will consist chiefly of one
class of mankind, and this class not the most pleasing. He is a
monomaniac on the subject of man's rascality and brutality, and crowds
his page with forcible delineations of offensive characters and
disgusting events. The power he displays is of a high but limited
order, and is exercised chiefly to make his readers uncomfortable. To
be sure the present novel is not so bad as Wurthuring Heights in the
matter of animal ferocity and impish diabolism; but still most of the
characters, to use a quaint illustration of an eccentric divine, "are
engaged in laying up for themselves considerable grants of land in the
bottomless pit," and brutality, blasphemy and cruelty constitute their
stock in trade. The author is not so much a delineator of human life
as of inhuman life. There are doubtless many scenes in The Tenant of
Wildfield Hall drawn with great force and pictorial truth, and which
freeze the blood and "shiver along the arteries;" but we think that
the author's process in conceiving character is rather logical than
imaginative, and consequently that he deals too much in unmixed
malignity and selfishness. The present novel, with all its peculiar
mer