oks's adroit and patient labor
appears clearly. We desire to pay him the meed of our respect and
gratitude. Few readers of "Titan" will appreciate the toil which has
secured them this new sensation of becoming intimate with "Jean Paul the
Only." It is new, because, notwithstanding several books of Jean
Paul have been already translated, "Titan" is the most vigorous and
exhaustive book he wrote. He poured his whole fiery and romantic soul
into it. It may be said that all the fine and humane elements of the
revolutionary period in which he lived appear in this book,--the
religious feeling, the horror of sensuality, the hatred of every kind of
cant, the struggle for definite knowledge out of a confusing whirl of
man's generous sentiments all broken loose, the tendency to worship duty
and justice, and the Titanic extravagance of a "lustihood," both
of youth and emotion, which threatens, in Alexander's temper, to
appropriate the world. All this is admirably expressed in the Promethean
title of the book. We do not think that it can be profitably read, or
with an intelligent respect for its great author, unless we recall the
period, the state of politics, religion, domestic life, the new German
age of thought which was rising, with ferment, amid uncouth gambolling
shapes of jovial horn-blowing fellows, from the waves. He is the
divinity who owns a whole herd of them. As we sit to read, let the same
light fall on the page in which it was composed, and there will appear
upon it the genius which is confined to no age or clime, and addresses
every heart.

_The Works of Rufus Choate, with a Memoir of his Life_. By SAMUEL GILMAN
BROWN, Professor in Dartmouth College. In Two Volumes. Boston: Little,
Brown, & Co.

In estimating the claims of any biographical work we must bear in mind
the difficulties of the subject, the advantages which the writer enjoys,
and the disadvantages under which he labors. The life, genius, and
character of Mr. Choate present a stimulating, but not an easy task to
him who essays to delineate them. We have read of a man who had taught
his dog to bite out of a piece of bread a profile likeness of Voltaire;
it was not more difficult to draw a caricature of Mr. Choate, but to
paint him as he was requires a nice pencil and a discriminating touch.
The salient traits were easily recognized by all. The general public
saw in him a man who flung himself into his cases with the fervor
and passion of a mountain-torr