AMERICAN AND EUROPEAN LITERARY DEPOT, AND GENERAL NEWSPAPER & PERIODICAL OFFICE, BRAINARD & CO. Offer for Sale at their EMPORIUM OF LITERATURE, all the POPULAR PERIODICALS, NEWSPAPERS, and CHEAP PUBLICATIONS of the day. Being in the daily receipt of all New Works of interest issued in the United States or Europe, they are enabled to sell at retail, or to the trade, at prices which defy competition. Particular Attention paid to Orders from the Country. MAGAZINES. Godey's Lady's Book; Graham's Magazine; Ladies' National Magazine; Ladies' Companion; American Family Magazine; Lady's Musical Library; Miss Leslie's Magazine. B. & Co. are sole Agents for this Magazine, and are enabled to supply the trade at the publisher's prices. AMERICAN NEWSPAPERS. New World; Brother Jonathan; Sunday Mercury; New York Herald; Philadelphia Saturday Post; Philadelphia Saturday Courier; Vesperus; Anglo American; New York Tribune; New York Daily Express, third edition; Uncle Sam; Philadelphia Museum; etc. etc. etc. FOREIGN NEWSPAPERS. Illustrated London News; Bell's Life in London; Punch; Satirist; Tom Spring's Life in London; Dublin Nation; Dublin Freeman's Journal; Charles Wilmer's American News Letter, and a large assortment of minor Scotch, English, and Irish Newspapers, regularly received by every Steamer. Persons in want of any European publication, not to be found in this country, can, (by leaving their orders,) be supplied on the return of the Steamship. CHA'S H. BRAINARD. WM. B. KIMBALL. of Dave Law Sel Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1843, By JOHN SLY, Gamb in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. BOSTON: PRINTED BY S. N. DICKINSON, WASHINGTON STREET. PREFACE. It is refreshing, occasionally, to leave the boundless ocean of professional studies, where there must ever be great sameness, and contemplate the limpid lakes and sparkling rills of literature, whether under the attractions of poetry, tragedy, or novels. Cicero, in his admirable oration for the poet Archias, has given us his ideas upon the value he set upon imaginative writings; and we might point to one of the most brilliant luminaries of the legal constellation of our own times, who combines the wisdom of a Socrates, with the graces and elegance of a Cicero, who finds amusement and profit, from the perusal of such works. And these are but two instances, among thousands, that might be mentioned. The mind needs relaxation, and that person's taste cannot be perverse, who devotes the 'tempora incisa,' to works of genius; who fills up the lacuna of professional pursuits, in perusing the creations of men of reading and thought. Perhaps, however, those stomachs that only crave such food, are as much disordered, as those that only relish the calculus, metaphysics, and special pleading. The translating of the following sheets has afforded me several hours of agreeable recreation from severer studies, and the perusal of them in their present dress, perhaps may not be uninteresting to those similarly situated. I have kept pretty closely to the original, preferring rather to let the author tell things in his own way, than to coin new phrases and glosses, and put them into his mouth. The original work is used as a Text Book at Harvard University, and in several other colleges, where attention is paid to the Spanish language. Bernardo is a very prettily told tale of the eighth century, descriptive of the border warfare, when the Moors were in Spain, and Charlemagne was extending his arms over so many principalities, and gaining for himself an imperishable fame. It was also the early period of chivalry, when knight-errantry, tournaments, and military displays, engrossed so largely the attention of the nobles, which the author has very cleverly depicted. We find in this production bravery, patriotism, and fidelity rewarded, and intrigue and treachery punished, which ought ever to be the case in all human transactions. Whatever may be the fate of the production in its present form, we know it has been favorably noticed and received, in the author's native country and in France. Cambridge, July 25, 1843. J. G. M. |