NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. XL VIII. NEW SERIES, NO. XXHI. JULY, 1825. ART. I.United States Naval Chronicle. By CHARLES W. GOLDSBOROUGH. Vol. 1. 8vo. pp. ~395. Washing- ton. 1824. IT is the common fate of events, however conspicuous they may have been, which have ceased to occupy the public mind, without having yet attained a place in history, to sink into temporary oblivion. Our regards are gene rally fixed on the present, or thrown back upon the remote past, like the memory of old age, which leaps over the interval between childhood and its latter days. We behold the occurrences rising around us, and we are deeply versed in the records of other times ; but few, save the grateful arid the curious, recollect achievements, which are too old for popular enthu- siasm, and too recent for deliberate history. Indeed, it is difficult to bring them into view. They exist in the scattered chronicles of their day, but mingled with a heterogeneous mass, appalling to common industry, awaiting the patient research of some laborious compiler, WI)O will gather up the disjecta membra, and present them to the world with some degree of form and compactness. T? appreciate our obligations to these assiduous chroniclers, it is only necessary to recall to mind the difficulty, which each one has probably experienced, in tracing back the connexion of modern events, that are still VOL. xxi.No. 48. J 2 Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. [July, floating in all the looseness and uncertainty of ephemeral publications. There are no events connected with the early history of the United States, which have been more neglected, than those that took place on the ocean. The most juvenile reader is well acquainted with all the prominent battles and sieges of the revolution ; but a comparatively few persons have any distinct knowledge of the many gallant struggles of our infant navy. The all absorbing interest of the transac- tions on land, where the cause of liberty was chiefly sustain- ed, diverted attention from the sea. Every one had a vague idea of the sanguinary triumphs of Paul Jones ; but there recollection seemed to pause; forgetful of exertions, which, though often humble through inadequate means, spread an- noyance through the wide commerce of Britain. The first attempt to rescue these honorable and patriotic services from threatening oblivion, was made by Mr Clarke, in his Naval History, compiled during the late war. At that time, the navy of the United States, respectable in force and thorough in discipline, had drawn the public attention to its element, by a series of successes almost unexampled. Curiosity ~vas broadly awake, and eager to turn back to the triumphs of its earlier days. Mr Clarke has succeeded in retrieving many materials from forgetfulness, which will he useful in illustrating our national history ; and he reviews several acts of heroism and enterprise, which might soon have passed beyond the reach of search. Mr Goldsbo- rough, in his Naval Chronicle, whose title forms the head of this article, has trod in the same path, with the same laud- able intentions. His account of revolutionary events is rather meagre and desultory; but this, he says in his preface, did not form a part of his original plan; it is therefore a gratuity, of the scantiness of which we have perhaps no right to com- plain. In descending to later times, when we were involved in difficulties with France, and particularly where he comes down to the Tripolitan war, he enters into a fulness of detail, which renders his volume a valuable repository of historical facts, and official statements. During their colonial state, the North Americans were often engaged in maritime warfare, as auxiliaries in the enterprises of the mother country; and in many of them, they were dis 1825.] Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. I tinguished for their activity. Their zeal and sacrifices in these wars, waged generally for objects entirely distinct from their interest, evinced a heartiness and sincerity in their filial affection, which should have entitled them to a more grateful return. But these services, though repaid with contumely and injustice, were not without Their benefits; they educated a hardy and expert marine, which was destined ere long for a higher duty, than that of abetting contentions arising out of transatlantic rivalries. When at last the colonies, by their revolt, became sepa- rated from the mother country, they were ~at once deprived of all maritime protection. The fleets, which had before been stretched along their coast for defence, were suddenly converted into hostile armaments, already in possession of their harbors. Nothing remained with them, save the skill and moral energy, which had been acquired in former wars. It is a subject of surprise and admiration, that this revolt should have taken place, when the overwhelming maritime power of Britain was so well known; rendering her master of every avenue to the revolting country, and enabling her to transport her armies with such certainty and facility. It doubly enhances the boldness of the undertaking, and shows both the heaviness of the oppression, and the fearless charac- ter of the sufferers. It would appear that, when resistance was contemplated by the colonies, a naval force was not taken into considera- tion. Such an idea might have been discouraged, by the utter hopelessness of contending with the mistress of the ocean. It was not until provoked by wanton aggressions upon their defenceless commerce, that they adopted measures of retaliation. These measures, for some time, were not the result of any executive or legislative authority, but sprang from the patriotic ardor of individuals or corporations. One of the most conspicuous of these incipient and spontaneous enterprises occurred at Macbias, Maine, soon after the battle of Lexington. A vessel, which left Boston immediately after the 19th of April, carried to Macbias the tidings of this first bloody aggression. The people in all quarters, goaded and exasperated, had waited but for this consummation of oppres- sion, to break forth into fierce and resolute hostility. A for- bearing spirit seemed to have restrained them under the most 4 Goldsborouglts Naval Chronicle. [July, powerful excitements, and had limited their opposition to the most scrupulous defence, until this aggravated violence re- leased them from the last obligation. The moment this release was felt, a daring eagerness for action was mftnifested on every side. A British armed schooner was ~t that time lying at Ma- chias. Considering hostilities as now begun, a plan was im- mediately formed to capture the unsuspecting enemy. The first intention was to seize upon the officers of the schooner, while attending church on tbe following day, which was Sun- day ; but this design was defeated by the vigilance or the activity of tbe officers, who made their escape to the vessel, and, after firing a few random shot at the town, dropped down the hay. Unwilling to lose the prize, a party of volun- teers the next day took lorcihle possession of a lumber sloop, and immediately began I)ursuit. The whole equipment for this sudden cruise consisted, according to Mr Goldsborough, of three charges of powder and hall for twenty fowling pieces, thirteen pitchforks, ten or twelve axes, a few pieces of salt pork, & c. No circumstance could more strikingly exhibit the reckless and confiding bravery of this little band, than that it should have heen without any acknowledged leader, until the moment of overtaking the enemy ; when Mr Jere- miah OBrien was chosen by unanimous consent. Unap- palled by the disparity of force, he at once laid his sloop alongside of the schooner, and, after a short but severe con- test, carried her by boarding. The British vessel is said to have had four six pounders, twenty swivels, two wall pieces, and an abundance of cutlasses, firearms, and ammunition, and a crew consisting of two commissioned officers, and thirtycight petty officers and men. The crew of the lum- ber sloop is stated to have been less than forty. With the armament of his prize, OBrien fitted out a small vessel called the Liberty, and soon captured two other British armed schooners, sent out in pursuit of him, whose crews he conduct- ed prisoners to Boston, where, upon the recommendation of General Washington, he was appointed a Captain hy the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. Returning to Machias, he soon manned two vessels, the Liberty and the Diligence, with volunteers, sailed for New Brunswick, and took by stir- prise Fort Howe, with its garrison and military stores, and a 1825.] Goldsborougks Naval Chronicle. i) loaded brig, lying in the harbor, which was destined for the British troops at Boston. The declaration of Independence had not yet been made. There was still an opening for accommodation; a lingering allegiance still existed in the hearts of the multitude, and a willingness to discriminate between king and ministers; and while the contest was supposed to be only with the latter, measures seldom extended beyond a defensive character. A small fleet was, however, equipped by the general Con- gress near the close of the year 1775, with a view to more energetic operations. This first squadron that went forth upon the deep, in defiance of a power, whose immeasurable superiority gave it the character of a forlorn hope, consisted of the Alfred, thirty guns; the Columbus, twentyeight guns; Andrew Doria, sixteen guns; Sebastian Cabot, fourteen guns; and the Providence, twelve guns; and was under the com- mand of Commodore Ezekiel Hopkins, who, hearing that the island of New Providence had large military stores un- provided with a proper defence, sailed thither, and succeeded in capturing the governor, the garrison, and stores. On his return, he made prize of a bomb brig; but failing in an en- gagement with the Glasgow, of twenty guns, which, after a gallant defence against the Cabot and the Alfred, made its escape from the fleet, he was much censured by his country- m~n. The beginning of the year 1776 was marked by many achievements, which were as honorable to the actors as ser- viceable to the country. The short and brilliant career of Captain Mugford of Boston attracts particular attention. We can hardly excuse Mr Goldsborough for having merely men- tioned his name. According to Clarkes Naval History, this active and intrepid mariner was the master of a trading ves~ sel, when he was appointed by General Ward, after much solicitation, to the command of the Franklin, a public armed vessel of four guns. It appears that General Ward, through want of confidence in him, which is not accounted for, sub- sequently intended to revoke the appointment; but Captain Mugford, through his indefatigable exertions, had already put to sea. His first prize was the Hope, a ship of 800 tons and six guns, which he captured in sight of the English Coin- modore, Banks. This vessel exceeded in value, says Mr 6 Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. [July, Clarke, anything which had yet been captured by the Americans. Her cargo consisted of 1500 barrels of powder, 1000 carbines, a number of travelling carriages for cannon, and a most complete assortment of artillery instruments and l)ioileers tools. The unpreparedness, with which the colo- nies had begun the contest, rendered every acquisition of this kind of incalculable importance. In conducting his valu- able prize to Boston, it was necessary, in order to avoid the British cruisers, to attempt a difficult and almost untried channel. He was successful in going up, but in coming down again shortly after, on another cruise, through the same pas- sage, he ran aground, and while in that situation was dis- covered by the British squadron. Eight or nine barges were immediately despatched against him. Being aware of their approach, he first received them with his small arms, and then, cutting his cahie so as to swing round, brought his broadside to bear; but before a second discharge could be made, many of the boats had reached the vessel. All efforts to board, however, were promptly and successfully repelled. In the midst of this close and desperate struggle, Captain iMugford, while reaching over the quarter, to seize the niast of one of the boats and upset her, received a pistol ball in his breast. Undismayed by the mortal wound, he called to his first Lieutenant, I am a dead man; do not give up the ship; you ~vill be able to beat them off; and in a few minuses after expired. But his daring spirit still animated his crew; the enemy was repulsed, with the loss of two barges, and many killed and wounded. The name of Paul Jones has a kind of romantic familiarity with every American ear. Fireside tradition imprints upon the mind of almost every child, long before he dips into his- tory, a vague idea of his desperate valor and sanguinary battles; and when, in riper years, he ascertains the sober truth, he is surprised and somewhat disappointed, to find bow many exaggerated notions he has to surrender. Paul Jones was appointed a lieutenant in the American navy at the be- ginning of the revolution, and sailed in that capacity under Commodore Hopkins to New Providence. After his return he was appointed to the Providence, twelve guns, and in 1776 was promoted to the rank of a Captain. While still in com- mand of the Providence, he fell in with the British armed 1825.] Goldaboroughs .A/aval Chronicle. 7 vessel, Solebay, of twentyeight guns, and sustained an action with her for some hours, occasionally within pistol shot, and finally by his expertness extricated himself from her superior force. In the same cruise, he encountered the Milford, of thirtytwo guns, under circumstances which rendered an engagement unavoidable, and ~had a desultory and pro- tracted fight with her, from ten oclock in the morning until night, when he made his escape. Towards the close of the year Captain Jones was appointed to the Alfred, thirty guns, and sailed in company with the Hampden and Providence, on an enterprise against Isle Royale. He was separated by accident from his two consorts, but still persisted in his de- sign, and not only succeeded in the principal object, but cap- tured some prizes. On his voyage back to Boston, accom- panied by one of these prizes, lie again fell in with the Mu- ford. By his skilful manceuvres he saved his prize, and had another long engagement with his old antagonist, which was terminated by a gale.* * The best account of Paul Jones, which has appeared, is contained in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. It was written by the Rev. Mr Duncan, near Dum- fries, in Scotland, who was acquainted with the connexions of Paul Jones, and had access to all his papers. The following extract relates to his first entering into the American service. In the year 1773 he went to Virginia to arrange the affairs of his brother, who had died there without leaving any family, and about this time, in ad- dition to his original surname, [his original name was John Paul,] he assumed the patronymic of Jones, his fathers christian name having been John. This custom, which is of classical authority, has long heen prevalent in Wales, and in various other countries, although it is not practised in that part.of the island in which he was born. This visit revived and riveted the attachment, which young Paul Jones had conceived for America; and in spite of the native ardor and restless ac- tivity of his mind, he resolved to withdraw from the vicissitudes of a sea. faring life, to fix his residence in that country, and to devote the remainder of his days to retirement and study. He was little aware of the turbulent scenes, in which he was destined soon to perform a part, nor of the conspicu- ous figure he was to make in them. The discontents of the colonists had by this time occasioned much com- motion, and their murmurs became deeper and more frequent, till at last they fairly broke off all connexion with the parent country. Towards the end of the year 1775, it was determined by Congress to fit out a naval force to assist in the defence of American independence, and an anxious search was made for friends to the cause who should be at once willing and able to act as officers on board their vessels. It now appeared that Paul Jones had, in his romantic schemes of tranquil enjoyment, falsely estimated the natural bent of his genius. With deep interest he had watched the progress of those political events, which were to decide the fate of his adopted country; and when an open resistance was made to the dominion of Great Britain, he could no longer remain an inactive spectator. Having onlyjust completed his twenty- 8 Goldsboroughs .TVat~al Chronicle. [July, In 1776, Captain Nicholas Biddle was appointed to the Randolph, of thirtytwo guns. He stood in the foremost rank of his profession for seamanship and courage. He sailed the next year with a small squadron on a cruise, after having made many important captures. In March, 1778, he fell in with the Yarmouth, a British sixtyfo~ur gun ship. As they did not approach each other till the close of day, it is pro- bable that her force was not distinctly ascertained by the Randolph, before the action commenced. Captain Biddle, however, ranged alongside with a resolute fearlessness, de- termined to engage her, whatever might he her force. A severe conflict began after dark, in the early part of which, Captain Biddle is said to have been wounded. Unable to stand, he had a chair brought on deck, and continued to animate his crew by his presence. After sustaining this un- equal fight for about twenty minutes, the Randolph blew up, involving in awful and instantaneous destruction her gallant commander, and all her valiant crew, excepting four men, who were discovered four days afterward by the Yarmouth, float- ing on a piece of the wreck. Captain Biddle was hut twen- tyseven years of age, when he was thus abruptly cut off from his friends and his country. But his name would still have been grateftilly remembered, even if a later war had not revived it, on the same element, in all its early glory. During the same year 1778, Captain Daniel Waters, who had become distinguished for his nautical skill and activity, took command of the privateer Thorn, sixteen guns. Not many days after leaving port, he discovered two sail in pur- suit of him. They proved to be the Governor Tryon, sixteen eighth year, he was full of bodily vigor and of mental energy, and he con- ceived that his nautical skill would qualify him to be a distinguished asserter of the rights of the colonists. He was immediately appointed first lieutenant of the Alfred, one of the only two ships belonging to Congress, and on board that vessel, before Philadelphia, he hoisted the flag of independent America the first time it was ever displayed. In the course of a very active and suc- cessful campaign, having found means to gain the confidence of the marine committee by his zeal and intrepidity, he had not served many months before the president sent him a captain s commission. Ed. Encyc. .flrt. Paul Jones. At the conclusion of Mr Duncans article he states, that among the ad- mirals papers were found Memoirs of his Life, written with his own hand, a most interesting literary production, which it is in contemplation with his friends to present entire to the eyes of the public. It is understood that one of our countrymen is preparing a Life of Paul Jones, and it is to be hoped, that measures will be taken to procure these papers, as any life written with- out them must be comparatively imperfect. 1825.] Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. 9 guns, and the Sir William Erskine, eighteen guns. The unequal combat began, and was kept up for two hours, when the Tryon struck, and the Erskine drew off. After repair- ing damages, Captain Waters, leaving the Tryon a complete wreck, pursued the Erskine, and, coming up with her, com- pelled her likewise to strike. Removing her officers on board the Thorn, lie returned in search of his other prize, but where he expected to meet her, he found only floating spars and casks, and other indications that she had sunk. Captain Waters then manned the Erskine and ordered her to Boston, retaining on board the Thorn only sixty men, with which diminished crew lie was to run new hazards and ac- quire new laurels. For not many days subsequently, he en- countered the Sparhn, eighteen guns and ninetyseven men, and after an action of about an hour obliged her to yield to his thrice conquering flag. The following extract, from Clarkes Naval History, exhibits a striking instance of the shre~vd daring of our early seamen, and their aptitude to convert unh~cky circumstances into means of triumph. In June 1779, an expedition of United States vessels was fitted out, and sailed from Boston. It consisted of the Providence, thirtytwo guns, Commodore Whipple; the Queen of France, twentyeight guns, Captain J. P. Rathburne; and ihe sloop of ~var, Ranger, Captain Simpson. About the middle of July, near the banks of Newfoundland, as the squadron lay in a fog, signal guns were heard; and at intervals the sound of ships bells striking the hours. From this they supposed themselves to be near a fleet. About eleven oclock the fog began to clear off, when the crew of the Queen of France, to their great surprise, found themselves nearly alongside a large merchant ship, and 500fl after they per- ceived themselves to be in a fleet of 150 sail, under convoy of a seventyfour, and several frigates and sloops of ~var. The Queen of France immediately bore down to the large ship, and hailed her. She answered that the fleet was from Jamaica, bound to London. The English ship then hailed the American, and was answered, his majestys ship Arethusa, from Halifax, on a cruise. The American then inquired if they had seen any rebel privateers. The English replied that several had been driven out of the fleet. The American Captain, Rathburne, then requested the captain of the English vessel to conic on board, which he did, when, to his great astonishment, he found himself a prisoner. Captain Rathi- burne then sent one of his own boats and the English captains VOL. xxl.No. 48. 10 Goldsborouglts Naval Chronicle. [July, boat, both well manned, to the ship, of which they took quiet pos- session, without exciting the least alarm in the fleet, notwithstand~ ing many of the vessels were nearly within hail of the one captured. Rathburne then ivent alongside another large ship and captured her in the same manner. Soon after the capture of the second ship, Commodore Whipple came alongside, and ordered Cap- tain Rathburne to edge away out of the fleet as soon as possible, as he was persuaded they would be discovered and overpowered. Captain Rathburne then pointed out the t~vo large ships he had captured, and requested permission to remain. The Commodore at first disapproved of this project ; but was at length prevailed upon by Captain Rathburne to stay in the fleet all day, and cap- ture as many vessels as they could in the same cautious manner. As soon as it ~vas dark they left the fleet, after having captured eleven vessels without giving alarm. The squadron arrived safe in Boston with eight of their prizes, three of them having been retaken by the English. vol. i. pp. 94, 95. It is with sentiments of reluctance and mortification, that we turn from the foregoing series of brilliant little achieve- ments, to an expedition which was as unfortunate and dis- graceful in its conclusion, as it was promising and creditable in its beginning. The plan of expelling the British from Pe- nobscot, in 1779, originated in the most ardent and disinter- ested patriotism, and there is not, perhaps, on record a more praiseworthy instance of spontaneous exertions and sacrifices, on the part of individuals, to cooperate with a necessitous government for the public good. Massachusetts, like ancient Sparta, who boasted that she had never seen the smoke of an enemys camp, made it her boast that the enemy had never yet been able to maintain a foothold on her territory; and when the British took possession of Castine, she deter- mined, at every sacrifice, to avenge the violated sanctity of her soil. The limited means of the state government were put to the severest requisition ; and the general Congress was appealed to ; but all these resources would have been insuffi- cient, without the aid of the private wealth, which was surrendered to the use of government with such patriotic libe- rality. Three vessels, carrying in all fiftyeight guns, were obtained from the general government; three, carrying in all fortyfour guns, belonged to the state ; the residue of the force, amounting to 2~4 guns, and 1760 men, was the offer- ing of private munificence. Captain Saltonstall, as the senior 1825.] GoldsborougMs Naval Chronicle. 11 in rank, had the chief command. General Lovell command- ed the land forces. Had he received a proper cooperation of the fleet, no doubt the objects of the expedition would have been fully attained. But incapacity or pusillanimity appears to have paralysed the directing power, and the troops, which had effected a landing ~nd carried many of the ene- mys batteries, after waiting in vain for assistance, were obliged at last to reembark, and escape with the squadron up the river, before an overwhelming force, which came to disturb their tardy operations. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the whole of this fleet was either taken or destroyed. There were several officers in the expedition, that had been conspicuous for their nautical experience and courage, who, chained down by the rules of subordination, saw their honors tarnished and their country disgraced, without the power of retrieving either. It is not the only instance, in which the high and paramount interests of a people have been jeopard- ed, by a punctilious adherence to the claims of rank, or a misplaced regard for individual feelings. We would not censure the orderly submission of the officers to their ap- pointed chief, but the mistaken delicacy of government, which subjected them to such unworthy control. During this year, Captain John Foster Williams, of the Protector, twenty guns, had an engagement with a vessel, which proved to be the Admiral DuW thirtytwo guns, and which blew up after an action of an hour and a half. Com- modore Preble was then a young midshipman on board the Protector, and we find him giving that early promise of future celebrity, which it is so delightful to trace back in an exalted character. It was in this same eventful year, that Paul Jones, in the Bonne Homme Richard, forty guns, had his desperate and bloody action with the British frigate Serapis, fortyfour guns, and the Countess of Scarborough, twentytwo guns. The extraordinary obstinacy and carnage of this contest have given it a notoriety, and eclat, over all other naval actions of the Revolution, It was this, which surrounded his name with that kind of romantic splendor, that we have before alluded to, and which made it the burden of tradition as well as his- tory. Mr Goldsborough gives but a brief account of the action, referring his readers to Clarkes Naval History, in 12 Goldsboroughs JVaval Chronicle. [July, which the action is minutely described. The sinking of the Bonne Homme Richard, almost immediately after the victory, is a singular and somewhat affecting circumstance. We con- template a hero, falling in the arms of victory, with the high- est emotions ; we cannot regard a vessel with the same exalted sentiments; hut it is impbssihle to represent to our- selves an armed ship, going down with her triumphant flag waving over her, without some kindred feelings. The follow- ing anecdote, which Mg Goldsborough gives in a note, is very characteristic. ~ When Captain Jones was in Paris, some short time after the action, he was informed that Captain Pearson [of the Serapis] h~d been knighted. Well, said he, he deserved it; and if I fall in with him again, I will make a Lord of him. It is with some unwillingness that we submit to the restric- tions of our article, which oblige us to discontinue this very im- perfect notice of the marine achievements of our Revolution. We shall not, however, lose our interest in the subject, by turning to a later era, when our navy had attained, under the new government, through the urgency of transatlantic diffi- culties, a comparatively respectable standing. in 1794 it was enacted by Congress, that a naval force should be provided, for the protection of our commerce; and in pur- suance thereof four frigates of fortyfour guns, and two of thirtytwo, were put upon the stocks. We, who live in these days of settled independence, can scarcely credit the fact, that our commerce in the Mediterranean was at that time under the hired or gratuitous protection of Portugal, or some other foreign power; and that an Algerine Dey did not con- descend to assign any other reason for hostility against us, than that he wanted employment for his corsairs and sol- diers, whose cupidity must be gratified. In 1796, a peace having been concluded with Algiers, the abovementioned act was so far modified, as to restrict the construction to two only of the fortyfours, and one of the thirtytwos. But it was not until 1798, that two of them, the Constitution and the Constellation, were completed and equipped for sea. At this time our relations with France had become distracted, and we were on the eve of a war with her. Indeed, all treaties with that country were soon after declared to be abrogated, and these vessels, as well as several others, which Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. 13 1825.] were directed to be purchased or built in consequence of this event, were sent to sea with instructions to protect and defend our commerce. The first act of hostility between the two nations appears to have been committed by the Insurgente; which was in a short period after so signally beaten by one of our frigates. The schooner Retaliation, Lieutenant Commandant Bainbridge, being deluded into the power of this vessel, was captured and carried into Guadaloupe. Several other United States armed vessels were in company with the Retaliation, and pursued by the French squadron, but were probably saved from cap- ture, as stated by Mr Goldsborongh, by the address of Lieu- tenant Bainbridge, who, being asked by the French Commo- dore what was the force of the vessels chased, exaggerated it with so much adroitness, as to induce him to recall his ships. The Constellation went to sea under the command of Captain Truxton. In February, 1799, he encountered the Insurgente, and, after a close action of about an hour and a halg compelled her to strike. rfhe rate of the Constellation was thirtytwo guns, that of the Insurgente forty. The former had three men wounded, one of whom shortly after died, and none killed; the latter had fortyone wounded, and twentynine killed. This victory, which was so brilliant and decisive, with such a wonderful disparity of loss, gave great eclat to the victor and to the navy. We recognise among the subordinate actors in this triumph, the names of Rodgers, Sterrett, and Porter, which have since become well known to the nation. Commodore Truxton again put to sea in the Constellation, being destined to renew his triumphs, and the humiliation of the foe. In February, 1800, he fell in with the Vengeance, a French ship of fiftyfour guns, with which he began an engagement, that lasted, with great obstinacy and spirit on both sides, from eight oclock in the evening till one in the morning, when the Vengeance was completely silenced, and sheered off. The Constellation, having lost her mainmast, was too much injured to pursue her, before she had made her escape. The Captain of the Vengeance is said to have twice surrendered during the contest, but his signals were not understood amidst the darkness of night, and the con- fusion of the battle. The Vengeance had 160 men killed and wounded; the Constellation ~39. 14 Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. [July, In September of the same year, the Insurgente, so honor- ably added to our little navy, and the Pickering, of fourteen guns, the former commanded by Captain Fletcher, the latter by Captain Hillar, were lost in the equinoxial gale of that season. Our readers are probably reminded, by these melancholy events of earlier times, of the more recent similar fate of the Wasp and the Epervier. There were circumstances attending the loss of Captain Blakely, who commanded the Wasp, which rendered it peculiarly affecting and impressive. Captain BIn kely had long sailed his daring little hark over the broad Atlantic, like a knight errant of the deep, in quest of perilous adventures ; and had already captured the Reindeer, and obliged the Avon to strike her flag, both vessels of the same class with the Wasp ; when he disappeared from the face of the waters, and our record is su(l(lenly brought to a close. The mind long clings to a hope, that such noble spirits may yet survive, may yet return to their native land ; and it surrenders its delusions only to the indisputable evidence of time. Our difficulties with France were soen after accommo- dated. But our navy was not destined to be inactive. Some of the Barbary powers were beconuing hostile and predatory. Many of our citizens were already suffering in a captivity, the most deplorable to which Christians could be subjected. A squadron was sent out to the Mediterranean, which found Tripoli in open war. The Enterprise, of four- teen guns, Captain Sterrett, fell in with a Tripolitan ship of war of equal force. The action continued three hours and a half, the Corsair fighting with great obstinacy and even desperation, when she struck, having lost fifty killed and wouaded, while the Enterprise had not a man injured. In 1803, Commodore Preble assumed the command of the Mediterranean squadron, and after humbling the Emperor of Morocco, who had begun a covert war upon our commerce, concentrated most of his force before Tripoli. The frigate Philadelphia, Captain Bainbridge, by an unforeseen and in- evitable accident, had already been captured by the Tripoli- tans. This misfortune, which threw a number of accomplished officers and a valiant crew into oppressive bondage, and which shed a gloom over the whole nation, as it seemed at 1825.] Goldsborouglts Aaval Chronicle. 15 once to increase the difficulties of a peace an hundred fold, was soon relieved by one of the most daring and chivalrous exploits, that is found on our naval annals. Lieutenant Ste- phen Decatur, then one of Commodore Prebles subaherns, proposed a plan for recapturing or destroying the Philadelphia. The American squadron was at Ihat time lying at Syracuse. Agreeably to the plan proposed, Lieutenant Decatur, in the ketch Intrepid, four guns and seventyfive men, proceeded, under the escort of the Syren, Captain Stewart, to the harbor of Tripoli. The Philadelphia lay within half gun shot of the Bashaw~s castle, and several cruisers and gun- boats surrounded her with jealous vigilance. The Intrepid entered the harbor alone, about eight oclock in the evening, and succeeded in getting near the Philadelphia, between ten and eleven oclock, without having awakened suspicion of her hostile designs. This vessel had been captured from the Tripolitans, and, assuming on this occasion her former national appearance, was permitted to warp alongside, under the alleged pretence, that she l]ad lost all her anchors. The moment the vessel came in contact, Decatur and his follow- ers leaped on board, and soon overwhelmed a crew, which was paralysed with consternation. Twenty of the Tripoli- tans were killed. All the surrounding batteries being opened upon the Philadelphia, she was immediately set on fire, and not abandoned until thorotighly wrapped in flames; when, a favoring breeze springing up, the Intrepid extricated herself from her prey, and sailed triumphantly out of the harbor amid the light of the conflagration. Not the slightest loss occurred on the side of the Americans, to shade the splendor of the enterprise. We find the cherished names of Law- rence and Morris among this gallant band, the latter of whom, then a midshipman, is said to have been the first to follow his impatient leader into the Philadelphia. In July of this year, 18O4~ Commodore Preble brought together all his forces before Tripoli, determined to try the effect of a bombardment. The enemy having sent some of his gun boats and galleys without the reef, at the mouth of the harbor, two divisions of American gunboats were formed for the purpose of attacking them, while the large vessels assailed the batteries and town. On the 3d of August, this plan was put in execution. The squadron approached within gun 16 Goldsboroughs JVaval Chronicle. [July, shot of the town, and opened a tremendous fire of shot and shells, which was as promptly returned by the Tripolitan batteries and shipping. At the same time the two divisions of gunboats, the first under the command of Captain Somers, the second under Captain Stephen Decatur, i~ho had been promoted as a reward for his late achievement, advanced against those of the enemy. The squadron was about two hours under the enemys batteries, generally within pistol shot ; ranging by them in deliberate succession, alternately silencing their fires, and launching its thunders into the very palace of the Bashaw; while a more animated battle was raging in another quarter. Simultaneously with the bombard- ment, our gunboats had closed in desperate conflict with the enemy. Captain Decatur, bearing down upon one of supe- rior force, soon carried her by hoarding, when, taking his prize in tow, he grappled with another, and, in like manner, transferred the fight to the enemys deck. In the fierce en- counter which followed this second attack, Captain Decatur, having broken his sword, closed with the Turkish command- er, and, both falling in the struggle, gave him a mortal wound with a pistol shot, just as the Turk was raising his dirk to plunge it into his breast. Lieutenant Trippe, of Captain Decaturs squadron, had boarded a third large gunboat, with only one tnidshipman and nine men, when his boats fell off, and left him to wage the uneqtial fight of eleven against thirtysix, which was the number of the enemy. Courage and resolution, however, converted this devoted little band into a formidable host, which, after a sanguinary contest, obliged the numerous foe to yield, with the loss of fourteen killed and seven wounded. Lieutenant Trippe received eleven sabre wounds, and had three of his party wounded, but none killed. Our limits forbid us to follow up the animated details of the several bombardments and attacks, which succeeded each other at intervals throughout the month. Day after day death and devastation were poured into Tripoli with unsparing perseverance, each attack exhibiting instances of valor and devotedness, which will give lustre to history. The eyes of Europe were drawn to the spot, where a young nation, scarcely emerged into notice, was signally chastising the despotic and lawless Infidel, to whom some of her most powerful governments were then paying tribute. 1825.] Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. 17 On the 4th of September, Commodore Preble, in order to try new experiments of annoyance, determined to send a fireship into the enemys harbor. The intrepid was fitted out for this service, being filled with powder, shells, and other combustible materials. Captain Somers, who had often been the emulous rival of Decatur in the career of glory, was appointed to conduct her in, having for his associates in the hazardous enterprise, Lieutenants Wadsworth and Israel, all volunteers. The Argus, Vixen, and Nautilus were to convoy the intrepid as far as the mouth of the harbor. Captain Somers and Lieutenant Wadsworth made choice of two of the fleetest boats in the squadron, manned with picked crews, to bring them out. Ar eight oclock in the evening, she stood into the harbor with a moderate breeze. Several shot were fired at her from the batteries. She had nearly gaiiied her place of destination, when she. exploded, without having made any of the signals previously concerted, to show that the crew was safe. Night hung over the dreadful catastro- phe, and left the whole squadron a prey to the most painful anxiety. The convoy hovered about the harbor until sun- rise, when no remains could be discovered either of the Intrepid or her boats. Doubt was turned into certainty, that she had prematurely blown up, as one of the enemys gunboats was observed to be missing, and several others much shattered and damaged. Commodore Preble, in his account, says, that he was led to believe, that those boats were detached from the enemys flotilla to intercept the ketch, and without suspecting her to be a fireship, the miss- ing boats had suddenly boarded her, when the gallant Somers and the heroes of his party, observing the other three boats surrounding them, and no prospect of escape, determined at once to prefer death, and the destruction of the enemy, to captivity and torturing slavery, put a match to the train leading directly to the magazine, which at once blew the whole into the air, and terminated their existence ; and he adds, that his conjectures respecting this affair are founded on a resolution, which Captain Somers and Lieutenants Wadsworth and Israel had formed, neither to be taken by VOL. xxi. NO. 48. 3 18 Goldsboroughs Naval Chronicle. [July, the enemy, nor suffer him to get possession of the powder on board the 1ntrepid.~* Soon after these events, Commodore Preble gave up the command in the Mediterranean to Commodore Barron, and returned to the United States. His eminent services were enthusiastically acknowledged by his admiring fellow citizens, as well as those of his associates in aims, whose names, in the expressive language of the resolve of Congress on the occasion, ought to live in the recollection and affection of a grateful country, and whose conduct ought to be regarded as an example to future generations.~ The present volume of Mr Goldshorough follows the growth and history of our navy, down to the peace with Tripoli, in June, 1805, where his narrative ends. Tbe resi- due of the volume is devoted to several miscellaneous lopics, which are of particular interest to the navy, and to those who seek instruction on the subject. We should perhaps have been better pleased, had the narrative been continued, to the exclusion of these materials, which might have found a more appropriate place in works of a less popular character. They are, however, important to nautical men, and it may he well to compress such information within a small compass, for more easy reference. From Mr Goldshoroughs preface, it would appear, that he had adopted his method of arranging events, from a belief that it was an improved one. It may be so, for those who are desirous of only viewing detached events, without any of their concomitants ; but we suspect, that readers in general will he confused and dissatisfied with his frequently suspended and returning narrative. There is a regularity and connexion in the sequence of events, which can hardly be violated with any prospect of advantage ; and we apprehend that whenever biography is departed from, it is hest to adhere to a strict chronological order. Mr Goldsborough has still a bright era before him; ample materials for many an interesting chapter, without drawing * Naval Chronicle, p. 237.We are ~he more inclined to coincide with Commodore Preble in his conjectures respecting this catastrophe, from read- ing the note which Mr Goldsborough subjoins to this detail. It is too long for us to iosert; and we know not that we are desirous of increasiug its publicity. exhibiting, as it does, such an appearance of bloodthirstiness on one side, and such a reckless spirit of self destruction on the other. 1825.] Cktracter and Writings of Dr Brown. 19 too liberally from documents or the statute book. Every American will be eager to see a detailed and complete ac- count of the actions of our navy, during the late war. It will exhibit a series of brilliant achievements, such as no other part of our national history presents, and we hope the author will persevere, and be successftA in setting these forth under their true aspect to the public eye. ART. II.Lectwres on the Philosophy of the Tluman Mind. By the late THOMAS BROWN, M. D. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. 4 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1820. First American Edition, Andover, 1820, 3 vols. 8vo. Second American Edition, Philadelphia and Charleston, S. C. 1824, 3 vols. 8vo. DR BRowNs posthumous work, the title of which we have prefixed to the present article, consists of one hundred Lectures. We have already given to our readers the sub- stance of fiftyone, in our review of a Sketch,* drawn up by the lecturer himself, for the use of those who attended his class. As this is the last time that we shall formally present him to the public, we shall subjoin to our concluding rapid analysis of his philosophical works, such notices as we have been able to obtain respecting his life and character, together with a few summary criticisms on his genius and writings. It will be remernbere4, that he first arranged all the mental phenomena into two general divisions, viz, the External Af- fections of the mind, and its Internal Affections. The former comprehended our sensations, including our muscular feel- ings ; the latter involved our intellectual states of mind, to- gether with our emotions. We exhausted the analysis of the first division, and proceeded as far as through the intel- lectual states in the second. The Emotions remain now to be considered, before completing the authors system of the Physiology of the Mind. He declines venturing on a definition of Emotions, affirm- ing that the attempt would be as truly impossible, as to define North American Review, No. XLIV.

1825.] Cktracter and Writings of Dr Brown. 19 too liberally from documents or the statute book. Every American will be eager to see a detailed and complete ac- count of the actions of our navy, during the late war. It will exhibit a series of brilliant achievements, such as no other part of our national history presents, and we hope the author will persevere, and be successftA in setting these forth under their true aspect to the public eye. ART. II.Lectwres on the Philosophy of the Tluman Mind. By the late THOMAS BROWN, M. D. Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh. 4 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1820. First American Edition, Andover, 1820, 3 vols. 8vo. Second American Edition, Philadelphia and Charleston, S. C. 1824, 3 vols. 8vo. DR BRowNs posthumous work, the title of which we have prefixed to the present article, consists of one hundred Lectures. We have already given to our readers the sub- stance of fiftyone, in our review of a Sketch,* drawn up by the lecturer himself, for the use of those who attended his class. As this is the last time that we shall formally present him to the public, we shall subjoin to our concluding rapid analysis of his philosophical works, such notices as we have been able to obtain respecting his life and character, together with a few summary criticisms on his genius and writings. It will be remernbere4, that he first arranged all the mental phenomena into two general divisions, viz, the External Af- fections of the mind, and its Internal Affections. The former comprehended our sensations, including our muscular feel- ings ; the latter involved our intellectual states of mind, to- gether with our emotions. We exhausted the analysis of the first division, and proceeded as far as through the intel- lectual states in the second. The Emotions remain now to be considered, before completing the authors system of the Physiology of the Mind. He declines venturing on a definition of Emotions, affirm- ing that the attempt would be as truly impossible, as to define North American Review, No. XLIV. 20 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, sweetness, or bitterness, a sound, or a smell, in any other way, than by a statement of the circumstances in which they anse. Perhaps so ; yet, though one could not define a taste or a sound, it would be strange to philosophise upon either of them, witbout any reference whatever to the palate or the ear, which are their apj)ropliated organs. Our author is liable to the charge of this delinquency, in omitting to notice what may be called the topical peculiarity of the Emo- tions. It must be familiar to the experience of every indi- vidual, that the seat of this class of feelings is the region of the praxordia. The author had already allowed the specific connexion between our intellectual states and the nerves and brain, which renders his omission on this point the more observable. He exposes himself to evident embarrasstnent and inconsistency throughout the work, by representing the mind as the immediate seat, both of the Intellectual States and Emotions. We believe that the alone true, intelligent, self active, immaterial, immortal principle lies, if we may so express ourselves, behind the reaions of the two classes of feelings abovementioned, and communicates in some inexpli- cable way with both of them. There is certainly something Witl)in us, which compares one intellectual state with another, one emotion with another, and intellectual states with emo- tions. This is within the experience of all. But respect- ing the simple or compound nature of this interior principle, we hold all speculation to be useless. To return to our work. The authors general principle of arranging the Emotions is their relation to time. They are Immediate, or involving no notion of time whatever; Retrospective, or relating to the past; Prospective, or relating to the future. Admiration, remorse, hope, may serve as particular in- stances to illustrate this distinction. We admire what is before us ; we feel remorse for some past crime; we hope some future good. Were they considered only as elementary feelings, without any regard to time, the emotions, he says, might be reduced to the following descriptions; joy, grief, desire, astonishment, respect, contempt, and the two opposite species of vivid feel- ings, which distinguish to us the feelings, that are denotni nated virtuous or vicious. Such a consideration of them, 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 21 however, would be much more abstract, uninteresting, and inapplicable to human life and conduct, than the method Which he has adopted. The immediate emotions are subdivided into those, which do not involve any feeling that can be termed moral, and those which do involve some mo~al affection. The following are our immediate emotions of the former kind. Cheerfulness, melancholy, wonder, mental weariness, the feeling of beauty, disgust, our feelings of sublimity and ludicrousness. To the latter subdivision may be referred the vivid feelings, that constitute to our heart what we distin- guish by the names of vice and virtue, considered apart from ~he mere intellectual judgments we form respecting actions; our emotions of love and hate; of sympathy with the happy and with the miserable ; of pride and humility. The retrospective emotions are subdivided as they relate to others and to ourselves. Those, which relate to others, are anger and gratitude. Those, which relate to ourselves, are, simple regret and satisfaction, without the mixture of any moral feeling; and finally, remorse and self approbation. The prospective emotions comprehend all our desires and all our fears. Of the former, the most important may be considered as enumerated in the following series. First, our desire of continued existence, without any immediate re- gard to the pleasure which it may yield ; secondly, our desire of pleasure, considered directly as mere pleasure thirdly, our desire of action ; fourthly, our desire of society; fifthly, our desire of power, direct, as in ambition, or indirect, as in avarice; seventhly, our desire of the affection or esteem of those around us; eighthly, our desire of glory; ninthly, our desire of the happiness of others; and, tenthly, our de- sire of the unhappiness of those whom we hate. The fol- lowing ~)aragraph on this subject, is a happy specimen of the authors analytical skill, and of the gracefulness and facility, with which he makes the common nomenclature of our men- tal feelings fall into his own philosophical arrangements. I must observe, however, in the first place, that each of these desires may exist in different forms, according to the degree of probability of the attainment of its object. When there is little of any probability, it constitutes what is termed a mere wish; when the probability is stronger, it becomes what is called hope; with 22 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, still greater probability, expectation; and, with a probability that approaches certainty, confidence. This variation of the form of the desire, according to the degrees of probability, is, of course, iot confined to any l)artici]lar desire, but may run through all the desires, which I have enumerated, and every other desire of ~vhich the mind is, or may be supposed to ~e capable. Lecture 55. in the spirit of the foregoing paragraph, the reason why no peculiar place is set apart for the passions in this classi- fication, is, that our passions are truly no separate class, but merely a name for our desires, ~vhen very vivid, or very per- man ent. Dr Brown, also, goes into no separate classification of our fears, since it is evident that they are excited by pre- cisely the same objects, which excite our desires. We desire to obtain any object, we fear that we shall not obtain it. We dread any pain or calamity; we wish, we hope, that we may escape it. Thus, our fears and our desires are cor- relative feelings, and whatever is said of the one, may be referred, by a kind of contrasted application, to the other. We have thus given only a rough synopsis of the authors arrangement of the emotions. He devotes to them twenty one of the hundred lectures. This portion of the book will probably be found the most popular and interesting of the whole. It is generally rich and delightful writing, with the exception of some commonplace prosing, and a little occa- sional declamation. The author separately considers each article in the foregoing ample catalogue, metaphysically, morally, and theologically. His speculations on this depart- ment of his science, would well bear dividing into a number of profound and elegant essays. They are adorned with a variety of apposite and beautiful illustrations, from rather a limited but very select range of reading. Perhaps the most felicitous and striking traits, in this busy picture of the emo- tions, are the luminous explanations of the final causes, for which each of them was introduced into our mental constitu- tions. The wisdom and goodness of the Creator are here very impressively vindicated. Even anger, hatred, and other passions, most generally liable to abuse, are shown to bear their necessary part in that harmonious arrangement, which provides for the happiness of the species. But this considera- tion leads the author to establish safe lines of distinction, and 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 23 to deduce from an enlightened view of our whole nature a body of excellent moral rules. To attempt even a slight sketch of the acute and profound disquisitiotis, the exquisite analysis, the fine sensibility, the sterling good sense, the elo- quent and earnest recommendations of morality, the exami- nation and confutation of many opinions and theories of Alison, Hutcheson, Smith, Stewart, aiid other philosophers, which these twentyone lectures exhibit, would be a task, agreeable indeed to ourselves, and profitable to our readers, but far too disproportioned to other purposes, for which this Journal is designed. Among the very few topics here treated, on which we have found reason to dissent from the ingenious author, is that of Avarice. It will be seen, in his enumeration of the Desires above represented, that he regards avarice as only a modifi- cation of our desire of power. We are persuaded, that this is an inaccurate reference of the real and original princ4le of the emotion in question. Avarice is often exercised with- out regard to the attainment of any kind of power whatever. It loves money and property purely as such, and not for the gratifications they can purchase. Dr Brown was aware of this phenomenon, and felt its inconsistency with the above classification of the desire. He labors at great length, and quite unsuccessfully, to account for this obvious anomaly in his system. He falls into a maze of his own creating, by first ranking avarice as an indirect desire of power, and then finding that it is not always a desire of power. He wonders, through a whole lect(ire, why the miser should be so eager to deny himself all kinds of gratifications for the sake of that money, whose only real value is, that it can purchase, and is the representative of those very renounced gratifications! Would not our authors perplexity and inconsistency have been very easily prevented, by only adding an eleventh class of desires to the ten already laid down ? Does not avarice flow from a distinct, original, and independent emotion, namely, a love of hoarding, or, as our author would have called it, the desire of acquisition? The child hoards its shells and pebbles, the virtuoso his curiosities, the collector his hooks, the scholar his intellectual stores, and the miser his gold, almost entirely for the gratification of this simple and separate propensity, with comparatively a faint and for.~ 24 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, tuitous influence of other motives. And to pursue a favorite train of the authors speculation, before alluded to, it is well for us that our Creator has implanted in our minds this par- ticular desire. Iii His prospective benevolence, indeed, it was intended to be a direct means of acquiiing power, as instrumental to our happiness. But man often ftilfils this intention blindly. An inattention to the distinction here pointed out misled the author, we doubt not, into his defective classification. Were it not for the strong operation of the instinctive propensity we are suggesting, man must often have perished through want, the consequence of carelessness arid improvidence. We were not left to calculate the benefits resulting from frugality, nor to wait until we should smart from privations, occasioned by lavishness and inexperience. A desire of mere acquisition, therefore, seems to be a com- pensation ~ms beautiful as it is indispensable, in this fluctuating and precarious world. A too great indulgence of the feel- ing, of course, becomes, like an abuse of all our other desires, criminal and mischievous. It was probably in consequence of not adverting to this indubitable law of our mental constitutions, that Dr Brown, in endeavoring to account for the ur1reasonahle excesses of avarice, which are sometimes witnessed, was led to lay a very disproportionate stress on the regret, that arises from early prodigality. Indeed, he would seem at times to regard this regret, as the original foundation and main ingredient of the passion. We are constrained to question the correctness of this theory. Who has not known instances of a decided bent for avarice, which could be traced up to the earliest period after infancy, when it was impossible that the little miser could have felt any inconvenience, or regret, arising from prodigality or extravagance? Fasten down the cover of a box, perforate it for a small aperture, persuade your child to convey to it every coin that is given him, tell him to search for money on the parade ground early in the morning after each muster day, instruct him to bargain away his cake and his toys for cash, deliver to him, perpetually, short solemn lectures and cautions on the propriety of saving and hoarding his money, and such discipline, acting on the native desire for which we have been contending, will soon convert him into a sordid wretch, long before he shall have experienced 1325.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 25 one feeling of pain at the destruction of his cake, which in fact he never devours. Regret for squandered means, we allow, is often one, among the many other circumstances, which Dr Brown has so happily enumerated, as enhancing and aggravating the force of the avaricious principle, and may sometimes awaken and develope it, when it has slept for a long time. But we cannot belfeve it to be the mainspring of the passion itself, nor sufficient, especially, to remove the embarrassment, which the author has encountered in the ex- position of his theory. Even should the separate desire, on which we insist, be denied, still we would account for most of the workings of avarice on fat different principles from this regret. Bitt we forbear to trust ourselves now with the dis- cussion. Dr Brown has with great felicity assigned several reasons, for the paradox in common life, of a person parting tranquilly with large sums, while the loss of small ones is sufficient to destroy his happiness for a day. He might have accounted for this lattet case, in soirte instances, not so much from merely avaricious feelings, as from the shame of being over- reached in a bargaining transaction. To many persons, it is an intolerable thoiigl~t, that the market man, with whom they are trading, will wink, in half penny triumph, at his brother market man, as soon as their hacks are tttrned. Many, also, contend long for a trifle, from a pure sense of justice. We come now to the consideration of our authots Ethical System. The Science of Ethics, he observes, has relation to our affections of mind, not simply as phenomena, but as virtuous or vicious, right or wrong. What then is the virtue, which it is the practical object of this science to recommend? Why do we consider certain ac- tions, says Dr Brown, and we could add, certain feelings, as morally right, and othems, as morally wrong? The only test, according to him, is a siml)le emotion of approbation, or of disapprobation. We are so constituted, that we cannot help approving certain classes of human actions, and disapproving certain other classes. God himself, who gave us a relish for wholesome food, and a distaste for what is injurious, has, for analogous, but far higher purposes, created us subject to such immediate moral feelings. VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 4 26 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, These emotions, our author contends, are uniform in all men, hut occasionally modified by three circumstances. First, the influence of passion obliterates for a time, in many minds, the emotions that ought to arise on the contemplation of moral or immoral actions. Secondly, individuals, and even whole nations, have sometimes partial and imperfect views of the true tendencies of cei~tain actions, in which there is a mixture of good and evil, and this is the cause why mo- rality appears to fluctuate in different times and places. Thirdly, association, in various ways, exerts considerable influence in modifying and perverting the emotions, which would otherwise be naturally raised by particular kinds of actions. The author insists, that these three limitations still leave unimpaired the great fundamental distinctions of mo- rality itself, the moral approbation of the producer of unmix- ed good as good, and the moral disapprc.bation of him who produces unmixed evil for the sake of evil. He refutes the sophistry and skepticism, which pretend that, in consequence of the foregoing limitations, the science of morality is unsettled, and virtue itself but a precarious and fluctuating name. He maintains, that where one instance can be found of disagreement among men, in approving certain actions and disapproving certain others, there are millions and millions of instances, all over the world, of a perfect uniform- ity of moral sentiment. The author next proceeds to examine other theories of Incrality, which have been broached by different writers. Hobbes, who makes virtue to depend on political enactment; Mandeville, who reduces it to a corrupt love of praise; Clarke and Wollaston, who identify it with the fitness and the truth of things; Hu me, who measures it solely by the standard of general utility; the ancient and modern disciples of Aristippus, who resolve it into the pursuit of selfish gratifi- cation; Paley, who defines it to be the doing good to man- kind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness; and Dr Smith, who allows it no other standard, than our sympathy with the feelings of others, are successively subjected to elaborate confutations. In these strictures we see displayed an instinctive acuteness, in seiz- ing the points at issue, and an unrivalled power of argument. The author, of course, throughout the whole speculation, says 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 27 many things to justify and illustrate his own system of mo- rality, and mode of treating it. We have a few remarks to suggest. rhe great defect of Dr Browns ethical theory is, that he has confined his attention entirely to actions, which are only the occasional signs and representatives of virtue and vice in moral beings. We admire his discovery, as it may well be called, and on which another superior mind of our own coun- try,* by a remarkable coincidence, has lighted, that certain feelings of vivid approval and disapproval are the true and original tests of right and wrong. As the physical qualities of substances can only be properly known, distinguished, and described, by their effects on our senses, and not by vain attempts to ascertain their abstract nature, so the moral quali- ties of thinking and responsible agents are to be designated by their effects on other minds. This, indeed, is an ingenious, a noble principle; it is a bright eyed offspring of the Baconian philosophy; it is the J)ioneer to satisfactory conclusions on the subject before us; it introduces at once a flood of light into this hitherto perplexed and obscure discussion. But having seized on the mighty instrument itself, Dr Brown seems to have failed in applying it with his usual comprehen- sive energy. In inquiring what objects, when contemplated by us, excite the approving, or disapproving emotion, he has strangely omitted the consideration of those mental feelings9 or rather states of mind, which, in the first place, give to ac- tions their entire moral character, and, in the second place, constitute, by themselves, more than nine tenths of the vice and virtue of the world, without even being brought into ac- tion. Thus, simple indifference to the welfare of others we disapprove as vice. A mere intention, a wish, is often virtuous or vicious. Refraining from action is frequently virtue or vice. Mere purity of mind we regard with the ap- proving glow, which is paid to active virtue. Regret, shame, anger, joy, and other emotions, are regarded as right or wrong, according to the occasions on which they arise. It is not the blush that we admire and approve; but the modes- ty, of which that meteor like tinge is the enchanting signal. It is not the mere phantasmagorial sight of a man, exposing * The late Professor Frisbie. See his Miscellaneous Writings, edited by Andrews Norton, p. 144, et seqq. ~28 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, his life to save a drowning enemy, that excites within us the vivid feeling of approbation ; it is the sublime state of his soul at the moment, and which the action itself is only instrumental in making known. Now, in consequence of not adverting to these essential considerations, Dr Brown has leftthi s part of his ethical dis- cussions in no little iniperfectiori and perplexity. He all along states it as an ultimate law of our constitution, that certain actions excite within us the approving or the disap- proving feeling, by which we distinguish them as virtuous or vicious. He speaks as if the moral nature of every action was immediately and intuitively known, as right or wrong, in the same manner as a color is immediately recognised as green or yellow. He takes no account of that long and varied thread of experience, observation, acquisition, reflection, deduction, culture, admonition, discipline, and example, by which moral feelings and ideas are developed in the mind of the child, and by which alone it comes at length to form its juigments of the character of moral actions. This, certainly, is a loose handling of the question, a very imperfect analysis of the matter under discussion. If, therefore, the fore~oi ng reflections are just, the true and amended theory of Di Brown, the really ultimate law of our moral institutions, for which he sought, would be this. Certain emotions, desires, intentions, or states of mind, in other men, which are made known sometimes by actions, soruietimes by other sensible signs, and sometimes by verbal information, more or less direct, excite within us the vivid feeling of approbation, or disapprobation, corresponding to which, we are accustomed to denominate those states of mind, and the actions they produce, virtuous or vicious, right or wrong, moral or immoral. We are the more confirmed in this amendment of our authors philosophical views, from its coinciding with the principles of morality inculcated in the Sermon on the Mount. It is from this point, we humbly think, that all ethical science must properly begin. Its adoption, we are persuaded, would have supplied a palpable defect in the work before us, and saved some readers many an hour of wistful dissatisfaction and perplexity. It is no more correct to confine the question to actions, than to the looks of the countenance. A tolerably 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. plausible system of morals might be built on the latter, as well as on the former species of exterior manifestations. Would that theory of dialling be complete or scientific, which con- fined the inquiry to the shape of the gnomon, and the motions of the shadow alone, while the primary consideration of the sun s movements and rays remained untouched ? Our author, in the outset of tl]e discussion, seems fo have had a glimpse of the principle we have been urging, but certainly lost sight of it afterwards. He defines the Science of Ethics, as having relation to our affections of mind, as virtuous or vicious, right or wrong. Then why not proceed, and erect the science upon this bioad and true foundation? Why abandon it almost imnediately, and say, One inquiry alone is necessary~ what actions excite in us, when contemplated, a certain vivid feeling? ~c. [Edin. Ed. Vol. 4, p. 148. And. Ed. Vol. 3, p 267.] We trust we have sufficiently shown the very narrow and incomplete relation, which this particular inquiry bears to ethical science as a whole. In inquiring what constitutes the sense of moral obligation, D Brown appears to us to be aiming at a theory of too much situiplicity. To feel, says he, the character of approv ableness, in an action, which we have not yet performed, and are only meditating on it as future, is to feel the moral obli- gation, or moral inducement to perform it. The late Pro- fessor Frisbie seems to have been dissatisfied with this explanation, but in his criticism upon it, has not, we think, exactly approached the difficulty. Are there not many actions, he asks, ~vhich seem to us to have very little virtue or merit, yet by which the feeling of obligation is very strongly excit.ed; nay, is not the obligation often inversely as the merit, as for example, in regard to the payment of honest debts ?* To these interrogatories we reply, that the obliga- tion, which Professor Frisbie instances, is not properly or en- tirely a moral obligation. Without being apparently conscious of the facts, he has shifted the very point in question. In regard to the payment of honest debts, there is something more than the sense of moral obligation; there is the sense of legal obligation; there is also the dread of offending society, creating enemies, and thus injuring ones general interests. Xtiscellaneo,,s Writings, p. 15~. 30 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, Let a law be passed exonerating the debtor; let public opinion too coincide with the law. There will then be merit in paying the debt, and a merit exactly in proportion to the moral obligation. In what respects then may it be said, that Dr Browns theory is deficient? According tQ our opinoii, he has, unde- signedly, however inconsistently with himself, suggested the precise and true theory in a subsequent part of his speculations. The following sentence occurs in p. 395, Vol. 4, Edin. Ed. towards the close of Lect. 91. When I say, that it is my duty to perform a certain action, I mean nothing more than that if I do not perform it, I shall regard myself, and others will regard me, with moral disapprobation ~* Here, we are convinced, he has fallen upon the right key to the nature of moral obligation. It is not enough for us simply to approve an action, in order to feel the whole force of such obligation the very word obligation implies some conditional compul- sson, constraint, apprehended penalty in case of our neglecting the duty. Now, what is the penalty implied in the idea of moral obligation? Surely, as our author suggests above, the pain, which all moral beings feel in disapproving themselves, or being disapproved by others. It is this which we dread ; it is this which constrains us. The moment we allow a fear of any other nature than this to operate upon us, such as a dread of corporal punishment, or bodily pain of any other kind, or an injury to our general interests, the moral changes into the character of physical obligation. Dr Browns distribution of the Duties is the old and obvious one of duties to others, to ourselves, and to God. His treatment of this subject completes the work, and, on the whole, deserves a similar tribute of praise, and similarly modified, with that bestowed on his treatment of the more general subject of the Emotions. Curious speculations are pursued, current errors are refuted, novel and valuable ideas are advanced, magnificent commonplaces are unfurled and waved about, and over the whole is diffused a vivid glow of * Just to show the authors iuconsistency with himself ahove alluded to, turn over one leaf of his hook, and there will be seen the following sentence. It is, as I have said, on the one simple feeling of moral approvableness, that every duty, and therefore, every right is founded. But in the sentence in the text, has he not said that the sense of duty arises from a fear of disapprobation ~ 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 31 moral and religious feeling. A few lectures, perhaps, in this portion, require a little bracing up of the attention to read them through; one needs a perpetual recollection, that one of our principal duties is to read Dr Browns inculcation of the duties, and frequent repetitions are called for of the internal resolution, 1 will go on. In all probability, these few lectures were written under the infiuen6e of the same feeling. Yet somewhat tedious as they are, they will repay a studious peru- sal. Nor are many of them fairly liable to the foregoing stricture. On the contrary, several will be found to exhibit the authors peculiar vivacity, originality, and other excel- lencies. Instance the beautiful and ingenious lecture on friendship and gratitude, and one on the goodness of the Deity. In treating of our duties to God, the author takes occasion to demonstrate the existence and attributes of the Almighty Being. He rightly discards the argument a priori, which forever assumes the very point to be proved. He relies alto- gether on the short, simple, but irresistible argument drawn from the appearances of benevolent design, so profusely scat- tered over every part of the universe. XVe are dissatisfied with his attempted demonstration of the unity of God, and never yet have felt the force of the same point of reasoning when urged by other writers. It is founded on the unity and simplicity of design, everywhere exhibited in the works of the Creator. Two objections to this argument we cannot con- quer. The first is, that it would be not very difficult to make out a case of irreconcilable contrariety and multiplicity of design, apparent in the works of nature. For instance, in one point of view, what tender care seems to be taken of the happiness of all living creatures, while, in many respects, they seem to be left, with utter indifference, to their miserable fate. The second is, that even if a perfect unity of design, without the slightest apparent exception, could be pointed out as pre- vailing in the nuiverse, it would not absolutely, or satisfacto- rily prove a unity in the power which produced it. A mil- lion of deities might conspire in the most complete uniformity of operations. A stranger to this earth would find a certain uniformity of design, nay, thousands of different operations and results harmoniously conspiring to a single end, amidst all the works of men. But it is unnecessary to say, how illogical would be his conclusion, that one being was the an- 32 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, thor of the whole. He might, perhaps, properly infer, that one genus of beings had been at work in the construction of similar edifices, canals, cities, and other products of art. The mythology of the Greeks, which peopled every department of creation with presiding deities, was built on such an infer- ence. And this, we are persuaded, is as far as human reason can legitimately advance, in settlink the point of the simplicity or complexity of the divine nature. It is a matter as tar re- moved from positive, ahstract demonstration, as the Deity himself is removed from man. It is true, the idea of the unity of God is now embraced in the world with more or less distinctness and purity; there is nothing in nature to contra- dict or refute it, since even an actual contrariety of design might be consistent with it; nay, it is almost a self evi- dent truth; philosophy can defend it by most plausible argu- ments ; but philosophy must not, cannot assume the triumph of originally establishing and making it known. Every at- tempt to that effect which we witness, concurring with our inability to trace it so clearly to any other quarter, only drives us back with increased conviction to the leading representa- tion of the Hebrew Scriptures, that the idea in question was originally and directly communicated from heaven, in some way or other, to men of Asiatic origin. When Dr Brown comes to consider our duties to ourselves, he takes up the question of the Immortality of the Soul. He advances in the affirmative some arguments that are abso- lutely gigantic, and others, that appear feeble and untenable. We will give an instance of each kind. Those, who hastily infer the destruction of the mind from the destruction of the body, will find it difficult to evade the force of the following reasoning, which has all the weight and acuteness character- istic of the author. When the body seems to us to perish, we know that it does not trsdy perish,that everything which existed in the decaying frame, continues to exist entire, as it existed before; and that the only change which takes place, is a change of apposition or proximity. From the first moment at which the earth arose, there is not the slightest reason to think that a single atom has perished. All that was, is; and if nothing has perished in the material universe ;if even in that bodily dissolution, which alone gave occasion to the belief of our mortality as sentient beings, there is not the loss of the most inconsiderable particle of the dissolving frame,the argument 1825.] Cltaraceer and Writings of Dr Brown. of analogy, far from leading us to suppose the destruction of that spiritual being, which animated the frame, would lead us to con- clude that it, too, exists, as it before existed ; and that it has only changed its relation to the particles of our material organs, as these particles still subsistina have changed the relations, which they mutually bore. As the dust has only returned to the earth from which it came, it is surely a reasonable inference from analogy to suppose, that the spirit may have returned to the God who~ gave it. Lecture 96. Nothing was ever better said. But Dr Brown was well aware of an argument, xvhic~t the obstinate materialist still has in store, naruely, that all the mental operations, and conse- quently, what the immaterialist grataitously calls the mind itself, may be nothing more than phenomena, resulting from the union and organisation of material particles in a certain manner. Now to this our author offers the following feeble argument. If any one were to say, the Sun has no thought, Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and all their secondaries, have no thought; but the Solar System has thought,we should then scarcely hesitate a moment, in rejecting such a doctrine ; because, we should feel instantly that there could be no charm in the two words, solar system, which ate of our own invention, to confer on the separate masses of the heavenly bodies, what under a different form of mere verbal expression, they had been declared previously not to possess. What the sun and planets have not, the solar sys- tern, which is nothing more than that sun and planets, has not; or, if so much power be ascribed to the mere iuvention of a term, as to suppose that ~ve can confer by it new qualities on things, there is a realism in philosophy, far more monstrous than any which prevailed in the Logic of the Schools. if, then, the solar system cannot have properties, which the sun and planets have not, and if this be equally true, at whatever dis- tance, near or remote, they may exist in space, it is surely equally evident, that an organ, which is only a name for a number of sepa- rate corpuscles, as the solar system is only a number of larger masses of corpuscles,cannot have any properties, which are not possessed by the corpuscles themselves, at the very moment at which the orgm as a whole, is said to possess them,nor any affections as a whole, additional to the affections of the separaW parts. An organ is nothing; the corpuscles, to which we give that single name, are all,and if a sensation be an organic state, it is a state of riiany corpuscles, which have no more unity than the greater number of particles in the multitudes of brains, which form the sensations of all mankind. Lecture 98. VOL. XXI. NO. 48. 5 34 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, This reasoning will never do. To show its absurdity, let us follow it up for a moment in its own style. If any one were to say, the Sun has no mutual attraction~ Mercury, Venus, the Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and all their seconda- ries, when separate and alone, have no mutual attraction, but the solar system has mutual ~ttraction, we should then scarcely hesitate a moment in rejecting such a doctrine. Thus, by our authors course of argument, we could disprove one of the most obvious facts of natural philosophy. So, again, what an acid has not, when alone, and an alkali, when alone, has not, the combination of acids and alkalies never can have; and, therefore, such a phenomenon as effervescence between acids and alkalies, according to our author, can never take place. The truth is, Dr Brown is here guilty of beg- ging the question. The very argument of the materialist is, that although the particles of matter, when separate, are not able to think, yet, when brought together in a certain way, which the Deity may appoint, the result of their influence on each other may be the phenomenon, which we express by the word thought. This our author denies, maintaining, that what one particle cannot perform in a separate state, a multitude of particles cannot perform in any sort of combination. It is plain, however, that this is no answer, but only a flat denial of the materialists argument, and, moreover, involves some most careless general positions, which are immediately disproved by an appeal to ordinary experience. Before quitting this topic, we would just ask the author, why so strenuous in maintaining the immateriality of the soul, when, in his noble argument, quoted above, he assumes the imperishableness of n~atter? On the whole, we cannot claim for him the merit of having placed the immortality of the soul on new and stronger van- tage ground, than it occupied before. His reasonings on the subject appear to us to be full of assumptions. As might be expected, the discussion leads him too far from the track of pure philosophy into the entanglements of metaphysics. In defending the unity and indivisibility of the thinking principle, qualities which he regards as essential to its immortality, but which we do not, he is betrayed into arguments quite incon- sistent with other statements in different parts of his work. For instance, he vigorously maintains that the mind can exist 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 35 only in a single state at once. But according to his whole philosophy elsewhere, and even according to the most com- mon experience, that very mind is capable of existing in an intellectual state, and in an emotion, simultaneously; and it may be remembered, that in explaining the souls personal identity, he allowed, that along~with the memory or a sensa- tion or an idea, we have an intuitive belief, that we are the same individuals, who had the sensation or idea before.* One would suppose, that in these cases there are two states, in which the mind exists at the same moment. But our author endeavors to surmount the inconsistency, by denominating them one complex state. Now, we confess ourselves quite as unable to conceive, how a unique single principle can exist, in what the author calls a complex state, as how it can exist in two different states at once. If the latter be incoml)atihle with its nature, why is not the former also? Truth is, the phrase, complex state,~ or the still more impalpable and metaphysical phrase, which is sometimes a favorite one with the author, namely, a state of virtual comprehensiveness, is hut a wordy covering for a most unconquerable difficulty, and leaves the real nature of the mind in as much obscurity as ever. Amidst all his horror for rash hypothesis and gratuitous as- sumption, we are astonished at finding him everywhere assert- ing, as if it were an axiom of Euclid, that the mind is not composed of parts that coexist, but is simple and indivisible. Now this is unwarrantable. According to the true spirit of the new philosophy, we have nothing to do with this question. Much can he said plausibly in favor of the compound nature of the mind, without furnishing any fair triumph to skepticism, or exciting any necessary alarm among modest philosophers. Indeed, we have no hopes of gaining higher assurances of the souls immortality, from any new speculations on its inter- nal structure. Be it simple, or be it compound, we do not despair. We doubt whether all the philosophy in the world can either improve, or set aside, the lucid and truly Baconian argument of the Apostle to the Gentiles, founded on the analogy hetween the germination of a perishing seed, and the revivi- fication of the human soul. The story left us by the Gallilean fishermen, which we are not ashamed to avow is far easier for us to believe than to doubt, needs no support from the North Amcrican Review, No. 44. p. 13. .36 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, visions either of a Plato or a Priestley; and while we look down into the vacant tomb, that once belonged to Joseph of Arimathea, we are little swayed, either one way or another, by the ingenuity and strength, or by the feebleness and inconclu- siveness, exhibited in the reasonin-6s even of Dr Brown. Our aUstract terminates here. As an abstract, it is exceed- ingly imperfect, and conveys a very faint idea of the work. We have rather dwelt upon those topics, which seemed to require critical remark, than attempted to give a systematic sketch of all the authors achievements. We shall no fulfil our promise to exact, from various quarters, a few contributions to the illustration of our authors character and writings. The following notice is from a volume of the Edinburgh Magazine, for the year 1820. Dr Browns character was one of extreme and I might almost say, of fastidious refinement. The habits of speculative philosophy and abstract thought, had not destroyed the vivacity of his imagi- nation, or chilled the warmth of his heart. lie was by nature an enthusiast, and the prominent features of his mind in early youth were sensibility and ardor. At school he was distinguished by ex- treine gaiety and sweetness of disposition, and his cotemporaries remembered how much he delighted and excelled in the recitation of dramatic poetry. Soon after he engaged in philosophical studies, he distinguished himself for acuteness of reasoning; and his answer to Darwins Zoonomia demonstrated the discriminating powers of his mind. It is n6t for the ~vriter of this letter to presume to analyse the subtlety, and profound originality, of his metaphysical inquiries. Among those who attended his lectures, some complained of a certain vagueness an(l refinement that bordered on obscurity, but when he entered on the moral part of his course, he excited the highest degree of euthusiasm for all that was elevated and noble in human nature. It was then he gave full scope to the lofty con- ceptions of his mind, and displayed an energy and devotion in the cause of moral truth that could not be surpassed, and can never be forgotten. Dr Browns manners might be considered somewhat artificial, and yet no man had more simplicity and singleness of heart, if that term belongs to one uninfluenced in his opinions, tastes, inclinations, and habits, by the caprices of fashion, or the calculations of a worldly mind. He never songWt the society of the fashionable, the rich, or the high born, on account of any of these adventitious cir- cumstances. He carried the independent purity of his political principles into the morals of private life. His habits were abste- mious, simple, and self-denied. His liberality to those, who needed 1S25.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 37 his pecuniary assistance, was as frank as it was unostentatious. But his benevolence was not of a kind to content itself with the cheap indulgence of almsgiving. Long after he had given up medical practice, he gave his time and attention to the sick friends, who required his advice; and what Burke said of Howard in a sense restricted to the particular objects qf his attention, might be said of Dr Brown universally ; He att& nded to the neglected, and re- membered the ~ There are many persons, wholly unknown to the circles of fashionable life, who received constant proofs of his cheering and kind attention. One instance of this is so characteristic of his turn of mind, that I cannot omit mentioning it. Two Ayr shire peasants, who had made considerable progress in languages as well as in botanical and mathematical science, were recommended to his notice. After presenting them with gratis tickets for his lectures, he invited them to breakfast; the conversation turned on botanical dra~ving. One of them proposed to show the Doctor some speci- mens of his performance in that art. I was pleased,~~ said he, on relating this circumstance, to see the progress I had made in the confidence of these young men during the hour of breakfast. They first came to my low door, but when they returned ~vith the draw- ings, they rang at the front door. I had inspired them with the feeling of equality. The political principles of this excellent man were those of genuine XVhiggism, untaintetl with the asperity of party prejudice. his reprobation of tyranny and oppression, wherever it was exer- cised, xvill be remembered by those who have heard him express his satisfaction at the overthrow of Napoleon Bonaparte, whose despotism he execrated. He took a deep interest in the political events of his o~vn country. The five restrictive bills, passed during the winter session of 1819, exc~ed his warmest indignation; and in a meeting held by the Senatus Academicus, on the occasion of condoling with and congratulating his present Majesty, he expressed his opinion of those measures very strongly. The most ajinute circumstances, favorable to civil and religious liberty, interested him to the last; and as an affecting instance of the sincerity of his feel- ings, on subjects connected with the freedom of his country, I may mention, that during his last illness, he daily inquired into the state of the Middlesex poll, an event, deeply interesting on a moral as well as political principle, as being the grateful effort of a generous people to reward the son for the virtues of the father; and when he was told two days before he died, that it had closed in favor of young Whitbread, though unable to speak, his countenance and manner expressed the liveliest satisfaction. He had returned in the autumn of 1819 to Edinburgh, in re- markably good health, and engaged with much ardor in the com- position of his class book. He had even sketched out great literary 38 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, designs for his future execution, but that fatal disorder, which terminated in pulmonary consumption, seized him during the Christmas recess. He only lectured t~vice after the vacation. Doting the last lecture he delivered, he was greatly affected when he read some lines on the return of spring from Beatties Hermit. lie wished to persevere in his course~. But his affectionate friend and physician, Dr Gregory, forbade it, and strongly recommended him to try the effects of a warmer climate. His reply was, No, I must die at home, you have no idea how miserably I am afflicted with the Maladie du pays. His decline was rapid and alarming. As long as he had strength to hold a pen, he continued to give unremitting labor to the writing of his class book. In February 1820, he received a short visit from his revered friend Mr Dugald Stewart, though at that time he scarcely admitted any one but his medical friend, and the members of his own family. On taking leave of Mr Stewart, he said gaily but emphatically, I hope Moral Philosophy will live long in you. In addition to the above gratifying sketch, an American correspondent has obligingly furnished us with the following interesting particulars, which the numerous admirers of Dr Brown in this country will receive much pleasure in perusing. In compliance with your request, I send you the following very general statements. With Dr Brown I was personally acquainted, and occasionally spent an evening at his house. I experienced much of his hospitality during my stay in that country. Immediately upon my arrival at the city of Edin- burgh, after the opening of the session of the University, I called upon Dr Brown, and prqcured a ticket of admission to his class. Interpreting the intent of your request in the sense in which I believe you designed me to do, I have been led to adopt the following simple plan. The personal appearance of Dr Brown seems first to draw my attention. His was in a very especial degree that of an intense student. He was of ordinary stature; of a pale and wan physiognomy; careless and inattentive in his dress. The characteristic of his countenance was highly attractive, and none could meet him in the streets without noticing it in a particular manner. Profound thought was engraven on every feature. There appeared to be a great mind at work within, and absorbed in the most abstruse speculations. The outward aspect of Dr Brown evinced to the observing mind, that his trains of thought were those of a higher order. Next, as to the mode which he 1S25.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 39 adopted in delivering his lectures. In the class room he ap- peared in the most advantageous points of view. His manner was grave and dignified. He commanded profound silence, marked attention, and a high expression of regard. He read, or with more propriety I should say, he recited his lectures in an animated strain. He app~ared himself to feel the im- portance of those intellectual views, which he had created and was delivering, and was solicitous that the value of them should be perceived and appreciated by those who heard them. He read the poetical quotations, occasionally intro- duced, in a distinct and impressive manner. I was accustomed to hail with delight the returning toll, which summoned us to lecture, and regarded it as a philosophical treat. Dr Brown did not permit his students to take notes during the time of lecturing, owing to a fact with which you are doubtless fami- liar, viz, that a few years preceding, some of the lectures of Mr Stewart were presented to the public in a garbled form, before the author himself had issued them. Dr Brown was desirous that his students should, at the close of the lecture, apply to him for the solution of those doubts of a metaphysical kind that might arise. With such he would freely converse. He was intensely studious. Although surrounded by such a host of social attractions as Edinburgh presents, he allowed not his studious habits to be violated. I heard him state, that he set apart two evenings during every week, either for the reception of his company, or for his own personal relaxation. The rest of his time he considered as sacred to study. The manners of Dr Brown were interesting and rather refined. He was full of conversation; very vivacious, and remarkable for the versatility of his information and diction. He could instantly enter upon any topic, however remote, and in his usual happy strain. In private life he was truly amiable. Two sisters lived with him, whom he supported. The most marked affection appeared to exist between them. He was devoted to the gratification of their slightest wishes. His feelings as a man were generous and noble. He possessed more than an ordinary share of sensibility, and would indulge, in the hour of conversation, in the most sympathetic strain, on any scene of distress, which he had either witnessed, or of which he had heard. We have delayed for six months the publication of the present article, in the hope of receiving from Edinburgh an 40 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. ~July, essay on the life and genius of Dr Brown, by the Rev. Mr Welsh, announced as preparing for the press some time last year. But as yet, it has not been issued, and the distance of time is already too great, between our former and present articles on the lectures, to allow of any farther delay. A glimpse into Dr Browns lecture r~in, as most of our readers will remember, is furnished in the impudent, but entertaining Letters of Peter to his Kinsfolk. Having collected and presented the foregoing testimonials of the peculiarities of our authors genius, and some notices of his life, a few desultory remarks on the former subject, and on the work before us, must be all that we now feel either inclined or justified to attempt. The prominent capacity, in which Dr Brown offers him- self to our minds, is that of a fearless, minute, and ultimate analyst. This is the characteristic, that distinguishes him from every other author on record. XVe are not disposed to vindicate his absolute superiority in many other striking qualifications. His style is far from being faultless, his scholarship is neither exquisite in choice, nor extensive in its range, nor are his observations on life and manners peculiarly rich or original; though in all these, as well as in many similar valuable requisites for a public instructer, he is not only not deficient, but is much more than respectable. But, in the art of looking into the elements and finer relations of things, in detecting the action and reaction between mind and matter, in reducing all human knowledge to its first principles, we boldly pronounce him to be without a compe- titor in our language. The true focus of Dr Browns mind, the mark at which its most intense power acted, was t~xed by nature for microscopic inspection. His more comprehen- sive surveys and larger classifications, though often imposing and magnificent, are sometimes dim, unwieldy, and incom- plete. Witness his original arrangement of Politics and Political Economy, among the peculiar branches of the Philosophy of the Mind, an arrangement, however, which he did not subsequently follow. For another instance to the same purpose, we refer to his Inquiry into Cause and Effect, which wants distinctness in its general management and out- line, though all the separate details of the argument are conducted with wonderful acuteness and power. Nor, while we follow him along the track of his curious speculations, or 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 41 peruse his more splendid and ambitious compositions, do we almost ever meet with those happy generalisations of ex- pression, which so frequently astonish and delight us in the French school of the last century. Indeed, if a generalisation of this kind had struck him, he would not have been content to state and leave it simply to his reader. He would have indulged his favorite habit of tracing out all the particulars that went to form it, thus appearing to arrive by gradual steps to a conclusion, on which Voltaire or Diderot would ~have alighted at once. But they, on the other hand, displayed little of his peculiar faculty and strength. Whoever will gaze through the medium of Dr Browns representations at the objects of his analysis, will perceive them clothed with unwonted brilliancy and dis- tinctness, and new points of vision starting up, which were unsuspected before. All nature crumbles into infinitesimals before his glance. No man is a warmer adorer of the aggregate beauty and glory of the universe, but no man was ever so prone to regard it as a world of atoms. So too, while he is an impassioned admirer of roses and beautiful faces, he cannot avoid reducing them, by a kind of stere- ographic projection, into plain surfaces of colored rays. He gazes with a poets delight on the splendid embroidery, which nature hangs around us, but traces the involutions of every thread with still more of the eagerness of a metaphysician. He has erected new landmarks between the regions of illu- sion and those of reality. He has dissolved much of the influence, which names still exerted on our ideas of things. The study of his writings produces on the mind a similar effect with the study of chemistry. We look round upon creation with almost newly furnished optics; every incident suggests matter of philosophical specu- lation ; the motions of an infant, and the actions of an adult, all thoughts, all passions, all delights, assume unaccustomed aspects, and exhibit interesting relations in the varied system of things. It is worthy of remark, that at the same moments, when Davy was accomplishing some of his greatest achieve- ments in the analysis of matter, Brown was arriving at some of his most brilliant results in the analysis of mind. Both natural and intellectual science seem to have attained a point voL. xxT.NO. 48. 6 42 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, of equal progress, when these two contemporaries arose, to push further analogous discoveries respectively in each. The next most remarkable characteristic, that distinguishes our author, is the undisguised warmth of his moral sentiments. It is rather out of fashion, ~vith existing literature, to seem very much in love with virtue. The phantom reproach of cant lowers in the distance, and frightens the moraliser into a well dissembled indifference. The public is a kind of good com- pany, whose feelings must not be hurt by declamations against its favorite peccadilloes. The whining sentimentality of some authors, which was carried to a disgusting extreme about the end of the last century, and which received its death blow from Sheridans character of Joseph Surface, underwent the usual reaction of other human extravagaucies, and writers and talkers are now almost ashamed to testify any enthusiasm in favot of the parlor, every day virtues. Rousseaus delightful declamations, too, were mingled wifh so much that was un- principled and false, that they contributed not a little to the same effect. Dr Brown has been one of the first to break this chill spell of assumed apathy. He comes forward, with- out fearing the charge of mawkishness or of hypocrisy, and pours out his whole soul in ardent praise of whatever is good and lovely. He appears as the unshrinking advocate, espe- cially, of all the domestic and gentler virtues. The serious- ness of his enthusiasm is well calculated to put to flight the skeptical and profligate smile of the scoffer. His works, in this respect, might be recommended as an antidote to the poison of Byron. Unlike most moral philosophers, he treats not of the virtues and of our moral feelings, with the same cold and scientific interest, that he would inquire into the affinities of a salt or a mineral. His inmost sympathies keep pace with his subject, and impart light to it. Several indirect testimonials to the truth and inspiration of Christianity, are scattered throughout his Lectures. He is thus shielded from the charge, so ofien urged against the productions of his illustrious predecessor. But we wish that he were more than so shielded, and that Christianity had been more diiectly, explicitly, and formally introduced into his moral system. We lament the miserable mistake, into which so many moral philosophers have been betrayed, in declining any assistance from the New Testament. How might Dr Brown have 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 45 added light, sanctity, and authority to his own doctrines, while he in turn would have contributed no small support to the cause of Christianity. Can it be doubted, that Dr Chalmers is at this moment supplying the defect, on which we have been animadverting ? May his attempts be wise and successful. NC have next a few words to say respecting our authors style. We remember hearing reported a happy jeu desprit on this subject, from the admired writer of Letters from the Mountains. When asked how she was pleased with Dr Browns poetvy, she replied, that it had too much meta- physics for her, and when immediately again questioned how she liked his metaphysics, she pronounced it too full of poetry. There is at least some foundation for this smart antithesis, though not enough to raise a serious objection against the writings in question. Dr Brown published seve- ral volumes of poetry at different times, but, in our opinion, scarcely a line of them was sufficiently metaphysical or respectable to deserve reading over, with the single excep~ tion of the Paradise of Coquettes. This ~vork, published anonymously, was immediately, by the unanimous consent of the critics, l)rol~o~Inced to be second of its kind only to the Rape of the Lock. There is metaphysics in it, but we can- not think it too metaphysical. That portion of it, particularly entitled to this epithet, is one of the most sublime, beautiful, ingenious, and original efforts of the English muse. It is a description of the Heaven of Coquettes, and we have always regretted, that so very lofty a flight of the imagination should have been introduced into a work of a design so gay and humorous. It is difficult to read it without feeling religiously, rather than facetiously disposed. It somewhat resembles an inspired glimpse into the possibilities of a future state of being, and, with due modifications, would have been much more worthy of occupying a l)lace in Baxters Saints Ever- lasting Rest, that gorgeous and delicious poem in prose, than of serving as a rhapsody in some heroi-comic effusion. With respect to the other point of the abovementioned antithesis, we allow it to be better founded. There is a little too much poetry in Dr Browns tnetapliysics, or, more exact- ly speaking, his general style as a writer is over poetical and ornamental. We are very far from recommending it as a 44 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, a model, and should be sorry to see it adopted as such, with the same facility, that our young men copied the less ambi- tious, but still somewhat too measured flow of Mr Stewarts periods. We have sometimes thought that having written his Lectures, when comparat~tely young, and adopted at that time a florid and towering manner,Dr Brown was afterwards the less likely to correct it, in consequence of retaining, repeating, and laboring upon, the same course from year to year. He often indulges in solemn parade and emphatic preambles, while approaching the discussion of his topics, and talks much of the difficulty of his tasks. We know of no better way to characterise his style, than to denominate it ultra-Ciceronian. Coming short of the perfections attained, on the one hand, by the Roman orator, it leans, on the other, rather towards his faults. It is too elaborate, tumid, and redundant. It is like Akensides verse turned into prose, except that it sends out not the slightest of a Grecian savor, and this last circumstance, coupled with the rarity, amounting almost to absence, of quotations from the Greek, convinces us, that the author must have been very superficially versed in the literature of that language. It may seem a hard and rash judgment to estimate a persons scholarship, from the number of his learned quotations; and so in general it is. But when one is a professed, and as we may say, an invete- rate quoter, filling his productions with extracts from English and Latin authors, we may fairly conclude, that a line or two from Euripides, and a sentence now and then from Plato, if they had been familiar to his ear as household words, would have embellished his moral declamations, or given point to some of his philosophical statements and conclusions. Notwithstanding these negative peculiarities, it must not, however, be denied, that our Lecturer deserves to be ranked among the classical writers of the language. He is wanting only in a kind of Augustan perfection ; yet still he is classical, in the same way as that epithet belongs to Ammianus, to Statius, and to Seneca. The last author, by the way, is a god of his idolatry, and is quoted by him, we remember, alone of all others, five times in one Lecture. No man ever wielded the resources of the English tongue more skilfully than Dr Brown, or wrote it in more perfect purity. Yet it was the general European standard of its perfection, at which 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 45 he aimed, and not at its idiomatical properties and graces. His, style has all the effort and completeness of a well exe- cuted movement by some scientific composer, but little ~ the indescribable and native charm, that pervades the beautiful melodies of his own country. He is full of brilliancies, while he has few felicities, and it is t1~s defect, which will lose for him the greatest number of readers. There are no easy, sweet, and playful turns in his (liction, to relieve the strained and everlasting nisus of scientific disquisition. He hammers everything to the last degree. There is not a thought shown us just as it came into his mind. Though we admire the productions of his skill, yet we almost hear the workman panting and striving at his labor, and the whole atmosphere of his book as redolent of oil. A favorite figure of speech with the author, which he very frequently carries to a fault, is the climax. Scarcely a lec- ture that does not contain one. To set off some leading idea, or to give force and splendor to an illustration, circumstance is heaped upon circumstance, and clause mounts over clause, till the breath of the stoutest reader gives way, and the dizzy train of his thoughts often goes with it. We must acknowledge that, in the writings of Dr Brown, there are too many obscure and difficult passages. After making due allowance for the imperfect state in which his manuscripts ma~ have been left,* for the abstruse and shadowy nature of many of his topics, and even for an occa * We take the liberty of mentioning here a confused and erroneous arrange- roent of a few of the Lectures, at the end of the first, and beginning of the second volumes of the Edinburgh edition, and in the latter portion of the first volume of the Andover. To any one who will examine the matter with ordinary attention, there will, as we think, appear so many undeniable reasons for a substitution of the following arrangement, that we shall not take the trouble to enumerate them. It is certain that, as the Lectures now stand, nothing can be more perplexed and ill concatenated. To introduce order among them, we recommend these six movements. 1. Lecture 24, as now numbered, should unquestionably be Lecture 23. 2. But the recap ituletion prefixed to Lecture 23, as it now stands, including pp. 511, 512, Edinburgh edition, or p. 345, Andover edition, should remain as it is. Then the body of the true Lecture 23, will properly begin near the bottom of p. 537 Edinburgh, or on p. 362 Andover. That we now seem to perceive, & c. This, if we are correct, should be continued to p. 563, Edinburgh, or p. 376 Andover, where Lecture 23 will properly end. 3. The recapitulation prefixed to Lecture 24, stands where it ought, ending near the close of p. 537 Edinburgh, or on p. 362 Andover, thus ;boundaries from the oilier. The body of the true Lecture 24, will begin at p. 513 Edin- burgh, or p. 346 Andover~ thus ;Though 1/it notion of extension, & c. and 46 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July, sional mysticism and unattainable aim in some of his thoughts, there still remain too many sentences to remind us, by con- trast, of the unabating transparency of Mr Stexvarts elocution. On the whole, we must allow, that our authors is often a bard style to read, and, as we should have thought, a much harder one to bear. He seenis frequently nut to have adapted his sentences to the capacity of the ear. The attention is storm- ed and borne along, rather by the force and brilliancy of the expressions, by the earnest energy of the writer, and by tbe novelty, splendor, and importance, of his well selected topics, than by the clearness and distinctness of each successive po- sition, and a certain smooth and resistless current of diction, of which Adam Smith, P~ilcy, and Godwin in his philoso- phical works, occur to us just now as three of the most re- markable instances. It would be unfair, of course, to refer for this point of cCml)arisOn to historical or narrative writing. Though it is impossible to deny Dr Brown the possession of very extensive attainments in polite literature, yet some- times there occur passages, which seem to indicate a want of familiarity with subjects, that are at the fingers ends of every general reader. In one place he condescends to impart, with much display, the information, that Ahelard, besides his well known con- nexion with Eloisa, was distinguished for his talents and attainments of every sort ; and somewhere~lse he tells us, as a perfect novelty, the whole story of the sympathetic needles from Stradas Prolusions. Mr Stewart touches upon such things in quite a different manner. The remarks hitherto made, apply to the general charac- teristics of Dr Brown as a writer. We have a few more continue to the end of p. 530 Edinburgh, or p. 357 Andover, where the true Lecture 23 terminates. We know no way of accounting for the disorder here pointed out, except by supposing that Dr Brown wrote his recapitulations on separate sheets of pape.r from the bodies of his Lectures, and thus, that the bodies of Lecture 23 and Lecture 24, have accidentally changed ptaces, while the recapitulations continued in their proper order. 4. The whote of Lecture 27, recapitulation and all, should take the place and number of Lecture 25. 5. Lecture 25, recapitulation and all, should take the rank and place of Lecture 26. & Lecture 26, in like manner, should entirely assume the place and rank of Lecture 27. A slight inspection will demonstrate the correctness of these last alterations. 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 47 specific criticisms to offer on the particular Lectures before us. Their posthumous publication is a warrant for gentle treatment, of ~vhich, however, they little stand in need. It is enough to secure Dr Brown the highest praise to say, that he has well discharged the vast responsibility of heing the successor of Mr Stewart, or rather, of taking up the Philosophy of the Mind, where ~eid and Stewart had left it. He enjoyed, indeed, peculiar advantages in corning after such men, and inheriting a certain general excitement and respect toward the science, to which they had been instrumental in raising the public mind. The era in which he wrote, too, was one of peculiar intellectual development. Poetry, and every branch of natural science, were daily acconiplishing wonders, and our authors condition was precisely such, that he must either produce corresponding achievements in the Philosophy of Mind, or encounter the mortification of failure and obscurity. rfo these arduous advantages he was equal. Certain it is, that during his life he sustained the highest reputation as a Lecturer, and that on every individual, who witnessed his performances, without, as far as we are aware, a single exception. he made a favorable impression, unusually profound and permanent. A very valuable, if not the most valuable feature of this great work, consists in the contributions which it furnishes to the science of Natural Theology. Paley had already col- lected from every part of external, material nature, the most striking proofs of benevolent design in the J)eity. Brown has effected precisely the same object, with respect to the various phenomena of our intellectual frames. A volume might, with great ease, be extracted from different portions of these lectures, which would completely fill lip the chasm in Paleys outline, and deserve a place in every library on the same shelf with his celebrated treatise. Its plan might be consistently exten(led and improved, by the addition of stich extracts as most directly contribute to the cause of religion, morality, and right thinking. One recommendation, at least, of the proposed work would be, that it would present a body of the most clear, original, popular, and least exceptionable passages, that occurThroughout the Lectures. Its tendency to higher utility can as little be doubted. 48 Character and Wrstings of Dr Brown. [July, The general plan of the Lectures is, perhaps, too unwieldy and encyclopedial for a single work. We have no right to complain, indeed, of any author, for giving to the public ever so extended a series of delightful and improving compositions. The statutes of his professorship might, also, have enjoined upon this writer a very comprehensive range of subjects, more or less connected with the mind. His original scheme, as we have before seen, included Politics and Political Eco- uomy. Why it might not also have embraced Languages, Rhetoric, and Grammar, with equal propriety, we cannot divine. We are of opinion that the proper Science of the Mind, if treated with the requisite compactness, would be limited to the investigation and description of our mental operations alone. Legitimately it cannot branch out into Moral Philosophy, nor into Natural Theology. Each of these should form a system by itself. The philosopher of the mind ought, indeed, to trace the con nexsons, which his subject bears with these and all other sciences. But he has no particular business with erecting systems of Moral, Theo- logical, Political, 01. Historical Philosophy. For instance, lie may, with Dr Brown, attempt to investigate the true na- ture of Moral Obligation. This is a sentiment of the mind. But as a mental philosopher, his task stops there. He departs from his particular sphere, when he proceeds to enumerate and enforce the personal, social, political, and religious duties, arising out of our moral obligation, since he thus encroaches on the real domain of the Moral Philosopher. Among the inconveniences, to which the form of posthu- mous Lectures subjects this xvork, are the innumerable re- capitulations and repetitions, which everywhere occur. Pro- bably all the leading ideas and arguments are stated, to a greater or less extent, three times over ; and many of them, even more. So that, were the Lectures reduced to a regular treatise, and these repetitions omitted, we should have a book exceeding in size little more than two thirds of the present. It should be remembered, however, that what is thus sometimes an annoyance in perusal, must have been attended with some advantages to those who originally had the privilege of hearing. And even rfow, the reader will find much assistance in comprehending and appreciating the 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 49 authors arguments, by studying the recapitulations, in which former statements are frequently placed in better points of view, and considerations altogether new, are sometimes pie- sented. Nor on the whole do we regret, that the identical Lectures themselves have been published as they were de- livered, with all those little inddental appeals to the honor and good feelings of the students, those occasional comnpli- ments to the authors colleagues in office, and those other allusions to circumstances of time and place, which take much from the abstract nature of the work, and invest it somewhat with the charm of local reality. Although, as we before intimated, our authors style is the very opposite to the sententious, yet the vastness of his philo- sophy, and acuteness of his mind, have caused him to scatter several weighty maxims throughout these Lectures. We subjoin a few as morsels for reflection. Science is the classification of ~ The form of bodies is their relation to each other in space, the power of bodies is their relation to each other in time. The power of God is not anything different from ~ The philosophy of the mind, and the philosophy of matter, agree, in this respect, that our knowledge is, in both, confined to the mere phenomena. We pay truth a very easy homage, when we content ourselves with despising her ad ~ The difficulty of ascertaining precisely, whether it be truth, which we have attained, is in many cases much greater, than the difficulty of the actual attainment. Philosophy is not the mere passive possession of knowledge; it is, in a much more important respect, the active exercise of acquiring it. Happiness, though necessarily involving present pleasure, is the direct or indirect, and often the very distant result of feelings of every kind, pleasurable, painful, and indifferent. When absolute discovery is not allowed, there is left a proba- bility of conjecture, of which even philosophy may justly avail herself, without departing from her legitimate province.~ To know the mind well, is to know its weaknesses as well as its powers. There is always in man a redundant facility of mistake, beyond our most liberal allowance. All the sequences of phenomena are mysterious, or none are SQ. National ridicule is always unjust in degree. VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 7 50 Character and Writings of Dr Brown. [July~ If we had been incapable of considering more than two events together, we probably never shodci have invented the word time. That men should not agree in opinion, is a part of the very laws of intellect, on which the simplest phenomena of thought depend. of objec$8these are all which reason- Objects, and the relations ing jnvolves. Three or four lectures are occupied in giving the substance of the authors doctrine of Cause and Effect. It is an objec- tion to the doctrine, when urged in his broad and unqualified manner, that it must tend to th,e discouragement of scientific inquiry. In pressing his particular views, he unguardedly represents it as a fruitless task to search for any other cause of a given effect, than the obvious and apparent one. But this would keep us back in the ignorance of infancy. The author could not have intended such a conclusion; but he should have provided better against it. Another thing that has struck us, in our perusal of these arguments, is, that they do not come much short of asserting, that the Deity himself cannot know why a particular cause produces its immediate effect. One more remark connected with this topic. When Dr Brown asserts, tl)at nothing can exist in nature, but all the substances that exist in nature, what would he say of motion? Is this nothing, or is it something ? If it is something, can it he called a substance? In short, the existence of motion, particularly spontaneous motion, though more intimately con- nected than any other phenomenon with this subject, and perhaps involving its essential difficulty, receives not in these speculations its due share of notice. The author loses himself in a criticism on Hume, at the end of the thirtyfourth Lecture. Hume does not speak of the annihilation of an idea, as Dr Brown represents him, but of the idea of annihilation. This mistake destroys the whole reasoning. We were disappointed in seeing no attempts to draw the characteristic lines of distinction, between man and the brute creation. The subject is nowhere hinted at. It was admi- rably adapted to the peculiar powers of the author. He does not even encounter the obvious objection, that most of his arguments for the immortality of the soul would as well apply to faithful Tray, as to his master. 1825.] Character and Writings of Dr Brown. 51 We are not satisfied with the liberties everywhere taken, in quoting the English poets. Scarcely a passage from them occurs, that is not altered, apparently with a direct intention, though, we are not always fortunate enough to perceive, with a happier adaptation to the subject in hand. From the authors ambition t6 say something of every sub- ject, more or less connected with his particular science, we were surprised that he has interwoven no remarks upon Deli- rium, Hypochondriasis, Liberty and Necessity, and a few others. An evident vein of Necessitarianism runs through all his speculations. That doctrine may be pretty directly deduced from his views of Cause and Effect, as well as from his favorite statements of the operations of the mind. Amid his loftiest declamations, upon the immortality and other attri- butes of the soul, we never hear a word of its freedom, al- though such a topic would have thrown a characteristic lustre on many a splendid paragraph. Perhaps it may be wrong to assert, that the author was under obligations to the late Dr Cogan, as that gentlemans name, unaccountably at any rate, is alluded to nowhere in the Lectures. Yet it cannot be denied, that a strong general coincidence exists between the two writers in their treatment of the Passions and Emotions, and several ethical questions, and particularly, the final causes of the actual arrangement of many mental phenomena. Dr Brown, more frequently than any other writer, goes back to infancy, childhood, and savage life, for the decision of philosophical points. He seems to have possessed little sense of the ludicrous. He never undertakes of himself to combat an error with satire. When he has need of this weapon, he constantly resorts to large quotations from Martintis Scriblerus, or Fon- tenelle. There is in this respect a striking contrast between himself and Dr Campbell, whose ridicule was as irresistible as his serious argument. We were going on to particularise our favorite Lectures, and to transcribe abundance of other pencil marks, with which we have curnbered the margins of the authors pages, but there is no end to this kind of critical chitchat, and we forbear. 52 dmusernents in Spain. [July, ART. 111.Recollections of the Peninsula. By the Author of Sketches of India. First American from the Second London Edition. Philadelphia, 1824. l2rno. pp. 260. Carey & Lea. THIs little book is not so much, Recollections of the Penin- sula, as it is recollections of what was done in the peninsula between 1809 and the end of the war, by that l)ortion of the British army, to which the author was attached. It is an amusing and interesting narrative, or collection of narratives, confined almost entirely to proceedings within the camp, of which it gives near and familiar views. Very little is said of the plans or movements of the entire army; but instead of these we are told, in minute detail, of what the author himself saw, did and suffered. Such sketches are, in a good degree, new, arid afford us often a striking and animated picture of a soldiers life, as it is every day passed in the field and before the enemy. We bivouacked daily; says he, giving an account of tire en- trance into Spain from Portugal. It is a pleasant sight to see a colrrmn arrive at its halting ground. The camp is generally marked out, if circumstances allow of it, on the edge of some wood, and near a river or stream. The troops are halted in open columns, arms piled, picquets and guards paraded and posted, and, in two minutes, all appear at home. Some fetch larce stones to form fire places; others hurry off with canteens and kettles for water, while the wood resounds with the blows of the bill-hook. Dispersed, under the more distant trees, you see the officers; some dressing, some arranging a few boughs to shelter them by night; others kindling their own fires ; while the most active are seen returning from the village, laden with bread, or, from some flocks of goats, feeding near us, with a supply of new milk. p. 42. Again he says; Instructed by our last year~s wants, our officers now took the field very comfortably provided ; many of us were mounted, most of us carried tents, and experience having shown us what would be really useful, we had, at our leisure, procured and planned many little camp conveniences. Myself and my companion had our tent, camp tal)lC, and stools, l)alliasses, canteen, & c., and, after our ser- vants aot accustomed to the life, provided the weather was fair, and no especial order of march, or readiness, interfered, our meals were prepared and served in bivonacks, the most rude and un- frequented, altogether remote from towns or cities, with the greatest

52 dmusernents in Spain. [July, ART. 111.Recollections of the Peninsula. By the Author of Sketches of India. First American from the Second London Edition. Philadelphia, 1824. l2rno. pp. 260. Carey & Lea. THIs little book is not so much, Recollections of the Penin- sula, as it is recollections of what was done in the peninsula between 1809 and the end of the war, by that l)ortion of the British army, to which the author was attached. It is an amusing and interesting narrative, or collection of narratives, confined almost entirely to proceedings within the camp, of which it gives near and familiar views. Very little is said of the plans or movements of the entire army; but instead of these we are told, in minute detail, of what the author himself saw, did and suffered. Such sketches are, in a good degree, new, arid afford us often a striking and animated picture of a soldiers life, as it is every day passed in the field and before the enemy. We bivouacked daily; says he, giving an account of tire en- trance into Spain from Portugal. It is a pleasant sight to see a colrrmn arrive at its halting ground. The camp is generally marked out, if circumstances allow of it, on the edge of some wood, and near a river or stream. The troops are halted in open columns, arms piled, picquets and guards paraded and posted, and, in two minutes, all appear at home. Some fetch larce stones to form fire places; others hurry off with canteens and kettles for water, while the wood resounds with the blows of the bill-hook. Dispersed, under the more distant trees, you see the officers; some dressing, some arranging a few boughs to shelter them by night; others kindling their own fires ; while the most active are seen returning from the village, laden with bread, or, from some flocks of goats, feeding near us, with a supply of new milk. p. 42. Again he says; Instructed by our last year~s wants, our officers now took the field very comfortably provided ; many of us were mounted, most of us carried tents, and experience having shown us what would be really useful, we had, at our leisure, procured and planned many little camp conveniences. Myself and my companion had our tent, camp tal)lC, and stools, l)alliasses, canteen, & c., and, after our ser- vants aot accustomed to the life, provided the weather was fair, and no especial order of march, or readiness, interfered, our meals were prepared and served in bivonacks, the most rude and un- frequented, altogether remote from towns or cities, with the greatest 1825.] ~dmusements in Spain. regularity, cleanliness, and comfort. A quarter of an hour after the halt of the column, our tent was pitched, kettle l)oiled, breakfast cloth spread, and tea things laid out under some shady tree, the goats milked, and we were seated in comfort at our cheerful meal. The dinner, too, no great variety in the cookery to be sure, for thee are but two dishes seen in a camp, namely, soup and bonilli, or an Irish stew, but these with rice, [)umpkin, tomatas, and a bottle of good country ~vine, left a moderate man little to wish for, and nothing to grumble at. pp. 93, 94. Another lively account is given of the occupation of Bu- celIa s. On the thirteenth my regiment again moved to Bucellas. Near this town ran the second line of defence, and the post being con sidejed highly important, Ix British battalions were stationed in it in reserve. [he whole time that we remained here, our line was regularly under arms two hours before break of day every morn- ing; and when the son appeared above the horizon, we generally manoeuvred for an hour before ~ve were dismissed. For a few days on our first ai rival in this quarter, my friend and I pitched our tent in the market place. Here I took my meals, but slept~ with my company in a church, in which about two hundred of our men were accommodated. rfhe senior officer had the sacristy, the next a little chamber recess behind the high altar, and the rest of us made ourselves truly comfortable in the large organ loft. I used often to lean out of this gallery, and contemplate the strange scene below me. How a sober cilizen from St Pauls churchyard would have stared, to see a serjeant of grenadiers writing his reports on the communion table, a fifer lounging at his ease in the pulpit, and practising his favorite quick step, and the men dividing and calling off their rations of raw beef on tombs of polished marble. Such, ho~vever, is but too faithful a picture of an every day occurrence on actual service. pp. 123, 124. The following is, we apprehend, a strongly marked and happy sketch. W~ had here [Arroyo] a most amusing specimen of French character. In the French column one of the regiments was num- bered thirtyfour ; in the British column also the thi?tyfourth regi- ment led the pursuit, and got quite mixed with the enemy. Several of the French officers, as they tendered their swords, embraced the officers of the English thirtvfourth, saying, Ah, Messieurs, nons sonimes des fr~res; notis sommes du trente-quatri~me regiment tons ~ Votis ~tes des braves. Les Anglois se battent tou- jours avec loyaut6, et traitent bien leurs prisonniers. Ah, Mes- sieurs, la fortune de la guerre est bien capricieuse.~~~Under any 54 .flrnusements ~n Spain. [July, circumstances, however unfortunate, this people will find some method of disarming wrath, courting favor, and softening their fate ; they have spirits, too, wonderfully elastic ; and have the rea(hCst ingenuity in framing excuses for any disaster, or disgrace, whch may befall them. I was on duty over the prisoners a few (lays after the affair ; at the close of tl~e days march a chapel was allotted to them for the night, and to have seen them take possess- ion of it, one really would have thought that they were still march in~ free, and in a rms ; they entered it, singing, Grenadiers, ici gren ac~.isr~, ici Voltigeurs, l~, lh ; voltigeurs, l~, lhand ran tutniltuously, the grenadiers to the altar, and the voltigeurs to the galiery. In ten minutes all were at home, some playing car(ls, some singing, some dancing, here a man was performing punch, behind a great coat, xvith infinite drollery; there again, quieter men were occopied in repairing their clothes, or shoes, while in one part of the chapel a self elected orator was addressing a groupe on their late capture, in such terms, as, Ftlessieurs, vous n ~tes pas d6s- honorf~s On nous a trompe; cet espion, cet Espagnol, nous a Et comment qui vous a dit cela ~ said a rough voice. ~ replied my orator, vous me permettrez de savoir. Je suis de Paris m~me, et je connois la guerre.~~ This speech was highly approved ; for several vociferated Ah oui, il a raison nouS avons ~ vendus par cc vilain e5pion. Nous aurions battu les Anglois dans uric affaire rang~c, mais ~ said my little Parisian and just then the rations making their appear- ance, they all hurried to the door, and singing some song, the chorus of which was Bonne soupe, bonne soupe,~~ they eagerly took their meat, and set about preparing it. pp. 174, 175. Another sketch of a similar kind, and no less spirited, is to be found at pp. 1367, giving an account of an amusing in- terview with some French officers on the banks of the Tagus, where Wellington so long held his enemy at bay, and where the two armies, when it happened, had been quietly watching each other nearly three months. About the middle of February, as I was one day walking by the river side with three or fqur companions, we observed an un- usual crowd on the opposite bank, and several French officers. They saluted us, with a Bon jour, Messieurs ; and we soon fell into conversation. They were exceedingly courteous. They spoke in the highest terms of Romana, who had lately died, calling him Le seul g~n~ral Espagnol digne de son grade. They asked after Lord Wellington; saying he had done wonders with the Portuguese, and praising him greatly for his conduct of the cam- paign. They next inquired if our king was not dead; and on * 1825.] ~1musements in Spain. 55 our replying that he was not, one of them spoke, but inaudibly; another, in a louder voice, repeated Le g~n~ral dit, que tout le monde aime votre Roi George, quil a ~t& bun pare de famille, et bon pare de son peuple. We were thus, at once, let into the rank of one of their party, and not a little delighted at the manner in which they had spoken of our ex~llent and unfortunate sovereign. A great deal of good humor prevailed ; we quizzed each other freely. They asked us how we liked bacalliio and aceite, instead of English roast beef ? and we, what they did at Santarem without the restaurateurs, caf6s, and salles de spectacle of their dea!- Paris? rrhey replied, laughing, that they had a theatre; and asked us to come over, and witness the performance of that evening, which would he, LEntr6e des Fran9ois dans ~ A friend of flhlne most readily replied, that he recommended to them La repetition dune nouvelle piece, La Fuite des ~ T hey burst into a long, loud, and general laugh ;the joke was too good, too home. Their general, however, did not think it wise to remain longer; hut he pulled off his hat, and wishing us good day with perfi?ct good humor, went up the hill, and the group immediately dispersed. pp. 136138. We will add but one more extract, and that is of the French army as it appeared before and after the battle of Buzaco. On the twentysixth we again moved, and fording the Mondego, climbed the lofty Sierra de Buzaco, and found ourselves on the right of Wellingtons army, and in order of battle. Our position extended nearly eight miles along this mountainous and rocky ridge, and the ground on which we formed inclining with a slope to our own rear~ most admirably concealed both the disposition and the numhers of our force. My regiment had no sooner piled arms, than I walked to the verge of the mountain on which we lay, in the hope that I might discover something of the enemy. Little, however, ~vas I prepared for the magnificent scene which burst on my astonished sib ht. Far as the eye could stretch, the glittering of steel, and clouds of dust raised by cavalry and artillery, pro- claimed the march of a countless army ; while, immediately below me, at the feet of those precipitous heights, on which I stood, their picquets were already posted; thousands of them were already halted in their bivouacks, and column too after column, arriving in quick succession, reposed upon the ground allotted to them, and swelled the black and enormous masses. The numbers of the enemy were, at the lowest calculation, seventyfive thousand, and their host tornied in three distinct and heavy columns ; while to the rear of their left, at a more considerable distance, you might see a [July, 56 .Llmusements in Spain. large encampment of their cavalry, and the whole country behind them seemed covered with their train, their ambulance, and their corumissariat. This, then, was a French army ; here lay, before me, the men who had once, for nearly two years, kept the whole coast of England in alarm ; who had conquered Italy, overrun Austria, shouted victory on the plains~of Austerlitz, and humbled, in one day, the power, the pride, and the martial renown of Prussia, on the field of Jena. Tomorrow, meuhought, I may, for the first time, hear the din of battle, behold the work of slaughter, share the honors of a hard fought field, or be numbered with the slain. I returned slowly to the line; and, after an evening passed in very interesting and animated conversation, though we had neithem baggage nor fires, we lay down, rolled in our cloaks, and with the stony surface of the mountain for our bed, and the sky for our canopy, slept or thought away the night. Two hours before break of day, the line was under arms; but the two hours glided by rapidly and silently. At last, just as the day dawned, a few distant shots were heard on our left, and were soon followed by the discharge of cannon, and the quick, heavy, and continued roll of musketry. We received orders to move, and support the troops attacked; the whole of Hills corps, amounting to fourteen thousand men, was thrown into open column, and moved to its left in steady double quick, and in the highest order. When within about a furlong of one of the points of attack, from which the enemy was just then driven by the seventyfourth regiment, I cast my eye back to see if I could discover the rear of our divisions ; eleven thousand men were following ; all in sight, all in open column, all rapidly advancing in double quick time. No one but a soldier, can picture to himself such a sight ; and it is, even for him, a rare and a grand one. It certainly must have had a very strong effect on such of the enemy as, froni the summit of the ridge, which they had most intrepidly ascended, beheld it, and who, ignorant of Hills presence, thought they had been attack- ing the extreme of the British right. We were halted exactly in rear of that spot, from which the seventyfomirth regiment, having just repulsed a column, ~ as retiring in line, with the most beautiful regularity, its colors all torn with shot. Here a few shells flew harmlessly over our line, but we had not the honor of being en- gaged. The first wounded man I ever beheld in the field was carried past me, at this moment; he was a fine young Englishman, in the Portuguese service, and lay helplessly in a blanket, with both his legs shattered by cannon shot. He looked p;mle, and big drops of perspiration stood on his manly forehead; but lie spoke nothis agony appeared unutterable. I sect etly wished him death; a mercy, I believe, that was not very long withheld. About this time, Lord Wellington, with a numerous staff, galloped up, and 1825.] mu sements in Spain. 57 delivered his orders to General Hill, immediately in front of our corps; I therefore distinctly overheard him. If they attempt this point again, [liii, you will give them a volley, and charge bayonets; but dont let your peoJ)le follow them too far down the bill. I was paricularly struck ~ith the style of this order, so decided, so manly, and breathing doubt as to the repulse of any attack ; it confirmed confidence. ord Wellingtons simplicity of manner in the deli ery of orders, and in command, is quite that of an able man. He has nothing of the truncheon about him ; no- thing full mouthed, important, or fussy ; his orders, on the field, are all short, quick, clear, and to the purpose. The French, how- ever, never moved us throughout the day ; their two desperate assaults had been successfully repelled, and their loss, as coml)ared to ours, excee~lingly severe. From the ridge, in front of our present ground, we could see them far better than the evening before; arms, apl)ointments, uniforms, were all distinguishable. They occupied themselves in removina their wounded from the foot of our position; hut as none of their troops broke up, it was generally concluded that they would renew their attacks on the morrow. hi the course of the day, our men ~vent down to a small brook, which cowed bet~veen the opposing armies, for ~vater ; and French and English soldiers might be seen drinking out of the sanie narrow stream, and even leaning over to shake hands with each other. One private, of my own reginient, actually exchanged forage caps with a soldier mA the enemy, as a token of regard and good will. Such courtesies, if they (10 not disguise, at least soften the horIid features of war; and it is thus we learn to reconcile our minds to scenes of blood and carnage. Towardr sunset, our picquets were sent down the hill, and I plainly saw them posted among the corpses ot those, who had thllen in the morning. Nothing, how- ever, immediately near us, presented the idea of recent slaughter; for the loss, on our side, was so partial, and considering the extent of our line, so trifling, that there was little, if aov, vestige of it ; not so the enemy; but as they suffered principally on their retreat down the hill, their slain lay towards the bottom of it ; from whence, indeed, they had been removing their wounded. The view of the enemys camp by night far exceeded, irt grandeur, its imposing aspect by day. Innumerable and bmilliant fires illuminated all the country spread below us; while they yet flamed brightly,the shadowy figures of men and horses, and the glittering piles of arms were all visible. Here and there, indeed, the view was interrupted by a ft~~v dark patches of black Ar, which, by a gloomy contrast, heightened the effect of the picture; but, long after the flames expired, the red embers still emitted the most rich and glowing rays, and seemed, like stars, to gem the dark VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 8 58 ./lmusements in Spain. [July, bosom of the earth, conveying the sublime ideas of a firmament spread beneath our feet. pp. 107112. Occasionally the author gives us picturesque descriptions of the scenery and manners he found in Spain ; but when he is on these portions of his work, he indulges himself in an affect- ation of sentimental, fine writing, which is remarkably mis- placed in the midst of the stirring adventures of a soldiers life. This sentimentality is, indeed, the principal and pro- minent fault of the work, and may be sufficiently offensive to some persons to induce them to throw it down altogether; but, for ourselves, we think it is redeemed by the happy sketches it gives of what belongs to actual service,of an officers life in the midst of his soldiers, in his tent, in his bivouack, in quarters, and before the enemy. We wish, however, that he had spoken oftener and mere at large of the Spanish national character, as it was exhibited to him amidst the various fortunes of the war of the pen- insula, when it was brought out in so many ways. This character is, undoubtedly, one of the most strongly marked, and, in some of its appearances, the most picturesque in Europe ; little known abroad, and often very wrongly esti- mated. We had once intended to give sketches of it, as far as it is exhibited in popular amusements, which, in all countries, and especially under despotic governments, are among its most prominent indications. But the subject proved too extensive, and we reluctantly abandoned it. As, however, our recollections of the Spanish character have been revived by the little work, we have just noticed, we have thought we would endeavor to give some impression of the two most popular amusements in Spain, amusements which are undoubtedly, as characteristic of the nation as any thing in modern Europe. We refer to their public walks, and to their bull fights; and select the Prado, or great public walk at Madrid, and the Madrid bull fights, both because they are the most characteristic and splendid of any in the country, and because no attempt has been made to describe them which can be considered, in any good degree, suc- cessful.* * We ought, perhaps, to except Blanco Whites description of the bull fights of Seville; but these are quite different from the festivals at Madrid, and much less splendid. 1825.] ./Imusements in Spain. 59 The Prado of Madrid is, both to Spaniards qnd strangers, a source of inexhaustible amusement. As a public walk, it is one of the finest within the walls of any European city, finer, in most respects, than either the Tuilleries at Paris, or the Chiaja at Naples. It begins at the gate of Atocha, and passing the magnificent entrance of AlcakE, extends round to the gate and convent of the Recoletos, following the limits of the city. Anciently it was an uneven mea(low or field, as it~ name, like that of the Prater at Vienna, derived from the Latin, pratum, plainly shows; and, while it was in this con- dition, it was famous as the scene of most of the plots, duels, murders, and intrigues of the city, as is, at once, seen in the old plays and ballads. It was not, however, until the middle of the last century, when the adjacent palace of the Buen Retiro rose to great favor, that Charles the Third levelled it, planted it with trees, and made it the beautiful walk it now is On entering it from the gate of AlcaEL, or rather from the street of the same name, the stranger finds himself in the midst of a superb, wide opening, called the saloon ; on the right hand of which is a double walk, and on the left, first a broad drive for the carriages, wide enough for four or five to pass abreast, and afterwards another double walk; the whole ornamented with three fine fountains and eight rows of trees, statues, and marble seats. During the forenoon and nearly the whole of the afternoon, in the fine season, no part of the city is so silent and deserted as this; and yet when the heat will permit, it is a spot, which, of all others in Madrid, is most attractive by its freshness, its solitude, and its shade. Be- tween five and six oclock, the whole Prado is carefully watered, to prevent the dust, which would otherwise be in- tolerable, in a city where rain is very rare in the summer season. Just before sunset the carriages of all Madrid, and a great proportion of the population of the city begin to appear; and about half an hour after sunset, the exhibition is in its greatest splendor. There is nothing like it anywhere else. In the vast space appropriated to the carriages and horsemen, two rows of coaches, forming one unbroken line, move, at a slow walk, up and down on each side, as they do in the Corso of Rome during the carnival, prevented by their own multitude from advancing any faster; while the 60 Amusements in Spain. [July1 king, the infantas, and the royal family, with their guards, dash up and ~Iown in the midst, at a full trot, in a space kept open for them, and compel every body on foot to be un- covered, and every body in a carriage to stop, and. however awkward the manoeuvre may be, to stand up. But such equipages can be found in no other pait of Christendom, such a motley confusion, or such a strange and incongruous variety ; for the fashions of at least three centuries are con- founded so completely, that it is often difficult to tell to which the different parts belong, and impossible to conjecture how they have been thus brought together. First, perhaps, comes along a beautiful coup~e, such as might be ventured at the exhibition of Longehamp, or in Hyde Park, but drawn with difficulty by two worn out mules, attached to it by ropes, and with a postilion who looks as if he had conic down un- changed, from the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. Next follows a gothic looking chariot, without springs, covered with antique carving and gilding, but with two fine Andalusian steeds, who are kept with difficulty in the grave and rneasu red pace prescribed to all, while, behind the vast machine, stands a light chasseur of the newest pattern, with his feathered chapeau de bras stuck affectedly under his arm. After this comes, perhaps, a broken down, dirty modern coach, painted on its pannels with all four footed and creeping things, and seeming almost covered over with laced lacqueys, and fi~ally follows some ambassadors splendid parade barouche, which makes all the rest look dim and mean. But amusing as is the procession, which is thus brought together in the Prado, partly by the vanity of the nobility, who have hardly any opportunity except this to show themselves, but chiefly be- cause there is no other drive in Madrid or its neighborhood it should still be remembered, that the prevalent custom of using mules instead of horses, which extends even to the royal family, and the great proportion of antiquated, grotesque carriages, covered with all forms of vulgar painting and gild- ing, prevent this part of the exhibition from being little else besides amusing to a foreigner. The exhibition on foot, however, in the saloon, and in the walks adjacent to it, is altogether different. The greater part of the persons, who constitute it, are women ; and the na- tional costume for them, which all are compelled to observes 1S25.] ~musemenz~s in Spain. 61 from the highest to the lowest, the moment they appear abroad, except in a carriage, is so singularly adapted to pro- duce a picturesque effect, and by its uniformity, to conceal any negligence in the dress of an individual, that a collection of Spanish women in the national costume, though taken from all classes, often resembles the~groups, that are carefully and fancifully collected in the ballet of a grand opera to produce a stage effect. But this effect is nowhere so strikingly pro- duced, as in the Prado of Madrid, where, above all others, the Spanish women (lelight to resort, and wheie their peculiar dress and manners can be best exhibited. The sh& ~v they make here, is, indeed, altogether unique. Their dark hasquiiia so sets off their passionate physiognomy, and full, piercing eyes; there is such grace and coquetry in all their movements, in their manner of wearing and flirting their beau~ tiful veils, and of beckoning a salutation to their acquaintance with their fans, as well as in the neatness and skill with which they dress every part of their persons, and particularly their feet, that every time a stranger sees this vast crowd of the Prado, mingled with the great number of the officers of the royal guard, who are always there in their showy uniforms, and the still greater number of monks and priests, in their dark, severe costumes, he must be persuaded anew, that it is the most beautiful moving panorama the world can afford. At about three quarters of an hour after sunset, when the crowd is the greatest, the bell of the neighboring convent tolls for the angelus, or evening prayer, and the long line of carriages stops as if by magic, while every body on foot becomes instantly fixed as a statue, and prays, or seems to pray, in perfect silence. The effect is very striking; for the whole of this immense crowd, which an instant before sent tip a murmur like the chafing of the distant ocean, is now as still as the earth beneath its feet; but in a moment afterwards, the busy hum and movement begin again, and all goes on as gaily as hefore. By eight or nine oclock, however, even in midsummer, the multitude begins to melt away, and at ten none but the ordinary passengers are met there ; except that sometimes, during the extreme heats, little parties are formed, that send for refreshments and music, and protract their gay evening, on the borders of one of the fountains, uiitil mid- night. 62 Amusements in Spain. [July, The great amusement, however; the national and prevail- ing amusement ; the amusement that swallows up all the rest, is the Fiestas de Toros,the hull feasts, or bull fights. It is purely and exclusively Spanish ;* and the passion with which it is sought by all classes, and with which it seems always to have heen sought in Spain, is inconceivable to one who has not witnessed it, and would be incredible upon common testi- mony, if we had not the histories of the gladiators and the circensia to confirm it. Nothing has been written about the history of the hull fights, and very little can probably now be learnt of their origin. They do not seem to have come from the Romans, or to have much resembled the hull fights C~sar introduced at Rome, which were probably taken from the contests, that were so famous in Larissa, and which must have continued very late, since they are mentioned by Heliodorus in his ]Ethiopica. The first intimations we have chanced to meet of Spanish hull fights, are in the Chronicle of the Cid, the oldest Spanish chronicle extant, which numbers them among the merry makings at the wedding of the Cids daugh- ters, which happened in the eleventh century. The General Chronicle of Spain, that rich mine, from which so many of the best materials for Spanish poetry and history have heen alike drawn, says incidentally, that they were among the amusements in Saldaiia, on the wedding of Alfonso the Seventh, of Castille, in 1124. A century later, the passion for them had become so decided, that Alfonso the Wise, in his famous laws called the Partidas, 12561263, found it necessary particularly to forbid prelates from indulging in them, though it is now an amusement at which an ecclesiastic would think it indecent to be present. At the marriage of John the Second, in 1418, they were remarked for their sl)lendor, and Manrique the poet, who lived in the latter part of that century, speaks of their great fame in his time. * Bull fights have been held, we believe, in Bayonne, and certainly in the remains of the Roman amphitheatre at Nismes; but this is owing, in both instances, to the immediate neighborhood of Spain, and the influence of Spanish manners; and, in each, they have been clumsily conducted, and had little success. In the middle ages, too, we have some notices of bull fights, the most remarkable of which is described by Gibbon, c. 72, and took place in the Coliseum, September 3, 1332, when eighteen knights were killed, obviously for want of practice in the art. Except these, however, we believe all other bull fights, of which we read, should be called bull baitiisgs, and have no resemblance to the Spanish. 1825.] Ilmusements tn Spain. 63 From this period till the age of Philip the Third, was the most splendid epoch of the bull fights, for they were common throughout Spain, both among Moors and Christians; and the persons, who fought on all the great public festivals and rejoicings, were cavaliers and noblemen of distinction. In- deed, it was now so high ai~ accomplishment, that it was praise enough to say of any one, as Roxas, in one of his plays, makes a prime minister say to his king, of a subject he recommends to great favor, that he is So brave, That with his single arm, he overthrows The leader of the herd. The poetry of this period, too, especially their beautifully wild national ballads, is full of the bull fights in Seville, Ocainpo, Medina Cmli, & c, where Moors and Christians often joined in the same festival, and it was so truly one of the accomplish- ments of a good knight, that even the kings themselves prac- tised it. Isabella, however, to whose patronage we owe the discovery of America, declared herself entirely opposed to them in her kingdom of Arragon, though still, at the same tune she expresses her horror at their cruelties in a letter to her confessor, which is still extant, and is, perhaps, the earliest record of an unlimited condemnation of the amuse- ment in Spain, she acknowledges they are so passionately loved by her people, that she does not venture to prohibit them. Her personal opinion and feelings, however, probably produced little effect at the time, and were certainly soon forgotten. Her grandson, the Emperor Charles the Fifth, as old Sandoval relates with pedantic minuteness in his history, killed a bull with his own haud in fair battle, at the games given in Vailadolid, in honor of the birth of Philip the Second. Philip the Second, we believe, sometimes relaxed from his gloomy seventies to join in them ; Philip the Third certainly did ; and Pizarro, the bloody conqueror of South America, was the most famous bull fighter of his time. From the remotest period, too, the bull fights had been made a part of the great religious ceremonies and festivals of the country; and in the general splendor of all exhibitions in Spain, during the seventeenth century, they maintained their relative importance. At the great public and popular re- joicings, held on the canonization of San Isidro of Madrid, 64 slmusements in Spain. [July, San Tgnacio, San Xavier, and Santa Teresa, we are told that above three hundred bulls were killed, but these seem to have been the last exhibitions held in the capital, with such pomp and prodigality. Soon afterwards, the Bourbon dynasty came upon the Spanish throne, an(I brought manners and feelings, on such points, different from those of the Austrian family, which had preceded it. Under this new administration of Spain, therefore, the spirit of the arena for a long time de- dined, and the art of bull fighting seemed to be gradually passing out of the list of chivalrous accomplishments. Still, in 1725, there was a Count Pinto, who was distinguished in them ; in 175055 a gentleman attached to the Court, and grandfather of Moratin, the admirable comic writer, now alive, used to play as an amateur; and in 1818, Don Pedro Romero, a person of family and consequence, repeatedly ap- peare(l in the arena of Madrid, from mere passion for the amusement. In Andalusia, the nobility have private hull fights at their country seats, in which they take part themselves; and in the city, of Seville there was, seven years ago, a Viscount Miranda, the head of an old and rich family, who used to he seen in the streets daily in the dress of a bull fighter, and who, in the am- phitheatre, if the animal proved uncommonly brave, was often tumultuously called for by the populace, and always obeyed. As a general remark, however, the bull fights rather strug- gled for their existence in Spain, during the latter half of the last century. Charles the Third, the wisest of the Bourbon dynasty, forbade them altogether ; Charles the Fourth, the weakest of his race, restored them ; but vexed at a personal insult, offered to him in the arena, forbade them anew in 1805; Joseph Bonaparte reestablished them among other expedients to obtain popular favor ; and the Cortes continued them for the same reason. On the return of Ferdinand in 1814, it was contemplated again to abolish them; but the people were found so passionately attached to them, that it was con- sidered most prudent to let them go on ; and within a few years, this passion has so completely possessed the whole royal family, that the king and the infantas, not content with the pub- lic exhibition, which they never miss, and most munificently support, have begun to have private lenten entertainments of bull fights, at which noblemen enter the lists ; so that they 1825.] simusements in Spain. c~5 seem now to be more firmly established and in greater favor, than they have been since the extinction of the Austrian family. Redeunt Saturnia regna. The bull fights probably had their origin in the habit of hunting the animal wild. Afterwards, we find they were prac- tised outside of the cities, where the bulls, previously caught and partially prepared and exasperated, were let loose into the open plains. John the Second, 14071454, the first pa- troii of letters, who ever sat on the throne of Castile, was also the first who brought bull fights within the walls of the cities, and established them in the public squares, where the animals were easily confined within a small space, and could be con- veniently and safely seen by a greater number of persons. Philip the Third, in 1619, first opened them in the Plaza May- or, or great square of Madrid, wl~ich he arranged expressly for this purpose. Hence we read continually in the old ballads and chronicles, that the knight came under the balcony of his mistress, and received a scarf, a token, or a smile, for the spectators were placed in the balconies and windows of the houses round the squares, upon stages and scaffoldings, and on the roofs and chimneys; and the bull was kept in by a line of lancers, who filled all the openings into the square, and presented their pikes to him whenever he approached them. The one, on whose lance he ran, received him as a reward for not blenching; but the bull rarely had courage to attempt so formidable an array, though he sometimes ventured with suc- cess, for there is a grave sonnet of Lope de Vega addressed to a bull, that broke the German guard and escaped. All this, however, was ill arranged, awkward, and danger- ous; few could see the spectacle well ; and accidents occurred very often. At last, therefore, in 1684, a regular amphitheatre, in the Roman form, was built or the city of Madrid, capable of containing fourteen thousand persons, and others were soon afterwards built in other parts of Spain ; but still these am phitheatres are everywhere called Plazas de Toros, as much as if the festival were still held in the public squares. The one at Madrid, it is curious enough to know, stands on the very spot, where the Inquisition before had its Brasero to burn Jews and heretics, so that its arena, like that of the Colosceum, covers the ashes of many a martyr and confessor. In this VOL. xxi.No. 48. 9 66 drn.usements in Spain. [July, amphitheatre, which is outside the gate of Alcal~, the bull fights have been held ever since, except at great royal festivals, when it is thought more becoming the magnificence of the occasion to return to the great public square. They take place only in summer, and during the season when the heat is not extreme, thoogh certainly when, in Ma- drid, it is excessive, for they are omitted only during August and a small part of July and September. They happen always on Monday, and are given both morning and afternoon; in the morning with six, and the afternoon with eight bulis; but each part of the day, if the royal family be present, which now rarely fails, the people demand an extra victim, and it is uniformly granted. Great preparations are made long beforehand. Fine bulls are collected from all parts~ of the kingdom, and pastured a few miles from Madrid; the best and fiercest coming from La Mancha, Navarre, and Andahrsia. Two days before the festival they are driven in, to the great dismay of any person who may chance to he on the road, for they do not always treat those they meet as civilly as they did Don Quixote near Saragossa. On their arrival, they are shut up in a pasture near the amphitheatre, and on Sunday evening vast crowds of the common people go out to see them, as if it were a great show, and amuse themselves in speculating, with much shrewdness and humor, on the different degrees of courage and skill the different vicPms will exhibit in the arena. At length the long desired day arrives, and, for all pur- poses of business, Madrid is like a protestant Sunday. The whole city throngs to the circus, or at least the wbole of that floating population, which gives life to the streets and shops. Fourteen thousand can obtain admission, but many more re- main waiting on the outside, merely to hear and repeat the shouts and stories that come from within. The amphitheatre itself is built of wood, hut almost precisely like the Roman, except that, round its top is a row of covered boxes, in which the principal persons sit, instead of sitting below, near what wa~ anciently called the podium. Those, who have fixed places, are admitted in the same way they were admitted at the Colosmun, by a ticket indicating the door where they are to enter, and the bench on which their seat is reserved; 1825.] si m usements in Spain. but those who have no fixed places, that is, the poorer classes, go very early, at six or seven oclock in the morning, to con- tend for the best to which they obtain access. In going down the broad and magnificent street of Alcal~, which is generally empty and silent, till the hour for the Prado arrives, it is found, even at eight or nine oclock in the morn- ing, filled with a noisy crowd of grandees in their awkward, clumsy coaches; of the middling classes in rattling heavy cabriolets, and calesinas, and the poorer inhabitants on foot jostling one another in their haste, to obtain an early admit- tance. The crowd continually thickens, until, round the amphitheatre, it often becomes a press. The passages and galleries are dark and inconvenient; a stranger feels almost discouraged in passing through them; but when his disap- pointment is greatest, in an instant, he emerges into the inner circle of the amphitheatre. The show, that is then so suddenly opened upon him, is beautiful and imposing beyond all names of beauty and grandeur; for what is there so splendid and so animating as a vast multitude in a picturesque costume, gracefully disposed ; and what is there so graceful in its dis- position as this very same form of the amphitheatre, with one row rising gradually above another; not bringing with it ideas of emptiness and desolation, like the ruins of Verona or Capua, but thronged in every part with an eager, impatient population, animated through all its ranks by one thought, one feeling, one burning passion? The clock strikes ten, and, punctual to an instant, because the people, which truly feels the power of a people today, as it did in the spectacles and games of Constantinople, long after such free feeling was elsewhere entirely subdued, punctual to an instant, the Corregidor, who is the chief police officer of the city, enters on a superb horse, richly caparison- ed, but himself dressed in a suit of plain black velvet, and followed by four officers of justice; and making his way through the crowd that still fills the arena, advances respect- fully to the royal box and stops beneath it. There the royal permission to celebrate the festival is solemnly given, by throwing down to him a key to open the enclosure contain- ing the victims, after which he rides slowly round the amphi- theatre, to drive out the multitude, stopping before each of its four entrances, which he causes to be closed and fastened, and going out at the last himself. tiuly, (i~ dmusernents in 5Sj~ain. Five alguazils now come in on foot to see if all be quiet, and examine the whole arena ; but as they are the lowest officers of justice, and its executioners, the populace usually begins the exercise of its prerogatives for the day, by hissing and hooting them out. When they are gone, two of the gates of the arena are opened, and a nhmber of 1)ulls are driven across and out again, that all may see before hand how fitly the games have been furnished. But from this moment the barbarities of the festival commence, for as soon as these devoted animals arrive in the stalls where they are kept, an iron barb, or spike, xvith a ribbon attached to it, whose color indicates the province from which its bearer comes, is driven in between the shoulders of each bull; and it may serve as an indication of the state of manners at court, to know, that the wife of the Infante Don Carlos has often boasted, that she sometimes amused herself with driving in those very irons, whose chief object is to exasperate the victim by the torments they inflict. In the meantime, while measures are taking to excite the bulls to the necessary degree of ferocity, which is plainly enouoh announced to the eager crowd without, by their en- a raged bellowings, the Corregidor comes in leading two of the Picadors, or those who fight on horseback, and places them on each side of the gate by which the bulls must enter. These Picadors, it should be noted, like all who mingle in the games, first confess themselves, in a chapel built and consecrated for the purpose in the grounds of the amphi- theatre, where the sacred tapers are kept constantly burning, and a priest and the host constantly ready to administer the sacrament, and extreme unction, to any who may he mortally wounded,a practice singularly characteristic of that union of gross superstition with vulgar guilt and brutality, which is often found among the banditti and smugglers of Spain, and of which very striking descriptions are given in many works of Spanish fiction ; hut especially in the tale of the Jealous Estremadurian, by Cervantes. But to return to the games; the Corregidor, after having placed the two men on horseback at their posts, gallops out; but returns an instant afterwards with a key, which he gives to the keeper of the gate by which the bull must enter, with permission to open it; and then hastens out again for the 1825.] ./1;n.nsements in Spain. 69 last time, humbly salntin~ the royal box, in sign of having fulfilled all his duties. Thus far, the splendor of the cere- monies, the animation of the crowd, composed more than half of women in their picturesque national costume, and the grand effect of a compact mass of fourteen thousand l)COplC, the whole of which can be t~Ven in at one single glance, make the bull fights, probably, the most exciting and imposing spectacle of modern times. The festival, as it is called, now begins in earnest. A signal is given from the royal box; a flourish of trumpets instantly follows, accompanied by the shouts of the whole multitude within and without the amphitheatre ; the doors of the dcii, where the bull is confined, spring open, and he bounds into the arena, goaded to fury by the iron driven in between his shoulders. Sometimes he makes an instant and furious attack on one of the Picadors ; sometimes he hesitates a moment, startled at the shouts of the crowd ; and sometimes be pauses in the centre with an air of coolness and dignity, as if he were not insensible to the ignominy of his persecution. The two Picadors* begin the attack. Like all who fi~ht in the games, they are very fancifully and very richly dressed in the ancient Andalusian costume, which is partly of Arabic origin, and displays their fine persons to great advantage. It may in some respects be called a splendid dress, and the people are greatly offended at the smallest want of exactness or show, in this ancient national costume, to xvhich they are greatly attached ; and to which, indeed, they associate some of the fondest recollections of their earlier greatness. These Picadors are always mounted on horseback, with peculiar saddles, resembling the Mameluke saddles, and with stirrups that cover nearly the whole foot ; but, except a very imperfect protection for their legs, their whole persons are exposed, and they have nothing to defend themselves but a long pole called a garrocha, at whose extremity a sharp spear point is fixed; but so guarded. that it cannot enter above an inch and a quarter. One Picador only can maintain the contest at a time, and the bull must attack him, and not he the bull, or else, as in all other cases of the combat, very It is somewhat curious, that Centaur and Picador should have substantially the same meaning; since Centaur is derived from KeVTeLV Tav()ovr. 70 ./lmusements in Spent. [July, great risk is run. The Picador endeavors, therefore, to place himself in front of the victim, but a little to the left band and the moment the bull sees him in a threatening position, he stoops his head for a blow, shuts his eyes instinctively, and runs in full career at his adversary. The horseman. at the same moment, advances to meet him ; turns his horse, by a slight motion of the bridle hand, to the left, in order to receive the attack on his own right ; and then endeavors to strike the hull about the shoulder, where, if the blow takes good effect, it is sufficient to push him quite off to the right, and wound him so severely as to make it almost impossible he should still urge his attack. If all this succeeds, as it generally does, the Picador puts spurs to his horse, gallops triumphantly to the opposite side of the arena, and then re- turns to meet another assault. If, however, the blo~v is ill struck, or if the bull has the courage still to press on, he comes of course within the spear point of his enemy, who being now without defence, his horse must inevitably be wounded or killed on the spot. This is necessarily a mo- ment of great al)parent danger; for the rider falls of course with his horse, and for an instant is at the mercy of the enraged animal he has so cruelly provoked. Accidents, however, as they are called, are commonly prevented in this, as in all cases during the combat, by a simple but very ingenious contrivance, in the arena and in a passage or space that runs quite round it, and is separated from it hy a barrier about five feet high, are stationed, perhaps, a dozen men on foot, with large pieces of cloth, several yards long, generally scarlet or blue, and called capas, because they were originally the cloaks of the combatants. Two or three of these persons, the instant there is any danger to the Pica- dor, hasten towards the contest completely unarmed, and even come quite near the bull, and play and shake these cloaks before his eyes. He, at once, leaves his object, however great may be his fury, and from an instinct of his nature, follows the color that has dazzled him. The person who carries the cloak he pursues, lets it fall, and the bull generally stops and tears it with his feet and horns; but if he advances, the dexterous individual who has deluded him and drawn him away, springs over the barrier into the passage way, and is safe. Sometimes, indeed, the exasperated ani 1825.] ~/hnusements in Spain. 71 mal is of force snfflcient to leap this barrier, and pursue his enemy into the space immediately below the lowest row of the spectators. A bull of great power and ferocity has l)een known to do this repeatedly. But there is no danger from a, for those who are in the passage have merely to spring back into the arena, where their enemy can follow them only by one of the regular gates, through which he is, indeed, immediately driven back again to the contest, amidst the shouts of the spectators, who thus honor his rare courage, as if he were sensible to their applause. A bull of good spirit ~vill continue to attack the Picadors, until he has received ten, and sometimes fifteen blows of the lance, dexterously bestowed; but, by that time, he finds the contest is more unequal than he at first supposed ; his spirits fail, and he stands at bay in the centre, perfectly secure, since the attack must always come from himself, as it is then only, he so stoops his head and closes his eyes, as to give his adversaries the necessary advantage in the contest. This part of the fight, however, is more distressing and loathsome than any other, from the horrid sights of cold blooded cruelty it necessarily offers. On this point, indeed, the bull fights are worse than the shows of the gladiators; for in the Roman amphitheatre, courage ann success saved the victim, but here, no courage, no coolness, no address, can save him, since it is the very principle of the contest, that the bulls should be the most bold and ferocious in the kingdom, and its very entertainment, that when these exasperated animals have defended themselves with a perfect bravery, and killed a large number of unresisting horses, they too should be sacri- ficed. A single bull has been known to kill four horses in ten minutes. But this is not the worst ; for such is their barbarous economy in the lives of these unfortunate animals, that horses are constantly spurred on to sustain another at- tack, when large portions of their flesh have been torn out; while others, who have been so ripped open by the horns of the bull, that their viscera are seen hanging down, and lite- rally and visibly marking the arena with blood every step they advance, are yet compelled to go on, until they sink down in the agonies and convulsions of death. And these, it should be remembered, are both of them ordinary circum 72 dmusements in Spain. [July, stances in the exhibition, and constitute no small portion of its excitement. At last, then, the wearied victim stands at bay in tile centre; and when it is seen that he will no longer be provoked, by gesture or menace, to attack the Picador, the people express their indignation in loud mnrinurs,~if he has yielded too soon, or applaud him with shouts, that may be heard for miles, if he has continued the fight long and obstinately. Formerly there were three punishments for a bull, who showed that he wanted the proper ferocity so early in his trial; to hamstring him, to give hhn over to the dogs, and to put squibs and crackers on his back. Tne first, which was a kind of igno- minious death, is no longer used; the second, which is ex- tremely cruel, especially to the dogs, is of rare occurrence; but the last, whose purpose is to exasperate the animals fury, is not very uncommon, though permitted only when the multitude will not otherwise be appeased. The cry for fire, or for the dogs, is one of the most appalling shouts of the amphitheatre, and is uttered in tones peculiarly sharp and savage. When it is certain the bull will no longer turn on the horsemen, a signal is given from the royal box; the trumpets sound again; and five or six men called Banderilleros, all on foot, and all as fancifully and richly dressed as their predecessors, advance into the arena, armed only with two sticks about eighteen inches long, called Banderillas, or little flags, because they are gaudily decorated with ribbons and painted paper. Their extremities end in very sharp barbs, and every Banderillero carries one of them in each hand. A single individual thus armed, now goes in a provoking manner towards the bull, who seeing but one enemy, and that one so feeble, rushes furiously upon him; but, at the instant he stoops his head and shuts his eyes to strike, his cool and dexterous adversary plunges these barbed points into his neck, and he inevitably shrinks from the suffering they produce. His rage now knows no bounds, for his agony has become intolerable. The blood from his wounds runs down his sides, the foam falls at every breath from his nos- trils, he utters piercing cries, tears up the sand, and attacks whatever he sees, from the undistinguishing fury produced 1825.] .ilmusemen/s in Spain. by the acuteness of his torments. The prodigious dexterity of his adversaries, however, trifles alike with his strength and his rage; and every attack he makes on them, only leaves two more of these inSLll)portable torments in his flesh. By the time, however, that six or eight have been left hanging by their barbs from his neck, h~e is no longer in a condition to receive any more ; and exhausted, breathless, and almost deprived of the power of resistance, he stands again at bay in the centre. Again the trumpets sound, and the third and last form of the fight is begun. The McUador (killer) comes slowly into the arena, dressed in a superb suit of black velvet, and hold- ing only a naked sword in one hand, and a small scarlet flag in the other. He presents himself beneath the royal box, and kneeling there, receives an order to finish the sufferings of the noble animal, whose force and couiage have been of so little avail to defend him. When the Matador has re- ceived this order, he turns instantly but with great calmness towards the bull, who, again deceived by the apparent weakness of his adversary, and inexpiessibly irritated by the scarlet color, which, to the last, retains its power to rouse his ferocity, collects all his strength for one desperate efli~rt of re- venge ; but misled by his very instinct, his attack falls upon the flag, and not the Matador ; his horns l)~55 inevitably within a hairs breadth of the life of his adversaiy, who, confident in his own skill, at that very instant turns slightly on one foot, levels his sword at the juncture of the neck and shoulder blade in front, and holds it firmly till the fury of the bull has driven him full upon it, and left it to the hilt in his body, when he falls, amidst the exulting shouts of ihe amphitheatre; but almost always so slowly and so nobly, that it seems as if, like Plinys Roman Gladiator, he were determined to die with composure and dignity. As soon as the hull is dead, three mules harnessed abreast, superbly decorated with rich caparisons, and with a flag mounted on the collar of each, are brought into the arena, and a rope attached to the bulls horns, by which they drag him out at a full gaHop, accompanied by a grand flourish oI trumpets and anothei shout of the people. Regular shambles are very near, where the carcass is immediately cut up by public butchers, and the meat sold at a low rate to the infe VOL. Xxi.No. 48. 10 74 ~Irnusements in Spain. [July, nor classes, while, in the meantime, the great den of the amphitheatre is again thrown open, and another victim is contending vainly fcr life, with the same adversaries, and amidst the same ceremonies and horrors. This is the amusement of the king, the court, and a large portion of the people of Madrid~ from kn oclock till one, and from three till seven, during the season when it is possible to enjoy it in the open air. The passion, with which it is sought, is almost inconceivable, and would he considered a new 1)henomenon in human nature, if we had not the his- tories of the games of Rome and Constantinople before us. It begins with the earliest years of the peoI)le of Spain, and is as thoroughly inbred as education can make it. Children, not more than five or six years old, may be seen everywhere in the streets imitating bull fights, in the mockery which Gongora has described with such happy simplicity, in one of his most beautiful ballads. Afterwards, they are every day seeing the representations of them, with which the walls of their houses are often painted, and hearing them the subject of continual conversation and universal interest; so that boys, not fourteen years old, may be found in the amphitheatre, who have already acquired all the pretensions and pedantry of hardened amateurs. Nor is this love for the amusement confined to one class, or one division of society. Monday is a holiday in Madrid for all ages and ranks; and not only for those who go to the amphitheatre, but for those who stay at home. The shops are shut ; the journeymen and apprentices claim it from their masters as a day of amusement ; and the mechanics and lower classes refuse to work at almost any price; while, on the other hand, in the public offices, from the prime minister to the humblest drudge in the customs, whatever may be asked for, no answer will be returned, hut the uni- versal and all prevailing apology of the bull fights. Nothing, indeed, can prevent the multitude from going, if they have the means; not even the intense heat, which almost brings life itself to a pause in Madrid ; and if they cannot get seats on the shady side, they will sit in the sun during one of the burning noons of July or September, and do it so heedlessly, that, a few years ago, the first bull fight given after the dog days, sent a crowd of patients to the hospital, thirtyeight of 1825.] .lrnusernents in Spain. 75 whom died almost immediately of fevers thus caught in the amphitheatre. But the moral effects of the bull fights are more fatal yet. The extreme interest the common people take in whatever relates to them rises afterwards, at every moment of excite- ment, to passion and guilt. Quarrels grow up about a fa- vourite Picador or Banderillero, that are never appeased; the details of one of these shows become the occasions of family bitterness for life ; they are among the causes of the frequent assassinations in Madrid ; and, in 1818, a man stabbed his own brother in open day, in one of the most public streets of the city, so that he fell instantly dead, in consequence of a difference that had thus arisen in the amphitheatre in the morning. These are certainly very extraordinary facts, well enough known in Spain, hut little known anywhere else ; such as cannot be recollected by those strangers, who have witnessed them, without horror, nor be read by others without astonish- ment, and perhaps incredulity. It must be curious, then, to inquire for a moment, what there is in the bull fights, of power thus to excite and inflame the passions of a whole people; and thus to take, for a time, from such vast multitudes, some of the highest and best attributes of our nature. In the first place, there is the animation of the crowd, divided into par- ties, that take sides with the bulls according to the provinces from which they come, as indicated by the ribbons on their necks; and continually excited and exciting; continually passing from one strong emotion to its opposite; now mur- muring at a Picador, because his bJow was not well struck; now crying out to have fire put upon the bulls back to ex- asperate his failing rage; and now waving their hats, and handkerchiefs, and fans, and shouting bravo, till the heavens seem to echo it again, because, goaded to desperation, he has left his eighth horse dead in the arena.* Now, setting aside the cruelty of all this, as those who are accustomed to it really do, and recollecting and seeing only the immense po- pulation so gracefully arranged round the amphitheatre, and constantly bursting forth with such varied and passionate feel * No bull is allowed to kill more than eight horses. When he has done this, he is given over to the Banderilleros and the Matador, as one not to be subdued by the garroche. 76 dinuseinents in Spain. [July ing, it is not easy to imagine a spectacle more splendid and magnificent. Indeed, it is certainly true, that the power of human sympathy will not suffer any man entirely to resist it. It is curious and interesting too, under a despotism like the Spanish~ to see the people, when, from their union in a great mass, they for a moment feel their own strength, and horn their excitement are disposed to use it; when, in fact, they feel themselves to he what they ale, and become free in con- sequence of it. Royalty is little respected on Mondays in Madrid; and, therefore, whatever the people persist in de- manding at the amphitheatre is granted to them, to avoid dis- agreeable consequences. The entire freedom the populace take to themselves, on these occasions, and which seems to constitute not a little of their excitement, is often very remark able, and, under other circumstances, would be ibund offen- sive and dan~erous. In one instance, when a particularly brave and collected hull had cleared the arena of his adver- saries, a numher of young men, in the kings presence, shout- ed repeatedly, that he was fit to be president of the Cortes; and of another, who shrunk from the contest after receiving only two blows of the Picador, apparently the same persons kept crying out, amidst the general expressions of disappoint- ment and rage, that he ran away from danger like a king. In a third instance, on the same day, a bull was very difficult to kill from his great coolness; so that, at last, he had two swords in his neck, neither of which had inflicted a mortal wound. A young man, in the throng, amused himself with clapping his hands and crying out, as if much pleased with his own wit, that he looked like a .Mater dolorosa, alluding to the image, so common in Catholic countries, of tile Virgin with several swords in her bosom.~ Now, tinder so severe a go- vernment of the church, as exists in Spain, and under a tyranny so timid and cruel, nothing could well he more ob- noxious, than such compliments to republicanism, such ribal- dry against royalty. and such blasphemy in a matter of re- ligion; and if these same phrases had been shouted in the same manner, in any other mob, there can be little doubt, the imprudent individtial would have been safely lodged in the * This fancy is founded on a whimsically literal ii~jterpretation of a text in die second chapter of Luke. 1825.] amusements in Spain. 7,7 Inquisition within twentyfour hours afterwards. The hull fights at Madrid are, indeed, an apology and warrant for all sorts of licentiousness in laguage, just as the games were at Constantinople, when the factions in the circus divided the state; and, what would perhaps he no less curious, the Spanish amphitheatre might now furnish, as the Roman once did, an anthology of popular wit, which would no doubt be vulgar enough, but would hardly fail to be very characteristic and amusing. Another source of the pleasure, and the chief source of the strong emotions excited at the hull fights, is, the great ap- parent danger overcome by still greater dexterity. There is some real danger. Few bull fighters, who persevere in the occupation, and ~specially very few who rise to be Matadors, die out of the arena ; but still many of them live to a tolera- ble old age. Hardly one a year is killed at Madrid, and not more than two or three wounded; but, yet, there is no ab- solute safety in any degree of skill, for Illo, the most accom- plished bull fi~hter Spain has produced for fifty years, pe- rished like the rest from a bull, that was as cool as himself. But though the danger may be really small, it seems every moment, to one little practised in such things, imminent and inevitable. Thus, for instance, when the hull bursts into the arena, and rushes on the Picador, and horse and rider are alike overthrown in an instant, there seems to be no hope of escape, and even when the Picador has been saved by the delusion of the mantle, it seems only as if the victim were changed, hut not as if the horrid sacrifice were to be spared. Then, again, when the Banderillero, armed only with the barbs, advances alone into the arena, and defies the bull, who instantly rushes upon him in full career, so near do his horns necessarily come, before he feels the points that turn him aside, that it often seems as if they bad actually en- tered the bosom of his adversary. And, finally, when the Matador comes out with a single naked sword for his only defence, he seems to offer himself up to the ungoverned fero- city of his exasperated foe, who yet in an instant falls dead at his feet. Now in all these cases, there is such an obvious disproportion between the foice of the bull and that of his adversaries; there is such a striking victory, obtained by dex- t erity and self possession, over mere physical strength, that, 78 Recent .flmerican Novels. [July, though one unaccustomed to such exhibitions might turn pale with horror, as Hobhouse says Lord Byron did, or faint as many others have doue, yet to a regular frequenter of the amphitheatre, who feats no danger, and is hardened to the cruelty, it is a scene of unbroken delight and exultation. But, after all, we must come toThe natural question, what are these pleasures compared with their consequences ? What is the imposing grandeur of such a vast and excited crowd; the splendor of such picturesque ceremonies; these bold and striking outbreaks of the popular character; and this astonishing exhibition of the triumph of human dexterity over brute force and instinct, compared with the wanton and useless slaughter of so many noble and generous animals; the scenes of loathsome cruelty, which the arena every mo- ment offers; the violent passions it excites; the guilty hard- ness it carries into the heart and character; and the porten- tous e(lucatiOn it contributes to give to the rising generation, and the rude populace of a great capital like Madrid ? ART. IV.1. The Refugee; a Romance. By CAPTAIN MATTHEW MURGATRoYD. 2 vols. l2mo. New York, Wilder & Campbell, 1825. 2. Hobomok, a Tale of Early Times. By AN AMERIcAN. pp. 188. Boston, Cummings, Hilliard & Co. 1824. 3. Peep at the Pilgrims, in 1636. d Tale of Olden Times. By the Author of Divers Unfinished Manuscripts, & c. 2 vo~s. l2mo. Boston, Wells & Lilly, 1824. 4. The Witch of New England; a Romance. Philadel- phia, Carey & Lea, 1824. 5. Saratoga, a Tale of the Revolution. 2 vols. l2mo. Boston, Cummings, Hilliard & Co. 1824. 6. ./ldsonville, or .Marrying Out; a .TVarratsve Tale. l2mo. pp. 285. Albany, S. Shaw. 7. d Winter in Washington; or Memoirs of the Seymour Family. 2 vols. l2mo. New York, Bliss & White, 1824. 8. Tales of an american Landlord; containing Sketches of Lsfe south of the Potomac. 2 vols. l2mo. New York, N. B. Gilley, 1825.

78 Recent .flmerican Novels. [July, though one unaccustomed to such exhibitions might turn pale with horror, as Hobhouse says Lord Byron did, or faint as many others have doue, yet to a regular frequenter of the amphitheatre, who feats no danger, and is hardened to the cruelty, it is a scene of unbroken delight and exultation. But, after all, we must come toThe natural question, what are these pleasures compared with their consequences ? What is the imposing grandeur of such a vast and excited crowd; the splendor of such picturesque ceremonies; these bold and striking outbreaks of the popular character; and this astonishing exhibition of the triumph of human dexterity over brute force and instinct, compared with the wanton and useless slaughter of so many noble and generous animals; the scenes of loathsome cruelty, which the arena every mo- ment offers; the violent passions it excites; the guilty hard- ness it carries into the heart and character; and the porten- tous e(lucatiOn it contributes to give to the rising generation, and the rude populace of a great capital like Madrid ? ART. IV.1. The Refugee; a Romance. By CAPTAIN MATTHEW MURGATRoYD. 2 vols. l2mo. New York, Wilder & Campbell, 1825. 2. Hobomok, a Tale of Early Times. By AN AMERIcAN. pp. 188. Boston, Cummings, Hilliard & Co. 1824. 3. Peep at the Pilgrims, in 1636. d Tale of Olden Times. By the Author of Divers Unfinished Manuscripts, & c. 2 vo~s. l2mo. Boston, Wells & Lilly, 1824. 4. The Witch of New England; a Romance. Philadel- phia, Carey & Lea, 1824. 5. Saratoga, a Tale of the Revolution. 2 vols. l2mo. Boston, Cummings, Hilliard & Co. 1824. 6. ./ldsonville, or .Marrying Out; a .TVarratsve Tale. l2mo. pp. 285. Albany, S. Shaw. 7. d Winter in Washington; or Memoirs of the Seymour Family. 2 vols. l2mo. New York, Bliss & White, 1824. 8. Tales of an american Landlord; containing Sketches of Lsfe south of the Potomac. 2 vols. l2mo. New York, N. B. Gilley, 1825. 1825.] Recent dmerican ?/ovels. 79 9. OHalloran, or the In.sur~ent Chief; an Irish Histo- rical Tale of 1798. By the Author of The Wilder- ness. 2 vols. l2mo. Philadelphia, Carey & Lea, 1824. 10. Uoslington Shadow; a !?omance of the Nineteenth Century. By MUNGO COULTERSHOGGLE, Esq. 2 vols. I2mo. New York, 1825. WE remember the time, when an American novel was a single, diminutive volume, sent out with no attractions, either of type or paper, and with but one quality likely to recom- mend it to the notice of the icading part of the community, and that was cheapness. We should rather say, perhaps. low- ness of price, for that could scarcely be called cheap, in the com[non acceptation of the term, which, considering its real value, would have been dear at almost any rate; and so in- deed the public seemed to believe, for the experiment of authorship was seldom made, and still less often repeated. The records of the trade, for a series of a dozen years, would probably be searched in vain for the advertisements of as many novels. Times are now changed, when the retrospect of a single year affords us the decade of indigenous works of this sort, whose titles stand at the head of this article, all fairly printed and done up, as the advertisements have it, in neat boards, all, with two exceptions, having the proper num- ber of volumes, which the present state of taste and fashion has limited to two, and all, we have reason to believe, if we may once more be allowed to borrow a phrase of the trade, enjoying the patronage of a liberal public. Of the causes which have operated in producing this change, the principal, indeed, is time, which has brought with it an increase of population, wealth, leisure, and education, that has fostered this in common with every other branch of literature. But another, and one of considerable importance, is the appearance of certain foreign works of fancy, as the tales of Miss Edgeworth, but more particularly those literary phenomena the Scottish, or Waverley novels. These have had a powerful effect in increasing the demand for works of a similar character. They have served to bring the practice of novel reading into better favor with the graver part of the corn- munity, and to take off many restrictions, which were former- ly in force against this amusement. The extraordinary suc so Recent ~1rnerican .TVovels. [July, cess of the works above mentioned has provided for the sup- p]y, while it increased the demand, by stimulating the efforts of hosts of imitators in their own country, and of some in ours. When we consider the rapidity of production, not only in the case of the master, but also in that of many of his followers, as well as the number and variety ~f the latter, it is a natural remark, that works of this sort are easily written, and tirnt the Great Unknown deserves the reputation of good fortune, as ~vell as of merit, in having hit upon a vein, which is so easily and profitably elaborated. Whether this be the case, is a question to be solved by an examination of the particular characteristics of the works of the new school, and such an examination we propose to make, as briefly as the nature of the subje~ will admit. We as- sure our readers, in the meantime, that we do not intend, as the manner of some is, to use the title of this article, as a mere cover for a critique on these works, and make it an oc- casion of showing our own exquisite relish of them, and our ability to render a reason for it. We intend a b~na fide re- view of certain American novels, acknowledged copies of a particular pattern, and we think it expedient first to settle, in some measure, what are the peculiarities of that pattern. The Waverley novels are for the most part historical. The)r are founded on events, and represent scenes and ac- tors, with whom we were before acquainted. This charac- ter they have in common with many others. The Misses Porter, Madam de Genlis, and a host of others, not to men- tion the old romancers, have attempted in this way to call our associations in aid of their fictitious narratives. This method has its advantages. In the first place tl~~e writer has his story, or at least a part of it, ready made to his hand. The outlines of his picture are sketched, and he has only to fill up the intervals, and add the lights and shadows. More- over, a step is taken towards producing a vivid impression, in the mind of the reader, of the things and persons represented, the grand object both of the novel and the drama. But this method has also its objections. When an author presents before us an Atnanda, or a St Orville, whom we see for the first time, we regard them as we do a fancy picture. It is beautiful or it is not. It is only necessary that it be a likeness to a human being, and if the artist does 1825.] Recent dmerican .Aovels. 81 not actually put wings to its shoulders, it may be allowed to pass for such. But when he places before us a Bruce, or a Bayard, Mary of Scotland, Czeur de Lion, or Washington, he must do something more ; he is painting from what we have seen and known, and it is not sufficient, that he has made a striking picture, it must be a likeness, if he suc- ceeds, his work is the more valuable, if not, the greater is the failure. A picture of a friend may be valuable to a stranger, from the beauty of its execution, to us it has no value without resemblance. On the whole we believe, that the advantages of this method more than counterbalance the difficulties attending it ; that it is easier to embellish a story, than to invent one, and less difficult to hit off an indifferent likeness of a real being, than to make an exquisite picture of an imaginary one. The Scottish novels are, in the next place, topographic. The descriptions are taken from real scenery, rather than from arbitrary combinations of fancy. This is a striking peculiarity of these works, and attended with many advan- tages to the writer. It affords great facilities for the rnulti~ plication of novels. The variety and beauty of natural objects are endless, and the author is thus provided with an apparatus, which serves to supply deficiencies of various kinds. A poor play is helped off by new scenery and ele- gant decorations; and a story may he made agreeable, when set off by beautiful descriptions of picturesque realities, which would have been hopeless in the hands of a novelist of the last generation, with no better properties, than an old castle, a cave, a forest, a few green fields, and a drawing room. The whole Waverley school have owed much of their success to this peculiarity. Again, in the works of this school, the dialogue bears a large proportion to the incident. The authors, having once placed their persons before ye, Ungallantly leave them to tell their own story. They are essentially dramatic, and the transitions from place to place, and from acton to action, are made rapidly, and, as it were, between the acts. The writers aim is to keep himself out of sight, or to appear only like the ancient cho- rus, to connect the parts of his story. The descriptions are frequently put into the mouths of the actors, and the VOL. xxl.NO. 48. 11 82 Recent dmerican Novels. [July, circumstances of an action described, as they appeared to a bystander. Again, the personages are drawn from models that exist in nature. The men are men, and the women are women, compounds of wisdom and folly, virtue and vice, beauty and deformity, warmed and cooled by the same summer and winter as ourselves, ~nd actuated by as great a variety of passions. But the heroes and heroines of the old school were as monstrous, as the genii and fairies of earlier times, and the stories were usually devoted to the development of the single affection of love. To those, who were under the influence of the tender passion, these narra- tives were singularly grateful. But to those, who had never experienced, or had recovered from this madness, that is to say, to the majority of mankind, they possessed less inte- rest. The novelist of the present day has a wider field, and it is hard if, from the variety of character and motive, which history and observation can suggest, he cannot find some- thing in accordance with the sympathies of every reader. But the actors in these works have not only a human, but a national, and often a provincial character. This, especially as exemplified in modes of speech, may be either an advan.. tage or a disadvantage, though it is commonly the former. Thus, when the author of the Scottish novels makes his persons speak in their native dialect, he touches a string, which has often vibrated before. The Doric charms of the lowland tongue appeal to our associations with Ramsay and Burns, and the national songs, and sweeter national music of Scotland. The subject of manners and customs is, moreover, one of general interest, and as an adherence to these serves to give individuality to the characters in these narratives, it is so far an improvement on the practice of the older novels, and advantageous to the writer. With respect to a certain, though a small number of readers, it is rather a disadvantage ; we mean those, if any there happen to be, who are near the place and time of the supposed action. As a man can never be a hero to his valet, so his own house, his own city, or his own time, can scarcely be made to appear picturesque or romantic to himself. He has been behind the scenes, and beheld the ropes and the pulleys, he has drummed upon the thunder, and rattled the barrel of hail with his own hands, till imagination is fettered by fact. 1825.] Recent ./Jmerican Novels. 83 For this reason, we may observe en passant, an American novel will, where other tbings are equal, be more interesting to the English public, and the reverse. in these various ways a new and fertile field has been opened to the modern novelist, in which equal labor will produce far more than in the exhausted sail, on which his predecessors toiled. As to the question, whether the novels of this class are easily written, we are inclined to decide in the affirm- ative; or, to express ourselves more definitely, since ease and difficulty can be appreciated only by comparison, we doubt not that, other things being equal, it is an easier task to write a Waverley novel, which shall be tolerably interesting, than one after the older fashion. If the opinion, that mediocrity in this pursuit is easily attainabl2, be well founded, it would seem to follow, that works of this kind will become exceedingly numerous, and that a large proportion of them will have a considerable circulation, and consequent influence upon the public opinion, taste, and morals. It follows, further, that it is the duty of reviewers to exercise a strict surveillance over this depart- ment of literature, tobe careful in pointing out the merits or demerits of individual authors, as far as practicable, and prompt to oppose pernicious influences, and endeavor to give a beneficial direction to a force, that they cannot resist if they would. Before leaving the general consideration of the novels of the Unknown, we may observe, that the ease and beauty of their style, and the numerous and happy allusions, with which they abound, have had a powerful influence in establishing their popularity. This excellence it is not easy to imitate. It requires a union of talents, practice, and learning, which is not commonly met with, and in this particular, the failure of his imitators has been very remarkable. It is to be regret- ted, that he has occasionally been guilty of a carelessness of composition, and an introduction of obsolete, or foreign words and idioms, which are more attainable, and more likely to be copied by his followers ; as the vices, or eccentricities, of a great man, are more easily and generally imitated than his virtues. We come now to the examination of the novels before us. The first on our list is the Refugee, by Captain Matthew 84 Recent .qm,erican Novels. [July, Murgatroyd. One is apt to form some opinion of a work from its title page, and we believe there is generally good ground for such a practice. In this particular instance, we were somewhat prejudiced by the title. It indicated effort, aiid struck us like a great reckoning in a little room. We could not help anticipating the ei~trance of the author upon ~ti1ts, and this impression was abundantly verified. The work is prefaced by an introductory correspondence, in which he labors to be witty with all his might. It is hardly neces- sary to say, that his labor ~s in vain. The time of action is the commencement of the revolutionary war. The hero, Gilbert Greaves, is the descendant of a Welsh family, whose history is given in the beginning, at greater length than was necessary. His father, who had for many years resided on the banks of the Hudson, repairs to New York for the pur- pose of joining the royal forces, on the breaking out of the troubles. Gilbert follows him, soon after the news of the battle of Bunker Hill, and arrives at Staten Island just before the battle on Long Island. A singular anachronism, by the way, as the latter happened more than fourteen months after the former. Greaves is present at the action, and of course behaves heroically. He remains with the army in New York a few days; becomes disgusted with the ioyal camp; falls in love with a Miss Keith ; rescues her from the inso- lence of the commander in chief; goes over to the American army; is taken prisoner again at the battle of White Plains condemned to death by a British court martial, at which his father plays the Roman ; and brought out for execution, from which he is rescued by the arrival of Sir Henry Clin- ton; marries Miss Keith, and returns to England. Considered in its relation to history, this is a very excep- tionable performance. It abounds with petty anachronisms, calculated to impair the verisimilitude of the story. On one occasion the hero, in 1776, thinks of the sufferings of Captain James Riley; on another, a barber is made to speak of the conduct of General Gates at Saratoga, about a year before the circumstance. In the second volume, Washington sneers at the behavior of General Heath, at the retreat from White Plains. What retreat was this? The speech purports to be made, while the army was encamped at the very spot, after their retreat from New York, and before the battle, 1825.] Recent .lmericari .Aoveis. 85 which was followed by the retreat from it. Again, on the occasion of the rescue of Creaves, there is a most inextri- cable confusion of times and persons. Sir William Howe we suppose to be represented by the character of Arleston, the commander iii chief at New York. Greaves is rescued by the arrival of Sir Henry Clint6n from England. But every one knows, that Sir Henry Clinton was already in New York; be had a command in the battle of Long Island, and again at Ripps bay. Again, it is said, that Sir William turned his eye npon the cidevant general (Arleston) with a most terrific scowl. Sir William who ? And when did Sir Henry Clin- ton, or any other Sir, supersede General Howe in 1776? But perhaps Arleston is not Sir William Howe. Who is he then, or where was Howe, while Arleston was commander in chief on Staten Island, or in New York ? Once more, Miss Keith, who is rescued two or three days before the battle of White Plains, sails for England, is taken by Paul Jones in the chops of the channel, returns to America, is wrecked on Long island, and arrives in New York, two days before that of Greavess intended execution, which was not many days after his capture at the battle above men- tioned. This implies a rate of travel, which has not been known since the days of Astolpho, or the Princess Schehera- zade, and probably never will be again, till Mr Perkinss generator is in full operation. in the delineation of character our author is not much more successful. His personages are exceedingly numerous, but have very little individuality. He endeavors, indeed, to make them speak for themselves, but their language and motions continually disclose the writer. They remind us of the figures in an indifferent puppet show, where Punch squeaks, and the Devil roars, in tones which are too evidently mere modifications of the same voice behind the curtain. Thus, he makes a British sergeant speak of the Magnus Apollo of the States, and an American subaltern, in 1776, quote Spenser and the classics. The style of the work is excessively bad. It is a labored parody of Scotts worst manner; we mean that, which he himself describes as the ambagitory, or circumbendibus. The author of the Refugee carries this to a ridiculous ex- trewe. He is never content to express a simple circumstance 86 Recent american JVovels. [July, in plain language, but is always seeking for some roundabout, or tumid paraphrase. He is continually making sentences, and endeavoring to turn his miscellaneous reading, or store of anecdote to account. He seems determined, that the reader shall never lose sight of him, and it is not surprising, that his readers frequently forget both his story and his actors. The interest is also divided by episodes and underplots, till it is nearly reduced to nothing. It is almost impossible to carry in ones mind the history and adventures of so many different persons, especially when these are neither remark- able in themselves, nor well related. We know not what, hut a determination to make two volumes, could have in- duced this writer to give us an account of the action of the Boa Horame Richard, and the whole history of the life and adventures of Paul Jones, between the accounts of the trial and intended execution of his hero. We noticed several unauthorised, or vulgar expressions, such as conclude to omit, bright judgment, noisy as sin, men of extra pluck, I reckoned the moment the most fortunate, the tabby cat recumbed, and the like. Among the colonial dependencies of Great Britain, are enumerated Bengal, St Helena, and the Isle of Dogs, ~vhich last colony is not so many miles distant from the centre of London, as to he entirely out of reach of the sound of how hells. Again, he observes of the thrushes and larks, that these merry grigs were early and late at their concerts. To say that a bird is as merry as a grig is one thing, but to call it a grig, or eel, is another and a very different one. He might as well have called a whale a fish. A book must he bad, indeed, that has no redeeming qualities. It cannot be denied, that the authors persevering struggles for wit are occasionally successful, that there is now and then a tolerable description, or a spirited dialogue ; hut these are rare, and it is very evident, that the writer has mistaken the admiration of good novels, for the power of writing them, and that his work evinces reading, rather than thought, observation, or accuracy. Hobomok.T his is in many respects the very opposite of the Refugee. The matter is contained in one small volume, with an unpretending title, and an inoffensive introduction. The story is as follows. Mary Conant, the daughter of one 1825.] Recent ./lmerican .TV~oveIs. 87 of the first settlers in Salem, or Naninkeak, is separated from her lover, a young Episcopalian, by his banishment from the territory, and departure for England. His death is reported soon after, and the shock occasioned by the information, and the severity of her father, who was of course bitterly opposed to the connexion, produces a temporary alienation of mind, during which she offers herself in marriage to Hobomok, a young Indian, who had long been devotedly attached to her. She is further influenced in this singular conduct, by a super- stitious feeling, occasioned by a circumstance, which we have not space to detail. She recovers her health, and becomes the mother of an Indian boy. After the lapse of three years, her former lover reappears, Hobomok resigns his claim, flies from the country, and Mary is married to the Englishman. There can be, we believe, but one opinion respecting this story; it is in very bad taste, to say the least, and leaves upon the mind a disagreeable impression. Still it should be remembered, in respect to its probability, that if our ancestors were more sternly virtuous, they were certainly without much of the delicacy and refinement of the present generation. The characters in this novel, as well as in the one already noticed, are too numerous, and the interest is lessened by being divided among so many. But they are drawn, in most instances, with great discrimination, as well those which are borrowed from history, as those which are purely ficti- tious. The strange mixture of good sense, piety, fanaticism, and intolerance, which distinguished our puritan ancestors, varied in different individuals, by the different degrees of natural talent, or education, is displayed with great ingenuity and power. The death bed scenes of the Ladies, Mary Conant and Arabella Johnson, are described with feeling and pathos, and varied with considerable skill. We believe there are few American novels, from which we could present our readers with an extract more beautiful in its kind, than the following. Mrs Conant too was fast drooping, and there seemed but a hairs breadth bet~veen her and the grave. It was interesting to observe the contrast between the two invalids. One, always weak and gentle, beaded to the blast, and seemed to ask support from everything around her. The other, struggling against decay, seemed rather to give assistance, than to require it. Their hus 88 Recent ./Imerican Novels. [July, bands watched over them, ~vith the tender solicitude of a mother over her sickening infant. Mr Conant, stern as he was, felt that a sigh or a groan from the woman whom he had so long and sincerely loved, had power to stir up those deep recesses of I~eling, which had for years been sealed within his soul; and Marys heart was ready to burst with keen and protracted anguish, when she saw death standing ~vith suspended dart, taking slow, but certain aim, at two endeared victims. But medicine, anxiety, and kind- ness, were alike unavailing; and soon they both retired to the same apartment, and laid themselves down on the beds from which they were never more to rise. Their feeble hold upon life daily grew more precarious, till at length nothing could tempt their anxious husbands from the pillow. Neither of them had spoken much for several days, when on the 24th of August the faint voice of Mrs Con ant was heard, as she whispered, Ro~erMy dear Roger.~ in a moment he was at her side. What would you say, Mary ? asked he. There are many things I would have spoken, she replied; but I fear I have not strength wherewith to utter them. If Brown comes back, you must remember our own thwarted love, ane deal kindly with Mary. She hath been a good child ; and verily the God who had mercy on our unconverted souls, will not forsake her. Will you promise ? I will, answered the old man, in an agitated voice. Verily, my dear wife, your dying request shall be obeyed. I would fain turn to the light, said she, for I feel that my departure draweth nigh.~~ Mary and her father gently raised her, and turned her toward the little window. She looked on her husband with the celestial smile of a dying saint, as she said, I die happy in the Lord Jesus. Sometimes I would fain tarry longer for your sake; but the Lords will be done. The agonized man pressed back the crowding tears, as he said, If in the roughness of my nature, I have sometimes spoken too harshly, say that you forgive me. I have nothing to forgive, she replied; to me you have been uniformly kind. She reached out her hand to Mary For my sake, added she, be as dutiful to your good father, as you have been to me. I willI will, answered Mary, as she, sobbing, hid her face in the bed clothes. She spoke no more for several hours. At length, Mr Conant, who remained close by her side, heard her whisper, in low and broken tones, My dear husband. She attempted to extend her hand toward him, but the blindness of death was upon her, and it 1825.] Recent ~dmerican Novels. 89 feebly sunk down by her side. As her husband placed it within his, she murmured, 1 cannot see you, dear Roger. Kiss me before I die. He stooped downand oh, how deeply painful was that last embrace. Mary likewise bent over her, and kissed her cold cheek. My childGodblesswas heard from the lips of that dying mother; hut the utterance was troubled and indistinct. Her breathings oon became shorter and more disturbed, and the last agonies seemed passing over her. No sound was heard in the room, till presently a short, quick gasp announced the souls de- parrure. Mr Conant placed his hand upon her heartits pulse no longer throbbed. He held the taper before her mouthno breath was there to move the steady flame. Mary uttered an involuntary shriek, and sunk upon her knees. There is nothing like the chain- her of death to still the turbulence of passien, and overcome the loftiness of pride. What now was the shame of hunian weakness to that bereaved old man ? 1-ic stood by the corpse of her, who for twenty years had lain in his bosom, arid he h ceded not that the big, bright tears fell fast upon the bed. Nothing n ow remained but the last, sad offices of friendship ; and they were silently perform- ed. Not a word ~vas spoken by father or daughter. rj~ sheet was carefully drawn over that pale face; and both bowed down their weary, aching heads upon the pillow, in still communion with their own souls. Durin~ this time, the Lady Arahella had sunk into a slumber so deep and tranquil, that she seemed almost like her departed companion. Mr Johnson remained with her hand clasped in his, half doubtful whether it was not indeed the sleep ot death. To- wards morning she awoke ; and resting her eyes upon her husband, with a look of unutterable love, she feebly returned the pressure of his hand, as she said, You are al~vays near me, dear Isaac. After a thoughtful pause, she asked, Is n at the Lady Mary dead ? She is, answered Mr Johnson. Assuredly I so thought, continued she. 1 dreamed that angels came for her, and she said they must wait for me. They are standing by her bedside now. Dont you see the light of their garments? Well, I shall soon be ready. My God, my God, exclaimed the young husband, would that the bitterness of this cup might pass from me. But it may not pass,~~ rejoined his wife calmly; and you must drink it like a christian. Let your whole trust be on the Rock of Ages. 1 could bear it all, Arahella, replied he, had I not hrought you into trials too mighty for your strength. But for my selfish love, you might now be living in ease and comfort. VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 12 90 Recent Ilmerican Novels. [Ju1y~ My dear Isaac, does this sound like a follower of the Lamb ~ said she. The time of my departure hath come, and what mat- ters it whether it be in England or America? In the short space we have been allowed to sojourn together, I have enjoyed more than all my li1~ beside; and let this remembrance comfort you when I am gone. Remember me mos$ kindly to my good brother. May his earthly union be as happy and more permanent than For a long time she seemed exhausted by the effort she had made. Then, taking the ring from her finger, Give this to Mary, said she; and when she looks thereon, bid her think to what all human enjoyment must come. I know you will always wear my miniature. It would have been a great comfort, had I been permitted to leave a living image of myself; but it hath pleased the Lord to order otherwise. Faint not in the enterprise whereunto our blessed Lord has called you; and re- member we meet again in ~ The heart of her husband was too full to speak; and he could only kiss her emaciated hand in reply. She fixed her dying gaze upon him, and a faint smile hovered round her lips, shedding its unearthly light over her whole countenance, as she said, I hear the angels singing. ~ time for me to ~ Her look was still towards her husband, when her lids closed as if in peaceful slum- ber. All was hushed. The flickering lamp of life was extinguished. There, in that miserable room, lay the descendants o~two noble houses. Both alike victims to what has always been the source of womans greatest miserylovedeep and unwearied love. The Lady Mary had in her lifetime been so still and fair, that the smile on her placid. countenance seemed but a mockery of death; and whoever looked upon the Lady Arabella, would have judged that thought was still busy beneath those closed eyelids. pp. 134138. But the principal beauties in this work are to be found in the delineations of the Indian character. We have seldom met with more successful efforts in this way, than the de- scriptions of the characters and language of Hobomok and Corbitant. We are only sorry that the authors plan did not admit of their more Irequent a~)pearance. In the following extract they are represented together. At the moment Hobomok entered, he (Corbitant) was engaged in eager conversation with Sagamore John, concerning his connexion with the English, and scarcely was he seated, ere he exclaimed, Shame on you, Hobomok! The ~volf devours not its own; but Hobomok wears the war belt of Owanux,* and counts his Englishmen. 1825.] Recent /lmerican JVoveis. 91 beaver for the white mans squaw. Oh cursed Owanux! The buffalo will die of the bite of a wasp, and no warrior will pluck out his sting. Oh cursed Owanux! And yet Miantonimo buckles on their war belt, and Massasoit says, their pipe smokes well. Look to the east, where the sun rises among the Taratines ; to the ~vest, where he sets among the valiant ~equods ; then look to the south, among the cowardly Narragansets, and the tribes of Massasoit, thick as the t,rees of his forests; then look far to the north, where the Great Spirit lifts his hatchet* high above the head of the Nipnet! And say, are not the red men like the stars in the sky, or the pebbles in the ocean ? But a few sleeps more, let Owanux suck the blood of the Indian, and where will be the red man then ? Look for yesterdays tide, for last years blossoms, and the rainbow that has hid itself in the clouds ! Look for the flame that has died away, for the ice that s melted, and for the snow that lights on the waterfall ! Among them you ~vill find the children of the Great Spirit. Yes, they will soon be as an arrow that is lost in its flight, and as the song of a bird flown ~ This was uttered with a smile of bitter irony, and in a tone so loud and fierce, that every eye was fixed on the speaker. Sagamore John laid down his pipe to listen ; his squaw shook her head mournfully as he uttered his predictions ; and his sons stood gazing upon Corbitant, till the fire flashed from their young eyes, and their knives were half drawn from the belt. Even Hobomok, whose loves and hates had become identified with the English, admired the eloquence of his enemy, and made a melancholy pause ere he answered, Corbitant knows well that the arm of Hobomok is not ~veak, nor his cheek pale in time of battle ; but if the quiver of the Narragansets be filled against the Yengees,t kno~v you not, that they themselves will be trodden down, like snow, in the war path of the Pequods ? That s the song of the lame bird, to lead from its nest,~~ replied Corbitant, sarcastically. Would Hobomok weep, if the Pequod should lift his head to the clouds, and plant one foot among the Taratines, and the other far, far away among the Caddoques? Would he utter one groan, if the hatchet of Sassacus were buried deep in the brains of Pokaneckets child? No! and yet Hobomok asked that the child of Pokanecket might be his squaw; but his beaver skins were not brought, and she cooked the deer for Ninigrets son4 Hobomok saves his tears for the white * The constellation of the northern bear. t The Indian term for English; from which Yankee is probably derived. ~ In an Indian courtship the young man makes a present of beaver skins. and the intended bride returns venison of her own cooking. 92 Recent dmerican JVoveis. [July, faced daughter of Conant, and his blood for the arrow of Corbitant, that his kinswoman may be avenged.~~ Hobomok lifted his tomahawk in wrath, as his adversary uttered these insulting words. Who dares speak of groans and tears,~~ said lie, to him whose heart has been calm in the fight, and whose eve winked not at the glancing of arrows Corbitant answered by a scornful ihugh, and the hatchet would have descended on his head, had not Sagamore John ~t ept between them, as he said, Listen to the words of an ancient chief. The Great Spirit loves not the sacrifice of young blood, when it is shed ir~ quarrel. Smoke the pipe of peace, my children ; and I will tell you of days that are gone by, when the war whoop of John was heard the loudest among his tribe, and his arrow brought down the deer at her s~viftest speed.~~ To have refused to listen to the stories of an old man, would have been contrary to all rules of Indian decorum ; but before the fierce, young spirits coml)osed themselves to respectful silence, a challenge of proud looks was exchanged, as Corbitant muttered When the big sea bird up yonder, go back to their great land chief, king Chai~lCs, the white squaws father, say Indian arrow be broketi at Naumkeak. Let him look to t that the wolf be not near his wigwam. Hours j)assed away while the young sons sat devouring the words of their father, and even his guests seemed to have forgotten their own hatred, in the eager reverence, with which they listened to him. His squaw, in the meantime, had taken her coarse, roasted cakes from the fire, and p1-iced some cold venison before hei visiters, and pointed to it with a look of pride, as she said, The arm of my sanup is old, but you see his arrow is yet swifter than the foot of the deer. May his sons bring him food in his old age. pp. 3841. We shall make one more quotation. It describes the meeting of Hobomok and Marys former lover. While conversation of this nature was going on at home, Ho- bomok was pursuing his way through the woods, whistling and singing as lie went, in the joyfulness of his heart. He had pro- ceeded near half a mile in this way, when he espied an eagle, soaring with a flight so lofly, that he seemed almost like a speck in the blue abyss above. The Indian fixed his keen eye upon him, and as he gradually lowered his flight, he niade ready his arrov, and a moment after the noble bird lay fluttering at his feet. A true aim that, Hobomok, said a voice, which sounded familiar to his ears. He raised his head to see from whence it proceeded. Charles Brown stood by his side! The countenance 1825.] Recent iimerican Novels. 93 of the savage assumed at once the terrible, ashen hue of Indian paleness.. His wounded victim was left untouched, and he hastily retreated i nt() the thicket, casting back a fearful glance on what he supposed to be the ghost of his rival. Brown attempted to follow; but the farther he advanced, the farther the Indian retreated, his flice growing paler and paler, and his knees trembling against each other in excessive terror. H obomok, said the intruder I am a man like yourself. I suppose three years agone you heard I was dead, but it has pleased the Lord to spare me in captivity until this time, and to lead me once more to New England. The vessel which brought me hither, Beth down a mile below, but I. chose the rather to be put on shore, being impatient to inquire concerning the friends I left behind. 1T011 used to be my good friend, Ilobomok, and many a piece of service have you done for m~. I beseech you feel of my hand, that you may know I am flesh and blood even as yourself.~~ After repeated assurances, the Indian timidly approachedand the certainty that Brown was indeed alive, was more dreadfid to him, than all the ghosts that could have been summoned from another world. You look as if you were sorry your old friend bad ~ said the Englishman ; but do speak and tell me one thingIs Mary Conant yet alive ? Hohomok fixed his eyes upon him with such a strange mixture of sorrow and fierceness, that Brown laid his hand upon his rifle, half fearful his intentions ~vere evil. At length, the Indian ans~ver- ed with deliberate emphasis, She is both alive and well. I thank ~ rejoined his rival. I need not ask whether she is married ~ The savage looked earnestly and mournfully upon him, and sighed deeply, as he said, The handsome English bird bath for three years lain in my bosom ; and her milk hath nourished the son of ~ The Englishman cast a glance of mingled doubt and despair towards the Indian. who again repeated the distressing truth. Dis- appointed love, a sense of degradation, perhaps something of re- sentment, were all mingled in a dreadful chaos of agony, within the mind of the unfortunate young man; and at that moment it was difficult to tell to which of the two, anguish had presented her most unmingled cup. The Indian gazed upon his rival, as he stood leaning his aching head against a tree ; and once and again he indulged in the design of taking his life. No, thought he. She was first his. Mary loves him better than she does me; for even now she prays for him in her sleep. The sacrifice must be made to her. 94 Recent Ilniericars .Novels. [July, For a long time, however, it seemed doubtful whether he could collect sufficient fortitude to fulfil his resolution. The rEmembrance of the smiling wife and the little prattling boy, whom he had that morning left, came too vividly before him. It recks not now what was the mighty struggle in the mind of that dark man. He arose and touched Browns arm, as he said2 Tis all true which I have told iou. It is three SflOWS since the bird came to my nest; and the Great Spirit only knows how much I have loved her. Good and kind she has been ; but the heart of Mary is not with the Indian. In her sleep she talks with the Great Spirit, and the name of the white man is on her lips. Hobomok will go far off among some of the red men in the west. They will dig him a grave, and Mary may sing the marriage song in the wigwnm of the Englishman. No, answered his astonished companion. She is your wife. Keep her, and cherish her with tenderness. A moment ago, I expected your arrow would rid me of the life which has now become a burden. I will be as generous as you have been. I will return from whence I came, and bear my sorrows as I may. Let Mary never know that I am alive. Love her, and be happy. The purpose of an Indian is seldom changed, replied Ho- bomok. My tracks will soon be seen far beyond the back bone of the Great Spirit. For Marys sake I have borne the hatred of the Yengees, the scorn of my tribe, and the insults of my enemy. And now, I will be buried among strangers, arid none shall black their faces for the unknown chief. When the light sinks behind the hills, see that Corbitant be not near my wigwam ; for that hawk has often been flying round my nest. Be kind to my boy.~~ His voice choked, and the tears fell bright and fast. He hastily wiped them away as he added, You have seen the first and last tears that Hobomok will ever shed. Ask Mary to pray for me that when I die, I may go to the Englishmans God, where I may hunt heaver with little Hobomok, and count my beavers for Mary.~~ Before Brown had time to reply, he plunged into the thicket and disappeared. pp. 172175. The tone of the work is generally sombre, and accords well with our associations with the early history of New England, and the days of sickness, sorrow, privation, and religious austerity. We never read the records of those times without a sensation of melancholy and pity, mingled with respect and national pride, and the author of Hobomok seems to feel and inspire a similar sensation. We think this book has suffered much from the general prejudice against the catastrophe of the story, and that its 1825.] Recent ./Imerican .Novels. 95 animated descriptions of scenes and persons, its agreeable style, and the acquaintance with the history and spirit of the times which it evinces, have not received the credit due to them. But we doubt not, that it will one day be regarded with greater favor, and that it is by no means of the same ephemeral class, with some others of our American novels. It will stand the test of repeated readings, and it will obtain them. d Peep at the Pilgrirns.The period, in which the events of this tale are supposed to have happened, is six or seven years later than that of Hobomok. The scene during great part of the work is in Plymouth, at that time comparatively an old settlement. The hero of tli~ story, Major Atherton, arrives at this place in search of adventures; falls in love with a daughter of the land; follows her to the new planta- tion on the Connecticut river; is taken prisoner in attempting to rescue her from the savages, who had kidnapped her; is himself rescued from the stake at the last moment; and mar- ries the lady, who has in the meantime been ransomed. The two volumes are also replete with episodical matter of various interest. The same faults exist in this, which we have already no- ticed in the preceding novels. The characters are too nu- merous, and the story is spread over too great a space; a good deal of the work is a mere compilation from the chro- nicles of the time, slightly connected with the fictitious nar- rative, anf I these parts are sometimes the most interesting. The accounts indeed of these matters are well written, but may be found equally so elsewhere. We can read Neal, and Morton, and Winslow for ourselves, and we expect the no- velist to begin only where the historian stops. Something, it is true, is done in the way of filling up the outlines of his- tory, and sometimes tolerably well done, as for instance the characters of Standish, AsHy, and White, though the de- scription of the last approaches rather too nearly to carica- ture. Our English periodical brethren, we suppose, would call him the bore of the novel. The dialogue is occasionally spirited, but we could not avoid feeling now and then, that the author was laboring to make his personages smart. The art is not always conceal- ed. But the greatest merit of this work consists in what we Recent ./Imerican .AIovels. [July, should call its topographical execution. The writer observes and describes inanimate objects much better than peculiarities of character, and this confirms what we have before said on this subject. The book owes much more of its interest to historical details, arid descriptions of natural and real objects, than to the authors power of inv~ntion, or discrimination of character. We can therefore approve, and find a good deal to praise in the work, without believing that it affords much promise of the future excellence of the writer, and cannot encourage him to write on, unless he is likely to be satisfied with the praise of mediocrity. We can afford space for one short extract only. It de- scribes the first appearance of Plymouth to Atherton. They seemed approaching a wilderness; for already the forests were enveloped in darkness, and the gigantic hills invested with the shadows of twilight. Presently a dim speck appeared on the horizon ;it was the little village of Plymouth, the must ancient of the settlements, fast rising into importance, and far famed far the success and enterprise of its inhabitants. The stranger experienced a momentary disappointment, as he rapidly surveyed the limited dimensions, and rude architecture of that new city of refuge.~~ His fancy had sketched scenes of Ar cadian loveliness, and colored the picture, which it drew, with the fairy tints of romance; but he only saw, rising from the rocky and sea girt shore, the humble roofs of the Pilgrims, clustered to- gether in two compact lines, and thinly shaded by native trees each tenement encircled by a patch of vegetation, then wearing the seared and fading hues of autumn. The English colors waved gaily from the battlements of a square fort, which crowned the summit of the commanding eminence, and its flat roof was paced by several persons, who watched with curiosity the approaching vessel. The authors style is generally correct and unpretending, and he rarely attempts in his own person to be very fine. The typographical execution is much more beautiful, than is common in works of this sort. Time ~I7itck of New Eagland.This novel belongs to a period about fifty years later than the last. The scene of course is laid in New England, but in what part, we are at a loss to imagine; possibly somewhere in Connecticut. The principal character in the story is an old woman, wbo pre- tends to witchcraft, commits certain horrid crimes, and is 1825.] Recent .imerican .JVovels. 97 executed accordingly. The other characters are few, and the time occupied is short. It is therefore free from the faults, which we have charged upon the two last. The author has not medJled much with history, except in his introduction, and the interweaving with his narrative a number of facts, which he has collected and used without ceremony, borrow- ing occasionally the very language of the works, from which his selections are made, especially in two or three stories from the American Preceptor. He seems to have read over some common works on the early history of New England, with a view to the production of this novel, but in a manner hasty and inaccurate to a surprising degree. We could easily trace his progress through several of these, and were amazed, that, after having read them, he should still remain so ignorant of the early history of the country. His introduction is taken from Belkuaps Life of Carver, from which he borrows whole sentences, and yet he informs us, that the 31st of December was the day on which the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, and that it has ever since been celebrated as a festival. The 31st indeed, which, by the difference of style, answers to our 1 Ith of Jantiary, is mentioned by Belknap as the day, when the settlers first attended divine worship on shore, and probably this was the origin of the mistake. We acquit the natives of New England, however, of this novel, for what Yankee has not heard of the 22nd? He introduces us to the house of a clergyman, a large stone dwelling, the burial ground with its rectangular tombs of blue and white marble, the plain brick church, and above all the Presbb terian minister. This is a strange combination for New England, in 1690, or indeed at any time. Again, Uncas, the Indian chieftain, who, by the way, was a mighty warrior more than half a century before, is made to speak of the time when he roamed like the meteor over the prairie. In the fourth chap- ter, the son of the clergyman abovementioned reads to his father and family a long dramatic fragment, of his own com- position, of which one of the characters is a Friar, quotes Shakspeare, and hints at the Arabian Nights, and Salvator Rosa; and to all this the father, who is represented as a strenuous Puritan, makes no objection. This chapter was altogether too much for our gravity. The son of a New England clergyman, in 1690, writing plays, and producing VOL. xxl.No. 48. 13 98 Recent .lmerican .TVovels. [July, these parings of the Devils hoof, for the entertainment of his father! He might as well have represented the clergy- man himself as a reviewer of novels. Ridiculous, however, as this book assuredly is, in regard to its historical qualifications, it is not without merit of a certain kind. Parts of it are well writtei~, and some descriptions of scenery, and some touches of character, are so tolerable, that we are unwilling to condemn it altogether. It seems to us, that the author proposed to frame a tale, in which the Witch and her associate should be subordinate characters, that he was unable to complete his plan, and that his end does not fulfil the promise of his beginning. He introduces the re- gicide Whally, but does nothing with him, except to kill him in defiance of physiology, representing him as being found dead, with his body erect, intent on his book, and looking as if he were alive, a combination of circumstances, which im- plies an economy of muscular exertion, and consequently of patience, that to those of us, who are called on to review novels by the quantity, is far more desirable than possible. Finally, as if determined that none of his reading should be in vain, he introduces a Quaker on one occasion, for no earthly purpose, that we can imagine, except to give him an opportu- nity of putting into the mouth of an opponent of heterodoxy, a speech, borrowed verbatim et literatim from the Simple Cobler of Agawam, and that without the least hint to the reader, that it is not his own composition. Saratog~.We are now brought hack again to the revolu- tion. The heroine of this story is the daughter of an English officer, resident in America, who takes arms against the Colo- nies. He is among the sufferers by the disasters of Bur- goynes army; is placed hors du combat by the capitulation at Saratoga, and returns to his former residence in Penn- sylvania. His daughter suffers a metaphorical wound, while her father is confined with a real one. She becomes enamor- ed of a gallant rebel colonel, and in process of time is mar- ried to him. This is the main story, but there are many underplots, which we have not room to analyse. In some respects this novel would seem to belong rather to the old regime. The hero is a piece of perfection; there are mysteries and complications, a mistress in the wood, a muffled stranger, and a final satisfactory explanation. The 1825.] Recent american .!Vovels. 99 writer leans hut little upon history, and introduces few real personages. We have the Lady Harriet Ackland, and the life of General Frazer of course; he could not inisst, as Antonio says, but in the main the story is fictitious. We find here the fault so often noticed, the crowding of persons and plots, and the last e~& ceedingly complicated. Still we should call it a respectable novel. The characters, when they are intended to be mortals, are pretty well delineated, and there is rather a larger proportion of well supported dialogue, than is usual in these second rate works. On the other hand, it may be observed, that there is a good deal of dull conversation, which might have been omitted, or abridged to great advantage. The character of the Irish captain is the best in the book, and though often in excess, it is on the whole well executed. The Irish, by the way, seem to be made on purpose for novels. They are born with a cha- racter, and talk poetry by nature. We have only to obscrve further, that this book does not appear to have received from the public, the notice that others have enjoyed, which, if equal, are certainly not superior to it. Our limits will not allow us to make a long extract, and we are unable to find a short one, which we think would be a fair specimen of its general merit. ./Idsonviile.This tale belongs to no particular period. The scene is near the Western Lakes, and on the banks of the Hudson. The principal personage is a kind of wet Qua- ker, who marries out of the society, after various delays, arising from opposition of parents and the like. We needed not the intimation in the preface, that it was a juvenile effort, since nothing can be more evident. The preface is com- posed with much humility and deprecation of criticism. But if no hope of success, beyond a circle of friends, was enter- tained, why publish at all? The style is very bad, and the expressions and phrases often uncouth, vulgar, and silly, and the incidents and d6nouement hackneyed. It is further re- markable for the coarseness of its mechanical execution. a Winter in Wasliington.These volumes purport to contain a story of our own time, and our own metropolis. The author has chosen the most difficult of all subjects, that of describing and rendering picturesque, things that are com- mon. The events of the story, so far as we know, are en- 100 Recent simerican Novels. [July, tirely fictitious, though one or two real characters are intro duced by name. In attempting a task so difficult, a failure was perhaps to be anticipated. We are sorry to say, that to us the book was heavy reading, and we are not sure, that any thing short of a reviewers conscience would have carried us resolutely to the end. Tales of an 1lmerican Landlord .This, like the last, is a tale of fiction. It has two plots, of which we know not which is the principal. The hero of one is a spendthrift English Honorable, who chooses to have the Atlantic be- tween him and his creditors, as many a man has done both before and since. He engages the affections of a young lady, under an assumed name and character; is checked in his career by the curh of old father antic the law; meets with his brother the real lord; repents, reforms, and marries the lady. I~ the other plot, the sister of the lady, already mentioned, gives her heart to another incognito, who turns out to be a young man to whom she had been contracted by their parents. There are many other characters and by- plays besides the main action.. The time is fixed during the revolutionary ivar, but it is only in one chapter, we believe, that any reference is made to it, and the only historical per- son introduced is Lafayette, and he but briefly. The grand defect in this novel is similar to that, which we noticed in the Refugee, a laborious imitation of the manner of the author of Waverley. The effort is so constantly evi- dent, as almost completely to obscure the merit, which really belongs to the writer. He makes us think too often of him- self, whereas his first object should be to make his readers forget him, or what is more to the purpose, he should forget himself in his characters. Moreover, it is too much loaded with quotations; and the delineation of characters might he more highly applauded, if it were more original; but the sin of imitation is here also. Hence many of his pictures have only the merit of copies. We might he pleased with them, if we did not possess the original. This work is clearly intended to produce a certain moral and religious effect, and we give the writer credit for his in- tentions, which we sincerely believe to be praiseworthy; that is to say, we believe, that he proposed to do something to- wards effecting an object, which he deems good and usefuL 1825.] Recent ./Imerican Novels. 101 His motives, therefore, must command respect, but we differ from him altogether, both with regard to the end, the means, and the conduct of them. Of the end proposed, namely, the advancement of certain religious vie~vs, it would be out of place to say anything here, except that we disagree with the writer respecting their advantage or necessity. We object to the means of advancing these by novel writing, not as faulty, but as inefficacious. We do not believe, that anything can be done for controverted points by fictitious narratives. The question is, whether certain religious views produce particu- lar good effects upon the temper and character of men? Do they make them good, useful, and happy, more than other views, which are held with equal sincerity? The novelist may assert the affirmative in one word, or in two volumes, it is still nothing but an assertion. Lastly, as to the conduct of the means, or the execution of the novel, we object to it, be- cause it tends, as far as it has any effect, to engage our sym- pathies in favor of the dissipated spendthrift already alluded to, and to weaken the persuasion, which of all others most needs encouragement, of the eternal connexion between vice and misery. The two works remaining on our list, have no other claim to be classed among American novels, than that of having been first published in America. The former we conclude, from certain modes of expression, to be the work of a native of Ireland, or at least of one in the first generation of Irish descent. The latter seems to be the production of a Scotch- man. The first is entitled OHalloran, ~c.The scene of action in this tale is the north of Ireland. The hero, Edward Barrymore, a young man of noble family, and loyal principles, takes a ramble for pleasure to the Giants Causeway, and the scenes in the neighborhood ; meets with OHalloran, a leading United Irishman, and his granddaughter Ellen; falls in love with Ellen; refuses to connect himself with OHallorans political intrigues ; is seized and confined by the united leaders escapes and returns to the south. Soon afterwards, the in- surrection of 1798 breaks out, of which some of the events are detailed. On the defeat and surrender of the insurgents, OHalloran, who, as one of the chiefs, is excluded from the benefit of the amnesty, endeavors to escape to America, is 102 Recent .,~Imerican Novels. [July, finally taken, and condemned, but saved from execution by the influence of Edward, who in the sequel marries Ellen. The descriptions of the proceedings of the insurgents, while in arms, are graphic and interesting. We read this part of the book with pleasure, and this is all we can say in praise of it. The remainder is indiffer~nt. The characters of OHalloran, Ellen, and Edward, the proceedings of the lat- ter in obtaining the pardon of the former, and several other circumstances in the conduct of the tale, are imitated from similar circumstances in Waverley. Peg Dornan is Meg Merrilies diluted. The author thus compels us continually to draw comparisons, which must necessarily be unfavorable to him. The story is spun out long after the proper catas- trophe. It shculd have been closed as briefly as possible, after the pardon of OHalloran, who, after all, is the principal person. The episode of Sir Geoffrey Carebrow, a brutal wretch, who carries off the heroine, that she may be rescued by Edward, and who afterwards bequeaths her his fortune, is badly managed, and in some instances disgusting. There is also an occasional grossness of allusion, which is offensive. The grave dialogue is dull. The speakers talk too long, and too much in set terms. The subject and materials of this novel are excellent ; its defects are in the execution. Goslington Slzadow.We take up this book with feelings analogous to those of the philosopher, when he exclaimed, on an occasion not very dissimilar, Courage, my friends, I see land. The scene of Goslington Shadow is laid in Scotland; the time being about five or six years since. The title of the novel, or, as the author prefers calling it, the ro- mance, is also the name of the hero, who is the son of a Scotch farmer. Goslington is sent to the university against the incliaation of his father; goes through the usual routine of education; is introduced to the acquaintance and favor of Lord Ringsdale, and falls in love with his daughter. Mat- thew Shadow, the father, acquires a large fortune by the death of a relation, and is discovered to he the rightful heir to the title and estates of Ringsdale. The work concludes with the marriages of Goslington with Lady Rosa Riugsdale, and of his sister Peggy with a young American, who turns out to be of Scotch lineage. Such is the most complete ab- stract of the story, which our limits will permit. The truth 1825.] Recent .qmerican JVovels. los is, that the book is rambling and discursive in the extreme. The author introduces a great variety of characters, and strings their adventures together, without seeming to care much about the manner of their connexion. Of course the interest of the story is nearly lost. Some of the characters are extremely well done, espe6ially that of Matthew Shadow; others are crude and faulty. The dialogue on some oc- casions is excellent, and then it becomes feeble or tedious. We shall best illustrate our views of this performance, by comparing it with some other well known work. Such a one occurs to us in Sir Andrew Wylie, by the author of Annals of the Parish. Goslington Shadow resembles this in many particulars, and is nearly on a par with it in point of merit. The constant use of the Scotch dialect, and the evident inti- macy of the author with Scotch manners and customs, so far as we can judge from the perusal of the modern secondary Scotch novels, show that he is either a native of Scotland, or a person who has resided at some time, and for a consider- able period, in that country. Perhaps we were disposed to give the dialogue quite as much credit as it deserved, from the circumstances of its being carried on in a dialect, which, as we have already observed, has of itself a strong hold on our agreeable associations. We have one remark to make, which applies to all these novels. They are uniformly deficient in taste and skill in the selection of mottos for their chapters. These scraps form an important part of a novel, and require more attention and knowledge, than the authors of most of them seem to be aware. The mottos of those, which we have now noticed, are far too frequently either hackneyed, pointless, or without sufficient bearing on the subject of the chapter. There is sometimes an affectation of quoting from the Old Play, to which, however, we are certain, that for anything which as yet has appeared, no one has ever had access, but the author of Waverley. We have thus concluded a task, which the public may possibly think has been performed too leniently, whilst the au- thors and authoresses will doubtless agree in this, if in nothing else, that we have been economical of praise, lavish of cen - sure, totally deficient in discrimination, and probably in taste and judgment. But we Eve not in their report. We have endeavored to show in our remarks, that, with some excep 104 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, tions, we do not attach high merit to these books, while we have been anxious to avoid those sweeping and sneering de- nunciations, which are neither valuable nor difficult, though unfortunately they are apt to obtain more credit than they deserve, with those who measure the weight of criticism by its flippancy, or its bitterness. We Wave uttered our thoughts, and desire them not to pass for more than they are worth. As to the future literary projects and doings of the writers, who have now passed under our notice, we take it not upon us to exhort or advise. While they keep within the bounds of good morals and decorum, let them write on, if they feel moved to this exercise, and are willing to run the risk of la- boring sometimes in vain. Those persons, who waste their time in reading poor novels, or, if our readers please, any novels, would probably waste it in some other way not more innocent, if novels were not to be had. If cards and the theatre languish in this age of novel reading, the public mo- rals are not likely to suffer by this change of amusement, and, in short, a man may as well employ himself in writing, or reading a novel, as in cutting a diamond into an indifferent figure, or wearing it after it is done. ART. V../l Dissertation on the Nature and Extent of the Jurisdiction of the Courts of the United States, being a Valedictory ./lddress, delivered to the Students of the Law ./lcademy, at Philadelphia, at the Close of the ./Ica- dendeal Year, on the 22nd of dpril 1824. By PETER S. Du PONCEAU, Provost of the Academy. To which are added a Brief Sketch of the National Judiciary Powers Exercised in the United States, prior to the ~ddoption of the present Federal Constitution. By THOMAS SAW- GEANT, EsQ. Vice Provost. Vind the .luthors Discourse on Legal Education, delivered at the Opening of the Law dcademy, in February 1821. With an .Yppendix and Notes. Svo. pp. 254. Philadelphia, Abraham Small, 1824. IT is a remarkable circumstance, that, from the earliest an- tiquity of the law, at least after it began to assume the form

104 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, tions, we do not attach high merit to these books, while we have been anxious to avoid those sweeping and sneering de- nunciations, which are neither valuable nor difficult, though unfortunately they are apt to obtain more credit than they deserve, with those who measure the weight of criticism by its flippancy, or its bitterness. We Wave uttered our thoughts, and desire them not to pass for more than they are worth. As to the future literary projects and doings of the writers, who have now passed under our notice, we take it not upon us to exhort or advise. While they keep within the bounds of good morals and decorum, let them write on, if they feel moved to this exercise, and are willing to run the risk of la- boring sometimes in vain. Those persons, who waste their time in reading poor novels, or, if our readers please, any novels, would probably waste it in some other way not more innocent, if novels were not to be had. If cards and the theatre languish in this age of novel reading, the public mo- rals are not likely to suffer by this change of amusement, and, in short, a man may as well employ himself in writing, or reading a novel, as in cutting a diamond into an indifferent figure, or wearing it after it is done. ART. V../l Dissertation on the Nature and Extent of the Jurisdiction of the Courts of the United States, being a Valedictory ./lddress, delivered to the Students of the Law ./lcademy, at Philadelphia, at the Close of the ./Ica- dendeal Year, on the 22nd of dpril 1824. By PETER S. Du PONCEAU, Provost of the Academy. To which are added a Brief Sketch of the National Judiciary Powers Exercised in the United States, prior to the ~ddoption of the present Federal Constitution. By THOMAS SAW- GEANT, EsQ. Vice Provost. Vind the .luthors Discourse on Legal Education, delivered at the Opening of the Law dcademy, in February 1821. With an .Yppendix and Notes. Svo. pp. 254. Philadelphia, Abraham Small, 1824. IT is a remarkable circumstance, that, from the earliest an- tiquity of the law, at least after it began to assume the form 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 105 of a science, there have been two schools of construction, the one contending for a literal adherence to the text, and the other supporting a more liberal principle of interpretation, and allowing greater latitude to the spirit of an enlightened Juri- dical philosophy. This division among the professors of the Roman law, of which we lThve an agreeable history by Heineccius, commenced under the administration of Augus- tus, and continued until the reign of good Aurelius ; the students of law generally arranging themselves as disciples of one sect or the other, although it was some time before they assumed the permanent appellations, by which they were afterwards distinguished, of Proculeians, and Sabinians, or Cassians. The lawyers of the latter reign, according to Claude Ferri& re, translated by the learned Dr Cooper, af- fected neither party in particular, for at different times they dispassionately approved the opinions of either sect, as they judged them more or less agreeable to justice and right reason, and they generally ende~rored, hy an equal temper- ature, to avoid the absurdities into which both parties, by reason of their great dislike and opposition to each other, had frequently fallen. The division may be deemed to have died away during the dark ages, when the books of the law were lost, like those of Livy. The subject was revived, and this question made a conspicuous figure in the discussion of the Code Napoleon; and, singular as it may seem to those, who are familiar with the sturdy spirit of the old common law, something of this difference has actually crossed the channel into England ; although, as Mr Butler observes, the good sense of English lawyers has prevented them from forming into sects. There is) however, one instructive and nvaluable reading, on a subject of this kind, to which we are referred among the relics of the philosophical mind of Burke, in a report of his on the trial of Warren Hastings, namely, whether in cases for which neither the written nor unwritten law of a nation had provided, courts of law might make a provision for it, by conforming existing laws and principles to it, or by subtracting from their operation? But this is going a length, to which we have no inclination to be enlisted. And we are moreover aware, that the topic, on which Mr Du Ponceau is engaged, is one about which the public, or at least that portion of it, which enters into the spirit of such VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 14 106 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, subjects, and concerns itself the most with the genius of the system, is somewhat at a stand ; and we believe there are some of th~ fairest, and most intelligent minds in the country, that have not been quite able to come to a satisfactory con- clusion. We are not left in the dark tb trace the origin of our jurisprudence. In seeking to find it by the light of history, we are naturally led back to the municipal institutions of our mother country. These are the gentis incunabula nostre. It has always been considered the privilege of colonies to carry with them the laws of the mother country, from the time of Thucydides, to the time of Sir Walter Raleigh; and it is delightful to reflect, that our principles of colonisation, in this respect, were actually drawn from the undefiled fountains of Grecian Jurisprudence, in their present state, as they were exhibited and illustrated in those beautiful images of Greece herself, which successively arose among her offspring in the Archipelago, and were refls~ted on the coasts of Asia Minor and Gra~cia Magna. It is rather an interesting coincidence, that the publication of the great work of Grotius, in which these principles were unfolded, was nearly coeval with the colonisation of this country; and we consider it quite plain, that the English establishments on this continent were formed more after the model of the Grecian, than the Roman colo- nies, though it was equally a fact, that the laws of Rome extended with her empire. The points of difference, it does not fall within our present province to define, nor to defend the analogy to which we allude. Upon the soundest principles of public jurisprudence, the colonists considered the law of England as their patri- mony. They claimed the common law as their birthright. The same rule of common sense prevailed in regard to this subject, on both sides of the Atlantic; and the doctrine was recognised in Westminster Hall as it was held here, that the common law of England extended to these colonies, precisely so far as it related to their circumstances. It is perfectly evident, however, that the original constitution of England did not contemplate the extension of its internal jurisprudence to such exterior establishments, as they could not have been foreseen to form component parts of the empire. This was a case, that arose unexpectedly out of 1~25.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 107 the appropriation of this newly discovered country among the powers of Europe; and the jurists of England adjusted the question, as well as they could, according to the general analogies of their own system. The regulations adopted for the government of these newly acquired territories were, therdfore, in the first instance, the precipitate result of so much speculative sagacity as fell, for instance, to the portion of that second Solomon, king James the First; who, in his childish exultation over his precious carcanet of colonial rubies, onyx cum prole, entertained a design of consummating their earthly felicity, by a complete codification of his own wise making. The consequences of this simple folly might, however, have been overruled, so as to be rendered less pernicious, than the evil starred projects, and mysteriously guided counsels, of his immediate descend- ants. By their frames of government, the colonies were for- bidden to exercise the powers of legislation, in any manner repugnant to the laws of England. That they should be obliged to avoid all acts in derogation of that sovereignty, upon which they reclined for protection during their infant period, was a perfectly suitable provision; but that it should have any bearing in matters of a merely municipal nature, having no relation to their dependence, nor connexion with the internal police of Great Britain, nor affecting the interest of the empire, any further than it concerned their own do- mestic economy and improvement, was at least an absurd and impracticable piece of supererogation. For the mother country to pretend to interfere in these concerns, for the sake of promoting her own exclusive interest and aggrandisement, was unquestionably oppressive and intolerable. The true principle and spirit of this political restriction undoubtedly were, to prevent the passing of any laws inconsistent with the interest, or incompatible with the integrity of the whole em- pire, of which they constituted part; and it was analogous to the policy of the present constitution of the United States, by which the independent states are deprived of the power of passing any acts, repugnant to its provisions or its spirit. The colonies, therefore, justly considered it in no wise repugnant to their obligations or allegiance, and as no more a violation of the laws of England, than an infraction of their own char~ I O~ Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, tels, to adopt all such regulations of a merely municipal nature, as they might find useful or expedient for themselves, and suitable to their condition. It may be the more material to keep these circumstances in view, inasmuch as the common law not composing a spe- cifle text, it is to be traced in 5nsiderations of a general political and civil nature, at least in regard to ourselves, with as much propriety as it is to be sought in the more authentic records, xvhich it acknowledges, of judicial prece- dents, and juridical commentaries. Furthermore, it is inte- resting, that on this circumstance, namely, that it did not constitute a regular, definite, and elaborate code, connected with its contiguous causes, we are to account for, and explain the most singular f)henomenon, the neque idem man ebat, neque idem decedebat, of American common law. This circum- stance itself has been seized, with a prodigious avidity, to prove the incoherence of any hypothesis whatever of com- mon law for the country. It is therefore useful, in this point of view, to advert to the causes of that deflection, which the common law under~vent in this country, as well as to account for the various casts, which it assumed among the different colonies. It is rather desirable, in this respect, to redeem the common law from the reproach attached to it from thes% causes, as being either a very inconsistent or indifferent species of jurisprudence. Our worthy forefathers have en- joyed quite as much credit, as they fairly deserved, for the amusing casuistry, with which they have been accused of construing their charters, and the legerdemain with which they were suspected of changing their tenures. In this re- spect they did hut practise, in any way, upon the genuine spirit of the common law itself, which is not, after all, quite so crabbed, as some of its adversaries are pleased to suppose; but is a more flexible and apt species of jurisprudence, con- taining an internal principle of reformation within itself, and accommodating itself with equal facility to the advances of science and the changes of society. The character of the common law, in this respect, richly justifies all the remarks, which are made by Mr Du Ponceau, in different parts of his work, and especially the well con- sidered eulogium of the late Mr Justice Wilson, in his charge 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. I O~ on the trial of Henfleld and Singleterry, extracted by Mr Du Ponceau in his preface. Our own opinion on this poiut, indeed, is sufficiently indicated in our last number but one, in the occasion we had to comment upon an interesting and important branch of maritime law. Concerning the fictions, that were invented by the coidnial lawyers, to sanction or systematise these just and necessary inflections of its rules, to the uses and circumstances of the times and their own peculiar situation, according to their narrow notions and technical conceptions of the common law, they were, without doubt, sufficiently ingenious and absurd; but they only serve to show the fashion of juridical thinking at that day, and the vague fancy for something like codification, which possesses the spirit of some part of the profession, and from which our most barbarous old common lawyers were not entirely free. As the colonies were settled at different intervals, diversis manipulis, and the common law was in the meantime under- going considerable mutations from acts of parliament, and modifications from judicial decisions, in cases of more or less novelty in England, they consequently received the common law at various successive stages of improvement. Actual diversities, without any doubt, resulted from legislative pro- visions, as well as judicial determinations, in the different colonies themselves. But as they mainly grew out of the different circumstances in which they were situated, and the peculiar interests of their separate sections; as they were not incompatible with the general welfare of the whole ; and as the colonies constituted altogether one great community, there was nothing in these minute variations, to demonstrate any actual departure from the proper principles of the common la~v, or to establish absolute dissonance in the character of the system, in respect to which they were, in truth, to be regarded as being in the spirit of the most perfect harmony. As the colonists were collected together under circumstances, essentially different from the condition of their fellow subjects in Great Britain, haviiig mutual interests, accompanied by a j)erfect intercoinmunity of social rights, and sustaining the same general system of civil relations, there was a general affinity pervading all their colonial institutions, which had an original basis in the proper principles of the common law. 110 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, These circumstances, therefore, afford no more ground for any conclusion, detracting from the existence of a common law among the colonies, than there is to be drawn from the various customs in England, or the privileges of the counties palatine, against the general power and authority of the corn- mon law there. Or they may be ~compared, perhaps, more aptly, to the great variety of coutumes existing in France, which it was the favorite object of her most illustrious sove- reigns, and enlightened jurists, particularly the Chancellor DAguesseau, to condense into one uniform system of juris- prudence. The civil law was nevertheless the basis of all these varieties; it is, indeed, as Mr Du Ponceau denominates it, the jus commune, or the common law of Europe, the general foundation of the continental systems of jurispru- dence. There is another circumstance, which ought not, perhaps, to be entirely omitted, although it may not amount to much in the aggregate; namely, that some of the thirteen colonies were of foreign extraction, and acquired by conquest or cession. These would properly he entitled to preserve their original institutions, until their population became so intermingled with the new inhabitants, that it could no longer be distinguished, and their particular customs became gradu- ally merged in the prevailing law of the land. In fact, there were none of the colonies, in which all traces of foreign juris- prudence were more perfectly obliterated, and the features of the common law more distinctly impressed, than in those middle states, which were formerly in this condition. Indeed, if any difficulty of this kind could have arisen, in regard to this question, it would have been after the conquest of Ca- nada, and its incorporation into our colonial system, where, by the terms of the cession, the French law, founded on the civil, still prevails, and holds, at least, a divided empire with the English common law. Such a case actually exists in Louisiana, where the civil and common law unite, like the waters of the Missouri and the Mississippi, which flow through it. We are fully persuaded, that this question, which engages Mr Du Ponceau, cannot be thoroughly investigated, and the true body of American common law effectually disinterred, without going back beyond the origin of the constitution, and 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 111 digging somewhat deeply into the grounds of our colonial jurisprudence. The period before the Revolution may well be denominated the Antejustinianean era, and in the plinci- ples of our colonial polity, we may discover the seeds of our present system. There we ni.ay discern the germs of our present establishments, and the stamina of all our civil insti- tutions. There may be some complexity in the principles, and some difficulty in pursuing the details of this inquiry, but ample causes exist for supporting the conclusion, that, though divided into different forms, and distinguished by a variety of particulars, relating to their local interests and usages, in respect to the franchises enjoyed under their charters, and the privileges parcelled out by the proprietors, or those more immediately derived from the prerogative, yet they appear to have constituted, in many material respects, one common system of colonial polity. And we are happy to avail ourselves of the opportunity, presented by lVlr Ser- geants discussion, in its nature a preliminary one, of doing something towards completing the sketch he has given of the state of the judiciary powers in this country, at a period prior to the adoption of the constitution. Among the reasons for entertaining such a supposition, we may advert to the following circumstances, namely, that all the lands were held originally under grants from the crown, which claimed the whole country by virtue of (liscovery and right of occupation; that the colonists were all fellow sub- jects, owing a common allegiance to the king, and claiming a common protection from the crown of Great Britain ; the (liversities in their condition springing from their charters, and kept up by their forms of government, resulted, also, from the acts of the crown, while at the same time their local differences were adjusted, and their mutual relations harmo- nised, by the general superintending authority of the empire. The most embarrassing part of the inquiry relates to the power of parliament ; principally because questions were raised, in the course of political disputes, of a practical cha- racter, which admitted of no umpire, and which could only be settled at the point of the sword. From jealous appre- hension of the designs of the English Commons, to make arbitrary assessments upon their property, the colonists were inclined to put themselves entirely under the protection of [July, 112 Common Law Jurisdiction. the king, and finding that he entered equally deep into the combination against their rights, they came to the conclusion of rejecting the power of parliament altogether. How par- liament ever came by the power, that it actually exercised so long without much question or offence, is foreign from the present inquiry, any further than to remark, that it was one of those jewels of the crown, which were wrested with the diadem from the brow of Charles the First, and that the celebrated Navigation Act, which was so long considered as essential to England in peace, as the rule of 1756 was in xvar, was the earnest of this assumption, and long remained the surviving monument of the usurpation. But whatever the origin of this authority may have been, an inquiry, which finally ceases, like many others, to be of any practical importance, this is certain, that such a power was not only, for a long period, exercised by parliament with impunity, as it respected the external condition of the colo- nies as parts of the empire, but its authority was also ac- knowledged to extend by common consent, in general acqui- escence, in several instances, so far as to regulate their internal concerns, and control their reciprocal relations. Besides the Navigation Act, anti other salutary provisions of the same description, for regulating the trade and commerce of the colonies, imposing duties on exports, and restraints on manufacturing industry, acts of imperial legislation, which came gradually to be regarded in rather a questionable shape, and which terminated at last in producing a prosper- ous rebellion,besides these, there were again others of a more strictly municipal character, the operation of which was never practically contested, nor their principle theoretic- ally disputed. Among these provisions may be enumerated, the acts of parliament; 1, establishing a general post office at the beginning of the last century, and raising a revenue on postage for defraying the expense of the establishment, of which Franklin was at the head, just before it was abolished by the Revolution ; 2, regulating the colonial currency ; 3, altering the laws of property, by changing real estates in some respects into chattel interests ; 4, altering the rules of evidence, by requiring the admission of affidavits of creditors, duly authenticated in England, by the courts of justice in the colonies 5, laying an assessment of hospital money on 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 113 American seamen; 6, dissolving contracts of service created by indentures, and discharging apprentices from their mas- ters on their enlistment into the army; 7, naturalizing all foreign protestants and Jews, residing seven years in the colonies. Mi~ Du Ponceau remarks, that until the late Revolution, the British colonies, although separated by local governments, never ceased to make one whole with the remainder of the Btitish empire, and have never ceased to be tinder a national superinten(Iiflg government. Before the Revolution, he adds, it was in the king and parliament of Great Britain, whose powers were limited, like those of the government which supplies its place. It was a maxim of English juris- prudence, that though acts of parliament did not extend be- yond the empire, nor operate upon its dependencies proprio vigore, yet they applied to, and bound them, when they were expressly comprehended in the purview of the act. This was rather an ambiguous authority, which was never either precisely contested nor conceded, never absolutely yielded in any matter of money, nor called in question, ~vhen it was exercised for the benefit of the colonies. In consequence of the events of our Revolution, it has probably been silently abandoned in relation to the remaining colonies. However the exercise of a power of executing a general system of internal improvement, for example, by cutting roads and canals through the colonies, might have been relished, we have no great reason to suppose it would have been resisted by the stoutest champions of their rights and liberties, so long as the government should have limited itself to the ap- plication of its own resources, and abstained from extracting an involuntary appropriation from the colonial treasuries. This was a point on which they were sotnewhat particular and in a matter of that kind, it was very much their manner, rendered rather inveterate by tisage, and somewhat irritable by opposition, to do nothing without asking their own advice. The act requiring the use of stamps in courts of justice, afterwards so odious, differed only frotn the provision before alluded to, respecting affidavits, in this ungracious circum- stance, that it went to raise a revenue against their will. In the act for the general post office establishment, it is a little VOL. xxl.No. 48. 15 114 Common Law Jurisdictzon. [July, remarkable, that even this specific difference was overlooked; and it is a circumstance of some curiosity, that Franklin, who was the Falkland of our civil xvar, so long as it would tole- rate any neutrality, and was no foe, on the whole, to the temperate authority of parliament, ~enjoyed a salary from this source, which did not exactly square with his argument, while he acted as an agent in England. It is another striking illustration, that the celebrated Albany plan of union, which was projected on the eve of the war of 1756, for colonial defence, and which was finally rendered al4ortive, by the compound jealousy of the English government on one hand, that it gave too much strength to the colonies, and their own suspicious apprehension on the other, that it conferred too much po~ver upon the crown, was to be founded on the final authority of an act of parliament. It will also be remembered, that when that fine territory, 110w distinguished by the general name of the Valley of the Mississippi, which was conquered in that war, was secured by the treaty of peace, it was parcelled out into provinces by a royal l)roclainatioll in 1763. The policy of this pro- clamation, invalidating any unauthorised acquisition of the Indian title, has been supported by a recent determination of the Supreme Court of the United States. We believe it is also a fact, that the king had his forests interspersed among the provinces, and was accustomed to mark his broad arrow on the trees most suitable for the tall admirals of his royal navy; and if we are not mistaken in our recollection, the late Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, was the last who enjoyed the office of royal ranger, or surveyor. It is, moreover, well known, that the royal domains remaining in the country, or tile crown lands, as they were called at the commencement of the Revolution, were claimed by the United States as common national property, on the ground of conquest in their confederate capacity. To pursue the point, however, through the difficulties that were made by Maryland, dtiring the Revolution, on account of her circum- scribed boundary, to the mode in which the subject was finally settled by Congress, although it would not prove un- profitable to the question, would lead to an anachronism in the discussion of it, which may as well be passed over. 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 115 Throughout the whole of our controversy with Great Britain, the colonists contended for the existence of a gene- ral civil constitution for the colonies, to which they constantly appealed for the definition and security of these rights, which they claimed as native horn subjects, and which was founded, and could be maintained, on no other basis, than that of the common law of England. Indeed it cannot be contested, that the elements of the En~lish system of jurisprudence, existed in their full vigor in the colonies, excepting such parts of it as related more exclusively to its feudal and ecclesiastical institutions. Governor Pownall, than whom, it is probable, a more constitutional jurist did not exist in the colonies, and whose authority is frequently referred to with the utmost respect by Dr Franklin, lays it down as a rule universally adopted through all the colonies, that they carried with them to America the common law of England, with 5uch portion of the statutes, observing the ecclesiastical ex- ception, as were in force at the time of their establishment.* In all the colonies, he says, the common law is received as the foundation and main body of their law. The variegated aspect, which this common law exhibited in the colonies, may be accounted for mainly by two circumstances. The first is, that it was a system of principles, depending chiefly for its form on its judicial administration ; and, secondly, that the jurisprudence itself; not being contained in any exact code, but in a combined condition with actual jurisdiction, these elements did not so much require to be embodied, as to have a general organ established for their interpretation. These circumstances must be taken into view together, to explain the apparent discrepancies in the colonial system. It is a characteristic principle of the common law of Eng- land, that its evidence exists emphatically in judicial expo- sition. This circumstance naturally gave the common law the complexion of a Jurisprudence dVlrrets, or what is familiarly denominated judicial legislation; and would proba- bly have produced the same mosaic and tesselated appear- ance, that is presented in the parliamentary law of France, but for the peculiar structure of the English system, the intercommunication of the courts at Westminster, and the The Administration of the Colonies; wherein their Rights and Consti tetions are discussed and stated. By Thomas Posvnall, & c, London, 1768. 116 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, piedominant capacity of the House of Lords, as an ultimate tribunal to pronounce the common, and expound the statute law of the realm. In England, says ~lr Du Poncean, (p. 1.27,) there is, in fact, but ono great judicature, sitting at Westminster. Although divided into different tribunals, the same spirit pervades them all ; and in important cases the twelve judges meet together to decide. Above them all is the House of Lords~ whose judgments are final and conclu- sive. But iii that country, again, he remarks, (p. 6,) the jurisdiction of almost every tribunal is derived from the com- mon law, that is, from ancient usage. From the same source proceeds, at the same time, almost the whole of English juris- prudence. Jurisdiction and law flow together in a mixed stream, which in England there is little necessity to analyse, in order to separate its component parts. The same inter- mingled current has passed over to us, it may be added, as it descended from antiquity. Still the natural consequences of this primal constitution of the common law are obvious, and their operation is well illustrated, by the description given of it by Lord Chief Jus- tice Hale, in the ancient county courts, into which England was formerly divided, according to the following enumeration. First, the ignorance of the judges, who were freeholders of the county; secondly, that these various courts bred varieties of law, especially in the several counties, for the decisions or judgmn?nts being made by divers courts, and several indepen- dent judges and judicatories, who had no common interest amongst themselves, in their several judicatories, thereby, in process of time, every several county would have several laws, customs, rules, and forms of proceeding; thirdly, that all the business of any moment was carried by parties and factions, and that those of great power and interest in the county, did easily overbear others in their own causes, or in such wherein they were interested, either by relation of kin- dred, tenure, service, dependence, or application. This is certainly a very natural account of the operations of such consequences as would be apt to follow, in the absence of a general controlling jurisdiction, such as did not exist in the colonies, and on this subject Governor Pownall very candidly remarks, that it was no disgrace to many gentlemen, sitting on the benches of the courts of law in the colonies, to say 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 117 that they were not, and could not be expected, to be lawyers learned in the law.* Still, in England the common law arose superior to all these circumstances, and vindicated to itself a character, to which causes could not be equally propitious here. Although the common law was thus received in all the coloqies, as the foundation and main body of their law, Governor Pownall further remarks, that each colony being vested with legislative power, in addition to the circumstance before alluded to, of the exercise of judicial authority, the common law became therehy liable to continual alteration; so that, as a great lawyer of the colonies, probably a crown lawyer, had said, by reason of the diversity of their resolu- tions, in their respective superior courts, and of the several new acts or laws made in them severally, the several systems of the laws of those colonies grew more and more variant, not only from one another, but from the laws of England. (p. lOs.) Upon this point again, Governor Pownall observes, (p. 102,) that where the circumstances of a country and people, and their relations to the statutes and common law differ so greatly, the common law of these countries must, in its natural course, become different, and sometimes even contrary, or at least incompatible with the common law of England, so that in some cases, the determinations arising both from the statute and common law, (namely, of England,) irnist be rejected. This renders the judicatories of these countries vague and precarious, if not arbitrary, and leads to the rendering the common law of the country different, in- compatible with, if not contrary to and independent of, the law of the mother country. In support of these remarks, the following observations are quoted from an author of one of our colonial histories. The state of our laws opens a door to much controversy. The uncertainty with respect to them, renders property precarious, and greatly exposes us to the arbitrary decision of bad judges. The common law of England is generally received, together with such statutes as were enacted before we had a legislature of our own. But our courts exercise a sovereign authority, in determining what parts of the common and statute law ought to be extended; * See Administration of the Colonies, & c. pp. 101, 103. 118 (Jommon Law Jurisdiction. [July, for it must be admitted, that the difference of circumstances neccssarily requires us, in some cases, to reject the determina- tions of both. in many instances they have also extended even acts of parliament, passed since we have had a distinct legislation, which is adding greatly to our confusion. The practice of our courts is not less uncertain than the law. Some of the English rules are adopted, others rejected. Two things, therefore, seem to he ahsolutely necessary for the puhlic security ; first, the passing an act for settling the extent of the English laws ; secondly, that the courts ordain a general set of rules for the regulation of practice. Gov- ernor Pownall observes, that, from this representation of things, it is evident that something is wanting to fix deter- minately the judicial powers, and further, he deemed it important to make an entire new organisation of them, on principles which he suggests, analogous to the general juris- diction already estahlished hy the laws of England, and corresponding to the political constitution of the colonies. Some objection, he supposed, might he raised in the minds of the colonists against the erection of any new jurisdiction, established by powers not known to the laws of the realm hut no solid objection seemed to exist, in his view, to the establishment of courts, the laws of whose practice, juris- diction, and powers, are already settled hy the laws of the realm. It was a question, which he anticipated, whether the crown could, or could not, erect in the colonies, without the concurrence of the legislature, courts of chancery, ex- chequer, kings hench, common pleas, admiralty, and pro- hate, or ecclesiastical courts. However that might he, he considered it a suhject strongly recommending itself to the wisdom of the imperial legislature. The remarks of Governor Pownall on this suhject, are so exceedingly instructive, that we regret that our limits, al- ready considerahly encroached upon, will not allow us to extend them. in order to comprehend the suhject fully, and at the same time encounter the appalling exhibition he has presented, concerning the causes of the corruption, as the crown lawyers might he pleased to consider it, of the colonial common law, and also apprehend the grounds of his proposed reform, it may he convenient to advert to the actual judicial constitution of the colonies, as understood in theory, and established in practice. 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 119 By the theory of the colonial government, the power of administering justice was unquestionably an emanation from the sovereignty. By the constitution of the empire, the king was the fountain of justice. Witness ourseif at Westminster was the style in ~vhich the current ran in England ; and it is a familiar anecdote of the same Solomon, who sat upon the English throne, that he was seized with the fancy to preside, according to the flesh, as the absolute personification of jus- tice. Judicial proceedings were all conducted in the colo- nies in the name of the king, with the exception of a short period, when our ancestors in Massachusetts Bay undertook to coin their money, and lay down the law in the name of their o~vn supreme majesty,one of those juvenile exploits of state sovereignty, for which they were afterwards fined, in the loss of their charter, with the penalty of being reduced to the form of a province ; and also of having the province of Maine incorporated with the old colony in her boundaries. This authority of the sovereign, however, was not enjoyed undivided, nor its details undisputed. The crown assumed the power of establishing courts, and retained the actual appointment of judges. This last point was never practically contested, but it was asserted as a principle, by the colonial jurists, that courts could not be erected without an act of their own legislature. It ~vas not contended by the crown lawyers, that the claim of the crown to erect judicatories in the colonies, extended to any right of defining the juris- diction of those courts, or the la~vs by which it was to be exercised. They did not assume the power of establishing any new species of authority, unknown to the laws of the realm ; but the ground on which they placed the pretension was this; The crown names the judge, and establishes the courts, but the jurisdiction is settled by the laws of the realm. And here the question rested until the Revolution, when it worked itself into the catalogue of grievances. With this limitation of the power of the crown, and this protest against the erection of any tribunal, on principles unknown to the laws, it was evidently the impression entertained, by some of the most liberal and enlightened jurists in the colo- nies, that there was no constitutional impediment to the establishment of courts, the rules of whose jurisdiction should he previously recognised, defined, and settled, by the laws of 120 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, the realm. It appears to be a fact, that all the powers, which existed in the colonies for administering justice, were derived originally from the crown, either through the instru.~ mentality of their charters, or by commissions to the govern~ ors. These latter especially contai~ned an express delegation of all its judicial power, and jurisdictions of chancery, admi- ralty, and supreme ordinary, as well as of common law, and authorised or directed the establishment of courts.* It is stated by Mr Sergeant, in the sketch of the national judiciary powers, exercised in the present United States, from the first settlement of the colonies, that a general super- intending power was exercised by the king in council, by way of appeal from the decisions of the colonial tribunals. The reason of this institution, which is very briefly mentioned by Mr Sergeant, is involved in some antiquity, and is to be explained by recurrence to the early history of England. As the feudal system was confined to the mother country, its polity could only be extended to the colonies by fiction. The county palatine of Durham, presented the first model for their formation; as in the charters of Carolina, Maryland, Maine, and the Caribbee Islands. This was succeeded by a comparison of them of a sudden, to the Dutchies of Gascoign~e, or Normandy, which the king held as his own demesnes, in partibus exteris, not parcels of the realm, nor properly annexed to the crown of England. From that period the condition of the colonies was considered the same as that of Jersey, which was part of the Dutchy of Normandy. And at this time, there being no precedent for any judicial establishment out of the kingdom, except those of Guernsey and Jersey, relics of the Dutchy of Normandy, which were not considered as united to the realm, appeals were brought not to the court of chancery, nor to the House of Lords, but were made to the king in council, as though he were still duke, according to the ancient custom of Normandy. The same regulations were adopted for appeals. In Jersey, appeals lay in matters of property above the value of three hundred hivres tournois; and appeals in the colonies were restricted to cases of three hundred pounds sterling. This Pownalls Administration of the Colonies, pp. 85, 105,110,111. 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 121 Norman custom, as Governor Pownall calls it, continued to be the corner stone in the construction of their judicial system. Appeals were frequent to the king in council, from the highest courts in the colonies before the Revolution. Mr Sergeant refers to several in ~Pennsylvania, and the great case of Vaughan, appellant from a judgment in New Hamp- shire, in favor of Mason, as proprietor of the province, for lands in Portsmouth, which was argued by counsel before the committee for trade and plantations of the privy council, and on their report ratifying the verdict, judgment was affirm- ed by the king in council. This is recorded by Dr Belknap, in his history and appendix. Mr Sergeant surmises, that in some instances, the appeal was first to the governor and council, and refers to a case in Lord Raymond, brought from the island of Barbadoes, after going through this process, before the king in council. According to the late Dr Chris -tian s account of it, this is in fact a court of justice, ~vbich must consist of at least three privy counsellors ; and the usual mode of exercising its judicial authority is in committee of the whole privy council. (1 BI. Corn. 232.) Charles the First, pursuing his idea of managing the colonies, as his own separate concern, delegated this appellate jurisdiction to the council, which he established for governing the plantations. This appellate authority, exercised by the king in council, was an anomaly in tbe system, and was properly confined to those cases, which were considered special flowers of prero- gative, such as idiocy and lunacy, and by rather an ill omened association, admiralty. By a very natural process, upon this principle, appeals from the vice admiralty established in the colonies, came to be heard before the same tribunal; and as the jurisdiction of admiralty soon acquired an affinity for matters of exchequer, cases of that kind from the colonies were also carried, by a familiar operation, before the king in council. Sir William Blackstone states, that whenever a question arises between two provinces in America, or elsewhere, con- cerning the extent of their charters, & c, the king exercised original jurisdiction therein, upon the principles of feudal sovereignty. And in the case of Mostyn and Fabrigas, which was decided in England just before the Revolution, VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 16 1f22 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, and after the publication of the Commentaries, (1774,) Lord Mansfield lays down the doctrine, that no question concern- ing the seignory can be tried within the seignory; and, therefore, when a question respecting the seignory arose in the proprietary governments, or between two provinces of America, or in the Isle of Man,t it was cognisable by the kings courts in England only. The case of the Isle of Man, which was demanded by the Earl of Derby, was in the reign of Queen Elisabeth. The claim of the representatives of the duke of Montague, to the Island of St Vincents, was determined in 1764. Mr Du Ponceau observes, that the famous case between William Penn and Lord Baltimore, was determined accord- ing to the law of England, which in all national matters, he says, never ceased to he the rule of right and wrong. We suppose he refers to the case, as reported by Vesey the elder, which was a bill in chancery, brought by Mr Penn against Lord Baltimore, to compel specific performance of an agreement, relative to difference between them respecting their boundaries. Lord Baltimore was a sort of sovereign prince over the province of Maryland; and Penn was the proprietary of Pennsylvania. Lord Hardwicke entered into an elaborate discussion respecting the jurisdiction, both of the court of privy council and chancery, in relation to ques- tions arising upon subject matters abroad, the result of which was, that the court of privy council could not decree in personam in England, unless in certain criminal cases, and the court of chancery could not decree sn rem out of the kingdom. But notwithstanding the degree of locality attach- ed to the subject of the dispute in that case, the lord chan- cellor considered it as a matter of contract between the parties, to be executed by their personal acts, in which it was proper for the court to interfere. In cases where the king himself was a party on one side, and where the colonies were concerned on the other, and which, therefore, could not with any propriety he brought before the king in council, the kings bench exercised original jurisdiction. An instance of this occurred in the famous proceedings of quo warranto, on which the charter of Mas- sachusetts was adjudged to be forfeited, by a judgment of the court of kings bench. The general seizure of the 1825.] Comm on Law Jurisdiction. 123 charters at this period was so arbitrary an act, that public opinion revolted at the mode in which it was exercised. Nevertheless, the kings bench was the supreme court of common law in the kingdom ; and besides its general super- intending and visitatorial authority over civil or lay corpo- rations, and its prerogative poWer to issue writs of mandamus, its authority was considered, so late as the days of Lord Mansfield, as extending to the extremities of the empire, in order to prevent a failure of justice. If any forum was demanded for determining disputes between the king and colonies, as certainly was expedient under a free system, this tribunal was probably as little obnoxious as any that was established. But the question, concerning the judicial power of the kings bench, stood on very much the same foundation, as the legislative power of parliament. They ranked very nearly as coordinate authorities. Situated as the colonies were, in relation to the English government, they could not be satisfied to regard the kings bench as a constitutional tri- bunal for this purpose, and its jurisdiction was perhaps about as little relished, as that of the present supreme court of the United States is, by those western states beyond the Alle- gany, which have no representatives on the bench. As it was, upon the whole, it only pointed to a defect in the system. The kings bench was also considered the highest court of original criminal jurisdiction in the kingdom, next to the House of Lords, having frill authority to hear and determine all capital and inferior offences of a public nature ; and, being the custos morum of all the subjects of the realm, does not require a precedent in every case to authorise its inter- ference. Several acts of parliament were passed, authorising persons accused of crimes committed in the colonies, to be sent to England for trial. The statute of 35 Hen. VIII was revived for that purpose. The 12 Geo. III contained seve- ral capital enactments to this effect, and a particular act was passed, empowering the government of Massachusetts Bay to send to England, or to other colonies for trial, persons in- dicted for murder in that province. This was complained of as a grievous violation of the principles of common law; on which it was held, that the inhabitants of the colonies could not be transported for trial, to any other part of the realm; that there could be no criminal jurisdiction exercised, except 124 Common Law Jurisdiction. [JuIy~ in the province where the crime was committed, or the accused had his domicil, without infringing the right of jury trial from the vicinage, the act of Habeas Corpus, and the common rights of English colonists. On these groun(ls it was held ~o be the general judicial constitution of the colonies, that there existed in them a jurisdiction preeminently competent to the cognisance of all criminal cases, exclusive of the appropriate jurisdiction of the admiralty. * How clear and just a conclusion this was, from the cardinal principles of the common law, as a system of criminal jurisprudence, must be apparent to every reflect- ing lawyer. For the fact itself, that such c~ncIusion was adopted, we refer to the authority of Dr Franklin. in regard to the jurisdiction of the admiralty, which was emphatically a jewel of the crown, and ranked among the jura coronv, or rights of sovereignty, it was established in the colonies on its appropriate principles ; with the further peculiarity, however, that some part of the proper juris- diction of exchequer was engrafted upon it, by virtue of some of the laws of trade; from which originated a singular usage to dispense with the trial by jury, in cases of this description. This was nmtter of complaint among the re- citals in the Declaration of Independence, but the union became a usage, and the practice remains incorporated with it since the Revolution. It has been doubted in England~ whether the jurisdiction of the admiralty was not, in its nature, so perfectly definite, as not to be capable of extension by act of the legislature ; but this was in regard to prize, which was held to be an inherent portion of its power. The admiralty is there considered a court of municipal jurisdiction; the jurisdiction of prize was vested in other courts, however, iii Scotland; and an act of parliament was required to regulate the practice. Mr D~i Ponceau has some remarks respecting the admiralty, as being a perfect and absolute quantity; in respect to which, we have only at present to advert to the existing combination of the not very kindred institutions of the admiralty and exchequer, at least in their original crea- tion, under the magnificent title of the former. .Miratur novas frondes et non sua poma. We understand it to be a Franklin~s Works, vol. i. pp. 297, 300; and vol. v. pp.. 356, 366, and notes. 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 125 fact, not merely on the authority of Mr Burke, that the establishment of the admiralty in this country, before the Re- volution, was chiefly as a security for the English navigation laws. But the greatest defect, in the judicial administration of the colonies, was the want, in mosi~ of them, of a court of equity. In the kings governments, as they were called, the governor, or governor and council, officiated after the fashion of chan-~ cellors. But many causes contributed to impair the confi- dence of the community in this arrangement, objectionable as it was, also, on the score of principle. In the charter governments, as of New England for example, there was no chancery at all; and excepting in the power to give jelief in mortgages, bonds, and penalties, in all other subjects of equity jurisdiction, the crown and the public were equally without resource. This circumstance explains one fact, that has long been an anomaly in our civil jurispru(lence, namely, the practice of petitioning the legislature for relief, and the usage which has long existed, of interfering to afford it in this summary manner. This power was early exercised, to an extent beyond what that of chancery had ever been car- ried, even, as it was said, of suspending public laws, by mere orders or resolves passed without much solemnity. The consideration of all these inconveniences, arising from the imperfect system of judicial authority existing in the colonies before the Revolution, led to the suggestion of some expedient for its improvement; and there was one it seems, that had been in contemplation, and was matured by some of the ablest lawyers in the colonies; viz, the establisitment of a Supreme Court of appeal and equity, not confined to any single colony, but itinerating through several circuits. The arrangement was as follows. Nova Scotia and New England were to compose one circuit; New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, a second; and Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia, the third. It was recommended, that this circuit system should be composed of two persons, at least, for each district, learned in the law not only of the mother country, but of the several governments in such dis- trict; that it should have full powers of a court of chancery, as well as of law, on matters brought before it by writ of error, from the several Superior Courts of the district to 126 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, which it extended; that it should regulate all the courts of law in the exercise of their jurisdiction; have a general su- perintendence over inferior courts; and thus become an established tribunal of appellate jurisdiction, which should tend to introduce not only a uniformity among the courts of the different colonies themselves; but also to produce a con- formity to the courts of the mother country, in the dispensa- tion and construction of the law.* These details are gathered from the work of Governor Pownall on the Administration of the Colonies; and the influence of a fact of this kind, which we do not remember to have seen referred to, will be at once estimated by those, who recognise in it a type of the present judicial establishment of the Union. That these opinions, which were undoubtedly not formed without much consideration, were not reduced to actual ex- perirnent, was probably owing to the interruption of the Revo- lution. Other questions had grown up and become con- founded with this, which it was beyond the authority of the civilian to settle. This was gradually assuming a revolu- tionary shape with the rest, so that the course of reform was necessarily suspended, and the voice of the law was subdued in the busy hum of preparation, on the eve of the great con- flict. In this unsettled state, in which the suhject existed at that period, it cannot perhaps be contended that the colonial jurisprudence had attained the shape of a system to such a degree, as to sustain the character of a universal system. Crude, nevertheless, as it may have been, it is there that we must seek for the elements of the common law of the country. From this view of the subject it would seem, that the de- fect in the system of the colonies was one, rather of judica- ture, than jurisprudence. There was a sufficient fulcrum, the want was a lever. The great desideratum undoubtedly was a general judiciary establishment, with powers properly developed, and well defined, whose province should be to administer those principles of common law, that were equally applicable to their condition under their various local diver- sities; and the absence of such a provision is only to he supplied, by reflection upon the principles, which actually existed towards the formation of such a general judicial con- stitution~ and also considering the true scale on which the * Pownalls Administration of the Colonies & c, pp. 113, 114. 1825.] Common Law Jurisdietion. 127 actual institutions of that period were constructed. The colonies at this period had lost their confidence in those, from whom a new organisation would have been expected ; and we believe there was at this period a feeling, prevalent in the colonies, unfriendly to any change proceeding from the crown. Nolumus leges muta~i seems to have been their motto, and at the same time we observe among the causes of complaint against the king, recited in the Declaration of Independence, that he had obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing to cooperate in the establishment of ju- diciary powers. From this imperfect review of the state of things before the Revolution, iL seems, however, to result, that the general elements of English jurisprudence, excepting its ecclesiastical portion, existed in the colonies actually, or potentially, to such an extent, as to maintain the positions, that were as- sumed by the patriotic lawyers of that period, and which have been adopted by the soundest constitutional lawyers since. The Congress of the United Colonies, before they proclaimed their independence, in 1774, declared them to be entitled to the common law of England. We know by tra- dition, that Blackstone was received with delight in the colo- nies, as the expositor of their law; and that whole editions of the commentary were exhausted in America; and the ac- tive, liberal, and enlightened spirit of the American jurists of that age deserved the noble eulogium, which it drew forth from the eloquence of Burke. We may grant that their attention was principally attracted, at that period, to those points of personal liberty and rights of private property, upon which most of the original causes of controversy turned ; but these were insisted upon only as constituent parts of the general system of common law, interwoven into the constitution of all the colonies; and where, we may ask, could they have found more genuine and authentic expositions of the truest prin- ciples of natural and municipal law combined upon this sub- ject, than in the provisions of the common law, as expressed in Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights, and the Habeas Corpus Act? All the acts and declarations of the period, to which we refer, were founded on this idea of a constitutional code of common law for the colonies, exist- ing like that of England, in those legislative resolutions of 128 Common Law Jurisdiction. ~July~ rights, redigested by the colonial congresses, and judicial determinations, legal usages, and established precedents, in which the common law consisted. Upon these followed, of consequence, the adoption of all those rules and doctrines, respecting the rights of persons, and laws of property, the definitions of which could be fonncbin America only in that system. The common law was the only general form, to which the elements before referred to had been reduced throughout the colonies; and excepting the provisional es- tablishment of equity powers, in some shape or other, in some of the provinces, together with probate courts, there was no other combination into which those principles may properly b~ considered to have been condensed. Whatever residue of judicial power and authority there was, remained in a state of suspension, or in the language of the law itself, in nubi bus. We believe it has never been denied, that the Revolution rendered us, on the principles of the declaration of indepen- dence, if it did not find us already constituted, one people. This Revolution did not dissolve the bonds of society,~nor re- duce us to a state of nature. The revolutionists were too well read in Locke, and their minds too deeply imbued with the principles of law itself, apart from the authority of writers, to admit a conclusion so barbarous, as that of abandoning all the body they possessed of municipal jurisprudence. There is hardly any person, we apprehend, who has done more to settle this subject, by slow degrees, than the present Chief Justice Marshall. Resorting so little as he does to authority, relying so little on precedent, reposing so much on principle, and drawing so much from the resources of enlightened reason, and profound philosophy, together with the caution that distinguishes his character and the natural moderation of his temper, there is no authority more likely to be referred to hereafter than his own, and there are no propositions, that will ~)robably be found to require less liLnitation, or better bear the test of revision. In the case of Livingston against Jefferson, which is found in the first volume of Halls Law Journal, new series, the Chief Justice makes the following observations; When our ancestors migrated to America, they brought with them the common law of their native country, so far as it was applica 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 129 ble to their new situation; and I do not conceive, that the Revolution would in any degree have changed the relations of man to man, or the law which regulated these relations. In breaking our political connexion with the parent state, we did not break our connexion with each other. It remained subsequent to the ancient rules, until those rules should be changed by the competent authority. To this we may add, that it was the deliberate opinion entertained and pronounced by Chief Justice Ellsworth, while he was on the supreme bench, that the common law of this country remains the same as it was before the Revolution. We may also adduce to this point the opinion of Mr Du Ponceau, that the general system of laws, by which these colonies were governed, has never been repealed, either expressly or by necessary implication, but has always continued to be in vigor, so far as applicable to our varying situation. The first serious question, that was made on this subject, we believe was by Judge Chase, on the trial of Worrall, in 1~98, when he declared it with great energy as his opinion, that the United States had no common law, although the states had. But the common law of one state was not the common law of another; nor was the common law of Eng- land the law of any of the states, except so far as they had adopted and modified it by their respective statutes and usages, from which had resulted an endless variety, that could not be reconciled. This opinion, as Mr Du Ponceau re- marks, made considerable noise at that time, and produced a vague but strong impression, as Judge Chase was known to be a man of powerful mind and extensive learning, and more addicted by his temper to extend, than to abridge authority. For the sins of his temperament, certainly, rather than the surrender of his trust, this patriotic and independent jurist was summoned to answer before the highest tribunal of his country, on several charges of impeachment; and since his universal acquittal from them, upon a judgment of the Senate, sanctioned by the subsequent voice of the nation, he has been gathered, without a spot on his integrity, to the rest of that race of our political fathers, who have gone to their re- ward through much tribulation. This opinion, although it did not compose one of the ingredients of his accusation, VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 17 130 (Jommon Law Jurisdiction. [Julyr gave rise to one of those unfortunate measures of legislation, the Sedition Act, which was passed soon after. This opinion of Judge Chase, from which the Sedition Act resulted as a corollary, was employed by Professor Tucker of William and Marys College, in Virginia, to com- bat that of Chief Justice Ellsworth ~n an essay, in which he exhausted all the diversities, anomalies, and antinomies, that- could be brought into any relation to the subject; and this product of a political enthusiasm, he intended to embody as a permanent appendix to the commentary of Blackstone. The opinion of Judge Chase seems to have been reverenced and regarded as a sort of perpetual edict. It served as a text for the instruction of the General Assembly of Virginia in 1800. The Virginia Assembly did not pause at that time, to expose at large what they considered the monstrous pre- tensions, resulting from the adoption of the principle stated; to wit, that the common law of England was in force under the government of the United States. But besides the evils attending the exercise of such an unlimited criminal jurisdic- tion, as it opened, it was declared to arrest, or supersede state jurisdictions, and to innovate upon state laws; to assume a range of jurisdiction for the federal courts, which defied definition or limitation; and again, that it had a tendency to involve the existing institutions of federal and state courts in such an inextricable maze of confusion, that it would be im- possible to separate their judiciary rights with precision, or avoid the constant and mischievous consequences of a con- flict of rival jurisdictions. They, there fore, protested against the passing of any law by Congress, which was founded upon, or recognised this l)rinciple, except such parts of the com- mon law, as might have a sanction from the constitution, so far as they were necessarily comprehended in the technical phrases, which express the powers delegated to the govern- ment; and also excepting such other parts, as may be adopted by Congress, as necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers expressly delegated. The opinion delivered by Judge Chase industriously con- fines the operation of the common law, as a civil rule, to cases between citizens in states, where the suits are instituted, whether in the federal or state courts indifferently; while 1 p25.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 131 the Virginia resolutions, notwithstanding the broad language of the preamble, more considerately allow it the whole scope of the constitution. That this imagined common law of the Union can be in any manner the same, as the common law of England, Judge Chase positively denies; and what was the source of the common law acknowledged by the General Assembly of Virginia, is, by their instructions, in no wise in- dicated. The constitution does not clear up this point by any particular definition. It is a very just remark of Mr Justice Story, that the constitution of the United States pre- supposes the existence of the common law. It then becomes a very interesting topic of examination, to ascertain what this common law is, which is thus, in his language, presupposed by the constitution. This point of inquiry, namely, wherein consists this anteconstitutional corn- mon law of this country is one, which Mr Du Ponceau under- takes professionally to answer. In the first place, he says, I consider the common law of England as the jus commune of the United States. And, secondly, I think I can lay it down as a correct principle, that the common law of Eng- land, as it was at the time of the Declaration of Independence, still continues to be the national law of this country, so far as it is applicable to our present state, and subject to the modi- fications it has received here in the course of near half a century. That is, subsequently to the Revolution. This proposition of Mr Du Ponceau is not, we acknowledge, with- out some embarrassment to our minds, in respect to the point of time, at which he fixes the period of this identification of the common law of this country, with the common law of England; for if we apprehend the statement aright, it is, that the common law of England was the common law of this country, at the epoch of the Revolution. We are not quite sure, however, that we do perfectly apprehend Mr Du Pon- ceau on this point; nor whether there is not a little indis- tinctness of vision in our own organ, rather than his. We do not imagine, that he means to arrive at such a result by any empirical process; and he, therefore, is not to be under- stood as attributing any inherent virtue and efficacy to the law of England, as being rendered thereby, at that period, the law of the colonies. Conquered and ceded countries, tipon *me principle so correctly considered by himself, retain their 132 & wnmon Law Jurisdiction. [July, laws and preserve their original customs; and much more a country like ours, which had conquered its independence, and achieved its own sovereignty, as a nation. Even the phrase of our emancipation was one, which Chatham could not endure; for when, said he~ were we ever slaves? The principle of the lex loci is otserved and respected, in regard to all extra-territorial authority; and the necessity of some medium to connect the existing system, with the ante- cedent state of jurisprudence, is too obvious to escape so penetrating and philosophical an observer as Mr Du Pon- ceau. It is proper, therefore, to look further into his disser- tation, and compare the sentiments, which he expresses on this subject, with the sound principles upon which he un- doubtedly determines to erect his system, and rest his opinion. Mr Du Ponceau accordingly observes, that the common law may be viewed under different aspects; hence the vari- ety of opinions that have been and still are entertained re- specting it. Here is an ancient and a modern, an English and an American common law, making in some respects a whole, in some others distinct codes. In his preface he expresses an opinion, that the English and American com- mon law have been in some manner improperly confounded. We are aware with him, that the common law of England has its various periods, which may be distributed, like the Roman, intojus antiquum,ju~ novum, and jus novzsssmum. That which he selects, as the true meridian of the English law, and on which he lavishes his encomiums as the season of the greatest excellence in its history, is the space com- mencing with the middle of the seventeenth century, and ending at the time of the American Revolution. The true era of the common law is the period, which follow- ed the great Revolution of 1648, to the time of our own emancipa- tion. It was then that it assumed that bold and majestic shape, those commanding features, which have made it the pride of the nations who possess it, and the envy of those who do not. Du- ring that period, the rights of man have been acknowledged and defined, and limits have been set to the sovereign authority. The prerogatives of the crown (I am speaking here of England) have been ascertained, and restricted within proper bowids; the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities, have taken their re 1S25.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 133 spective stations, and know the extent of their several powers; judges have been rendered independent, and juries have been freed from ignoble shackles. The writ of habeas corpus has been made effectual, a fair and unexceptionable mode of trial has been pro- vided for cases of high treason. The press has been freed from the unhallowed touch of state licensers. Religious toleration has been established. The hand of arbitrary power has been para- lysed; and man has been taught to walk erect, and to feel the dig- nity of his nature; civil jurisprudence has also been considerably improved, and is in a progressive state of further amendment. pp. 111, 112. As Mr Du Ponceau is speaking expressly, in this passage, of England, wee do not know in what degree he intends his remarks to apply to the state of the colonies. How the common law, as the common law of England, could have any operation in the colonies during that period, we have no definite idea. The true time, at which the colonies re- ceived the common law, was that of their settlement, which was previous to the commencement of the auspicious era, descanted upon with so much animation by Mr Du Ponceau. There is no subsequent point, which we can fix without an- achronism, for any general transfusion of its principles~ and from that time forth, its improvement arose from its gradual adaptation of those principles to the condition of the colo- nies, and the adoption of those meliorations of it, which took place during this long interval in England. The power of legislation, upon subjects of common law, was deemed to have ceased in Great Britain, concerning the colonies, in so far, that legislative alterations of its principles were only re- ceived in their courts at their election. But judicial deter- minations, in regard to those principles, by the English tribu- nals, it is certainly true, carried some air of authority until the Revolution; and the legislatures of some of our states have in reality acted upon no false principle, in suspending the citing of such cases as authorities since the Revolution, although there would be no great harm, perhaps, in permitting them to be read. That there was some affinity, therefore, between the two systems, during this long middle age of the common law, seems quite apparent. Mr Du Ponceau again observes, That the common law was the common jurisprudence of England, and her English 134 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, colonies, under such modifications as their peculiar situation required. In all cases for which the local law had not pro- vided, or to which it was not applicable, this national law, (as he terms it,) was the rule of decision. In this general relation to the mother country apd the colonies, he com- pares it to the civil law, which is called the common law, jus commune of Europe; which each separate government has modified, as it thought proper, to suit its own local cir- cumstances ; or if it has introduced into its territories new edicts, new laws, and new codes, still the civil law governs in all their common concerns. As the civil law is now in Earope, so the common law in America ~as not indeed paramount to the local customs and statutes, but it was the fruitful source from which principles were drawn to aid in the solution of all the doubts and difficulties, which arose from them, and the. rule by which unforeseen cases were decided. It was a general system of jurisprudence, hover- ing over the local legislation, and filling up the interstices. It was ready to pour in at every opening it could find. Like the sun under a cloud, it was overshadowed, not extinguish- ed, by the local laws. It lost nothing of its force, its power, or its vigor. It burst in at the moment of the adoption of the constitution of the United States, and filled up every space, which the state laws ceased to occupy. If we comprehend Mr Du Ponceaus idea in this glowing passage, it is, that the common law of which he speaks, is neither the English common law, nor the American coin- mon law, exclusively, according to the distinction previously suggested by him, but the common law of England and the colonies together, and so continued until the time of the Revolution; and that the whole body of it was adopted with the constitution, to supply all these spaces, ~vhich were open- ed or created for its application, by the operations of the new form of government. So far as Mr Du Ponceau may be understood to speak of the common law of England, as a great reservoir for supplying the jurisprudence of the colo- nies, we appreherA him to be correct; and we are not pre- pared at present to deny, that there might have been a cer- tain portion, or residuum of this power, in his own moderate sense of the term, which, of course, remained suspended during our dependant colonial condition ; and which instant- 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 135 ly, perhaps, became applicable in the due exercise of the ju- dicial faculty of national sovereignty. Indeed we believe, that in practice, the principles ot the common law were immediately, and have always been applied to the civil re- lations, subsisting between the ~government, and its officers, and citizens. Some rule was certainly necessary, and we know of none, that could have been so properly adopted. Whether the authority, under which this rule went into ope- ration, was derived entirely from its adoption by the con- stitution, or whether the principle possessed some previous potential vigor, and elastic force, is a dilemma in whici] we understand Mr Du Ponceau rather to favor the latter alter- native. While we have no difficulty in conceiving, how a common law could exist in this country upon some principle before the constitution, we have some, however, in apprehending how there could be a common jurisprudence between Eng- land and her colonies, during the last century, except under very considerable limitation. That the common law of the colonies, indeed, could not be the same as the exact common law of England, is quite obvious. There could not be in all respects a common law to both countries. There could be no common rule to such various relations, as were divided by the ocean, any more than the same doc- trine of real estate can be applied to wild land and culti- vated; and that portion of the common law, which Mr Dim Ponceau describes, as having been brought into being with the constitution, could assuredly have had no actual exist- ence in this country before the Revolution. It was very justly remarked by Lord Mansfield, that the law of England would be a very singular science, if it de- pended on precedents only. Precedents serve to illus- trate principles, and to give them a fixed authority. The law, he observes, does not consist in particular cases, but in general principles, that run through the cases and govern the decisions of them. It is undoubtedly true, that the genius of the common law is essentially analytical. Its courts decide nothing but cases; all the rest is mere obiter dictum; and it is evident that Lord Eldons mind, with a strong native cast towards equity, received its original schooling in the common law. It is charged upon the common law as a solecism, by 136 Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, Hoicroft, in his novel of Hugh Trevor, that the rule is always the same, while the cases are different ; but such a remark would never be uttered by a man of philosophical reflection. Dr Cooper speaks with more propriety in saying, that prin- ciples may, with due care, be so cjearly expressed, that they will admit of little doubt; while the innumerable variety of cases, that will come under them, no effort of human wisdom can reduce to any system a priori; they will arise from circumstances, with which we are totally unacquainted; from modes of social intercourse, which will receive their origin, when we are dead. We are no apologists, more than Dr Cooper himself, for what may justly be deemed bench le- gislation ; but we are warm advocates for that species of legislation, which is wrought by the spirit of the age. Time is unquestionably the great legislator; and we cease to inquire into the annals of past ages, to find the wisdom that is necessary to guide our own. Changes, therefore, are insensibly wrought in the circumstances of a country, to which it is necessary, that not only the laws themselves, but also the spirit of the laws, should he accommodated. This alteration is not produced ; it already exists before it is an- nounced; and excepting those cases, which are proper for the interposition of the legislature, society has yet to invent some more suitable organ for pronouncing it, than its own judicial authority. As for many of those cases, that pass under the odious name of judicial legislation, we conceive they are frequently little else, than a mere sound discrimina- tion and application of the most apt and enlightened prin- ciples. We thought there was hardly any reproach, to which the common law of England was less liable, than one of this sort. The complaint has rather been, that it was not sufli- ciently ductile. It is a maxim of that law, for example, that statutes altering the common law should be construed strict- ly, and also that no statute ever becomes abrogated, al- though really reduced to a dead letter, by disuse. And whether this rigid system of precedents, even accompanied with all the original and inherent redeeming excellencies of the common law, but governed at the same time by the impracticable spirit prevailing upon the English bench, ought to constitute the precise rule of municipal jurisprudence for the United States, to be measured at the exact moment of 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. I ~37 their independence, without regard to the very considerable changes, that it had experienced and undergone in its actual application to the state of society on this side of the ocean, and without making allowance, moreover, for the more mu- table and practical aptitude, which its principles had acquired in the character of a system f~r the colonies, during the long period of their dependence upon the cro~vn of Great Britain, would be that proposition upon which we should linger a long time, before we gave it our absolute assent. But the American common law, we appiehend, is in quite another tone and spirit. On this topic we may avail our- selves of the remarks made bx Mr Du Ponceau, upon the essential improvements, which civil jurisprudence has under- gone in the United States; and this is in those respects, in which he considers the common law to be on g inallv inferior to the civil. He considers it to be still in a progressive state of improvement, and to be becoming more and more digni- fied with American features. Our landed estates, foc ex- ample, have become allodial ; the traits of the feudal system are nearly effaced, excepting a few forms and phrases, among which, that offee simple still survives. The principles of conveyancing are simplified, and registries established to supersede the ancient form of livery of seizin. Entails, where not abolished, are very easily destroyed. Surviver- ship in joint tenancy is almost extinct. The laws of descent are assimilated to the rules of succession, established by the Roman law ; and the privilege of primogeniture is abolished. If children, then heirs. The intricate peculiarities of Eng- lish practice in general are less observed ; legal proceedings rendered less expensive, and legal rights more easily under- stood by those, who cannot pretend to be subtle lawyers. Now the most of these changes were actually effected, and the principles of them all were in operation, and the whole impulse, in fact, communicated before the Revolution. From all this it is moreover apparent, as if of much greater consequence, that the American common law had acquired a spirit of change; and that this spirit had moved over the face of the deep, which was no longer a dead and stagnant surface, but was excited with all the vigor of a new cre- ation. Whatever inflexibility may be arrogated, or attributed to the English system, the character of our own is not so VOL. )tXT..NO. 48. 18 1 3S Common Law Jurisdiction. [July, harsh and rugged, as many have deemed it; and if such be the true quality of the common law of England in any degree equivalent to the supposition, we regard it as a still further evidence of the actual departure, which the American com- mon law had acquired from it, anterior to the epoch pre- scribed by Mr Du Ponceau. That the common law did exist in this country, before the Revolution, is a mere matter of fact, totally independent of any argument concerning its excellence, or any question touching its character as a system. There must be some law in every country, and this was the law of ours; at least until some more satisfactory conclusion can be established. But why, says Mr Du Ponceau, and we take pleasure in borrowing the following beautiful, and somewhat Ciceronian passage, why need I go into such a wide argument to prove, what I consider a self evident principle? We live in the midst of the common law; we inhale it at every breath, imbibe it at every pore ; we meet it when we wake, and when we lay down to sleep; it is interwoven with the very idiom that we speak, and we cannot learn another system of laws, without learning at the same time another language. We cannot think of right or wrong, but through the medium of the ideas, that we have derived from the common law. It is the very ens rationis, and, as Mr Du Ponceau observes in another place, is a part of every civil and political insti- tution. In this sense it becomes quite obvious, that the United States must have a general law, not so much arising out of their constitution, as resulting from their condition, suiting itself to their national circumstances, fitting itself to their federal relations, and incorporating itself ~vith their municil)al concerns and uses. A civil community cannot be conceived to exist without a body of jurisprudence ; and it is no doubt perfectly correct to say, as has been suggested by one of our most valuable, though least obtrusive jurists, that our present social contract must be supposed to have been formed upon the supposition of certain fundamental principles of social order, derived from the common law, or as he terms it, adopted under our English common law, whether expressly referred to by it or not. No language can be more correct, in our judgment, than to say, that this was the element of the constitutiom 1825.] Common Law Jurisdiction. 139 Nor does this phraseology exclude the use of the civil law as a principle of interpretation, whenever it may be important to the same instrument. The security of the rights and repose of private society against general search warrants, of the conscious independence of personal liberty against arbi- trary seizure or extravagant stipulation, the indemnity of in- dividual property against acts of involuntary benevolence, or in other words, the resistance of taxation without represent- ation; the independence of thought, together with its signs, of speaking, writing, and publishing, as well as the liberty of volition and action, within the bounds of law; these were the topics that were perpetually harped upon out of the common law, and served to fan the flame of freedom on both sides of the Atlantic. On the same platform of our original common law, we are able to keep pace with the progress of the most enlight- ened principles of national and public law, and avail our- selves of the advances of general jurisprudence in the liii- provement of our civil code, or the explication of our politi- cal system. In that manner, without doubt, the United States ivill eventually come to have a common law, not that of England, nor of Rome, nor of France, but the common law of the United States. In that manner, together with that body of natural reason and law, which is requisite for the municipal order of civil society; and those usages, which we have derived from England, and those customs, which were established in the colonies; and those legal principles, that we have already borrowed from other sources, with those that we may hereafter extract from foreign codes, or the future combinations of our concerns and interests, we shall probably acquire a system of common law, suitable to expound and give effect to the constitution, and open a suf- ficient field for the operation of all the benevolent and equit- able principles. We have expressed our assent to the doctrine of Mr Dii Ponceau, respecting the existence of a common law for this country. We acknowledge its necessity to the exposition of the constitution. We admit it was an element floating, if he pleases, in the atmosphere. We regard it still as a vast re- servoir of valuable jurisprudence; but we are not satisfied with the correctness of his expression, in calling it the com- mon law of England, and fixiBg its authority at the epoch of 140 Common Law Jurisdiction~ [July, the Declaration of Independence. It seems to us to be be- ginning wih the old phrases of the civil law Regiarn Alajes- tatem. We are far, as we hope we have already said, from charging upon Mr Du Ponceau the heretical idea of any inherent efficacy, in the law of England at that instant, as binding us proprio vigore; and y~t something of that kind seems necessarily to be implied, without some kind of mor- dent, or medius terminus, to ground the color, or connect the consequence with some immediate cause. And it is difficult to discover, what basis of authority the common law of England could rest upon in this country, at the period of the Revolution, similar in any manner to the author- ity which it enjoyed in England; or equivalent even to the predominance, which the civil law has obtained upon the continent of Europe. We have even yet to learn how the common law of England, in the capacity of common law of England, could prevail in the colonies during the century after their settlement. We will add our concession to the criminal law of Eng- land, of all the unrivalled excellence that belongs to it as a rule of jurisdiction, and also as a species of jurisprudence connected with all there is valuable in English liberty. But, agreeing with Mr Du Ponceau, respecting the existence of an American coirimon law, independent of that of England, we are induced to give it an origin somewhat beyond the break- ing out of the Revolution; and after that period, until the adoption of the national constitution, at which time he repre- sents the whole tide of common law pouring in upon us, there was a considerable interval. At that latter period cer- tainly a foreign code, like the law of England, could have owed its obligation only to our adoption; but a limitation of its authority, like that, would not probably be insisted upon by Mr Du Ponceau. The common law, which constitutes the desideratum in his mind, requires some grounds, for which we must search into the state of things long before our independence; and we may discover it by analysing those general principles and usages, which are to be found in that generally received and long established law, which forms the present substratum of the laws of every state in the Union. This is the doctrine of Chief Justice Mar- shall, and we deem it incapable of any addition or subtrac.~ tion for its improvement. 1825.] European Politics. 141 We would not undertake to he perfectly confident, how- ever, on any point, on which we might have the misfortune to appear to differ from Mr Do Ponceau, and least of all would we engage in any mere difference about words. Perhaps he is to be understood by his favorite phrase, common law of England, as making use or that sort of metaphor in de- scribing the common law of this country, before the Revo- lution, which our forefathers were so fond of employing, in all the models they made of their social and civil institutions. England, before the Revolution, was always called home; and in this way, the common law of the colonies may be deemed to have acquired, and preserved the name of the common law of England. In the same manner the ex- pression may he understood to have been used by Mr Du Ponceau, who in no part of his book is to he considered as having adopted it, without an implied reference to the changes, which the sy stein had undergone in this country. We have no right to understand him in any sense, which a sound view of the subject will not warrant; nor without all those limitations, which the most careful reflection would suggest. Nor are we aware, that Mr Du Poncean intended anything by the language alluded to, beyond what the most profound analysis of the principles, on which our institutions rest, would authorise. His known precision of language will not allow us to suppose, that he uses any terms without a perfectly appropriate signification; hut we are after all inclined to query, whether, on the present occasion, he has sufficiently guarded himself against misapprehension. ART. VI.~ Review of the Efforts and Progress of Nations, during the last Twentyfive Years. By J. C. L. De Sismondi. Translated from the French by PETER S. Du PONCEAU. Svo. pp. 36. Philadelphia, 1825. THIS pamphlet was originally written, as an Essay, in the Revue Encyclopddique.* It professes to be a survey, taken * The Revue Encvclop~dique is the most valuable foreign journal, which in American can cousult, for variety of information and liberality of tone,

1825.] European Politics. 141 We would not undertake to he perfectly confident, how- ever, on any point, on which we might have the misfortune to appear to differ from Mr Do Ponceau, and least of all would we engage in any mere difference about words. Perhaps he is to be understood by his favorite phrase, common law of England, as making use or that sort of metaphor in de- scribing the common law of this country, before the Revo- lution, which our forefathers were so fond of employing, in all the models they made of their social and civil institutions. England, before the Revolution, was always called home; and in this way, the common law of the colonies may be deemed to have acquired, and preserved the name of the common law of England. In the same manner the ex- pression may he understood to have been used by Mr Du Ponceau, who in no part of his book is to he considered as having adopted it, without an implied reference to the changes, which the sy stein had undergone in this country. We have no right to understand him in any sense, which a sound view of the subject will not warrant; nor without all those limitations, which the most careful reflection would suggest. Nor are we aware, that Mr Du Poncean intended anything by the language alluded to, beyond what the most profound analysis of the principles, on which our institutions rest, would authorise. His known precision of language will not allow us to suppose, that he uses any terms without a perfectly appropriate signification; hut we are after all inclined to query, whether, on the present occasion, he has sufficiently guarded himself against misapprehension. ART. VI.~ Review of the Efforts and Progress of Nations, during the last Twentyfive Years. By J. C. L. De Sismondi. Translated from the French by PETER S. Du PONCEAU. Svo. pp. 36. Philadelphia, 1825. THIS pamphlet was originally written, as an Essay, in the Revue Encyclopddique.* It professes to be a survey, taken * The Revue Encvclop~dique is the most valuable foreign journal, which in American can cousult, for variety of information and liberality of tone, 142 European Politics. [July, at the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century, of the progress of the civilised nations of the world, during those twentyfive years. The allusion of the author, M. de Sismondi, at the commencement of the essay, to the cele- bration of the Jubilee at Rome, is very happy, and furnishes a pleasing introduction to his renia~ks~ These remarks are sensible, liberal, not remarkable in general for depth or originality, probably not drawn up by the author with any great care, nor designed for permanent use, as a political treatise. Though they are evidently the production of a person, who stands in the first class, and that not a nume- rous one, of political writers ; we presume M. de Sismondi himself could easily produce such an essay every month, without any sensible interruption of his graver studies. For this, and other reasons, we have no intention of entering into a formal critique of a performance, not designed to undergo that kind of test. Nor shall we deem it necessary to cor- rect a few trifling errors, into which the author has, we believe, fallen. One or two, relating to our own country, have been briefly noticed by the learned translator of the tract, M. Du Ponceau. We would only observe, that it ap- pears to us to be incorrectly stated, that the language of Wallachia, Moldavia, Bulgaria, and Servia is unwritten; and erroneously implied, that the same language prevails in those four principalities. Neither of these propositions we believe to be correct. But without dwelling on trifles like these, we beg leave to offer to our readers a few remarks, which have occurred to us, in reading this pamphlet, relative to the political circum- stances under xvhich it was composed, and some of the subjects, which it treats. The position of the writers in France, who defend liberal principles, M. de Sismondi of course among them, is con- strained, and produces an unsatisfying generality in their pro- positions, and an occasional want of entire fairness. The law imposing a preliminary censure on the press, a law which had been repealed toward the close of the reign of Louis the Eigh- teenth, after a short revival during the period of his last illness, has again ceased tinder the new king to exist. The substan- tial operation of the law, however, by no means ceases with its nominal repeal. It may, in fact, almost be said, that the 1825.] European Politics. 143 repeal of this law is more unfavorable to the true freedom of the press, than its existence. Unless we suppose, that the repeal is produced by a real and radical change of policy; that the king and his ministers have utterly renounced the doctrine, that the peace and safety of the state require a guard to be placed over the press, (and no such supposition surely can be made,) the repeal of the law shows, only, that the government party feels itself strong enough to punish, and therefore thinks it needless to incur the odium of pre- venting the offences of the press. The repeal of the law shows, that the courts and juries can be depended on to serve the government, as faithfully as the censor and the police officer; and this state of things is certainly more un- friendly to the real freedom of the press, than a preliminary ex- amination of everything proposed to be published. This last system throws immediately upon the executive government the odium of restraining the press; but a rigid construction and prompt execution of laws punishing its abuses, while they impose a restraint scarcely less effectual, throws upon the law and its administration the odium, which would other- ivise rest on the executive. In this case, as in many others, it is of less consequence, what the form or the letter of the law is; but everything depends on the spirit and power of the government. In France, the royal government is pro- bably as strong as that of Napoleon, for all purposes of in- ternal administration ; and there can be no exaggeration in saying, that its soirit is as hostile to real political liberty as his. We see in the little pamphlet under consideration, the proof of these positions. An essay by a distinguished French political ~vriter, on the progress of free institutions for the last twentyfive years, ought naturally to make France the prominent object in the picture. The astonishing events, that have crowded so rapidly upon each other in that coun- try, events whose political connexion afford a more instruc- tive, though a less attractive spectacle, than their military history, would naturally stand out with a boldness and dis- tinctness, proportioned to their importance, not merely in the eyes of Frenchmen, but of the statesmen of the civilised world. Five revolutions even within the quarter of a cen- tury; the action and reaction between the government and people, under circumstances of unexampled interest and 144 European Politics. [July, moment; the singular and almost paradoxical spectacle of a despotism, deriving strength from a passion for liberty, and retaining the popular enthusiasm, which had been excited to destroy former equally despotic and more odious institu. tions; the quiet succession of the restored government to most of the abuses, which constituted the great grievance under the empire; and the romantic cast given to affairs, by the versatility of individual character, which the state of the times had culled forth ; these are traits in the picture of the last twentyfive years in France, which, under a true liberty of the press, would, in an essay by M. de Sismondi, have been displayed in the strongest, and most eloquent forms of illustration and contrast. Half the power, with which he rules among the Colonnas and Barbarinis, the di Medici and the Viscontis, would have set before us a very different array of facts and reflections, from that which he has given us, under the head of France. If it seem unreasonable to quarrel with him for not speak- ing out boldly, of what has passed in his own country, in. asmuch as it is unreasonable to find fault with any man, for the defects and misfortunes of the situation, in which he is placed, we may at least murmur at his indulging in state- ments nominally true, but substantially unfounded. M. de Sismondi first admits, that during the last twentyfive years in France, and he means in the latter portion of that pe- riod, morality has suffered by the progress of hypocrisy and venality; knowledge, by the opposition which has been made to the best mode of public instruction; and liberty, by the encroachments, which it is unnecessary to recapitulate here. After this concession, he puts in the other scale what France has gained in the progress of prosperity; and then concludes thus; lastly, by way of compensation for the part of her rights, which she has lost, France is in possession of the LIBERTY OF THE PRESS. This valuable privilege secures the empire of thought and of elevated sen- timents, and is, consequently, the most powerful engine to- wards the improvement of the human race. We can scarce conceive it possible that a keen, sagacious reasoner, and a lover of liberty, can talk of the compensation a nation can receive for a part of its lost rights. There is no such com- pensation; there never can be. M. de Sismondi does not 1825.] European Politics. P15 regard man as a part of the animal stock of the Country, which needs for the improvement of its condition only to be well pastured and well stalled; to he safely tied up to good provender. He places political welfare in the em- pire of thought and of elevat~d sentiments. What coin- pensation, then, can he even conceive for the smallest right wrested or abridged~ by the power of the government? Does not a state of things, where some rights can he thus taken away, imply the insecurity of all? Does it not make the word right a mockery, and put the liberty of the people on the old footing of sufferance; a footing, which may be enjarged by a good natured prince and a skilful cabinet, be- cause it can be contracted whenever circumstances or views of policy change? Above all, is it not somewhat incongru~ ous to boast of the liberty of the press, in the very para- graph, in which M. de Sismondi finds it unnecessary, (that is, unsafe,) to point out the encroachments on liberty, which he says have taken place? We can inform M. de Sismondi that, in the true theory, nay, in the practice of our own country, and to a consider- able degree of England, one systematic encroachment on liberty would be regarded by the people, as the forfeiture of their entire birthright. It may sound like trite decla- mation,here it is so, but in France it seems even the libe- rals have not got so far; that the value of liberty consists not in the results, but in results as effected by the means. XXTe do not want to be bayoneted into comfort. At the Theatre Fran fois, the immense throng of persons crowding for tick- ets is marshaled by the Gendarmerie into a regular cue, which reaches a quarter of a mile. This example is a fair test of our principle. This arrangement is convenient, it is equitable, it is comfortable. But we presume the people of England, we are sure the people of America, would, if neces- sary, expend the last drop of their blood, rather than have this comfort forced upon them; although if it could mci- dentally be brought about, or certainly if their own General Court or Congress, after thorough discussion, adopted the measure, it would go very quietly into operation. When Madam de Stael, combining the sagacity of a statesman, with the dexterity of a courtier, and the grace of a French voman, told Alexander that his character was a constitution voL. xxl.NO. 48. 19 [July, 146 European Politics. to his people, the Emperor replied, and a more sensible reply was never made, that if it were so, he was only a happy accident to his people. This reply comprehends the whole theory of the vicious effects of despotic government; that is, of a government not springing from the people and directly reverting to them. In Turkey, in China, in Russia, the dis- guise may be a little thinner; in Prussia, in France, a little more studiously worn; brit the principle, that the people are to hold the means of improvement by sufferance, and as a gift, is the same in all; and this principle is fatal to freedom. It is in vain to rail against the abuses of popular govern- ment; the excesses of an excited infuriated mob. What violence can the mob do to liberty, to be compared with that most terrific form of ~ mob, a standing army? It seems to be forgotten, that its materials are the same ; or if there be any difference, that the standing army is made up of the more needy, thriftless, and desperate. In the form of a mob, it is indeed terrific, a perfect image of horror, a po- litical tornado, uprooting, overturning, and crushing all in it~ path. But it wants organisation, permanence, resource, and recognised political existence. The paid, the uniformed, the disciplined mob bursts open no prisons, and sets no cities on fire; but in its very nature it is incompatible ~vith liberty. It is every way a curse; more fatal where it protects than when it oppresses. Did we intend to go into an analysis of M. de Sismondis pamphlet, we should object to his account of Germany, of which he says, henceforth there are no rights in any man- ner established, and Germany has ceased to be a nation. Nothing is now to be found there, but princes, more or less weak or powerful, and more or less trembling on their thrones before their subjects or neighbors. The ancient country of war and politics has no longer any weight in the balance of Europe. These must surely have been sentences, which dropped from the pen, while the printers messenger was hurrying at the elbow. They appear to be destitute of meaning, or possess it only for the purpose of self contradic- tion. The Germany, of which M. de Sismondi speaks, in- cludes Prussia and Austria. Have these no weight in the balance of Europe? We see not why the ancient country 1625.] European Politics. 14 of tvar and politics, must be said to have lost a particle of its weight in the general scale. It never was organised into one efficient mass, but it never was so much consolidated as now. The negociations of two cabinets are now sufficient to launch the whole disposable force of Germany, from the sands of Westphalia to the foot of the Carpathians, on any designated object. But again, M. de Sismondi sees in Ger- many nothing but princes more or less powerful, and more or less trembling on their thrones, before their subjects or their neighbors. That there is no great danger of the sub- jugation of any German state to an extra-Germanic power, we think we need not urge. Russia, of course, is the only state to be feared; and though Russia may well be admitted to be a state, capable of becoming formidable to almost all others, yet the danger is not so near, not so definite, not so distinctly in the train of events, that it is a subject of practical apprehension. We do not believe, that the Prince of the Lippe, nor Henry the Sixtyfifth, of Reuss-Gratz, though their dominions may extend some ten miles in length, entertains the least fear of the Russian peace establishment of eight hundred thousand bayonets. Before they could suffer, the Elbe must be crossed, Bohemia traversed, Berlin and Vienna occupied, France and England overawed. Were Alexander a Napoleon, we admit all this might be compassed. But being not a Napoleon, a series of events, such as we have intimated, is plainly not written in that chapter of accidents, to which his imperial majesty compares himself. But the German princes, says M. de Sismondi, are more or less trembling on their thrones before their subjects. We fear, at this moment, in the words of a personage of great, but evanescent notoriety, that it is rather less than more.~ But we grant, or rather we maintain, that the battle is not yet fought out in Germany. Liberty is not put down ; the princes do still tremble on their thrones, as their subjects reason upon Constitutions and representative government. The last newspaper we have inspected tells us, that M. Von Humboldt is called to the head of affairs in Prussia. The report may not be well founded, but the cause of arbitrary principles received a shock, in the death of Prince Harden- berg, which it has never recovered in Germany; and even to have his place vacant, (and it has never been filled,) is ~ 1 Ll~3 European Politics. [Ju1y~ least a prosperous accident to Europe. Austria, or rather Prince Metternich, still holds out; he is probably more thaii any other individual the Atlas, on whose shoulders the policy of the Holy Alliance rests. Indefatigable, most skilful in the choice of instruments, dexterous t~ a miracle, plausible, and in his temper not unamiable, the fate of Germany is, in no shght degree, dependant on what may befal the Most Ex- cellent Charles Venceslaus Lothario Metternich Winneburg Ochsenhausen. Whenever this very short named personage may cease to fill his place, of dictator in the Austrian councils, the example of Prussia, in the case of Prince Hardenberg, shows that it is not probable, that any successor will be raised to the same degree of power. At all events, we do by no means regar(l Germany in the disastrous light, in which it is surveyed by Al. de Sismondi. He says, in comparing it with Fiance, that France made her own revolutions, while Germany only yielded to foreign impulses. It is not very prudent, in so complicated a train of events, as is furnished by the history of Europe for the last twentyfive years, to ascribe too much exclusively to any one agent. But of the most important revolution in France, that by which Napoleon was overthrown and the Bourbons restored, the Germans may, with great justice, be considered the authors,the au~ thors in the true sense of the word. It was a spontaneous act of the German people, moved, under many different names, by one national spirit, which led to the defection of the Prussian armies in the French service, the occurrence which gave the character to every succeeding event. We feel no scruple in saying, that we look upon Germany at this moment, as much the country of war and politics as ever. It is true her princes are struggling with their subjects. We believe their subjects will prevail. The Germans are a virtuous, deliberating, rather heavy moulded, but, at the same time, an exceedingly resolute, high minded people. They are a well educated and a thinking people. They speculate on all subjects, with a boldness and original- ity unknown in any other country. Within seventy years, the entire frame of society in that country has been regene- rated, not so much hy any very favorable single circumstances, as by the internal conspiring operation of the excited intellect of the country. An entire national literature, rich, various~ 1825.] European Politics. 149 peculiar, the native growth of the soil, but cultivated through a range of studies, seldom embraced by the scholars of other countries, has formed itself among them. The pride and spirit of the people have grown up together with this new demonstration of intellectual st~rength. Political events have consolidated the country, which now, instead of three hun- dred sovereign princes, that existed in it before the French Revolution, contains but thirtynine or forty; and all but some six or eight, or rather three or four of these, so inconsider- able, as not to form any separate national interest, nor any diversion from the national strength. If we except Austria, and this is indeed a most important and melancholy excep- tion, the whole of Germany is in as hopeful a state, to say the least, as any country can be, where free institutions have not been long and firmly established ; and we are strongly inclined to think, that M. de Sisinondi, from want of ac- quaintance with the character of this people, misconceives its relation to Europe, and the part it must yet bear, in the struggles and wars of liberty. Did time admit, we might make a few remarks on the subject of Italy, which our author mentions among those, where the good cause has retrograded within tw& ntyfive years. But if we once admit the fact, that the progress of human improvement, particularly that which consists in throwing off dangerous and antiquated abuses, is generally per saltum, effected by daring and heroic struggles, after periods of acquiescence, and with intervals of torpor, exhaust- ion, or preparation, it might not be difficult to prove, that Italy has upon the whole moved onward. Italy was in a frightful state, when the Venetian Republic was dissolved. The overthrow of that power could be considered as no disaster to the country; and if the erection of the Lomliardo- Venetian kingdom should have the effect of combining the spirit of the Italians, into one well concerted sentiment of resistance, it will have been, at least, a great public benefit. The great calamity of Italy, as of Germany, has been the severance of the members of that beautiful country, into rival and hostile states. The Austrian chains, which bind them together, produce the benefit of union in one cause, though that is a suffering cause. No matter where the union begins, it is better than the want of union. We perceive in the secret EUIopeaft Politics. i ~j3 societies, which have grown up in Italy, by the operation ci oppressive governments foreign and domestic, the self reme- dying effect of political evil. The enterprise, patriotism, and resolution of men, in every part of Italy, have been associated to resist the despotism, which was spreading, and crushing the country. There, as in our own America at the epoch of the Revolution, the maxim has been, when bad men combine, good men must unite. The Venetian, the Tuscan, the Nea- politan, and~the Milanese, men who never acted before in union, since the social war, have been drawn into close and intimate correspondence ; have formed ties of brotherhood~ which exile has endeared, and blood has consecrated. Who- soever thinks that this is to be without effect, forgets the mode, in which onr own independence was brought about. Even the present aspect of things there is not as dreary as it was two years ago. The new Grand Duke of Tuscany declares his resolution to act independently of the cabinet of Vienna, and the new king of Naples urges the withdrawing of the Austrian troops. If the present prospects in Greece are realised, and the appearances of a revived trade on the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean should be fulfilled, Italy is in a condition not to lose a moment in receiving the impulse from these events, and in rising to some very important point in the scale of Europe. We agree entirely with M. de Sismondi in his remarks on the state of Spain, a nation by which the sympathy of man- kind has been more egregiously duped than by the Italians, or the French, or any other people, that ever raised a false and deceptive cry for freedom. If we do not mistake the signs of the times, the great reaction, which is impending in Europe, will commence with Spain. And as the rival inte- rests of the great powers will not permit the partition of her continental possessions, these must, of course, sink down into a true barbarism, of which it is not easy to predict the fate. The colonial possessions of the country are nearly all gone. Two or three years will give the rest, the Phillipines proba- bly to the English, and Cuba and Porto Rico to the Colom- bians ; unless our government should imitate the recent example of the English, and institute reprisals for the royal and piratical depredations on our commerce, in which case Cuba would follow the fortunes of Florida. An accession of 1825.] E~urojpeum Po1i~i~s. I b f extra-continental territory is, however, not to be coveted by us; and it might be the safest policy for the United States to confine themselves, in the event of a recourse to coercion, to assisting the free states at the south of us, in revolution- ising the islands. In whatever way the event is brought about, it will, no doubt, very shortly take place. Having proposed to ourselves to make but a very few remarks, we shall not follow M. de Sismondi through the remainder of his pamphlet. His observations on England, Russia, Greece, and America, are all animated, many of them judicious, and a few profound. The author entertains rational, but elevated and generous views of the career, which appears to be opening on man; and has touched some of the topics, which the prospect suggests, with a discrimi~ nating pen. It is indeed almost time, that our political systems were rewritten; and though the liberty of the press, essential to that undertaking, exists only in England and America, yet the continental writers on the liberal side, under the pressure of the constraint to which they ai~e subject, occasionally burst out with a condensed and passionate utterance of truth, a sort of political second sight, the indignant and desperate re.~ sult of an oppression, which astonishes us by its decision and power. It is hard for our American and English statesmen to work themselves up to the enthusiasm, which befits the aspect of the age. We are too happy, too prosperous, too busy; doing too much to speculate on the whole combined effort, which is making in the free countries, or those who are striving to be so. We are in the procession, crowding, striding intently on ; but it is only those, who are doomed to stand aloof, to drop behind the age, and linger on the old wastes, who can fully mark the length, the multitude, the grand array of the triumph; who can see it passing from region to region, winding along the heights of cloud capt mountains, descending like an inundation upon the bosom of the rivers, and compassing new continents in its march. And we may well hope, that on them the great example will not be lost; that they will start up and emulate the career which they witness. Whether the present political struggle will be confined to the nations where it is now waged, or will extend to others, who give, at present~ little hope of entering into it, one thing 152 European Polities. [July, is certain, that nations are growing too strong to be governed after the old forms. The economists tell us, that the im- provements of machinery in England have produced, in that country, an accession to the laboring power, equivalent to some two or three hundred millions of men. For all the purposes of industry, then, this is die population of England. Were the capital, which puts this machinery in motion, equal-~ ly divided, this, for nearly all the purposes of political action, would also be the population of the country. And even with the existing enormously unequal division of property, the immense accession to the power and resource of the citizens forms a new element of uncalculated importance, in the social system. Steam engines and spinning jennies, indeed, cannot speak, vote, and clamor for rights ; but the men who own them, the men whose industry is associated with their operation, speak, and vote, and clamor, to much greater effect; and the mere power of the government, as far as it is independent of the will of the people, is diminished in equal proportion. We are told the English machinery carried that country through the war with Napoleon and his system. In a good degree it did so; and by parity of reason, it will carry the people through the less violent and bloody, but more momentous war, waging against political abuses. A people, moving with the energy of three hundred millions of working arms, cannot be kept organised in the old way. The operation of our example is then to come in. We will apply it still to the English nation. They read in almost every newspaper, that crosses the Atlantic from this country, of some convention to amend a constitution. The delegates of the people meet, deliberate, amend the consti- tution, or pronounce that it needs no amendment, and go home. No estates are pillaged,~o alarm is created, no blood is shed. Again, they boast in England that they have a representative government; that one, and that the strongest branch of the legislature, is elected by the people. In prac- tice, indeed, they know that the smaller part of the people has a voice in the election; and that the larger portion of the House of Commons owe their seats to indirect or corrupt means. They look again across the Atlantic; they find this vast country divided into sections, equal in population, send- ing each its representative to the national councils. Are 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 153 these examples to have no effect? What is to hinder the people of England from calling a convention; from meeting in convention; from amending the constitution, in conven- tion ; from districting the country into parliamentary districts, in convention? They are not fit for such a government, you say. We reply, no change in the government is pro- posed. If the English people give, in fact, that sanction, which is now supposed to he given, in theory, to their present system, it will go on. If they will not sanction it, they are fit for the change, and they will have the change. They ought to have it. The government party in England do not rest their cause on the ground, that England is not ripe for giving every man a vote, but on the ground that things are best as they are ; that a government, as now organised, of king, lords, and commons, is best in itself. This, we in America do not believe ; this, nobody in England believes, but those kings, lords, and soi disant commons, who are parties to the controversy. They are a numerical minority, the commons being falsely so called. They are a physical minority, and an intellectual minority. At present they seem to possess the greater part of the wealth of the country, and by this they subsist. As much of this wealth rests on th~ faith, by which the national debt is supported, it could stand the first day of a serious awakening in the nation; and there is really, therefore, no strong obstacle to oppose the re- organisation of England, on purely popular and republican principles. This done, an intimate cooperation with us would follow, and in the general result, it is not too much to say, not only that Europe would be regenerated, but that the empire of civilisation might again be pushed into Africa and Asia. ART. VII.Journal of a Residence and Travels in Colom- bia, during the Years 1823 and 1824. B~ CAPTAIN CHARLES STUART COCHRANE, of the Royal Navy. 2 Vols. Svo. London. 1825. THE progress of South America in the career of revolu- !ion, independence, and liberty, is among the remarkable phe VOL. XXT.NO. 48. 20

1825.] Travels in Colombia. 153 these examples to have no effect? What is to hinder the people of England from calling a convention; from meeting in convention; from amending the constitution, in conven- tion ; from districting the country into parliamentary districts, in convention? They are not fit for such a government, you say. We reply, no change in the government is pro- posed. If the English people give, in fact, that sanction, which is now supposed to he given, in theory, to their present system, it will go on. If they will not sanction it, they are fit for the change, and they will have the change. They ought to have it. The government party in England do not rest their cause on the ground, that England is not ripe for giving every man a vote, but on the ground that things are best as they are ; that a government, as now organised, of king, lords, and commons, is best in itself. This, we in America do not believe ; this, nobody in England believes, but those kings, lords, and soi disant commons, who are parties to the controversy. They are a numerical minority, the commons being falsely so called. They are a physical minority, and an intellectual minority. At present they seem to possess the greater part of the wealth of the country, and by this they subsist. As much of this wealth rests on th~ faith, by which the national debt is supported, it could stand the first day of a serious awakening in the nation; and there is really, therefore, no strong obstacle to oppose the re- organisation of England, on purely popular and republican principles. This done, an intimate cooperation with us would follow, and in the general result, it is not too much to say, not only that Europe would be regenerated, but that the empire of civilisation might again be pushed into Africa and Asia. ART. VII.Journal of a Residence and Travels in Colom- bia, during the Years 1823 and 1824. B~ CAPTAIN CHARLES STUART COCHRANE, of the Royal Navy. 2 Vols. Svo. London. 1825. THE progress of South America in the career of revolu- !ion, independence, and liberty, is among the remarkable phe VOL. XXT.NO. 48. 20 154 Travels in Colombia. [July, nomena of the present age, and supplies a page in the history of man, rich with facts of high and novel import, from which the wise and benevolent may receive equal instruction and pleasure. The enlightened statesman will find his brightest anticipations more than realised, and the friend of human kind will contemplate with delight,~ a march of improvement in the social, intellectual, and political condition of his race, which no records of previous history have taught him to ex- pect. A tyranny so shameless in its aggressions on the rights of man, so iniquitous and selfish in its motives, and so deso- lating in its action, as that whose iron arm was stretched over Spanish America, from the bloody era of the conquest down to the beginning of the present century, has never been known at any period of the world, whether civilised or bar- barous. Chateaubriand spoke without metaphor, when he said, that for every dollar spent in Europe, tears of blood flow in the abysses of the earth in America. That the day should arrive, when such oppression would be resisted, and a just retribution fall on the heads of the oppressors, was to be expected, but that the struggles of the sufferers should be crowned with successes so speedy and permanent, was more than the most sanguine could have ventured to predict, or even hope. Within the short space of fifteen years, all Spanish Ame- rica has shaken off the chains of its servitude, and new and independent governments have been established. The coun- tries, which have respectively instituted separate governments of their own, are Mexico, Guatamala, Colombia, Peru, Chile, and Buenos Ayres. Nature seems to have marked out these divisions, and it is most likely that they will for the present at least remain fixed. Brazil enjoys a sort of anomalous in- dependence, having dissolved its connexion with the old dy- nasty of Portugal, and set up a government of its own, under a constitution, and the new emperor Don Pedro, who, in his proclamation to the Brazilians published a year ago, bravely bid defiance to the Jacobinical and Machiavellian Cortes of Portugal. This is of course a temporary state of things. The atmosphere of America is not one, which can ever be breath- ed freely by kings and emperors; crowns will not sit lightly here, and the fate of Iturbide should be a warning to all, who are ambitious of so hazardous a distinction. The experi 18~25.] Travels in Colom6ia. 155 ment of the last fifteen years, which was begun indeed fifty years ago by the United States, has solved to a demonstra- tion the great problem in politics, respecting the capability of men in a given state of society to govern themselves. Aloof from the governments of the ol~l world, and too remote to be encumbered and crushed by the officious aid of a Holy Alliance, or a jealous neighbor, the South Americans ~have fought their way to independence; and, notwithstanding they weie just emerging from a state of pupilage and degradation, so feelingly described by Bolivar, in his excellent speech at the opening of the Congress of Ci?icuta, they have neverthe- less shown. themselves adequate to every exigency. Wisdom has prevailed in their deliberations, and they have been firm, prompt, and persevering in action. Reverses have only roused them to new and more vigorous efforts, and experi- ence has taught them lessons, by which they have not dis- dained to be instructed and guided. We do not mean to say, that there have not been civil commotions, tumults, and factions, errors of judgment on one part, and want of principle on another, contests of ambition, interest, passion, ignorance; all these have shown them- selves perpetually, and in various forms, and it is no won- der that they should ; but it may be affirmed, that the spirit of justice, intelligence, and virtue has triumphed, and it must moreover be allowed, that the praise of the triumph is in proportion to the obstacles encountered and overcome. In some of the republics there will doubtless be further changes, and perhaps civil discords, but the Rubicon is passed, the conflict between despotism and liberty is at an end. Dis- putes concerning the safest depositories of power, and the best machinery of government, will arise, constitutions will require to be amended to suit the growing intelligence of the people, and improvementof society. Such differences, when confined to discussions, or even to sharp collisions of party, will do hood, by quickening the spirit of inquiry, and diffusing a knowledge of political science. The recent able articles in the .JVaciona.l, published at Buenos Ayres, going into tVfull examination of the principles of a n~v constitution proposed for the government, cannot fail to exercise an important in- fluence in preparing the minds of the people for a salutary ch3nge The freedom, and even warmth, with which all 1 50 Travels in Colombia. Liuly, kinds of political topics have been discussed in the papers of BogotiL and Caracas, has no doubt contributed very much to the successful establishment of the constitution and laws of Colombia. Who knows how much we are indebted to the essays of the Federalist, and the newspaper wars of that day, for our own Union and the adoption of the constitution? The light elicited by these contests of intellect and opinion, enabled the people gradually to distinguish sound principles from false, and prepared them to incline to the better side. We look for the same results, although by a slower process, in the rising states of South America. The Republic of Colombia has succeeded in attaining a bet- ter organisation, than any other of the new states, and, both from the comparative stability of its government, and its great commercial importance, it holds out many objects of interest to the rest of the world. The public seems in a fair way to be fully informed of everything pertaining to this country. Four books of travels in Colombia, and some of them of respectable dimensions, have been published within the last year, three in London, and one in Paris. Our readers must not imagine, however, that the love of adventure, which operates with a charm so magical and resistless on many minds, which car- ried Ledyard from one end of the world to the other, and hurried Park to an untimely grave in the heart of Africa, has been the ruling motive with all these travellers; nor that, like Thales, Solon, Plato, and other sages of antiquity, they wandered abroad to study the laws, and gather up the fruits of the wisdom and knowledge of other countries. Our ad- venturers went not out in pursuit of shadowy things like these, but were mainly bent on the more substantial objects of iner- cantile enterprise and speculation. The Frenchman, M. Mollien, ought perhaps to be excepted from this remark, for it does not appear from his book,* that he had any other mo- tive, than to please himself, and go home and tell what he had seen. Captain Charles Stuart Cochrane, of the Royal Navy, in- forms us in his preface, that he visited Colombia with the view of securing an exclusive privilege for the pearl fishery, having previously devised certain new expedients, by which * Voyage dans la R6publique de Colombia, en 1822 et 182~3; par C. Mel- lien. 1?aris, 1824. 1S25.] Travels in Colombia. 157 the divers might be protected from the sharks and other vo- racious fishes, which infest the seas in those parts, where the pearls are to be found. After obtaining from the Admiralty leave of absence for two years, he sailed for the West Indies, and at length landed on Terra Firma at Laguayra. He made a short excursion to Caiacas, thence returned to La- guayra, and sailed to Santa Martha, ascended the river Mag- dalena in a boat to Honda, from which place he passed up by land to Bogoth, the capital of Colombia. On his return he crossed the Andes at Ibagu~, Cartago, and Novita to the head of the river Atrato, which he descended to the bay of Choc6, and thence sailed along the coast to Cartagena and Santa Martha, at which latter place he took passage for Ja- rnaica. The events of this tour the author dilates into a journal of two thick octavos, without the least apparent compunction for so heavy a draft on the purse and patience of his readers. He has, moreover, adorned his work with pictures drawn after nature, and beautifully colored. One of the most imposing of these is the frontispiece, exhibiting the traveller himself at full length, leaning pensively with his right arm on a mule, and gaudily dressed in what he calls the costume of the coun- try. But although too diffuse, and carrying with it too much of the air of bookmaking, the narrative is not wholly without interest. The authors ill stars lead him into more disasters and hardships, than commonly fall to the lot of travellers, to all of which he contrives to submit with becoming and cheer- ful resignation. He notes down the results of his observa- tions and experience with spirit and good humor; but few readers, we apprehend, will have the resolution to keep him company to the end of his book, or to follow him through the ambages of his descriptions, without occasional symptoms of weariness. From Santa Martha, Captain Coebrane went on horseback to Cienega, a distance of about twentyseven miles, from which place there is a water communication to Baranquilla on the Magdalena, where he was to commence his voyage up the river. This short tour was not without its adventtires. While fording a small stream, in which the water was breast high to his horse, a peon, or native indian of the country, suddenly made his appearance from a thicket, and accosted I 5~5 Travels in Colombia. [July, our traveller and his companion. It was night, and the salutation of the savage was not the more grateful to suspi- cious ears, by coming on the wings of darkness. Vaya yin. con Dios, cried our author, putting his Spanish for once, as he believed, to good use, go away, and God be with you. The obtrusive Indian disappeared, and the travellers soon found themselves in comfortable quarters, at the hospitable mansion of the good curate of Cienega. The next morning they rode about a league to Pueblo Viejo, whence they passed in a canoe to Solidad, near Baranquilla. At this place they arrived on the ~5th of March, and were detained nearly a week on account of the feast days, which happened at that season. Nobody would work during the feast days, in fitting out a boat, and no bogas, or boatmen, could be employed. On the third of April the equipage was ready, and no wonder it should take a week even of good working time, and with the labor of all the bogas of Baran- quilla and Solidad, to prepare it, if it accorded with the following description of a travelling apparatus in Colombia, as given in the authors own words. To travel in this country, says he, it is necessary to have a small bedstead, so constructed as to be easily taken to pieces, with a toldo or covering of tolerably strong linen or blue check, in order to keep out the musquitoes and small sand flies; the threads of a common musquito net, as used in Barbadoes, not being sufficiently close to prevent the sand flies from entering. These are to be procured at Solidad, though roughly made. Pillows, sheets, and blankets should be brought from Europe, as they are here very dear and bad. The bedstead and toldo cost only fifteen dollars, which is reasonable. I paid rather more, having persuaded the workmen, who are excessively lazy, to work on feast day, to which they are ordinarily very averse. The traveller should likewise procure two or three dresses of Holland sheeting, with feet of the same material, instead of stockings; the jacket loose and buttoned to the throat. The white does not attract the sun, and feels cool and agreeable, is easily washed, and will dry expeditiously by being laid on the toldo. Two straw hats are necessary; the one for lying down in the canoe, the other for various occasions; both should have broad brims. Shoes of strong holland with leather soles are most easy and agreeable to the feet, and a pair of English shooting shoes for landing in the mud. A saddle with bolsters is requisite; a sword, dirk, pair of pocket pistols, a hammock to recline in during the day, two good mats, one to lie on in the 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 159 canoe, the other fitted to the sacking of the bed, to prevent the musquitoes froni penetrating at night,are amongst other needful precautions. All wine, tea, coffee, chocolate, sugar, and salt besides dried beef, hams: tongues, live fowls, eggs, and biscuits, with plenty of tocino or cured pork fat for frying eggs, should be laid in at this place, together with a sufficient stock of plantains and dried salt meat for the bogas, who are fed, as well as paid, by the traveller, and who, notwithstanding their abstemiousness at home, devour an astonishing quantity of provisions when living at the expense of others. The requisite cooking utensils are a large copper chocolate pot, a copper vessel for making soup, another for hash and stews, a third flat one for frying eggs, t~vo block tin plates, three dishes, t~vo tin cups for drinking, and a small ~in measure for serving spirits to the bogas, ~vho will not ~vork well without a dram each morning of the anise of the country, of which a jar or two must be pr& vided, so as to supply them throughout the journey. Knives, forks, spoons, and small duck table cloths, about a yard square, must not be forgotten. V,ol. 1. pp. 8688. This is a most formidable array of requisites, and if they are all indeed as essential, as the writer would seem to imply, it is quite evident that a voyage round the globe, whether toward the rising or the setting sun, is a trifling thing compared with an expedition up the Magdalena, in a toldo canoe poled by bogas. We cannot but think, however, that the authors catalogue of necessaries is much more ample, than any urgency in the case demands. The French voyageur above mentioned, who passed up the river from nearly the same place only two months before, makes no such provision for his wants. The work of preparation began in the morning, and by five oclock, he says, everything was in readiness for his departure,~ cinq heures tous mes effets ~taient L bord de ma fr~le embarcation. He complains, it is true, that the voyage was tedious and long, fort pe~nible et fort longue, but hints not that his sufferings were in any way increased, by a want of suitable bed furniture, changes of apparel, or cooking utensils. In short, it will appear on this, as well as on other occasions, that our authors ideas of com- fort are not precisely those of a man, who had passed many of his days in the midst of natures solitudes. M. Mollien had sailed on the waters of the Senegal, and slept in the forests of AErica, he had heard the howlings of wild beasts in their native haunts, and had learnt to endure existence as a 160 Travels in Colomtia. [July, very tolerable boon, even when deprived of many of the luxuries of civilised life. We at length find Captain Cochrane embarked on the lXlagdalena with his companion, in a canoe poled by four bogas, and another at the stern with a paddle. From the mouth of this river, to the head oPboat navigation at Honda, is a distance of about 550 miles. The current is rapid, and a progress of ten leagues in ascending is called a good days journey. Many necessary delays occur on the way, and the voyage is seldom performed in less than a month. Captain C,ochrane had infinite trouble with his bogas, some running away, others feigning sickness, and others hecoming obsti- nate and refusing to work. These evils he ascrihes to a want of a proper code of laws to govern this class of men, and to the custom of paying them before their departure. He says their number on the banks of the river is nearly ten thousaod. Theii~ great place of residence is Monpox, where those taken at the outset are commonly discharged, and others employed for the remainder of the voyage. The elements seemed also to conspire against him; thunder showers were incessant, and he was almost daily drenched in rain ; the musquitoes were merciless in their attacks, and heeded not the thick leather dress, which he procured on the way, in addition to his formidable outfit; alligators paid him very unseasonable and unceremonious visits; and venomous ser- pents lurked in the branches of trees overhanging the river, ready to dart upon an unsuspecting victim. With all these calamities, and many others untold, to worry and detain him, it is no wonder that he was doomed to the lingering passage of fortysix days from Baranquilla to Honda. The more for- tunate Frenchman performed the same in less than thirty days. The author relates several rather marvellous anecdotes about alligators. It is very rare, he says, for them to attack any of the human species, but when one has made the ex- periment, and tasted human flesh, he becomes ravenous after that food, and is a terror to all those, who dwell in the neighborhood of his haunts. He is then called caymam bravo, and the natives feel no security, till they have joined in a body, and made war upon this foe of human life, and accomplished his destruction; much in the same way as the 1625.] Travels i~ Colombia. 161 good people of Pomfret leagued themselves with General Putnam, to pursue and destroy the famous she wolf, that committed such havoc in the sheep folds of that town and vicinity. The cayman bravo frequently amuses himself by lying in a listless posture on the sandy margin of the river, when the natives surround hini in a body, armed with mus- kets and javelins, and commence their attack with such cau- tion and fury, as to overcome the unsuspecting enemy. At other times the alligator is more guarded ; seemingly con- scious of the hostility existing between him and the human race, he seldom appears on the beach, but seeks for a quiet retreat at the bottom of the rive~. The natives pursue him even here, and their mode of operation is thus described by the author. They select an opportunity when the water is clear, and drop quietly down the river, until they arrive over the spot where the alligator lies, when one of the boldest and most experienced divers leaves the canoe, with a laso in his hand, dives to the bottom, places himself by his side, and tickles him under his throat, which causes him to lift his head without opening his eyes, at which moment the diver slips the noose over his head, and instantly reascends to the surface. No sooner does he appear, than the noose is hawled taught, and the end is handed on shore; the whole party land~ and the moment the animal is thus brought to the waters edge, they despatch him with firearms, and javelins, called by them matteculebras. It is proper to add, that the author did not see this exploit performed, although he had the account from such sources, that he consid~rs it entitled to implicit credit. The food of the alligators is chiefly fish, but they devour water fowl, and have a treacherous practice of seizing their victims, by rising suddenly under them and pulling them down by the legs. This reminds us of the Chinese mode of catching ducks, mentioned by Buffon. The duck catcher ascertains a place, in a small lake or still creek, where a flock is in the habit of swimming apparently for amusement, an hour or t~vo each day. In this place be sets afloat several calabashes, or gourds, the company of which on their first return the ducks do not seem to relish; but seeing no harm done, their shyness gradually wears o11 and at length they swim among the calabashes wth perfect unconcern. When VOL. XXI.NO. 48. 21 1 6~2 Travels in Colombia. [July~ this degree off is attained, the duck catcher puts a large calabash over his head, with holes for his eyes, arid wades gently into the water, with his head only above the surface, till he finds himself in the midst of the ducks, when he commences the same ungracious mode of assault as the alligators, and continues to draw them under water by the legs, till he can secure no more to the girdle fastened for the purpose around his waist. The next day he resorts again to the same stratagem, and with similar success. But we sbould never come to an end, if we were to dilate on all the particulars of our authors eventful voyage up the Magdalena. As Honda is the head of navigation, through which all imported goods, that are brought up the river, pass to the capital, it has a custom house. At this place, also, it is usual for travellers to sell their canoe, or champan, to merchants for freight down the river. The country around the town is picturesque and beautiful, and the distant view is terminated by lofty mountains. Honda is somewhat more than sixty miles from Bogot~m, and the mode of travelling is on mules, over a broken road, and at times through a fertile and cultivated country. After setting us safely down in the capital of Colombia, the author comes no more to our notice for a long time, but hetakes himself in earnest to writing a history of the new Republic. This is comprised in four chapters of his work, and constitutes nearly two thirds of the first volume. It is loosely written, but is perhaps as good a historical account as any within~the same compass, and coming down to the present time. We allow it this praise, however, mainly on the consideration of its being almost a literal transcript from a valuable work entitled, Outline of the Revolution in Spanish ./Jmerica, published in 1817. Down to that period, Captain Cochrane has condescended to copy this work, without ven- turing to deviate often from the precise language of his original. So far his judgment may be commended, and it would have been creditable to his candor, if he had anywhere hinted to his readers, that he was exhibiting himself to them in a borrowed garb. This he has not done, and we leave him to settle the charge of egregious plagiarism with the publishers of the work, from which he has pillaged so bonn- Pfully. This Outline may be looked upon, as a book of 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 163 authority, respecting the revolutionary history of South Ame- rica, till the date of its publication. The materials were supplied by intelligent South Americans, then resident in London, and they are put together with literary skill and judgment. For the last eight years there is no good history of South American affairs. The compilations that have been made by travellers are meagre, disconnected, and frequently Inaccurate. The work published in London, two years and a half ago, entitled Colombia, in two cumbersome octavo volumes, seems to have been designed to promote certain commercial projects, connected in some way with Mr Zea s loan, and cannot be regarded as authority, any farther than it professes to be indebted to authors of known credit. The geographical, statistical, and commercial accounts are chief- ly taken from Depons and Humboldt; the history is tran- scribed from the Outline, to the year 18J~, and afterwards hastily collected from the common sources. The volumes contain several important and interesting public documents. There are some well written notices of revolutionary events in the Biblioteca dmericana, recently published in London. Mr Restrepo, the present able and learned secretary of the Home Department in Colombia, is understood to be engaged in writing a history of the revolution. From his known ability, his zeal in the cause, and his perfect acquaintance with the subject, high expectations may justly be entertained of the success~f his undertaking.* The Republic of Colombia is composed of the countries formerly known, as the captain generalcy of Venezuela, and the viceroyalty of New Granada. Its extent from the mouth of the Orinoco, to the western extremity of Panam~t, in a direct line, is somewhat more than 1300 miles; and from Cape Vela on the north, to the southern limits of Quito on the south, it is about 1100 miles. By an estimate founded on Humboldts astronomical observations, Venezuela contain- ed 48,000 square leagues, and New Granada, including * Mr Restrepos Reports to Congress concerning the internal state of Co. lombia, and particularly that of 1823, are documents of great vdue, evincing not more an intimate knowledge of the internal relations, wants, and pros. pects of his country, than a general enlargement and cultivation of mind. There is a valuable article written by him, entitled Descripci~n dv la Provincicc dv .Intioquia, and contained in the second volume of the & rninario dvi JVuevo !?e~yno do franade, printed at Bogotti, ia the year 1809. 164 Iravels in Colombia. [July, Quito, 65,000. According to this estimate the 1)resent super- ficies of Colombia, exclusive of Panarnh, is iqO 17,000 square miles, being twelve times larger than the Island of Great Britain, and about the dimensions of the whole territory of the United States east of the Mississippi. It is bounded on the north and east by the Carribean sea and the Atlantic ocean, on the south by the Brazils and Peru, and on the west by the Pacific and the new republic of Guatamala. Reckoning from the mouth of the Orinoco to the Isthmus of Darien on the Atlantic side, and from Panama to the borders of Peru on the Pacific, it will be found that Colombia has a seacoast of little less than 3000 miles in extent. When we consider the central position of this country, in regard to other parts of the American continent, and also to Europe and Asia; when we take into view its geographical features, its large and nume- rous rivers, its varied soil and climate, its mountains, and forests, and luxuriant valleys, its products and natural re- sources, its pearl fisheries and rich mines; when we look at these immense advantages, enjoyed under a free government suited to convert them all to their proper ends, and to ensure a perpetually increasing prosperity, we cannot but be im- pressed with the grandeur to which it must ultimately arise, and the elevated rank it is destined to hold in the family of nations. The present government of Colombia is founded on prin- ciples, nearly resembling those of our own jnstitution. It is a representative system, having a Congress of two Houses, and an elective President. It differs in two important re- spects from the fundamental principles of the constitution of the United States; the first is in regard to the mode of elections, and the second in the administration of government in the departments, or what we should call the states. The right of suffrage is somewhat curtailed, by making it neces- sary for every voter to possess a small amount of property, or to exercise some trade, or liberal profession. The people do not vote in the first instance for representatives, but for elect.. ors, by whom the senators and representatives are. chosen. By a law of Congress passed June 25th, 1824, the Republic is divided into 12 departments, embracing 37 provinces, and 230 cantons. These cantons are further subdivided into pa- 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 165 rishes, each of which holds what is called a parochial assem- bly on a stated day, once in four years, and at these assem- blies the electors are chosen by the persons duly qualified to be voters.. A representative to congress is assigned to a population of 30,000, and also each province is entitled to another representative, wh~n there is a fraction of more than 15,000. The number of electors for each representa- tive is 10, and if the population of the Republic be taken at 2,600,000, which is thought a fair estimate, the whole num- ber of electors will not be less than 860. The number of rel)resentatives would accordingly be 86. But in fact both the electors and rel)resentatives exceed these numbers, be- cause in case of an additional representative for a fraction, there is a full number of electors, for each fraction, although a less amount of population. On this new division of the Republic, it is supposed the number of representatives will be 95. The senate is established by the constitution to con- sist of 4 senators from each department, making 48 in the whole. These electors meet once in four years, in the capi- tals of their respective provinces, and execute the very im- portant duty of choosing on the same day, the President of the Republic, the Vice President, the Senators, and Repre- sentatives. The votes are sent up to the congress, where they are scrutinised in the manner pointed out by the consti- tution. The President and Vice President are elected for four years, and no person can be chosen president more than twice in succession. The representatives are chosen for four years, and the senators for eight. The term of office for one half of the Senate expires at the end of every fourth year, so that only two senators from each department are chosen at the periodical elections. But the most remarkable deviation in the constitution of Colombia from that of the United States, is the feature by which the government is made a central, instead of a fede- rative system. The Departments exercise no functions of government within themselves, hut are under the control of an Intendant, who is nominated by the president; and the Provinces are likewise subject to governors appointed in the same way. The powers of these officers are prescribed by the laws of congress, and the same laws apply to all the departments, provinces, and cantons. This was a favorite 166 Travels in Colombia. [July, project with Bolivar, and it was undoubtedly a wise one, under the circumstances in which the new constitution was adopted. In the year 1811, delegates from the provinces of Venezuela, namely, Margarita, Merida, CunAn~, Varinas, Barcelona, Truxillo, and Caracas, assembled in a general congress at Caracas, declared their independence, and on the 21st of December of that year, ratified a constitution, which was designed to bind them together in a confederacy, bearing a close resemblance to that of the United States. In that state of civil discord, and external hostility, the plan did not succeed. The provinces, ~vhich were ravaged or threat- ened by the enemy, were obliged to look to their own safety, and turn all their resources into channels for their own pro- tection. The consequence was, that the general congress had neither power nor resources to execute its measures for the defence of the union ; it became an inefficient body, and was at length dissolved. A military government succeeded, which at last centred in Bolivar as dictator, and it was not till 1819, after a series of almost unparalleled struggles in the fields of war and death, that the people had leisure to think of reforming their civil institutions. A congress was assembled at Angostura, in Venezuela, where, on the 17th of December, of the last mentioned year, the fundamental law was published, which united Venezuela and New Granada into one state, to be denominated the Republic of Colombia. A committee was appointed to draft a constitution, which was adopted on the 30th of August, 1821, by the general congress assembled at Rosario de Ciicuta, and is the same which has been in operation till the present time. Its proudest eulogy is, perhaps, that for the space of four years, the government has been administered under it with great firmness and regularity, and with the present prospect of entire success. The time is not likely to come, when it will have more serious difficulties to en- counter, than have already been surmounted. We forbear to remark further at present on the constitution of Colombia, as we intend to embrace an early opportunity to give a brief sketch of its history, its principles, and its practical operation. Considering the institutions that may be expected to grow up under it, and the wide influence it must necessarily have ni forming the character of a large and thriving population 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 167 of one of the finest portions of the earth, it becomes a subject worthy of the interest and inquiry of every liberal mind. The great drawback on the favorable action of any consti- tution in South America, is the existence of the laws of old Spain, fitted only to be instruments of degradation and imbe- cility, but which are so closely entwined with the character and feelings of the people, that any violent attempts to eradi- cate their influence would be equally dangerous and ineffect- ual. They must be removed gently, and by a succession of new statutes wisely adapted to the purpose, and cautiously administered. The Colombians date their independence from the declaration at Caracas, in 1811, to which ~ve have above alluded. The names of the twelve departments, into which the republic is divided, are the following, Orinoco, Venezuela, Apure, Zulia, Boyack, Cundinarnarca, Magda- lena, Cauca, Istmo, Escuador, Asuay, Guayaquil. At the Congress of Chcuta it was decided, that Bogoth should be the capital of the republic, and the place of the future assem- bling of congress, till a new town should be built for the purpose, and named Bolivar. Our readers will doubtless be pleased with Captain Coch- ranes description of the Congress Halls of Bogoth, and of some of the distinguished personages, who have made a fig- ure in Colombian history, and are now at the head of go- vernment. The meetings of the Senate, says he are held in a long, but narrow and low hall, in the monastery of St Domingo; the centre is railed off for the members, extending from each side of the Presidents chair, in straight lines to the foot of the room, ~vhere the railing forms a horse shoe, leaving only sufficient space in most parts, for one row of spectators. At the head of the room, on a platform raised about three feet, is placed the Presidents chair, a fine, stately, ornamented piece of furniture, covered with crim- son and gold. In front is a table, ornamented with crimson-velvet, handsomely trimmed with gold lace, and a cushion of the same, with rich tassels; the steps leading to the chair are likewise co- vered with a cloth of crimson and gold. Over head is a canopy, decorated with silk hangings, and the arms of the republic fixed n front; the whole having a handsome appearance. From the foot of the platform extend two rows of chairs, for the use of the senators, gilt on the inside of the backs, and having the republican arms, and~notto Ser libre o morir, to be free or die. There are 168 Travels in Colombia. [July, also several small tables for papers to lie on, or affording mate- rials and means for writing. About half way down on the left of the President, are the secretarys chair and table, with all the various papers to be read on each day. The room is white- w ashed, and allegorical figures in watercolors embellish the wails, representing Liberty, Justice, Plenty, & c. & c; and on the right of the President, is a portrait .f Bolivar, placed there by order of the congress. In the evening, the hail is lighted by lamps hung down the centre of the room. The President has a pair of silver candle- sticks; and any member that wishes may have candles on his small table ; but with all this, the hall requires to be better lighted, in order to produce greater effect. The senators are tolerably punctual in attendance, and when the President observes that a sufficient number have assembled, he rings a small bell, silence ensues, he mounts his chair, and the senators take their seats. There are no prayers, as in our English House of Commons, which is remarkable in a Roman Catholic country. The President desires the secretary to read over the trans- actions of the previous day, on which casual observations are made, and any requisite amendments or alterations adopted. This done, any matters declared urgent are read, introduced and dis- cussed; after which the business for the day, as it stands on the list, is read and commented on. There are two parties in the House, which is not the case in the Senate. They have obtained the names of the Mountain party, and the Valley party. rfhe former, so named from being returned to serve in congress from the mountainous district, are chiefly priests, several of whom have been named according to the spot they come from; such as Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, & c. & c; and some of these names have not fallen badly on the individuals so designated. This is the smallest, but most illiberal party, and indeed carries no weight in the chamber. The liberal, or Valley party, so named from coming from the lower districts, is nume- rous, and not withoul priests, some of whom are men whose libe- ral sentiments would do honor to any country. There are some good speakers, but, taken as a whole, by no means equal to the Senate. I cannot forbear expressing niy admi- ration at the general decorum observed in both houses. A stranger would never suppose that this was thefirst constitutional congress, everything being so very well, and orderly conducted, as to reflect the highest credit on the nation; thus holding out a convincing proof to the world of what they will some day become. * 1825.1 Travels in Colombia. 169 The author next takes us to pay his respects to the heads of the departments, concerning whom he speaks in the follow- ing language. After mass [on Sunday] it is customary to pay a visit to the Vice-President, who holds a levee on this day, from twelve till two oclock. There is no servant In attendance to announce you; you merely walk up to the general, bow, and retire to the nearest vacant seat; conversation then becomes general, easy, and unem- barrassed. The Vice-President, General Santander, is above the middle height, strongly made, of a dark complexion, with penetrat- ing black eyes; he wears his hair very long, which, together with large whiskers and mustachios, gives him rather a stern appear- ance, though I have heard him mentioned in his military and public life as an agreeable man; he is generally dressed in uni- form, and sometimes appears in a sky-blue surtout, embroidered like a French marshals dress-coat; he is an intelligent man, has a great deal of natural acuteness, and is particularly sedulous in his attention to the business of the statein diplomatic writing he is said to shine. General Francisco de Paulo Santander was born at Ciicuta, and educated at the college of Bogota for the profession of the law, which he left to become a subaltern in the patriotic army of New Grenada; and afterwards made one of the few Grenadians who followed Bolivar to the plains of Venezuela, in his fallen fortunes, when Morillo possessed himself of the kingdom of New Grenada. His mother and sister (the latter now the wife of Colonel Briceno) remained in Bogota, and on account of their patriotism were in very straitened circumstances, but were still enabled to give, from time to time, very important information to Santan- der, respecting the state of the kingdom. On the approach of the Patriots, they, becoming suspected, were obliged almost lite- rally to bury themselves alive, to escape the fury of that horrible monster, the Viceroy Santano. From this state they were only released, by the entrance of the patriots, just in time for the son to receive the last breath of his patriotic mother, who had con- tracted an incurable disease from the dampness of her hiding place, and ~vho declared that she was happy in having lived long enough to see her country free! At the close of the successful campaign of 1819, General Santander was promoted to the rank of General of Division, and appointed Vice-President of New Grenada, or Cundinaniarca, as It was then called, by General Bolivar, and was afterwards elected Vice-President of Colombia, by the Congress of Ciicnta; both VOL. xxi.no. 48. 170 Travels in Colombia. [July, which situations, by his talents and conduct, he has proved that he highly merited: and to his unparalleled exertions in supplying Jiolivar ~vith resources, under the most difficult circumstances, may be mainly attributed the glorious successes of Carababo and Pi- chincha ,the one giving liberty to Venezuela, the other freedom to Quito. Vol. ii. p. 9093. After visiting the Vice-President, the rules of etiquette make it necessary to bestow a similar compliment on the sec- retaries, and some of the chief members of Lhe congress. In compliance with those rules, Captain Cochrane next present- ed himself to Sciior Gual, Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He is considered a man of talent, and has seen more of the world than the other ministers, having, I believe, visited Europe, and passed a considerable time in North America. He speaks the English language fluently; appears to have employed the time he spent out of his country to the greatest advantage, and seems perfectly acquainted with the present state of his native land, its resources, and the m cans by which it may be improved-, and rendered prosperous. From thence I went to Senor Castillos, the Minister of Fi- nance; he is an elderly man, and has suffered materially, both in body and property, by the revolution. He has read much, and still dedicates much time to reading, notwithstanding his arduous and engrossing duties. He is possessed of extensive knowledge, and an easy flow of language. His house, of an eve ~iing, is the general rendezvous of the best informed people, and I have there passed many agreeable evenings, observing the progress of knowl- edge in this new state, and picturing in my minds eye~~ the pitch of greatness to which it may be eventually elevated. My next visit was to Senor Restrepo, Minister of the Home Department, a good-looking, well-educated, polite man, about forty, having the appearance of a gentleman in his dress and de- portment. He has suffered much during the revolution, but is now placed in a situation where he is enabled to do much benefit. Even during the government of the Spaniards, he exerted him- self greatly in the diffusion of knowledge, and in consequence, was bitterly persecuted on the breaking out of the revolution; for, as increase of knowledge and desire of liberty go hand in hand, it was the policy of the Spaniards to repress all that might have a tendency to expand the mind, or enlighten the intellect, and to launch their vengeance on those persons, the influence of whose superior talent they dreaded, because they knew its pow- er. He is particularly attentive to the duties of his public office, and extremely obliging in all his communications with 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 171 strangers. He is a native of the province of Antioquia, which appears to me, generally speaking, to yield many able and gen- tlemanly men. This visit over, I betook myself to the Minister of War, Colo- nel Briceno Mendez. His appearance is highly prepossessing; he wears uniform; his dress l~andsome, without being gaudy; his manners good, and he is naturally anxious to please. He appears well informed, and is particularly attentive to the duties of his arduous post, having the direction of the naval, as well as military department, which, in these turbulent times, is a duty of no small responsibility, and requiring great personal exertion. Vol. ii. p. 9397. Colonel Mendez has recently resigAed the office of Secre- tary at War, and General Soublette has been appointed to fill the vacancy. But the most brilliant star in Colombian history, and in- deed in the history of modern revolutions, is Bolivar. To whatever it may be ascribed, whether to accident, singular good fortune, the highest order of personal merit, or to all com- bined, Bolivar has raised himself to an eminent station in the list of successful heroes, and remarkable men. He was born at Caracas, about the year 1785, and is said to be descended from a family of distinction in that place. As a favor grant- ed to very few of the native youths of South America, he was permitted to finish his studies at Madrid. He afterwards visited different parts of Europe, travelled in Italy, Germany, England, and France, and was on very intimate terms at Paris with Humboldt and Bonpland. He returned to Ma- drid, where he married the daughter of the Marquis of Ulsta- riz, and soon departed for his native country. His wife did not survive many years, and he has not been married a second time. While yet in Europe, he had formed the design of devoting himself to the cause of South American independence, when the course of events should point to a suitable time; and as it happened, he arrived at Venezuela just as the standard of liberty was beginning to be unfurled there by Miranda and his associates. Bolivar was not entirely satisfied, however, with the general system of measures pursued by the patriot party, and he avoided ta~king any active part. He did not approve the new constitution, which the Congress of Vene- zuela had adopted at Caracas, and he declined a request to be united with Don Lopez Mendez on a mission to England, 172 Travels in Colombia. [July, designed to promote the interests of the government formed on the principles of this constitution. But the time soon came when he felt it his duty not to be kept inactive by a mere difference of opinion; the constitution, as it is well knowu, did not succeed; the wars and disasters, which pressed immediately upon its adoption, proved its inefficiency, and dispelled the hopes, which its friends had entertained, of its power to concentrate the interests and the action of a scattered people, suffering under numerous priva- tions, and engrossed with the necessary care of self defence in different parts. Bolivar perceived, that this was not a time to deliberate on theoretical schemes of government; he joined the army under Miranda, and engaged in the contest with a zeal and patriotism, that raised him to a speedy P?PM- larity and influence. From that day to this, his history is in the eyes of the world; it has been a succession of splendid achievements, which have gained for his name a merited place on the same tablet with that of Washington. The brightest records of ancient or modern fame have nothing prouder to offer. Time and future events must show, whether this hero of the South will complete the parallel with his illus- trious model, which may thus far be run with so much seeming justice. In some respects Bolivars ultimate success has been re- markable. He was several times unfortunate in his early career as a soldier, and more than once his enemies in his own country, as well as those from abroad, triumphed over him. But it is one mark of a great mind to rise above defeat, and restore the confidence which ill success has weakened. His ambition has never been too strong for his integrity, and a sincere desire for his countrys good. For a considerable period he was supreme dictator, with all the army at his com- mand; but when a calm was in some degree restored, a con- gress convened, and a favorable prospect seemed to open, of establishing a solid basis of government, he voluntarily yield- ed up all his power, and insisted on returning to the rank of a private citizen. This was accordingly done, till he was rechosen by the new congress to be commander in chief of the army, under the constitution and the laws. Twice he has by mere accident escaped assassination. In the first instance the dagger, which was intended for him, was plunged into the heart of his secretary, who happened to be sleeping in the hammock usually occupied by himself. 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 173 Energy is the predominant trait of his character. His movements are always prompt, decisive, and rapid, and at the same time directed with so much discretion, that with a force frequently inferior in numbers and discipline to that of the enemy, he has been able to carry through a successful warfare with Morillo, Morales, Monteverde, and other of the most experienced Spanish generals. His generosity has been much praised; he gave his slaves their freedom, and is said to contribute a principal portion of the income of his estate, in affording relief to the widows and children of soldiers, who have lost their lives in battle. As a companion he is social and pleasant, temperate in his habits, abstemious in his diet, and drinks no spirituous liquor. His constitution has suffered by the severe trials, both of body and mind, which he has gone through. His speeches and addresses, which have been published, evince sound and practical views, and adaptation of purpose, rather than depth of thought or great intellectual resources. His celebrated speech at the opening of the Congress at Angostura, we suppose to be his most remarkable effort in this way, and that speech shows at least, that he had studied profoundly the history and princi- ples of various forms of government, and had most seriously at heart the object of establishing that form, which should be best suited to secure the prosperity and happiness of his country. Besides the persons already mentioned, as having stood in the foreground of Colombian independence, may be added the names of Sucre, Urdaneta, Bermudes, Paez, Montilla, Pa- dilla. For the few hints, which we shall throw out concern- ing these persons, we shall rely chiefly on the authority of M. Mollien, who speaks from information obtained in the country. Sucre, who has recently acquired fresh laurels as the hero of Ayachuco, where the great battle was fought that has lib- erated Peru, is yet hardly thirty years of age. His previous fame rested on the battle of Pitchincha, in Quito, which was also gained by him, and procured for him the station of com- mandant general for that department. Urdaneta is a native of Santa Ft~, and distinguished for his bravery and affable, gentlemanly demeanor. He has been president of the Senate, but is in a declining state of health. Bermudes was born at Cuman~i, and has from the beginning of the contest taken a 174 Travels in Colombia. j~Ju1y, very active part for the independence of South America. He is about fifty years of age. Paez, so much known for his valor and the vigorous traits of his character, is a mulatto, and the troops with whom he has accomplished such feats of military prowess, are but half civilized, undisciplined, and of the same color as himself. His influence over his soldiers is surprising; he lives with them on terms of intimacy and equality, shares in their privations, amusements, and exercis- es, and at the same time, by the high example of his courage, and the native power and firmness of his mind, he commands a perfect respect and obedience. Montilla formerly served in Spain, and it is said that he looked to the revolution as a means of augmenting his fortune. He resided for some time in this country, and is still recollect- ed in the circles of Philadelphia, as is Sefior Gual in those of Baltimore. Montilla is now governor of Cartagena; his in- fluence is extensive, and it is supposed that he looks with no favorable eye on the towering ascendency of Bolivar. He had early differences with Miranda and Bolivar, which do not seem to have redounded much to his disinterestedness or patriotism. He must be allowed, however, to have fought bravely and successfully, and to have done much to aid the progress of the revolution. Padilla is a mulatto; at the beginning of the contest he was a pilot of Cartagena; he has been the artificer of his own good fortune, and his fame is built on important and well directed services. To the larger portion, indeed, of the distinguished South Amer- ican chiefs, not less than to Bonapartes Marshals, may be applied the language of Don Quixote, that each one is the son of his own works, cada uno es hfjo de sus obras. All the generals here mentioned, and who are now left far be- hind by Bolivar, says M. Mollien, seem rather to be his equals, than his subalterns; and in case of his death, or even defeat, it is not impossible that they might put themselves at the head of the party, which they have attached to their in- terests. In this respect there is a strong resemblance between Bolivar and Alexander. Paez with his negroes will occupy the plains; Montilla, Caracas; Padilla, the coasts; Sucre, Quito. Thus everything depends on the existence of Boli- var. Such forebodings, by the way, appear to us without foundation. The conduct of these leaders has not been such, as to warrant suspicions of this sort, nor is it just to their past 1825.] Travels in colombia. 175 characters to suppose, that they would in any event be guilty of the folly, or the crinie, of saci4ficing the safety and peace of their country, to the advancement of their own private aims. This would be to defeat the very object, for the at- tainment of which they have been contending, with so much zeal and bravery, for the last twelve years. It may, indeed, safely be affirmed, that the prospects of the Colombians have never been so favorable as at this moment. Their foreign enemies have ceased, through weakness, to mo- lest them; tranquillity prevails at home; the constitution has triumphed by an experiment of four years; salutary laws have been passed and published from time to time, and they go quietly into execution; the national credit is well estab- lished; the national resources are daily multiplying and be- coming more efficient. Such has been the success at the outset of the new government, when experiments were to be tried, and obstacles innumerable to be met; when wars were to be carried on, and armies maintained; when the chmor of party was to be silenced, and the fire of ambition to he tempered and soothed. It is impossible to foresee what accident may bring to pass, but if successful experience is any pledge for future prosperity, it is reasonable to cherish the most encouraging anticipations of the growth and stability of the Colombian republic. Commerce received a severe check during the revolution- ary disturbances, and it is not surprising that it should not yet be restored even to its former channels. It is quite evident from the commercial laws and regulations, that the heads of the new government were not familiar with the principles, details~ and bearings of this complicated subject; they were darkened and perplexed by the old system, and resorted to monopolies and restrictions. A revenue from commerce was absolutely necessary, and it was supposed that keeping up the old monop- olies would be the most certain mode of obtaining it, since the people were accustomed to these restrictions, and would submit to them without complaint. If the government could make its own sales and purchases, and on its own terms, it was thought strange indeed, that it should not be able to secure the profits. Hence the ancient monopoly on tobacco was con- tinued as a war tax. The consequence has been, that but a a comparatively small amount of this article was produced, and it could not stand the competition of foreign tobacco, even 176 Travels in Colombia. [July, with a duty of fifty per cent on the latter. The next step was to prohibit importation altogether; then followed smug- gling and customhouse frauds, and other devices to elude the laws, and of course to diminish the revenue, which a fair and judicious tariff might have ensured. Another extraordi- nary piece of legislation was that,~which prohibited every kind of Spanish produce. This was meant to injure Spain, but no policy could be more shortsighted. Custom had made the cocoa of Colombia a necessary article of luxury to the Spaniards, and it was surely for the interest of the republic to give them the opportunity of obtaining as muc hasthey could purchase and pay for, both on account of the present profit, and the importance of keeping open so good a market for the future. Again, a decree was issued by the Vice Pres- ident, which required all foreign merchants trading in the country to consign themselves, as it has been expressed, to the natives, a most singular mode of tempting foreign cap- ital and enterprise to seek a residence in the country, where their influence is of such vital importance to the growth of the nation. It is proper to add, that the decree was not sanc- tioned by the congress. Several other strange specimens of legislation on this subject might be pointed out, which, as Col- onel Hall has well remarked, might with propriety be entitled laws for the better security and increase of smuggling. Knowledge and experience, however, will correct the evils, and it will be seen and felt, that the modern doctrine of free trade with all nations, in the most absolute sense of the term, is the only one consistent with a republican system, and that will in the shortest time ensure the highest degree of pros- perity to a people. Two laws in the Colombian code demand special notice, as fraught not more with justice, than a wise and liberal pol. icy. The first relates to the emancipation of slaves, and the second to the establishment of schools, and the encouragement of letters. One of the earliest decrees of the constitutional congress was to abolish slavery. No person can be born a slave in Colombia, and the importation of slaves is prohibited by a severe penalty. Moreover, provision is made for cre- ating a manumission fund by a tax, or legacy, which, accord~ ing to the old Spanish laws of the colonies, was retained by the government. It is gratifying to learn, that this law goes into effect without opposition from any quarter. A large 1825.] Travels in Colombia. 177 number of slaves is annually redeemed by the proceeds of this fund; and to make the ceremony of manumission the more impressive and the more joyful, it takes place on the festival days in the month of December. A strict scrutiny is held by the highest magistrates, into the character of the slaves proposed to be redeemed, ajid those are selected, who are found to be the most worthy. It ought to be mentioned, also, that instances are frequent in which masters voluntarily give freedom to their slaves. The law respecting schools was likewise passed by the constitutional congress at its first session, and it embraces provisions for primary schools, colleges, and universities. Mr Restrepos Report shows, that the government were en- gaged in this work with great zeal three years ago. Nume- rous Lancastrian Schools, and a few seminaries of the higher order, have since been put in operation. A portion of the old ecclesiastical revenue is appropriated by law to this pur- pose, and especially the property of certain monasteries and nunneries. Good books and teachers are much wanted; but the foundation of the system is admirable, and it must ulti- mately succeed. As a further aid to the progress of knowl- edge, science, and the arts, all books in every language are allowed to be imported free of duty, and also maps, charts, philosophical instruments, engravings, paintings, statuary, collections of antiquities, busts, and medals. In short, if we look at the body of the Colombian laws, which have been passed under the new constitution, we shall find, that, not- withstanding occasional minor defects, they are in the main well considered, recognising all the great principles of a free and practical government, and aiming at the durable prosper- ity of the nation. VOL. XXJ.NO. 4~. 23 Major Longs Second Expedition. EJuly, Any. VI1I.~Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St Peters River, Lake Winnepeek, Lake of the Woods, & c. & ~c; performed in the year 1823, by Order of the Hon. J. C~ Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command of STEPHEN H. LONG, U. S. T. E. Compiled from the ~Motes of Major Long, Messrs Say, Keating, and Coihoun; by WILLIAM H. KEATING, A. M & c, Geologist and Historiographer to the Expedition. 2 vols. 8vo. Carey & Lea, Philadelphia, 1824. To every citizen, who rejoices in the growth-and prosperity of his country, the recent enterprising expeditions into our fron- tier territories afford matter both of congratulation and regret; of congratulation, that so much has been done with means so small and encouragement so feeble; and of regret, that the national legislature has regarded them with so cold an indif- ference, and helped them forward with so parsimonious and reluctant a hand. It is mortifying in the extreme for an American to reflect, that while the British government, pur- suing an expanded and magnanimous policy, are sending its bands of explorers to every region of the earth, to the heart of central Africa, to India, to the numerous groups of Islands ~n the Pacific, to South America, to the poles themselves, and even to the borders of our own United States, and thereby extending its name, its power, and its influence to every na- tion of the globe, and opening channels for an intercourse that will contribute in an unlimited degree to increase its riches and its strength; it is mortifying, we say, to witness these great acts of enterprise and spirit in a foreign country, and then come down to the pitiful contrast exhibited by the doings of our own government; that department of it, we mean, which holds the efficient means of enterprise in its power. Three fifths of our wide possessions are to this day a complete terra incognita, of which we know little more than we do of the geographical and political features of Monomo- tapa, or the arctic domains of the emperor of Russia. Congress did on one occasion, it must be acknowledged, by some unaccountable impulse of generosity, vote a grant of money to fit out an expedition to the Rocky Mountains. But ~vhat was the result? The liberal object itself was nearly de- f~ated, by withholding the necessary funds for the support of

Major Longs Second Expedition. EJuly, Any. VI1I.~Narrative of an Expedition to the Source of St Peters River, Lake Winnepeek, Lake of the Woods, & c. & ~c; performed in the year 1823, by Order of the Hon. J. C~ Calhoun, Secretary of War, under the command of STEPHEN H. LONG, U. S. T. E. Compiled from the ~Motes of Major Long, Messrs Say, Keating, and Coihoun; by WILLIAM H. KEATING, A. M & c, Geologist and Historiographer to the Expedition. 2 vols. 8vo. Carey & Lea, Philadelphia, 1824. To every citizen, who rejoices in the growth-and prosperity of his country, the recent enterprising expeditions into our fron- tier territories afford matter both of congratulation and regret; of congratulation, that so much has been done with means so small and encouragement so feeble; and of regret, that the national legislature has regarded them with so cold an indif- ference, and helped them forward with so parsimonious and reluctant a hand. It is mortifying in the extreme for an American to reflect, that while the British government, pur- suing an expanded and magnanimous policy, are sending its bands of explorers to every region of the earth, to the heart of central Africa, to India, to the numerous groups of Islands ~n the Pacific, to South America, to the poles themselves, and even to the borders of our own United States, and thereby extending its name, its power, and its influence to every na- tion of the globe, and opening channels for an intercourse that will contribute in an unlimited degree to increase its riches and its strength; it is mortifying, we say, to witness these great acts of enterprise and spirit in a foreign country, and then come down to the pitiful contrast exhibited by the doings of our own government; that department of it, we mean, which holds the efficient means of enterprise in its power. Three fifths of our wide possessions are to this day a complete terra incognita, of which we know little more than we do of the geographical and political features of Monomo- tapa, or the arctic domains of the emperor of Russia. Congress did on one occasion, it must be acknowledged, by some unaccountable impulse of generosity, vote a grant of money to fit out an expedition to the Rocky Mountains. But ~vhat was the result? The liberal object itself was nearly de- f~ated, by withholding the necessary funds for the support of 1825.] .Aiajor Longs Second Expedition. 179 the expedition, at the very time when, after conquering many difficulties, it had reached the point, which promised future success, and when the persons engaged in it had become qualifi- ed, by a well earned experience, to accomplish the purposes of the undertaking in a manner as perfect and satisfactory, as could possibly be desired. That men, whose ardor was suffi- cient to sustain them in opposing every obstacle, and whose in- telligence was such as to render them capable of thoroughly investigating every object, that came within their observation, should be permitted to enter upon such an enterprise without the instruments necessary for their researches, and equip- ments essential to their comfort, or that they should be obliged to travel against time with a slight reference to par- ticulars the most important in their tour, and this for the sake of saving a few hundred dollars to the nation, was of all at- tempts at economy the most ill judged, narrow, and prepos- terous. Such a spirit is unquestionably at war with the best interests of the country. The treasury of these states, instead of swallowing up, like the thirsty sand, all that is poured into it, should resemble the ocean, which, though the recipient of ten thousand rivers, receives them only to expand a vaster surface, whence their substance may again be withdrawn, and returned in fertilizing shbwers over the land. rrhe work, to which we are now called, is another evidence of the zeal and industry of the valuable officer, who, accom- panied by some of the same distinguished naturalists, hereto- fore performed the expedition to the Rocky Mountains, with so much credit to the persons employed, and advantage to the cause of science. Although the present journey was through a country, neither so entirely unexplored, nor so intrinsically rich in natural objects, as that traversed by them on the former occasion, enough has been accomplished to en- title them to much commendation, and impart general interest to the narrative of their labors. When we consider, that they were ordered to perform this journey within eight months, and required not to delay through a winter while on their route, we may well be surprised at the extent and num- ber of their observations. This will be made the more obvious by presenting, in con- nexion with a few extracts from these volumes, a general outline of what has been accomplished, by the expedition. A sketch of the geography of the country passed over, is 180 Major Longs Second Expedition. [July, fully and ably drawn by Major Long, in the form of a Report to the Department of War. rihe regions between the Alleganies and the Ohio river, and between that river and Lake Michigan, and also the territory northwest of the Great Lakes, which was the more immediate theatre of their observations, are all minutely described. An interesting ac- count is also given of the river St Peter, its source, dimen- sions, and tributary streams. We select the following observations on the communication between Lake Superior and Lake Winnepeek. The hydrography of this region is as yet very defective, and although it may be traversed in a thousand directions, must for- ever remain so, if the shape, magnitude, and position of innumer- able lakes embosoming myriads of islands, and the courses, sinu- osities, arid declivities of countless channels by which they are united, are deemed essential as rudiments of that science. The country is literally a wilderness of lakes, islands, and peninsulas; a mazy waste, so inhospitable and irreclaimable, as to mock the art and enterprize of man, and bid defiance to his industry. The water route most frequented between the Lake of the Woods and Lake Winnepeek, is denominated Winnepeek river, which enters the lake last mentioned in latitule 50~ 36 30, and has an extent of about one hundred and seventy miles. It is composed of a series of deep and broad basins rising one above another, and serving as the channel of a huge volume of water, which is precipitated from one basin to another in tumultuous cataracts of the most romantic character. Of these water falls, there are no less than thirty-one in the route above mentioned, which interrupt the passage of canoes, and at all of which are carrying places. The aggregate descent of water in Winnepeek river may be estimated at four hundred and ten feet, which may be considered as the elevation of the Lake of the Woods above Lake Winnepeek. The route by Covert and Sturgeon Dam rivers is probably the most direct, (the lower portion of which is the same with that above mentioned,) but the obstructions are said to be more numerous and formidable, especially in a lo~ stage of water. Besides these there are numerous other devia- lions from the main route, some of ~vhich have been traversed, l)ut the number that remains to be explored is doubtless far greater. At the distance of about sixty miles below the Lake of the XVoods, Winnepeek river receives a large tributary from the north, called English river, which is of a character similar to that of the principal, and nearly as large as the latter above their 1825.] .Illajor Longs Second Expedition. 181 junction. Its head waters interlock with those of Albany river, which empties into James Bay, and is the principal channel of in- tercourse between Lake Winnepeek and the trading establish- ments on that river. The Lake of the Woods is about seventy-five miles long, and of irregular widths, from ten to thirty-five or forty miles. Com- pared with other lakes, it deserves a high rank on the scale of beauty. The scenery is wild and romantic in a high degree, its shores being faced with precipices and crowned with hills and knobs of variable heights, clad with a dense foliage of shrubbery and evergreens. Its surface is beautifully studded with countless islands of various sizes and forms, disclosing between them the continued sheet of its wide-spreading waters, the extent of which enlarges upon the vision as the traveller advances upon the lake, till the main land is shut out from the view by the islands that multiply around him. The 49th parallel of north latitude crosses the lake, within the distance of about twelve miles from its southerly extremity. The region bordering upon the waters above described, is one of the most dreary imaginable. Its climate is rigorous, its surface exceedingly rugged and broken, and its products so lim- ited and meagre, that it seems never to have been claimed as a residence either by man or beast. A solitary moose, caraboo, or bear, is occasionally to be found; and a half-starved family of savages sometimes fix a temporary residence upon some of the wa- ter-courses, and subsist miserably upon fish, but it seems as if com- fort and competency were denied to both. Vol. ii. pp. 231233. Above the Lake of the Woods, Rainy river becomes the channel of communication, and extends one hundred miles to the lake of the same name. It has an average breadth of about three hundred yards, is deep and gentle, and has no obstructions to its navigation, within forty-eight miles of its mouth; at this distance are situated the rapids of Rainy river, which are about one mile long, and have an aggregate descent of about ten feet. About ten miles further up is another inconsiderable rapid, with a fall of about three feet. At the outlet of Rainy Lake is a rapid of about five feet descent, and two miles and a half below are the Falls of Rainy river, down which the torrent pours with ter- rific grandeur through an aggregate descent of twenty-five feet in the distance of but a few yards. At this place are situated an establishment of tIme Hudsons Bay Company on the north side of the river, and one belonging to the American Fur Company on the south. Twenty miles below the falls is the entrance of a considerable tributary from the southwest called the Grand Fork, which affords a channel of communication between tIme principal 182 .Miajor Longs Second Expedition. [July, and Little Winnepeek Lake of the Mississippi, navigable in wet seasons. It receives several other streams of less note. Between the Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake there is another water ~oute which is sometimes travelled; it is delineated on the map as the back route. Vol. ii. p. 234. On the natural features of the country in a military point of view, Major Long remarks as follows. In this view it is proper to comprehend not only the extreme northerly frontier of the United States, but to consider it in con- nexion with the boundary which nature seems to have fixed as the western limit of our population, viz, the Great American Desert. From what has been stated in relation to the country surrounding Lake Superior and extending north-westwardly to Lake Winnepeek, it may be inferred that we shall always remain secure from the inroads of any hostile force in that direction. Indeed the nature of the country is such, as affords a more formi- dable barrier to the invasions of an enemy, than any cordon bf posts that art could devise. This barrier is intercepted by a space of considerable extent, including the valley of Red river, and extending westward to the Great Desert, through which there are two considerable passes, the one by the way of the Red and St Peter rivers, and the other by that of the Assiniboin and Mis- souri, through which an enemy from the north might gain access to the heart of the western country. But when we consider that the policy of the Hudsons Bay Company, in whom is vested the right of soil to all that part of the British possessions drained by the tributaries of Hudsons Bay, is opposed to the colonization of their territory, their interest prompting them to foster the fur trade, the products of which must diminish in proportion to the increase of population, we have very little to apprehend from the attack of a powerful enemy in that quarter. Added to this the utter impracticability of transporting by ordinary means heavy ord- iiauce, and other munitions of war, up Nelsons river, or by any other route to the valley of Red river, must for a long time to come place an enterprize of this nature beyond the reach of any hostile power. Accordingly, under present prospects, no hostili- ties are to be apprehended in that part of our frontier, except such as may be inflicted through the medium of the savages. A large portion of the Great American Desert, a sterile dreary waste, three or four hundred miles in width, stretching along the eastern verge of the Rocky Mountains, from Red river of the south to Athahasca in the north, a distance of more than fourteen hundred miles, may be added as a continuation of the line of our natural defence. Thus a portion of our frontier, embracing an 1825.] Major Longs Second Expeditions 183 extent of nearly two thousand miles, is so well fortified by nature as to require no artificial structures but such as are appropriate in Indian warfare. No regular military works will of course be required on that extent of frontier, except such as may be requir- ed to protect the American fur trade, and counteract the hostile purposes of the Indians. Vol. ii. pp. 241243. The geological observations made by the expedition are mostly new, and very interesting. In beginning their journey they took the opportunity to examine the geology of the state of Pennsylvania west of the Susquehanna, in which region they were the first to remark the existence of primitive for- mations. They subsquently examined with much care the country near Wheeling and Zanesville. The appearance of the limestone, in the space between Lake Michigan an dthe Mississippi, led to an attempt to refer these formations to analogous European formations, and though these observa- tions are diffidently offered, they are very interesting. The writer of the expedition has not ventured to decide authorita- tively, on a question of so much difficulty, but he has stated his views and motives at large, and shown in what manner the rocks resemble or differ from those observed by Cony- beare, Friesleber, Buckland and others. In this part of the route no appearance of lead mines was found. In relation to the geology of St Anthony, much light has been added to that afforded by Mr Schoolcraft, who had not attempted to show how these rocks were connected with similar ones observed else~vhere. We believe, moreover. that Mr Keating is the first person, who has described from actual observation the nature of the rock on the St Peter; this he has done in the case of the sandstone and limestone, on the lower part of the river, and of the primitive rocks above Pattersons falls, and near the Lac Qui Pane. The first rock, which was afterwards seen in situ, was the limestone of Red river, and this, together with the primitive rocks subsequently mentioned, is carefully noted. Superpo- sitions have been traced and describedas far as possible, as in the case of the Allegany mountains, of the rocks at Wheel- ing and Zanesville, on the Wassemos, or west of it, at Fort St Anthony, and the falls, and in various places on Lake Sn- perior. That superpositions were not seen from Lake Win- nepeek to Lake Superior is accounted for, by stating that it is doubted whether there is a reeular stratification and alter- 184 Major Longs Second Expedition. [July~ nation of rocks, but it is rather held to be an immense, con- fused, and irregular crystallization, giving rise to many distinct rocks passing into one another. Along the north shore of bake Superior, traversed by this expedition, no masses of native copper were observed, on the surface of the alluvial matter, but in several places copper~pyrites were obtained. The scenery of the country, which is always nearly and peculiarly connected with its geological characters, deserved- ly attracted the notice of the expedition, and the descriptions given of it are frequently picturesque and beautiful, deriving a great degree of interest from the peculiar wildness of the country, and the general absence of all animated beings, ex- cept the observers themselves. It was at our evening~s encarnpment,~ says Mr Keating, that the splendid scenery of the Winnepeek first displayed itself to our view, realizing all that the mind could have fancied of wild and sublime beauty, and far surpassing any that we had ever seen. The characters, which we admire in the scenery of the Winnepeek, are the immense volume of waters, the extreme rapidity of the current, the great variety of form which the cas- cades and falls present, and the incomparable wildness of the rocky scenery which produces these falls, and which contrasts by its gloom, immoveable and unchangeable features, with the bright, dazzling effect of the silvery sheet of water, passing from a smooth and unruffled expanse, to a broken and foaming cata- ract. It is in the effect of the rocky bed of the Winnepeek, that its numerous falls surpass all other which we have seen; the cataract of Niagara, which far exceeds them in volume, is uniform and monotonous in comparison; the horizontal ledges of second- ary rocks of the latter are so far inferior in picturesque effect to the dark water-worn granite and sienite of the former, as the height of the bluffs at Niagara exceeds that of the rocky banks of the Winnepeek. The falls on this river have another advantage, which is, that the whole country has a picturesque appearance, which prepares the mind, and keeps it in a proper disposition to appreciate the splendor of its cataracts, while the country around Niagara is flat, uniform, and uninteresting.~ The place of our encampment was characterized by one of those peculiar effects of water, which, once seen, leave an indeli- ble impression upon the mind. After having passed over numer- ous rocks, which form diversified cascades, (the whole height of which is about thirty feet~) the water is suddenly received into a 1825.] Jktajor Longs Second Expedition. 185 basin enclosed by high rocks, where it is forced to sojourn awhile, by the small size of the aperture through which it issues; here the waters present the characters of a troubled ocean, whose waves rise high and beat against the adjoining shores, and against the few rocky islands which are seun in the midst of this basin; it is to this character that the spot owes the name which it re- ceives from the natives, the fall of the moving waters. They may be called the lower falls of Winnepeek river. We reached them in time to watch thc beautiful effect of the setting sun, whose beams reflected by the stream imparted to it the appear- ance of a sea on fire. This was soon replaced by the moon, which cast a more placid light upon the waves, and heightened the charm of the scenery by the melancholy mantle which it spread over it. One of the most imposing characters of these falls is the tremendous noise which they produce, and which, in comparison to their size, is thought to exceed that of Niagara, Montmorency, Schaffhausen, St Anthony, the Cohoes, or other falls which any of our party have ever seen. A scarcity of vege- tation covers these rocks and contributes to the picturesque effect of the spot. Instead of the heavy forests which formerly shel- tered Niagara, we have here a spare growth of aspen, birch, spruce, and other evergreens, whose size, generally small, adds to the wild and barren appearance of the rocks. The night which we spent near these falls, was one of the most interesting in the expedition; our tents were pitched so that we had a view of the splendid effect arising from the play of the moonbeams upon the surface of this ocean-like basin, and our eyes were con- stantly bent upon it until the noise of the cataract lulled us to sleep. Vol. ii. pp. 9092. One important service, rendered by Major Long and his party during the present expedition, is deserving of particular notice. They have pursued their inquiries and examina- tions in such a manner, as to show that some authors, who have enjoyed an unmerited degree of confidence and reputa- tion, are unworthy of such respect; not only because they have very frequently depended exclusively on others for the circumstances they relate, but because they have not hesi- tated to fill up a large part of their outline from imagination alone. This especially applies to La Hontan, or the monk Guedeville, who assumed this name; and to his humble but ungrateful copyist and garbler, Carver. To be convinced that those, who have been our guides in any research, are un- qualified for the office they propose to discharge, may be VOL. xxm..48. 24 186 Major Longs Second Expeditwn. [July, disagreeable, but it is an important step towards correcting our errors, and the attainment of truth. Mr Schoolcraft, who is advantageously known by his tra- vels, and observations on the lead mines of Missouri, has also been corrected in some particulars by the researches of the present expedition. With this we are the more satisfied, as the standing and merited respectability of Mr Schoolcraft are well suited to confer permanency on any accidently errone- ous statement made by him. in relation to the Falls of St Anthony, the narrative of Mr Schooleraft contains an unde- served censure on the statement of that gallant and praise- worthy officer, Pike, who first correctly reported their height. The latter explorer stated, that the perpendicular height was sixteen and a half feet. Mr Schoolcraft magnifies it to forty feet. Major Long and Mr Colhoun by different measure- ments ascertained, that the height was between fifteen and sixteen feet. We do not think it necessary to specify the other topics, on which they differ entirely from Mr School.. craft, of whose labors they always speak favorably, and no doubt thought kindly. Corrections of this nature should not give offence to any one, since it is impossible for travel- lers in all cases to avoid misconception, even where their opportunities for observation have been excellent. Among the most interesting researches, contained in these vohimes, are those relating to the aboriginal inhabitants of the countries adjoining our frontiers. in collecting information on this subject, the gentlemen of the expedition have mani- fested a very praiseworthy diligence, and their exertions have been rewarded by a large amount of valuable acquisi. tions. So much misrepresentation has existed in relation to these tribes, and so many falsehoods and exaggerations have been published concerning them, that every authentic obser- vation of their social condition and polity, is of the highest value to the philanthropist and philosopher. A very interesting account is given, in the second volume, of a white man, by the name of Tanner, who was taken whei~ a child by the Indians, and lived with them till he was ad- vanced in life. This accOunt is too long for an extract, and we recommend it particularly to our readers. At Piqua, on the Great Miami, about seventy miles west of Columbus, the capital of Ohio, the expedition delayed a short time to examine several of those singular Indian works, which, 1825.] Major Longs Second Expedition. 18? usually constructed of earth alone, have resisted the influence of time during many ages, subsequent not only to the extinc- tion of the race by whom they were founded, but long after giant oaks, which have grown from the acorn on their ~sum- mits, have perished and disappeared through the natural agency of extreme old age ar~d decay. Who reared these works,for what purpose, or by what means? are questions to which we can reply with nothing better than conjectures, and these in all probability as wide of the truth, as the pres- ent time is distant from the era when the mounds themselves were constructed. We have no dates, no tradition to aid us, and our best researches bring us only to the conclusion that they exist, and that powerful and numerous nations have ceased to be. Although these monuments are so simply constructed, they would most probably outlast every other work of human art, since they are secured against the inju- ries of the seasons by the herbage and trees, which are al- ways found clothing them; but they are now sinking speedily under the hands of civilized men, and must soon be no more. The plough has for many years passed destructively over a great number of elevations, which have witnessed the lapse of centuries unmarred, and a few years only will roll away, before the remaining Indians will become finally extinct, and no trace be left of their existence, or of their ancient greatness. The melancholy interest, inspired by such considerations, awakens many an unavailing regret relative to the Aborigines, who still continue to linger on the outskirts of the white set- tlements, apparently incapable of perceiving the advantage of living by the products of their industry, and nurtured in habits which are an effectual barrier to improvement. They are exposed to the artifices of the most depraved of their white neighbors, are taught to debase themselves rather than to itfll)rove their condition, and must eventually cease to ex- ist as a people, in the midst of every opportunity to become numerous, refined, and powerful. It is considered by the writers of this expedition very er- roneous, to attribute to all the Indian nations a common char- acter, or to suppose them all alike. It is true that the con- dition in which they live is sufficient to produce very striking resemblances between them; but there are distinctions as remarkable and important as those to be found in their lan- guages, arising from their division into nations. which, for all Major Longs Second Expedition. [July, that is known to the contrary, may be descended from diffe- rent original stocks. Those, which are evidently descended from a common parentage, necessarily present the greatest re- semblances,as the Potowatamies, Sauks, Ottowas, and Chippe- was, who are all derived from the Algonquin race, while the t)a- cotas, springing from a different stock, ar~ very different from the rest, both in manners and language.- The Indians of Algon- quin descent speak dialects of the same tongue, have a fam- ily badge, or totem, as they call it, and do not worship thun- der; and it is believed these tribes are not free from the taint of cannibalism. In all these particulars the manners of the Dacotas exhibit essential differences. To the distinctions, which are dependent on national causes, supersti ions, or traditions, may be added others which spring from local and adventitious circumstances. The Dacotas, for instance, living in a country where bisons are found in abundance, make use of skin lodges, are fond of horses, and obtain them whenever it is possible. The Chippewas, who live in a country of lakes where the birch tree is very com- mon, have ingeniously resorted to the bark of that tree for the material of which to construct their lodges and canoes. That this is not a national, but a local usage, is shown by the fact, that the Killistenos, who are of Algonquin descent, live in a buffalo country, and imitate the Dacotas in the particu- lars above mentioned, while in respect of language, totems, and superstitions, they evince their connexion with the Chippewas. We have incidentally mentioned, that some of these Indi- ans have a disposition to cannibalism., which has sometimes been considered a shocking imputation on the savage char- acter; nevertheless, the evidence collected by this expedi- tion, added to what is found in other works, would seem to establish the fact on very strong grounds. It is by no means common, however, and is most probably falling into perma- nent disrepute. Under any circumstances, it is important to be fully assured of the existence of such a trait in the char- acter of these tribes, if it actually exists, however repugnant it may be to our feelings. It seems highly probable, that if the savages of this country had been represented according to their actual condition, and not from the extravagant fancy or misconceptions of travellers, they might at this time have been much further advanced in civilization. That they pos- sess many excellent qualities, and a capacity for improvement, 1825.] Da Pontes Observations. 189 is not to be doubted; but while they continue to be treated with oppression and injustice, and are taught by repeated experience to regard white men as fraudulent and corrupt, it can scarcely be expected from them, however much it may be desired, that they will arrive at a high elevation either in morals or civil lmprovemens. The Narrative of the expedition appears to have been care- fully composed, and is more uniform than that of the former expedition, but not so interesting. The general style of com- position is much elaborated; it is a little too ambitious, abounding in occasional superfluous epithets. These are the faults of one, who has not written much for publication, and may easily be pardoned. A more serious objection to the style, is a too frequent use of technical terms in geology and mineralogy, even in the midst of descriptions, where no allu- sions to these subjects ought to have been introduced. On the whole, however, Mr Keating has accomplished his task, as his- toriographer to the expedition, with much good judgment, and with the full measure of industry, which a work of so varied a character required, and he deserves the praise not less of successful authorship, than of skill in his favorite science. The Appendix contains a treatise extending to one hundred and fifty pages, on various objects of natural history observ- ed in the expedition, by Mr Thomas Say, of the merits of which we do not pretend to speak, being fully coi~vinced that no better pledge of its value can be desired by the public, than the name of the author. ART. IX.Alcune Osservazioni sull ./lrticulo Quarto publicato nel North ./Imerican Review, ii ./IIese d Ottobre deli .lnno 1824. Da L. DA PONTE. Nuova-Jorca. Stampatori Gray e Bunce. 1825. THE larger part of the above work is devoted to strictures upon an Article on Italian Narrative Poetry, which appear- ed in Number XLV of this Journal. The author is an eminent Italian teacher at New York. His poetical abilities have been highly applauded in his own country, and were rewarded with the office of C~sarean poet at the court of Vienna, where he acquired new laurels as successor to the

1825.] Da Pontes Observations. 189 is not to be doubted; but while they continue to be treated with oppression and injustice, and are taught by repeated experience to regard white men as fraudulent and corrupt, it can scarcely be expected from them, however much it may be desired, that they will arrive at a high elevation either in morals or civil lmprovemens. The Narrative of the expedition appears to have been care- fully composed, and is more uniform than that of the former expedition, but not so interesting. The general style of com- position is much elaborated; it is a little too ambitious, abounding in occasional superfluous epithets. These are the faults of one, who has not written much for publication, and may easily be pardoned. A more serious objection to the style, is a too frequent use of technical terms in geology and mineralogy, even in the midst of descriptions, where no allu- sions to these subjects ought to have been introduced. On the whole, however, Mr Keating has accomplished his task, as his- toriographer to the expedition, with much good judgment, and with the full measure of industry, which a work of so varied a character required, and he deserves the praise not less of successful authorship, than of skill in his favorite science. The Appendix contains a treatise extending to one hundred and fifty pages, on various objects of natural history observ- ed in the expedition, by Mr Thomas Say, of the merits of which we do not pretend to speak, being fully coi~vinced that no better pledge of its value can be desired by the public, than the name of the author. ART. IX.Alcune Osservazioni sull ./lrticulo Quarto publicato nel North ./Imerican Review, ii ./IIese d Ottobre deli .lnno 1824. Da L. DA PONTE. Nuova-Jorca. Stampatori Gray e Bunce. 1825. THE larger part of the above work is devoted to strictures upon an Article on Italian Narrative Poetry, which appear- ed in Number XLV of this Journal. The author is an eminent Italian teacher at New York. His poetical abilities have been highly applauded in his own country, and were rewarded with the office of C~sarean poet at the court of Vienna, where he acquired new laurels as successor to the 190 Da Pontes Observations. [July, celebrated Metastaslo. His various fortunes in literary and fashionable life while in Europe, and the eccentricities of his enthusiastic character, furnish many interesting incidents for an autobiography, published by him two years since at New York; and to this we refer those of our readers, who are desir- ous of a more intimate acquaintance~with the author. We regret that our remarks, which appeared to us abun- dantly encomiastic of Italian letters, and which certainly proceeded from our admiration for them, should have given such deep offence to the respectable author of the Osser- vazioni, as to compel him, although a veteran in litera- ture, to arm himself against us in defence of his calumni- ated country. According to him, we judge too lightly of the Italians, and quote as axioms the absurd opinions of their insane rivals (accaniti rivali), the French. We conceal some things where silence has the appearance of malice; we ex- pose others which common generosity should have induced us to conceal; we are guilty of false and arbitrary accusa- tions, that do a grievous wrong to the most tender, and most compassionate of nations; we are wanting in a decent rev- erence for the illustrious men of his nation; finally, we pry with the eyes of Argus into the defects of Italian literature, and with one eye only, and that indeed half shut, (anche quello socchiuso,) into its particular merits. It is true, this sour rebuke is sweetened once or twice with a compliment to the extent of our knowledge, and a confession that many of our reasonings, facts, and reflections merit the gratitude of his countrymen, that our intentions were doubtless generous, praiseworthy, and the like. But such vague commendations, besides that they are directly inconsistent with some of the imputations formally alleged against us, are two thinly scat- tered over sixty pages of criticism, to mitigate very materi- ally the severity of the censure. The opinions of the Author of the Osservazioni on this subject are undoubtely entitled to great respect. But it may be questioned, whether the ex- citable temperament usual with his nation, and the local par- tiality which is common to the individuals of every nation, may not have led him sometimes into extravagance and er- ror. This seems to us to have been the case; and as he has more than once intimated the extreme difficulty of forming a correct estimate of a foreign literature, especially of the Italian, we shall rely exclusively for the support of our opin 1825.] Da Pontes Observations. 191 ions, on the authorities of his own countrymen, claiming one exception only in favor of the industrious Ginguen~, whose opinions he has himself recommended to the diligent study of all, who would form a correct notion of Italian litera- ture. * His first objection is against what he considers the unfair view, which we exhibited of the influence of Italy on English letters. This influence, we had stated, was most perceptible under the reign of Elizabeth, but had gradually declined duing the succeeding century, and with a few exceptions, among whom we cited Milton and Gray, could not be said to be fairly discerned until the commencement of the present age. Our censor is of a different opinion. Instead of con- fining himself (he designates us always by this humble pro- noun), to Milton, he says, for which exception I acknowledge no obligation to him, since few there are who were not previous.. ly acquainted with it, I would have had him acknowledge that many English writers not only loved and admired, but studiously imitated our authors, from the time of Chaucer to that of the great Byron; for the clearest evidence of which, it will suffice to read the compositions of this last poet, of Milton, and of Gray. He then censures us for not specifying the obligations which Shakspeare was under to the early Italian Novelists, for the plots of many of his pieces, which silence he deems as little to be commended, as would be an attempt to conceal the light, the most beautiful prerogative of the sun, from one who had never before seen it. And, he continues, these facts should for two reasons have been especially com- municated to Americans; first, to animate them more and more to study the Italian tongue; and secondly, in order not to imitate, by what may a p pear a malicious silence, the ex- ample of another nation [the French], who, after drawing their intellectual nourishment from us, have tried every meth- od of destroying the reputation of their earliest masters. pp. 7479. We have extracted the leading ideas, diffused by the au- thor of the Osservazioni over half a dozen pages. Some of them have at least the merit of novelty. Such are not, how- ever, those relating to Chaucer, whom we believe no one ev ~ Ma bisognava aver 1anima di Ginguen~, Conoscer Ia lingua e Ia Ietteratura Italiana, come Ginguen6, e amar ii vero come Uinguen6, per sentire, & c. Usservasioni, pp. 1 I~ 116. Da Ponles Observations. [July, er doubted to have found in the Tuscan tongue, the only one of that rude age in which The pure well-head of poesie did dwell, one principal source of his premature inspiration. We ack- nowledged, that the same sources ~ourished the genius of Queen Elizabeths writers, among whom we particularly cited the names of Surrey, Sidney, and Spenser. And if we did not distinguish Shakspeare amidst the circle of cotempo- rary dramatists, whom we confessed to have derived the designs of many of their most popular plays from Italian models, it was because we did not think the extent of his obligations, amounting to half a dozen imperfect skeletons of plots, required any such specification; more especially, as several of his great minor cotemporaries, as Fletcher, Shir- ley, and others, made an equally liberal use of the same materials. The obligations of Shakspeare, such as they were, are moreover notorious to every one. The author of the Osservazioni expressly disclaims any feelings of gratitude towards us, for mentioning those of Milton, because they were notorious. It is really very hard to please him. The literary enterprise, which had been awakened under the reign of Elizabeth, was in no degree diminished under her successor; but the intercourse with Italy, so favorable to it, at an earlier period, was for obvious reasons at an end. A Protestant people, but lately separated from the Church of Rome, would not deign to resort to what they believed her corrupt fountains for the sources of instruction. The austerity of the Puritan was yet more scandali~ed by the voluptuous beauties of her lighter compositions, and Milton, whose name we cited in our article, seems to have been a solitary excep- tion on the records of that day, of an eminent English scholar, thoroughly imbued with a relish for Italian letters. After the days of civil and religious faction had gone by, a new aspect was given to things under the brilliant auspices of the restoration. The French language was at that time in the meridian of its glory. Boileau, with an acute but pe- dantic taste, had drafted his critical ordinances from the most perfect models of classical antiquity. Racine, working on these principles, may be said to have put into action the poetic conceptions of his friend Boilean, and with such a model to illustrate the excellence of his theory, it is not won- derful that the code of the French legislator, recommended, 1825.] Da ~ Observations. 193 as it was too, by the patronage of the most imposing court in Europe, should have found its way into the rival kingdom, and have superseded there every other foreign influence.* It did so. French criticism, says Bishop ilurd, speaking of this period, has carried it before the Italian with the rest of Europe. This dexterous people have found means to lead the taste, as well as set the fashions of their neighbours. Again; The exact but cold Boileau happened to say some~ thing of the clinquara of Tasso, and the magic of this word, like the report of Astolfos horn in Ariosto, overturned at once the solid and well built foundation of Italian poetry; it became a sort of watchword among the critics. Mr Gifford, whose acquaintance with the ancient literature of his nation, entitles him to perfect confidence on this subject, whatever we may be disposed to concede to him on some others, in his introduction to Massinger, remarks in relation to this period, that criticism, which in a former reign had been making no inconsiderable progress under the great masters of Italy, was now diverted into a new channel, and only studied in the puny and jejune canons of their degenerate followers, the French. Pope and Addison, the legislators of their own and a future age, cannot be exempted from this reproach. The latter conceived and published the most contemptuous opin- ion of the Italians. in a very early paper of the Spectator bearing his own signature (No. 6,) he observes, The finest writers among the modern Italians [in contradistinction to the ancient Romans] express themselves in such a floiid form of words, and such tedious circumlocutions, as are used by none but pedants in our own country; and at the same time fill their writings with such poor imaginations and conceits, as our youths are ashamed of, before they have been two years at the University. In the same paper he adds, I en- tirely agree with Mons. Boileau, that one verse of Virgil is worth all the tinsel of Tasso. rrhis is very unequivocal language, and our censor will do us the justice to believe, that we do not quote it from any malicious intention, but * Boileaus sagacity in fully appreciating the merits of Ph~dre and of Atha. lie, and his independence in supporting them against the fashionahie factions of the day are well known. But he conferred a still greater obligation on his friend. Racine the younger tells us, that his father in his youth was given to a vicious taste. (concetti,) and that Boileau led him back to nature, and taught him to rhyme with labor, (rimer difficilerient.) VOL. Xxi.~o. 48. 25 Dci Pontes Observations. [July, simply to show what must have been the popular taste, when sentiments like these were promulgated by a leading critic of the day, in the most important and widely circuhted journal in the kingdom.* In conformity with this anti-Italian spirit, we find that no translation of Ariosto was attempted~ subsequent to the very imperfect one by Harrington in Elizabeths time. In tne reign of George the Second a new version was published by one Liuggins. In his preface he observes, After thin woik was pretty far advanced, 1 was informed there had been a translation published in the reign of Elizabeth, and dedicated to that queen, whereupon I requested a friend to obttin a sight of that book, for it is, it seems, very scarce, and the glorious original much more so in this country. Huggtns was a learned scholar, although he made a bad translation. Yet it seems he had never meet with, or even heard of the version of his predecessor, Ilarrington. But without encum- bering ourselves with authorities, a glance at the compositions of the period in question, would show how feeble are the pretensions of an Italian influence; and we are curious to know what important names, or productions, or characteris- tics can be cited by the author of the Osservazioni, in sup- port of it. Dryden, whom he has objected to us, versitied, it is true, three of his Fables from Boceaccio; but this brief effort is the only evidence we can recall, in the multitude of his miscellaneous writings, of a respect for Italian letters; and he is expressly mentioned, by his accurate biographer Scott, as having powerfully contributed to the introduction of a French taste in the drama. The only exception, which oc- curs to our general remark, is that afforded by the Metaphy- sical School of Poets, whose vicious propensities have been referred by Dr Johnson to Marini and his followers. But as an ancient English model for this affectation may be found in Donne, and as the doctor was not prodigal of golden opinions towards Italy, we will not urge upon our opponent what may be deemed an ungenerous, perhaps an unjust imputation. The same indifference appears to have lasted the greater * Addison tells us in an early number of the Spectator, that 3000 copies were daily distributed; and Chalmers somewhere remarks, that this circula- tion was afterwards increased to 14000; an amount, in proportion to the numerical population and intellectual culture of that day, very far superior to that of the most popular journals at the present time. 1825.] Da Pontes Observations. 195 portion of the eighteenth century, and with few exceptions, enumerated in our former article, the Tuscan spring, quella fonte, Che spande di parlar si largo flume, seems to have been almost hermetically sealed against the English scholar. The increasing thirst for every variety of intellectual nourishment, in our age, has again invited to these early sources, and while every modern tongue has been anx- iously explored by the diligence of critics, the Italian has had the good fortune to be more widely and more success- fully cultivated than at any former period. We should apologize to our readers for afflicting them with so much commonplace detail, but we know no other way of rebutting the charge, which, according to the author of the Osservazioni, might be imputed to us, of a malicious silence, in our account of the influence of Italian letters in England. But if we have offended by saying too little on the preced- ing head, we have given equal offence on another occasion by saying too much; our antagonist attacks us from such opposite quarters, that we hardly know where to expect him. We had spoken, and in terms of censure, of Boileaus cele- brated sarcasm upon Tasso; and we had added, that, not- withstanding an affected change of opinion, he adhered until the time of his death to his original heresy. As much, says our censor, as it would have been desirable in him [the reviewer] to have spoken on these other matters, so it would have been equally proper to have suppressed all that Boileau wrote upon Tasso, together with the remarks made by him in the latter part of his life, as having a tendenc~to prejudice unfavorably the minds of such as had not before heard them. Nor should he have coldly styled it his ori- ginal heresy, but he should have said that in spite of all the heresies of Boilean, and all the blunders of Voltaire, the Jerusalem hos been regarded for more than two centuries and a half, and will be regard~~ as long as the