To speak in detail of a work so subdivided as "The Rambler in North America,” would cccupy too much of our time. We can, of course, only touch, in general terms, upon its merits and demerits. The latter, we can assure our readers, are few indeed. One instance,

mention. The victim in this case is a poor tory, one | eye, but with the comprehensive glance of a citizen of Clough. At page 217, vol. i, the booby Goggle receives the world. a flogging for desertion, and Mr. S. endeavors to interest us in the screeches of the wretch—in the cries of his mother-in the cracking of the whip-in the number of the lashes-in the depth, and length, and color of the wounds. At page 105, vol. ii, our friend Porgy has caught a terrapin, and the author of "The Yemassee" | nevertheless, of what must be considered false inference luxuriates in the manner of torturing the poor reptile to death, and more particularly in the writhings and spasms of the head, which he assures us with a smile "will gasp and jerk long after we have done eating the body."

from data undeniably correct, is brought to bear so pointedly against our social and political principles, and is, at the same time, so plausible in itself, and so convincingly worded, as to demand a sentence or two of comment. We quote the passage in full, the more willingly, as we perceive it dwelt upon with much emphasis, by the London Quarterly Review.

"There are certain signs, perhaps it might be said of the times, rather than of their peculiar political arrangements, which should make men pause in their are emancipated from the thraldom of mind and body judgment of the social state in America. The people which they consider consequent upon upholding the divine right of kings. They are all politically equal. All claim to place, patronage, or respect, for the bearer of a great rame is disowned. Every man must stand tune. Each is gratified in believing that he has his or fall by himself alone, and must make or mar his for

One or two words more. Each chapter in "The Partisan" is introduced (we suppose in accordance with the good old fashion) by a brief poetical passage. Our author, however, has been wiser than his neighbors in the art of the initial motto. While others have been at the trouble of extracting, from popular works, quotations adapted to the subject-matter of their chapters, he has manufactured his own headings. We find no fault with him for so doing. The manufactured mottos of Mr. Simms are, perhaps, quite as convenient as the extracted mottos of his cotemporaries. All, we think, are abominable. As regards the fact of the manufac-share in the government of the Union. You speak ture there can be no doubt. None of the verses have we ever met with before-and they are altogether too full of coils, hugs, and old-times, to have any other parent

than the author of "The Yemassee."

In spite, however, of its manifest and manifold blunders and impertinences, "The Partisan" is no ordinary work. Its historical details are replete with interest. The concluding scenes are well drawn. Some passages descriptive of swamp scenery are exquisite. Mr. Simms has evidently the eye of a painter. Perhaps, in sober truth, he would succeed better in sketching a landscape than he has done in writing a novel.

LATROBE'S RAMBLER.

The Rambler in North America, 1832-33. By Charles Joseph Latrobe, Author of "The Alpenstock," &c. New York: Harper and Brothers.

against the insane anxiety of the people to govern-of authority being detrimental to the minds of men raised which can attend to nothing but matter of fact and from insignificance-of the essential vulgarity of minds of civilization without cultivation, and you are not pecuniary interest-of the possibility of the existence understood! I have said it may be the spirit of the times, for we see signs of it, alas, in Old England; but there must be something in the political atmosphere of America, which is more than ordinarily congenial to that decline of just and necessary subordination, which God has both permitted by the natural impulses of the human mind, and ordered in His word; and to me the looseness of the tie generally observable in many parts of the United States between the master and servant-the child and the parent-the scholar and the master-the governor and the governed-in brief, the decay of loyal feeling in all the relations of life, was the worst sign of the times. Who shall say but that if these bonds are distorted and set aside, the first and the greatest-which

dicting the future grandeur of America under its present system of government and structure of society."

Mr. Latrobe is connected with a lineage of mission-binds us in subjection to the law of God-will not also be weakened, if not broken? This, and this alone, aries. He belongs to an English family long and hono-short-sighted as I am, would cause me to pause in prerably distinguished by their exertions in the cause of Christianity. His former work, "The Alpenstock," we have not seen-but the London Quarterly Review calls it "a pleasing and useful manual for travellers in Switzerland." The present volumes (dedicated to Washington Irving, whom Mr. L. accompanied in a late tour through the Prairies,) consist of thirty-seven letters addressed to F. B. Latrobe, a younger brother of the author. They form, upon the whole, one of the most instructive and amusing books we have perused for years.

By no means blind to our faults, to our foibles, or to our political difficulties, Mr. Latrobe has travelled from Dan to Beersheba without finding all barren. His observations are not confined to some one or two subjects, engrossing his attention to the exclusion, or to the imperfect examination, of all others. His wanderings among us have been apparently guided by a spirit of frank and liberal curiosity; and he deserves the good will of all Americans, (as he has most assuredly secured their esteem) by viewing us, not with a merely English

In the sentence beginning, "I have said it may be the spirit of the times, for we see signs of it, alas, in Old England, but there must be something," &c. Mr. Latrobe has involved himself in a contradiction. By the words, "but there must be something in the political atmosphere of America which is more than ordinarily congenial to" insubordination, he implies (although unintentionally) that our natural impulses lead us in this direction-and that these natural impulses are permitted by God, we, at all events, are not permitted to doubt. In the words immediately succeeding those just quoted, he maintains (what is very true) that “subordination was both permitted by God in the natural impulses of the human mind, and ordered in His word." The question thus resolves itself into a matter of then and now-of times past and times present-of the days of the patriarchs and of the days of widely disseminated knowledge. The infallibility of the instinct of those natural impulses which led men to obey in the infancy

of all things, we have no intention of denying-we must demand the same grace for those natural impulses which prompt men to govern themselves in the senectitude of the world. In the sentence, “Who shall say but that if these bonds are distorted and set aside, the first and the greatest-which binds us in subjection to the law of God-will not also be weakened, if not broken ?" the sophistry is evident; and we have only a few words to say in reply. In the first place, the writer has assumed that those bonds are "distorted” and “set aside" which are merely slackened to an endurable degree. In the second place, the "setting aside" these bonds, (granting them to be set aside) so far from tending to weaken our subjection to the law of God, will the more readily confirm that subjection, inasmuch as our responsibilities to man have been denied, through the conviction of our responsibilities to God, and—to God alone.

We recommend "The Rambler" to the earnest attention of our readers. It is the best work on America yet published. Mr. Latrobe is a scholar, a man of intellect and a gentleman.

THE SOUTH-WEST.

future productions of the same author to be looked for with anxiety.

The "Yankee," in travelling Southward, has evidently laid aside the general prejudices of a Yankee— and, viewing the book of Professor Ingraham, as representing, in its very liberal opinions, those of a great majority of well educated Northern gentlemen, we are inclined to believe it will render essential services in the way of smoothing down a vast deal of jealousy and misconception. The traveller from the North has evinced no disposition to look with a jaundiced eye upon the South—to pervert its misfortunes into crimes—or distort its necessities into sins of volition. He has spoken of slavery as he found it—and it is almost needless to say that he found it a very different thing from the paintings he had seen of it in red ochre. He has discovered, in a word, that while the physical condition of the slave is not what it has been represented, the slave himself is utterly incompetent to feel the moral galling of his chain. Indeed, we cordially agree with a distinguished Northern contemporary and friend, that the Professor's strict honesty, impartiality, and unprejudiced common sense, on the trying subject which has so long agitated our community, is the distinguishing and the most praiseworthy

The South-West. By a Yankee. New York: Published feature of his book. Yet it has other excellences, and by Harper and Brothers.

This work, from the pen of Professor Ingraham, rivals the book of which we have just been speaking, in degree-although not in quality--of interest. Mr. Latrobe has proved himself a man of the world, an able teacher, and a philosopher. Professor Ingraham is an amusing traveller, full of fun, gossip, and shrewd remark. In all that relates to the "Mechanics of book-writing," the Englishman is immeasurably the superior.

excellences of a high character. As a specimen of the picturesque, we extract a passage beginning at page 27, vol. i.

"Keep away a little, or you'll run that fellow down,' suddenly shouted the captain to the helmsman; and the next moment the little fishing vessel shot sw.ftly under our stern, just barely clearing the spanker boom, whirling and bouncing about in the wild swirl of the ship's wake like a "Masallah boat" in the surf of Madras.

There were on board of her four persons, including the steersman-a tall, gaunt old man, whose uncovered gray locks streamed in the wind as he stooped to his little rudder to luff up across our wake. The lower extremities of a loose pair of tar-coated duck trowsers, which he wore, were incased, including the best part of his legs, in a pair of fisherman's boots, made of leather which would flatten a rifle ball. His red flannel

a huge pea-jacket, thrown, Spanish fashion, over his shoulders, was fastened at the throat by a single button. His tarpaulin-a little narrow-brimmed hat of the pot-lid tribe, secured by a ropeyarn-had probably been thrown off in the moment of danger, and now hung swinging by a lanyard from the lower button-hole of his jacket.

Mr. I. in his "Introduction," informs us that his work 'grew out of a private correspondence, which the author, at the solicitation of his friends, has been led to throw into the present form, modifying in a great measure the epistolary vein, and excluding, so far as possible, such portions of the original papers as were of too personal a nature to be intruded upon the majesty of the public-shirt left his hairy breast exposed to the icy winds, and while he has embodied, so far as was compatible with the new arrangement, every thing likely to interest the general reader." The aim of the writer, we are also told, has been to present the result of his experience and observations during a residence of several years in that district of our country which gives the title to the As his little vessel struggled like a drowning man in work. It is, indeed, a matter for wonder that a similar the yawning concave made by the ship, he stood with object has never been carried into execution before. one hand firmly grasping his low, crooked rudder, and The South-West, embracing an extensive and highly with the other held the main sheet, which alone be interesting portion of the United States, is completely which he puffed away incessantly; one eye was tightly tended. A short pipe protruded from his mouth, at caviare to the multitude. Very little information, upon closed, and the other was so contracted in a network of whose accuracy reliance may be placed, has been hith-wrinkles, that I could just discern the twinkle of a gray erto made public concerning these regions of Eldorado-pupil, as he cocked it up at our quarter-deck, and took and were the volumes of Professor Ingraham absolutely in with it the noble size, bearing, and apparel of our fine ship. worthless in every other respect, we should still be inclined to do them all possible honor for their originality in subject matter. But the "South-West" is very far from worthless. In spite of a multitude of faults which the eye of rigid criticism might easily detect-in spite of some inaccuracies in point of fact, many premature opinions, and an inveterate habit of writing what neither is, nor should be English, the Professor has succeeded in making a book, whose abiding interest, coming home to the bosoms and occupations of men, will cause any

tered by storms and time, wearing upon his chalky locks
A duplicate of the old helmsman, though less bat-
a red, woollen, conical cap, was easing off" the fore-
sheet as the little boat passed; and a third was stretch-
ing his neck up the companion ladder, to stare at the
'big ship," while the little carroty-headed imp, who
was just the old skipper razeed, was performing the
culinary operations of his little kitchen under cover of
the heavens."

The portions of the book immediately relating to New Orleans-its odd buildings—its motley assemblage

POETRY OF LIFE.

The Poetry of Life. By Sarah Stickney, Author of "Pictures of Private Life." Philadelphia: Republished by Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.

of inhabitants-their manners and free habitudes, have especially delighted us; and cannot fail, of delighting, in general, all lovers of the stirring and life-like. A novelist of talent would find New Orleans the place of all places for the localities of a romance-and in such Chacase he might derive important aid from the "South-racteristics of Poetry-Why certain objects are, or are West" of Professor Ingraham. At page 140, vol. i, we were much interested in the following account of a fire.

These two volumes are subdivided as follows.

not poetical-Individual Associations-Genera! Associations-The Poetry of Flowers-The Poetry of Trees -The Poetry of Animals-The Poetry of EveningThe Poetry of the Moon-The Poetry of Rural LifeThe Poetry of Painting-The Poetry of Sound-The Poetry of Language-The Poetry of Love-The Poetry of Grief-The Poetry of Woman-The Poetry of the Bible-The Poetry of Religion-Impression-Imagina

In a Preface remarkable for neatness of style and precision of thought, Miss Stickney has very properly circumscribed within definite limits the design of her work-whose title, without such explanation, might have led us to expect too much at her hands. It would have been better, however, had the fair authoress, by means of a different title, which her habits of accurate

"As I gained the front of this mass of human beings, that activity which most men possess, who are not modelled after "fat Jack," enabled me to gain an elevation whence I had an unobstructed view of the whole scene of conflagration. The steamers were lying side by side at the Levée, and one of them was enveloped in wreaths of flame, bursting from a thousand cotton tion-Power-Taste-Conclusion. bales, which were piled, tier above tier, upon her decks. The inside boat, though having no cotton on board, was rapidly consuming, as the huge streams of fire lapped and twined around her. The night was perfectly calm, but a strong whirlwind had been created by the action of the heat upon the atmosphere, and now and then it swept down in its invisible power, with the "noise of a rushing mighty wind," and as the huge serpentine flames darted upward, the solid cotton bales would be borne round the tremendous vortex like fea-thinking might have easily suggested, rendered this thers, and then-hurled away into the air, blazing like explanation unnecessary. Except in some very rare ingiant meteors-would descend heavily and rapidly into stances, where a context may be tolerated, if not altothe dark bosom of the river. The next moment they gether justified, a work, either of the pen or the pencil, would rise and float upon the surface, black unshapely masses of tinder. As tier after tier, bursting with fire, should contain within itself every thing requisite for fell in upon the burning decks, the sweltering flames, its own comprehension. "The design of the present volfor a moment smothered, preceded by a volcanic dis-umes," says Miss Stickney, "is to treat of poetic feelcharge of ashes, which fell in showers upon the gaping spectators, would break from their confinement, and darting upward with multitudinous large wads of cotton, shoot them away through the air, filling the sky for a moment with a host of flaming balls. Some of them were borne a great distance through the air, and falling lightly upon the surface of the water, floated, from their buoyancy, a long time unextinguished. The river became studded with fire, and as far as the eye could reach below the city, it presented one of the most magnificent, yet awful spectacles, I had ever beheld or imagined. Literally spangled with flame, those burning fragments in the distance being diminished to specks of light, it had the appearance, though far more dazzling and brilliant, of the starry firmament. There were but two miserable engines to play with this gambolling monster, which, one moment lifting itself to a great height in the air, in huge spiral wreaths, like some immense snake, at the next would contract itself within its glowing furnace, or coil and dart along the decks like troops of fiery serpents, and with the roaring noise of a volcano."

ing, rather than poetry; and this feeling I have endeavored to describe as the great connecting link between our intellects and our affections; while the customs of society, as well as the license of modern literature, afford me sufficient authority for the use of the word life in its widely extended sense, as comprehending all the functions, attributes, and capabilities peculiar to sentient beings."

We

We remember having read the "Pictures of Private Life" with interest of no common kind, and with a corresponding anxiety to know something more of the author. In them were apparent the calm enthusiasm, and the analytical love of beauty, which are now the distinguishing features of the volumes before us. have perused the "Poetry of Life" with an earnestness of attention, and a degree of real pleasure very seldom excited in our minds. It is a work giving evidence of more profundity than discrimination-with no ordinary quantum of either. What is said, if not always indisHaving spoken thus far of the "South-West," in putable, is said with a simplicity, and a scrupulous terms of commendation, we must now be allowed to accuracy which leave us, not for one moment, in doubt assert, in plain words, what we have before only partially of what is intended, and impress us, at the same time, hinted, that the Professor is indebted, generally, for his with a high opinion of the author's ability. Miss success, more to the innate interest of his subject matter, Stickney's manner is very good-her English pure, than to his manner of handling it. Numerous instances harmonious, in every respect unexceptionable. With of bad taste occur throughout the volumes. The con- a strong understanding, and withal a keen relish for stant straining after wit and vivacity is a great blemish. the minor forms of poetic excellence—a strictness of Faulty constructions of style force themselves upon conception which will ever prevent her from running one's attention at every page. Gross blunders in syn-into gross error-she is still, we think, insufficiently tax abound. The Professor does not appear to under-alive to the delicacies of the beautiful-unable fully to stand French. This is no sin in itself-but to quote appreciate the energies of the sublime. what one does not understand is a folly. Turks' Heads à la Grec, for example, is ridiculous—see page 34, vol. i. | Bulls too ore occasionally met with-which are none the better for being classical bulls. We cannot bear to hear of Boreas blowing Zephyrs.

We were forcibly impressed with these opinions, in looking over, for the second time, the chapter of our fair authoress, "On the Poetry of Language." What we have just said in relation to her accuracy of thought and expression, and her appreciation of the minor forms

of poetic excellence, will be exemplified in the passage we now quote, beginning at page 187, vol. i.

"There can scarcely be a more beautiful and appropriate arrangement of words, than in the following stanza from Childe Harold:

The sails were filled, and fair the light winds blew,
As glad to waft him from his native home;
And fast the white rocks faded from his view,
And soon were lost in circumambient foam;
And then it may be of his wish to roam
Repented he, but in his bosom slept

The silent thought, nor from his lips did come
One word of wail, whilst others sate and wept,
And to the reckless gales unmanly moaning kept.

Without committing a crime so heinous as that of entirely spoiling this verse, it is easy to alter it so as to bring it down to the level of ordinary composition; and thus we may illustrate the essential difference between poetry and mere versification.

The sails were trimm'd and fair the light winds blew,
As glad to force him from his native home,
And fast the white rocks vanish'd from his view,
And soon were lost amid the circling foam:

And then, perchance, of his fond wish to roam
Repented he, but in his bosom slept

The wish, nor from his silent lips did come

One mournful word, whilst others sat and wept,

And to the heedless breeze their fruitless moaning kept.

MISS SEDGWICK'S SKETCHES.
Tales and Sketches. By Miss Sedgwick, Author of "The
Linwoods," "Hope Leslie," &c. &c. Philadelphia: Carey,
Lea, and Blanchard.

This volume includes--A Reminiscence of Federalism--The Catholic Iroquois-The Country CousinOld Maids--The Chivalric Sailor-Mary Dyre--Cacoëthes Scribendi-The Eldest Sister--St. Catharine's Eve--Romance in Real Life-and the Canary Family.

All of these pieces, we believe, have been published before. Of most of them we can speak with certaintyfor having, in earlier days, been enamored of their pervading spirit of mingled chivalry and pathos, we cannot now forget them even in their new habiliments. Old Maids-The Country Cousin-and one or two others, we have read before--and should be willing to read again. These, our ancient friends, are worthy of the pen which wrote "Hope Leslie" and "The Linwoods." "Old Maids,” in spite of the equivocal nature of its title, is full of noble and tender feeling--a specimen of fine writing, involving in its melancholy details what we must consider the beau-ideal of feminine disinterestedness-the ne plus ultra of sisterly devotion. The Country Cousin" possesses all the peculiar features of the tale just spoken of, with something more of serious and even solemn thought. The "Chivalric Sailor" is full of a very different, and of a more exciting, although less painful interest. We remember its original appearance under the title of "Modern Chivalry." The "Romance of Real Life" we now read for the first time--it is a tale of striking vicissitudes, but not the

It is impossible not to be struck with the harmony of the original words as they are placed in this stanza. The very sound is graceful, as well as musical; like the motion of the winds and waves, blended with the majestic movement of a gallant ship. "The sails were filled" conveys no association with the work of man; but substitute the word trimmed, and you see the busy sailors at once. The word waft' follows in perfect unison with the whole of the preceding line, and maintains the invisible agency of the 'light winds;' while best thing we have seen from the pen of Miss Sedgthe word 'glad' before it, gives an idea of their power wick-that a story is "founded on fact," is very as an unseen intelligence. Fading' is also a happy seldom a recommendation. "The Catholic Iroquois” expression, to denote the gradual obscurity and disap-is also new to us--a stirring history of Christian faith pearing of the white rocks;' but the circumambient and martyrdom. The "Reminiscence of Federalism” foam' is perhaps the most poetical expression of the whole, and such as could scarcely have proceeded from a low or ordinary mind."

All this is well-but what follows is not so. "It may be amusing" says Miss Stickney, at page 189, "to see how a poet, and that of no mean order, can undesignedly murder his own offspring"--and she proceeds to extract, from Shelley, in illustration, some passages, of whose exquisite beauty she has evidently not the slightest comprehension. She commences with

"Music, when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory—
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken."

"Sicken" is here italicized; and the author of the "Poetry of Life" thinks the word so undeniably offensive as to render a farther allusion to it unnecessary. A few lines below, she quotes, in the same tone of criticism, the terrific image in the Ode to Naples.

"Naples!-thou heart of men, which ever pantest Naked, beneath the lidless eye of Heaven!"

relates to a period of thirty years ago in New England-is a mingled web of merriment and gloom--and replete with engrossing interest. Mary Dyre" is a veracious sketch of certain horrible and bloody facts which are a portion of the History of Fanaticism. Mary is slightly mentioned by Sewal, the annalist of "the people called Quakers," to which sect the maiden belonged. She died in vindicating the rights of conscience. This piece originally appeared in one of our Souvenirs. "St. Catherine's Eve" is " une histoire touchante qui montre à quel point l'enseignement religieux pouvoit être perverti, et combien le Clergé étoit loin d'etre le gardien des mœurs publiques”--the tale appertains to the thirteenth century. "Cacoëthes Scribendi" is told with equal grace and vivacity. "The Canary Family" is a tale for the young--brief, pointed and quaint. But the best of the series, in every respect, is the sweet and simple history of "The Eldest Sister."

While we rejoice that Miss Sedgwick has thought proper to condense into their present form these evidences of her genius which have been so long floating at random before the eye of the world-still we think her rash in having risked the publication so immedi

And again, on the next page, from the same author-ately after "The Linwoods." None of these "Sketches"

"Thou art the wine whose drunkenness is all

We can desire, O Love!"

have the merit of an equal number of pages in that very fine novel--and the descent from good to inferior (although the inferior be very far from bad) is most

Miss Stickney should immediately burn her copy of generally detrimental to literary fame. Facilis descensus Shelley-it is to her capacities a sealed book.

Averni.

Mr. Niebuhr has exercised a very powerful influence | Wigglesworth, and T. G. Bradford, Esqrs. The first on the spirit of his age. One of the most important original work of our author, we believe, was called branches of human science has received, not only addi- Journal of my Residence in Greece, and was issued at tional light, but an entirely novel interest and character Leipzig in 1823. This book was written at the instifrom his exertions. Those historiographers of Rome gation of Mr. Niebuhr, who personally superintended who wrote before him, were either men of insufficient the whole; Mr. L. reading to the historian and his wife, talents, or, possessing talents, were not practical states- every morning at breakfast, what had been completed men. Niebuhr is the only writer of Roman history in the preceding afternoon. Since that period we have who unites intellect of a high order with the indispen-seen, from the same pen, only The Stranger in America, sable knowledge of what may be termed the art, in in two volumes, full of interest and extensively circucontradistinction to the science, of government. While, lated-and the book whose title forms the heading of then, we read with avidity even common-place memo- this article. rials of common-place men, (a fact strikingly characteristic of a period not inaptly denominated by the Germans "the age of wigs,") it cannot be supposed that a book like the one now before us, will fail to make a deep impression upon the mind of the public.