cism, are yet most usually the very last to be found in our periodicals. It is in the pages of this journal that we find the most imposing proofs of the general ability of our author. Here appeared his "Wakondah"-not to speak of sundry articles equally marked by good writing and thinking, originality of suggestion, pith and nerve of expression, and not a little of the picturesque and poetic. The papers on "Political Life," "Citizenship," "Every Fourth Year," "The School Fund," etc., are all thoughtful and statesmanlike essays. We are inclined to regard them, with the exception of one or two pieces, as the very best from the author's pen. The lighter and livelier articles in the same collection, are piquant and fanciful. The views on Copyright and Literature, partake of the better characteristics of the former. They denote an elevated ideal in the author, which a corresponding power of reasoning enables him to sustain with ease and dignity. But these have already had our notice.

In the papers of the "Motley Book," and several of those which occur towards the close of the volume, there is much pleasant and some judicious trifling. We might instance as a clever specimen of this class, "The New Ethics of Eating," which appeared in the New-York Review. The "True Aims of Life," delivered before the Alumni of the New-York University, is a thoughtful and sensible discourse,-not profound, but healthful,--and of that clear, transparent nature, mingling the practical with the elevated, by which the actual is lifted by insensible progress to a pleasant communion with the ideal. We do not incline to the sort of essay, of which "Jeduthan Hobbs," and "the late Ben Smith, loafer," are sufficient samples. They are no doubt well enough in the pages of the light and flashy periodicals; but they neither represent the true endowments of our author, nor do credit. to his fame. As very early productions, they are proofs, certainly, of considerable cleverness. There is one essay, from the writings in "Arcturus," entitled the "Unrest of the Age," which struck us as true in conception and sentiment, some portions of which might very well be extracted, as giving a very fair idea of the better style and manner of our author:

"The truth is, custom and social usage sit hard upon men; and they try to escape from them by every possible device and self-delusion. Some fly off into remote countries, and wander over deserts and burning sands, to be free; others penetrate into remote seas, and

sit down by shores where the tyranny is more tolerable, because it wears a different garment and gayer crown. Others find relief in wild speculation; in schemes for forming society into parallelograms or rhomboids, and in contriving theories by which men shall get along without any society or organization whatsoever. Others, again, cannot trust themselves alone, and are scared mightily if they are discovered moving in any enterprise without the approval of multitudes. The restless spirit of the age separates men, on the one hand, into units, and makes them solitary and discontented; or gathers them, on the other, into noisy and tumultuous masses, shouting for change, reform and progress. The world lives abroad, and is not to be found at home oftener than once a week, and then only if the weather is blusterous and turbulent without. The domestic feeling-households-are in a measure abrogated, and men are to be found at clubs, lectures, conventicles, and other public gatherings. The action is all external and superficial; and the heart of society, the private home, has, in a considerable measure, lost its life, and ceases to supply the vital circulation which society so much needs. The great number of violent deaths proves that the soothing influence of home and kindred are not felt as they should be.

"Can an age or a country be right-minded and true, where such things happen? Is life so fearful a burden in this land of ours, that men should snatch themselves from it with insane haste, and post out of it as if it swarmed with hydras and chimeras? Is the sky murkier or the earth sadder here than elsewhere? Have men weightier cares or sharper crosses in this latitude than in Nova Zembla, or in the Friendly Islands of the Pacific? Of cares and crosses, growing necessarily out of climate or condition, there are not; of hardships selfcreated, and bad passions, idly fomented and encouraged, a great plenty. We are mad for money, mad for office and empty power.

"If we sought money eagerly that we might scatter it among the poor and needy, and make of its idle glitter a sunshine in dark places, the good purpose would sanctify the pursuit, and men would not go mad and take their own lives, however the enterprise might end. If we sought power over the hearts and consciences of men, and aimed to glide into their thoughts among genial influences, springing from a happy exercise of genius or virtue, it would be well, and the world would have good cause to honour our graves. But when wealth, interpreted, means bond and mortgage piled on bond and mortgage, and an excellent character at the bank; and power desires no nobler position than a high stool at a desk, in the department of state, or a sounding voice in the halls of political or religious strife-all is not well; but rather hollow, tottering and unsafe, to him that ventures abroad.

"The times do not satisfy the desires of the mind. The literal hardness, the prosaic austerity of the habits and pursuits of the age, furnish but little encouragement to the imaginative and aspiring part of the soul. Insanity, in many cases suicide, and other terrible acts of desperation, seem to us the rebellious outbreaks of a nature wronged and tortured by the iron condition in which it is placed. Men know not what deep, overwhelming injustice they do to themselves, in neglecting or disdaining the imagination. Slighted or kept under,

it proves the most deadly foe of all the human powers, and bodies forth instantly, in vindication of itself, a hell gloomier than Dante's, and peopled with shapes twenty times more terrible. The human mind cannot repose on facts; nor find permanent ease and security in the unadorned incidents of a life of mere business or action. These are too definite, too readily summed up and concluded. The round is easily run, and the limit soon discovered. It needs something remote, uncertain, shadowy and boundless, which shall operate as a perpetual stimulant to our restless nature, and a perpetual gratification that cannot be exhausted. The remedy, then-a part of it at least-lies here; in furnishing occasions of enjoyment to the imagination, and in cultivating the arts and pursuits in which it is the chief element.

"Paintings, in which the ideal world is shadowed forth, or in which the actual world is raised to the standard of a glowing or cheerful ideal, feed this passion with its best sustenance. A country blessed with a Raphael and an Angelo, is of a happier and more equable temperament, all other circumstances conforming, than one which has not a single great painter, and is compelled to point to its signboards for specimens of art. Pictures in which character is exhibited in grotesque or humorous phases, by relieving the mind from the painful pressure of rigid and exact life and custom, further this grand object.

"On this ground can poetry be safely vindicated from all cavil and opprobium. Poetry sends this hard, round, methodical world of ours, through the great void in which it moves, trailing behind it a glory and brightness, full of hope and cheerful auguries to men. The emanation in this case is mightier and fairer than its source; and we are taught by the sublime influences of bards and prophets, speaking and chanting in noble pages, that what is not is greater than what is or seems to be. A golden light, serene, genial and blessed, is shot down from the bright world of romance and rapturous truth, in which we walk with a proud consciousness of a high, but as yet unseen destiny, and of faculties that yearn after something better and grander than the planetary crosses of the present life.

"In the creation of character, too, of a purer and more chivalrous cast than that of actual men, literature is rendering a great service to the world, and drawing it away from the mean, petty usages, the degrading tricks and gross customs of our every-day life. In the contemplation of these romantic portraitures, in the works of novelists and poets, the age finds relief, and forgets, for a time, the hardships of society, and the despotism of circumstances. Even where the writer adopts a contrary course, it is a satisfaction to the world to have a Squeers, or an Iago gibbeted high before them, in the full length of their desperate villainy. These are their sport and pastime, a sort of lay figures to receive the heaped-up scorn and contumely of all mankind. In either event the object is accomplished, and the quarrel with bad fortune or cursed chance is for the time silenced, or turned into a more melodious and promising wrangle."

There are numerous passages among the miscellanies of our author, similarly thoughtful, gentle and comprehensive,

but we must hurry to larger, even if less attractive game. We frankly avow that we look upon "The Career of Puffer Hopkins," as an instance of perverted talent. We cannot but doubt that it has done or will do any thing for the career of the writer. That it has been successful, as we learn, has been owing, we are disposed to think, to the passion for whatever is outré, or ridiculous, or merely extravagant,among the unthinking classes,-people who read against time and sleep,-and as if to prove, by this sort of industry, that they are not absolutely of

"that fat weed,

That hugs itself at ease, by Lethe's wharf."

We are to ask not in what degree, or with whom, this book finds favor, but what are its claims to be successful. Let us first notice the manner in which this production has been written. These weekly or monthly issues, is a mode of publication very apt to lessen the excellence of a conception, and to diminish or impair its proportions. There is something decidedly unfriendly to art, in the present popular mode of writing for serial publication. The reader reads but for the momentary satisfaction, and the writer contemplates nothing more than to afford this inferior pleasure. The motives to composition are not sufficiently noble. The impulse to art not sufficiently critical and coercive. The author soon becomes indifferent to all general proportions in his work, to all symmetry of outline,-all compactness of plan and execution. He uses irrelevant matter,-forgets or neglects his main purpose,-yields to frequent changes of plan, to frequent weariness,-and, satisfied in the preparation of a few spirited sketches, such as may keep attention wakeful, becomes heartily indifferent to consistency of tone, harmony of parts and colour, uniformity of execution, or appropriate finish and denouement. The winding up of plots, framed in this manner, is usually feeble and defective. From this objection, the works of even the most successful of the periodical tale writers are not exempt. It is the fault of the whole tribe,-Dickens, Ainsworth, and the rest. We do not see that Mr. Mathews has been any more fortunate. His story is desultory and purposeless,-much of it seemingly without a plan,-as if, contemplating but the immedi. ate sketch or scene before him, the author had gone on writing, at every sitting,-satisfied with what was in progress,

without regarding with much concern its bearing upon, or general connection with, the rest. That there is a connection we admit; but it is not of vital threads or interests. It cannot be denied that several of these scenes, considered by themselves, are decidedly successful,-are conceived in the true spirit of humanity, and carried out to fortunate conclusions of art. We could show some of them drawn with no little tragic force,-marked by pathetic or humorous interest,-touched with delicacy, and, whether grave or gay, proving the capacity of the author to be worthy, in good training, to execute many of the boldest of his conceptions. We had marked some of these episodes for they are such-for extract, but we are already in a fair way to trespass too greatly upon the attention of the reader. "The vision of the coffin maker's apprentice," though somewhat rude, is yet a bold freak of imaginative performance,-calculated to compel reflection, and to open the eyes of the moralist to all sorts of anomalies in society. Of this sort are many others of the grave grotesques of Mr. Mathews,-and, in such odd, but striking delineations, he is frequently found to excel. Detached from the rest of the story, such episodes speak imposingly to the thoughts. We complain that they are not happily grafted on the growth that bears them,-a defect which is due to that mode of breaking a consecutive narrative into periodical parts,-a practice which cannot but impair the design and consistency of a work of art, leaving it incongruous, halting and indefinite.

There are two radical objections to the "Career of Puffer Hopkins." The first is one already somewhat indicated in our remarks upon the comedy of "the Politicians." Puffer Hopkins is, in fact, another comedy of "Politicians." The material in both works is, in some degree, drawn from the same sources, and the characters are both on the same uniform level. They are as little idealized in "Puffer Hopkins" as in "the Politicians." They work very much on a common platform of unmitigated coarseness. Their humble in positien are not pure in purpose or delicate in sentiment; and the wealthy, or imposing, are neither high-souled nor generThe very names, in the one work, as in the other, are suggestive of the uniform inferiority, if not vulgarity, of the characters. Thus, the hero is "Puffer Hopkins," and the chief auxiliaries are "Hobbleshanks," "Fishblatts," "Crumps," "Blinkers," "Punchwinds," "Fobs," "Smalls," "Foils," "Fin

ous.