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euphonious name, which reminds one of Medora in the "Corsair," whilst her position with respect to the redoubted Skimmer of the Seas more resembles that of Gulnare, contribute to give business and variety to the scene.

Of the isolated incidents that add interest to the plot, an encounter between the British cruiser and the boats of a French ship-of-war, and the subsequent burning and blowing up of the former, after achieving a victory over the Frenchman, are given with great spirit and effect. We must make room for the conclusion of the conflagration. Most of the men had previously escaped in the boats. The captain, the Skimmer, with the two women, and the few seamen who remained, were compelled to trust themselves to a raft, hastily lashed-together on the moment. The raft was lowered, the fast was cut, and they slowly receded from the burning ship.

"They were still fearfully near the dangerous fabric, but destruction from the explosion was no longer inevitable. The flames began to glide upwards, and then the heavens appeared on fire, as one heated sail after another kindled and flared wildly in the breeze. Still the stern of the vessel was entire. The body of the master was seated against the mizen-mast, and even the stern visage of the old seaman was distinctly visible under the broad light of the conflagration. Ludlow gazed at it in melancholy, and for a time he ceased to think of his ship; while memory dwelt in sadness on those scenes of boyish happiness, and of professional pleasures, in which his ancient shipmate had so largely participated. The roar of a gun, whose stream of fire flashed nearly to their faces, and the sullen whistling of its shot, which crossed the raft, failed to awaken him from his trance.

"Stand firm to the mess chest,' half whispered the Skimmer, motioning to his companions to place themselves in attitudes to support the weaker of their paity, while with sedulous care he braced his own athletic person, in a manner to throw all its weight and strength against the seat ;- stand firm, and be ready.'

"Ludlow complied, though his eye scarce changed its direction. He saw the bright flame that was rising above the arm-chest, and he fancied that it came from the funeral pile of the young Dumont, whose fate at that moment he was almost disposed to envy. Then his look returned to the grim countenance of Trysail. At moments, it seemed as if the dead master spoke; and so strong did the illusion become, that our young sailor more than once bent forward to listen. While under this delusion the body rose, with the arms stretched upwards. The air was filled with a sheet of streaming fire, while the ocean and the heavens glowed with one glare of intense and fiery red. Notwithstanding the precaution of the Skimmer of the Seas, the chest was driven from its place, and those by whom it was held were nearly precipitated into the water. A deep heavy detonation proceeded as it were from the bosom of the sea, which, while it wounded the ear less than the sharp explosion that had just before issued from the gun, was audible at the distant capes of the Delaware. The body of Trysail sailed upwards for fifty fathoms in the centre of a flood of flame, and describing a short curve, it came towards the raft, and cut the water within reach of the Captain's arm. A sullen plunge of a gun followed, and proclaimed the tremendous power of the explosion, while a ponderous yard fell athwart a part of the raft, sweeping away the four petty officers of Ludlow as if they had been dust driving before a gale. To increase the wild and fearful grandeur of the dissolution of the royal cruiser, one of the cannon emitted its fiery contents while sailing in the void.

"The burning spars, the falling fragments, the blazing and scattered canvas and cordage, the glowing shot, and all the torn particles of the ship, were seen descending. Then followed the gurgling of water, as the ocean swallowed all that remained of the cruiser which had so long been the pride of the American seas. The fiery glow disappeared, and a gloom like that which succeeds the glare of vivid lightning fell on the

scene.

This brilliant description scarcely yields to the more detailed and appalling account of the burning of the Block-house, in the "Borderers." Indeed, this author, so long as he keeps to the sea, or to the forest, is unrivalled for the force, felicity, and truth, with which he always describes nature, whether animate or inanimate. Among those who have

Hewn the seasy

And made their marble of the glassy wave,

he can enter into the full spirit of the pirate's song

"Ours the wild life in tumult still to range,

From toil to rest, and joy in every change;"

and in the thoughts and language of the native Indian, holding communion with "the Great Spirit” in the wild and desolate fastnesses of the desert, he is alike masterly and unapproachable.

But greatly and most deservedly popular as Mr. Cooper is, it has been objected, that of late he has become too exclusively aquatic, and reminds his readers of the painter, who found himself particularly happy in the delineation of three red lions of different sizes, and lionized, accordingly, whenever or wherever he was called upon to paint. It cannot be denied that between some parts of "The Pilot," "The Red Rover," and "The Water Witch," there is a degree of resemblance that seems to argue poverty of invention. In "The Borderers," however, we return to the wild wood, and find our author as perfect in his picture of the character and mode of living of the single hearted, laborious settlers of New England, in the seventeenth century, as he had before approved himself in pourtraying the "life afloat" of the manly intelligent British sailor, and the bold buccaneer.

The "Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish" is a beautiful and most heart-touching history, in which the calm thoughtful happiness of the austerely-religious colonists, who had betaken themselves to the distant wilderness to preserve" the word" in purity, apart from the temptations and the worldly-mindedness of society, is exquisitely mingled and contrasted with the hardships they endured in the constant vigilance and frequent losses and sufferings they had to encounter in their struggles with the native owners of the soil,-Metacom, Miantonimoh, Conanchet, and the fierce warriors of their train.

Hope Leslie" is also a story of Pequods and Puritans, and, like "The Borderers," abounds in descriptions of the surpassing loveliness of Nature, and the peaceful happy influences of the green still nooks of the wilderness, bright with the hues, and redolent with the scents of wild flowers and fruits. William Fletcher, the son of a respectable English country gentleman, deeply in love with his cousin Alice, but also imbued with Republican and Puritanical principles, is called upon by the young lady's father, Sir William Fletcher, an eminent and courtly lawyer, to abjure the fanatical notions of liberty and religion with which he had been infected, and promise obedience to the King, and adherence to the Established Church, as the sole but indispensable condition to the union so much desired by the cousins. The youth was soul-stricken as a doomed man; for his spirit was of that firm inflexible nature, that he would sooner have faced the fires of martyrdom than yielded up one jot of his fidelity to what he deemed his duty: he resolved, therefore, to fly from the temptation which he dared not trust himself to resist, and to become an exile for ever from his native land. On the point of taking ship, he is suddenly and unexpectedly joined by Alice, who, in the fulness of affection, has quitted her father's house, resolved to follow her lover's fortunes, whithersoever they may lead him. While hurrying down to the beach to go on board, where preparations had been made by the delighted lover for their immediate marriage, she is overtaken and carried off by her father and his attendants; and soon after, in the imbecility of utter despair and alienation of mind, suffers herself to be led to the altar by a certain Charles Leslie, in submission to her father's commands.

Mr. Fletcher is subsequently persuaded to marry an orphan ward of the good Governor Winthrop, a maiden meek and dutiful, and with her emigrates to New England, along with the Governor, in the year 1630. After a few years stay at Boston, influenced partly by disgust at the illiberal and inconsistent conduct of some of his associates there, and partly by his natural love of retirement and contemplation, when Pynchon, Holioke, and Chapin, formed their settlement at Springfield, on Connecticut river,—he determined to retire with his family thither. He fixed his residence a mile from the village, deeming exposure to the incursions of the savages a very slight, and the surveillance of a busy curious neighbourhood a certain evil.

"His domain extended from a gentle eminence that commanded an extensive view of Jan.-VOL. XXXI. NO. CXXI. E

the bountiful Connecticut, to the shore, where the river indented the meadow by one of those sweeping graceful curves by which it seems to delight to beautify the land it nourishes.

"The border of the river was fringed with all the water-loving trees; but the broad meadows were quite cleared, excepting that a few elms and sycamores had been spared by the Indians, and consecrated, by tradition, as the scene of revels or of councils. The house of our pilgrim was a low-roofed modest structure, containing ample accommodation for a patriarchal family, where children, dependants, and servants, were all to be sheltered under one roof-tree. On one side lay an open and extensive plain; within view was the curling smoke from the little cluster of houses about the fort-the habitation of civilized man; but all else was a savage howling wilderness.

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"Never was a name more befitting the condition of a people than Pilgrim,' that of our forefathers. It should be redeemed from the puritanical and ludicrous associations which have degraded it in most men's minds, and be hallowed by the sacrifices made by these voluntary exiles. They were pilgrims, for they had resigned for ever what the good hold most dear-their homes. Home can never be transferred; never repeated in the experience of an individual. The place consecrated by parental love-by the innocence and the sports of childhood-by the first acquaintance with nature-by the linking of the heart to the visible creation, is the only home. There, there is a living and breathing spirit infused into Nature: every familiar object has a history-the trees have tongues-the very air is vocal. There the muddy vesture of decay doth not close in and control the noble functions of the soul. It sees, and hears, and enjoys, without the ministry of gross material substance."

This is a fair specimen of the author's powers of description and reflection.

Meanwhile, Sir William Fletcher and Charles Leslie both die; and Alice, with two daughters, her only children, sets out for America, determined to cast her lot in the heritage of God's people for the remainder of her days, and possibly not altogether uninfluenced by the desire of once more seeing her first love. A tempestuous voyage, however, proves too much for her broken constitution, and averts the painful embarrassment of a meeting with one who was still her lover, though another's husband. She dies, in faith and resignation, leaving her children to the guardianship of Mr. Fletcher. The elder of these, Alice, re-baptized on arriving in Boston by the puritanic name of Hope, becomes the heroine, and gives the title to the story.

The sketches of character and manners among the Indians, the frontier puritans, and the inhabitants of Boston, are spirited and graphic, and a high tone of moral and religious feeling pervades the book.

"Clarence" is a lively and amusing tale, descriptive of the state of society in New York at the present day; both "Clarence" and "Hope Leslie" seem to be the productions of a lady, and are probably from the same pen. There is the same quickness and delicate minuteness of observation perceptible in both, and a certain resemblance of thought and expression, making due allowance for difference of scene and subject, which seems to betray a family likeness. In both, too, there is a dwelling con amore upon the love passages, (this play upon the words has stolen in undesignedly,) and a dilatation upon domestic affairs and affections, which, though felt by all, could be expressed only by a woman.

We have dwelt much more at length upon these Transatlantic novels than we had at first intended; but as we wish exceedingly to see good feeling and good fellowship thoroughly established between Master Bull and his younger brother, we willingly avail ourselves of the opportunity of recommending such a near and intimate acquaintance as the perusal of these lighter works, descriptive of society, manners, and feelings, so well affords. Works of science and philology, though founded on materials borrowed from Europe, are already, to use a Transatlantic phrase, "progressing" in America; witness the admirable translation of Laplace, with explanatory notes and formula, by Bowditch; and Webster's English Dictionary, now reprinting in London: but works of imagination are the more natural productions of an infant literature, and are far more conducive to an acquaintance and sympathy with the people to whom they belong and

relate.

SKETCHES FROM THE NORTH, NO. I.

THE face of the earth is very like that of the "featherless biped," otherwise "the lord of the creation," or by whatever other name he may be called "the perfection of heaven's works"-"the quintessence of dust"-for man has as many an alias as any thief that ever was condemned or acquitted at the Old Bailey; but, as I was saying, it is wonderful how like the great broad round face of this earth of ours is to the countenance of man himself. Ay! and still more wonderful is it, how many lines and furrows are channelled deep, in the physiognomy of any place, in the brief space of a ten years' absence,how many warts and pimples are found to have grown up on the once smooth visage of nature,-how many places have sunk in, and how many have been raised up, so that we can hardly recognise the old friend we meet, with so new a face. Few spots have undergone a greater change than the neighbourhood of Edinburgh since I saw it last. Places, which had then all the wild vigour of young nature, are now wrinkled with roads and canals, or blotched with houses, or bearded with stiff young plantations. The town, too, has grown corpulent and unwieldy; and, instead of rising up gently towards the castle, with the slim genteel waist of maiden beauty, it sits flat and square in its seat, with its skirts spreading out around, like the full petticoat of a dowager, or the broad coat-tails of an alderman. Nevertheless still-still it is the most beautiful city upon earth.

There is something, however, in old associations-in the memories of those days when the heart was lighter and softer, that has led me often, since my return to Europe, to many of the more obscure parts of the old town, which I used to explore as a boy-down the West Bow, by the dim and gloomy house of the famous Major Weir, and through all the manifold turnings and windings that surround the Grass Market. As I was returning a few days ago from one of these perambulations, I walked into the College, and having a strange pro pensity to follow the crowd, I pursued the steps of two or three lads, who were mounting a flight of stairs in one of the angles of the building. At the top of the staircase was an anti-room, where a servant seemed upon guard. All the rest passed in, and finding by inquiry that strangers were admitted, I entered also, and was soon in the lecture-room of the famous Wilson, the Professor of Moral Philosophy.

I had heard much of Professor Wilson since my return to Edinburgh, and had known much of his public character before, by some very beautiful works, of which, however, I shall say nothing, as this paper must not be a critique. Every body agreed that he was very eccentric; but every body allowed that he was highly talented, and, from general report, I found he could make himself either extremely agreeable or extremely disagreeable, not so much from the whim of the moment, as from the assimilation or discrepancy of his character with that of the person with whom he was brought in temporary communion. A considerable part of the class had assembled, but the Professor had not made his appearance; and taking my seat, I amused myself by examining the students. They were of all ages, from that on whose head the frost of Time has fallen thick and white, to the untouched day of youth, where all is expansion. There were lines of

feature too, and shapes of head, sufficient to have puzzled the whole host of those who either read man's soul by his nose, or, judging of the kernel by the shell, feel the human mind through the manifold bumps of the cranium. The extraordinary differences of formation observable in the heads of an European multitude strike one the more strongly, after having been long with nations where scarcely a change of feature is to be seen amongst the individuals of each cast; as if Nature formed their faces by the score, and the only variety was produced by the shaking of the mould. In a few minutes, the Professor entered the room, and, during the bustle of the class hurrying to its appointed place, I had time to observe the features and demeanour of the lecturer. He is a well-formed muscular man, of about six feet high, of a fair complexion, with light brown hair, approaching to yellow, but not to red, which hangs in long dishevelled locks over his ears. His dress was careless, and his whole appearance gave one the idea of a man, whose thorough contempt for every thing like foppery is carried perhaps into the other extreme. His countenance is fine but stern-nay, at times fierce, with a high forehead, and eyebrows which, though not strongly marked, give a keen severity to the expression of his face by their frequent depression, and by their contraction, till they almost cover the piercing grey eye which shines out beneath, like that of an eagle.

With a quick step he took his place at his desk, laid down his watch beside him, and spread out a roll of papers, over which he glanced till every thing was still. Then leaning forward, he bent his brows, and began his lecture in a full, clear, distinct voice. Accent he has very little, and what there is, I should have judged to be Irish rather than Scotch.

The part of his subject under immediate consideration was Sympathy, not considered as a mere transient effervescence of feeling, but with Smith's more extended view, as the great agent by which our moral perceptions are guided and regulated. In the first instance, he confined himself to giving a clear, distinct, and logical analysis of Smith's system; and never did I hear so lucid and tangible an explanation of an abstruse and difficult subject. It required no intense attention-no laborious effort of thought-no complicated manœuvre of the brain, to follow him from position to position; but all was easy and clear; and, if the mind did not always coincide in the conclusions of the author whose system was discussed, it could never for a moment doubt what the lecturer meant.

Between each sentence he paused for two or three minutes, to allow his hearers to grasp his argument, and fixed a keen and inquiring eye upon them, as if to read in their countenances whether they did or did not fully comprehend. When he thought there was the least doubt, he repeated what he had said, with some slight variation in form; and then proceeded to another part of his subject.

At first-though as a cold philosophical inquiry nothing could be more satisfactory than Professor Wilson's elucidation of his subject— yet I confess I did not find what I had expected. The language of his lecture was strong, applicable, elegant. No tautology was heard, no loose change of person, no mixed or imperfect figure; but I missed at first, the wild poetical genius, the daring talent of the Isle of

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