And Weekly Review; Forming an Analysis and General Repository of Literature, Philosophy, Science, Arts, History, the Drama, Morals, Manners, and Amusements. This Paper is published at Six o'Clock every Saturday Morning; and forwarded Weekly, or in Monthly Parts, to all Parts of the United Kingdom. No. 44. LONDON, SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1820. Review of New Books. The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. 8vo. pp. 354. London, 1820. Price 6d. England, that the people of the United States are inimi- THE author of the Sketch Book' had no need to deprecate the censure of the critics, or to solicit from them that courtesy and candour which a stranger has some right to claim, who presents himself at the threshold of a hospitable mansion,' since the consciousness of his own talents, and the approbation his work met with while publishing in numbers in America, must have made him con-ness and veneration, as the land of our forefathers-the august fident of ensuring public approbation. Among the seventeen sketches of which this work consists, there is one on English Writers on America,' in which the author complains of the illiberality with which we treat American literature; and which he attributes to the following causes :— union, to an absurd degree of bigotry. The bare name of Indeed, at one time they amounted, in many parts of the Englishman was a passport to the confidence and hospitality of every family, and too often gave a transient currency to the worthless and the ungrateful. Throughout the country there was something of enthusiasm connected with the idea of England. We looked to it with a hallowed feeling of tenderrepository of the monuments and antiquities of our race-the paternal history. After our own country, there was none in birth-place and mausoleum of the sages and heroes of our, whose glory we more delighted-none whose good opinion we were more anxious to possess-none towards which our hearts yearned with such throbbings of warm consanguinity. Even during the late war, whenever there was the least opportunity for kind feelings to spring forth, it was the delight of the generous spirits of our country to show that, in the midst of hostilities, they still kept alive the sparks of future friendship. Is all this to be at an end? Is this golden band of kindred It has also been the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds have been envoys from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous nations, sympathies, so rare between nations, to be broken for ever?with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure; it has been left to the broken down tradesman, the Perhaps it is for the best-it may dispel an illusion which scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the Manches- might have kept us in mental vassalage, interfered occasionter and Birmingham agent, to be her oracles respecting Ame-ally with our true interests, and prevented the growth of prorica. From such sources she is content to receive her infor- per national pride. But it is hard to give up the kindred tie! mation respecting a country in a singular state of moral and heart than pride--that will still make us cast back a look of and there are feelings dearer than interest-closer to the physical development; a country in which one of the greatest political experiments in the history of the world is now per- roof, and lament the waywardness of the parent, that would regret, as we wander farther and farther from the paternal forming, and which presents the most profound and momentous studies to the statesman and the philosopher. repel the affections of the child.' is certainly above those prejudices, and is very anxious Whatever the Americans may be generally, our author that the conduct he attributes to England in this respect, should not be imitated by his countrymen, whom he warns in language so energetic, and so highly honourable to his liberality, that we cannot omit the passage :— "That such men should give prejudiced accounts of America, is not a matter of surprise. The themes it offers for contemplation are too vast and elevated for their capacities. The national character is yet in a state of fermentation; it may have its frothiness and sediment, but its ingredients are sound and wholesome; it has already given proofs of powerful and generous qualities; and the whole promises to settle down into something substantially excellent. But the causes which are operating to strengthen and ennoble it, and its daily indiBut above all, let us not be influenced by any angry feelcations of admirable properties, are all lost upon these pur- really excellent and amiable in the English character. We ings, so far as to shut our eyes to the perception of what is blind observers, who are only affected by the little asperities incident to its present situation. They are capable of judg-take our examples and models, in a great degree, from the are a young people, necessarily an imitative one, and must ing only of the surface of things; of those matters which come in contact with their private interests and personal gratifications. They miss some of the snug conveniences and petty comforts which belong to an old, highly-finished, and overpopulous state of society; where the ranks of useful labour are crowded, and many earn a painful and servile subsistence, by studying the very caprices of appetite and self indulgence. These minor comforts, however, are all important in the esti mation of narrow minds; which either do not perceive, or will not acknowledge, that they are more than counterbalanced among us, by great and generally diffused blessings.' The author assures us, that the general impression in VOL. II. existing nations of Europe. There is no country more wortion is most analogous to ours. The manners of her people thy of our study than England. The spirit of her constituhabits of thinking on those subjects which concern the deartheir intellectual activity-their freedom of opinion-their est interests and most sacred charities of private life, are all congenial to the American character; and, in fact, are all intrinsically excellent; for it is in the moral feeling of the people that the deep foundations of British prosperity are laid; and however the superstructure may be time-worn, or overrun by abuses, there must be something solid in the basis, admirable in the materials, and stable in the structure of an N--12. edifice, that so long has towered unshaken amidst the tempests of the world.' But notwithstanding all that our author has said, and ably as he has pleaded the cause of his countrymen, we agree with a cotemporary* in thinking that there are two American authors only whose genius has reason to complain of British neglect, and with a very great deal of reason both unquestionably may do so; namely, Charles Brockden Brown and Washington Irving." fered up at the deserted fireside of home! How often has the mistress, the wife, the mother, pored over the daily news, to catch some casual intelligence of this rover of the deep. How and dread into despair. Alas! not one memento shall ever has expectation darkened into anxiety-anxiety into dreadreturn for love to cherish. All that shall ever be known is, that she sailed from her port, "and was never heard of more!"" Mr. Roscoe, whom the author saw at Liverpool, is the next subject of his pen; but we forbear, for the present, Mr. Brown, who has been dead many years, was a extracting from any more of his Sketches, in order to give novel writer of considerable talents, who has not been in-founded on truth. The subject has been noticed in a one of them entire. It is an affective narrative, and aptly compared to Godwin. He was the author of Wie-former number of this work, in our review of the Life of laud, Ormond,' Arthur Mervyn,' and Edgar Huntly, Curran.' The sketch is entitled, 6 works very popular on the other side of the Atlantic, and admired by all who have read them in England. THE BROKEN HEART. "I never heard Of any true affection, but 'twas nipt The leaves of the spring's sweetest book, the rose." Middleton. Washington Irving is the sole author of the Sketch Book, a periodical work, published at New York, and from which the present volume has been formed under his immediate direction. An earlier production of his, which attracted much attention in the United States, but is scarcely known in Europe, was A History of New York,' It is a common practice with those who have outlived the by Diedrick Knickerbocker; a work which, although of susceptibility of early feeling, or have been brought up in the a local nature, displays so much true genius, that we hope gay heartlessness of dissipated life, to laugh at all love stories, our Arcadian friend, Mr. Miller, will follow up his pub-novelists and poets. My observations on human nature have and to treat the tales of romantic passion as mere fictions of lication of the Sketch Book, by a reprint of this singular induced me to think otherwise. They have convinced me, production of the same author. The Sketch Book consists of powerful delineations of frozen by the cares of the world, or cultivated into mere that however the surface of the character may be chilled and the incidents which more particularly attracted the notice smiles by the arts of society, still there are dormant fires of the author, in a voyage to Europe; many of them have lurking in the depths of the coldest bosom, which, when an immediate reference to England, with the customs and once enkindled, become impetuous, and are sometimes desopeculiarities of which he seems most intimately acquainted.lating in their effects. Indeed, I am a true believer in the The first sketch is the Voyage,' in which the author blind deity, and go to the full extent of his doctrines. Shall most powerfully pourtrays the feelings by which he was I confess it?-I believe in broken hearts, and the possibility actuated, at different periods, from quitting his native it a malady often fatal to my own sex; but I firmly believe of dying of disappointed love! I do not, however, consider shores, until he stepped upon the land of his forefathers, that it withers down many a lovely woman into an early but felt that he was a stranger in that land. The following grave. extract from this Sketch possesses great beauty of expression, as well as pathos : Sometimes a distant sail, gliding along the edge of the ocean, would be another theme of idle speculation. How interesting this fragment of a world, hastening to rejoin the great mass of existence. What a glorious monument of human invention! that has thus triumphed over wind and wave; has brought the ends of the earth into communion; has established an interchange of blessings, pouring into the sterile regions of the north all the luxuries of the south; has diffused the light of knowledge, and the charities of cultivated life; and has thus bound together those scattered portions of the human race, between which nature seemed to have thrown an insurmountable barrier. We one day descried some shapeless object drift, ing at a distance. At sea, every thing that breaks the monotony of the surrounding expanse, attracts attention. It proved to be the mast of a ship that must have been completely wrecked; for there were the remains of handkerchiefs, by which some of the crew had fastened themselves to this spar, to prevent their being washed off by the waves. no trace by which the name of the ship could be ascertained. There was The wreck had evidently drifted about for many months: clusters of shell-fish had fastened about it, afid long sea-weeds flaunted at its sides. But where, thought 1, is the crew? Their struggle has long been over-they have gone down amidst the roar of the tempest-their bones lie whitening among the caverns of the deep. Silence-oblivion, like the waves, have closed over them, and no one can tell the story of their end. What sighs have been wafted after that ship; what prayers of * Blackwood's Magazine for February. Man is the creature of interest and ambition. His nature leads him forth into the struggle and bustle of the world. Love is but the embellishment of his early life, or a song piped in the intervals of the acts. He seeks for fame, for fortune, for space in the world's thought, and dominion over affections. The heart is her world; it is there her ambition his fellow men. But a woman's whole life is a history of the strives for empire; it is there her avarice seeks for hidden treasures. She sends forth her sympathies on adventure; she embarks her whole soul in the traffic of affection; and if shipwrecked, her case is hopeless-for it is a bankruptcy of the heart. bitter pangs: it wounds some feelings of tenderness-it blasts How many bright eyes grow dim-how many soft into the tomb, and none can tell the cause that blighted cheeks grow pale-how many lovely forms fade away their loveliness. As the dove will clasp its wings to its side, and cover and conceal the arrow that is preying on its vitals, so it is the nature of woman, to hide from the world the pangs of wounded affection. The love of a delicate female is always shy and silent. Even when fortunate, she scarcely breathes it to herself; but when otherwise, she buries it in the recesses of her bosom, and there lets it cower and brood among the ruins of her peace. With her the desire of the heart has failed. The great charm of existence is at an end. She neglects all the cheerful exercises which gladden the spirits, quicken the pulses, and send the tide of life in healthful currents through the veins. Her rest is broken-the sweet refreshment of sleep is poisoned by melancholy dreams" dry sorrow drinks her blood," until her enfeebled frame sinks under the slightest external injury. Look for her, after a little while, and you find friendship weeping over her untimely grave, and wondering that one, who but lately glowed with all the radiance of health and beauty, should so speedily be brought down to "darkness and the worm." You will be told of some wintry chill, some casual indisposition, that laid her low; but no one knows the mental malady that previously sapped her strength, and made her so easy a prey to the spoiler. She is like some tender tree, the pride and beauty of the grove; graceful in its form, bright in its foliage, but with the worm preying at its heart. We find it suddenly withering, when it should be most fresh and luxuriant. We see it drooping its branches to the earth, and shedding leaf by leaf; until, wasted and perished away, it falls even in the stillness of the forest; and as we muse over the beautiful ruin, we strive in vain to recollect the blast or thunderbolt that could have smitten it with decay. could sooth the pang of separation-none of those tender, though melancholy circumstances, that endear the parting scene-nothing to melt sorrow into those blessed tears, sent, like the dews of heaven, to revive the heart in the parching hour of anguish. To render her widowed situation more desolate, she had incurred her father's displeasure by her unfortunate attachment, and was an exile from the paternal roof. But could the sympathy and kind offices of friends have reached a spirit so shocked and driven in by horror, she would have experienced no want of consolation, for the Irish are a people of quick and generous sensibilities. The most delicate and cherishing attentions were paid her by families of wealth and distinction. She was led into society, and they tried by all kinds of occupation and amusement to dissipate her grief, and wean her from the tragical story of her love. But it was all in vain. There are some strokes of calamity that scathe and scorch the soul-that penetrate to the vital seat of happiness-and blast it, never again to put forth bud or blossom. She never objected to frequent the haunts of pleasure, but she was as much alone there as in the depths of solitude. She walked about in a sad reverie, apparently unconscious of the world around her. She carried with her an inward woe that mocked at all the blandishments of friendship, and “heeded not the song of the charmer, charm he never so wisely." The person who told me her story had seen her at a masquerade. There can be no exhibition of far-gone wretchedness more striking and painful than to meet it in such a scene. To find it wandering like a spectre, lonely and joyless, where all around is gay-to see it dressed out in the trappings of mirth, and looking so wan and wo-begone, as if it had tried in vain to cheat the poor heart into a momentary forgetfulness of sorrow. After strolling through the splendid rooms and giddy crowd with an air of utter abstraction, she sat herself down on the steps of an orchestra, and looking about for the garish scene, she began with the capriciousness of a sickly heart, to warble a little plaintive air. She had an exquisite voice; but on this occasion it was so simple, so touching, it breathed forth such a soul of wretchedness, that she drew a crowd mute and silent around her, and melted every one into tears. I have seen many instances of women running to waste and self neglect, and disappearing gradually from the earth, almost as if they had been exhaled to heaven; and have repeatedly fancied, that I could trace their deaths through the various declensions of consumption, cold, debility, languor, melancholy, until I reached the first symptom of dis-some time with a vacant air, that shewed her insensibility to appointed love. But an instance of the kind was lately told to me; the circumstances are well known in the country where they happened, and I shall but give them in the manner in which they were related. Every one must recollect the tragical story of young E-, the Irish patriot, it was too touching to be soon forgotten. During the troubles in Ireland he was tried, condemned, and executed, on a charge of treason. His fate made a deep impression on public sympathy. He was so young-so intelligent-so generous-so brave-so every thing that we are apt to like in a young man. His conduct under trial, too, was so lofty and intrepid. The noble indig nation with which he repelled the charge of treason against his country-the eloquent vindication of his name and his pathetic appeal to posterity, in the hopeless hour of condemnation-all these entered deeply into every generous bosom, and even his enemies lamented the stern policy that dictated his execution. 'But there was one heart, whose anguish it would be impossible to describe. In happier days and fairer fortunes, he had won the affections of a beautiful and interesting girl, the daughter of a late celebrated Irish barrister. She loved him with the disinterested fervour of a woman's first and early love. When every worldly maxim arrayed itself against him when blasted in fortune, and disgrace and danger darkened around his name, she loved him the more ardently for his very sufferings. If, then, his fate could awaken the sympathy, even of his foes, what must have been the agony of her whose whole soul was occupied by his image! Let those tell who have had the portals of the tomb suddenly closed between them and the being they most loved on earth-who have sat at its threshold, as one shut out in a cold and lonely world, from whence all that was most lovely and loving had departed. But then the horrors of such a grave! so frightful, so dishonoured! There was nothing for memory to dwell on that The story of one so true and tender, could not but excite great interest in a country remarkable for enthusiasm. It completely won the heart of a brave officer, who paid his addresses to her, and thought that one so true to the dead, could not but prove affectionate to the living. She declined his attentions, for her thoughts were irrevocably engrossed by the memory of her former lover. He, however persisted in his suit, He solicited not her tenderness, but her esteem. He was assisted by her conviction of his worth, and her sense of her own destitute and dependent situation, for she was existing on the kindness of friends, In a word, he at length succeeded in gaining her hand, though with the solemn assurance, that her heart was unalterably another's. He took her with him to Sicily, hoping that a change of scene might wear out the remembrance of early woes. She was an amiable and exemplary wife, and made an effort to be a happy one; but nothing could cure the silent and devouring melancholy that had entered into her very soul. She wasted away in a slow, but hopeless decline, and at length sunk into the grave, the victim of a broken heart. It was on her that Moore, the distinguished Irish poet, composed the following lines: "She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps, But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps, She sings the wild song of her dear native plains, He had liv'd for his love-for his country he died, Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest, They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the west, Comic Tales, in Verse; written for the Author's Amusement, and published for the Reader's Edification: preceded by a Poetical Protest against Oblivio Shelf, Esq. By Two Franks. 12mo. pp. 156. London, 1820. It is not a little remarkable, that in the numerous list of candidates for poetic fame, so few court the comic muse; there are too many of the opposite cast: purling streams' and woodbine bowers,' with a small display of sentiment, form the principal theses of minor poets, and require but little skill, while the writer of a comic tale in verse, must unite wit and vivacity to poetic talent. These qualities Peter Pindar combined in a remarkable degree, but they were prostituted to the worst of purposes,-that of gratifying his personal enmities or satirizing real worth. George Colman's comic efforts were of a very different character, his only object, by his Broad Grins,' being to excite the loud laughs of his readers. Since the publications of Colman, we have met with no work of the kind so well calculated to excite the risible faculties as the Comic Tales' of the Two Franks; if rich humour, conveyed in smooth verse, may be supposed to have that effect. The subject of one or two of the tales is not new, but the manner in which they are related is sufficiently ingenious and amusing to counterbalance that objection; and, received as a whole, there are very few works, especially poetical ones, which display so much originality of genius. The protest to Oblivio Shelf, Esq. possesses much humour, and would of itself be sufficient to avert the fate the poet deprecates; the following is the commencement of it: Know all men, by these presents, We And think this method far the fittest, Then thumb and dogsear as you will, And causeth unread bards to weep O, Is ever adding to his store, And we shall be prick'd down "two more," By boldly reading us yourselves.' From the sixteen Comic Tales which this volume in cludes, we insert three as specimens of the authors' talents; although they are scarcely unknown to our readers, since the Two Franks' have often enlivened the poetical department of the Literary Chronicle, by their communications under the signatures of O. F.' and 'Y. F.' The following tale is by Old Frank: THE TRAVELLER: A TRIFLING MISTAKE. AN Irish travellerwent to an inn That is you know, for every station, Where each may fret and strut his hour And prove his consequence, and shew his power. And a wise saw to borrow, We come to-day-and go to-morrow. His first best thought was to engage Rather than pother his poor sconce, This point explain'd, each drowsy guest And in due time the chambermaid, Went for the candle-and quick returning, But had you seen her laughing fits, Nay, were there hogs a score in The room, each lying with nine farrow, But higher folk than she can tell, And though they make a search profound, It is not always to be found. Besides, some others heard the strain, And who most property invests In the best room-on the best bed. His chum, a tall descendant from the north, And soundly slept, and loudly snor'd away; While slyly peeping forth, As Pat awoke, He saw two feet from out the bed-clothes poke; He jumps from bed, and covers them with clothes : Out quick he springs, the covering pulls once more, Why dinna ye be quiet, And let my feet alone?" Pat quick replies, In great surprise, "Faith, honey! make no riot, Devil take your feet, I thought they were my own!"'' The lovers of punning, and we are convinced they are more numerous than is generally represented, will be pleased with a tale by Young Frank, entitled, THE ESSENCE OF PUNNING. LET merciless critics decry a good pun, Yet, though the brat's crook'd, I'm so fond of his pre sence, That, by jingo! I've got him reduc'd to an essence! If on a hearth-rug you should happen to slip, Say, "the path was so rugged, 'twas that made me trip." Hey cockolorum jig!-now for a pun: 'Tis a very bad habit, some folks say to pun; And if wits go quite bare, they're but laugh'd at for fools, You may quarter the soldier as oft as you please, "done!". Peter thought, to this bet, he had better cry, Peter nibbled his thumbs, Peter play'd with his chin, Peter utter'd no sentence, to son or to daddy, But whistled a ditty, call'd-" Through the Wood Laddie!" A pun! Oh, a palpable pun !" cried the host, "Or, if not a pun, it was surely its ghost." ""Twas the essence," cried Peter," and aptly you "For, though I spoke not, yet I certainly thought it." It's not carried too far, if you wish it to stay. The next tale, though of a different character, is very amusing, and few who read it, will avoid bewailing the unfortunate loves of John Scrag and Peggy Griskin; it is entitled, |