much surprise and sorrow, both within and without the pale of the Establishment. The Honourable and Reverend Baptist Noel designates the appointment of the present Archbishop of Canterbury, a happy accident. We fancy that many, while admiring the candour of Mr. Noel, will be reminded of the ancient adage, "respice finem." The Archbishop, as a matter of form, allows Archdeacon Denison time to revoke his error until the 1st of October next. His sentence will be pronounced on the 21st of October next, which, it is expected, will be one of deprivation. MUCH OF PUBLIC ATTENTION HAS BEEN RECENTLY DEVOTED TO THE MOVEMENT FOR THE REFORMATION OF JUVENILE CRIMINALS. It will be recollected that we brought this subject before our readers in the March number of the ECLECTIC. During the past month, however, some meetings have been held, and some facts promulgated, which have deeply stirred the public mind. The first of these was held, on the 6th, at Winchester, under the presidency of the bishop of the diocese. This meeting had reference solely to the Hampshire Reformatory School; but much valuable information was elicited both from the chairman, and from the Speaker of the House of Commons, who is chairman of the Committee, and who, in moving the adoption of the report, stated as an acknowledged fact, that seventy-five per cent of our juvenile criminals return to prison after being liberated on the expiration of their first sentence. But the most important of these meetings have been those of the National Reformatory Union, held at Bristol, on the 20th and following days. Lord Stanley discharged the duties of President with remarkable ability and vigour. The business was conducted on the plan originated by the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and papers were read from the pens of the most eminent advocates of penal law reform, including Lord Brougham. But the main interest of these meetings centred in the addresses of the noble chairman, whose inaugural address, especially, exhibited the full extent of the great and momentous evil to be dealt with, and the mode in which the Reformatory Union proposes to meet it. We direct our readers' earnest attention to his lordship's pregnant and masterly address,-full of facts and figures, ably establishing the positions he laid down. The publications of the month, as is usual at this season of the year, are characterized by the Publishers' Circular, as comparatively scanty and devoid of interest, with but one or two exceptions: amongst these are M. de Tocqueville's work on the "Origin of the French Revolution;" Mr. Alford's Third Volume of his "Greek Testament;""The Defence of the Archdeacon Taunton," complete ; a Translation of Professor Perthes's "Memoirs of Frederick Perthes, the German bookseller," comprising the period from 1789 to 1843, and giving an insight into the interior of German life, 2 vols.; "An Introduction to the Study of the Old Testament," by the Rev. A. Barry; the Rev. F. Metcalf's "Excursions in Norway," 2 vols.; Dr. Conolly's new work on the "Treatment of the Insane; General Lake's "Siege of Kars; ""The Camp and the Cutter; or a Cruise to the Crimea during the War;" and the "Harbours of England,” from drawings by Turner, with illustrative text by Mr. Ruskin. Books Received. Anti-Slavery Advocate for August. W. Tweedie. A Plain Man's Examination of Popery. Pp. 72. Houlston & Stoneman. Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical Repository for July. Trübner & Co. Encyclopedia. Part II. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Conolly (Dr. John). Treatment of the Insane without Mechanical Restraints. Pp. 380. Smith, Elder, & Co. Costello (Miss L. S.). Lay of the Stork. Pp. 131. W. & F. G. Cash. De Laspée (H.). Calisthenics, or the Elements of Bodily Culture on Pestalozzian Principles. Pp. 170. Darton & Co. Fisherman (The). Pp. 36. Wertheim & Macintosh. Freeman (Rev. John, M.A.). The Church of England Schoolmaster. Pp. 23. Longmans & Co. Galt (Edwin). The Camp and the Cutter. Pp. 240. T. Hodgson. Gilfillan (Rev. Geo., A.M.). Poetical Works of Alexander Pope. Vol. II., pp. 326. Edinburgh: Jas. Nichol. Hamlet an attempt to ascertain whether the Queen were an accessory, before the fact in the murder of her first husband. Pp. 48. J. R. Smith, 36, Soho Sq. Hanna (Rev. W., LL.D.). Select Works of Dr. Chalmers. Vol. IX. Political Economy. Pp. 626. Edinburgh: Thos. Constable & Co. Hood (E. P.). The Earnest Minister: a Record of the Life of the Rev. Benjamin Parsons. Pp. 511. Jno. Snow. Journal of Health and Phrenological Magazine. No. 65. W. Horsell, 492, New Oxford Street. Library of Biblical Literature. Vol. IV. W. Freeman, Fleet Street. London Monthly Review and Record of the Prophetical Society. No. 1. Partridge & Co. London University Magazine for August. A. Hall, Virtue, & Co. Malan (Rev. S. C., M.A.). A Vindication of the Authorized Version of the English Bible. Part II., pp. 348. Bell & Daldy. Orange (John). Timothy: Letters to the Young on the Doctrines of Grace. Pp. 111. Ward & Co. Plain Instructions for the Management of the Aquarium. Pp. 72. Dean & Son. Porter (S. T.). Lectures on the Ecclesiastical System of the Independents. Pp. 303. Glasgow: Jas Maclehose. Robinson (Wm.). The First Chapter of the Bible and the Last Chapter of Astronomical Science viewed in conjunction. Pp. 28. Cambridge: Macmillan & Co. Ryland (J.E., M.A.). Memoirs of John Kitto, D.D., F.S.A. 2 vols, pp. 756. New York: R. Carter & Brothers. S. S. S. The Hive and its Commonwealth. Pp. 69. Hamilton & Co. Sharpe (Samuel). Critical Notes on the Authorized English Version of the New Testament. Pp. 150. T. Hodgson. Whitehead (Henry, M.A.). The Church and the People: Twelve Sermons. Pp. 160. Wm. Skeffington, Piccadilly. Williams (Chas. W., C.E.). Prize Essay on the Prevention of the Smoke Nuisance. Pp. 48. Jno. Weale. Wilson (Professor). Essays: Critical and Imaginative. Vol I., pp. 408. Blackwood & Sons. THE ECLECTIC REVIEW. OCTOBER, 1856. ART. I.-Dred: a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. By Harriet Ir is Mrs. Stowe's misfortune to have written a very wonderful book. The success of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a thing unparalleled in the history of literature. Everybody remembers the huge piles of books in red covers, under which every railway stall in the kingdom was groaning for months in the summer of 1852. Never was such a sudden and universal triumph. At the same moment, duchesses and factory-girls, statesmen and ploughboys, were reading with an interest equally intense the same fascinating pages. We know a village in England in which some of the farmers heard nothing of the French Revolution of 1848, till three weeks after Louis Philippe had fled from Paris; but we venture to say, that even at that fag-end of creation, there is scarcely a cottage whose inmates have not wept over the death of Eva, and laughed till their sides ached at the absurdities of Topsy. One house in London issued, for weeks, 10,000 copies daily. It was translated into nearly every European language. It was placed in the Index by the Pope. We have no intention of re-examining the rightful claims of "Uncle Tom" to this prodigious success. The ECLECTIC was one of the very earliest of English Reviews that recognized its genius; and the judgment that we pronounced four years ago, we have no intention of recalling now. It would seem, however, as if some of our contemporaries, jealous of Mrs. Stowe's triumph, have deliberately resolved to underestimate the worth, and to ruin the reputation of every subsequent production of her pen. Her "Sunny Memories" were subjected to every N.S.-VOL. XII. Ꮓ species of critical injustice. Because the same marvellous powers that had produced "Uncle Tom" were not exhibited in a series of pleasant, chatty letters to friends at home, about her travels in Europe; because she was received with universal admiration, and had the frankness to show that she was sometimes greatly elated, and sometimes considerably bored with it; because, woman as she is spite of her republicanism, she exceedingly enjoyed the generous and respectful hospitality of the English aristocracy, and found it very pleasant to mingle with the stateliness and the beauty, the rank and the splendour of Stafford House; the critics talked of her frivolity, her plebeian reverence for titles, her vanity, and we know not what besides. Why, she had never seen a real duchess in her life before she came to England; who can wonder that she found grandeur a very attractive thing, especially when she saw the grandeur united with goodness, and with undisguised admiration for her own genius. We are very thankful that the "Sunny Memories" found the ECLECTIC in a humour to enjoy them; we should have had an extra sin on our critical conscience had we treated them as atrabilariously as some of our brethren. The absurdity and injustice of condemning a volume of sketchy letters, because it did not reveal as much genius as a great work of fiction, are too apparent to need a syllable of demonstration; but it may be thought that the critics are more in the right, when, either expressly or by implication, they begin and end every notice of Mrs. Stowe's new book by discussing the question, which, by the time these lucubrations meet the eyes of our readers, will have been agitated at thousands of pic-nics, and tens of thousands of morning calls-Is "Dred" equal to “Uncle Tom?" We venture, however, to demur to the propriety of this style of criticism. An author's second book may be a great deal better than his first, and yet be a very poor one; and his second may be very inferior to the first, and yet be a very good one. It does not follow that, because Mrs. Stowe did better before, she has done badly now. "Dred" may be a very capital tale, and yet not be "equal to 'Uncle Tom.'" Even Shakspere did not always write Hamlets and Macbeths. We do not intend to ride into this lists as champions of the absolute perfection of this rather dismal "Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp." Some of the objections we have heard against it are well founded, and we have others of our own. It may be that there is a radical error in constructing a tale with a deliberate and avowed moral purpose; and we are quite inclined to think with one of Mrs. Stowe's captious critics, that the artistic excellence of a book must be impaired, if, in the mind of the writer, practical considerations predominate over æsthetic. The same objection, however, lies against "Uncle Tom." It is quite true, also, as we have been told again and again, that the plot of "Dred" is very feeble and uninteresting; but one of the most distinguished reviewers of the earlier tale, oddly enough, we must confess, thought the absence of plot one of the elements of its popular power; and if this fault, serious as it is, for we cannot think it an excellence, is to be a sufficient reason for condemning a novel altogether, even Dickens, Thackeray, and Bulwer, will henceforth wear faded laurels. But we have been tempted into the very line of criticism against which we have felt ourselves bound to protest. The merits of "Dred" should be determined quite independently of the merits of its renowned predecessor. A lady whose first book has won her a world-wide reputation, will be sufficiently timid while she is writing a second, without having before her eyes the fear of contemptuous indifference, or critical scalping, if she does not rise to the height of her former success. It is, however, a fair and natural inquiry whether Mrs. Stowe has given us a new set of characters, or simply re-produced the old ones in new circumstances. We think that to this, a candid critic will be able to give a very satisfactory reply. In "Dred" as in "Uncle Tom," the canvas is crowded with figures; with this difference-an unfortunate difference perhaps that in the earlier tale there were more women than men in the foreground, while in the later there are more men than women. Had we recognized a good number of our old acquaintances in the new book, we should not have been surprised, nor yet very angry; but for the sake of Mrs. Stowe, we are right glad to be able to say that we have acquired new friends, and have seen very little of the old ones. The characters in "Uncle Tom" which Imade the deepest impression, and remain on the memory as representative of the book, are those of Uncle Tom himself, Eva, St. Clare, Marie, Eliza, Cassy, Legree, Miss 'Feely and Topsy; the last two being the most original and remarkable of all. Now of these, Uncle Tom has certainly no male representative in the new story; and Milly, who comes nearest to him, is after all a very different personage, having more dignity of original cha racter, owing less to religion and more to nature, and being as thorough a woman as he was a man. Tom Gordon is, perhaps, a gentlemanly Legree; though we should rather think that Preston Brooks, the brutal assailant of Sumner, sat for the portrait. Of Eva, St. Clare, Marie, Eliza, and Cassy, we are never even reminded. Some, but only some, of Miss Ophelia's characteristics re-occur in Aunt Gordon, "the vehement housekeeper;" and that mischievous young imp, Tomtit, is a kind of male Topsy, but we are sorry to say so exaggerated, that it is |