Sate on his rock and gave groan for groan. To buy the rich freightage that brave vessel bore. 'Twas Warren's jet blacking they puffed (as they Ilk Esquimaux rubbed it o'er sandal and shoon, "She died, and lovely in her sleep she lay, Thus perished Israel's pride, but o'er her waves BUY WARREN'S BLACKING! to each passer by.'" Leigh Hunt's affectation of folly is pretty well hit off. "Your father, too, my own John, We'll not let him alone, John, But, with prophetic glee, Declare how time will be When nations shall proclaim The triumphs of his fame, And story pile on story So now good night, my Johnny; Put your night-cap on ye; And mind, you little jewel, Mind you drink your gruel, Or else, despite your tears, John, Papa will box your ears, John." The imitation of Coleridge's Christabel is long and well sustained; in some parts almost rivalling the fine poetry and exquisite melody of its prototype, and in others ridiculing its absurdities with great success. We have hardly room for more extracts, but will quote some lines from the beginning. Warren the manufacturer rich To saint Dunstan's clock, tho' silent enow, As wizard to wizard, or witch to witch, Howleth to heaven this mastiff bitch. He listed the tones of Saint Dunstan's clock, * And here mote I tell how they rode on the wind, The witch before and the Warren behind; How they passed in a twinkling the haunts of man, moon; Or listed the dulcimer's tremulous notes, Or the voice of the wind through the azure that floats, Till pillar and palace and arching sky The eye of night is veiled in cloud, Southey's hexameters, the best of the DID Coleridge write this book? We hope phia Literaria; as, in his going abroad, his intense, and, for a time, exclusive study of German Metaphysics, his love of Greek and his thorough acquaintance with that tongue while a boy; moreover this book bears, in its most inimitable peculiarities a very exact resemblance to those, which are acknowledged by Mr Coleridge. Perhaps a stronger argument yet remains. There is a verisimilitude, an air of absolute reality about the work, that will not let us doubt, that he who wrote it, had used opium so very intemperately as to have suffered its most obvious consequences. But no man could have written as this book is written, who had not already written much; and no one could be possessed of this author's command of language and exquisite taste in the use of words,-of his power of writing in the most diverse styles, and of writing in them all so very well,without being an established lion, a very "noticeable man" indeed. Thus the author is proved to be at once very notorious as a man of letters and of genius, and as an opium-eater; and as this character befits nobody that we know of, excepting Mr Coleridge, we are well nigh compelled to regard him as the true author of these confessions. At least we hold it to be certain, that, if he did not write them, whoever did, laboured hard to attach to him the presumption of autobiography. And now we leave the question of authorship, and go to the merits of the book; "having," as Mr with the argumentative part of my speech, of New York said to a jury, "done I come to the pathetic." It cannot be required that the confesof the eater's life than so much as may sions of an opium-eater should contain more have respect to his opium or be necessary to the full understanding of this part. Now as much as this we have; consequently there is no fault to be found with the book on the score of deficiency. The confessing subject begins his work with certain preliminary confessions, which are given, that it may be understood why and how he began to eat opium, and whence he afterwards derived the people of his dreams; and also that he might create something of a personal interest. His father died when he was young; he was put to school, and studied so hard and so well, that at thirteen he wrote Greek easily, and two years afterwards could converse in Greek so much to the purpose, that his master once said of him to a stranger-"That boy could harangue an Athenian mob better than you or I could address an English one." He went from this school to one he did not like, and therefore ran away from. The story of the elopement begins with a beautiful passage. "The morning came, which was to launch me into the world, and from which my whole succeeding life has, in many important points, taken its colouring. I lodged in the head master's house, and had been allowed, from my first entrance, the indulgence of a private room, which I used both as a sleeping room and as a study. At half after three I rose, and gazed with deep emotion at the ancient towers of 'drest in earliest light,' and be ginning to crimson with the radiant lustre of a cloud- cine, writing ex cathedra; I have but one emphatic | everlasting but gentle agitation, and brooded over less July morning. I was firm and immoveable in my criticism to pronounce-Lies! lies! lies! I re- by dove-like calm, might not unfitly typify the purpose, but yet agitated by anticipation of un- member once, in passing a book-stall, to have mind and the mood which then swayed it. For it certain danger and troubles; and if I could have caught these words from a page of some satiric seemed to me as if then first I stood at a distance, foreseen the hurricane and perfect hail-storm of author: By this time I became convinced that and aloof from the uproar of life; as if the tumult, affliction which soon fell upon me, well might I the London newspapers spoke truth at least twice the fever, and the strife, were suspended; a rehave been agitated. To this agitation the deep a week, viz. on Tuesday and Saturday, and might spite granted from the secret burdens of the heart; peace of the morning presented an affecting con- safely be depended upon for the list of bank- a sabbath of repose; a resting from human labours. trast, and in some degree a medicine. The silence rupts. In like manner, I do by no means deny Here were the hopes which blossom in the paths was more profound than that of midnight; and to that some truths have been delivered to the world of life, reconciled with the peace which is in the me the silence of a summer morning is more touch-in regard to opium; thus it has been repeatedly grave; motions of the intellect as unwearied as ing than all other silence, because, the light being affirmed by the learned, that opium is a dusky the heavens, yet for all anxieties a halcyon calm; broad and strong, as that of noon-day at other sea- brown in colour; and this, take notice, I grant: a tranquillity that seemed no product of inertia, sons of the the year, it seems to differ from perfect secondly, that it is rather dear; which also I but as if resulting from mighty and equal antagonday, chiefly because man is not yet abroad; and grant; for in my time, East India opium has been isms; infinite activities, infinite repose." thus, the peace of nature, and of the innocent three guineas a pound, and Turkey eight: and, creatures of God, seems to be secure and deep, thirdly, that if you eat a good deal of it, most only so long as the presence of man, and his rest- probably you must- do what is particularly disless and unquiet spirit, are not there to trouble its agreeable to any man of regular habits, viz. die.* sanctity." These weighty propositions are, all and singular, and will be, commendable. But in these three true: I cannot gainsay them: and truth ever was, theorems, I believe we have exhausted the stock of knowledge as yet accumulated by man on the subject of opium. And therefore, worthy doctors, as there seems to be room for further discoveries, stand aside, and allow me to come forward and He wandered about the country, spent all his money, went to London, and there starved within sight of death, and fixed upon himself perpetual disease. In London he had no lodging but on the floors of a house of which a sort of lawyer occupied a room or two, and no food but the relics of this man's table, whom he thus describes : "But who, and what, meantime, was the master of the house himself? Reader, he was one of those anomalous practitioners in the lower departments of the law, who-what shall I say?—who on prudential reasons, or from necessity, deny themselves all indulgence in the luxury of too delicate a conscience (a periphrasis which might be abridged considerably, but that I leave to the reader's taste); in many walks of life, a conscience is a more expensive incumbrance, than a wife or a carriage; and just as people talk of laying down' their car had 'laid riages, so I suppose my friend, Mr down' his conscience for a time; meaning, doubt less, to resume it as soon as he could afford it. The inner economy of such a man's daily life would present a most strange picture, if I could allow myself to amuse the reader at his expense. Even with my limited opportunities for observing what went on, I saw many scenes of London intrigues, and complex chicanery, cycle and epicycle, orb in orb,' at which I sometimes smile to this day-and at which I smiled then in spite of my misery. My situation, however, at that time, gave me little experience, in my own person, of any qualities in Mr -'s character but such as did him honor; and of his whole strange composition, I must forget every thing but that towards me he was obliging, and, to the extent of his power, generous." After a while he is rescued and goes to college, where he again studies hard. As yet he was guiltless of opium, but being in London some time after he entered college, he was violently seized with toothach and sought relief from laudanum; the result was rapture, extacy, &c. &c. "Arrived at my lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking; and, what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it;-and in an hour, oh Heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving, from its lowest depths, of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished, was now a trifle in my eyes: this negative effect was swallowd up in the immensity of those positive effects which had opened before me-in the abyss of divine enjoyment thus suddenly revealed." lecture on this matter." His one word upon the bodily effects of opium is a very entertaining disquisition upon the condition of mind, which it produces. He quotes Athenæus to prove that the phrase "disguised with liquor" is absurd, inasmuch as most men are disguised by sobriety, and he strenuously asserts that opium never did and never can intoxicate; that the reaction after its direct stimulus has subsided is not unpleasant, as the day after he had indulged was always a day of uncommon happiness; and finally that it stirs up and clarifies the intellect, sweeping away its dust and cobwebs, and giving it power, beauty, and calmness; in a word, restoring that lost condition, which we are accustomed to believe, disappeared when Sin alighted amid the gardens of Paradise. He ends the contrast between opium and wine, thus: "In short, to sum up all in one word, a man who is inebriated, or tending to inebriation, is, and feels that he is, in a condition which calls up into supremacy the merely human, too often the brutal, part of his nature: but the opium-eater (I speak of him who is not suffering from any disease, or other remote effects of opium) feels that the diviner part of his nature is paramount; that is, the moral affections are in a state of cloudless serenity; and over all is the great light of the majestic intellect." We can quote a strange passage to illustrate this opium-calm. 1 "I shall be charged with mysticism, Behmenism, quietism, &c. but that shall not alarm me. Sir H. Vane, the younger, was one of our wisest men; and let my readers see if he, in his philosophical works, be half as unmystical as I am. I say, then, that it has often struck me that the scene itself was somewhat typical of what took place in such a reverie. The town of L represented the earth, with its sorrows and its graves left bebind, yet not out of sight, nor wholly forgotten. The ocean, in Of this, however, the learned appear latterly to have doubted; for in a pirated edition of Buchan's DOMESTIC MEDICINE, which I once saw in the hands of a farmer's wife who was studying it for the benefit of her health, the Doctor was made to say- Be particularly careful never to take above five and twenty ounces of laudanum at once;' the true reading being probably five and twenty drops, which are held equal to about one grain of crude opium. These are the pleasures of opium; after a while its pains take their turn, and claim the offender as wholly theirs. The habit of using this stimulus had grown upon him, until he took every day some ounces of laudanum. His dreams and reveries began to be compounded of every vile or fearful thing, which he had ever seen, read or thought of. His poisoned imagination acquired a power of making the most terrific and distressing combinations out of beautiful and tender fancies. "To my architecture succeeded dreams of lakes -and silvery expanses of water:-these haunted me so much, that I feared (though possibly it will appear ludicrous to a medical man) that some dropsical state or tendency of the brain might thus be making itself (to use a metaphysical word) objective; and the sentient organ project itself as its own object.-For two months I suffered greatly in my head,-a part of my bodily structure which had hitherto been so clear from all touch or taint of weakness (physically, I mean), that I used to say of it, as the last Lord Oxford said of his stomach, that it seemed likely to survive the rest of my person. Till now I had never felt a headach even, or caused by my own folly. However, I got over this any the slightest pain except rheumatic pains attack, though it must have been verging on something very dangerous. The waters now changed their character,from translucent lakes, shining like mirrors, they now became seas and oceans. And now came a tremendous change, which unfolding itself slowly like a scroll, through many months, promised an abiding torment; and, in fact, it never left me until the winding up of my case. Hitherto the human face had mixed often in my dreams, but not despotically, nor with any special power of tormenting. But now that which I have called the tyranny of the human face began to unfold itself. Perhaps some part of my London life might be answerable for this. Be that as it may, now it was that upon the rocking waters of the ocean the human face began to appear: the sea appeared paved with innumerable faces, upturned to the heavens: faces, imploring, wrathful, despairing, surged upwards by thousands, by myriads, by generations, by centu ries:-my agitation was infinite,-my mind tossed and surged with the ocean.' " "As a final specimen, I cite one of a different character, from 1820. "The dream commenced with a music which now I often heard in dreams-a music of preparation and of awakening suspense; a music like the opening of the Coronation Anthem, and which like that gave the feeling of a vast march-of infinite cavalcades filing off-and the tread of innumerable armies. The morning was come of a mighty day—a day of crisis and of final hope for human nature, then suffering some mysterious eclipse, and labouring in some dread extremity. Somewhere, I knew not where-somehow, I knew not how-by some beings, I knew not whom—a battle, a strife, an agony, was conducting,-was evolving like a great drama, or piece of music; with which my sympathy was the more insupportable from my confusion as to its place, its cause, farewells!" literature. "Mediocribus esse poetis, Non dî, non homines, non concessêre columnæ." its nature, and its possible issue. I, as is usual in ceeding ages? In the present general dif- taste. Of his numerous works none fall dreams (where, of necessity, we make ourselves fusion of knowledge almost every man is a below mediocrity, and a few rise above it. central to every movement), had the power, and yet had not the power, to decide it. I had the reader, and of course more or less a man of As a poet he was of the class, the inevitapower, if I could raise myself, to will it, and yet Next to autobiography, the ble doom of which was long ago pronounced again had not the power, for the weight of twenty best method of making the life of an author by Horace. Atlantics was upon me, or the oppression of inex- interesting to the admirers of his works, is piable guilt. Deeper than ever plummet sound- that which has been adopted by Hayley in ed,' I lay inactive. Then, like a chorus, the pas- his life of Cowper; that is, publishing such His volume of poems was never reprinted sion deepened. Some greater interest was at stake; some mightier cause than ever yet the sword had a selection of his letters to his intimate and is now forgotten. His fine taste made pleaded, or trumpet had proclaimed. Then came friends as may in some sort compel him to him an excellent critic, and his style justly sudden alarms: hurryings to and fro: trepidations be his own biographer. As Dr Aikin had deserves the encomium of his daughter. It of innumerable fugitives, I knew not whether from a very extensive circle of friends, we is what may be called a transparent style; the good cause or the bad: darkness and light: hoped, nay, indeed expected, that his the reader is never at loss about his meantempest and human faces; and at last, with the sense that all was lost, female forms, and the daughter would have adopted this method. ing, nor ever tempted from his subject to features that were worth all the world to me, and On reading the memoir, however, we the admire a fine phrase or a beautiful figure. but a moment allowed, and clasped hands, and less regret her determination, as from the All his ornaments are appropriate, and heart-breaking partings, and then-everlasting extracts which she has given from her never ambitious. A man so learned and so father's letters, we have no very high gifted might, we think, have attained a After a while he finds he must die pretty notion of his talents for epistolary cor- much higher station in the republic of letsoon if he continues this habit, and being respondence. Miss Aikin says, in her pre- ters, had he not frittered away his powers particularly averse to such a consumma- face, that "nothing could be farther from upon too many objects. He was never tion, he goes to work resolutely, and at the her design than to intrude upon the atten- without some literary project, and we susclose of the book assures his readers that tion of the public by the introduction of pect often began to write before he had he is almost cured. It is wonderful that anecdotes or observations not strictly con- even arranged the plan of his work. We the author has been able to preserve any nected with the subject of the memoir, and have been much pleased with his critical thing like a story amid the incoherence of by which its effect as a moral portraiture notices of different English poets appended a work so confused and desultory. He would be rather weakened than enforced." to this book. We had never seen any of writes in the first or third person, in the We do not see how its effect as a moral them before, though we had read their past or present tense, to or of himself, portraiture could have been weakened if titles as productions of Dr Aikin. They just as the whim takes him; still he has she had illustrated the subject of the me- are models for this class of writings, and made a very pleasant book;-of no great moir by anecdotes of other literary and will bear a comparison with the best essays use as to opium-eating, because it will scientific men, and thus given the public a of Dr Johnson on similar subjects; indeed entice as many as it will deter. The lan- bird's eye view of the society in which Dr we think that many of Dr Aikin's are to be guage is always exquisitely felicitous, often Aikin lived. Sure we are that had this preferred to some of those even of that most amusingly quaint, and sometimes pow-been done the work would not have been giant of literature. Our review of Percy's erful and magnificent in the extreme. The so dull. Reliques was published before the "Memoirs author must have wonderful variety and Dr Aikin was the only son of the Rev. of Dr Aikin" was put into our hands; which versatility of talent; a passage decorated John Aikin, D. D., a dissenting clergyman, we mention on account of the striking simwith the very elements of poetry, is often whose health incapacitated him for useful-ilarity both of sentiment and expression preceded by one armed with stinging sar-ness, as a preacher, and who taught first a between a paragraph in that review, and casm and followed by another of pure wit. private school, and was afterwards the the following passage of the "Essay on the On the whole, there are few books of this Poetry of Milton." size, which bear so deeply and distinctly the impress of genius; very few, which have so many faults redeemed by so much excellence. 46 This originality of imitation in Milton becomes peculiarly conspicuous on a critical examination of his similies. In most of these he may be detected taking a hint from Homer or some other ancient; but he has made it so much his own, both by added circumstances in the description, and by tion is little less than if the whole idea had been novelty in the application, that his merit of inven primarily of his own growth. In Milton's mind, all images and impressions, whether received from nature or art, from reading or observation, seem to have been so blended and amalgamated, so much converted into the proper aliment of the intellect, homogeneous form, and what might appear study in that their transcripts in his writings take a kind of another man, in him is spontaneous effusion." President of a sort of College established Memoir of John Aikin, M. D. By Lucy entertaining part of the memoirs. He That the life of a man devoted to liter- seems to have been not very successful in ature affords but a meagre subject for the his profession, and his weak state of health biographer, has long ago been remarked; at length compelled him to relinquish it and we have often thought that an author altogether. He began to write when very is the best qualified of any one to give an young, and continued to publish a volume interesting account of himself. None but or two, almost every year during his life. he can tell the origin and the progress of We think he would have better consulted his works; and where is the literary man his fame had he written less and on fewer who would not feel an interest in the his- topics. The most prominent traits in his tory of those productions of the human character as an author, appear to be plain mind which are to be the lights of the suc-common sense and an highly cultivated "For him alone Hope leads from goal to goal, And opens still and opens on his soul; Till lengthened on to Faith, and unconfined, It pours the bliss that fills up all the mind." Let any man examine the sensible images conveyed by the words in italics, and what icism. Our readers may be amused with a sketch of this history of "The Daughter of a Genius." of strange adventure, and of lucky and sion to dissent from her judgment respect- The Daughter of a Genius, pp. 192. 18mo. are not better suited to riper age than to are they? For our part we must say, that to us at least they are not "kindred images of the sublime or beautiful class;" Hope is personified as a guide in the first line, and so far, well; but in the next line she is described as opening, but what or whom puzzles our ingenuity; the metaphor in the third line, presented us with the image of our good grandmother amusing herself at what is called the great spinning-wheel, Mr and Mrs Henville had five children, and dexterously joining a new roll of wool one of whom, named Maria, discovered at a to the one which was nearly spun out; in very early age such marks of genius, as the fourth line our same venerated relative caused them serious alarm. Like all who is recalled to our recollection, engaged in are thus afflicted, she was too restless and the mystery of pouring out her evening impatient to perform ordinary actions well, libation of tea. Notwithstanding this and The style of Mrs Hofland's descriptions but often accomplished wonders in a wonsome few other errors of a similar kind, is so striking, that every deviation from the derful manner. At seventeen, having learnimputable to the same cause, we may con- simplicity of nature is rendered dangerous. ed a good deal,but without much study, and fidently recommend these critical notices But however much the reader may, for the withal having contracted the notion-very to the attention of our reader as examples, time, relish his entertainment, yet, if he approvable even in women of genius-that in the main, of sound, discriminating crit-possess any love of simplicity and truth, it would be well to get married, it happenhis satisfaction will be greatly diminished ed that one Mr Albany, a friend of her faWe have said little of Dr Aikin's pri- by discovering that the principles which the ther, fell in love with her. He was a very vate life, considering that our business was story he has been reading was intended to respectable bachelor of about forty-five, a to notice him as an author; but we ought illustrate, are accommodated to such scenes, fit subject for the fascinations of a woman not to omit that he was an amiable man as seldom or never exist but in hopes, and of beauty and genius. She now turned her and exemplary in the performance of all fears, and dreams. We do not mean to attention to architecture, that she might asthe social duties. He was, in his political imply that the fault which we ascribe to sist Mr Albany in repairing his house; and sentiments, a republican, and suffered some some parts of these works, exists in them in being fascinated with the subject, continued petty persecution in consequence of incau- an uncommon degree. It is a proper sub- to pursue her studies in it, and to order altiously expressing his opinions; but he was ject for censure wherever it is found; and terations in the house corresponding to every neither attacked by a mob, like his friend its effects are exceedingly baneful in works new notion, till it was hard to say in what Priestley, nor imprisoned by authority, like designed for children. There is less moral style it was executed, but very easy to ashis brother-in-law, Gilbert Wakefield. He difference than we are apt to suppose be- certain that it had cost too much. Having lived to a good old age, and died quietly in | tween a falsehood in relating matters of ascended a ladder one day, she was standing the bosom of his family. His aim in his fact, and an unnatural description in a fic- on the end of a weak plank on the upper stolife and his writings seems to have been titious narrative. We have no sort of ob-ry, and her footman carried her a note, relatusefulness to his fellow-creatures, and jection to novels, if they are morally true, ing that her father was sick and deranged. doubtless his reward is inconceivably bet--that is, if they give a natural and faithful Her husband saw her look pale and agitatter than that of many who have acquired display of such principles as we find in the ed, ran up to support her, stepped on the a more brilliant reputation. human mind,—and have on the whole a ten-weak plank, broke it, and both fell to the dency towards improvement; but it is a ground, accompanied by a mason's hod, question of importance, whether even these which fell on Mr Albany's leg and broke it. She was much bruised, but a surgeon early youth. When the mind is matured, arriving bled her, and she hastened away it matters little whether the external re- to her father, clasped him in her arms presentation be real or imaginary, provided while he was in the height of a delirium, it be such as displays the true operation of loosened the bandage from her arm, delugthe principles described. But is it not prop-ed his bed in blood, and frightened him aler, in forming the mind, to store it with most to death. She fainted, recovered, took facts; and is not this most consistent with his fever, hurried back to her husband, gave the method of analytical instruction? At him the fever, and he and her father both least there can be no question, that extra- died. vagant tales violate all natural relation between cause and effect; and encourage children to hope, and undertake to perform actions, from unnatural and incompetent motives. But we must hasten to say some better things of Mrs Hofland. Boston, 1824. THOSE who are satisfied with a book because it is sufficiently interesting to secure their attention till it is completely read, will not hesitate to rank Mrs Hofland among the best writers. Her talent for descriptive moral composition of a very high order. Her style is occasionally somewhat inflated, for it does not accommodate itself to the various subjects that are introduced. It has, however, great strength and animation; and she rarely omits to introduce any word, which can add to the spirit and force of a sentence. Her imagination is abundantly fruitful, but her judgment does not always dispose, in a suitable manner, of the immense variety of facts and circumstances, which her imagination supplies. This defect often gives her narratives an air of extravagance; and they are sometimes liable to this charge where so good an excuse cannot be conceded. We notice her extravagance more in the Tales of the Manor, than in her smaller works. In the first story, for example, she works up her imagination to its highest pitch; it supplies her with wonder upon wonder, and in one short life combines more She had borne a daughter some time before, who had not attracted the attention of Mrs Albany sufficiently to divert it from amusement and architecture. Nor did she now; for her mother soon set about further improvements on her house, though remindA deep and lively sense of rectitude is ed that her husband's estate was entailed, generally manifested; and when her de- and she might be removed, and lose her lascriptions are not, too highly wrought, no bour. This soon became true; and she was one can follow her without finding strong left to fortune and her genius. After incentives to virtue. There is an uncom- suffering much from these reverses, and mon depth in her moral sentiments, and she fluttering about for a short time, she resolvfrequently expands and illustrates them ined to pay her debts, and support herself and a manner beautiful and charming. You meet with nothing here, that teaches the sufficiency of reason, and natural morality; we are bidden to follow no light but that from heaven, and there is no other virtue but love to our Father and charity towards our neighbour. We very seldom see occa her daughter by turning school-mistress. But it was first necessary, that she should cross the straits of Dover to learn French. She placed her daughter, Maria, with an aunt, a queer sort of a maiden lady of more than seventy years, who resided near Southampton. A war breaking out, Mrs Albany was detained about ten years, dur-ed the mansion on which so much skill in mitted. It is that sort of concession which ing which time she studied minerology and conchology in addition to her French. Her daughter was treated with little attention and no tenderness by her great aunt, Miss Margaret Albany; for nothing could be less pleasing to this lady than the character of her mother. However, the young Maria received by degrees more favor through the influence of the excellent sisters of her mother, and Mrs. Margaret permitted her to learn many things, which were not known in her day. Still, every precaution was used that she should contract nothing of her mother's genius. But she was a girl of fine talents, and uniformly appears just what her early education was not calculated to produce. When peace was at last proclaimed, she had knowledge enough to infer that her mother would be liberated. She danced about in extacy, and then fell on her knees and gave thanks to God. Mrs Margaret, struck with disappointment and astonishment, clasped her hands and exclaimed, "Dear heart! after all I have done, the girl has her mother's genius!" Mrs Albany returned, established her school, received great patronage, managed badly, expected her scholars to learn in her odd way; and through a thousand difficulties which occurred in her school and her family, was sustained by the ever patient, discreet, and faithful Maria. At length Maria visits Mrs Margaret, and in the mean time, her mother meets with a worn out Italian music-master, and becomes Mrs Brandini. She early, but too late, repented of this; and finding that the patrons of her school were little disposed to overlook her misconduct, it was resolved that both she and her husband should go to Italy, and leave the school to Maria. It was hoped that Mr Brandini would gain health, and be restored to the favour of a long offended grandfather, and thereby obtain some money. After accomplishing a tedious journey, they found themselves most graciously received by his former friends; and it was plain that they were to have money enough even to pay old scores, when his grandfather should have done with it. Mr Brandini soon died, but his wife remained, to attend and comfort the object of her golden hopes. These, however, were soon and sadly blasted; for when the will was read, a little priestcraft was discovered. She could not have a single ducat without embracing the catholic faith. Like a true martyr she declined this condition, and thus was left friendless and moneyless in a strange land. She was sometime afterward found by one who had innocently promoted her second marriage; returned to England pretty well sobered, having lost her beauty, and become disgusted with the excentricities of geni and spent the rest of her days like a l of common sense. After the departure of her mother, M: retrieved the character of the schoo joyed great reputation and patrons long as she needed it,-and until on erick Albany, her cousin, who had architecture had been displayed, chose first to pay her what her mother had expended on the house, and afterwards to invite her to live in it. The reader has doubtless remarked that in this abstract of the story, the mother, and not the daughter, appears the heroine. He would receive the same impression from the original. The plan of the story is decidedly injudicious. It is frequently very extravagant, but still most of it is highly interesting. We doubt whether the young reader will learn from it how to apply the principles, which it inculcates, or to shun the evils which it censures, in the ordinary occurrences of a common life. MISCELLANY. THOUGHTS UPON THE CHARACTER OF THE AGE. [Continued from the last number.] WE approach our subject, almost with reluctance. We encounter difficulties and discouragements, we did not anticipate and almost shrink from; it is not that we find it a hard task, to vindicate our country's right to all that we have claimed; on the contrary we challenged an appeal to fact, and by it we are perfectly willing to abide. But we are about to oppose, as we fear, a fixed and habitual mode of thinking among our most intelligent classes, upon a subject of much interest. We feel that it demands a more discursive and ample exposition than the character of our work will permit us to give. It would be difficult to impress even upon the ignorant a just and adequate belief respecting the condition and destinies of our country; but we write for those who are more than ignorant;-who are prejudiced; and whose prejudices array themselves against us with a force which may not be subdued but by a full and powerful exposition of the truth. We are in no way disposed to doubt the certain prevalence of truth in the combat with error; but if error be rooted and entrenched, truth must come to the conflict, armed and ready for hard battle. We shall go on with our work, in the belief that a few obvious and important facts may be presented so distinctly, even with our modicum of ability and opportunity, as to awaken a new train of thought, a suspicion of past opinions; and a willingness to welcome juster views, which may in the end subdue established errors, and substitute for them, a correct apprehension of the state and prospects of our native land. Our emancipation from the last links of that chain of dependence which bound us to Europe, is now so absolute and certain, that every one, at home and abroad, is willadmit that we are one among the ; and that we have our share of the arities which attach to every nation every individual, and constitute the active difference between it and others. s, however, is just nothing; we would eed prefer that nothing should be ad seems to justify the withholding of all further admission; it is a sort of compromise, which is precisely what we do not want. We believe that more than this is true, and further, that more than this is due to the nations who are entitled to all the instruction which the example of our endeavours and our success can teach. The only question is, what and how much more it is proper for us to reclaim; this question should be asked of our history, our condition and our character; and the answer which they must unite in giving, is the only answer which should be heard. What is the answer? Doubtless there can be no better theme for declamation, and no greater temptation to exaggerate and "magniloquize.". But is this a good reason for giving up the inquiry? The facts we would examine, and on which we would rest as an ample support to our opinions, are simple and obvious. If it be true that they may be misused by idle declamation, or that ingenuity, active from the stimulus of vanity, may extort from them false conclusions,—it is no less true that they may be made by fair reasoning, to yield just and valuable inferences. We may as well begin, by saying what it is, that we hope to make manifest; what it is, that we think and feel and would deciare. We look back to the earliest struggles of our fathers; we follow their records down to the establishment of our country, and see them brought out from bondage, and led through the desolations of famine, pestilence and war, to this, the promised land. We look around and find the nation which they planted, multiplied with unprecedented rapidity, and now enjoying an accumulationwe had almost said an intensity, of blessing, which no other nation has known. We find ourselves trying a prodigious experiment with perfect success; and the thoughts of all nations beginning to be turned to us;— to us, who but a few generations ago were as little regarded as a sunset cloud in the western horizon. These are the general facts; the general inference we draw, is, that it is, not our right, but our first national duty, to feel that the ark of freedom and of truth, is, and is to be, committed to our hands, for ourselves and for our children; for the ages which are, and the ages which are to be; for our own land, and for the whole earth. He, whose will is fate, hath appointed unto us to lead the nations; and there should be abroad in the land, a spirit speaking in the depths of each man's heart, and telling him, that we are before the whole earth, for their guidance and instruction; to lead them whither we have come and are going. We are perfectly aware that our language and our opinions are far too decided to accord with the established mode of thinking and talking upon these topics; but we stand ready to state the facts and the reasons, which have fixed upon our minds the conviction we have above expressed. Gladly would we array these facts at length, and state with the utmost distinctness, the arguments we ground upon them; gladly |