"Although the day was some hours past its meridian, the | had pursued. But now, as I sat alone in my wakefulness, weather was exceedingly sultry, and the eye ached from the feeling of awe returned; and, as I looked upon the the reverberated glare of light it had encountered since sleepers, I felt the hair of my flesh stand up,' as Job's did morning. when a spirit passed before his face; for, to my disturbed imagination, there was something fearful in the expression of their inflamed and swollen visages. The fierce angel of disease seemed hovering over them, and I read the fore "There was something in this solitude-in these spots, forsaken and alone in their hopeless sterility and weird silence-that begat reflection, even in the most thoughtless. In all this dreary waste there was no sound; for every liv-runner of his presence in their flushed and feverish sleep. ing thing had retired, exhausted, from the withering heat and blinding glare. Silence, the fit companion of desolation, was profound. The song of a bird, the chirrup of a grasshopper, the drone of a fly, would have been out of harmony. "Here, the eye looked in vain for the soft and tender sky, so often beheld in utter listlessness in our own fatdistant land, and yet, dull and ungrateful that we were, we remained untouched with the beauty of its transparent and penetrable blue-pure azote and oxygen-into the immea surable depths of which the eye pierced and wandered, but to return to earth again, dazzled and unfixed, as though it had caught a glimpse of infinity, and, wearied and overpowered, sought the finite and the tangible- the comprehensible reality of laminated hills, broad plains, deep valleys, and the mountains, broad of girth and firmly rooted. The heavens of more favored climes,-climes as yet uneursed of God; skies, tender, deep, and crystalline, so profound in their unfathomableness, and, with their light-¦ ning and black thunder-cloud, so terrific in their wrath, such skies are never seen here. Some, with their bodies bent and arms dangling over the abandoned oars, their hands excoriated with the acrid water, slept profoundly; others, with heads thrown back, and lips cracked and sore, with a scarlet flush on either cheek, seemed overpowered by heat and weariness even in sleep; while some, upon whose faces shone the reflected light from the water, looked ghastly, and dozed with a nervous twitching of the limbs, and now and then starting from their sleep, drank deeply from a breaker and sunk back again into lethargy. The solitude, the scene, my own thoughts, were too much; I felt, as I sat thus, steering the drowsilymoving boat, as if I were a Charon, ferrying, not the souls, but the bodies, of the departed and the damned, over some infernal lake." Those who are curious in antiquities will read with interest the account of the pillar of salt at Usdum, which Josephus took to be Lot's wife, and of the Osher or Dead Sea Apple, four jars of which were brought home and may be seen in the Patent Office at Washington. The scienti fic reader will be pleased with the statements of the pon"Here, there is no shifting of the scenes of natural beau- derosity of the water, the character of the crystals brought ty; no ever-varying change of glory upon glory; no varied up from the bottom, and the geological formation of the development of the laws of harmony and truth, which char-shores. While the devout reader of the Scriptures will acterize her workings elsewhere; no morning film of mist, find a true delight in going over the scenes of sacred hisor low, hanging cloud of unshed dew; no clouds of feath- tory in company with a discerning and sympathizing obery scirrhus, or white wool-like pinnacles of cumuli; or server. who looks with the eye of faith at each spot hallight or gorgeous tints, dazzling the eye with their splen-lowed by the recollections of the Saviour's mission. dors; no arrowy shafts of sunlight streaming through the Lieut. Lynch thus sums up the results of the expedirifts of drifting clouds; no silvery spikes of morning shoot- tion,ing up in the east, or soft suffusion of evening in the west; but from the gleam of dawn, that deepens at once into intensity of noon, one withering glare scorches the eye, from which, blood-shot and with contracted pupil, it gladly turns away. "Here, night but conceals and smoulders the flame which seems to be consuming earth and heaven. Day after day, there is no change. Nature, which elsewhere makes a shifting kaleidoscope with clouds, and sunshine, and pure azure, has here the curse of sameness upon here, and wearies with her monotony." Their labors upon the surface of the Dead Sea seem to have been attended with the greatest personal inconvenience. The overpowering heat of the sun, the disagreeable odours from the bituminous springs around the shores, and the desolate objects that met the sight, oppressed the party beyond all expectation. Lieut. Lynch is of opinion that there is nothing absolutely pestilential in the atmosphere of the sea, yet he found the sail over its waters exceedingly debilitating. The following passage is almost like a leaf out of the Italian poet whom he quotes. A portion of the party were out in one of the boats and all but himself had fallen asleep, "We have carefully sounded this sea, determined its geographical position, taken the exact topography of its shores, ascertained the temperature, width, depth, and velocity of its tributaries, collected specimens of every kind, and noted the winds, currents, changes of the weather, and all atmospheric phenomena. These, with a faithful narrative of events, will give a correct idea of this wondrous body of water, as it appeared to us." Of the bearing of the exploration on biblical history, and its effect upon the minds of the party, Lieut. Lynch thus speaks, "But it is for the learned to comment on the facts we have laboriously collected. Upon ourselves, the result is a decided one. We entered upon this sea with conflicting opinions. One of the party was skeptical, and another, I think, a professed unbeliever of the Mosaic account. After twenty-two days, close investigation, if I am not mistaken, we are unanimous in the conviction of the truth of the Scriptural account of the destruction of the cities of the plain. I record with diffidence the conclusions we have reached, simply as a protest against the shallow deductions "In the awful aspect which this sea presented, when we first beheld, it, I seemed to read the inscription over the gates of Dante's Inferno:- Ye who enter here, leave hope behind? Since then, habituated to mysterious appearances in a journey so replete with them, and accustomed to scenes of deep and thrilling interest at every step of our progress, those feelings of awe had been insensibly lessened or hushed by deep interest in the investigations we of would-be unbelievers." These truths are indeed of long standing. But we need The saddest incident connected with the expedition remains to be related in the death of Lieut. Dale. This gift-to be reminded of them now and then, and this good office ed officer shared the fate of Costigan and Molyneux, paying with his life the forfeit of his zeal in the cause of science. He died of nervous sever on the evening of the 24th July, 1848, at Bhamdun, near Beïrût, in the house of the Rev. Mr. Smith, of the American Presbyterian Mission. It is consoling to know that his last moments were cheered by the gentlest ministrations of kindness and affection. His remains were buried beneath a Pride of India tree in the Frank Cemetery at Beïrût. Mr. Longfellow most worthily subserves. The little volume before us is a novelette which one may comfortably read in the latter part of a summer afternoon. As a story it is not remarkable, although the few trivial incidents on which it turns are managed dexterously enough. Kavanagh will be chiefly admired as a web upon which the author has fastened some of his brightest embroideries of sentiment and fancy. A few of these we shall have occa sion to detach for the benefit of those of our readers who have not seen the volume; but before doing this let us say a few words of the characters and the plot. In the little village of Fairmeadow, (so runs the tale,) there lived a worthy schoolmaster, who bore the name of Churchill We have heard from unquestionable authority that Lieut. Lynch intends making a provision, out of the proceeds arising from the sale of his volume, for the orphan children of his lamented friend. This noble purpose consecrates his literary labors, and establishes a claim upon the benev-and struggled with the aspirations of a spirit that rose suolent everywhere to contribute towards so praiseworthy ar object by purchasing a copy of the work. It is beautifully printed and embellished with maps and illustrations, and may be found at the store of A. Morris. KAVANAGH, A TALE. By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Boston: Ticknor, Read & Fields. MDCCCXLIX. perior to primers and slate-pencils. He had meditated for years the composition of a Romance, but the genins of Procrastination had marked him for her own, and the work is deferred again and again and is never even commenced. Mr. Churchill was recognized, however, by the poetizing ladies of Fairmeadow as the true light of literature for that portion of the universe, and they inflict upon him their MSS. without pity or compunction. He is visited also by the projector of a new magazine, who has immense ideas of a national literature which Mr. Churchill "uses up" in a short book and in his poetical temperament and unfulfilled des tinies we read the moral-Carpe diem. Those are pleasant hours to us, when, having been sorely vexed in body and mind by some of those wearisome pub-dialogue. In Mr. Churchill we see the true hero of the lications that we are called upon monthly to peruse, we turn over the pages of a new work by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is as if while walking with tedious associ ates in the dusty highroad, there comes to us a friend of cherished companionship and leads us off through green and quiet ways, where sweet converse and the minstrelsy of bird and waterfall revive the drooping spirit. Or we may express ourselves differently by likening our sensation of relief to that felt at the opera, when after the shock of a war of instruments and a crush of catgut, there bursts upon the ear some passage of ineffable harmony, a celestial inspiration of the goddess. The transition is always delight-timental divine the book takes its name. ful and we overflow with gratitude accordingly. Among Mr. Churchill's friends is old Mr. Pendexter, the parson of the village, who falling out with his parishioners on the subject of prerogative, goes off to administer the offices of religion to some less "wicked and perverse gen eration." After some delay, a successor is appointed in the person of Arthur Kavanagh, a pensive young gentle. man of the cambric-handkerchief school of piety, who in troduces legends into his discourses to the great delight of the young ladies of the parish. From this pallid and sea But to the heroines, for there is a pair of them. Near But our thanks are due to Mr. Longfellow as well for the village of Fairmeadow lived Cecilia Vaughan, a paraprofitable as for pleasurable impressions. A good, whole-gon of female excellence; (with some traces still remaining some moral is at the bottom of his works, whether convey- of the boarding-school,) and beauteous as the day. Alice ed in bright pictures of student-life as in Hyperion, or in Archer, in her home at the village, was every way as lovely hexameters of questionable structure as in Evangeline, or and attractive. Between the two there existed the warin fragmentary sketches of character as in Kavanagh. This est friendship, insomuch that a carrier-pigeon was specially moral underlies all his productions. It is the essence of detailed to bear notes daily from one to the other. his poetry. It is the stamen of his prose. From the peru. Now it so happened that both these young girls fell in sal of either, the reflective reader rises sadder and wiser love with Kavanagh, without, however, having confessed than before. At one time he is reminded of the stern ne- the soft impeachment to each other in any of their despatch cessity of daily toil,—the painful sentence that was pro-es or conversations. One morning the pigeon porsued by nounced upon the race, when the cherubim with flaming a hawk flies for refuge into the open window of Mr. Kavasword stood at the eastern portal of the garden of Life. At another he is taught that in the earnest play of the affections and the unobtrusive observance of good will towards men, there is still attainable a certain degree of happiness on earth, that a kind Providence has thrown profusely around us the sources of all rational enjoyment-or as the bard of Rydal Mount has beautifully expressed it, The primal duties shine aloft like stars, Finally, he may learn that to accomplish any useful result in this fleeting existence, there must be a determinate purpose kept fixedly in view, and that if "the star of the un conquered will" rises not within him, his bright hopes of future distinction will be quenched for aye in the failure of irresolute and fitful endeavors. nagh's study. It bears upon its neck a note for Cecilia. had passed away into oblivion, unnoticed and unknown." | untimely fate saved him we doubt not from the boards of the Such is the little story of Kavanagh. We now present minor-theatres, to which young gentlemen of his type not a few of those exquisite touches of fancy with which Mr. unfrequently resort. Longfellow knows so well how to move the heart. Is not the following comparison of the present and future states of being to the vaults and choirs of a minster, au affecting inversion of the prevailing idea of the grave? "To-day, to-morrow, every day, to thousands, the end of the world is close at hand. And why should we fear it? We walk here as it were in the crypts of life; at times, from the great cathedral above us, we can hear the organ and the chanting of the choir; we see the light stream through the open door, when some friend goes up before us; and shall we fear to mouut the narrow staircase of the grave, that leads us out of this uncertain twilight into the serene mansions of the life eternal?" We commend Kavanagh to our readers, whose appetite has probably been whetted for it, by the hasty outline we have here given. It is for sale by Messrs. Nash & Wood house. EUROPEAN LIFE AND MANNERS; in Familiar Letters to If it did not abundantly appear from these volumes that In the dialogue between Mr. Churchill and the national- their author is a most worthy and kind-hearted old gentle. literature man, we find this striking passage,— man, we should be tempted to try our hand at the Quarterly Review style of criticism, "so savage and tartarly." As it “All that is best in the great poets of all countries is not is, having read them in good faith "from title-page to colowhat is national in them, but what is universal. Their roots phon," we can only say of them, as the younger Mr. Weller ure in their native soil; but their branches wave in the un-in one of his characteristic epigrammatic expressions, patriotic air, that speaks the same language unto all men, and their leaves shine with the illimitable light that pervades all lands. Let us throw all the windows open; let us admit the light and air on all sides; that we may look towards the four corners of the heavens, and not always in the same direction." We conclude our extracts with the picture of a village beau, the like of whom may be found in every section of the country. It is to the life. After mentioning Miss Ce cilia's admirers from the town, the author says— tells us the charity boy said of the alphabet-" Whether it's worth while going through so much to learn so little, is matter of taste, I think it isn't." Our good author might indeed rejoin to this that the invention of Cadmus has been very highly commended of late years, the opinion of the charity-boy to the contrary notwithstanding, and that perfounded. But to say truth, we cannot help thinking that haps our objections to his work are quite as futile and illMr. Colman would do well in future to confine his labors to the agricultural interest, leaving "European Life and Manners" to be discussed by those younger tourists whose "In addition to these transient lovers, who were but incipient moustaches change color on the Rhine. birds of passage, winging their way, in an incredibly short Mr. Colman's Letters fill 752 pages. We think all that space of time, from the torrid to the frigid zone, there was is contained in them with direct reference to European in the village a domestic and resident adorer, whose Life and Manners" might have been set forth in 150 pages. love for himself, for Miss Vaughan, and for the beautiful, This unnecessary bulk has resulted from the incorporation bad transformed his name from Hiram A. Hawkins to of letters which are mere duplicates of each other, descripH. Adolphus Hawkins. He was a dealer in English lin- tive of the same events, the same scenery, the same social ens and carpets;-a profession which of itself fills the mind peculiarities. Again, we have now and then letters which with ideas of domestic comfort. His waistcoats were made really do not refer in the reinotest degree to Europe, such like Lord Melbourne's in the illustrated English papers, as letters of condolence to friends in affliction, or playful and his shiny hair went off to the left in a superb sweep, messages to his grandchildren at hoine, or long dissertations like the band-rail of a banister. He wore many rings on of an ethical nature, exhibiting our author as the most his fingers, and several breast-pins and gold-chains dispo- amiable of sexegenarians, but certainly quite out of place sed about his person. On all his bland physiognomy was when paraded before the public. It is proper, however, that stamped, as on some of his linens, Soft finish for family we should visit the blame of their publication on the right use. Everything about him spoke the lady's man. He heads, the recipients of the Letters, without whose kind was, in fact, a perfect ring-dove; and, like the rest of his instigation they would probably have never seen the light. species, always walked up to the female, and, bowing his Our author himself apologizes in becoming terms in the bead, swelled out his white crop, and uttered a very plaint-Preface for these passages, which, while they have impressed us with a high respect for his character, we think to have been most needlessly introduced. ive murmur. "Moreover, Mr. Hiram Adolphus Hawkins was a poet,— 80 much a poet, that, as his sister frequently remarked, he During Mr. Colman's residence in Europe, a period of 'spoke blank verse in the bosom of his family.' The genabout five years, he seems to have been most industriously eral tone of his productions was sad, desponding, perhaps engaged in observing the improvements in agriculture and slightly morbid. How could it be otherwise with the writings the modes of tillage peculiar to various parts of Great Briof one who had never been the world's friend, nor the world tain and the Continent. Of all this he has already informhis? who looked upon himself as a 'pyramid of mind on ed the public in several excellent treatises of an agricultuthe dark desert of despair? and who, at the age of twenty- ral kind. In England his pursuits brought him in fortunate five, had drank the bitter draught of life to the dregs, and contact with a goodly number of "Dukes, Marquises, dashed the goblet down? His productions were published Earls, Viscounts and Barons," whose hospitality was very in the Poet's Corner of the Fairmeadow Advertiser; and freely extended and whose dinners have been celebrated in it was a relief to know, that, in private life, as his sister the simple prose of Mr. Colman's correspondence with remarked, he was 'by no means the censorious and moody more than the glow of the Georgics. Indeed our author person some of his writings might imply."" would appear to coincide with Sidney Smith that "an excellent and well-arranged dinner is a most pleasing occur Mr. Hawkins, we are told, died at an early age. This 'rence, and a great triumph of civilized life." For before he had been in London a calendar month, on the occasion of is put upon the table a small bottle of Constantia wine, his first visit to that metropolis, he writes, which is deemed very precious, and handed round in small wine glasses, or noyeau, or some other cordial. Finger "I have dined with Mr. Dickens; a most agreeable din-glasses are always furnished, though in some cases I have ner with Mrs. Read; a dinner as agreeable with Mr. Tes-seen a deep silver plate filled with rose-water presented to chemacher; and with Lord Ashburton, with a party of gen-each guest, in which he dips the corner of his napkin, to tlemen and ladies." wipe his lips or his fingers. No cigars or pipes are ever offered, and soon after the removal of the cloth, the ladies But he does not confine himself to dinners, for in the retire to the drawing-room, the gentlemen close up at the same paragraph he says, table, and after sitting as long as you please, you go into "I have drank tea with Mr. Carlyle in a most pleasant the drawing-room to have coffee and then tea.” manner," and a few days after he informs us Immediately after this we are told, with good reason certainly, that "the style of living is elegant and luxurious," and lest we should think the opportunities for observation which he has already mentioned are not sufficient, he adds, "I dined in company one week seven times," a feat which we venture to say has never been surpassed by the most accomplished diner-out since the days of Brummell the mag nificent. But while so many "good things" conspired to render "I was at a splendid breakfast at Mr. Pusey's M. P. with a 'topping off' with delicious strawberries and grapes." But the greatest achievements in gastronomy were yet in store for him, and he very soon left London for a campaign in the country, where he continued to fare sumptuously every day. First he visits Althorpe, where Earl Spencer dazzles him with gold and silver plate, having beforehand our author's country excursion pleasurable, there were two shown him the cattle of a goodly pasturage and the Library continually recurring sources of disquietude and alarm, bewhich Dibdin has celebrated. But neither the vellums nor tween which his peace of mind seems really to have been the veals so won the heart of our author as the elegance greatly disturbed. First, there were agricultural dinners of the dinner-table. From Althorpe he goes to Chatsworth at which he was always expected to speak, and second, and finds the Duke of Devonshire's cuisine in no way inferior. Afterwards he visits Lambton Castle and Goodwood, (where he greatly admires the porcelain of Sevres, from which they sip their post-prandial coffee,) and Welbeck Hall and Woburn Abbey, and castles and halls and abbeys without number to which we cannot refer. In every case, however, the dinner is described at length with the most grateful satisfaction. To do justice to Mr. Colman's powers of description in this particular, let us draw upon his pages for an account of the English dinner. The passage is valuable for its hints on Etiquette; there were meetings of the fox-hounds at which he was always expected to ride. And it would seem that frightful visions of flying over five-bar gates on a mettlesome steed and being on his legs for a speech before a thousand wellfed farmers, did so trouble the slumbers of our author (who had never ventured upon such dangerous experiments at home, in Salem, Massachusetts,) that he was compelled in a measure to give up the dinners and forego the for-hunts. On one occasion, however, he joined the hunters “on condition that he should leap no fences" and was manfully in at the death. And this occasion presents the author in his best point of view, in displaying the native goodness of bas heart, for he laments the cruelty of the sport and afterwards tells us that the head of the fox, which he sent to a youthful friend in Boston, “quite startled him" to see "his glaring eyes looking me out of countenance at the tea-table," Uncle Toby himself could not have been more merciful. Indeed this unaffected kindliness speaks out everywhere, and he cannot allude to the successes of our arms in the Mexican War, which occurred while he was abroad, with any satisfaction. Like the worthy member of the Peace Soci ety who harangued the good people of Kindercumfalty, he prays for the extinction of all tumults and battles—that the American as well as "At dinner, you are always expected to be in full dress; straight coat, black satin, or white waistcoat, silk stock ings and pumps, but not gloves; and if you dine abroad in London, you keep your hat in your band until you go in to dinner, when you give it to a servant, or leave it in an antiroom. (Query, ante-room?) The Lady of the house generally claims the arm of the principal stranger, or the gentleman of the highest rank; she then assigns the other ladies and gentlemen by name, and commonly waits until all her guests precede her into dinner, though this is not invariable. The gentleman is expected to sit near the lady whom he hands in. Grace is almost always said by the master, and it is done in the shortest possible way. Sometimes no dishes are put upon the table until the soup is done with, but at other times there are two covers besides the soup. The soup is various; in Scotland it is usually what they call hodge-podge, a mixture of vegetables with some meat. After soup, the fish cover is removed, and this is commonly served round without any vegetables, but certainly not more than one kind. After fish, come the plain joints, roast or boiled, with potatoes, peas or beans, and Cauliflowers. Then sherry wine is handed by the servant to We regret that his objections to the War, like those of lite every one. German wine is offered to those who prefer it; Peterkin in the the ballad, are not confined to the general this is always drank in green glasses; then come the en- proposition of its inhumanity, for he deprecates it the more trées, which are a variety of French dishes, and hashes; especially as its design was (as he says) "to extend slavethen champagne is offered; after this remove, come ducks. ry." Now for slavery Mr. Colman seems to feel a gent or partridges, or other game; after this the bon bons, pud-ine Salem abhorrence, for he classes it with Repudia dings, tarts, sweetmeats, blanc mange; then cheese and among the dark spots on the American character, and whe bread, and a glass of strong ale is handed round; then the Garrison, Wright and the runaway negro, Frederick Doug removal of the upper cloth, and oftentimes the most deli- lass, visit London, he hails with pleasure the arrival of cious fruits and confectionary follow, such as grapes, friends." Writing under date of 18th August, 1846 peaches, melons, apples, dried fruits, &c., &c. After this after describing a performance of Rachel, Mr. Colman sty, "The Turk and the Russian, Their neighbour's long noses." "Last evening I had a different entertainment. I saw advertised a meeting of an anti-slavery league, and that Garrison, Wright, and Douglass, &c., were to hold forth. I thought I should like to hear some familiar and accustomed voices and to shake hands with some old friends. The meeting was well attended. Mrs. Bailey, a good friend, where I dined at five, (still dining and in bad grammar too!) wish-tian community. After this sight, I went to church, and with what heart I leave you to conjecture-and here [ en to go with me, and we did not leave the meeting, which was found churches crowded with people full of rancor, breaththen in full blast, until after twelve. I got home about half ing anathemas against those who do not agree with them in past one. of the ancient clans, about church government. What a opinion, and contending with each other with all the fury commentary suggests itself to a reflecting mind! It seemed to me to resemble nothing more than a contention between the Priest and the Levite about sacrifices over the body of a wounded, robbed and bleeding traveller by the wayside. These people, too, will spend thousands and thousands for missions to the Heathens, many of whom are really more of Christians than they are themselves, and neglect their poor, suffering brethren, wallowing in wretchedness, and destitution, and vice, at their own doors!" Of a part of Edinburgh, Mr. Colman writes"The street crowded with people, bare-headed and bare-footed, exhibited an assemblage of thousands of miserable, starving, drunken, ignorant, dissolute, poor, forlorn, wretched beings, in the midst of what is called a Chris " Douglass rivals Matthews in his powers of imitation; (credat Judeus!) he was exceedingly entertaining, and was received and heard with a tempest of applause continually bursting about his ears. Wright was very caustic. (Hear this, ob good subscribers on the Pedee and the Apalachicola and be thereat greatly distressed!) Garrison, whom I beleve to be honest and disinterested, and certainly to be admired for his consistency and perseverance, was violent and virulent beyond precedent." After learning that Mr. Colman was "entertained" with this remarkable demonstration of "black spirits and white," we are sorry to be informed that "The Speeches were a continued attack upon the United States and some Presbyterian clergymen, who have come bere to attend the Evangelical Alliance, the object of which is to put down popery." Our author confesses that this was not "altogether to his taste" from which we may infer that he was not greatly of fended by it. Now we do not know how much human nature can stand, but we should have thought that to hear a slanderous and sudatory negro, in a crowded hall, pouring out abuse of America, to an English audience, would have been too much for the olfactories and the temper of even a New England philanthropist. But not so. For he observes in this connection, doing violence at once to our feelings as a slaveholder and an admirer of Lindley Murray, "I cannot say that a fugitive slave, knowing by his own experience the miseries of the condition, and again a man, hase not the right to be plain spoken, denunciatory and se vere." In another place, however, to his credit be it said, he admits that "the miseries of the condition" are not comparable with the sufferings of another class of persons, whom the sympathising English abolitionists might well assist, before affiliating with Garrison & Co. "The condition of a large portion of the Irish people," says he, “involves an amount of destitution and wretchedness which admits of no description, and in comparison with which, the physical condition of the Southern slaves is almost a condition of felicity." * "My companions have been most agreeable; but a Bostonian myself, yet I cannot help being amused, as I confess I have been for years, with the prejudices of my townsmen. They think always that Boston was made in the morning, while the materials were fresh, and before they had been culled for any other places. It takes a long time to make any breach in this wall of prejudice, and with them every thing is measured by this standard. It requires, in many cases, not a little time to satisfy such persons that other countries have their advantages, other people their virtues, and other cities their beauties, and to pick our way out of the shell, from which, at best, we emerge only half fledged." Of the style of these volumes we need say little. It is as easy and as slipshod as "familiar letters to friends" generally are. We have been somewhat amused at Mr. Colman's surprise in finding himself out of the atmos phere of New England provincialism and hearing certain English words used as they should be. The word "clever" seemed to have been a novelty to him in the sense of “ expert" or "adroit," for in referring to a sprightly lady with whom he became acquainted, he tells us that he was, "in And again of a party of Quakers whom he saw in Dub the English sense of the word, one of the cleverest women" lin he says "The good souls, however, seemed to be sadly afflicted when I told them that in all physical and political comforts, the condition of the American slaves was infinitely better than that of the lower Irish." he knew. But our remarks and extracts must close here or our readers will be likely to urge the same objection to our critical notice as we did in the outset to the volumes themselves. The work is for sale by Messrs. J. W. Randolph & Co. In Scotland also Mr. Colman met with destitution enough to occupy the attention of British Charitable Societies for It is to be observed that our author here calls himself a years. The Anti-Slavery Associations might profitably Bostonian, yet as there are frequent passages in which he direct their efforts to the slaves of Edinburgh and Dundee. refers to Salem as the place of his domicil, we presume We heartily agree with Mr. Colman that there is little of that he regards Salem as but a suburb of Boston, as Little true religion in those wrangling fanatics who talk of "Free Pedlington is of London. We have seen persons who conChurch," while their fellow-beings are starving all around sidered Plymouth Rock as to all intents and purposes a them.. part of Boston. |