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ter Scott brushed the dew-drops from the heather of his own dear Scotland. In her delineations of character, there is nothing so commonplace and universal, that it may with equal truth and propriety applied to the dark warrior-brave of the Yellowstone and the planter of Georgia, to the foggy self-complacence of the citizen of London as well as to the turbaned gravity of the Persian nobleman. There are minute and peculiar touches, which at once and infallibly distinguish the subject in hand from each and every other. In wandering through our author's gallery of pictures, we find large and small ones, landscapes and portraits; but we recognize in all alike the hand of a master. We remember to have seen a large pic ture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in which, through a window shown at one extremity of the canvass, was seen something resembling a globe in form, and apparently made up of all the various colors of the pallet thrown together in an indiscriminate mass. In our general examination of the piece at first, we did not observe this, and it was not until we gave the whole a more minute scrutiny, that our attention was arrested by what seemed to us a thing having no relation to the subject or the artistic effect of the picture. Nor could we divine the object for which this globe of color was introduced into a portrait. In answer to our queries upon the point, however, we were told by a profes sor of the brush, that it was designed to produce a proper effect. The perusal of the various sketches which go to make up the volume under our notice at the present time, has reminded us of this picture by the great English artist, and we see scattered along in each, little, and to many readers, perhaps, unnoticed thoughts and sentences, which, like so many of Sir Thomas Lawrence's globes of color, though they may not arrest the attention of the casual

reader, are yet what produce the grand effect alike upon every mind, and to the connoisseur are indispu table evidence of a master's hand.

That we may not seem to be speaking here "without book," we shall proceed to give our readers a little specimen of the author's power of description. And although the extracts must be brief, we can not but think that they will fully support what we have said. We commence by giving a portion of the sketch entitled "Uncle Tim," which we are inclined to regard as the best tale in the volume. The scene purports to be laid in a certain town bearing the by no means uncommon or classical name "Newbury." This town and one of the chief personages of the story are thus introduced.

:

"Did you ever see the little village of Newbury, in New England? I dare say you never did for it was just one of those out-of-the-way places where nobody ever came unless they came on purpose: a green little hollow, wedged like a bird's

nest between half a dozen high hills that kept off the wind and kept out foreigners: so that the little place was as straitly sui generis' as if there were not another in the world. The inhabitants were all of that respectable old standfast family who make it a point to be born, bred, married, die, and be buried, all in the self-same spot. There were just so many houses, and just so many people lived in them, and nobody ever seemed to be sick, or to die either-at least while I was there. The natives grew old till they could not grow any older, and then they stood still, and lasted from generation to generation. There was, too, an unchangeability about all the externals of Newbury. Here was and across the way was a yellow house; a red house, and there was a brown house, and there was a straggling rail-fence or a tribe of mullen-stalks between. The parson lived here, and Squire Moses lived there, and Deacon Hart lived under the hill, and Messrs. Nadab and Abihu Peters lived by the cross-road, and the old "widder" Smith lived by the meeting-house, and Ebenezer Camp kept a shoemaker's shop on one side, and Patience Mosely kept a milliner's shop in front: and there was old Comfort Scran, who kept store for the whole town, and sold axe-heads, brass thimbles, liquorice-ball, fancy handkerchiefs, and every thing else you can think of. Here, too, was the general post-office, where you might see letters

marvelously folded, directed wrong side upwards, stamped with a thimble, and superscribed to some of the Dollys, or Pollys, or Peters, or Moseses, aforenamed or not named.

"For the rest, as to manners, morals, arts, and sciences, the people of Newbury always went to their parties at three o'clock in the afternoon, and came home before dark; always stopped all work the minute the sun was down on Saturday night; always went to meeting on Sunday; had a school-house with all the ordinary inconveniences; were in neighborly charity with each other; read their bibles, feared their God, and were content with such things as they had-the best philosophy after all. Such was the place

into which Master James Benton made an irruption in the year eighteen hundred and no matter what."

This James Benton is the hero of the tale, and we give the following portion of our author's description of him, premising that the aforesaid James is at this time eighteen years

old.

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The sagacity with which our hero proceeded to get, as it is termed, "on the right side" of those around him, and for which the sons of New England have ever been proverbial, is thus happily hit off.

"James understood every art and craft of popularity, and made himself mightily at home in all the chimney-corners of the region round about; knew the geography of every body's cider-barrel and applebin, helping himself and every body else therefrom with all bountifulness; rejoicing in the good things of this life, devouring the old ladies' doughnuts and pumpkin pies with most flattering appetite, and appearing equally to relish every body and every thing that came in his way."

The Yankee's capability of " turning his hand" to any and every thing, is no less happily exhibited in the following.

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ing corn; made poetry and hoe-handles with equal celerity; wound yarn and took out grease-spots for old ladies, and made nosegays and knickknacks for young ones; caught trout Saturday afternoons and discussed doctrines on Sundays, with equal adroitness and effect. In short, Mr. James moved on through the place

"Victorious

Happy and glorious," welcomed and privileged by every body in every place; and when he had told his last ghost-story, and fairly flourished himself out of doors at the close of a long winter's evening, you might see the hard face of the good man of the house still phosand hear him exclaim, in a paroxysm of phorescent with his departing radiance, admiration, that "Jemes's talk re'ely did beat all-that he was sartinly most a miraculous cre'tur ?"

Uncle Tim, who is a no less important personage in this drama than through the medium of the following Jemes' himself, is brought to view description of his dwelling, p. 173.

"Do you see yonder brown house, with its broad roof sloping almost to the ground on one side, and a great, unsupported, sun-bonnet of a piazza shooting out over the front door? You must often have noticed it: you have seen its tall wellsweep, relieved against the clear evening sky, or observed the feather beds and bolsters lounging out of its chamber-windows on a still summer morning: you recollect its gate, that swung with a chain and a great stone; its pantry-window, latticed with little brown slabs, and looking out upon a forest of bean-poles. You remember the zephyrs that used to play among its pea-brush, and shake the long tassels of its corn-patch, and how vainly any zephyr might essay to perform similar flirtations with the considerate cabbages that were solemnly vegetating near by. Then there was the whole neighborhood of purple-leaved beets and feathery parsnips; there were the billows of gooseberry bushes rolled up by the fence, interspersed with rows of quince-trees; and far off in one corner was one little patch penuriously devoted to ornament, which flamed with marigolds, poppies, snappers, and four o'clocks. Then there was a little box by itself with one rose geranium in it, which seemed to look around the garden as much like a stranger as a French dancing-master in a Yankee meeting-house. That is the dwelling of Uncle Timothy Griswold."

Here is the hand of a master. Never did Reynolds himself better conceal his art; never was he more

true to life. Never did the most perfect master of the pencil or the brush, mirror in his canvass the face of nature, as exhibited in some lovely landscape, with more exact ness and perfection, than our author has done in this brief sketch of the domicil of Uncle Tim. There stands the old brown house, and did we dabble in the coloring art, we could give each weather-beaten clapboard its proper hue. There too is the long well-sweep, ready at all times to swing upon the crotched stump which supports it. And there are the "considerate cabbages," the bread and meat of our neighbors, whom Diedrich Knickerbocker has taken into his special care and custody. There too is the pantry window, barred across with old pickets, presenting a formidable obstacle to all milk-loving grimalkins. And-but what can we add to the original picture. So graphic, so complete is it, that when we had finished reading it for the first time, we could not, on looking back to the commencement and finding it but a page distant, bring ourselves to believe that we had found so much in a single page.

We hardly know where or when to stop making extracts from this

come

little book. We could wish to take our readers through the first tale in the volume, which is entitled "Love vs. Law," and which divides the palm of merit with "Uncle Tim." Then there is a beautiful exhibition of the value of unexpected kindness, in the piece headed "The Tea Rose." Then "Trials of a Housekeeper," which every one about "to set up housekeeping," as the phrase goes, ought to read and reflect upon. There too is, "Let every man mind his own business," which shows that minding a man's own business, consists partly in minding the business of others. Then follows "Cousin William," "Aunt Mary," "The Sabbath,' ""The Canal Boat," Vol. I.

71

"Feeling," "The Sempstress," and "Old Father Morris," the venerable village pastor. From all these, we could, were there sufficient space in these columns, select passages which would be instructive and interesting in a very high degree; a praise which could hardly be extended to any book of this kind that we have ever met. We can not resist however the temptation to clip a portion from "The Sabbath,” because it is at the same time a beautiful picture of the Puritan Sabbath, and exhibits-in the different conduct of the old people and children on this holy day-in the grav. ity and awful solemnity of the one, and the suppressed yet often outbreaking frolicksomeness of the other that contrast of the solemn and the ludicrous which is to be found, by the accurate observer, in almost every scene of life.

"The Sabbath of the Puritan Christian was the golden day, and all its associations, and all its thoughts, words, and deeds, were so entirely distinct from the ordinary material of life, that it was to ting of this world to sojourn a day in a him a sort of weekly translation-a quitbetter; and year after year, as each Sabbath set its seal on the completed labors of the week, the pilgrim felt that one completed, and that he was one week more stage of his earthly journey was nearer to his eternal rest. And as years, with their changes, came on, and the strong man grew old, and missed, one after another, familiar forms that had risen around his earlier years, the face of the Sabbath became like that of an old and tried friend, carrying him back to the scenes of his youth, and connecting him with scenes fong gone by, restoring to him the dew and freshness of brighter and more buoyant days. Viewed simply as an institution for a Christian and mature mind, nothing could be more perfect than the Puritan Sabbath; if it had any failing, it was in the want of adaptation to children, and to those not interested in its peculiar duties. If you had been in the dwelling of my uncle of a Sabbath morning, you must have found the unbroken stillness, delightful; the calm and quiet must have soothed and disposed you for contemplation, and the evident appearance of single-hearted devotion to the duties of the day in the elder part of the family, must have been a stri

king addition to the picture. But, then, if your eye had watched attentively the motions of us juveniles, you might have seen that what was so very invigorating to the disciplined Christian, was a weariness to young flesh and bones. Then there was not, as now, the intellectual relaxation afforded by the Sunday school, with its various forms of religious exercise, its thousand modes of interesting and useful information. Our whole stock in this line was the Bible and Primer, and these were our main dependence for whiling away the tedious hours between our early breakfast and the signal for meeting. How often was our invention stretched to find wherewithal to keep up our stock of excitement in a line with the duties of the day. For the first half hour, perhaps, a story in the Bible answered our purpose very well; but, having despatched the history of Joseph, or the story of the ten plagues, we then took to the Primer: and then there was, first, the looking over the system of theological and ethical truth, commencing, "In Adam's fall we sinned all," and extending through three or four pages of pictorial and poetic embellishment. Next was the death of John Rogers, who was burned at Smithfield; and for a while we could entertain ourselves with counting all his "nine children and one at the breast," as in the picture they stand in a regular row, like a pair of stairs. These being done, came miscellaneous exercises of our own invention, such as counting all the psalms in the psalmbook, backwark and forward, to and from the doxology, or numbering the books in the Bible, or some other such device as we deemed within the pale of religious employments. When all these failed, and it still wanted an hour of meeting-time, we looked up at the ceiling, and down at the floor, and all around into every corner, to see what we could do next; and happy was he who could spy a pin gleaming in some distant crack, and forthwith muster an occasion for getting down to pick it up. Then there was the infallible recollection that we wanted a drink of water, as an excuse to get out to the well; or else we heard some strange noise among the chickens, and insisted that it was essential that we should see what was the matter; or else pussy would jump on to the table, when all of us would spring to drive her down; while there was a most assiduous watching of the clock to see when the first bell would ring. Hap py was it for us, in the interim, if we did not begin to look at each other and make up faces, or slyly slip off and on our shoes, or some other incipient attempts at roguery, which would gradually so undermine our gravity, that there

would be some sudden explosion of merriment, whereat Uncle Phineas would look up and say, "tut, tut," and Aunt Kezzy would make a speech about wicked children breaking the Sabbath-day. I remember once how my cousin Bill got into deep disgrace one Sunday by a roguish trick. He was just about to close his Bible with all sobriety, when snap came a grasshopper through an open window and alighted in the middle of the page. Bill instantly kidnapped the intruder, for so important an auxiliary in the way of employment was not to be despised. Presently we children looked towards Bill, and there he sat, very demurely reading his Bible, with the grasshopper hanging by one leg from the corner of his mouth, kicking and sprawling, without in the least disturbing Master William's gravity. We all burst into an uproarious laugh. But it came to be rather a serious affair for Bill, as his good father was in the practice of enforcing truth and duty by certain modes of moral suasion much recommended by Solomon, though fallen into disrepute at the present day.

"But, it may be asked, what was the result of all this strictness? Did it not disgust you with the Sabbath and with religion? No, it did not. It did not, because it was the result of no unkindly feeling, but of consistent principle; and consistency of principle is what even chil dren learn to appreciate and revere. The law of obedience and of reverence for the Sabbath was constraining so equally on the young and the old, that its claims came to be regarded like those immutable laws of nature, which no one thinks of being out of patience with, though they sometimes bear hard on personal convenience. The effect of the system was to ingrain into our character a veneration for the Sabbath, which no friction of after life would ever efface. I have lived to wander in many climates and foreign lands, where the Sabbath is an unknown name, or where it is only recognized by noisy mirth; but never has the day returned without bringing with it a breathing of religious awe, and even a yearning for the unbroken stillness, the placid repose, and the simple devotion of the Puritan Sabbath."

With the tribute to New England, which constitutes the exordium of "Uncle Tim," and which is worthy of the story, the author, and of the New England character, and we have done.

"And so I am to write a story-but of what and where? Shall it be radiant with the sky of Italy, or eloquent with

the beau ideal of Greece? Shall it breathe odor and languor from the orient, or chivalry from the occident? or gayety from France, or vigor from England? No, no; these are too old-too romance-like-too obviously picturesque for me. No let me turn to my own land-my own New England; the land of bright fires and

strong hearts; the land of deeds and not of words; the land of fruits and not of flowers; the land often spoken against, yet always respected; the latchet of

whose shoes the nations of the earth are not worthy to unloose.'"

Another excellence of Mrs. Stowe's volume, is to be seen in its dramatic power.

To be able to bring before the sight of the mind, as existing realities, or moving, breathing persons, the things or beings in the description of which we are engaged, man. ifests to the critical eye an order of mental power, which deservedly commands respect and admiration. The youthful and uncritical reader too, is always more interested and pleased by such writing than by mere dry narration, although he may be unable to distinguish the particular point wherein the excel lence lies. The distinction between narrative and dramatic composition, we believe is too generally over. looked-in thought, that is for in the effect upon the reader, the two can never be confounded together. He who would by his productions as an author, endeavor to leave a lasting impression upon those for whom he writes, must aim to bring before their minds living forms, not painted pictures, or the pasteboard figures of the toy-shop. And he who would so read as to make his soul a perennial fountain of feeling and thought, let him peruse authors who have been able to place themselves amid the scenes which they have depicted, and to inhabit the very flesh and bones of those whose characters they have portrayed. We would not however have the writer worship the drama only as seen clad in the sock and buskin, and pacing the stage with

the tragic look of death. Nor would we induce readers to seek their intellectual food or recreation in such exhibitions. There are other kinds of dramatic writing, besides that which the "legitimate drama" affords. There are other things to interest and instruct us, besides the immediate exhibition of the pas sions of mankind. There may be a

combination of the dramatic with the narrative, a combination too rarely found, too unfrequently sought. It is this combination of the two which we would have both the writer and the reader seek. It is, we believe, attributable to the want of the dramatic element in our histories, biographies, and moral or literary disquisitions, that these are forsaken for the romance; that the volumes of Bulwer and Ainsworth are dogeared and thumb-worn, while the worthier works of worthier men, stand on the shelves of the book. seller or the public library-like the conscience of a certain man, as good as new, and for the same reason, namely, that they have never been used. We will here advert to a writer of the dramatic sort, and as an instance only, without wishing to give any opinion as to the value of his works in other respects, for this would be aside from our present purpose. Such a writer, pre-eminently, was Sir Walter Scott, the watchful guardian of Dryburgh and Melrose, the histo rian of Flodden and the crusades, the biographer of James, of Cromwell and the Puritans, the landscape painter of old Scotia's lofty mountains, placid lochs, ruined abbeys, and heather-covered hills. Beneath the touches of his magic pen, the gentle maiden, the high-souled girl of Jewish blood, the rough, yet no ble-hearted daughter of the dark clan-leaders of the north, the swine herd, the stately queen of England's realms, the cowl-clad monk, the long-robed priest, the mailed warrior, the turbaned Saracen, or

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