a

ter Scott brushed the dew-drops from reader, are yet what produce the the heather of his own dear Scot- grand effect alike upon every mind, land. In her delineations of char. and to the connoisseur are indispu. acter, there is nothing so common- table evidence of a master's hand. place and universal, that it may be That we may not seem to be with equal truth and propriety ap- speaking here “without book," we plied to the dark warrior-brave of shall proceed to give our readers a the Yellowstone and the planter of little specimen of the author's power Georgia, to the foggy self-compla- of description. And although the cence of the citizen of London as extracts must be brief, we can not well as to the turbaned gravity of but think that they will fully support the Persian nobleman. There are what we have said. We commence minute and peculiar touches, which by giving a portion of the sketch enat once and infallibly distinguish the titled “Uncle Tim,” which we are subject in hand from each and every inclined to regard as the best tale in other. In wandering through our the volume. The scene purports to author's gallery of pictures, we find be laid in a certain town bearing the large and small ones, landscapes and by no means uncommon or classical portraits ; but we recognize in all name “ Newbury.” This town and alike the hand of a master. We one of the chief personages of the remember to have seen a large pic. story are thus introduced. ture by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in which, through a window shown Newbury, in New England ? I dare say

“ Did you ever see the little village of at one extremity of the canvass, you never did : for it was just one of those was seen something resembling a out-of-the-way places where nobody ever globe in form, and apparently made

campe unless they came on purpose : a up of all the various colors of green little hollow, wedged like a bird's

nest between balf a dozen high hills that the pallet thrown together in an in- kept off the wind and kept out foreigners : discriminate mass. In our general so that the little place was as strailly sui examination of the piece at first, we

generis' as if there were not another in

the world. The inhabitants were all of did not observe this, and it was not

that respectable old standfast family who until we gave the whole a more mi- make it a point to be born, bred, married, nute scrutiny, that our attention was

die, and be buried, all in the self-same spot.

There were just so many houses, and just arrested by what seemed to us a

so many people lived in them, and nobo. thing having no relation to the sub- dy ever seemed to be sick, or to die eiject or the artistic effect of the pic. ther—at least while I was there. The ture. Nor could we divine the ob

natives grew old till they could not grow ject for which this globe of color any older, and then they stood still, and

lasted from generation to generation. was introduced into a portrait. In There was, too, an unchangeability about answer to our queries upon the point, all the externals of Newbury. Here was however, we were told by a profes, and across the way was a yellow house;

a red house, and there was a brown bouse, sor of the brush, that it was designed and there was a straggling rail-fence or a to produce a proper effect. The pe. tribe of mullen-stalks between. The parrusal of the various sketches which son lived here, and Squire Moses lived

there, and Deacon Hart lived under the the volume under up

hill, and Messrs. Nadab and Abibu Peters our notice at the present time, has lived by the cross-road, and the old " widreminded us of this picture by the der” Smith lived by the meeting-house, great English artist, and we see scat- and Ebenezer Camp kept a shoemaker's tered along in each, little, and to kept a milliner's shop in front : and there

shop on one side, and Patience Mosely many readers, perhaps, unnoticed was old Comfort Scran, who kept store thoughts and sentences, which, like for the whole town, and sold axe-heads, so many of Sir Thomas Lawrence's brass thimbles, liquorice-ball, fancy hand globes of color, though they may think of.

kerchiefs, and every thing else you can

Here, too, was the general not arrest the attention of the casual post-office, where you might see letters

go to make

marvelously folded, directed wrong side ing corn; made poetry and hoe-handles upwards, stamped with a thimble, and su- with equal celerity; wound yarn and took perscribed to some of the Dollys, or Pol. out grease-spots for old ladies, and made lys, or Peters, or Moseses, aforenamed or nosegays and knickknacks for young not named.

ones; caught trout Saturday afternoons “For the rest, as to manners, morals, and discussed doctrines on Sundays, with arts, and sciences, the people of Newbury equal adroitness and effect. In short, Mr. always went to their parties at three James moved on through the place o'clock in the afternoon, and came home

" Victorious before dark; always stopped all work the minute the sun was down on Saturday welcomed and privileged by every body

Happy and glorious," night; always went to meeting on Sunday; had a school-house with all the or.

in every place; and when he had told his dinary inconveniences; were in neigh- last ghost-story, and fairly Aourished bimborly charity with each other; read their

self out of doors at the close of a long winbibles, feared their God, and were content

ter's evening, you might see the hard face with such things as they had the best

of the good man of the house still phospbilosophy after all. Such was the place phorescent with his departing radiance, into which Master James Benton made an

and hear him exclaim, in a paroxysm of irruption in the year eighteen hundred

admiration, that “ Jemes's talk re'ely did and no matter what."

beat all that he was sartinly most a mi

raculous cre'tur ?" This James Benton is the hero of the tale, and we give the following

Uncle Tim, who is a no less importion of our author's description portant personage in this drama than of him, premising that the aforesaid through the medium of the following

Jemes' himself, is brought to view James is at this time eighteen years description of his dwelling, p. 173. old. “ He figured as schoolmaster all the

“Do you see yonder brown house, with

its broad roof sloping almost to the ground week, and as chorister on Sundays, and

on one side, and a great, unsupported, taught singing and reading in the eve.

sun-bonnet of a piazza shooting out over nings, besides studying Latin and Greek

the front door? You must often have nowith the minister, nobody knew when;

ticed it: you have seen its tall well. thus fitting for college, while he seemed to be doing every thing else in the world sky, or observed the feather beds and bol

sweep, relieved against the clear evening besides."

sters lounging out of its chamber-winThe sagacity with which our hero

dows on a still summer morning : you proceeded to get, as it is termed, and a great stone; its pantry-window, lat

recollect its gate, that swung with

a chain on the right side" of those around ticed with little brown slabs, and looking him, and for which the sons of New out upon a forest of bean-poles. You reEngland have ever been proverbial, member the zephyrs that used to play is thus happily hit off.

among its pea-brush, and shake the long

tassels of its corn-patch, and how vainly “ James understood every art and craft any zephyr might essay to perform similar of popularity, and made himself mightily

Airtations with the considerate cabbages at home in all the chimney.corners of the

that were solemnly vegetating near by: region round about; knew the geography Then there was the whole neighborhood of every body’s cider-barrel and apple- of purple-leaved beets and feathery parsbin, helping himself and every body else nips ; ihere were the billows of gooseberry therefrom with all bountifulness ; rejoi- bushes rolled up by the fence, interspersed cing in the good things of this life, devour. with rows of quince-trees; and far off in ing the old ladies' doughnuts and pump;

one corner was one little patch penuri. kin pies with most flattering appetite, and ously devoted to ornament, which famed appearing equally to relish every body

with marigolds, poppies, snappers, and and every thing that came in his way.”

four o'clocks. Then there was a litle

box by itself with one rose geranium in it, The Yankee's capability of turn- which seemed to look around the garden ing his hand” to any and every thing, as much like a stranger as a French danis no less happily exhibited in the cing-master in a Yankee meeting house. following.

That is the dwelling of Uncle Timothy

Griswold.” “The degree and versatility of his ac

Here is the hand of a master. quirements was truly wonderful. He knew all about arithmetic and history, Never did Reynolds himself better and all about catching squirrels and plant- conceal his art; never was he more

We can

true to life. Never did the most “Feeling," “ The Sempstress," and

, perfect master of the pencil or the « Old Father Morris,” the venerabrush, mirror in his canvass the ble village pastor. From all these, face of nature, as exhibited in some we could, were there sufficient space lovely landscape, with more exact- in these columns, select passages ness and perfection, than our author which would be instructive and inhas done in this brief sketch of teresting in a very high degree; a the domicil of Uncle Tim. There praise which could hardly be exstands the old brown house, and tended to any book of this kind did we dabble in the coloring art, that we have ever met. we could give each weather-beaten not resist however the temptation to clapboard its proper hue. There clip a portion from “ The Sabbath,” too is the long well-sweep, ready because it is at the same time a at all times to swing upon the beautiful picture of the Puritan Sabcrotched stump which supports it. bath, and exhibits in the different And there are the “ considerate cab- conduct of the old people and chilbages,” the bread and meat of our dren on this holy day-in the grayneighbors, whom Diedrich Knick. ity and awful solemnity of the one, erbocker has taken into his special and the suppressed yet often outcare and custody. There too is breaking frolicksomeness of the the pantry window, barred across otherm that contrast of the solemn with old pickets, presenting a for

and the ludicrous which is to be midable obstacle to all milk-loving found, by the accurate observer, in grimalkins. And—but what can almost every scene of life. we add to the original picture. So

“ The Sabbath of the Puritan Chrisgraphic, so complete is it, that when we had finished reading it for the ciations, and all its thoughts, words, and

tian was the golden day, and all its assofirst time, we could not, on looking deeds, were so entirely distinct from the back to the commencement and ordinary material of life, that it was to finding it but a page distant, bring ting of this world to sojourn a day in a

bim a sort of weekly translation—a quitourselves to believe that we had better; and year after year, as each Sabfound so much in a single page. bath set its seal on the completed labors

We hardly know where or when of the week, the pilgrim felt that one to stop making extracts from this

more stage of his earthly journey was

completed, and that he was one week little book. We could wish to take nearer to his eternal rest.

And as years, our readers through the first tale with their changes, came on, and the in the volume, which is entitled strong man grew old, and missed, one

after another, familiar forms that had “ Love vs. Law," and which die

risen around his earlier years, the face of vides the palm of merit with “ Un- the Sabbath became like that of an old cle Tim.” Then there is a beauti. and tried friend, carrying him back to the ful exhibition of the value of un

scenes of his youth, and connecting him

with scenes long gone by, restoring 10 expected kindness, in the piece him the dew and freshness of brighter headed “ The Tea Rose.” Then and more buoyant days. Viewed simply come “ Trials of a Housekeeper,”

as an institution for a Christian and mawhich

ture mind, nothing could be more perfect every one about “to set up

than the Puritan Sabbath; if it had any housekeeping,” as the phrase goes, failing, it was in the want of adaptation ought to read and reflect upon. to children, and to those not interested There too is, “ Let every man mind in its peculiar duties. If you had been his own business,” which shows

in the dwelling of my uncle of a Sab

bath morning, you must have found the that minding a man's own busi- unbroken stillness, delightful; the calm ness, consists partly in minding the and quiet must have soothed and dispobusiness of others. Then follows sed you for contemplation, and the evi.

dent " Cousin William," ,” “ Aunt Mary," tion to the duties of the day in the elder

appearance of single-hearted devo“ The Sabbath,

,” “The Canal Boat," part of the family, must have been a striVol. I.

71

king addition to the picture. But, then, would be some sudden explosion of merif your eye had watched attentively the piment, whereat Uncle Phineas would motions of us juveniles, you might have look up and say, “tut, tut," and Aunt seen that what was so very invigorating Kezzy would make a speech about wickto the disciplined Christian, was a wea- ed children breaking the Sabbath-day. riness to young flesh and bones. Then I remember once how my cousin Bill there was not, as now, the intellectual got into deep disgrace one Sunday by a relaxation afforded by the Sunday school, roguish trick. He was just about to with its various forms of religious exer- close his Bible with all sobriety, when cise, its thousand modes of interesting snap came a grasshopper through an open and useful information. Our whole stock window and alighied in the middle of in this line was the Bible and Primer, the page. Bill instantly kidnapped the and these were our main dependence for intruder, for so important an auxiliary in whiling away the tedious hours between the way of employment was not to be our early breakfast and the signal for despised. Presently we children looked meeting. How often was our invention towards Bill, and there he sat, very destretched to find wherewithal to keep murely reading his Bible, with the grassúp our stock of excitement in a line with hopper hanging by one leg from the core the duties of the day. For the first half ner of his mouth, kicking and sprawling, hour, perhaps, a story in the Bible an- without in the least disturbing Master swered our purpose very well; but, hav- William's gravity. We all burst into an ing despatched the history of Joseph, or uproarious laugh. But it came to be the story of the ten plagues, we then rather a serious affair for Bill, as his good took to ihe Primer : and then there was, father was in the practice of enforcing first, the looking over the system of the- truth and duty by certain modes of moral ological and ethical truth, commencing, suasion much recommended by Solomon, “ In Adam's fall we sinned all," and ex. though fallen into disrepute at the present tending through three or four pages of day. pictorial and poetic embellishment. "Next “ But, it may be asked, what was the was the death of John Rogers, who was result of all this strictness ? Did it not burned at Smithfield; and for a while disgust you with the Sabbath and with we could entertain ourselves with count- religion ? No, it did not. It did not, ing all his “ nine children and one at because it was the result of no unkindly the breast," as in the picture they stand feeling, but of consistent principle; and in a regular row, like a pair of stairs. consistency of principle is what even chil. These being done, came miscellaneous dren learn to appreciate and revere. The exercises of our own invention, such as law of obedience and of reverence for the counting all the psalms in the psalm- Sabbath was constraining so equally on book, backwark and forward, to and from the young and the old, that its claims the doxology, or numbering the books came to be regarded like those immutain the Bible, or some other such device ble laws of nature, which no one thinks as we deemed within the pale of reli- of being out of patience with, though gious employments. When all these they sometimes bear hard on personal failed, and it still wanted an hour of convenience. The effect of the system meeting-time, we looked up at the ceil. was to ingrain into our character a 'veneing, and down at the floor, and all ration for the Sabbath, which no friction around into every corner, to see what of after life would ever efface. I have we could do next; and happy was he lived to wander in many climates and who could spy a pin gleaming in some foreign lands, where the Sabbath is an distant crack, and forthwith muster an unknown name, or where it is only reoccasion for getting down to pick it up. cognized by noisy mirth; but never has Then there was the infallible recollec. the day returned without bringing with tion that we wanted a drink of water, as it a breathing of religious awe, and even an excuse to get out to the well; or else a yearning for the unbroken stillness, the we heard some strange noise among the placid repose, and the simple devotion of chickens, and insisted that it was essen- The Puritan Sabbath." tial that we should see what was the matter; or else pussy would jump on to

With the tribute to New Eng. the table, when all of us would spring land, which constitutes the exorto drive her down; while there was a

dium of “Uncle Tim," and which most assiduous watching of the clock to see when the first bell would ring. Hap is worthy of the story, the author, py was it for us, in the interim, if we and of the New England character, did not begin to look at each other and and we have done. make up faces, or slyly slip off and on our shoes, or some other incipient at- “ And 50 I am to write a story—but tempts at roguery, which would gradu- of what and where ? Shall it be radiant ally so undermine our gravity, that there with the sky of Italy, or eloquent with

the beau ideal of Greece ? Shall it breathe the tragic look of death. Nor would odor and languor from the orient, or chiv.

we induce readers to seek their in. alry from the occident? or gayety from France, or vigor from England ? No, no; tellectual food or recreation in such these are too old-too romance-like-too exhibitions. There are other kinds obviously picturesque for me. No ; let of dramatic writing, besides that me turn to my own land-my own New which the “legitimate drama” afEngland; the land of bright fires and strong hearts; the land of deeds and not fords. There are other things to of words; the land of fruits and not of interest and instruct us, besides the flowers; the land often spoken against, immediate exhibition of the pas. yet always respected; the latchet of sions of mankind. There may be a whose shoes the nations of the earth are not worthy to unloose.'”

combination of the dramatic with the

narrative, a combination too rarely Another excellence of Mrs. Stowe's found, too unfrequently sought. It volume, is to be seen in its dramatic is this combination of the two which power.

we would have both the writer and To be able to bring before the the reader seek. It is, we believe, sight of the mind, as existing reali. attributable to the want of the draties, or moving, breathing persons, matic element in our histories, biog. the things or beings in the descrip-raphies, and moral or literary distion of which we are engaged, man. quisitions, that these are forsaken ifests to the critical eye an order for the romance ; that the volumes of mental power, which deservedly of Bulwer and Ainsworth are dogcommands respect and admiration. eared and thumb-worn, while the The youthful and uncritical reader worthier works of worthier men, too, is always more interested and stand on the shelves of the book. pleased by such writing than by seller or the public library-like mere dry narration, although he the conscience of a certain man, may be unable to distinguish the as good as new, and for the same particular point wherein the excel. reason, namely, that they have lence lies. The distinction between never been used. We will here narrative and dramatic composition, advert to a writer of the dramatic we believe is too generally over sort, and as an instance only, withlooked-in thought, that is—for in out wishing to give any opinion as the effect upon the reader, the two to the value of his works in other can never be confounded together. respects, for this would be aside He who would by his productions from our present purpose. Such a as an author, endeavor to leave a writer, pre-eminently, was Sir Wallasting impression upon those forter Scott

, the watchful guardian of whom he writes, must aim to bring Dryburgh and Melrose, the histobefore their minds living forms, rian of Flodden and the crusades, not painted pictures, or the paste. the biographer of James, of Cromboard figures of the toy-shop. And well and the Puritans, the landscape he who would so read as to make painter of old Scotia's lofty moun. his soul a perennial fountain of feel. tains, placid lochs, ruined abbeys, ing and thought, let him peruse au- and heather.covered hills. Beneath thors who have been able to place the touches of his magic pen, the themselves amid the scenes which gentle maiden, the high-souled girl they have depicted, and to inhabit of Jewish blood, the rough, yet nothe very flesh and bones of those ble-hearted daughter of the dark whose characters they have por. clan-leaders of the north, the swine trayed. We would not however herd, the stately queen of Eng. have the writer worship the drama land's realms, the cowl-clad monk, only as seen clad in the sock and the long-robed priest, the mailed buskin, and pacing the stage with warrior, the turbaned Saracen, or