Charlestown. It has since been traced in blood and fire at the elections in Philadelphia, and Heaven only knows where it is to end.

The display of any inclination on the part of the government to substitute force for law, to compass its ends by coercion and violence rather than by the law and constitution, will invariably lead to popular insurrection and turbulence. "If the time shall arrive," says the report of the committee of Boston citizens on the burning of the Convent, "when popular will shall take the place of law, whether this be by riots and tumults or under the form of judicial proceedings, the grave of our nation's happiness and glory will have been prepared. Life, liberty, and property will be held at the will of malignity, prejudice, and passion; violence will become the common means of selfdefence; and our only refuge from the horrors of anarchy will be under the comparatively peaceable shelter of military despotism."

IV. JAMES SHERIDAN KNOWLES.

THE reputation of Mr. Knowles as a popular dramatist is well established, both in this country and in Great-Britain. His success is an earnest of the return of a purer taste, and leads us to hope that the reign of the harlequins and the men-monkeys will not rise upon the ruins of the legitimate drama. Like most authors of native genius, Mr. Knowles has fashioned his productions after no borrowed model. His style is his own-his sentiments are his own, lofty and unaffected. None of his plays are purely tragic: they are chequered, as all fair representations of human life ever must be, with light and shade, but so relieved as not to present any incongruity in the management of the plot.

Mr. Knowles, we believe, never thought of impersonating before the public the fine conceptions of his fancy until just before the appearance of his well-known play, the Hunchback. The affairs of the Covent Garden Theatre, in London, were, at that time, in a desperate condition. The proprietors had reduced the salaries of the actors one half, and were in arrears to them to a considerable amount. Charles Kemble, the manager, was pacing the green-room with clenched fists, looking ten times more tragical than he ever did upon the stage. Utter bankruptcy seemed inevitable. At this moment, Knowles, with his characteristic generosity, stepped forward and offered to perform in his play himself; "he did not profess to know much about acting, but the novelty of the thing might prove attractive." The proposal was eagerly accepted. The Hunchback was produced, the author taking the part of Master Walter. Its success was decided and overwhelming. Pit and boxes were crowded every night of its presentation, with applauding spectators. The credit of the theatre was retrieved; its coffers were replenished; the actors were paid full salaries, and their long-pending demands at last liquidated. Thus, by the genius of one man, an infinite degree of private distress was averted, and prosperity restored to an establishment, on which some hundred individuals depended for bread. But was Knowles, the actor-bard,-the individual who saved the whole concern from impending ruin,-was he adequately rewarded for his sacrifices and his exertions? A weekly stipend, which one of our hack players would refuse to rant for, was allotted him, and the manager finally

had the impudence to give him this grudgingly. We forbear commenting upon the transaction. Mr. Knowles showed that he did not possess the talent of making a shrewd bargain; Mr. Kemble, that gratitude was not one of his managerial virtues.

Mr. Knowles arrived in this country last September. After performing several nights with eminent success in New-York, he made his appearance on the boards of the Tremont. His reception in this city was enthusiastic, but his audiences were rather select than crowded. His style of acting is chaste, spirited, and effective. His utterance is clear and emphatic, his action expressive and natural. There is much of the hurried energy and the startling colloquial manner of Kean in his performances. We never witnessed acting which was marked by more of the impressiveness of reality, than some parts of his personation of William Tell, particularly the scene with Melcthal, when he learns that Gesler had wantonly put out the old man's eyes. His manner was here that of a man struck speechless with deep horror, appalled with a sense of incredible cruelty and wrong, burning with fierce indignation, fixed in a purpose of terrible vengeance. It was a study for a great painter.

It is gratifying that the merits of Mr. Knowles are recognized and rewarded in this country, whatever may have been the illiberality with which they were recompensed in England. His qualities, as a man of high moral worth, of candor, and magnanimity, are no less remarkable than his talents as an author and actor. We have been told that Mr. Knowles is at present employed upon a new drama, the scene of which is laid in America, and one of the characters of which is an aboriginal inhabitant of our soil. The experiment is a hazardous one, but we cannot doubt of his success.

V. ENGLISH STRICTURES UPON THIS COUNTRY.

We are, there is no denying it, a thin-skinned race of people; sensitive to abuse and resentful of obloquy and detraction, though the source whence they proceed be ever so obscure and contemptible. An old woman across the pond, who, with arms a-kimbo, appears and rails at us in the elegant phraseology of Billingsgate, may set the whole nation in an uproar. A profligate libeler, who sneers at our institutions and misrepresents our condition in mere wantonness of spirit, is visited with a very general and unnecessary degree of popular indignation. A solemn twaddler, like the reverend Isaac Fiddler, who exposes his own tenuity of intellect in attempting to narrate how he browsed and how he brayed in this country, and how his "father had a cow what used to milk herself," is straightway made a subject of consideration, and thrust before the public in the shape of a neatlypressed octavo. A foreign journalist, who aims at us a paragraph barbed with malice and loaded with stupidity, is instantly pointed out and denounced as a formidable sharp-shooter. His abuse is placed before our eyes in a multitude of shapes, and he is plainly proved to be no friend to the republic.

We were lately amused at seeing extensively copied into our papers from the London New Monthly Magazine, a vulgar article, purporting to be an attack upon-the city of New-York. This truly alarming and momentous circumstance was speedily made known to the public

through the vigilance of the press, and we are happy to state that no ill consequences have yet resulted. The writer in the New Monthly, which, by the way, seems to have passed from the hands of Bulwer into those of an incompetent scribbler, has been, it appears, to see a panorama of New-York, which has been opened for exhibition in London. Of the picture he speaks with true Cockney glee; but the city he is inclined to think is no great shakes." He does not believe that there is a house on either side of Broadway, that a London tradesman would live in. And he must say, "that the figures and carriages, which no doubt are perfectly characteristic, are quite in keeping with the scenery; dirty omnibuses, shabby hackney-coaches, tumble-down horses, and scampering fire-engines, with one landau, form the group of carriages, while a motley crowd of slaves (!) and swaggerers, Yahoos and Yankees, exhibit the pedestrian part of the population to no greater advantage." He says nothing of the English paupers, who may be seen in such numbers soliciting and obtaining charity of the aforesaid Yahoos and Yankees. The writer is kind enough to admit that the Hudson is a very fair river for a new country, and that the surrounding scenery, which has not yet been spoiled by American taste and genius, looks beautiful.

Seriously we are utterly indifferent to the flippant sarcasms and the defamatory tirades of the English press. We do not consider it a matter of very great importance whether their travelers speak well or ill of us. For opinions founded in ignorance and maintained through prejudice we have very little respect. But we do regret that the growing good feeling between the two countries should be rudely checked by assaults, like those in the New Monthly. A great fault with our people, is, an undue deference to English opinions and precedents. Our literature, our associations, are so interwoven with those of England, that it is hard to assume towards her that unbending rigidity and indifference of demeanor, which we may preserve before other nations. But this subserviency to British opinion must be thrown off. A new independence, an independence of sentiment and of feeling, must be achieved, since our proffered alliance is rejected with insult and with contumely. And why should we not have sufficient self-respect to effect this emancipation? Why should we be so absurdly sensitive to what they may say of us in England? Why should we either be disquieted by her censure or elated by her praise? She has ever proved but a capricious and unnatural mother. Why do we, like an overgrown booby, persist in remaining tied to her apron-strings?

LITERARY NOTICES.

The Popular Reader or Complete Scholar, intended as a ReadingBook for the Higher Classes in Academies and other Schools in the United States. By the Author of the Franklin Primer, the Improved Reader, and the General Class-Book.

O, the days and months and even years that have been wasted by millions in trying to get fairly hold of, and in learning to wield the key of knowledge, technically called the Art of Reading! We must be permitted a groan or two for the past before we give way to the gladness with which the above mentioned book has inspired the present. O the millions of books that have been fingered and thumbed into rags again in the ten thousand school-prisons of our own blessed land! O the sighs of the mild fathers and the curses of the rough ones, over the dollars that have been wrung from the reluctant pocket to renew the generation of departing Spelling-books and Readers! And once more, O, how little good, comparatively, has been gotten in return for all the expenditures of money, time, and patience, by parents, pedagogues, and pupils! We trust that the era which has occasioned us to use the round vowel so many times, as an expression of unfeigned regret, is passing—indeed has passed away. We are confident that the very millenium of the reading art will have come, if all concerned will but look upon the above-named school-books with the favor they really deserve. We will not say that they are the " Only Sure Guide to the English Tongue," like the infallible Perry's spelling-book, but we do aver that they are the best guide we have

ever seen.

We will now give a brief account of the plan we have ventured thus to laud. And pray, do not desert us now we must subside into a graver strain, ye schoolsending and ye school-keeping readers. As those of the one class love dollars a little and children much more, and as those of the other desire ease at the same time that they aspire to be useful in their vocation, let them see what more we have to say. We will make our lead as light and as bright as it can well be in the nature of things.

Please to take note, in the first place, that the Popular Reader and Complete Scholar is the fourth of a series of reading books already published by the same gentleman. The first of the series is the Franklin Primer, so called because it was compiled at the instance of a school-convention, held in Franklin county, Massachusetts, a few years ago. And it well deserves to be so entitled, for another reason; it is constructed after the fashion the great American Philosopher used to advocate, and eminently exemplify in his own doings. It is built on an accurate observation of nature, and according to the dictates, not of old and blind usage, but of fresh and clear-sighted common sense.

The second is the Improved Reader, the third is the General Class-book, and the fourth and last the Popular Reader. This is the series-a better ladder

of learning than we have seen any where before, leading from childhood's chitchat up to the lofty and luminous regions of manly literature.

The leading principle of these books is this-the scholar is made acquainted with the meaning of words before he reads them in composition. This we consider a very important characteristic. Why is it that there is so much miserable reading in our common schools in respect to tone and emphasis? The chief reason is, that much that is read is not understood. We will illustrate the actual case of juvenile readers by a supposed case of ourselves. Suppose that we are learning some foreign language, for instance the Spanish, but are as yet unacquainted with one half or two thirds of the words. Now we might, perhaps, pronounce the individual parts of the language well enough, but the inflections and force of voice could not possibly correspond with the sense of the composition. We should not know when to rise, or fall, or impress emphasis; for this depends on the meaning of much of which we are entirely ignorant. Now this has been precisely the case with learners in our common schools. In the majority of them not a few are set to con over and then put voice to reading lessons, much of which is as unintelligible to them as the tongue of the Dons was supposed to be to us. We will, this very moment, intermit our own dear English, and whip into our village primary school, and see if our assertions shall not be verified within an hour. There we have been, and returned, and have resumed our vernacular to put the hammer of immediate fact to the nail we were driving. We have seen a class, of eight or nine years old, sustaining, in their feeble hands, that mighty museum of literature, the American First Class Book. O what wallowing and boggling in the profundity of language! Did you ever see a shortlimbed lad crawling, climbing, and staggering over a newly-heaped haymow? If you have, and your refinement will admit of so rustic an illustration, you can form some idea of the vocal toil we have witnessed. But the speech of some, however, stalked along as on a low and dead level, with most manlike ease and uprightness. The most towering altitudes to which syllables were ever piled, were not the least obstacle. Phrenologists would probably have discovered that these were blessed with very prominent eyes, indicating a phrenologist knows what. Now, we would ask, what good have these youngsters gained, even those who are the most puissant over words. Their voices were as monotonous and meaningless as the hum-drum of the wasps and flies at this moment droning out the last sounds of their mortal lives about our windows. And how could it possibly be otherwise, when such is the process of education? We believe that the miserable elocution generally prevalent, and this with very many who read with the understanding, too, is owing, in no small degree, to the manner of reading at school. Habits of utterance will cleave to the voice and control it, as an earlyformed gait will take body and limb, as it were, out of our power when we walk. We observed a very striking instance of this not long ago. A friend, of good education, and a glowing temperament, was describing to us the scene of the destruction of the Convent. He was truly eloquent; he uttered not a tone which was not true to nature, and thrilling to the hearer's heart. He had not closed his description when the newspaper arrived, detailing the particulars of the outrage with graphic skill and indignant eloquence. Our friend was requested to read the account. This he did, but in a manner how different from his former spontaneous and significant tones. It seemed as if a dunce's tongue had stolen into his mouth, and usurped the place of his own proper organ of speech. This falling off from nature's truth and propriety was owing, we doubt not, to the mode of