scape, cannot fail to give our literature a national character, which, indeed, it is every day acquiring.

Thus, beside the genuine originals we have mentioned, [Irving, Dana, Hawthorne, Brown, Cooper, Poe and Irving,] we have to fill out a good list of tale-tellers; Miss Leslie, a sort of modernized Miss Burney on a smaller scale, and like her, expert in strong satire of vulgarity; Miss Sedgwick, pleasing in her home pictures and tales for children, and pre-eminent among American female writers; Mrs. Kirkland, the cleverest sketcher of western manners we have, and the best western raconteur, at the same time; not in the same line with Judge Hall or any other western writer, but in a class unique and individual. Of the two Neals, John has tact and power; Joseph, humor, (of the broadest) and copiousness. The Portland writers are expert in a love history or life assurance story; while the Philadelphians are best in city scenes of local and burlesque humor. Briggs is quite at home in a satirical tale, with his ingenuity, tact, keen observation and dry humor. Hoffman can throw off a better hunting or sporting story than any writer we have. Mathews has both humor and pathetic skill, and in his Motley Book has done some excellent things. Sands left some laughable pieces, verging on caricature. At different times, even Mr. Bryant, Leggett, and many others, have published very readable efforts of this kind. The critic in the Quarterly referred to, says, and says handsomely, though truly: "We rarely, if ever, take up an American Annual or Magazine, without finding some one contribution in'dividually racy, and without any peer or prototype on this side of the ocean.' "With the same critic we heartily agree, that though more unpretending in form than the regular novel, the skill of tale writers, with their best attempts, " contains more characteristic excellence than is to be found in the library of accredited novels." We have no one admirable novel except perhaps the Pilot; all Cooper's fictions, admirable as they are in scenes and particular descriptions, being confessedly, even according to Mr. Simms, Cooper's heartiest critic, excellent only in those passages, and abounding in faults elsewhere. But we do possess, without dispute, a body of expert story-tellers, to be cherished and made much of, and to be [a serious climax] STE

REOTYPED.

Many of these tales have a sectional character and reputation. They are, professedly, sectional in their choice of subject and back-grounds. It is a history of love or hate, to be sure; but the locality is laid in Illinois, Michigan or South Carolina, with the scenery peculiar to those regions. It is a love-history, but of planter,

Indian, negro or early settler, and the interest varies accordingly. European readers cannot be supposed to read with sufficient knowledge, or with analogous feeling of patriotic interest, and hence these national and local narratives lose for them a striking and peculiar charm. To us, Americans, for this reason, they offer a very strong attraction, independent of the genius involv ed in the conception of them, or the artistic skill employed in their execution.

We have for the West, Judge Hall and Mrs. Kirkland; for the South, Mr. Simms; for New-England, Mr. Hawthorne; Dutch New-York has her Irving; for revolutionary historical novelists, Cooper and Neal, [both of whom might have been trimmed down into good writers of novelettes]; Philadelphia has her Brown; Virginia, Wirt. The South-west is ably represented, so far as Texas is concerned, by a spirited writer of interesting adventure, in the American Review, though the best pictures of the life of the planter and society in general, in the South-west, have been painted by a German-Seatsfield. The river scenes, and personal histories of the Creole and emigrant planters-his capital analysis of democracy and the banking system; his Creole balls and dinners, are inimitable. We must honestly profess ourselves ardent admirers of the foreigners who so easily, so truly, so vividly described, what appears mysteries to most of us, at the North-west, with regard to the institutions and manner of life of the South. With what acute eyes did not this German remark upon apparent paradoxical inconsistencies in the Southern character, and how willingly, how lightly does his style glide and flow in those admirable conversations at table, or on board of steam-boats, which teach us so much more of practical political philosophy, than the elaborate disquisitions of Detsequeville.

New-Orleans, that great mart of commerce and city of pleasure combined, is still to be painted. We could point to writers who might do something of what we suggest; the writer of some admirable letters in Arcturus might unite more study of the town, as the Paris of the South-west, to represent it vividly and picturesquely. Mr. Simms ought to be able to do his part, though he has confined himself more to his native state and its vicinity. Mr. Briggs might revive old recollections, and give original impressions of that [in some respects we must consider it, at least] most remarkable city of our country.

For the West, Mary Claver, the most agreeable and original of American female writers, the equal, not the imitator of Miss Mitford, is one of the best writers of western sketches and manners we have seen; she pursues a course, and occupies a prominence in historic authorship, quite dis

tinct from Judge Hall. The latter writer illustrates rather the historical romance of the west-especially that of Indian and French settlers' life, than the manner of the present race of emigrants. Mrs. Kirkland is as much at home in Michigan as the Judge is in Illinois. Her sprightliness, good sense, high feeling, keen penetration, are inexhaustible, and her style is a clear and natural reflection of these fine qualities. This writer is, perhaps, the best sketcher we have, as Mrs. Farnham is the best writer of western tales. Her circle is apparently confined to that region; but why it should be so, does not follow, necessarily, or by any equal places. Though after the universal applause with which her western tales have been received, what can we say of Prairie Land? - what new tribute can we bring to her grace, humor and naturalness? Mrs Farnham is the Miss Burney of the new settlements, (not the Madame d'Arblay, for Evelina is the best of the fictions of that writer, as well as the earliest Her ordinary vision is not confined to the city or village, but flourishes also in the back-woods. The broad vulgarity, the rustic proneness, the senseless pretensions of a certain class of vulgar minds the world over, is to be found wherever real coarseness but affected fastidiousness exists. Mrs. Clavers, with all her satire of such persons, has nothing of the same quality in her own writings, a criticism that cannot be so justly passed upon the authoress of Evelina, who cherished a certain artificial gentility, the reverse in appearance of vulgarity, but still its invariable accompaniment. The humor of Prairie Land is gay and sympathetic, as well as keen and satirical. She can jest as well as ridicule; she laughs with, as often as she laughs at, her characters.

We have previously written fully of the merits of Mr. Simms' Wigwam and Cabin. We know not anything we can add to our previous judgment, save in the way of parallel with the somewhat similar series of tales by Judge Hall, the western historian, par excellence. Books are accomplished raconteurs, but Mr. Simms brings more of the novelist's art, and the concentrated force of the practised writer to his aid, than the Judge appears to us to possess, or to be able to control. In level passages, Hall is generally the neater writer, always correct and pleasing: yet Mr. Simms throws more power, passion and energy into his narratives. The Judge is something of a humorous satirist, and indulges in a playful vein of innocent raillery, which we are not apt to meet in the pages of the southern novelist. Making a fair allowance for the difference between the Indian in the south or at the west, we still think Mr. Simms' Indians the most truly and graphically

painted. Judge Hall seems to be most at home in his romantic legends and domestic history of the early French settlers, their manners, customs, character and disposition. He is an enthusiastic [preserving the proprieties of the respectable, gentlemanly, JUDICIAL author,] lover and describer of western scenery and life. His narrative is clear, easy, natural, continuous. If he has none of the giant's power of genius, he is also without its harshness, abruptness, and occasional extravagances. He is a remarkably equable writer, and if we may infer, from the cast of his style and his idiomatic terms, something of a purist, in his notions of English composition. His sentimental reflections evince thought and feeling, and though by no means profound, are invariably just and liberal. We have marked a few sentences of this description, which we will transcribe: "They who decry female beauty as mere vanity, are but superficially versed in the movements of the human heart. To speak of it lightly as an outward show, as an ephemeral possession, that blooms and is blighted with the passing season, may be very plausible, but it is also very fallacious. The beauty of a woman is a substantial quality of such value, that there is scarcely a doubt whether it be not the pearl of price, the most precious gift of nature. It is the talisman of her power, the agent and the symbol of her sovereignty. Men not only admire, but do homage to it; they not merely love, but worship it. Wealth, intellect, and attainments sink into nothing in comparison with this power, which outshines while it adorns and vivifies them all. It is so irresistibly attractive as to produce a powerful reactive influence on the character of its possessor. The beautiful girl soon becomes conscious of a power that elevates her above her companions. The love of admiration plants itself deeply in her mind, and the desire to deserve and win that tribute inspires her thoughts and polishes her manners. ambition to please becomes a ruling passion; and no woman of superior personal attractions ever made that attempt in vain. Politeness and gracefulness grow out of the continual effort to gain approbation; unless, indeed, where the defect of mind is so great as to substitute arrogance and self-conceit."

The

Judge Hall holds a pleasing pencil, and with which he has sketched many a fair scene. His descriptions of the prairie scattered through all of his tales, are peculiarly well done.

Judge Hall has been very justly classified by a judicious critic, as a Western Irving, without his force of humor or fertility of resources; comparatively a feebler writer, yet still well worthy of a place among our first American standards. For Irving's rich humor and charming description, you

find in him agreeable pleasantry. He has not equal fineness, yet as much truth of sentiment. In style he is equally pure, though by no means as rich and musical.

If Judge Hall is justly styled a Western Irving, Mr. Simms may be at least as appropriately called the Cooper of the South. For, with his favorite novelist, the Southern writer enjoys in common many of his best qualities; his directness, manliness, force and skill in painting details. Mr. Simms has produced no long work of the same sustained interest and power as the Pilot, but he has done many capital things which either his Northern rival cannot execute, or will not attempt.

In shorter tales, each of which embodies all the interest and concentrates the power of a fiction of higher pretensions of Indian and Planters' life, our southerner is at the head of a very respectable class of writers. He is a faithful painter, also, of negro character, and perfectly at home with the heroes, the average society and current manners of the south. He is admirable in his personal histories, as of Boone; in his local scenery, especially in Carolina and Georgia. His narrative is clear, racy, natural,

constructed with practised art, (Mr. Simms has at least as much judgment as invention) and thoroughly American. In these novelettes the interest is always well sustained; sometimes to a pitch of painful interest, especially in the first series of these tales, as in the very first of the volume and the last work. Mr. Simms, besides, as critic and miscellaneous writer no less than an imaginative writer, is the foremost writer of the South, and is naturally the idol of those generous critics whose blood runs warmer than in these Hyperborean regions. He has identified himself with their feelings and institutions, and labors manfully to earn an honorable place for his native state, not only in a political, but also in a literary point of view. He is employed now in illustrating the lives and characters of certain of the noblest sons of the Souththe Marions and Smiths-and also of the greatest men of the Revolution, one of the most brilliant of whom, Paul Jones, he will worthily history as one of the wisest and most gallant spirits (for he was both wary and bold, prudent and fearless) of our heroic era.

THE tragedy which was playing in the so called Republic of Cracow, and in Gallicia, is at an end, and the debut of the actors has been such that they cannot expect promotion, and only the worst reward. If we cast a calm retrospect at this revolution of 14 days, we naturally ask the question: What did these people want, and what means and measures did they adopt for the accomplishment of their object, if any they had? The reply to the first question is very easily given, and is comprised in these words: the Independence of Poland, in its entire former extent. Twenty mil lions of Polanders should become free, and again have a government of their own!

But to give a reply to the second question: How was this gigantic plan to be accomplished? Or, where was even a possible chance of success? might now puzzle the leaders as well as the willing tools of this revolt, even since they have time for calm consideration and thought. A great nation, (but divided among three powerful empires) was to rise unanimous ly, even as a single individual. But was

that nation unanimous ?-Had this been the case, all the troops and powers of the three empires would have been insufficient to oppose their will. This question has either been wilfully neglected by the leaders, or else they were laboring under a most wonderful hallucination in regard to it. They had forgotten that the present generation was no longer the same who witnessed the division of Poland with tears of bitter blood; they did not remember, or overlooked in the most careless and unpardonable manner the fact, that the pillars of the nation, the agricultural and working classes, had become strangers to the ancient Polish throne; and that in many large districts they had partially become reconciled to the existing state of things-nay, that they felt well under their present master; they had forgotten, that in these districts, among the traditions of former highly-lauded times, only remained a remembrance of the oppression and absolute political nonexistence of these same lower classes. For this reason alone, the attempts at a universal revolution in the Grand Duchy