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only judge by generals; it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiæ, seldom have their minds occupied with great things. There are, it is true, exceptions; but to exceptions the world does not attend."

Both for its intrinsic excellence, and because it illustrates the admirable character of Mordaunt, we select, in conclusion, the ensuing passage.

"I believe,' answered Mordaunt, 'that it is from our ignorance that our contentions flow; we debate with strife and with wrath, with bickering and with hatred; but of the thing debated upon, we remain in the profoundest darkness. Like the laborers of Babel, while we endeavor in vain to express our meaning to each other, the fabric by which, for a common end, we would have ascended to heaven from the ills of earth, remains forever unadvanced and incomplete. Let us hope that knowledge is the universal language which shall re-unite us. As, in their sublime allegory, the Romans signified, that only through virtue we arrived at honor, so let us believe, that only through knowledge can we arrive at virtue !' And yet,' said Clarence, that seems a melancholy truth for the mass of the people, who have no time for the researches of wisdom.' 'Not so much so as at first we might imagine,' answered Mordaunt the few smooth all paths for the many. The precepts of knowledge it is difficult to extricate from error; but, once discovered, they gradually pass into maxims: and thus what the sage's life was consumed in acquiring, become the acquisition of a moment to posterity. Knowledge is like the atmosphere,-in order to dispel the vapor and dislodge the frost, our ancestors felled the forest, drained the marsh, and cultivated the waste; and we now breathe without an effort, in the purified air and the chastened climate, the result of the labor of generations and the progress of ages! As, to-day, the common mechanic may equal in science, however inferior in genius, the friar whom his contemporaries feared as a magician,—so the

opinions which now startle as well as astonish, may be received hereafter as acknowledged axioms, and pass into ordinary practice. We cannot even tell how far the sanguine theories of certain philosophers deceive them, when they anticipate, for future ages, a knowledge which shall bring perfection to the mind, baffle the diseases of the body, and even protract, to a date now utterly unknown, the final destination of life for Wisdom is a palace of which only the vestibule has been entered; nor can we guess what treasures are hid in those chambers, of which the experience of the past can afford us neither analogy or clue.'”

The

We could have wished to introduce that most exquisite picture of childhood, the daughter of Isabel St. Leger; some of Lord Aspeden's diplomatic quotations and compliments ; and some of Mr. Brown's presents: but our limits have already rather been devoted to the Disowned in a proportion due to its superior excellence, than according to our usual scale of novel reviewing. We must therefore content ourselves with pointing attention to the admirable colloquies between Talbot and Clarence, and, above all, to those in which Algernon Mordaunt takes a part. last scene in which the latter appears is almost a perfect specimen of imagination working up reality to the most intense pitch of interest. Such being the prominent characteristics of this publication, it must command a far higher and wider scope of readers than the ordinary class of novel devourers, though even for these it possesses every possible attraction. In a word, we have no hesitation in acknowledging the author to be one of the foremost writers of our day; and his works to maintain not merely a very elevated, but a very original station,

as far removed from the class of fashionable novels as they differ from those founded on historical data.

Altogether, if Pelham justly raised for its author a very high character, the Disowned will raise it far higher.

LETTERS FROM THE WEST.*

THE author of this elegant and amusing, if not instructive, volume, has for some time possessed the flattering opinion of the literary and ingenious part of the North American Republic, and his pretensions to a successful cultivation of classic and elegant literature have been acknowledged by European critics. But Judge Hall's acquirements and propensities are the very reverse of what we are accustomed to behold in English judges. He has contented himself with what is elegant, and has not sacrificed his repose, or injured his health in diving into the profound, or piercing the intricacies of study. An English judge, moreover, is seldom seen to travel, except on the circuits, or from his chambers to Westminster Hall, and he looks the beau ideal of saturnine wisdom. The American judge, on the contrary, is absolutely erratic and peregrinacious; he thinks no more of a journey of a thousand miles over pools and swamps, and through wilds and deserts, to the western country, than an English judge thinks of his progress through the blind alleys and crooked paths of his profession to a peerage and a provision for his family. Our author's style, to our sober English tastes, is by far too flowery and ornate. He luxuriates in tropes and figures, and is as redundant of epithets as honest Sancho was of his proverbs. But Judge Hall is strongly embued with innumerable transatlantic prejudices against the land of his sires. He is every inch an American. We can partially forgive him his prejudices, because many of them have afforded us much mirth; and of the whole of them we may say, what Mr. Rose said of the Orders in Council which brought the two nations to hostility, "that though unjust in themselves, they were justifiable as mea

sures of retaliation." We should say that all such prejudices as our author exhibits ought to be left solely to the vulgar; although we must confess, that persons paramount in our periodical literature, have shown themselves by far more iniquitously vituperative against America, than Judge Hall is jocosely detractory of England. But much of what Judge Hall sets down, is useful, sterling sense, though a certain part of John Bull's family may call it prejudice. Thus, speaking of the settlers in America, he says, "Here is no holy alliance, no trafficking in human blood, no sceptre to be obeyed, no mitre to be worshipped. Here they find not merely a shelter, but they become proprietors of the soil, and citizens of the state.

The following is the author's description of the "Scenery of the Ohio."-" The heart must indeed be cold that would not glow among scenes like these. Rightly did the French call this stream La Belle Rivière, (the beautiful river.) The sprightly Canadian, plying his oar in cadence with the wild notes of the boat-song, could not fail to find his heart enlivened by the beautiful symmetry of the Ohio. Its current is always graceful, and its shores every where romantic. Everything here is on a large scale. The eye of the traveller is continually regaled with magnificent scenes. Here are no pigmy mounds dignified with the name of mountains, no rivulets swelled into rivers. Nature has worked with a rapid but masterly hand; every touch is bold, and the whole is grand as well as beautiful; while room is left for art to embellish and fertilize that which nature has created with a thousand capabilities. There is much sameness in the character of the scenery; but that sameness is in itself delightful, as it consists in the recur

* Letters from the West; Containing Sketches of Scenery, Manners, and Customs; and Anecdotes connected with the first Settlements of the Western Sections of the United States. By the Hon. Judge Hall. Svo. London, 1828.

rence of noble traits, which are too pleasing ever to be viewed with indifference; like the regular features which we sometimes find in the face of a lovely woman, their charm consists in their own intrinsic gracefulness, rather than in the variety of their expressions. The Ohio has not the sprightly fanciful wildness of the Niagara, the St. Lawrence, or the Susquehanna, whose impetuous torrents, rushing over beds of rocks, or dashing against the jutting cliffs, arrest the ear by their murmurs, and delight the eye with their eccentric wanderings. Neither is it like the Hudson, margined at one spot by the meadow and the village, and overhung at another by threatening precipices and stupendous mountains. It has a wild, solemn, silent sweetness, peculiar to itself. The noble stream, clear, smooth, and unruffled, sweeps onward with regular majestic force. Continually changing its course, as it rolls from vale to vale, it always winds with dignity, and avoiding those acute angles, which are observed in less powerful streams, sweeps round in graceful bends, as if disdaining the opposition to which nature forces it to submit. On each side rise the romantic hills, piled on each other to a tremendous height; and between them, are deep, abrupt, silent glens, which at a distance seem inaccessible to the human foot; while the whole is covered with timber of a gigantic size, and a luxuriant foliage of the deepest hues. Sometimes the splashing of the oar is heard, and the boatman's song awakens the surrounding echoes; but the most usual music is that of the native songsters, whose melody steals pleasingly on the ear, with every modulation, at all hours, and in every change of situation."

Of the emigration to the back country, the author says, "Each raft (on the Ohio) was eighty or ninety feet long, with a small house on it, and on each was a stack of hay, round which several horses and cows were feeding, while the ploughs, wagons, pigs, children, and poultry, carelessly distribut

ed, gave to the whole more the appearance of a permanent residence than of a caravan of adventurers seeking a home. A respectable-looking old lady, with 'spectacles on nose,' was seated on a chair at the door of one of the cabins, employed in knitting; another female was at the washtub; the men were chewing their tobacco; and the various family vocations seemed to go on like clock-work. In this manner these people travel at a slight expense. They bring their own provisions; their raft floats with the stream, and honest Jonathan, surround! ed with his scolding, grunting, squalling and neighing dependants, floats to the point proposed without leaving his own fire-side." Our author thus describes his passage over the falls of the Ohio. "The business of preparation creates a sense of impending danger; the pilot stationed on the deck, assumes command; a firm and skilful helmsman guides the boat; the oars, strongly manned, are vigorously plied to give the vessel a momentum greater than that of the current, without which the helm would be inefficient. The utmost silence prevails among the crew; but the ear is stunned with the sound of rushing waters; and the sight of waves dashing and foaming and whirling among the rocks and eddies below, is grand and fearful. The boat advances with inconceivable rapidity to the head of the channel, takes the chute, and seems no longer manageable among the angry currents, whose foam dashes upon her deck; but, in a few moments, she emerges from their power, and rides again in serene waters."

Judge Hall's work is interspersed with amusing descriptions, characteristic anecdotes, narratives of incidents, and reminiscences of local history and personal adventures. There are also facts of a nature to awaken serious reflections in the European politician; and Judge Hall's nationality, though often ridiculous, is never offensive; for it is accompanied with much truth, an hilarity of spirits, a vivacious manhood, and it is without personal rancor.

4

SCIENTIFIC MISCELLANY.

"Serene Philosophy!

She springs aloft, with elevated pride,
Above the tangling mass of low desires,

That bind the fluttering crowd; and, angel-wing'd,
The heights of Science and of Virtue gains,
Where all is calm and clear."

THE AURORA BOREALIS, AS IT AP-
PEARS IN RUSSIA.

light, like a succession of sparks from an electric jar, flew off and disappeared; while the streaks changed their form frequently and rapidly, and broke out in places where none were seen before, shooting along the heavens, and then disappearing in an instant. The sky in various places became tinged with a deep purple, the stars shone very brilliantly, the separate lights gradually merged into one another, when the auroral resplendence of the horizon increased and became magnificent. This phenomenon lasted nearly four hours; and at one time a large triangle of the strongest light occupied the horizon, illuminating in the most magnificent manner nearly the entire vault of heaven. From six to seven falling stars were observed at the time, leaving in their train a very brilliant light.

THE northern hemisphere has its delights as well as the southern. One of these arises from the contemplation of that beautiful phenomenon called the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. Such a phenomenon is of frequent occurrence at St. Petersburgh. According to the meteorological tables of twenty years, northern lights appeared on an average twenty-one times in each year. In the year 1774, they appeared forty-eight times. From 1782 to 1786 they decreased, having been seen only one hundred and ten times during that period, and only thirty-nine times from 1787 to 1791. This diminution in the yearly number of northern lights has continued more or less ever since; and looking for illustration at the tables of the same two years nearer us, which has supplied us with other data, namely, 1818 and 1819, I find that in the former The elephant has larger nasal oryear northern lights occurred only six, gans than any other animal, the proand in the latter twelve times. At boscis or trunk having a cavity sithe close of last autumn, this curious milar to the nostrils, running its whole phenomenon appeared on one occasion, length, and terminating in very large magnificently bright. The sky was cells in the head and face. Cuvier, illuminated from the horizon to the however, thinks that the lower part of zenith, extending east and west to a the cavity does not possess the sense considerable distance. Masses of fire of smell, but it is intended merely to in the form of columns, and as bril- pump up the water it uses in drinking. liant as the brightest phosphorus, It is not clear, indeed, that, in other danced in the air, and streaks of a quadrupeds, the outer nostril possessdeeper light,.of various sizes, rose es much, if any, sensibility to odors, from the horizon and flashed between the sense being most requisite in the them. The brightness of the former upper part of the roof of the nose. seemed at times to grow faint and The trunk of the elephant is capable dim. At this conjuncture the broad of being moved in any direction; and streaks would suddenly shoot with at the very point of it, just above the great velocity up to the zenith with an nostrils, there is an extension of the undulating motion and a pyramidal skin, formed like a finger, and, indeed, form. From the columns, flashes of answering all the purposes of one; for,

THE PROBOSCIS OF THE ELEPHANT.

with the rest of the extremity of the trunk, it is capable of assuming different forms, and, consequently, of being adapted to the minutest objects. By means of this, the elephant can take a pin from the ground, untie the knots of a rope, unlock a door, and even write with a pen.

LITHOGRAPHY.

Several important improvements in the art of lithography having been communicated to the French Academy by Messrs. Chevalier and Langlumé, the members of the Academy to whom the consideration of the subject was referred, have reported that these improvements appear to them to approximate the art as nearly to perfection as it is capable of arriving.

CONSUMPTION.

A number of experiments has been made in France on ducks and chickens, by M. Flourens; from which he draws the following conclusions:first, that cold exercises a constant and decided action on the lungs of animals; secondly, that the effect of that action is more rapid and serious in proportion to the youth of the animal; thirdly, that when cold does not produce an acute pulmonary inflammation, speedily mortal, it produces a chronic inflammation, which is in fact pulmonary consumption; fourthly, that heat constantly prevents the inroad of pulmonary consumption, that when it has actually commenced, heat suspends its progress, and that sometimes heat even leads to a perfect cure; fifthly, that to whatever height it may have arrived, this malady is never contagious.

PORTUGUESE SKILL IN SURGERY.

The Portuguese surgeons are considered to rank very low, when compared with those of other nations; but they cannot be expected to excel in so difficult an art, while they are deprived of the means of acquirement; hospitals, schools for anatomy, and dissections, being unknown in the country.

One day, a very fine girl of eight

years of age, coming from school, fell and broke her arm: an English surgeon was immediately sent for, but he being unfortunately from home, a Portuguese one was called in, who, to make assurance trebly sure, called in two others. This happy trio, perceiving that, from the fall, the flesh was turned blackish, determined that a mortification had already taken place, (in less than an hour, on a healthy young subject!) and, without any further ceremony, cut off the poor child's arm. The English surgeon, who had been sent for in the first instance, now attended, but only in time to lament his being from home when the accident happened; as he assured me there was not the least occasion for amputation, the fracture and bruise being no more than is usual in such accidents. Though I have here only cited one case, yet the practice is invariably the same. Off with the limb, in all fractures, is, with them, what bleeding and hot water were with Dr. Sangrado-a universal cure. I know several persons who would have lost a limb, which they now enjoy the use of, but from the interposition of the gentleman above mentioned, or from their own resolution, which the Portuguese faculty call English obstinacy.

GLASS.

The commission of the French Academy, to which the specimens of crown and flint glass presented to the Academy by Messrs. Thibaudeau and Bontemps had been referred, has adjourned its report until it receives additional specimens, in which the flint glass is to possess greater density, and the crown glass to be of larger dimensions. M. Arago, in order to show still more how unfounded is the general opinion of the ease with which crown glass can be fabricated, informed the Academy that he knew an optician in Paris who was stopped in the construction of an important instrument by the impossibility of procuring for it pieces of crown glass of sufficient size.

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