hunger, I live in plenty, &c. I am happy. See, my friend; the birds and fishes have brought me to reflection, and taught me to work!" We will venture to affirm, that few, if any readers, upon the slightest reflection, would believe it possible, that this was "nearly," or even remotely, either the language or sentiments of an Indian; that an untutored child of nature, or even one somewhat tutored, ever bethought himself of moralizing, with such Æsop-like shrewdness, upon the familiar inmates of his native forests; or that any Indian, who had been taught the use of his legs in the chase, and of his arms in wielding the bow and the tomahawk, ever supposed that he had not found out the proper application of them, until a bird suggested to him that they were intended as helps in agriculture. Besides, what Indian was ever wanting in a good appetite; or even found unquiet slumbers from the want of exercise? We know of no parallel to the credulous simplicity with which this story is told, excepting that of the Butcher-bird or Nine-killer, recorded of the same person, by Wilson, in his "American Ornithology," in which Mr. Heckewelder represents this bird as having "caught, and stuck nine grasshoppers a day," upon the thorn-bushes in his neighbourhood. It may have been this same little bird, so ingenious at impaling grasshoppers, which set the Indian a-moralizing, in a manner not more extraordinary, than the nice calculation of this ninefold songster.

Mr. Heckewelder, by his long residence among the Delaware Indians, had undoubtedly acquired an intimate and correct knowledge of the characteristics of that tribe; and had he confined himself to a description of them, such as they had been developed to his observation, his book would have been a valuable repository of facts. But as soon as he assumed, either through his own benevolent enthusiasm, or at the prompting of his ardent and flattering correspondent, the character of a vindicator of the aboriginal race, against the misapprehensions or misrepresentations of other writers, he insensibly lost sight of the plain path of facts, and, without being aware of it, became seduced into shadowy speculations, and into many vagaries not unlike fictions. Mr. Heckewelder knew that he wrote upon a subject which was but little understood. There is a restraint imposed upon the mind, while engaged in discussing subjects with which the public is supposed to be somewhat acquainted. We need scarcely remark, that this restraint is loosened in proportion as the subject recedes from familiarity. Now, it is well known, that all writers on the Indians, one of the most obscure subjects which has excited an

equal degree of interest, have been supposed to have taken great latitude in their descriptions. Each writer, while correcting the errors of his predecessor, has fallen into others, which his successor detects, leaving the same task still to be performed with respect to himself.

But Mr. Heckewelder had, superadded to this consciousness that his subject was but little known, an assurance, that he was pouring his information into ears that were open and greedy to "devour up his discourse." He had been sought out by a respectable member of a most respectable society, as a man of "learning and information," and of "intimate acquaintance with the languages, habits, and history" of the Indians. In pursuance of this flattering solicitation, this venerable septuagenarian,-for we believe he was then threescore and ten years old,-took up the subject in all its wide-spreading fulness, even to forty-four ramifications. In dilating thus, in his old age, through more than three hundred and fifty octavo pages, the fading recollections of former years, Mr. Heckewelder undertook a task in which he might fail without discredit. In the earnestness of his zeal, he drew a broad outline, which could not easily be filled up with sober realities; and the garrulous exaggerations of humbled pride and departed greatness, supplied the place of more authentic and probable history. There were doubtless few who read his story of a warlike nation, converted, by a flimsy trick, into old women, without being struck with its absurdity. As the reviewer observed, it is "too puerile for grave criticism." Nothing but sheer force, we will venture to assert, ever induced one tribe to succumb to another. The Indians have an invincible love of independence, and fear or absolute weakness alone ever destroys its force or elasticity.

Mr. Heckewelder, in his ardent desire to elevate the character of the Indians, has, with the inevitable proneness resulting from such a partial feeling, run into an extreme. The Indian is a man, indued with all the passions which belong to the rest of the human race. The difference between him and the civilized man, is, we speak not of the intellect, that the Indian is in a wild state, and that his passions are under less control. But because he is thus loosed from the restraints which keep the civilized man in better order, it does not follow that he is always in a paroxysm of ferocity. When an Indian is wronged, he pays back with vengeance, because he has no laws to appeal to, and because his rights depend upon his own arm alone for their defence. But he is not always in an excited state. Wrongs are not frequent

among the Indians. The conviction that a certain retribution, though it may be delayed, will follow the slightest aggression operates as a restraint upon cupidity and violence, that results in a security somewhat resembling that which is afforded by laws. The wigwams of the savage are not, therefore, the constant abodes of outrage. On the contrary, as the causes of excitement are few, and even those are kept in check by prudence, their quiet may, perhaps, be as seldom disturbed as that of a common village. We have seen many tribes, and visited many cabins, and never recollect to have seen them the scenes of disorder and violence, excepting during the orgies of intemperance. The Indians pursue the chase, and join in their games, with about the same degree of harmony that generally prevails in the employments and recreations of the whites. But when exasperated, the Indians are not, of course, equally scrupulous as to the degree to which their anger may extend. The white man is checked in his rage by education, by moral, perhaps religious principles; his wrath may go down with the sun, or he may seek redress of the laws, which are always open to his appeal. But the savage finds no bar to his anger, arising either from his education, or any moral or religious principle; his Great Spirit does not assume vengeance to himself, nor has he ever been taught to forgive. His passions, however, though thus unchecked, are not the ebullition of the moment. Prudence chastens them, and he patiently awaits the tardy moment, when he can wreak his vengeance with safety and success.

It is said, that the Indian is grateful for a kindness. It may be, as there are many instances recorded of it. But gratitude, with them, is not a common sentiment; and treachery does not bear the character it does among the whites. To betray, when prudence dictates, is in obedience to a common principle. Much, likewise, is said of the hospitality of the Indian. It is true, his cabin is always open, for he has no bar to his door, and lays little more claim to the space within, than to the unappropriated ground without. He does not regard it as doing a favor to receive the unbidden, but seldom unwelcome guest, because his coming or going is attended with no ceremony, and produces no trouble; and if he has any thing to eat, it is freely shared, for he never garners up for the future, and feels no reluctance to part with that on which he fixes no value for the morrow. Bravery and fortitude are common virtues among the Indians. In the latter virtue they rise, perhaps, above other race of men. There is no parallel to the patient and even triumphant endurance of the most accumulated agonies by

any

the Indians, save that of the religious martyrs. But these martyrs were a few sublimated beings, who stand out on the list of sufferers in the civilized world, as illustrious and extraordinary examples of fortitude. Among the aborigines, however, such instances have been so common as scarcely to signalize the victims.

"The son of Almonak still scorns to complain," speaks the unconquered and unconquerable spirit of almost every member of every war party, that ever went out in quest of glory or death.

The Indians have few virtues and few vices. They are in a state of nature, and that explains all. Mr. Heckewelder's Indians have elevated and even refined virtues, and are almost destitute of vices. It is true, the Delawares had been some time under the process of civilization, and they might have lost much of their aboriginal character. From Mr. Heckewelder's description, we should suppose they had.

One of the most popular American novelists of the day, has evidently taken his models of the savage life from Mr. Heckewelder's work, and has not scrupled to adopt some absurdities and improbabilities, in aid of the developement of his plot, which would discredit a tale of the nursery; and when we had followed the incidents of his story into the recesses of the wilderness, to the cabins of the Hurons, and the court of Temenund, we thought ourselves in any other than an Indian settlement. We would say of "The Last of the Mohicans," as Byron said of "The Last of the Minstrels,"

May they be the last."

His success in delineating the creations of his own fertile imagination, his Leather-stocking, and his Hawkeye, should persuade him to draw from his own rich and abundant resources, rather than from the ill-assorted and incongruous fictions of another's brain.

But we have been led from our purpose by this digression, and have lost sight of the "Examination." We will now advert to a few of its paragraphs.

We are somewhat surprised, that the critic should be so sensitive respecting the reviewer's attack upon the "Quarterly Review," on the score of John Dunn Hunter. We apprehend he has mistaken the drift of the reviewer's animadversions. We have not the review before us; but we think the writer did not mean to reprehend the mere credence which the Quarterly appeared to give to Hunter's "Narrative." It was, perhaps, a matter of course,

that full faith should be given to it. The author went to England, as we are told by the critic, with letters from this country, entitling him to credit. And it was not a subject for anger, that the Londoners had been gulled by an anonymous adventurer. But it will be recollected by every reader of the article in the Quarterly, that it did not confine itself to mere commendations of Hunter's "Narrative," and to such remarks as might naturally grow out of it; but that it turned aside, by a somewhat violent transition, from its ordinary course, and made one of the most illiberal, unsupported, and unsupportable attacks upon the national character of the United States, and particularly upon the Western country, which has issued from the English press, since the memorable review of Inchiquin's Letters. The reviewer appears to have felt, on reading this article, as we should suppose every American would have felt, and probably could not regulate his indignation by very nice rules of courtesy. We are ready to agree with him, that the English should be to us, "in peace, friends;" and we do not think the spirit of this sententious and beautiful expression at all violated, by rebutting, even in somewhat unmeasured terms, the slanders of any individual writer of that nation. We would adopt, in our literary intercourse, the principle that governs our commercial, and which is enforced in all degrees of rigor, without any supposed infraction of the maxims before quoted. We establish counter-restrictions and impositions upon trade, nor deem them any deviation from international amity or comity. So in literature; we would give "measure for measure," even to the last of Shakspeare's climax of rejoinders.

We cannot pretend to enter the lists of philology with one, who has looked into all the Indian languages from "Greenland to Chili ;" and shall offer our few remarks upon this subject with all due diffidence. The critic has stated the case between the reviewer and Mr. Heckewelder, as to the meaning of the words, Lenni Lenape, with much self-satisfaction, as he believes, he has condemned the former out of his own mouth. But the reviewer did not, if we recollect right, deny that Mr. Heckewelder gave as one of the meanings of the word, Lenape, the English word, common. Mr. Heckewelder says,—and the reviewer undoubtedly knew that he had said it, that Lenape "means original and SOMETIMES COmmon," &c. Now the reviewer, if we understand him, does not admit original among the true meanings of that word; and herein lies the difference between the controvertists, and not that Mr. Heckewelder had excluded common from

his list of meanings. Mr. Heckewelder cites two instances,