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as so much drudgery, and think of no task more irksome than that of entertaining her friends and self. She is finally cured of her folly, through the assistance of a friendly aunt, and becomes a sensible woman and a good house-keeper. The development will interest and instruct. The story is that of thousands.

VII. The Improvisatore.-A brief but interesting biography, from the pen of MARY HOWITT, by whom this volume has been translated from the Danish, brings us to a knowledge of Hans Christian Andersen, its author. His life is one that will instruct and encourage the young beginner, of humble fortunes, and good natural endowments. No life could have been more humble and adverse at the beginning-no career more discouraging or, finally, more triumphant. "The Improvisatore" is one of many works by ANDERSEN, and is considered his chefd-œuvre. It is a story of deep interest, and superior merit-not a collection of common-places-of "hair-breadth escapes," and horror-rousing incidents, clumsily huddled together; but an artistical composition, unique in its arrangements, and with a strong air of originality. The author's taste is delicate, his fancy lively, and his genius of graceful manner and structure, if not distinguished by great boldness and power. You will read his narrative with pleasure, and may recur to it with interest.

VIII. Zoe. The History of Two Lives. By Geraldine Endsor Jewsbury.-There was a Miss JEWSBURY, a woman of considerable intellectual strength and sentiment, who afterwards became (we believe) Mrs. FLETCHER, wife of an excellent Christian missionary, who perished in his harness. Whether the lady who writes the book above named, is a sister to the former, is more than we can tell. If so, she inherits something more than her kinswoman's talent. This story is quite full of merit, not so much, perhaps, as a story-for, in this particular, it seems to us greatly defective in many serious respects;-but as a work abounding in proofs of thought, a keen inquisitive mind, good common sense, and a considerable amount of that boldness of suggestion which usually leads to, if it be not, in itself, originality. The work does not begin so well-the interest is divided between too many objects—it lacks in dramatic respects—lacks in concentration, for example-and its transitions are too free for the due maintenance of the symmetry and harmony of character. But the general conception of character is good, and there are out-givings of a degree of knowledge of the inner nature, in the case, as well of man as woman, such as are not ordinarily shown by the feminine intellect. If the writer is a young woman, as we believe, she has certainly made rare progress in her psychological studies. She will do better things. As a tale-teller, her deficiencies are more decided and evident. She lacks invention. There does not seem much art in her mode of bringing her parties into action; and she commits the fatal error of introducing, at the close of the story, new parties, in whom the characters have had no previous interest, and who are made to exercise a controlling influence upon the action of the dramatis persona. Such, for example, is the introduction of the celebrated Compte Mirabeau, who makes the acquaintance of the reader, late in the story, and immediately influences its whole tone and atmosphere. It is true, the reader, now made familiar, by the events of a subsequent history, with the curious career and wondrous powers of that person, is not displeased to meet with him in a work of art, assuming that a tolerable delineation of his character is given us. But we are not satisfied that he should control the catastrophe of the piece, making his appearance, for the first time, only in the fifth act. To have introduced

him at all, at such a period, the proprieties of art require that he should only appear as an auxiliary. He might have been made to play a part in general society-a sort of chorus-but he should not have been thrust forward conspicu ously and, at such a moment, obtrusively, to divert or to retard the action. Nor are we satisfied that the character is drawn in perfect harmony with that which is known of Mirabeau. We are scarcely to believe that he is the same person, loving, and in the "bower of dames," as when, in the tribune, he wields at will the "fierce democratie" of France. Something too much of the bull—the bruteis here given us, at the very moment, when the claws of the monster should be calmed entirely in gold. There are glimpses of other distinguished persons more appropriately introduced, though less elaborately drawn, in the progress of this volume. The writer has gone to work something too ambitiously, perhaps, and has aimed at too many objects to be entirely successful. But her book is well worth reading, for its intelligence, its experience and its thought.

IX. Veronica. From the German of Zschokke.-Zschokke is better known as the writer of nouvellettes than of regular romances. This is the only elaborate story of his with which we are familiar. His smaller tales are better known than those of any other modern German. Their characteristics are good sense, good moral, a piquant manner of showing up old topics, and a knowledge of all those arts of the raconteur, by which the reader is helped to the end of a narrative without being weary in his progress. Some of his things are most adroitly satirical. We may instance one of the happiest of these, in the "Fool of the Nineteenth Century,"-a story which covers a keen satire in a garb as little likely as possible to prove offensive. He is, besides, by no means wanting in that sense of the spirituelle which is the great agent among the modern Germans, for encountering the world's tendency to the basest realism. His clairvoyante is sufficient proof of this quality. "Veronica" is scarcely so good, on the whole, as many of his less ambitious works. It is pleasing as a story, with some scenes of power and excellence, but, apart from his other writings, it would not confer upon him a rank much above the third or fourth class novelist. It is an imitatation of Scott, such as Mr. JAMES produces monthly, and is, perhaps, worthy to rank with the average productions of this latter gentleman.

X. Wyoming, a Tale.-Our worthy friends of Cliff-street have committed two errors;-first, in publishing this volume as one of their library of select novels; and, secondly, in publishing it at all! It is one of those wretched productions which neither men nor magazines can tolerate;-totally deficient in all of the requisites of a work of art or fiction. The style is hard and hobbling-"halt, lame, and blind;"-and the story is beyond all grace, here or hereafter, for its excess of stupidity. Nothing so wretched as this volume has been issued from the American press for a long season.

XI. The Dutchman's Fireside. By Paulding.-This story is that to which Mr. PAULDING Owes most of his successes as a novelist. He has, perhaps, never surpassed it. "Westward Ho!" was a bolder, but scarcely so successful an attempt. "The Dutchman's Fireside," is a fair sample of quiet domestic narrative. The matter is probably not sufficiently exciting for the popular taste, stimulated as it has been by the more highly spiced dishes of Messrs. SUE and AINSWORTH; but it will be less likely to pall upon the appetite for this very reason.

SOUTHERN AND WESTERN

MAGAZINE AND REVIEW.

VOL. II.]

CHARLESTON, S. C., OCTOBER, 1845.

[No. 4.

THE TYRANNY OF PUBLIC OPINION.

THIS is one of the items generally included in the standing account made up against the United States by foreign newspaper writers, travellers and philosophers, and asserted so often and so resolutely, triumphed in by enemies, and sighed over by friends, that it has got to be received with the facility and invincibility of a proverb. We confess ourselves, however, indisposed to concur quite so readily as is commonly done, in its proverbial accuracy. If true, and to be admitted, it is a solemn subject for grief and lamentation, to which not having been born among the cirahers we are disposed to submit only upon the fullest evidence. We are loth to think that we wear any tyranny of so galling a character-that we are ex officio by the very nature and constitution of our government, by force of so terrific a democracy, a nation of hypocrites and time servers; for to this the exercise of a tyranny over the mind would soon lead us. Is there any such "tyranny" here, which is not chargeable, in various ways, upon human nature at large, and to which the countries of Europe do not bow, as well as ourselves? If it be so, it is time that we looked into the subject. The charge has been admitted at home with a readiness, however, to go very far to disarm the fact. Every discontented partisan or reformer who fails in establishing his pet project, finds his palliative for disappointment in that immense obstacle, the tyranny of public opinion. If the country really suffered from the evil, we should be likely to hear either more or less of the complaint. The pressure of the grievance would compel much noise and protestation, or the tyranny would be so complete that the sufferers would be crushed into silence.

A remark of a liberal writer in England, and friendly to the United States, a reformer, however, and at odds with the world, on his own account, has called our attention anew to this subject, on which we had often meditated before. Mr. Fox, the radical politician and independent preacher, in one of his lectures to the people remarks: "In the United States of America, there is no doubt an appalling exhibition of this tyranny of the opinions of the majority over the minority.

VOL. II.-NO. IV.

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It is the great evil of the state of society in that country. When Richard Carlisle received that enormous sentence of three years' imprisonment at Dorchester jail, for his publications against Christianity, a remark was made by him, that this could not have happened in the United States of America. "No," said Cobbett, "there would have been no such sentence, but he would have been tarred and feathered without any trial at all." He then proceeds to strengthen his assertion by a quotation from Dr. Dewey's "Moral Views of Commerce, Society and Politics" which, to get the best statement of the point before us, we also shall proceed to quote. "We in this country have our own dangers. And the greatest of all dangers here, as I conceive, is that of general pusillanimity, of moral cowardice, of losing a proper and manly independence of character. I think that I see something of this in our very manners, in the hesitation, the indirectness, the cautious and circuitous modes of speech, the eye-asking assent before the tongue can finish the sentence. I think that in other countries you oftener meet with men who stand manfully and boldly up, and deliver their opinion without asking or caring what you or others think about it. It may sometimes be rough and hard, but at any rate, it is independent. Observe, too, in how many relations, political, religious and social, a man is liable to find bondage instead of freedom. If he wants office, he must attach himself to a party, and then his eyes must be sealed in blindness, and his lips in silence, towards all the faults of his party. He may have his eyes open, and he may see much to condemn, but he must say nothing. If he edits a newspaper, his choice is often between bondage and beggary; that may actually be the choice, though he does not know it; he may be so complete a slave that he does not feel the chain; his passions may be so enlisted in the cause of his party as to blind his discrimination and destroy all comprehension and capability of independence. So it may be with the religious partisan. He knows, perhaps, that there are errors in his adopted creed, faults in his sect, fanaticism and extravagance in some of its measures. See if you get him to speak of them; see if you can get him to breathe a whisper of doubt." This is the charge. What is the defence?

A primary distinction, and what may appear a very obvious one, is to be made in this matter at the outset. We are not to confound what is common to human nature and society every where, with what is peculiar to the United States, its government and manners. Dr. Dewey, we think, forgets this truism. Man will always be prone to surrender his own judgment to his own private tyrants within himself, to various social influences, and of course, to various influences which proceed from the state. Robinson Crusoe would probably cheat his conscience when alone on his desert island; he would probably succumb in some measure to the prejudices of the man Friday when he met with him. The Kamschatkan or the Icelander would probably have his own false views "of the partecklar feetness of things," as the Scotch metaphysician in Headlong Hall phrases it, induced by the defects, of which in all likelihood there are enough, of his particular system of government. To make the charge effective, these

errors must not only grow out of democratic systems of government, but they must exist in greater numbers than under any other government, otherwise there is nothing peculiar in the case, and the indictment must fall to the ground.

Dr. Dewey specifies our political, religious and social relations, as furnishing occasion for this bondage-in other words, he complains that a partisan is a partisan, that a church-man belongs to his church, and that society is an association. A man who seeks office will, of course, swear by his party; he will breathe no disaffection to the policy of Tyler or Polk; he will eat his bread and butter without quarreling with it. It is the necessity of the case all the world over. Your Englishman, your royal stamped beef eater in the tower, will wash down church and state, as a matter of course, along with the public beverage; if you question him on the propriety of kings, lords and commons, you insult him. If the question be whether the situation of an office holder or a partisan is a favorable one for independent judgment on political affairs, the answer is that it most assuredly is not. With regard to religious relations, it is wise that a man should reluctantly relinquish the peculiar creed in which he has been born and educated, though it has yet to be shewn that proselytism is less frequent here than elsewhere. There is an instinctive feeling of repugnance to a man, universal in the world, who greedily seeks or lightly becomes a proselyte. It is frequently unjust, but it is founded on a sense of the proper stability of character and of the value of the influences of deeply rooted religious association, which is honorable and worthy of being cherished with the strictest jealousy. Granted, that in every religious association there are defects, growing ou of the lapse of time or the ordinary imperfections of human affairs, which may be pointed out. The ground work of a man's faith being attacked, he will cling to every inch of the territory for defence, or mayhap, he may be merely hugging an idle prejudice; but a prejudice of this kind is not chargeable to the nation. His social prejudices too, may be called bondage, but they are not the tyranny of American public opinion. They may spring from the reign of fashion, which is despotic all the world over; they may be involved in the condition of the compact itself a man attaching himself to a particular class of society becoming subject to the habits and customs of the people with whom he chooses to live. If he joins a clique he must, of course, work with the clique; if he eats other people's dinners, he must give dinners himself; if he goes to balls, he must give balls. Englishmen are very fond of making this accusation. But the charge might be retorted upon them with equal, if not greater readiness. The conclusion a philosophical observer will be likely to come to, is, that it is as difficult for a man to be independent in the United States as in Great Britain-and as easy. There are a chain of circumstances in England, which fix this tyranny with greater definiteness and permanence. Take all the intolerance growing out of religious bigotry-in which country is it likely to be more annoying?— where a particular creed is protected by the state, hedged in by the guards and muniments of power and authority, attended upon by all

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