and thrills through his whole frame, at the approach and touch of that master's hand, we feel something more than respect, towards the noble animal. Oh! sacred humanity! how art thon dishonored by thy children, when the merest appendage of thy condition, the mere brute companion of thy fortunes, is more regarded than thou!

"What a picture does human society present to us! If I were to represent the world in vision, I should say that I see it, not as that interchange of hill and dale which now spreads around me, but as one vast mountain; and all the multitudes that cover it, are struggling to rise; and those who, in my vision, seem to be above, instead of holding friendly intercourse with those who are below, are endeavoring, all the while, to look over them, or building barriers and fences to keep them down; and every lower grade is using the same treatment towards those who are beneath them, that they bitterly and scornfully complain of, in those who are above; all but the topmost circle, imitators as well as competitors, injuring as well as injured; and the topmost circle-with no more to gain, revelling or sleeping upon its perilous heights, or dizzy with its elevation -- soon falls from its pinnacle of pride, giving place to others, who share in constant succession the same fate. Such is the miserable struggle of social ambition all the world over.

Of equal beauty and force, are the concluding paragraphs of the discourse upon social ambition, illustrating the ingratitude and folly of cherishing jealousies and heart-burnings, because of the worldly superiority of those around us:

"Your neighbor is above you in the world's esteem, perhaps above you, it may be, in fact; but what are you? You are a man; you are a rational and religious being; you are an immortal creature. Yes, a glad and glorious existence is yours; your eye is opened to the lovely and majestic vision of nature; the paths of knowledge are around you, and they stretch onward to eternity; and most of all, the glory of the infinite God, the all-perfect, all-wise, and all-beautiful, is unfolded to you. What now, compared with this, is a little worldly eclat? The treasures of infinity and of eternity are heaped upon thy laboring thought; can that thought be deeply occupied with questions of mortal prudence? It is as if a man were enriched by some generous benefactor, almost beyond measure, and should find nothing else to do, but to vex himself and complain, because another man was made a few thousands richer.

"Where, unreasonable complainer! dost thou stand, and what is around thee? The world spreads before thee its sublime mysteries, where the thoughts of sages lose themselves in wonder; the ocean lifts up its eternal anthems to thine ear; the golden sun lights thy path; the wide heavens stretch themselves above thee, and worlds rise upon worlds, and systems beyond systems, to infinity: and dost thou stand in the centre of all this, to complain of thy lot and place? Pupil of that infinite teaching! minister at Nature's great altar! child of heaven's favor! ennobled being! redeemed creature! must thou pine in sullen and envious melancholy, amidst the plenitude of the whole creation?

"But thy neighbor is above thee,' thou sayest. What then? What is that to thee? What, though the shout of millions rose around him? What is that, to the millionvoiced nature that God has given thee? That shout dies away into the vacant air; it is not his but thy nature- thy favored, sacred and glorious nature is thine. It is the reality-to which praise is but a fleeting breath. Thou canst meditate the things, which applause but celebrates. In that thou art a man, thou art infinitely exalted above what any man can be, in that he is praised. I had rather be the humblest man in the world, than barely be thought greater than the greatest. The beggar is greater, as a man, than is the man, merely as a king. Not one of the crowds that listened to the eloquence of Demosthenes and Cicero - not one who has bent with admiration over the pages of Homer or Shakspeare--not one who followed in the train of Cæsar or of Napoleon, would part with the humblest power of thought, for all the fame that is echoing over the world and through the ages."

We cannot close our extracts, without presenting one passage from 'Moral Exposures of American Society,' advocating a manly freedom in the expression of just opinions, howsoever unpopular they may chance to be:

'What barrier is there against the universal despotism of public opinion in this country, but individual freedom? Who is to stand up against it here, but the possessor of that lofty independence? There is no king, no sultan, no noble, no privileged class; nobody else to stand against it. If you yield this point, if you are for ever making compromises, if all men do this, if the entire policy of private life here, is to escape opposition and reproach, every thing will be swept beneath the popular wave. There will be no individuality, no hardihood, no high and stern resolve, no self-subsistence, no fearless dignity, no glorious manhood of mind, left among us. The holy heritage of our fathers' virtues will be trodden under foot, by their unworthy children. They feared not to stand up against kings and nobles, and parliament and people. Better did they account

it, that their lonely bark should sweep the wide sea in freedom-happier were they, when their sail swelled to the storm of winter, than to be slaves in palaces of ease. Sweeter to their ear was the music of the gale, that shrieked in their broken cordage, than the voice at home that said 'submit, and you shall have rest.' And when they reached this wild shore, and built their altar, and knelt upon the frozen snow and the flinty rock to worship, they built that altar to freedom, to individual freedom, to freedom of conscience and opinion; and their noble prayer was, that their children might be thus free. Let their sons remember the prayer of their extremity, and the great bequest which their magnanimity has left us. * * * I know of but one thing safe in the universe, and that is truth. And I know of but one way to truth for an individual mind, and that is, unfettered thought. And I know but one path for the multitude to truth, and that is, thought, freely expressed. Make of truth itself an altar of slavery, and guard it about with a mysterious shrine; bind thought as a victim upon it; and let the passions of the prejudiced multitude minister fuel; and you sacrifice upon that accursed altar, the hopes of the world!

Why is it, in fact, that the tone of morality in the high places of society, is so lax and complaisant, but for want of the independent and indignant rebuke of society? There is reproach enough poured upon the drunkenness, debauchery and dishonesty of the poor man. The good people who go to him can speak plainly—ay, very plainly, of his evil ways. Why is it, then, that fashionable vice is able to hold up its head, and sometimes to occupy the front ranks of society. It is because respectable persons, of hesitating and compromising virtue, keep it in countenance. It is because timid woman stretches out her hand to the man whom she knows to be the deadliest enemy of morality and of her sex, while she turns a cold eye upon the victims he has ruined. It is because there is nobody to speak plainly in cases like these. And do you think that society is ever to be regenerated or purified under the influence of these unjust and pusillanimous compromises? I tell you never. So long as vice is suffered to be fashionable and respectable-so long as men are bold to condemn it only when it is clothed in rags, there will never be any radical improvement. You may multiply Temperance Societies, and Moral Reform Societies; you may pile up statute books of laws against gambling and dishonesty; but so long as the timid homages of the fair and honored are paid to splendid iniquity, it will be all in vain. So long will it be felt, that the voice of the world is not against the sinner, but against the sinner's garb. And so long, every weapon of association, and every batton of office, will be but a missile feather against the leviathan, that is wallowing in the low marshes and stagnant pools of society."

In the manner of these discourses, there is great literary merit and professional address. There is in all of them a res lecler potenter - something that attracts, and that takes hold of the feelings. The writer seems to realize, that' what is best administered is best,' is a maxim as true of religious precept as of government. He is not of the class of holy swaggerers, or evangelical bullies, who have done so much harm to the cause of religion and morality, by their attempts to kick and cuff men into being Christians and good citizens; yet does he use 'all plainness of speech,' in denunciation, although it may be tempered with tenderness and pathos in expostulation. We commend the volume to our readers, with but one regret, that humility of matériel in externals should have been coupled with such internal excellence. The book deserved fine white paper and good printing.

NOTES OF THE WESTERN STATES: Containing Descriptive Sketches of their Soil, Climate, Resources, and Scenery. By JAMES HALL, author of 'Border Tales,' etc. In one volume, 12mo. pp. 304. Philadelphia: HARRISON HALL.

BESIDE being a very good poet, Judge HALL is an admirable prose writer. Moreover, he can handle the tomahawk and scalping-knife, like an Indian adept, as is well evinced in the preface to the volume before us, wherein a 'North American' reviewer is disposed of in that summary mode known as the 'used up.' Passing this, however—which is more than the reader of the book will do we come to the work itself, which the multiplicity of new publications during the month compels us to treat far more summarily than it deserves. Every thing of interest connected with the particular or general character of the western country, is here set down. The great western plain; the rivers Ohio and Mississippi; the prairies, wet and dry, their general appearance, soils,

products, etc., and a theory of their formation; agricultural productions, public domain, western steam-boats, trade, commerce, etc., these and topics incidental, are elaborately treated of, and in a style so felicitous as at once to command and fix the attention of the reader. A single paragraph, culled with doubt and misgiving from many similar passages, must serve our purpose for the present. It occurs in one of the best and most comprehensive descriptions of the character and general aspect of the great western prairies, that we have ever encountered. It depicts, as by the light of its glorious torch, a prairie on fire :

"The thick sward of the prairie presents a considerable mass of fuel, and offers a barrier to the progress of the flame, not easily surmounted. The fire advances slowly, and with power. The heat is intense. The flames often extend across a wide prairie, and advance in a long line. No sight can be more sublime, than to behold at night, a stream of fire several miles in breadth, advancing across these plains, leaving behind it a black cloud of smoke, and throwing before it a vivid glare which lights up the whole landscape with the brilliancy of noonday. A roaring and cracking sound is heard like the rushing of a hurricane. The flame, which in general rises to the height of about twenty feet, is seen sinking, and darting upward in spires, precisely as the waves dash against each other, and as the spray flies up into the air; and the whole appearance is often that of a boiling and flaming sea, violently agitated. The progress of the fire is so slow, and the heat so great, that every combustible material in its course is consumed. The root of the prairie-grass alone, by some peculiar adaptation of nature, is spared; for of most other vegetables, not only is the stem destroyed, but the vital principle extinguished. Wo to the farmer, whose ripe corn fields extend into the prairie, and who has carelessly suffered the tall grass to grow in contact with his fences! The whole labor of the year is swept away in a few hours. But such accidents are comparatively unfrequent, as the preventive is simple, and easily applied. A narrow strip of bare ground prevents the fire from extending to the space beyond it. A beaten road, of the width of a single wagon track, arrests its progress. The treading of the domestic animals around the inclosures of the farmer affords often a sufficient protection, by destroying the fuel in their vicinity; and in other cases a few furrows are drawn round the field with the plough, or the wild grass is closely mowed down on the outside of the fence." Let this single passage, from a work full of such, send the reader to the publisher's table.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. NUMBER C. July, 1838. pp. 272. Boston: Oris, BROADERS, AND COMPANY. New-York: G. AND C. CARVILL.

A LONG life has already been vouchsafed to the North American, Review, and what is more, a praiseworthy and an honorable; and it bids fair to preserve the even tenor of its way through a succession of 'years behind the mountains,' in the onward distance. Such, at any rate, let us hope will be the case; for, notwithstanding the charges which have sometimes been brought against it, of undue sectional feelings and prejudices, operating to bias its literary opinions, and warp its critical judgments, it has been of greatest service to American literature, causing it in its infancy to be known more widely at home, and more diffused and respected abroad.

The present number is a good one-beyond, as it seems to us, from a perusal necessarily cursory, the average issues of the work. Fifty Years of Ohio,' the first article, is a review of two works, from which much and important information is gleaned relative to the first settlement, gradual progress, and present condition, of this wonderful state; its territorial and state governments, rail-roads, canals, schools, common and collegiate, statistics, etc. 'The Poetical Works of MILTON' are next considered, by one who, looking back upon the noble poet in due perspective, has made us acquainted with his natural endowments, his education, social position, and the relations which his character bears to his poetry. The notice of CAREY'S' Political Economy,' (too heavy reading, with our thermometer at ninety and upward,) we have reserved for perusal when we can 'take things coolly.' Considerable space is devoted, and worthily, to an admirable paper upon Anglo-Saxon Literature, embra

cing a sketch of the Anglo-Saxon race, and introducing to our notice several of their prominent authors, and their works, as Beöwolf, Cædmon, Alfred, etc., together with sundry beautiful and odd poetical fragments, odes, ballads, dialogues, scriptural translations, etc. The following historical synopsis is something of the briefest, but it is clear and all-embracing:

"It is oftentimes curious to consider the far off beginnings of great events, and to study the aspect of the cloud no bigger than one's hand. The British peasant looked seaward from his harvest-field, and saw, with wondering eyes, the piratical schooner of a Saxon Viking, making for the mouth of the Thames. A few years-only a few years afterward, while the same peasant, driven from his homestead north or west, still lives to tell the story to his grandchildren, another race lords it over the land, speaking a different language and living under different laws. This important event in his history is more important in the world's history. Thus began the reign of the Saxons in England; and the downfall of one nation, and the rise of another, seem to us at this distance only the catastrophe of a stage-play.

"The Saxons came into England about the middle of the fifth century. They were pagans; they were a wild and warlike people; brave, rejoicing in sea-storms, and beautiful in person, with blue eyes and long, flowing hair. Their warriors wore their shields suspended from their necks by chains. Their horsemen were armed with iron sledgehammers. Their priests rode upon mares, and carried into the battle-field an image of the god Irminsula; in figure like an armed man; his helmet crested with a cock; in his right hand a banner, emblazoned with a red rose; a bear, carved upon his breast; and, hanging from his shoulders, a shield, on which was a lion in a field of flowers. Not two centuries elapsed before this whole people was converted to Christianity."

The reviewer approaches his subject with due reverence. 'It is difficult,' says he, with equal beauty and feeling:

"It is difficult to comprehend fully the mind of a nation; even when that nation still lives, and we can visit it, and its present history, and the lives of men we know, help us to a comment on the written text. But here the dead alone speak. Voices, half understood; fragments of song, ending abruptly, as if the poet had sung no farther, but died with these last words upon his lips; homilies, preached to congregations that have been asleep for many centuries; lives of saints, who went to their reward, long before the world began to scoff at sainthood; and wonderful legends, once believed by men, and now, in this age of wise children, hardly credible enough for a nur e's tale; nothing entire, nothing wholly understood, and no farther comment or illustration, than may be drawn from an isolated fact, found in an old chronicle, or perchance a rude illumination in an old manuscript! Such is the literature we have now to consider. Such fragments, and mutilated remains, has the human mind left of itself, coming down through the times of old, step by step, and every step a century. Old men and venerable accompany us through the Past; and, pausing at the threshhold of the Present, they put into our hands, at parting, such written records of themselves, as they have. We should receive these things with reverence. We should respect old age."

"This leaf is it not blown about by the wind?
Woe to it for its fate!

Alas! it is old.'

We are not in error, we think, in tracing the paternity of this article to a pen which has been made familiar to our readers— that of Prof. LONGFELLOW, of Harvard University, a fine poet,' a scholar ripe and good,' and as a prose writer, second only to WASHINGTON IRVING. 'M'Kenney and Hall's History of the North American Indians' forms the staple of the next article. The praise long since awarded in these pages to the pictorial and literary merits of this excellent work, are more than confirmed by the reviewer, We are glad to learn that it is meeting with signal success in England. 'Fashions in Dress,' the next paper in order, is an entertaining and instructive essay, of which Mr. Brewster's Lecture before the Portsmouth Lyceum, noticed some months since in this Magazine, forms the nucleus. We have next a review of the 'Boylston Prize Addresses,' by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, who, beside being one of our first poets, has been successful in obtaining three of these prizes, in two successive years in the latter year, both that were offered for his medical dissertations. A copious article, evincing great research, follows, treating mainly of the early Venetian voyages to, and discoveries in, the new world, in the latter part of the four

teenth century. The Romantic Poetry of Italy' we take, by internal evidence, to be from the pen of our valued correspondent, G. W. GREENE, Esq., American Consul at Rome. It is a sketch of Italian romance, brought down to our own times, and including notices of authors most familiar to English readers. We need not add, that the review is happily executed. Beside the 'articles' proper, to which we have thus briefly alluded, there are some dozen shorter critical notices of minor works, and the usual quarterly list of new publications.

MISCELLANEOUS POEMS. BY JOHN H. HEWITT. In one volume. pp. 235. Baltimore: N. HICKMAN.

A BRIEF and modest preface introduces this pretty volume to the reader; and, as is usually the case, it foretells something worth reading, in the matter which it so unostentatiously heralds. Although the book reaches us at a late hour, we cannot omit to say, that we have derived great pleasure from its perusal, nor refrain from presenting one or two extracts, in justification of our favorable judgment. A large portion of the volume is occupied with anacreontic and sentimental stanzas, which have been set to music; and it is no more than just praise to say, that they are far superior to the great mass of productions, of a kindred stamp, in this country. We were surprised to find among them 'The Minstrel's Return from the War,' a song which has been upon millions of ruby lips in America. Passing these, however, we proceed to select a few passages from poems of a different description. The subjoined lines upon 'Oblivion,' are spirited and felicitous :

The German spirit of the 'Song of the Resurrection Man' is not less remarkable than the vividness of its limning:

We dig and we delve by the quivering light
Of the cold and silent moon,

While no noise disturbs the reign of night
But the clock that tells its noon;
And the mattock's sound

On the frozen ground
Keeps time to our voices' tune.

The charnel-house opens its heavy doors,
And the bones of dead men shake;
But the clatter of teeth and skeleton jaws,
Can never our labor break.

On the new made bed

Of the silent dead

We will work 'till the morn awake!

We know 't is the tender and comely form
Of a maiden lov'd and young;

And we know that her heart was true and warm,
While spells on her proud lips hung.

But we little mourn,

For those charms were gone,

When the dirge of the maid was sung.

Now up with the beautiful sleeper, my boys!
Lo! she seems to dream of bliss ;

And her silent lips still tell the joys
They gave in the living kiss.

But we love her cold,

In the death-shroud's fold,
On a church-yard couch like this!

There are several rhythmical blemishes, and other evidences of carelessness, which ought to be looked to in a second edition. Making two syllables of flower, lyre, and fire, in fireside, and substituting' will' for shall, occur to us, as worthy of mention.