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them up, but left us to discover that by our own sagacity, we cheerfully acknowledged that he had made a very respectable collection of its kind. The present volume has still higher claims on our attention, for we are given to understand, that the three first tales contained in it, occupying about two thirds of the whole number of pages, are original. The first of these, entitled, Hoosack Mountain, is a story of a Yankee yeoman, a Captain of militia, who, in the decline of life, is seized with a desire of making his fortune, and parts with his farm to a cunning landspeculator, in exchange for some land on the top of Hoosack mountain. Here he intends to set up a public house, in the expectation that a road will be laid out over the mountain, which would infallibly bring the immense throng of passengers by his door. Before making his fortune, the Captain breaks his looking glass, and then his neck; and his wife, whom the shrewd speculator, at the time of making the bargain, had persuaded to sign a relinquishment of her right of dower, is left, at the close of the story, instrueting her descendants "to be contented when they are well off; never to sign a paper without reading every word of it; and never, on any account, to break a looking-glass, as trouble and death will most certainly follow." There is, however, another moral to be extracted from the sentimental part of the story, which is, that the charms of a young girl of eighteen may reclaim and reform a profligate rake and debauchee, abandoned to the grossest vices, wandering about the country, running in debt at every tavern, and then running away. The former of these lessons, we suppose, is intended for the benefit of the old and prudent, the latter for the youthful and susceptible.

To do the writer justice, his tale shows no small observation of manners and characters; there is some coarseness, but withal, considerable spirit in his sketches. His Captain Rudd, and his land-speculator, are men whom it would be no difficult matter to find in New-England, or any other part of the United States. The faults of style, likewise, are those of negligence or want of practice, not those of affectation. There is a kind of helpless simplicity, somewhat between pathos and drollery, in the account of the way in which the Captain's self-importance was taken down just before his death. We give the following extract as a specimen.

"There is, perhaps, no one popular superstition that has so universal an influence, as this of breaking a looking-glass. It probably had its origin in their expense, in the high price attached to them when they first came into use. The Captain, who was very superstitious, stood over the glittering fragments with such a look of deep despondency, such an VOL. II.

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expression of giving up all for lost, that his wife, forgetting her resentment, and touched to the very heart, thought of nothing but to infuse into him some hope and consolation; but she was unsuccessful. • We shall have a death in our family soon,' said he, in a depressed tone; never was glass like that broken, but death followed it.'

"The evening now began to set in, and as they had still some way to go before they should reach their shelter, they left their broken furniture by the road side, and hastened on. It was dusk when they arrived at their new habitation; they were all glad to rest their weary limbs, but its low roof, scanty rooms, desolate hearth, and dilapidated, dirty appearance, threw a chill over all their feelings, that sent them supperless to bed. When the next morning's sun lit up the scene the Captain had so often contemplated in fancy, the site of his great tavern, he shut his eyes in disgust, and from that moment his usual spirits forsook him. He began to be an entirely altered man; he made no objections to his wife's proposal, that Rebekah should return with their neighbour; his usual loud, boisterous manner of speaking, was exchanged for a subdued tone; and it was remarked in his family, that he never after this mentioned his tavern, or called his wife the landlady. They led a lonely, uncomfortable life, while they staid on that spot, which, in no one point, agreed with the description they had received of it. But the Captain's gloom and depression was worse than all the rest; he would absent himself for hours; and when, alarmed, they went in pursuit of him, he was always found seated on the rock over which his wagon had first dashed, and surveying, with a despairing look, the shining particles before him. They carefully removed every piece of it from his sight; even scraped the earth over it, but all to no purpose; it was evident the idea was deeply impressed on his mind, that the expected death was to be his own, and his conduct led them to believe he fancied it would happen on that very spot."-pp. 40-42.

The second story in the collection, called the Fortune Teller, furnishes a strong contrast to the homeliness of the narrative already mentioned. The characters are Charles Upton, a cornet of dragoons in the American service during the revolutionary war; a Mrs. Kaulderston, not very happily married, with whom Upton narrowly escapes falling in love, and who is always careful to call him Cornet Upton, and has a delicate scene with him in a certain music-room; Shuter, the trumpeter; Bell Jones, the fortune-teller, a sort of crazy Bet, whose harangues are quite too long; and Captain Nichols, a man subject to fits of towering passion, during which he indulges in "the Ercles vein." A variety of mysterious incidents take place, the tendency of which is, to admonish Upton of the danger of continuing his intimacy with Mrs. Kaulderston. One of these will serve as a sample of the general style of the production. A printseller comes to the house of a Major Johnson, where Upton was a guest.

"The printseller was invited into the house, where he opened his portfolio, and exhibited some very fine drawings, some of which the ladies purchased to copy from. After some time, he called the attention of Mrs. Kaulderston and myself, who were standing together, to a smaller

port-folio which he had opened at the window, and which he said contained some very superior prints and original sketches. We had been examining them for some time, when I was startled by beholdnig á series of sketches, representing every scene that had passed between Mrs. Kaulderston and myself, from the time of our first meeting. Turning in a passion to the printseller, I seized him by the collar with the only hand I could use, and shaking him, demanded how he dared exhibit such sketches to me, and from whence they came? 'There are no offensive sketches there that I know of,' said the apparently frightened printseller; if I had thought that there were any improper or offensive ones among them,' continued he, at the same time turning them over, 'I would not have shown them; but I see none such as you allude to.' 'You lie, you rascal,' exclaimed I, again shaking him, 'you must know the sketches I allude to, from the very strong likenesses they contain of this lady and myself' 'I have no such print,' said the man, and I will not be called a liar, and dragged about in this way without any cause.' Saying this, he extricated himself from me, with a violence which made me reel against the wall, as I was yet weak

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"Major Johnson, who had been engaged with some papers at the other end of the room, now interfered, and inquired into the cause of the quarrel. The picture dealer replied. 'the gentleman complained of my having exhibited to him some sketches, which contained likenesses of himself and that lady. Now, sir, I assert that I have no such sketches in either of my port-folios, and I defy the gentleman to find any such as he has described.' Astonished at his assurance, I went immediately to the port-folio, and commenced searching for them in the middle of his collection, where I had seen them; but there they were not now to be found. I then began at the beginning, and turned over the prints and sketches one by one, but could find nothing of them. I then examined the port folio, but every thing about that, also appeared to be right; I then looked out of the window, and on the floor, but no such sketches were to be found; the other port-folio was also examined, but with as little success. I then accused him of having concealed them. 'Where could I have concealed them ?' inquired the man; 'I have not been three feet from you since you say you saw them, and that I have them not about my person, I will soon convince you.' He then pulled off his coat, turned his pockets inside out, unbuttoned his waistcoat, and completely satisfied us that they were not about his person.

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" "Gracious Heavens!' I exclaimed, have my eyes turned traitors to me, and am I no longer to trust to my own senses? Mrs. Kaulderston, did you not see the sketches?' 'I saw them plainly and distinctly,' said Mrs Kaulderston, but what has become of them, I cannot imagine.' The man was now directed to put up his things and depart; whilst he was doing so, I said to him, 'I advise you to keep out of my way, as I am convinced that you are an impostor. Although you have escaped me this time, you may not come off so well the next.' 'I am not in the habit of turning out of my way for any one,' replied the printseller, ' and certainly shall not do it for Lieutenant Upton, however highly he may value his prowess in the presence of ladies.'

"I was approaching to chastise the fellow for his impudence, when Major Johnson stepping before me, said, 'take up your things, sir, and begone, or I will see whether I cannot chastise you, for daring to insult a gentleman who is my guest, and in my house.' The scoundrel pick

ed up his port-folios, and looking at me with a chuckling laugh, and making a mock bow, he withdrew."-pp. 109-112.

There is a good deal of invention and ingenuity in this story, and it might well bear a comparison with the majority of the tales of wonder, translated from the German, were it not that the writer has thought proper, in the conclusion, to overturn and mar all that he has done. A brother of Bell Jones, who serves as a volunteer in Upton's regiment, sits down and makes his will, bequeathing all his property to Upton, and composes a sort of memoir, in which he states that Bell Jones is no witch; and that her mysterious knowledge of Upton's affairs, her predictions, and all the apparently supernatural circumstances, which had interested and amazed us, were only parts of a plot entered into among some of Upton's friends, to induce him to break off his acquaintance with Mrs. Kaulderston, and marry a Miss Lee. After having made this preparation, the soldier goes into battle and is killed. He is careful, however, to meet his death by the side of Upton; nor will he leave the world till he has given him the key of his chest, and told him where to find the will and the memoir. Hereupon Upton, obedient to the wishes of his friends, marries Miss Lee; and Bell Jones, having answered all the purposes of the author, recovers her reason, and as in justice she ought, is comfortably provided for at the end of the story. We are not, indeed, quite sure that this tale is not intended as a sort of burlesque upon the awkward machinery by which Mrs. Radcliffe accounts for the mysteries and terrors of her romances. Considered in this light, we think it is quite successful, though it seems to us that the intention of the writer ought to appear a little more clearly.

The third of these tales, the Falls of St. Anthony, is much shorter than either of the two others. We should judge imagination to be the predominant quality of the author's genius. Telumah, the hero of the story, is an Indian warrior, and the savages of the tribe to which he belongs, are conspicuous actors in the plot. There is not, however, a very strict adherence to Indian manners, nor any attempt to copy the peculiar language and allusions of savages. By leaving out a few tomahawks, arrows, and canoes, the tale would answer as well for a set of Italian or Austrian banditti, as for a tribe of North American Indians. There is, however, one singularity in the dialect of Telumah, which, for aught we know, may be imitated from some supposed peculiarity in the savage idiom. Whenever he addresses any person, he is almost invariably, made to use the pronouns thou and you, or their derivatives,

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