phraseology, she insensibly expressed herself in the naked simplicity of former times. We find a like effect in Thomson's Castle of Indolence.

The extracts from the Journal are well worth reading. How a woman of Mrs. Radcliffe's mind could look at nature as she did, knowing that she was going straight to the inn to put it down in black and white, we cannot tell. She did it, however, and so do our lady-tourists; but our lady-tourists are not Mrs. Radcliffe. The painter sketches from nature. He tells

66

you,

"'T is my vocation, Hal!" But the poetical mind of him who is not a painter may be said to see, and not to see; all is absorbed deeply inward, and goes in mingling with emotions, and fancies of the brain, changing its shapes and relations in its very course. Perhaps there are not to be found in writing descriptions so minute and so true as those in this Journal. Light and shadow, tints of the sky, forms and hues, and positions of objects, appear to have been viewed by Mrs. Radcliffe with the minute accuracy of a painter's eye.

There follows Gaston de Blondeville a pretty thick volume of poetry. Remembering the specimens of Mrs. Radcliffe's talents in this art, scattered through her novels, we went to the volume with much misgiving. We were somewhat relieved, but not well enough satisfied to persevere. There is considerable improvement in diction, and some quite pleasing passages, which come very near being what may be called good poetry. There is nothing to which that homely saying, "A miss is as good as a mile," better applies, than to what comes under the name of second-rate poetry, which, strictly speaking, is no poetry at all. To be sure, it may be in fashion, and be run after for a day;

for the world is more quickly taken with the false than with the true, though it will not hold to it so long. The eyesight may be dazzled, and there may be a great expenditure of the vital principle in ecstatics; but all comes right after a while, and people learn to distinguish between poverty and simplicity, between a superflux of words, and true passion and sentiment, and rich, original thought.

We are sorry that we cannot say more for Mrs. Radcliffe's poetry; for we would say nothing but what is well of her. There is a beauty in her mind, a gentleness, a delicacy, a retiredness in her disposition, which is wholly feminine, and which every man cannot but feel, who feels as man ought towards woman; and she who wants this disposition, though she may draw admiration, will never win and keep a true, respectful, knightly sentiment of love.

THE NOVELS OF CHARLES

BROWN.*

BROCKDEN

TWENTY odd years have been allowed to pass before even an imperfect edition of the works of fiction of our long unrivalled novelist is given to the public. Yet nearly all that time Brown has been alone; for no one approached the height he stood on till the author of "The Pioneers" and "The Pilot" appeared. Like his own Clithero, he lay stretched in moody solitude, the waters of the noisy world rolling blindly on around him, and a wide chasm open between him and his fellow-men. In 1815, Mr. Dunlap gave us a Life of him; an ill-arranged and bulky work, yet too meagre where it should be particular and full. To this, however, we are indebted for all we know of his life; and we owe to it also an article on Brown, which appeared in the North American Review for 1819, an article which, we fear, has left us little to say.

Mr. Dunlap's Life of our author was not of a character to be much read; and it was, after all, perhaps,

* From the United States Review and Literary Gazette for 1827. The Novels of CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN: "Wieland," " Arthur Mervyn," "Ormond," " Edgar Huntly," "Jane Talbot," and " Clara Howard." With a Memoir of the Author. Boston: S. G. Goodrich. 1827. 6 vols.

in this case, as it has been in some others, chiefly to England that Brown was indebted for his coming into general notice at home. It is true that his stories were to be found amongst the shabby editions of works which go to make up a circulating library, and that some of them were occasionally read; but excepting his personal acquaintance, few or none knew or cared whether he was an Englishman or a Laplander; whether he was living, whether he had died a natural death, or was one of the many Browns who are regularly hanged. Even when an American edition at last appears, it is recommended to public notice by extracts from a London paper, congratulating Brown's countrymen that Boston had given them an edition of the works of a man of whom they might well be proud. We hope none will take offence. We would merely suggest to the zealous, that, whenever a man of genius appears amongst us, we should give him cordial wel come and support, and hearty praise; and not be so wanting in true patriotism as to let foreigners be the first to take him by the hand.

This edition of Brown is in six conveniently sized volumes, neat in appearance, though not so accurately printed as we could wish. The notice of him, at the beginning, gives not a single new fact, or peculiarity in his character, that we recollect. The publisher might as well have set his printer to compiling a notice out of Dunlap, as have brought such a one as this all the way from Philadelphia. We wish, too, he had taken advice before making his selections. No edition of Brown's works should be published without the Memoir of Carwin and that of Stephen Calvert. It is true, Brown did not live to finish them; but they are fine beginnings. And from the very fact that they are but

beginnings, they have a peculiar and near interest in the eyes of those who feel something like a personal attachment to our author; -and what right-hearted reader does not? They connect us with him in his sickness, bring us to the side of his death-bed, and help us watch the passing of his spirit into the other world. Had any sacrifice been necessary, which we very much doubt, "Clara Howard" should have been omitted; for it has all Brown's faults, with little or none of his power. Notwithstanding these deficiencies, we hold the public to be under obligations to the publisher, and hope he will be rewarded for his praiseworthy untaking.

To the speculative mind, it is a curious fact, that a man like Brown should of a sudden make his appearance in a new country, in which almost every individual was taken up in the eager pursuit of riches, or the hot and noisy contests of party politics; when every man of talents, who sought out distinction, went into one of the professions; when to make literature one's main employment was held little better than being a drone; when almost the only men who wrote with force and simplicity were some of the leaders amongst our active politicians; when a man might look over our wide and busy territory, and see only here and there some selfdeluded creature seated, harping, on some weedy knoll, and fancying it the efflorescent mount of all the Muses.

Did not the fact of Brown's having produced such works at such a time clearly show the power of genius over circumstances, we might be inclined to attribute to his loneliness of situation something of that solitariness, mysteriousness, and gloom, which surround all he wrote. But these characteristics of his writings