king, lords, and commons :--and the most remarkable circumstance about this remarkable law, and which characterizes it as forming an æra in British legislation, is the preamble which is prefixed to it: "Whereas it is expedient to amend the laws relating to bankrupts, AND TO SIMPLIFY THE LANGUAGE THEREOF, AND TO CONSOLIDATE THE SAME, SO AMENDED AND SIMPLIFIED, IN ONE ACT, and to make other provisions respecting bankrupts, be it enacted," &c. It then goes on, and in one fell swoop, repeals no less than twenty-one acts of parliaments, beginning with the venerable statute of the 34 and 35 of King Henry VIII. c. 4, and ending with the statute of the 5th of his present majesty, c. 98. sparing neither old age nor youth--neither the wisdom of the Eighth Harry nor that of the Fourth George. It then proceeds, with what must appear to some a merciless hand, (but to us it seems too sparing,) to lop off the useless verbosity, and dark and antiquated phraseology, of the enactments it thinks fit to retain; and to supply the place of those it entirely extirpates, by new and more wholesome provisions, reducing the whole into something like order and symmetry.

Notwithstanding these improvements in the phraseology of the new act, (which was passed on the 2d May, and went into operation on the 2d of September last,) Mr. Uniacke thinks it is susceptible of still further improvement both in style and arrangement, and for that purpose has translated the act, (as he expresses it,) so as to render its language more plain and intelligible, and reduce its size at least one third. This translation was published some time since by Mr. Lang, in the New-York Gazette, and therefore we shall not trouble our readers with an analysis of it, which we had intended to prepare and lay before them.

We may be allowed, however, to express our wish, that as the subject of a bankrupt code seems to be taken up in earnest by congress, due attention may be paid to the revision of the phraseology of the bills which have been heretofore presented on the subject, and that we may avail ourselves of the substantive alterations which have been made in the English bankrupt laws by this new statute, so far as they shall appear to be adapted to our peculiar circumstances. It seems indeed ex

traordinary that one of the most important powers with which congress is invested by the national constitution, should have remained so long unexecuted. We can hardly conceive it possible that a great commercial country can long exist, in any tolerable order, without a bankrupt code. That this should be uniform throughout the nation, in a country divided into so many jurisdictions as this is, scems to be self-evident. It is true, that the English bankrupt laws do not extend to Scotland and

Ireland, or to the British colonies; but we are to remember, that they extend to all persons resident in England, whether natives or aliens; and that by far the greater part of the commerce of the British empire centres, and is carried on, in England, where its active agents reside, and are liable to be affected by the bankrupt laws. But in this country, divided, as it is, into twenty-four different jurisdictions, each having its peculiar system for the collection of debts and the relief of insolvent debtors, great confusion and inconvenience has already arisen, and must at last become inextricable, without the establishment of uniform laws on this interesting subject. The commercial credit of the country, both at home and abroad, is injured by it to a degree which it is impossible to estimate. We are very sensible of the difficulties of adjusting a system of bankrupt laws to the various wants, and habits, and local institutions of our wide spread empire; but we do not believe that these difficulties are insuperable. Any uniform system, however imperfect, would be preferable to the present chaos of state regulation-of insolvent laws, and attachment laws, and execution laws, constantly fluctuating with the changing policy of the different states, operating in the most unjust and partial manner upon foreign creditors, and confining the unfortunate debtor to the limits of the local jurisdiction within which he has obtained his discharge. We are, however, satisfied, that the American legal mind, availing itself of the lights of experience in other countries, is competent to frame a bankrupt code, which shall be superior to any other that has yet been devised, both in simplicity and efficacy. If there be any doubt of the practicability of this, it must arise, not from the want of skill in our legislators, but from the state of morals and of manners which has grown up under the present lax and confused system, and which will not endure those decisive remedies which alone can be efficacious. They will at least have the consolation of Solon, if they cannot give their countrymen the best possible laws, they will give them the best which they are capable of receiving.

ART. XII.—The Atlantic Souvenir ; a Christmas and New-Year's Offering. 1826. Philadelphia. H. C. Carey & I. Lea.

WHEN this journal was first started, under a different title, strong doubts were entertained, by many judicious and reflecting individuals, as to the meaning of its name; and perhaps, if its godfathers had been perfectly ingenuous, they would have found it no easy matter to have satisfied the laudable curiosity and rational septicism of those who quarrelled with the mysterious appellation. If there be any who yet feel uneasy about this matter, we have now an opportunity of referring them for information to those who stood sponsors for the beautiful work before us, to the title of which, for obvious reasons, we make no objections; although

we fear it may affect dangerously some weak nerves, and sound to their nice ears like the "Herculean Balsam," whilome advertised as a grand specific in this city.

However this may be, we have reason to be proud of this little volume, both for matter and manner, as a specimen of American manufacture, and as it will bear comparison, without prejudice, with any of the similar publications of the English press. For the elegance and beauty of its typographical execution, we have not seen its rival in any book printed in this country.

It has been supplied with its literary materials entirely by native writers; and at least half its contents is from the pens of authors in this city. "The Eve of St. John," "A Tale of Mystery," and the "Spanish Girl of the Cordilleras," from the same prolific pen, will be read with universal pleasure; and although the author's reputation has been long established, we know not but it may be even enhanced by the perusal of these stories, in the opinions of those who have often smiled with him in the sallies of his native humour, or who have confessed the strength of his caustic talent, when he has employed the power of his satire against the libellers of our country. The first of these tales, (and, in our opinion, the best, both for plot and execution,) is the narration of the persecution and murder of a young Greek girl and her lover, by a Turkish tyrant. Whether it be founded on any particular facts we know not; but too many similar recorded instances of remorseless and abominable oppression in the annals of Mahometan sway, give to this well told fiction the pathos and the eloquence of truth. The "Tale of Mystery," which we have also relished exceedingly, is an account of the melancholy and gentlemanlike deportment and demise of one Mr. Jacob Stump, who died, as his fathers before him had done, "without a disease." Whether the cause of this premature dissolution of Jacob and his ancestors, is intended to be discoverable in the necessity of their wearing, for constant penance and mortification, their unfortunate surname, or to whatever source this family disease might be traced, we think the parents of the hero showed great good sense and taste, in not tacking to his inevitable cognomen any preposterous heathen appellation. They found him a Stump; and they christened him plain Jacob. Had they made him carry on the back of his familiar title, the tremendous heroic weight of Artaxerxes, or Agamemnon, he would surely have sunk into an earlier, a more untimely grave. The scene of this story is at home, and the fidelity of its descriptive parts will be at once recognised by all who have travelled in steam-boats, or made the fashionable summer excursion. Were we, at this season of festivity, in a cynic vein, we should object to the "Spanish Girl of the Cordilleras," on account of the poverty of its plot. The story, however, such as it is, is told pleasantly and gracefully.

"The Catholic Iroquois," by the author of Redwood, relates the martyrdom of an Indian girl, who, after having been educated in the Christian faith, and married to a voung Frenchman, is carried away by her savage father and his tribe, after the destruction of her husband, and the settlement in which they dwelt, and devoted to the funeral pyre, on her refusal to embrace the faith of her kindred, and a husband from among their people. We have rarely met with a more deeply interesting and pathetic narrative, of equal length, than this. The writer has evinced all her usual ability in the introduction, in which the legend is naturally and happily introduced; in the local descriptions of scenery; in portraying the prominent characters, and in the management of the incidents.

We have only one remark to make, by way of suggestion, and perhaps it is hypercritical. We had thought, that the notion of human sacrifice, or the dedication of human victims to any particular god, as belonging to the customs of our Aborigines, had been disproved, and exploded. The martyrdom of the Indian girl, might have taken place with as much propriety, and been made equally effective, without the introduction of this questionable superstition. Be this as it may, every reader of feeling will do homage to the genius of the author, in perusing this brief story. The characters of the good priest, and of the two Indian sisters, the one of whom had devoted herself to the solitude of the cloister, while the other could not break the tendrils of natural feeling which bound her to this world, with its hopes, and fears, and sympathies, are drawn in a manner not unworthy of M'Kenzie. The conclusion approaches to the sublime.

Of the two remaining tales in this volume, the first, which is called, "A Revolutionary Story," has no particular merit, except that it is written in good English. Dr. Johnson has very justly remarked, that it requires no great stretch of ingenuity to dispose of the characters in a fable, by killing them all off. There are so many different ways of departing this life, other than by the regular course of professional assistance, that one has no difficulty in cutting to pieces the tangled knot of his own tying, by strewing the stage, as in Tom Thumb, or Bombastes Furioso, with the murdered victims of his sanguinary but uninventive imagination. A tale of disastrous love, where the parties to the suit are got rid of by a simple suggestion on the record, that one died of a broken heart, and the other for grief at the loss, requires much poetical embellishment, or unusual pathos in the narration, to save it from the oblivion which has past over so many doleful compositions of a like lugubrious, but unoriginal character.

"The Waldstetten" is of a different order, though founded on the same basis, of an unfortunate attachment, and terminating as unhappily, in the death of the lovers. The scene, and time of its action, are laid in the heroic days of Switzerland; and the main incident is the voluntary self-devotion of Arnold de Winkelreid. The author appears to have made himself at home, among the lakes and mountains, which he paints with no vulgar pencil; and his fiction, in connexion with the historical matter introduced, is managed with much skill and effect.

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The descriptive sketches of Paris, from "Pete la Chaise," "Scenes on the St. Lawrence," " Naples" and " Athens,” accompanying the respective engravings, are written with much grace, and with great purity of style. Of the poetry, generally, we must speak in more qualified phraseology. It is all very respectable, and some of it is very pretty; but its prevailing character is that of mediocrity. "The Dream," is decidedly flat. The writer of the "Legend of the Forest," is undoubtedly a poet; and there is much poetry in this production. We think, however, that he has taken too great liberties with the superstitions of our Aborigines, and interwoven with them too much of eastern mythology, producing a texture sometimes inconsistent and inappropriate.

Upon the whole, the volume is highly creditable to the talents of our native writers, and the laudable enterprise of the publishers Its plan is extremely well calculated to elicit the powers of genius, by preserving in a more enduring form its fugitive efforts. It is a beautiful and appropriate present for the season; and we hope the extent of its sale will correspond with its external and intrinsic merits.

THE

ATHENEUM MAGAZINE.

JANUARY, 1826.

STORIES OF A COCK AND BULL.

THE BEAU'S TALE.-HISTORY OF COUNT r

I was born, began the count, in the province of New-York, of one of the first families in it. By the first, I mean, one of the first that came over from Holland. My great ancestor accompanied Hendrick Hudson on the voyage, which ended in the discovery of the New-Netherlands, but in what capacity I cannot tell; and from his not having exercised any particular functions on board, I think I may fairly conclude he was a gentleman passenger. In addition to this presumptive claim to distinction, it is on record that he killed the first bear that ever fell by the hands of a white man in the province. When it is considered how large a portion of the great families abroad, derive their origin and distinction from the performance of exploits not half so innocent, not to say as useful, as that of my ancestor, I think I have fairly made out my pedigree, and shall insist upon it no farther. If any other proofs of honourable descent were necessary, they might be found in the utter obscurity that shrouds the memory of his forefathers. This, in itself, is equal to a certificate from the herald's office, since, in my opinion, the best possible proof of the antiquity of a family, is the total oblivion of its founder. If it has subsisted long enough for him to be entirely forgotten, his descendants may make him out a hero or demi-god, and let him perform as many impossibilities as they please.

I have it from the best authority, that my ancestor was a very clever fellow, who belonged to that class of persons who make their fortunes by making themselves either useful or agreeable to great men. Their sole study is human nature, not in books, but the great volume of the world; and the most valuable portion of their learning consists in the science, which is sometimes dignified with the honourable appellation of toad eating. When you know as much of the world as I do, you will discover that this class of persons have more to do in the government of mankind than you imagine. My ancestor was an adept in this science, and continued in favour with a succession of governVol. II.

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