verley novels, is the romance hero, though not the hero of the romance,) that he is a suitor for Alice, the younger sister, gives vent to a transient paroxysm of indignation, as if he suspected that the young soldier, born in southern latitudes, slighted his elder daughter on account of the sable tinge in her escutcheon. But Duncan was certainly at liberty to make his election, independent of any such peculiarity. Cora had likewise a secret partiality for Duncan, which her maiden pride and delicacy properly controlled; but we cannot discern how the purposes of the fiction can be helped, by the supposition that his preference of her younger sister was in anywise to be ascribed to his prejudice of education against the descendants of negroes. It was natural, too, for Uncas to be more attracted by the fuller proportions and brilliant colour of the noble girl, who was ready, at any moment, to sacrifice herself for the more fragile Alice; but this does not render a frequent, inartificial, and painful allusion to an hereditary taint, at all necessary. Enough, however, of this. The difference between the sisters is finely conceived and beautifully supported throughout.

We find these young ladies, in the third year of what is commonly called the French war, leaving the camp of General Webb, at Fort Edward, to visit their aged father, Munro, the commandant at William Henry, on Lake George, distant about five leagues from the former place. The army of the French general Montcalm, with his fierce Indian allies, a mixed multitude both of Iroquois and Delawares, numerous, according to the reports that reached the English camp, "as the leaves of the trees," was pouring down to the assault of William Henry. Here we must mention our second difficulty. Filial piety had urged these maidens to penetrate the wilderness, to visit a father whom they adored; but the motive is scarcely sufficient to justify their leaving the safer quarters of Webb, for a besieged and ill provided fortress; where, however amiable on any other occasion, they could do no possible good, and must necessarily be rather in the way than useful. To accomplish the journey of fifteen miles, they leave Fort Edward, not with the powerful body despatched by Webb to assist Munro, but escorted solely by Heyward, and under the guidance of an Indian runner, of malign aspect, who had already apostatized, or rather been expelled from his native tribe; and who, as was known to the party, had no good reason to love Munro or his family; having been once flogged, in a most exemplary manner, for intoxication, by the orders of that veteran disciplinarian. The reason assigned by Heyward for preferring the route he took, "that enemies might be found skirting the column, where scalps abound the most," seems scarcely a satisfactory

solution of this too great confidence in the runner. Previous to the setting out of the party, we are made acquainted with another of the dramatis personæ of this narrative, who drops from the clouds; of a shape strangely uncouth, and attire equally singular. This person was a singing-master, with a "tooting instrument," as Hawk-eye calls it, in his pocket. Why he came to the camp, why he followed the route of the little party, and persisted in attaching himself to them and their fortunes, the author does not explain. His character is minutely drawn, and amusing; and he is of undoubted service in carrying through the plot; still we cannot help inquiring, "Que le diable allait il faire dans cette galère ?"

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As he is the bore of the romance, we cannot help making a general observation about the species, in the tales of this writer, which must have struck every one. They stick too close to their own peculiarity, with a want of variety, which we do not find even in real bores; and which is sometimes tiresome, and by no means ingenious. Their single mindedness" is unaccompanied with the "viridity of intellect," which, in her husband's opinion, distinguished the schoolmaster's lady in "Sayings and Doings." Captain Polworth, or Polly-warreth, as the paddies called him, could talk of nothing but mastication and deglutition; and David Gamut never opens his mouth, unless it be to uplift a stave, or to descant on psalmody.

Reinforced by the pertinacious "tooting-man," the party follow the guidance of the runner "Magua," until, it appears, he gave them to understand he had lost the track, and suspicions of his fidelity crossed the mind of Heyward. We are now introduced to three interesting characters; in supporting two of which-the scout, (our old friend Leatherstocking of the Pioneers,) and the young Mohican, Uncas, the last of the tortoise blood-the author has put forth his power with admirable success. The father of Uncas, Chingachgook, whom the readers of the Pioneers must also remember as an old friend, forms the third person of the groupe, whom the travellers encountered on their journey. We can find nothing to quarrel with Hawk-eye about, unless it be the too frequent repetition of his "silent and heartfelt laugh." Not but that he had a right to perform this noiseless agitation of his diaphragm, as often as he found it natural or refreshing; but the reader does not require to be perpetually reminded of this accomplishment of the woodsman, or "gift," as he would have styled it. Uncas is an Indian Apollo; a living personification of one of those active and graceful forms, which au ludian's fancy might dream of, as bounding over the hunting grounds of his Elysium, light

er than the air he seemed to tread, with eye, and limb, and thought alike untiring. No legend of which the love of an Indian has been the theme, has ever approached in beauty the occasional references made by our author to the respectful attachment of this young Mohican to Cora-to the delicacy with which its manifestations appeared, and to its tragic termination. From the moment when Magua makes his sudden escape from Heyward, the intense interest of this narrative begins, and does not flag an instant until the conclusion. As, however, it will be utterly impossible for us to follow the trail of this story through all its windings, we must condense our remarks, stating our doubts, and our particular points of admiration, as concisely and intelligibly as our limits admit. In the first place, then, no reason is assigned why the ancient Sagamore, and Uncas, were "out lying on this trail," except it was to keep Hawk-eye company. The people over whom they had authority were at Fort Edward. When the hunter is talking in the Delaware tongue to Chingachgook, why does his poet, in his translation, employ idiomatic vulgarities, such as natur, &c.? In the character, conduct, and operations of Magua, although we are willing to allow ample scope and license for the subtlety and revengeful spirit of an Indian, are there not some things unaccounted for, and many pushed too far beyond the verge of probability? How he meant to mislead the party at first, and failed in effecting his purpose, is very obscurely hinted at. His own escapes are always too miraculous; and, in one instance, when Hawk-eye, after the deliverance of the ladies and Heyward from their first capture, recalls his Indian friends from the pursuit of their powerful, cunning, and deadly enemy, the reasons he assigns are actually too weak; and we are compelled to ascribe the escape to the judicial blindness of the worthy trio, or to the irresistible course of destiny. In a high wrought romance, we have no right to find fault with the extraordinary nature of circumstances, which, however startling and unexpected, are possible. But the motives of the agents must be sufficient, and consistent with their actions, or our credulity is staggered. That an Indian should be capricious in his revenge, at one time ready to immolate his victims, at another thirsting for their more protracted and dreadful torments, we can well conceive: but not that he should so often, in such hazardous circumstances, permit the golden opportunity to escape.

The slaughter by the Indians, after the capture of William Henry, is not more mysteriously narrated in the romance than it is in history. According to the latter, the wrath of the savages

was principally directed against their red brethren, who served in the opposing ranks. It strikes every reader, however, with some little wonder, that so many men who had retained their arms, should have made such slight resistance, and suffered the horrible butchery to proceed without interruption. Through the whole of the second volume, the bereaved Munro is an encumbrance, which the author, with all his ability, finds it a difficult task to support. When we are occasionally reminded of his presence, it is that of one who was a dead weight upon the operations of the other actors in the scene, listless and half exanimate, and alike painful to the invention of the author, and interest of the reader.

But we must put a stop to captious exceptions, many of which are, possibly, not well founded. There are no scenes in modern romance which can surpass the long and agonising struggle at Glen's Falls, the approach to the fort through the mists and besieging army-the capture of Alice and pursuit of Cora after the massacre-the escape in the canoe the adventures in the village of the Hurons-the judginent of Tamenund,—and the last closing scene of danger and death, which ends this strange eventful history. There is a power, and a fearful interest in these descriptions, which, it needs no prophet to predict, will excite the feelings, and entrance the attention of generations that are to come long after our own. The superstitious customs of the natives are employed with admirable skill; the writer seems to be at home in every spot trodden by the contending armies, or wandering captives and pursuers, and in the language and occupations of his characters. If he fails any where, it is in the management of his female personages; a nice matter; for Shakspeare before him has been accused of want of knowledge in this province of poetry. The conversations are unquestionably better sustained, throughout, than in his previous works.

Our author stands alone among his countrymen; in solitary and enviable distinction. He has proved the capabilities of our history and varying manners, for all the purposes of high or pleasing fiction. We hope that his career may be yet long; for the delight of his cotemporaries, and the still increasing progress of his own fame. He is one of those who, like his favourite Hawk-eye, gathers his materials chiefly from an acute observation of men and things, rather than from the labours of others as they have left them in their books. And the reputation of "this kind passeth not away" with the caprice of popular appetite; for truth is immortal; and the gifted few whose quick perceptions enable them to paint from realities, are sure of being remembered while human nature is the same.

THE

ATHENEUM MAGAZINE.

MARCH, 1826.

CONTINUATION OF LETTERS FROM A YOUNG AMERICAN.

Schaffhausen, Sept. 10th, 1825.

WHEN I write to you, my dear S-, I have so many questions to ask about home, that I have little space to talk of what I see here. The country we have lately passed through has so much sameness about it, that in a little time it loses a great deal of its interest. Valleys of two or three miles in length, and from half to a mile in breadth, with mountains five or six thousand feet on either side, with narrow entrances ofe or two hundred feet at each end, form the principal features. There is frequently a suite of them, and you can go from one to another, as through a succession of handsome apartments. But, unfortunately, they are all furnished alike, and you soon get tired. About one sixth of the height from the bottom of the valley is pasture, spotted with cottages; another of grayish rock. but whether primary, secondary, or what, I leave to the geologists. Of the remainder, the lower half is clothed with fir trees, and the upper with moss, or short dwarf grass, of a shabby faded green, the colour of an old umbrella, spotted with gray rocks.

If you go from a low valley to the top of a mountain, the lower part, where all is bright green, every thing gay and charming, reminds you of the best parlour on the first floor. After ascending about a third of the way, you come to another flat place, with grass, it is true, but less gay, and a little faded— this is the second story, which you know is the region of faded carpets and second-hand finery. The third plain you will find full of black firs, and blades of grass of a bright yellow, about one or two inches high-here all is old, absolutely worn out, like the furniture of the servants' rooms in the third story. On the top of the mountain, are moss, turf and rocks, strewed about at random. The large ones split, and the pieces laying about in shabby disorder, reminds one of the garret.

VOL. II.

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