is the plain matter of fact; and no sophistry or declamation, from English or American abolitionists, can alter it in the least. Nor is it true to say that all which is wanted is to find out the means of abolishing slavery without hazard, or with the least possible hazard. If means were as clear as sunbeams, and the southern states chose not to adopt them, there is no authority in the country which could interfere with their free choice. Moral compulsion, as it is called, may be threatened; but in our opinion it would be better not to threaten at all, and to drop the word compulsion out of the argument.

Having delivered ourselves of one or two of the many thoughts which we have on this subject, we will now return to our traveller, who pursues his pleased and pleasant way back through Philadelphia and New York, and then onward and upward, as orators say, to Niagara. He makes many instructive observations on his road, which we regret that we cannot stop to translate. He describes the Falls as one who feels their power; and a portion of his reflections appeared to us so striking, that we cannot help inserting it here.

"I have arranged my desk in the gallery of the hotel which looks upon the cataract, so that I write under its inspiration, and almost enveloped by its morning mists. This grand picture absorbs my whole existence. Society, mankind, their machinations, their intrigues, their plans, their hopes, all appear to me small and contemptible. One should here, I think, even forget unhappiness. A vague sensation recalls to my soul a confused remembrance of my past life, of my troubles, of my aversions, of the thousand contradictions which I have suffered. On other occasions, when my memory brings back such things, my heart lifts itself up against the injustice of men, their ingratitude and their perfidy; now, it is as a dream, and I can hardly convince myself of the reality. My spirit is calm, and the cruel recollections which before had roused me, disappear like the vapors which rise from that abyss; my life shall flow on hereafter with the same tranquillity, I trust, as the waves of Niagara, so agitated and crushed in their fall, and, after the day of storm and turmoil, shall follow its course in peace. Wonderful cataract, I bless thee! I owe it to thine influence that I have known the littleness of the cares which afflict us, and my enemies shall owe to thee the pardon and forgetfulness of their offences against

me."

In the spirit of this beautiful extract he seems to have continued and completed his journey. We have an intimation of

this, in what he says of the impression produced on his mind by a Sunday spent in Hartford, Connecticut; and we heartily wish that this passage might meet the eyes of some among ourselves, who are apt to speak slightingly of the repose of our Sabbaths, that they may see how that repose can be estimated by a foreigner of intelligence and feeling.

Sunday day of diversions, of excess, of disorders in the cities of Europe - is consecrated here, as in all the United States, to meditation and prayer; but with so much simplicity, that I could not decide whether it is an effect of the distinctive character of the population of New England, or of the temper of my heart since my return from Niagara. Certain it is, that the remembrance of my Sunday at Hartford will be engraved on my mind with all the attendant circumstances of originality."

M. de la Sagra passed from Niagara through Albany and Northampton to Boston, stopping at several places on his route, which are commemorated by his interesting notices. He arrived in Boston on the 19th of August, and remained there through the month. He visited the Athenæum, the House of Industry, House of Correction, McLean Asylum for the Insane, Institution for the Blind, and other institutions, literary, charitable, and corrective, and collected facts and figures respecting them with his usual assiduity and success. He remarks of Boston, that its aspect is very different from that of the other cities of the Union, on account of the irregularity of the streets, and the inequality of the ground on which it is built. He also says that it is the most learned of the cities, but that its intellectual culture is more advanced in the political and moral sciences, literature and the arts, than in the exact and natural sciences. These two beautiful branches of knowledge, however, he adds, are but in their infancy in this country, though they are sensibly making progress. The Society of Natural History in Boston is spoken of in a complimentary manner, and its collection, which he visited, is praised for the scientific and neat arrangement of its specimens. We trust that the day is not very far distant, when it will much better deserve the attention and praise of scientific foreigners than it now does; when the public shall be more thoroughly roused to the claims of natural science than they now are; when the Society of Natural History will be enabled, by the assistance of a liberal and enlightened community, to do that for the honor of their country which they are longing to do; and when Boston shall be as distinguished for

proficiency in science as she now is for advancement in literature. We should rejoice to see that day.

Of the Institution for the Blind in our city, of its director, Dr. Howe, and of the improvements which that gentleman has introduced in the means of instruction, our traveller speaks in terms of high and deserved commendation. He admires the skill and ingenuity with which Dr. Howe has managed to reduce the cumbrous dimensions of books for the blind, while he has at the same time preserved if not increased the distinctness of the letter; and declares that "with respect to clearness of relief and perfection of presswork, the Boston books are to be recommended as models; and the same is true of the geographical maps, the geometrical figures, and the characters of music."

He attended the Commencement exercises at the University in Cambridge, which he says, "were concluded by a Latin discourse, very elegant throughout, and excessively courteous to the ladies." Then follows his description of the Commencement dinner.

"The music, which had played in the intervals of the cere mony, accompanied us to the halls of the college, where the tables were set out for the academic repast. About five hundred persons were at the dinner, for all graduates of the college were admitted, as well as a large number of strangers, and guests from Boston. Here was furnished me a new occasion to admire the naiveté of American manners, and the traces of the primitive religious simplicity of the inhabitants of this country. The entertainment exhibited no more of the luxury and delicate refinement of the present age, than the ceremony which had preceded it. Under each plate was a printed paper, containing the verses of a psalm on childhood, which was to be sung at the close of the banquet. We sat down after a short prayer of thanks to the Supreme Being, pronounced in a loud voice by an aged clergyman. It is unnecessary to add, that the whole thing passed off without bursts of laughter, without noise, and without toasts. Finally, we sung the hymn in full chorus."

Most of our readers know, that the "psalm on childhood," as our friend terms it, is the good old LXXVIIIth Psalm, which has been sung on that occasion we cannot tell how long, and which we hope will be sung on the same, long after our own generation has been gathered to our sleeping fathers.

With the General Hospital in Boston M. de la Sagra is absolutely delighted. He tells his countrymen that they have no

idea of the order, neatness, and exact propriety with which such establishments are conducted, and that he can only give them an idea of the splendor and spaciousness of the buildings, by comparing them with the saloons and galleries of European palaces. In both these regards the Boston Hospital is represented as a type and model of its kind. Of this institution, of the insane hospital at Worcester, and other institutions, he offers details which are valuable not only to strangers, but for convenient reference at home.

But we must now take a reluctant leave of our author, who returns through Worcester to New York, and makes the last entry on his journal there, on the twenty-second of September. The statistics which he has collected may be relied upon, for they have been obtained from the proper sources. His remarks on our character are perhaps somewhat too kind, but they do not want discrimination, and show him to be a man of amiable, generous, and grateful dispositions, which are not so common among travellers that we need not value them when we find them. His book cannot compare, and does not seek or pretend to compare, with that of Chevalier, or that of De Tocqueville, in profoundness of moral and political investigation and remark; but for a journal of five months, it is unusually instructive and pleasing.

F. W. P. G.

Parkman,

ART. VII. - The Life and Times of the Rev. George Whitefield, M. A. By ROBERT PHILIP, Author of the Experimental Guides, etc. etc. etc. New York: B. Appleton and Co. 1838. 1838. 12mo. pp. 554.

WHO this Mr. Philip is, who has undertaken to paint anew, and to hold up to the world, as he would have us suppose, the only true picture of Whitefield, no opportunities of our own would have enabled us to declare. From the dedication of his work we suppose that he has a residence near London and from the title page, we are informed that he is author of "The Experimental Guides," and of various other works, of which, if the present be a specimen, we shall by no means venture the perusal. For a poorer production, in the shape

;

of a Memoir, it has seldom been our bad fortune to read. It is enough to say of it, that even Mr. William Roberts' Life of Hannah More is better than this. And they who have considered these latter volumes we refer only to the part furnished by Roberts himself— will want no lower standard of comparison.

When the injured queen of that brutal monarch, Henry the Eighth, wished no other herald to keep her honor from corruption than such a chronicler as Griffith, she unquestionably included in her notions of a biographer some decent skill of putting words together; without which, the honesty she counted indispensable, and the most charitable judgment would but imperfectly express themselves. Now of this gift our

Mr. Robert Philip seems to have no conception. Many and unaccountable are the liberties he takes with his mother tongue, and not few are his sentences, that are scarcely less remarkable for awkwardness of expression than for the crude theology they convey. Yet it is said that Mr. Philip's books are popular with his own party in England, and we perceive from a glance at the bookseller's counter, that they obtain a speedy re-publication among ourselves. If it be so, the greater the pity. For it is no promising indication of the taste or correct feeling of any religious community to favor such productions as these. The utterance of a sincere and humble piety is respectable, and in the most illiterate is to be interpreted with all candor. It is delightful also to see how a true religious feeling will convey its own purity and energy to the expression of it. Touching examples of this may often be found in the devotions and the conversation of very humble Christians. It was some experience of this sort, and no small part of his reward for his frank and friendly intercourse with people of all conditions, from the monarch in his palace to the lowest Scotch peasant, that drew from Sir Walter Scott that fine sentiment, to which with all our hearts we respond; and whoever has been happy enough to have known any portion of the religious poor, will respond to it too. "I have read books enough, and observed and conversed with enough of eminent and splendidly cultivated minds, too, in my time. But I assure you, that I have heard higher sentiments from the lips of poor uneducated men and women, when exerting the spirit of severe yet gentle heroism under difficulties and afflictions, or speaking their simple thoughts as to cir