popes, cardinals, monks, and priests on one though they have ceased to be read, have side, and profound thinkers, earnest workers, spread the influence of his thoughts far and impetuous reformers, and awakening peoples wide, as the evening sky prolongs and radiates on the other; a man who lived in fellowship the light of the sun which has set behind with Rome, though lashing the vices of her the western hills? We have lingered on the clergy, and mocking the superstition of her threshold of his obscure birth-place, among votaries; always complaining of poverty, the busy tradesmen of a Dutch sea-port; we yet maintaining his independence to the last, have watched the rapid flow of the Rhine and bequeathing gold, silver, and jewels to from the overlooking platform of the cathehis friends, but the bulk of his property, esti- dral where his remains await the trump of mated at seven thousand ducats, to the poor; God; we have spent hours of sober luxury, -tortured nearly all his days by gout or days of earnest thought, beneath the shadows gravel, and often rambling over Europe, yet of his many-sided genius; and, while we releaving works behind him that filled more joice that his Romanism was frittered so much than ten folio volumes, eulogized by cardinals, away by the Christian philosophy of which he pontiffs, and monarchs, by Catholic, Protes- was the great master, we shake the head in tant, and sceptic;-as learned as he was wonder and vexation, saying to ourselves,witty as humorous as he was plodding; " After all, Erasmus, we know thee not; thou uniting the patience of the drudge with the art to us a mere phantom, crossing the great enthusiasm of genius;-a Catholic, but for European stage, of which the coarse and improtestant necessities and aspirations;-a Pro- petuous, but manly and transparent Luther testant, but for catholic alliances, calculations, was the hero." There have been men in prejudices, and conclusions;—a man standing Germany, in France, in England, of whom entirely by himself; neither the slave of tra- Erasmus was the type. It may be that all dition nor the champion of freedom; marry- times have need of them, and all places. But ing the past to the future, and guiding poster- as with Erasmus, so with the rest, the moment ity to bolder thoughts, broader views, and arrives when they must give way to the enermore settled principles than his own; who getic and the pushing, who, not content with believed much, but doubted more; whose ridiculing the things that ought not to be, will satirical smile cut beyond the reach of swords; lift up a strong arm and smite them to the and whose life is in those works, which, dust.

MISPRINTS.

that casks come so near wine merchants as to leave no room for divining the word meant and written, namely, cooks.

world with good entertainments do not regale their guests with wine out of the cask, good WE often wonder what readers can possibly though such wine may be; but certain we are think of misprints. Many there are which broadly proclaim blunder, and about which there can be no mistake, inasmuch as the idea of attaching any meaning to them is at once rejected; but there are others which have some faint and unlucky affinity to the context which appears to demand acceptance for them. So in our article of last week -"Proving Too Much," we are made to say that "men who have utterly lost character with the public are nevertheless received and petted as usual in good society,' their faults or vices being condemned in consideration of their amusing qualities, or the more substantial merits of their casks and wine merchants."

Now the context may have indicated to the reader that the faults or vices were not condemned in consideration of amusing qualities, but condoned; but he had no such clue to the correction of "the substantial merits of casks and "wine merchants," for unluckily the casks have connection with the business of wine merchants. Perhaps, indeed, it should have struck the reader that, to assign substantial merits to wine merchants' casks was a hardihood beyond us; perhaps, too, it may have occurred to him that folks who propitiate the

A collection of errors of the press, of the malignant type, would be amongst the curiosities of literature. Bayle records several curious specimens. In the loyal Courier of former days, it appeared that his Majesty George the Fourth had a fit of the goat, at Brighton. We have seen advertised a sermon by a celebrated divine on the Immorality of the Soul, and also the Lies of the Poets, which should be a very comprehensive publication. The vicinity of Lives and Lies is indeed most dangerous, a single letter more or less making a lie of a life, or a life of a lie. Glory, too, is liable to the same mischance, the dropping of the liquid making it all gory. What is treason, asked a wag, but reason to a t? which t an accident of the press may displace with the most awkward effect: imagine a historical character impeached for reason, or reasonable practices.

Misprints are no doubt reducible to laws; and this is certain, that they always fall upon the tenderest part of an author's writing, and where there is a vital meaning to be destroyed.— Examiner.

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From the Eclectic Review.

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our better qualities. It is easy to dilate on Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands. By Mrs. the dark features of our national character HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. With Illus- and institutions. This has been done ad nautrations. Two Volumes. Post 8vo. Lon-seam; and now that an opposite example has don: Sampson Low, Son, & Co. been furnished, we are not disposed ill-naturedly to complain, or, with an affectation of THESE volumes are sure to be extensively ingenuousness, to plead that our character has read. The name of Mrs. Stowe guarantees been drawn too brightly. Mrs. Stowe was this. The unprecedented popularity of " Un- unquestionably received amongst us with open cle Tom's Cabin " has rendered it familiar to arms. The fact was alike honorable to ourall classes of our countrymen, and has natu- selves and to her. She had suddenly risen rally awakened an intense desire to know all from obscurity by a combination of brilliant that can be learnt respecting the author. qualities, honestly devoted to one of the noThe extraordinary qualities of that work have blest objects of human philanthropy. Her commanded universal admiration. Its circu- reputation was of the very best kind. There lation has partaken of the rapidity of the nine- was nothing unreal, much less pernicious in teenth century. From the palace to the cot-it. It was the reputation of great talents, tage, from the Queen to her poorest subject, earnestly consecrated to virtue and humanity. it has become a cherished treasure; and the Had her reception been other than it was, it deep emotions it has enkindled, while partak- would have augured in us the want of qualiing of the fervor of passion, have the endur- ties which we have been accustomed to deem ance of strong conviction. The sensation most honorable; and had Mrs. Stowe's record created by this work is wholly unprecedented, of her visit been other than joyous, it would and stands out as one of the distinctive fea- have indicated a phlegmatic and ungrateful tures of our day. When, therefore, it was first temperament, which we should be sorry to atannounced that Mrs. Stowe was engaged in tribute to the author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." the preparation of a work descriptive of her If there be characters and scenes," says the visit to the old country,” few readers failed author, in her preface, “ that seera drawn with to anticipate intense pleasure in its perusal. too bright a pencil, the reader will consider This feeling will not be disappointed. We that, after all, there are many worse sins than have read the volumes before us with more a disposition to think and speak well of one's than ordinary satisfaction. They are very neighbors. To admire and to love may now much what we anticipated, and we can hon- and then be tolerated, as a variety, as well as estly and warmly recommend them to our to carp and criticize. America and England readers. The title is appropriate. It accu- have heretofore abounded towards each other rately describes the general hue and coloring in illiberal criticisms. There is not an unfaof the work, nor can we see any valid reason vorable aspect of things in the Old World why a more shaded narrative should have which has not become perfectly familiar to been given. We regret that some of our con- us; and a little of the other side may have a temporaries have indulged in splenetic, and useful influence." appears to us, most uncandid criticisms, With this sentence we are content to leave on the temper of the work. Mrs. Stowe, we the class of objections to which we have reare told, came to England over a heaving ferred. The work consists of familiar letters, sea of rose-water; wherever she turned she written during her residence in Europe to beheld pleasant faces; to her eye the air was friends and relations in America. As a literary full of light. The blackest cloud turned to- composition it is, therefore, open to some exwards her its silver edge. The verdure wore ception; and there is a minuteness of personal its brightest green, the sunshine kindled with detail in some of the letters which might have its richest fires at her approach." If such been advantageously dispensed with. Mrs. were the case-and we are not disposed to Stowe will do well to retrench these matters question the general correctness of the pic-in subsequent editions of her work, and this ture-why should not the narrative partake may be easily done without affecting its geneof a more pleasing and joyous hue than is ral character. It should be borne in mind common to such works? To speak of her that the work was designed for America rather returning laudation, for laudation is to insin- than for England, and we can readily believe uate a charge for which no valid ground is what the author asserts, that she would have furnished. Surely we have had enough of been " far more at ease had there been no prosthe censorious and cynical on both sides of pect of publication in England." We take the Atlantic, to induce us to tolerate one sig- her volumes, however, as they are; and withnal example of an opposite character. Eng-out doubt or hesitancy affirm that we have rareland and America have been too frequently ly been more gratified than in their perusal. caricatured to dispose us to censure an honest From some of her judgments we dissent. Her and hearty attempt to do justice to some of criticisms naturally partake, in many cases,

as

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sis of our character and habits.

of the complexion of the American mind, but ners are, it must be confessed, somewhat cold there is a geniality and warm-heartedness and reserved; but nothing of this kind was combined with a rich vein of shrewd sense visible to Mrs. Stowe, whose previous reputa and intelligent refinement throughout her tion had broken down the usual impediments work, which would counterbalance far more to free and unrestrained intercourse. "A weighty faults than she has fallen into. It circle of family relatives," she says, "could was natural that Mrs. Stowe should visit Eu- not have received us with more warmth and rope with most kindly and sympathetic feel- kindness." The same fact was visible wherings. The extensive popularity of her work ever she went. Her name was familiar to all, insured this, and it would therefore be the and every person, from the highest to the height of folly to regard her volumes as the lowest, took pleasure in assuring her of their calm exposition of an unbiassed observer. warm-hearted and grateful admiration. From They make no pretensions to anything of the Liverpool she proceeded to Scotland, where kind. She describes what she saw, acknow- she had an early opportunity of seeing some ledges the kindness she received, and insti- of the most distinguished men of that countutes comparisons between her own and the try, as well as gazing on points of its scenery, mother country, in the most cordial and cheer- to which, in our apprehension, there is no ing spirit. We take, therefore, her volumes superior. She visited, of course, Abbotsford for what they profess to be, and look to other-where is the intelligent foreigner who does writers for an impartial and searching analy-not ?—and her remarks on the genius and writings of Sir Walter Scott are well entitled Her work will be best understood through to attention. She notes, with some surprise, the medium of extracts, and of these we shall the absence of enthusiasm for Walter Scott. freely avail ourselves. Arriving at Liverpool," Allusion," she says, "to Bannockburn_and in April of last year, she was fully sensible of Drumclog bring down the house, but enthusithe "thrill and pulsation of kindred" with as for Scott was met with comparative which all intelligent Americans approach our silence." This fact, if such it be--of which country. "Its history," she says, "for two we have our doubts-is accounted for by the centuries, was our history. Its literature, circumstance that "Scott belonged to a past, laws and language are our literature, laws and not to the coming age. He beautified and and language. Spenser, Shakspeare, Bacon, adorned that which is waxing old and passing Milton, were a glorious inheritance, which we away. He loved and worshipped in his very share in common. Our very life-blood is soul institutions which the majority of the English life-blood. It is Anglo-Saxon vigor common people have felt as a restraint and a that is spreading our country from Atlantic burden." This characteristic of his poetry, to Pacific, and leading on a new era in the doubtless, operates to some extent; but Scott's world's development. America is a tall, sight-reputation is mainly founded on his novels, ly young shoot, that has grown from the old and here, as we believe, is the main secret of royal oak of England: divided from its parent the absence of enthusiasm noted by our au root, it has shot up in new, rich soil, and un- thor. Mrs. Stowe associated chiefly with the der genial, brilliant skies, and therefore takes religious public, and amongst these the class on a new type of growth and foliage; but of novels has till recently been prohibited. the sap in it is the same." A crowd was as- The writings of Sir Walter Scott have mainly sembled on the wharf to receive her, and she conduced to the removal of this feeling, but was strongly impressed with the appearances even they have only gradually made their of robust health which they exhibited. "It way. At first, they encountered strong oppo seemed," she tells us, " as if I had not only sition. The repugnance founded on the gentouched the English shore, but felt the Eng-eral qualities of the class operated against the lish heart." She found a cordial reception at individual. Nor are we surprised at this. The the house of Mr. Cropper, one of those" beau- most cursory view of our literature will tiful little spots which are so common in England," but with which she was yet unacquainted. "The sofa and easy chair wheeled up before a cheerful coal fire, a bright little teakettle steaming in front of the grate, a table with a beautiful vase of flowers, books, and writing apparatus, and kind friends with words full of affectionate cheer,-all these made me feel at home in a moment."

suffice to show that the qualities of the novel were until recently such as ought to exclude it from all religious circles, and it is the great merit of Scott that he proved to the world that fiction might be employed with extensive popularity without availing itself of the licentiousness and irreligion which characterize Fielding and our older novelists. For a long time, the religious public were in doubt res The hospitality of England is famed pecting him, and even yet, though his volumes throughout the world. It has its own forms are universally read, and formal panegyrics and modes of expression, but its reality is ad- on his genius are perpetually uttered, religious mitted by all intelligent foreigners. Our man-men hesitate, when speaking on the theme, as

though fearful that their language may be understood for more than they design. Most of us can remember the time when the "Waverly Novels," though read, were kept from general view. This state of things is now happily passed. It was a species of dishonesty which ought never to have been practised, but the scruples which induced it are yet visible in the subdued and measured terms in which they are spoken of. An opposite fact is reported of Burns, of whom Mrs. Stowe remarks," Poor Burns! how inseparably he has woven himself with the warp and woof of every Scottish association." There is no mystery in this; the writings of Burns fully explain it. It is impossible to read them without feeling that they are the utterances of a heart richly laden with some of the noblest elements of our nature, and sympathizing with whatever is common to humanity. Burns's popularity is founded on his poetry, and this was freely admitted wherever the language he used was known. His speech was national, his feelings genuine and true-hearted, and his occasional outbursts of strong, indignant protest, only served to awaken pity, and to diminish reprobation of the excesses he plunged into.

that truth under whose shelter we calmly live. But our readers must hear what Mrs. Stowe alleges on this point:—

Scott has been censured as being wilfully unjust to the Covenanters and Puritans. I think he meant really to deal fairly by them, and that what he called fairness might seem rank injustice been. I suppose that in "Old Mortality," it was to those brought up to venerate them, as we have Scott's honest intention to balance the two parties about fairly, by putting on the Covenant side his good, steady, well-behaved hero, Mr. Morton, who is just as much of a Puritan as the Puritans would have been had they taken Sir Walter Scott's advice; that is to say, a very nice, sensible, moral man, who takes the Puritan side because he thinks it the right side, but contemplates all the devotional enthusiasm and religious ecstasies of his point of view. The trouble was, when he got his associates from a merely artistic and pictorial model Puritan done, nobody ever knew what he was meant for; and then all the young ladies voted steady Henry Morton a bore, and went to falling in love with his Cavalier rival, Lord Evandale, and people talked as if it was a preconcerted arrangement of Scott, to surprise the female heart, and carry it over to the royalist side.

where high birth, and noble breeding, and chivalrous sentiment were all united with intense devotional fervor, the answer is, that he could not do it; he had not that in him wherewith to do it; a man cannot create that of which he has not first had the elements in himself; and devotional enthusiasm is a thing which Scott never felt.— Vol. i. pp. 143–145.

The fact was, in describing Evandale he made a living, effective character, because he was deMany of our readers will be surprised at and put his whole life into; but Henry Morton scribing something he had full sympathy with, the glowing terms in which Mrs. Stowe speaks is a laborious arrangement of starch and pasteof the writings of Scott, and will deem her board to produce one of those supposititious, justvindication of them, on some points, scarcely right men, who are always the stupidest of morconclusive. His treatment of the Covenan-tals after they are made. As to why Scott did ters is one of these, and we confess to a want not describe such a character as the martyr Duke of satisfaction in the defence she has set up. of Argyle, or Hampden, or Sir Harry Vane, That Scott did not designedly misrepresent them we freely admit. With this fault we do not charge him. It is not needful in order to make out our case, and we should be sorry to see it proved. What we do charge against him is, that he suffered the force of prejudice to operate so powerfully on his mind as to color all the views which he took of the contending parties of that period. The agents As a companion picture, we may refer to cf priestly intolerance and of royal perfidy our author's visit to Stratford, which she apare painted in resplendent colors. Whatever proached with the reverence of intense advirtues they possessed are brought out strong-miration. Shakspeare, Bunyan, and Defoe, ly to view, whilst their terrible vices are either are mentioned as the three writers whose works wholly merged, or are divested of their most should be specially studied by all who would repulsive features. On the other hand, the know the force and amplitude of our vernaheroism, the superhuman fidelity to principle, cular speech. They are radically and thothe intense, though in many cases one-sided roughly English. They have the solid grain devotion to duty, which characterized the of the English oak, not veneered by learning Covenanters, are concealed from view by the and the classics; not inlaid with arabesques grotesque aspect of their religious forms, or from other nations, but developing wholly out their narrow-minded and fierce sectarianism. of the English nationality." Much of what Scott might, and ought to, have known better. we have written respecting the feeling of the Evidence was accessible, which would have religious public towards Scott is applicable to wrought conviction had not his prejudices been Shakspeare, and we are the more inclined to concerned. It is to his disgrace that his sym- refer our readers to this portion of Mrs. pathies were not with the suffering class, who, Stowe's narrative, in the hope that it will in their day, and according to the measure of serve to induce a more discriminating estitheir enlightenment, were heroic witnesses for mate of him than has hitherto been prevalent.

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It seemed to me (she says) so singular that of | pression, on the child's soul, of a mother's purity. such a man there should not remain one accred- I seem to have a vision of one of those women ited relic! Of Martin Luther, though he lived whom the world knows not of, silent, deepmuch earlier, how many things remain! Of al-hearted, loving, whom the coarser and more pracmost any distinguished character how much more tically efficient jostle aside and underrate for is known than of Shakspeare! There is not, so their want of interest in the noisy chit-chat and far as I can discover, an authentic relic of any commonplace of the day; but who yet have a sathing belonging to him. . There are very few an-cred power, like that of the spirit of peace, to brood ecdotes of his sayings or doings; no letters, no with dove-like wings over the childish heart, and private memoranda, that should let us into the quicken into life the struggling, slumbering elesecret of what he was personally, who has in turns ments of a sensitive nature. personated all minds. The very perfection of his dramatic talent has become an impenetrable veil; we can no more tell, from his writings, what were his predominant tastes and habits, than we can discriminate, among the variety of melodies, what are the native notes of the mocking-bird. The only means left us for forming an opinion of what he was personally, are inferences of the most deli-ideal excellence, but only reproducing, under ficcate nature from the slightest premises.

I cannot but think, in that beautiful scene where he represents Desdemona as amazed and struck dumb with the grossness and brutality of the charges which had been thrown upon her, yet so dignified in the consciousness of her own purity, so magnanimous in the power of disinterested, forgiving love, that he was portraying no

titious and supposititious circumstances, the patience, magnanimity, and enduring love which had shone upon him in the household words and ways of his mother.

The common idea which has pervaded the world, of a joyous, roving, somewhat unsettled, and dissipated character, would seem, from many well-authenticated facts, to be incorrect. It seemed to me that, in that bare and lowly The gaieties and dissipations of his life seem to chamber I saw a vision of a lovely face which have been confined to his very earliest days, and was the first beauty that dawned on those childto have been the exuberance of a most extraordi-ish eyes, and heard that voice whose lullaby nary vitality, bursting into existence with such tuned his ear to an exquisite sense of cadence force and vivacity that it had not had time to col- and rhythm. I fancied that, while she thus select itself, and so come to self-knowledge and con-renely shone upon him like a benignant star, some trol. By many accounts it would appear that the character he sustained in the last years of his life, was that of a judicious, common-sense sort of a man; a discreet, reputable, and religious householder.-Ib. pp. 215, 216.

rigorous grand-aunt took upon her the practical part of his guidance, chased up his wanderings to the right and left, scolded him for wanting to look out of the window because his little climbing toes left their mark on the neat wall. or rigorously arrested him when his curly head was seen We should be glad to qoute largely from bobbing off at the bottom of the street, following this part of the work, but must content our- a bird or a dog, or a showman; intercepting him selves with the following beautiful passage, in some happy hour when he was aiming to in which the influence of maternal gentleness strike off, on his own account, to an adjoining and purity on the genius of the bard of Avon field for "winking Mary-buds;" made long seris strikingly alluded to. The world has had clothes and wetting his new shoes (if he had any), mons to him on the wickedness of muddying his many illustrations of the vast benefits which and told him that something dreadful would have accrued from the silent teachings of ma- come out of the graveyard and catch him if he ternal love, but in no case, perhaps, have our was not a better boy, imagining that if it were obligations been greater than in the case not for her bustling activity, Willie would go before us. Referring to the mother of Shak- straight to destruction.-Ib. pp. 203, 204. speare, Mrs. Stowe remarks:

We know nothing who this Mary was, that was his mother; but one sometimes wonders where in that coarse age, when queen and ladies talked familiarly, as women would blush to talk now; and when the broad, coarse wit of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" was gotten up to suit the taste of a virgin queen,· one wonders, I say, when women were such and so, where he found those models of lily-like purity, women so chaste in soul and pure in language that they could not even bring their lips to utter a word of shame. Desdemona cannot even bring herself to speak the coarse word with which her husband taunts her; she cannot make herself believe that there

are women in the world who could stoop to such

grossness.

For my part, I cannot believe that, in such an age, such deep heart-knowledge of pure womanhood could have come otherwise than by the im.

Much is recorded of the Stafford House family, and we do not wonder at it. Our author's reception was so cordial and flattering, the attentions she received were so delicate and well-timed, and the personal qualities of the distinguished circle gave such value to their kindness, that Mrs. Stowe would have been more than human had she not keenly felt the attention shown her. She never loses an opportunity of recurring to the Duchess of Sutherland and her distinguished relatives; and the tone of her remarks, whilst highly laudatory, never awakens the suspicion of unworthy motives, or of a deficiency of selfrespect. There is neither inflation nor servility in her remarks. They are the cordial response of a grateful and intelligent woman, who duly appreciated what was due to herself