constant and light in the middle states, and heedless and lazy in those of the south. A Bostonian would go in search of his fortune to the bottom of Hell; a Virginian would not go across the road to seek it. An inhabitant of New York, Philadelphia, or Baltimore can never die content, if, during his life time, he has not changed his profession three or four times. In traversing the United States from north to south, as far as the Hudson, we find English manners, and frequently with the same stiffness that distinguishes them in the north of Scotland; but this stiffness disappears between the Hudson and the Potomac, and particularly in Pennsylvania and Maryland, where the Germans, Irish, and even the French, have introduced into English manners a thousand different shades. It is not till we reach the other side of the Potomac, that these manners, strongly tinctured with those of the West Indies, appear entirely changed; and whether it is that this change is derived from the influence of the climate, or of negro slavery, it is not the less sensible in every usage of life. There, trade is entirely given up to foreigners, and agriculture abandoned to slaves, whilst the proprietor, under the stately name of planter, attends to nothing but his pleasures. The life of this proud being is a continued scene of indolence and dissipation. Horseraces and cock-fights are his favourite diversions, and all the time he does not employ in these noisy amusements, he passes round a table, either gaming or drinking. He thinks he is under no obligation to work, because his slaves work for him. But in the interior of the country, and on the other side of the Alleghanys, men are to be met with more laborious and of more simple manners; and, notwithstand ing this simplicity has been changed in some districts by the perpetual mixtures of new settlers with the old ones, manners are there generally more pure than in the other parts of the United States. While these parties are so nearly balanced, it must be evident that the influence of government effectually turns the scale. When that is administered by wise and good men, things go well, because no passions are suffered to rise to a dangerous height: when less sagacious rulers are in power, party feelings In some places, the cocks are armed with steel spurs, the same as formerly in Tanagre, in Baotia. are encouraged, and advantage is taken of them to answer purposes neither honourable nor protitable to the commonwealth at large. It is not easy to draw prognostics as to events from a state of things so heterogeneous: if our opinion were asked, we should answer, that each description of persons would, in the issue, insist on following its own way; that the Eastern States (Mr. B. has described them down to the Hudson) would unite into one body, more strictly than ever, and act on one common feeling; while the Virginians, &c. would let them please themselves, without taking much trouble about the matter: we can do well enough without them," will certainly be their sentiment, and probably their lan guage. What follows in our author is little creditable to the personal character, the religion, the sense of propriety, or the He adpoliteness of the Americans. mires neither their literature, nor their architecture, nor, indeed, their taste, generally. Their manners are mixed; their sense of merit is a nullity; but their deference to wealth is unbounded. Fortune is the scale, says M. B. by which an American classes every man without distinction. A residence in the United States can never be pleasing to rich men bred up in good society, nor to men of science deprived of the gifts of fortune; which uniformly gives to foreigners so many prejuthose who arrive in the United States, with dices against the country. But, even for the most simple habits and taste, society has there none of those pleasures it every where else possesses; and the European who is condemned to live there, ought to seek in his duties, or in the bosom of his family, the whole of his pleasures. A person lives there in almost as isolated a manner as in Turkey; as if these two countries, which differ from each other in so many points, should be destined to be alike in this particular one. there are no assemblies; yet these have Not that among the rich class of citizens only for object, among the women, to drink tea, and, among the men, to drink wine and other liquors. The conversation of the latter, generally hinges on politics, or purchases which some propose and others accept; for the American never loses an when the whole of Europe is on fire; and Europeans, who have lived thirty years among them, have attested that they never saw them more joyful, than on the day when the bombardment of Cadiz, and the destruction of Copenhagen, were announced on the exchanges of some of their principal cities. These unhapy beings rejoiced in the disasters of Europe, without reflecting that the thunder which consumed our most opportunity of enriching himself. Gain is the subject of all his discourse, and the lever of all his actions; so that there is scarcely a civilized country in the world, in which there is less generosity of sentiment, less elevation of soul, and less of those soft and brilliant illusions which constitute the charm or the consolation of life. There a man weighs every thing, calculates all, and sacrifices all to his own interest. He lives only in himself, and for himself, and re-flourishing cities, was one day to fall on gards all disinterested acts as so many follies, contemns all talents that are purely agreeable, appears estranged to every idea of heroisin and of glory, and in history beholds nothing but the romance of nations. theirs. The Americans, of all commercial people, are those who suffer most from the maritime tyranny of England; it would, therefore, be to their interest to unite with other nations, to assert the freedom of the seas; but they prefer rather to bear with the outrages of England than to revenge them. Virtue has always been considered as the principle, or the chief spring of all republics; but that of the American republic seems to be an unbounded love of money. And these are the sentiments of M. déclare war against England; but instead In 1812 they did, at last, determine to Beaujour, who resided among the Ame-of making a grand effort to conquer Canada, ricans when his nation was in favour, who has no personal quarrel to revenge, but who speaks what he thinks, and what he knows to be truth. His opinion on the present war is all we can afford room for at present: we close with repeating our acknowledgements to the author's diligence, for much information collected on many points; and to the translator's judgment for corrections, on others, derived from the most authentic sources. We recommend the book to the perusal of the public; especially to those who desire to become acquainted with America and Americans. No permanent bond founded on commercial and political interests, can ever be established between the nations of Europe and the United States of America. But even if the nations of Europe wished to form an alliance with the Americans for temporary considerations, the latter would not be disposed to do it, because their views and interests are at variance. Separated from Europe by their position, the Americans seek to separate themselves still more by their affections; and they avoid alliances with European powers, in order not to be dragged into their vortex. Neither the glory of the one nor the services of the other, seem to make any impression upon them: their only desire is to remai neutral among all, that they may avail themselves of their quarrels, and enrich themselves by their misfortunes. Like the ship-owners of the Barbary coast, the Americans conceive they can only prosper but they lost their time in carrying on a war against the British at sea; a species of warfare in which they never could have any constant success, as long as they did not act in concert with the maritime powers of Europe. This war, however, can never last long. Political interests in vain tend to alienate the Americans from the British; commercial bonds will always bring them together again. As long as the latter possess more capitals and machinery than other nations, they can sell the productions of their industry cheaper; and consequently cheapness will always be with the Americaus, as well as with all other trading people, the greatest reason of preference. Gratitude, even when founded on political interest, has never been, nor never can be, a prevailing virtue of trading nations; because their principal lever is the love of gain, which uniformly becomes destructive. of every generous sentiment. If to this reason, common to all trading nations, we add other particular ones between the English and Americans-such as the identity of origin, language and religion, as well as a still more imperious conformity in their tastes and usages; the difficulty of long separating a people, who unceasingly tend to unite through the medium of commerce, will be perceived. The Americans will, in vain, struggle and quarrel under the golden chaius of England, but they will never break them. To attest this, let us only examine the present war, during which the English have carried on more business in the American ports than in open peace, notwithstanding the embargo and all the prohibitive acts of Congress. Jepthah. A Poem. By Edward Smedley, junr. 8vo. pp. 27. Murray, Loudon. 1814. [The Prize Poem, to which the Seatonian Prize at Cambridge, for this year, was adjudged.] An advertisement acquaints us that An advertisement acquaints us that the author considered as far most sub A Never had lime, without shedding a drop of the virgin's blood. But Mr. Smedley's chief concern was with Jepthah; whose character he has drawn with a splendour vastly superior to the original; and whose town he has adorned with edifices and accommodations, of which 's chief had no conception. Rough, heady, illinformed, fitful, is the character of lime, for poetical purposes, the real sa- pulse, especially if mingled with conJepthah; incapable of brooking recrifice of Jepthah's daughter; and postempt: in his conduct, combining a sibly, he was in the right, when Jepthah, distinct from his daughter, was the sub- great portion of cunning, though bent ject of his poem. Yet, we may be al-lence; by this disposition overshooton accomplishing his purposes by violowed to think, that her character is susceptible of a novelty, not unfavouring his duty, and his design, in what is well called his rash vow; to the subable to poetry, and completely distinct from the Iphigenias, &c. of whom we sequent misery of his life. He was the have heard enough from the Classics. been bought by his father, at a stipuson of a woman, whose company had There is, in her discourse to her lated price, for a stipulated time. father, intended to moderate his grief, child of passion, and never, probably, and gradually to calm it, a spirit of pa- had his own passions been restrained by triotism, well entitled to distinction: “Do to me according to that which hath parental admonition, in kind alternation proceeded out of thy mouth, foras- he been taught the kindly art of selfwith parental indulgence. much as the Lord hath taken vengeance correction; that controul which comfor thee of thine enemies, the children pletes the character of the wise man: If we suppose this maiden to be of and for want of which the hero-for cermarriageable age, and take the pardon-his daughter-his only child-and this tainly he was valiant and zealous-lost able poetical licence of giving her a lover—a favourite officer of Jepthah, of course-if we add a stolen interview, between the lovers, during her "two months wandering" on the mountains, -and in spite of nature and affection, her adherence to her seclusion, in attendance on the tabernacle, during life, —we obtain an instance of patriotic feelings, taking a new direction;—an instance of patriotism in the softer sex, set in a new light. To this might be added, the perplexities fairly deducible from the ambiguities of the father's expressions, on the minds of the young couple; the reasonings pro and con, on a case so extraordinary; with the last-He, self-exalted, isolate, alone, ing effects of this self-devoted spirit, on succeding generations; since it became a custom for the Israelite women to go four times a year to "gossip" with the daughter of Jepthah:-Nothing could furnish a more impressive close than this lasting, living, yet posthumous fame. of Ammon." An able hand would render this "living victim" interesting, and even sub equally, whether he shed her blood, as the barren precincts of the sacred cloisa sacrifice, or resigned her for ever to ter. Jepthah is thus, poetically, described by the bard : Not long the stranger's shrinking gaze could The mingled pride and fierceness of his look ; At lineage high, and ancestry, and birth. And Lord of glories which were all his own, The blazon'd roll of vaunted sires despis'd, Yet the dim trace of sadness stamp'd his brow, And shadow'd sorrows scarce remember'd now: Somewhat of shame it told, but more of wrong hide. A breast which injury had mail'd in steel, As one whom none or lov'd or car'd to own; Forc'd from his infant hearth and early hurl'd made for a tinctnre of Greek heroics, to There is a place which in it's Maker's hate No sign of her fair fruits, till you confess And nurs'd in wretchedness, and school'd in Are here forgotten whence all life is fled, wrong; Revenge the shore he sought, his beacon Pride, Some wish which sterner use could scarce con troul, Some unaccustom'd tenderness of soul. His child—his only child-the one strong tie The sullen vastness of sone scatter'd stones And veils with mantle of insidious shade The ruins which her seeming love has made. Weeps the black droppings of her venom'd dew: birth Holds no communion with all-gendering earth; shoot Boughs without leaves, a stem without a root. "Twere hard to tell whose grave that ivy twines, Who long-forgotten in that waste reclines; Tears such as Valour's rugged cheeks may The last bright beam autumnal twilight throws, steep : The few big drops which only fall from high When the pent thunder chafes the unwilling sky. This is, surely, creditable to the writer's talents: allowances must be The turban'd guide will hasten on his way, br L 1 And busy eye, and half averted head, dread; Then will he whisper, but in broken tone, once a benefit and an ornament to society. We are happy in the thought that many thousands of such characters are found among the daughters of our Aud looks with meaning fraught; and roundisle, who cause no commotion in the him thrown, world, and whose names are echoed little, if at all, beyond the narrow circle of their domestic friends, or habitual acquaintance. Men may be called to public life, and be known throughout a county, or even a kingdom: women "Yet was she nothing loth; and meekly bow'd distribution of happiness around them; may be much happier at home: in the A tale, so sad, so dark, of times so old, "A Father too-and this his only Child "The breast his rashness to their God had wow'd: "Kiss'd his pale lips, and bade him take the life "He once bestow'd, and bless'd the lifted kuife: “And if her cheek was moisten'd with a tear, "Not for herself it flow'd, but one more dear. “Then sigh'd her parting wish, that the same stone " Might some time hold his ashes with her own, "There, as they tell, for many a sorrowing year "The maids of Judah mourn'd upon her bier; "Scatter'd the firstlings which to Spring belong, And bath'd the sadness of their soul in song. “There voices strange are heard when night is still, “And sounds mysterious float upon that hill: "Contains, and shadows of no mortal birth. and receiving it again in a thousand devious modes; at once, like Shakespeare's violet, : Stealing and giving odour. But this is no effect of hap-hazard : no such blessings are rained down in torrents, or burst from a thunder cloud. They are a combination in which a happy disposition may claim its share, and a happy education a greater. They are "nature to advantage drest." They result in some degree from circumstances; but more eminently from principles for principles may triumph over circumstances; as the pure gold the refiner's furnace it may be melted, triumphs over the penetrating heat of but it is neither debased nor consumed. Very seldom, however, are such severe difficulties experienced, in proportion to the numbers called to discharge the duties of this station; but, when, unhappily, circumstances triumph over principles, the parties become public, all the world listens, all the world estimates and the tale gathers interest "Alla forefend, that such should cross our in proportion to its horror. way!" Practical Hints to Young Females, on the duties of a Wife, a Mother, and a Mistress of a Family. By Mrs. Taylor, of Ongar. 12mo. pp. 166. Price 5s. Taylor and Hessey, London. 1814. Happier hours await those who follow as duty, affection, prudence, and piety lead and to such as are willing to follow guides so honourable, the little volume before us will afford assistance and pleasure. Not that its precepts are very new, or very recondite: they would then run the risk of being little understood, and never reduced' to pracA pleasing Frontispiece, neatly and tice. They suppose in the reader an skilfully engraved, introduces this vo- undissembled desire to render herself the introduction. The situation of wife, this, rightly directed, and brought into lume; and the contents harmonize with useful, and her family comfortable: mother, and mistress of a family, is daily exercise, will settle into habit,honourable, but it is arduous; and who- the most considerable of all integers in ever discharges its duties properly, is at the sum of human felicity. |