Change for the American Notes: in Letters from London to New-York. By an American Lady. New-York: Harper and Brothers.
'Who jeers the Tartar, must beware of his dirk!' is a lesson which this well-tempered book will teach certain of our neighbors on the other side of the great water; for it contains stabs at national abuses and local follies, which 'pierce to the hilt;' and we are not sorry that at this moment, throughout the Union, this exposition of them as well as of the time-honored game of 'tit-for-tat,' has been as widely perused as the work which prompted it—the 'American Notes' of Mr. Dickens. This fact, we need not add, will prevent us from entering upon a detailed review of a work already so current, at the low price of one shilling. We shall only ask such of our readers as are at all sensitive in relation to the slurs upon our country and its institutions which may from time to time reach us from abroad, to bear in mind the ignorance in which they have their origin. 'One ought to have,' says our countrywoman, 'a temper as imperturbable as Franklin's, to hear patiently the absurd remarks made in England upon the United States. Here are hundreds of thousands, with ample means and leisure, whose reading is confined to certain portions of certain newspapers; yet one of this class will deliver his judgment upon America in a manner which shows his belief that what he says is decisive. There is, there should be, no appeal. He has spoken. Englishmen have a vague notion about America, and Indians, and General Washington, and there being neither king nor lords, and the storming of Quebec, and the burning of the Caroline, and the loss of the President! But as to the vast resources of our country; the nature of her laws and institutions; of her cities rising amid primeval forests; of the capabilities of her rivers and bays; of the love of freedom in her children, which love, men say, is the parent of all the best virtues that can adorn a state; of these things they know nothing. Talk to one of these persons about the cotton grown in the Southern States, and he will immediately speak of Manchester, where he has a cousin, a manufacturer, worth a hundred thousand pounds; mention one of those matchless prairies in the Far West (a noble sight, though Boz was disappointed,) and my gentleman, as soon as he is made to understand what a prairie is, turns the conversation to Salisbury Plain, or the moors of Scotland! These gentry generally are, or have been, connected with commercial pursuits, and plume themselves upon being, not reading, but practical men. I admit they are impartial in their ignorance, knowing as little of the past history of their own country as of the present state of ours,' * * * 'The English view America in such a petty spirit! They judge of it in the spirit that prompts their judgment in their own small matters; their clubs, or parishes, or corporations. They cannot conceive a nation without a titled and privileged aristocracy. What is not subserviency they consider anarchy; and then a country without a regular standing army! How can justice be administered by wigless judges? What but barbarism can exist, where poor men object to wear liveries! Then comes a summing up of American enormities: they sit in a manner the English do not; consequently the American way must be wrong. Vast distance, different customs and institutions, have caused a diversity of language, therefore the American language must be low; the Americans grow and use tobacco, and the necessary consequences are attributed to them as a national dishonor! How comes it that the French and other travellers do not dwell upon these things, but pass them over as matters of little moment? Is it jealousy, or ignorance, or littleness, on the part of the British?' It is all three; but America will be looked upon with far different eyes by and by; and in the meantime she is living down the slurs, slanders, and satires of her traducers, (which this little volume will teach us still more to disregard) every day. We have but one fault to find with the 'Change for the American Notes.' There is too much foreign coin in it. One who can write so well as our author, does not need to force French and Italian into English sentences, to show that she can do it, nor to eke out her pages with scraps of verse. Think of a hundred and fifteen little bits of poetry, from a single line upward, in a prose volume of eighty-eight pages!' 'T is 'too much poetry for a shilling!'
Harp of the Vale: a Collection of Poems by Payne Kenyon Kilbourne. Hartford: Case, Tiffany and Burnham.
This little volume comes to us recommended by the same neatness of mechanical execution which was displayed in the last edition of the poetical remains of the lamented Brainard, published in the same city. We are glad to see in it indications that the native State of that fine genius can still inspire poetic aspirations, and produce poetic minds. The young author of these fugitive pages deserves consideration; in a degree for what he has done, more for what his gifts promise. There are many passages and several entire poems of very considerable merit in the volume. 'The Skeptic,' with which it commences, being of the greatest length and importance, is perhaps also the best. None of the thoughts, however, can claim to be very original; yet they are evidently natural to the writer, and are set forth in flowing and well-measured verse. The opening lines are vigorous, and afford a good indication of the merit of the piece:
'No God!' O impious sophist! then are we
Cast pilotless upon an unknown sea;
Gazing all wildly on the void profound,
Unknowing whence we came or whither bound:
The forms around us are not what they seem,
Men are but shadows, life is but a dream;
And the bright worlds that run their glorious race
Mere bubbles floating in the realms of space;
Self-poised they roll, and self-illumed they shine,
Rise without cause, and sink without design!
Launched on the flood, we trim our fated bark,
Beneath a sky low, desolate, and dark;
No north-star hangs with fixed and steady ray,
To light the lonely voyager on his way;
Homeless and friendless on the billowy tides,
Tossed by the hurricanes which no one guides,
Now fired with Hope, now grappling with Despair,
He sees afar some beacon's transient glare;
Pursues it till it fades, then turns in gloom
To meet his last irrevocable doom.
What though the solace of his lot may be
The meteor-dream of Immortality?
That spark expired with the expiring breath—
No morn shall break the iron sleep of Death!'
'The Maniac Maid' has some effective stanzas. One especially is picturesque and beautiful. The poor girl is represented as lingering around the sea-shore, watching for her lost sailor-lover:
'At eve, when nought is heard
But the roar of the dashing wave,
And the voice of the lone sea-bird
That sings from her coral cave,
She wanders forth all lonely
The rocks and sedge among,
And to the cold sea only
Pours forth her plaintive song.'
'The Seminoles' is a very creditable production. Some fine lines also touching our native country and that ancient race, are found in 'Thoughts of Home:'
'Stern region, I love thee! Thy woodlands and waters
Are linked with old legends of battle and love:
There the wild warriors fought, and the forest's dark daughters
Told their vows and adored the Great Spirit above.