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devil-author has a flaw in his style, or our own leading article a habitation and a name?" Are we to thrust down our heart like a reptile into its cage, and close our shutter to the cheerful light, and our ear to all sounds of out-of-door happiness? Are we to smother our uneasy impulses and chain ourself down to a poor, dry thought, that has neither light nor music nor any spell in it, save the poor necessity of occupation? Shall we forget the turn in the green lane where we are wont to loiter in our drive, and the cool claret of our friend at the Hermitage, and the glorious golden summer sunset in which we bowl away to the city-musing and refreshed? Alasyes! the heart must be thrust back into its cell, and the shutter must be closed, and the green lane and the friend that is happier than we (for he is idle) must be forgotten, and the dry thought must be dragged up like a wilful steer and yoked to its fellow, and the magnificent sunset with all its glorious dreams and forgetful happiness must be seen in the pauses of articles and with the "bleared een" of painful attention-and all this in June-prodigal June-when the very worm is all day out in the sun, and the birds scarce stop their singing to eat from the grey light to the dewfall! And for what? Is the quid pro quo no misnomer? Is it well to crucify thus the desire? Spirit of the Daily Press, answer us! Our enemy triumphs monthly that we have written a book-our sometime trumpeter changes his key for a private difference-our sometime friend-our early and ardent friendwhose genius we have loved, whose book we have praised, whose name is mentioned always in our wine-even this idol of our temple of friendship turns upon us with personal abuse, and calls us hard names as if we could have the heart with our thousand recollections to retort or provoke them! And then the poet whose bad verses we rejected, and the abusive Editor at whose demand of " black mail," we sent no new number, and the impertient "kindred spirit" of whose incognito. friendship we declined the honor-all these come down upon us in their various hebdomadals, and well nigh persuade us, spite of our old Aunt's averment and the subscription list in our very eye, that we are no genius and that our last number is at hand!

(One word of grave earnest here. It is surprising that a writer of any modesty or discernment can believe that his particular personal antipathies are of sufficient importance to the world to be discussed in a public print. Aside from the vulgarity and meanness of the attack upon natural defects or the peculiarities of individual manner, what possible interest can there be to any but a malicious mind in knowing that an enemy of the writer is short or tall, well drest or shabby, or

that his early life has been exceptionable or correct? What is gained except the low satisfaction of giving mortification and pain to those connected with the obnoxious person-for it is not himself who suffers most-and thus taking, before the whole world, an unworthy and in. decent revenge? Who is there that cannot be ridiculed? Who is there that has not peculiarities that may be caricatured? Who is there that has not friends-mother, or sister, or relatives of a still nearer tie-who are wounded painfully by such abuse? There is a heartless egotism in such things for which it is difficult to account-a sacrifice of dignity and well bred propriety, which it is surprising that any one with a common self-respect will willingly incur. And yet this is done every day. There are minds-educated and strong minds -those too which have been in the way of refinement and good feeling-incredible as it may seem, that can take pleasure in abuse of the most personal character. If anything were gained by it-if bad taste were put down, or the ends of honest criticism promoted-if any thing more laudable than the gratification of a narrow-minded and petty malice were attained, we would not have spoken a word. But no-it is not well! there is no good end advanced by such malice; there would be no worthy object gained, even if the subjects of its ill will were sacrificed, and if it did not, as it does, recoil, even more than their short-lived and sorrowful anger could wish, upon its Author. Of the general tone of criticism, in our own case, we certainly have no right to complain, and we should have passed over the exceptions to it even now, if a hitherto intimate literary friend had not turned upon us unaware with a pasquinade of the most personal description and stung us, as no enemy could have done, beyond our forbearance. Even Cæsar allowed himself the reproach of "Et tu Brute!" Aside from ourselves, however, the evil is a palpable and high-handed one, and for the credit of our Country no less than for a regard due to the decencies of private feeling, we wish it done away. But the sun has gone down while we are writing, and it shall not be " upon our wrath." We hate to speak of such things, and we will not willingly again. And so, with the reader's leave, we will step out of our parenthesis and assume once more our better humor.)

We trust, courteous reader, that you will not repel our familiarity. We should like to be more nearly acquainted with you than the remove of the third person always allows. We would have you sit down with us monthly to our dish of chit-chat and criticism, and allow us the same rambling license we should claim if your feet were indeed under our mahogany. We would have you take up our book

with the same benevolent smile with which you would sit down to a tete-a-tete with your friend, and indulge us in our innocent egotism as if it were all whispered in your private ear over our iced Margaux, and none of the world's business. We are sure you are no precieuse, and there can be no earthly harm in our stopping aside in this stiff, masquerading world, and taking off our dominos for a quiet half hour together. Our brief calendar of years has been written too much "in red letters" to have made this buckram suit sit easily upon us. We will stalk through our part with a becoming gravity, but when the tragedy is over, let us have a dance before the lights are out. You will like us better, we are sure. We are of Bottom's humor-we would explain our roaring to you. In grave earnest, we shall come much more lovingly to our task, if you will allow us, when we have done the dignified thing for some fifty pages, to come down from our stilts and be natural awhile. Like Mr. Potter the juggler, we will "show you how the thing is done." We will let you into a thousand little secrets that can only be told in an under tone, and tell you who pulls the wire to all the literary puppets, and everything that is interesting about those two great divisions of this wicked world—people and things. We will be a newspaper without murders-a gossip without scandal-an Editor without his cloud!-and, if you ever light upon this learned peninsula, we will redeem our note of friendship, and give you a seat in our own glorious chair,-a capacious gilt relic of the palace of Versailles, bought for three base dollars from the reliquiæ of a departed museum.

But it is time to be looking over our Table. There must be an interregnum in the kingdom of letters. We have nothing new-nothing that is worth a criticism. Mr. Southey, to be sure, has given us two poems-a "dead cat upon the neck of a camel"—and, like that ingenious device, both to be sold together. We shall take occasion to shew up the camel and dissect the cat when we are in better nerve. (Like the fat woman in Elia, our "sufferings in the warmer solstice are pitiable.") In the mean time, we warn all fastidious readers against "the Pilgrims to Compostella"-the most unredeemed and deplorable dead weight even that young filly Pegasus was saddled withal. The Laureat must have drawn his inspiration from the official "butt of sack." No such muddled waters came ever from Castaly. Since, then, we have no author professed, whom, as our erudite. and humane professor used to say of the captive pediculus, "we may insert, for the light of science, into the tube of our microscope," we will, as a succedaneum, look over our heap of fellow periodicals.

'The "Western Monthly Review" is edited by that pioneer scholar, Timothy Flint. His motto is "Benedicere, haud maledicere," and, strange to say, it is an index to the spirit of his book. Mr. Flint himself is too well known to need any praise of ours, but his Review may not be known as widely. Instead of letting it pass, however, with the common cant epithets of praise, we will give two examples one of his spirit of candor and one of the style of his articles. In a criticism upon our own Monthly-a topic on which a rival Editor would be testy, if at all—and alluding to an unfortunate sentence in our prospectus in which (unwittingly) we spoke as if there were no periodicals between the North American and the lighter class of Magazines, thereby neglecting of course, his own Review, Mr. Flint says: "We will admire and cherish it, according to its spirit and eloquence, whether he (the Editor) discovers that there are other Reviews than the two between which he has taken his stand or not." Now could we walk to the Ohio "to kiss the hand of that man." We have not met such cordial humanity since we left our uproarious class-fellows. It is our first oasis in the desert. The other example is from a Review of a French work, Meditations Poetiques, par Alphonse de la Martine. Mr. Flint's introductory remarks run thus :

Our periodicals teem with abstracts and reviews of English and German books, some of them, as we think, no ways particularly worthy of perusal, and offering few other claims, than an immense show of lumber learning. Every classical reader must remember, how differently, Goldsmith, Addison, Swift, and the other men of that school, wrote. Their learning was always beautifully in its place. From the greater simplicity, instruction and beauty of their writings alone was it inferred, that they had better availed themselves of the aid of learning, than others. The great exemplar, the beau ideal, in these days, with writers, seems to be such men, as Dr. Parr, a man of immense erudition in Greek and Latin, no doubt. But, after all, what does it amount to. The papers of the Spectator will be read, as long as our language shall last. Who will read the remains of Dr. Parr? All those scholars, who wish to cover up the sterility of mind with the veil of pedantic erudition, as Cæsar concealed his baldness with laurels, and no others.

But we wander from our purpose. While we hear so much about English and German literature, we scarcely 1ead now and then a passing notice upon that of France, Yet the people of this wonderful country, by general estimation deemed frivolous, and capable only of perfection in the walks of lighter literature, are at this moment acknowledged to surpass all others in knowledge of the higher mathematics, in their attainments in the severe and exact sciences, in every branch of knowledge that requires profound investigation, laborious mental research, and the most thorough erudition. The names of great numbers of their scientific men, could be easily mentioned, who stand acknowledged to be alone in their several walks. They have been universally admitted, in all modern time, to surpass in belles lettres and light literature. We have not a doubt, that Paris contains at this time, more science and more learned men, and more general acquirement in belles letters, than any other city in the world. Why is it that our literary vehicles of information, are almost silent upon this exhaustness subject? And that our people possess little or no exact information, touching the literature of France, than of China? We should be reluctant to believe, that it was owing to the cir cumstance, that the French literati have less fondness for this show of erudition; that they hold back upon this subject, and introduce their learning only in the

right place. They are simple in their style of writing, easy, graceful, flowing, natural. How differently they manage criticism from us! Writers are encouraged. Warm and generous praise is accorded from a full heart. Sneering, that detestable trait in English and American criticisin, as far as our reading extends, is unknown among them. Praise, when awarded, is so distributed, as to operate upon the recipient, as a cordial and an efficient stimulant to higher aims and exertions. Our critics praise, as though they praised not, and as though they were exercising a strange and hated function. What between the school of little minded and flippant sneerers, and the worshippers of pedantic learning, we confess it seems to us, that real native genius has not very favorable chances of development in this country. How many noble minds have been extinguished, how many generous efforts suppressed, how many promising germs blasted in the bud, by the universal tone of criticism among us! Genius and talent are usually appended to shrinking and diffident minds. The extraordinary case must occur, when a man of native talent succeeds, that he must possess a pushing confidence, which no sneering can wither, which no howling at the moon can deafen, or divert from its purpose.

We could wish that French literature were more known among us, were it only to show, in how different a tone all these things are managed among that polished people The wit is genuine. The humor gentlemanly, keen, delightful, has nothing of that bitter, barking, and malignant manner, with which even kind and favorable criticism is conducted among us. A more sure way to encourage incipient and dawning powers, to nurture and bring forth all the talent, there is in the community, could not be devised, than theirs. No extinguisher more certain in its operation, no choke damp more fatal in its efficacy to extinguish not only all talent, but all generous and virtuous feeling, could be desired by envy itself, than the general tone in which criticism is conducted in our country. The little minded seem to think, if they sneer, that they have brought down the object of their sneering to their own level, just as our Indians imagine, that they inherit all the bravery of the enemy they have killed.

The Journal of Science, conducted by Professor Silliman has been extensively noticed, and we will not attempt a particular criticism. One word, however, upon its interests. For several years its indefatigable Editor has sustained it without any compensation, and, we learn, even with loss. That it is an honor to the country and a most useful and valuable journal, no one doubts. It has received high praise from the scientific bodies of every country and its Editor is in correspondence with most of the celebrated Geologists and Chymists of France and England. Mr. Silliman was the first thorough Chymist and Geologist in this country. He commenced his studies with the celebrated Dr. Hare in Philadelphia, when these sciences were almost unknown in America, and aside from many striking and valuable discoveries, they have disseminated a degree of general knowledge upon these subjects which deserves the gratitude of every patriot. There is every reason why the Journal of Science should not only be sustained, but made a source of profit to its conductor. We have heard a rumor that a rival Journal was to be established in New York City. We cannot but think this unnecessary, and an encroachment upon the rights of Mr. Silliman. Whatever disposition there is to encourage a work of this kind is owing in a great measure to his own efforts, and