CRITICAL.

We not only believe that novels were meant to be read on steamboats, but almost believe that steamboats were invented that we might fully enjoy novels: at any rate, one of the great advantages of steam navigation is that it enables us to read books which we never could get through at home. During a late trip up the river, we were thus enabled to master two of James', one of Marryatt's, and one of Ward's books, upon which, with some others, worth reading on shore, we now offer a word or two.

Mr. James' novels, The Duke of Guise, and the King's Highway, are, like most of his stories, full of interest, but devoid of that power which marks Scott, the power of creating living men and women. His characters have little that is individual, unless they are historical, and then they are commonly exaggerated. Compare his Henry of France,Henry of Guise, and Henry of Navarre, three grand characters,

with Scott's James in Nigel, Charles in Woodstock, Louis, and Charles of Burgundy, in Quinten Durward, or with any other of his historical portraits. James, like a common portrait painter, gives the features, color and posture, but it is all a copy, not a creation; correct but lifeless. Scott conceives his subject so vividly as to create it anew, and paints a living man, whose original is in his own brain, and not a dead copy, the original of which is in the writings of Hume or Sismondi, nor even of Clarendon or Froissart.

Mr. James, however, though far inferior as an artist, and therefore less valuable as an historical illustrator, is in this last character a very valuable as well as most voluminous writer. Scarce a month passes without a new novel from his desk, and yet none of them are worthless; many are excellent, and full of true reflection. The King's Highway is

valuable as an historical sketch, not of individuals, but of society; and from its suggestions many trains of

thought may spring, well worth dwelling upon. In truth, as Macauley says, we may find our civil history in one writer, our religious annals in another, our constitutional and literary records in a third, or all united, it may be, in the Pictorial History, now in progress; but in our novels only, can we hope to see the actors of History erect, clothed and moving.

The work by Capt. Marryatt, to which we gave some hours, was The Phantom Ship, and we were pleasantly disappointed in it. We think it one of the best tales of a supernatural kind that we ever remember to have seen. The supernatural is not so much pasted upon the natural, as infused into it. In various characters, at all times, and in connection with the most matterof-fact details, the wonderful comes in and tinges the whole, without destroying its probability. The character of the heroine, Amine, we think a new one in fiction; and a most interesting one. Her bold, warm, high-minded, strongminded, and yet wholly wo manly character, is, we think, very well sketched. She is perfectly individual; is alive, and excites the interest of a living being. Lady Laura, in James' Highway, his heroines in general, together with all of Cooper's, and many of Scott's, are painted dolls: Amine is, with a few of Sir

Walter's, and all of Shakspeare's, a woman, full of strange, inconsistent, and unintelligible feelings, but feminine in all. Her changes respecting religion, her treatment of the Catholic priest, her last acts, are all more like real life than novel-writing.

Mr. Ward's "Fielding" we were disappointed in also, but the other way. We could never get through De Vere or Tremaine, but we presume they have merit. Fielding we made an end of, but for ourselves, found no merit in it. The writer appears to be a man who has lived among the aristocracy of England, in as great ignorance of the mass as his hero. He tells us of content in lower circles, of happy batchers, and worthy squires, as if he were a discoverer. His men and women are posts with labels on them, his sentiments superficial, his philosophy shallow, and his social and political views Tory in the narrowest sense. He does not seem to dream of progress at all; the German peasants, happy and stationary, appear to him the perfection of man. Slavery, or the state of the Hindoos, Mr. Ward would think the best possible condi tion for human beings, provided the masters were merciful. He has no faith in the Christian view of man and his powers, and that want of faith is a key to his whole system; as

indeed it is to the whole Tory

system.

Another book of a novel character, though no novel, which we read, was Brownson's new views on religion and society. Mr. B. is held in such horror just now, because of some late heterodox political views, that it is as much as one's life is worth to mention him without execration. The Dial, of Boston, is pronounced "libertine" and licentious" for no greater crime than praising Mr. B.'s "philosophical analysis," and "fearless energy." (See Cin. Chron., Aug. 5th.) However, though we believe our Whig friends have deceived themselves into thinking Mr. B. an enemy of all goodness,because he looks upon Priests and Ordinances as William Penn and his band of Friends did and do; and though we fear their eyes are blind to his true power and worth, because they differ from him on some points, yet we feel obliged to say that we think few writers of equal clearness, vigor and boldness have appeared in these United States.

Right or wrong, he has a mind of his own, and does not follow any leader, as most of us do, like blind mice holding by the tails of a few open-eyed ones. We do not believe there is as much thought, well

expressed, and deserving careful consideration, in any equal number of periodical pages, as there is in the pages of Brownson's Review, beginning with its establishment, and coming down to this time. The very article on the Laboring Classes, which has shaken our nerves so, we think worthy of careful study. We believe with Mr. B., that the cause of Property against Birth being decided, that of Man against Property must come on and be tried; and all this howling and shrieking of Conservative men and women seems to us like the uproar by which the Peruvians tried to stop the moon's eclipse. As respects the spirit of Mr. B.'s article, and the mode of action he proposes, we are in the strongest opposition to him: we think his spirit unchristian, and his plan of action unwise; but we believe him as honest as Luther, as fearless as Knox, and as capable, either for good or evil, as any writer of our day.

Of his ability, we think his "New Views" good proof; we deem them conclusive as to his "philosophical analysis,” and "fearless energy."

Of the Dial itself we had intended to speak this month, but as a few days will bring us a new No., we defer it; as also a notice of Mr. Macauley's Miscellanies.