the portion of the second letter in the second volume of the work, wherein the author speaks of the relative civilization of this country and France. We commend the entire chapter to the attention of our readers. Mr. Cooper had the good fortune, when at Paris, to receive visits from SIR WALTER SCOTT, and was for some time an inmate of La Grange, where he found Gen. LAFAYETTE living à la Cincinnatus, and probably little anticipating the stormy events in which he was subsequently called to take part. The author was present, also, at one of the grands couverts of the king and royal family; and his description of those who then governed, or rather misgoverned, France, naturally brings with it reflections upon the mutability of human affairs, when we see the enfans de France, then so cherished and honored, exiles and wanderers on the face of the earth.

An account of some experiments in animal magnetism, near the end of the work, given in a very naive manner, will, we think, go far to disabuse many minds, now laboring under a delusion respecting this- we beg pardon for the phrase, but we know of none so expressive- humbug.

In brief, we commend these volumes to our readers, as a work replete with sound and patriotic views; and we trust that Mr. Cooper has still enough left of unpublished 'gleanings' on the continent, to favor us with a continuation of the series, and that he will not forget still farther to apply the wholesome maxim, ' Fas est et ab hoste doceri.'

TWICE-TOLD TALES. BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. In one volume. pp. 334. Boston: American Stationers' Company. New-York: WILEY AND PUTNAM. THIS modest volume, which comes before us without preface, or any sort of appeal to the public regard, is well calculated to stand on its own merits, and to acquire enduring popularity. The author possesses the power of winning immediate attention, and of sustaining it, by a certain ingenuous sincerity, and by the force of a style at once simple and graceful. In all his descriptions, whether of scenes or emotions, nature is his only guide. He reminds us, continually, of the author of 'Outre-Mer,' who, it is but just praise to say, stands nearer to Washington Irving, in his peculiar walk of literature, than any American writer of our day. Let the reader peruse the following, from an essay entitled A Rill from the Town Pump,' and tell us if any thing could be more Lamb-like in its natural humor and beauty. The scene is at the corner of two principal streets in Salem, where the Town Pump is 'talking through

its nose :'

"NOON, by the north clock! Noon, by the east! High noon, too, by these hot sunbeams, which fall, scarcely aslope, upon my head, and almost make the water bubble and smoke, in the trough under my nose. Truly, we public characters have a tough time of it! And, among all the town officers, chosen at March meeting, where is he that sustains, for a single year, the burthen of such manifold duties as are imposed, in perpetuity, upon the Town-Pump? The title of 'town-treasurer' is rightfully mine, as guardian of the best treasure that the town has. The overseers of the poor ought to make me their chairman, since I provide bountifully for the pauper, without expense to him that pays taxes. I am at the head of the fire department, and one of the physicians to the board of health. As a keeper of the peace, all water-drinkers will confess me equal to the constable. I perform some of the duties of the town-clerk, by promulgating public notices, when they are posted on my front. To speak within bounds, I am the chief person of the municipality, and exhibit, moreover, an admirable pattern to my brother officers, by the cool, steady, upright, downright, and impartial discharge of my business, and the constancy with which I stand to my post. Summer or winter, nobody seeks me in vain; for, all day long, I am seen at the busiest corner, just above the market, stretching out my arms, to rich and poor alike; and at night, I hold a lantern over my head, both to show where I am, and keep people out of the gutters.

"At this sultry noontide, I am cupbearer to the parched populace, for whose benefit an iron goblet is chained to my waist. Like a dram-seller on the mall, at muster day, I cry aloud to all and sundry, in my plainest accents, and at the very tiptop of my voice. Here it is, gentlemen! Here is the good liquor! Walk up, walk up, gentlemen, walk up, walk up! Here is the superior stuff! Here is the unadulterated ale of father Adam better than Cognac, Hollands, Jamaica, strong beer, or wine of any price; here it is, by the hogshead or the single glass, and not a cent to pay! Walk up, gentlemen, walk up, and help yourselves!

It were a pity, if all this outcry should draw no customers. Here they come. A hot day, gentlemen! Quaff, and away again, so as to keep yourselves in a nice cool sweat. You, my friend, will need another cup-full, to wash the dust out of your throat, if it be as thick there as it is on your cowhide shoes. I see that you have trudged half a score of miles, to-day; and, like a wise man, have passed by the taverns, and stopped at the running brooks and well-curbs. Otherwise, betwixt heat without and fire within, you would have been burnt to a cinder, or melted down to nothing at all, in the fashion of a jelly-fish. Drink, and make room for that other fellow, who seeks my aid to quench the fiery fever of last night's potations, which he drained from no cup of mine. Welcome, most rubicund sir! You and I have been great strangers, hitherto; nor, to confess the truth, will my nose be anxious for a closer intimacy, till the fumes of your breath be a little less potent. Mercy on you, man! The water absolutely hisses down your redhot gullet, and is converted quite to steam, in the miniature tophet, which you mistake for a stomach. Fill again, and tell me, on the word of an honest toper, did you ever, in cellar, tavern, or any kind of a dram-shop, spend the price of your children's food, for a swig half so delicious? Now, for the first time these ten years, you know the flavor of cold water. Good-by; and, whenever you are thirsty, remember that I keep a constant supply, at the old stand. Who next? Oh, my little friend, you are let loose from school, and come hither to scrub your blooming face, and drown the memory of certain taps of the ferule, and other schoolboy troubles, in a draught from the Town-Pump. Take it, pure as the current of your young life. Take it, and may your heart and tongue never be scorched with a fiercer thirst than now! There, my dear child, put down the cup, and yield your place to this elderly gentleman, who treads so tenderly over the paving-stones, that I suspect he is afraid of breaking them. What! he limps by, without so much as thanking me, as if my hospitable offers were meant only for people, who have no wine-cellars. Well, well, sir- no harm done, I hope! Go draw the cork, tip the decanter: but, when your great toe shall set you a roaring, it will be no affair of mine. If gentlemen love the pleasant titillation of the gout, it is all one to the TownPump. This thirsty dog, with his red tongue lolling out, does not scorn my hospitality, but stands on his hind legs, and laps eagerly out of the trough. See how lightly he capers away again! Jowler, did your worship ever have the gout?"

"Your pardon, good people! I must interrupt my stream of eloquence, and spout forth a stream of water, to replenish the trough for this teamster and his two yoke of oxen, who have come from Topsfield, or somewhere along that way. No part of my business is pleasanter than the watering of cattle. Look! how rapidly they lower the watermark on the sides of the trough, till their capacious stomachs are moistened with a gallon or two apiece, and they can afford time to breathe it in, with sighs of calm enjoyment. Now they roll their quiet eyes around the brim of their monstrous drinkingvessel. An ox is your true toper."

The annexed contains a delicate hint, which should not be lost upon the ultra advocates of temperance, who have done no small injury to the good cause by their own intemperance:

"Ahem! Dry work, this speechifying; especially to an unpractised orator. I never conceived, till now, what toil the temperance-lectures undergo for my sake. Hereafter, they shall have the business to themselves. Do, some kind Christian, pump a stroke or two, just to wet iny whistle. Thank you, sir! My dear hearers, when the world shall have been regenerated, by my instrumentality, you will collect your useless vats and liquor casks, into one great pile, and make a bonfire, in honor of the Town-Pump. And, when I shall have decayed, like my predecessors, then, if you revere my memory, let a marble fountain, richly sculptured, take my place upon this spot. Such monuments should be erected every where, and inscribed with the names of the distinguished champions of my cause. Now listen; for something very important is to come next.

are

"There are two or three honest friends of mine- and true friends, I know, they who, nevertheless, by their fiery pugnacity in my hehalf, do put me in fearful hazard of a broken nose, or even of a total overthrow upon the pavement, and the loss of the treasure which I guard. I pray you, gentlemen, let this fault be amended. Is it decent, think you, to get tipsy with zeal for temperance, and take up the honorable

cause of the Town-Pump, in the style of a toper, fighting for his brandy-bottle? Or, can the excellent qualities of cold water be no otherwise exemplified, than by plunging, slapdash, into hot water, and wofully scalding yourselves and other people? Trust me, they may. In the moral warfare, which you are to wage and, indeed, in the whole conduct of your lives you cannot choose a better example than myself, who have never permitted the dust, and sultry atmosphere, the turbulence and manifold disquietudes of the world around me, to reach that deep, calm well of purity, which may be called my soul. And whenever I pour out that soul, it is to cool earth's fever, or cleanse its stains.

"One o'clock! Nay, then, if the dinner-bell begins to speak, I may as well hold my peace. Here comes a pretty young girl of my acquaintance, with a large stone pitcher for me to fill. May she draw a husband, while drawing her water, as Rachel did of old. Hold out your vessel, my dear! There it is, full to the brim; so now run home, peeping at your sweet image in the pitcher, as you go; and forget not, in a glass of my own liquor, to drink-'SUCCESS TO THE TOWN-PUMP!'"

In the 'Sights from a Steeple' are conspicuously displayed the happy skill in grouping, and the felicity of expression, so characteristic of our author. A passage or two are subjoined:

"So! I have climbed high, and my reward is small. Here I stand, with wearied knees, earth, indeed, at a dizzy depth below, but heaven far, far beyond me still. O that I could soar up into the very zenith, where man never breathed, nor eagle ever flew, and where the ethereal azure melts away from the eye, and appears only a deepened shade of nothingness! And yet I shiver at that cold and solitary thought. What clouds are gathering in the golden west, with direful intent against the brightness and the warmth of this summer afternoon! They are ponderous air-ships, black as death, and freighted with the tempest; and at intervals their thunder, the signal-guns of that unearthly squadron, rolls distant along the deep of heaven. These nearer heaps of fleecy vapormethinks I could roll and toss upon them the whole day long!-seem scattered here and there, for the repose of tired pilgrims through the sky. Perhaps - for who can tell?-beautiful spirits are disporting themselves there, and will bless my mortal eye with the brief appearance of their curly locks of golden light, and laughing faces, fair and faint as the people of a rosy dream. Or, where the floating mass so imperfectly obstructs the color of the firmament, a slender foot and fairy limb, resting too heavily upon the frail support, may be thrust through, and suddenly withdrawn, while longing fancy follows them in vain. Yonder again is an airy archipelago, where the sunbeams love to linger in their journeyings through space. Every one of those little clouds has been dipped and steeped in radiance, which the slightest pressure might disengage in silvery profusion, like water wrung from a sea-maid's hair. Bright they are as a young man's visions, and like them, would be realized in chillness, obscurity and tears. I will look on them no more.

"In three parts of the visible circle, whose centre is this spire, I discern cultivated fields, villages, white country-seats, the waving lines of rivulets, little placid lakes, and here and there a rising ground, that would fain be termed a hill. On the fourth side is the sea, stretching away towards a viewless boundary, blue and calm, except where the passing anger of a shadow flits across its surface, and is gone. Hitherward, a broad inlet penetrates far into the land; on the verge of the harbor, formed by its extremity, is a town; and over it am I, a watchman, all heeding and unheeded. In two streets, converging at right angles toward my watch-tower, I distinguish three different processions. One is a proud array of voluntary soldiers in bright uniform, resembling, from the height whenee I look down, the painted veterans that garrison the windows of a toy shop. And yet, it stirs my heart; their regular advance, their nodding plumes, the sun-flash on their bayonets and musket-barrels, the roll of their drums ascending past me, and the fife ever and anon piercing through these things have awakened a warlike fire, peaceful though I be. Close to their rear marches a battalion of school-boys, ranged in crooked and irregular platoons, shouldering sticks, thumping a harsh and unripe clatter from an instrument of tin, and ridiculously aping the intricate manœuvres of the foremost band. Nevertheless, as slight differences are scarcely perceptible from a church spire, one might be tempted to ask, Which are the boys? — or rather, Which the men? But, leaving these, let us turn to the third procession, which, though sadder in outward show, may excite identical reflections in the thoughtful mind. It is a funeral. A hearse, drawn by a black and bony steed, and covered by a dusty pall; two or three coaches rumbling over the stones, their drivers half asleep; a dozen couple of careless mourners in their every-day attire; such was not the fashion of our fathers, when they carried a friend to his grave. There is now no doleful clang of the bell, to proclaim sorrow to the town. Was the King of Terrors more awful in those days than in our own, that wisdom and philosophy have been able to produce this

change? Not so. Here is a proof that he retains his proper majesty. The military men, and the military boys, are wheeling round the corner, and meet the funeral full in the face. Immediately the drum is silent, all but the tap that regulates each simultaneous foot-fall. The soldiers yield the path to the dusty hearse, and unpretending train, and the children quit their ranks, and cluster on the sidewalks, with timorous and instinctive curiosity. The mourners enter the church-yard at the base of the steeple, and pause by an open grave among the burial stones; the lightning glimmers on them as they lower down the coffin, and the thunder rattles heavily while they throw the earth upon its lid. Verily, the shower is near."

"Lo! the rain drops are descending and now the storm lets loose its fury. In every dwelling I perceive the faces of the chambermaids as they shut down the windows, excluding the impetuous shower, and shrinking away from the quick fiery glare. The large drops descend with force upon the slated roofs, and rise again in smoke. There is a rush and roar, as of a river through the air, and muddy streams bubble majestically along the pavement, whirl their dusky foam into the kennel, and disappear beneath iron grates. Thus did Arethusa sink. I love not my station here aloft, in the midst of the tumult which I am powerless to direct or quell, with the blue lightning wrinkling on my brow, and the thunder muttering its first awful syllables in my ear. I will descend. Yet let me give another glance to the sea, where the foam breaks out in long white lines upon a broad expanse of blackness, or boils up in far distant points, like snowy mountain tops in the eddies of a flood; and let me look once more at the green plain, and little hills of the country, over which the giant of the storm is striding in robes of mist, and at the town, whose obscured and desolate streets might beseem a city of the dead and turning a single moment to the sky, I prepare to resume my station on lower earth. But stay! A little speck of azure has widened in the western heavens; the sunbeams find a passage, and go rejoicing through the tempest; and on yonder darkest cloud, born, like hallowed hopes, of the glory of another world, and the trouble and tears of this, brightens forth the rainbow!"

:

Next to the discourse of the pump, we should rank 'Sunday at Home,' of which we have before spoken in these pages, Mr. Higginbotham's Catastrophe,'' The Gentle Boy,' and 'Little Annie's Ramble.' The Minister's Black Veil,' and 'The Prohphetic Pictures,' are less to our fancy; but they are marked by good taste, and managed with adroitness. In short, in quiet humor, in genuine pathos, and deep feeling, and in a style equally unstudied and pure, the author of Twice-Told Tales' has few equals, and with perhaps one or two eminent exceptions, no superior in our country. We confidently and cordially, therefore, commend the beautiful volume before us to the attention of our readers.

THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH SCHILLER: Comprehending an Examination of his Works. In one volume. New-York: GEORGE DEARBORN AND COMPANY.

THIS is undoubtedly the most complete and philosophical biography of the great German poet which has yet been written in English. To use the words of Dr. FoLLEN, by whom the American edition has been edited, and than whom no one on this side of the Atlantic is better qualified for the task: 'This account of the life of Schiller is a biography, in the full sense of the word; not merely a recital of events, or a description of the peculiarities and the gradual unfolding of the personal character of the author, but chiefly a critical analysis of his works, of which the main part of such a life consists.'

The correction of many errors in the English edition, especially of those committed in the translations from the works of the author, made by the American editor, adds much to the value of this edition, as does likewise the entire preface, which is characterized by the critical acumen and scholarship of the learned writer. We hope that Dr. Follen may be encouraged to superintend a similar biography of the illustrious contemporary and friend of Schiller-adding to our standard libraries an adequate history of the great Göethe.

EDITORS' TABLE.

CHEVALIER'S WORK ON THE UNITED STATES. An attentive friend in Paris has sent us two handsome volumes, from the press of GoSSELIN, entitled 'Lettres Sur l'Amérique Du Nord: Par MICHAEL CHEVALIER.' We have perused them with more respect for the talents and researches of the author, than for his candor in many cases; though we really believe that his intentions were as impartial as possible. If we take from his volumes that yearning for effect that solicitude for pointed contrasts—which give to French literature in general so much of its piquancy and charm; if we make due allowance for the first influences of a country upon the mind of a stranger, with a proper reflection upon the difficulty which any one, however scrutinizing and observant, must find in comprehending the social or political economy of a foreign nation- we shall readily concede to our author an honesty of purpose, not always, but in the main, accompanied with judgment; and a discerning mind, from whose impressions it is impossible not to learn something of value.

We make one translation, to show the misconceptions of M. CHEVALIER, arising from a hasty and somewhat dramatic style of observation, as well as to protest against contrasts so preposterous and unjust :

"The Yankee and the Virginian are two beings very dissimilar. They love each other but passably, and often quarrel. They are the same men who cut each other's throats in England, under the names of Cavaliers and Round Heads. In England, they have made peace, thanks to the interference of the new dynasty, which is neither Stuart nor Cromwell. In America, they would have quarrelled as they had formerly done in the mother country, had not Providence placed them, the one at the north, the other at the south, extending between them the territory which includes the middle states of Pennsylvania and New-York, with their satellites New-Jersey and Delaware. "The Virginian of the pure blood, is open, accessible, and generous. He is courteous in his manners, noble in sentiment, and lofty in his ideas. He is the worthy descendant of the English gentleman. Surrounded, from his infancy, by slaves,who obey all his commands, he not only wants energy, but is extremely lazy. He is lavish and prodigal. Around him, and in the new states, even more than in impoverished Virginia, profusion reigns. When the cotton crop has been good, and the prices are firm, he calls all his friends and dependants, not even excepting his field hands, to enjoy his wealth, without troubling himself with considering the prospects of the next crop. The practice of hospitality is with him a duty, a pleasure, a happiness. After the manner of the eastern patriarchs, or the heroes of Homer, to entertain the guest whom accident has sent, or an old friend recommended, to him, he places an ox upon the spit; and to wash down this substantial repast, he produces his old Madeira, which has made two voyages to India, and laid twenty years in his own cellar. He loves the institutions of his country, but nevertheless will show with satisfaction to a stranger his family plate, the armorial bearings upon which are half effaced by time; attesting its descent from the first colonists, whose ancestors were of respectability in England. When his mind has been cultivated by study, and when a voyage to Europe has given grace to his form, and refinement to his imagination, there is no place in the world that he would not dignify; there is no destiny so elevated, that he might not aspire to it. He is one of those men, with whom one is happy as a companion, and one desires as a friend. Gifted with an ardent mind and a warm heart, he is the stuff of which great orators are composed. He knows better how to command men, than to conquer nature, and fertilize the soil. When he possesses a certain portion of wit and order, and of that active perseverance so common among his brethren of the North, he unites all things that are required to constitute a great

statesman.

"The Yankee, on the other hand, is reserved, cautious, and distrustful. His character is thoughtful and gloomy, but uniform; his manner is ungraceful, but modest, and without vulgarity. His exterior is cold- often forbidding; his ideas are narrow, but practical; they are rather directed toward the useful than the luxurious. He has no particle of chivalry in his character, and yet he is bold and adventurous, and delights in a wandering life. He has an imagination, active and full of original conceptions, which are here called Yankee notions.' He is not poetical, but fantastical and odd. The Yankee is like the laborious ant; he is industrious and steady; he is economical. Upon the barren soil of New-England it amounted to meanness; transplanted to the promised land of the West, his character is subdued, and he counts his coppers with less carefulness.

"In New-England, he has a good share of prudence, but once thrown among the treasures of the west, he becomes a speculator, and even a gambler; although he has a natural horror of cards, and all games of hazard, except the innocent game of nine-pins. He is cautious, subtle, calculating, delighting in those tricks by which he overreaches a careless or confiding purchaser of his wares, be