that country, self-interest must continually interpose to prevent such a condensed edition of Scott, which would so materially interfere with vested rights. We are warranted in saying, as before, that this is the greatest, and most valuable edition of the illustrious novelist, which has ever, or ever can be issued.

This is not, as yet, the place to enlarge upon the merits, and the transcendent fame of Scott. Well did his accomplished Eulogist* write upon his death,

-Thou need'st not

The sculpture and the shrine;
The heart is the sole monument,
For memories like thine,

On looking at this noble edition of his works, we feel how vain are trumpeted subscriptions, and elaborate orations to perpetuate celebrity so inevitably immortal; and we cannot help thinking, that on the completion of this great series of his works, Americans will have among them a monument to the memory of Scott, which, better than the column or the bust, is more expressive alike of the Titan vastness of his labors, and the godlike splendor of his mind.

SYDENHAM; OR, MEMOIRS OF A MAN OF THE WORLD. 2 vols. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey & E. H. Hart.

Sydenham is one of those masterly productions, wnose excellence is the greater, that it is not continually obtruded upon us in elaborate display, but is so subdued, and as it were, managed by the author, that it strikes you more in detail, than in any egregious straining after occasional effect.

The writer of Sydenham has fine tact, acute observation, great knowledge of the world, just perception of the peculiar traits which give tone to character, and he writes with a full consciousness of his powers. The book is, therefore, not indebted for its interest to adventitious scenes of high wrought possibility, or to incidents and passions, of which ordinary novelists make such ingenious and advantageous employment. But it possesses strong attractions in the feli city and point with which the different personages, in the fashionable life of English society, are described. There is great happiness in the cynical philosophy of the hero. We are pleased with his nonchalance, and admire his dexterity; and we follow his gradations of success in fashionable life, with interest and amusement. His liaison with Lady Oliphant is managed with consummate tact; and the scene with her ladyship, in his own drawing-room, excellently drawn. Mrs. Metcalfe, and her marriageable daughter, though of the same stamp as the Lady Stanley of Miss Edgeworth, form a sketch which is nevertheless finished with original traits, and irresistibly fine; and the toad-eating Mrs. Mitchell, with the rest of his mother's coterie, display in a few words, how effective, and how caustic are his powers of sarcasm.

The great value of Sydenham, however, consists in the introduction of, and delineation to the life of many of the first political characters and events of the latter English history. To effect this purpose he has, with a Virgilian

• Miss Landon.

license, confounded the events of fifty years; and by a happy anachronism," which, however, answers his purpose perfectly well, made Brummell contemporary with Brougham. And the latter an intrigante in the saloons of the Dutchess of Devonshire, the celebrated heroine of the Westminster election. Had the publishers annexed a key to the various characters, which was certainly circulated in London, and even, we believe, published in either the Spectator or Court Journal, it would have been an immense addition to the value of the book. As it is, those acquainted with English politics, will readily recognise Sheridan in the witty and admired Singleton. Sydenham has, however, touched too sore upon the embarrassments, and want of faith, of the great orator; and his gratuitous introduction of the brothel scene, is not only the meanest drawback on the book, but is a circumstance which does the illustrious traduced as little harm as its insertion does the author honor. To represent Sheridan, universally praised for his domestic virtues, as a veteran debauchee, is alike unwarrantable and unjust, and is, at best, even supposing it were true, a thankless and ungracious scandal.

The dandy, Beaumont, has had, doubtless, for its prototype the notorious Brummell, the perfection of modern exquisites, who carried the mysterious despotism of fashion so far, as to proscribe his sovereign from its realms by a nod. He is the hero here of many excellent scenes. We would instance the manner in which he cut the hussar at Lady Cuthullins, and his reception in Mrs. Majendies.

In Broughton we can have no other than the present Lord Chancellor, and he certainly, in these volumes, appears to little advantage beside his gifted rival, Anstruther, who seems intended for Canning. The deathbed scene of the latter is told with great energy, and the moral is affecting. The fashionable poet, Haynes Bayley, is sketched with great spirit and brilliance, as Mr. Fanshawe Littleton; and whether poor Auriol, whom we take for Keats, be a real character, or not, in no way affects the truth and beauty with which the sensitive genius is delineated.

The man of letters, the politician, and the scholar, will find in these volumes much to interest, and even more to amuse. The mere novel reader will, perhaps, be disappointed, for he will meet with no turbulence, no love, no excitement, no dangers. Sensible people, however, will be pleased with Sydenham, for he tells an entertaining narrative, and tells it well.

BRIDGEWATER TREATISES, No. II.—On the Adaptation of External Nature to the Physical Condition of Man, Principally with Reference to the Supply of his Wants, and the Exercise of his Intellectual Faculties. By John Kidd, M.D., F.R.S., Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard.

In noticing this work here, feelings and views of some force, which would naturally influence the reviewer in the country where the series of which it is one originated, must be laid aside. We have no right to question the wisdom of the manner in which the munificent bequest of the Earl of Bridgewater was disposed of. Nor is it our duty to ascertain whether professor Kidd's treatise is intrinsically worth the splendid sum which was assigned as his reward.

We confess that were we to weigh its merits, as one of a series for which much was paid, and from which much was of right to be expected, we could find in it much to reject, a great deal to find fault with, and something to condemn. We might observe, that it was unequal in its execution to its pretensions, that its deductions were hasty, its arguments often frivolous, and its general tone of reasoning, as elucidating a grand moral axiom, inconclusive and careless; very far from what England, if not the World, had a right to expect as the fruit of one of the most magnificent and best intended bequests recorded in literary history. Such feelings, however, can have have no further influence in this country than to lessen the high opinion of its authority, which all were disposed to entertain of this treatise from its object and its source.

Apart, however, from these considerations, the work of Dr. Kidd possesses a very great degree of interest for this community; and will form, to the religious and the philosophic, a manual from which each may draw instruction of the noblest character. The plan on which the book has been written commands our admiration. All the facts illustrative of the wisdom of Providence, in the peculiar economy of man, which have been floating, for many years, in innumerable volumes, have been, in this treatise, collected and arranged in a manner that leaves us nothing farther to wish upon the subject. The connexion of the various phenomena of nature with, and their influence over, the physical condition of man, are clearly and distinctly traced, while the style is sufficiently attractive to ensure it a general perusal. And throughout the whole work it cannot be denied that he has admirably accomplished his object, to demonstrate the adaptation of the external world to the physical condition of man. And, either in considering him merely as an individual, or as a component member of society, it must be freely admitted, that every step in the investigation has tended to confirm this general conclusion, that whether from chance, (if any philosophical mind acknowledge the existence of such an agent as chance,) or deliberate design, a mutual harmony does really exist between the corporeal powers, and the intellectual faculties of man, and the properties of the various forms of matter which surround him; the material constituents of all nature, being as evidently adapted to the supply of the wants of his body, as the contemplation of their causes and relations to the exercise of the mind.

Such being the object of the work, we have attempted no analysis of its contents, because such a treatise should be universally read, which, we have little doubt, will be the case with the present.

TALES FROM AMERICAN HISTORY. By the Author of " American Popular Lessons," forming volumes IX., X., and XI., of the Boy's and Girl's Library. New-York: J. & J. Harper.

The excellent series, of which these entertaining volumes form a part, should be in the hands of every family. Containing so much of instruction and amusement, no safer, or more fascinating books, could be put into the hands of children. The present volumes, by a proved writer, are such as should be generally read. They detail, in an easy and delightful style, the stirring and marvellous incidents with which the discovery and conquest of this continent

was attended; and without aiming to accomplish much, form a delightful epitome of its ancient and modern history, which even the instructed may peruse with profit, but which must prove particularly charming to the young.

EMMA, a Novel, in 2 vols. By Miss Austen, Author of "Pride and Prejudice," "Mansfield Park," " Persuasion," &c. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard.

Emma is a novel of some years standing. Miss Austen's aim in writing it seems to have been to describe, in the character of Emma, the effect which uncontrolled authority from infancy, and high notions of privileged rank, would have in forming the disposition of a female of great personal beauty and accomplishments, with a naturally strong mind. Accordingly, we have her, with the best motives imaginable, continually acting the patroness to her friends, and affecting to regulate their destinies, by her own preconceived notions of the distinctions in society; imagining herself in love, when she has found an object she believes appropriate; and seeming astonished, as at a contingency out of the range of possibility, when she finds the gentleman she believes her admirer, had neglected her for a lovely and accomplished girl of obscurer birth.

There may be in all this a great degree of merit, as a fine and delicate conception, but it has been embodied at the sacrifice of what we prefer—that of interest. Of this essential quality in a novel, Emma is so seriously deficient, that all the talents of its author have proved incompetent to make a story which the most determined patience can peruse.

INDIAN BIOGRAPHY; OR, AN HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THOSE INDIVIDUAls, WHO HAVE BEEN DISTINGUISHED AMONG THE NORTH AMERICAN NATIVES, AS ORATORS, STATESMEN, AND OTHER REMARKABLE CHARACTERS. By B. B. Thatcher, Esq., in 4 vols. New-York. J. & J. Harper.

We must do justice to this valuable work, even, though it be tardy. This notice, however, has been crowded out of our pages, month after month, until we can detain it no longer.

This is a decidedly interesting and important work, but we can devote much less space to it than we could wish. In the characters, and customs, and records of these primeval lords of our soil, we see the very stamina of a national literature. Whatever is noble in disposition, stern in principle, or inflexible in purpose, is here developed. In the portraiture of these men, there is so much of independence, exalted generosity, unalterable resolution and firmness, that, if some of them had lived in the golden days of Greece or Rome, their names would have been immortalized, in sculpture or in song, and their daring valor adored as superhuman.

To trace these men in their relations to one another, and in relation to their tribes; to unfold their character, to write their history, and record their achievements, is certainly a noble task, and precisely the point from which a nation's literature should arise in all its bright and beautiful creations. The lives of the painter, poet, divine, or politician, belong to one class of biography, where splendor, refinement, success, or misfortune may blend together. But in the

life of the fetterless independent Indian, the monarch of a thousand woods; the companion of nature, and solitude, and danger; there is a romantic dazzling, that catches upon the imagination, and inspires us with a world of veneration for the red man, and the scalping warrior. Let us survey him, apart from every feeling of false delicacy or refinement, and with a just allowance for his circumstances, and we will find among the North American Indians, some of the noblest of the human race; let us look at him in the times of the revolution, when all his unwasted energy was called forth, when all his sagacity, and stratagem, and hardihood were exerted; and we shall see how he applied all his untaught, but important services, with unjustifiable, perhaps, but fearful efficacy to the protection of his friends. With what fidelity and faith do they keep their engagements. Never were there exhibited so many sublime instances of this, as among the American Indians; but when excited by revenge, or fired by insult, never were there more deep, dark, or ferocious beings; these volumes, therefore, are of exceeding value, because, they snatch from certain oblivion, many a bright and unrecorded trait of valor and generosity, which will now live in the page of civilized history. The sketches are so vividly and faithfully written, that we almost think we can see the Indian warriors, seated round their council fires, or hear their war whoop and death yell, from out the depth of their woods.

This, then, forms the most agreeable, because the earliest days of native biography. And here, as out of a rich mine, the philosopher will find much to study and speculate upon, in the independence and simplicity of their lives; the moralist can think upon their character, and resolve into something like a theory of explanations, the seemingly opposite, but controlling principles of their minds-friendship and revenge; and the politician will mark in the dignity of their conduct, and their homage to established laws, much that will command inquiry and research; while the rhetorician, out of their strong and wonderful oratory, will have to begin a new study of eloquence. Than their distinguishing national traits—there cannot be a more interesting subject of Biography in the world. So much of natural and instantaneous impulse, so much of moral courage, so much of ingenuous simplicity, arising from their undisputed birthright of liberty, and privileged possession "of a world at large," that we feel sorry that such a race are dying away. But so it is; the progress of civilization has swept away their wigwams, extinguished their council fires, and stilled their war whoop, while their last sad remnants, still wander among us like Ossian's ghosts, the spectres of their former glory, where once the war whoop of their hundred chiefs, could call a million tomahawks into the field.

Mr. Thatcher has been very fortunate in his selection; he has compiled it well, written it well, and we doubt not, but the public will like it well; without the sin of spiritless detail, we are charmed and refreshed by the propriety of his remarks, his well chosen anecdotes, and his elegant style. The work gives evidence of extensive research and inquiry, and the author deserves unbounded credit. We have never read a book more full of energy and spirit. From Powhatan, the first in the list of warriors, to Seguoha, or Redjacket, all is animation, life, enjoyment.