characters of resemblance. But the differences are infinitely more striking than the sympathies. Belshazzar is a youth elated with his exaggerated power, intoxicated with the flatteries, the pomp, and the decorations of his pre-eminence, and abandoning himself with the eager confidence of youth to the untried seductions of voluptuousness. Sardanapalus has attained the fulness of his manhood; he has experienced, and he is sated with those enjoyments in which his rank afforded him the facility of indulging. He has become more than half disgusted with the life of which he fully apprehends the vanity. He is the Corsair and Childe Harold at the conclusion of that probationary state of dissipation, in which they learnt their weariness of life, and their abhorrence of their species. Belshazzar is a real, living, royal, noble, but misguided boy, of whose existence. the reader feels an entire conviction, and whose memory will never fade from the recollection; Sardanapalus is like a phantasmagoric exhibition of King Solomon in all his glory, and passes indistinctly before the view, like the visionary descendants of Banquo in the cavern of the witches.

Throughout the whole of the poem the reader lives as within the walls of Babylon. Every thing is gigantic. The streets appear to him of an imperial width; and the buildings soar before his view into the clear and sultry skies with the pomp of temples and of palaces. He wanders through the queen of cities; and he shudders as he passes beneath the massive fabrics and the gorgeous monuments that surround him. He has heard the divine denunciation uttered against them in the heavens, and trembles at the impending ruin of those mighty battlements, which seem to stand in ignorant confidence of strength upon foundations that are already undermined.

The eastern sun does not shine upon the gold and marble of the gorgeous Babylon, or sparkle on the upshooting waters of her fountains, or beam on the colonnades, or repose on the flowers and verdure of her hanging gardens with the dim and faint irradiation that it manifests in our colder hemisphere; but he floods the towered walls" in all that affluence and prodigality of light which are displayed in the immediate presence of his throne. There is no force or labour of description, but the mind of the author is pregnant of vast images and grand conceptions; and they invest themselves in appropriate expressions, and give an air of colossal majesty to the work that fills the mind and elevates the heart like the loudest pealings of an organ, or the presence of mountains, or the terrors of the interminable

sea.

Bracebridge Hall, or The Humourists. By GEOFFREY CRAYON, Gent. 2 vols. 8vo. London, Murray, 1822.

THE want of a national literature has long been made matter of reproach to America. There has been, on the part of a certain class of persons in this country, a strong inclination to carp and cavil at every thing connected with the United States, and their deficiency in this respect has caused many a gibe and sneer at their expense. Their eminence in war,-in commerce and navigation,in all the civil concernments of life,-has remained overlooked, or, at least, unmentioned; while it has been continually rung into their ears, that in all matters connected with literature they were wholly dependant upon us. The answer to this is sufficiently obvious and simple

indeed, it has been repeatedly made; but it is one of the chief weapons of malice and misrepresentation to speak only of the adverse fact, without looking to, or noticing, the causes which account for and soften it. The Americans and their advocates have naturally said, that no state in its infancy has ever possessed-or can possess a literature:-that the talent of the country is engrossed by its serious wants, and occupations of direct usefulness, that, in a word, men must have all the necessaries, and even superfluities, of animal life, before they set about making that life intellectually agreeable. It might have been added, that no nation ever progressed so rapidly towards maturity as America is doing. If it be in its infancy, it is the infancy of Hercules,-it has strangled in cunis the serpents of scanty population and contracted resources,-and is now advancing with giant strides towards flourishing lustihood, in despite of Junolike malignity and ill-will.

America is, accordingly, beginning to shew promise of being as distinguished in arts and literature, as she is already in arms and commerce. The names of Leslie and Newton stand high even among those of our own painters,—and their works claim distinction by the side of some of the most eminent productions of British art. And, lastly, the author of the volumes before us has won a literary laurel, of which some of the highest names among us might be proud. The Sketch Book when it first appeared in this country, obtained very high praise; but we think not a jot more than it deserved. It united excellencies very different in kind,— but equally great in degree. It possessed pathos, the most touching and most true,-humour, "gentle and bright," brimmed up and running over with joyousness and good nature,-and,-on occasion, though more

rarely, a passionate and rapid style of writing, which, perhaps, had the more effect from its infrequency. But the pervading character of the book was a tone of delicate and pensive feeling,-a sort of regretful lookingback to the past, and subdued enjoyment of the present, which gives an air of peculiar and very engaging melancholy to even the descriptions of mirthful pastimes, and joyous usages. And yet all this is not the least like

the being

as sad as night,

Only from wantonness,

which is one of the fopperies of the present time. In a word, the author appears to have the rare endowment of being peculiarly what the French term sensible, without the least tinge of the insipidity or the affectation, by which it is so frequently accompanied. The History of New York was not so popular on this side the Atlantic, from the humour being chiefly local,-but the pleasantry, on more general subjects, we must say, we think of the very first order. Some of the introductory chapters,-especially those on the different theories of the formation of the earth, and of the right of the settlers to cut the Indians' throatsare, we do think, nearly equal to the same style of writing in Voltaire. We scarcely remember in all his works a piece of more successful persiflage and irony, than the latter of the two chapters we have instanced above.

Since the appearance of these works, the public attention has been considerably turned to the budding literature of America. All have begun to perceive, and some to acknowledge, her advance in this path also. The journals of the United States are beginning to have elegance of expression, equal to the vigour and energy of thought which have long marked them-and a few works of fancy have appeared, which have acquired fame in

England. Among these, we must notice a tale entitled The Spy." The scene-the persons-the incidents-the manners-are all exclusively American-and are sketched with a hand so rapid and masterly, as to excite the strongest interest even in those most indifferent to that country. The great Washington is introduced with much delicacy and skill-and though the story relates entirely to the latter part of the American war,-and is told, of course, with some manifestations of national pride,-yet there is nothing in it which can give offence even to those most sensitively British.

But it was the author of the volumes before us who first drew English attention to American literary talent, and who won from the most unwilling the palm of its earliest success. It must be a proud feeling to be, as it were, the founder of the literature of one's country-to stand in a nation like America in the place which Chaucer holds among the English, and Bocccacio among the Italians. It may, perhaps, be thought that we are laying too much stress on works which, after all, belong only to the lighter walks of literature, and which it is usual to hold in but slender estimation. But we confess we are among those who attach high importance to the belles-lettres, and who regard works of that description as possessing real and great value. Even judging them strictly on the cui bono principle, we think them of eminent worth. Surely, that which administers such direct and positive enjoyment, must be of great direct and positive value. We will appeal to all, or any, of our readers, whether to debar them from works of imagination, would not be to deprive them of one of the greatest pleasures they enjoy. God knows, there are sufficient vexations and bitternesses in this world, and we ought to be-and we individually are-thankful for any thing which