duced, it cannot be denied, that these faults are abundantly redeemed by beauties of no ordinary value. In graphic descriptions of scenery, in forcible delineations of character, in genuine pathos, we think Hobomok may be safely compared with any work of fiction, which our country has produced. It was natural, therefore, that the expectations of the public should be highly excited, by the appearance of another work from the same hand; and, in fact, a new novel has rarely been seized upon with greater avidity.

The author has paid the usual price of an early reputation, that of being compelled to use redoubled exertions in order to prevent it from fading. We cannot venture to say, that her laurels have lost none of their freshness by the present attempt, but on the other hand, we think that her failure is only a partial one, and that it may be ascribed to other causes than want of ability. In the first place, the choice of the subject is singularly unfortunate. The era of Hobomok was fixed in so remote a period, that the author was entirely exempted from any necessity of adhering to historical truth in her narration of events. Her incidents are almost entirely the offspring of her own fancy, and her personages may every one of them be considered as fictitious; for though we find in history the names of Governor Endicott, of Lady Arabella, of Corbitant, and Hobomok, yet so little is generally known of their respective characters, that the author could invest every one of them with such qualities as she might deem expedient, without doing violence, for a single moment, to the recollections of her readers.

But the scene of the work before us is fixed, as its title indicates, in Boston, a few years previous to the American Revolution, and the author has incorporated into her story many public events of that recent and interesting period, and introduced among her dramatis persone such well known public characters, as Samuel Adams, James Otis, Governor Hutchinson, and Mather Byles. It is manifest, therefore, that instead of choosing a period and a scene, which would have given full play to her powerful fancy, she has voluntarily shackled it with no light impediments, and undertaken a task, beneath which even the genius of the Unknown might have faltered without disgrace.

In fact, this work is in a great degree a mere copy from real history, a narrative of events possessing an interest which fiction can do little to heighten, a repetition of political sentiments, which we find expressed with far more force and eloquence in the

writings of Adams and of Quincy, and which are as familiar to the mind of every New England reader, as the simplest elements of morality. These defects were almost forced upon our author by her injudicious choice of a subject. There are others, however, which cannot be fairly ascribed to the same cause.

The narrative is greatly deficient in simplicity and unity, and is not so much one story as a number of separate stories, not interwoven, but loosely tied together. Every prominent character is introduced with a long genealogy, and we feel something of the same embarrassment, in tracing their several histories, and preventing them from mingling with each other in our recollections, which a lawyer experiences in hunting down a title, through a number of long and intricate conveyances. The author, in short, seems to have been perplexed by the richness of her inventive powers, and has crowded into a short volume, a sufficient quantity of incidents to form the groundwork of half a dozen respectable novels. We think it the more necessary to comment on this fault, because no point has been so much neglected, by the writers of historical romances, from the author of Waverley downwards, as the management of their narrative; and we have even seen it maintained by critics as an axiom, that the story of a novel is of as little consequence, as the frame of a picture, or the thread of a pearl necklace. It would be easy to oppose simile to simile, and to speak of the difference between a regular and magnificent structure, and a confused pile of splendid materials, but we prefer submitting the question without argument to the taste of the public.

This profusion of incidents and want of method are, however, neither the only nor the greatest faults in the narrative of the Rebels. Almost every reader, we believe, will be dissatisfied with the manner in which the author has thought proper to wind up the history of Lucretia. This character is perhaps better drawn than any other in the whole work. It has ever been considered, as one of the most difficult problems in novel writing, to render a heroine interesting without beauty; and the success with which this is done, in the present instance, is of itself a sufficient proof of no ordinary talents. From the first moment of her appearance, to her rejection of Somerville at the altar, Lucretia maintains a powerful hold on our feelings. Had her story then closed, or had she then been consigned, like her friend Grace, to an early grave, or to a hopeless celibacy, we believe that every reader would have been amply gratified;

but to see her, after all, comfortably married, excites much the same benevolent disappointment in all lovers of true sentiment, as is manifested in many of our public prints, when a long expected duel is prevented by an amicable arrangement, in which case, as we have heard it aptly said, the generous public will be satisfied with nothing but bloodshed.' To speak rather more seriously, the marriage between the high spirited Lucretia and a lover whom she had once rejected, bespeaks more of the prudent calculation of real life, than of the romantic dignity, which we are accustomed to exact from the heroes and heroines of the world of fiction.

A still more serious objection may be made to the incident, which takes place in the tomb of the Osbornes. The introduction of such a circumstance reminds us of some of the worst passages of Crabbe; and it is surely better to leave our feelings untouched, than to attempt to move them by such revolting and shocking objects.

We have now pointed out the principal faults of the author with a freedom, which we have thought it our duty to use. Had she produced merely a dull and insipid work, we should have left it to sink quietly into oblivion, without attempting to arrest or to accelerate its progress. But as we have before intimated, her faults are evidently those, not of a feeble, but a misguided intellect; and this work is, after all, a production of great merit. In the first place, the style is pure and elegant, and equally free from affectation and carelessness. Besides, whatever objections may be made to the work, as a regular and harmonious whole, no one can deny that it abounds in passages, which, taken by themselves, are strikingly beautiful and interesting. The description of the mob, which destroyed Governor Hutchinson's library, is drawn with the hand of a master. The sermon of Whitefield is executed with great felicity, and is in exact keeping with the character of that eloquent and untutored enthusiast. To these passages, we may add the following account of the procession of the nuns, in the convent at Quebec. The clause which we have marked in italics is a little finical.

'An old priest, exceedingly lazy in his manner, and monotonous in his tone, was reading mass, to which most of the audience zealously vociferated a response.

'An arch, ornamented with basso relievo figures of the saints, on one side of the chancel, surmounted a door, which apparently led to an interior chapel; and beneath a similar one, on the op

posite side, was a grated window, shaded by a large, flowing curtain of black silk.

Behind this provoking screen were the daughters of earth, whom our traveller supposed to be as beautiful as angels and as pure.

For some time a faint response, a slight cough, or a deep drawn sigh, alone indicated the vicinity of the seraphic beings.

At length, however, the mass, with all its thousand ceremonies, was concluded. There was silence for a moment, and then was heard one of the low, thrilling chants of the church of Rome.

There was the noise of light, sandalled feet. The music died away to a delicious warbling, as faint and earnest as woman's entreaty; then gradually rising to a bold, majestic burst of sound, the door on the opposite side opened, and the sisterhood entered amid a glare of light.

6 That most of them were old and ugly passed unnoticed; for whatever visions an enthusiastical imagination might have conjured up, were certainly realized by the figure that preceded the procession.

Her forehead was pale and lofty, her expression proud, but highly intellectual. A white veil, carelessly pinned about her brow, fell over her shoulders in graceful drapery; and as she glided along, the loose white robe, that constituted the uniform of her order, displayed to the utmost advantage that undulating outline of beauty, for which the statues of Psyche are so remarkable.

• A silver crucifix was clasped in her hands, and her eyes were steadily raised toward heaven; yet there was something in her general aspect from which one would have concluded, that the fair devotee had never known the world, rather than that she had left it in weariness or disgust.

'Her eye happened to glance on our young friend, as she passed near him; and he fancied it rested a moment with delighted attention.

The procession moved slowly on in pairs, the apostles bearing waxen lights on either side, until the last white robe was concealed behind an arch at the other end of the extensive apart

ment.

'The receding sounds of "O sanctissima, O purissima," floated on the air, mingled with clouds of frankincense; and the young man pressed his hand to his forehead with a bewildered sensation, as if the airy phantoms of the magic lanthorn had just been flitting before him. pp. 116, 117.

The following is a picture of a more amusing nature. How

far it is a correct likeness is a point which we must leave to the decision of our elders.

'On the ensuing sabbath, Somerville joined the young ladies on their way to Hollis street. The crowd presented a strange contrast to the congregations of the present day. Here and there a taper waisted damsel, glittering in embroidered brocade, with flowers even larger than life; while close by her side walked the dandy of that period, with bright red waistcoat, leather smallclothes, and enormous buckles sparkling in the sun. Then followed a humble dame, with rustle gown and checked apron, leading a reluctant urchin, stumbling along with his little three cornered scraper; the tears still trickling down his cheeks, forced from him by the painful operation of being shoved and shaken into his tight breeches for the first time. In the rear came an older boy, alternately casting an envious eye on the trim little fellow before him, and a despairing glance at his own clothes, which, drenched by repeated rains, hung in slovenly folds about his ancles.' p. 78.

The finest passages of this volume, however, as well as of Hobomok, are those of a pathetic kind. We refer as proofs of the author's talents in this department of composition, to the interview between Grace and Lucretia, in which the latter first discovers the fatal secret of Somerville's duplicity. The description of the deathbed of Grace is distinguished by beauties of the same kind.

'Grace, agitated by these events, and her slight form daily becoming more shadowy, seemed like a celestial spirit, which having performed its mission on earth, melts into a misty wreath, then disappears forever.

、

Hers had always been the kind of beauty that is eloquence, though it speaks not. The love she inspired, was like that we feel for some fair infant which we would fain clasp to our hearts in its guileless beauty; and when it repays our fondness with a cherub smile, its angelic influence rouses all there is of heaven within the soul. Deep compassion was now added to these emotions; and wherever she moved, the eye of pity greeted her, as it would some wounded bird, nestling to the heart in its timid loveliness.

Every one who knew her, felt the influence of her exceeding purity and deep pathos of character; but very few had penetrated into its recesses, and discovered its hidden treasures. Melody was there, but it was too plaintive, too delicate in its combination, to be produced by an unskilful hand. The coarsest minds felt its VOL. XXII.-No. 51.

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