He never would have coupled “Coke and Seldon" [of the same person sometimes varies. Her Telephus [Selden] as representatives of the profession in a law- and Peleus, on suitable occasions, lay aside their wontyer's mind; or have talked of a "decree" in an actioned stills of style.* Lord Oldborough, in confidential at law.

He never would have mentioned the drawing of a replication, as a task likely to absorb all a lawyer's powers; nor the drawing of rejoinders, as one of his common toils: it being very rarely that a replication, and still more rarely that a rejoinder, presents the slightest difficulty,--or indeed is drawn out in form, at all-by an advocate, too!

intercourse with a tried friend, can stoop to relish if not to utter a jest; or in talking with an official inferior, can adopt such cant as “diplomatic line." Lord Davenant (like many grave Lords, probably owning racehorses, and in his youth a practised coachman) talks of a strong-pulling fancy, thrown upon its haunches. Lady Davenant, the lofty and the sage, wishing by ridicule to prevent her young female friend from adopting a cerHe never would have represented Lady Jane Gran-tain error, warns her not to satisfy herself with a “comville, (defendant in a law-suit) as putting in a replica-mon namby-pamby, little-missy phrase." Nay, statestion; nor the same party as filing a replication, and a plea of nil-debet !—and all under the eye and without the correction of her counsel!-(vol. 15. p. 32): nor, in the very next page, as being in danger of nonsuit!

men, wits, and scholars, utter vulgarisms and violate grammar,-as we hear them do every day in conversation and in their public speeches: as one of Virginia's greatest living sons asks for a chaw of tobacco, and inHe never would have made a lawyer say, that the vites a friend to the quate club: and as the mightiest inquiry "was he rich, or poor ?"—is "a leading ques-mind in South Carolina, if not in this Union, nullifies a tion:" since Mr. E. could not but have known that a leading question is one which prompts such answer as the propounder wishes; which this question does not. Opening "Ennui" at random, we see Lord Glenthorn saying "I thought him a mighty clever man :" and further on, the sensible, witty, and noble Lady Geraldine uses one (as "one does not like," &c.) thrice, in three lines.

rule of grammar with even far less ceremony than an unconstitutional law.-Miss Edgeworth shows her love for truth, in not making even her personages talk as if a stenographer were by, to write down every word for the press and she is rewarded for it, by the well nigh universal admiration attending her rapid and careless, but faithful copies of human life and human conversation.

Harrington, Ormond, Vivian, Belinda, The Absen- Many of the phrases quoted by the Charleston cortee-in short all the Edgeworth novels, without excep- respondent of the Messenger as censurable,—are uttertion, contain innumerable expressions at which a pre-ed by persons or at junctures that suit them, perfectly. cisian might cavil, as being ungrammatical, inelegant, inappropriate or vulgar: and though, when they come to be scrutinized with liberality and justice, they for the most part prove to be warranted by the occasion, or suitable to the persons who are made to utter them, or sanctioned by high precedent, or at least accordant with idiom,—still there remain some to be pardoned; some few blemishes, the almost unavoidable result of human weakness, and which enlightened criticism should always pardon, in consideration of the numberless excellences that overshadow and efface them.

"Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis, quas, aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura."

For instance, Lady Cecilia, a lively, rattling young woman, of loose speech and almost as loose principles, is the utterer of some dozen of them. Several others are chargeable to Horace Churchill, a profligate man of wit and pleasure. Several to other ladies whose characters, or the occasions on which they speak, render it quite natural and proper for them to use such languageas, when Helen says that Lady Davenant's is "a deep, high character"-or when Lady Katrine begs "a thou| sand million of pardons”—or when Lady Davenant says of her daughter, " Cecilia righted herself.”

Many others of the censured phrases appear to us absolutely defensible and proper.

Thus, Lady Davenant, preparing to tell a part of her history to Helen, says "Give me my embroidery

Again, when Lady D. says "whatever I may have been on the great squares of politics,”—she obviously alludes to the chess-board-that most frequent subject of comparison to the arena of politics.

"A leash of languages at once," is a line from the first canto of Hudibras; employed, with perfect aptness, both in Helen and in Miss E.'s "Thoughts on Bores."

But it is not impossible, that even the small residuum frame; I never can tell well without having something of faults which seem thus to sue for pardon—the con- to do with my hands." Our critic would substitute fessed vulgarisms and slovenlinesses--constitute, imper-relate for tell, in this passage! We only ask any imparceptibly, a part of the charm by which Miss Edgeworth tial judge, to try it! captivates every grade of intellect. It may be, that they stamp the verisimilitude of her characters more clearly; assimilate them more exactly to those whom our daily walks and daily tasks present to our view; and give to her dramatic page that air of real life, which when it accompanies well conceived incidents and an engaging style, comes the most unerringly home to our bosoms. Instead of imitating Dr. Johnson, whose prince and "Tripod sentences," means "three-footed sentences:" princess, poet, philosopher, and waiting maid, all deli- and expresses very happily the structure of the Ramver themselves in periods strutting with right Johnso- bler's pompous periods. Sir Walter Scott as happily nian stateliness and rotundity, she gives to each per-speaks of Sir Robert Hazlewood's triads and quaternads. son his or her natural diction. Her men-servants and Rebate means to blunt, to beat back : and regrate means maid-servants, Lords and Ladies, silly colonels, flippant to shock, or offend. When, therefore, the abrupt, rude wits, belles, dandies, toad-eating parsons, and men of sense and virtue, have their respective, appropriate dialects. But as in actual life, so in her books, the dialect

Telephus et Peleus, quum pauper et exsul, uterque
Projicit ampullas et sesquipedalia verba.

Horece.

Miss Clarendon's conversation with her volatile sister-ing of human happiness.
in-law, is said to have been "a perpetual rebating and
regrating," we cannot perceive the passage to be either
vulgar or unintelligible.

"They rode or boated." To boat, is a verb, better established by usage, and certainly more needed, than our American verb "to progress," which is now fairly adopted into the English language.

"Delightful enjoyment" is not objectionable. Enjoyment may be of various degrees,-from that which is barely appreciable, to that which inspires a thrilling ecstasy. Delightful enjoyment" approaches this latter degree.

Meanwhile, she evidently

has (or once had) human weaknesses; and she works by human means: so that she has our sympathies, and does not appal our emulation. He who can contemplate her without feeling more intense wishes and stronger resolutions to do good,--' is more or less than man.' If writing in letters of gold had not now become so trite and stale a distinction, it ought to be awarded to Lady Davenant's exclamation, when her corporeal nature was failing under the beneficent labors of her untiring mind: "BETTER WEAR OUT THAN RUST OUT!" said she.

Such a moral creation is more salutary, and gives its A passage from page 141 (or 160, of Harper's edi-author a better title to the gratitude of her race, than tion) is misquoted-no doubt undesignedly. It reads the hundred choicest wonders of Grecian art would "whether the fault is most in modern books, or in our have done, even had they been all the work of a single ancient selves;" &c. Whoever will turn to the passage, hand. The latter could only sublimate and refine the and read it with the context, will find it plainly pro- current ideas of physical beauty: the former awakens per. the heart to a sense of every duty,-brightens and strengthens domestic ties,-kindles the sacred flame of patriotism,-and prompts the generous resolve to "do or die" in behalf of mankind.

We need not carry this examination further. It has gone far enough to prove-1. That some things cited as faults, are not so in any respect. 2. That others which, taken by themselves, appear to be faults, are justified by the context, or by a consideration of the persons by, or to, or of whom they are spoken. 3. That if any remain unjustified, they are pardonable because of their immense disproportion to the excellences around them: excellences amid which, indeed, they are lost, except to

"The critic's eye-that microscope of wit."

4. That whatever blame attaches after all to Helen, attaches equally to the novels published in Mr. E.'s lifetime: so that these may as well have been written without his help, as Helen; and whatever merit they possess, is undividedly her's.

A confirmation of this last point is to be found in "Practical Education ;" avowedly, in its title page, the joint work of father and daughter. The preface tells us, that out of 25 chapters which compose the work, five, and part of a sixth, were written by Mr. Edgeworth all the rest, by his daughter. Now, we ask any candid and intelligent reader to peruse the nineteen chapters which are thus undeniably hers; and say, if they do not possess in a higher degree than the other five or six, the sprightliness, grace, just thought, and acute remark, which distinguish the Edgeworth Novels?

OLA-ITA:

OR THE SIOUX GIRL.t

BY EDW. MARSH HEIST.

The dying sun's last, trembling smile,
Soft and bright-tinted, fell
O'er lake and golden-sanded isle-
O'er hill and woody dell:
The Indian lodges, bright array'd,

Smil'd on the mossy ground;
And merry men and maidens stray'd
In laughing groups around.

Lovely and cheerful was that scene:

The forest green and bright—
The lodges rear'd the boughs between,
All bath'd in richest light:

The mount-crown'd lake seen thro' the trees-
The cataract's wild play;

The music of the summer breeze-
The song-bird's thrilling lay!

The classical reader will remember Cicero's tribute to Soc

rates-"Philosophiam ille devocavit e cœlo," &c.

A late traveller, in his "Journal of Travels to the Northwestern Regions of the United States," thus speaks of this noble Indian girl :--" In passing through Lake Pepin, our interpreter

We would fain strengthen our vindication of Helen and its author, by an analysis and extracts; but twice the time and space we designed, has been filled; so we forbear. It is impossible however not to say, that the character of LADY DAVENANT, as it stands in her latter years, chastened by adversity and exercised in exalted pointed out to us a high precipice on the eastern shore of the pursuits, is one of the noblest that any page, of history lake, from which an Indian girl, of the Sioux nation, had preor of fiction, has ever presented. She is the counter-cipitated herself in a fit of disappointed love. She had given part of Lord Oldborough-only wiser and better. Nor her heart, it appears, to a young chief of her own tribe, who is it a superhuman wisdom; which, like the beauty her father, who wished her to marry an old chief renowned for was very much attached to her, but the alliance was opposed by and goodness of angels, is contemplated by men with his wisdom and influence in the nation. As the union was inadmiration, but at the same time without hope of equal-sisted upon, and no other way appearing to avoid it, she deterling it, and without any distinct sense of its connexion mined to sacrifice her life in preference to a violation of her with their interests or destinies. Her wisdom and former vow; and, while the marriage ceremonies were going goodness come down from the skies, dwell in human forward, silently stole away, and before she could be overtaken, threw herself from an awful precipice, and was instantly dashed abodes, busy themselves with the daily concerns of hu- to a thousand pieces! The name of this noble-minded Indian man life, and devote all their energies to the heighten-girl was Ola-Ita."

But we did not resume our pen to dwell upon this | proaches the venerable city from the west, over either difference, or upon the actual value of a paper, written of the broad avenues running in that direction, his eye from the heart, and from amidst the scenes and associa- is struck with this lovely feature of the scene, which tions which it, perhaps feebly, but certainly not insin-gradually developes its beauties before him as he nears cerely, describes. Our only object is to vindicate, first, the foot of the common, and passes up Beacon street on our countrymen from the charge of being so tasteless, the west, or Tremont street on the south. In the midst as to "look upon trees only as so many cumberers of of all the rest, is "THE ELM,”—the great boast of the ground," and ourselves, from that of "affectation Bostonians, and the never-failing subject of admiration of English sentiment," in describing the beauty of, and upon which strangers grow eloquent. Ask the poorest dwelling upon the many delightful associations with citizen of the New England capital his opinion of the Trees. In doing this, we feel inclined to take the value, in dollars and cents, of that "cumberer of the broadest ground, at the outset,-and to assert, that the ground" and its thousand companions,-and say if his love of ornamental trees, the attachment to shady walks, reply furnishes anything like a corroboration of the aseven in the midst of the world's dustiest thoroughfares, sertion placed at the head of this paper, that “any such is a deep-rooted feeling, nay, a passion, in the character feeling [as a passion for trees,] has no abiding place in of the American people. this country."

The writer of this knows a beautiful town in New England, where there exists an association of the citizens, which was formed for the purpose of rearing a growth of trees under such regulations as to secure not only for the present generation, but for generations yet to come, a grateful shade and cool retreat from midsummer's noontide heat. Each member is bound to rear one tree in some situation where the public may derive a benefit from it, when grown, and when so planted, it becomes public property, and is guarded from injury by municipal penal regulations. This association is large, is constantly increasing, and its benefits are already acknowledged by the visiters to, as well as the inhabitants of, the place.

Nor could such an assertion be for a moment sustained in the hearing of any one of the thousands, who, upon one fair afternoon in autumn, met together in one of the loveliest dells that skirt the base of Mount Auburn, to consecrate that spot, with all its woody hills, its willow shaded streams, and mossy vales, to the repose of the departed. Never since God talked with our great progenitor in Paradise, walking with him as man walks with man, in the garden, was there a sight more strikingly impressive displayed to mortal vision. The sun, unclouded by a single wreath of vapor, was declining towards the west, and his rays came fitfully straggling, slantwise, through the waving foliage of the primeval trees, and fell, broken, upon the thronging groupes, casually but picturesquely disposing themselves upon the verdant banks of a little bubbling brook that glistened in the shattered sunrays in the very depth of the valley. These banks ran slopingly towards the brook, and were covered with the thousands who had come from far and near to witness, and to participate in the solemnities of, the consecration. At length, the solemn ceremony commenced. The multitude, with one accord, arose and stood silent, and motionless, with uncovered heads, in the midst of that imposing scene, while the throne of grace was solemnly

There is no more lovely spot in all the land, than the thriving town of Worcester, in the county of the same name, in Massachusetts. Situated on the sides and in | the vallies of a beautiful cluster of small yet picturesque hills, which are surrounded at some distance by still more prominent eminences-its neat cottages, tapering spires, and tasteful residences, built and finished in the style of French chateaux, all painted pure white, and contrasting most charmingly with the dense masses of foliage, growing everywhere in the village in great profusion,-it certainly is the loveliest specimen of the "rus in urbe" it has ever been our lot to see, and our hap-invoked. Then rose the deep-toned anthem upon the piness to admire. Riding through its shady streets, a few weeks since, with one of its oldest and most enter prising and eminent citizens, and remarking upon this, its most striking peculiarity, we were told by our com-pering through their leafy tracery, there seemed a panion that by a law of the municipality of Worcester, no man was permitted to cut down a tree in that place, without the leave of its officers, under a heavy penalty, which is, in every case of violation of the law, most rigorously enforced. It matters not that a citizen may have planted, last year, a tree before his own door, which, this year, he desires to remove. If it stand in the street, it is sacred. Hence, among other kindred causes, has it arisen, that Worcester is the admiration and delight of all visiters, and the pride and confort of its own citizens.

evening breeze, from a thousand voices in the depth of that silent dell,-and as the old trees waved their mas sive branches, and the south wind came gently whis

tongue in every one of those sylvan veterans, as if they too were joining in the anthem, and were welcoming to their mountain-home the silent company, for whose everlasting repose it was consecrated. Think you that there was one of that thronging multitude who looked upon those aged trunks "as so many cumberers of the earth,"-and who would not have deemed it as something akin to sacrilege, had they seen an axe upraised against the very least of them?

But look at Bowling Green in New York, sacred for even the foot-fall of any citizen, crowded full of the The city of Boston has been rearing, with great care finest and most luxuriant foliage,-at the three Parks, and at great cost, ever since its foundation, a magnifi- the Battery, St. Paul's and Trinity Church Yards, in cent mile-square of trees, of the rarest kinds, and the the same city. Look at the Independence Square in most grateful umbrage. Rich citizens, dying, have be- Philadelphia, every tree in which is sanctified by the queathed valuable additions from their own gardens to noblest associations, and made sacred from profanation this rich collection,—and these are frequently removed, by many memories. Look, in short, over our whole at full growth, with immense trouble and great expense, country, in places where the spirit of speculation has to the already well stocked receptacle. As one ap-given way to the spirit of improvement, and where