If

the stumbles we are making in our haste; and perhaps a little good-natured irony, (we speak of the voice of the nation, not of the cold blooded sneers of a few individuals,) in the tone with which she commiserates our failures, or applauds our successes. Yet, we doubt not in the least, but that she really is pleased with the progress we have made; and stands ready, as soon as we are in reach, to stretch forth the hand of good fellowship, and place us by her side. She has already given us numerous proofs of her national good-will; and we think it would argue more folly than feeling, if we suffered ourselves to be put out of temper, when she laughs at the awkward and wild impetuosity of some of our exertions. If she makes her self merry at the expense of the Columbiad, she is ready to acknowledge the merit of the beautiful lyrics of Bryant. she ventures to be pleasant with the Annals of the Housatonic,' she has certainly shown no disposition to undervalue the excellence of Brown. The delightful delineations of national scenery and character by Cooper, and the elegant fictions from the pen of the authoress of Redwood have received the sincere, though scarcely adequate applauses of many of the literary judges of Great Britain; and assuredly we have no reason to complain that they are unwilling to appreciate fairly the pleasant lucubrations, the free and spirited sketches, the beautiful imaginations and sprightly speculations of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent.' They have even surpassed ourselves, in their admiration of that combination of the delicate with the lively, the humorous with the gentle, the spirit of the Flemish with the softness of the Italian school, for which the exquisite creations of Irving's imagination are peculiarly distinguished. In one respect, however, we cannot help thinking they have exhibited a spirit of illiberality not at all comporting with national good feeling. They undertake to condemn with unqualified severity, what they have professed to consider, and have not hesitated to denominate, our overweening nationality. In this they evince an unusual want of discrimination and injustice of com plaint. In the first place, we cannot for our souls see so enormous an offence in patriotic partialities however excessive. The strong and indiscriminate affection which an Englishman feels for every thing English, has always been regarded as an amiable and praiseworthy trait in the national character, and really, we do not comprehend how that which is an honour to John Bull can be a disgrace to Brother Jonathan. There may be something ludicrous, and even burlesque, in the blindness of a nation's

prepossessions; but how this most venial of prejudices can possibly deserve the serious and grave reprobation of those who are at least equally guilty of the offence, is a paradox in national morality which we do not understand. In the next place, we are by no means convinced, that in estimating the value of our literature we have been guilty of very violent partialities. On the contrary, whatever we may say of the merit of our political institutions, (of which, indeed, it is scarcely possible to say too much,) we have frequently shown a strong and perverse disposition to undervalue our literary and scientific achievements. There are very few Americans who seem to be aware of the extent to which our domestic literature has gradually accumulated, and that there requires nothing but the stimulus of purchase, to enable some enterpri sing publisher to furnish a body of American authors on almost every variety of knowledge, which we would not feel any apprehensions in subjecting to the severest ordeal of transatlantic criticism. So far has this neglect of our literature gone, that it is by no means uncommon, to find some of our countrymen minutely acquainted with all the productions of the secondary writers of Italy, Germany and France, while they are shamefully ignorant of the very names of American authors of by no means inferior excellence. We have seen, for example, the poems of Cunningham, Yalden and Broome in the hands of many, to whom Bryant's name is utterly unknown. The sickly and sentimental heroics of Miss Jane Porter will draw floods of tears from the eyes of the young patronesses of our circulating libraries, while Brown is thrown aside without even the experiment of perusal. It is an argument of very extensive or very eccentric erudition, to be familiar with Edwards's masterly Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will,' but nothing is considered more disgraceful in a scholar, than not to have perused that feeblest and flimsiest of things, the Moral Science of Beattie.'

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We do not anticipate that the light and playful efforts of imagination, contained in the volumes before us, will meet with much applause from the critics of Great Britain; and indeed it is probable enough that they will be considered as failures. But we do not believe that these tales will be spoken of in England, in language so slighting and depreciating as some of our American Zoiluses have already bestowed upon these lively and elegant effusions of our countryman's muse.

Such then are our unjust partialities in favour of American

authors. The fact is, that generally speaking, our literature is more highly appreciated, better spoken of, and we venture to say, more frequently read (we speak of our best writers,) in England and Germany, than in America. It is time to throw aside this unnatural indifference to objects, which, for no other reason than because they are our own, would justify the strongest parental partialities. Let us read then, and let us venture to admire, before we have seen the last English reviews, the productions of our scientific and literary countrymen, not only because they are often inherently excellent, but (we say it believing that there exists such a national obligation,) because they are American.

To show, at all events, how sincere are our professions of Americanism, we shall begin by confessing the delight which the tales of our Traveller have given us. And this we shall do, without taking the smallest trouble to anticipate whether the transatlantic sovereigns of the literary world intend to forbid, or condescend to allow us to be pleased.

The peculiar charm, we take it, that pervades Mr. Irving's stories, is the evidence we every where behold, that the writer possesses, in a very high degree, a delicate appreciation of the beautiful united to a lively perception of the ridiculous. This combination of faculties is by no means common, because the. relations of natural and moral objects which produce the burlesque or the humerous, coincide but in very few instances with those which constitute the beautiful. The imagination which delights in incongruous assemblages, will seldom contemplate with pleasure that aptness of design, and fitness of relation, which may always be discovered in the beautiful; and which, when the harmony between the phenomena of the moral world and their physical similitudes is properly preserved, constitute the secret of the enjoyment furnished by the faculty of taste. As the extreme of unfitness is, for the most part, the source of the ridiculous, it follows that the union of fine taste and strong humour will seldom take place in the same individual. He who appreciates readily the relation of fitness, will no doubt discern with equal readiness the violation of propriety; but then he will not be affected with pleasurable sensations, inasmuch as it is opposed to his particular taste. The inadequacy, inexactness and inconsistency of objects will offend and disgust him; and this is, doubtless, the reason why images laughable to some, are so extremely distasteful and offensive to others. How is it, then, that we find those almost incompatible attributes so admirably blended in the writer before us? Be

cause, as we apprehend, his taste has seldom directed his imagination to that part of the ridiculous which depends upon incongruous associations, or those principles not reconcilable with the love of propriety, harmony and truth. If he occasionally indulges in exhibitions of a farcical character, he either succeeds, by avoiding such combinations as shock the moral sense, or else he fails altogether; thus proving that his mind is so constituted as to dwell with peculiar pleasure on the tender, the gentle, and the kindly affections, or on such modifications of the ludicrous, as do not interfere with them.

With this combination of powers, which seem, at first sight, not easily disposed to amalgamate, there was reason to apprehend that there might occasionally occur a collision or mutual disturbance of each other's effects. This has accordingly happened, but not to the extent it was natural to anticipate. In general, the distinguishing character of each tale is maintained with remarkable success; and a few of them, indeed, have little else to recommend them, than the skill with which the keeping is preserved. There is a greater variety of characters and styles, and a variety vastly better sustained, to be found in the effusions of our author, than in the productions of any other writer in the department he has chosen. Even Boccaccio, who resembles him in more points than one, does not appear to have possessed an imagination so various and so versatile; at least he has not succeeded, we think, in impressing a character of diversity so strong, so discriminative, and so definite upon the beautiful inventions of his dexterous imagination. The author of the Decameron surpasses Geoffrey Crayon, it is true, in vivacity and spirit of description, in strength and eloquence of dialogue, in slyness of allusion, archness of narrative, keenness of irony and severity of sarcasm, in the shrewdness and aptness of the livelier incidents, and often in the vigour and the warmth of the serious passages. Irving could scarcely have produced such a specimen of dramatic beauty and persuasive eloquence, as is found in every part of the story of Sofronia. Nor has he yet given us any thing equal to the strong humour and rather daring satire of Frate Cipolla and L'Agnolo Gabriello.' But we do not hesitate to place him decidedly above Messer Giovanni in the amiable and gentle spirit which pervades all his writings, in the polished sweetness and elegance of his style, and above all, in the difficult art of securing and enchaining the interest of his readers, without flattering their vices or feeding their appetites with ungenerous sneerings or indelicate allusions.

Mr. Irving, endued with strong and equal powers of humourous and serious description, has exercised his ambidexterity of talent with very great propriety and taste. Even when he purposely unites in one story the grave and the gay, it is never with the view of surprising by the contrast. There is a facility, and we think a want of taste, in the wayward assemblage of sentiment and sarcasm, either of which, we are sure, was sufficient to prevent our author from resorting to the artifice. The tenderness and truth of some of his descriptions are, 'tis true, enlivened and embellished by the gentle and unobtrusive cheerfulness of some incidental anecdote or thought; but the reader is never startled into wonder, nor cheated into approbation. In the few tales which he has given us in this mixed style, there is a soft and soothing union of the parts, an easy and harmonious blending of the elements, into one delightful and homogeneous whole, which none but the initiated, or rather none but the inspired sons of Fancy can accomplish. The greater part of those tales have, however, a decided character, solemn, serious, quaint, arch or burlesque. For the sake of brevity, we shall regard them as either serious or sprightly; and so distinct are the characteristics of these two genera, that it is impossible to analyse their merits and peculiar beauties, without constantly adverting to this circumstance.

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Of the serious tales collected by the nervous gentleman, the first is the Adventure of the Mysterious Stranger,' and serves as an introduction to another of great force and beauty, the Story of the Young Italian.' Both are told in explanation of the extraordinary effect of a certain Mysterious Picture,' the sight of which so powerfully and painfully affects the nervous gentleman, that after vigorous attempts to go to sleep, he is finally driven from his bed to a sofa in the drawing room. The Adventure of the Mysterious Stranger' is told by a worthy fox-hunting baronet, at whose mansion the nervous gentleman was hospitably entertained, in company with an Irish captain of dragoons—a thin hatchet-faced gentleman, very interrogative-an elderly gentleman with a flexible nose-and a very old gentleman with a head half dilapidated. The baronet informs his inquisitive guests, that at Venice--but nothing is so stupid as the argument or abstract of a story. It is harder, we know from experience, to read the four lines at the head of each canto of Spencer's Fairy Queen, than to finish the whole book at a sitting; and besides, as our readers have all read the Tales,' to present them with the outlines of the stories, would be about as prudent and polite as if a landlord should lay upon