quantus vir-the Speeches of Fox, Pitt, or Windham-or the excellent history of Mitford; or, if he chose a lighter kind of lite rature, the Paradise of Coquettes, among the happiest produc tions of the school of Pope-or one of Shee's poems, gorgeous, indeed, beyond the rules of just taste, but of real merit, and great practical use or the Excursion of Wordsworth, obscured by a strange mystical morality, yet full of eloquence and nature-or perhaps one of the delightful little pieces of Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, or, lastly, the noble and original dramas of Joanna Baillie.*

There is another class of books, which, when they are good, are generally very popular-we mean voyages and travels; and these are printed in England in so sumptuous a style, that they are, for the most part, completely locked up from the American reader. The bookseller who compresses one of these stately and expensive quartos into a reasonably priced octavo, confers a substantial benefit on literature; and there are several recent works of this kind, of great value. We need only mention the Journal of Hobhouse, the companion of Lord Byron; the last journey of the unfortunate Park; Capt. Flinder's Voyage of Circumnavigation; Eustace's Classical Italian Tour; and the Oriental Memoirs of Governor Forbes.

We take no pleasure in dilating upon the blemishes and deformities of our country, and therefore gladly leave this unpleasant subject. The evil is sufficiently apparent, and we trust that the remedy is equally so. Let all who have at heart the cause of good learning-we mean good in the broadest sense of the word -let all such unite in habitually discountenancing vitious and worthless publications. Let them remember that they are the legitimate guardians of the public morals and the public taste. Caveant ne quid detrimenti respublica capiat.

The British reviewers have all united in extolling Madame de Stael as "the first woman of the age." If ever, in the unaccountable mutations of worldly things, the empire of criticism should move westward, and be transferred to this side of the Atlantic, we trust that Madame de Stael will be deposed, and the crown of female genius bestowed upon Joanna Baillie.

THE QUARTERLY REVIEW.

THE Conductors of the Quarterly Review never omit any opportunity of venting their spleen and spite against every thing American. If this were confined to the regular course of political discussion, it might be borne with good humour; but they seem to go out of their way to search after occasions for maliguing our national and individual character. At one time, in the midst of an article of Greek criticism, you find a sneer at the Kentucky militia, or a "Transatlantic general;" then again, in a grave discussion on the reformation of the criminal code, you are surprised with an ironical digression, advising the selling off the English pick-pockets to the United States, as proper materials for American citizens. As we cannot find it in our hearts to impute such inveterate and malignant hostility to any large portion of the scholars or wits of Great Britain, we doubt not that most of this scurrility proceeds from the chief editor, Mr. Gifford, alone, who thus intrudes the effusions of his own waspish petulance among the lucubrations of those able, learned, and liberalminded men, who occasionally contribute to this valuable miscellany.

The Quarterly Review, for January, 1815, contains a copious and able analytical review of the travels of our countrymen, Lewis and Clarke. It is in substance pretty much the same with the review of these travels, with which a correspondent has enriched some of the former numbers of this magazine; except that, as usual, it is illustrated by curious digressions, and interlarded with sneers and jokes on American customs, and "the American language," together with some occasional misrepresentations of facts.

We trust that, in repelling this or any other insolent assault, we shall not be suspected of a wish to keep alive the angry feelings of national hostility.

The reviewer, anxious to give to America as little of the credit of the expedition as possible, is determined that the original plan VOL. VI. New Series.

8

of travelling across the continent, in its broadest part, should be English, although the execution was left to Americans. "Fifty years ago," says he, "our countryman, Carver, formed this plan. The scheme was to ascend the Missouri, discover the source of the Oregan, or river of the West, and proceed down this river to its mouth-precisely what Lewis and Clarke have accomplished. It would not have misbecome the American Journalists if they had bestowed upon their able and enterprising forerunner the commendation which he anticipated and desired." We do not very well see how the credit of Lewis and Clarke, as hardy, adventurous, and observing travellers, could be lessened by the formal admission that the plan was not their own, this being an honour to which, indeed, they never made any sort of claim. However, it is still an American plan, for it happens that our countryman, Carver, was born in Connecticut, and never visited England until he was above thirty.

"Had the expedition," proceeds the reviewer, " been executed under the auspices of the British government, it would have been fitted out with characteristic liberality; draftsmen and naturalists would have been attached to it, &c. There could be no want of draftsmen and naturalists in the United States, and young men of liberal pursuits are never likely to be wanting in enterprise. The fault, therefore, rests with those who directed the expedition, and is probably imputable to the spirit of an illiterate and parsimonious government."

We have a kindly feeling of relationship toward all reviewers, being, in truth, ourselves, of the half-blood and are, therefore, seldom disposed to be severe when a critic falls into some palpable blunder from neglecting to read the book which he reviews. In the present instance there is no such excuse; the reviewer has evidently read the narrative very attentively, and yet, in the first pages, he might have seen that the expedition was fitted out with naturalists and draftsmen, and that these volumes contain nothing more than the journal of the travellers' adventures; but that another part of the work, relating to natural history and science, is now preparing for the press by a scientific gentleman, and will be published separately; in the same manner as Baron Humboldt has divided his travels into two distinct publications, the one narra

tive, the other scientific. We are glad, however, to see the confession, that there "can be no want of draftsmen and naturalists in America." This shows that our character abroad has risen a little.

After a number of jokes on the American language, it is remarked that "the country is what the Americans call handsome," that is to say, what a Londoner would call a nice country, or, in the style of Bond-street, very fair. How it would be expressed in the elegant Doric dialects of Lancashire, Yorkshire, Somerset. shire, or Cornwall, we are unable to inform our readers.

The reviewer then proceeds to comment, with a little exaggeration, and a good deal of drollery, upon the bad taste of those uncouth names which have been bestowed upon some of our rivers :

"Of all people who ever imposed names upon a newly-discovered country, the Americans have certainly been the most unlucky in their choice: witness, Bigmuddy River and Littlemuddy River, Littleshallow River, Good Woman River, Little Good Woman Creek, Grindstone Creek, Cupboard Creek, Biscuit Creek, Blowing Fly Creek, cum multis aliis in the same delightful taste. When this country shall have its civilized inhabitants, its cities, its scholars, and its poets, how sweetly will such names sound in American verse!

"Ye plains where sweet Bigmuddy rolls along,
And Tea-Pot, one day to be famed in song,
Where swans on Biscuit and on Grindstone glide,
And willows wave upon Good Woman's side!
How shall your happy streams in after time
Tune the soft lay and fill the sonorous rhyme!
Blest bards, who in your amorous verses call
On murmuring Pork and gentle Cannon-Ball;
Split-Rock, and Stick-Lodge, and Two-Thousand-Mile,
White-lime, and Cupboard, and Bad-humour'd Isle!
Flow, Little-shallow, flow! and be thy stream.
Their great example, as it will their theme!

Isis with Rum and Onion must not vie,

Cam shall resign the palm to Blowing-fly,

And Thames and Tagus yield to great Big-Little-Dry."

Of all people upon earth, the English ought to be the last to joke on this subject. When we were colonies, our English go

vernors, geographers, and commissioners of land offices, conspired to fill our land with the most poor and sneaking names which ever disgraced a fine country. Since we have set up for ourselves, we have felt the necessity of having a few brave sounding appellations; if for no other purpose, at least to round off the periods of 4th of July orations, and to swell the thunders of patriotic songs. Accordingly many sonorous and musical, Indian, or old names have been revived. New-York Island is Manhattan again; old Hudson has resumed the jurisdiction of the North River; Passaic has got rid of his nickname, and Housatonnick will soon banish the memory of Stratford River for ever. But many others are for ever lost-full many a most musical combination of syllables has been drowned past recovery, in Onion River, Muddy Creek, and Buttermilk Falls, while others are buried at Point-no-Point and Crom Elbow. Canada is full of instances "of the same delightful taste;" witness Four Corners, Ten-Mile River, cum multis aliis.

Nor have the English voyagers and travellers improved one jot in this respect in later years. Just after reading the article on Lewis and Clarke in the Quarterly, we happened to take up a magnificent quarto volume of Voyages of Discovery in the South Seas, and along the coast of New Holland; and we were so struck with the uncouth absurdity of some of the nicknames, that we were induced to extend our researches a little further, and soon made up a long list of English names, bestowed, within the last forty years, upon newly discovered coasts, rivers, and capes, fully equal to anything of Captain Clarke's invention. The greater part of these are so completely established that they may be found on any minute map or chart of those parts of the globe. Though all inexpert of numbers, we could not withstand the temptation of trying how these true-born English appellations would "slide into verse and hitch into a rhyme." Haply hereafter some bard, ambitious of the fame of Scott and Southey, may aspire to sing the toils and wanderings of the illustrious Cook, and thus, in varied measure, most sweetly will he commence his epic strain:

Thee, Cook, I sing, whom from old England's shore
To Porpoise-point, the ship Endeavour bore,