feeling toward England. We have felt, of course, our share of the irritation, with which the warfare has been waged between the journals, the tourists, and the newspapers on both sides of the water; but this can cast no shade over the feeling, with which we contemplate the home of our ancestors, the seat of our language, laws, and manners. These feelings of tenderness and veneration are a treasure, of which we will not be deprived by any quality or amount of literary provocation at the present day. But our complaint is one, which has been, we doubt not, already anticipated in England, which, in fact, is made, though in the form perhaps of a compliment, by the writer, to whom we have alluded, in Blackwood's Magazine. It is that Mr Irving has aimed to engraft himself, manner and matter, on the English stock. In so doing, he has merely proved his happy facility, and no more. He has shown with what ease and freedom he can write on English scenery and manners, after two or three years passed in England; and this is agreeable. We are not saying that the Sketch Book and Bracebridge Hall are not pleasing, finely written works; but we do say that they wave almost wholly that peculiar interest, which the author's position enabled him to give them; and in the main can be read through and through, without causing a thrill in the heart of a countryman. Mr Irving could have written a book, which should have done this; a book, which should have turned to profit all his curious observation abroad, without sacrificing-as he has done-all that store of recollections, which he had brought from home. We grant him, in all its force, the impression made on the mind of an American in England. We have, on a former occasion, hazarded the opinion, that an American surveys Westminster Abbey and Stratford-on-Avon with keener feelings than an Englishman can do it. But we cannot grant that this impression may obliterate those which were made at home. On the contrary, you must first go abroad to experience in all their power the emotions, which belong to an American at the contemplation of his native land. They are deeper, and warmer, and dearer beyond the sea. You then feel, for the first time, the whole weight of this lengthening chain.-The names of Plymouth, of Lexington, of Washington, of America must come up to the memory of one of her sons beyond the Atlantic and the Alps, before he knows all that they mean and all that they say. We doubt not our excellent countryman has thus

felt all that they can inspire; but there is little in his works to assure us of it.

We have hinted, that in this suppression he has mistaken the true path to interest as a writer, even in England. We remember well to have heard it objected by a person of remarkable discretion in London, to a certain American critical journal that shall be nameless, that it contained chiefly reviews of English books. We do not wish to know,' it was said, 'any thing more about Rob Roy or Childe Harolde. We want from you something new, national, peculiar.' Mr Irving need not have abated a whit of his courtesy and benevolence, he need not have omitted one nice trait in character or manners, above all he need not have employed one Americanism, and yet have written a book, which, without an allusion to a caucus, or the use either of progressing, or lengthy, should have revealed itself at once as an American production. As such, we are sure it would have excited a far higher and more flattering interest, than can attach itself to his late works.

We have thus far gone on the supposition that the Sketch Book and Bracebridge Hall are exclusively of the character we describe. This, however, is not the case, and Mr Irving, we think, might have seen in the preference given to Rip Van Winkle, where his fort lies.-In Bracebridge there is one story, the longest, and in our opinion the best in the work, called Dolph Heyliger, which is of the true Knickerbocker and Rip Van Winkle school, though not equal to the best efforts of the author, in the same department. The following extract will afford a pleasant specimen of it.

As the doctor increased in wealth, he began to extend his possessions, and to look forward, like other great men, to the time when he should retire to the repose of a country seat. For this purpose he had purchased a farm, or as the Dutch settlers called it, a Bowerie, a few miles from town. It had been the residence of a wealthy family that had returned some time since to Holland. A large mansion house stood in the centre of it, very much out of repair, and which, in consequence of certain reports, had received the appellation of the Haunted House. Either from these reports, or from its actual dreariness, the doctor had found it impossible to get a tenant; and, that the place might not fall to ruin before he could reside in it himself, he had placed a country boor with his family in one wing, with the privilege of cultivating the farm on shares.

The doctor now felt all the dignity of a landholder rising within

him. He had a little of the German pride of territory in his composition, and almost looked upon himself as owner of a principality. He began to complain of the fatigue of business, and was fond of riding out "to look at his estate. His little expe. ditions to his lands were attended with a bustle and parade that created a sensation throughout the neighbourhood. His walleyed horse stood stamping and whisking off the flies for a full hour before the house. Then the doctor's saddle bags would be brought out and adjusted; then after a little while his cloak would be rolled up and strapped to the saddle; then his umbrella 'would be buckled to the cloak; while, in the mean time, a group of ragged boys, that observant class of beings, would gather before the door. At length the doctor would issue forth in a pair of jack boots that reached above his knees, and a cocked hat flapped down in front. As he was a short fat man he took some time to mount into the saddle, and when there, he took some time to have the saddle and stirrups properly adjusted; enjoying the wonder and admiration of the urchin crowd. Even after he had set off, he would pause in the middle of the street; or trot back two or three times to give some parting orders, which were answered by the housekeeper from the door, or Dolph from the study, or the black cook from the cellar, or the chambermaid from the garret window, and there were generally some last words bawled after him, just as he was turning the corner. The whole neighbourhood would be aroused by this pomp and circumstance. The cobbler would leave his last; the barber would thrust out his frizzed head, with a comb sticking in it; a knot would collect at the grocer's door; and the word would be buzzed from one end of the street to the other, "the doctor's riding out to his country seat!"

Besides Dolph Heyliger there are various other pieces in the volumes of Bracebridge, of a miscellaneous character, and not belonging to the delineation of English life and manners, such as the Student of Salamanca and Annette Delarbre. The scene of the former is laid in Spain, and describes, with considerable spirit and effect, the monuments of Moorish magnificence at Grenada. There are other passages also of great merit in the piece; but we do not regard it on the whole as a happy effort. The lore of alchemy is somewhat trite, and Mr Irving in search of originality has gone somewhat too deeply into it, and quoted freely the names of authors too long forgotten to awaken any association.-The incidents are commonplace, and the interest of the story but moderate.-Few writers might be able to produce so agreeable a piece, but we

suppose Mr Irving could write a score such, with no additional effort, but that of the mechanical labor.-Annette Delarbre, on the other hand, is most beautiful. The conception on which the denouement rests, though new to us, is so perfectly natural as to awaken no reaction against its probability, and the whole is unsurpassed for delicacy and pathos. The story is that of a girl attached to a young Frenchman of the same village, whom, with unreflecting coquetry, she treats with unkindness, and drives in hasty desperation to sea. Soon repenting of her cruelty, Annette falls into a melancholy, and on the return of the vessel in which Eugene had embarked with the tidings that he had perished in a storm, she becomes insane.

"The subject," continued my informer, " is never mentioned in her hearing; but she sometimes speaks of it, and it seems as though there were some vague train of impressions in her mind, in which hope and fear are strangely mingled, some imperfect idea of his shipwreck, and yet some expectation of his return.

"Her parents have tried every means to cheer her up, and to banish these gloomy images from her thoughts. They assemble around her the young companions in whose society she used to delight; and they will work, and chat, and sing, and laugh as formerly; but she will sit silently among them, and will sometimes weep in the midst of their gayety; and if spoken to, will make no reply, but look up with streaming eyes and sing a dismal little song which she has learnt somewhere, about a shipwreck. It makes every one's heart ache to see her in this way; for she used to be the happiest creature in the village.

"She passes the greater part of the time with Eugene's mother, whose only consolation is her society, and who dotes on her with a mother's tenderness. She is the only one that has perfect influence over Annette in every mood. The poor girl seems, as formerly, to make an effort to be cheerful in her company; but will sometimes gaze upon her with the most piteous look, and then put back her cap, and kiss her gray hairs, and fall on her neck and weep.

"She is not always melancholy, however; she has occasional intervals when she will be bright and animated for days together; but there is a degree of wildness attending these fits of gayety, that prevents their yielding any encouragement to her friends. At such times she will arrange her room, which is all covered with pictures of ships, and legends of saints; and will wreath a white chaplet, as if for a wedding, and prepare wedding ornaments. She will listen anxiously at the door, and look frequently at the window, as if expecting some one's arrival. It is sup New Series, No. 11.

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posed that at such times she is looking for her lover's return; but as no one touches upon the theme, or mentions his name in her presence, the current of her thoughts is for the most part merely conjecture.

Now and then she will make a pilgrimage to the chapel of Notre Dame de Grace; where she will pray for hours at the altar, and decorate the images with wreaths that she has woven; or will wave her handkerchief from the terrace, as you have seen, if their is any vessel to be seen in the distance.""

The description of Annette in her state of madness is quite equal to the best things of the kind, contained in our literature. The sequel of the story relates that Eugene had escaped from shipwreck and returned in safety to his native village. This concluding portion is so beautiful, that we cannot withhold it from our readers.

In the mean time Eugene returned to the village. He was violently affected when the story of Annette was told him. With bitterness of heart he upbraided his own rashness and infatuation, that had hurried him away from her; and accused himself as the author of all her woes. His mother would describe to him all the anguish and remorse of poor Annette; the tenderness with which she clung to her, and endeavored, even in the midst of her insanity, to console her for the loss of her son; and the touching expressions of affection that were mingled with her most incoherent wanderings of thought; until his feelings would be wound up to agony, and he would intreat her to desist from the recital. They did not dare as yet to bring him into Annette's sight, but he was permitted to see her when she was sleeping, The tears streamed down his sunburnt cheeks as he contemplated the ravages which grief and malady had made, and his heart swelled almost to breaking as he beheld round her neck the very braid of hair which she once gave him in token of girlish affection, and which he had returned to her in anger.

At length the physician that attended her determined to adventure upon an experiment; to take advantage of one of those cheerful moods, when her mind was visited by hope, and to endeavor to engraft, as it were, the reality upon the delusions of her fancy These moods had become very rare, for nature was sinking under the continual pressure of her mental malady, and the principal of reaction was daily growing weaker. Every effort was tried to bring on a cheerful interval of the kind. Several of her most favorite companions were kept continually about her. They chatted gayly; they laughed, and sang, and danced; but Annette reclined with languid frame and hollow eye, and