in the first and second editions of his treatise upon that subject. He affirms, in passing, a point, which has long been with us a matter of undoubting conviction, that man is constituted by the Author of his existence a religious being, as certainly as webfooted fowls, or even fishes are formed to move in the water. The first rational exercise of a thinking being must be to look abroad for his Creator; and they who, in the analysis of human character, lay this essential component of his organization out of the question, make a mistake as radical, as though they were to pass over his hopes, bis fears, or his animal propensities. Hence, says the author, whenever the brain is not idiotically defective, a sentiment of veneration for a God of some kind is as natural and universal, as the love of offspring.' An interesting extract is given from a surgeon of a ship, which had carried convicts to New Holland. A Mr. De Ville had examined the heads of the convicts, before the ship sailed from England. He made a report, in the form of a prophecy, how the convicts would deport themselves on the very long passage. At the termination of the voyage, his prophecy was history. 'He hit every case exactly, but one,' says the correspondent; and he assigns reasons for his failure in his case. 'All the authorities here,' [Sidney Cove] says he, have become phrenologists.'

We extract a very striking passage, in which the author, ingeniously, and eloquently explains the reasons, why the appearance, and the language of anger and menace, of pathos and sorrow, of love, &c. excite corresponding sensations in those, to whom it is addressed.

'It is a law of nature, as immutable as the pointing of the needle to the pole, or the lapse of water down an inclined plane, that the language and true expression of any organ or compartment of the brain, in one individual, excite to action the corresponding organ or compartment in another. This is the natural and only ground of the influence of eloquence; and the true reason why the passions are contagious.

'One individual addresses another in the words and tones and gesticulations of anger; or, to speak phrenologically, in the language and manner of Combativeness. The consequence is known to every one, and is felt to be natural. The same organ is excited in the individual addressed, and he replies in the same style. From artificial speech, and empty gesture, the parties proceed to blows, which constitute the greatest intensity of the natural language of the irritated organ; its ultima ratio, in common men, as an appeal to arms is, in the case of monarchs. 'Urged by Destructiveness, a man draws on his enemy or his comrade, a sword or a dagger, and is instantly answered by a similar weapon, in obedience to the impulse of the same organ. This meeting of weapon with weapon is not the result of reason. The act will be performed as promptly and certainly, generally much more so, by him whose reasoning powers are dull and feeble, than by him in whom they are active and strong. It is the product of instinct; the reply, in its native expression, of the excited organ of Destructiveness, in the defendant, to the expression of the same organ in the assailant.

When Demosthenes roused the Athenians to war with Philip, he harangued them in the intense language, burning thoughts, and bold and fierce gesticulations of Combativeness and Destruction combined. And had he not so harangued them, he would never have impelled them to the field of Cheronea. Under a

mere argumentative address, or one dictated exclusively by the moral organs, they would have remained inactive; when the object of the orator is to move and melt, he succeeds only by adopting the language and natural expression of the softer organs which he desires to affect. If he wishes to command tears, he sheds them. So true is the maxim, “Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum tibi ipsi.” 'Does one man wish to conciliate the friendship of another? he mildly accosts him in the language of Adhesiveness, and thus excites a kindred organ. And when the lover strives to propitiate his mistress and gain her favours, he approaches and addresses her in the soft language and winning manner of the associated organs of Amativeness and Adhesiveness. This is the philosophy of what the poets denominate the sympathy of souls; the condition of an organ naturally and forcibly expressed, by looks, words, or actions, or by all of them, in one person, producing a similar condition of the same organ in another.'

We regret, that we have not space to enter further into the views and enunciations of this eloquent and well written paper. Bating some remarks in the preface, it is composed in a tone of philosophic calmness, the more worthy of praise, as it seems rather foreign to his habits. It is drawn up with a severe spirit of self-criticism; and the language is easy, simple and natural to a good degree. Had we prepared an article for any review in our country, we should have deemed it a sufficient and unanswerable reply, that the editor found the principles, advocated in the paper, hostile to his own. We deem, that there is no phrenological journal in the English language, and there are a number in Great Britain and America, that would not have been honored by admitting this article. We should have thought, that such a journal would have been its appropriate destination.

Annual Report of the Superintendent of Common Schools in the State of New-York. Albany: 1829.-pp. 52, 8vo.

NOTHING gives us such magnificent conceptions of the real power and future resources of our great confederated republic, as such statements as this before us. We are ready to believe it the most complete and detailed view of schools in a particular republic, that can be found in the world. We have space only for some of the details of the grand result. The returns are from 55 counties, and 757 towns and wards: 8,069 school districts have made reports. The number of school districts in 1827, is exceeded by that of 1828, by 358 schools. The number of children taught in schools has increased, since the last annual report, 29,897. The capi tal of the common school fund amounts to $1,684,628 80. The annual avails are $61,854. The number of children taught, makes the grand total 468,205. The children taught between the ages of five and fifteen, amount to 449,118. No state in the union can show such a proud and detailed document on a subject of such unspeakable importance.

Some mistakes occurred in Dr. Willard's narrative in our last. Page 651, nine lines from bottom, for 88 read 140. Page 657, for Napas read Nassas. Same page, 13 lines from top, for mining read agricultural.

THE

WESTERN

MONTHLY REVIEW.

AUGUST, 1829.

AGNES SOREL DE MERIVANNE:
The Recluse Coquette.

WHOEVER has been among the singular mountainous hills of Cote Florissant, not far from the south shore of Red river, above the Raft, must have seen the beautiful plantation of this lady. It is in a charming vale, showing, as if scooped out between the savine-crowned, cone-shaped eminences, that cluster round it in a circle, as though they were the mounds of the giants of old times. A more lonely position could scarcely have been selected on our globe. It is far away from the settlements of Peccan point; still farther from the populous country of Louisiana below the Raft. A few French, Spanish, Indians, and people, in whose blood these races are mixed, subsisting on fowl, fish and game, dwell in dispersed cabins at distances of three or four leagues from the abode of the Recluse.

The cottage is of one story, with verandas running round it, tastefully arranged, and furnished within, and neatly painted, and enclosed without. It is literally embowered in vines of the multiflora rose, and in the centre of an area of three acres, shaded with laurier almond, and Bois d'arcs, the most beautiful trees of the American forest. Fig trees, peach trees, Cape Jessamine shrubs, and other splendid flowering plants adorn the garden, through which winds a spring branch from the foot of the hills. These shades, together with those of huge oaks and peccans, and the sheltering elevation of the hills cause, that the sun visits the valley but a portion of the day. Even when the perpendicular rays fall upon the place, the broad foliage of the Bois d'arcs, and the intertwined verdure of the multiflora rose so intercept the flickering radiance, that it only trembles in points; and a dewy and refreshing coolness is felt through the long sultry months; and the same hills and trees shelter the cottage from the rude north-west blasts of winter. The stranger, who entered this enclosure, saw in a moment, that the hand of art, the arrangements of wealth and luxury, and the selection of taste, had been there.

The little circular farm, of fifty acres, is throughout, of unexampled beauty and fertility. There spread wild grape vines of enormous size.→→ There flourish nature-planted, the haw shrub, crab apples, pawpaws, and VOL. III.-No. 1.

1

flowering plants of every scent and hue. On the clustering branches over the spring, sing the cardinal, the oriole, the song sparrow and the thrush. There the wild deer browses with the bounding goats and the domestic cattle. One of the hills, that overlook the house, has on its summit a little lake, which abounds in fish; and is the resort through the season of millions of water fowls of all the varieties that frequent the country; whose cries, as they are hovering backwards and forwards, over the house, would be annoying, were it not, that the summit of the hill is some hundred feet above the roof of the cottage.

In this abode, equally pleasant and solitary, tasteful and luxurious, the Recluse Coquette had resided some years. Twenty black servants tended the little farm, and managed the domestic concerns. Of their number one was a hunter, and supplied the establishment with game and fowl; and another procured for the table inexhaustible quantities of fish. The Recluse lived here, solitary, and apart from man; except, that she enacted the lady bountiful to the sick and afflicted in all the cabins within three leagues, whenever they saw fit to apply to her for assistance. As these people were all rigid catholics, so far as concerned the ceremonial of that worship, and as she was extremely strict and exemplary in the same observances, she was regarded by them with a respect bordering on veneration. To this was added a touch of superstitious terror. Besides various strange habits, which, in their ways of interpretation, intimated converse with invisible powers, she went invariably twice in a year to the summit of the highest adjacent hill, and spent the night there alone, no body could conjecture why, or wherefore. But when she returned, it was remarked, that her eyes were always swollen, as if with weeping; and that it was some days, before her gloom wore off, and she resumed her former cheerfulness. A gentleman, who was really such, a scholar, acquainted with the French language, manners and literature, a man of taste and talent, travelling to the settlements above, was benighted there in a succession of violent vernal thunderstorms. The keen tact of the Recluse enabled her to perceive in a moment, that this was no empty-headed, brazen-hearted, mean-spirited fortune hunter; characters that often annoyed her. Her confidence was won, and her powers elicited by an equal and kindred mind. With an eccentric frankness, peculiar to her singularly energetic and independent character, she introduced the story of her life, merely, as she said, because she marked a curiosity in his countenance to know it, which he was too polite to express in words. The gentleman, after thanking her for her confidence and condescension, admitted, that she had rightly divined his thoughts.

French ladies,' she observed, are said to be communicative, as a national trait. The world's opinion, as you will perceive, has long been a matter of utter indifference to me; and I have been accustomed to consult only my own judgment and will from my earliest years. Your appearance and manners too, are a pledge for you, that you will make a gentlemanly use of my confidence. For the rest, I shall speak, as if forced to confes sion before the searcher of hearts, with as much criminating and bitter frankness of myself, as my most censorious biographer will use, in relation to me, when I shall be no more.

I was born in one of the fairest departments of the south of France, of a family of the most honorable patrician descent of twenty generations.--The estate was princely; and a brother, two years older than myself, and I, were the only presumptive heirs. The noble granite towers of our ancient chateau rose proudly from the shore of the Mediterranean. In the distance the Pyrennees reared their blue heads; and near at hand the spires of Grenoble, the provincial capital. The domain extended for leagues on either side; and our mansion showed amidst mulberry, olive and chesnut groves, where wine and oil flowed in abundance; where silk of the finest texture was prepared; and where vine-clad hills extended beyond the reach of the eye.

From what you now see me, you will have difficulty, in believing, that I was most egregiously flattered, in having been accustomed from the carliest periods of my memory, to hear myself called pre-eminently beautiful. Before I was ten, my ear was familiar with the terms Goddess and Nymph. At eleven I was one of the graces. At twelve I was Eucharis. At thirteen Venus and Diana. At fourteen Juno, Minerva, an angel, divine, and much more of that very trite, but bewitching common place. My brother was a stubborn, petted, good natured, simpleton. As soon as I was turned of fourteen, I was introduced to the world; and I was from that time quite as much flattered,' on account of my supposed talents as my beauty. Thus the first sensations, which I experienced, were those of pleasure from snuffing incense, administered in every conceivable way. Never was appetite more insatiate for it. The desire grew with the amount, upen which it fed. My bosom burned with measureless and unquenchable ambition of every sort. My father was a favorite with Napoleon. I had heard of Marengo and Austerlitz and Wagram and Borodino; and I longed to have been fighting there by his side. I felt, that I could never hope

for happiness, or repose, until I saw the world at my feet.

At the same time, I was tortured with the reading, or hearing the praises of others. All applause that was not bestowed on me, seemed not only loss, but injustice. My masters, instructers, servants, and soon my intimates knew this; and I heard no song, but the pleasant one of my own eulogy. I groaned, as I clearly discovered the adamantine barriers of the prescription of female slavery. I had in my heart an altar for all such assertors of female rights, as the English Mary Wolstonecraft. Well then, I said, if I cannot command armies, and wield the trident and sceptre, and rule men directly, I will punish the tyrants, who have wrested our rights from us; and I will rule them, who rule the people, and with a rod of iron, In short, my eye chalked out my career in anticipation. It was the only one that seemed practicable to my ambition. I was determined to be the Napoleon of coquetry.

Your knowledge of human nature will not need to be informed, that the presumptive heiress of half this domain, trained from the first dawn of intellect to every acquirement, that dazzles, to every attainment, that could be brought forth in display, the first in pretension in every circle, inhaling only an atmosphere of incense, and though neither Venus, nor Minerva, unquestionably pretty, would not want admirers. Every young gentleman, with whom I came in contact, pretended to be such. My written list, in point of numbers, might have sufficed Maria Louisa for a levee. But my