opinion. Although he may not have exercised any regular profession, he has given satisfactory evidence of a laudable degree of activity, in the singular employment of recommending idleness to others. The work before us, if it be not thought to demonstrate his good sense, is at least a proof of his industry. His Essay on Moral Philosophy, or the Different Theories of the Art of Living, is another; his Studies on the Beautiful in Art, a third; his Eulogy on Montaigne, a fourth; and so of his various other writings. Mr Droz is, in short, a person who cultivates letters with zeal and assiduity in his own way. This pursuit is after all an occupation tout comme un autre, and in some cases one of the most honorable and useful, in which a man can engage. We put it to our author's conscience, whether the delicious morning reveries, of which he makes so much account, are always devoted literally to reflections on the pleasure of having nothing to do through the day; whether they are not sometimes taken up in meditations on the forth-coming work. Mr Droz talks at his ease of the dolce far niente, with his books around him, and his manuscript open on his writing-table. But let his study be locked up; let him be debarred from the use of pen, ink, and paper; let him be excluded from readingrooms and public libraries,-let all this continue for a few weeks, and he will hold, we suspect, a different language. We should probably find him laboring under the same disease, which carried off the comrade of the Marquis of Spinola. Nor do we believe, that he can allege his own experience in support of his recommendation of contempt for public opinion, with greater justice. It is remarked by Cicero, that the very philosphers who advise us to despise the opinion of the world, put their names to the books containing this counsel. Our author, we are sorry to say, is an example of this inconsistency. Upon turning to the head of this article (where the titlepage of the work before us is copied), the reader will see at full length the name of Joseph Droz, inserted as that of the author. After the mention of his christian and family names, follows the honorary addition of Member of the French Academy. He is willing we should know that his art has enabled him to scale the celestial towers occupied by the Forty Immortals, who preside over the world of French literature, and take his place among the number. Even this is not all. After the qualification de l'Académie Française, we next find the significant memorandum, Quatrième Edition, Fourth Edition.' Is this then the end, or VOL. XXVII.- No. 60. 18 rather the beginning, of our author's superb indifference? Why should Mr Droz, who holds the judgment of the many so very cheap, be at the pains of informing us that they have taken off three editions of his book? Is it consistent in one who scorns the suffrage of his fellows, to proclaim upon the house-top, that he has been received into the French Academy? Did it become this contemner of public opinion to indulge in the petty - vanity of being known as a writer? The truth seems to be, that our author, while recommending to his disciples the 'primrose path of dalliance,' has had the good sense to pursue himself with some degree of firmness 'the steep and thorny road;' and while advising others to despise public opinion, has made no scruple of doing everything in his power to conciliate it in his own favor. This management appears at first view singular, and upon a second may be thought suspicious. Timeo Danaos. Is Mr Droz endeavoring to put us to sleep that he may have the field entirely to himself? At all events, we like his example better than his precepts. It is time, however, to close our colloquy with this writer, which we have already continued somewhat longer than we at first intended. Beside the chapters to which we have particularly adverted, there are several more upon a considerable variety of subjects; such as Pleasure, Pain, Love, Hatred, Melancholy, Marriage, Life, Death, and others of equal moment. They are all treated with nearly the same success, but we have not room to comment upon them in detail. In combating the arguments of our author, in favor of idleness and contempt of public opinion, we have had occasion to intimate that, on our view of the subject, his theory is directly the reverse of the truth, and that a diligent pursuit of almost any honest occupation, and a decent regard for the judgment of those around us, are among the most effective means, that we can employ, for the attainment of happiness. We may add here, that the real art of being happy is nowhere stated in a more satisfactory form than in the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament, and the Two into which they are abridged in the New. The person who shall diligently and faithfully practise upon these digests, will have but little need of the assistance of Mr Droz. A good * One of our author's books (if we are not mistaken, the work now before us) obtained the prize which had been offered by the French Academy, for the most valuable publication in a moral point of view, that should appear during the year. Credite, posteri. familiar and practical exposition of the spirit of these approved codes is to be found in the common saying, The art of being happy, is to endeavor to make other people so; to which the most judicious philosophers have subjoined as a supplementary principle, that a man is never happy without a good wife. ART. VII.-The Red Rover. By THE AUTHOR OF THE PI- Carey, WE venture but little, we apprehend, in saying that the public is exceedingly obliged to Mr Cooper for these volumes. For ourselves, we shall not be backward in declaring, that he has, in this instance, done more and better things for his name, than upon any former occasion. We the rather rejoice at this, as we have sometimes had fears of his falling off as he advanced, by a sort of échelon, that is melancholy in any writer, and eminently so in the novelist. Happy the popular writer, who is thus able to stand the test of frequent appearance at the public bar; and who, if he sometimes falter, is yet able to renew his strength, and resuscitate his slumbering energies at those secret fountains of power, that are ever flowing clear and strong in the deep and, to common minds, inaccessible places of genius. He thus comes with something like surprise upon a world that is getting even weary over his books, and at oné wave of his enchanter's wand' dissipates every shadow of distrust as to his efficiency, or of conspiracy against his good fame and empire; as an energetic king may be supposed to put an end to all treasonous murmuring against his authority and name, by his sudden appearance among the malecontents, in his panoply, and with all the ensigns of his royalty about him. It may be observed, moreover, though not an unfailing concomitant of superior powers, that this alternation of excellence and mediocrity in their productions has been common to eminent writers. Sir Walter Scott has evinced this peculiarity to a degree quite uncommon, which, in one less gifted, would have been absolutely dangerous. Some of his works anterior to the Crusaders,' had been singularly tame and nerveless, considering their lineage and pretensions. But, in the mean time, Maturin, with his 'Albigenses,' had appeared in astonishing power; and forthwith we find Sir Walter before us again, in his strength and stateliness, and in the transcendent grace and vigor of the 'Talisman,' not only outdoing himself, but defying the possibility of being outdone, and, by one masterly effort, vindicating his great name. This alternation may very naturally be the effect of a tendency to relaxation, consequent on strenuous exertion; and in the instance of Sir Walter Scott, to recur to the standard illustration, we think we can easily discern the author of Napoleon taking some hours of gaiety and ease to himself, when he determines to dedicate a little work to Mr Hugh Littlejohn, and to write essays on agriculture. As to his Sermons,' he needs frame none better, or more effectual, than he has aforetime put into the mouths of his own Covenanters. Upon the same principle therefore, that we have ever hailed the return of an author to the style of composition in which he seems peculiarly adapted to excel, we are pleased also to meet Mr Cooper once more on his favorite element. It strikes us, that there is something a little peculiar in the history of novel-writing in this country. Starting with a principle, correct in itself, but like other correct principles requiring judicious application, that works of imagination should represent the character and manners of the country where they are written, our novel-writers, at least those of the second class, have made their works too purely of the soil. As though treason lay in too near an approach to the waters, or as though there were a fear that something transatlantic would there creep into their fancies, they have even avoided the lakes themselves, and make a dry-land story of it, among woods, and ravines, and wigwams, and tomahawks. The Indian chieftain is the first character upon the canvass or the carpet; in active scene or still one, he is the nucleus of the whole affair; and in almost every case is singularly blessed in some dark-eyed child, whose convenient complexion is made sufficiently light for the whitest hero. This bronze noble of nature, is then made to talk like Ossian for whole pages, and measure out hexameters, as though he had been practising for a poetic prize. Now, though we may applaud the spirit which has led some of our novelists to place the scene of their stories invariably and pertinaciously somewhere between the Rocky Mountains and the Atlantic, and the deeper in the forest the better,-still we must wonder at the taste that peoples them with such a mass of wild and copper men; and moreover question the necessity, on the whole, of going back, as a matter of course, to the precise time when the struggle was the fiercest between the colonists and these barbarians. We are aware that we are disputing the first principle which these writers set out upon; but it appears certain to us, that there is a barrenness of the novelist's peculiar circumstance in the life of a savage, which cannot be easily got over, when we set about a story of him in his hut and in his wanderings; and it must necessarily be a troublesome tax upon the ingenuity to throw a moderate share of interest round a narrative, founded upon events connected with these simple, silent creatures. This tax has rarely been paid to our satisfaction. In fact, the species of writing, we believe, began in mistake; heretical as it may seem, it strikes us that there is not enough in the character and life of these poor natives to furnish the staple of a novel. The character of the Indian is a simple one, his destiny is a simple one, all around him is simple. We use the expression here in its most unpoetical sense. But mere simplicity is not all that is needed. There must be some event in the life of a hero, to keep us from growing weary of him. He must not lie upon our hands; the author must keep him in business, and he must have more business than is comprehended in the employment of the scalpingknife or the paddle, to become the subject of our refined sympathies, or to gratify a cultivated taste. He must be mentally engaged. The savage says but little; and after we have painted him in the vivid and prominent colors which seem necessary to represent him amidst his pines and waterfalls,-after we have set him before our readers with his gorgeous crown of feathers, his wampum, and his hunting-bow, it would seem that we have done as well as we could for him. Beyond this bare description, which indeed may be one of the most beautiful in the world, it is not easy to advance. Nature leaves us, as soon as we leave nature, in this case, and put our calm, taciturn son of the desert into the attitudes of civilized life. The Indians, as a people, offer little or nothing that can be reasonably expected to excite the novelist, formed as his taste must be on a foreign standard. View them in New Zealand or Otaheite, go through all Australasia, and then come to the wilderness of America, and the native will still be found nearly the same be |