There are writers who have so ministered to our enjoyment as to become associated with our happiest literary recollections. The companionship of their works has been to us as that of an entertaining and cherished friend, whose converse cheers the hours of languor, and brightens the period of recreative pleasure. We are wont to think and to speak of them with quite a different sentiment from that which prompts us to speculate upon less familiar and less endeared productions. There is ever within us a sense of obligation, an identification of our individual partiality with the author, when the fruits of his labors are alluded to, his merits discussed, or his very name mentioned. The sensitiveness appropriate to the writer's self seems, in a manner, transferred to our own bosoms; his faults are scarcely recognized, and we guard his laurels as if our own efforts had aided in their winning, and our own happiness was involved in their preservation. Such feelings obtain, indeed, to a greater or less extent, with reference to all the master spirits in literature, whose labors have been devoted, with signal success, to the gratification and elevation of humanity. But the degree of permanency for such tributary sentiment in the general mind depends very much upon the field of effort selected by the favorite author, and his own peculiar circumstances and character. Subjects of temporary interest, however admirably treated, and with whatever applause received, are obviously ill calculated to retain, for any considerable length of time, a strong hold upon human regard; and, notwithstanding the alleged inconsistency between an author's personal character and history and the influence of his works, the motives adduced by Addison for prefacing the Spectator with an account of himself are deeply founded in human nature. Not merely contemporary sentiment, but after opinion in relation to literary productions, will be materially affected by what is known of the author. The present prevailing tendency to inquire, often with a truly reprehensible minuteness, into whatever in the most distant manner relates to the leading literary men of the age, affords ample evidence of this truth. Indeed, we may justly anticipate that literary, if not general biography, will, ere long, from the very interest manifested in regard to it, attain an importance, and ultimately a philosophical dignity, such as shall engage in its behalf the sedulous labors of the best endowed and most accomplished minds. The occasion which first induced Geoffrey Crayon to delineate, and those which have suggested his subsequent pencillings, were singularly happy; and the circumstances under which these masterly sketches were produced, nay, the whole history of the man, are signally fitted to deepen the interest which his literary merits necessarily excited. In saying this, we are not unmindful of the prejudices so ungenerously forced upon the attention of the absentee, and so affectingly alluded to in the opening of his first work after returning from Europe; but do we err in deeming those prejudices as unchargeable upon the mass of his countrymen as they were essentially unjust and partial? Nay, are we not, in this volume, with our author's characteristic genuineness of feeling and simplicity, assured of his own settled and happy sense of the high place he occupies in the estimation and love of Americans?

The Tour on the Prairies appeared in 1836. It is an unpretending account, comprehending a period of about four weeks, of travelling and hunting excursions upon the vast western plains. The local features of this interesting region have been displayed to us in several works of fiction, of which it has formed the scene; and more formal illustrations of the extensive domain denominated The West, and its denizens, have been repeatedly presented to the public. But in this volume one of the most extraordinary and attractive portions of the great subject is discussed, not as the subsidiary part of a romantic story, nor yet in the desultory style of epistolary composition, but in the deliberate, connected form of a retrospective narration. When we say that the Tour on the Prairies is rife with the characteristics of its author, no ordinary eulogium is bestowed. His graphic power is manifest throughout. The boundless prairies stretch out illimitably to the fancy, as the eye scans his descriptions. The athletic figures of the riflemen, the gayly arrayed Indians, the heavy buffalo, and the graceful deer, pass in strong relief and startling contrast before us. We are stirred by the bustle of the camp at dawn, and soothed by its quiet or delighted with its picturesque aspect under the shadow of night. The imagination revels amid the green oak clumps and verdant pea vines, the expanded plains and the glancing river, the forest aisles and the silent stars. Nor is this all. Our hearts thrill at the vivid representations of a primitive and excursive existence; we involuntarily yearn, as we read, for the genial activity and the perfect exposure to the influences of Nature in all her free magnificence, of a woodland and adventurous life; the morning strain of the bugle, the excitement of the chase, the delicious repast, the forest gossiping, the sweet repose beneath the canopy of heaven - how inviting, as depicted by such a pencil!

Nor has the author failed to invigorate and render doubly attractive these descriptive drawings, with the peculiar light and shade of his own rich humor, and the mellow softness of his ready sympathy. A less skilful draughtsman would, perhaps, in the account of the preparations for departure (Chapter III.), have spoken of the hunters, the fires, and the steeds but who, except Geoffrey Crayon, would have been so quaintly mindful of the little dog, and the manner in which he regarded the operations of the farrier? How inimitably the Bee Hunt is portrayed! and what have we of the kind so racy as the account of the Republic of Prairie Dogs, unless it be that of the Rookery in Bracebridge Hall? What expressive portraits are the delineations of our rover's companions! How consistently drawn throughout, and in what fine contrast, are the reserved and saturnine Beatte, and the vain-glorious, sprightly, and versatile Tonish! A golden vein of vivacious, yet chaste compari- that beautiful, yet rarely well-managed species of wit, and a wholesome and pleasing sprinkling of moral comment — that delicate and often most efficacious medium of useful impressions - intertwine and vivify the main narrative. Something, too, of that fine pathos which enriches his earlier productions, enhances the value of the present. He tells us, indeed, with commendable honesty, of his new appetite for destruction, which the game of the prairie excited; but we

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cannot fear for the tenderness of a heart that sympathizes so readily with suffering, and yields so gracefully to kindly impulses. He gazes upon the noble courser of the wilds, and wishes that his freedom may be perpetuated; he recognizes the touching instinct which leads the wounded elk to turn aside and die in retiracy; he reciprocates the attachment of the beast which sustains him, and, more than all, can minister even to the foibles of a fellow-being, rather than mar the transient reign of human pleasure.

Washington Irving's last days were passed at his congenial home, "Sunnyside," on the banks of his favorite river, the Hudson. The revised edition of his works had a large sale, and to these he added many Spanish legends, home sketches, and his elaborate biography of Washington. After so many years passed abroad, and his residence as American minister at the Court of Spain, and after so long and prosperous a literary, and so genial and endeared a social, career, he died surrounded by his kindred, to whom he was the life-long benefactor, crowned with honorable fame and the affection of his countrymen on the 29th of November, 1859, at the age of seventy-six. His publisher, George P. Putnam, has issued, and continues to issue, three different editions of his writings, of which the following is a list: Alhambra, Astoria, Bonneville, Bracebridge, Columbus, Crayon, Goldsmith, Granada, Knickerbocker, Mahomet, Salmagundi, Sketch-Book, Spanish Papers, Traveller, Wolfert's Roost, Life of Washington.

It has been said that Mr. Irving, at one period of his life, seriously proposed to himself the profession of an artist. The idea was a legitimate result of his intellectual constitution; and although he denied its development in one form, in another it has fully vindicated itself. Many of his volumes are a collection of sketches, embodied happily in language, since thereby their more general enjoyment is insured, but susceptible of immediate transfer to the canvas of the painter. These are like a fine gallery of pictures, wherein all his countrymen delight in many a morning lounge and evening reverie.

Until within the last half century, not only the standard literature, but the critical opinions, of America were almost exclusively of transatlantic origin. But within that period a number of writers, endowed with acute perceptions and eloquent expression, as well as the requisite knowledge, have arisen to elucidate the tendencies, define the traits, and advocate the merits of modern writers. By faithful translations, able reviews, lectures and essays, the best characteristics of men of literary genius, schools of philosophy, poetry, and science have been rendered familiar to the cultivated minds of the nation. Thus Richard H. Dana has explored and interpreted, with a rare sympathetic intelligence, the old English drama; Andrews Norton, the authenticity of the Gospels; Richard H. Wilde, the love and madness of Tasso; Alex ander H. Everett, the range of contemporary French and German literature; Professor Reed, the poetry of Wordsworth; Henry N. Hudson, the plays of Shakspeare; John S. Hart, the Faery Queen; Russell Lowell, the older British poets; and Edwin P. Whipple, the

best authors of Great Britain and America. W. A. Jones, Hoffman, Duyckinck, and others, have also illustrated our critical literature.

For the chief critical and biographical history of literature in the United States, we are indebted to E. A. and George Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature, two copious and interesting volumes, popular at home and useful abroad, giving an elaborate account of what has been done by American writers from the foundation of the country to the present hour. These works are the fruit of great research, and an enthusiasm for native literature as rare as it is patriotic. Our numerous "Female Prose Writers" have also found an intelligent and genial historian and critic in Professor Hart.

The philosophic acuteness, animated and fluent diction, and thorough knowledge of the subjects discussed, render Mr. Whipple's critical essays among the most agreeable reading of the kind. His reputation as an eloquent and sagacious critic is now firmly established. Both in style and thought these critical essays are worthy of the times; bold without extravagance, refined, yet free of dilettanteism, manly and philosophic in sentiment, and attractive in manner. The most elaborate single work, however, in the history of literature, is George Ticknor's History of Spanish Literature, the result of many years' research, and so complete and satisfactory, that the best European critics have recognized it a permanent authority; it is both authentic and tasteful; the translations are excellent, the arrangement judicious, and the whole performance a work of genuine scholarship. It supplies a desideratum, and is an interesting and thorough exposition of a subject at once curious, attractive, and of general literary utility. James Walker and Francis Wayland, although of widely diverse theological opinions, are both expositors of moral philosophy, to which they have made valuable contributions. Henry James, of Albany, is the most argumentative and eloquent advocate of new social principles in the country; and Waldo Emerson, by a certain quaintness of diction and boldly speculative turn of mind, has achieved a wide popularity. It is, however, to a peculiar verbal facility and aphoristic emphasis, rather than to any constructive genius, that he owes the impression he creates. He is regarded as the leader of a sect, who, some years since, from the reaction of minds oppressed and narrowed by New England conventionalism and bigotry, and, in some instances, kindled by the speculations of German literature, broke away from the conventional and sought freedom in the transcendental school. In the Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, the movement is described and the principles of its disciples hinted rather than explained. "The rise of this enthusiasm," says her biographer, was as mysterious as that of any form of revival; and only they who were of the faith could comprehend how bright was this morning-time of a new hope. Transcendentalism was an assertion of the inalienable integrity of man, of the ordinances of Divinity in instinct. In part it was a reaction against Puritan orthodoxy; in part an effect of renewed study of the ancients, of Oriental Pantheists, of Plato, and the Alexan* Essays and Reviews; Literature and Life; Character and Characteristic Men.

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drians, of Plutarch's Morals, Seneca, and Epictetus; in part the natural product of the place and time. On the somewhat stunted stock of Unitarianism - whose characteristic dogma was trust in individual reason as correlative to Supreme Wisdom - had been grafted German idealism as taught by masters of most various schools."

Whoever turns to Emerson's Essays, or to the writings of this transcendental sibyl (whose remarkable acquirements, moral courage, and tragic fate, render her name prominent among our female authors) for a system, a code, or even a set of definite principles, will be disappointed. The chief good thus far achieved by this class of thinkers has been negative; they have emancipated many minds from the thraldom of local prejudices and prescriptive opinion, but have failed to reveal any positive and satisfactory truth unknown before. Emerson has an inventive fancy; he knows how to clothe truisms in startling costume; he evolves beautiful or apt figures and apothegms that strike at first, but when contemplated, prove, as has been said, usually either true and not new, or new and not true. His volumes, however, are suggestive, tersely and often gracefully written; they are thoughtful, observant, and speculative, and indicate a philosophic taste rather than power. As contributions to American literature, they have the merit of a spirit, beauty, and reflective tone previously almost undiscoverable in the didactic writings of the country. A writer of more consistency in ethics, and a sympathy with man more human, is Orville Dewey, whose discourses abound in earnest appeals to consciousness, in a noble vindication of human nature, and a faith in progressive ideas, often arrayed in touching and impressive rhetoric.

We have not been wanting in excellent translators, especially of German literature; our scholars and poets have admirably used their knowledge of the language in this regard. The first experiment was Bancroft's translation of Heeren, already referred to; and since then, some of the choicest lyrics and best philosophy of Germany have been given to the American public by Professor Longfellow, George Ripley, R. W. Emerson, John S. Dwight, S. M. Fuller, George H. Calvert, Rev. C. T. Brooks, W. H. Channing, F. H. Hedge, Samuel Osgood, and others. Dr. Mitchell, of New York, translated Sannazario's Italian poems, Mrs. Nichols the Promessi Sposi of Manzoni, and Dr. Parsons, of Boston, has made the best metrical translations into English of Dante's great poem.

The most elaborate piece of humor in our literature has been already mentioned- as Irving's facetious history of his native town. The sketch entitled The Stout Gentleman, by the same genial author, is another inimitable attempt in miniature, as well as some of the papers in Salmagundi. The Letters of Jack Downing may be considered an indigenous specimen in this department; and also the Charcoal Sketches of Joseph C. Neal, the Ollapodiana of Willis G. Clarke, the Puffer Hopkins of Cornelius Matthews, and many scenes by Thorpe, in Mrs. Kirkland's New Home, and the Biglow Papers of J. R. Lowell. The original aspects of life in the West and South, as well as those of Yankee Land, have also found several apt and graphic delineators;