Mary Clavers, the most agreeable and original of American female writers, the equal, not the imitator, of Miss Mitford, is perhaps the best writer of western sketches and manners we have seen; she pursues a course, and occupies a prominent place in her line of authorship, quite distinct from Judge Hall. The latter writer illustrates rather the historical romance of the West-especially that of Indian and French settlers' life, than the manners of the present race of emigrants. Her sprightliness, good sense, and keen penetration are inexhaustible, and her style is a clear and natural reflection of these fine qualities. Her circle is apparently confined to that region; but why it should be so, does not follow, necessarily, or by consequence. After the universal applause with which her Western tales have been received, what new tribute can we bring to her grace, humor and naturalness? Mrs. Kirkland is the Miss Burney of the new settlements, (not the Madame d'Arblay, for Evelina is the best of the fictions of that writer, as well as the earliest.) Her ordinary observation is not confined to the city or village, but flourishes in the back woods. The broad vulgarity, the rustic pedantry, the senseless pretensions of a certain class of vulgar minds the world over, is to be found wherever real coarseness but affected fastidiousness exists. Mrs. Clavers, with all her satire of such persons, has nothing of the same quality in her own writings, a criticism that cannot so justly be passed upon the authoress of Evelina, who cherished a certain artificial gentility, the reverse in appearance of vulgarity, but still its invariable accompaniment. The humor of Mrs. Kirkland is gay and sympathetic, as well as keen and satirical. She can jest as well as ridicule; she laughs with, as often as she laughs at, her characters. We know nothing we can add to our previous judg way of ment of Mr. Simms' Wigwam and Cabin, save in the parallel with the somewhat similar series of tales by Judge Hall, the Western historian, par excellence. Both are accomplished raconteurs; but Mr. Simms brings more of the novelist's art, and the concentrated: force of the practised writer to his aid, than the Judge appears to us to possess, or to be able to control. In level passages, Hall is generally the neater writer, always correct and pleasing: yet Mr. Simms throws more power, passion and energy into his narratives. The Judge is something of a humorous satirist, and indulges in a playful vein of innocent raillery, which we are not apt to meet in the pages of the Southern novelist. Making a fair allowance for the difference between the Indian in the South or at the West, we still think Mr. Simms' Indian the more truly and graphically painted. Judge Hall seems to be most at home in his romantic legends and domestic history of the early French settlers, their manners, customs, character and disposition. This writer holds a pleasing pencil, and with which he has sketched many a fair scene. His descriptions of the prairie, scattered through all of his tales, are peculiarly well done. : Judge Hall has been very justly classified by a judicious critic as a Western Irving, without his force of humor or fertility of resources; comparatively a feebler writer, yet still well worthy of a place among our first American standards. For Irving's rich humor and charming description, you find in him agreeable pleasantry. He has not equal fineness, yet as much truth of sentiment. In style, he is equally pure, though by no means as rich and musical. If Judge Hall is justly styled a Western Irving, Mr. Simms may be at least as appropriately called the Cooper of the South. For, with his favorite novelist, the Southern writer enjoys in common many of his best qualities; his directness, manliness, force and skill in painting details. Mr. Simms has produced no long work of the same sustained interest and power as the Pilot, but he has done many capital things which either his Northern rival cannot execute, or will not attempt. In shorter tales, each of which embodies all the interest and concentrates the power of a fiction of higher pretensions of Indian and Planters' life, our Southerner is at the head of a very respectable class of writers. He is a faithful painter, also, of negro character, and perfectly at home with the average society and current manners of the South. He is admirable in his personal histories, as of Boone and Weemsin his local scenery, especially in Carolina and Georgia. His narrative is clear, racy, natural, constructed with practised art, (Mr. Simms has at least as much judgment as invention,) and thoroughly American. In these novelettes the interest is always well sustained-sometimes to a pitch of painful interest. Mr. Simms, besides, as critic and miscellaneous writer no less than as an imaginative writer, is the foremost writer of the South, and is naturally the idol of those generous critics whose blood runs warmer than in these Hyperborean regions. He has identified himself with their feelings and institutions, and labors manfully to earn an honorable place for his native State, not only in a political, but also in a literary point of view. IX. THE LECTURE. THE lecture, as a form of composition, is a skilful union of the oration and the essay. The lecturer is, consequently, both writer and speaker, and enjoys the double advantage of an audience of hearers as well as of readers. Hence, the personal reputation of the able lecturer is much more captivating than the general reputation of even a popular author, and, consequently, the field is crowded with competitors. The lecture is to be tested, therefore, in two ways: as it reads, and as it sounds when delivered. In one of the two departments it must take, else it fails altogether. A skilful declaimer may palm off a worthless production on his hearers by the charms of voice and manner, but print is the final appeal; on the other hand, a careful thinker may be a tiresome reader or speaker; but in his case, too, print must decide his merits. The lecture is the popular philosophical teaching of the day. It is essentially didactic, and here most popular lecturers err; they substitute the declamation, or literary address, for the lecture; they adorn and illustrate, instead of analysing and discussing, old or new truths. They appear to regard the lecture merely as an occasion for oratorical display. Now this, in the best instances, certainly forms a part of the true idea of a good lecture, though it is not its highest aim, nor its sole aim, but rather a quite inconsiderable incident in it. Such display, if in good taste, is very gratifying, and to most hearers, the most agreeable part of a lecture. But the better part of each audience go to learn something. Flourishes, and tricks of metaphor, and arts of elocution, can never effect this end. The first requisite of a lecture is perfect clearness, both of thought and style; the next is force and fertility of ideas and illustration; and the last, and the most important, is genuine sincerity, and a liberal cast of thought. The last gives a certain moral value to the lecture. We do not consider it necessary to add, that a complete knowledge and mastery of the subject is perfectly essential, nor that here, as in the other departments of oratory, an impressive manner and brilliant elocution cannot fail to carry very great weight with them. We define the lecture as a skilful union of the oration and the essay. In our view, the essay should greatly predominate, inasmuch as the object is to teach. It is very well if amusement can be afforded; and to the right hearer, the most philosophical instruction affords the highest intellectual pleasure. All, however, occasionally.require relaxation and amusement. A lively epigram, entertaining anecdotes, a quaint picture, or a story in point, may serve very agreeably to relieve the wellcompacted chain of argument and deduction. An occasional golden ring of fancies may be soldered, as it were, into the delicate net-work of consecutive propositions. Breaks, and transitions, and episodes, will rest the mind, tired with a closet discussion of abstract principles, as landing-places on the staircase of the palace of truth. But this by the way. The principal design is to place in the most conspicuous: light some one central truth, or idea, or fact in philosophy, criticism or history. In order to ascertain the proper position of this truth, the comparative history or anatomy of similar truths, ideas, or facts, must be gained. Thus, to fix one rule; to certify one fact, to arrive at a just notion of one doctrine, or the spirit of one system, the lecturer must be acquainted with, must allude to many. The lecture, then, is exhaustive, |