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These and similar opinions were universally expressed by the better class of German critics and were soon echoed by numerous readers. The fame of the 'Sketches' reached to Paris, and the Revue des Deux Mondes' for April, 1835, thus referred to

ly to contribute my mite to the fund of lit- this from 'Gersdorf's Repertorium of Gererature, but I yield to the well-founded en-man Literature"- the journey of a young treaties of my publishers, who fear the pi- bachelor through various provinces of the racy that might be facilitated by further United States, affords an opportunity of deconcealment.' And accordingly he signs picting, in light but striking outlines, withhimself Charles Sealsfield, but denies us, out exaggeration either of merits or defects, what we would gladly have received, fur- the institutions of the country, the various ther information concerning his career shades of difference in provincial character, since and previously to his taking up the pen. political views and private interests, as well Thus we remain in ignorance, save through as the peculiarities of classes and individindirect channels, of the circumstances uals, such as are nowhere to be found but under which he acquired his vast fund of amidst the motley population of North information and his thorough knowledge of America." the German tongue. Regarding his country, our data are rather more positive, for we have seen a letter from one of his various publishers, in which he is styled 'a North American, long resident in Switzerland.' Of the latter country we know that he is at present an inhabitant. We them: Here is a writer who has no pretenhave also been told by a respectable German, professing to be personally acquainted with Mr. Sealsfield, that that gentleman has been a planter in Louisiana, the scene of some of his books; and the same authority expressed his belief that he was not an American by birth, but a native of an English sea-port town. We would fain claim a man of his talents for a countryman, but the disfavor and dislike shown in various parts of his works to English character and institutions, forbid the supposition, and compel us to reject the information.

In Germany, still more than in England, owing to the prodigious number of books annually published, readers find it necessary to be guided in their choice by the names of authors and publishers, and the opinions of reviewers, and, the art of puffery being less extensively developed and ingeniously practised there than here, they are enabled to do so with less risk of deception. Published anonymously, Mr. Sealsfield's first work attracted comparatively little notice, until subsequent productions of the same skilful pen forcibly drew attention to the writings of a man who had struck out for himself a new path in German literature. But his second book, the Travelling Sketches,' was too remarkable for freshness, character, and vivacity of style, to pass even partially unnoticed, and all the best reviews were at once loud in its praise. These Sketches,' said a writer in Brockhaus's Literarische Unterhaltung's Blätter for 1834,' 'give us more information about America than all the tours and travels of Europeans put together.' 'A very simple circumstance,'

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sion to stand at the head of German literature, for all manner of reasons, one of which is that he lives in America. Notwithstanding that, his pictures of life and society are true to nature and abound in esprit; one recognizes the practical man, employing with much skill the humor' peculiar to the north. And then, he is no partisan; he is certainly a little proud of his quality of citizen of the United States, and pities us Europeans for continuing to languish under tyrants about whom most of us trouble our heads very little but for all that he holds his transatlantic country tolerably cheap."

We could not have summed up more briefly than by these extracts from reviews of high standing in their respective countries, our own opinion of the book in question, and, with some slight shades of difference, which will hereafter appear, of the four much more compendious volumes, by which the author, stimulated, as he tells us, by public applause, was subsequently induced to lengthen it.

Wearisomely didactic or childishly trifling as, with some few honorable exceptions, the present race of German fiction writers unquestionably are, there is little to astonish in the favorable reception which the two little volumes of Travelling Sketches' found at the hands of the German public. From the dull mass their fresh and sparkling pages stood out in bright relief, like flowers amongst faggots, and were, in truth, water to the thirsty soul. A certain novelty of form also had its charm. Not aspiring to the dignity of a regular novel, the Sketches' consist of a

"Monsieur, voilà votre terre,' said the Creole, pointing to the shore. I looked through the window and saw that he was right. Whilst chatting with the young ladies, hours and miles had passed almost unperceived. During my absence, my overseer has established a One improvement,

at least. And there is Mr. Bleaks in person. The Creole seems disposed to accompany me to the house. I cannot prevent it, but hope he will not be so exceedingly kind. Nothing more terrible than such a visit when one has been for years absent from house and home. The lares and penates of a bachelor are the most careless of all deities.

An extract or two will best series of short papers, traversed by a slight quaintance. connecting thread, growing thicker and give an idea of the easy natural manner in binding them closer as the book advances. which Mr. Sealsfield places before the The plot, if it can be styled one, is most reader his pictures of American scenery, inartificial. A young Virginian bachelor feelings, and modes of life. The steamer of aristocratic tendencies-for America stops to take in firing. that is to say-has left his plantation in care of an overseer, and been on a tour to the northern states of the union, hoping to bring back a fair and amiable helpmate to cheer his solitude on the thinly-peopled banks of the Red River. After more than one disappointment, he has attached him-wood-store for steamers. self to a New York coquette, on whom he has long danced attendance, not without encouragement, but without positive acceptance. At the moment of anticipated success, our author takes up his history, and shows poor Howard jilted by the young lady for a man twice his age, but four times as wealthy. Disgusted and heartsore, he leaves New York in company with his friend Richards. Their journey is the pretext for introducing more portraiture of American life and manners; Yankee traders, Alabama orators, the fun and frolic of a backwoods election; all traced with a free pen, and with a naïveté and slyness of humor that often reminds us of Washington Irving. At the house of Richards, the susceptible Howard again falls half in love, but he has arrived rather too late, and the object of his flame departs as the affianced of Ralph Doughby, a mad Kentuckian, who "Est-il permis, monsieur?' said the Crecuts an important figure in the continuation of the Sketches.' Soon afterwards How-ole, taking my hand and pointing to the

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"Mister Bleaks,' said I, approaching that worthy, who, in his red flannel shirt, calico inexpressibles, and straw hat, did not appear to trouble himself much about the arrival of his employer; 'will you be so good as to have the gig and luggage brought on shore?

"Ah, Mr. Howard,' said the man, 'is it you? Didn't expect you so soon.'

"Nevertheless, I trust I am not unwelcome,' replied I, a little displeased at his thorough Pennsylvanian dryness. "You've surely not come alone?" continued he in the same tone. 'Are you?' said he, measuring me with a side-glance. Thought you'd have brought us a dozen blackies; we want them.'

house.

ard overhears part of a conversation be"And the steamer?' said I, in a tone that tween Richards and his wife, a smart young would have told any one only moderately lady from the Yankee capital of Boston. versed in physiognomy or psychology, that his It serves to inform him that his last court-presence was really superfluous. ship has purposely been embarrassed and impeded. Richards is his debtor for a sum of eight thousand dollars, and he, and especially Mrs. Richards, feared that on the occasion of his marriage with a lady who, although pretty, was portionless, he might have need of the money. These slight incidents give opportunities for the display of

much character.

"Oh, that will keep,' replied, he, smiling. What could I do? I was fain to take the strange creature to my house, unwillingly though I did it. It was a frightful spectacle, an abomination of desolation. Every thing looked so decaying, so neglected and spoiled,far worse than I had anticipated. Of the garden fence but a few fragments remained, and the pigs were routing in the parterres. And the house! God help me! Not a pane in the windows; the frames stuffed with old rags,

Crossed in his loves, and deceived by his remnants of men's breeches and women's friend, it is in no good humor that Howard gowns. I could not expect to find groves of goes on board a Red River steamer to re-orange and citron trees; I had not planted turn home. On the boat he falls in with a them; but this!-no; it was really too bad. Creole family, a father and two daughters, Every picture that is not a fresco must have its whose lands are within a few hours steam- shady side, but here all was shade-night. ing of his own-near neighbors in Louis-Not a creature to be seen as we wind our way through the mouldering tree-trunks that eniana. Monsieur Menou succeeds, in spite cumber the ground. At last we stumble upon of his young fellow-planter's irritated and something living; a trio of black monsters inaccessible mood, in striking up an ac-wallowing in the mud with Marius and Sylla;

half a shirt on their bodies, and dirty as only the children of men can be. The apes stare at us with their rolling eyes, and then gallop away behind the house.

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I had just opened my trunk and glanced over some letters and receipts when she re-appeared with the account books, and took her station, with arms a-kimbo, in the middle of the floor. In-doors, instead of sofas and chairs, the draw Her husband walked very leisurely into the ing-room was piled with Mexican cotton-seed; next rook, fetched a couple of chairs, and the in one corner old blankets, in another wash-pair seated themselves. Truly our beloved ing-tub. The other rooms were in still worse liberty has much that is cursedly disagreeplight; Bangor, the negro, had established able." himself in my sleeping apartment, whence the mosquito-curtains had disappeared, having probably been found useful by Mrs. Bleaks. Heartily disgusted, I hurried from this scene of disorder.""

Monsieur Menou proposes that Howard should accompany him home for a time, and offers to send his son to set things to rights. Howard thoughtlessly accepts, and is returning to the steamer, when his fiveand-twenty negroes come howling about him and exhibit their backs, scarred and cut by the whip. Shocked and indignant, he retracts his over-hasty acceptance of the Creole's invitation, resolves to remain where he is and to see justice done to the ill-treated negroes. The steamer has departed, when, to his great surprise and annoyance, he finds M. Menou again at his elbow. The officious but kind-hearted man insists on remaining to give him his advice and assistance.

"My poor negroes and negresses wept and laughed for joy; the children hung about their parents; all eyes were fixed upon me with an expectant gaze. I ordered them to go to their huts, whence I would send for them as I wanted them.

"D—the blackies!' cried Mr. Bleaks, as they walked away: 'it's long since they tasted the whip.'

"I did not answer, but, signing to him to leave me, desired old Sybil to call Beppo and Mirza.

"This looks like an examination,' snarled the overseer, 'If so, I shall be present.'

"None of your impudence, Mr. Bleaks,' said I. Take yourself off, and wait my or

ders.'

"And none of your fine airs,' retorted he. 'We are in a free country, and you've no nigger before you.'

"This was too insolent. 'Mr. Bleaks,' said I, with as much coolness as I could command, I discharge you from my employment. Your engagement is till the first of July. You shall be paid up to that date.'

"Not a foot will I set over the threshold till I have received my salary, and expenses, and advances,' replied the man, drily.

Long absent from home, and inattentive to his affairs, Howard does not even attempt to detect numerous wilful errors in the books of his overseer, who accounts to him but for a small portion of the real produce of the plantation. The Creole steps in to the rescue, and Bleaks, convicted of fraud, is kept prisoner in his house till he can be transferred to the custody of the authorities.

"But, my dear Mr. Menou,' said I, as we sat at dinner and he uncorked a second bottle thy man had not forgotten to bring on shore of some excellent chambertin, which the worwith him, whence comes it that you show me such unmerited sympathy?"

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"Ah! replied he, half-smiling, half-serious; 'you citizen aristocrats, in your proud, stiff, republican egotism, may have difficulty to understand that. You think only of yourselves, and look down upon us Creoles and upon the rest of the world as beings of an inferior race. We do not forget ourselves, but we also think of our neighbors. Your affairs, both of the heart and as regards your temporal goods, are well known to me, and you see that I make good use of the knowledge.'

"I pressed his hand, heartily and in silence. "We are not particularly fond of you northern gentlemen,' continued he, but you are an exception. You have a dash of the French étourderie, and a good deal of our generosity.'

"I could not help smiling at this sketch of my character.

"The next morning brought young Menou, an active, sensible youth of twenty. The day passed in an inspection of the plantation, and in a few hours the young man had acquired my full confidence. I recommended my people to his care, and that evening his father and myself went on board the 'Ploughboy' steamer.

The good Creole had behaved towards me like a Christian. When the boat stopped before the house of the justice of peace, who was just going to bed, and I went on shore to explain the reasons of my application for Mr. Bleaks' arrest, the worthy functionary accosted me with this naïve confession:

"I saw it all, my dear Mr. Howard,' said he, 'as clear as sunlight; saw every bale that they stole from you, or tried to steal.'

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But, in Heaven's name, man!' I exclaimWhy did you let it go on?' "No business of mine, friend,' was his dry

"Bring me your accounts,' cried I. My blood began to boil. The man called through the window to his wife, who came in. They exchanged a few words, and she went away. I reply.

"You might, at any rate, have informed | texture less slight; more pains have obvimy lawyer.' ously been taken, and greater finish has No business of mine,' was again the an- been given, but without detriment to freshswer; and then, fixing his eyes hard upon me. ness. The scene of nearly the whole volhe began a sort of lecture for which I was totally unprepared. 'Yes, yes,' he said, push-ume, as compendious as the two of 'Traving his nightcap over his left ear, 'you young elling Sketches,' passes on board Missisgentlemen come out of the north with your sippi and Red River steamboats; but, notdozen blackies, hand over your couple of withstanding the narrow stage whereon the thousand dollars to the county, and then fancy actors move, there is infinite variety in their you have nothing to do but to play the absenperformance. Mr. Sealsfield takes up Howtee, and that you honor us greatly by allowing ard exactly where he left him, on his wedus to collect your dollars and bank-notes and send them to you to spend out of the country. ding-day, when, in company with his bride and her friends, and with Richards, whom I could almost be sorry, Mr. Howard, that you he has met at New Orleans and forgiven, didn't come six months later.' he sets out for the Red River. A graphic description is given of the company on board the steamboat.

"And so leave the rogue time to make off with his booty?'

"He had worked for it, at any rate, and has wife and children, and has been useful to the county and the country.'

"The devil!' cried I. For a justice of peace, you have certainly a singular code.' "Made neither by Bony nor Livingston,' replied the man earnestly, but not the less patriotic.""

"Truly the night-piece was no bad one. On the boundary line between quarter-deck and forecastle, at equal distance from stem and stern, stood a group of men of such varied and strange appearance as it would be useless to seek in any other country than America. Every western state and territory had, as it seemDoubtless, no untrue or over-colored ed, sent its contingent to our steamer. Suckers picture of the state of feeling in the more from Illinois and Badgers from the lead-mines of Missouri; Wolverines from Michigan and newly-settled districts of America, on a Buckeyes from Ohio; Redhorses from Old point of vital importance. Such opinions, Kentuck and Hunters from Oregon, stood in in spite of their abstract immorality, must strange medley before us, and in garbs which, find many proselytes in countries to whose seen by the torch-light, lent a sort of antedilu prosperity and progress the principle of ab- vian aspect to their gigantic forms. One had senteeism, once introduced and acted upon, a hunting-shirt of blue and white-striped calico, would be certain destruction. Howard giving to its wearer, on account of his extraordigests Squire Turnip's reproof as best he dinary breadth of shoulder, the appearance of may, and continues his journey to the a wandering feather-bed; another was distinguished by a new straw-hat,which looked about Menou Plantation. There he falls in with as well above his bronzed countenance as their Santa Anna, then in exile in consequence Chinese roofs do upon our summer-houses. of one of the frequently occurring Mexi- Winnebago wampum-belts and Cherokee can revolutions. An accident at a noctur- moccasins, doublets of tanned and untanned nal hunting party is the means of revealing deer-hide, New York coats, and red and blue to Howard, what he had previously in no jackets, composed altogether a sample of our way suspected, that he is an object of affec-national costume than which nothing could be tionate interest to Menou's younger daugh; The love passages are naturally and delicately treated, and the book concludes with a journey to New Orleans and the marriage of Howard and Louise Menou.

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more picturesqe. In the centre of the crowd stood a person bearing no bad resemblance to Master Reynard when he crept out of his earth and saw the merry hunters filing joyously past him; a truly interesting Yankee specimen, with his look of earnest rebuke, his forehead After the lapse of nearly two years, and plaited into innumerable wrinkles, his sparkthe publication of two books on other sub-ing red-grey eye apparently fixed but yet conjects, Mr. Sealsfield again brought upon the scene the personages of his Travelling Sketches' This was done in the third volume of the 'Lebensbilder,' which also bears the second title of 'Ralph Doughby's Wedding Trip.' In opposition to what is too often the case in continuations, this volume, is, if any thing, superior to the preceding ones. The personages are more numerous, the incidents more striking, the

tinually rolling, now glancing at the backwoodsman, and then at his boxes of goods; his lips tightly compressed, his whole attitude rendering it doubtful whether he was about to preach, or sing, or play the schoolmaster. The man might be thirty years of age, but was dry as leather; he had a roll of chewing-tobacco in one hand, and in the other a bunch of silk ribands, abstracted, apparently, from a chest that stood before him half open, and disclosing the motley articles of a pedlar's trade. Beside this chest were two others, and near to one of

these lay a howling negro, scratching by turns and was eighteen years old, when I became his right shoulder and his left foot, but accord-acquainted with Peggy, a darling little thing, ing to all appearance still in no danger of de-as delicate as fresh butter and as sweet as honparting this life. The Yankee raised his hand ey. It was corn-husking time, and I told her and motioned to the noisy black to be silent, and as he did so his countenance assumed that stiff, earnest, and yet drolly cunning expression which betrays these double distilled Hebrews, and serves as a warning to these southlanders whose good dollars they are plotting to obtain, in a quasi legal manner, in barter for their northern equivalents."

about the Indian war, and how we had bivouacked and the rest of it, and she listened to it all, and in less than a fortnight I was in love over head and ears. Was, as I said, just eighteen-she sixteen. For her sake I could have whipped a whole wigwam full of Seminoles, that could I, by jingo! Several months passed, and I thought I was getting on well with her, and kept sneakin' about her like a wolf round a flock of sheep, or a sentry round the watch-fire when we were out against the Indians, but she said neither no nor yes. evening, however, she said to me,

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"Ralph,' says she, 'you are really a deal too wild.

"What! cried I, 'Peggy, I too wild! you should see old Hickory, that's the man you

wild, rough as a bear, and you drink too much "Ralph,' says she, 'indeed you are too whiskey!

"Monongahela, Peggy, genuine Monongahela, and why should I not drink it since God let's it grow? Peggy,' says I, 'genuine Monongahela, and all paid for, owe no man a cent; have got six niggers, as stout niggers as you'll cash besides, that my father left me, and a trifle find in old Kentuck, and a thousand dollars over, and if you'll say the word we'll be man and wife.'

"Ralph,' says she, 'you are quite too wild, drink too much; will see about it in eight days, will think about it, and you may come and ask me in eight days, but no sooner.'

The scene of which this is the opening is richly comic, and as good as any part of 'Sam Slick.' The negro is a decoy-duck, bribed by the Yankee pedlar to exhibit in his own person the miraculous effects of a certain Palmyra ointment, which wonderworking remedy is speedily in demand amongst the backwoodsmen. The discov-may call wild.' ery of its real ingredients, and of the bad quality of many other of the pedlar's wares, his punishment, their destruction, but, above all, his puffing address in their praise, and flattery of the buyers, make up a most diverting and characteristic chapter. Ralph Doughby now comes upon the scene. He is the type of the Kentuckian, impetuous, reckless, warm-hearted; risking his neck for the pleasure of doing so, giving pain to no one intentionally but to many through thoughtlessness, a hard drinker but no drunkard, a violent democrat but nevertheless possessing some of the instincts and feelings of a gentleman. His entrée en scène "I was obliged to do her will and wait the is quite in character; he gets half-drowned eight days, as restless as if I had Spanish pepper rubbed into me, and when they were past when coming on board, and after shifting I went down to Peggy's house, and whom do his clothes and swallowing a tumbler of tod- you think I found there? Asa Dumbling, sitdy, sits down with his friends Howard and ting arm-in-arm with Peggy before the kitchenRichards to tell them his misfortunes. He fire, and when he saw me he laughed in my has been sent to the right-about by his lady- face, and Peggy laughed too. I had half a love, a stiff, chilly Yankee damsel, on ac-sent. I could't get her out of my head for ever mind to leather him by way of a wedding precount of certain wild exploits of which he so long, but at last my brother said to me, was guilty whilst accompanying her and her father to New York. He describes his adventures during the journey, amongst others a steam-boat race, which he promoted in spite of the terrors and entreaties of his intended bride and father-in-law, and which was near terminating in bursting of boilers-a common catastrophe on American rivers. The account of the race is perfect in its way. We would willingly extract it, but it is too long and too good to mutilate. Doughby's account of courtship in Kentucky, and of the causes and manner of his emigration, may serve to give a notion of the Kentucky style of narrative.

"Let the girl he, Ralph,' said he, ‘if she meant to have you, she wouldn't let Asa come sparking about her, she's only making a fool of you.'

And I thought to myself, Joe's right about that. And so says Joe,

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thing if you made your niggers knock up a Ralph,' says he, 'you'd be doing a better flat-boat; you've a couple of hundred casks of meal, and Indian corn, and hams, and cider, and apples; the articles will fetch good prices in Louisiana.'

"Hallo, Joe,' says I, reckon that's a good off; old Kentuck is reg'lar spoilt for me; will notion: the Cumberland's rising, and I'll be down the Mississippi, and see what the folks

do in Louisiana.' No sooner said than done. Of boards and beams I had plenty; in three weeks "Had just returned from the Seminole war, I had knocked up a flat-boat, as solid as ever

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