what he has written. They had ransacked the circulating libraries, anew; looked into such of his novels, as they could find, most of them for the first time, and the "balance," for the last time; dried out the grease-righted the leaves-wrote over the marginsdog-eared what was agreeable-hurried through a part-skipped the rest― smuttied their fingers-paid a 'fippenny bit' a head-and what more would you have? They had bragged of their national spirit, as being unexampled-(they were right-it is unexampled :) of their national genius, which had been able to "extort" praise from usin spite of our teeth ;--they had made a plenty of noise about poor Brown; hurraed,like fine fellows, for American literature and what more would any reasonable man---who knows them thoroughly---desire ? Brown wrote Arthur Mervyn; Edgar Huntly; Clara Howard; Wieland; Jane albot; Ormond; and some papers, which have since been collected and called the Bibloquist. Clara Howard and Jane Talbot are mere newspaper novels; sleepy, dull common-sense---very absolute prose-nothing more. Arthur Mervyn is remarkably well managed, on many accounts; and miserably on others. It was the first, the germ of all his future productions. Walbeck was himself he never equalled him, afterwards-tho' he did play him off, with a new name and a new dress, in every new piece. Explanations were designed---half-given, but never finished: machinery half disclosed---and then forgotten, or abandoned. Brown intended, at some future day, to explain the schoolmaster, that seduced the sister of Mervyn, into Walbeck: Incidents are introduced, with great emphasis, which lead nowhere--to nothing; and, yet, are repeated in successive works. Thus--(we speak only from recollection, and have not seen one of the books for many a year)--in Arthur Mervyn, Edgar Huntly, and, perhaps, in Jane Talbot, a sum of money comes into the possession of "another person," who converts it, under strong temptation, to his own use.- -Let us pass on. Edgar Huntly was the second essay Ormond, the last. About Wieland we are not very certain. These three are unfinished, irregular, surprising affairs. All are remarkable for vividness, circumstantiality, and startling disclosures, here and there: yet all are full of perplexity, incoherence, and contradiction. Sometimes, you are ready to believe that Brown had made up the whole stories, in his own mind, before he had put his pen to the paper; at others, you would swear that he had either never seen, or forgotten, the beginning, before he came to the end, of his own story. You never know, for example, in Edgar Huntly, whether — an Irishman, whose name we forget---a principal character, is or is not, a murderer. Brown, himself, seems never to have made up his own mind on that point. So--in Wieland-you never know whether Brown is,or is not in earnest; whether Wieland was, or was not, supernaturally made away with. So---in Ormond--who was the secret witness?-to what purpose ?-What a miserable catastrophe it isQuite enough to make anybody sick of puling explanations. Now,all this mystery is well enough,when you understand the author's intention. Byron leaves a broken chain--for us to guess by--when his Corsair is gone. We see that he scorns to explain. Byron is mysterious---Brown only perplexing. Why? Because Brown undertakes to explain; and fails. Brown might have refused as Byron did. We should have liked him, if he had, all the better for it; as we do Byron. But we shall never forgive him, or any other man, dead or alive, who skulks out of any undertaking with an air---as if not he, but other people are to be pitied.We have our eye on a case, in point; but, no matter now. Brown wanted material. What little he found, tho' it had all the tenuity of pure gold, he drew out, by one contrivance and another, till it disappeared in his own hands. So long as it would bear its own weight, he would never let go of it; and, when it broke--he would leave off spinning, for a time, as if his heart had broken with it. He would seem to have always taken up a new piece before he had thrown off the old one (we do not mean that Old One, whom it is rather difficult for any author to throw off, after he has once given himself up to the harlotry of the imagination)---to have clung, always, to one or two favourite ideas--the Ventriloquist and the yellow fever—as if they were his nest-eggs: one might have written, with as much propriety, at the end of any story that he ever wrote, as in almost every part of it--after the fashion of Magazines--"to be continued." This grew, of course, out of a system which prevailed, then ---and is now taking a new shape in the twopenny publication of costly works, by the number. He was a storyteller by profession. Like ****** he knew, very well-as did Hajji Baba--that nobody will pay for a joke, if he can help it; that, lunging point foremost, with an epigram---is like running hilt first with a small sword; that no man likes working for a dead horse; that, if you want your pay for a fat story, you must go round with your hat, before you have come to the knob. He was a magazine writer; and rather 'cute. There was no stealing his bait. If you nibbled, you were in, for the whole---like a woman in love hook, trap, and all. Money-lenders; gamblers; and subscribers to a story --which is "to be continued," nobody knows how long, are all in the same pickle. They must lend more; play higher; and shell out, again--or all that has been done, goes for nothing. You must have the last part of a story --or the first is of no use to you: (this very article, now, is a pretty illustration)our author knew this. He never let go of more than one end of a story, at a time--even when he had sold out. It is amusing to see how entirely he would forget where his own traps lay--while he was forging bait; his own hooks, while he was counterfeiting the flies. The curious box-broken to pieces, at night, so mysteriously (in the Sleep Walker) is in point. We could cite fifty more 46 ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series. cases. The secret witness is hardly anything else, but a similar box --knocked apart, in a mysterious manner---the Lord knows wherefore, So with Wieland: In every case, you leave off, in a tease---a sort of uncomfortable, fidgetting, angry perplex. ity--ashamed of the concern, that you have shown--and quite in a huff with him---very much as if you had been running yourself to death---in a hot wind-after a catastrophe---with the tail soaped. Yet, our conclusion respecting Charles Brockden Brown, is this. He was the Godwin of America. Had he lived here---or any where, but in America---he would have been one of the most capital story-tellers----in a serious way, that ever lived. As it is, there is no one story of his, which will be remembered or read, after his countrymen shall have done justice to the genius that is really among them. They have enough of it--and of the right sort--if they will only give it fair play. Let them remember that no man will be great, unless he work hard; that no man will work hard, unless he is obliged---and that those who do so work, cannot afford to work for nothing and find themselves. It would be well for his countrymen to profit by--not imitate---we despise imitation even of what is excellent--it would be well for them to profit by his example. We want once more, before we die, to look upon the face of a real North American. God send that we may! Brown's personal appearance was remarkable. He was a tall man--with a powerful frame-and little or no flesh. It was impossible to pass him, in the street, without stopping to look at him. His pale, sallow, strange complexion; straight black hair---"black as death;" the melancholy, broken-hearted look of his eyes; his altogether extraordinary face--if seen once, was never to be forgotten. He would be met, week after week-month after month---before he died, walking to and fro, in some unfrequented street of his native town, for hours and hours together-generally at a very early time in the morning-lost in thought, and looking like a ship-wrecked man. Nobody knew him---nobody cared for him-(till we took up his cause)--he was only an author--yet, when we have described him, everybody in Philadelphia will recollect him. After having walked, in this way, for seve ral hours, be would return to his desolate, miserable, wretched family, and fall to writing, as if he had not an other hour to live. We do not know his age-nor the time of his death precisely. But it must have been about 1813-and he was not far from 35. He went off in a lingering consumption, with a broken heart---and a spirit absolutely crushed. I saw him, said Mr. Sully, the painter, whom we have given a sketch of, in a former number---I saw him, a little before his death. I had never known him--never heard of himnever read any of his works. He was in a deep decline. It was in the month of November---our Indian summer--when the air is full of smoke. Passing a window, one day--I was caught by the sight of a man---with a remarkable physiognomy--writing, at a table, in a dark room. The sun shone directly upon his head. I never shall forget it. The dead leaves were falling, then--it was Charles Brockden Brown. Irving, in his "Tales," has purloined a head, and a scene, from Brown -probably, without knowing it; as Brown purloined from Godwin---if so ---why, so much the better for all parties. It has been the rage of late. In Wieland, there is a description of a murderer's face, appearing in a deserted house at night. Irving makes direct use of this head, in the negro, looking over the rock; and, indirectly, in his account of the picture, which, in its frightful distinctness, is not only very like Brown, but wholly unlike Irving. Yet, what are we to expect of a "traveller" who does not even pretend to know his own property; whose "trunk," as he says himself, is full only of odds and ends---belong ing to other people? Geoffrey used once, to remind us, in his veneration for the antique, of the man who had an old jack-knife, which he held in But let us finish with Brown. Irving is not alone under this charge of purloining from him-his face and eyes.-There are Neal and Cooper both of them have stolen his catamounts, and played the devil with his Indians. Neal, however, is content with "catching the idea"-and working it up, till it scratches his own fingers. But Cooper--so far as he can--steals the broom ready made! Neal is altogether too much of a poet. He overdoes everything---pumps the lightning into you, till he is out of breath, and you, in a blaze.--In his lucid intervals, he appears to be a very sensible fellow; but, in his paroxysms-there is not a page of his, that wouldn't take fire, in a high wind. He writes volume after volume, to the tune of three or four a-month; hardly one of which it is possible to read through: and yet, we could hardly open at a passage, without finding some evidence of extraordinary power-prodigious energy---or acute thinking. He is, undeniably, the most original writer that America has produced-thinks himself the cleverest fellow in America--and does not scruple to say so.---He is in Europe now. 363 So, with COOPER. The only cata- CAREY MATTHEW: An Irishman: formerly the most respectable publisher in America; now retired, in favour of his boys. He has written upon everything-always respectably; and, sometimes, with remarkable cleverness. He is a laborious collector of facts; and a good reasoner. His Olive Branch has gone thro' 12 or 20 editions in America. VARIETIES. The following is an extract of a letter from Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, late Governor of Bencoolen, communicating the destruction by fire of the ship Fame, in which he had embarked with his family and suite on his return to Europe. A more interesting narrative is scarcely to be found even in the pages of fiction. The loss sustained is unhappily irreparable. LOSS OF THE SHIP FAME. W E embarked on the 2d of February in the Fame, and sailed at day-light for England with a fair wind and every prospect of a quick and comfortable passage. The ship was every thing we could wish; and having closed my charge here much to my satisfaction, it was one of the happiest days of my life. We were, perhaps, too happy, for in the evening came a sad reverse. Sophia had just gone to bed, and I had thrown off half my clothes, when a cry of Fire! fire! roused us from our calm content, and in five minutes the whole ship was in flames! I ran to examine whence the flames principally issued, and found that the fire had its origin immediately under our cabin. Down with the boats! Where is Sophia? Here! The children? Here! A rope to Give the side! lower lady Raffles! her to me! says one; I'll take her, says the Captain. Throw the gunpowder overboard! It cannot be got at it is in the magazine close to the fire ! Stand clear of the powder! Skuttle the water-casks. Water! water! Where's Sir Stamford? Gone into the boat. boat. Nelson! Nelson! come into the Push off-push off !-Stand clear of the after part of the ship! "All this passed much quicker than I can write it; we pushed off; as we did so, the flames were issuing from our cabins, and the whole of the afterpart of the ship was in flames; the masts and sails now taking fire, we moved to a distance, sufficient to avoid the immediate explosion, but the flames were now coming out of the main hatchway, and seeing the rest of the crew, with the Captain, &c. still on board, we pulled back to her under the bows, so as to be most distant from the powder. As we approached, we perceived that the people from onboard were getting into another boat on the opposite side; she pushed off, we hailed her. Have you all on board? Yes, all save one. Who is he? Johnson, sick in his cot. Can we save him? No, impossible; the flames were then issuing from the hatchway; at this moment the poor fellow, scorched I imagine by the flames, roared out most lustily, having run up on deck. I will go for him, says the Captain. The two boats then came together, and we took out some of the persons from the Captain's boat, which was overladen, we then pulled under the bowsprit of the ship, and picked the poor fellow up. Are you all safe? Yes, we've got the man; all lives safe, thank God! pull off from the ship; keep your eye on a star, Sir Stamford; there's one barely visible. "We then hauled close to each other, and found the Captain fortunately had a compass, but we had no light but from the ship. Our distance from Bencoolen we estimated to be from 20 to 30 miles in a S. W. direction; there being no landing-place to the Southward of Bencoolen, our only chance was to regain that port. The Captain then undertook to lead, and we to follow in a N. N. E. course as well as we could. No chance, no possibility being left that we could again approach the ship, for she was one splendid flame fore and aft and aloft, her masts and sails in a blaze, and rocking to and fro, threatening to fall in an instant. There goes her mizen mast; pull away, my boys; there goes the gunpowder, thank God! "You may judge of our situation without further particulars; the alarm was given at about twenty minutes past eight, and in less than ten minutes she was in flames; there was not a soul on board at half-past eight, and in less than ten minutes afterwards she was one grand mass of fire. "My only apprehension was the want of boats to hold the people; as there was no time to have got out a long boat, or made a raft, all we had to rely upon was two small boats, which fortunately were lowered with out accident, and in these two small open boats, without a drop of water or grain of food, or a rag of covering, except what we happened at the moment to have on our backs, we embarked on the wide ocean, thankful to God for his mercies. Poor Sophia having been taken out of her bed, had nothing on but a wrapper, neither shoes nor stockings; the children were just as taken out of bed, whence one had been snatched after the flames had attacked any one to think of more than twe things-Can the ship be saved? No; let us save ourselves then-all else was swallowed up in one great ruin. "To make the best of our misfortune, we availed ourselves of the light from the ship to steer a tolerable good course towards the shore; she continued to burn till about midnight, when the saltpetre, of which she had 230 tons on board, took fire, and sent up one of the most splendid and brilliant flames that was ever seen, illuminating the horizon, in every direction, to an extent of no less than fifty miles, and casting that kind of blue light over us, which is, of all others, the most luridly horrible. She burnt and continued to flame in this style for about an hour or two, when we lost sight of the object in a cloud of smoke. "Neither Nelson, nor Mr. Bell, our medical friend, who had accompanied us, had saved their coats, the tail of mine, with a pocket handkerchief, served to keep Sophia's feet warm; and we made breeches for the children with our neckcloths. Rain now came on, but fortunately it was not of long continuance, and we got dry againthe night became serene and starlight. We were now certain of our course, and the men behaved manfully; they rowed incessantly, and with good heart and spirit, and never did poor mortals look out more for daylight and for land than we did. Not that our sufferings or grounds of complaist were any thing to what has often befallen others; but from Sophia's delicate health, as well as my own, and the stormy nature of our coast, I felt perfectly convinced we were unable to undergo starvation and exposure to the sun and weather many days; and aware of the rapidity of the currents, I feared we might fall to the southward of the port. "At day-light we recognized the coast and Rat Island, which gave us great spirits, and though we found our selves much to the southward of the port, we considered ourselves almost at home. Sophia had gone through the night better than could have been expected, and we continued to pull on St. In short there was not time for with all our strength. About eight or |