NATIVES OF SLAVE STATES IN THE NORTHWESTERN (FREE) TERRITORY.

Total

farmers, our mechanics, our laborers, avoid settling, and when a region is opened to slavery, it is virtually a banishment of free-labor. New York has sent 130,000 people to Michigan, 67,000 to Illinois, 83,000 to Ohio, which were free, as territories; but to Missouri, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisana, which were slave territories, not 12,000 altogether! Pennsylvania has sent 300,000 to the free northwestern territories; but to all the slave-territories not 15,000 altogether. Is it by excluding slavery, that we destroy the equality of the states? Is it not clear that by establishing it we do so? We have dwelt upon these points

Virginia

Texas

Tennessee

South Carolina

422 656

4,807 1,468 1,873

490 7,228 13,851 4,162 32,303

44 41,819

35 1,012

Grand Total, 556,900 ..... 2,007 1,111 1,129 9,258 777,112 153,899 1,557 54,772 1,268 9,994 52,467 10,030 47,384 150 154,685

Leaves total natives,

5,117,763

One-ninth of all the natives of the slave states are in the free states of the northwest."

because we desire to show how completely mistaken the principal opposition to the free-soil movement was, and because the debate is not yet terminated, and will not be terminated, except in the triumph of free-labor. The party in power will unquestionably make an effort to carry out their schemes during the next four years; and, with the President, the Senate, and the House at their disposal, there are apparantly no political means of resisting their plans. Yet it is not impossible that they will pause a little before the great demonstration made by the free states in the recent election. The policy of the slave party may lead them to attempt an appearance of moderation and conciliation. But, logically, that party can make no serious concession. The war between the two principles of labor in our civilization is now fairly engaged. As the smoke of the present battle clears away, and exposes the condition of the field, as the merits of the real issue emerge more and more into the light, as the utter groundlessness of this cry about the equality of the states becomes more apparent, as the masses of the laboring people discern more sharply-as they are beginning to discern-the incompatibility of slavery extension

with their own interests-the great sentiment of liberty, which is the deepest and most inspiring sentiment of the American heart, must acquire a more prevailing might. Every day the vulgar prejudices, the old commonplaces of party warfare, which are the last strong-holds of a dissolving system, are loosening and falling away. A prodigious advance, in this respect, was accomplished by the last campaign: it has opened thousands of eyes that were never before opened; and it has lodged great truths and liberal sentiments in many breasts, from which they will not again depart. In the state of opinion now, as compared with that of only four years ago, we possess the evidences of a vast revolution. The public mind has been purified of many political superstitions, and the public heart beats quicker to the call of freedom. The nature of that contest which the propagandists of slavery have forced upon us, is everywhere more accurately estimated. It is seen to be a contest between property, on one hand, and popular freedom on the other—in which the single aristocratic element of our society is pitted against its democratic and progressive civilization. And in such a contest, who can doubt the determination?

-OUR quadrennial election is as fatal to the pockets of publishers as it often is to the hopes of politicians. Hardly a work of any pretension has been sent to us thus far, during the "dreary month of November." The booksellers' clerks have stood idle at their counters, while newsagents had gone electioneering. "Lives" of the candidates was the only species of literature in demand, after newspapers and the "campaign documents." Even Dred has not sold, as it ought to have sold, and there was a sensible falling off in the circulation of Punch and the Illustrated News. Men were too busy in saving the Union to care about saving anything else, and there were so many meetings to attend, so many speeches to be heard or conned, and so much "more proof" to be ransacked, that the opera

AND

REPRINTS.

even stagnated, and the nimble fingers of Thalberg suspended their cunning.

It is a little curious, however, that in the midst of these feverish winds of poli tical debate that perennial winter-garden of literature-the lecture system has not ceased to bloom. The young men of the lyceums have not forgotten that the long evenings were coming on, and have provided themselves and their neighbors with the customary hebdomadal eloquence. We say this is curious, because we would naturally suppose that, after so much talking all summer, the listeners as well as orators would require rest. But it is characteristic of the vivacity of our American life, which so many pronounce sombre and dull, that the relief from one excitement is another. A more varied form of the entertainment might be desirable-though

the lecturers themselves, we presume, are satisfied with the thing as it is. Besides, compared with the fierce heats of the summer and autumn oratory, that of the winter will be no more than a gentle warmth. It will be a quiet tempering of the highstrung enthusiasm, which has prevailed, down to the due medium and tone of healthful feeling.

Now that the election is fairly over, the sluices of authorship, or rather of publish ership, will be again opened. Already the tables begin to groan with volumes that have been held back for the more fitting season, and the lists teem with new announcements. What with the reserves and with the stimulus always administered to the trade, by the near approach of the holidays, we are likely to be inundated with books. The press, which for two months has stood, like a restive steed, champing the bits, will now set forth with quickened speed. Who, in this prospect, will sympathize with us poor critics? Who will save us from the multitude of Tarpeian gifts about to be heaped upon our heads? Yet, we do not despair; we shall do our best in the stress and what we cannot do, others will, perhaps, do for us. It is a great consolation for authors and publishers that there are always more readers than critics, and that if the latter neglect them, the world may not. Let the books come, then-there is room enough for all the good will make their way with or without the help of the criticsand the bad will make their way, toothough in another direction-with or without the critics. Their function, in these days, is not to give a final but an accessory judgment-to speed the good to a readier appreciation, and to dismiss the bad to a quicker oblivion. For the world has come to judge for itself; no man is any more a supreme arbiter; the monopoly of literary opinion, such as was held of old by Scotch reviewers, has passedand it is before the public that writers must tremble, not before any self-constituted tribunal.

-We do not, however, depreciate our vocation. Although we may not be judges, we can be indices or guides-although our decisions are not "vermilion edicts," superseding all question--they may yet assist the general mind in its discriminations. We do not suppose, for instance,

that anything we could say, would add to or detract from the merits of HUDSON'S Shakespeare (Munroe & Co., Boston)--the last volume of which is just completed-for it is a work that must, sooner or later, become a standard with all admirers of the great bard-and yet we hope that a word of commendation from us may help it into a wider and earlier reception. What we have already said of the several vo lumes, as they appeared, is amply justified by this concluding volume. It contains a new life of the poet, an essay on the history of the drama, a general criticism of Shakespeare, and his earlier poems, with befitting introductions. The new life has nothing really new in it-nothing which is not to be found in Collier or Halliwellthe chief value of it consisting in the compactness with which all the facts shown to us are stated, and the good sense with which traditional and supposititious accretions are separated from the probabilities of history. He is justly jealous of the moral character of his hero, feeling that a nature so universal must have been as noble in heart as it was exalted in intellect; but he strains no point in establishing it, nor does he strive to show him exempt from all the weaknesses of humanity. The stories which have come down to us of Shakespeare's youthful indiscretions, and which are marks of buoyant and frolic animal spirits, not of corruption, he does not reject; but the less authentic reports of the unhappiness of his marriage relations, and of his long separation from his wife, on the ground of incompatibility, he gives no heed to. The darling object of Shakespeare's London life, he argues, was evidently that he might return to his native town with a handsome competence, and dwell in the bosom of his family; and the yearly visits which tradition reports him to have made to Stratford, look like anything but a wish to forget them, and be forgotten by them. From what is known of his subsequent course, it is certain that he had in a large measure that ambition, so natural to an English gentleman, of becoming the founder of a family; and, as soon as he had reached the hope of doing so, he retired to his old home, and there set up his rest, as if his best sunshine of life still waited in the presence of her from whose society he is alleged to have fled in disap

pointment and disgust. It is a pleasant thought of Mr. Hudson's, that the sonnets numbered xcvii., xcviii., and xcix., as originally printed, were addressed to Anne Hatheway, after his return. Our readers will remember the first, as beginning:

"How like a winter hath my absence been From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!" The prevailing tone and color of them are such as he would have used only towards a woman; they are full-fraught with deep personal feeling as distinguished from mere exercises of fancy; and they speak, with unsurpassable tenderness, of frequent absences. He also ascribes the sonnets from cix. to cxvii. to the same source-a conjecture in which we fully concur, because we like to believe it true.

The history of the drama, by Mr. Hudson, is full of patient research and accurate learning, as well as of fine philosophical distinction in regard to the object and scope of the classic and of the Gothic drama. The latter is more clearly unfolded in the general criticism on Shakespeare, which is as vigorous a piece of writing as our author has yet put forth. The keynote to his view of Shakespeare's preeminence is contained in his view of the nature of the drama, in itself, which," he says, as a work of art, should be, in the strictest sense, a society; that is, not merely a numerical collocation or juxtaposition, but a living contexture of persons and events. For men's natures do not, neither can they, unfold themselves severally and individually; their development proceeds from, by, and through each other, so that many must grow up together, in order for any one to grow. And, besides their individual circulations, they have a public common circulation; their characters interpenetrate more or less, one with another, and stand all together in mutual dependence and support. Nor does this vital coherence and reciprocity hold between the several characters merely, but also between these taken collectively, and the various conditions, circumstances, objects, influences, amidst which they have grown; so that the whole is like a large, full-grown tree, which is, in truth, made up of a multitude of little trees, all growing from a common root, nourished by a common sap, and bound together in a common life."

As we read Mr. Hudson's new life of the poet, we could not help saying to ourselves, here is the man of all history who is the least known and the best known to his fellows-the least known of any one of eminence, as to his external relations, and the best known in the interior depths of his soul. A hundred years of research, gleaning scantily in the fields of tradition, or of history little better than tradition, has discovered to us his birth-place, his marriage, his residences, and his death; but scarcely more. As a form he moves across the scene of life like the ghost of the buried majesty which he is said to have personated, with royal and stately mein, and yet an unreality. But as a spirit, we are permitted to enter into his inmost thoughts, and to see the processes of life going on there, and ever unfolding in new and beautiful creations. The man we know not-have scarcely a glimpse of him-but the poet is our eternal possession, every day revealing some fresh face of his allfusing genius.

-No author was ever more popular in America than Dickens, nowhere are there so many readers as here, and yet, until Mr. T. B. Peterson, of Philadelphia. undertook the publication of his entire works, there has been no complete uniform edition in the country. Mr. Peterson had already issued a poor and cheap series of Boz; but in view of the want of a good library edition, he has tried to supply it. On the whole, the work is fairly commenced. The two volumes of the Pickwick Papers are of good size and legible type, and the original cuts are reproduced. The edition is good enough to put successful competition out of the question, but it is not quite so good as we had hoped. It will, however, take its place as the American Library Dickens, and as we have turned lingeringly over the pages, with a laugh or a sigh to each, we have again honored the sweet and genial humorist, wishing that his years might be as his works, and have no completed edition.

-If it be pleasant to hear poets talk about poetry, it is no less so when travelers tell their own stories or the tales of others. This last work is one upon which BAYARD TAYLOR was engaged previous to his recent departure for the north of Europe, and which is now printed in a volume of a thousand pages, entitled, Cyclopædia of

Modern Travel, a Record of Adventure, Exploration, and Discovery, for the past Fifty Years; comprising Narratives of the most distinguished Travelers since the beginning of this Century, (Moore, Wilstach, Keys & Co., Cincinnati; Henry W. Law, New York). The comprehensive title describes the book. The history of the travel of the last half-century includes many of the most interesting discoveries upon record. Nor is there any literature more fascinating than the literature of travel. The travelers are excellent authors, perhaps from the reason that much wandering, under all circumstances, knocks conceit out of a man's mind, and, enabling him to estimate things in their just relations, makes him speak candidly and to the purpose. That travelers' tales are fables is an old proverb. Shakespeare justifies it, by making some one say

"For travelers tell no idle tales,

But fools at home believe them."

But Sir John Mandeville was one of the travelers of Shakespeare's reading, and there were hopes of finding Prester John in the poet's days. Yet, with the loss of fable, the literature of travel has lost none of its romance. Mr. Taylor himself is one of the most fascinating, but, also, one of the most accurate, of talking travelers. His Cyclopædia is culled, with the most sympathetic skill, from the works of all the most eminent explorers and delightful vagabonds of the half-century. Such men as Humboldt and Burckhardt walk over the world as if it were their garden; while the Arctic explorers and Fremont engage in triumphant struggles with the brute forces of nature, and perform feats of as lustrous heroism as Marathon or Trafalgar. The Cyclopædia is a charming work, and full of various information; while, over the whole, the compiler sheds the geniality of his own nature. The book is not as well treated by the publishers as its character deserves. Some of the wood-cuts are very slovenly and ineffective; and the whole appearance of the book is cheap and hurried.

-Selections from the works of authors, even the most voluminous, are always unsatisfactory; for every reader is jealous that any one else should presume to choose for him. But, as we said in a notice of Duyckinck's Wit and Wisdom of Sydney VOL. VIII.-42

Smith, it is á necessity constantly more imperative. This fact seems to have been fully recognized by JOSEPH WILLIAM JENKS, M.D., lately Professor of Language in the Urbana University, Ohio. Of what language Mr. Jenks is professor, is not stated upon the title-page of his book, which he calls The Rural Poetry of the English Language, illustrating the Seasons and Months of the Year, their Changes, Employments, Lessons, and Pleasures, topically paragraphed, with a complete Index (John P. Jewett & Co.). This extraordinary sign at the entrance of a large double-columned volume of English poetical selections, is followed by an equally extraordinary dedication to the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, than whom no gentleman could better deserve such a tribute, and this is succeeded by a preface, in which the compiler tells us that he has devoted ten years to the task of constructing the volume, "that thus he might fulfill a part of that obligation we are all under, to leave society better than we found it." After these performances we reach the selections, which are made from the entire range of English and American pastoral poetry, from Tusser to Longfellow. They are made with intelligence and care, and show that Mr. Jenks has studied faithfully the subject which he loves and illustrates. The book must become a friend of the country fireside, and it will have the good influence of sending many a young farmer's boy to drink deeply at the fountains of which Mr. Jenks proffers such draughts.

-The rare and genial humor of CHRISTOPHER PEARSE CRANCH, the landscapepainter and poet, has long been known to those who have had the good fortune of his acquaintance, or of seeing the pointed and adroit caricatures with which he has illuminated many grave books, wreathing them with a garland of delicate drollery. Last year, at Christmas, we noticed a little book for children, written and illustrated by him, and published in the most sumptuous manner, by Phillips, Sampson & Co. It was called The Last of the Huggermuggers, but was issued almost too late for the holiday sale at that time. The peculiarity of the story was its description of a good giant-for, from immemorial times, the giant was always the ogre and sinner of all fairy tales. book has received the most unqualifiedverdict of admiration from those most

That