by Hutchinson, the historian of Massachusetts, that had not Sir Henry Vane made use of this woman for political purposes, in endeavoring to alienate the people from their first leaders, and advance himself in civil authority, her name and opinions would probably have been soon forgotten. As it is, she is one of the religious heroines of that age. The people of Connecticut, in the year. 1645, began to be first troubled with witchcraft. The disorder was infectious, and prevailed at different periods for fifty years. It spread into Massachusetts, returned to Connecticut river, and again, in 1691, broke out with terrific violence in Salem. The obvious fitness of many of the circumstances connected with this delusion, for tales of humor, pathos or horror, must have occurred to all who have read them. The details are minute and numerous. But as yet no good fiction has, to our knowledge, been founded upon them. Our remarks have extended over much more space than we had expected they would occupy, and we must bring them to a close for the present; as the period to which we have been adverting is that comprised in the novel before us, in which most of the events and characters to which we have alluded are introduced. We must defer to another opportunity a consideration of the more interesting events which followed those at which we have glanced. The origin and particulars of the wars with Philip and the Narragansetts, the many singular and romantic circumstances connected with them, and the conduct and fate of the principal sachems engaged in them, afford subjects for the highest orders of invention: Vos quoque qui fortes animos, belloque peremptos The particulars of these transactions, and of the subsequent war with the French and their confederate Indians, may hereafter claim our attention. The plot of the "Peep at the Pilgrims" is briefly as follows: Major Atherton, a young Englishman, whose father was a churchman, and whose mother was a puritan, having lost them both, and being, though firmly attached to the established dynasty and religion, averse to the unnatural civil war which was then impending, is induced, from romantic accounts of the happiness of the New-England settlers, to visit America. Here he falls in love with Miriam Grey, the daughter of a rigid puritan ; but their union is rendered hopeless, from the difference in faith between the suitor and father. The latter having occasion to Vol. II. No. X. 33 go to England, the daughter accompanies a relation to the banks of the Connecticut, where she and a younger female are taken captive by the Pequods. Atherton, after the departure of the object of his affections, requested permission to join the colonial forces of Boston and Plymouth, which were sent to assist their brethren in Connecticut. Being impatient, however, at the delay in mustering and equipping the troops, and being alarmed for the safety of her whom he loved, by the continual rumor of new outrages by the savages, he embarked on board a Dutch vessel bound for New-Amsterdam; the commander of which promised to land him at Saybrook fort. This promise, the phlegmatic captain, with great nonchalance, thought proper not to observe. As they drew near the fort, he stated that the dangers of the hostile coast were too great to warrant his deviation; and accordingly he brought his passenger in good safety, to the ancient island of the Manhattoes. Here he made several interesting acquaintances; though his anxiety to be near the lady of his heart, and to protect her in case of danger, prevented him from fully enjoying all the delights of a metropolis, which has ever been pre-eminent among the cities of the new world, in intelligence, politeness and good cheer. Governor Kieft at length determined to assist the Yankees, who ought to have remembered his benevolence with gratitude, and have treated his successor, Peter Stuyvesant, with more homage and decorum than they subsequently exhibited, when he paid them a visit. A vessel was fitted out for the Pequod country, in which Atherton embarked. Some Indian prisoners were also on board, whom they intended to exchange, if no other ransom would be accepted for captive whites; among whom, according to report, were two young females. One of these Indians was Cushmninaw, the son of a Narragansett sachem, who had been taken captive when a youth, by Mononotto, adopted by him, and married to his daughter. On entering the Pequod harbor, Atherton requested permission to go on shore as ambassador. Here he had an interview with the dreaded Sassacus, who refused to enter into any treaty, until his people were safely returned to him. He offered to go on board the Dutch vessel, to negotiate with those who had full powers, on condition that Atherton should remain as a hostage; a proposition to which the latter acceded. While he remained in the Pequod fort, Atherton received from a young squaw a mysterious communication, written on a piece of bark, assuring him that the writer was in safety, and advis ing him to run no risk in farther attempts. He had no time for farther investigation, to quiet his doubts and fears, as he was recalled to the vessel, where the conference, from the unbending fierceness of Sassacus, had terminated unsatisfactorily; leaving the lives of the prisoners on both sides, in equal jeopardy. Atherton, unable to bear the tortures of suspense, learns from Cushminaw the safest path to the dwelling of the captives; and obtains permission to vist the shore with a single seaman. While the savage chiefs were engaged in debate around the council fire, he has the good fortune to gain the wigwams unobserved; and there he finds, indeed, Miriam Grey, whom he loved, and a young maiden. He succeeds in carrying her off to the shore, but is pursued by the savages. The man in the boat is terrified by their near approach, consults his own safety, and leaves the Englishman and his burthen to the mercy of the captors. The latter is carried in a canoe, with her young companion in misfortune, to the dwelling of Mononotto, where his wife receives them with words of consolation, and her husband promises, at her instance, to protect them. They are soon after ransomed; but no offers could induce the Indians to release Atherton, whom they doomed at their council to the torture. He is led forth and tied to the stake, and the fire applied to the combustible materials, when he is unexpectedly released by a party from the Dutch vessel. Here he rejoins Miriam, who is soon loded in safety; accompanies Captain Mason to the attack of the Pequod fort; and on his return to Plymouth, where Miriam's father had arrived from England, obtains his consent to a union with his daughter. Such is a sketch of the plot of this novel, nearly all the interest of which is contained in the latter half of the second volume. There is a great deficiency of incident in the previous part; and its absence is not atoned for by the descriptions or conversations that are employed in lieu of incident; as the former want graphic outlines, and the latter vivacity and variety. The characters introduced, both historical and fictitious, are but faintly marked; and even when the plot thickens most, the narrative has little dramatic effect, and the excitement is but weak which urges the reader onwards. These are defects which may naturally arise in the composition of a tale so closely connected with historical facts. By collecting and comparing them, the author is naturally led into a style too sober and didactic for fiction; while the imagination is cramped and controlled by the necessity of conforming to the well known series of recorded events, and the probabilities which the judgment is unwilling to violate. In these respects, we believe, the author has been faultless. There is some poetry, and much beauty, in the character of Miriam Grey; and that of her puritan lover is marked with some strong lines, true to nature. The style is pure throughout. We have no doubt that the writer would succeed well, in a second attempt; when his invention might expatiate more freely, and be less encumbered with the mass of newly collected materials. Memoirs of Goëthe. Written by himself. New-York. Collins & Hannay, and Collins & Co. 1824. Before this fragment of biography, for it is not the record of a whole life, was offered to mere readers of the English language, we were made acquainted with it partially by the literary journals. It has been considered by them chiefly in relation to the German literature, and had small chance, from such an introduction, to excite any other interest than that which the nation inspires, which is illustrated by the eminent individual it describes. But notwithstanding the fact that this book derives its principal interest from the connection of the writer with the German literature, "men of genius are fellow citizens in all countries," says Madame de Stael; and there is a great community of mind all over the world who understand, and reverence, and sympathize with the powers, the sentiments, and the experience of the more elevated among men. To these, wherever they may be placed, and whatever local affections. they may have, whoever illustrates the species, and dignifies it in the genius of an individual, becomes an object of importance in his history. To those who feel themselves allied to him by the faculties which comprehend and estimate the qualities by which one human being differs from another in glory, the man of exalted talents, whether they be devoted to letters, to arts, or to enterprizes for the benefit of mankind, affords, in the formation of his character, and the circumstances of his life, a subject of curiosity and reflection, more interesting than any other. And it is not to the highest order of mind only that individual man, in his wisdom and his weakness, in his greatness and his imperfection, presents an attractive study; there is a multitude of well-taught minds, who hold the noiseless tenor of their way in a humble sphere of intelligence, to whom the education of a great man, his self-cultivation, his progress to eminence, all that has facilitated or retarded his ascent to the high places of favor and honor, make his example and his sentiments matters of curiosity and instruction. To readers of this latter class, though the endowments and pursuits of Goëthe are essentially different from their own, his memoirs will not prove unentertaining nor useless. The Memoirs of Goëthe is an agreeable book, because it presents nothing but agreeable ideas. There is in it no tiresome detail, no revolting pictures of vice and misery, nothing improbable, vulgar and insipid; but it is a pleasant narrative, which, in effect, resembles the discourse of some amiable and talkative people, who love to dwell upon the past, in order, perhaps, to gratify their own self-complacency, and who impart largely of their own experience from that plenitude of communicativeness, which is the expression of a social spirit, and which connects its own pleasures and pains with presumed good feelings and ready attention on the part of others. Goëthe does not teach the youthful aspirant after fame, how hard it is to climb to its envied summit, but his history shows that great endowments naturally assert their own place in the world, and suggests that self-discipline and self-dependence are absolutely necessary to him who would exert his talents with operative effect, and obtain honorable distinction for himself. His experience is valuable, as holding out encouragement to intellectual effort, and might furnish to mediocrity the negative conclusion, that it is useless for a feeble mind to make attempts beyond its capabilities. The exemplary cultivation of Goethe's mind, by his father, is an admirable lesson to parents, and the results of that culture may well animate every father to superintend and assist in his son's improvement. Kindness, the influence of good examples, habits of industry, conversation enriched by literature, and objects exhibiting, and calculated to inspire taste in the arts, were the means used to instruct the young Goëthe in the conduct and sentiments which develop latent talent, and exalt ambition. Every body, almost, who reads at all, has read Werther; and every one who has read it knows the power of Goëthe over the heart and the imagination. The young have wept over Werther, and the old for half a century have exclaimed in fear and in wisdom, that it is a very dangerous book. The tears and the admonitions it has called forth, only show Goethe's talent of exciting strong emotions. Werther can hardly be called a book of much effect after the passing moment, when it opens the springs of soft hearts. It would be difficult to find an instance in which it has given strength to passion and taken power from reason; nor has this example of voluntary death taken away, in any case that we have |