ART. XI.-ANALYTICAL AND CRITICAL NOTICES. 1. The Rocky Mountains; or Scenes, Incidents, and Adventures in the Far West; digested from the journal of Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, of the army of the United States, and illustrated from various other sources, by WASHINGTON IRVING. Philadelphia; Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1837. 2 vols. 12mo. JOHNSON said of Goldsmith, when he was engaged in his history of Animated Nature, "he has the art of saying every thing he has to say in a pleasing manner-he is now writing a Natural History, and will make it as entertaining as a Persian tale." Irving, too, not less a master of English prose, touches nothing that he does not adorn,-Nihil tetigit quod non ornavit. In Astoria and the present work he has created his subject by the force of his happy fancy and humour. Through these scenes of the Far West the graces of his pen have literally made the solitary wilderness blossom like a garden, invested the harsh and rugged features of the desert with the air of sublimity, made its gloomy, discoloured rivers poetical, and tinged its barren mountain tops with the rich sunny hues of fancy. But little was known before the appearance of Astoria of the great Western region. We heard there were hunters and trappers employed in gaining a dangerous and difficult livelihood from the peltries of the Columbia and the Far Pacific; a rude story would sometimes reach us of a skirmish with the Indians, a disaster by sea, or a fatal quarrel between the rival trading companies; we saw the rich furs collected in the warehouses, and learned among the statistics (that useful knowledge) that they supplied a wealthy and important branch of trade; but we knew nothing of the life of adventure and excitement associated with that distant region. But Irving has thrown a better light on the land for young and old. He has shown us that here, in these worn-out times of the world, there is a last foothold left for a remnant of chivalry in the wild life of the Far West. The passion for adventure that influenced Sydney and Raleigh has fast disappeared before the over-civilization of the old world; a few travellers yet explore Africa or the North Pole, but with chart and compass fully equipped against surprise-they move with the precision of science. Enterprise has assumed a mercantile signification, and is best understood on 'Change. Policies at Lloyds have taken away the dangers of the seas, and life insurances put to the rout all romance by land or water. These are the days of fact, not fable, Of knights, but not of the Round Table. Society travels westward, and has driven adventure to the shores of the Pacific. The free trapper of the great West yet lingers on these farthest outskirts of society, threading-as he is often painted to our eye in these volumes-the dark defiles of the Rocky Mountains, venturing (so to speak) beyond the sight of land on the shoreless prairie, starving one day on roots, and feasting the next on the rare niceties of the Buffalo hunt, trapping by solitary streams "unsung by poets," or returning to the world full of braggart health to waste his gains in the profusion of the city. At times, too, the picture has a darker shade, when he struggles for life or death with the merciless Indian tribes of the desert. The present work abounds with these motley scenes, and more-it is a constantly shifting panorama of life in one of its most eccentric and varied forms. We accompany the pleasant Captain through his adventures in this agreeable narrative with much of the feeling we would experience in hearing the story from his own mouth. The book is written by the best English prose writer of the day, containing many passages of description that cannot be surpassed, yet still preserves the simplicity of a tale told by a plain, though observant and humorous narrator. Most fine writers would have obscured the subject and destroyed this great charm, but Irving is something better than a fine writer. Perhaps a fine writer would have passed this subject over as beneath him; but in this, too, Irving is something better than a fine writer. He is a man of genius, and genius shows its power in elevating a common subject to its own height. A man of mere fact might have drawn up a useful table of statistics on the Fur Trade, but would never have written this tour of Captain Bonneville. Whether in fact or fable, may Irving continue to send forth more such delightful volumes, and may we live on to read them. 2. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G. LOCKHART Parts 1-4. Philadelphia, Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1837. We intend nothing further than to announce this work at present. Its discussion hereafter will afford ample material for more than a single article. In permanent literary interest Lockhart's Life of Scott must rank as the most valuable book of the age; a similar variety of important topics has not been presented to the public since the publication of Boswell. We have the threefold picture of the Man, the Poet, and the Novelist, distinguished in either point as one of the most remarkable characters of his times. Either, too, presents a picture which we cannot but look upon with pleasure and admiration. In Lockhart's life we have the smallest traits of the man and the author set down with a fidelity and zeal more anxious to throw the illustrious subject into the foreground than, with some biographers, to make himself the hero. It is just such a life as we wanted of so great a man; where, in his letters and journals, he is always suffered to speak for himself; and, where he has "made no sign," a private anecdote of his fireside, or the recollection of his friends, supplies the deficiency. Every where it is Scott who speaks or acts. The materials are mostly new. Besides a great mass of correspondence, we have journals and diaries, the character of which we need not endorse, when we allude to them as a private transcript of the author's mind. The Journey of a two-months' voyage to the Shetland Isles occupies a large portion of the third volume. This also includes a melancholy account of his pecuniary difficulties with the Ballantynes. The fourth volume brings the reader to the height of the interest, in the successive publication of the Waverley Novels in the days of the Great Unknown. It was at this period that Lockhart became acquainted with Scott, and his circle at Edinburgh and Abbotsford; and is thus enabled to place before us in full view the novelist as his character was developed both by success and difficulty in that crowded period of his life. The interest of the narrative, now that the author draws from his own recollections, greatly increases. This volume concludes with the appearance of the Monastery in 1820. The American reprint before us is a fair octavo, published simultaneously with the volumes of the English edition. The fifth volume is announced by Cadell, the Edinburgh bookseller, for the first of October. 3. The New-York Book of Poetry. New-York: George Dearborn. 1837. THIS is a worthy attempt to rescue from oblivion many miscellaneous poems which, with their full share of excellence, were in danger of perishing with the loose fragmentary litera ture of the day. In this age of prolific writers, the author must number his long shelf of works to obtain a rank among his contemporaries. With Scott and his century of volumes, Southey, the most bookful of Laureates,' and the fertility of Bulwer, James, and Marryat, the minor poets must be cared for, or their simple flowerets will pass unnoticed among these many-leaved trees of the forest. A scrap of good verse, indeed, is not to be lost in these times so barren of the Muses; and we thank the Editor and Publisher for the many such collected in the present volume. It is an anthology worth the preservation. We are pleased to meet with a few specimens of our favourite writers, Drake and Sands: a word in their praise is never unseasonable, for we have scarcely yet learnt to entertain a proper esteem for our own native authors. It is not a little to our credit, that of late years America has produced some of the most finished minor poems in the language. Halleck, Drake, and Bryant are in every sense classic writers. In well-proportioned design and execution their works are wholly distinct from the rude, unfinished attempts so generally prevalent. If their popularity is secondary at present, it will be permanent hereafter. A single felicitous couplet has ere now outlived an inventive and laboured epic; and though these authors have written but little, a slight acquaintance with English poetry will remind us that many of its best reputations depends upon a very few successful efforts-multum magisquam multa. Dryden is best known by his Ode to St. Cecilia; Prior is only read for his short tales; while Gray and Goldsmith, who are really popular, least of all wrote in folios. Poor Drake, with Sands and Lawrence, fell an early victim: it is difficult to say what the maturer powers of these would not have accomplished. Sand's Proem to Yamoyden is a vigorous specimen of verse closely written and harmonious. INVOCATION. Friend of my youth, with thee began the love When are we to have a complete edition of the poetry of Sands and his friend Eastburn? From Dr. Eastburn's late oration at the semi-centennial anniversary of Columbia College, we know there are rich treasures yet in reserve, which should not be withheld. Drake's fancy was active and sparkling, as in the Culprit Fay; while his numbers possessed a tuneful flow that, sometimes turning a pretty conceit, reminds us of Sir John Suckling. INCONSTANCY. BY J. R. DRAKE. Yes! I swore to be true, I allow, And I meant it, but, some how or other, Was pressed on the lips of another. Yet I did but as all would have done; When he might have the range of a dozen? Young love is a changeable boy, And the gem of the sea-rock is like him, From a kiss of a zephyr and rose Drake's poem of Bronx is a delightful piece of this description, with more than one line of strength and power. This stanza is perfect: The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn, Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em, The winding of the merry locusts' horn, The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bosom : Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, Oh! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet's dwelling.—p. 123. The Thoughts of a Student, which leads the van of this light-armed corps poetical, is a favourable specimen of Lawrence, whose erect frame and animated look seem to have been with us but yesterday. We should entitle this, |