content with taking the reader along with him representation is wanted. Shakspeare, in his in his equestrian journeys, he sets him also on a track of thinking and shows how delectable is the habit of eliciting from daily and even common-place experience, hints for a discussion, a reverie, or the discovery of a law.

picture of Othello relating his adventures, recognises this office of sympathy and imagination, not to exaggerate the truth, but to make an auditor realize both the circumstances and the feeling they inspire. In the details of picturesque and sensuous as well as artistic enjoyment, Beckford observes this condition with taste and effect; and he does this without departing from truth. This charm is wanting to the affecting experience of Atala and Gertrude; for we cannot identify them with the woods of Florida or the valley of Wyoming, on account of the fanciful local particulars so different from the real scenes, which imagination has substituted for nature.

"Few persons are aware," says Dr. Clarke in the Introduction to one of his voluminous books of travel, either of all the duties a writer of travels must fulfil, or of half the difficulties he has to encounter." The credit yet enjoyed by this author is, in no small degree, owing to the careful research whereby he authenticated and illustrated his own experience. He was in the habit of citing classic, historical and scientific authorities, refuting the errors of previous explor- Americans are thought by foreign critics to ers and adding the resources of learning to the excel as writers of travels; and the opinion is fruits of observation. Important as such collate-confirmed by the remarkable success which has ral light must be deemed, and desirable as all so often attended their works. Indeed, in scarcemust consider such thorough integrity of treat-ly any other field of literature, has the talent of ment in any department of literature, we cannot this country been so generally recognised abroad; but prize imaginative power equally, if it is only and this superiority appears to be the natural rekept in abeyance where facts are described. For sult of American life and character. With no these do not constitute all the value of the re- time-honored customs or strong local associations cords of travel; perhaps their chief interest to to bind him to the soil, with little hereditary digthe thoughtful reader lies in a peculiar sugges-nity of name or position to sustain, and accustiveness. Tennyson finely hints this in his expressive poem of Ulysses; who after saying

"I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: all times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That loved me and alone; on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name
For always roaming with a hungry heart;
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honor'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy"—

tomed, from infancy, to witness frequent changes of position and fortune, the inhabitant of no civilized land has so little restraint upon his vagrant humor as a native of the United States. In the majority of instances, he has early grown familiar with the idea of travel from the emigration of his family or his neighbors, the mercantile voyages of a relative, the annual tour of his parents, or his own youthful visits to the distant abodes of kindred. The American is by nature locomotive; he believes in change of air for health, change of residence for success, change of society for improvement. Pioneer enterprise is a staple of our history; and so few are the old mansions around which cluster the homesympathies of more than one generation, that they are regarded with extraordinary interest Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades, and talked of as exceptions to a prevalent fact. Forever and forever when I move.

significantly adds—

I am a part of all that I have met:
Yet all experience is an arch where thro'

The subdivision of property, the necessity that usually exists for the young American to carve his own way to prosperity and the ambition of wealth and political influence, are ever active motives that impel him to seek his fortune or en

It is this ability to elicit the ideal from the real, to look beyond the immediate and material, with out distorting the perspective, that accounts for the continued favor which such travellers as Beckford enjoy. Many of his sketches appeal large his ideas by travel. It thus happens that to the primal sympathies as well as to curiosity. Americans move about not only with more faTravel is one of the few resources which civili- cility than other travellers, but with far less feelzation has left the poetical instinct; and if some-ing of estrangement and reserve. They readily what of this is needful for the relish of an actual adapt themselves, from habit, to all classes of journey, it is still more so, when we follow a pil- people; they do not hesitate to gratify curiosity; grim's steps only "in the mind's eye"-to the their enterprise is indomitable, and their desire "continuous woods where rolls the Oregon," or to see, hear, and discover, for themselves, insain deserts vast "fold our tents like the Arabs;" tiable. The public conveyances in this country something besides mere literal or even graphic are always in motion and always crowded; hotel

life is genial to the multitude; leagues of rail- | wear a more clear and impressive aspect to his road intersect not only metropolitan thorough- mind, than they do to the jaded senses and the fares, but the solitary wilderness; and the mighty conventional view of more learned and reserved, lakes and rivers seem to invite exploration and but less flexible and genial travellers. The imbe the pre-destined arena for steam-navigation. personal fidelity of Stephens, the Flemish deBut not only do the economy of life and the ex-tails of Slidell Mackenzie, the curious zest of tent of territory in the new world, train her citi- Sanderson, the picturesque and spirited descripzens, as it were, to travel;-their temperament tion of Hoffman, the artistic grace of Irving, and and taste also combine to make them tourists. the De-Foe-like narrative of Melville and Dana, Restless, active, and inquiring—with the instinct are qualities which have gained them more readof progress continually at work, Americans al-ers than fall to the lot of the herd of travellers, most seem to exist by virtue of movement, as who have lavished on pictures of the same counthe orientals do by quiescence. Such an exist-tries more learning and finish of style, with less ence favors quickness of perception however in- of integrity of statement and naturalness of feelimical it may be to contemplative energy. Self-ing.

reliance leads to adventure. The freedom from To realize how the prominent characteristic prejudice incident to a new country gives more of a traveller dominates over his observation, and ample scope to observation; and the very fresh- thus modifies the aspect of all he beholds, we ness of life renders impressions from new scenes have only to recal the impressions which the same more vivid. Any one who has compared the objects make on different travellers. No countemper and zest of Americans on the continent try, for instance, has been more frequently desof Europe, with those of the travelling English, cribed than Italy; yet a peculiar interest is atwill be struck with this fact; and it is also evi-tached to every good book of travels devoted to denced by the partiality of foreigners to our coun- that region. The classical scholar prefers Eustrymen on account of the superior tact they ex- tace's Tour which was chiefly written in the Bodhibit in intercourse, their great tolerance of un- leian Library; political enthusiasts delight in familiar customs, and the more real and sponta- Lady Morgan's Italy; those curious in architecneous interest they manifest in what is charac- ture affect Forsyth; the lovers of physiology teristic however alien to their own habits. It relish Bell, and students of topography Sir Wilfollows as a matter of course that such travellers liam Gell; minds imbued with poetry and sentirecord what they behold with peculiar truth, rel- ment, only find their impressions recognized by ish, spirit and fairness. They are, at once, the Madame De Stael and Mrs. Jameson; while most unprejudiced and the most sympathetic matter-of-fact people are sensible of no inconlookers-on in the world; and when endowed gruity in making Mrs. Starke the confident of with adequate expression, make the best reporters. Nearly as mercurial and far more reflective than the French, adventurers by nature and more attracted by the old, the prescriptive and the beautiful in art from the comparative distance of these phases of life from their experience-we often observe somewhat of the difference between their sketches of travel and those of other nations, as that which obtains between a boy's It is remarkable that in a department of litenthusiastic account of his first play and an old erature so prolific, while books of specific intertheatre-goer's critique on the last dramatic star. est abound, few have become classic. Perhaps Much of this spirited tone is derived from con- this is owing to the fact that writers of travels are trast. It is the freshness of illustration incident usually diffuse, and conciseness is absolutely reto life in the old world and the new mutually un-quisite in a work destined to become standard. folded; but it may also, in part, be ascribed to Two examples occur to us where a high finish the simplicity of manners, the unwarped judg- and studied brevity indicate a classic aim which ment, the keen vision, the ardent curiosity and the general taste has subsequently acknowledghonest zeal that so often characterise the Ameri-ed; these are the Sentimental Journey and Eocan traveller. He goes forth unincumbered by then. No two designs more in contrast can well the trappings of rank, superstition or pedantry. be imagined-all the care in the one being lavHe carries with him a spirit of independence. ished on atmosphere, and in the other on outHe has learned to see with his own eyes and to line ;-the former an epitome of feeling, the latthink for himself; and has that fluency which ter of thought. Yet the genius manifest in these results from varied social intercourse. Thus free popular books does not make them models. With and inspired, it is not surprising that things often all its sentiment, Sterne's journey is tinged with

their vigils amid the most hallowed scenes of nature and antiquity; those addicted to the marvellous forgive the exaggerations of Dumas on account of the spicy adventures he contrives to meet with; and such as have a taste for verbal felicities, accept the imaginative pictures of Willis rather than the inelegant daguerreotype of Cooper.

affectation; and with all its brilliancy, Eothen countries from what is needed to analyze the art, wants the softness and glow of the heart; and science, or political tendencies of Paris, Rome, in both, we are not so much occupied with the and St. Petersburgh. When Marco Polo died, scenes and personages described, as with the about 1323, his friends besought him to confess the individuality of the respective authors-with the history of his travels a fiction. The wonders he light in which they robe what is before them recorded are now familiar to every child; and rather than the object itself. These two exam- the locomotive facilities and constant intercourse ples, however, of the poetry and the philosophy of of the world is daily encroaching on the domain travel, have tended to impart dignity and signifi- of the marvellous; so that the cleverness rather cance to its records, which are apt to be the most than the experience of travellers, is what renders careless prose compositions in literature. The their books attractive. The spirit of adventure, intelligent reader will make the same allowance however, is an indistinctive and permanent trait, for a predominant trait of character in a travel- and will always find scope, if not in discovering ler's narrative, as he naturally would do for the the new, at least in exploring the old. It is a same quality in a compagnon du voyage; and in form of heroism, perhaps, the most unobjectionathis regard there is ample room for the exercise ble to a Christian age, identifying itself with phiof individual taste;-the prevailing characteris- lanthropic ends and yielding constant ailiment to tic of Montaigne being liberal curiosity, that of that divine paternity that renders "the whole Addison scholarship, that of Chateaubriand and world kin." Unfolded in the annals of travel, Lamartine sentiment, of De Tocqueville politi- with all the interest of a life-drama, it draws us, cal philosophy, of Goldsmith geniality, of Combe through admiration, sympathy and inquisitivereference to the natural laws, of Sir Francis ness, near the heart of nature and humanity. Head humor, of Inglis agreeability, of Kohl re- We ardently recognize its inspiration in Bruce liable information,—and so on through the long triumphant at the source of the Nile, Belzoni uncatalogue of travellers. The same variety of dismayed in the darkness of Egyptian tombs, taste may be gratified by the difference of sub- half-suffocated with the dust of mummies; Della jects as well as of authors in the literature of Vallè romantically espousing a daughter of Bagtravel. Voyages of maritime discovery and over- dad; Ledyard flying from the restraints of a New land journeys to the Pacific captivate those who England College and working his passage to love adventure; and this continent has afforded Europe as a common sailor; Brydone noting his no small portion of this stimulating aliment in barometer among the lava and snows of Etna; recent times from the expedition of Lewis and Stephens measuring the forest-covered ruins of Clarke, to the adventures of the Fur-Traders, so Yucatan; and yet more recently, Layard watchgracefully narrated in Astoria. Travels in the ing the exhumation of a winged lion of Nineveh ; United States specially interest political econo- an American naval officer guiding his frail barque mists and philanthropists; in Italy the poetic, in over the rapids of the Jordan; and another givPalestine the religious, in the arctic zones and ing out rations of mule-flesh to his little band the tropics the naturalist, in Switzerland the de- of frozen comrades in a defile of the Rocky votee of scenery, in England the utilitarian and Mountains. Endurance related with simplicity, lover of domesticity; in Germany the scholar, in discovery revealed with modest zeal, the resourFrance the social. Books of Travels thus ap-ces of patience, fortitude and intelligence dispeal not merely to the curiosity, but to the indi- played without ostentation, sometimes render vidual affinities of readers; and have the pecu- the works of such travellers the most beautiful liar charm to awaken an interest common alike to the practical and the imaginative mind.

tributes to human character, and more interesting than the wildest romance. Even the scholar is charmed with the vitality of the information they yield; and Southey, a discriminating bibliomaniac, used to say that of such books, "we cannot have too many.”

There are two distinct phases of the literature of travel and the qualities it demands are modified by each; they are adventure and taste, the enthusiasm of discovery and the study of social life. The lives of early travellers abound A critique, attributed to Goethe, prefixed to in strange vicissitude, novel circumstances, and the travels of Puckler-Muskau, refers their athazardous exposure; while those of modern are traction to a "genial aimlessness." This is, incomparatively exempt from the interest which deed, the spirit which renders a tour pleasurable attaches to the idea of danger. It is evident that both as an experience and a history, except when the love of adventure impels to quite different undertaken, like those just alluded to, from moregions of the earth than that quiet pursuit of tives of bold enterprise; and in this view Beckknowledge and luxury of observation found in ford's Travels may justly be considered as one the sphere of civilization. It requires a diferent of the best illustrations of our subject. He comspecies of character to explore new and wild bined, in a very remarkable degree, the saga

cious philosophy of a man of the world, with gous to what all travellers have actually knownthe refined enthusiasm of the scholar; he pos- the discomforts of the real and the charm of the sessed a fund of exact knowledge and a tempera- ideal; his facts are enlivened by fancy; and his ment of rare susceptibility; he united the keen descriptions not only convey a series of images, perception of a critic to the abandon of a volup-but they have the unity of impression which is tuary; and thus was brought into relation with derived from sensation. In a word, he not only nature and life in, at once, an exquisitely intimate tells us how things appear to him and how their and objectively intelligent way, and thoroughly phenomena may be explained, but how they realized the influences of each with the senses make him feel. This gives a personality as well and with the mind. Without the hardihood and as a reality to every scene; we identify ourselves earnestness to become a purely adventurous trav-with it;-inhale the breeze, scent the flower, beeller, and too exclusive to sympathize with hu- hold the tints, taste the viand, and hear the strain, man nature on a broad scale, by virtue of an en-are annoyed by the inconveniences and charmed joyable organization and a highly cultivated taste, with the amenities of the traveller's daily course. he was fitted to interpret the mental and physi- It is his union of an eye for the picturesque with cal luxuries of a southern and oriental existence, a soul for the practical that gives to Beckford's without losing the spirit and judgment of his travels their consistent effect. They were writAnglo-Saxon nativity and education. ten in the freshness of his years and just at that That stock has produced the most efficient point of time when the transition from an ancient travellers in the world, but a constitutional in- regime to modern reform had commenced. One sensibility has often deprived the story of their of the latest and most vivid reflections of Euwanderings of the glow and consecutive senti- rope, before the "ineffectual fires" of prescripment which alone brings home another's expe- tive custom and authority grew dim before the rience to our consciousness. They have usually star of conquest and the dawn of popular inbeen endowed with the needful intelligence and telligence, they are graphic and affecting meenergy, but seldom with the moral and physical morials of the past in form aud manners, and the sensibility whereby we "see into the life of eternal present of nature in her fairest guise. things." Beckford early indicated a different No susceptible mind can follow the enthusiasorder of character, by his romance of Vathek, tic pilgrim without catching the spirit of his exoriginally as unchastened as it was imaginative, perience;-feeling with him the somniferous asyet so authentic in costume, so beautiful in des- pect of the Low countries and revelling in the criptive effect, as to prove how wonderfully a mellow brilliancy of southern lands, the charm native of the West, through imagination and sen- of luxuriant vegetation and the pensive-beauty sibility, could adopt and reproduce the magnifi- of cypress-groves and minsters. Infected by his cent and sensuous life of the East. Subsequent- humor we smile at the absurdities of local prely this capacity for pleasure appears to have judice and vulgar enjoyment; lulled by his dreamsapped his intellectual vigor; and he is chiefly iness, we repose in the shade of a chestnut-tree, remembered as having lived in regal splendor at or the gloom of a chapel, and muse of departed Cintra and become the mysterious virtuoso of greatness; animated by his fancy, we re-sumFonthill Abbey, the architect of innumerable mon victorious processions on the desert plains of towers, the owner of rare old pictures, and the Rome and in the oriental square of Venice. To inventor of extravagant diversions rivalling the describe thus general effects and minute details, magic felicities of the Arabian Nights;-an Eng-with equal spirit, is only the gift of one who to lishman of the nineteenth century realizing in an artist's perception adds a poet's sensibility. bis nature, his wealth, and his experience, an ori- Beckford saw the dew-drops on Van Huysam's ental destiny. Yet however deplorable tenden-flower-pieces, the gaudy insect that fluttered in cies like his may be when recklessly indulged, his mountain path, the anemone that peeped out ere they were perverted by habit, we can scarce- from the grass, with the appreciative glance of ly imagine a more desirable natural gift for the a dainty virtuoso; but he saw also the massy traveller. His sensitive and discriminating mind foliage of Vallambrosa, the expanse of the Medrevelled in every form, hue, odor, movement and iterranean, the sublime in architecture and the sound that addressed the sense of the beautiful; infinite gradations of tint on the evening horizon, and analyzed every combination of their enchant- with the meditative gaze of a bard, to whom ment. The effect was that the offensive to taste each was a glorious revelation. He recognized, yielded him inexhaustible occasion for banter, too, the ludicrous side of a traveller's life—the and the delightful in art or nature, while it cap- "squalling battery" adjacent to his inn chamber, tivated for the moment, also afforded material the " clumsy lubber decorated with stars," the for tasteful comment. Hence the whole thread soprano who looked like a porpoise, the “rat's of his narrative is varied by a contrast analo-tail candles" of a gala, the overgrown friars

THE SELDENS OF SHERWOOD.

CHAPTER XVI.

Oh, blest be thine unbroken light!
That watch'd me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night
Forever shining sweetly nigh.

And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray-
Then purer spread its gentle flame

And dash'd the darkness all away.-Byron.

“such as a Chinese would have placed in his pagoda," and the "grim fraternity of cats.” He was a haunter of woods, a lover of the rustling of pines, an equestrian, and a swimmer; the sbirri in St. Mark's Square thought him mad, soliloquizing by moonlight; and on his first visit to the Florence gallery, he "ran childishly by the ample ranks of sculptures, like a butterfly in a parterre, that skims before it fixes, over ten thousand flowers." He clambered hill-sides to pluck gli odoriferi gineperi mentioned by Ariosto; wished to scatter coral on Sarmazzaro's grave at Naples; and eat grapes while reading Metastasio; he luxuriated in sleeping figures, through a relish of the drowsy god as epicurean as Sancho Margaret communicated the result of her conPanza's was material; and while strolling in the versation with Virginia to Mrs. Selden, who Boboli gardens, expected Lucullus to invite him heard her fears confirmed, with increased feelings under a portico to dine. He sought to realize of distress and perplexity. They determined, the poetry of travel by contrast, going from the however, after much consultation, to await the dark cathedral to the bright casino, from gay so- arrival of Charles's letter, before Mrs. Selden ciety to "wild spots where the arbutus flourish- should mention the subject to Virginia, as she had es;" and from the noisy mart to the lonely sea- been so unhappy, and so little like herself, since shore. It is this delight in a free exposure of his the betrayal of her feelings, that Mrs. Selden nature to the influence of external objects; this found she would not be able to preserve her comstudied contact with the elements of life, this posure, in the every day intercourse which must passion for atmosphere and hues, for the beauti- take place with Augustus Vernon, until some ful and grand ;—this education of the senses as plausible reason could be assigned for her deparavenues of the soul,-that makes such a mind ture. It had happened, unluckily, but a few as Beckford's a delectable guide through scenes days before, that Virginia had replied decidedly of natural and artistic interest. As a convivial in the negative, to an inquiry made of her, in host is required to give zest to the feast, so a trav- Mr. Vernon's presence, as to whether she inteneller of enjoyable temper is the only one who ded visiting The Rectory during the summer, and can impart to others the pleasure which novel there must be something now to account for this circumstances and visionary delights yield him- sudden change of determination, but the real motive should be suspected. Virginia's sensibility was so extreme, and she was so little in the habit of concealing or controlling her feelings, that Margaret feared Augustus Vernon knew but too well her heart was his own. She likewise suspected strongly, that he had perceived he was no favorite either with Mrs. Selden or herself, though there had never been in the manner of either towards him, any deficiency in politeness, or the sort of kindness which is inseparable from hospitality, in that state of society which is regulated by goodness of heart, refined feeling, and a quick sense of propriety, rather than by conventional rules.

self.

SONNET.

All the long day, the restless storm had kept
A ceaseless moan of wind, and fall of rain,—
But now the weary winds and waters slept,
And beauty basked upon the earth again.
In joy I issued forth beneath a sky
Bright with the setting sun's reflected light,
And clouds, exhibiting a gorgeous sight
Of tower, and temple to th' astonished eye,
Changed as I looked to hills and mountains capt
With golden hues. Awhile I gazed enrapt―
But oh! felt then beyond expression blest
When vanished mount, and hill, and shadowy dome,
And every cloud that glittered in the west

Took airy shapes that mocked my thoughts of home.

AGLAUS.

Margaret felt the necessity of shielding Virginia from any exposure, and her pride was wounded at the thought, that Augustus was perhaps aware of the power he had over the heart of one, so pure, so lovely, so innocent, and of whom, in her estimation, he was so unworthy. She entered so deeply and truly into her sister's feelings, that she regretted the necessity of making Charles acquainted with them, and felt almost as if she were committing a breach of trust in doing so, though Virginia had imposed on her no in