she often displays a love of nature, a sense of the picturesque, and a freshness and truthfulness of spirit, not always so conspicuous, to say the least, in her speculations on politics and religion, or in her sketches of society and manners. Miss Martineau has a quick eye to perceive, and an active imagination to group, the features of a natural landscape. And she paints them truly and forcibly. There is an elevating and redeeming influence in the grand temple of Nature, in whose holy presence, the scales of false philosophy fall from the eyes, and truth reasserts her power over the soul. Of her moral pictures we cannot speak altogether so favorably. In these there are apt to be great violations of the laws of perspective. There is little shading or foreshortening; and where you look for a portrait you sometimes meet with a caricature. A single feature fills and occupies her vision. She can see nothing but this; and, of course, she permits her readers to see nothing else.

In any case, and in all cases, this is bad enough; and always, and of necessity, presents imperfect and distorted views. But if, as sometimes happens, the trait which first seizes her attention, is by no means the characteristic one, the case is still worse. The picture drawn presents no likeness; the impression given is altogether false, or erroneous. We have said, that her details of domestic manners are not to be implicitly trusted; and we may safely extend the remark. She is, we think, a very inaccurate writer. Inaccurate, we mean, not in her use of language, but in her representations of principles, opinions, and facts. Over untrodden ground she is not a safe and trustworthy guide. Not that she is deficient in discernment. It is not on this ground that her conclusions are so often wide of the truth. Neither, as we are disposed to think, is she greatly wanting in candor and fairness of feeling; in a certain modification of these, at least. But her self-confidence is inordinate. Her present impressions, as it seems to us, are, in all cases, to her own mind substantial verities; unquestioned and unquestionable,

the truth and the whole truth. It is not, then, that she consciously and intentionally mistakes facts, or spreads so often the colors of falsehood over what may be substantially true. We are willing to believe, for "charity believeth all things," that she has a sincere regard for truth, truth of principle, and truth of fact. We trace her inaccuracy to another source, a copious and permanent one. Amidst her manifold inconsistencies she is true to herself. True, we mean, in this regard, that they

all spring from the same mental habitude. There is a deep vein of self-satisfied, self-confident vanity winding, like a thread of gold, through the whole of them, and binding them together in a consistent series of inconsistencies. It is amusing to trace the operation of this principle, on all sorts of subjects and occasions, in her judgments of men and things, in her statements of facts, and in her discussions of principles. The veriest glimpse that her eye catches of any object is sufficient, — reveals it at once to her mind in its whole extent, in the clearest light and broadest proportions. The twilight region of doubt and misgiving, where ordinary minds are so often compelled to wander, cautiously groping their way, "if haply they may feel after and find" the satisfactory solution of things, seems to be a realm she has never trod. Her sun is always at the meridian; her heavens without a cloud. The merest hint, a passing remark, the idlest badinage, is a sufficient key to the character of the deepest politician or diplomatist of the day. One cannot forbear smiling to witness with what perfect simplicity, and unsuspecting self-complacency, she sets about analyzing the minds and characters of half the statesmen, divines, and literati of the country, and this with no hesitation, or misgiving; without other opportunity, or means, of ascertaining the truth than, perhaps, a casual intercourse of a few days or hours, and this clogged and impeded by her very imperfect hearing. It is obvious, we suppose, to every one, but Miss Martineau, that opinions thus formed, are entitled to very little consideration, and ought to be received with no little distrust. That which is obvious to every passer by, which is matter of public notoriety, she may well be admitted to have ascertained. Beyond this, all is random conjecture, the creation of her own fancy. She may be right, and she may be wrong; and as truth is one, and error is multiform, she is far more likely to be wrong than right. Yet she would seem to have felt that she had a commission to go forth through the land, "in the length thereof, and in the breadth thereof," in a sort of high judicial pomp, while the mighty ones of the people gathered round her to have the dimensions of their minds taken and recorded; and the irrefragable seal affixed to their characters.

And all this is given forth with perfect good faith. She seems throughout wholly unconscious that anything of arrogance, any violation of modesty, was implied in the position thus assumed. On the contrary, it would appear the most

natural thing in the world that "the sun and the moon and the eleven stars should stand round and do obeisence to her. Judges learned in the law, wasted by the vigils of twenty years, and statesmen trained for successive lustrums in the councils of the nation, press to ask counsel of the priestess and oracle of radical philosophy. "Nec inconsulti abeunt." She is not chary of her wisdom. She "giveth liberally."

We recollect having been somewhat amused, several years since, when Miss Martineau and we were comparative strangers, at a statement of hers, how, having sat down to write a tale of some sort or other, she rose up, much to her surprise, a political economist. We think we can understand this now; and we deem it not improbable that, if she chose, she might relate a more extensive experience of this sort. No small portion, we apprehend, of her politics, theology, and general philosophy came to her much in the same way.

All this, as we have said, may well provoke a smile; but can hardly stir any deeper emotion. Vanity in its wildest excess is hardly to be attacked with any other weapon than ridicule. But the subject has another aspect of a character somewhat graver; and on which we propose to say a few words in a more serious strain, and with a broader reference than to the case immediately before us.

Many of the characters thus shown up, for the instruction or amusement of the public, are those of persons whose hospitality she had experienced, a hospitality, by her own showing, frank and generous almost without precedent. Now we must say that we consider this practice wholly unjustifiable, and we wish to avail ourselves of this opportunity to record our solemn protest against it. Miss Martineau, we are well aware, may plead abundant precedent for the freedoms she has allowed herself; and we do not mean to hold her amenable for any transgressions not her own. But no precedent can justify a practice intrinsically wrong. And we certainly hold this practice to be wrong in the extent to which it is carried, even in regard to those who are called public men. We do not think even these are to be treated as if they were altogether public property, — commons, on which every straggler has a right to graze at large. We cannot think that the public good requires this; and we are quite sure that neither private morality nor delicacy of feeling is promoted by it. What good purpose can it be supposed to serve? How is the cause of truth, of virtue, or of sound VOL. XXIV. 3D s. VOL. VI. NO.. III. 50

information even, benefited by this display of the domestic habits and personal peculiarities of any class of men, in whatever sphere of life they may be called to move? What right has the public to these details; we do not say, in this or that particular instance, as given by Miss Martineau or by any other person; but in general? What right, we repeat, have the public affix what idea you please, to this most convenient abstraction to claim, not only the time, the mental and moral energies of this or that gifted individual, but also to learn, by whatever means, how he sits at table, spreads his bread and butter, sips his coffee, or lolls upon his sofa?

We

But we shall be told, that the desire to become acquainted with the private habits of illustrious men is a natural one. admit that it is so. And the appetite for petty scandal and idle gossip is, we are afraid, natural also. But is it laudable, and ought it to be gratified? That is the question. Should the mighty machinery of the press be prostituted, at once to gratify and to stimulate this insatiable appetite? And what better than petty scandal is the greater portion of the anecdotes and sketches of living characters, with which the journals of travellers, at home and abroad, are stuffed? Verbal scandal, the village tittle tattle, is silly and mischievous enough, when it is addressed only to the ear, and dwells nowhere but in the memory of the idle and unthinking. But when it is fixed in visible and permanent forms, and incorporated into the literature-heaven bless the mark—of the day, it assumes, in the eye of the moralist, a graver character, and calls for a more indignant rebuke. It is the business, the appropriate office of literature, to minister to the interests of truth and virtue; to regulate and check the evils and abuses to which the social principle is continually exposed, to elevate and purify the tone of social intercourse, to render it more intellectual and more spiritual, more conversant with general principles and great truths, and more in harmony with the finer creations of fancy and genius. Its high vocation is abandoned, its office is desecrated, when it stoops to pander to vulgar curiosity, or busy intermeddling malignity. Men are prone enough, at the best, to pry into the affairs, and scan the characters of their neighbors. This disposition needs no prompting from the press. The licentiousness of the newspaper press, in this regard, as well as others, has long been a subject of regret and anxious apprehension to all good patriots and sober-minded men. It needs

not to be encouraged and cheered on by the example of works of higher pretension, and of a graver and more permanent character. The evil, we cannot but think, calls loudly for redress. Such would be our views of the subject, on the supposition that these publications contained nothing but the truth, that the facts were correctly stated, and the characters fairly delineated. We should say, even then, without hesitation, that they were not worth the expense at which they were obtained; and therefore it were better for the public to be without them.

This we should say, viewing the subject in reference to those only who are called public men. In regard to private individuals the application of the principle, we maintain, is still more obvious and forcible. We hold that modesty, call it virtue or grace, in man or woman, is worthy to be cherished and respected; and we are sure it must be wounded, and its fine gloss soiled, by such perpetual exposure. In fact we can hardly imagine anything more annoying to a retiring and delicate spirit, than to have its private pursuits, its domestic habits, its trials and sorrows even, made the topics of the literary gossip of half the world.

But the practice has not even this apology to offer; this mitigation to plead. Generally speaking, the information gained in this way, concerning the characters of individuals, is utterly worthless; and any reliance placed on it were wholly fallacious. The portraits drawn seldom present any other likeness than a generic one. The sketches in Miss Martineau's work, for instance, might, with few exceptions, as well have been made in London as in Washington or Boston. We refer, as proof and illustration of our position, to her description of country physicians, in volume second, page 196. She had occasion, it seems, to employ one, and found, as she supposed, some peculiarities in his mode of practice, something different, at least, from what she had been accustomed to; and, with her usual rapidity of generalization, she puts him down at once as the representative of a class, and this class embracing all country practitioners. She, very likely, misunderstood, and consequently misrepresented and caricatured the individual; there is not much of verisimilitude in the picture; but, to infer, that such as was this specimen, such must all country physicians be, was a felicity of her own.

In these remarks we would not be understood as referring specially to Miss Martineau. Her case presents no very pecu