forth strains of the most original poetry. The plodding Germans were found to be of "imagination all compact," and how could invention be denied to those who had shaken the old systems of the world to their foundations, by the discovery of gunpowder and printing? France, after a long struggle, was obliged to bend to this example, and its influence has extended to Great Britain. Those who read, may hereafter, if they please, read compilations, but those who write, must, if they wish to obtain character or reputation, draw their materials from authentic and original sources. Even these authorities are no longer received with a blind credence, as in the days of honest old Rollin, who swallowed the millions of Xerxes and many other wonderful tales with as much gravity and good faith as Herodotus could have desired in a Greek at the Olympic Games, but they are now scrutinized, and their real value ascertained with a discrimination and philosophical acumen unknown in former times. For this also the world is indebted to the critical schools of Germany. In all these respects, we are and must be behind the learned men of Europe, until good libraries, which can alone place us on an equality, are furnished to our scholars.

On another subject, however, we must express our surprise at the slow developement of talent in the United States. Learning depends on means which may or may not be in our possession on extraneous and adventitious circumstances. Poetry springs from the living fountains of the nature that is within us. In its noblest strains, it is but the expression of deep feeling, of lofty sentiment, of embodied passion, the representation of beauty, grace and power, of daring enterprize and heroic achievement. Wherever man is found, his passions and his frailties, love and ambition, fear, avarice, hope, jealousy, revenge attend his footsteps. In the desert as in the crowded hall, in silence and in solitude their voice is heard, and whether in the broken accents of suffering and sorrow, or kindling with the rapture of a holy enthusiasm, they often break forth in poetry and song.

If we are denied some of those collateral aids which have shed so many charms over the strains of the "mighty masters of the lyre," if some of the gorgeous drapery, the picturesque monuments, and thrilling associations of the antique world-if knight and tower, if long-drawn aisle and fretted vault and holy shrine, if magic cave and cell, and enchanted palaces, if fable with her wild creations, and tradition with her wondrous and mysterious legends are wanting in our land-we have the desert and its solitude, the whirlwind, the mountain and the cataract, scenes of sublimity and beauty, where we may VOL. IV. No. 7.

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commune with fancy and catch poetic fervour from the everliving sources of inspiration. Man and his passions, the forms, and the holy and unsearchable power that fashioned the forms of nature, are all elements of poetry, and have been always before us. If the grey streaks of morning are now breaking upon us, we still wonder at their late and tardy approach. We can make no such defence as in the former case; we can only acknowledge that the mind of the Americans has been more practical than poetical-and that the active pursuits of life have diverted their imagination from the contemplation of ideal and possible perfection, to the cold and absorbing calculations of real and necessary utility.

We have not space to pursue this subject further, nor to notice more in detail the travels of Mr. Dwight. In the department to which his attention was particularly directed, he has been altogether satisfactory. His political observations are generally correct and liberal. In his criticisms, he is superficial; he speaks about a subject, but does not analyze it; he carries our expectations and attention repeatedly to some topic or work, as for instance, the Faust of Göethe, but falters and turns aside just when we expect a critical analysis. His views of the religious opinions of Germany are not altogether as full as we expected; and those of her schools of philosophy still more defective. We are, however, indebted to him for information far more important, and we are willing at present to leave the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling and Kant, to a future day, and to more profound and more thoroughly initiated adepts.

We should have been pleased to notice some of his observations on the musical taste, and skill and habits of the Germans. Their love of music is almost unbounded, and their proficiency, as we might expect from the reputation of their great masters, of the highest order. It is heard in its sweetest tones and in the most perfect harmony not only in the palaces of the monarch, but amidst the humble avocations and pastimes of the labouring classes. Almost every one is a musician in the real and appropriate meaning. This is another point in which our country most widely differs from Germany. If we were to judge from the crowds that throng our public places on gala days, that choak our streets and lanes whenever a cracked fife or unstrung drum, or even a jewsharp is heard along the pavements, it would be supposed we were among the most musical or at least music-loving people in the universe. If we should judge from the performance or real knowledge of our performers (we speak of our native productions) what could we say? It is now forty years since we have heard our halls resounding with instruments,

organ and harp and piano, violin and flute, cymbal and psaltery-yet in that time we have not produced a musician nor a celebrated performer. We may go further and say, we have never educated one who understood the principles of music as a science, or the fundamental doctrines upon which all musical composition must be founded. Every thing has partaken of the superficial nature of our schemes of education-every thing for ease or momentary effect. It is time that the day of reformation should approach.

ART. V.-Letters written in the Interior of Cuba, between the Mountains of Arcana, to the East, and of Cusco, to the West, in the months of February, March, April and May, 1828. By the late Rev. ABIEL ABBOT, D. D. Pastor of the First Church in Beverly, in Massachusetts. Boston. Bowles & Dearborn. 1829.

THIS little work, as its title indicates, was written during a residence of nearly four months in the Island of Cuba. Baron Humboldt's account of this island, we believe, has not been translated into English. Huber, who has likewise described this portion of the West Indies, is a loose, if not a superficial and careless writer. It is, therefore, with pleasure that we direct the attention of our readers to an authority like Dr. Abbot's, upon which, as we have every reason to believe, they may place implicit reliance. The author enjoyed opportunities and facilities for acquiring information, with which even the most fortunate tourists are rarely favoured. At the same time that his "Letters" embrace a range of objects, of all others, perhaps, best fitted to gratify the awakened public curiosity in regard to this interesting and magnificent island. They do not present us with any profound speculations about its political condition as it is, or as it promises to become. To such subjects he has scarcely alluded at all-but he compensates for the omission, by a very lively and discriminating account of whatever concerns the religion, manners, customs, economy and productions of the country. The graphic minuteness and vivacity of his descriptions, strike us not only as a great beauty,

but as furnishing internal evidence of their fidelity and accuracy. No reader can fail to be charmed with them. We felt ourselves unconsciously carried along by the narrative, and seemed to share with the author, by a sort of ideal presence, in all the interests and pleasures of his tour.

As the principal purpose of the few remarks which we have to make upon this volume, is to call the public attention to an American work of real merit, we shall proceed, without further preface, to make some extracts from it.

"Carolina in its general appearance is lifeless and dull, compared with almost any spot, since the plantations commenced. You often see a beautiful white stone wall, and sometimes faced, inclosing the plantation from the highway; sometimes a picket fence, withed to a single slab, by a cord cut from the forest, as big as your finger, and drawn as neatly as a cord of hemp; sometimes a living hedge of stakes driven like our willows in a wet place; sometimes a beautiful lime hedge is the fence, and rarely the awkward zigzag Virginia fence, as it is called in the United States, employed as a lively figure to indicate the course of one who sees double. The road is often adorned by a row of those charming and invaluable trees, the palm. These grow to a great height, with a trunk as smooth and polished as if it came from the turner's lathe, from the root to the top, where a few feet of the stem are of a rich, green colour, surmounted by a tuft of leaves, which remind you of the plumes adorning the bonnet of a knight of high degree. These often line the broad avenue which leads from the highway to the planter's mansion. They take infinitely more pains to adorn these avenues, than in South-Carolina, a few at Goose-Creek excepted. I observed one avenue of lofty bamboos, thickly set, in such a manner as to form a beautiful Gothic arch. For beauty nothing could exceed it, except the live oak."

Dr. Abbot resided for a short time in Charleston, and in the country on John's Island, and on the banks of Cooper river. In the course of his remarks on Cuba, he has frequent occasion to compare objects there with others of a similar character in South-Carolina. The sublime scenery of our mountainous region he never saw; hence he is to be understoood as referring in the paragraph just quoted, exclusively to the low country. Strangers to the latter should likewise understand, that during nearly half the year, the planters are debarred from a personal inspection of their plantations, by reason of the fatal effects of its malaria. This circumstance has prevented them from bestowing that attention on the ornamental improvements of their country seats, to which a constant residence is indispensable. The avenues of live-oak alluded to, were planted at a period when strangers resided safely in the low country, during what are now called the "sickly months." This insalubrity and its

effects, have caused the decay, and not in a few instances, the total destruction of some of the most costly edifices in the state, which were, perhaps, equal to any in Cuba. There are few objects of more melancholy contemplation than the country seats upon the banks of the two rivers, which form the peninsula of Charleston. They tell us of important changes, both in the moral and physical condition of the state. The single fact that a proprietor of one of the most splendid of them, did not visit the city until he was a well-grown boy, and that he could not now venture to pass a single night there without the most imminent risk of life speaks volumes. But if it is painful to compare the country in this vicinity, with what it once was, what Carolinian can bear even to imagine the difference between its present condition, and that to which it would certainly have attained under a more auspicious climate?

The comparison of slave labour as it is performed in Cuba and in Carolina, results in favour of our method of tasking. Dr. Abbot does not think the assertion extravagant, when he assures us that the Cuba negroes perform one-third more work than is required of ours. The Cuba planters exact the whole time of their slaves from day-break until dark, (except parts of Saturday and Sunday) and frequently compel them to renew their labours by the light of the moon or stars. On the Spanish sugar estates, during the grinding season, they have but two watches in the twenty-four hours, a severity of exaction, which we hope will never be introduced into the management of American plantations. These matches of life against time are attended on some plantations with the annual loss of from 10 to 15 per cent. of the labourers! This is not less impolitic than barbarous, since the increase in the number of the slaves under gentler treatment,, would probably be more than an equivalent to the superabundance of the crop produced by such unmitigated and unfeeling discipline.

This course of management, no doubt, has its origin in the facility with which slaves could be obtained from Africa. We are told that on some of the estates, none but males are purchased or employed, as they are better capable than females of sustaining the effects of extraordinary physical exertion. Since the abolition of the slave trade by law, the difficulty of obtaining an adequate supply of them being greatly increased, the planters are now pursuing such a policy as will increase the number of their Creoles. Notwithstanding the penalties of the law, however, the slave trade is still prosecuted to a certain extent, by a class of men, desperate enough to hazard the consequences of detection. The vessels commonly used for the