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VII. CONSTITUTIONAL LAW

Reports of Cases Argued and Adjudged in the Supreme Court of the United States, January Term, 1837. By RICHARD PETERS.

VIII. GREENE'S TALES FROM THE GERMAN

Tales from the German. Translated by NATHAN-
IEL GREENE.

126

156

IX. THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY THE NORTHMEN. 161 Antiquitates Americanæ, sive Scriptores Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum, in Americâ. Samling af de i Nordens Oldskrifter in deholdte efterretninger om de gamle Nordboers opdagelsereiser til America, fra det 10de til det 14de Aarhundrede.

X. PRESCOTT'S FERDINAND AND ISABELLA

203

History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic. By WILLIAM H. PRESCOTT.

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CONTENTS

OF

No. XCIX.

ART.

I. HISTORICAL ROMANCE IN ITALY

Raccolta di Romanzi Storici originali Italiani.
Collection of Original Italian Historical Romances.

II. PERIODICAL ESSAYS OF THE AGE OF ANNE.
The Tatler. Four Volumes. 8vo. London.

III. MADEIRA AND THE AZORES.

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Resumo de Observações Geologicas feitas em
uma Viagem a's Ilhas da Madeira, Porto Santo, e
Açores, nos Annos de 1835 e 1836, pelo Conde
VARGAS DE BEDEMAR, Camarista de El-Rei de Di-
namarca, Director do Museo Real da Historia Na-
tural, e Socio da Academia Real das Sciencias em
Compenhagen.

Summary of Geological Observations made in a
Voyage to the Islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, and
Azores, in the Years 1835 and 1836, by Count VAR-
GAS DE BEDEmar.

IV. LAST YEARS OF MARIA LOUISA

Histoire de Napoléon, par M. DE NORVINS. Deuxième Édition en quatre Tomes, à Paris et à New York. 1829.

History of Napoleon, by M. DE NORVINS.

V. EARLY HISTORY OF CANADA

1. British America. By JOHN MCGREGOR, Esq.
In two Volumes.

2. Narrative of an Expedition through the Upper
Mississippi to Itasca Lake, the actual Source of this
River, embracing an Exploratory Trip through the St.
Croix and Burntwood Rivers, in 1832. Under the
Direction of Henry R. Schoolcraft.

PAGE.

325

341

366

386

409

VI. MEMOIRS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT

431

1. Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., by J. G. LOCKHART. Five Volumes.

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Documentary History of the American Revolution. Published in Conformity to an Act of Congress. By MATTHEW ST. CLAIR CLARK and PETER FORCE. Fourth Series.

VIII. Roy's HEBREW LEXICON

A Complete Hebrew and English Dictionary on a New and Improved Plan, containing all the Words in the Holy Bible, both Hebrew and Chaldee, with the Vowel Points, Prefixes, and Affixes, as they stand in the Original Text; together with their Derivation, Literal and Etymological Meaning, as it occurs in every Part of the Bible, and illustrated by numerous Citations from the Targums, Talmud, and Cognate Dialects. By W. L. Roy, Professor of Oriental Languages in New York.

IX. CRITICAL NOTICES.

1. McClelland's Geological Inquiries .

475

487

533

2. Farmer's Historical Sketch of Amherst, N. H. 536 3. Sweetser on Digestion.

539

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10. Addresses on Education

11. Sullivan's Historical Causes and Effects
12. St. Réal's Venetian Conspiracy

QUARTERLY LIST OF NEW PUBLICATIONS

INDEX

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NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.

No. XCVIII.

JANUARY, 1838.

7. Bowen,

ART. I. — Gleanings in Europe. By the Author of "The Spy," &c., &c. Philadelphia. Carey, Lea, & Blanchard. 2 vols.

12mo.

To write a good novel, we hold to be one of the highest efforts of genius. Many talents are required to this end, which are rarely combined in an individual. The novelist must unite in his own person the functions of the poet, the philosopher, and the dramatist; he must invent, discriminate, and hold the mirror up to nature," in the portraiture of character and passion, acting in their peculiar scenes and producing their characteristic effects. Though free from the shackles of rhythm and metrical arrangement, which embarrass the poet, he is bound to greater truthfulness in his exhibition of nature. He must not soar so high, that clouds may cover what had better be concealed; he must be distinct, graphic, true. Incidents are to be invented, not so common as to create weariness, nor so marvellous as to excite unbelief. Unity of action is essential; the story must have a beginning, middle, and end. A string of events, connected by no other tie, than the mere fact, that they happened to the same individual, or within a given period of years, may constitute a fictitious history or memoir, but it does not make a novel. A due regard to probability forms no trifling restriction. It is not enough, that incidents may be adduced from real life more VOL. XLVI. No. 98.

1

wonderful than those narrated. History is often stranger than fiction. The novelist is an imitator, and his subject is the ordinary course of things; not the wild accidents and romantic adventures, which now and then diversify the monotony of life. From this difficulty in the way of inventing a probable and consistent plot, both ancient and modern playwrights have usually borrowed known historical facts, or the traditionary stories that form the debatable ground between history and fiction, or the acknowledged fables of professed story-tellers.

The action of a play is comparatively narrow and confined. Characters are brought out more by dialogue than incident; therefore the portrait is less finished. The exhibition of a single passion, the sketch of one peculiarity in feeling or conduct, is enough to constitute a dramatic figure. The picture is complete, only as the imagination of the reader, stimulated by the suggestive power of the poet, fills up the outline thus presented. But the novelist works with greater freedom, and as the characters which he draws may be presented under any modification of manners and circumstance, he must paint at full length, and place less dependence on the reader's activity of mind for completing the costume and expression. An extended and minute observation of life, a facility at unravelling the complexity of motives, which regulate human conduct, and a microscopic power of detecting, in trivial events, the developement of peculiar mental features, are thus essential to the office of a Fielding, an Edgeworth, or a Scott. Again, the personages of a novel must be individualized sufficiently to command the sympathy of the beholders with their actions and feelings, while they must have common traits enough to stand as the representatives of a class. The annalist paints with sweeping strokes and little discrimination. His pages swarm with characters, who perform a certain round of events, make war and peace, marry, die, and are forgotten. Face answers to face; having nothing distinctive in themselves, we are as little interested in them singly, as in the successive waves that break upon the beach. Interest attaches to them, only as each is concerned in the great tide of human events, which advances a step as every head rises for a moment, and then disappears for ever. In history, moreover, individuals appear only in their connexion with great actions, the very nature of which is to call forth passions and powers that

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