who permits himself to be drawn aside, for a single moment, from the path of justice and of truth, by mistaken notions of kindness, by the whining cant of affected candour, by that miserable mawkish humanity, which discerns no difference between integrity and vice, between honour and falsehood, between wisdom and ignorance, between intellect and stupidity. It is the duty of every man, while the life beats in his bosom, to plead in behalf of learning, and in the cause of his country.

THE ECHO, with other Poems, 1807.-1 Vol. 8vo. p. 331– for sale by Brisban and Brannan, No. 1. City Hotel, Broadway,-New-York.

i

THIS work is ornamented with engravings that would do

credit to European artists.-The plate, however, which represents a ball given by Governor Hancock to the Negroes at Boston, has two faults :-first, that the countenances of the dancers, in general, do not resemble those of negroes; and, -secondly, that it presents a servile imitation of that celebrated piece of Hogarth, which describes St. Paul preaching to Felix, of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, whereat Felix trembled. The painter makes a servant, who stands behind Felix, hold his nose, in order to show what effect trembling produced in the governor.-So in this plate of the Echo, a gentleman who stands behind Governor Hancock holds his nose ;-leaving it doubtful, indeed, whether it be the governor, or the negroes, that causes him to put his nose in a parenthesis.

The design of this very admirable performance is stated in a well-written, elegant preface, to be two-fold ;—first, to ridicule" the pedantry, affectation, and bombast,”--of the American writers at that time,"--and, secondly,--to satirize jacobinism," which was, then, rapidly destroying this country.

The first part of their plan the authors of the Echo have executed with great ingenuity and success;—the bombast,

and fustian of some celebrated American effusions, are lashed with a force of ridicule and a keenness of irony, that would not dishonour Rabelais, Swift, or Voltaire. We would with pleasure, quote some specimens of the Echo's sportive, and sarcastic powers, but we are at a loss what pieces to select from amongst the very many, which cover the enemies of sound literature and correct taste, with intolerable contempt. The reader must be, to use an expression of Lord Bacon, either 66 more than man, or less than beast," who does not receive both improvement and delight from a perusal of the Echo's attacks upon the egregious absurdities, literary and political, of the pretenders to learning, and the pseudo patriots, of this

country.

But the second department of their duty, the gentlemen, who framed the Echo, have not filled up so well. They do not seem to have been aware, that vice and crime are not subjects of mere ridicule. The villain, who deserves the gibbet, will think himself very fortunate to escape with being only laughed at. Vice must be branded with infamy; must be held up to general, to universal abhorrence, and detastation.— Mere folly, coxcombry, affectation, frippery, pedantry, vanity, nonsense ;-in a word, whatever tends only to make men absurd, and contemptible, without breaking down, or attacking the strong holds of religion, and morality,—can alone be considered as fit subjects for laughter and ridicule.

But Jacobinism is not of this nature.-Such a foul and feculent abortion can only be brought to the birth by the monstrous and the horrible commixture of heated ignorance with iniquity. A Jacobin is,-as Theodorus Gadareus indignantly said of that monster Tiberius,-a lump of clay kneaded up with blood τον πηλον τω αίματι πεφυραμενον. The cruelty of Jacobins surpasses the common hardness of the human heart ;they are not made of clay, like other men ;-but they are formed of iron; so that the embrace, the kiss, the brotherly kiss, of Jacobins is, that of iron cheek to iron cheek, in horrid confraternity conjoined, while their bloody arms of death bestow the hug of hell.

The Echo, therefore, did well to treat, with airy ridicule the dull conceits of pedantic ignorance, and the miserable laVOL. II.

2 I

bours of our Presidential naturalist, while employed in pickling spiders, or in bottling beetles ;-but airy ridicule is, in very deed, an uneffectual weapon against the murderous desolation of jacobinism, which shakes all public security, and threatens all private enjoyments, which corrupts the young, and destroys the repose of the aged;—which interrupts employment, and casts a darksome gloom over the countenance of mirth ;-which perverts and debases language, violates, and poisons morals; which renders knowledge itself worse than ignorance; which cripples the growth of national ability; which freezes and paralyses and annihilates the intellectual energies of the human race.

It was the duty of the Echo, therefore, to have gone forth in the panoply of religion, and, wielding the sword of indignant and offended virtue, to have laid open, and exposed, and levelled, and destroyed all the haunts, and dens, and caves, and tenements, and sculking-places of jacobinism;-to have opened the fountains of hallowed fire, which, flowing with liquid purity, in the silence of the night should have revealed, and exposed, and blasted, and withered those loathsome objects, which darkness alone conceals, and cherishes ;—to have thundered, from on high, upon the enemies of mankind, and, with the beamy brightness of their increasing blaze, far round to have illumined hell.

But this has not been done.-The Echo only walks in the more easy paths of gaiety and mirth; leaving it for writers of another mould, to make the conscious villain shudder at his crime, grow pale, and tremble under virtue's frown;-to stand between the dead and the living, and to stay the plague; to be as a wall of fire between their fellow-men and the contagious blastments of iniquity.

This, however, is a mere deficiency of intellectual strength. But we have a much stronger objection to make against the Echo;—namely, that it industriously endeavours to raise a feeble laugh against some of the very chiefest doctrines of the Holy Scriptures;' such as Original Sin, the Deluge, &c. &c.— This is, indeed, a beggarly, despicable species of merriment, which all wise men despise for its vulgar facility, and all good men dread for its profaneness.

1807. Travels in Louisiana and the Floridas

247

With these exceptions, the Echo is an admirable exhibition of learning, wit, and genius, combined for the laudable purpose of upholding the cause of sound morals, and of good policy, which are, in fact, inseparable;-to laugh folly out of countenance; and cause the burning blush of shame, upon the cheek of guilt, to speak the pangs of horror and remorse.

THE TRIALS OF WM. S. SMITH, and S. G. OGDEN, for misdemeanours, had in the circuit court of the United States, for the New-York district, in July, 1806.-with a preliminary account of the proceedings of the same court against Messrs Smith and Ogden, in the proceeding April term.By Thomas Lloyd, Stenographer.-New-York.-Printed by and for I. Riley & Co.-1807.-1 Vol. 8vo-p. 287. For sale by Brisban and Brannan, No. 1. City Hotel, New-York.

M

UCH praise is due to the publishers, for the care and industry, with which this book is produced, and to the reporter, for his diligence in giving so fully the arguments of the learned counsel, who distinguished themselves, in this very important, and interesting trial, by their legal dexterity and ingenuity, and some of them, by occasional flashes of eloquence, in their addresses to the Jury.

The book is printed with considerable inaccuracy; which, indeed is an accomplishment, by no means, uncommon, among the printers in America.

TRAVELS IN LOUISIANA, AND THE FLORIDAS, in the year 1802-giving a correct picture of those countries. Translated from the French, with notes, &c.-by John Davis, New York. Printed by and for I. Riley, & Co. No. 1. City Hotel, Broadway. 1806. For sale by Brisban and

Brannan.

IF

F what is related in this book, be true; and we cannot contradict it, for we know nothing about the character of the people in Louisiana, and the Floridas,—it is a valuable produc

248 Travels in Louisiana and the Floridas. March.

tion, because it gives to us information respecting the inhabitants of a country, in which we are most materially interested.

The relations of voyagers and travellers, when their veracity can be depended upon, are, perhaps, of all books, the most pleasing and instructive; because they open to our minds a new field of speculation and of improvement, by delineating the manners and the customs of different nations and people, and by pointing out the causes, if possible, of such customs and manners.

But the facts, or incidents, narrated in the book, are all, that render it valuable ;-for the original writer, the Frenchman, displays so much ignorance, pertness, self-sufficiency, impudence, cruelty, vulgarity, and brutal coarseness, as amply to entitle him to the pillory, or the whipping-post-And his translator, Mr. John Davis, has, most devoutly, copied his principal in all these philosophical embellishments ;—The cause of literature and of truth suffers most materially, when men, who call themselves translators, are not contented with spawning their own vulgarity, and indecency, but ransack the filthy deposits of Gallic ribaldry, in order to present to the English reader, that, which wisdom despises, and that, from which delicacy shrinks with abhorrence.

The translator favours us with this piece of information in a

note.

"It is not in young countries, that we are to expect much taste for literature. Emigrants to such places are generally men of a speculative turn; it is not the muses, but Mammon they worship. Look at our United States.-Did ever a Review, or Magazine live to any kind of maturity? If any thing succeeds, it is a folio, of four pages viz.a news-paper-Trans."

No doubt the latter part of this observation is meant for wit-its intention, however, is not answered by its execution or its effect. The assertion, with respect to the state of literature, in this country, is not correct. For there have been, for many years past, and there are now, in the towns of Philadelphia, of New-York, and of Boston, periodical publications, and literary journals, which, in learning, wit, humour, critical sagacity, and genius, need not turn their back to any simi