have been often given in the course of hunting or Indian | negro was sure to say, 'Is not this like the day of judg trading, when a young man and his slave have gone to ment?' and what they said every one else thought. the trackless woods together, in the cases of fits of the Now to describe this is impossible; but I mean to ac ague, loss of a canoe and other casualties happening count in some degree for it. The ice, which had been near hostile Indians. The slave has been known, at the all winter very thick, instead of diminishing, as might imminent risk of his life, to carry his disabled master be expected in spring, still increased, as the sunshine through trackless woods with labor and fidelity scarce came and the days lengthened. Much snow fell in credible; and the master has been equally tender on February, which, melted by the heat of the sun, was similar occasions of the humble friend who stuck closer stagnant for a day on the surface of the ice; and then than a brother; who was baptised with the same bap by the night frosts, which were still severe, was added tism, nurtured under the same roof, and often rocked in as a new accession to the thickness of it, above the the same cradle with himself. These gifts of domestics former surface. This was so often repeated, that in to the younger members of the family were not irrevo- some years the ice gained two feet in thickness, after cable; yet they were very rarely withdrawn. If the the heat of the sun became such as one would have ex• kitchen family did not increase in proportion to that of pected should have entirely dissolved it. So conscious the master, young children were purchased from some were the natives of the safety this accumulation of ice family where they abounded, to furnish those attached afforded, that the sledges continued to drive on the ice, servants to the rising progeny. They were never sold when the trees were budding, and everything looked like without consulting their mother, who, if expert and sa- spring; nay, when there was so much melted on the gacious, had a great deal to say in the family, and would surface that the horses were knee deep in water while not allow her child to go into any family with whose travelling on it; and portentous cracks, on every side, domestics she was not acquainted. These negro wo- announced the approaching rupture. This could scarce men piqued themselves on teaching their children to be have been produced by the mere influence of the sun, excellent servants, well knowing servitude to be their till midsummer. It was the swelling of the waters unlot for life, and that it could only be sweetened by mak-der the ice, increased by rivulets, enlarged by melted ing themselves particularly useful, and excelling in their snows, that produced this catastrophe; for such the department. If they did their work well, it is astonish- awful concussion made it appear. The prelude to the ing, when I recollect it, what liberty of speech was al- general bursting of this mighty mass was a fracture lowed to those active and prudent mothers. They would lengthwise, in the middle of the stream, produced by chide, reprove, and expostulate in a manner that we the effort of the imprisoned waters, now increased too would not endure from our hired servants; and some- much to be contained within their wonted bounds. times exert fully as much authority over the children of Conceive a solid mass, from six to eight feet thick, the family as the parents, conscious that they were en- bursting for many miles in one continued rupture, protirely in their power. They did not crush freedom of duced by a force inconceivably great, and, in a manter, speech and opinion in those by whom they knew they inexpressibly sudden. Thunder is no adequate image were beloved, and who watched with incessant care over of this awful explosion, which roused all the sleepers their interest and comfort. within reach of the sound, as completely as the final convulsion of nature, and the solemn peal of the awakening trumpet might be supposed to do. The stream in summer was confined by a pebbly strand, overhung with high and steep banks, crowned with lofty trees, which were considered as a sacred barrier against the encroachments of this annual visitation Never dryads dwelt in more security than those of the vine-clad elms, that extended their ample branches over this mighty stream. Their tangled nets laid bare by the impetuous torrents, formed caverns ever fresh and fragrant, where the most delicate plants flourished, unvisited by scorching suns or nipping blasts; and nothing could be more singular than the variety of plants and birds that were sheltered in these intricate and safe recesses. But when the bursting of the crystal surface set loose the many waters that had rushed down, swol len with the annual tribute of dissolving snow, the islands and low lands were all flooded in an instant; and the lotty banks, from which you were wont to over look the stream, were now entirely filled by an impetu ous torrent, bearing down, with incredible and tumul tuous rage, immense shoals of ice; which, breaking every instant by the concussion of others, jammed to gether in some places, in others erecting themselves in gigantic heights for an instant in the air, and seeming to combat with their fellow-giants crowding on in al directions, and falling together with an inconceivable crash, formed a terrible moving picture, animated and various beyond conception; for it was not only the cerulean ice, whose broken edges combatting with the stream, refracted light into a thousand rainbows, that charmed your attention; lofty pines, large pieces of the bank torn off by the ice with all their early green and tender foliage, were driven on like travelling islands, amid the battle of breakers, for such it seemed. I am absurdly attempting to paint a scene, under which the powers of language sink. Suffice it, that this year its solemnity was increased by an unusual quantity of snow, which the last hard winter had accumulated, and the dissolution of which now threatened an inunda tion.

The volume abounds in quaint anecdote, pathos, and matter of a graver nature, which will be treasured up for future use by the historian. At page 321 is a description of the breaking up of the ice on the Hudson. The passage is written with great power; and, as Southey has called it, "quite Homeric," (a fact of which we are informed in the preface to this edition) we will be pardoned for copying it entire.

Soon after this I witnessed, for the last time, the sublime spectacle of the ice breaking up on the river; an object that fills and elevates the mind with ideas of power, and grandeur, and indeed, magnificence; before which all the triumphs of human art sink into insignificance. This noble object of animated greatness, for such it seemed, I witnessed; its approach being announced, like a loud and long peal of thunder, the whole population of Albany were down at the river side in a moment; and if it happened, as was often the case, in the morning, there could not be a more grotesque assemblage. No one who had a nightcap on waited to put it off; as for waiting for one's cloak or gloves, it was a thing out of the question; you caught the thing next you that could wrap round you, and run. In the way you saw every door left open, and pails, baskets, &c. without number set down in the street. It was a perfect saturnalia. People never dreamt of being obeyed by their slaves till the ice was past. The houses were left quite empty: the meanest slave, the youngest child, all were to be found on the shore. Such as could walk, ran; and they that could not, were carried by those whose duty would have been to stay and attend them. When arrived at the show place, unlike the audience collected to witness any spectacle of human invention, the multitude, with their eyes all bent one way, stood immoveable, and silent as death, till the tumult ceased, and the mighty commotion was passed by; then every one tried to give vent to the vast conceptions with which his mind had been distended. Every child, and every

every way. We think, moreover, we perceive in him a far more stable basis for solid and extensive reputa tion than we have seen in more than a very few of our countrymen. We allude not now particularly to force of expression, force of thought, or delicacy of imagination. All these essentials of the poet he possesses-but we wish to speak of care, study, and self-examination, of which this vigor and delicacy are in an inconceiva ble measure the result. That the versification of Mr. G.'s poem The Conqueror, is that of Southey's Thalaba, although we regard the metre itself as unjustifiable. It we look upon as a good omen of ultimate successis not impossible that Mr. G. has been led to attempt this rhythm by the same considerations which have had weight with Southey-whose Thalaba our author had not seen before the planning of his own poem. If So, and if Mr. Gallagher will now begin anew, in his end, we have little doubt of his future renown. researches about metre, where the laureate made an

It is not our intention to review the poems of Mr. Gallagher-nor perhaps would he thank us for so doing. They are exceedingly unequal. Long passages of the merest burlesque, and in horribly bad taste, are intermingled with those of the loftiest beauty. It seems too, that the poems before us fail invariably as entire poems, while succeeding very frequently in individual portions. But the failure of a whole cannot be shown without an analysis of that whole-and this analysis, as we have said, is beyond our intention at present. Some detached sentences, on the other hand, may be readily given; but, in equity, we must remind our readers that these

great father to take off their coats and their boots, so that if the great barge was filled with water, or if she turned over, they might swim for their lives. The words of Misco-Monedo seemed good to the warriors, and they took off their coats and boots, and made ready to swim in case of need. Then they sat still and silent, for the courage of the Major no longer overflowed at his lips; perhaps he was collecting it round his heart. They sat a long while, but at last the guide told them, 'It is over, the warriors are safe.' Then, indeed, there was great joy among the white men; but Ininiwee made haste to put on his coat and his boots, for he said in his heart, 'If I can get them on before the other warriors, I can say I am brave; did not take off my boots nor my coat; you are cowards, so I shall be a great chief.' Ininiwee put on his coat, and then he thought to have put on his boots; but when he tried, the warrior who sat next him in the barge shouted and called for the Misco-Monedo. He came immediately, and saw that Ininiwee, whom they called the Major, in his haste and in his great fright, was trying to put his boot on another man's leg."

RUSSIA AND THE RUSSIANS.

there are no points of comparison among them. St Petersburg is a city of new houses, newly painted The designs of some of them may be old, but the copies are evidently new. They imitate the classic models; but they often imitate them badly, and there is always something to remind one that they are not the genuine classic. They are like the images which the Italian boys carry about the thoroughfares of London-Venuses de Medici and Belvidere Apollos, in stucco.

But the streets are wide, and the walls painted white or light yellow; and from one street opens another, and another, and another-all wide, and white, and light yellow. And then, here and there, there are columned façades, and churches, and domes, and tapering spiresall white too, that are not gilded, or painted a sparkling green. And canals sweep away to the right and left almost at every turning, not straight and Dutch-like, but bending gracefully, and losing themselves among the houses. And there is one vast and glorious river, as wide as the Thames at London, and a hundred times more beautiful, which rolls through the whole; and, beyond it, from which ever side you look, you see a kindred mass of houses and palaces, white and yellow, and columned façades, and churches, and domes, and spires, gilded and green.

The left bank of this river is a wall of granite, with a parapet and trottoir of the same material, extending for several miles; and this forms one of the most mag

side look like palaces, for all are white, and many have for instance, the Admiralty, the Winter Palace, and columns; and there are also absolute de facto palaces; the Marble Palace, on one side, and the Academy of Arts, on the other. The water in the middle is stirring with boats, leaping and sweeping through the stream, with lofty, old-fashioned sterns, painted and gilded within and without.

Russia and the Russians; or, a Journey to St. Peters-nificent promenades in Europe. The houses on either burg and Moscow, through Courland and Livonia; with Characteristic Sketches of the People. By Leigh Ritchie, Esq. Author of "Turner's Annual Tour," "Schinder hannes," &c. Philadelphia: E. L. Carey and A. Hart. This book, as originally published in London, was beautifully gotten up and illustrated with engravings of superior merit, which tended in no little degree to Among the streets, there is one averaging the width heighten the public interest in its behalf. of Oxford Street in London, sometimes less, sometimes a little more. present volume is well printed on passable paper-painted shutters, and churches of half a dozen different It is lined with trees, and shops with The name of Leigh Ritchie however, is creeds. Its shops, indeed, are not so splendid as ours, a host in itself. He has never, to our knowledge, writ- nor are their windows larger than those of private ten a bad thing. His Russia and the Russians has all houses: but the walls are white and clean, sometimes the spirit and glowing vigor of romance. It is full of columned, sometimes pillastered, sometimes basso-reevery species of entertainment, and will prove in Ame-lievoed in fact, if you can imagine such a thing as a street of gin-palaces just after the painting season-and that is a bold word-you may form an idea scarcely exaggerated of the Nevski Prospekt.

and no more.

The

:

Here there

same classes of society; and the view is terminated, ever and anon, by domes and spires. The whole, in short, is one splendid picture, various in its forms, but consistent in its character.

rica as it has in England, one of the most popular books of the season. In this respect it will differ no less widely from the England of Professor Von Raumer than it But no analogy taken from London can convey an differs from it in matter and manner, the vivacious writer idea of the--grandeur, I may venture to say, presented of Schinderhannes suffering his own individuality of by the vistas opening from the main street. are no lanes, no alleys, no impasses, no nestling-places temperament to color every thing he sees, and giving constructed of filth and rubbish for the poor. These us under the grave title of Russia and the Russians, a lateral streets are all parts of the main street, only dibrilliant mass of anecdote, narrative, description and verging at right angles. The houses are the same in sentiment-the profound historian disdaining embellish-form and color; they appear to be inhabited by the ment, and busying himself only in laying bare with a master-hand the very anatomy of England. It is amusing, however, although by no means extraordinary, that were we to glean the character of each work from the Such were my first impressions-thus thrown down respective statements of the two writers in their pre-hardly caring about ideas,-the first sudden impressions at random, without waiting to look for words, and faces, we would be forced to arrive at a conclusion pre-flashed upon my mind by the physical aspect of St. eisely the reverse. In this view of the case Leigh Petersburg. Ritchie would be Professor Von Raumer, and Professor Von Raumer Leigh Ritchie. We copy from the book before us the commencement of a sketch of St. Petersburg, in which the artist has done far more in giving a vivid idea of that city than many a wiser man in the sum total of an elaborate painting.

St. Petersburg has been frequently called "the most magnificent city in Europe," but the expression appears to me to be wholly destitute of meaning. Venice is a magnificent city, so is Paris, so is St. Petersburg; but

I have said in a former volume of this work, that I have the custom-like other idlers, I suppose-of wandering about during the first day of my visit to a foreign ing, or desiring to know, the geography of the place; city, without apparent aim or purpose; without knowand without asking a single question. Now this is precisely the sort of view which should be taken of the new city of the Tsars, by one who prefers the poetry of life to its dull and hackneyed prose. St. Petersburg is a picture rather than a reality-grand, beautiful, and noble, at a little distance, but nothing more than a surface of paint and varnish when you look closer. Or,

rather, to amend the comparison, it is like the scene of a theatre, which you must not by any means look behind, if you would not destroy the illusion.

It will be said, that such is the case with all cities, with all objects that derive their existence from the puny sons of men: but this is one of those misnamed truisms which are considered worthy of all acceptation for no other reason than that they come from the tongue, or through a neighboring organ, with the twang of religion or morality.

as, for instance, some writers have done, by stating that the Nevski Prospekt is half as wide again as Oxford Street in London. Every thing is here on a gigantic scale. The quays, to which vessels requiring nine feet of water cannot ascend, except when the river is unusually high, might serve for all the navies of Europe. The public offices, or at least many of them, would hardly be too small, even if the hundred millions were added to the population of the country, which its soil is supposed to be capable of supporting.

Perhaps it may be as well to introduce here, for the sake of illustration, although a little prematurely as regards the description, a view of the grand square of the Admiralty. This is an immense oblong space in the very heart of the city. The spectator stands near the manège, the building which projects at the left-hand corner. Beyond this is the Admiralty, with its gilded spire, which is visible from almost all parts of the metropolis. Farther on is the Winter Palace, distinguished by a flag, in front of which, near the bottom of the vista, is the column raised to the memory of Alexander. Opposite this, on the right hand, is the palace of the Etat Major, and returning towards the foreground, the War Office. The group in front are employed in drag. the left hand corner, although the view is not wide enough to admit it. This is to be the richest and most splendid building in the world; but it has been so long in progress, and is now so little advanced, that a notice of it must fall to the lot of some future traveller. Saint Isaak, I believe, is not particularly connected with Russia, except by his day falling upon the birth-day of Peter the Great.

London does not lose but gain by inspection; although on inspection it is found to be an enormous heap of dirty, paltry, miserable brick houses, which, but for the constant repairs of the inhabitants, would in a few years become a mass of such pitiful ruins as the owls themselves would disdain to inhabit. Those narrow, winding, dingy streets-those endless lines of brick boxes, without taste, without beauty, without dignity, without any thing that belongs to architecture, inspire us with growing wonder and admiration. The genius, the industry, the commerce, of a whole continent seem concentrated in this single spot; and the effect is uninterrupted by any of the lighter arts that serve as the mere ornaments and amusements of life. An earnestness of purpose is the predominating character of the scene-aging stones for the new Isaak's church, which stands in force of determination which seizes, and fixes, and grapples with a single specific object, to the exclusion of every other. The pursuit of wealth acquires a character of sublimity as we gaze; and Mammon rises in majesty from the very deformity of the stupendous temple of common-place in which he is worshipped. Venice does not lose but gain by inspection; although on inspection it is found to be but the outlines of a great city, filled up with meanness, and dirt, and famine. Such is the scale on which St. Petersburg is built; We enter her ruined palaces with a catching of the for although this may be considered the heart of the breath, and a trembling of the heart; and when we see city, the other members correspond. The very vast her inhabitants crouching in rags and hunger in their ness of the vacant spaces, however, it should be ob marble halls, we do but breathe the harder, and tremble served, seems to make the houses on either side look the more. The effect is increased by the contrast; for less lofty; while on the other hand, no doubt the real Venice is a tale of the past, a city of the dead. The want of loftiness in the houses exaggerates the breadth Rialto is still crowded with the shapes of history and of the area between. But on the present occasion, any romance; the Giant's Steps still echo to the ducal thing like fancy in the latter respect would have been tread; and mingling with the slaves and wantons who quite supererogatory. The streets were hardly passa meet on the Sunday evenings to laugh at the rattle of ble. Here and there a pond or a morass gave pause their chains in the Piazza di San Marco, we see gliding, to the pedestrian; while the droski driver was only scornful and sad, the merchant-kings of the Adriatic. indebted to his daily renewed experience of the daily St. Petersburg, on the other hand, has no moral cha-changing aspect of the ground, for the comparative racter to give dignity to common-place, or haunt tombs and ruins like a spirit. It is a city of imitation, constructed, in our own day, on what were thought to be the best models; and hence the severity with which its public buildings have been criticised by all travellers, except those who dote upon gilding and green paint, and are enthusiasts in plaster and whitewash. As a picture of a city, notwithstanding, superficially viewed-an idea of a great congregating place of the human kind, without reference to national character, or history, or individuality of any kind-St. Petersburg, in my opinion, is absolutely unrivalled.

It would be difficult, even for the talented artist whose productions grace these sketches, to convey an adequate idea of the scale on which this city is laid out; and yet, without doing so, we do nothing. This is the grand distinctive feature of the place. Economy of room was the principal necessity in the construction of the other great European cities; for, above all things, they were to be protected from the enemy by stone walls. But, before St. Petersburg was built, a change had taken place in the art and customs of war, and permanent armies had become in some measure a substitute for permanent fortifications. Another cause of prodigality was the little value of the land; but, above all these, should be mentioned, the far-seeing, and far-thinking ambition of the builders. Conquest was the ruling passion of the Tsars from the beginning; and in founding a new capital, they appear to have destined it to be the capital of half the world.

It is needless to exaggerate the magnitude of the city;

confidence and safety with which he pursued his way. The streets, in fact, were in the same predicament as the roads by which I had reached them; they had thawed from their winter consistence, and their stones, torn up, and dismantled by the severities of the frost, had not yet been put into summer quarters,

The greater part of the streets are what may be termed pebble-roads, a name which describes exactly what they are. At this moment, in the whole city, there are upwards of seven hundred and seventy-two thousand square sagenes* of these roads, while of stone pavement there are only nine thousand four hundred and fifty, and of wood six thousand four hundred.

The wooden pavement, I believe, is peculiar to St. Petersburg, and merits a description. It consists of small hexagons sawed from a piece of resinous wood, and laid into a bed formed of crushed stones and sand. These are fastened laterally into each other with wooden pegs, and when the whole forms a plain surface, the interstices are filled with fine sand, and then boiling pitch is poured over all. This pitch from the porous nature of the wood is speedily absorbed, and on a quar tity of sand being strewed above it, the operation is complete, and a pavement constructed which is found to be extremely durable, and which seems to me to suffer much less injury from the frost than the stone cause way. The honor of the invention is due to M. Gourief and I have no doubt he will ultimately see it adopted in most of the great towns towards the north.

A sagene is seven feet.