or in "Joseph's coat of many colours," as it may be Spring or Autumn; here is a farm, described as a farm really is in New England, with diversity of rock and pasture, forest and swamp; not one continuity of smiling corn-fields and waving grain; here is a house that looks like a house both outside and inside, somewhat stained by the rain, and a little dingy with smoke; not surrounded with white palisades, ornamented with newlypainted window-blinds, and always as neat as a pink from attic to cellar. Here are real men and women, too, as they seem from day to day in the ordinary routine of life; not rigged up in holiday clothes, with a perpetual smile on their countenances, behaving as well in the story as they do before their minister at a tea-party. We always open a book of Miss Sedgwick's with a certainty of being charmed with the truth of her pictures, no less than with the originality and beauty of her thoughts. And, for some reason or other, it always takes us much longer to read through her last work than that of any other American author. We can, with tolerable facility, despatch a two-volumed, closely printed on speckled paper, new novel in about four hours and a half by a stop-watch; but we can consume a whole winter's evening, from twilight to "the witching hour," over a volume as small as that before us. We skip nothing. We strive not to reach the sense by skimming off the top of the sentence. We know that the cream lies deeper. It does not float up, and leave a residue of watery fluid; but infuses a richness through the whole, so that it is like the fresh new milk in one of her own Stockbridge dairies.

We have no hesitation in calling "the author of Redwood" the most agreeable living writer of fiction whom the journals have delighted to honour. Our memory is fully supplied with the names of Mr. Cooper, and the train who succeeded him, when we utter the opinion. We are well nigh tired of the whole category. In those days when we were accustomed to run through their pages, we hailed the appearance of a romance from Miss Sedgwick as of a pure spring among brackish water.

In the new department of literature upon which she has now entered, she is wholly without a competitor, unless we except the capable author of the "Three Experiments of Living." We look, therefore, almost entirely to herself for the good to be done, and the pleasure to be imparted, in the sphere of illustrating homely facts and principles by stories of real life. Her success in her three first trials, warranted the best expectations for a fourth; and though it comes, like a new and more humble flower of the same class, we are no less gratified

than before.

No books are more needed by us than good books for children-stories founded on the habits and manners of life in our country, which, as they easily recommend themselves to the fancy and understanding, can easily convey moral and religious instruction to the youthful mind. We have had a surfeit of "knowledge made easy." We have had too many simplifications of travels and geography; too much Peter Parleyism. Our children have been getting to be wiser than their progenitors. Mungo Parks and Belzonis are to be found in the regions of the nursery, and Malte-Bruns abound in the infant school-rooms. Thunder and lightning are no longer mysterious to the "toddlin wee things;" but, incipient Franklins, they can discourse of the electric fluid; and we every day expect to hear of a small book from the indefatigable Mr. Goodrich, of Boston (the modern Mr. Newbury), on the newly invented magnetic machine, and its capability of producing rotatory motion. Small philosophic Lord Verulams, in frock and trowsers, confound us with recondite inquiries at the houses of our married acquaintance; and little female Wortley Montagues look up from pictorial embellishments, to have resolved some question of national manners which the sight of a costume had suggested. The process of intellectual stuffing has been carried on to a fearful extent, the fine ligaments have sometimes snapped asunder under the pressure; and, shocked at the consequences both on the physique and morale of their children, parents have been going back to the Arabian Nights and Jack the Giant Killer; preferring gorgeous invention, qualified by harmless absurdity, to the hot-house system of forcing fragile intellects. But, on the journey back to the books which we read when we were children, we are delightfully arrested by these stories of Miss Sedgwick. If she will give us a few more from the same mint, we will make them the current literary coin of our little people, and not return to the old Spanish currency of golden tales from the paper-rags of modern inventors, like Peter Parley and the rest.

We wish the little book before us had not been designated particularly as for Sunday-schools. It would have rapidly found its way into the libraries of these excellent institutions, from its peculiar fitness to interest and improve children, as there is nothing taught which could be objected to by any Christian denomination. The specification will be apt to deter many from a perusal of the book, on whom the author's name may act with a less potent charm than upon that portion of the public she has made her own. We say this, not that we do not approve completely of the object; but

We

because we would have such a book go every where. would have it thought that it is suited for every class-for the young and old, for rich and poor; though it is specially designed for the amusement and edification of the young.

The title is happily chosen, and it appears at the happy season of presents. There are six stories, all excellent, and all intended to inculcate some valuable moral precept. A more attractive garb could not have been chosen. It is by no means an easy task to write for children. Grandiloquent phraseology is always more at command than simple, and at the same time elegant forms of expression. No style could be better adapted to the capacities of children than Miss Sedgwick's. Her words are for them, "apples of gold in pictures of silver." Bubbles, watched as they toss about in the sunbeam before the eyes of a group of happy juveniles, move not more gracefully or more beautifully than her style, as it catches here and there a hue from the bright mind of the author, and glides airily through the subject.

Without extract or particular notice, we commend this little book wholly and unreservedly to our readers. We were pleased while reading it, and pleased with the reflections it left with us. It should go like a sunbeam into garret and parlour; it should solace the poor child in his labours, it should make the rich child happier in the performance of his duties.

THE

NEW-YORK REVIEW.

No. IV.

APRIL, 1838.

ART. I.-1. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of London, at the Visitation in July, 1834. By CHARLES JAMES, Lord Bishop of London. Second Edition.

2. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Diocese of Winchester, in Oct. 1833. By CHARLES RICHARD SUMNER, D. D., Bishop of Winchester and Prelate of the most noble order of the Garter. Second Edition, 1834.

3. A Charge delivered to the Clergy of the Archdeaconry of Winchester, in April, 1834. By CHARLES JAMES HOARE, A. M., Archdeacon of Winchester.

4. A Charge delivered in the Autumn of 1834, at the Visitation in Hampshire. By W. DEALTRY, D. D., F. R. S., Chancellor of the Diocese. 1835.

5. The Necessity of Religion to the Well-Being of a Nation: a Sermon preached, Feb. 6, 1834, before the Monthly Association of Congregational Churches and Pastors; with an Appendix on the subjects at present agitated between Churchmen and Dissenters; By JOHN PYE SMITH, D. D.

THE publications above named are strongly in evidence of two singularly associated facts; the one, that in point of spiritual prosperity and usefulness, the Established Church of England, of late years, has exceeded all parallel in her former

NO. IV.-VOL. II.

32

history; the other, that since the Revolution in 1649 there has been no example of so much combined and earnest zeal against her as these times are displaying. We have long had our attention directed, with lively interest, to the numerous books and pamphlets in assault and defence of Church Establishments, which for a few years past have issued in wonderful affluence from the British press. We say British, for Scotland is fully represented in the struggle. Established Presbyterianism is as much the object of assault on the north of the Tweed, as Established Episcopacy on the south; with this exception however, that the Episcopalians of Scotland do not oppose, but cheerfully support, with their tithe, the Presbyterian Kirk, as by law established; while in England, all denominations of Dissenters unite to oppose the Established Episcopal Church.* The general question, therefore, is not sectarian. On which side you may find the Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Methodist, Unitarian, &c., depends much on circumstances altogether independent of the dividing lines of religious denominations. In some of its relations, the contest in England assumes a merely political aspect. With these we do not meddle. But in the main, it is unquestionably a matter of great ecclesiastical and religious importance, involving questions of high interest in church principles and polity, and of cardinal importance to our common Christianity. In this aspect, it cannot be wondered at if a controversy, in which the Dissenting communities of England are striving with unwonted zeal to overthrow the Church Establishment, and in which its members are up in great force and spirit to maintain it, should attract the earnest attention of those who consider the prominence of England and of her Protestant Christianity, in controlling the moral destinies of the world.

The publications at the head of this article have been selected on account of the eminent reputation for learning, and all Christian excellence, of their respective authors. The Charges of the two Bishops, and those of the Archdeacon and Chancellor of Winchester, all accompanied with valuable Appendixes, are occupied with arguments and statements in defence of the Established Church; exhibiting her present condition in various respects; pointing out, at the same time, where re

*In Scotland, a large proportion of the tithe paid to the Kirk comes from Episcopal landholders. In Ireland, scarcely any of that paid to the Church comes from Roman Catholic landholders. But the Roman Catholics of Ireland are in arms against the Protestant Episcopal Church on account of the burthen of tithe; while the Episcopalians of Scotland consider it a duty to obey the law, and help support a Presbyterian Establishment, in the benefits of which all are partakers.