study, and being somewhat unsettled in his disposition, he went to sea, and afterwards came to South Carolina, where he died in 1776. It is not easy to tell how far the system or the manner of applying it produces such results. Let the course be shaped as direct as possible, there will always be sidewinds and under-currents against which no human wisdom can guard. Mr. Edgeworth was still more painfully disappointed in a daughter by his second wife. She was always an object of inspiring hope; her personal beauty and intellectual accomplishments attracted the admiration of all. Upon her he tried his favorite theory, which maintained that by cultivating the habit of attention, a new direction could be given to the youthful mind. She was deliberate and exact. He wished to awaken an interest in literature, particularly such as excites the imagination. By reading to her, according to his practice in his family, passages from poems and works of fancy, and pointing out their beauties, he effected the desired change, and gave her a decided literary taste. But while she promised to reward his affectionate care, she became the victim of hereditary consumption, and died at the age of fifteen.

It is quite possible to write and reason well on the subject of education without much practical ability; neither is success in a few cases always to be regarded as a test of the merit of the system. But Mr. Edgeworth was in general, very happy in his laborious attempts to educate his children, and in one instance he has given the world ample assurance of his power. In the works of his celebrated daughter, there is a union of talents which do not often exist together, of clear sagacity with brilliant invention; the imagination was evidently the gift of nature, while the just discernment was the result of education. This was according to his theory, which maintained that the resources should be carefully drawn out by attentive care, so as to balance one against another; to remove that which is excessive, and supply that which is wanting. So important did this process appear, that he recommended to parents to keep a private journal in which the peculiarities of the child's character, as they manifested themselves, should be noted down. In short, his opinion was, that parents should make it a serious object to educate their children, and always keep it before them, as an indispensable and sacred duty; not leaving young minds and hearts at the mercy of chance and time; but doing the work which Providence assigns them when it places the children under their care.

The work which is now republished on the subject of Practical Education, has been more than thirty years before the public, and many of our readers are well acquainted with it; still we have thought the appearance of a new edition an occasion not unsuitable for giving to the author the credit which he deserves. We say the author, for, although it was published in connexion with his daughter, she describes the principles and suggestions as his, and herself as bearing a part only in the execution. The suggestions must have proceeded from one who had thought much on the subject, and corrected his theories by patient and attentive observation. It is full of illustrations, which show that no partiality for systems interfered with his penetrating discernment of truth. In fact, in the latter part of his life he became an observer by profession, devoting much of his time to his family, and steadily following the advice given by his penitent companion, formerly alluded to, to be useful to the very last.

In the works published in conjunction with his daughter, the public, knowing her ability better than his, may have assigned her more than her share of credit; but in 1808 he published a work on Professional Education, which was entirely his own. It is not very generally known in this country; but those who have read it, will agree in pronouncing it one of the best, as well as most interesting works upon the subject. The prevailing idea on which his system is founded, that natural differences can be greatly modified by devoting the attention for the purpose, seems to us judicious and true. But even those who care nothing for the subject, will find entertainment and instruction in the intellectual character of the work, which abounds with sagacious remark and shrewd observation, such as implies extensive knowledge of the mind and heart.

We have made these few remarks upon the literary character and services of Mr. Edgeworth, because justice has not yet been done to his memory, in this country; those who feel the warmest interest in the works and reputation of the daughter, have, unintentionally "done her sire some wrong." But those who read his writings, will see that he was an intellectual man of high order, and though in the early part of his life, he made rather a sportive use of his great mechanical genius, afterwards, in maturer years, he discharged the duties of a father, a friend, and a patriot, with such exemplary fidelity, that his greatest enemies allowed him the praise of a useful man; which, properly

understood, is the highest praise that ambition can covet, or the world bestow. And those who read, (as who does not ?) the works of his daughter, will remember, that he was the diligent former of her mind, both in youth and maturity, so that we are in part indebted to him for the admirable works with which she has favored the world.

The Linwoods; or Sixty Years since in America. By the AUTHOR of HOPE LESLIE, &c. 2 vols. 12mo. New York. 1835.

WE think this work the most agreeable that Miss Sedgwick has yet published. It is written throughout with the same good taste and quiet unpretending power, which characterize all her productions, and is superior to most of them in the variety of the characters brought into action and the interest of the fable. It also possesses the great additional attraction, that it carries us back to the period of the revolutionary war, the heroic age of our country, which, although only sixty years distant, begins already to wear in the eyes of the degenerate moneymaking men of the present times, a poetical, we had almost said fabulous aspect, and consequently offers the finest scenes and materials for romance.

The fair and unaffectedly modest author disclaims in the preface any competition which might seem to be suggested by the title with the "sixty years since" of the great Scottish enchanter; but it is nevertheless certain that the plan has something of the same general character, and the work, though executed with less power, possesses in part the same charm. It spreads before us a map of New York, the young emporium of our western world, now rivalling in wealth, population, splendor and luxury, the proudest capitals of Europe; as she was in her day of small things, a few Dutch-built streets interspersed with gardens and grouped round the battery. We visit the encampment of Washington, nor has our author shrunk from the somewhat hazardous attempt to introduce into her group of characters the grand figure of the hero himself. In this enterprise, she has on the whole acquitted herself with success.

There is no attempt at effect in any of the scenes where Washington appears, but the propriety of his character is always well sustained. Miss Sedgwick has also transported us to the interior of one of the quiet villages of New England, and has delineated very happily from the living models around her, the simple virtues, which then as now distinguished their inhabitants, and at that period were heightened into heroism by a universal, all-absorbing devotion to country. Upon this rich canvas of historical fact, our author has embroidered a very ingeniously contrived and pleasantly told story, diversified, as we have said, with rather more than the usual variety of incidents and characters. Of heroes and heroines the supply is ample, there being, independently of Washington, Lafayette and their illustrious companions in arms, not less than three of each class. The work is wound off

by three well assorted marriages. The party dissensions of the day afford a very convenient and natural machinery for creating the distress of the story, and keeping the lovers asunder for the necessary length of time. Some of the characters are well drawn. Isabella Linwood is a splendid vision. Bessie, though we suspect, a favorite with the author, is not quite so much so with us; nor has Kizel secured a very high place in our good graces. But in order to make ourselves more intelligible, we will give a rapid sketch of the story, interspersing, as we proceed, such remarks as occur to us, with occasional extracts as specimens of the style.

The work opens with the appearance of two of the heroines entering Broadway through a wicket garden gate in the rear of a stately mansion fronting on Broad street, which, it seems, was then the court end of our Hesperian London. The house belongs to Mr. Linwood, the patriarch of the plot, and the young ladies are his daughter Isabella and her friend Bessie Lee, who is making her a visit. The young ladies present in their appearance the usual contrast of brown and fair. Isabella is rather young for a principal heroine, having just entered her teens. She is, however, robust and tall for her years, with the complexion of a Hebe, very dark hair, an eye, albeit belonging to one of the weaker sex, that looked as if she were born for empire, it might be over hearts and eyes, and the step of a young Juno. Bessie, who it seems is still younger, and of course not yet in her teens, is a less pretending beauty. She was of earth's gentlest, softest mould, framed

for all the tender humanities, with the destiny of woman written on her meek brow, "thou art born to love, to suffer, to obey; to minister, and not to be ministered to." These charming persons are accompanied by a colored attendant named Jupiter, a slave of Mr. Linwood, who, with a female character of a similar description, yclept Rose, makes a considerable figure in the story. We cannot say, that the attempt to imitate the negro jargon produces in this or any other work in which we have seen it made, any great effect. The object of the expedition upon which the young ladies are setting forth, is no other than to have their fortunes told by a personage called Effie, who then exercised the profession of a Pythoness in the good city of Gotham. On their way to the oracle, the girls meet with Herbert Linwood the brother of Isabella, and his friend Jasper Meredith, returning from a hunt, and the whole party proceed together to the place of destination. The scene with the Pythoness furnishes perhaps as good a specimen of the dialogue as any other passage, and gives the reader some obscure hints of the subsequent adventures of the persons who are brought into action. We copy the greater part.

"What wild goose chase are you on, Belle, at this time of day?' asked her brother. I am sure Bessie Lee has not come to Gallows hill with her own good will.'

"I have made game of my goose, at any rate, and given Bessie Lee a good lesson, on what our old schoolmaster would call the potentiality of mankind. But come,' she added, for though rather ashamed to confess her purpose when she knew ridicule must be braved, courage was easier to Isabella than subterfuge. 'Come along with us to Effie's, and I will tell you the joke I played off on Jupe.' Isabella's joke seemed to her auditors a capital one, for they were at that happy age when laughter does not ask a reason to break forth from the full fountain of youthful spirits. Isabella spun out her story till they reached Effie's door, which admitted them, not to any dark laboratory of magic, but to a snug little Dutch parlor, with a nicely-sanded floor, a fireplace gay with the flowers of the season, pionies and Guelder-roses, and ornamented with storied tiles, that, if not as classic, were, as we can vouch, far more entertaining than the sculptured marble of our own luxurious days.

"The pythoness Effie turned her art to good account, producing substantial comforts by her mysterious science; and played her cards well for this world, whatever bad dealing she might have with another. Even Bessie felt her horror of witchcraft diminished before this plump personage, with a round, good-humored face