scum marked T, are the works of an obscure,tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon: A mortal, who though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a skylighted hat, and kneebuckles as unlike as George-by-the grace-of-God, and Solomon-the-Son-of David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Ency

clopedia Britannica, which he composed at half a guinea week!"

Why has Mr. Cromek caused his volume to be numbered V, as forming a sequel to Dr. Currie's edition of the works of Burns, and at the contained in those volumes under same time reprinted several pieces the

pretext that many of his readers may not be possessed of them?

ART. III. Memoirs of an American Lady: with Sketches of Manners and Scenery in America, as they existed previous to the Revolution. By the Author of " Letters from the Mountains," &c. &c. 2 vols. 12mo.

THIS is a work of very considerable merit; it excites many pleasing emotions, communicates many interesting facts and anecdotes, and depicts in a very lively, and we have no doubt faithful manner, much grand and striking scenery, but from its total want of accuracy and arrangement, it is impossible to analyse, and very difficult to convey an idea of it otherwise than by extracts. It is about forty years since Mrs. Grant quitted the country she describes, and at that time she was not more than twelve years old; of course therefore her personal knowledge must have been limited to such circumstances as a child would be capable of observing, and her hearsay information to such particulars as older people would esteem a child fit to become acquainted with. But at least Mrs. Grant was no ordinary girl, and Mrs. Schuyler was no ordinary woman; and we are much obliged to the memory which has retained so much, and the feeling heart and lively fancy which describes so well. The long dissertations on civilization, on refinement and simplicity of manners, &c. in which she sometimes loses herself, are certainly tiresome, and her political ideas are prejudiced and ignorant, but the reader may turn over the former and disregard the latter.

The lives of exemplary persons, always attractive, become especially so when their narrative involves a view of life and manuers novel, peculiar, and widely different from what we see around us. The interest is still further increased when the state of society exhibited is one that has ceased to exist, and of which history would be silent and posterity uninformed. Such is the case with that depicted in these memoirs. The great and glorious revolution which rendered British America an independent republic, swept away at once all existing institutions, and whatever in manners and customs was dependent upon them. In the subsequent rapid advance of this young and flourishing country, all that yet remained of its primitive modes would share the same fate, and like the outgrown garments of an aspiring stripling would quickly be consigned from contempt to oblivion. In their present pride of youth and aspiration after manhood, the Americans themselves are probably little anxious to preserve the records of their infancy; yet they contain much that is worthy of preservation, and the time may come when they themselves will be old enough to look back with tenderness, perhaps with regret, on such a picture of Al bany in the middle of the eighteenth

century, as this work affords.

It was the custom at Albany, as at Geneva, for the children to form themselves, according to their ages, into little companies comprising an equal number of each sex, under the superintendence of the boy and girl amongst them whose superiority in age or in talents had best entitled them to this distinction. Frequent meetings were held to which not even parents were admitted; and thus were formed and nourished all the loves and friendships of the rising generation. It was accounted a kind of apostacy to marry out of your company, and no intimacies were formed beyond it. Such an institution would of course favour early marriages, and there can be little doubt that in a state of society where purity of manners, and equality of conditions prevailed, the fraternal kind of friendships thus formed between young persons of the same and of different sexes, must have been productive of much innocent delight. Mrs. Schuyler the subject of these memoirs, was descended from one of the principal of those Dutch families by whom the province of New York was originally settled, and the town of Albany founded. She was born in 1701, and losing her father at an early age, was educated with a care and liberality then seldom bestowed on the culture of the female mind, by her uncle Colonel Philip Schuyler, who possessed a considerable estate called the Flats, a few miles north of Albany. The eldest son of this uncle she afterwards married, and at this hereditary seat she resided, with few interruptions, during the course of a long life rendered eventful by its activity, and memorable by its usefulness and beneficence. Having no children of their own, she and her worthy husband adopted in succession a large number of ephews and nieces, on whom, and in

was

some instances on whose children they bestowed an education which insured their future respectability and success in life. So numerous were these elévés, that a kind of fashion took its rise from them, and aunt Schuyler became the designation by which she universally known in the province, The Flats being a kind of border house, it was matter of great importance to the whole settlement that its inhabitants should conciliate the attachment of their neighbours the Mohawks. This was done in the most effectual manner by the upright and disinterested conduct of Mr. Schuyler and his two brothers, who occupied adjoining lands, and by the kind and condescending manners of Mrs. Schuyler, who had early become a proficient in their language. Some particulars respecting this interesting tribe are well detailed in the following extract.

"From her knowledge of their language, and habit of conversing with them, some detached Indian families resided for a while in summer in the vicinity of houses occupied by the more wealthy and benevolent inhabitants. They generally built a slight wigwam under shelter of the orchard fence on the shadiest side; less, peaceable, and obliging; I might and never were neighbours more harmtruly add, industrious; for in one way or other they were constantly occupied. The women and their children employed themselves in many ingenious handicrafts, which, since the introduction of European arts and manufactures, have greatly declined. Baking trays, wooden dishes, ladles and spoons, shovels and rakes: brooms, a peculiar manufac ture, made by splitting a birch-block into slender but tough filaments; baskets of ments, enriched with the most beautiful all kinds and sizes, made of similar filacolours, which they alone knew how to extract from vegetable substances, and incorporate with the wood. They made also of the birch-bark, (which is here so strong and tenacious, that cradles and canoes are made of it,) many recepta

cles for holding fruit and other things,
curiously adorned with embroidery, not
inelegant, done with the sinews of deer,
and leggions and moomesans, a very
comfortable and
highly ornamented

substitute for shoes and stockings then universally used in winter among the men of our own people. They had alSO a beautiful manufacture of deer skin softened to the consistence of the finest Chamois leather, and embroidered with beads of Wampum, formed like bugles; these with great art and industry, they formed out of shells, which had the appearance of fine white porceJaine, veined with purple. This em broidery shewed both skill and taste, and was among themselves highly va Jued. They had belts, large embroider ed garters, and many other ornaments, formed, first of deer sinews, divided to the size of coarse thread, and afterwards, when they obtained worsted thread from us, of that material, formed in a manner which I could never comprehend. It was neither knitted nor wrought in the manner of net, nor yet woven; but the texture was formed more like an officer's sash than any thing I can compare it to. While the women and children were thus employed, the men sometimes assisted them in the more laborious part of their business, but oftener occupied themselves in fish ing on the rivers, and drying or preserving by means of smoke, in sheds erected for the purpose, sturgeon and large eels, which they caught in great quantities, and of an extraordinary size, for winter provision.

66

Boys on the verge of manhood, and ambitious to be admitted into the Lunting parties of the ensuing winter, exercised themselves in trying to improve their skill in archery, by shooting birds, squirrels, and racoons. These petty huntings helped to support the lit the colony in the neighbourhood, which however derived its principal subsistence

from an exchange of their manufactures with the neighbouring family for milk, bread, and other articles of food."

The hospitalities of this Schuyler family were almost princely. It is impossible to read the account of their domestic economy, and the description of their beautiful demesne without the most lively delight. After the death of her husband, Mrs. S. continued to reside at the Flats and to exercise all the functions which had formerly been divided between them. When the aggressions of the Indians, prompted by the French settlers, had rendered the presence of a British army necessary, she testified her patriotism by afford. ing them the most valuable information, and every assistance and refreshment in her power. She seems to have prognosticated the fate of that brave and amiable Lord Howe, whose valuable life, with so many others, was sacrificed in the ill-advised attack on Triconderoga; of this most affecting

transaction some

particulars are given. (vol. 2. p. 77, to 82.)

We shall only add that the remaining years of Mrs. S. passed at Albany, were darkened by the storm which was then bursting upon her country. It was not in the power of Mrs. Grapt to give so explicit and detailed an account of her latter days as we wish for; but the particulars that she does affords ns, both respecting her excellent patroness and herself; the circumstances that brought them together, and the sentiments of these impressed on her youthful mind present a feast to the feeling heart.

ART. IV. Midas, or a serious Enquiry concerning Taste and Genius, &e. By A. Fise grave, L.L.D.

WE shall beg leave to decline giving any minute account of this volume, from the difficulty which we find in determining its precise object. It is for the most part an

ironical attack on the language of connoisseurs in affairs of taste, but the irony is too little obvious, and too far protracted not to be very tedious. At the same time, not

withstanding occasional inaccuracies, some passages are far from being ill written. Sometimes in the perusal of this book we imagine that we perceive the traces of some personal disappointment; sometimes we are inclined to suppose the chief end of the author to

have been, to perplex his readers with unavailing attempts to discover an object in what was intended to be little more than an unconnected rhapsody. We shall at all events dismiss his volume to the penetration of more fortunate en quirers than ourselves.

ART. V. Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney; with Remarks, by Miss PORTER, CA thor of Thaddeus of Warsaw.) 12mo. pp. 222.

THE fair editor of these volumes is already well known to the public as the author of the very interesting novel of Thaddeus of Warsaw. Having established a well-earned reputation in one department of literary composition, she has, in the work before us, stepped forward in another, which, though less fascinating, as not yielding scope for that fertile invention, and glowing imagination which charm the reader in perusing the narrative of her Polish hero, is nevertheless equally pregnant with instruction; as affording ample room for the display of that delicacy of sentiment, and those elevated principles of virtue and piety which teem in every page of her writings. Instead of drawing a fictitious character for the occasion, and making him the vehicle of her moral lessons, she has here fixed upon one in real life, who, in his time, comnanded, by his accomplishments and virtues, the respect and the admiration of all ranks; "who," to use the words of the editor, << was esteemed by the old, loved by the young, and was the secret wish of many a female heart':" and it has been her aim to make him the instructor of after ages by selecting from his works such moral maximis. and reflections as exhibit at once a faithful picture of his own mind, and a guide and example of virtue to others.

The passages which Miss Porter has collected into these volumes are drawn chiefly from the Arcadia,

and relate to a great variety of subjects connected with morality and religion. They are in general selected with judgment and taste, and exhibit a very pleasing compendium of moral maxims, so classed and arranged under appropriate heads as to render them more interesting in the perusal than most of the compilations of the kind that we have seen. A very large proportion of the work, however, consists of " remarks" from the pen of Miss Porter herself, which are either elucidations of the original thoughts, or reflections naturally suggested by them. In her conments she has certainly caught the true spirit of her author: the soul of Sidney appears to animate her as she writes. They seem to feel, to conceive, and to express themselves in perfect unison. But if the sentiments which they utter are the same, we owe it to our fair editor to say that those sentiments come before us greatly improved in force and interest by the new medium through which they are conveyed. In almost every instance Miss Porter has the advantage, both in accuracy of thought and feeling, and in the elegance and vigour of expression. We would suggest to, her, however, that we think some of her remarks are too long; by being dilated their spirit is, in some instances, nnnecessarily weakened.

We shall subjoin a few specimens to shew the plan of the work, as well as the ability with which it is executed.