ART. X.-CRITICAL NOTICES. 1.- America and the American People. By FREDERICK VON RAUMER, Professor of History in the University of Ber lin, &c. Translated from the German, by WILLIAM W. : 1846. PROFESSOR VON RAUMER is well known as an eminent historical investigator, and a very respectable writer. His studies have ranged over the whole field of history, and his conclusions have been drawn from a varied and profound knowledge of the origi nal sources. No name, probably, is of higher authority on any historical subject in Germany than his. The immense learning which he has acquired in his special department enables him to contemplate the phenomena of modern history from a point of view elevated high above the party passions of the age. The judgments of such a man are weighty and important. The ac tors on the political stage, of all parties, will do well to listen to what so impartial a teacher has to say. It is a subject to be thankful for, that at last we have had a traveller in the United States, who is neither a virago, a cockney, nor a post-captain; a man born on the continent, and not bound hand and foot by insular prejudices. It cannot be charged upon Mr. Von Raumer that he judges favorably of America from ignorance of a higher and better state of things; for the most cultivated forms of European society have been familiar to him. The political institutions of ancient and modern states have been subjected to his thorough and searching study; and he has long taught history in one of the most literary cities of Europe, associated with the men who have created a marked epoch in the intellectual progress of the world. He is a German scholar, but not a German pedant; a citizen of the world, and not a burgher of "Krähwinkel," which is the Teutonic name for "Little Pedlington." In the true German fashion, he made himself at home in the "literature of the subject" before he came to America. He must have found it a deplorable business. Even German patience must have faltered at sight of the hideous mass of American travels. Even German thirst for knowledge must have found this branch of research "awful dry," as a good woman once called a hydropathic friend of ours who was addicted to hard drinking of cold water. But Mr. Von Raumer conscientiously mastered it all; and when he arrived among us, he knew already as much about America as many of the American cit- No. 130. VOL. LXII. 22 izens themselves. This characteristically German fact enabled him to turn every moment of his stay to the best account. He knew the great art of asking questions wisely, which, according to Lord Bacon, is more than half the work of discovering the truth. Every one who met him saw, that he was earnestly and impartially intent on knowing things as they are; sometimes, to be sure, he seemed a little dogmatic; but the vast stores of his learning generally bore him out in his assertions. He never seemed to form an opinion upon separate, disjointed facts; but the variety and clearness of his political information enabled him to place each fact in its proper connection, and to draw from it, when thus placed, its true significance. He was not insensible to the peculiarities which mark the society and manners in the United States; but he never, like most English travellers, assigned an undue importance to what was in itself indifferent or merely conventional. His researches pierced to the principles out of which the social and political phenomena of the country grow, the philosophy which comprehends the facts that make up our external history. He scanned with careful scrutiny those things which "constitute a state "; and though he wrote, as he expressly declares, for the special instruction of Germany, there are few Americans who will not find matter for useful reflection in his luminous exposition of the working of our institutions. Mr. Turner's translation is clear, but the style is sometimes inelegant. He does not shrink from the periphrastic cockneyism is being lengthened; he even ventures upon talented, and uses several times the word monstrous in the sense of huge or enormous. He calls the Prince of Orange the Prince of Orania, because in German it is "Von Oranien." Other blemishes of this sort might be pointed out, which, though of slight importance, are worth removing. The translation seems, nevertheless, to be well executed, on the whole; and Mr. Turner deserves praise for making so important a contribution to political literature accessible to American readers. The Germans always go to the bottom of things. True to the Teutonic instinct, Mr. Von Raumer commences with the origin of the American continent. It was very well to attend to this matter at an early stage of the book; for had our hemisphere remained uncreated, or sunk under water, there could have been no solid basis for the historian's travels, no stand-point (standpunkt) for his political speculations, no American democracy. Having got a firm footing on the Western continent, and arrived at the conclusion, that "the hand of God and his handmaid Nature did not first finish Europe, and then pass over the Atlantic Ocean, in order to bring to light and embellish America, also," he proceeds to give a very brief, but clear and interesting, account of the discoveries and first settlements in America. The war with the French and the American Revolution are then treated, and the springs and motives of these military events and the political results are traced with a masterly hand. The leaders and statesmen who conducted the colonies through the fiery trial of the war of Independence are well understood and delineated, and receive the heartfelt homage of this candid historian. General Washington's character is portrayed with truth and eloquence. We have nowhere seen the principles of the American Revolution, the difficulties at its close, growing out of the feebleness of the confederacy, nor the infinite importance of the new constitution, more clearly stated than in his chapters on these subjects. "The American statesmen of that period," says he, "have raised to themselves in the new constitution a monument of imperishable renown. This constitution has endured and stood its ground through circumstances the most varied, perplexing, and dangerous, and has wonderfully aided and prospered a great people in its rapid development; while numberless other constitutions, projected in empty pride, have perished after a brief existence, hurling with them the mistaken nations and statesmen to destruction." We commend this emphatic testimony of an enlightened lover of freedom to the attention of the agitators and traitors among us, who daily and nightly curse the constitution, and preach the damnable heresy of disunion. The early administrations under the constitution Mr. Von Raumer has carefully investigated. We think his conclusions in general are correct. In all disputed questions he gives a very fair summary of the arguments and facts on both sides,-and the reader must bear this in mind, for in some cases the statements are so made that he might easily mistake them for Mr. Raumer's own opinions, and then he gives his own judgment, sometimes with too much positiveness, but always candidly. He must be expected, of course, to fall occasionally into errors. America and her men and institutions are great subjects, and cannot be "done" in a day. For example, he stigmatizes the opposition of the Federal party to Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana as short-sighted and malevolent," when it is a notorious historical fact, that the opposition rested on the ground of the unconstitutionality of the measure, and that Jefferson himself distinctly and repeatedly admitted it to be unconstitutional. So in all that Mr. Von Raumer says about Texas and Oregon, especially the former, he does not give sufficient weight to the constitutional considerations which have led a large portion of the American people into a vigorous opposition to the designs of the present administration. On the subject of American banking, the tariff, nullification, &c., Mr. Von Raumer follows the same plan of giving both sides. He recapitulates the main arguments with masterly ability; and though his own opinions will sometimes dissatisfy one party and sometimes another, they can never offend, because they are respectfully stated and sustained by argument. On the tariff, he is, like all men of science, a free-trader. He is frequently opposed to the views of the present Whig party, which we think he does not entirely comprehend in their bearings upon the science of political economy. The doctrines of free trade, like the truths of geometry, are demonstrable; but they can be applied only in a state of international relations, which, like a perfect circle, is now, and perhaps will for ever be, merely hypothetical; and it is unscientific to test the practical views of the Whig party on the tariff by a hypothetical standard. His chapter on American slavery is eminently calm and rational. He takes a middle point between the fanaticism of abolition and the fanaticism of slavery, and tells what we believe to be the exact truth as to the whole matter. It is worthy of the serious examination of every American, whether he lives north or south of Mason and Dixon's line. We hope it will be universally read, and help to allay the dangerous passions on both sides, which threaten disaster to the country. The state of American literature and education, and of the institutions of learning, is very well exhibited, though here and there an error of detail occurs. In his "many-sided" German activity, Mr. Von Raumer touches occasionally upon fashions. He speaks of "fashionable ladies" (we have no idea whom he can possibly mean) "whose ideal of female beauty seems to be a pipe-stem stuck on a beer-barrel." In another place, he charges vinegar-drinking upon American ladies. We have heard of such a thing as a vinegar-faced woman, but we never saw one, and have always supposed it to be a fable, like the hippogriff, or a fabrication, like the hydrarchos. We never before heard, that vinegar-drinking was resorted to by American women as a specific for an interesting paleness. However, as Mr. Von Raumer rather oddly says, that he has been assured of this fact by "men, women, and physicians," we suppose it must be so; otherwise, we should suspect the circumstance to have a merely subjective existence. He speaks with marked disapprobation of young girls eating in the morning "not only over-cooked meat, but also (what is, if possible, still more unwholesome) the smoking hot cornbread with melted butter!" The over-done meat we give up; but as to the hot corn-bread and melted butter, we think the girls are right. The vile American habit of spitting justly disturbs the philo sophic temper of the historian. We hope every traveller who sets foot upon our soil will hold up this most disgusting trick to the execration of the civilized world. We shall blame no one who stigmatizes us as barbarians, while tobacco salivation continues to be so horribly prevalent among us. On cooking, Mr. Von Raumer very truly remarks, that "The art is still in a very low condition in the United States. In proportion to the excellence of the materials (fish, flesh, vegetables, fruit, &c.) is the ignorance shown in the art of preparing them. Give the most exquisite block of marble to a common stone-cutter, and he will not produce a statue; so let the finest ox be taken into the kitchen, and a bungler of a cook will fail to give you from him a good roast joint. The excessive quantity of seasoning, particularly pepper and salt, destroys all the original flavor, creates an unnatural thirst, and heats the blood. The roast meats are for the most part dry and hard; the sauces without variety; many vegetables, such as peas, too old; the bread often doughy and smoking hot. A good cook knows how to alter and improve the poorest material; the presumptuous, self-complacent beginner destroys the best food, and the eaters into the bargain." Now this is true æsthetic doctrine on the subject. We do not think that pepper and salt, however, deserve this prominence; we should place several other seasonings decidedly in the foreground. And, as on the subject of the hot corn-cakes, so we are not quite of his mind with regard to hot bread. But de gustibus non. In his allusions to individuals, Mr. Von Raumer sometimes makes amusing mistakes. He talks, in one place, of Mr. Webster being beaten in argument by "the eloquent Buchanan." To a distinguished scholar and theologian he attributes the mythical character of "one of the most zealous Whigs in New England"; and to Mr. Calhoun the still more mythical character of being "always logical and consistent with himself, — totus teres atque rotundus." 2.- Hercules Furens, a Tragedy of Seneca. Edited by CHARLES BECK, Professor of Latin in Harvard University. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1845. 16mo. THIS is a very neat edition of one of the best of Seneca's tragedies. The play entitled Hercules Furens, is, as the editor states in his preface, but "little more than a paraphrase of the Hoaxλeis pairóuevos of Euripides"; but it avoids several striking |