blances between the Sanscrit, the Taghalian, and the MalayanPolynesian languages. Where Japan does belong, in the distribution of the nations, it seems as yet very hard to say. But it is almost impossible that her language should not throw some light on the languages of Polynesia, and possibly on some of those of the northwest coast of America.

1

The expedition, of which the successful result is traced in these volumes, fulfils, we may say, a desire which has long lingered in the minds of many of our citizens, and of course of our public men. It would seem almost as if there were an omen for America in the design with which Columbus sailed, which, as Dr. Hawks reminds us, was the discovery of Cipango. Mr. Hildreth informs us that La Salle, the discov erer of the Mississippi, left France with a view to an overland western passage to China and Japan. Thus early were the fortunes of our Western continent linked with this eastern outpost of the Eastern, which takes the name of "the cradle of the sun." In our own generation, the opening of Japan was a favorite notion with John Quincy Adams. Some of our readers may remember the ingenious, and, we may say, vehe ment address, in which he urged the right, and even the duty, of Christian nations to open the ports of Japan, and the duty of Japan to assent, on the ground that no nation has a right more than any man has to withdraw its private contribution to the welfare of the whole. As early as 1832, authority was given to Mr. Edmund Roberts, by our government, to attempt a negotiation, with the assistance of the Peacock man-of-war. No use, however, was made of this authority. In 1837 an American mercantile house at Macao fitted out the Morrison, with the view of returning some shipwrecked Japanese to their country, in the hope that a communication might thus be opened. But she was fired into, and forbidden to land them. Mr. Alexander H. Everett, when he went on his mission to China, had strong hopes of the possibility of a successful negotiation. He was intrusted with powers for such a negotia tion, which he afterwards transferred to Commodore Biddle, who attempted it in the Columbus in 1846. Commodore Biddle's visit to Yedo was unfortunate. A Japanese soldier threw him down into his boat, as he was entering a Japanese

junk, to receive the Emperor's letter to the President. The answer was in offensive language, declining all intercourse, and bidding the ship depart. Every apology was offered to Commodore Biddle for the insult to him, and he left the offender to the mercy of his own government. It proved, however, afterwards, that the Japanese officers took lofty airs on themselves regarding this transaction, and it was made to detract greatly among them from the credit of our country. Mr. Everett's death at Macao the next year prevented his following up the effort, as he was disposed to do, if opportunity offered. Early in 1849, however, Commodore Geisinger at Macao heard of some shipwrecked American seamen at Nagasaki, and sent Commander Glynn in the Preble to bring them off. His spirited treatment of the Japanese functionaries succeeded, and undoubtedly did much to raise the credit of our government with theirs. Among the seamen whom he took off was Ranald McDonald, the Oregonian republican, whose description of sovereignty we have quoted. This young man had landed voluntarily at Japan for the adventurous purpose of seeing the country. He deserves mention, therefore, among our different plenipotentiaries.

The visit of Commander Glynn prepared the way for the expedition which has now succeeded. It was a favorite object with Mr. Webster, and the first act of Mr. Everett's official life as his successor was to draft the official letter of Mr. Fillmore to the Emperor. In closing our review, we are bound to say, that, with the single exception of the delay in the preparation of the vessels, the expedition seems to us to reflect singular credit upon the country, and upon the officers concerned. The outfit was very carefully devised, the officers were well selected, the ships generally accomplished all that they were expected to do, and an honorable liberality seems to have presided over the details. The presents to the Emperor were judiciously chosen. The supply of coal in China was such, that Captain Perry was able to relieve both English and French squadrons in stress of need. The interpreting force was intelligent; and though no corps of savans encumbered the fleet, the scientific observations were valuable and to the point. Of the services of the Commodore we have

tried to give our impression. They were mild in the manner, they were effective in the issue. His judgment was severely tried, but in every particular of importance it served him with singular correctness; and in reading his compact and vigor ous despatches, we have been surprised to see the amount of attention he was able to bestow upon various subjects of high importance, which required study and careful thought before he could arrive at his decision. For all that appears, he was admirably seconded. With the single exception of Mr. Bayard Taylor, who joined him at Canton for the first visit to Yedo, no civilians were on board. Mr. Taylor wrote out some valuable notes on Lew Chew and Japan, part of which are incorporated in this volume, while part are in his own Eastern travels. All the rest of the work of the expedition is distinctly due to the navy, and great credit does it reflect on the commander and his officers.

We must not leave this subject without saying that Dr. Hawks's book, besides its narrative, contains an admirable sketch of the history, productions, religion, and civil condition of Japan. Mr. Hildreth has, with diligence and spirit, given a digested history of the empire, so far as it is made known by different travellers and many native works, — and a very careful sketch of all the leading European works on Japan, to the present time. His book is a valuable compendium of the knowledge the European world had of the country before Captain Perry's expedition; and he has investigated with great care some of the most curious questions of its history, literature, and manners. Mr. Spalding's is a lively sketch of the expedition, which occasionally supplies an anecdote not in the larger work, but which did its whole duty when it fed the appetite of a public eager for that work to ap

pear.

ART. XIII. CRITICAL NOTICES.

1.- At Home and Abroad: or, Things and Thoughts in America and Europe. By MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, & Co.

1856.

MANY who had become acquainted with the late Madame Ossoli through the "Memoirs" edited by her friends, experienced something of disappointment in the first volume of her published works. Not that the book was deficient in interest or in merit; but it was not the kind of interest nor the kind of merit which the biography had led them to expect. It failed to reproduce the impression of genius which that work had created. They could not identify the heroine with the author. The present volume, we think, will go far to relieve that disappointment, and to justify the portraiture of the Memoirs; partly because it is actually a better book, and contains more interesting matter and more decided traces of genius than the other; partly because it is more subjective, and, being a record of personal experiences, brings us into nearer contact with the author. If it does not entertain the reader with extraordinary creations, it introduces him to a highly cultivated, deep-thinking, large-hearted woman. In both the volumes, but especially in this last, the woman eclipses and absorbs the writer. And let Margaret's friends, in the absence of any work which, in their opinion, worthily represents her, content themselves with the thought that this, after all, was her true mission, — to manifest the woman, not to enact the author; that authorship could never have been more than an incident and an episode in her life.

Those who knew her in early youth, who witnessed her extraordinary intellectual developments, who experienced her wonderful power in conversation, and who cast the horoscope of the woman from the brilliant promise of the girl, predicted for her a distinguished literary career. They saw in her a future D'Arblay or De Stael. The death of her father, leaving a large family with small means, and the consequent necessity of exertion in ways more profitable than authorship, together with the loss of her health, postponed indefinitely the fulfilment of this hope. But perhaps the hope itself was without foundation. For ourselves, we incline to the belief that in no circumstances, by no favor of fortune, would Margaret have produced a work which

* Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and Kindred Papers, relating to the Sphere, Condition, and Duties of Woman.

should have worthily expressed her genius. With all her mental wealth and rare faculty, we doubt whether she possessed the organic power, the concentration and singleness of purpose, necessary for such an undertaking. Her mind was critical, not constructive; impulsive, not laborious. Her strength lay rather in oracular judgments, in felicitous statements and improvisations, than in patient elaboration. True, she has written much and well. Her critical essays, and especially her papers on Goethe, in the Dial, are unsurpassed in their kind. But all that she has written is fragmentary; nothing epic, nothing that possesses formal excellence, no one complete work.

But whatever literature may have lost in the missed career of the authoress, humanity has gained in the moral growth of the woman, whose latter years attained to so pure a philanthropy, and whose generous sympathy with all want and suffering, and zealous advocacy of freedom and right, are so conspicuous in these writings.

The volume before us brings into strange proximity and contrast the New World and the Old. The first part comprises the better portion of "Summer on the Lakes," published in 1844. The remainder is occupied with sketches of the author's European travels, and with letters from Rome from 1847 to 1850. So we have, at one end, the world of the Far West, with its infant republics starting up in the wilderness, and the vanishing forms of savage life which those republics are fast displacing; at the other end, the hoary honors and mouldering frame of an old civilization, which the genius of liberty in those days was vainly endeavoring to rehabilitate.

The year 1848 will long be remembered as a year of civil convulsions, as impotent in their conclusion as they were portentous in their origin. A political earthquake rocked Europe from Denmark to Sicily, and from Hungary to Spain. Thrones tottered, kingdoms heaved; but all to no purpose. The earthquake passed, the kingdoms settled, the thrones righted. The nations that had stood one instant erect stooped down again to their former position, and refitted their necks to the ancient yoke. The tide of revolution which had suddenly burst from the yawning earth, as suddenly receded. It had served only to water the tree of Despotism, which it vainly strove to undermine.

No portion of Europe was more agitated by these convulsions than Italy. No nation embraced more enthusiastically the deceitful promise of emancipation which they inspired, than the Italians; and among the Italians, none more so than the Romans. Pius IX. had ascended the papal throne ostensibly as a reformer. Some demonstrations of a liberal character which marked the first year of his administration, and the import of which was greatly exaggerated at the time, had inspired