'Pass on then, pass on! and annoy me not with the sight of my own kind. It is burthen enough to endure myself. Pass on, pass on! molest me no farther!' exclaimed the stranger, waving his hand as he spoke.

I will not pass on,' said I, roused by his tone, 'till I have said what I have to say to you.'

What sends you here?' interrupted the stranger, pettishly. 'Destiny!' returned I.

Destiny!' muttered the other; and then continuing, as if to himself: To hear the world prate of destiny, as if destiny were a god to direct and control; destiny' forsooth! why, destiny is what is.' Then turning to me, he added, 'You rave, young man!'

I now narrowly examined the speaker. His appearance indicated the misanthrope; not the misanthrope by nature, but one who had been soured with the world, perhaps from good cause; one who might have endured the 'slings and arrows of outrageous fortune' until there was no sensibility left in his bosom; no, nothing but hate! I looked once more at the clear sharp outline of forehead, boldly developed, (though narrow,) the deep-set, expressive gray eyes, the dignified though slightly petulent air; and in all I saw-shall I say it?-some strange, mysterious resemblance tomyself! I paused-I trembled; I resolved on one more trial: ‘In the name of all that you hold sacred, tell me,' I exclaimed, ‘are you called the Wodallah?'

'There is nothing I do hold sacred, young man,' answered the stranger; you adjure me in vain! But if it will satisfy you to learn the fact, so that you will then leave me and pass on your way, I answer that I am called the Wodallah!'

Stay one moment, and I have done,' I exclaimed, perceiving that this singular man was returning to his dwelling; stay one single moment!'-and drawing forth the little package with which Aunt Alice had entrusted me, I handed it to him without speaking, and awaited the effect it might produce. He took the parcel, examined the superscription without emotion, and proceeded to open it. When he beheld the ring, his countenance changed, first to deep red, then to deadly pale; his whole frame was convulsed, his limbs trembled, his lips quivered; he was evidently laboring under some agonizing emotion; but he recovered somewhat, and proceeded to read what was written. This done, he turned and looked at me with a gaze so earnest and so penetrating that I almost shrunk from it. As he looked, I thought I discovered a tear start in his eye; his countenance changed to an expression of deep melancholy pointing toward the door of his dwelling, he said to me, in a low, indistinct tone, Enter !'

I obeyed his direction, and on going in, found myself in a small, neatly-furnished apartment, in which was, among other articles, a well filled book-case, over which were suspended a musket and small-arms, a sword and several daggers. There was no one in the room of this I took care to assure myself when I first entered; and despite the excitement of the moment, I felt disappointed. My

host pointed to a chair, and I sat down; he also took a seat beside me, and examined my countenance with searching scrutiny. As there was not the slightest appearance of impertinent inquisitiveness in his manner, I remained perfectly quiet, resolving that I would not be the first to break silence.

'It is even so!' exclaimed he, at length, as if communing with himself; it is even so; my eyes again behold a St. Leger; one of my own flesh and blood is before me; and although I have forsworn all, ay, every thing upon the earth, and all above and all below, yet since the race began, has never a St. Leger met a St. Leger face to face unacknowledged or uncared for, nor ever shall! But oh! why came you hither?'

6

As this interrogatory seemed addressed to me, I replied: Why I came I know not, nor can I give any satisfactory reason. I was about to spend some time in the Highlands, and as I was leaving Warwickshire, Aunt Alice put in my hands the package you now have. I have told you all.'

'Warwickshire!' exclaimed my kinsman; 'beautiful, lovely Warwickshire! its gentle Avon, its enchanting landscapes! Accursed be they,' muttered he, in a lower tone, now and forever! Did you leave all these, and to come here?'

'I did leave all these, and to come here,' was my calm reply. I was about to add something farther, when the door of the adjoining. apartment opened, and the beautiful Leila stood upon the threshold!

LITERARY NOTICES.

COUNT JULIAN; OR, THE LAST DAYS OF THE GOTH. A Historical Romance. By the author of 'Guy Rivers, The Yemassee,' etc. Baltimore: WILLIAM TAYLOR AND COMPANY. New-York: WILLIAM TAYLOR.

We have read a scrap of criticism somewhere, about something, by somebody, all of which we have forgotten now, excepting the critic's opinion of the author of Count Julian,' who was pronounced the most successful of American novelists.' This was probably true, as regarded the opinion of the critic himself, but very far from true as regarded that of the rest of the public. Individual opinion is of no more importance in affairs of this sort, than the precise relation which it may bear to the entire amount of opinion upon the same subject. COBBETT could see nothing in SHAKSPEARE to admire, and if the world were composed of COBBETTS, there would be nothing admirable in him. But there were subjects upon which COBBETT's opinion would be of greater value than that of any other man. A small magazine' critic-ling' a short time since called CARLYLE an ass;' and the author of Count Julian,' in a long review of the writings of CORNELIUS MATTHEWS, declared, not as a matter opinion, but as a fact, that we had as as yet produced no humorous writer in this country. He could not have been ignorant of the existence of WASHINGTON IRVING, an acknowledged clas⚫sic in humorous literature; but he was right and honest in giving his opinion as he did, for it enabled his readers to put a just value upon his opinion, which he pronounced in an ex-cathedra manner, as though he were writing in the easy-chair of RABELAIS. But we do Mr. SIMMS an injustice: he did, we believe, say that the United States had produced one humorous writer; a southern gentleman whom he named. A writer in the Democratic Review,' commenting upon American humor, gave a list of two or three dozen of acknowledged humorous writers, but differed with Mr. SIMMS respecting the southern humorist, whom he had never read; and he was justified perhaps in assuming that the writer referred to was no humorist, since it was very clear that any body who was humorous to Mr. SIMMS could be so to nobody else. While opinions are forming, every body may contribute to the mass, without reproach; but when the conglomerated opinions of the world have taken a well-defined shape, the man is a dunce who thinks to produce a change in their form, and an ass for allowing the world to know that he is a dunce; and precisely of this character was the besotted driveller who called CARLYLE an ass; not because he entertained such an opinion of the illustrious author, but because he had not sense enough to keep it to himself. We are not in favor of any individual bowing his neck to the despotism of public opinion, and giving up the integrity of his own emotions. This would be flying to a still more objectionable extreme; but let him keep his emotions to himself when they differ

from the rest of the world, and have the modesty to think that he is less likely to be right than that all the rest of the world should be wrong. It would be quite as ludicrous for a deaf man to despise music, as it was for the blind courtier to fall into an ecstacy of delight at the beauty of a fish which he could n't see, when it was brought to the emperor for his admiration.

Novelists, poets, composers, and all other authors whose productions appeal to the feelings, may snap their fingers at critics and reviewers, for they can neither be written up nor written down. The public may be persuaded to adopt a false religion, or a false theory in political economy, as they have been often; but all the reviewers in Edinburgh and Westminster could not induce them to read a dull novel or to remember prosy poetry. The popularity of a novel is the only reliable test of its merit, and the opinion of a publisher on such a subject is worth more than the united judgments of MACAULEY and JEFFREY. It argues very ill for Mr. SIMMS, as a 'popular novelist,' that he is continually changing his publisher. It is a very suspicious sign for any author to come out from Cliff-street and end in Ann-street. The villanously dishonest law of copy-right existing in this country not only puts every honestly-inclined citizen to the blush, but it places the authors of the country in a degraded position which the authors of no other country ever occupied ; and it is probable that many of those who are now compelled to skulk in suspicious quarters, would under honest laws be housed like monarchs. But an author who has the good luck to secure good quarters in the outset, must be deficient in the metal which commands success, if he be not able to keep them. There have been a good many original novels published in this country, but Mr. COOPER is the only author who can justly be called a 'popular American novelist. A novel-writer who adds no new characters to fictitious history cannot be called popular. It is his province to create characters, and if he fails to do this, he fails utterly, though he may produce two or three romances yearly, like Mr. JAMES, or a dozen in as many years, like Mr. SIMMS. IRVING and COOPER are the only authors among us who have succeeded in adding to the population of the imagination. Not one of Mr. SIMMS' people is known by name. He and Mr. JAMES make use of the same materials; their characters, or rather their descriptions of character, seem to be borrowed from each other. The chiselled lips,'' rich dark hair' clustering in ringlets over high foreheads, 'dark piercing eyes,' and-so-forth, constitute the sole materials of their personages. It is all outside; nothing within. There is more life in the sleeping beauty of a wax-work exhibition than in one of their people. How different the case is with a real author! Let us take DICKENS. It is hardly a month since the Cricket on the Hearth' began to chirp; yet TILLY SLOWBOY, who is not described at all, but only acts her small part in that small book, is already a historical personage; and Mrs. FIELDING, the 'genteel' mother of the gentle MAY is nearly as well known as the Mother of the Gracchi.

One of the most distressing defects of an author is a resemblance to some other author; for in reading one you cannot easily determine which he is, nor whether you have read him before or not; and at last the mind grows bewildered and perplexed, and you throw down the book with the kind of weariness you feel in being roused from a night-mare. There is a novel of Mr. JAMES and a novel of Mr. SIMMS lying on our table; let us make a random extract from each, and leave our readers to decide which is the elephant and which the rhinoceros:

THE sky, which for near a month had been as calm and serene as a good mind, was covered over with long lines of dark gray cloud, heavy and near the earth; when a solitary horseman took his

station under a broad old tree upon the wide waste called Indian Flats, and gazed forth as well as the growing darkness would let him. It was a dim and sombre scene, unsatisfactory to the eye, but exciting to the imagination. Every thing was vague and undefined in the shadows of that hour, and the long streaks of deeper and fainter brown which varied the surface of the flats spoke merely of undulations in the ground, marking the great extent of the plain toward the horizon. A tall, soli. tary, mournful tree might be seen here and there, adding to the feelings of vastness and solitude; and about the middle of the plain, as one looked toward the west, was a small detached grove, or rather clump of large beeches, presenting a black irregular mass, at the side of which the lingering gleam of the north-western sky was reflected in some silvery lines upon what seemed a considerable piece of water. It was an hour and a place fit for sad thoughts and dark forebodings; and the horseman sat upon his tall powerful gelding in the attitude of one full of meditation. He had suffered the bridle to drop, his head was slightly bent forward, and his eye strained upon the scene before him; while his mind seemed to drink in from its solemn and cheerless aspect feelings as dark and dismal as itself. The horseman at length gently touched his beast with his heel, and made him move slowly out from under the branches of the tree. Scarcely had he done so, however, when the distant sound of a horse's feet was heard, as if coming at a very tardy and heavy pace from the west. The sound indeed would not have been perceptible at that distance but for the excessive stillness of all around, and the eagerness with which the traveller listened. His eye was now bent anxiously too upon the western gleam in the water, and in a few moments the dark figure of another man on horseback was seen against the brighter background thus afforded,' etc., etc.

Having looked on that picture, now look on this:

'IT is toward the sun-set of a fine afternoon in the month of May; a rich summer sun of sufficient power even in the moment of his decline, to convert into tributary glories the clouds which gathered around him, threw over all the scene his incomparable splendors, buruishing the earth with hues as richly golden, if not quite so valuable in the estimation of mankind, as the wealth which lay concealed within its bosom. The picturesque guise of the solitude thus gloriously invested was beautiful beyond description; its charms became duly exaggerated to the mind when coupled with the consciousness that the hand of the mighty artist had been employed in the adornment of a prospect of itself totally uninviting and unlovely. The solitary pine that here and there shone up like some burning spire; the undulating hill, catching in different gradations of shade and fulness, in a like manner, from the same inimitable master, a similar garment; the dim outlines of the low and stunted shrubbery, sparingly distributing its green foliage over the picture, mingled here and there with a stray beam, dashed hurriedly as it were from the palette of the artist, presented to the eye an outline perfectly unique in itself and singularly characteristic of that warin sadness with which alone it could have been properly contemplated. At this point of our narrative a single traveller might have been seen emerging from the confines of the evening horizon, where the forest, such as it was, terminated the prospect. He travelled on horseback, the prevailing mode in that region,' etc. The animal he rode might have been considered, even in the west, one of choice parentage. He was large, broad-chested and high; and though exhibiting the utmost docility and obedience to the rein, proceeded on his way with as much ease and freedom as if he bore not the slightest burden on his unconscious back. (We omit here a long description of the rider and a vast amount of particulars about 'chiselled lips' and 'clustered ringlets of dark brown.') Here our traveller fell into a narrow footpath, and being naturally of a musing and dreamy spirit, pursued unconsciously and without seeming observation, the way which it pointed out. His thoughts were seemingly in full unison with the almost grave-like stillness and solemn hush of every thing around him. The bridle fell at length from his hand upon the neck of his steed; and it was only when the noble animal, roused to consciousness by the seeming stupor of his rider, suddenly and absolutely came to a stand, that the youth grew aware of his precise situation.' (He wanders along until it has grown about as dark as it was in the first of these specimens, when a shrill whistle is heard in the forest, and soon after :) 'Suddeuly emerging from the wood, a man, who seemed to have been in waiting, abruptly stood before him, and directly in the path he was pursuing.'

The two books are mainly composed of such wearisome writing as the specimens given. They cannot be said to have any positive resemblance, but the likeness consists in a want of likeness to any thing; a certain expression of nothingness, not easy of description. Both writers abound in those interminable descriptions beginning thus: It was the close of such-and-such a day, when So-and-so might have been seen.' Of course any thing might have been seen, provided it was not too dark, and there was any body to see it; but this prelude of a 'might have been seen' generally leads to an inventory as minute and as unimaginative as a sheriff's advertisement of a sale by auction. Yet we will not do Mr. JAMES the injustice, lightly as we hold his later pen-and-ink works, to place him upon the same level with Mr. SIMMS, whose mistiness and pompous turgidity raise him above the heads of all modern novelists. Being not over-well versed in scientific matters, we would not assert, as a friend at our elbow has just affirmed, that 'No one can read one of Mr. SIMMS' essays, wherein he takes occasion to allude to himself, without thinking that he would become a burning and a shining light' if somebody could contrive to set fire to his