is decently covered with artistic beauty—­relates, not to the most obvious, but to the most dangerous mischiefs of Slavery.  Indeed, the story is only saved from being too painful by a fine appreciation of the medicinal quality of all wretchedness that the writer everywhere displays.  In the First Part, the nice intelligence shown in the rough contrast between Hermann and Stanley, and in the finished contrast between Alice and Helen, will claim the reader’s attention.  The sketches of American life and tendencies, both Northern and Southern, are given with discrimination and truth.  The dying scene, which closes the First Part, seems to us nobly wrought.  The “death-bed hymn” of the slaves sounds a pathetic wail over an abortive life shivering on the brink of the Unknown.  In the Second Part we find less of the color and music of a poem, and more of the rapid movement of a drama.  The doom of Slavery upon the master now comes into full relief.  The characters of Herbert and his father are favorable specimens of well-meaning, even honorable, Southern gentlemen,—­only not endowed with such exceptional moral heroism as to offer the pride of life to be crushed before hideous laws.  The connection between lyric and tragic power is shown in the “Tragedy of Errors.”  The songs and chants of the slaves mingle with the higher dialogue like the chorus of the Greek stage; they mediate with gentle authority between the worlds of natural feeling and barbarous usage.  Let us also say that the sentiment throughout this drama is sound and sweet; for it is that mature sentiment, born again of discipline, which is the pledge of fidelity to the highest business of life.

Before concluding, we take the liberty to remove a mask, not impenetrable to the careful reader, by saying that the writer is a woman.  And let us be thankful that a woman so representative of the best culture and instinct of New England cannot wholly conceal herself by the modesty of a pseudonyme.  In no way has the Northern spirit roused to oppose the usurpations of Slavery more truly vindicated its high quality than by giving development to that feminine element which has mingled with our national life an influence of genuine power.  And to-day there are few men justly claiming the much-abused title of thinkers who do not perceive that the opportunity of our regenerated republic cannot be fully realized, until we cease to press into factitious conformity the faculties, tastes, and—­let us not shrink from the odious word—­missions of women.  The merely literary privilege accorded a generation or two ago is in itself of slight value.  Since the success of “Evelina,” women have been freely permitted to jingle pretty verses for family newspapers, and to novelize morbid sentiments of the feebler sort.  And we see one legitimate result in that flightiness of the feminine mind which, in a lower stratum of current literature, displays inaccurate opinions, feeble prejudices, and finally