visible world or of character. We listen with him to "the shooting of the corn in the still night, as it swells with a respiring movement, distending the contracted sheaves which enclose it," and feel that he has looked upon nature with the observant eye of a poet, and that he cannot be dull in detailing the emotions which she awakens within him. We glance with him at the dark figure of Munro, leaning over the shoulders of one of the company at his table, "and with an upward glance surveying the other guests, while he whispers in his ears;" and we are satisfied, that one who, in a single sentence, can give distinctness and force to a sketch, is not a less careful observer of human character and action than of outward nature. These are but light touches of the pencil, it is true-trifles in themselves-but they do not the less indicate the great ability of the artist.

The opening scenes, wherein Ralph Colleton engages in a rencontre with the hero, who, in company with Munro had beset his path, and the trial and punishment of the Yankee pedler, are well drawn. The pettifogging, low-minded Counsellor Pippin, is a faithful portrait, and well sustained throughout, as is the character of the honest-hearted Forrester. Let us survey, with Ralph Colleton, as he retires to rest, after his perilous adventures, the miniature of one of the fair heroines:

"The youth sat musing for some time after the departure of Forrester. He was evidently employed in chewing the cud of sweet and bitter thought, and referring to memories deeply imbued with the closely associated taste of both these extremes. After a while, the weakness of heart got seemingly the mastery, long battled with; and tearing open his breast, he displayed the massive gold chain circling his bosom in repeated folds, upon which hung the small locket containing Edith's and his own miniature. Looking over his shoulder, as he gazed upon it, we are enabled to see the fair features of that sweet young girl, just entering her womanhood-her blue eyes, her streaming hair, the cheek delicately pale, yet enlivened with a southern fire, that seems not improperly borrowed from the warm eyes that glisten above it. The ringlets gather in amorous clusters upon her shoulder, and half obscure a neck and bosom of the purest and most polished ivory. The artist had caught from his subject something of inspi ration, and the rounded bust seemed to heave before the sight, as if impregnated with the subtlest and sweetest life. The youth carried the semblance to his lips, and muttered words of love and reproach so strangely intermingled and in unison, that, could she have heard to whom they were seemingly addressed, it might have been difficult to have determined the difference of signification between them. Gazing upon it long, and in silence, a large but solitary tear gathered in his eye, and finally finding its way through his fingers, rested upon the lovely features that appeared never heretofore to have been conscious of such a cloud. As if there had been something of impiety and pollution in this blot upon so fair an outline, he hastily brushed it away; then pressing the features again to his lips, he hurried the jewelled token again into his bosom, and prepared himself for those slumbers upon which we forbear longer to intrude."

The dialogue between Guy Rivers and Munro, and the religious meeting in the forest, in the tenth and eleventh chapters of the first volume, contain much of living character and fine description. The "Shepherd's Hymn" in the latter is a paraphrase of great beauty. The following, from the seventeenth chapter of the first volume, is one of the many fine episodes in which the work abounds. Ralph Colleton replies

thus to an observation of Forrester, that "women do not always know their own minds :"

"I am persuaded that the gentler sex is far less given to deceit than our own; but their opinions and feelings, on the other hand, are formed with infinitely more frequency and facility, and more readily acted upon by passing and occasional influences. Their very susceptibility to the most light and casual impressions, is, of itself, calculated to render vacillating their estimate of things and characters. They are creatures of such delicate construction, and their affections are of such like character, that, like all fine machinery, they are perpetually operated on by the atmosphere, the winds, the dew, and the sunshine. The frost blights and the sun blisters; and a kind or stern accent elevates or depresses, where, with us, they might pass unheeded or unheard. We are more cunning— more shy and cautious; and seldom, after a certain age, let our affections out of our own custody. We learn very soon in life—indeed, we are compelled to learn, in our own defence, at a very early period-to go into the world as if we were going into battle. We send out spies, keep sentinels on duty, man our defences, carry arms in our bosoms, which we cover with a buckler, though, with the policy of a court, we conceal that in turn with a silken and embroidered vestment. We watch every erring thought-we learn to be equivocal of speech; and our very hearts, as the Indians phrase it, are taught to speak their desires with a double tongue. We are perpetually on the look-out for enemies and attack; we dread pitfalls and circumventions, and we feel that every face which we encounter is a smiling deceit every honeyed word a blandishment meant to betray us. These are lessons which society, as at present constituted, teaches of itself. With women the case is essentially different. They have few of these influences to pervert and mislead. They have nothing to do in the market-place-they are not candidates for place or power-they have not the ambition which is always struggling for state and for self; but with a wisdom in this, that might avail us wonderfully in all other respects, they are kept apart, as things for love and worship-domestic divinities, whose true altar-place is the fireside; whose true sway is over fond hearts, generous sensibilities, and immaculate honor. Where should they learn to contend with guile-to acquire cunning and circumspection-to guard the heart-to keep sweet affections locked up coldly, like mountain wa ters? Shall we wonder that they sometimes deceive themselves rather than their neighbors-that they sometimes misapprehend their own feelings, and mistake for love some less absorbing intruder, who but lights upon the heart for a single instant, as a bird upon his spray, to rest or to plume his pinions, and be off with the very next zephyr ?”

The scenes in the opening of the second volume, embracing the attempt of Munro and Rivers to assassinate Ralph Colleton-the visit of Lucy Munro to his chamber-and his escape, are depicted with thrilling effect. No modern novel embodies description which can compare with this, in interest. Nor is the scene of the murder of Forrester, and the visit of Rivers to the wronged Ellen, inferior to the powerful sketches which precede them. The language is impassioned, but it is never over-wrought. When Rivers informs the devoted girl whom he has forsaken, and whose peace he has destroyed forever, of his approaching nuptials with another, the victim recalls him to a sense of his cruelty. He reproves her rashly, and bids her cease her repinings. It were easy to transfer to the canvass the pathetic scene which follows:

"I will not-chide me not-I have no farther reproaches. Yet, Guy, is she, the lady you are about to wed-is she beautiful-is she young-has she long raven tresses, as I had once, when your fingers used to play in them?' and with a sickly smile, which had in it something of an old vanity, she unbound the string

which confined her own hair, and let it roll down upon her back in thick and beautiful volumes, black, glossy, and delicately soft as silk.

"The outlaw was moved. For a moment his iron muscles relaxed-a gentler expression overspread his countenance, and he took her in his arms. That single, half-reluctant embrace was a boon not much bestowed in the latter days of his victim, and it awakened a thousand tender recollections in her heart, and unsealed a warm spring of gushing waters. An infantine smile was in her eyes, while the tears were flowing down her cheeks."

A distinguishing feature of "Guy Rivers" is the versatility of talent which it displays in the description of character. A charming individuality in each, is never lost sight of. Bunce, the pedlar, Maxon, the sheriff, the honest Forrester, and Chub Williams, are of quite a different mould from the other dramatis persona, but we are equally interested in their personations. If they are witty, they are so of their own accord, and not because the author has amusing things in his mind which he desires them to utter. The reader will smile at the palpable hit at the Yankee appendages in conversation, in the annexed extract. The pedler, Bunce, in a conversation with Chub Williams, a southern original, expresses a fear that "things will go agin" Ralph Colleton, who, upon suspicion of being the murderer of Forrester, has been arrested through the machinations of the real assassins, and thrown into prison to await his trial. Chub replies:

"That will be hard, too-a mighty tough difficulty, now, strannger-to be hanged for other folks' doings. But, I reckon, he'll have to make up his mind to it."

"Oh, no! don't say so, now, friend, I beg you. What makes you think so?' said the anxious pedler.

"Why, only from what I heer'd you say. You said so yourself, and I believed it as if I had seed it,' was the reply of the simple countryman.

"Oh, yes. It's but a poor chance with him now, I guess. I'd a notion that

I could find out some little particulars, you see-”

"No, I don't see.'

"To be sure you don't, but that's my say. Everybody has a say, you know.' "No, I don't know.'

"To be sure, of course you don't know, but that's what I tell you. Now you must know

"Don't say must to me, strannger, if you want that we shall keep hands off. I don't let any man say must to me.'

"No harm, friend-I didn't mean any harm,' said the worried pedler, not knowing what to make of his acquaintance, who spoke understandingly, though in language which left the fact doubtful."

The trial of Colleton at the Chestatee Court-house will remind the reader of the Heart of Mid Lothian-and, like the celebrated trial of Effie Deans, it will make an impression upon the mind not easily to be erased. Of the incidents which follow each other closely from this peried to the end of the work, we have not space to speak, farther than to say, that they will be found to increase in intensity of interest with every page, and to terminate in such a manner as to leave upon the mind a full impression of the great power of the author. We would not detract from the pleasure of any who may not have perused these volumes, by giving, in liberal quotations, a clue to a "foregone conclu

A momentary idea of a similarity between Rebecca, the Jewess, and Lucy Munro, may strike the reader, as he rises from the perusal of "Guy Rivers"-but, running over the thread of the story, it will be altogether lost sight of. It is a powerful effort-eminently a work of mind. The dialogues are at times somewhat too protracted-and there may be a little too much metaphysical reasoning to suit the superficial or general reader; but these are minor faults-and experience will correct them. In conclusion, we welcome "Guy Rivers" as a work calculated to reflect high honor upon American Literature. And we may indulge the hope that so young an author will not suffer his ripening powers to remain dormant, but that he will always with reference to increasing renown-continue to favor the American public with the well-digested elforts of a gifted mind, from which they may reasonably anticipate so much.

THE Principles of Physiology applied to the preservation of Health, and to the improvement of physical and mental Education. By ANDREW COMBE, M. D., Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. HARPERS' Family Library: No. LXXI. Sne vol. pp. 291.

THE valuable series of the Family Library embraces no work that bids fairer to acquire-and certainly no number which deserves—a wider popularity, than the volume whose title is given above. We have perused it with an attention which its plain, unpretending, attractive style cannot fail to excite. It might not inappropriately be termed a complete Manual of Health; and should be in the hands of all who know how to prize that blessing, in comparison with which all others are as the dust of the balance. We fully coincide-as we believe every attentive reader will do-in the encomiums of the publishers' preface: "It treats in plain, familiar, and perfectly intelligible language, not of disease in its ten thousand painful or appalling forms, but of the apparently trivial circumstances in which disease has its unsuspected origin; shows, for example, how it is that a wet foot produces in time an affection of the lungs; why cleanliness promotes and preserves the health; how exercise produces its beneficial, and indolence its bad effect; explains, so far as can be explained, the mutual action of mind and body upon each other; and tells us how to avoid disease by preventing or repairing the too often unregarded imprudences and neglects, which, trifling as they seem, are yet, in almost every case, the real, though remote, agents in producing illness. The excellence of the work is two-fold: first, in the truth, the wisdom, and the comprehensiveness of its instruction; secondly, in the total absence of all technicality, and the straight-forward simplicity of the ideas as well as of the language in which they are conveyed. The matters set forth are of paramount interest among all worldly objects, to every rational being, inasmuch as they relate to the greatest duration and highest enjoyment of life; and they are so exhibited that no medical knowledge, no pecu

liar strength of intellect, nothing more, in short, than plain common sense, is requisite for their complete appreciation."

We had pencilled several extracts, as embodying, in a brief compass, many important facts in relation to the animal economy, and the successful cultivation of health. We can find but space, however, for the following judicious remarks from Chapter V., upon Exercise—a subject concerning which there have existed, it should seem, most erroneous opinions. After showing that exercise is necessary for developing and improving the health of the muscular system, and how it acts in imparting tone and strength to the rest of the body, the author proceeds to exhibit the circumstances by which its employment ought to be regulated. In regard to the best time for taking exercise, it is observed:

"The time at which exercise ought to be taken is of some consequence in obtaining from it beneficial results. Those who are in perfect health may engage in it at almost any hour, except immediately after a full meal; but those who are not robust ought to confine their hours of exercise within narrower limits. To a person in full vigor, a good walk in the country before breakfast may be highly beneficial and exhilarating; while, to an invalid or delicate person, it will prove more detrimental than useful, and will induce a sense of weariness, which will spoil the pleasure of the whole day. Many are deceived by the current poetical praises of the freshness of morning, and hurt themselves in summer by seeking health in untimely promenades.

"In order to be beneficial, exercise must be resorted to only when the system is sufficiently vigorous to be able to meet it. This is the case after a lapse of from two to four or five hours after a moderate meal, and, consequently, the forenoon is the best time. If exercise be delayed till some degree of exhaustion from the want of food has occurred, it speedily dissipates instead of increasing the strength which remains, and impairs instead of promotes digestion. The result is quite natural; for exercise of every kind causes increased action and waste in the organ; and if there be not materials and vigor enough in the general system to keep up that action and supply the waste, nothing but increased debility can reasonably be expected.

"For the same reason, exercise immediately before meals, unless of a very gentle description, is injurious, and an interval of rest ought always to intervene. Muscular action causes an afflux of blood and nervous energy to the surface and extremities, and if food be swallowed whenever the activity ceases, and before time has been allowed for a different distribution of the vital powers to take place, the stomach is taken at disadvantage, and, from want of the necessary action in its vessels and nerves, is unable to carry on digestion with success. This is very obviously the case where the exercise has been severe or protracted, and the consequence is so well known, that it is an invariable rule in the management of horses, never to feed them immediately after work, but always to allow them an interval of rest proportioned to the previous labor. Even instinct would lead to this conduct, for appetite revives after repose.

Exercise ought to be equally avoided immediately after a heavy meal. In such circumstances, the functions of the digestive organs are in their highest state of activity; and if the muscular system be then called into considerable action, the withdrawal of the vital stimuli of the blood and nervous influence from the stomach to the extremities is sufficient almost to stop the digestive process. This is no supposition, but demonstrated fact; and accordingly, there is a natural and marked aversion to active pursuits after a full meal. In a dog, which had hunted for an hour or two directly after eating, digestion was found on dissection to have scarcely begun; while in another dog, fed at the same time, and left at home, digestion was nearly completed.

"A mere stroll, which requires no exertion, and does not fatigue, will not be