chapters to which we have not referred. That, for example, in which the law and its administration is the theme, is written with surpassing skill. The legal training of the author's early life gives him here a great advantage, and in his arrangement, the copiousness of his materials, and the felicity of his statements and illustrations, he leaves us little to desire.

There is one department, however, in which we think he would have done wisely to avail himself of the knowledge of those who have made their researches in it a special study. We refer to Natural History. In the narrative of Hariot, and in Lawson's History, as well as in some pages of Dr. Hawks's second volume, an attempt is made to enumerate and describe the more important animal and vegetable productions found in that country. In his notes to Hariot's narrative, especially, Dr. Hawks is very precise in settling, or conjecturing, the various kinds and species which Hariot mentions. Here, particularly in reference to the botanical portion, we think he has failed of his usual success; and we are the more surprised at this, since any competent naturalist who is familiar with the productions of that region would have found very little difficulty in giving him accurate and trustworthy information. In his interpretation of the names and descriptions given by Hariot, where some degree of scientific accuracy is very desirable, as well as in the sketch of the natural growth of the country, in the chapter on Agriculture, &c., which he compiled from the memoranda left by the earliest explorers, he is often at a loss, and oftener mistaken. Dr. Hawks, to give an instance, must have had a rarely good fortune in his observations, if he has ever seen what he speaks of, a tulip-tree with its flowers of pure white. We have seen thousands of those flowers, but never a white one. Again, he speaks of "the Gum, with its sweet-scented drops exuding from the wounded bark: invaluable for its toughness, almost impossible to split, and hallowed in the superstition of the Indian as the tree that was never struck by the thunderbolt." In this passage he confounds two trees which are entirely distinct, and which are so held in the common language of the country, no less than by the practised* dendrologist. The Sweet Gum (Liquidambar styraciflua) is

the one that yields the odorous "drops," and it is the Black Gum (Nyssa) which it is "impossible to split." So he writes of "the Mulberry of three varieties, black, white, and red," as having been found by the first settlers in Carolina; yet it is well known that the first variety only is a native of this continent. Most of the plants referred to by Hariot are only guessed at by our author, many of them wrongly; and in almost every case where he declines to conjecture, a skilful botanist could readily have informed him aright. Hariot gives the Indian names, and such names as Tsinaw and Okeepenauk might well, perhaps, alarm an ordinary editor; yet the one is still called China root, and the other is plainly the Tuckahoe, or Indian-bread; and almost any child near Newbern, the author's birthplace, could have told him, from Hariot's description, that Okeepenauk is the common and favorite Ground

Dr. Hawks gives us quite an extended argument to show the identity of the Yaupon, a shrub which grows abundantly on the coast of North Carolina, and which is much used by the negroes for making tea, with the Maté of Brazil. Botanists have always distinguished them as species of Ilex, naming one Ilex vomitoria, and the other Ilex Paraguayensis, and this on the ground of very marked specific differences. They can hardly be expected to change their classification on the authority of an unknown naturalist, who, to carry on an imposture (we can imagine no other reason), called it Пlex Yauponia!- and of an old woman in Brazil who sold "boiled pork and beans," and who, in her enthusiasm at the sight of what seemed to her an old acquaintance, exclaimed, "This is the same truck we use in Carolina to make tea." We cannot but repeat our regret that Dr. Hawks did not consult some competent naturalist, familiar with the forms of vegetable and animal life in the low countries of North Carolina, who could easily have saved him from numerous errors on these subjects.

Errors of this sort, though it were very desirable to avoid them, do not affect the general character of the work, or alter our estimate of its worth as a whole. As regards style, we do not see that the author had in his eye any peculiar model of historical excellence, or any ambition to give the world a new

model. He seems to have been content, wisely, as we think, to narrate in simple, clear, and forcible language, the events of the period he has selected for his theme. Were we disposed to be critical in this respect, we should say that his profession is too apparent. Not that there is much sermonizing, though we could well spare some of the moral reflections and judgments; but he has overlooked the difference between a style that is to be spoken, and one that is to be read. He must have written, no doubt unconsciously, with an audience before him. This is evident often in the structure of sentences and paragraphs; it influences the choice of words, determines the emphasis, and leads sometimes to an undue amplitude of discussion. We cannot shake off the impression as we read, that each chapter was designed to be delivered as a lecture. There is an air of advocacy about it, something of the ad captandum in allusions to the present time, and a lack of the repose that belongs to narrative, and of the judicial impartiality which we demand in it. Not satisfied with a simple statement of the case, he is so earnest to have his reader on his side, as at times to become vehement and declamatory. He has great power of sarcasm, and uses it unsparingly, and is led by it to paint some characters, we fear, too darkly, as if he had a strong personal dislike for them. Seth Sothel is a monster, as he draws him, relieved by no single trait of goodness. Is not even Sir William Berkeley, a narrow-minded but most upright Governor, in whom the sentiment of loyalty and law subdued all other sentiments, dealt with rather harshly, in such language as "the inconceivable littleness of his vulgar soul"?

Making due allowance for the defects we have specified, we have read these volumes with great pleasure. The materials are often scanty, yet we feel assured that the author has made the most of them. Under his guidance we follow the progress of the Colony for nearly seventy years; a progress sometimes impeded by domestic discord and commotion, hindered in no slight degree-though less than one might have anticipated by an almost uninterrupted misgovernment, or neglect; yet on the whole a steady growth, once only, and for a brief period, checked by Indian warfare, and seldom warped or swayed by any influence from abroad; a growth in wealth and power, in

refinement of manners and religious culture, in the conscious strength of freedom and activity, and in the purpose, fitful perhaps, but sincere, to maintain that freedom and enlarge that activity. There are not wanting elements of a romantic interest also; and the Blackbeard of the Pamlico has as real an attraction as the Bluebeard of our childish reading. There is not a little, too, in the story of those early days, that may prepare the reader for the later scenes at Alamance, and the wild tramp to King's Mountain.

We shall look with interest for the volumes that are to come. The period of the royal government has a special charm and a superior value. The records are more copious; the field of events is larger; the results are more important; and the War of the Regulation in North Carolina is a far richer chapter than similar ones, if such there be, in other States. The narrative of the Revolutionary struggle there will disclose an amount of patient endurance and self-imposed effort, of daring and suffering for the common cause, which may well bear a comparison with the like in the most patriotic of the Colonies; while the domestic warfare along the Cape Fear and Deep Rivers, in 1780-81, the bloody, unrelenting, and too often merciless conflicts of neighbors and friends, arrayed against one another as Whig and Tory, is a page in history which has hardly a parallel elsewhere. The history of a State in which flourished patriots and statesmen like Davie and Caswell, Johnston and Hooper, which can count among her soldiers such leaders as Nash and Davidson, and can point to men so wise and great as Macon and Stanley and Gaston of later times, as the native outgrowth of her institutions and culture, must be a history for strangers to read with pleasure, and of which her own children may well be proud.

ART. IV. The Poetical Works of JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. With a Biographical Sketch. In Two Volumes. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1859.

ANY history of English poetry would be incomplete without noticing the new spirit infused into it about the beginning of the present century. Its source is not difficult to trace. Before the days of Cowper and Crabbe, poetry had sunk to the level of smooth conceits and clever epithets, having wholly lost the nerve and force of the Elizabethan writers; these poets returned to native and simple sentiment. Much of their merit arises from the fact that they were the leaders of a great reform in literature. They first gave expression to feelings long held as beneath the dignity of letters. In many minds they quickened cravings for truthful and earnest utterance, aspirations toward a spiritual renewing of life, and longings to know men and women as they actually lived. Among the leaders in this reform were Wordsworth and Coleridge. The violent change of opinions through which they passed in early life was significant of the far deeper change in the entire realm of sentiment and feeling. With Coleridge the spirit of reform penetrated every thought; but while his life was spent in efforts to build up a new and comprehensive system of philosophic belief, poetry had only a limited share of his attention. In Wordsworth the change was no less radical, but his mind was not so richly and variously endowed as that of Coleridge. He, however, saw clearly the path in which his true vocation lay, and, with a sublime self-confidence, walked boldly on, regardless of fear and favor, till he gained his end. The heroism of action pales somewhat beside that of thought, for the struggles of the latter are more costly to the spiritual nature, and hence more noble. Wordsworth's belief that he had poetic gifts which the world needed, even before he had brought them out, and his trust in the ultimate success of his poetry while his works remained unread, have a touch of the heroic as rare among poets as it is precious. It is always allowed them to sing of deathless fame, but the sincerity and calm, consecrated earnestness of Wordsworth kept his trust