LITERARY NOTICES.

THE HOUR AND THE MAN. An Historical Romance. By HARRIET MARTINEAU, author of 'Deerbrook,' etc. In two volumes, 12mo. pp. 433. New-York: HARPER AND BROTHERS.

MISS MARTINEAU, in her 'Deerbrook,' took the public somewhat by surprise. Those who had perused her dissertations upon political economy, were scarcely prepared to find in her less abstruse performances pictures of nature drawn as by a painter's pencil, and the affections and passions of the human heart portrayed and discriminated with a master hand; least of all was it supposed that she possessed the happy knowledge of simple dramatic effect which she subsequently evinced in so remarkable a degree. But as our views on this subject were expressed somewhat at large in the notice of our author's previous novel, we pass to the one under notice, the character of which we shall rather briefly indicate to the reader, than describe. The story of Toussaint, the 'Man,' or hero of the work, is known to all who are conversant with the eventful history of St. Domingo. After the memorable revolution, which found him a negro slave, he associated himself with the Spaniards, but afterward gave his allegiance to the republic, which had proclaimed the general liberty of the blacks, who in their new condition wanted a leader. Toussaint was chosen, and entered into the service of France. His subsequent career is well depicted in the 'Hour and the Man;' a narrative which we surrender, unmutilated, to the enjoyment of our readers; partly in justice to the publishers, and partly because we lack the room for its adequate development and dénouement, in connection with the collateral adjuncts which go to the formation of the 'romance' proper. The following passage, describing the invasion of the island by a French fleet, is but a fair example of the descriptive portions of the work:

"DAY by day, in the intervals of his occupation about the defence of the colony, did Toussaint repair to Cap Samana, to look eastward over the sea. Day by day was he more sure, from the information that reached him, that the French could not be far off. At length he desired that his generals should be within call from Cotuy, a small town which stood on the banks of the Cotuy, near the western base of the mountainous promontory of Samana promontory at low water, island at high tide.

“All was yet dark on the eastern point of this mountain on the morning of the 28th of December, when two watchmen, who had passed the night under the ferms in a cleft of the steep, came out to look abroad. On their mountain all was yet dark; for the stars overhead, though still rolling clear and golden-visible orbs in the empty depths of the sky were so far dimmed by the dawn in the east as no longer to send down their shafts of light upon the earth. The point on which these watchmen stood was so high, that between them and the horizon the sea lay like half a world; an immeasurable expanse, spreading as if from a vast depth below up into the very sky. Dim and soundless lay the mass of waters; breaking no doubt, as for ages past, against the rocky precipice below, but not so as to be heard upon the steep. It might have appeared dead, but that a ray from some quarter of the heaven, capriciously touching its surface, showed that it was heaving, as was its wont. Eastward, at the point of junction of sea and sky, a dusky yellow light shone through the haze of morning as behind a curtain, and told that the sun was on his way. As their eyes became accustomed to the dim light (which was darkness compared to that which had visited their dreams among the ferns,) the watchmen alternately swept the expanse with their glass, and pronounced that there was not a sail in sight.

I believe, however, that this will be our day; the wind is fair for the fleet,' said Toussaint to Henri. Go and bathe while I watch.'

"We have said for a week past that each would be the day,' replied Henri. 'If it be to-day, however, they can hardly have a fairer for the first sight of the Paradise which poets and ladies praise at the French court. It promises to be the loveliest day of the year. I shall be here again before the

sun has risen.'

"And Christophe retired to bathe in the waterfall which made itself heard from behind the ferns, and was hidden by them; springing, as they did, to a height of twenty feet and upward. To the murmur and gush of this waterfall the friends had slept. An inhabitant of the tropics is so accustomed to sound, that he cannot sleep in the midst of silence; and on these heights there would have been everlasting silence but for the voice of waters, and the thunders and their echoes in the season of storms.

"When both had refreshed themselves, they took their seat on some broken ground on the verge of the precipice, sometimes indulging their full minds with silence, but continually looking abroad over the now brightening sea. It was becoming of a deeper blue as the sky grew lighter, except at that point of the east where earth and heaven seemed to be kindling with a mighty fire. There the haze was glowing with purple and crimson; and there was Henri, intently watching for the first golden spark of the sun, when Toussaint touched his shoulder and pointed to the northward. Shading his eyes with his hand, Christophe strove to penetrate the gray mists which had gathered there. "What is it?' said he; 'a sail? Yes: there is one

"There are seven,' said Toussaint.

three-four!'

"Long did he gaze through the glass at these seven sail, and then he reported an eighth. At this moment his arm was grasped.

"See! see!' cried Christophe, who was looking southward.

"From behind the distant southeastern promontory of Del Enganno now appeared sail after sail, to the number of twenty.

"All French,' observed Christophe. Lend me the glass.'

"All French,' replied his friend. They are, no doubt, coming to rendezvous at this point.', "While Henri explored those which were nearest, Toussaint leaned on his folded arms against the bank of broken ground before him, straining his eyes over the now peopled sea.

"More! more! he exclaimed, as the sun appeared, and the new gush of light showed sail upon sail, as small specks upon the horizon line. He snatched the glass; and neither he nor Henri spoke for long.

"The east wind served the purposes of the vast fleet, whose three detachments, once within each other's view, rapidly converged, showing that it was indeed their object to rendezvous at Cap Samana. Silent, swift, and most fair (as is the wont of evil) was this form of destruction in its approach.

"Not a word was spoken as the great ships-of-the-line bore majestically up toward their point, while the lighter vessels skimmed the sea, as in sport, and made haste in, as if racing with one another or anxious to be in waiting to welcome their superiors. Nearer and nearer they closed in, till the waters seemed to be covered with the foe. When Toussaint was assured that he had seen them all; when he had again and again silently counted over the fifty-four ships-of-war; he turned to his friend with a countenance of anguish, such as even that friend of many years had never seen. "Henri,' said he, we must all perish. All France has come to St. Domingo!' "Then we will perish,' replied Henri.

"Undoubtedly: it is not much to perish, if that were all. But the world will be the worse for ever. France is deceived. She comes, in an error, to avenge herself and to enslave the blacks. France has been deceived.'

"If we were but all together,' said Henri, 'so that there were no moments of weakness to fear; if your sons were but with us

Fear no moments of weakness from me,' said Toussaint, its wonted fire now glowing in his eye. "My color imposes on me duties above nature; and while my boys are hostages, they shall be to me as if they no longer existed.'

"They may possibly be on board this fleet,' said Christophe. If by caution we could obtain possession of them-'

"Speak no more of them now,' said Toussaint. Presently, as if thinking aloud, and with his eyes still bent on the moving ships, he went on:

66 6 "No, those on board those ships are not boys, with life before them, and eager alike for arts and arms. I see who they are that are there. There are the troops of the Rhine; troops that have conquered a fairer river than our Artibonite, storming the castles on her steeps, and crowning themselves from her vineyards. There are the troops of the Alps; troops that have soared above the eagle, and stormed the clouds, and plucked the ice king by the beard upon his throne. There are the troops of Italy! troops that have trodden the old Roman ways, and fought over again the old Roman wars; that have drunk of the Tiber, and once more conquered the armies of the Danube. There are the troops of Egypt; troops that have heard the war-cry of the desert tribes, and encamped in the shadow of the Pyramids.'

"Yet he is not afraid,' said Henri to himself, as he watched the countenance of his friend. "All these,' continued Toussaint, all these are brought hither against a poor, depressed, insulted, ignorant race; brought as conquerors, eager for the spoil before a blow is struck. They come to disembarrass our Paradise of us, as they would clear a fragrant and fruitful wood of apes and reptiles, And, if they find that it takes longer than they supposed to crush and disperse us, France has more thousands ready to come and help. The laborer will leave his plough at a word, and the vine-dresser his harvest, and the artisan his shop; France will pour out the youth of all her villages, to seize upon the delights of the tropics and the wealth of the savages, as they are represented by the emigrants who will not take me for a friend, but eat their own hearts far away with hatred and jealousy. All France is coming to St. Domingo!'

"But interposed Christophe.

"But, Henri,' interrupted his friend, laying his hand on his shoulder, 'not all France, with her troops of the Rhine, of the Alps, of the Nile, nor with all Europe to help her, can extinguish the soul of Africa. That soul, when once the soul of a man and no longer that of a slave, can overthrow the Pyramids and Alps themselves, sooner than be again crushed down into slavery.'"

"With God's help,' said Christophe, crossing himself.

"With God's help,' repeated Toussaint. 'See here,' he continued, taking up a handful of earth from the broken ground on which they stood, see here what God has done! See, here are shells from the depth of yonder ocean laying on the mountain top. Cannot he who uprears the dust of his ocean floor, and lifts it above the clouds, create the societies of men anew, and set their lowest order but a little below the stars?'

"He can,' said Christophe, again crossing himself. "Then let all France come to St. Domingo!"

As a companion picture, indicating one of the final results of this formidable array, we give the following sketch of Toussaint's imprisonment in the fortress of Joux :

"The commandant!' the officer announced to his prisoners; and the Commandant Rubaut entered the dim passage. Toussaint formed his judgment of him, to a certain extent, in a moment. Rubaut endeavored to assume a toue of good humored familiarity; but there appeared through this a miggiving as to whether he was thus either letting himself down on the one hand,or, on the other, encroaching on the dignity of the person he addressed. His prisoner was a negro; but then he had been the recognised commander-in-chief of St. Domingo. One symptom of awkwardness was, that he addressed Toussaint with no sort of title.

"We have had notice of your approach,' said he which is fortunate, as it enables me at once to conduct you to your apartment. Will you proceed? This way. A torch, Bellines! We have been looking for you these two days: which happens very well, as we have been enabled to prepare for you. Torches, Bellines! This way. We mount a few steps, you perceive. We are not taking you under ground, though I call for lights; but this passage to the left, you perceive, is rather dark. Yes, that is our well; and a great depth it is; deeper, I assure you, than this rock is high. What do they call the depth, Chalot? Well, never mind the depth? You can follow me, I believe, without waiting for light. We cannot go wrong. Through this apartment to the left.'

"Toussaint, however, chose to wait for Bellines and his torch. He chose to see what he could of the passages of his prison. If this vault in which he stood were not under ground, it was the dreariest apartment from which the daylight had ever been built out. In the moment's pause occasioned by his not moving on when desired, he heard the dripping of water as in a well.

"Bellines appeared, and his torch showed the stone walls of the vault shining with the trickling of water. A cold steam appeared to thicken the air, oppress the lungs, and make the torch burn dim. "To what apartment can this be the passage?' thought Toussaint. The grave is warm compared

with this.'

"A glance of wretchedness from Mars Plaisir, seen in the torchlight, as Bellines passed on to the front, showed that the poor fellow's spirits, and perhaps some visions of a merry life among the soldiers, had melted already in the damps of this vault. Rubaut gave him a push, which showed that he was to follow the torchbearer.

"Through this vault was a passage, dark, wet, and slippery. In the left-hand wall of this passage was a door, studded with iron nails, thickly covered with rust. The key was in this door. During the instant required for throwing it wide, a large flake of ice fell from the ceiling of the passage upon the head of Toussaint. He shook it off, and it extinguished the torch.

"You mean to murder us,' said he, 'if you propose to place us here. Do you not know that ice and darkness are the negro's poison. Snow too,' he continued, advancing to the cleft of his dungeon wall, at the outward extremity of which was his small grated window. 'Snow piled against this window now! We shall be buried under it in winter.'

"You will have good fires in winter.'

"In winter! Yes! This night, or I shall never see winter.'

"This night! Oh, certainly. You can have a tire, though it is not usual with us at this season. Bellines, a fire here immediately.'

"He saw his prisoner surveying, by the dim light of the deep window, the miserable cell; about twenty-eight feet by thirteen, built of blocks of stone, its vaulted ceiling so low that it could be touched by the hand; its floor, though planked, rotten and slippery with wet; and no furniture to be seen but a table, two chairs, and two heaps of straw in opposite corners.

"I am happy,' said the commandant, to have been able to avoid putting you under ground. The orders I have had, from the First Consul himself, as to your being mis au secret, are very strict. Notwithstanding that, I have been able, you see, to place you in an apartment which overlooks the courtyard; and which, too, affords you other objects,' pointing through the gratings to the few feet of the pavement without, and the few yards of the perpendicular rock opposite, which might be seen through the loophole.

"How many hours of the day and night are we to pass in this place?'

"How many hours? We reckon twenty-four hours to the day and night, as is the custom in Europe,' replied Rubaut; whether in ignorance or irony, his prisoner could not, in the dim twilight, ascertain. He only learned too surely that no exit from this cell was to be allowed.

"Firewood and light were brought. Rubaut, eager to be busy till he could go, and to be gone as soon as possible, found fault with some long-deceased occupant for having covered its arched ceiling with grotesque drawings in charcoal, and then with Bellines for not having dried the floor. Truly, the light gleamed over it as over a pond. Bellines pleaded in his defence that the floor had been dried twice since morning, but that there was no stopping the melting of the ice above. The water would come through the joints till the winter frosts set in.

"Ay, the winter frosts they will set all to rights. They will cure the melting of the ice, no doubt.' Turning to his prisoners, he congratulated himself on not being compelled to search their persons. The practice of searching was usual, but might, he rejoiced to say, be dispensed with on the present occasion. He might now, therefore, have the pleasure of wishing them a good evening. "Pointing to the two heaps of straw, he begged that his prisoners would lay down their beds in any part of the cell which pleased them best. Their food, and all they wanted, would be brought to the door regularly. As for the rest, they would wait upon each other. Having thus exhausted his politeness, he quitted the cell; and lock, bolt, and bar were fastened upon the captives.

"By the faint light Toussaint then perceived that his companion was struggling with laughter. When Mars Plaisir perceived, by his master's smile, that he had leave to give way, he laughed till the cell rang again, saying,

"Wait upon each other! His excellency wait upon me! His excellency wait upon any body! "There should be nothing new in that. I have endeavored to wait upon others all my life. Rarely does Providence grant the favor to wait upon so many.'"

With these extracts, which may serve to suggest an idea of the merely literary merits of 'The Hour and the Man,' we take our leave of the volumes. The reader will not need our commendation, to secure their perusal.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, for the January Quarter: 1841. pp. 268. Boston: JAMES MONROE AND COMPANY. New-York: CARVILLS.

THIS is a various and very good number of the 'North American,' and we take pleasure in commending it to the notice of our readers. Our quarterly contemporary, we must believe, will appreciate the magnanimity which prompts us to take it thus kindly by the hand, and introduce it to the public proper, in contradistinction to its small but select circle of readers, in Boston and elsewhere; the more, that it charges us with praising 'new-comers from all other corners,' while at the Review of the 'Modern Athens' 'the KNICKERBOCKER ruffles its plumage, and turns up its bright eye, and pecks.' The first article is upon National Defence,' from the text of the Letter from the Secretary of War upon this subject, and the annual report of the Board of Visiters of the United States' Military Academy. The theme, in these belligerent-threatening days, is an attractive one, and it is well treated. It is quite in detail, including a description of the operations of forts against ships; fortifications; military garrisons; a consideration of the scheme of General GAINES, with which our citizens have recently been made acquainted by the gallant General himself; and an answer to some of the objections put forth in the 'Separate Report' of the Minority of the Board of Visiters at West Point, for 1840. The reviewer seems to think that the fears which have prevailed, since the successful attack of the French upon the castle of St. Juan d'Ulloa, that fortifications were about to become powerless before fleets, are groundless. He observes:

"An attack by vessels of war upon exposed and nearly undefended parts of the coast, should be fearlessly met by such means of resistance, namely, a few cannon, a few spades, willing hands and stout hearts, as most maritime places afford; and the encouragement may justly be entertained, that the attack, if confined to the water, (and detachments are seldom made from the crew, to land in populous districts,) will generally be repulsed.

But the most modern and startling instance of trial between these antagonist forces, that is, between guns afloat and guns ashore, is that of the castle of St. Juan d'Ulloa; which affair, having been marked by (as it is generally supposed) the unaccustomed use of horizontal, hollow, or Paixhan's shells, (all the same,) and an unexpected result, was for some time thought to have revolutionized the mode of coast attack and defer e. The fall of this celebrated strong-hold, after such a brief cannonade, could be accounted for only by supposing that there had been introduced into the attack a new means of destruction, having a power against which no calculations had been made. The Board has subjected this interesting and not very well understood event to a strict scrutiny, and analyzed all its circumstances, until we are satisfied, that its true and just bearing upon the future is ascertained and fixed. Admiral Baudin had a naval force, including two bomb-ketches, which mounted one hundred and eighty-eight guns, or ninety-four on a broadside; and the castle had twelve twenty-four pounders and four sea-mortars engaged. The action lasted six hours, when, two magazines having exploded in the castle, and there being a well-grounded apprehension that 'six other similar magazines' would also explode, (for there were all these deposits of powder or ammunition in the castle, which were not bomb-proof,) the Mexicans capitulated. The French fired over eight thousand shot at the castle, but produced no effect in preparing the way for a sword-in-hand assault, which was contemplated the following morning. That great quantity of missiles no doubt marred and indented the walls to a considerable extent, but (as the Board not too strongly remarks) 'might have been fired the other way,' so far as they contributed to effect a breach, the only way in which such a preparation could hope to be made by such means.

"This castle, as we have before remarked, had been somewhat celebrated, during the revolutionary struggles of Mexico, for its strength. It was supposed that no ordinary means could subdue it. The result of this attack does not prove, that, had its interior been protected from explosions in the ordinary manner, its character in this respect was undeserved. The usual and indispensable precaution of giving all powder deposits bomb-proof roofs was here most unaccountably neglected. The mailclad warrior was in the battle without his helmet. Had Admiral Baudin advanced his bomb-ketches alone, they might have produced, it is not improbable, unaided, all the causes, that is, the explosions within the castle (one of which is reported to have buried sixty men in its ruins,) which led to the capitulation. An observance of this simple precaution, a precaution we are inclined to believe not neglected with respect to any other magazines of consequence on the North American coast, might and no doubt would, have reversed the decision of this memorable trial."

The second article is upon the 'Cotton Manufacture,' and embraces a notice of recent improvements, and the amount of production; the factory system of Great Britain, and the health and morals of its operatives; with the history of the system of manufac ture in New-England, and the health and morals of Yankee operatives. It bears evident marks of research and careful preparation, and will be found a useful and valuable article. We solicit attention to the following remarks, which succeed a detailed state22

VOL. XVII,

ment, establishing the fact that the manufacturing population of Lowell, (Mass.,) is the healthiest portion of its population:

"The healthy condition and the correct deportment of the Lowell operatives, have been observed by every one, who has seen the long lines of them retiring, at the close of labor from the mills. All are well dressed, and you behold no more impropriety of conduct than you see in the most fashionable streets of any city. A distinguished Englishman, on seeing the throngs of operatives leaving the mills, could not but express his surprise, that every one of them had on shoes. His wonder would have ceased, had he known that each of these operatives was earning, on an average, two dollars per week, clear of her board; that the sum paid out for wages in Lowell is $160,000 per month; that out of 1,976 depositors in the Lowell Institutions for Savings, 978 are factory girls; and that of the $305,796 deposited on interest, $100,000 belongs to them. His wonder would have ceased, had he been told of the man, who, broken down by unfortunate speculations at the South, removed his wife and family of daughters to Lowell; and there, forgetting their former affluence, and relying hopefully upon their own exertions, honestly paid off in a few years, by the fruits of their labor, an old incumbrance of over two thousand dollars, and realized enough beside to give an enviable education to his children. He should have been told, also, of the poor widow, who, running in debt for every cent of the furniture of her boarding-house, paid for it all in a short time, and by eleven years of industry and economy, saved the snug sum of fourteen hundred dollars, with which she purchased a quiet retreat for her old age in the country.

"We intended to have said a word or two upon the schools in Lowell, which will not suffer by comparison with any others in the Commonwealth; upon the spirit of intelligence there manifested, in the patronage extended to lyceums, libraries, and lectures; and upon the noble hospital recently established there by the owners of the mills, for the benefit of the operatives in their employ. But we have already exceeded our limits. We can only express the firm conviction, that the manufacturing population of New-England, in intelligence, respectability, and good morals, is at this moment decidedly in advance of the same class of laborers in other branches of industry; and we have no doubt but that, by still greater improvements in machinery, by a reduction of the hours of labor, and by a more earnest attention to means of moral and intellectual training, they will lead the general progress in knowledge and in virtue."

'Two Years before the Mast,' which was first noticed in these pages, next receives as warm and hearty commendation at the hands of a discriminating critic as was awarded to it by the KNICKERBOCKER, and indeed by every other journal that we have seen, save the 'Southern Literary Messenger;' the estimable proprietor of which journal permitted some ambitious but most stupid and tasteless censor to condemn a work which he had neither the judgment to understand, nor the ability to criticize.

The third volume of BANCROFT's History of the United States is reviewed in the next paper, and in the terms of praise which its various merits amply deserve. We make room for a patriotic and comprehensive passage from the remarks of the reviewer:

"We sympathize fully in those feelings, those hopes, it may be, which animate the great mass of our countrymen. Hope is the attribute of republics. It should be peculiarly so of ours. Our fortune is all in the advance. We have no past, as compared with the nations of the Old World. Our existence is but a couple of centuries, dating from our embryo state; our real existence as an independent people, little more than half a century. We are to look forward, then, and go forward; not with vainglorious boasting, but with resolution and honest confidence. Boasting, indecorous in all, is peculiarly so in those, who take credit for the great things they are going to do, not those they have done. The glorification of an Englishman, or a Frenchman, with a long line of annals in his rear, may be offensive; that of an American is ridiculous. But we may feel a just confidence from the past, that we shall be true to ourselves for the future; that, to borrow a cant phrase of the day, we shall be true to our mission, the most momentous ever intrusted to a nation; that there is sufficient intelligence and moral principle in the people, if not always to choose the best rulers, at least to right themselves by the ejection of bad ones, when they find they have been abused; that they have intelligence enough to understand that their only consideration, their security as a nation, is in union; that separation into smaller communities is the creation of so many hostile states; that a large extent of empire, instead of being an evil, from embracing regions of irreconcileable local interests, is a benefit, since it affords the means of that commercial reciprocity, which makes the country, by its own resources, independent of every other; and that the representatives drawn from these magnificent distances,' will, on the whole, be apt to legislate more independently, and on broader principles, than if occupied with the concerns of a petty state, where each legislator is swayed by the paltry factions of his own village. In all this we may honestly confide."

We have observed that the next article, upon 'Congressional Eloquence,' has been 'lightly entreated' by journalists whose opinions we have been accustomed to respect; but in our humble judgment, this paper is a timely and most just reproof of that gossipping, alloquial long-windedness, which has made the American congress such a portentous and expensive bore, especially within the last few years. 'Very often,' says the reviewer and every man who has been in Washington during the session knows his statements to be true-'a member will make up a long speech of what has not only no relation to the matter in hand, but what has no interest out of his own district. His vehement utterance, and the expression of satisfaction that inspires his features,