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WASHINGTON IRVING'S ASTORIA.* 



THERE cannot be a more interesting subject of enquiry to the inves- 

 tigator of psychological history than the progressive improvement 

 effected on the human mind by the gregarious propensities of the 

 species. When we look back to the primitive condition of man, 

 as the authentic records of profane and sacred history represent him; 

 when again we consult the testimonies of travellers, and see him as 

 he at present exists in different countries in all the progressive states 

 of moral cultivation from that of the naked savage to the more 

 enviable condition of the personally free denizen of a continental 

 despotism, and compare all these improvements with our own state 

 that so much more nearly approaches the acme of moral perfection, 

 namely, self-government, we cannot avoid the remark that there 

 is much matter for the study of the moralist. Nor is the general 

 reader indifferent to the interest of such enquiries. There is a 

 feeling of curiosity deeply ingrafted on human nature, a certain 

 desire of knowledge that makes it delightful to a man to know, and 

 disquieting to him to know imperfectly, while any thing remains in 

 his power that can make his knowledge more accurate or compre- 

 hensive. It is this desire of stepping from the known to the unknown, 

 which rivets the attention of the child to the recital of a nursery 

 legend, and the gratification of his infant curiosity produces a plea- 

 sure which stimulates him to the further pursuit of the unknown. 

 What the nursery legend is to the child, the romance, the drama, 

 the book of travels is to the graver years of manhood. It was such 

 a feeling that bid Brabantio oft invite Othello and question him the 

 story of his life ; and, urged by a like prospective emotion, Desde- 

 mona would seriously incline and with a greedy ear devour up the 

 Moor's discourse 



Of antres vast and deserts idle, 



Rough quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heav'n, 



And of the Cannibals that each other eat, 



The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads 



Do grow beneath their shoulders. 



Neither is it necessary even in this utilitarian and matter-of-fact 

 generation, that even in the absence of truth probability should be 

 substituted for it. What pleases more than a fairy-tale ? When will 

 the thousand-and-one- nights cease to be the delight of young and 

 old ? Who will deny to the fairy legends' of Ireland their proper 

 meed of praise ? And what refined taste can reject the grim tales 

 of Germany ? No, they must be read ; they must be admired, and 

 enthusiastically admired, as long as human nature continues what it 

 is. The whisk of a comet, a change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, 

 or an alteration in the laws of gravity may modify, change, or destroy 

 the order of moral as well as material nature ; but while man con- 



" Astoria, or Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains," by Washington Irving. 

 3 vols. Beniley. 



Our readers will derive much assistance in understanding this excellent work from 

 the consultation of the maps entitled ' British North America,' and ' Index Map of 

 the United States' of the Sos. of U. Knowledge. 



