560 WASHINGTON IRVINc's ASTORIA. 



tinuessuch as he is and ever has been, notwithstanding all the changes 

 superinduced by cultivation, this desire of knowledge (of what kind 

 it matters not, for that must be decided by individual character and 

 by education) must continue to exercise its sovereign and beneficial 

 influence on society. 



For such the bounteous providence of heaven, 



In every breast implanting this desire 



Of objects new and strange, to urge us on 



With unremitted labour to pursue 



Those sacred stores that wait the rip'ning soul 



In truth's exhaustless bosom. AKENSIDE. 



To trace the various modes in which this emotion is expressed in 

 different individuals is not our present purpose. We content our- 

 selves with having laid down the physical principles of the human 

 constitution, to which we owe our love of the unknown and the mar- 

 vellous ; and proceed at once to remark, that there cannot be a more 

 eligible mode of indulging this passion than by listening, like Bra- 

 bantio's daughter, to the moving accidents by flood and field, recited 

 in the travel's history of those who have crossed the Asiatic desert, or 

 penetrated into the far-west of the American continent. The 

 scenery is new, the adventures are new, the state of society is alto- 

 gether different from that to which we are accustomed : there is all 

 that can stimulate curiosity, and nothing that can offend the most 

 scrupulous regard for truth and probability. 



Our readers after so long a preamble will be inclined to say, What 

 has become of Astoria and its author ? Well, we proceed to intro- 

 duce it; but a difficulty occurs as to what we shall call it. Think 

 not, beloved readers, that we are going to mince up a three-volume 

 romance and serve up to you the disjecti membra poetce, as another 

 Thyestaean banquet. What then, ask ye, is Astoria? The reader will 

 never guess; and so we shall forthwith enlighten him ourselves. It 

 is not a legendary history of a Dutch town in America, it is not a 

 story of bonhommie and unreserved merriment like Braceridge 

 Hall, it is not a tale or a series of tales of sentiment such as we see 

 in the pages of the Sketch-book, it is not the description and history 

 of another gorgeous Alhambra; it is quite sui generis, and claims 

 for its author a new ground of distinction. The book before us is a 

 very happy and spirited description of the rise, progress, and failure 

 of a great commercial enterprise 'set on foot by a munificent trader 

 of New York (Mr. J. J. Astor), having for its object to carry the 

 fur trade across the Rocky Mountains, and to sweep the shores of the 

 Pacific. Without answering the reader's question similar to that of 

 the child after the relation of a nursery-tale of horrors Is it true, 

 Mamma? we proceed at once to give a somewhat detailed and per- 

 haps prosaic account of the adventurers, and of all their "most dis- 

 astrous chances." 



Mr. Irving introduces his subject by a short history of Canadian 

 commerce, and remarks particularly that the rich peltries of the north 

 and the precious metals of the south are the two leading objects of 

 commercial gain, that have given birth to wide and daring enterprise 

 in the early history of the Americans. 



" It was the fur trade, in fact, which gave early sustenance and vitality to 



