1)4 



Monthly Review of Literature, 



[JAN, 



Nowhere have savages been found so 

 independent. They appear to have 1:0 

 chieftains no mention was ever made 

 of one. "Each tribe is divided into in- 

 dependent families, which inhabit in 

 common a district within certain limits, 

 gv iK-rally not exceeding above ten or 

 twelve miles on any side. The num- 

 bers of each tribe vary very much, be- 

 ing greater on the coast, where they 

 sometimes amount to two or three hun- 

 dred ; " and I have known them," says 

 Mr. Dawson, " in other quarters not to 

 exceed a hundred." They have been 

 charged with cannibalism ; but Mr. 

 Dawson's inquiries and experience did 

 not confirm this report. The natives 

 who mingle with the whites know our 

 feelings on this point, and generally 

 charge their enemies with it but that 

 is, apparently, to increase the odium. 

 When pressed closely, though persist- 

 ing in tne charge, they end with " all 

 black pellow been say so, massa." It 

 has been said, also, they eat dogs in a 

 state of putridity, and drink stagnant 

 water ; but Mr. Dawson never saw them 

 eat flesh of any kind uncooked, though 

 not to the state which we call done ; 

 and as to putrid kangaroos, he has seen 

 them reject them with looks and ges- 

 tures of abhorrence the same with fish, 

 dead on the shore. Of a Deity, in one 

 sense of the term, Mr. Dawson, with all 

 his inquiries, could not discover they 

 have any conception. Of a Devil, or evil 

 spirit of the woods, they have one, called 

 Coen, who sometimes steals the natives, 

 find carries them into the woods and 

 kills them. What becomes of them 

 when they die ? Go to' England, and 

 come back white. When Mr. Dawson 

 told there was a .900^ spirit as well as a 

 bad, and that he controlled the bad 

 one, and protected them and their wives 

 and children tc No, massa, no nossing 

 at all about it nossing at all about it." 

 Thunder and lightning they attribute 

 to the same bad spirit, who was angry, 

 and came to frighten them. When the 

 Storm abated, they tossed up their heads, 

 and hooted at the dispersing clouds, and 

 clapped their hands, exclaiming " black 

 pellow tend him away toon, massa." 



We recommend Mr. Dawson's book 

 very heartily to our readers, in full con- 

 fidence that they will find it full of 

 interest. 



The Sea-Kings, by the Author of " The 

 Fall of Nineveh.'" 3 vols. I2mo. Lite- 

 rature becomes one vast ocean of ro- 

 mance it assimilates and absorbs every 

 topic. First or last it is the resort, or 

 the refuge, of scribblers of all classes. 

 It is the field where the tyro fleshes his 

 sword, and where the veteran finally 

 sheathes it. And, after all, novel-writing 

 is the surest card that can be played. If 



you can but get hold of a popular pub- 

 lisher, you are sure to be read by some- 

 body, and the chance is not small of be- 

 ing so by every body. The poet finds 

 he may write till his fingers and his 

 heart ache nobody reads"; while pub- 

 lishers shrink at the sight, and well they 

 may, for nobody buys. There is, in 

 short, too large a" stock already on hand, 

 and good poetry, unluckily, never wears 

 out. For any more to find a market, it 

 must not only be as good as the old, 

 but be fresh in material, and new in the 

 fashion of its texture : mere refacci- 

 menti, and amplifications of the old, 

 will not take or sell ; and what else is 

 the mass of current poetry ? The au- 

 thor of The Fall of Nineveh two goodly 

 volumes of versification of splendid and 

 gorgeous description a congeries of bat- 

 tles and jousts, of feasts and festivals 

 with pieces, nevertheless, of pathos and 

 energy, which at a more propitious pe- 

 riod, or rather when things of the sort 

 were newer and scarcer, would have 

 borne him up on the wings of immortali- 

 ty now wisely betakes himself, as every 

 body else does, who must write or die, 

 to romance. He has chosen the histo- 

 rical, and there he is wise too, for it 

 saves, or it helps invention. In the re- 

 gions of history, a frame-work is always 

 at hand ready-made, and there are few 

 who cannot, rough or smooth, fill up an 

 outline. 



The period selected by the author of 

 The Fall of Nineveh, is the age of Al- 

 fred, and the main event his defeat of 

 Guthrun, with the expulsion of the Sea- 

 kings from his hereditary kingdom of 

 Wessex. With these Sea-kings the 

 Danish chiefs the reader of English 

 history was first familiarized, we be- 

 lieve, by Mr. Sharon Turner. Our po- 

 pular historians scarcely notice anything 

 before the Normans. 'The sons of Kiut- 

 yer, a furious sea-king, who had been 

 barbarously murdered by Ella of Nor- 

 thumberland, ravaged almost the whole 

 country, in revenge for the death of 

 their father. A party, headed by Hub- 

 bo, one of them, burnt Croyland-abbey, 

 and massacred old and young a scene in 

 which the boy Edmund, the future hero 

 of the piece, makes his frrst appearance. 

 The 'child is father of the man,' and op- 

 poses his capture with a desperate cour- 

 age, that shews what he will prove, and 

 the stock he springs from, for he turns 

 out to be the nephew of Alfred ; but 

 that nobody knows, except an elderly 

 monk, who passes for his parent. The 

 brave little hero is rescued from the 

 brutal Plubbo by Sidroc, another sea- 

 king, a little more human ; but in vain 

 are all the fondlings and coaxings of the 

 queen and young princess, nothing can 

 conciliate him, and he finally escapes 

 into the woods. There, by good lucK, 



