respecting the visit and the nature of this creature, as put into the mouth of the old soldier, the great lady, and the Oxford scholar, are characteristic and poetically imagined: but we must limit our extracts. The following passage from the interview between Francis and Emily, will exemplify Mr. Wordsworth's peculiar power of conveying to the mind a still and deep impression of sadness.

For we must fall, both we and ours :-
This mansion and these pleasant bowers,
Walks, pools and arbours, homestead, hall;-
Our fate is theirs; will reach them all:
horse must forsake his manger,
And learn to glory in a stranger:

The young

The hawk forget his perch-the hound

Be parted from his ancient ground:

The blast will sweep us all away;

One desolation, one decay.

And e'en this creature; which words saying

He pointed to a lovely Doe,

A few steps distant feeding, straying;
Fair creature, and more white than snow!
E'en she will to her peaceful woods
Return, and to her murm'ring floods;
And be in heart and soul the same
She was before she hither came;
Ere she had learn'd to love us all,
Herself belov'd in Rylstone Hall.

We think the poem should have ended with the following lines:

But chiefly by that single grave,

That one sequester'd hillock green,

The pensive visitant is seen.

The additional stanza is stiff and affected:

And aye, methinks, this hoary pile,
Subdued by outrage and decay,
Looks down upon her with a smile:
A gracious smile, that seems to say,
Then, thou art not a child of Time,
But daughter of th' eternal prime."

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grey

At the end of the volume is a ballad, entitled "The Force of Prayer," or the Founding of Bolton Priory." There is little to warrant the former title. A lady built the Priory on her son being drowned in the river wharf, while leaping with his hound in a leash across "the strid,"-a chasm between rocks. Time brought with it resignation: "slowly did her succour come:" but the " force of prayer" would lead us to expect something out of the common routine of things; and the disappointment gives a flatness to the close of the ballad. It had better have been called simply "the Founding of Bolton Priory."

"The White Doe" is prefaced by a beautiful proëm in the octave measure, addressed to the author's wife. We select a few lines illustrative of the high order of moral faculties which this writer possesses, and prophetic, as we think, of the durability of this his legendary tale:

He serves the muses erringly and ill

Whose aim is pleasure light and fugitive:
Oh that my mind were equal to fulfill
The comprehensive mandate which they give!
Vain aspiration of an earnest will!

Yet in this moral strain a power may live.

ART. XVIII. AMERICA.

1. Memoirs of the Philadelphia Society for promoting Agriculture; containing Communications on various Subjects in Husbandry and rural Affairs. Vol. I.-III. Philadelphia, 1808-1814. 2. A Geological Account of the United States; comprehending a short Description of their Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral Productions, Antiquities, and Curiosities. By James Mease, M. D. &c. 12mo. Philadelphia, 1807.

3. The Picture of Philadelphia, giving an Account of its Origin, Increase, and Improvements in Arts, Sciences, Manufactures, Commerce, and Revenue, &c. By James Mease, M. D. 12mo. Philadelphia, 1811.

4. Travels through Canada, and the United States of North America, in the Years 1806, 1807, and 1808. To which are added, Biographical Notices and Anecdotes of some of the leading Characters in the United States. By John Lambert. 2 vols. 8vo. Second Edition. London, 1814.

We have classed these articles together, because from the consideration of their contents, as well as from some information of which we happen to be possessed, we think we can furnish our

readers with some important facts relative to the internal state of the American Union, not generally known on this side of the Atlantic; but which are not the less necessary to be known, as they will show the progress of improvement in that rising country. It would be unreasonable to expect from us a critical examination of the works, whose titles stand at the head of this article: the American agricultural writers are plain matter-of-fact men, little solicitous about elegance of style or expression in their practical communications. This circumstance will account for the appearance of such words as progressing, grades, testing, and the like, which do not sound very harmoniously to the chastised ear of a well educated Englishman.

For the authenticity of the details contained in the articles to which Dr. Mease's name is affixed, his own respectability will sufficiently vouch: and, although the dates of his publications are not very recent, yet, in the present dearth of correct information relative to the United States, the facts which they exhibit will not be deemed unimportant, and particularly those concerning Philadelphia, one of the three principal cities in the American Union. Of Mr. Lambert, we have only to observe that he is an intelligent traveller, who has diligently availed himself of the opportunities of obtaining information which were offered to him. His first volume, which it does not now fall within our plan to notice, presents an entertaining account of our most important colony, Canada: the second volume, to which we shall occasionally refer, ostensibly treats of the United States in general, but is in fact chiefly confined to a description of the provinces of New England and Carolina. Of the immense tract of country lying between these states, he saw and has described but little, having proceeded from New York to Charleston by sea, and having returned from the latter place by the same mode of conveyance. To the praise of candour and impartiality he is justly entitled: and without any predilection for the Americans, either nationally or individually, he is solicitous to awaken the attention of Englishmen to a due sense of the growing importance of the United States," a country," he remarks," whose real state and condition are almost as little known as those of Canada; and the manners and disposition of whose inhabitants are seldom viewed but through the false medium of popular prejudice. Whatever truth there may have been in the accounts given of the United States by former writers, they present at this day but imperfect or distorted pictures of its inhabitants. Those who have not seen the United States for the last twenty years, would be astonished at the alteration that has taken place. No country, perhaps, has ever increased in population and wealth, or risen into importance among other nations, with a more rapid progress. Within the space of thirty years they have emerged from

the obscurity of colonies into the rank of independent states; governed by a constitution altogether novel in the present times, but which, whatever defects it may contain, has proved the source of all their prosperity. The people of England are too apt to hold the character of the Americans in trifling estimation; but, when it is known that their country is fast approaching to importancethat their imports and exports already amount to one half of those of Great Britain, while their annual expenditure is not a twentieth, and their national debt not a fortieth part of ours, we cannot avoid giving them our meed of admiration." Most fervently do we hope that the two nations, so closely allied by language and by blood, will henceforth cease to indulge blind and acrimonious prejudices against each other, and will endeavour to cultivate the blessings of peace, instead of standing constantly in the frowning attitude of mutual jealousy.

Our observations on the United States will present themselves under the following heads: viz. 1. Agriculture; 2. Manufactures; 3. Commerce; and, 4. Internal Navigation, Roads, and Bridges.

1. Agriculture. From the immense extent of country which they embrace, extending at least thirteen hundred miles in one direction, and upwards of fourteen hundred in another, the United States comprise almost every variety of climate, soil, and productions. And hence it is, that while the native plants of burning Africa flourish in the sandy soils of the South, the plants and animals of Lapland are found on the mossy hills of the northern districts.

Not less than three fourths of the American population are engaged in agriculture, who, in the Northern and Middle States, pursue, with some local modifications, the various methods of cultivation employed by our British farmers. Some districts, as New England and Vermont, are best adapted for grazing; while others, as in Pennsylvania, are equally adapted to the plough and the pail. In the last-mentioned state, great care is bestowed on the formation of meadows; the soil of which, being alluvial, yields very abundant crops of grass, without any other manure than that which is dropped by the cattle grazing on them. The meadows on the rivers Delaware and Schuylkill, are stated to be not surpassed by any in the world for the luxuriancy of their indigenous grasses. The formation of societies for the promotion of agriculture has greatly contributed to improve that of the United States; and the societies established at New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and other places, have particularly distinguished themselves by the utility of their publications.

The number of native grasses is great; and their nourishing qualities are evinced by the size and number of the cattle which are annually brought from the thickly timbered forests of the new

VOL. VI. NO. XII.

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land. The most remarkable of these are the following:-In the Northern and Middle States the poa viridis, or green sward-grass, isparticularly valued for its abundance and succulence. It is nearly allied to the poa angustifolia of Linnæus; and such is its tendency to take possession of rich ground, that, if the meadows on the Delaware be ploughed and sown with grain and clover seeds, the green grass will smother the clover after the first year. In the inexhaustible mellow soil of the peninsula between the Delaware and Schuylkill, and on the banks of those rivers, three crops of this grass may be cut every year, and from two to three tons per acre may be obtained at each cutting: further, it has this peculiar quality, that it continues unaffected by frost, so that, after the artificial grasses are killed for the season, this excellent grass continues to flourish, and even to acquire a new relish by the operation of the cold. Cattle, therefore, continue to fatten upon it, while those who depend upon clover and other artificial grasses, are obliged either to kill their stock, or to resort to the expensive measure of keeping them on hay to prevent their falling off. For a long time it was supposed to be peculiar to low soils; but for some years past it has been successfully cultivated on upland soils, which, when duly prepared, are found perfectly congenial to it. As the culture of this species of natural grass has greatly contributed, among other causes, to enrich the state of Pennsylvania, we conceive it might be advantageously introduced into our own country, especially as the climates of the two regions are so nearly alike.

The herd-grass (the agrostis stricta of Wildenow) is particularly adapted to wet low grounds; it mats and consolidates the surface, and continues in the ground for many years, excluding every other grass and all weeds. Many worthless swampy spots in the low parts of the state of New Jersey have been rendered valuable grazing grounds by this grass; loaded waggons having passed over places which, a few years before it was sown on them, would scarcely admit an animal to walk over them without sinking. It produces excellent hay, and cattle are said to prefer it to that made either of clover or timothy grass. Four tons per acre are a common crop; it does not, however, yield a second crop, but affords excellent late and early pasture.

Fiorin, of which an ample account was given in a former volume of our Review*, has been successfully introduced into America. We have not observed any material facts in the volumes before us, that furnish any information in addition to that which we have already communicated; but all the American experiments in its culture tend to prove its prolific qualities and abundant produce. White clover is, undoubtedly, a native plant of the United States

* See British Review, vol, i, p. 145–160,