The Sun.
London, England, 1850-02-21 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

ELLEN CLAYTON; or the Nomades of the West.
By S. D. S. Huyghue. 3 [cols.
"I have," says the writer of these volumes, "lived
in the wigwam of the Red Man; I have smoked,
talked, and hunted with him ; I have trusted him
with money, and, whenever uncontaminated by inter-
course with his white neighbours, I have invariably
found him to be a happy and a noble man." In ano-
ther place, also, the author of this picture of the No-
mades of the West speaks of the strong and craving
interest which he feels in " everything that relates to
the perished races whose ruined cities strew the
forests of the western hemisphere." " The mournful
sense of those deserted abodes (he goes on) has
hovered about our heart for years haunting it
like a dirge. This has impelled us to the
effort, feeble as it is, of casting from cur shoulders a
fraction of the ancestral debt, by striving to breathe
again life into the trodden clay, and to fill once more
with their ancient denizens the mansions of a for-
gotten people." These feelings have invested the
book with a twofold character: it simultaneously
makes us acquainted with the red men of the present
day, and introduces us to the American aborigines as
they were in their days of ancient glory. It is
difficult to say in which of these endeavours the
author has best succeeded in attaining his object, and
in imparting to his subject a most enthralling it.-
terest. Not even in the narrrtives of Cooper are the
native hunters of the prairies and forests of the
West invested with a more simple sublimity of
character. It may be said of them as a class,
as it is here said of an individual :—" There
is that about their nature which the dwellers of the
cities have long since lost. It bears upon it, as on a
coin, the stamp of the Creator, fresh and clear, show-
ing it to be sterling gold." One of the most attrac-
tive of these Nomades of the West is Sewantus-
Walie, a young Mohawk, in person characterised by
that national symmetry of frame so vividly impressed
upon the recollection of the painter West, when he
exclaimed, on beholding the Apollo Belvedere, " A
young Mohawk warrior !" In mind and heart also
Sewantus is endued with the same graceful manli-
ness. In such sketches as this Mr. Huyghue has ex-
hibited to us the noble characteristics of the
red men, with whom he has familiarly mingled,
but in so doing only half his desired
object is accomplished. Accordingly, towards
the close of the second volume the heroes of the nar-
rative, in consequence of various circumstances which
it is here unnecessary to particularize, find themselves
strange guests in the city of an isolated people, in a
region wholly shut out from communication with the
rest of the world as the Happy Valley, ruled over by
Egle, into which King Arthur intruded, or the re-
mote territory of Astarte, into which Tancred found
his way. The chapters descriptive of this American
fairyland read like.pages from the " Arabian Nights."
On every side ss e are astonished with glimpses of
Eastern luxury and evidences of European refine-
ment. Gold and pearls, and rich embroideries, and
waving feathers adorn the inhabitants of this
sumptuous land, and the manners and customs
of the wearers are not at variance with the skill and
taste displayed in their habiliments. While we are
yet pondering with amazed admiration over the
splendours thus displayed to us suddenly the convic-
tion is forced upon us that we are reading no Eastern
tale ; this is, in fact, a picture of the condition of the
barbarians of America before the advent of the
civilized Europeans. We have only to open the
pages of Prescott, and we shall find a similar account
of similar scenes. Mr. Huyghue, anxious to inspire
his readers with some of his own sympathy for the
original American races has very skillfully
made use of a most felicitous idea. He
has imagined a remnant of the ancient people
still existing in some undiscovered region, and
preserving the laws, customs, arts and sciences of
their ancestors. Instead of borrowing the splendours
of Lahunzel from imagination, he has "re-peopled it
from the past," and thus has exhibited to us, side-by-
side with the simple red men of the forest, "an Indian
city such as existed in the time of Cortes and his
companions." Happily conceived, the scheme has
been most happily executed. As regards the story
which serves to string together these rich materials
we need say little. Ellen Clayton, the heroine, is of
a character eminently well suited to the simplicity
and sublimity of the scenes through which her
strange destiny conducts her. In a consider-
able degree the story of " Ellen Clayton" re-
sembles that of Longfellow's beautiful "Evangeline."
Like Evangeline and Gabriel, Ellen and Conrad be-
come separated, and wander for years through the
prairies and forests. In the poem the reader follows
the wanderings of the maiden as she heroically fulfils
the advice given her :
"Patience, accomplish thy labour—accomplish thy
work of affection.
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance
is godlike."
In the novel, however, the reader like the hero,
loses sight of Ellen, and for six weary years seeks for
her in vain. Evangeline only meets with her Ga-
briel in time to receive his parting breath. Conrad
and Ellen, on the contrary, forget the sorrow
of their separation in a life of happy com-
munion. Still there is a similarity between the
histories of Ellen and Evangeline. I39yond this the
story of " Ellett Clayton" is, as a story, somewhat in-
consistent in many parts, but we very willingly pass
over any such deficiencies, the rich, natural, and his-
toric treasures which it groups together, and the
beautiful language in which they are described, ren-
dering " Ellen Clayton," as a whole, a most charming
and interesting work. We have said it is narrated
in beautiful language, it is moreover imbued with a
pure and elevating spirit, and in many pages we meet
with happy thoughts happily described. Truly it is
observed, when speaking of the rapid flight of time
in the estimation of Conrad and Ellen, when
"Love took up the glass of Time, and turned it in his
glowing hands."
They kept no account of time. " Time is
for the wretched, and they were happy."
Again, it is yet more truthfully and beauti-
fully said, when alluding to the sorrows which
occasionally chequered the lot of the heroine—
" Suchj is human life. There are also some tender
flowers which shine only in the shade, and the heart,
in its afflictions, grows prolific of gentle feelings, not
the less beautiful because their nourishment is tears.
Adversity is a solemn teacher, reminding us, from
time to time, of what we are and what is expected of
us, which we might otherwise forget ; it deepens
the home-love, and unfolds its purest treasures
that in prosperity lie dormant and unrevealed."
With the following allusion to the peculiar advantages
of the British colonist we take leave of " Ellen
Clayton," a book which has made us pleasantly ac-
quainted with some of the noble and.attractive charac-
teristics of the Nomades of the West

" The British colonist enjoys a peculiar exemption
from those prejudices, which, for so many ages, have re-
tarded progress, and are successively being overcome by
the convictions of a more enlightened era. There is a
voice in the woods and mountains of a great solitude that
elevates the soul and fortifies it with courage in the
time of need. The great torrents and inland seas of
that noble country have schooled the generation, nur-
tured by their side into a strong conception of freedom."

DIARY AND CORRESPONDENCE OF
JOHN EVELYN. Vol. I.

The first volume of a new edition of Bvelyn's
Diary has just been issued. The proposed series
will be uniform with the recently published " Pepy's
Diary." It is to be comprised in four volumes,
edited (from the original manuscripts at Wotton) by
Mr.: Bray ; it will contain also the: private cor-
respondence between King Charles I. and Sir Ed-
ward Nicholas, and between Sir Edward Hyde,
afterwards Earl of Clarendon, and Sir Richard
Browne. So much we learn from the title-page, and
on referring to the volume itself we find the quaint
diary of Evelyn set forth in large clear type, and
accompanied with necessary but brief annota-
tions. This first volume begins, like "David
Copperfield," with the birth of the autobio-
grapher. " I was born," writes John Evelyn,
" (at Wotton, in the county of Surrey), about twenty
minutes past two in the morning, being on Tuesday,
the 31st aad last of October, 1620." At seventeen
he was a Fellow-Commoner of Baliol College, Ox-
ford, and thence we follow him to London, Amster-
dam, Paris, Pisa, Rome, Venice, and many other
celebrated cities in France, Germany, and Italy, the
I peculiarities of which are set forth in Evelyn's pecu-
liar manner. The close of the first volume leaves
Evelyn in London in a momentous epoch-1665.
To readers as yet unacquainted with Evelyn this edi-
tion will be a valuable acquisition. It is embellished
with a portrait of the author of " Sylva."

THE PHYSICAL AT.LA OF NATURAL
PHENOMENA. By Alexander Keith Johnston,
F.R.G.S.
Of all the changes which our progressing and stir-
ring times are called upon to witness, none strike us
more forcibly than the efforts made by eminent men
in the varieus departments of science to make the
world at large acquainted with the results of their
patient investigations, persevering researches, and
frequent discoveries, no longer, as of old,. through
massive and costly volumes, intended only for the se-
clusion of certain libraries, where they might be
consulted by the few who had time, and were willing
to devote it to a special purpose, but in such forms,
on such terms, and with such taste, as regards execu-
tion and liberality, as regards choice and abundance
of matter, as to make them extensively popular, in
the fairest sense of the word, and thus further to pro-
mote the ends of science by making it fascinating as
well as accessible to all. To such men, and they are
many now, mankind seems to us to be much indebted,
and we trust the rising generation is fully sensible of
the many intellectual advantages it possesses in that
respect. Who, that remembers the means that were
within our reach, only a few years back, of gaining
information, can 414 to be struck with the wonderful

change which has taken place in this respect ? and
who, to come more particularly to the subject under
our present consideration, can for a moment compare
books, such as were placed in our hands in our youth,
with those which the present generation have at
their command, without being impressed with
feeling of thankfulness that the present opportunity
is his own ? In support of the appeal to the admira-
tion and gratitude of the youth of our own times, we
could name many of the publications, periodical or
otherwise, intended to diffuse the taste for all that is
great and good, emanating from men who, having
found happiness in the prosecution of study, make it
a duty to impart what they know to others. But our
business is more especially with the book bearing the
above title, and we must preface all further observa-
tions with the expression of a conviction, that a more
splendid and more inviting incentive to the study of
a science, so interesting in itself, though hitherto
much neglected,
.never was yet produced ; and we
can scarcely credit the evidence of ourown:senses, such
is the force of habit, on finding it announced in its
title-page, that the, " Physical Atlas," now beforo us,
is a book intended for schools, colleges, &c. How-
ever, so it is ; and we admit our willingness to re-
sume our long foregone studies, and not only continue
but in many respects extend our acquaintance with
the subjects of which it treats. Nor should we omit
to say, that it is with a high degree of satisfaction
that we find in a work professedly reduced as to size
and costliness from the edition in imperial folio, so
much in the present edition to admire on the score of
execution, which were, however, but poor praise, if
we did not feel bound to laud it upon much higher
grounds—upon the intrinsic worth of the vast and
well-digested fund of information it contains. It
may be little to our credit, but we were not
prepared to find that our mother earth, as we
were wont to call the soil we trod in our youth, was
likely to furnish us with so many and such deeply
interesting materials for reflection as those we find m
the course of the Atlas before us. But let us not
digress ; rather let us remember that we have now to
do with the said Atlas, and not with the earth ; and,
fearing we cannot do better justice to the work than
by quoting a short passage in its introduction, we
will do so :

" To the student who has hitherto only been accus-
tomed to the dry details of geography as usually taught,
the study of physical geography must open up a to-
tally new and most interesting field. He will here be-
come acquainted with the living and active operations of
nature, and the beautiful and appropriate bearings of all
her relative dependencies, instead of poring over her
dry bones—her unconnected, isolated, and consequently
barren nets, &c."

To which unpretending, but most true and proper
address, we would add our own testimony, and say
that not only will the student find the work submitted
to his notice replete with information :upon every
subject that may in any way or degree be taken in
connexion with the earth—not only will he find each
separate subject tangibly and fully elucidated by clear
and concise statements—not only will he find those
statements borne out and illustrated by a
series of maps as beautiful in their conception
as unrivalled in their execution, but he will find the
various parts of the work successfully tending to the
formation of a harmonious whole, resting upon unde-
niable evidence, resulting from the author's patient
investigation of its multifarious topics, supported by
the combined testimony of preceding and contempo-
rary writers ; and whether we view it as regards
clearness of style, comprehensiveness of subject, ela-
borate details, soundness of views, or as a happy and
harmonious combination of parts, Which, however
widely distant from each other in the scale of those
things which make up our habitable world, yet are
not only linked with, but inseparable from it, whe-
ther we look upon it as a source of information and
serious study, or as a book of reference to appeal to in
the hour of doubt, or as an ornament (we love that
I happy blending of first-rate execution with a noble
simplicity in the ornamentation of a book) for the
shelves of our studio, we feel in justice and duty
bound to say that few works equal and none surpass
the " Physical Atlas of Natural Phenomena."