The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1856-10-09

notice, while the conspiracy, which gives the
work its name, is totally unnecessary, so far as
the interest of Nina's life and character is con.
cerned. The result is, not simplicity, but con.
fusion. 1t is difficult to understand why so
many pereonages are introduced; and we have
found it impossible to suggest any artistic rea-
son for the concentration of pathos upon a
death from cholera, in a tale that has been
written with SO fierce purpose. That purpose
has been, Enthusiastically, to publish volume
that will be scattered over America by the Alb.
olitionist simeon that is expected to rise at the
approaching election. In her preface, Mrs.
Stowe takes advantage of the assault upon Mr..
Sumner, to indite bitter paragraph about
1.-THE Senator of a sovereign State, struck down,
unarmed and unsuspecting, by cowardly blow,
and, while thus PROSTATE, still beaten by the
bastard arm which had learned its skill in a
South Carolina plantation" The Kansas con-
hict and the st. Lawrence disaster, with an al
fusion to "the British Lion led in cotton bands, -
are adroity introduced, to hatter {" the party in
America who, in the coming election, are to
make stand against this tremendous evil,n
and to rally the public in England, which has
no faith in abstract principles anywhere but
across the Atlantic. Emphatically, Mrs. Stoves
new novel has many of the qualities of pamph-
let, and 1t is made up more of assertion than
OF proof. 1t is INSCRIPTIONS in this sense
that 1t amasses a number of exceptional and
excessive instances, and presents them as a
picture of the South
Regarded simply as a novel; "Dred" is an
imitation clever imitation-of" Uncle Toms
Cabin" Of course it is not repetition of the
story, but of the idea; it is equally full of SEN
suous descriptions of material luxury; there is
an attempt to remould Topsy in a masculine
form Nina fades into sort of Eva on her
death-bed a perceptible anxiety is manifested
to render Clayton--a cold mass of formality-
unlike st. Clare; old Tiff is more lively Uncle
Tom; Harry and Lisette are, in a great degree,
reproductions of George and Eliza. "Dred T"
alone is new, and his character is described
with no inconsiderable power. Hunted into a
refuge IN the Great Dismal Swamp, inspired by
oppression, possessed of an almost unearthly
passion for revenge, he fills his memory with
all the anathemas of David and the Prophets,
and pours them out, in text and verse, among
the conspirators who have followed him to his
seclusion. lie has witnessed an outrage sane
toned by slave law, upon Henry the Quad
roon who manages the Gordon plantations, and
exerts all his eloquence to entice him into the
negro plot. Soon afterwards, upon the death
of the young mistress of Canema, the planta-
tons, lands, and slaves pass into the posses.
sion of a Legree in his own right, and here the
transition takes place from the bright to the
black romance of Bred"
While we are anticipating the climax of the
drama-consplracy, instruction, fearful So
cial confiict-the drama ends without climax.
bred is killed in slave hunt, and all the char
acters vanish, leaving q very indistinct and I'M
satisfactory impression.