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    Thb ifl finely told ; and how grandly the Indian girl ' s decision stands out in opposition to that of the Colonel ! To repair the wrongs and neal the wounds of a woman deceived where she had trusted , and outraged where she had loved , by

    making her the subject of a ceremony which ties her for life to the man who has so deceived and outraged her , and gives him a right ( by way of reparation !) to tyrannise and oppress her as long as she lives , is a device of what is called refinement and civilization—a part of the morality by custom established . The child of nature knew nothing of all this ; nhe felt she was no longer loved—she perceived she was rejected—and without

    a moment s hesitation , she returned to her vast desert . In quoting the very beautiful description of the " Thousand Isles" we have purposely omitted one or two sentences which shock the taste and destroy for a moment the pleasure of reading it . How is it that one who can so appreciate and so describe , should , just as lie has placed us in imagination among " the green and drooping sprays , on the dim and shadowy waters , in the cool fragrant air and called on the spirit of Keats to be present with us — break out into such an

    apostrophe as this— " I would we were there with our teathings , sweet Rosa Matilda ! " Exactly in the same vexatious stile is his comparison of the distant Hudson , winding through vale and mountain in a prospect of forty or fifty miles , to " a half-hid satin ribbon lost as if in clumps of moss . " We

    remember instances of the same kind in " Pencillings by the Way , " as when Loch Lomond , glowing under the setting sun , reminds him of a sheet of leaf-gold with fishes bobbing about under it . — We admit the degree of graphic truth in these illustrations ; but such associations are the " art of sinking in

    poetry / ' and tend to reduce nature to a pretty toy or fairing ibr good little boys and girls . They are frequently presented in Mr . Willis ' s neatest hand-writing " , mixed with beauties of no ordinary stamp . Equally incomprehensible is it , that the same hand which

    pourtrayed Job Smith , should 50 frequently and so carefully be the medium of telling u ? , that Philip Slingsby , Esquire , was 4 t at all the expence of his travels from the Green Mountains , " that " it was he who fitted liim out , " &cc . We are quite surt

    that if Job had ever heard him say so , he would ( after considering for twenty minutes , or it may be it would have taken him an hour , ) have gone home immediately and contrived lome means of paying back both principal and interest . Per * haps these inequalities arise partly from an assumed flippancy of manner , a love of startling transition , and wide digression ,

    w imitation of Sterne * Mr . Willis ought not to descend to imitation ; he has too much original power . He lorea nature , and reads the human heart . Her * are inexhaustibly

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    Inklings of Adventure . S 5 p

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1836, page 359, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2658/page/31/