ARTICLE VI.

REVIEW OF MISS MARTINEAU'S WORKS.

Society in America, by Harriet Martineau, author of " Illustrations of Political Economy." In two volumes. New York and London, 1837.

Retrospect of Western Travel, by Harriet Martineau, author of "Society in America," " Illustrations of Political Economy," etc. In two volumes. London and New York, 1838.

SOME of our readers may wonder why we have not sooner noticed this lady, who has made herself so conspicuous of late years both in Great Britain and in this country; and some may wonder why we notice her at all. To this latter portion of readers, we would say, by way of apology, that after going over the 815 pages of her "Society," we had come to the conclusion of leaving her work to the praises and the censures of those more immediately concerned. But she has since put forth these other two volumes about America. And as this last work was not premeditated by her, (as she tells us,) nor expected by any body, neither we nor she can tell how many more we may yet We have therefore thought it proper to be at the trouble of giving such of our readers as have not perused the books, some brief notice of their character, and more especially of their moral and religious character. This is what more directly concerns the mass of our readers, and what is the most likely to exert either a good or a pernicious influence in our land. Some recent transactions, too, in respect to the assertion of "female rights," seem to render a brief notice of the present champion of these rights, both appropriate and timely. We say the present champion, because Fanny Wright, like some others, when becoming entangled in the bonds of wedlock, has ceased to lead the van in this enterprise.

see.

Miss Martineau has been called a Scotch lady, though she occasionally speaks of herself, in company with others, as "we English." And saving here and there a word of bad English that she uses, and some severe censures on the fastidiousness and insolence of English travellers in this country, (for which we cannot blame her,) we have noticed nothing in these works

66

In

to lead us to suspect her more northern birth. After acquiring considerable celebrity as a writer of tales on political economy, etc. she came to this country, a strong republican, and with the expectation of seeing much to admire in this more free and natural state of society. And her readiness to admire and praise, is generally very conspicuous. Sometimes, indeed, she is delighted with what last of all we should expect a delicate and tasteful female to admire. For instance, she is frequent in her praises of the log cabins in the West, as being not only comfortable but very neat." She praises also continually our tavern-keepers, stage-coach drivers, waggon drivers, etc. especially when they exhibit their manly independence and give free scope to their mother wit-though perhaps at her own expense. all such matters, she rejoices in showing herself a perfect contrast to her more fastidious brethren who have come over the water to see us. If the coach breaks down, or the waggon founders in the mud, it is rather an amusement than a vexation. If the driver is stern, or a waiter is insolent, she knows how to put them in good humor. In all such things, we greatly admire her good nature, and readily commend her example to all travellers. In higher matters, too, she is often ready with her ample commendation, though it seems sometimes more of a studied and formal commendation, and not to spring quite so unbidden from the heart. We have therefore no complaint to make of her bad disposition towards us, though possibly some of her English friends may censure her for occasionally praising us through malice towards them. Her prepossessions seem all in our favor; and where she abuses us, as she does abuse us most sadly in some respects, it is generally for things in which we resemble, if not the whole christian world, at least the British nation. The only exceptions which now occur to our recollection, are those rather numerous passages in which she decries us as destitute of all knowledge of philosophy, (by which she means one knows not what,) and those other passages in which she represents our climate as most deleterious to health, and our slavery as the worst of all things.

Nor did she dispense her praises and her censures without being at pains to learn something of the facts in question. In this respect, she stands again as a signal contrast to many who have just seen our shores, and then returned to report of us wonders equally astonishing to the people on both sides of the Atlantic. Sometimes, indeed, she tells a very strange story.

a

For instance, that while travelling near Saratoga Springs, large white snake made a prodigious spring from the grass at the driver, who jumped down and stoned it." But strange stories, as to matters of fact, are not frequent in her pages. And as to her diligence in seeing this new world, and hearing what she could, (for she is too deaf to hear without an eartrumpet,) we presume she has rarely been surpassed by any masculine wanderer. She traversed nearly our whole country, and in almost every direction, and by every species of conveyance, from the steam-boat to the rudest waggon. In the course of the two years she was here, she visited most of the States and most of the important places and curiosities; now sailing on our rivers; now, crossing our mountains; now, off on our western lakes; now, in our halls of justice or of legislation; and now, among the Indian tribes. She consorted with all kinds of people, and seemed well pleased and at home every where-except among orthodox Christians. Of these, she seems to have seen but few, and to have learned but little. And of the few whom she did see, or deigns to notice, she generally shows her sovereign contempt or her bitter hatred. Dr. Beecher she hates the worst of all; at whose house she very drily tells us she was entertained; and whom, in another place, she would most absurdly represent as the incendiary who caused the burning of the Charlestown convent, because he happened to preach against the Roman Catholics the Sabbath before it was burnt-which preaching probably not one of the incendiary mob attended or ever heard of. The catholics she honors and defends, not so much because she loves them, as because she hates those who most oppose their superstitions. The exceptions to her general enmity to the orthodox, seem chiefly confined to a few individuals who displayed the sovereign merit, with her, a zeal for anti-slavery movements. far as religion is concerned, Unitarians were her chosen companions; and she often reiterates the declaration, "I am a Unitarian." Still it was not religion in any form, nor religious people of any stamp, that most engaged her attention. Civil and political matters and political men were her delight. Full of zeal for acquiring knowledge of men and things like these, and quite as zealous on her darling topics of anti-slavery, female rights, and a freedom from all religious, and many moral restraints, she traversed the length and breadth of our land, putting herself on a level with the highest, and not scrupling to

So

mingle familiarly with the lowest. "I visited," says she, " almost every kind of institution - prisons-insane and other hospitals-literary and scientific institutions; the plantations of the south; the factories of the north; and the farms of the west. I lived in houses which might be called palaces, in loghouses, and in a farm house. I saw weddings and christenings. I was present at orations, at land sales, and in the slave market. I was in frequent attendance on the supreme court and in the senate. Above all, I was received into the bosom of many families, not as a stranger, but as a daughter or sister. I was acquainted with almost every eminent senator and representative, and was on intimate terins with some of the judges of the supreme court. I enjoyed the hospitality of the President and several of the heads of departments. It would be nearly inpossible to relate whom I knew, during my travels. Nearly every eminent man in politics, science, and literature, and almost every distinguished woman, could grace my list. I travelled among several tribes of Indians, and spent months in the southern States, with negroes ever at my heels."

Truly, she must have been diligent for those two years! And as she saw every body and every thing, and as she also knows every thing, so she has undertaken to treat of every thing. Not only does she tell her countrymen of all she saw and thought while here, both respecting us and them, but she tells us of all we ought to be and to have here. Her first work is not at all in the common shape of travels. Generally it follows neither the course of her routes nor the order of time; but is divided into parts, chapters, and sections, according to the nature of the weighty matters which her philosophic and masculine genius saw fit to discuss.

When treating on civil and political institutions, her remarks are often good, though frequently betraying a propensity to an extravagant and speculative, rather than a practical system of government. She too much resembles the theorists of the first French revolution, always ready to utter the cry of liberty and equality. While she heartily commends the degree of republicanism to which we have already attained, she thinks we shall be far in the rear of perfection so long as negroes and women are debarred from a seat in Congress and from the presidential chair.

But it is when treating of distinguished men, and especially of political characters, that her genius blazes forth in its strongest

effulgence. Here she is truly at home, and as one among her peers. Nor can we much wonder, after reading what she has said, often with so much justness as well as power, about individual statesmen, judges, presidents, and generals, that such a woman should be deeply afflicted at finding what she regards as a very paltry distinction between her and her brethren, the distinction of sex, placed as an insuperable barrier to her ever thundering in the senate or giving destiny to empires. Here we think is the one commanding trait in her character, and the real clue to all she has so strenuously and so strangely urged in favor of what she regards as "the rights of woman.” Had she been born a man, or had she early assumed the virile garb, as a few of the female brethren on the page of history have done, we should have heard nothing from her on such "rights." One of the early Platonizing fathers, full of his aerial visions, maintained the doctrine, that each human soul forms its own body to its own liking. Such a theory could not live an hour in our day. A single personage of this caste, would suffice as a living demonstration of its falseness. For never would such a spirit have chosen the female form for its habitation!

And now, as we have insensibly come upon the topic, dismissing all else which she has so manfully said on politics, men, agriculture, manufuctures, commerce, and a vast variety of other things, let us turn, for a while, to her section on the "Political Non-existence of Women." This is the seventh and closing section of a long chapter which she denominates the "Morals of Politics." And truly it seems a very appropriate ending of the climax to much of the political morality she had been teaching. But the reader must here have a chance to judge for himself respecting this portion of her political morality. As we would neither distort her statements, nor maim this champion's arguments, we will quote the essential parts of both.

The corollaries which ever and anon she bolts forth upon us as the inevitable conclusions from her premises, are as fearful in their import as they are startling in their aspect. She thus begins this notable section on the "Political Non-existence of Women."

"One of the fundamental principles announced in the Declaration of Independence is, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. How can the political condition of women be reconciled with this?

"Governments in the United States have power to tax women who VOL. XII. No. 32. 50