d to us that a passage or two
might have been retrenched with advantage, and that the general
style of diction was susceptible of a higher polish.... On the
whole, we may safely leave the ungrateful task of criticism to the
reader. We will barely suggest, that in volumes intended, as this
is, for the illustration of a provincial dialect and turns of
expression, a dash of humour or satire might be thrown in with
advantage.... The work is admirably got up.... This work will form
an appropriate ornament to the centre-table. It is beautifully
printed, on paper of an excellent quality.

* * * * *

_From the Dekay Bulwark._

We should be wanting in our duty as the conductor of that tremendous
engine, a public press, as an American, and as a man, did we allow
such an opportunity as is presented to us by "The Biglow Papers" to
pass by without entering our earnest protest against such attempts
(now, alas! too common) at demoralizing the public sentiment. Under
a wretched mask of stupid drollery, slavery, war, the social glass,
and, in short, all the valuable and time-honoured institutions
justly dear to our common humanity and especially to republicans,
are made the butt of coarse and senseless ribaldry by this
low-minded scribbler. It is time that the respectable and religious
portion of our community should be aroused to the alarming inroads
of foreign Jacobinism, sansculottism, and infidelity. It is a
fearful proof of the wide-spread nature of this contagion, that
these secret stabs at religion and virtue are given from under the
cloak (_credite, posteri!_) of a clergyman. It is a mournful
spectacle indeed to the patriot and Christian to see liberality and
new ideas (falsely so called,--they are as old as Eden) invading
the sacred precincts of the pulpit.... On the whole, we consider
this volume as one of the first shocking results which we predicted
would spring out of the late French "Revolution"(!).

* * * * *

_From the Bungtown Copper and Comprehensive Tocsin (a tryweakly
family journal)._

Altogether an admirable work.... Full of humour, boisterous, but
delicate,--of wit withering and scorching, yet combined with a
pathos cool as morning dew,--of satire ponderous as the mace of
Richard, yet keen as the scymitar