from observation as
well as study all the accessories of his subject, and we are mistaken if
any recent book on northern Africa gives a more clear, spirited or just
impression of its scenery or of the character and manners of its people.
The hero is of the highest style of the half-barbarian chiefs of the
country and time; born a Christian, educated a Mohamedan, and ambitious
to free his tribe from the domination of the Moors, and to found a new
empire, with a higher civilization than was ever known to the race he
leads; and other characters have enough adventures, dimly sketched, to
fill the circles of a dozen tragedies if brought more near the eye. The
faults of the book are, an excess of incident, discursiveness preventing
proper unity and proportion, and a confessed failure of the story to
evolve all the intended moralities, which the author therefore in some
cases brings forward in his own person.

The last volume we have had from the hand of Dr. Mayo is, _Romance Dust
from the Historic Placer_, a collection of shorter stories chiefly
founded on historical incidents. In these he exhibits the fresh feeling,
occasionally the humor, and always the bold drawing and effective
coloring which distinguish his more ambitious performances. The volume
contains also a poem, but not one of such striking qualities as to
induce regret that the author has commonly chosen to write in prose. The
style of his novels, especially in the narrative parts, is uncommonly
good, but with its many excellencies it does not seem to us that it
possesses a poetical element.

Dr. Mayo has commenced a brilliant course, in which we trust we shall
have occasions to record still greater triumphs than those by which he
has won a place in the first rank of the young writers of English.

The portrait at the beginning of this article is very truthful; it is
from a recent daguerreotype by Brady.

[Illustration: THE CRYSTAL PALACE.]

_Original Correspondence._

LONDON, _May 23, 1851._

Historical Sketch--Why England was the most appropriate
location for Exhibition--First impressions--Contrast between
barbaric and civilized industry--Use and beauty--Moral and
social influences.

The Great Exhibition constitutes the one absorbing topic in which, for
the time being, all other topics are merged. Go where you will, nothing
else is thought of, talked of, or heard of, from one end of London to
the other--this magnificent