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I have already alluded to her usual excellence of style; but she has a very peculiar fault — that of discrepancy between the words and character of the speaker — the fault, indeed, more properly belongs to the depicting of character itself.

For example, at page 38, vol. 1, of “The Linwoods:” —

“No more of my contempt for the Yankees, Hal, an’ thou lovest me,” replied Jasper. “You remember Æsop’s advice to Crœsus at the Persian court?”

“No, I am sure I do not. You have the most provoking way of resting the lever by which you bring out your own knowledge, on your friend’s ignorance.”

Now all this is pointed, (although the last sentence would have been improved by letting the words “on your friend’s ignorance” come immediately after “resting,”) but it is by no means the language of schoolboys — and such are the speakers.

Again, at page 226, vol. 1, of the same novel: —

“Now, out on you, you lazy, slavish loons!” cried Rose. “Cannot you see these men are raised up to fight for freedom for more than themselves? If the chain be broken at one end, the links will fall apart sooner or later. When you see the sun on the mountain top, you may be sure it will shine into the deepest valleys before long.’ “

Who would suppose this graceful eloquence to proceed from the mouth of a negro woman? Yet such is Rose. ­

Again, at page 24, vol. 1, same novel: —

“True, I never saw her; but I tell you, young lad, that there is such a thing as seeing the shadow of things far distant and past, and never seeing the realities, though they it be that cast the shadows.’’

Here the speaker is an old woman who, a few sentences before, has been boasting of her proficiency in “tellin’ fortins.”

I might object, too, very decidedly to the vulgarity of such a phrase as “I put in my oar,” (meaning, “I joined in the conversation,”) when proceeding from the mouth of so well-bred a personage as Miss Isabella Linwood. These are, certainly, most remarkable inadvertences.

As the author of many books — of several absolutely bound volumes in the ordinary “novel” form of auld lang syne, Miss Sedgwick has a certain adventitious hold upon the attention of the public, a species of tenure that has nothing to do with literature proper — a very decided advantage, in short, over her more modern rivals whom fashion and the growing influence of the want of an international copyright law have condemned to the external insignificance of the yellow-backed pamphleteering.

We must permit, however, neither this advantage nor the more obvious one of her having been one of our pioneers, to bias the critical judgment as it makes estimate of her abilities in comparison with those of her present cotemporaries. She has neither the vigor of Mrs. Stephens nor the vivacious grace of Miss Chubbuck, nor the pure style of Mrs. Embury, nor the classic imagination of Mrs. Child, nor the naturalness of Mrs. Annan, nor the thoughtful and suggestive originality of Miss Fuller; but in many of the qualities mentioned she excels, and in no one of them is she particularly deficient. She is an author of marked talent, but by no means of such decided genius as would entitle her to that precedence among our female writers which, under the circumstances to which I have alluded, seems to be yielded her by the voice of the public.

Strictly speaking, Miss Sedgwick is not one of the literati of New York city, but she passes here about half or rather more than half her time. Her home is Stockbridge, Massachusetts. Her family is one of the first in America. Her father, Theodore Sedgwick the elder, was an eminent jurist and descended from one of ­Cromwell’s major-generals. Many of her relatives have distinguished themselves in various ways.

She is about the medium height, perhaps a little below it. Her forehead is an unusually fine one; nose of a slightly Roman curve; eyes dark and piercing; mouth well formed and remarkably pleasant in its expression. The portrait in “Graham’s Magazine” is by no means a likeness, and, although