SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.

Fzenes,

The Prairie-Bird. By the Honourable Charles Augustus Murray. Author of "Tra-

vels in North America." In three volumes Bedloy.

STATISTICS,

Recollections of Ceylon, after a Residence of nearly thirteen years; with an Account of the Church Missionary Society's Operations in the Island ; and Extracts from a Journal. By the ReverendJames Selkirk, Curate of Middleton 'ryas, Yorkshire.

Hatehare.

THE PRAIRIE-BIRD.

Ix a prefatory dialogue with the reader, Mr. MURRAY half admits that his novel is intended to bring in a variety of facts and observa- tions that he could not introduce into his Travels in North Ame- rica. The readers of that very agreeable work will, however, be able to trace a resemblance to the Travels rather in the general outline of The Prairie-Bird than in the exhibition of manners, character, or incidents. The scenes of action in the story are the same as in the personal narrative,—the West Indies, the border settlements of North America, with the villages, bunting-grounds, and wilds of the Red Indians ; but the instruments of action are somewhat different. The men and women of civilized life have received a colour from the hues of romance, but the Red race seem altogether sublimated. The dirt, the coxcombry, the buf- foonery, the grasping avarice, which Mr. MURRAY encountered among the living Pawnees, are sunk. A poetical halo is thrown over" the stoic of the woods" in his better phase ; and even the villains of the piece are marked by heroic traits, that rank them not much "less than archangel ruined."

The germ of the story of The Prairie-Bird is simple ; though, what with introduction, episode, subordinate parts, and variations to exhibit the capabilities of the theme, the tale becomes long and complex enough before the end is reached. Two American gentle- men from Virginia soon after the close of the Revolutionary war, emigrate to the Virginia, in consequence of some disappointments. Their names are Brandon and Ethelston ; and each has two children, a boy and a girl. Not long after their arrival, hostile Indians make an incursion into the settlement, burn the house of Ethelston, murder his people, and carry of his little daughter; whose loss breaks her father's heart. This is introductory : another intro. duction carries Ethelston to Germany for his education, and young Brandon to his maternal ancestors in England, where he studies at Oxford in the term and goes fox-hunting with the squire during the vacation. In this part there is also a Continental tour by the two friends, and a campaign against the French Republican armies; the chief utility of which seems to be to carry off a French valet, M. Perrot, to serve as a variety among the characters of the back-settlements and the Indian prairies.

At the commencement of the true tale, the children of the two Virginian settlers have grown up. Young Ethelaton is betrothed to Lucy Brandon but Reginald Brandon has to seek a "winsome marrow." Accident enables him to preserve the life of War- Eagle the Indian hero of the tale; and be accepts, like Mr. Mutt. RAY himself in his Travels, an invitation to visit the Lenape Indians. Here he becomes acquainted with Olitipa, the Prairie-Bird, the "great medicine" of the tribe—a girl of different blood from the Indians, who has been educated by a missionary; with whom Regi- nald Brandon necessarily falls in love, and whom the reader at once divines to be the Evelyn Ethelston carried off by Indians years before. " The course of true love never did run smooth," espe- cially in romances, or three volumes would never be filled. The first rival of Reginald is his friend War-Eagle ; but the Indian hero after a terrible struggle, resigns Olitipa. The next rival is Mahega, a treacherous chief of the Washashe tribe ; who is not so easily got rid of. His passion is partly sensual, partly ambitious; for he aims at using the knowledge of Olitipa, and the supernatural powers he believes her to possess, as a means of his political ad- vancement. Openly rejected, he plans a series of treacheries ; carries her off when the Lenape braves are absent ; and this abduc- tion gives rise to what may be termed a principal purpose of the work—the exhibition of Indian warlike life, as shown in the track- ing, the ambuscade, the skirmish, the battle, with councils and negotiations among rival tribes, till the final termination is reached; which the reader may divine, or arrive at in the regular way. The novelty of subject, and Mr. MURRAY'S acquaintance with the nature he is describing, give an interest to the work, which is further enhanced by an agreeable style, a knack in producing effective "situations," and a tone of high gentlemanly feeling that pervades the whole, especially in the conduct of his heroes. But in point of attraction we think the fiction is inferior to the travels, and slower (not heavier) reading. How far it may be received as a true picture of Indian life, is a question. In the introductory parts, where tradition has familiarized the reader with the original life depicted, there is a deficiency of the powers essential to a high novelist—the art of being at once striking yet true in the incidents of the story and the conduct of the persons. A general verisimili- tude of manners and character is preserved; yet as soon as the tale is to advance, or the persons to speak, the want of truthful delineation is perceived, just as awkwardness or structural defect is more visible in walking than at rest. Something of this kind, we suspect, characterizes the Indian life of The Prairie-Bird, though our want of living knowledge may prevent us from detecting

it. Much, perhaps all of what is exhibited, is true abstractedly, but not in the concrete. A predicted eclipse would no doubt produce as great an effect upon savage minds as is described by our author, when Olitipa, by means of an almanack, saves the life of Wingen-

und, the brother of War-Eagle, and defers her marriage with Ma- bega ; but the whole is extreme, and melodramatic in its character, though not in its style of telling. The skill of the Red Indians in tracking or surprising an enemy is doubtless great, and perhaps every instance narrated in The Prairie-Bird may have taken place at some time or another ; but the powers of the different parties seem to alternate according as the object of the author is to ex- hibit Indian craft or to advance his tale. The story has too much of a made-up character : things too often obviously turn out "just as they ought "; which is rather like the contrivance of man than the works of Nature : a fault by no means peculiar to Mr. :MURRAY —indeed scarcely any novelist is free from it. The West Indian story of Nina L'Estrange, though an episode having no connexion with the main story, is freer from this defect. As regards dramatic power—the art by which the general or individual character of men is developed in action and discourse— we think Mr. MURRAY inferior both to COOPER and the younger lavrtsc in their Indian tales. He has, however, much of CoorEa's particularity of delineation, producing slowness of narrative. From this circumstance, his scenes are too long for extract ; so that we can only quote a few disjointed fragments, as indications rather than any thing else. The following relates to the treacherous de- struction of the Lenape tillage by Mahega ; Reginald having been sent forward to announce the return of the absent braves.

INDIAN STOICISM.

Scarcely two hours had elapsed when a single horseman was seen riding towards them ; in whom, as he drew near, they had some difficulty in recog- nizing Reginald; for his dress was soiled, his countenance haggard and horror- stricken, while the foaming sides and wide-dilated nostril of Nekimi showed that he had been riding with frantic and furious speed. All made way for him ; and he spoke to none until he drew his bridle by the side of War-Eagle, and beckoned to him and to Baptiste to come aside. For a moment he looked at the former in silence, with an eye so troubled that the Guide feared that some dreadful accident had unsettled his young master's mind ; but that fear was almost immediately relieved by Reginald, who, taking his friend's hand, said to him, in a voice almost inarticulate from suppressed emotion, "I bring you, War-Eagle, dreadful—dreadful news."

"War-Eagle knows that the sun does not always shine," was the calm reply. "But this is darkness," said Reginald, shuddering; "black darkness, where there is neither sun nor moon, not even a Star!

" My brother," said the Indian, drawing himself proudly to his full height, "my brother speaks without thinking. The sun shines still, and the stars are bright in their place. The Great Spirit always dwells among them : a thick cloud may hide them from our eyes, but my brother knows they are shining as brightly as ever." The young man looked with wonder and awe upon the lofty countenance of this untaught philosopher of the wilderness ; and he replied, "War-Eagle is right. The Great Spirit sees all, and whatever He does is good! But some- times the cup of misfortune is so full and so bitter, that man can hardly drink it and live."

"Let Netis speak all and conceal nothing," said the chief. "What has he seen at the village? " " There is no village," said the young man in an agony of grief. "The lodges are overthrown ; Tarnenund, the Black Father, Olitipa, all are gone ! wolves and vultures are quarrelling over the hones of unburied Lenape !" As Reginald concluded his tragic narrative, an attentive observer might have seen that the muscles and nerves in the powerful frame of the Indian con- tracted for an instant; but no change was visible on his haughty and command- ing brow, as he stood before the bearer of this dreadful news a living imper- sonation of the stern and stoic philosophy of his race.

USE OF A WIG.

Monsieur Perrot caught the general spirit of the affray, and, as he after- wards said of himself, "fought like a famished lion !" when, unluckily, his pistol snapped in the face of a Sioux warrior, who struck him a blow that felled him to the earth. Stepping lightly over the form of his prostrate foe, the savage, grasping a knife in his right hand, and seizing the luckless French- man's hair with his left, was about to scalp him, when the knife dropped from his hand, and he stood for a moment petrified with astonishment and horror. The whole bead of hair was in his left hand, and the White man sat grinning before him with a smooth and shaven crown.

Letting fall what he believed to be the scalp of some devil in human shape, the affrighted Sioux fled from the spot; while Perrot, replacing his wig, muttered half aloud, "Bravo, ma bonne perrugue ! je te dais mille reutereiniens."

A little of disquisition is mingled with the story, but not enough to stop it, and always sensible. Here is an apropos example.

INDIAN PARLIAMENTS.

There is not a public body in Europe, from the British Parliament down to the smallest borough meeting, that might not study with advantage the pro- ceedings of an Indian council, whether as described in the faithful pages of the German missionaries, or as it may still be seen by any one who has leisure and inclination to visit those remote regions where the Indian character is least changed and contaminated by intercourse with the Whites. Such an observer would find his attention attracted to two remarkable facts—first, that no speaker is ever interrupted ; and secondly, that only those speak who from age, rank, and deeds' are entitled to be listened to. It is a popular and plausible reply to say, that discussions concerning the complicated business of a great country cannot be carried on like the unim- portant "talks " of these savage tribes. This reasoning is shallow and full of sophistry ; for many of the Indian councils above referred to have involved all the dearest interests of the nation : their soil, their pride, their ancestral tra- ditions, all were at stake; perhaps all, with little more than a nominal alterna- tive, to be bartered for the grasping White man's beads' whisky, and subsidies. In these councils, every listening Indian mast have felt that his own home, the lodge built by his father, and the patch of maize cultivated by his family, were dependent on the issue of the negotiation; and yet it is not upon record that a chief or elder-brave was ever interrupted in his speech, or that the decorum of the council was infringed by irregularity or tumult on the part of those who might have considered themselves injured and aggrieved. Even in regard to time, it is a Feat mistake to suppose that any thing is gained by interruption; for an obstinate talker will carry his point in the end ; and although the persevering exclamations, and groartings, and crowing& of an impatient House of Commons, may succeed in drowning hi voice and forcing him to sit down he will rise again on some other occasion, and inflict upon his hearers a speech bulk and bitterness are both increased by the suppressed fermentation which it has undergone.

In seeming contradiction to this, the death of Mahega takes place at a council. He has joined the Crow Indians ; but, after using them for his purposes, endeavours to attack them as he attacked the Lenape, by treacherously uniting himself with a hostile tribe. But he has been tracked by Wingenund, who accuses him to an assembly.

AN INDIAN DUEL.

Wingenund waited until the speech of his antagonist had been translated to them; when he replied, with unmoved composure, "If the Crow warriors re- quire better witness than words, it is not difficult to find. They have already been told that the Kain-na stranger gave to Mabega a present of a bow and arrows, which he hid in the rocks, Wingenund took them out, and here they are."

As the youth spoke, he dropped the blanket that had been thrown over his left arm and shoulder, holding up to the council the bow and arrows; which all present instantly recognized as being made and ornamented by the Black-feet.

"Are the warriors yet convinced, continued the youth, raising his voice, "or do they wish for more ? If they do, let them seize the Washashe wolf, they will find in his belt—"

He was not allowed to finish the sentence ; the storm that had long been brooding, now burst in all its fury. Mahega, driven to desperation by the damning evidence brought against him, and reckless of all save the gratification of his fierce revenge, whirled his iron-pointed mace around his head, and launched it with tremendous force at Wingenund. Never had the latter, even for an instant, taken his falcon eye off the Osage ; but, so swift was the motion with which the weapon was thrown, that although he sprang lightly aside to avoid it, the spiked bead grazed and laid open his cheek, whence it glanced off, and striking an unlucky Crow who stood behind him, felled him, with a broken arm, to the ground. Even in the act of stoop- ing to escape the mace, Wingenund fitted an arrow into the Black-foot bow which he held in his hand ; and, rising quick as thought, let it fly at his gigan- tic adversary, with so true an aim, that it pierced the windpipe, and the point came out at the back of his neck, close to the spine. While the Osage, half strangled and paralyzed, tugged ineffectually at the fatal shaft, Wingenund leaped upon him with the bound of a tiger, and, uttering aloud the war-cry of the Lenape, buried his knife in the heart of his foe. With one convulsive groan the dying Osage fell heavily to the earth; and ere the bystanders hail recovered from their astonishment, his blood-stained scalp hung at the belt of the victorious Delaware.