he often reminds us of Goethe. Balzac, however, is only an artist
. . . He is neither moral nor immoral, but a calm and profound
observer of human society and human passions, and a minute, patient,
and powerful delineator of scenes and characters in the world before
his eyes. His readers must moralize for themselves. . . . It
is, perhaps, his defective style more than anything else which will
prevent his becoming a classic, for style above all other qualities
seems to embalm for posterity. As for his philosophy, his
principles, moral, political, or social, we repeat that he seems to
have none whatever. He looks for the picturesque and the striking.
He studies sentiments and sensations from an artistic point of view.
He is a physiognomist, a physiologist, a bit of an anatomist, a bit
of a mesmerist, a bit of a geologist, a Flemish painter, an
upholsterer, a micrological, misanthropical, sceptical philosopher;
but he is no moralist, and certainly no reformer."

Another article contributed by Mr. Motley to "The North American Review"
is to be found in the number for October, 1849. It is nominally a review
of Talvi's (Mrs. Robinson's) "Geschichte der Colonisation von New
England," but in reality an essay on the Polity of the Puritans,--an
historical disquisition on the principles of self-government evolved in
New England, broad in its views, eloquent in its language. Its spirit is
thoroughly American, and its estimate of the Puritan character is not
narrowed by the nearsighted liberalism which sees the past in the
pitiless light of the present,--which looks around at high noon and finds
fault with early dawn for its long and dark shadows. Here is a sentence
or two from the article:--

"With all the faults of the system devised by the Puritans, it was a
practical system. With all their foibles, with all their teasing,