as he departed, said: 'Ibo, et non redibo' (I shall go, but shall not return). His foreboding was true, for he was condemned by the Mohawk council, and put to death as an enchanter who had blighted their harvest. These and other efforts excited the enmity of the surrounding tribes against the Hurons and their missionaries. Their villages were invaded; men, women, and children were put to death, or driven into the woods; and their teachers were made prisoners, and subjected to tortures. The sufferings of Brebeuf and his colleague Lallemand-too dreadful to be detailed-were borne with a firmness which excited the wonder of their Indian executioners. Other victims followed, for religious enthusiasm was kindled anew by every martyrdom. The aged René Mesnard travelled from Quebec to the south of Lake Superior, and on his way to another station-not clearly indicated-was lost in the forest, and never seen again. The Sioux Indians, whom he had visited, preserved as charms his cassock and breviary. So far as the conversions of the Indians may be judged by their results, the labours of the French missionaries were vainly continued, year after year, in the wilderness. No permanent success was obtained. Indians learned to talk of the white man's 'manitou,' regarded the priest as a skilful 'medicine-man,' submitted themselves to the rite of baptism, and suspended their thank-offerings of rich furs and crimson belts on the crosses set up by the Jesuits; but these external innovations passed away. As the pioneers of civilisation, the illustrious missionaries Alloüez, Dablon, Joliet, and Marquette, earned for themselves immortal honour. While engaged in extending the power of France through vast regions, they had heard, from time to time, the Indian stories of the Great River.' It was described as abounding in monsters, which swallowed both men and canoes; and when the fearless Marquette resolved to attempt the discovery, the friendly natives who heard the proposal, warned him of the excessive heats on the banks of the river, and of warlike tribes who would never spare the strangers. The sequel must be narrated by Bancroft: THE FRENCH DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 'Behold, then, in 1673, on the tenth day of June, the meek, single-hearted, unpretending, illustrious Marquette, with Joliet for his associate, five Frenchmen as his companions, and two Algonquins as guides, lifting their two canoes on their backs, and walking across the narrow portage that divides the Fox River from the Wisconsin. They reach the water-shed: uttering a special prayer to the immaculate Virgin, they leave the streams that, flowing onwards, could have borne their greetings to the castle of Quebec; already they stand by the Wisconsin. "The guides returned," says the gentle Marquette, "leaving us alone, in this unknown land, in the hands of Providence." France and Christianity stood in the valley of the Mississippi. Embarking on the broad Wisconsin, the discoverers, as they sailed west, went solitarily down the stream, between alternate prairies and hillsides, beholding neither man nor the wonted beasts of the forest: no sound broke the appalling silence, but the ripple of their canoe, and the lowing of the buffalo. In seven days, "they entered happily the Great River, with a joy that could not be expressed ;" and the two birch-bark canoes, raising their happy sails under new skies and to unknown breezes, floated down the calm magnificence of the ocean stream, over the broad, clear sand-bars, the resort of innumerable water-fowl-gliding past islets that swelled from the bosom of the stream, with their tufts of massive thickets, and between the wide plains of Illinois and Iowa, all garlanded with majestic forests, or checkered by island-groves, and the open vastness of the prairie. About sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin, the western bank of the Mississippi bore on its sands the trail of men ; a little footpath was discerned leading into a beautiful prairie; and, leaving the canoes, Joliet and Marquette resolved alone to brave a meeting with the savages. After walking six miles, they beheld a village on the banks of a river, and two others on a slope, at a distance of a mile and a half from the first. The river was the Mou-in-gou-e-na, or Moingona, of which we have corrupted the name into Des Moines. Marquette and Joliet were the first white men who trod the soil of Iowa. Commending themselves to God, they uttered a loud cry. The Indians hear; four old inen advance slowly to meet them, bearing the peace-pipe, brilliant with manycoloured plumes. "We are Illinois," said they-that is, when translated, "We are men ;" and they offered the calumet. An aged chief received them at his cabin with upraised hands, exclaiming: "How beautiful is the sun, Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us! Our whole village awaits thee; thou shalt enter in peace into all our dwellings." And the pilgrims were followed by the devouring gaze of an astonished crowd. At the great council, Marquette published to them the one true God, their Creator. He spoke also of the great captain of the French, the governor of Canada, who had chastised the Five Nations, and commanded peace; and he questioned them respecting the Mississippi, and the tribes that possessed its banks. For the messengers who announced the subjection of the Iroquois, a magnificent festival was prepared of hominy and fish, and the choicest viands from the prairies. After six days' delay, and invitations to new visits, the chieftain of the tribe, with hundreds of warriors, attended the strangers to their canoes; and selecting a peace-pipe embellished with the head and neck of brilliant birds, and all feathered over with plumage of various hues, they hung round Marquette, the mysterious arbiter of peace and war, the sacred calumet, a safeguard among the nations. The little group proceeded onwards. "I did not fear death," says Marquette: "I should have esteemed it the greatest happiness to have died for the glory of God." They passed the perpendicular rocks, which wore the appearance of monsters; they heard at a distance the noise of the waters of the Missouri, known to them by its Algonquin name of Pekitanoni; and when they came to the most beautiful confluence of rivers in the world-where the swifter Missouri rushes like a conqueror into the calmer Mississippi, dragging it, as it were, hastily to the sea-the good Marquette resolved in his heart, anticipating Lewis and Clarke, one day to ascend the mighty river to its source; to cross the ridge that divides the oceans, and, descending a westerly flowing stream, to publish the gospel to all the people of this New World. In a little less than forty leagues, the canoes floated past the Ohio, which was then, and long afterwards, called the Wabash. Its banks were tenanted by numerous villages of the peaceful Shawnees, who quailed under the incursions of the Iroquois. The thick canes begin to appear so close and strong, that the buffalo could not break through them; the insects become intolerable; as a shelter against the suns of July, the sails are folded into an awning. The prairies vanish; and forests of whitewood, admirable for their vastness and height, crowd even to the skirts of the pebbly shore. It is also observed that in the land of the Chickasas the Indians have guns. Near the latitude of 33 degrees, on the western bank of the Mississippi, stood the village of Mitchigamea, in a region that had not been visited by Europeans since the days of De Soto.* "Now," thought Marquette, "we must indeed ask the aid of the Virgin." Armed with bows and arrows, with clubs, axes, and bucklers, amidst continual whoops, the natives, bent on war, embark in vast canoes made out of the trunks of hollow trees; but at the sight of the mysterious peace-pipe held aloft, God touched the hearts of the old men, who checked the impetuosity of the young; and throwing their bows and quivers into the canoes, as a token of peace, they prepared a hospitable welcome. The next day, a long wooden canoe, containing ten men, escorted the discoverers, for eight or ten leagues, to the village of Akansea, the limit of their voyage. They had left the region of the Algonquins, and in the midst of the Sioux and Chickasas, could speak only by an interpreter. A half-league above Akansea, they were met by two boats, in one of which stood the commander, holding in his hand the peace-pipe, and singing as he drew near. After offering the pipe, he gave bread of maize. The wealth of his * Ferdinand de Soto, a Spaniard, first discovered the Mississippi in 1541. As he found no 'golden land' such as his fancy had painted, his voyage was regarded as a failure, and no use was made of his discovery. He died of fever, and was buried in the Mississippi, 1542. tribe consisted in buffalo-skins; their weapons were axes of steela proof of commerce with Europeans. Thus had our travellers descended below the entrance of the Arkansas, to the genial climes that have almost no winter, but rains, beyond the bound of the Huron and Algonquin languages, to the vicinity of the Gulf of Mexico, and to tribes of Indians that had obtained European arms by traffic with Spaniards or with Virginia. So, having spoken of God and the mysteries of the Catholic faith; having become certain that the father of rivers went not to the ocean east of Florida, nor yet to the Gulf of California, Marquette and Joliet left Akansea, and ascended the Mississippi. At the 38th degree of latitude, they entered the river Illinois, and discovered a country without its paragon for the fertility of its beautiful prairies, covered with buffaloes and stags-for the loveliness of its rivulets, and the prodigal abundance of wild-ducks and swans, and of a species of parrots and wild-turkeys. The tribe of Illinois, that tenanted its banks, entreated Marquette to come and reside among them. One of their chiefs, with their young men, conducted the party, by way of Chicago, to Lake Michigan; and before the end of September, all were safe in Green Bay. Joliet returned to Quebec to announce the discovery, of which the fame, through Talon, quickened the ambition of Colbert: the unaspiring Marquette remained to preach the gospel to the Miamis, who dwelt in the north of Illinois, round Chicago. Two years afterwards, sailing from Chicago to Mackinaw, he entered a little river in Michigan. Erecting an altar, he said mass, after the rites of the Catholic church; then, begging the men who conducted his canoe to leave him alone for a half-hour "in the darkling wood, Amidst the cool and silence, he knelt down, And offered to the Mightiest solemn thanks At the end of the half-hour, they went to seek him, and he was no more. The good missionary, discoverer of a world, had fallen asleep on the margin of the stream that bears his name. Near its mouth, the canoemen dug his grave in the sand. Ever after, the forest-rangers, if in danger on Lake Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his monument.' The History of the United States, by RICHARD HILDRETH, has been characterised as a laborious compilation of facts, arranged mostly in chronological order, but deficient in the higher qualities of historical writing. One of the most prominent features of this work, is its low estimate of the Puritan Fathers of New England, and its very unfavourable representation of their theocratic form of government. The author brings forward many undoubted facts to support his charges of bigotry and religious persecution; but he has neglected to consider dispassionately the 6 circumstances of the Pilgrims and their followers, and the characteristics of the time. These remarks are applicable only to certain portions of Mr Hildreth's extensive work; but a coldness of tone, strongly contrasted with the national fervour of Bancroft, may be ascribed to the whole history. Of centennial sermons and Fourth of July orations,' says the author, 'there are more than enough.' He suggests that historians and orators have described with theatrical pomp and exaggeration the supposed heroes of the colonial and the revolutionary period, and asserts that his own purpose is to wipe away the 'patriotic rouge,' to strip off' the fine-spun cloaks of excuses and apology,' and to exhibit, for the first time, the heroes of American history in their true character. The history of the revolution,' says a reviewer, 'is clearly and succinctly told, but in as cold-blooded a manner as if the writer had been engaged with an account of a long struggle between two tribes of savages in the heart of Africa. Nil admirari might be inscribed on the volume as its motto. The account of the battle of Bunker Hill, which "figures in history as having tested the ability of the provincials to meet a British army in the field," closes with the characteristic remark, that "the men engaged in it were not all heroes. The conduct of several officers on that day was investigated by court-martial, and one at least was cashiered for cowardice." A History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac, and the War of the North American Tribes against the English Colonies, has been ably written by FRANCIS PARKMAN. It comprises a curious and interesting account of the aborigines, and narrates, in a spirited style, the incidents of savage warfare, including the obstinate and memorable siege of Detroit by the Indian forces under Pontiac. Mr Parkman's work has been based on careful researches, and is one of the most valuable contributions to the history of the aborigines of America. The well-known Naval History of the United States, by JAMES FENIMORE COOPER, the novelist, and a History of the Northmen, by HENRY WHEATON, may be mentioned in this place. In the department of literary history, America has produced one work of first-rate character-the History of Spanish Literature, by GEORGE TICK NOR. The writer, one of the most accomplished of American scholars, preceded Longfellow in the chair of Modern Literature in Harvard College. During his travels in Europe, he collected the numerous materials which have been skilfully employed in the composition of his work. It is rich in its details, including reviews of the poetry, romance, and all the general literature of Spain; its critical views are genial, and at the same |