The story, such as it is, is rather a domestic tale, treating of incidents and characters common to the whole world, than one of which these components can be considered _peculiarly_ American. This is, perhaps, unfortunate,--the tendency of the public taste seeming to require of American authors that they should confine themselves to what is, in subject, event, and character, indigenous to their own hemisphere; although such a requisition would end in reducing their materials to such a stock as might be carried about in a nut-shell. America is a part of the great world, and, like other parts, has little (that is, suited to the purposes of fiction) which it can call exclusively its own; and how far that little has been already _used up_, any one may tell, who is conversant with our domestic literature. Some little, however, of that little yet remains; and, by and by, we will perhaps ourselves join in the general scramble after it. To conclude our Prolegomena--we recommend to all Philadelphians, who thirst for the breath of the mountains, and are willing to breathe it within the limits of their own noble State, to repair to the Delaware Water-Gap, sit them down in the porch of our friend Snyder, (or Schneider--we forget whether he yet sticks to the _Vaterländisch_ orthography or not,) discourse with him concerning trout, deer, and rattlesnakes, and make themselves at home with him for a week. They will find themselves in one of the boldest mountain-passes in the United States, in the heart of a scene comprising crags, forests, and a river sprinkled with numerous islands, all striking, harmonious, and romantic. There, indeed, is neither a Round-Top nor a Mount Washington, with ladders on which to climb to heaven; but there are certain mountain ridges hard by, from whose tops he who is hardy enough to mount them, can well believe he _looks down_ on heaven, so broad, so fair, so elysian are the prospects that stretch below. There, also, our friends will find such lime-trees as will cause them to rejoice that they have planted scions of the same noble and fragrant race at their own doors; and such a glorious display of rosebays, or _rhododendrons_, the noblest of American flowering shrubs, as may perhaps teach them the wisdom of transferring a few to their own gardens.