"We find in the introductory chapter to these volumes a statement to the effect that one of the chief objects in writing them has been to inform Englishmen that Democracy did not appear for the first time in America during the War of Independence; and that the peculiar form of religion that prevailed at an early period in the New England States exerted a very powerful influence over their politics and modes of government. Surely there is nothing new in all this. There is no great discovery here which required for its introduction the expenditure of so much labor and vehemence. We had imagined that the great orations of Burke on Conciliation with America had exhausted long ago not only all the facts but most of the philosophy which is contained in the general view now revived by the author of 'Sam Slick.' There are a sentence or two in one of the most famous passages of perhaps the greatest of these orations which seem to anticipate the present volumes most completely. 'All Protestantism,' said Burke more than seventy years ago, 'even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance; it is the dissidence of dissent, and the Protestantism of the Protestant religion. This religion, under a variety of denominations, agreeing in nothing but in the communication of the spirit of liberty, is predominant in most of the northern provinces; where the Church of England, notwithstanding its legal rights, is in reality no more than a sort of private sect, not composing, most probably, the tenth of the people. The colonists left England when this spirit was high, and in the emigrants was the highest of all; and even that stream of foreigners which has been constantly flowing into these colonies has for the greatest part been composed of dissenters from the establishments of their several countries, and have brought with them a temper and character far from alien to that of the people with whom they mixed.' The speech of Burke in which these sentences occur ought surely to have passed for something in the estimation of Judge Haliburton before he committed himself to the task of writing this book. "We are quite sensible that as far as the mere composition is concerned there is very great merit in its publication. The style is vigorous and lively--and not unfrequently the animation rises into eloquence. The narrative parts of the volumes are in general exceedingly well written; and we must not omit to say, that during those short intervals when the author permits himself to lose sight of his extreme opinions he rarely fails to delight the reader with a page or two distinguished by acute observation and good sense.