Miss Sedgwick is one among the few American writers who have risen by merely their own intrinsic talents, and without the _a priori_ aid of foreign opinion and puffery, to any exalted rank in the estimation of our countrymen. She is at the same time fully deserving of all the popularity she has attained. By those who are most fastidious in matters of literary criticism, the author of _Hope Leslie_ is the most ardently admired, and we are acquainted with few persons of sound and accurate discrimination who would hesitate in placing her upon a level with the best of our native novelists. Of American _female_ writers we must consider her the first. The character of her pen is essentially feminine. No man could have written _Hope Leslie_; and no man, we are assured, can arise from the perusal of _The Linwoods_ without a full conviction that his own abilities would have proved unequal to the delicate yet picturesque handling; the grace, warmth, and radiance; the exquisite and judicious filling in, of the volumes which have so enchanted him. Woman is, after all, the only true painter of that gentle and beautiful mystery, the heart of woman. She is the only proper Scheherazade for the fairy tales of love. We think _The Linwoods_ superior to _Hope Leslie_, and superior to _Redwood_. It is full of deep natural interest, rivetting attention without undue or artificial means for attaining that end. It contains nothing forced, or in any degree exaggerated. Its prevailing features are equability, ease, perfect accuracy and purity of style, a manner never at _outrance_ with the subject matter, pathos, and verisimilitude. It cannot, however, be considered as ranking with the master novels of the day. It is neither an Eugene Aram, nor a Contarini Fleming.