So much real pleasure have we derived from the perusal of _The Linwoods_, that we can hardly find it in our hearts to pick a quarrel with the fair author, for the very few trifling inadvertences into which she has been betrayed. There were, we believe, some points at which we intended to cavil, but hot having pencilled them down in the course of perusal, they have now escaped our recollection. Somewhat more energy in occasional passages--somewhat less diffuseness in others--would operate, we think, to the improvement of Miss Sedgwick's generally excellent _style_. Now and then, we meet with a discrepancy between the words and the character of a speaker. For example: page 38, vol. i. "'No more of my contempt for the Yankees, Hal, an' thou lovest me,' replied Jasper; 'you remember Æsop's advice to Croesus, at the Persian court?' 'No, I am sure I do not. You have the most provoking way of resting the lever by which you bring out your own knowledge, on your friend's ignorance.'" Now all this is very pretty, but it is not the language of school-boys. Again: page 226 vol. i. 'Now out on you, you lazy, slavish, loons,' cried Rose, 'cannot you see these men are raised up, to fight for freedom, for more than themselves? If the chain is broken at one end, the links will fall apart sooner or later. When you see the sun on the mountain top, you may be sure it will shine into the deepest valleys before long.' Who would suppose this graceful eloquence, and these impressive images to proceed from the mouth of a negro-woman? Yet such is Rose. And at page 24, vol. i. we have the following. "True, I never saw her; but I tell you, young lad, there is such a thing as seeing the shadow of things far distant and past, and never seeing the realities though they it be that cast the shadows." The speaker here, is an old woman who a few sentences before talks about her proficiency in telling _fortins_.