suppose, an American, though she began and
has thus far advanced upon her literary life in this country. She is a
native of Spain, and is the daughter of a French gentleman--an officer
of the Empire--who married there. Her early life was passed in Cuba,
where her father settled when she was about three years of age. In her
seventeenth year she was married to Mr. George, who is an Englishman.

When Mr. FENIMORE COOPER published his Life of Commodore Perry, which
the sober second thought of the people endorses as entirely candid and
just, we remember that it was urged by the Philadelphia critics (who
constitute a class, as much as the Philadelphia lawyers do), that even
if every thing he advanced were _true_, Mr. Cooper had no right to
disregard the "settled and satisfactory opinions of the country upon the
subject." We could never so appreciate as perfectly to admit the truth
of the canon in criticism here involved, and to this day we cannot help
agreeing with Gibbon, that "Truth is the first virtue of history." Mrs.
George seems to concur with Gibbon and Cooper, and disregarding the
poetry and romance woven about the name of Isabella the Catholic, has
painted her according to the documents, which by no means warranted the
common good report of her.

Queen Isabella, according to Mrs. George, owes to some agreeable
qualities, but most of all to her patronage of Columbus, oblivion of
remarkable faults, which were prolific of evil to Spain. She escaped at
the expense of her husband Ferdinand, who has been charged with her sins
as well as his own. She was not a person to yield to any one where her
power and rights were in question, so that in all matters concerning
home policy, she is at least entitled to an equal share of the
discredit; and in the establishment of the Inquisition, and the
persecution of the Jews and Moors, she stands alone. Ferdinand was
always disposed to put his religion behind his interest, and was urged
by his wife into measures of which he disapproved; sometimes, indeed,
she ordered or permitted persecutions of which he was altogether
ignorant. Beside the wickedness of these things, their impolicy was not
less conspicuous. The oppression of the Moors, and the expulsion of both
Moors and Jews, destroyed the mechanical and commercial industry of
Spain; the overthrow of the feudal power and privileges of the nobility,
and the establishment of despotism in the crown, checked the growth of
civil freedom,