country, when
there will be a war of extermination and no quarter shown. The affairs
here are just the same as two years ago. The war is no nearer ended.
But we do hope that the offer of ten dollars for each Seminole scalp
will be a great inducement for the Cherokees and Choctaws to cut and
slash among them."

VOLUME THREE, CHAPTER ELEVEN.

REPLY TO THE EDINBURGH REVIEW.

The art of reviewing may be compared to French cookery; it has no
medium--it must either be first-rate or it is worth nothing: nay, the
comparison goes much further, as the attempt at either not only spoils
the meat, but half poisons the guests. The fact is, good reviewing is
of the highest order of literature, for a good reviewer ought to be
superior to the party whose writings he reviews. Such men as Southey,
Croker, and Lockhart on the one side, Brougham, Fontblanque, and Rintoul
on the other, will always command respect in their vocations, however
much they may be influenced by political feelings, or however little you
may coincide with them in opinion. But, passing over these, and three
or four more _cordons bleus_, what are reviewers in general? men of a
degree of talent below that of the author whose works they presume to
decide upon; the major portion of whom, having failed as authors, are
possessed with but one feeling in their disappointment, which is to drag
others down to their own debased level. To effect this, you have
malevolence substituted for wit, and high-sounding words for sense;
every paltry advantage is taken that can be derived from an intentional
misrepresentation of your meaning, and (what is the great secret of all)
from unfair quotations of one or two lines, carefully omitting the
context--an act of unpardonable dishonesty towards the author, and but
too often successful in misleading the reader of the Review. By acting
upon this last-mentioned system, there is no book, whatever its merits
may be, which cannot be misrepresented to the public: a work espousing
atheism may be made to appear wholly moral; or, the Holy Scriptures
themselves condemned as licentious and indecent. If such reviewing is
fair, a jury may, upon a similar principle, decide upon a case by the
evidence in favour of the prosecution; and beauty or deformity in
architecture be pronounced upon by the examination of a few bricks taken
out from different portions of a building.

That, latterly, the public have been more inclined to judge for
th