e Red-skins. All his stories put together, had they
twice their merit, are not equal in value to a few words he quotes
from the brief authentic memoir of Daniel Boon. What were any picture
from the hands of any artist whatever to the certainty we feel that
this stout-hearted, fearless man did verily walk the untrodden forest
alone, with as little disquiet as we parade the streets of a populous
city? Can any paradoxical reasoning about eternal truths, and the
universal reality of human sentiments, assimilate this _history_ of
Daniel Boon to the very best creation of the novelist? Here was the
veritable hero who did exist. "You see," says Boon, "how little human
nature requires. It is in our own hearts, rather than in the things
around us, that we are to seek felicity. A man may be happy in any
state. It only asks a perfect resignation to the will of Providence."
Commonplace moralities enough, in the mouth of a commonplace person.
Illustrated by the life of Boon, how they _tell_ upon us! They are the
words of the steadfast, solitary man, who could go forth single,
amongst wild beasts and savages, braving all manner of dangers, and
hardships, and deprivations. "I had plenty," he says, "in the midst of
want; was happy though surrounded by dangers; how should I be
melancholy? No populous city, with all its structures and all its
commerce, could afford me so much pleasure as I found here."

Boon, though he never wrote so much as a single stanza about it, as we
hear, added to his love of enterprise a sincere passion for the
beauties of nature. No poet, therefore, could venture to draw upon his
imagination for a bolder picture than we have here in the _true story_
of Daniel Boon, breaking upon the sublime solitudes of nature,
fearless and alone, and relying on his single manhood. The picture
could gather nothing from invention. Shall any one pretend to say that
it gathers nothing from being true?

Mr Sims is very indignant that Niebahr should rob him of many heroic
and marvellous stories. How can Niebahr rob _him_ of any thing--who
looks not for truth in history, but for novel and romance? The great
German critic will not interfere with _his_ history--will leave him in
undisturbed possession of all his novels and romances--all his noble
fabrics--"temples of mind,"--"shrines of purity," &c. &c.--where he
may walk as "big and as blind," as he pleases.

The new American literature which Mr Sims is to originate, will be as
littl