Text: J. E. Heath (???), Review of Mrs. A. B. Jameson, Visits and Sketches, Southern Literary Messenger, January 1835, 1:241-251

[page 252, column 2, continued:]

VISITS AND SKETCHES, at Home and Abroad. By Mrs. Jamieson, author of the “Characteristics of Women,” &c. in 2 vols. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1834.

WE intended to notice these interesting volumes sooner, and recommend them to our readers as highly entertaining and instructive. Mrs. Jamieson's style, though not faultless, is very attractive; and certainly as a female writer, she is hardly surpassed in vigor and richness. The first volume is principally devoted to sketches of art, literature and character, comprising Memoranda at Munich, Nuremburg and Dresden. It also contains a vivid account of the celebrated Bess of Hardwicke, the old Countess of Shrewsbury, — a visit to Althorpe, the ancient seat of the Spencers — and eloquent sketches of the private and dramatic life of Mrs. Siddons, and of Fanny Kemble. The second volume opens with three interesting stories, — the False One, a pathetic oriental tale, a thousand times superior to Vathek, Halloran the Pedlar, and the Indian Mother. It also contains a very amusing drama for little actors, — and concludes with the Diary of an Enuyeé, a performance of much and deserved celebrity. We shall make occasional selections from this work, for the benefit of such of our readers as have no opportunity of seeing the volumes themselves. For the present, we have transferred to our pages the “Indian Mother,” a most affecting story founded on a striking incident related by Humboldt. The scene being laid in South America, the reader will be struck with the strong impressions made on Mrs. Jamieson's mind of that magnificent country, through the medium of description alone.