'UNCLE TOM'S CABIN,

THIS picture of life in the Slave -States of America undoubtedly owes some of . its interest to the novelty of its subject. Manners, domestic economy, sketches of scenery, and "interiors," which if drawn in England would attract little attention although equally well done, have the charm of freshness when displaying a state of society which is sufficiently removed from our own to be new yet not so remote as to be strange. If, however, these advantages were put aside, Uncle Tones Cabin would still be very remarkable -as an artistioal production, whether considered merely as a ro- s Uncle Tom's Cabin or Negro Life in the Slave States of America. By Harriet Beecher Stowe. [The Anther's Idition-) Published by Bosworth.

mane or as a didactic fiction. The different classes of Southern life, both White and Coloured, are exhibited, as well as their indi- vidual types. Of course the tints are reversed, and the Blacks painted couleur de rose while the Whites are presented en noir. But the main object of the writer is very skilfully advanced. There is no gross exaggeration about the very worst of the slave-dealers ; the weaknesses of the slaves are plainly presented, though artfully excused, or redeemed by appropriate virtues ; the merits of the highminded Southerns are not disguised, while their failings are made evident ; the grosser evils of slavery are clearly indicated, without being made so prominent as to be pain- ful or repulsive ; the deep-seated mischief of the system—the moral evils both to masters and slaves, which no humanity, no treatment tan get rid of—are well impressed. Nor are the slave- owners alone attacked. The truckling subserviency of the Pro- testant Church to the Southern " institution," exciting even the ridicule of the slaveowners themselves—the lip service of the Northern Abolitionists, who will 'preach, or speak, or subscribe for the slaves, but will not actively assist them, or even tolerate a Coloured person near them—the commercial men of New York, &e., who, professing religion, take their fellow men as se- curity for debts, and sell them to realize—are all brought into view, and touched bitingly, yet not coarsely or with examration. The " modesty of nature" pervades the book,—a feature that con- cerns the fiction as much as its philosophy.

The story is simple in itself, though varied by adventures. Mr. Shelby, a planter of Kentucky, has embarrassed himself by specu- lations; a mortgage gets into the hands of one Haley, a slave- dealer ; and to make up the amount, and save the whole of his property, including the rest of his people, Mr. Shelby is compelled to part with two of his favourite slaves. These are Uncle Tom, an excellent-minded pious Black, and a favourite little boy, the son of a Quadroon named Eliza, Mrs. Shelby's own attendant and protegee. Uncle Tom passes into slavery quietly ; and, after a fortunate domestic service at New Orleans, where he is the pet of his master's angelic daughter and a favourite with her high- spirited father, Tom, in consequence of Mr. St. Clare's sudden deathris sold to Legree, a brutal planter, who ultimately kills him by severe treatment. Eliza, with her son and her all-but White husband, flee from their different masters at the same time, and eventually reach Canada.

These elements well exhibit the various grades of Southern. society. Mr. Shelby is the old Virginian or Kentucky gentleman, as much farmer as planter, and looking upon his slaves as a fine old English gentleman would look upon his household and peasantry. St. Clare and his brother represent the two aspects of the Southern planter—St. Clare, the refined, luxurious, good- natured, idle, intellectual denizen of -the crescent city—his brother, the sterner, more active, and as far as words go more aristocrati- cal Southerner. Haley, the lowminded, coarse, mercenary, yet not altogether bad-natured slave-dealer, with his bolder and more vio- lent partner Loker, is a type of the class so far as it is present- able in fiction. Legree is a specimen of the worst and most brutal planters, who take up their abode on the outskirts of civilization —and, let us hope, are few in number even there. The slaves we have mentioned exhibit the Coloured races in their best aspect, as the drivers and field Negroes on Legree's plantation display them in their worst. The story of Legree's mistress Cassy, and the ruffian's purchase of the young Mulatto girl Emmeline, indicate the miseries of what is perhaps the worst feature of American slavery. Didactic fictions are seldom without their weakpoints and the character of Uncle Toni is one of the weakest in the novel which he gives his name. His original nature is such that no apostle could have surpassed, and in faithfulness under all trials he dis- tances Peter out and out. If Tom could be received even as an exceptional specimen. of Negro virtue, it might be argued that Kentucky ought to retain its "institution" for the purpose of breeding saints, since freedom could "raise" nothing like it. The writer, too, has not been able to resolve a difficulty that besets all reformers in fiction. When Mr. Disraeli wrote a romance to amalgamate the different classes of society, he made his humble heroine turn out a great heiress, before he ventured to marry her to his aristocratical hero. After giving George Harris, Eliza's husband, a university education in France, on his escape, Harriet Beecher Stowe can find no other place for him than Liberia : a weak- ness equal to any she satirizes. Something similar is the case with Uncle Tom : his author can only send him to heaven.

But, however exaggerated may be the virtues or influence of Uncle Tom, the character itself is consistently conceived, and the colouring natural. This last feature, indeed, is the distinction of the book; all has the quiet ease and sobriety of reality. A sample may be taken from Mr. Haley's account of his own humanity. Haley has been bargaining with Mr. Shelby for another slave in addition to Uncle Tom, and has been much struck with Eliza's little boy, when the mother comes in search of him.

"There needed only a glance from the child to her, to identify her as its mother. There was the same rich, full, dark eye, with its long lashes ; the same ripples of silky black hair. The brown of her complexion gave way OR the cheek to a perceptible flush, which deepened as she saw the gaze of the strange man fixed upon her in bold and undisguised admiration. Her dress was of the neatest possible fit, and set off to advantage her finely-moulded shape. A delicately-formed hand, and a trim foot and ankle, were items of appearance that did not escape the quick eye of the trader, well used to run up at a glance thepoints of a fine female article.

" Well, Eliza ? 'said her master, as she stopped and looked hesitatingly at him.

" I was looking for. Harry, please, sir' ; and the boy bounded toward her, showing his spoils, which he had gathered in the skirt of his robe.

"'Well, take him away, then,' said Mr. Shelby ; and hastily she with- drew, carrying the child on her arm.

'By Jupiter !' said the trader, turning to him in admiration, there's an article now ! You might make your fortune on that ar gal in Orleans, any day. I've seen over a thousand, in my day, paid down for gals not a bit handsomer.'

" ' I don't want to make my fortune on her,' said Mr. Shelby, drily ; and, seeking to turn the conversation, he uncorked a bottle of fresh wine, and asked his companion's opinion of It. " Capital, sir—first chop!' said the trader ; then turning and slapping his hand familiarly on Shelby's shoulder, he added, 'Come, how will you trade about the gal ? what shall I say for her ? what'll you take ?' " Mr. Haley, she is not to be sold,' said Shelby ; 'my wife would not part with her for her weight in gold.'

" Ay, ay, women always say such things, 'cause they ha'nt no sort of calculation. Just show 'em bow many watches, feathers, and trinkets one's weight in gold would buy, and that alters the case, I reckon.'

" I tell you, Haley, this must not be spoken of. I say no, and I mean no,' said Shelby, decidedly.

" Well, you'll let me have the boy, though ? ' said the trader ; you must own I've come down pretty handsomely for him.'

" What on earth can you want with the child ? ' said Shelby.

" Why, I've got a friend that's going into this yer branch of the business --wants to buy up handsome boys to raise for the market. Fancy articles entirely—sell for waiters, and so on, to rich 'uns, that can pay for handsome 'UM. • It sets off one of yer great places—a real handsome boy to open door, wait, and tend. They fetch a good sum ; and this little devil is such a comi- cal, musical concern, he's just the article.'

" 'I would rather not sell him,' said Mr. Shelby, thoughtfully. ' The fact is, sir, I'm a humane man; and I hate to take the boy from his mother, air.'

" Oh, you do ?—La ! yes—something of that ar natur. I understand, perfectly. It is mighty onpleasant gettin' on with women sometimes. I frays hates these yer screechin' sereemin' times. They are mighty onplea- eant ; but, as I manages business, I generally avoids 'ens air. Now, what if you get the girl off for a day, or a week, or so; then the thing's done quietly,—all over before she comes home. Your wife might get her some earnings, or a new gown, or some such truck, to make up with her.'

"'I'm afraid not.'

" ' Los bless ye,. yes ! These critters an't like White folks, you know; they gets over flange, only manage right. Now, they say,' said Haley, assuming a candid and confidential air, that this kind o' trade is hardening to the feelings ; but I never found it so. Fact is, I never could do things up the way some fellers manage the business. Tye seen 'em as would pull a woman's child out of her arms, and set him up to sell, and she screechin" like mad all the time : very bad policy—damages the article—makes 'em quite unfit for service sometimes. I knew a real handsome gal once, in Orleans, as was en- tirely suined by this sort o' handling. The fellow that was trading for her didn't want her baby ; and she was one of your real high sort, when her - blood was up. I tell you, she squeezed up her child in her arms, and talked, and went on real awful. It kinder makes my blood run cold to think on't ; and when they carried off the child, and locked her up, she jest went ravin' mad, and died in a week. Clear waste, sir, of a thousand dollars, just for want of management,—there's where't is. It's always best to do the humane thing, sir; that's been my experience.' "And the trader leaned back in his chair, and folded his arms, with an air of virtuous decision, apparently considering himself a second -Wilberforce. "The subject appeared to interest the gentleman deeply;' for while Mr. Shelby was thoughtfully peeling an orange, Haley broke out afresh, with be- coming diffidence, but as if actually driven by the force of truth to say a few words more.

" 'It don't look well, now, for a feller to be praisin' himself; but I say it Jest because it's the truth. I believe I'm reckoned to bring in about the: finest.droves of niggers that is brought in—at least I've been told so ; if I have•once, I reckon I have a hundred times—all in good case—fat and likely, and I lose as few as any man in the business. And I lays it all to my ma- nagement, sir; and humanity, sir; I may say, is the great pillar of my ma- nagements'

"Mr. Shelby did not know what to say, so he said, 'Indeed !' "'Now I've been laughed at for my notions, sir, and. I've been talked to. They an't poplar, and they an't common ; but I stuck to 'em, sir; I've stuck to 'ens and realized well on 'em ; yes, sir, they have paid their pas- sage, I may say' ; and the trader laughed at hiejoke. "There was something so piquant and original in these elneidations of hu- manity, that Mr. Shelby could not help laughing in company. Perhaps you laugh too, dear reader ; but you know humanity comes out in a variety of strange forms now-a-days, and there is no end to the odd things that humane people will say and do. "Mr. Shelby's laugh encouraged the trader to proceed.

" It's strange, now, but I never could beat this into people's heads. Now, there was Tom Loker, my old partner, down in Natchez ; he was a clever fellow, Tom was, only the very devil with niggers—on principle 'twas you see, for a better-hearted feller never broke bread; 'twas his system' sir. I used to talk to Tom. ' Why, Tom,' I used to say, ' when your gala takes on and cry, what's the use o'crackh; on 'em over the head, and knockin' on 'em round ? It's ridiculous,' says and don't do no sort o' good. Why, I don't see no harm in their cryin",' says I; 'it isnatur,' says I, 'and if natur can't blow off one way. it will another. Besides, Tom,' says it jest spites your gals ; they get sickly, and down in the mouth ; and sometimes they gets ugly—particular yellow girls do, and it's the devil and all gettin' on 'em broke in. Now,' says I, why can't you kinder coax 'em up, and speak 'em fair ? Depend on it, Tom, a little'humanity, thrown in along, goes a heap further than all your jawin' and erackin' ; and it pays better,' says I, depend on 't.' But Tom couldn't get the hang on 't ; and he spiled so many for me, that I had to break off with him, though he was a good-hearted fel- low, and as fair a business hand es is goin'.'

"'And do you find your ways of managing do the business better than Tom's ? ' said Mr. Shelby.

" Why, yes, sir, I may so. You see, when I any wayscan, I takes a leetle care about the on pleasant parts, like selling young uns and that ; get the gals out of the way—out of sight, out of mind, you know ; and when it's clean done and can't be helped, they naturally gets used to it. 'Tan't, you know, as if it was White folks, that's brought up in the way of 'spectin' to keep their children and wives, and all that. Niggers, you know, that's fetched up properly, ha'n't no kindof 'spectations of no kind ; so all these things comes easier.'

" I'm afraid mine are not properly brought up, then,' said Mr. Shelby. "S'pose not. You Kentucky folks spile your niggers. You mean well by 'em ; but 'taint no real kindness arter all. Now a nigger, you see, what's got to be hacked and tumbled round the world, and sold to Tom and Dick and the Lord knows who, 'tan't no kindness to be givin' on him notions and expectations, and bring& on him up too well for the rough and tumble comes all the harder on him arter. Now, I venture to say, your niggers would be quite chopfallen in a place where some of your plantation niggers would be singing and whooping like all possessed. Every man, you know, Mr. Shelby, naturally thinks well of his own ways ; and I think I treat ruggers just about as well as it's over worth while to treat 'em.'

" a happy thing to be satisfied,' said Mr. Shelby, with a slight shrug, and some perceptible feelings of a disagreeable nature."

This is a specimen of the manner in which the ladies and Slavery divines are hit off. It is a discussion among passengers on board the steamer where Tom is embarked.

a' 0 mamma,' said a boy, who had just come up from below, 'there's a Negro trader on board, and he's brought four or five slaves down there.'

Poor creatures ! ' said the mother, in a tone between grief and indig- nation.

" What's that ? ' said another lady.. " Some poor slaves below,' said the mother. And they've got chains on,' said the boy.

"'What a shame to our country that such sights are to be seen !' said another lady. " 'Oh, there's a great deal to be said on both sides of the subject,' said a genteel woman, who sat at her state-room door, sewing, while her little girl and boy were playing round her. 'I've been South, and I must say I think the Negroos are better off than they would be to be free.' " 'In .some respects, some of them are well off, I grant,' said the lady to whose remark she had answered. 'The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections—the separating of families, for example.'

"

That is a bad thing, certhiniss said the other lady, holding up a baby's dress she had just completed, and looking intently on its trimmings; 'but then, I fancy, it don't occur often. " 40h, it does,' said the first lady eagerly :.rsie lived manyyears in Ken- tucky and Virginia both, and I've seen enough to make one heart sick. Suppose, ma'am, your two children there should be taken from you and sold ?'

" We can't reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons,' said the other lady, sorting out some worsteds on her lap. " 'Indeed, ma'am, you. can know nothing of them if you say so,' answered

the first lady, warmly. was born and brought up among them. I know they do feel, ust as keenly—even more so, perhaps—as we do.'

" The lady said, Indeed !' yawned, and looked out of the cabin-window, and finally repeated,. for a. finale, the remark with which she had begun- ' After all, I think they are better off than they would be to be free.' "'It's. undoubtedly the intention of Providence that the African race should be servants—kept in a low condition,' said a grave-looking gentle- man in black, a clergyman, seated by the cabin-door. Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be,' the Scripture says.' .

" 'I say, stranger, is that ar what that text means ?' said a tall man, standing by. " 'Undoubtedly-. It pleased Providence, for some inscrutable reason, to doom the race to bondage ages ago; and we must not not set up our opinion against that.' - " Well, then, we'll all go ahead and buy. up niggers,' said the man, 'if that's the way of Providence—won't we, squire?' said he, turning-to Haley, who had been standing, with his hands inhie pockets, by the stove, and in- tently listening to the conversation. "'Yes,' continued- the tall man; we-must all be resigned to the decrees of Providence. Niggers must be sold, and trucked round, and kept under it's what they's-made for. 'Pears like this yer view's quite refreshing, an't it, stranger? ' said he to Haley, " 'I never thought on't,' said Haley. couldn't hirvesaid as much ins-- self; -I haul no laming, I took vp the trade just to make a living ; if 't an't right, I calculated to 'pent on in time, ye know.' . " 4/ind now you'll save yerself the trouble, won't ye ? ' said the tall man. 'See what 'tis, now, to know Scripture. If ye'd only studied yerilible, like this yer good man, ye might have Iinow'd it before, and saved ye a heap o' trouble. Ye could jist have said, Cussed be—what's his name ? '—and 'twould all have come right.' And the stranger, who was no other than the honest drover whom we introduced to our readers in the Kentucky tavern, sat down and began smoking, 'with a curious smile on his long dry face."

The hardened Southern fine lady isintrodueed in the person of St. Clare's wife : her selfishness at all times, and her cool obstinate cruelty, when on 'her hnsbttnd's death she -gets full power into her hands, are painted almost repulsively. The Eastern States also have a representative in the person of a middle- 'relation of St. Clare, who brought him up,- and. comes to NewOrleans to ma- nage his house, Mrs. St. Clare's.delicate health not permitting her to exert herself. The introduction of a New England lady gives opportunity for the exhibition. of New England manners. . This is a quiet Old World bit. Whoever has travelled in the New-England States willteniemben in some cool village, the large farm-house, with its clean-swept grassy yard shaded by the dense and massive foliage of the sugar-maple ; and remember the air of order and stillness, of perpetuity and unchanging repose, that seemed to breathe over the whole place. Nothing lost or out of order, not a picket loose in the fence, not a particle of litter in the turfy-yard, with its clumps of lilac-bushes growing up under the windows. Within, he will remember wide, clean rooms, where nothing ever seems.to be doing or going to be done, where everything is once and for ever rigidly in place, and where all house- hold arrangements move with the punctual exactness of the old clock in the corner. In the family ' keeping room,' as it is termed, he will remember the staid, respectable, old book-case, with its glass doors, where Rollin's History, • Milton's Paradise Lost, Banyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Scott's Family Bible, stand side by side in decorous order,. with multitudes of other books, equally solemn and respectable. There are no servants in the house ; but tko lady in the snowy cap, with the spectacles, who sits sewing every afternoon among her daughters, as if nothing ever had been done, or were to be done —she and her girls, in some long-forgotten fore-part of the day, ' did up the work,' and for the rest of the time, probably at all hours when you would see them, it is ' done up.' The old kitchen-floor never seems stained or spotted ; the tables, the chairs, and the various cooking-utensils, never seem deranged or disordered ; though three and sometimes four meals a day are got there, though the family washing and ironing is there performed, and though pounds of butter and cheese are in some silent and mysterious manner there brought into existence.

" On such a farm, in such a house and family, Miss Ophelia had spent a quiet existence of some forty-five years, when her cousin invited her to visit his Southern mansion. The eldest of a large family, she was still considered by her father and mother as one of the children,' and the proposal that she should go to Orleans was a moat momentous one to the family circle. The old gray-headed father took down Morse's Atlas out of the book-case, and looked out the exact latitude and longitude; and read Flint's Travels in the South and West, to make up his own mind as to the nature of the country."

The following scene between Emmeline. and Cassy, at Legree's house, just after he has brought Emmeline home, gives an idea of the manner in which the darkest features of Southern slave life are handled.

" Cassy entered the room, and found Emmeline sitting, pale with fear, in the furthest corner of it. As she came in, the girl started up nervously ; but, on seeing who it was, rushed forward, and, catching her arm, said, 'Oh, Casey, is it you ? Pin so glad you've come ! I was afraid it was — Oh, you don't know what a horrid noise there has been down stairs all this evening.' " I ought to know,' said Cassy, drily ; I've heard it often enough !'

" Oh, Cassy, do tell me ; could'nt we get away from this place ? I don't care where—into the swamp among the snakes, anywhere. Corad'tit we get sonietchere away from here ?'

" ' Nowhere but into our graves,' said Cassy. "'Did you ever try ?'

"'I've seen enough of trying, and what comes of it,' said Gassy.

" I'd be willing to live in the swamps, and gnaw the bark from trees. I an't afraid of snakes ! I'd rather have one near me than him,' said Emme- line eagerly.

" There have been a good many here of your opinion,' said Cassy. 'But you could not stay in the swamps; you'd be tracked by the dogs, and brought back, and then—then—' "'What would he do ? ' said the girl, looking with breathless interest into her face.

" ' What wouldn't he do, you'd better ask,' said Cassy. He's learned his trade well among the pirates in the West Indies. You would'ut sleep much if I should tell you things I've seen—things that he tells of, sometimes, for good jokes. I've heard screams here that I haven't been able to get out of my head for weeks and weeks. There's a place way out down by the quarters, where you can see a black, blasted tree, and the ground all covered with black ashes. Ask any one what was done there, and see if they will dare to tell you.'

" ' Oh, what do you mean ?'

" I won't tell you. I hate to think of it. And I tell you, the Lord only knows what we may see tomorrow, if that poor fellow holds out as he's be- ' Horrid !' said Emmeline, every drop of blood receding from her cheeks. Oh, Cassy, do tell me what I shall do !' " What I've done. Do the best you can. Do what you must, and make it up in hating and cursing.'

"1 He wanted to make me drink some of his hateful brandy,' said Emme- line ; 'and I hate it so.'

" You'd better drink,' said Cassy. 'I hated it, too ; and now I can't live without it. One must have something ; things don't look so dreadful when you take that.'

"'Mother used to tell me never to touch any such thing,' said Emmeline. "'Mother told you !' said Cassy, with a thrilling and bitter emphasis on the word mother. What use is it for mothers to say anything ? You are all to be bought and paid for, and your souls belong to whoever gets you. That's the way it goes. I say, drink brandy ; drink all you can, and it'll make things come easier.'

"' Oh, Casey, do pity me.' "'Pity you! don't I? Haven't I a daughter ? Lord knows where she is, and whose she is now. Going the way her mother went before her I sup- pose, and that her children must go after her. There's no end to tie curse for ever.'

" I wish I'd never been born !' said Emmeline, wringing her hands. "'That's an old wish with me,' said Cassy; I've got used to wishing that. rd die, if I dared to,' she said, looking out into the darkness with that still, fixed despair, which was the habitual expression of her face when at rest."

Uncle Tom's Cabin has produced a great sensation in America, and will probably deal the heaviest blow to the " institution" which it has yet received. In this country its popularity is equal- ly great; and various editions, cheap and very coarse, are printed to meet the demand. The edition published by Mr. Bosworth is the only one from which the writer will derive any advantage : it is a sightly book, and cheap.