James Parton, Horace Greeley, T. W. Higginson, J. S. C. Abbott, E. M. Hoppin, William Winter, Theodore Tilton, Fanny Fern, Grace Greenwood, Mrs. E. C. Stanton, Women of the age; being natives of the lives and deeds of the most prominent women of the present gentlemen

Established in her home once more, and restored in health, Mrs. Stowe's literary labors were resumed; and in the year 1856, shortly after another foreign tour, her second antislavery novel was published, under the title of “Dred; a tale of the Dismal Swamp.” In the preface, the author declares her great purpose to be the same as that of her previous story. Once more she endeavors to do something towards revealing to the people the true character of the system of slavery. The book inevitably comes into comparison with its predecessor; and whatever may be truly said in its praise, it cannot be questioned that, both as a work of art and as an effective revelation of slavery, it falls far below “Uncle Tom.” The chief defects of the book, and those which hindered the completest fulfilment of its noble purpose, are its lack of unity, and ever and anon a departure from the simplicity of a narrative or representation, into the disenchantments of discussion and argument, by which the reader is disturbed in his pleasant dream and vision, and the reality of the scenes that move before him is explained away. The panorama does not move on without an interruption and in silence, as in the case of “Uncle Tom,” interpreting itself, and silently but powerfully unfolding its purpose or moral, but stops now and then to give place to the voice of the delineator in explanations or vindications.

In writing “Uncle Tom,” the author seems never to have thought that her representations would be called in question, and accordingly she did not so much as think of fortifying herself as she advanced, or of throwing in justifications and arguments, or of going aside for facts to substantiate her narrative, but kept faithfully to the simplicity of her purpose to exhibit slavery as she had seen and known it. But, in