_The North American Review. No. LXXXIX--Vol. XLI. For October 1835.
Boston: Charles Bowen._
It is now very generally known that Mr. Palfrey has become the editor
of this Review, and the present number is the first issued since the
announcement of the new arrangement. It is difficult to speak of a
work like this as a whole. Particular articles strike us as being very
good--some are worthless. We will briefly notice them one by one.
Article I. "Life of Jehudi Ashmun, late Colonial Agent in Liberia.
With an Appendix, containing Extracts from his Journal and other
Writings; and a brief Sketch of the Life of the Rev. Lott Carey. By
Ralph Randolph Gurley. Washington."
"The capacities of Ashmun's character were such," says the Reviewer,
"that had he lived in any age or country, (pray, did he _not_ live in
any age or country?) their energy must have hurried them into
development as inevitably as the waters flow to the sea." All this we
are willing to believe, and also that the man in question was a noble
martyr in the cause of African colonization. We doubt, however, if
there are not a crowd of books daily issuing unnoticed from the press,
of far more general interest, and consequently more worthy the
attention of our leading Review than even _The Life of Ashmun_. We
shall soon, perhaps, have a Life of some Cuffy the Great, by Solomon
Sapient; and then the North American will feel itself bound to devote
one half of its pages to that important publication. In expressing
ourselves thus, we mean not the slightest disrespect to either Ashmun
or his Biographer. But the _critique_ is badly written, and its
enthusiasm _outré_ and disproportionate.