_Legends of a Log Cabin. By a Western Man. New York: George Dearborn,
Publisher._
We have been much interested in this book in spite of some very
glaring faults and absurdities with which it is besprinkled. The work
is dedicated to Charles F. Hoffman, Esq. the author of _A Winter in
the West_, (why will our writers persist in this piece of starched and
antique affectation?) and consists of seven Tales, viz. _The Hunter's
Vow_, _The Heiress of Brandsby_, _The Frenchman's Story_, _The
Englishman's Story_, _The Yankee's Story_, _The Wyandot's Story_, and
the _Minute Men_. The plot will be readily conceived. A heterogeneous
company are assembled by accident, on a snowy night, in the Log Cabin
of a Western hunter, and, _pour passer le temps_, amuse themselves in
telling Stories.
_The Hunter's Vow_ is, we think, the best of the series. A dreamy
student who can never be induced to forsake his books for the more
appropriate toils of a backwoods' existence, is suddenly aroused from
his apathy by the murder of his old father by an Indian--a murder
which takes place under the scholar's own eyes, and which might have
been prevented but for his ignorance in the art of handling and
loading a rifle. The entire change wrought in the boy's character is
well managed. The _Heiress of Brandsby_ is a tale neither so
verisimilar, nor so well told. It details the love of a Virginian
heiress for a Methodist of no very enticing character; and concludes
by the utter subversion, through the means of all powerful love, of
the lady's long cherished notions of aristocracy. The _Frenchman's
Story_ has appeared before in the American Monthly Magazine. It is a
well imagined and well executed tale of the French Revolution. The
fate of M. Girond "_who left town suddenly_," is related with that air
of naked and unvarnished truth so apt to render even a silly narrative
interesting. The _Englishman's Story_ is a failure--full of such
palpable folly that we have a difficulty in ascribing it to the same
pen which wrote the other portions of the volume. The whole tale
betrays a gross ignorance of law in general--and of English law in
especial. The _Yankee's Story_ is much better--but not very good. We
have our doubts as to the genuine Yankeeism of the narrator. His
language, at all events, savors but little of _Down East_. The
_Wyandot's Story_ is also good (this too has appeared in the American
Monthly Magazine)--but we have fault to find, likewise, with the
phraseology in this instance. No Indian, let Chateaubriand and others
say what they please, ever indulged, for a half hour at a time, in the
disjointed and hyperbolical humbug here attributed to the Wyandot. The
_Minute Men_ is the last of the series, and from its being told by the
author himself, is, we suppose, considered by him the best. It is a
tale of the year seventy-five--but, although interesting, we do not
think it equal to either _The Frenchman's Story_ or _The Hunter's
Vow_. We recommend the volume to the attention of our readers. It is
excellently gotten up.