THE CRAYON MISCELLANY. By the author of the Sketch Book. No. 1.
Containing a Tour on the Prairies. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea &
Blanchard. 1835.
A book from the pen of Washington Irving, is a _morceau_, which will
always be eagerly sought after by literary epicures. He is decidedly
one of the most popular writers in this country: his sketches of
character and scenery, are always true to the life, full of freshness
and vigor; and there is usually a clear stream of thought pervading
his pages, in fine contrast with the crude and indistinct conceptions
of ordinary writers. The volume before us cannot be said indeed to
rival some of its predecessors from the same pen, but the cause is not
so much in the author as in his subject. In spite of an agreeable and
highly descriptive style, the mind becomes wearied with the monotony
of a journey through the solitudes of the Western Prairies, and after
we have once formed a tolerably distinct idea of a buffalo hunt, and
the lasoing of the wild horse, we become tired of the repetition of
adventures, which possess so little variety. Considering his
materials, however, Mr. Irving has contrived to sustain his narrative
with his usual ability. It is true, that most readers will somewhat
regret that he did not present more finished portraits of some of the
personages who accompanied the expedition. We have quite satisfactory
sketches of that "swarthy, meager, braggart" Tonish, and of the
"sullen saturnine" half breed Beatte, but we desire to know something
more of the wild young Swiss Count, of his travelling companion and
mentor, the virtuoso, and of the hardy old hunter, Ryan, a true member
of the leather-stocking family.
Notwithstanding the famed perspicuity and purity of Mr. Irving's
style, he occasionally adopts a form of expression which creates some
surprise. We will give one instance, in particular, because the
inaccuracy, if we may so term it, is repeated several times in the
volume before us:--"The horse, which was fearless as his owner, and
like him, had a considerable spice of devil in his composition, and
who beside, had been familiar with the game, no sooner came in sight
and scent of the buffalo, than he set off _like mad_, bearing the
involuntary hunter," &c. &c. &c. (Page 232.)
We should have supposed the expression, "_like mad_," a typographical
error, if it had not been frequently used.
We copy for the reader's amusement, a short chapter, containing an
account of "_A Republic of Prairie Dogs_," a kind of quadruped, with
which we, at least, in this portion of North America, are not very
familiar. The harmony, vigilance and energy, with which these little
brutes rally around their rights and their laws, might whisper a sage
lesson even to the wisdom of rational and intellectual beings:--