THE CRAYON MISCELLANY, No. II. containing Abbotsford and Newstead
Abbey. Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1835.
We hailed with pleasure the appearance of the first number of the
Crayon Miscellany, but we knew not what a feast was preparing for us
in the second. In Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey, the author of the
Sketch Book is at home. By no one could this offering to the memories
of Scott and Byron have been more appropriately made. It is the
tribute of genius to its kindred spirits, and it breathes a
sanctifying influence over the graves of the departed. The kindly
feelings of Irving are beautifully developed in his description of the
innocent pursuits and cheerful conversation of Sir Walter Scott, while
they give a melancholy interest to the early misfortunes of Byron. He
luxuriates among the scenes and associations which hallow the walls of
Newstead, and warms us into admiration of the wizard of the north, by
a matchless description of the man, his habits, and his thoughts. The
simplicity and innocence of his heart, his domestic affections, and
his warm hospitality, are presented in their most attractive forms.
The scenes and the beings with which Sir Walter was surrounded, are
drawn with a graphic pencil. All conduce to strengthen impressions
formerly made of the goodness and beneficence of Scott's character,
and to gratify the thousands who have drawn delight from his works,
with the conviction that their author was one of the most amiable of
his species. No man knows better than Washington Irving, the value
which is placed by the world (and with justice) upon incidents
connected with really great men, which seem trifling in themselves,
and which borrow importance only from the individuals to whom they
have relation. Hence he has given us a familiar (yet how beautiful!)
picture of Abbotsford and its presiding genius; but the relics of
Newstead, which his pensive muse has collected and thrown together,
brightening every fragment by the lustre of his own genius, are
perhaps even more attractive. He touches but a few points in Byron's
early history, but they are those on which we could have wished the
illumination of his researches. The whole of the details respecting
Miss Chaworth, and Byron's unfortunate attachment to that lady, are in
his best manner. The story of the White Lady is one of deep interest,
and suits well with the melancholy thoughts connected with Newstead.
An instance of monomania like that of the White Lady, has seldom been
recorded; and the author has, without over-coloring the picture,
presented to his readers the history of a real being, whose whole
character and actions and melancholy fate belong to the regions of
romance. In nothing that he has ever written, has his peculiar faculty
of imparting to all he touches the coloring of his genius, been more
fully displayed than in this work.
We give a short extract from each of these sketches, although they can
afford no idea of their collective charms. The conversational powers
and social qualities of Sir Walter Scott, are thus described:
"The conversation of Scott was frank, hearty, picturesque, and
dramatic. During the time of my visit he inclined to the comic rather
than the grave, in his anecdotes and stories, and such, I was told,
was his general inclination. He relished a joke, or a trait of humor
in social intercourse, and laughed with right good will. He talked not
for effect or display, but from the flow of his spirits, the stores of
his memory, and the vigor of his imagination. He had a natural turn
for narration, and his narratives and descriptions were without
effort, yet wonderfully graphic. He placed the scene before you like a
picture; he gave the dialogue with the appropriate dialect or
peculiarities, and described the appearance and characters of his
personages with that spirit and felicity evinced in his writings.
Indeed, his conversation reminded me continually of his novels; and it
seemed to me, that during the whole time I was with him, he talked
enough to fill volumes, and that they could not have been filled more
delightfully.
"He was as good a listener as talker, appreciating every thing that
others said, however humble might be their rank or pretensions, and
was quick to testify his perception of any point in their discourse.
He arrogated nothing to himself, but was perfectly unassuming and
unpretending, entering with heart and soul into the business, or
pleasure, or, I had almost said folly, of the hour and the company. No
one's concerns, no one's thoughts, no one's opinions, no one's tastes
and pleasures seemed beneath him. He made himself so thoroughly the
companion of those with whom he happened to be, that they forgot for a
time his vast superiority, and only recollected and wondered, when all
was over, that it was Scott with whom they had been on familiar terms,
and in whose society they had felt so perfectly at their ease.
"It was delightful to observe the generous mode in which he spoke of
all his literary cotemporaries, quoting the beauties of their works,
and this, too, with respect to persons with whom he might be supposed
to be at variance in literature or politics. Jeffrey, it was thought,
had ruffled his plumes in one of his reviews, yet Scott spoke of him
in terms of high and warm eulogy, both as an author and as a man.
"His humor in conversation, as in his works, was genial and free from
all causticity. He had a quick perception of faults and foibles, but
he looked upon poor human nature with an indulgent eye, relishing what
was good and pleasant, tolerating what was frail, and pitying what was
evil. It is this beneficent spirit which gives such an air of
bonhommie to Scott's humor throughout all his works. He played with
the foibles and errors of his fellow beings, and presented them in a
thousand whimsical and characteristic lights, but the kindness and
generosity of his nature would not allow him to be a satirist. I do
not recollect a sneer throughout his conversation any more than there
is throughout his works."
It is more difficult to fix upon an extract from the sketch of
Newstead Abbey, but we take the following as coming within the limits
of our notice:
"I was attracted to this grove, however, by memorials of a more
touching character. It had been one of the favorite haunts of the late
Lord Byron. In his farewell visit to the abbey, after he had parted
with the possession of it, he passed some time in this grove, in
company with his sister; and as a last memento, engraved their names
on the bark of a tree.
"The feelings that agitated his bosom during this farewell visit, when
he beheld around him objects dear to his pride, and dear to his
juvenile recollections, but of which the narrowness of his fortune
would not permit him to retain possession, may be gathered from a
passage in a poetical epistle, written to his sister in after years.
"'I did remind you of our own dear lake
By the old hall, _which may be mine no more_;
Lemans is fair; but think not I forsake
The sweet remembrance of a dearer shore:
Sad havoc Time must with my memory make
Ere _that_ or _thou_ can fade these eyes before;
Though, like all things which I have loved, they are
Resign'd for ever, or divided far.
I feel almost at times as I have felt
In happy childhood; trees, and flowers, and brooks,
Which do remember me of where I dwelt
Ere my young mind was sacrificed to books,
Come as of yore upon me, and can melt
My heart with recognition of their looks,
And even at moments I would think I see
Some living things I love--but none like thee.'
"I searched the grove for sometime, before I found the tree on which
Lord Byron had left his frail memorial. It was an elm of peculiar
form, having two trunks, which sprang from the same root, and after
growing side by side, mingled their branches together. He had selected
it doubtless, as emblematical of his sister and himself. The names of
BYRON and AUGUSTA were still visible. They had been deeply cut in the
bark, but the natural growth of the tree was gradually rendering them
illegible, and a few years hence, strangers will seek in vain for this
record of fraternal affection.
* * * * *
"At a distance on the border of the lawn, stood another memento of
Lord Byron; an oak planted by him in his boyhood, on his first visit
to the abbey. With a superstitious feeling inherent in him, he linked
his own destiny with that of the tree. 'As it fares,' said he, 'so
will fare my fortunes.' Several years elapsed, many of them passed in
idleness and dissipation. He returned to the abbey a youth scarce
grown to manhood, but as he thought with vices and follies beyond his
years. He found his emblem oak almost choked by weeds and brambles,
and took the lesson to himself.
"'Young oak, when I planted thee deep in the ground,
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine,
That thy dark waving branches would flourish around,
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.
Such, such was my hope--when in infancy's years
On the land of my fathers I reared thee with pride;
They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears--
Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide.'
"I leaned over the stone ballustrade of the terrace, and gazed upon
the valley of Newstead, with its silver sheets of water gleaming in
the morning sun. It was a Sabbath morning, which always seems to have
a hallowed influence over the landscape, probably from the quiet of
the day, and the cessation of all kinds of week day labor. As I mused
upon the mild and beautiful scene, and the wayward destinies of the
man whose stormy temperament forced him from this tranquil paradise to
battle with the passions and perils of the world, the sweet chime of
bells from a village a few miles distant, came stealing up the valley.
Every sight and sound this morning, seemed calculated to summon up
touching recollections of poor Byron. The chime was from the village
spire of Hucknall Torkard, beneath which his remains lie buried!
"I have since visited his tomb. It is in an old gray country church,
venerable with the lapse of centuries. He lies buried beneath the
pavement, at one end of the principal aisle. A light falls upon the
spot through the stained glass of a gothic window, and a tablet on the
adjacent wall announces the family vault of the Byrons. It had been
the wayward intention of the poet to be entombed with his faithful dog
in the monument erected by him in the garden of Newstead Abbey. His
executors showed better judgment and feeling, in consigning his ashes
to the family sepulchre, to mingle with those of his mother and his
kindred.
* * * * *
"How nearly did his dying hour realize the wish made by him but a few
years previously in one of his fitful moods of melancholy and
misanthropy:
"'When time, or soon or late, shall bring,
The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead,
Oblivion! may thy languid wing
Wave gently o'er my dying bed!
No band of friends or heirs be there,
To weep or wish the coming blow:
No maiden with dishevelled hair,
To feel or feign decorous woe.
But silent let me sink to earth,
With no officious mourners near:
I would not mar one hour of mirth,
Nor startle friendship with a fear.'
"He died among strangers, in a foreign land, without a kindred hand to
close his eyes, yet he did not die unwept. With all his faults, and
errors, and passions, and caprices, he had the gift of attaching his
humble dependants warmly to him. One of them, a poor Greek,
accompanied his remains to England, and followed them to the grave. I
am told that during the ceremony, he stood holding on by a pew in an
agony of grief, and when all was over, seemed as if he would have gone
down into the tomb with his master.--A nature that could inspire such
attachments, must have been generous and beneficent."
* * * * *
THE CONQUEST OF FLORIDA, by Hernando de Soto; by Theodore Irving.
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard.
There is so much of romance in the details of Spanish conquests in
America, that a history of any one of the numerous expeditions for
discovery and conquest, possesses the charm of the most elaborate
fiction, even while it bears the marks of general truth. These
adventures occurred during the age of chivalry, when danger was
courted for distinction, before the progress of science and literature
had opened other avenues to renown, and when personal valor was looked
upon as the pre-eminent quality--skill in arms as the highest
accomplishment of an aspiring spirit. No nation was more celebrated
during that chivalrous age than Spain, and in none did the genius of
chivalry longer resist the influences under which it finally fell into
decay. Upon the discovery of America, a wide field was opened for the
warlike spirit of the age, and Spain sent forth her hosts of
adventurers, filled with wild visions of boundless wealth, and the
easy conquest of the barbarian nations of those golden regions. There
are in the histories of their exploits, so many displays of dauntless
courage--of skill in overcoming difficulties--of the power of a few
disciplined warriors, to contend successfully with hosts of equally
brave, but untutored savages--and so many exhibitions of the generous
qualities of the soldier, that in the glare of brilliant achievements,
and the excitement of thrilling incident, we are tempted to overlook
the injustice and cruelty which marked the footsteps of the
conquerors.
Mr. Irving's work is one of great interest. The conquest of Florida by
De Soto, while it is contrasted with the conquest of Mexico by Cortez,
(which immediately preceded it) in regard to its results to those
engaged in it, resembles it in the patient suffering and indomitable
bravery of the adventurers, and in the numerous thrilling scenes
through which they passed. While the conquest of Mexico enriched the
followers of Cortez, and poured the wealth of the new world into the
lap of Spain, that of Florida proved fatal to all who attempted it,
and ended in disaster to the ultimate conquerors. Ponce de Leon, the
visionary, who sought in Florida the Fountain of Youth, Vasques de
Ayllon, the ruthless kidnapper, and Pamphilo de Narvaez, the well
known rival and opponent of Cortez, had made fruitless attempts to
colonize this disastrous coast. But the last and most splendid effort
of that day, was made by Hernando de Soto, a cavalier who had served
with Cortez, and had returned to Spain in the possession of immense
wealth derived from the spoil of Mexico. The enjoyment of the highest
favor at the court of his sovereign, the charms of a young and lovely
bride, and the allurements of his splendid position at home, were
insufficient to repress the spirit of adventure which he had imbibed
in the wars in Mexico, and the prevalent belief that Florida presented
a scene for conquest still more magnificent than Mexico. De Soto was
doomed to prove that the golden dreams of wealth with which the
unexplored regions of Florida had been invested, were baseless
illusions. But his adventures and achievements afford a rich mine of
romantic incidents which Mr. Irving has presented in a most attractive
form:
"Of all the enterprises," says he, "undertaken in this spirit of
daring adventure, none has surpassed for hardihood and variety of
incident, that of the renowned Hernando de Soto and his band of
cavaliers. It was poetry put in action; it was the knight-errantry of
the old world carried into the depths of the American wilderness:
indeed, the personal adventures, the feats of individual prowess, the
picturesque descriptions of steel-clad cavaliers, with lance and helm
and prancing steed, glittering through the wildernesses of Florida,
Georgia, Alabama, and the prairies of the Far West, would seem to us
mere fictions of romance, did they not come to us recorded in
matter-of-fact narratives of cotemporaries, and corroborated by minute
and daily memoranda of eye witnesses."
Hernando de Soto was in every respect qualified for the task he
undertook in this ill-starred expedition. But the Floridian savage was
a more formidable foe than his Mexican brother--more hardy of frame,
and more implacable in his revenge. Hence, although the imagination is
not dazzled in the conquest of Florida, with descriptions of boundless
wealth and regal magnificence--although the chiefs are not decked in
"barbaric pearls and gold"--their sturdy resistance, and the varied
vicissitudes created by the obstacles which nature presented to the
conqueror's march, afford numberless details of great interest. The
book abounds with thrilling passages, from which, but for the crowded
state of our pages, we should make a few extracts. Whether it is the
merit of the writer or his subject, (probably it is a combination of
both,) which gives to this work so much fascination, we will not
decide; but it is scarcely possible to commence it, (at least we found
it so) and lay it aside until its perusal is concluded.
* * * * *
CHANCES AND CHANGES; a Domestic Story, by the author of "Six Weeks on
the Loire." Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard.
This is an uncommon book. In these days of high excitement and
_powerful_ writing, it is refreshing to be introduced among characters
of so much purity, benevolence and intelligence as those delineated in
"Chances and Changes." The moral of the book, although it is not
ostentatiously pressed upon the attention, is obvious and forcible. A
lovelier being than Catherine Neville, the heroine, can scarcely be
imagined. There is nothing new in the story--the events are such as
might easily be supposed to have occurred, and the leading features of
the plot may be stated in a few words: Colonel Hamilton, a man of
fashion and something of a _roué_, is engaged in a duel with a
baronet, in consequence of an intrigue between the Colonel and the
titled wife of his antagonist. The latter is dangerously wounded, and
Colonel Hamilton seeks a refuge for several months in the remote
dwelling of his former tutor, Mr. Neville, a benevolent and
conscientious clergyman. Hamilton becomes enamored of Catherine
Neville, who returns his passion with all the ardor of a first love.
He at length mingles with the world of fashion again, is involved once
more in his former intrigue, and although struggling to retain and
deserve the affections of Catherine, becomes completely entangled in a
criminal attachment. Catherine, after a long and painful conflict with
her feelings, resolves to conquer her ill-placed affection, and is
ultimately united to a worthier object. The struggles between passion
and duty in her breast, and the conflict of good and evil in Hamilton,
are admirably portrayed. The sentiments and opinions are often
striking, and the style elegant and attractive. We give a few
extracts, taken at random:
"Come along with me," said she, "come and look by the side of the
little stream that runs through the garden."
"This girl, after all, can do whatever she likes with me," thought
Hamilton, as he rose with affected effort, from the chair which he had
just before vowed to himself nothing should induce him to stir from,
until it was time to dress for dinner. Away they went to the brook,
and found Mr. Neville standing there, looking at the daffodils with
all the delight of the poet whose words were on his lips.
"I wandered lonely as a cloud,
That flits on high, o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of dancing daffodils.
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing near the trees.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle in the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line,
Along the margin of a bay.
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee,
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company.
I gazed and gazed, but little thought
What wealth to me the show had brought.
For oft when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude.
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils."
Hamilton was so unused to hear Wordsworth quoted in any other tone
than that of ridicule, or absurd parody, that he was amazed to hear
his old tutor, whose taste he revered, not more from habit than
experience of its correctness, repeat these lines with the enthusiasm
of Catherine herself, and conclude them with a panegyric on their
author, as having formed a new school in poetry, and finding
"Books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in ev'ry thing."
* * * * *
"Well, sir, what do you think of our daffodils?" said Mr. Neville,
pointing to them exultingly, "are they not enough to inspire a poet?"
"I am not poet enough to answer the question," said Hamilton, "but I
remember the eldest of poets says they make very good salads."
"Ah ha!" said Mr. Neville, "I am glad you have not forgotten old
Hesiod--but, however, I did not think of getting into Greek when I
quoted Wordsworth."
"Nor I of hearing anything like common sense spring out of a quotation
from him," said Hamilton. "Not but that all he says may be very fine,
but I am of another school--I am a Byronian--he is the only man that
is read in Town--those Lakeists that go and make faces at themselves
on the waveless waters, and then run home to put their reflections
upon paper, are quite outvoted now; even the ladies never think of
them."
"No, I suppose not," said Mr. Neville, "any more than they would think
of seeing hay-makers in their verandas, or a sheep-shearing in their
drawings-rooms. But 'the children of darkness are wiser in their
generation than the children of light,' and he who sings of nothing
but lawless crimes, and sated vices, does wisely to address his song
to the inhabitants of an overgrown and luxurious metropolis."
"Yes, yes; he is sure enough of sympathy, plenty of dancing daffodils
there,--only of rather an opposite species. What do you say, Miss
Neville, do you like the titled Bard?"
"Quite well enough, as a poet, to wish he had made choice of better
subjects. Edward Longcroft says he has in him a fragment of almost
every other poet's distinguishing excellence, but unfortunately his
own genius is only a fragment itself, and, therefore, he produces
nothing but fragments after all."
"Very wise in Mr. Longcroft--I dare say he could prove every thing he
says most mathematically; but I fancy he will find the generality of
his acquaintance admire diamond sparks more than brick-bats--though
one is only a part, and the other a whole."
"Very good! very good!" said Mr. Neville, "but who have we here?" he
added, as he looked towards the little gate. "Ah ha! here he is
himself--now we can have diamond sparks versus brick-bats, as long as
you like, and see who has the better of the argument."
A matter-of-fact-man is well portrayed in the following:
"Henry Barton," said she to herself, "is a good creature, as ever was
born; and he has great merit, too, in cultivating his mind so
sedulously, surrounded as he is only by the clodpoles his father has
brought him up amongst. But, after all, he is such a mere
matter-of-fact-man, that one soon tires of him--he tells one an
anecdote just as he reads it, and there's an end of it. And then he
moralizes, too, in such a common-place way, and wonders how the Romans
could degenerate so as to suffer themselves to be conquered by the
Goths, and finds out that it was an abominable thing in Henry VIII to
cut off his wives' heads, and not much better in Queen Elizabeth to
sign Essex's death warrant. There is no play of imagination about
him--no whim, no wit--he would as soon think of launching a man of
war, as maintaining a paradox."
The subjoined sentiment is beautifully expressed:
"Ah, is there any happiness like that of the affections! from the
soul-absorbing influence of individual love, through all the endearing
gradations of natural ties, and selected friends, down to the
generalized claims of our fellow-creatures: it will ever be found that
all our real enjoyments are solid only as the feelings of the heart
are connected with them; and long after the traces of external objects
may be effaced from the memory, the kindly sentiments and participated
feelings, with which they may have been connected, remain indelible in
the interior recesses of the breast, which they fill with a sweet
indistinctness of recollected enjoyment."
And how much truth in Catherine's criticism of Byron:
"I cannot feel the beauties of any poetry whatsoever," said Catherine,
"when I think the poet has no feeling himself--I have admired many
passages in Lord Byron's earlier works, even to enthusiasm; but when I
came to his most unfeeling mockery of the agonizing sympathies he had
raised in his description of a storm, by the odious levity with which
he concludes it, I closed the book, and never read another page of his
writing. I thought of it ever after as of those monstrosities in
painting, of beautiful heads, and cloven feet, and it inspired me with
the same disgust."
* * * * *
_North American Review, No. LXXXVIII: July 1835_.--The last number of
this periodical contains several admirable articles. We subjoin a list
of its contents:
Art. I. A Tour on the Prairies, by the author of the Sketch Book.--II.
The American Almanac for the year 1835.--III. Memoirs of
Casanova.--IV. Machiavelli.--V. Life and Character of William
Roscoe.--VI. Mrs. Butler's Journal.--VII. Dunlap's History of the
Arts.--VIII. Slavery; an Appeal in favor of that Class of Americans
called Africans, by Mrs. Child.--IX. Audubon's Biography of Birds.-X.
Webster's Speeches.
The first article is a noble eulogy on the genius of Washington
Irving, well according with the merits of the writer, and the honest
pride which every American feels in the possession of such a luminary
in our native literature. Great as has been the praise lavished upon
his works, we feel with the reviewer that full justice has not as yet
been accorded them--and it is with pleasure we perceive that the world
at large is becoming more alive to his merits. The following rapid
glance at the various triumphs of his genius, will be read with a
general concurrence in its truth:
"Compare him," says the reviewer, "with any of the distinguished
writers of his class of this generation, excepting Sir Walter Scott,
and with almost any of what are called the English classics of any
age. Compare him with Goldsmith, one of the canonized names of the
British pantheon of letters, who touched every kind of writing, and
adorned every kind that he touched. In one or two departments, it is
true, that of poetry and the drama--departments which Mr. Irving has
not attempted, and in which much of Goldsmith's merit lies--the
comparison partly fails; but place their pretensions, in every other
respect, side by side. Who would think of giving the miscellaneous
writings of Goldsmith a preference over those of Irving, and who would
name his historical compositions with the Life of Columbus? If in the
drama and in poetry Goldsmith should seemed to have extended his
province greatly beyond that of Irving, the Life of Columbus is a
_chef d'oeuvre_ in a department which Goldsmith can scarcely be said
to have touched; for the trifles on Grecian and Roman history, which
his poverty extorted from him, deserve to enter into comparison with
Mr. Irving's great work, about as much as Eutropius deserves to be
compared with Livy. Then how much wider Irving's range in that
department, common to both the painting of manners and character! From
Mr. Irving we have the humors of cotemporary politics and every-day
life in America--the traditionary peculiarities of the Dutch founders
of New York--the nicest shades of the school of English manners of the
last century--the chivalry of the middle ages in Spain--the glittering
visions of Moorish romance--a large cycle of sentimental creations,
founded on the invariable experience--the pathetic sameness of the
human heart--and lastly, the whole unhackneyed freshness of the
West--life beyond the border--a camp outside the frontier--a hunt on
buffalo ground, beyond which neither white nor Pawnee, man nor muse,
can go. This is Mr. Irving's range, and in every part of it he is
equally at home. When he writes the history of Columbus, you see him
weighing doubtful facts in the scales of a golden criticism. You
behold him, laden with the manuscript treasures of well-searched
archives, and disposing the heterogeneous materials into a
well-digested and instructive narration. Take down another of his
volumes, and you find him in the parlor of an English country inn, of
a rainy day, and you look out of the window with him upon the
dripping, dreary desolation of the back yard. Anon he takes you into
the ancestral hall of a baronet of the old school, and instructs you
in the family traditions, of which the memorials adorn the walls, and
depend from the rafters. Before you are wearied with the curious lore,
you are in pursuit of Kidd, the pirate, in the recesses of Long
Island; and by the next touch of the enchanter's wand, you are rapt
into an enthusiastic reverie of the mystic East, within the crumbling
walls of the Alhambra. You sigh to think you were not born six hundred
years ago, that you could not have beheld those now deserted halls, as
they once blazed in triumph, and rang with the mingled voices of
oriental chivalry and song,--when you find yourself once more borne
across the Atlantic, whirled into the western wilderness, with a
prairie wide as the ocean before you, and a dusky herd of buffaloes,
like the crowded convoy of fleeing merchantmen, looming in the
horizon, and inviting you to the chase. This is literally _nullum fere
genus scribendi non tigit nullum quod titigit non ornviit_. Whether
anything like an equal range is to be found in the works of him on
whom the splendid compliment was first bestowed, it is not difficult
to say."
The articles on Machiavelli, and on the life of Roscoe, are both
excellent in their way. The former has particular attractions, as it
is a luminous disquisition on the character and writings of one who
for ages was an enigma in the political and intellectual world, whose
works, like those of Dante and Faust, have been interpreted by
opposing critics in the most conflicting manner, and whose name, error
and prejudice handed down from century to century, have rendered
synonymous with all that is crafty and corrupt in the art of
government.
The notice of Mrs. Butler's work is the best we have seen. The
reviewer performs his task with redoubtable good humor. The gentleness
with which he calls the lady to account for her literary offences, and
the hearty tribute of praise he bestows on the best portions of her
work, show that he is determined to
"Be to her faults a little blind,
And to her merits very kind."
But the review of Mrs. Child's ill-judged appeal on the subject of
slavery, has for us a more powerful attraction than any in the number.
It is not possible that we should be witnesses of the momentous
occurrences of the day, and not feel most sensitively every reference
to a topic in the discussion of which all that we love and reverence
is involved. The impatient zeal of pretending enthusiasts, who in the
pursuit of what to them seems good, disregard the frightful evils
which their blind impetuosity may produce, cannot but awaken in those
upon whom these evils must fall, a trembling anxiety for the future,
and an indignant resentment against the madmen who are blindly
jeoparding the peace of the country and the lives of thousands. We
cannot trust our feelings upon this subject. We see too clearly the
horrors in perspective, which fanaticism is preparing for us, and we
humbly hope that the results of its insane excess, may be averted. The
reviewer in the North American, thinks and feels correctly on this
subject, and we regret that we can only make room for the closing
passages of his remarks:
"That we must be rid of slavery at some day, seems to be the decided
conviction of almost every honest mind. But when or how this is to be,
God only knows. If in a struggle for this end the Union should be
dissolved, it needs not the gift of prophecy to foresee that our
country will be plunged into that gulf which in the language of
another, 'is full of the fire and the blood of civil war, and of the
thick darkness of general political disgrace, ignominy, and ruin.'
"There is much error upon this as well as other subjects, to be
corrected, before the public can act deliberately or wisely in
relation to it. It is too common to associate with the slave-holder
the character of the slave-merchant. And we regret to see the
abolitionist of the day seizing upon the cruelties and abuses of power
by a few slave-owners in regard to their slaves, in order to excite
odium against slave-holders as a class. This is alike unreasonable and
unjust. Very many of them are deeply solicitous to free the country of
this alarming evil, but no feasible means by which this is to be
accomplished has yet been offered for their adoption. Such
denunciations are no better than the anathemas of fanaticism, and
ought to be discountenanced by every well wisher of his country. The
subject of slavery is one, in regard to which, more than almost any
other, there are clouds and darkness upon the future destinies of
these states. It is one upon which all think and feel more or less
acutely, and it is moreover one upon which all may be called upon to
act. It is, therefore, we repeat, with regret that we see intellects
like that of Mrs. Child, and pens like hers, which may be otherwise so
agreeably and beneficially employed, diverted from their legitimate
spheres of action, and employed in urging on a cause so dangerous to
the union, domestic peace, and civil liberty, as the immediate
emancipation of the slaves at the South."
* * * * *
_American Republication of Foreign Quarterlies_.--The London, Edinburg
and Westminster Reviews for April, 1835, have been republished by Mr.
Foster, in his cheap and valuable series of periodicals. The Edinburg
Review contains an article on American Poetry, in the course of which
a general glance at the literature of this country is taken; and a
more favorable opinion expressed of its achievements than that work
has hitherto entertained. This fact is worthy of remark, when it is
recollected that the taunting query, "Who reads an American book?"
emanated from that journal not many years since. The most attractive
articles in the Westminster, are those upon "Lucy Aiken's Court of
Charles II," and "Dunlop's Memoirs of Spain." To us, an article in the
Quarterly on "Maria, or Slavery in the United States, a picture of
American Manners, by Gustave de Beaumont, one of the authors of a work
on the Penitentiary System in the United States"[1]--"The Stranger in
America, by F. Leiber," and "New England and her Institutions, by one
of her sons," is the most attractive in the April number. The work of
M. de Beaumont has not, as we have heard, been translated or
republished in this country. His views of our manners and institutions
are exhibited in the form of a novel, which the Quarterly declares to
possess considerable interest, and to display in parts a large share
of the true genius of romance, notwithstanding that the incidents are
few and the commentaries copious. The author declares in a preface,
that "though his personages are fictitious, every trait of character
has been sketched from the life, and that almost every incident in his
tale may be depended on as a fact that had fallen under his own
observation." The reviewer is somewhat scandalized at the author's
avowal of "his belief that the democratic system of government, as now
established in America, is the best machinery that ever was invented
for developing the political independence and happiness of mankind,"
and endeavors to show that M. de Beaumont's strictures upon our
manners and condition (and he cannot be charged with undue lenity in
his censure) are inconsistent with that avowal. The reviewer makes
copious extracts from the work, which show that the author is disposed
to censure severely the condition of the colored population in this
country, without a fair consideration of the circumstances which
produced it. But we can scarcely judge of the book from the extracts
in the review, which are probably the most unfavorable that could be
found, as the reviewer displays a strong desire to draw from the
opinions of the French author, support for the assertions of English
travellers.
[Footnote 1: "Marie, ou l'Esclavage aux Etas-Unis, Tableau de Moeurs
Americaines par Gustave de Beaumont, l'un des Auteurs de l'ouvrage
intitulé Du Systeme Pénitentiare aux Etas-Unis."]
* * * * *
MY LIFE, by the author of Tales of Waterloo, &c. New York: Harper &
Brothers. 1835.
This is the production of a lively and spirited writer. He describes
skirmishes, onslaughts and battles, with the familiarity of one who
has not seldom taken a part in such actions--traces the Irish
character with great fidelity, and best of all, his book abounds in
humorous incidents. The _contre-pieds_ between the hero and his
cousin, "Jack the Devil," are admirably detailed. Jack is a rare
specimen of the Wild Irishman, and we have seldom been more amused
than we were with the history of the scrapes in which he involved
himself and his cousin. The battle of Waterloo is sketched briefly,
but with a graphic pen. The last struggle of that day, when Ney led
the Old Guard to the charge, and the description of the "field red
with slaughter," after the work of death had concluded, give evidence
of the painting of an eye-witness.
* * * * *
BELFORD REGIS, or Sketches of a Country Town, by Miss Mitford.
Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard. 1835.
Like "Our Village," these are delightful productions, abounding with
wholesome satire of folly and prejudice, and displaying in strong
relief the humble virtues of retired life. Some of the characters are
conceptions of great loveliness, and many of the scenes are wrought
with most pathetic effect. The story of Hester is admirable. We have
seldom dwelt with more delighted interest over a picture of juvenile
virtue and self-devotion.