By the Author of
“Essays for Summer Hours.”
(CHARLES LANMAN)
Gentlemen, let not prejudice prepossess you. I confess my discourse is
like to prove suitable to my recreation,—calm and quiet.
Izaak Walton.
Boston:
James Munroe and Company.
MDCCCXLV.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1844, by
Charles Lanman.
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.
Boston:
Printed by Thurston, Torry and Co.
31 Devonshire Street.
CRITICAL NOTICES
OF
LANMAN’S “ESSAYS FOR SUMMER HOURS.”
_By John Neal, Esq._
“A book of two hundred and fifty pages, containing some twenty essays
or thereabouts,—and perhaps more,—upon all sorts of pilgrimages: upon
the woods and the city, Morning and Evening, the Dying Year,
Literature, Mirth and Sadness, the Early Called, the Painter’s Dream,
&c., &c., &c.; written with great simplicity and sweetness,—untainted
with affectation, except in two or three slight instances,—original,
tender, and at times absolutely touching.”
_From the N. Y. Evening Post, Edited by W. C. Bryant._
“The volume, of which we have copied the title, is composed of essays
on various subjects, the fruit, as the author tells us, of the leisure
of last summer. They are agreeably written, with a vein of poetic
embellishment.”
_From the Democratic Review._
“‘Essays for Summer Hours,’ is the title of a pleasing little tome, by
Charles Lanman, comprising a series of sketches of American scenery,
interspersed with poetical allusions to incidents and characters which
are very harmoniously blended, and agreeably presented. We hope this
work will prove successful, and form the precursor of many other
contributions to our elegant literature from the same pen.”
_From the Southern Literary Messenger._
“This well printed, and handsome little volume, embraces a series of
eighteen essays; the most of them founded in American scenery and
associations. Some of the topics are furnished by the West, the native
place of the young author; he has certainly done justice to the fresh
scenes that are spread out in that interesting portion of the country.
The talent of the writer is descriptive; he has painted, with
remarkable fidelity and beauty, some of the most striking points of
Western life. His language is chaste and well selected; and many of
the moral reflections, growing out of the several subjects which he
has selected for his essays, are expressed in an exceedingly
interesting and even touching manner.”
_From the Boston Miscellany._
“This a pleasant little volume of quiet Essays, written by a warm
lover of nature, and dealing principally with descriptions of natural
scenery, or the development of simple feeling. The author has well
characterized them as reading ‘for summer hours.’ They neither furnish
deep thought, nor are the parent of it; and yet they conduct the
reader through pleasant places, in peaceful and undisturbed meditative
shades, without disturbing him with paradoxical statements, or, often,
with opinions that his judgment or his taste rejects. The author
appears to have read a good deal, with discrimination and sympathy,
and,—as it is true that the more we know, the more we learn from what
we read of the best written efforts of master-minds,—so the more a
writer, especially of this class of essays, has gathered from the
already accumulated stores of information and illustration, readier
will be his power to impress his own train of thought upon his reader.
Mr. Lanman appears to have had a peculiarly apt sympathy and
appreciation for his favorite authors, and we consequently find that
(which, although artistically a fault, is no loss to the readers of
his book,) whenever he comes to the real depth of his subject, or to a
marked point either of argument or illustration, he flies to quotation
to express himself, and his quotations are in general well selected
and classical.”
_From the London Literary Gazette._
“This is a second edition, and the matter well deserves to run through
many more; for we have met with nothing of the kind in Transatlantic
polite literature in which so fresh and pure a spirit prevails. It is
far away from the worldly, trading, and money-making go-a-head
passion, which rules the multitude both there and here.”
TO THE
HON. GEORGE PERKINS MARSH,
BURLINGTON, VERMONT.
My Dear Sir,
To you, in testimony of my regard for you, as a Statesman, a Scholar,
and a Lover of the Fine Arts, do I dedicate this little volume.
Had not my maiden effort in the world of letters been received by the
public with such marked favor, I should not venture to publish again.
The same motives, however, which prompted the first, have also prompted
the present collection of my productions, and I desire no other reward
than the one already bestowed upon me in the approving smile of honest
and sincere hearts.
As my title-page implies, I am now a professional Landscape Painter, my
inclinations having compelled me to relinquish the “cotton trade and
sugar line,” and these letters, originally written to a literary friend
in New York, are but the offspring of one who claims the only merit of
being a lover of Nature and his fellow men. I confess myself to be a
creature of impulse, and each paper that I now publish, I would have
considered as a mere record of my thoughts and feelings during the hour
it may have been indited. Having been a sojourner in various portions of
the country during the past summer, in search of the picturesque, you
must not be surprised to find yourself one moment scrambling through a
mountain gorge, and the next on the margin of the boundless sea. With
this preliminary, I lay aside my pen, and return to my palette and
pencils.
Your sincere friend,
CHARLES LANMAN.
New York, Autumn of 1844.