Literary Notices [pp. 646-651]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
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 By
ron:
"I cannot feel the beauties of any poetry whatsoever," said Catherine, "when I think the poet has no
feeling himself-i1 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 Reviewt, 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.-1V. 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 oi
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 withalmost 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'luvre 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 Amnerica-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 Spainthe glittering visions of Moorish romance —a large cycle of sentimental creations, founded on the invariable
experience-the pathetic sameness of the human heartand lastly, the whole unhackneyed freshness of the
West —life beyond the border-a camp outside the
frontier-a huntit 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 welldigested 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 nullpm quod titigit non oliviit. 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
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