Letters from a Landscape Painter

by Charles Lanman

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.”