The new American literature which Mr Sims is to originate, will be as little indebted, it seems, to science as to history. This, too, has disturbed his faith in certain pleasing and most profitable stories. "That cold-blooded demon called Science," he exclaims, "has taken the place of all other demons. He has certainly cast out innumerable devils, however he may still spare the principal. Whether we are the better for his intervention is another question. There is reason to apprehend that in disturbing our human faith in shadows, we have lost some of those wholesome moral restraints which might have kept many of us virtuous where the laws could not."
A wholesome moral restraint in starting at every bush, and hating every old woman for a witch! Mr Sims, from his own intellectual altitude, pronounces these faiths to be "shadows;" he does not believe—not he—in the walking about at night of impalpable white sheets; but if you should happen to be of the same opinion with himself, then the cold-blooded demon of science has seized you for his prey. In this, there are many others who resemble Mr Sims; one often meets with half-educated men and women, who would take it as an affront, an unpardonable insult, if you were to suppose them addicted to the childish superstitions of the nursery, who nevertheless cannot endure to hear those very superstitions decried or exploded by others. They want to "disbelieve and tremble" at the same time.
We must state, in justice to Mr
Sims, that this outbreak against science is the preluding strain to his "Wigwams and Cabins," where he has the intention of dealing with the supernatural and the marvellous. Let him tell his marvels, and welcome; a ghost story is just as good now as ever it was; but why usher it in with this didactic folly? Of these tales, as we do not wish again to refer to the works of Mr Sims, we may say here, that they appear to give some insight into the manner of life of the early settlers, and their intercourse with the savages. In this point of view they might be read with profit, could we be sure that the pictures they present were tolerably faithful. But a writer who has no partiality whatever for matter of fact, and who systematically prefers fiction to truth, comes before us with unusual suspicion, and requires an additional guarantee.[14]
"Paperson Literature and Art." Our readers have already had a specimen, and not an unfavourable one, of the eloquence of Mrs Margaret Fuller. This lady is by no means given to the flagrant absurdities of the gentleman we have just parted with, but in her writings there is a constant effort to be forcible, which leads her always a little on the wrong side of good taste and common sense. There is an uneasy and ceaseless labour to be brilliant and astute. The reader is perpetually impressed with the effort that is put forth in his favour,—an ambiguous claim, and the only one, that is made upon his gratitude.
America is not without her army of critics, her well-appointed and disciplined array of reviewers. The North American Review betrays no inferiority to its brethren on this side of the Atlantic. Let there be therefore no mistake in regarding Mrs Margaret Fuller as the representative of the critical judgment of her country. But there is a large section, or coterie, of its literary people, whose mode of thinking we imagine this essayist may be considered as fairly expressing. Even this section, we do not suppose that she leads; but she has just that amount of talent and of hardihood which would prompt her to press forward into the front rank of any band of thinkers she had joined. She is not of that stout-hearted race who venture forth alone; she must travel in company; but in that company she will go as far as who goes farthest, and will occasionally dart from the ranks to strike a little blow upon her own account. The writings of minds of this calibre may be usefully studied for the indications they give of the currents of opinion, whether on the graver matters of politics, or, as in this instance, on the less important topics of literature.
Amongst this lady's criticisms upon English poets, we remarked some names, very highly lauded, of which we in England have heard little or nothing. This, in our crowded literature, where so much of both what is good and what is bad escapes detection, is no proof of an erroneous judgment on her part. We, on the contrary, may have been culpably
neglectful. But when we looked at the quotations she makes to support the praise she gives, we were speedily relieved from any self-reproach of this description. Passages are cited for applause, in which there is neither distinguishable thought, nor elegance of diction, nor even an attempt at melody of verse; passages which could have won upon her only (and herein these quotations, if they fail of giving a fair representation of the poet, serve at least to characterise the critic,) could have won upon her only by a seeming air of profundity, by their utter contempt of perspicuous language, and a petulant disregard of even that rhythm, or regulated harmony, which has been supposed to distinguish verse from prose. For very manifest reasons, however, these are not the occasions on which we prefer to test the critical powers of Mrs Margaret Fuller. It is more advisable to observe her manner when occupied upon established reputations, such as Scott, and Byron, and Southey.
Our critic partakes in the very general opinion which places the prose works of Sir Walter Scott far above his poetry. It is an opinion we do not share. Admirable as are, beyond all doubt, his novels, Sir Walter Scott, in out humble estimation, has a greater chance of immortality as the author of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, than as the author of Waverley. That, perhaps, is our heresy, and Mrs Fuller may be considered here as representing the more orthodox creed. And thus it is she represents it.
"The poetry of Walter Scott has been superseded by his prose, yet it fills no unimportant niche in the literary history of the last half century, and may be read, at least once in life, with great pleasure. Marmion, The Lay of the Last Minstrel, &c., cannot, indeed, be companions of those Sabbath hours of which the weariest, dreariest life need not be destitute, for their bearing is not upon the true life of man, his immortal life." (If Mrs Fuller wrote in the language of the conventicle this would be intelligible; but she does not; what does she mean?) "Coleridge felt this so deeply, that in a lately published work, he is recorded to have said, 'not twenty lines of Scott's poetry will ever reach posterity; it has relation to nothing.'" (Vol. i. p. 63.)