We take leave of this novel with a brief prophesy respecting its author: he will, in fifty years, be of no more note than any one of the thousand and one imitators of whose class he is the head.
America, Historical, Statistical and Descriptive: with numerous engravings. By J. Silk Buckingham. 2 vols. Harper and Brothers.
If ever there was an inane author—if ever there was an arrant egotist—if ever there was a traveller ignorant of his subject, that author, egotist, and traveller, is J. Silk Buckingham, late missionary in the cause of morals, to the world in general and to this land in particular, and now the author of a romance which he entitles “America, historical, statistical, and descriptive.” How could a man suffer himself to be so egregiously gulled, as Mr. Buckingham has proved himself to have been, in these volumes? If his lectures on the Holy Land contained a tithe of the exaggeration of this journal, what a precious mess of stuff his audiences must have swallowed!
Mr. Buckingham opens with a sweeping condemnation of all former writers on America, and then adroitly insinuates that his work is the “ne plus ultra” of all works. No one who heard him lecture can doubt his egotism or vanity. We were not, therefore, much surprised at this exordium. The text, however, keeps up the farce, and whether describing the emoluments of the bar, the genius and productions of our poets, the statistics of the States or Union, the conduct of political parties, or the advance of taste, morals, or religion, he is sure to drag in something respecting himself, and to misrepresent, more or less, the subject under discussion. Did the book merit the time and space, we would quote some of its remarks to shew what an arrant block-head, or else what a wilful libeller, this J. Silk Buckingham is.
This want of truth in Mr. Buckingham is unpardonable. While here, he was feasted, huzzaed, followed by crowds, in short made a lion of,—and, as he himself says, he had every opportunity to gain correct information. But he seems to have slighted them all. His exaggerations out-romance Amadis de Gaul. He is beside painfully dull, prosing away, page after page, just as he used to dilute his twaddle, when retailing it, by the hour, at a shilling a head. His work scarcely lays claim to mediocrity. Although ushered in by a flourish of trumpets from presses on both sides of the Atlantic, and attended by a pompous dedication to His Royal Highness Prince Albert, the volumes are inferior in every respect to the unpretending work, on this country, lately published by Mr. Combe. As Brougham said of Sheridan’s statesmanship, “it is neither a bad book, nor a good book, nor an indifferent book—the fact is, it is no book at all.”
Lectures on the History of Literature, Ancient and Modern: from the German of Frederick Schlegel: 1 vol. J. and H. G. Langley: New York, 1841.
This work is already extensively known, through the medium of foreign editions; but the present imprint of it will be none the less welcome on that account. We rejoice to see our publishers begin to make head against the reprint of worthless novels, by issuing, instead of such trash, works of a standard character like this. Let the press second them in so noble an effort.
The object of Schlegel, in this volume, has been to give a general view of the development and spirit of literature, and to show its influence on the character of successive ages, from ancient to modern times. We cannot appreciate, and cannot therefore be expected to praise, the German fondness for reducing everything to a theory, and we must consequently protest against the attempt made by our author to give his subject such a character. Nevertheless the book is full of profound reflections, and displays great research. It is the result of a full mind, and not the idle rhapsody of a visionary.