Your sincere friend and co-scribbler,
John Keats.
The reader rises from the biography of Keats with the impression that it tells one of the most melancholy stories in the history of literature. The account of his last days is beyond measure painful. The poems now published for the first time, though good enough to make a reputation, will hardly add to the fame of Keats.
The Women of the Revolution. By Elizabeth F. Ellet. New York: Baker & Scribner. 2 vols. 12mo.
We are under obligations to Mrs. Ellet for the two volumes now before us. They are the first fruits of a large harvest. And we doubt not that the authoress will pursue the subject, and give "continuations," until something like justice shall be done to the women, the mothers, sisters, wives and sweethearts of the great and good men of our Revolution. We wish that some just appreciation of what all society owes woman could be had. We wish that some one would sit down and show how all great efforts have their origin in woman's devotion to her duty, and all great men owe their position to their mother's faithful service, and how society owes the advantages which it may possess to the plastic mind of women. In this spirit Mrs. Ellet has prepared the two volumes before us, and has by her labors added one other name to the long list that claims the gratitude of Americans. Of course when notices of one hundred and twenty-four women are crowded into two duodecimo volumes, no great extent can be allowed to the biography of any one. Yet by a judicious disposition of material, and selection of prominent places for really prominent persons, Mrs. Ellet has given enough to make her readers comprehend the character, services and position of all her heroines. It happens to us to have known something of the private life of several mentioned in the volumes, and while we recollect much that is not recorded, we are bound to confess that the character of each so far as we know is well brought out, and additional materials might serve only to sustain the opinion formed by what is offered. We regard Mrs. Ellet's work only as a prelude—a rich, delightful, prelude—but it must be followed by other performances. The work is enriched with the likenesses of several ladies whose biographies are given—one or two of these we know are correct. The others resemble what we recollect to have heard denominated good likenesses.
Orators of the American Revolution. By E. L. Magoon. New York: Baker & Scribner. 1 vol. 12mo.
Mr. Magoon is a writer of great fluency and sensibility, who "wreaks" his thoughts upon expression. He has given us a very exciting volume, glowing with revolutionary fervor, and eloquent of revolutionary heroes. The great difficulty is that each of his orators is described in terms which a cool person might hesitate in applying to Demosthenes and Cicero. Mr. Magoon writes too much on the high-pressure principle. As we move down the Mississippi stream of his rhetoric, we are pleased with the rapidity of the motion, and the chivalrous feeling of the captain of the boat, but we look occasionally at the boiler and the engine with some fear of an explosion.
Seriously, the volume will doubtless serve its purpose of impressing a great idea of our revolutionary orators on the popular mind—to reach which mind a certain extravagance of statement and description is now considered necessary. The glowing mode of writing history and biography is, doubtless, better than the dry and dead mode, but a medium between the two, combining life and movement with accuracy and discrimination, is better still. However, we know of no book on the subject so good as the present. It can be read at one sitting, and it leaves a strong impression on the mind of the power of our great orators. Every production which forcibly conveys an idea of our historical men as living souls, as well as living names, deserves to succeed.