When a virulent libel was published against him, on which the attorney-general thought it his duty to institute suit, Claiborne wrote him a noble letter requesting him to stop the prosecution, (p. 227.) "An officer whose hands and motives are pure," he said, "has nothing to fear from newspaper detraction, or the invectives of angry and deluded individuals. My conduct in life is the best answer I can return to my enemies. It is before the public, and has secured, and will, I am certain, continue to secure me the esteem and confidence of that portion of society whose approbation is desirable to an honest man. The lie of the day gives me no concern. Neglected calumny soon expires; notice it, and you gratify your calumniators; prosecute it, and it acquires consequence; punish it, and you enlist in its favor the public sympathy."
The story of the heroic defence of Fort Bowyer is well and spiritedly told by Mr. Gayarré, and that of the defence of New Orleans, in the various skirmishes and battles that for weeks preceded the grand culminating victory of January 8th, is, for the first time, clear and intelligible to us. Here Mr. Gayarré gives us several pages of nervous and picturesque writing. His description of "the night before the battle," and of the brave but disastrous charge of the British troops upon the American line, is excellent in spirit and in detail.
Mr. Gayarré explodes the popular story of the cotton-bale fortifications. There were none. "Some bales of cotton had been used to form the cheeks of the embrasures of our batteries, and notwithstanding the popular tradition that our breastworks were lined with it, this was the only one," etc. etc. (p. 456.)
The account of the two colored battalions which rendered such excellent service is interesting, as also Mr. Gayarré's comments on the celebrated British countersign of "Beauty and Booty."
Mr. Gayarré's history closes with a long paragraph, somewhat in the same dithyrambic vein that marks the pages of his first volume of Louisiana. He has, however, greatly improved both in style and judicious arrangement of matter, and, combining many of the best qualities of the historian with great aptitude of research and study, has undoubtedly made a mark in literature, his state may well be proud of, even though she be amenable to the reproach conveyed by the author at page 391.
It appears that, in 1814, Governor Claiborne advised one David McGee in regard to some literary work of the latter: "A love of letters has not yet gained an ascendency in Louisiana, and I would advise you to seek for your production the patronage of some one of the Northern cities."
"How bitter," comments Mr. Gayarré, "is the thought that it is true! How hard it is for the veracity of the Southern historian to admit that, even in 1864, a judicious and frank adviser would be compelled to say to a man of letters, in the language used by Claiborne in 1814, "I would advise you to seek for your production the patronage of some one of the Northern cities"!
Memorials Of Those Who Suffered For The Faith In Ireland in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth Centuries.
By Myles O'Reilly, B.A., LL.D.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 462.
An elegant volume, containing biographies of the martyrs of the Reformation in Ireland, which we intend to notice at length in a future number.