Instances of bad taste—villainously bad taste—occur frequently in the book. Of these the most reprehensible are to be found in a love for that mere physique of the horrible which has obtained for some Parisian novelists the title of the "French convulsives." At page 97, vol. ii, we are entertained with the minutest details of a murder committed by a maniac, Frampton, on the person of Sergeant Hastings. The madman suffocates the soldier by thrusting his head in the mud of a morass—and the yells of the murderer, and the kicks of the sufferer, are dwelt upon by Mr. Simms with that species of delight with which we have seen many a ragged urchin spin a cockchafer upon a needle. At page 120, vol. i, another murder is perpetrated by the same maniac in a manner too shockingly horrible to mention. The victim in this case is a poor tory, one Clough. At page 217, vol. i, the booby Goggle receives a flogging for desertion, and Mr. S. endeavors to interest us in the screeches of the wretch—in the cries of his mother—in the cracking of the whip—in the number of the lashes—in the depth, and length, and color of the wounds. At page 105, vol. ii, our friend Porgy has caught a terrapin, and the author of "The Yemassee" luxuriates in the manner of torturing the poor reptile to death, and more particularly in the writhings and spasms of the head, which he assures us with a smile "will gasp and jerk long after we have done eating the body."
One or two words more. Each chapter in "The Partisan" is introduced (we suppose in accordance with the good old fashion) by a brief poetical passage. Our author, however, has been wiser than his neighbors in the art of the initial motto. While others have been at the trouble of extracting, from popular works, quotations adapted to the subject-matter of their chapters, he has manufactured his own headings. We find no fault with him for so doing. The manufactured mottos of Mr. Simms are, perhaps, quite as convenient as the extracted mottos of his cotemporaries. All, we think, are abominable. As regards the fact of the manufacture there can be no doubt. None of the verses have we ever met with before—and they are altogether too full of coils, hugs, and old-times, to have any other parent than the author of "The Yemassee."
In spite, however, of its manifest and manifold blunders and impertinences, "The Partisan" is no ordinary work. Its historical details are replete with interest. The concluding scenes are well drawn. Some passages descriptive of swamp scenery are exquisite. Mr. Simms has evidently the eye of a painter. Perhaps, in sober truth, he would succeed better in sketching a landscape than he has done in writing a novel.
LATROBE'S RAMBLER.
The Rambler in North America, 1832-33. By Charles Joseph Latrobe, Author of "The Alpenstock," &c. New York; Harper and Brothers.
Mr. Latrobe is connected with a lineage of missionaries. He belongs to an English family long and honorably distinguished by their exertions in the cause of Christianity. His former work, "The Alpenstock," we have not seen—but the London Quarterly Review calls it "a pleasing and useful manual for travellers in Switzerland." The present volumes (dedicated to Washington Irving, whom Mr. L. accompanied in a late tour through the Prairies,) consist of thirty-seven letters addressed to F. B. Latrobe, a younger brother of the author. They form, upon the whole, one of the most instructive and amusing books we have perused for years.
By no means blind to our faults, to our foibles, or to our political difficulties, Mr. Latrobe has travelled from Dan to Beersheba without finding all barren. His observations are not confined to some one or two subjects, engrossing his attention to the exclusion, or to the imperfect examination, of all others. His wanderings among us have been apparently guided by a spirit of frank and liberal curiosity; and he deserves the good will of all Americans, (as he has most assuredly secured their esteem) by viewing us, not with a merely English eye, but with the comprehensive glance of a citizen of the world.
To speak in detail of a work so subdivided as "The Rambler in North America," would occupy too much of our time. We can, of course, only touch, in general terms, upon its merits and demerits. The latter, we can assure our readers, are few indeed. One instance, nevertheless, of what must be considered false inference from data undeniably correct, is brought to bear so pointedly against our social and political principles, and is, at the same time, so plausible in itself, and so convincingly worded, as to demand a sentence or two of comment. We quote the passage in full, the more willingly, as we perceive it dwelt upon with much emphasis, by the London Quarterly Review.