The Poet Preacher: a Brief Memorial of Charles Wesley, the Eminent Preacher and Poet. By Charles Adams. Five Illustrations. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1859. 16mo. pp. 234. My Sister Margaret. A Temperance Story. By Mrs. C. M. Edwards. Four Illustrations. New York: Carlton & Porter. 1859. 16mo. pp. 328. Memoirs of the Empress Catharine II., written by herself. With a Preface by A. Herzen. Translated from the French. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1859. 12mo. pp. 309. Chambers's Encyclopædia. A Dictionary of Universal Knowledge for the People. On the Basis of the latest Edition of the German Conversations Lexicon. Illustrated by Wood Engravings and Maps. Part I. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 8vo. pp. 64. Church Antislavery Society. Proceedings of the Convention which met at Worcester, Mass., March 1, 1859. New York. 1859. 2. The Last of the Mohicans. A Narrative of 1757. 4. The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. Report of the Trustees of the Massachusetts General 1. On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold: the 2. The Principles of Political Economy applied to the Condition, the Resources, and the Institutions of the Amer- ican People. By FRANCIS BOWEN. 3. The Ways and Means of Payment: a full Analysis 1. Farm Drainage. The Principles, Processes, and Effects of draining Land with Stones, Wood, Ploughs, and ty of Pipes, Cost and Number to the Acre of Tiles, &c., By 2. Elementary Treatise on the Drainage of Districts and Lands. By G. D. DEMPSEY, C. E. 3. Practical Landscape Gardening, with Reference to the Improvement of Rural Residences, giving the General Principles of the Art; with full Directions for planting Shade-Trees, Shrubbery, and Flowers, and laying out Grounds. By G. M. KERN. V. THE AGE OF CHIVALRY 383 The Age of Chivalry. Part I. King Arthur and his VI. DOUGLAS JERROLD 431 The Life and Remains of Douglas Jerrold. By his Son, Pictures of Nuremberg, and Rambles in the Hills and VIII. AMERICAN DIPLOMACY IN CHINA Message of the President of the United States communicating, in compliance with a Resolution of the Senate, the Correspondence of Messrs. McLane and Parker, late Commissioners to China. IX. BIOGRAPHY. - PLUTARCH'S LIVES PLUTARCH'S Lives. The Translation called DRyden's, corrected and revised by A. H. CLOUGH. X. PRAED AND HIS POEMS 1. The Poetical Works of WINTHROP MACKWORTH PRAED. NOTE TO ART. VII. OF THE JULY NUMBER NEW PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED INDEX 478 521 536 547 574 575 583 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. No. CLXXXV. OCTOBER, 1859. ART. I.-1. The Pioneers; or, The Sources of the Susquehanna. A Descriptive Tale. 2. The Last of the Mohicans. A Narrative of 1757. 3. The Red Rover. A Tale. 4. The Spy. A Tale of the Neutral Ground. 5. Wyandotté; or, The Hutted Knoll. A Tale. 6. The Bravo. A Tale. By J. FENIMORE COOPER. Illustrated from Drawings by F. O. C. DARLEY. New York: W. A. Townsend & Co. 1859. 12mo. WHEN the writings of our native authors had become sufficiently versatile and numerous to justify the publication of a "Cyclopædia of American Literature," it was highly appropriate to embellish the two massive octavos respectively with portraits of Franklin and Cooper, the former being the intellectual representative of his country as she emerged from her colonial estate to independent nationality, - and the latter no less her literary pioneer when peace and prosperity had crowned the sacrifices of her soldiers and statesmen. As we look upon the bold, confident, manly, and handsome features of Cooper, so authentically caught by the solar rays, and so creditably transferred by the burin, we recognize the first American author in the full significance of the term; for not only in his scenes and subjects, not only in his scope and inspiration, but in his defects, Cooper is our national representative in letVOL. LXXXIX. - No. 185. 25 - ters. His want of refinement in style, his imperfect sympathy with other than adventurous characters, his unartistic plots, his tendency to extravagance, the confusion that arises from a plenitude of material and a lack of tact in its arrangement, his occasional crudity, his devotion to the external and the immediate, the almost blundering progress or complexity of his incident and manœuvre, the whole redeemed by a power, animation, bold invention, vigorous hold and masterly delineation of realities, intense sympathy with heroic action, with brave endurance, and with the grand, fresh, and true in nature and experience, -in brief, the power, despite our sense of faults and errors, of attracting us and carrying us on, sometimes with breathless interest, through the conflict of the elements, the turmoil of passion, or the grand and lovely aspects of nature, all is American in the thrill and the throe, the imperfection and the triumph, the haste and the waste, the force of will and the incompleteness of insight, the natural energy and truth, and the artistic inadequacy. We may smile at Cooper's failures as a limner of fair women, or lament his prejudices as an historian; but we cannot recall him without a glow of pride and pleasure, as we gaze on an inland lake or a Western prairie, watch the course of a ship-of-war, or gossip with an old forest guide. Never was there a greater contrast of justifiable enthusiasm and equally justifiable critical fault-finding, than attended the publication of his first acknowledged novel. It won the sympathies, while it challenged the judgment; in historical character-painting it was defective, as a picture of life and events a success; and thenceforth, with the confidence and the love of experiment, the disdain of opposition, and the faith in individuality, so characteristic of his countrymen, he dashed gallantly forward in the carcer of letters, working out, in "Leatherstocking" and "The Pilot," his most effective vein, and widening the circle of his fame, with no lack of the original spirit, yet without any marked progress in the direction where enlightened criticism had indicated his deficiencies; still, in spite of them, and by virtue of the transcendent excellences we have noted, gaining the universal acknowledgment, "With all thy faults, I love thee still." |