Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), February 1, 1845, vol. 1, no. 5, p. ??

[page 77, column 2, continued:]

LAURIE TODD. By John Galt, with an original preface by Grant Thorburn. New York: Farmer & Daggers, 1845.

We have here a new edition of this once popular work, with a preface from the Original who furnished the author with the hints for his volume. Mr. Thorburn informs us that Galt received three thousand pounds from the sale of this work alone. An incredible sum, considering the character of the book. If the author had accomplished no [page 78:] other good by writing this book, it was enough to have made a simple-hearted old man perfectly happy. Mr. Thorburn has grown fat, figuratively, upon the reputation of Lawrie Todd; he looks as smiling as one of his own perennials whenever any one asks him if he was really the Original of Galt's hero. The career of Mr. Thorburn has been an exceedingly common one, and it is proof of his simple heartedness that he regards himself as an evidence of divine goodness, in having attained to the venerable age of seventy-two. But we have known a parrot that attained to a greater age even than that.

While Mr. Thorburn lives, Lawrie Todd will find plenty of readers, and when he shall be numbered among the departed, a long time hence, we hope, Lawrie Todd will preserve his memory to another generation.