Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), March 28, 1845, vol. 1, no. 13, p. ??

[page 193:]

REVIEWS.

THE AMBER WITCH. No. 2, of Wiley & Putnam's Library of Choice Reading. Price 37 1-2 cents.

IT was a piece of rare good luck that the projectors of this praise-worthy series of choice books could begin their library with two works, so perfect in their kind as Eöthen and the Amber Witch; and it will be a piece of luck still mere rare, if the works which come after, do not suffer by comparison with them. The British press has given so wide a currency to laudatory criticisms on the Amber Witch, that we are deprived of the pleasure of uttering any thing new in the way of praise on the same subject. Any thing savoring of dispraise in respect of this beautiful work, would be entirely new and startling; for we believe that no critic has yet bad the temerity to risk his own reputation by undervaluing a production whose merits will be appreciated as readily by the unlearned as the learned reader. Although it is, probably, as truthful a romance as ever has been written, that is, makes as near an approach to the thing it pretends to be, a true history, it is a matter of surprise that the author did not render it more truthful than it is, by suffering the witch to be burned. Not only is the moral of the narrative destroyed by the dénouement, but the moment we begin to suspect that she will be rescued from the flames, the conviction that we are reading a true narrative begins to be shaken. It is, unquestionably, a more delightful romance for ending as it does; but if it be true, that Dr. Meinhold published it as an experiment upon the critical powers of the Tubingen reviewers, we wonder as much at his giving the story an ending so purely artificial, as we do at the obtuseness of the critics who are reported to have received it as a genuine chronicle.

Although a cheaper edition of the Amber Witch has already been published, we are sure that even those who may Possess it in a homelier form, will be glad to have it in the elegant shape in which it is now presented.