Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), August 2, 1845, vol. 2, no. 4, p. ??

[page 56, column 1, continued:]

Wiley and Putnam's Library of Choice Reading. No. XV. Tales from the German of Heinrich Zschokke, by Parke Godwin . New York: Wiley & Putnam.

The soil of this country, as far as its literature is concerned, is undergoing a remarkable culture. Every variety of implement is at work upon it: ploughing, hoeing, harrowing, besprinkling and be-showering it, after the most wonderful fashion. We hope the crop may be answerable to these anxious preliminaries; among which, as one of the most hopeful, is to be counted Herr Zschokke — whom we have in various tales of humor, sentiment and wisdom, in the collection before us.

As in the opening piece, “The Fool in the Nineteenth Century,” Zschokke is said to have delineated himself, it may be considered as, in many respects, furnishing a key-note to the author and his method of composition. Several of the tales are intended to exhibit the conventions, false usages, deceits, and mal-practices of society under the direct light of Nature. “I wished to see,” says the Baron Olivier, who, by obedience to his own instincts and constructions, comes to be regarded as the ‘Fool in the Nineteenth Century’: “I wished to see,” says the Baron, “whether one could live in the nineteenth century in a European city [read an American as well,] without embracing all its humbugs, and all the prescribed notions of honor, manners, justice and respectability.” The result of which course of proceeding is, that the honest Baron is set down by all the world as a wonderfully queer fellow.

“Queer fellow! truly,” quoth he, “that is the proper name for all those who do not succumb to the common-places and disorders of the age. Diogenes of Sinope, was regarded as a fool; Cato the Censor, was considered a pedant by the Romans; Columbus was pointed at as a crazy man in the streets of Madrid; divides was condemned to the Inquisition; Rousseau driven from his asylum among the Bernese; and Pestalozzi held as more than half a fool, because he associated with beggars and dirty children, rather than with the be-powdered and be-queered world! And that I should be called a queer fellow, — I that presume only to speak, to think, and to act, naturally and intelligently, according to my right derived from God — is it not rather a reproach to ye yourselves?” So much for the Wise Fool; who at the close of his history, sums up his case with the world in a page of manly and eloquent statement.

The other tales are of various character and merit — all of a popular cast, and with a sprinkling of the better salt of human nature, to savor the reader's humanity. But one that has particularly taken our fancy, is the History and Adventures of the famous Jack Steam: who is indebted for his introduction to the American public, to the accomplished wife of the editor. And, in the words of the introduction, she proves in herself a hearty relish for the humorous — a command of the easy, fluent and unembarrassed style which that species of composition demands. In a word, she has made Jack Steam English, without depriving it of its German spirit — a high merit in translation. We wish we had space to follow the illustrious and versatile Steam through all the varieties of fortune, sometimes trudging along the path to school, then mounted on the people's shoulders and riding them like a great donkey: then suddenly unhorsed, and pursued by their most [column 2:] blest execrations; then up again, like an India-rubber man, to a better elevation than before, till he is borne by his biographer into full possession of the chief-burgo-mastership of Lalenburg, where the historian leaves him in despair of do ing justice to his extraordinary position — shrinks, in fact, as he acknowledges, “from the gigantic undertaking of becoming the Plutarch of this hero,” and demands that he may be allowed “to take fresh breath, that he may write with greater vigor hereafter,” should he ever find courage to return to the subject.

Jack Steam was, in fact, the son of the deceased burgo master, Peter Steam, “one of the greatest men of his century.” Peter's lofty and philanthropic spirit had never disturbed the peace of Europe. In sagacity, he surpassed all his contemporaries; in judgment, he was infallible; in decision, perfectly correct; and in sallies of wit, there never was one like him. And he was all this upon the simple ground that he was first magistrate of the town. Not what he had actually done, but what he might have done, would, if it were written, fill whole folios, and he take rank, if not above, still near to the most commanding princes in the history of the world. He died too early for the fortunes of Lalenburg, and only the virtues of his successor, Mr. Burgomaster Tobias Crack, could mitigate the just, but silent scorn of the States, for the loss of the great Peter Steam. The pedigree of Jack Steam, (for a busy-body, great man and politician,) was thus, it will be seen, of the first complexion. If the reader knew of all that passes in the city of Lalenburg in this authentic history, he would say that Lalenburg was New York, and Jack Steam ——. But we must leave the book, reluctantly; accrediting Mr. Godwin for good editorial service and an excellent collection.