Text: Various, Imagination Graham's Magazine, January 1841, pp. ???-???

[page 47:]

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

“Mercedes of Castile,” a Romance, by J. Fennimore [[Fenimore]] Cooper. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard, 1840.

As a history, this work is invaluable: as a novel, it is well nigh worthless. The author deserves credit for presenting to the public, in a readable form, so much historical information, with which, otherwise, the great mass of the community would have never become acquainted; and he ought, also, to receive proper commendation for having woven that information in any way whatever, into the narrative of a novel; but at the same time, if called upon to speak of his work as a romance, and not as a history, we can neither disguise from ourselves, nor from our readers, that it is, if possible, the worst novel ever penned by Mr. Cooper. A hasty sketch of the plot will fully sustain our assertion.

The work opens with the marriage of Isabella of Castile, and Ferdinand of Arragon, after which a hiatus occurs of more than twenty-two years. This, in the first place, is a grand error in the novelist. Had he commenced his narrative at the siege of Granada at once, we should have been spared an ungainly excrescence on the very front of the story. We shall, therefore, consider the novel as beginning properly at an ensuing chapter.

The scene opens on the day when the city of Granada is taken possession of by the Moors; and when Columbus, as a suitor for vessels to carry on his contemplated discoveries, is almost worn out with seven years of delay and disappointment. A young Spanish Grandee, called Luis Bobadilla, wild, adventurous, and fond of roving at sea, happening to be introduced to him in the crowd, is half persuaded to embark with the navigator on his dangerous voyage; an inclination which is strengthened to a firm resolve by his mistress, who, forbidden by Queen Isabella to marry as roving a nobleman, and thinking that such a voyage would be taken as a sort of expiation by her sovereign, advises, nay commands him to embark with Columbus. The difficulties; the hopes; the final disappointment, and solitary departure of Columbus, are then faithfully described, as well as his sudden to recall by order of the queen, and her determination to fit out the expedition from her own purse. This, however, we pass over, only remarking in passing, that the fiery pursuit of the young grandee through the Vega after the departing Columbus, and the scene where he overtakes the dejected navigator, are worthy of the best passages of the Pioneers, the Water-Witch, or the Last of the Mohicians.

The young nobleman, consequently, disguised as a [column 2:] sailor, sails with Columbus out into the, as then thought, shoreless Atlantic. To describe this voyage was manifestly the sole object of the author in writing the work. Availing himself of the journal of the admiral, and mingling just enough of fiction with the incidents recorded there, to make it generally readable, Mr. Cooper has succeeded in producing the most popular, detailed, readable history of that voyage which has yet seen the light; and for this, we again repeat, he deserves much credit. But the very preponderance given to the narration of this part of the story, injures the work, as a novel, irremediably. It makes it, in short, “neither fish, flesh, fowl, nor good red-herring.”

There is, indeed, an attempt to redeem the interest of the story try the introduction of as Indian princess, who, of course, falls in love with Bobadilla, and whom, of course, he does not marry. She, however, accompanies Luis home to Spain, and is the cause of much jealousy on the part of his mistress, of much anger on the part of the queen, and of just sufficient clap-trap in the last few chapters, to satisfy the conscience of your inveterate novel readers, — a class who think no novel is good unless it lima& pretty strong dose of jealousy, reconcilement, and marriage, as a finale, much as Tony Lumpkin thought “that the inside of a letter was the cream of the correspondence.”

In one thing we are disappointed in this novel. We did not look for character in it, for that is not Cooper's forte; nor did we expect that his heroine would be aught better than the inanimate thing she is, — but we did expect he would have given us another of those magnificent sea-pictures for which, in all their sternness and sublimity, he is so justly celebrated. We were mistaken. Excepting a storm, which overtakes the Nina, we have nothing even approaching to the grandeur of the Pilot and the Red Rover. If Columbus did not figure in the romance, — and what, after all, has he to do personally with the denouement! — Mercedes of Castile would be the most tame of romances. Cut out the historical account of the voyage to San Salvador, by merely stating in one, instead of a score of chapters, that the hero performed his penance, and — we stake our grey goose-quill against the copy-right on it — that not two out of every dozen, who read the novel, will pronounce it even interesting.

It is but justice to the author to say that the necessity of adhering closely to fact in his romance, is the true secret of its want of interest; for how could any hero, no matter whom, awaken our sympathy strongly, so long as Columbus figured in the same narrative? [page 48:] Besides, the voyage which the hero undertakes to win his mistress, being a matter of history, we are from the first without any curiosity as to its result — we want, indeed, all that exciting suspense, without which a novel is worthless. Our author appears to have been aware of this, and therefore introduces Omenea, and makes Mercedes jealous, and the queen suspicious, in order to create this suspense. For all the purposes of a love-story, therefore, the novel might as well have begun toward the close of the second volume, an introductory chapter merely being affixed, narrating rapidly the events which, in the present work, are diluted into a volume and a half. The interest of a romance should continue, let it be remembered, throughout the whole story; but in Mercedes of Castile it does not begin until we are about to close the book.

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“American Melodies.” Containing a single selection from the production of two hundred writers. Compiled by George P. Morris. For sale by Henry Perkins, Philadelphia.

This is one of the prettiest little gift books of the season. The typography is good as well as the binding. The title of the work has been the subject of much captious criticism by the herd who are constantly detecting spots in the sun, and who lack the calibre of intellect necessary to a manly and liberal criticism of a literary performance. The selections were originally made of songs set to music, but as this was found to narrow down, rather much, the limits assigned for the work, the compiler took a wider range, and included in the volume pieces adapted to music also. He ha. been candid enough to say in the dedication, that in making these selection, he has not been guided so much by the literary worth of the articles, as by their admission into the musical world. A second volume is already under way, in which many names of note, necessarily omitted in the first, will be included.

The compiler has every reason to congratulate him self upon the happy performance of his task. A more interesting or valuable little volume ham not been given to the public for many-a-day, If the second is like unto it, General Morris will have added another to the long list of obligations which the public owes him, in creating a taste for national melody.

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“French Writers of Eminence.” By Mrs. Shelley, and others. 2 vols. Lea & Blanchard.

This compilation, for it is nothing more — has the merit of presenting well-known Encyclopedia biographies [column 2:] of French authors, to the general public, in a cheap and portable form, — thus bringing down much valuable information within the means of those who could not afford to purchase the larger and more comprehensive work. The design is praiseworthy.

The sketches of Rabelais, Racine, Corneille, Moliere, Voltaire, Rochefoucald, and others, will prove highly interesting to those who have not perused them before. A more valuable work, when considered solely as an introduction to French literature, has not, for some time, been issued from the American press. We would guard our readers, however, from fancying that Mrs. Shelley was the principal author of these sketches, as it would neither be truth, nor, in fact, add to her reputation.

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“Poems.” By J. N. McJilton. Boston: Otis. Broaders & Co.

This volume is a compilation of pieces, most of which have appeared in the prominent American Magazines. Many of them were written at the time the author was connected, as editor, with the Baltimore Literary Monument. Several pieces in this volume may take a high rank in American poetry, and all of them do credit to the writer. The work is beautifully printed.

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“The Literary Amaranth of Prose and Poetry.” By N C. Brooks. Author of Scripture Anthology. Philadelphia: Kay & Brother.

This is chiefly a collection of the fugitive pieces of Mr. Brooks, with some emendation. Of the talents of the author we have had occasion before to speak, both in the Magazine and elsewhere. His Scripture Anthology established his claims as a writer. The work is beautifully got up, in the annual style, and is worthy of a conspicuous place upon the centre-table, among the presents of the season.

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Reviews of the Third Volume of Bancroft's History of the United States, of Mrs. Gore's volume of Tales, and of several of the Annuals, have been crowded out by our press of matter. We shall, perhaps, be able to notice Bulwer's last novel, — Morning and Night, — in our next.