The Sun.
London, England, 1836-07-16 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

JONATHAN JEFFERSON WHiTLATV. 3 Vols.
Bentley, London, 1836.

There is more manly, unaffected vigour in this work,
than in any that has been produced for years. Had
not the title-page assured us to the contrary, we should
never have guessed it had been written by a lady, for
it has all the characteristics of a practised male pen,
being shrewd, satirical, and full of knowledge of the
human heart, as that knowledge is developed among
the planters and back-woodsmen of the Louisianian
settlements. Again, there is no parade of sentiment in
the tale ; the feeling is worldly in the extreme, and
the frequent sketches of the scenery on the banks of
the Mississippi ; as also of the habits of life, and
tone of thinking of the squatters and planters of
Natchez and New Orleans, are pourtrayed with all
the rough, graphic energy of a Cooper. But the
work has higher recommendations than these. It is a
fearless exposure of the iniquities of the slave system,
as practised in the Southern States of America ; and
as Mrs. Trollope—we feel a strong inclination to sub-
stitute Mr. for Mrs.,—has herself been an observant
eye-witness of all that she describes, drawing little or
nothing on her fancy, fruitful as this is, her volumes
will do more to open the eyes of the public, and give
it a 'keen insight into the abominations of this inde-
fensible system, than all the speeches that were ever
perpetrated in Parliament. In these pages we see
slavery, not as its advocates would desire it to appear,
but as it really •is ; and a more ingenious scheme was
never yet invented by the devil for the purpose of de-
moralizing a community. Apparently, nothing can
be truer to life than our author's descriptions of the
domestic habits of the natives of Natchez and New
Orleans, and assuredly nothing can be more heartless,
more repulsive, or more degraded than these said
habits. From the richest merchant, down to the
poorest tradesman, the slave traffic corrupts and hardens
the hearts of all. Even the fair sex do not escape
the contagion, but can inflict tortures on their mise-
rable black helots with all the skill and heartiness of
the males. The hero of Mrs. Trollope's tale is an
American back-woodsman, the confidential clerk of
one Colonel Dart, a Member of Congress, and owner
of five hundred slaves, whom he flogs, within an inch
of their lives, for his own private amusement, as well
as to show that he is a strict and virtuous disciplinarian.
His clerk, Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaw, is a close
imitator of the Colonel's amiable peculiarities, and
finally falls a victim—after having displayed powers
of roguery sufficient to set up a dozen London
swindlers for life—to the vengeance of the race whom
he has so perseveringly trampled on. This character
is sustained throughout with uncommon ability. It is
that of a worldly, grasping, callous adventurer, dead
to all the softening influences of hUmanity, and alive
only to the sensibilities of the pocket. It is, in fact,
pretty much such a character as Fielding's Jonathan
Wild, and we pay—high as it is—no unmerited com-
pliment to Mrs. Trollope, when we say that it is
pourtrayed with nearly equal vigour. The German
family of Steinmark is another admirable creation of
our Authoress's pen, and is evidently introduced for
the purpose of affording a grateful relief to the rest of
her dramatis perstnue. Nor must we omit noticing
the portraits of the young enthusiast Edward Bligh,
and his orphan sister Lucy, the former of whom falls
a victim to the cursed Lynch law—a catastrophe which
is drawn with terrific energy. Had 111-rs. Trollope
written nothing else but her present work,, she would
have written quite enough to ensure herself a foremost
rank among the novelists of the age ; for Jonathan
Jefferson Whitlaw is, beyond all comparison, the very
best book that the season has produced, whether we
regard the skill of its plot, the fertility of its incidents,
the' keenness of its satire, or the perfect naturalness
of its characters. That it will make Jonathan ten
times more wroth against her than ever, we have not
the slightest doubt ; and as little that it will be pro-
ductive of great good, by tending to shame the
Southern States, where slavery still exists in all its
unmitigated atrocity, into its suppression, we hope at
no distant date. As a sample of; the " mark and like-
lihood" of Mrs. Trollope's dialogue, we quote the fol-
lowing, which is part of a conversation between Jona-
than Whitlaw and one Hogstown, both of whom have
been dispatched to New Orleans, for the purpose of
organizing some plans to put a stop to the instructing
and Christianizing the slave population, which some
high-minded English missionaries had been 'secretly
puttinJ into practice :
" < Weil, I say, Whitlaw,' resumed his Natchez acquaint-
ance, ' have you heard of the outbreak at Colonel Miran-
deau's ? This is the second within ten days; and both comes
of reading, and preaching, and praying, and such like diabo-
heal exercises ; and it comes, too, as I tell 'em all at Natchez,
of that stingy, saving, niggardly, pitiful spirit, that makes 'cm
do anything rather than kill their niggers outright. You may
scorch 'em, 'tis true, and skin 'em, and welcome, or anything
else in the torture line that comes into your head; but there
isn't one single planter between this and Natchez liberal and
patriotic enough to hang one of his gang outright.'
" Why, there's few that likes to make away with their own
stock, that's a fact,' replied Whitlaw. But what is it, Mr.
Hogstown, Sir, that has happened over at Colonel Miran-
deau's ? I've been considerable busy since I arrived, and
haven't chanced to hear a word of it.'

" Well, then, it's no joke, I promise you,' replied Hogs-
town. There's been one Bible and five tracts, and two
hymnbooks found hid in some of the nigger-huts on Colonel
Mirandeau's plantation. That was a week or ten days ago ;
and yesterday as ever was, a young nigger, newly purchased
in Virginia, was overheard, and right-down caught out, while
reading out loud to a whole bevy of them a piece of a cursed
old English newspaper, with a lot of infernal stuff in it about
emancipation. Just think of that, Whitlaw, in a nigger-but
in Louisiana!'