Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1848-11-25
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES on NEW BOOKS.

Decidedly Il curious DOCK DOM entertaining lnu
provoking, instructive and puzzling dealing atonce
in much learning and many absurdlties; hal
novel, and all a satire displaying in all their null
tpication, the folies of what calls itself societ,"
the freaks of what is styled "opinion;" and ofen
exposing them well, but that nonsense completely
delineated grows 4 picture too faithful not 10 be
somewhat tiresome; like those fools in Coley Glib
ber's plays, who are so taultlessy silly that tieir
very truth TO Nature makes them wrong in Art.
Upon the whole, the performance is most anona-
lous one, and more than any that has, for mani
day, fallen into our hands, perplexes US how TO
press our Judgment OF il, unless by saying that we
really don't know what to think of it for that's,
in fact Just the present stale of our mind after hay
ing looked through II.
The legend-as il is, old or newly Chamisso,
of the shadowless, and at will invisible Peer,
makes we need scarcely say, the machinery of the
tale and forms, in various parts of it, supernau-
raj resort that impapable parsonage and his mrs.
ferrous tormentor, the Gentleman in Black beng
actors and interlocutors in many of the scenes.
The invisbilitv of Wonder one and the preternitu-
raj knowledge of this are used 10 let us into many
secrets of life and manners not otherwise &c be
penetrated. They are employed as is the Guinea,
in the :. Adventures tnow almost forgoen) of that
coin or-once more 10 illustrate the obsCurunn per
0bscurius-as Apuleus, in his /" Golden ASS uses
his unsupported donkey that conceals in that shape
she intelligence OF a man. Occasionally Peter, at
other times his sable prosecutor performs the part
of Asmodeus in The . Devil on Two Sticks" and
interprets the show 10 the ookers-on in the piece
and the readers out of it, With the aid of these,
all sorts of subjects. Physic, Law, Politics, Fash
ion, and especially Theology, with all its myst-
clsms and controversies, are touched upon, ingen-
ousy, often sarcastcaly, but oftener still wander
Ingly and diifusely, as If the author himself had
pulled on Peters seven-leagued boots and knew
not how TO stop himself
II is somew hat probable that are giving no
very clear idea of this whimsical performance
Certain il is that if we doing more, it is with
out having any very definite notion of it ourselves.
To it is quite riddle possibly it is such to the
enigmatist HIMSELF or at best, he may be graver
and more merely didactic Mephistophees who has
no more particular purpose than to expose the I'M
substantially of terrene affairs generally, to prove
what phantasm is this show of things around US,
/" what shadows We are, and what shadows we pur-
sue" Yet il NAV be that Schlemihl the shade
less is meant 10 image worldly chase of the Pc
numbra rather than the body which should project
it. Besides the solid of himself, who is content if
he has not that mere shade, reputation, or wealth,
or birth or power-the shadows, at last, of genius,
and happiness, and worth, and usefulness. Hea-
knows if any such deeber moral is designed, or
If our satirist means any thing than a deal Of
philosophc laughter at our intellectual phantasma-
goria of this chosen realm of Reality, Reason, Re-
pubcansm, and Religion. Many of his charac-
tiers may easily enough be recognised, through the
slight veil of their pseudonymes-as late city
judge OF New ork whilom an editor, and the pro-
jector of the Restoration of the Jewsl in the Rabbi
Ben Jarchi; and distinguished prelate in the
Bishop Of Peach Orchard. With persons we have
sects examined, Unitarianism, Transcendentalism,
Fourierism and many more.
- TaE FIRST KSIcEERBockERs tale Of 1879.
New York George ?. Putnam. ls4s." IL mo-,
PIP. 22l.
Dutch novel; as we live, and out of the actual
lineage OF the mighty historian of the New Neither
lands! Nay, there may be propinquty OF au-
thorship: for, "a the book stands dcdcated-yea,
:. BY permission'-to Washington Irving, the re-
nowned Diedrich mauiiestly consents to occupy
towards i. sponsoral relations which is being, in
literature, more than parent IN loco parentis: it
is be godfather IL wit, and into pledges not
merely baptisrnal that the neophyte shall have
godly training in letters, but that he hath already
had il, and is confirmed of the church of orthodox
authorship.
Despite such strong auspices, the enterprise Of
Low Dutch love tale looks dangerous Every body
knows that Piat-Deutchland boasts her Homer, her
Horace, her ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS her poetical lera-
ture, rich in not only the gay and graceful, but
the tender, heroical, sentimental, and sublime. All
the world has heard Of Dutch nightingales and OF
Dutch courage but the idea OF a Dutch pastoral or
a Dutch romance suggests something homogeneous
and awakens emotions only Of hariiy Few PEG.
pie, believe, are able with any gravity to con.
template Mynheer in the act Of making love, or his
frow, adorable in many undercoats as an onion,
receiving the declaration 1t il difficult to be sure
10 give any reasonable reason why this is so : but
meantime the world insists on regarding in much
the same light the amorous dstresses of HolIander
and an oyster, and is about as well prepared to
melt over 4" the loves Of the triangles," or sympa-
thize in the chemical longings Of acid and akali or
share the sorrows Of forlorn penum that is forbid.
den his vacuum, as TO thrill al the distresses OF
snamored Netherlanders.
Now, all this is exceedingly wrong, absurd, and
uneeIing; quite unworthy the high intelligence,
still more unworthy the refined humanity of the
age. Upon what conception Of the Netherander
Is it that consider him incapable Of the tender
passion, except just 50 far it shall make him lu-
dicrous VIGOROUSLY il is in proportion as men
are wise that love makes them fools and ridiculous
evidently, then, the prevailing idea Of Duchmen in
love implies that they are at all other times pre-.
emnently bright. Why, therefore, may not Hol-
lander, as little preposterously as the SWANS Of
other lands that are by no means Arcadias turn
Ceadon and toy with his Amaryllis! Why. for