The daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1848-1851, 1849-05-21
NEW ORL Fans:
90
MONDAY MORNING. MAY 81, 1s4o.
Cooper's Last Work.

We have been reading Cooper's new tale,
"The Sea Lions" 1t is story Of New England
charscter-displayed in a whaling voyage to the
South Seas. The Sea Lions are two schooners,
fitted out from neighboring harbors-one at Mar
ba's Vineyard, and the other at Oyster Pond, on
the eastern end of Long Island An Oyster Pond
deacon. who loved money little better than church
OF kindred, had gathered from dying sailor, in
formation of the existence of certain islands in
high southern latitude, Astounding in seals and
sa-elephants, and had privately fitted out his
Sea Lion for the adventure. The Vineyard people,
with less accurate information, had some vague
negligence of the same Sort from the same source,
and fitted out another vessel, of precisely the same
burden, appearance and name, to follow the other,
and share in her profits. These schooners are the
Sea Lions, so called, and the narrative contains an
account of their adventurous voyage to these mys-
srous slands--the dscovery-their sealing adven-
ures-the attempt TO get back-the wreck Of one Of
the schooners-their return to the islands, CON-
pelled to winter tere-iheir trials and sufferings
through an antarctic WINTER and their final escape
and return home.
All this is told in Cooper's forceful and clear
style. On the sea, on board of any craft, he is
calm or storm-narrates perils, escapes and disas-
es on the ocean, and portrays the life and charac
ter of the sailor with unsurpassed power. There
is scarcely any abatement of his early genius in
this part of the work. But his love plots in
spd, and worse. His heroine--a very excellent
young woman refuses to listen to her lover, whom
she loves because he is sort of unitarian in reli-
ron-whose conversion is effected by pious old
SALT who goes with the heterodox captain upon this
sealing trip, and employs his off watches in ex-
pounding scriptural mysteries. Opening the book
at divers places, at random, we fell upon sundry
polemical discussions, deliberately worked Out, a.
though the principal aim of the sea novel was 10
show that pious young lady cannot conscien-
tiously marry any but trinitaran; and that a
sealing voyage to the neighborhood of the South
Pole, in company with an orthodox old harpOoner,
nthe infalible method to convert young skeptic
especially if his marriage with his lady-love at
home depends upon his conversion.
We have a liking for Cooper We even like the
rough sturdiness with which he battles for his own
notions, even when most unpopular, and when, to
speak tenderly, they border upon the absurd A
hearty self.dependence is not to be condemned,
even for the eecentricities which dsfgure it; and
We nave tnus not OSt our respect IOT tHt hIdsCuio
character of Cooper's real genius, amid the eccen-
trcities with which he persists in loading and dis
iorting his books. "The Sea Lions is thus dis
figured by patchwork of theological metaphysics,
and the awkward way in which it is wrought into
a story of lively enterprise energy and suffering,
destroys good deal of the interest in what would
be otherwise very stirring and popular novel.
As it is, i, tires and disappoints sadly, and drives
of, we dare say, many reader before he has made
his way through half the first volume.