New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1897-04-04

common pOmDOuS ana rcSOuHuIhS' IL IL ." >~'''
bired In the metaphysical Jonathan EDWARDS
with a gravity that makes Mr. Mitcneli say vi
Kim that "he must have strobe across the years
of fun and pranks on the stills of his forefathers
II leaves both those dignitaries and others ike
them peculiarly human and attractive 70 the
s, mpathetic eyes Of the present day 1t also
| lends a charm to the lighter talk OF more cava-
Iier celebrities Jonathan Edwards could say IN
his teens. when an illness overlook him. tnat
"it n,eased God to shake ire over the pit OF nell
hut life was not always sombrely regarded
in those stately days Colonel Byrd, OF west
over, carried with him when he went 10 vislt ms
friend Colonel Spotswood exactly the same ser
&C Consciousness as that which accompanied Eo-
wards through life; and II gives keen eoge 10 ms
minute description OF his doings al the Wis.,"
| Ton manor what a gracious and minclng
stem Colonel Byrd must have put into his pirou-
cites with the blushing Miss Theky." excia'"s
our author and know that II II hao occurreo
| TO him the gallant Colonel would have descrlped
the incident with much particularly as us
tinguishes the account OF his walk through Coio-
re, spotswood's domain TT colonial people
| were aware Of what went on before their eyes,
and they set down the smallest details AT
| that hour we met over DOT OF coHee' writes
Colonel Byrd. (which was not quite strong
artifciaity in his record Of this fact and OF oth
| ers like it. He Is direct transparent, and ths IL
| what makes him ana his contemporaries inter-
esting.
| Possibly II one had to read all Of their works
their vitality would give out. they would prove
tiresome company. But Mr.. Mitchell does not
! often let us think Of this possibility When ne
| audes to Nine Sarah Knight. for example a
Boston lady of the end Of the seventeenth
| century whose record Of horseback jour-
ney from her native city to New-York might
| pail II examined from cover to cover, ne
4 gives us Just the side of her work which
speaks most tangibly OF her own tempera-
! ment and Of the life she observed NO
where else In contemporary record. as he says. IS
| the "twang" OF rural New-England caught more
realistically than in this fragment relating 10
Connecticut farmer, riding hard-trottfng mare,
! with his daughter Jemima seated behind hlm'
with only bag for pillion. After many
hearty and bitter 'O!" Jemima at length lowed
out. Lawful heart Father this mare hurts me
! dingerly; I'm direfui sore, VOW Poor child,
! saws Gaffer--'she used to serve your mother So
! Il don't care how mother used to do. quoth
Jcmima Az which the old man laughed ana
kicked his jade o. the side which made her JOLT
three times harder" Over and over Mr. Mitch
ell creates anew the physognomy OF some long
forgotten writer in presenting thus the note OF
observation, Of humor, of emotion which Inks
us to his personality and his time His anecdotes
are always apt, always eloquent OF the most
picturesque epoch in our history. and the reader
who has never heard OF Chief Justice Sewall be-
I fore the Judge Sewall of Boston more than a
hundred years ago, will never forget the old man
as Mr.. Mitchell reproduces him from his own
frank diary The Judge is irresistible in his so
xxvha hot "
has cut off his hair and put on "wgg"; and
there is something naIvely comical in the picture
which he presents In his counting Of Nine Win
throp Il rose at II to come away, saying /
would put on my coat She offered not to help
me: / prayed her that Juno might light me
home: she opened shutter and said twas
pretty light abroad. So l came nome
by starlight. Jehovah Jireh
Here have picture Of manners, as well as
revelation Of individual character, and 1t Is per-
haps in this respect that Mr.. Mitchells staid
! heroes are most dverting They are drawn
with such insight, the pages are so full or subtle
and penetrating characterization. but around
them all hangs the atmosphere OF the past and
in his realization Of that atmosphere Mr.. Mitchell
is, as has been said. the TX Marvel of his most
imaginative chapters. The reader Will feel no
sudden transition in passing from the sketches
/
and the famous Hartford Wits and the per-
| fervid romancer OF Philadelphia Brockden
Brown, to those Of such men as Cooper, Irving
and Bryant. who belong partly to the present
time They are all figures in one procession. and
! If the movement is not from the start one with
strictly literary trend 1t Is nevertheless plain
as Mr. Mitchell interprets it, that the tradition
| of Irving and Halleck was In a sense the tradi-
ton of Captain John Smith and the Rev Wig
ellsworth a tradition making for sincerity
! genuineness. the honest expression OF thoughts
and experiences found In life itself and not in
mere book reading. Because there was, on the
| whole not quite enough OF the latter in the
colonial period of reading, that is, that made for
scholarship and the poetry In letters generally
we cannot feel that America ever had school
But its intellectual resources were being i'm
mensely fortified through these years Of
STRAIGHTFORWARD writing out of the centres of ex
perience
The short sketch of Cooper is the best delinea-
tion NJ the novelist that exists out of Professor
Iounsbury's admirable biography. 1t provides
An excellent contrast to that iconoclastc criti-
cism in which Mark Twain some little while ago
sought to show that the author Of THE Deer
SLAYER" had been overrated Mr.. Mitchell is
fully aware OF the shortcomings OF his author.
But in one passage alone he traverses with
| fnaty the whole question OF Cooper's errors or
omis sions IT. matters OF detail "A literary artist
IKE Cooper" he says looking out only for
broad bold effects. and who is already possessed
1 Of the animus OF his story and has before him a
definite issue. be, in a measure careless OF
details and OF the filings in" This goes straight
| to the point 1t is possible to pick thousand
flaws in Cooper, but they do not diminish by
hairs breadth the truth Of his picture. the
| charm Of his incidents. tire sylvan beauty OF his
whole narrative. And on the sea, as Mr.. Mitchell
states with positive enthusiasm. Cooper may
make all the mistakes he wants to, he remains
one of the unforgettabe novelists one Of the