_Miscellanies of Literature. By the Author of Curiosities of Literature. 3 vols. J. & H. Langley, New York: 1841._
These volumes remind us of Coke upon Lyttleton, with which whilom we were wont to be delighted; for they are full of the same odd conceits, and present the same crude mass of undigested learning. Facts which no one else would ever have hunted up from the shelves of dusty libraries; theories which hitherto no man thought of substantiating by a reference to biography or history; ideas, which are oddities in themselves, and which are presented in the quaintest style; and illustrations of notions that no one else would ever have thought of, or which, if thought of, would not have been dressed up in so outlandish a manner, are all marshalled together here in disorderly array, pushing, jostling, and crowding each other until they remind one of Falstaff’s valorous regiment, or a militia training in a midland county.
Seriously, however, these miscellanies embody a vast amount of out-of-the-way intelligence, interesting to the general, but absolutely necessary to the literary reader. No man but D’Israeli would ever have had the patience to compile such a work. His ideas on the literary character; his observations on men of genius; and his sketch of King James the first, embody a vast body of undigested facts that must have consumed years merely in their collection. Industry, however, is the only merit of these volumes: in arranging this vast mass of truths, D’Israeli has shown anything but a comprehensive mind.
The work is got up in fine style, as what work is not, when issued by the Langleys?
_Carleton, A Tale of Seventeen Hundred and Seventy-Six. Two volumes. Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard._
We have heard this novel attributed to a gentleman of Philadelphia, and also to a citizen of New York. The question appears to be a moot one still, but, like many other moot points, is one of amazingly little importance. The book seems to be the composition of a young man, well educated in consonance with some of those Pharisaical literary creeds which are all-potent in deadening the higher powers in favor of the common-place. He has been taught _propriety_ as the chief of the cardinal virtues, and instructed to regard _originality_ as the sum total of the cardinal sins. His peculiar intellect, at the same time, has been a soil precisely adapted for the seed sown. In regard to “Carleton,” we may say in its behalf that its style is strikingly _correct_, and that its incidents and its reflections never, even by accident, startle us into unpleasant excitement. With this peace-offering upon the shrine of the _decorous_, we now take the liberty of throwing the book out of the window.