not told seriously but in a sort of half-witty vein, with little dancing quirks interspersed. "Good Heavens!" cried a Blackwood censor, "are we come to this, that men of this rank cannot even make a robbery terrific, or a love story tolerable?" The story of the Inn at Terracina, of the Beheaded Lady, of Buckthorne, &c., all were more or less found wanting; in descriptive passages, where the traveller had taken up his rest at Venice, Florence, Naples, and other such inspiring abodes, he was declared to have produced either a blank or a blunder; and the only meed of praise awarded him was for that section of the book devoted to "some of his old genuine stuff—the quaintnesses of the ancient Dutch heers and frows of the delicious land of the Manhattoes." He was therefore counselled to eschew European and classical subjects, and to riot once more, as Knickerbocker, in pumpkin pies, grinning negroes, smoking skippers, plump little Dutch maidens, and their grizzly-periwigged papas. If he would have honour, he was bid go seek it by prophesying and historicising about his own country, and his father's house.
So far he followed this counsel as to write in detail the life and the voyages of his country's immortal visitor, not to say her mortal creator, Christopher Columbus—
Who the great secret of the Deep possess'd,
And, issuing through the portals of die West,
Fearless, resolved, with every sail unfurl'd,
Planted his standard on the Unknown World.[1]
Verily, a fascinating narrative—a strange, saddening, yet inspiriting tale of the great Genoese sea-king, and of his great fight of afflictions, in journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils by his adopted countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. In narrating the story of this hero, Mr. Irving has endeavoured to place him in a clear and familiar point of view; rejecting no circumstance, however trivial, which appeared to evolve some point of character; and seeking all kinds of collateral facts which might throw light upon his views and motives. In this endeavour he has succeeded. Few biographies surpass in sustained interest this memoir of the
Ἀνδρα .… πολυτροπον, ὁς μαλα πολλα
Πλαγχθη
a misconceived, misrepresented man—with none to sympathise with and foster his high imaginations,
Moving about in worlds not realised.
Perhaps the subject might have warranted a little more warmth of colouring—indeed, Mr. Irving is less ornate than usual in the present instance, and might easily have drawn a more impressive figure of the admiral in the waste deep waters—"around him, mutinous, discouraged souls," to use the words of Carlyle; "behind him, disgrace and ruin; before him, the unpenetrated veil of Night." However, apart from, the intrinsic charm of the recital, there is so much of the author's wonted fluency and
