REVIEW. “The Partisan,” a Tale of the Revolution. By the author of “The Yemassee,” “Guy Rivers,” &c.

There are two ways of acquiring literary reputation—the one is by an author’s real merits, the other by his puffs. Of the former method nothing need be said, but the latter merits the severest censure.

Puffs, have become the publisher’s, and in a great degree the author’s, living. So completely is it the publisher’s trade, and so firm withal is his hold upon the nose of that stupid gull, the public, that he can make a book, which contains one page that will be read in a newspaper, as an extract, “the best novel of the season,” and can exalt “the most stupid ass that brays on paper,” to a place “among our first novelists.”

Authorship has, in fact, become a trade. The writer presents his manuscript to the publisher, with information that another novel is in the works. The latter prints it, and sends it forth, with a few feeble puffs, “damning with faint praise,” and the poor bantling, fathered by a head without brains, is worse than still-born. But the parties concerned are not a whit uneasy; they know of a revivifying principle, all powerful. In a short time, another work is announced, by the same author. Now all is “ripe for the harvest.” The well paid journals and periodicals are loud in their praises. “This work fully answers the high expectations raised by the author’s first production. The uncommon genius and talents displayed in that, led us to expect nothing less than the work before us. Owing to the author’s want of celebrity, his first effort did not meet with the success which those acquainted with its merits had anticipated. This might have discouraged a genius of lower order, and less conscious of its powers, but the second trial promises an ample reward for both—in fame, as well as profit.” The scheme works. The greedy 71public swallow the dose, and smack their lips—for they are told that it is good. Both of the works go off with a rapid sale, and the author is now sure of reaping profit, and, for the time, fame, from whatever trash he inflicts upon the community, for “his name is among our first novelists,” and he himself puts on “the distant air of greatness,” puffed into the belief that he is a genius.

This is labor most unproductive to the country. It is but forging titles to literary fame,—it is climbing in some other way than by the door of merit,—a practice most disgraceful in itself, and most poisonous to our literature and literary reputation. This latter effect is full obvious, for the system brings dullness to an equality with genius and merit, and even gives it an advantage over them. They will not stoop to such means for success, but shrink back disgusted and discouraged, unable to compete with their inferior rival. It could not have been a rival of itself, but, backed by such base allies, dullness becomes too strong for the single arm of genius. Nor is this all. We have spoken chiefly with reference to novels and novelists. Novels supply much of the reading of youth, and by them, therefore, in a great degree, the taste of the young is formed. Their own judgment is not ripe, and youth rely upon that of others, to furnish suitable models of taste. By the recommendations of those who should be judges, they are too apt to adopt the trash with which the press is teeming, and their judgment is affected and taste formed by its influence. Not only their style, but the mind itself is affected. False standards of literary merit arise, and literature itself must become corrupt. As the country is young, and our literature forming, those who are readers now, will soon become writers,—theirs will be the pens, which shall, in no small degree, give us literary character, and every taste and style thus perverted, will by so much detract from our reputation. The evil is one, therefore, which every literary man, who desires for our country a literary renown of which she may be proud, should be active in subduing, lest our fame be sacrificed to the money speculations of the selfish.

Among the authors, who, with their works, have been puffed into notoriety, the author of “Martin Faber,” “Guy Rivers,” “The Yemassee,” and last of all, “The Partisan,” stands conspicuous. It may be said, that this is a bold assertion to make of a popular writer. It certainly would be, if we did not know that popularity is no sure test of merit.

When “Guy Rivers, a tale of Georgia,” by the author of “Martin Faber, the story of a criminal,” was announced, although we had never before heard of this same “story of a criminal,” yet such hearty praises accompanied the announcement, that we hoped indeed another Cooper had raised the “torch of genius,” and was about to dazzle the world with its rays. An enthusiast in our wishes for the glory of American literature, we were delighted with the prospect, and eagerly sought to complete our happiness by perusing the promising 72volumes. We read and were not satisfied, yet looked forward for better things; for we had noted the motto of the book—

“Who wants

A sequel, may read on. Th’ unvarnished tale

That follows, will supply the place of one.”

We finished, and were disappointed. We had expected something of genius—the rich, fervid style—the original thought—the bright and glowing paintings of natural beauty, or the thrilling description of high-wrought human energies, that stirs the soul. These we found not, and then we waited for the cunning delineation of the human heart—its workings, and—the “sequel.” Our reward was the “unvarnished tale.” The work bears no mark of a mind capable of original conceptions. The descriptions of natural scenery, throughout this and all the author’s works, are but imitations of the works of masters, served up in dim and changed colors. The thoughts are trite; and the sample piece, the tit-bit, that was served up to water the mouth of the public—we mean the description of the destruction of the Georgia guard, which occupies by far the fairest page of the work—is but a scene familiar in plot and story. Guy Rivers himself is but a sorry deformity of one of those dark spirits, which require the genius of a Byron or Bulwer to throw an interest around them, and the hero has hardly a character. We can only conceive of him as a love-sick somebody, to whom is given the name of Ralph Colleton.

The next work dealt out to the public is “The Yemassee,” and to this we can only afford a passing remark, as our principal business is with “The Partisan.” “The Yemassee” is the best production of this author. When speaking of the best of such works, we mean it has the fewest faults. The author advertises that he shall insist upon its being considered a romance, and (as near as we can gather from his remarks) that he has a right to say and do as he chooses. Some of the scenes might have been made exciting, did it not seem that the writer had measured his paper, and said “this description shall fill so much.” It might be read with some interest, perhaps, by one who had never read “The Last of the Mohicans.” But those who have, should wait until the memory of the latter has become faded and dim. There is enough in the story, to have made a pretty tale of fifty pages; at least, it then would have had one merit, which now it has not—brevity.

The last production from the pen of this author is “The Partisan, a tale of the Revolution.” As the author is very particular, and at times a little dictatorial in his advertisements, let us look there for what he promises, and then examine the tale for the fulfillment.

“The title of the work, indeed, will persuade the reader to look rather for a true description of that mode of warfare, (the partisan,) 73than for any consecutive story, comprising the fortunes of a single personage. This he is solicited to keep in mind.” Again, “I have entitled it ‘The Partisan, a tale of the Revolution’—it was intended to be particularly such. The characters, many of them are names in the nation, familiar as our thoughts; [the author’s thoughts are very familiar.] Gates, Marion, De Kalb, and the rest, are all the property of our country.” He says, “My aim has been to give a story of events, rather than of persons”—that “A sober desire for history—the unwritten, the unconsidered, but veracious history—has been with me, in this labor, a sort of principle.”

What, then, are we to presume from this, is to be the character of the work? Certainly, that it is to be almost entirely historical. Yet as it is entitled a tale, we might of course suppose that the fortunes of some individual, a fictitious person or one little known, was to be the chain, into which should be woven the adventures of the famous men—Marion, De Kalb, and others, whose names the author mentions. It is to be “a story of events, rather than of persons.” And what does the work prove to be? Not an event, in which either of these Generals was active, or in any great degree interested, is mentioned, except what is related in some of the one hundred pages, devoted to describing the battle and defeat of Gates by Cornwallis, which pages are almost the last of the work. To bring in this event, the author makes a long march with his hero, who, after all, was not engaged in the action. The story does not naturally bring us there: so, after all, it is only by a forced march, that any of the characters, set before us in the advertisement, are introduced. His censures upon Gates are severe. Since the laurels, won at Saratoga, were shed in the flight from Camden, that General has never been a favorite with his countrymen. There never were wanting hands to use the dagger against the fame of the fallen great; yet those are not to be envied, who thus can stab the slain.

We may now ask, are all the author’s promises but so much “ado about nothing?” Let us see, by examining further. The principal characters are, Major Singleton, the hero and ‘Partisan,’ an officer under Marion; Colonel Walton, uncle to the ‘hero,’ and father to the heroine; Dick Humphries, a co-partisan; and John Davis, the at first unsuccessful rival of a British sergeant, who is in love with the sister of Humphries. Besides these, there are a number of lesser characters, who figure not a little. The most conspicuous of these are, a mad man or devil-maniac, who has a most outlandish habit of haw-hawing, after the manner of a wolf, about his wife, who has been murdered most cruelly by the tories: his name is Frampton—and the glutton Porgy, who helps the author to no small quantity of matter, for filling his pages, while he helps himself, to fill his stomach. The female characters are, Katherine Walton,—the hero’s sister, Emily Singleton; and Bella Humphries. 74These are the principal dramatis personæ; of course, there are the soldiers, attendants, &c.

The story, which is without a plot, (and in this I suppose the great difference consists between a “history of events,” and novels generally,) amounts about to this: The hero is introduced towards the close of the day, makes one proselyte—John Davis—meets Humphries, and with him goes by night to the “Cypress Swamp;” in the morning suppresses with his “swamp suckers,” a party of tories, which had been sent against them; after which they cut off a supply of provisions, &c., destined for the camp of the enemy: then, placing his camp near the plantation of his uncle, he starts at night, and, with Humphries, visits “the Oaks,” the dwelling place of Col. Walton, and arriving, finds that Col. Proctor, who has also a love for the daughter of the Colonel, is already there; so, hiding in “the Oaks,” he overhears some conversation between the British officer and Kate, who are walking with Col. Walton and the sister, which conversation makes our hero feel better; and when the British officer is gone, the hiders come forth, and with their friends enter the mansion, make a visit, and shortly return to the camp; encounter a hurricane; meet Goggle, one of the tory prisoners, whom they had taken in the morning, and who had enlisted with them, and now escaped; and, after endeavoring in vain to take him, they pay a visit to his witch mother, all for no purpose; and finally reach their camp; while Goggle goes to his mother, and sends her to Proctor with information, and then returns to the camp of the “Partisan;” and this finishes the first volume, so far as the principal character is concerned.

In the second volume, our hero again visits “the Oaks,” and while standing by the bed side of his dying sister, is informed that Proctor, with a company of soldiers, has arrived; he refuses to fly at first, but at last escapes from the window, is pursued, and nearly taken, but escapes, and the next moment meets Col. Walton with a troop, the Colonel having been forced to take up arms for or against his country: they turn, take Proctor, let him go; and the next day our hero goes to join Marion, while Col. Walton joins Gates; and on his way, Singleton surprises Gaskens, a tory leader, with his party; Gates refusing to accept the proffered aid of Marion, the latter General, with our hero, departs; the battle is fought, Col. Walton taken, and carried to Dorchester, to be tried and executed, but is rescued at the scaffold by Singleton, who thus wins cousin Kate, and marries her we suppose, for the author leaves us in the dark as to the “consummation most devoutly to be wished for.”

This is the outline, and we will now examine parts more minutely. The author, in the first thirty pages, proceeds to introduce the hero to the reader, in the bar-room of the “Royal George” at Dorchester, which “belongs to Ashley no longer,” and gives a tedious account of sundry bullyings and threats, between the two rivals, 75Sergeant Hastings and John Davis, a doughty Goose-creeker, which ended without many blows, thanks to the benign influence of the pretty bar maid, whose influence seems directly the reverse of the heifer in Virgil’s Comparison. The next thirty pages bring our hero to the swamp, and on the ride thither, Humphries gives a learned disquisition upon the manner of building causeways through the swamp, which he proves most conclusively should be built with a “back bone,” and logs placed “up and down the road.” In the following, we have a description of some twenty men, who are under arms in the swamp. “The gloomy painter would have done much with the scene before them,” says our author. Would that the gloomy painter had done it, or some one, who would have done more in fewer words. It is a fault with this author, as it is with all who have a lack of genius or vivid imagination, that, instead of seizing upon the prominent and striking points in a scene, and sketching them with a bold hand, leaving the picture to be filled out by the awakened imagination of the reader, he tires, by giving minute descriptions of every tree, grape vine, and pool of water, and the appearance and position of each individual, as if all-important to the “story,” as well as to the mind of the reader. As the surprize of the tories is the first thing like an incident, that we find in the work, although we are through with half of the first volume, was this one of even common interest, it should be here transcribed, but it is too prolix, and the most of it is the chase of Frampton, the maniac, after a hang-man tory corporal, who at length became dreadfully bit by the maniac’s sword. The rest of the work has little more of interest, than that which we have thus seen: it is all the transactions of a few men in a swamp, to illustrate the partisan warfare in the south, without interest or useful information. The work is made up of these illustrations, and the trivial adventures of an individual. There is nothing startling enough to please, or to excite but a drowsy interest. Notwithstanding the author tells us that it is his aim “to delineate with all the rapidity of one, who, with the mystic lantern, runs his uncouth shapes and varying shadows along the gloomy wall, startling imagination, and enkindling curiosity,” his delineations are slow, and imagination and curiosity are left to their slumbers. The author who promises a novel purely historical, in which true history is his chief object, promises much—such promises it requires no ordinary mind to fulfill; and the work before us must be looked upon only as a novel—one, in which fiction, as usual, supplies most of the material.

In this, as in the other works of this author, there is shown the want of all those powers which mark genius. It has no deeply drawn characters, no marks of deep insight into the human heart. There is nothing about the hero, that should set him apart from other men in his vocation; and Col. Walton, with a weakness that seems like dotage, although he is in the prime of life, hesitates long 76between private interest and patriotism; and is at last driven to side with his country—a character despised to the last—a lie upon the high minded patriots of the south, who staked their princely fortunes and their lives, in the cause of freedom. The other characters, by which the author has endeavored to excite a higher interest, are Frampton and Porgy. Both are failures, and the most accurate idea we get of the latter, is where he is turned grunter, to catch three terrapins, that are “basking in the starlight,” upon a tree that has fallen into the creek. Mr. Simms should never again attempt wit, or humor, unless when he is dealing with the negro character, in which he sometimes succeeds.

Kate Walton is a high minded girl enough. We see but little of her; but she should not have aimed the pistol at Col. Proctor; and when she snapped it, the weapon should not have missed fire. Singleton shows little sense of propriety, not to speak of affection, when he pressed his suit the moment after leaving the bedside of his dying sister; and the girl rebukes him well: “How can you know it—how can you feel it, Robert, when you come from the presence of one already linked, as it were, with heaven, and thus immediately urge to me so earthly a prayer?” Emily Singleton—the fading flower—

“There is a beauty in woman’s decay;”

and no one,—the coldest hearted, cannot contemplate the scene—a lovely woman, looking her last upon her existence here—“a flower gathered for the tomb,” ere the sweet bud is fully opened—without being excited to feeling. The death bed scene is affecting, and well portrayed. That, and the description of the hurricane, are almost the only parts of the work that command our feelings or admiration, and the rude entrance of a stranger jars harshly upon us, and turns our sympathies to hate against the intruder.

This author has few beauties of style—we believe that those who have praised him most, have ventured only to be silent concerning this. There are no beauties of this description, to atone for want of incident; nothing in the manner, to charm us into indifference to the matter; and those who pretend to admire his writings the most, cannot point out in them all, one sentence that contains peculiar beauty, or originality of thought or expression. Mr. Simms at best is but an imitator. His characters, so far as he delineates them, are familiar. We can point out the original to each of them, in the writings of others. We would not do an author wrong. We would be the last to discourage talent, but we do not believe that Mr. Simms is one to give a helping hand to our literature, but, on the reverse, he will injure it. Aside from his works, we know nothing of him, and therefore cannot have “set down aught in malice.” He proposes “a series” of works, of which “The Partisan” is 77the first,—three to be devoted to the events of the Revolution in South Carolina; and we cannot calculate the number destined for other parts of the country. But he says, “I know not that I shall complete, or even continue the series; much will depend upon the reception of the present narrative.” There is then yet some small hope that the threatened inundation may not flow upon us. Heaven grant that voices enough may be raised to stay the coming flood, and say, “peace, be still.”