It is hard to
believe that Manual and Borroughcliffe, Mr. Marble of Marble-Head,
Captain Tuck of the packet-ship _Montauk_, or Daggett, the tenacious
commander of the _Sea Lion_ of Martha's Vineyard, must pass away some day
and be utterly forgotten. His sympathy is large, and his humour is as
genuine--and as perfectly unaffected--as is his art. In certain passages
he reaches, very simply, the heights of inspired vision.
He wrote before the great American language was born, and he wrote as
well as any novelist of his time. If he pitches upon episodes redounding
to the glory of the young republic, surely England has glory enough to
forgive him, for the sake of his excellence, the patriotic bias at her
expense. The interest of his tales is convincing and unflagging; and
there runs through his work a steady vein of friendliness for the old
country which the succeeding generations of his compatriots have replaced
by a less definite sentiment.
Perhaps no two authors of fiction influenced so many lives and gave to so
many the initial impulse towards a glorious or a useful career. Through
the distances of space and time those two men of another race have shaped
also the life of the writer of this appreciation.
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