Thus every line of life has its depredation. 'There be
land rats and water rats, land pirates and water pirates,--I mean
thieves,' as old Shylock says. I feel vexed at this shabby attempt
to purloin this work from me, it having really cost me more toil and
trouble than all my other productions, and being one that I trusted
would keep me current with my countrymen; but we are making rapid
advances in literature in America, and have already attained many of
the literary vices and diseases of the old countries of Europe.
We swarm with reviewers, though we have scarce original works
sufficient for them to alight and prey upon, and we closely imitate
all the worst tricks of the trade and of the craft in England.
Our literature, before long, will be like some of those premature
and aspiring whipsters, who become old men before they are young
ones, and fancy they prove their manhood by their profligacy and
their diseases."
But the work had an immediate, continued, and deserved success. It was
critically contrasted with Robertson's account of Columbus, and it is
open to the charge of too much rhetorical color here and there, and it is
at times too diffuse; but its substantial accuracy is not questioned,
and the glow of the narrative springs legitimately from the romance of
the theme.
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