by the creditors in pursuit, and which he was assured would convey him to Billingsgate. This relation, thus succinctly given by us, implies little or nothing. The result, however, to which the reader is ingeniously led by the author, is, that the real Peter Snook has been duped, and that the Peter Snook who made the various purchases about town, and who appeared to Ephraim only during the morning and evening twilight of the eventful day, was, in fact, no other person than the captain of "the strange, black-sided ship." We are to believe that, taking advantage of Peter's communicativeness, and a certain degree of personal resemblance to himself, he assumed our hero's clothes while he slept, and made a bold and nearly successful attempt at wholesale peculation. The incidents of this story are forcibly conceived, and even in the hands of an ordinary writer would scarcely fail of effect. But, in the present instance, so unusual a tact is developed in the narration, that we are inclined to rank "Peter Snook" among the few tales which (each in its own way) are absolutely faultless. It is a Flemish home-piece of the highest order—its merits lying in its chiaro 'scuro-in that blending of light and shade and shadow, where nothing is too distinct, yet where the idea is fully conveyed-in the absence of all rigid outlines and all miniature painting in the not undue warmth of the coloring-and in a well subdued exaggeration at all points-an exaggeration never amounting to caricature. A SATIRE, professedly such, at the present day, and especially by an American writer, is a welcome novelty, indeed. We have really done very little in the line upon this side of the Atlantic— nothing, certainly, of importance-Trumbull's clumsy poem and Halleck's "Croakers" to the contrary notwithstanding. Some things we have produced, to be sure, which were excellent in the way of burlesque, without intending a syllable that was not utterly solemn and serious. Odes, ballads, songs, sonnets, epics, and epigrams, possessed of this unintentional excellence, we could have no difficulty in designating by the dozen; but in the matter of directly-meant and genuine satire, it cannot be denied that we are sadly deficient. Although, as a literary people, however, we are not exactly Archilocuses-although we have no pretensions to the nxenvres auSo-although, in short, we are no satirists ourselves, there can be no question that we answer sufficiently well as subjects for satire. We repeat, that we are glad to see this book of Mr. Wilmer's; first, because it is something new under the sun; secondly, because, in many respects, it is well executed; and thirdly, because, in the universal corruption and rigmarole amid which we gasp for breath, it is really a pleasant thing to gct even one accidental whiff of the unadulterated air of truth. The "Quacks of Helicon," as a poem and otherwise, has many defects, and these we shall have no scruple in pointing out— although Mr. Wilmer is a personal friend of our own, and we are happy and proud to say so-but it has also many remarkable * By L. A. Wilmer. VOL. IV.-18 merits merits which it will be quite useless for those aggrieved by the satire quite useless for any clique, or set of cliques, to attempt to frown down, or to affect not to see, or to feel, or to understand. Its prevalent blemishes are referrible chiefly to the leading sin of imitation. Had the work been composed professedly in paraphrase of the whole manner of the sarcastic epistles of the times of Dryden and Pope, we should have pronounced it the most ingenious and truthful thing of the kind upon record. So close is the copy, that it extends to the most trivial points-for example, to the old forms of punctuation. The turns of phraseology, the tricks of rhythm, the arrangement of the paragraphs, the general conduct of the satire-everything--all--are Dryden's. We cannot deny, it is true, that the satiric model of the days in question is insusceptible of improvement, and that the modern author who deviates therefrom, must necessarily sacrifice something of merit at the shrine of originality. Neither can we shut our eyes to the fact, that the imitation, in the present case, has conveyed, in full spirit, the higher qualities, as well as, in rigid letter, the minor elegances and general peculiarities of the author of "Absalom and Achitophel." We have here the bold, vigorous, and sonorous verse, the biting sarcasm, the pungent epigrammatism, the unscrupulous directness, as of old. Yet it will not do to forget that Mr. Wilmer has been shown how to accomplish these things. He is thus only entitled to the praise of a close observer, and of a thoughtful and skilful copyist. The images are, to be sure, his own. They are neither Pope's, nor Dryden's, nor Rochester's, nor Churchill's-but they are moulded in the identical mould used by these satirists. This servility of imitation has seduced our author into errors, which his better sense should have avoided. He sometimes mistakes intentions; at other times, he copies faults, confounding them with beauties. In the opening of the poem, for example, we find the lines Against usurpers, Olney, I dec'are The rhymes war and declare are here adopted from Pope, who employs them frequently; but it should have been remembered that the modern relative pronunciation of the two words differs materially from the relative pronunciation of the era of the "Dunciad." We are also sure that the gross obscenity, the filth—we can use no gentler name-which disgraces the "Quacks of Helicon," cannot be the result of innate impurity in the mind of the writer. It is but a part of the slavish and indiscriminating imitation of the Swift and Rochester school. It has done the book an irreparable injury, both in a moral and pecuniary view, without effecting anything whatever on the score of sarcasm, vigor or wit. "Let what is to be said, be said plainly." True; but let nothing vulgar be ever said, or conceived. In asserting that this satire, even in its mannerism, has imbued itself with the full spirit of the polish and of the pungency of Dryden, we have already awarded it high praise. But there remains to be mentioned the far loftier merit of speaking fearlessly the truth, at an epoch when truth is out of fashion, and under circumstances of social position, which would have deterred almost any man in our community from a similar Quixotism. For the publication of the "Quacks of Helicon,”—a poem which brings under review, by name, most of our prominent literati, and treats them, generally, as they deserve, (what treatment could be more bitter?)-for the publication of this attack, Mr. Wilmer, whose subsistence lies in his pen, has little to look forapart from the silent respect of those at once honest and timidbut the most malignant open or covert persecution. For this reason, and because it is the truth which he has spoken, do we say to him, from the bottom of our hearts, "God speed!" We repeat it :-it is the truth which he has spoken; and who shall contradict us? He has said unscrupulously what every reasonable man among us has long known to be as true as the Pentateuch "-that, as a literary people, we are one vast perambulating humbug. He has asserted that we are clique-ridden; and who does not smile at the obvious truism of that assertion? He maintains that chicanery is, with us, a far surer road than talent to distinction in letters. Who gainsays this? The corrupt nature of our ordinary criticism has become notorious. Its powers have been prostrated by its own arm. The intercourse between critic and publisher, as it now almost universally stands, is comprised either in the paying and pocketing of black mail, as the price of a simple forbearance, or in a direct system of petty and contemptible bribery, properly so called-a system even more injurious than the former to the true interests of the public, and more degrading to the buyers and sellers of good opinion, on account of the more positive character of the service here rendered for the consideration received. We laugh at the idea of any denial of our assertions upon this topic; they are infamously true. In the charge of general corruption, there are undoubtedly many noble exceptions to be made. There are, indeed, some very few editors, who, maintaining an entire independence, will receive no books from publishers at all, or who receive them with a perfect understanding, on the part of these latter, that an unbiassed critique will be given. But these cases are insufficient to have much effect on the popular mistrust: a mistrust heightened by late exposure of the machinations of coteries in New Yorkcoteries which, at the bidding of leading booksellers, manufacture, as required from time to time, a pseudo-public opinion by wholesale, for the benefit of any little hanger on of the party, or pettifogging protector of the firm. We speak of these things in the bitterness of scorn. It is unnecessary to cite instances, where one is found in almost every issue of a book. It is needless to call to mind the desperate case of Fay-a case where the pertinacity of the effort to gull-where the obviousness of the attempt at forestalling a judgment-where the wofully over-done be-Mirrorment of that man-of-straw, together with the pitiable platitude of his production, proved a dose somewhat too potent for even the well-prepared stomach of the mob. We say it is supererogatory to dwell upon "Norman Leslie," or other by-gone follies, when we have, before our eyes, hourly instances of the machinations in question. To so great an extent of methodical assurance has the system of puffery arrived, that publishers, of late, have made no scruple of keeping on hand an assortment of commendatory notices, prepared by their men of all work, and of sending these notices around to the multitudinous papers within their influence, done up within the |