THOMAS JEFFERSON.[1]
The biography before us is so voluminous that it can hardly maintain the popularity to which its subject entitles it. He must be a bold man, and to some degree forgetful of the brevity of life, who, for any ordinary purpose of information or amusement, undertakes to read these huge octavos. True, the theme is somewhat extended; Jefferson's life was a protracted and busy one; he took a leading part in complicated transactions, and promulgated doctrines which cannot be summarily discussed. But the author's prolixity has not grown out of the extent of his theme alone. He is both diffuse and digressive. He introduces much irrelevant matter, and tells everything in a round-about-way. By a judicious exercise of the arts of elimination and compression, we think that all which illustrates the subject might have been comprised in one volume much smaller than the smallest of these.
But Mr. Randall's most serious fault arises from his desire to be thought a fine writer. Without making long extracts, it is impossible to give any conception of the absurdities into which this childish ambition has led him. The tropes and metaphors, the tawdry tinsel, the common tricks of feeble rhetoricians are reproduced here as if they were the highest results of rhetorical art. The display is often amusing. Thus, in describing Mrs. John Adams, Mr. Randall says: "Her lofty lineaments carried a trace of the Puritan severity. They were those of the helmed Minerva, and not of the cestus-girdled Venus." We do not mention this in order to justify a strain of captious criticism, but to ask Mr. Randall, in all seriousness, how it was possible for him to associate a staid and sensible New England matron with Venus and Minerva? What would he say of a writer who should gravely tell us that Washington's features were those of the cloud-compelling Jupiter, not of Mars, slayer of men,—and that Franklin's countenance resembled that of the wily Ulysses, not that of the far-ruling Agamemnon? We might fill this paper with passages like the one we have quoted. What is the use of this kind of writing? It does not convey any meaning; there is no beauty in it; it increases the size and price of books; it corrupts the taste of the young, is offensive to persons of good sense, and mortifying to those who take pride in the literary reputation of their country. It is the bane of our literature. Many of our prose-writers constantly put language upon paper the use of which in ordinary life would be received by a court as evidence of insanity. If they do so for display, they take the readiest course to defeat their purpose. There is nothing so fascinating as simplicity and earnestness. A writer who has an object, and goes right on to accomplish it, will compel the attention of his readers. But it seems, that in art, as well as in morals and politics, the plainest truths are the last to be understood.
We make these strictures with reluctance. This biography, in many respects, is valuable, and Mr. Randall might easily have made it interesting. He had a subject worthy of any pen, and an abundance of new material. He does not lack skill. His unstudied passages, though never elegant, are well enough. He is industrious. Though we must dissent from some of his conclusions, he is entitled to the praise of being accurate, and is free from prejudice,—except that amiable prejudice which has been well called the lues Boswelliana. His delineations of famous personages, though marked by the faults of which we have spoken, show quite unusual perception of character. He has a thorough appreciation of Jefferson's noblest characteristics, and an hon-
- ↑ The Life of Thomas Jefferson. By Henry S. Randall, LL. D. In three volumes. New York: Derby & Jackson. 1858.
