Chapter VI: Part 6

A very common-place book, too bad to praise, yet too good absolutely to condemn. It will find its place on the shelves of circulating libraries.

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_The Secret Foe. By_ Ellen Pickering, _2 vols. Carey and Hart._

This is scarcely equal to Miss Pickering’s earlier production, “Nan Darrell.” Indeed, the present novel is, by no means, a work which will increase her reputation. Portions of it are written well, we admit; but the character of the book, considered as a whole, is but little above a desperate mediocrity. There is no individuality in the actors—no novelty in the plot—many incidents extravagant and unnatural; and a forced interest, if we may so speak, in the whole of the second volume. It is true, many of the scenes are drawn vividly, but they do not suffice to redeem the work. Worse than all, the introduction of the fugitive, Charles the Second, together with the whole conception of the character of the boy Jackson, is a plagiarism from Woodstock of the worst kind, because one where the spirit and not the language is stolen. We cannot forgive the author, even though a woman, for such an act.

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_The Deerslayer, or, the First War-Path: A Tale: By_ J. F.
Cooper. _2 vols. Lea and Blanchard._

Little can be said of this tale which has not been said of the former novels, by Mr. Cooper, in which “Leather Stocking” appears. The story is one of thrilling interest, full of perils and of hair-breadth escapes. The reader, unable to lay down the book, peruses it with painful and breathless eagerness; but, with the exception of Natty Bumpo, there is no character worthy of the name. Here is the great difference betwixt Cooper and Scott. No one will deny, that the former is nearly, if not quite, as successful as the latter in the interest his story awakens in the reader’s mind, yet we look back in vain, through the whole series of the Red Rover tales, for such inimitable characters as those of Balfour of Burley, and the other actors in the Waverley Novels. Mr. Cooper paints only the outside, he cannot reach into the soul. Yet, as an author, skilful in the management of incident, or capable of whirling away the reader in the breathless interest of a story, no writer of the day, at least no American, can, at all, compare with Mr. Cooper.

In the present tale there is an unusual unity of person, place and time. The whole action is confined to three days; the principal characters are not more than six; and the scene is the lake at Cooperstown, with its surrounding shores. The story is placed as far back as the early French war, and is one of Indian siege and ambuscade. Some of the night scenes, where the beleagured whites, uncertain of the time or mode of the enemy’s attack, wander up and down the lake in the ark, listening for the dip of a paddle or the crackling of a twig, to announce the approach of the foe, are unsurpassed even by the earliest efforts of Mr. Cooper. The rescue of Hist from the hostile camp is a scene of great power—so is the surprise of the whites at the castle—and so is the death of the Panther from Deerslayer’s hands, and the latter’s temporary escape from the savages. The closing scene, however, in which the torture of Deerslayer is going on, seems to us not only painfully, but unnaturally protracted—so that, long before the _dénouement_, we begin to lose our interest in the finale, under the feeling that the author has overworked his scene.

We are not captious in these few objections, for they are but specks on a sunny sky. No one can question Mr. Cooper’s powers as a novelist of his particular school. We dismiss his work with high praise, hoping that he may long live to adorn the literature of his country, and that he may never write a worse story than the Deerslayer.

The Leather Stocking tales are now complete in ten volumes, by Messrs. Lea and Blanchard.

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_A Practical Description of Herron’s Patent Trellis Railway
Structure, etc., etc. By_ James Herron, _Civil Engineer. 1 vol.
Carey and Hart, and J. Dobson, Philadelphia, 1841._

This is an able treatise. The main object of the author is to explain his Patent Trellis Railway Structure—an invention which is peculiarly adapted to the frosty climates of the middle and northern states; but, as collateral to this, he has discussed the subject of mineralizing wood, of an improved method of joining the ends of railway bars, and of the defective nature of railway structures in use.

The length to which we have extended some of the preceding reviews, forbids us to go at large into the contents of this volume; but we recommend it to the attention of the public, and to that of rail-road companies in particular. The volume is accompanied by four large plates of working plans to illustrate the author’s remarks. The invention of Mr. Herron has received the sanction of the very highest authorities, and will, in our opinion, supercede all other modes of railway structure.

Mr. Strickland, so well known as an architect and engineer, speaks of it as follows:

“Among the various methods now used for the super-structure of
railways in this country and in Europe, I know of none to
compare with Mr. Herron’s patent horizontal truss, or diagonal
braced floor. It has the great advantages of surface-bearing
lateral connection, and longitudinal combination of strength,
and evenness of level. It is calculated to rest secure in all
the various characters of soil . . . . will be found to resist
with the utmost degree of permanency all the vicissitudes of the
caved and washed embankments which undermine the present
mud-sills and cross-ties of the road-beds now in use.”

The Franklin Institute says of it:

“Mr. Herron has fully understood and appreciated the evils
inseparably connected with the plans of railway super-structure
so much in use here and in Europe, in which the rails are
supported upon isolated blocks of stone or sleepers of timber
. . . . His object has been to devise a plan in which all the
parts forming the structure shall be adequately supported;
while, at the same time, they shall be so connected that no
portion will be liable to independent displacement, either
laterally or vertically.”

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_Letters from Abroad to Kindred at Home. By the author of “The
Linwoods,” etc. 2 vols. Harper and Brothers: New York, 1841._

Miss Sedgwick has given us, in these volumes, her notes of travel through England, Italy, and other parts of Europe. The book is written in an easy, almost conversational style; it abounds in anecdote and what we should call allowable gossip; and, if it were only a little racier, would be a model for tourists. We like particularly the little details of persons and manners, in which our author has indulged—one gets, in perusing them, an excellent idea of the society in other countries. This is what we want, and where the author does not intrude on privacy, we cannot see that he or she is to be condemned. Miss Sedgwick’s choice of words might—to our minds—be purer: her style is often disfigured by provincial phrases of the worst kind.

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_The Life and Adventures of Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist.
By_ H. Cockton. _With numerous illustrations, by Phiz. 1 vol.
Carey and Hart._

This is a work of considerable humor—one of that class, which, without much originality, manages to become popular, as much from the fun it contains, as from the style in which the story is told. The illustrations are not as happy as those of Phiz in general. The book is neatly printed, in the style of the Nickleby series.

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SECRET WRITING.

On the tenth of August, a letter addressed to us by some gentleman who had assumed the _nom de guerre_ of Timotheus Whackemwell, was received at this office, from Baltimore. It enclosed a cypher, and says, “if you succeed with it I will set you down as perfect in the art.” Thinking that in the chirography we recognized the hand of our friend, Mr. J. N. McJilton, of Baltimore, we addressed _him_ by return of mail, with the solution desired. Mr. McJilton, it appears, however, was not the correspondent. The solution ran thus—

“This specimen of secret writing is sent you for explanation. If you succeed in divining its meaning, I will believe that you are some kin to Old Nick.”

Mr. Whackemwell, whoever or wherever he is, will acknowledge this reading to be correct.

The cypher submitted through Mr. F. W. Thomas, by Dr. Frailey, of Washington, and decyphered by us, also in return of mail, as stated in our August number, has not yet been read by any of our innumerable readers. We now append its solution, together with the whole of that letter of the Doctor’s, of which we gave only a portion in the August number.

SOLUTION.

In one of those peripatetic circumrotations I obviated a rustic whom I subjected to catachetical interrogation respecting the nosocomical characteristics of the edifice to which I was approximate. With a volubility uncongealed by the frigorific powers of villatic bashfulness, he ejaculated a voluminous replication from the universal tenor of whose contents I deduce the subsequent amalgamation of heterogeneous facts. Without dubiety incipient pretension is apt to terminate in final vulgarity, as parturient mountains have been fabulated to produce muscupular abortions. The institution the subject of my remarks, has not been without cause the theme of the ephemeral columns of quotidian journals, and enthusiastic encomiations in conversational intercourse.

The key to this cipher is as follows—_But find this out and I give it up_.

The appended letter, however, from Dr. Frailey, will show the means used by him to embarrass the reading. Arbitrary characters were made to stand for _whole words_. When we take this circumstance into consideration, with other facts mentioned in the letter, and regard also the nonsensical character of the phraseology employed, we shall be the better enabled to appreciate the extreme difficulty of the puzzle.

Washington, July 6, 1841.

Dear Sir,

It gives me pleasure to state, that the reading by Mr. Poe, of
the cryptograph which I gave you a few days since for
transmission to him, is correct.

I am the more astonished at this, since for various words of
two, three and four letters, a distinct character was used for
each, in order to prevent the discovery of some of those words,
by their frequent repetition in a cryptograph of any length and
applying them to other words. I also used a distinct character
for the terminations _tion_ and _sion_, and substituted in every
word where it was possible, some of the characters above alluded
to. Where the same word of two of those letters occurred
frequently, the letters of the key phrase and the characters
were alternately used, to increase the difficulty.

As ever, yours, &c.
CHAS. S. FRAILEY.

To F. W. Thomas, Esq.

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Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Available scans of the fashion plate were missing a caption so caption was added in the style of the fashion plates of the previous issues of this volume. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Obvious punctuation and typesetting errors have been corrected without note.

[End of _Graham’s Magazine, Vol. XIX, No. 4, October 1841_, George R. Graham, Editor]