Life and Times of General Sam. Dale, the Mississippi Partisan
By . Illustrated by John M’Lenan. New York : Harper & Brothers.
THE adventures of General Dale, Mr. Claiborne tells us, were taken from his own lips by the author and two friends, and from the notes of all three a memoir was compiled, but the MSS. were lost in the Mississippi. We regret that Dale’s own words were thus lost; for the stories of the hardy partisan are not improved by his biographer’s well-meant efforts to tell them in more graceful language. Mr. Claiborne’s cheap eloquence is perhaps suited to the unfastidious taste of a lower latitude ; but we prefer those stories, too few in number, in which the homely words of Dale are preserved.
Dale does not appear to have done anything to warrant this “ attempt on his life,” being no more remarkable than hundreds of others. He saw several distinguished men; but of his anecdotes about them we can only quote the old opinion, that the good stories are not new, and the new are not good. As there is nothing particularly interesting in the subject, so there is no peculiar charm thrown around it by the manner in which Mr. Claiborne has executed his task. A noticeable and very comic feature is presented in the praises which he has interpolated, when ever any acquaintance of his is referred to. We readily acquiesce, when we are told that Mr. A is a model citizen, and that Mr. B is alike unsurpassed in public and private life ; but the latter statement becomes less intensely gratifying when we learn the fact that Mr. C also has no superior, and that there are no better or abler men than D, E, F, or G. We were aware that Mississippi was uncommonly fortunate in having meritorious sons, but not that so singularly exact an equality existed among them. Are they all best ? It is like the case of the volunteer regiment in which they were all Major-Generals. Occasional eminence we can easily believe, but a table-land of merit is more than we are prepared for; and we are strongly led to suspect that praise so lavishly gi ven may be cheaply won.