Frederick S. Cozzens's Works. "The Sparrowgrass Papers." "Acadia: A Month With the Blue Noses." "The Sayings of Dr. Bushwhacker and Other Learned Men"

New York: Hurd and Houghton.

“THE Sparrowgrass Papers” to those who read them long ago have remained a tradition of kindly wit and exuberant cheerfulness, somewhat exaggerated in conception and affected in method, but, on the whole, novel and enjoyable, with all their faults. Their bane was the ease with which their affectation could be caught, and ever so many feeble and feebler imitations fallowed them, till mankind grew a little impatient and aggrieved with the original.

“ Acadia,” by the same hand, was in a more subdued strain, but somehow, though an excellent picture of an interesting region, it never won great favor.

“The Sayings of Dr. Bushwhacker ” are the least admirable of the author’s efforts, as we hinted in a former notice of them. They are here increased, it is but just to add, by some better papers, which did not appear with them when first published.

These three volumes contain the principal literary labors of a man who once promised to make a considerable figure in American letters. He had real humor, a good perception and enjoyment of character, and a vein of charming sentiment. He wrote verses even better, in their way, than his prose ; of the many who loved the pretty lines, few knew that it was he made the poem beginning, —

a very graceful and touching little poem that once found its way to all hearts. But with his prose his name is chiefly identified, and it is upon this that the reader is here asked finally to like him or leave him ; for the kindly heart and brain from which the books came are at rest, and can do nothing more to make us ashamed of our censure or our praise. We are safe in recognizing the original quality of much that he produced, and the fact that he did invent a new pleasure for us in fantastic sketches of the citizen’s life in the country, — fantastic, and yet so truthful that most urban and suburban people can match them out of their own observation. To be sure, it is not the finest kind of touch, but it is authentic ; the humor is not of the best, but it is his, and it is not eked out with the infamies of bad spelling, or the other helps to more recent humor. It is very amiable, and it often played about character in such a way as to light up amusing and truthful phases of human nature. The worst of it is that it is rollicking ; the author seems to think that the reader’s favor can be stormed by mere boisterous good spirits and loud laughter. So the favor of some readers can be, but it is not worth having ; and he was often content to win the favor that was not worth having. Perhaps, then, his immortal part as an author is not here, and his possibilities passed away with him. Nevertheless, here is very pleasant reading, very pleasant leading indeed ; honest and excellent work in many places ; a good appreciation of the comical side of life, and that suggestion of feeling for its seriousness without which the other is of small account.

Our literature has made great advance since most of these things were done, but it has not improved upon all of them. The Knickerbocker school is dead ; but there are other schools, which we are sorry to say are not dead, and which are not so good ; these have neither the knowledge of men nor the love of books which distinguished that school, and which make us feel friendly to Mr. Cozzens even at his worst, and disposed to be proud of him at his best.