It is a book over which some
veil is still drawn. It is read by very intelligent persons with wonder
and delight. It is preferred by some such to Hamlet, as a work of
genius. I suppose no book of this century can compare with it in its
delicious sweetness, so new, so provoking to the mind, gratifying it
with so many and so solid thoughts, just insights into life, and
manners, and characters; so many good hints for the conduct of life,
so many unexpected glimpses into a higher sphere, and never a trace
of rhetoric or dullness. A very provoking book to the curiosity of
young men of genius, but a very unsatisfactory one. Lovers of light
reading, those who look in it for the entertainment they find in a
romance, are disappointed. On the other hand, those who begin it with
the higher hope to read in it a worthy history of genius, and the just
award of the laurels to its toils and denials, have also reason to
complain. We had an English romance here, not long ago, professing to
embody the hope of a new age, and to unfold the political hope of the
party called "Young England," in which the only reward of virtue is
a seat in parliament, and a peerage.
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