JONATHAN SLICK'S HIGH LIFE IN NEW YORK.
Jr this is not SAM SLICK himself under a new prgenomen, it is a very capital imitation. We do not mean that the resemblance is confined to the obvious and easily-imitated qualities of Yankee phrases, broad incidents, and the contrast of character which arises from Slick's seeming simplicity but real cunning and impu- dence. Such things are easily attained with an exemplar to copy ; and on the present occasion the Yankee language and impudent ignorance of Sam Slick are increased. But High Life in New York has deeper resemblances to the Ilmanarort idiosyncracy. There is the same overweening confidence in self ; a similar coarse- ness of mind, and disposition to dress up a very common morality as something important and new ; with, at the same time, a good deal of keen observation of the weaker points of life and manners, and a good deal of art in forcibly bringing them out and making them tell. The reading of SLICK may be sometimes dubious, and mostly degrading to his original, and undue importance may be given to that original; but he always brings out the text. The framework of High Life in New York is sufficient for the writer's object. Jonathan Slick, a younger son of the farmer, deacon, and magistrate of Weathersfield, Connecticut, comes to New York as supercargo of a lot of garden-stuff and other farm- produce. A cousin of Jonathan's has settled in the city, succeeded in business, and lives in style. By this relation the supercargo is in- vited to dinner ; and of what he then saw, as well as of his previous adventures, he writes an account to " Par." As the letters are very long, he thinks of getting them printed in " Par's " paper, to save the postage ; and this spec. not only makes him a popular writer and gentleman of the press, but a literary lion of New York. He consequently remains in town, goes to parties and fetes, is sought out by a cousin, representing the American parvenue, who has grown enormously rich by land-speculations : and High Life in New York consists of his observations upon what he sees, as well as a description of some adventures at the theatre and other places ; till, having been beguiled by a fair deceiver into gambling away both his own money and the price of a cargo he has sold, he goes home in a fit of disgust, after he has recovered his losings by a Yankee trick.
The book is amusing enough ; though deficient in that attractive power which rivets the reader to the page and induces a desire to finish what he has begun. Part of this may arise from the forced and exaggerated character, which has been felt in every lucubration of SLICK since the first. The pleasure arising from artifice of any kind is soon exhausted ; and besides, Sant &rex was more naturally placed on his original appearance than on any subsequent occasion. The prejudices, urban ignorance, and self-conceit, were appropriate to a person whose sphere of action was confined to the back-settle- ments and small towns of a new country ; but his conduct ceased to be so natural when introduced into a larger field of civilization, whose very material results must have operated upon the shrewdness of such a man. This objection may seem to allow too little for the necessities of burlesque art : but these must have their own nature, and incongruity may be indirectly operating, though we may not be conscious of the cause.
Another source of the feeling described may perhaps arise from the reader's disappointment. Beyond a few formal observances, High Life in New York has little that is really distinctive. Except in a rather more luxurious display, and a greater running after foreign adventurers, the society described differs so slightly from that of mercantile life at home, that the reader will probably think he ought to see something more characteristic if he is carried across the Atlantic. CELESTE on the stage, and FANNY ELSBLER off the stage as well as on, (Mr. SLICK not omitting to dwell upon the dancer's dresses,) could have been done just as well in London; and the tufthunting sycophancy of the Yankees to Lord MORPETH might be matched.
Something of heaviness, too, may arise from the manner in which the matter is occasionally spun out, or from its hacknied common- ness. Much of Jonathan's humours of action in dress and conduct has been common to broad buffoonery since representation began. With formal changes they might be put into an English farce, an Italian opera buffo, or any other national representation, where laughter is sought to be raised by broad incidents, or caricatures of what is singular in character. The following couple of extracts are as genuine Yankee as any thing that will bear separating from the context.
MR. JONATHAN'S APPEARANCE IN TYPES.
Down I went to the sloop, about the quickest, and I up and told Captin Doolittle all about it. I thought the tarnal critter would a gone off the handle, he larfed so when be saw how nat'ral the picter looked ; but he laded on t'other side of his mouth, I reckon, when he read what I'd said about him in the letter. He got awful wrathy, but I only sot still and took it as if nothing had been the matter.
" Look a here, Captin Doolittle," sez I, " &int editors and lawyers always abusing one another in print ? Don't they call each other all kinds o' names, and then don't they shake hands and come soft sodder over each other when they come face to face ? If you have the honor of going about with a man that writes for the newspapers, you must be an eternal coot if you git mad because he prints that you love cider-brandy and eat raw turnips. 1 can tell you what, you wouldn't find many newspaper chaps that'd stick to the truth as close as I did. Sa jest haul in your horns, and I'll write a private letter to Par, and tell him all I said about you was ' poetical licence,' as the editors call it when they've told a whopper, or a leetle too much truth—for one's as bad as t'other now-a-days."
" Wal," sez he, "if you'll du that, I'll make up : but its allfired hard. But I say, Jonathan, you'll stand treat, won't you?"
I felt sorry for the critter, and so I went to a grocery with him ; and 1 guess the long nines and the New England rum that I called for sot all things tu rights in less than no time.
A POLITICAL MEETING.
A. few nights ago, I thought I'd try one of them political meetings the editors wanted me to attend, and see how they carried on there. So Captin Doolittle and I went to one of the great halls hired for caucuses, and crowded in by de- grees, for the hull building was jammed full of human live stock long afore we got there. Arter a good deal of scuffling, we got up by one of the winders where we could see purty much all that was going on. I never in all my born days saw sich a lot of horned cattle together. Some on 'ern was barefooted, and a good many hadn't more than a coat and a pair of trousers among four or five on 'em. One feller close by me had the rim of his hat ripped off till it hung down on his shoulders ; the top was stove in ; and he had a black eye, besides another that wouldn't see straight. "Look a here," sez he to me, " why don't you shout when we du?" " Because I slat a mind tu," sea I: "how are you going to help yourself?" Jest then a leetle pussy lawyer cum a crowding through the gang ; and at the light of him they all sot up a noise that made my hair stand on eend. • * III be darn'd to darnation if it didn't make my blood bile to bear how he went on. Sich a stream o' talk I never did hear cum from one human critter. At last I got so wrathy that I couldn't stand it no longer, and bust right out the minit he'd got through. "Feller-citizens of New York," sez I, a mounting myself on the winder- sill, and sticking my right arm out as stiff as a crowbar, "I aint much used to public speaking, but 1 must say a few wends." "Burrs for the Yankee—go it green horn—tip us a speech, a rale downright roarer!" sung out more than a dozen on 'em ; and all the men about me turned their jaws up, and opened their months as if l'd been bisted up there for a show. " Feller-citizens," sez I, "I've been a listening to you here this night, (they kept as still as mice now,) and the rale American blood has been biting in my heart to see sick carryings on, and to hear such things said as that feller's been a talking "—(" Hustle him out," sez they, "throw him over : go it, ye cripples !") But when they got still, sez I, " Since I've cum here to this city, I've almost made up my mind that there aint a ginuine Teetotal patriot among ye all, on one side or t'other ; and that the least shake of a truth would suit a downright politic feller as well as water would a mad dog, and no better " (" Burrs for the Yankee !" sez they.) " Now," sez I, a sticking out both arms to once, "In revolutionary times it was worth while to a public character to turn solger, or patriot, or politician; for in them times folks found so much to du that they couldn't git time to lie so like all natur as they du now-a-days. In them glo- rious times a feller could shoulder his bagonet and write out his politics on the heart of the innemy, and there wasn't no mistake in the handwriting. (What a clapping and stomping they made here !) When they sung out Liberty, I reckon the British knew the meaning on't." (" Three cheers for the Yankee," sez they again, " Three cheers for the Yankee ! " and then they hollered and yelled, and whooped and stomped, and whooped and yelled agin and agin, like 93 many Injuns jest broke loose : then sez I, for 1 was skeered by the noire they made, and my hair stood up an eend, I felt so daodery,) "Feller-citizens, as true as I live, it eenamost makes me cuss and swear to think on't. When the people of these times sing out Liberty, a feller can't tell whether they mean to tear down a flour-store, or roast a nigger alive." (But don't you think, that when I got as fur as here, as much as two thousand on 'em was taken dreadful sick all to once, and groaned out in rale agony.) "But," sez I, "1 don't wonder the old Revolutionary Patriots die off so. 'What I've seen of polities is enough to send every one on 'em into the grave with their tough old hearts broken, and their foreheads wrinkled with shame, at the news they have got to carry to Gineral Washington in t'other world!" I stopped to catch a little breath, and was jest poking out my arm agin to go on ; for 1 felt as bold as a lion, and the words cum a flowing into my mouth so thick, I couldn't but jest find room for 'em. But the etarnal pack of var- mints set up a yell that would a frightened any man out of a year's growth ; and afore I knew which eend my bead was on, they got hold on me and pitched me down stairs, and left me a wallering in the gutter. The first thing I knew, I felt something floundering about tinder me; and a great black hog that had been a lying in the gutter give a grunt, and pitched me for'ard on my face, and went off squealing a little, as if he was used to being driv up by company any time of night in them quarters. Wal, 1 picked myself up as well as I could, and I went down to the Express office like a streak of chalk. I found the tall editor a setting there counting up some lection figgers ; and he looked eenamost tuckered out. Sez I, "Mis- ter Editor, look a here,"—and with that I showed him where they'd bust oat the back of my coat a flinging me down stairs, and how that plaguy hog had kivered my new eassimere trousers all over with mud. Sex he, and he couldn't help from larfing, "don't mind it, Mr. Slick; I've got wins usage than that many a time."
" fie," sez I, as wrathy as all natur ; "but I guess you haint been pitched Lead-for and into the gutter with that tarnal hog." " Wal," sex he, a trying to keep from larfin all be could, "try it again, Mr. Slick ; you'll get used to these things by-am-by."
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