Topics of the Time
By . Boston : James R. Osgood & Co.
OUR readers have had an opportunity of seeing all but one of the papers included in this volume ; and such is the spirit and attractiveness with which they are written, that we believe all will vividly recall the articles on civil service, on Congress, on international copyright, and on Catholics and Jews, as well as the review of Bonaparte’s correspondence, the discursive essay on fashions, and Mr. Patton’s study of New England life. The one unfamiliar chapter is that on “ The Government of the City of New York,” which on the whole is thestrongest and best chapter in the book. It wasa subject singularly well adapted to Mr. Parton’s powers ; it required research, bold and free handling, and the highest courage and cheerfulness. We do not know where else the author’s peculiar optimism appears with such effect as where, at the close of this paper, he expresses a hope for the future of a city which he shows to be literally abandoned to the rule of thieves and other criminals. But it is a dreadful picture to exhibit to the Old World, and it does not quite help matters that we know what a wicked Old World it is, and how little its opinion is worth caring for. We owed it an example of a different kind ; and while such organized misrule exists in New York, we ought to be tender of the violence of Paris.
In his treatment of all these topics of the time, Mr. Parton reveals the qualities which in greater degree characterize that on the New York City government, with an occasional disadvantage of subject. Wherever the case has to be urged, he betrays what seems an inherent logical weakness ; his feeling—always good feeling — sometimes carries him too far in defence and offence ; his colors are often too positive and too little harmonized. But where a character, or a period, or a phase of civilization, is to be studied and described, he seldom fails of a right effect ; he never fails of interesting the reader, and for the moment, at least, of persuading him. Occasionally we lament the misapplication of his powers ; but we do not doubt them.
There has always been a difficulty with some in acknowledging them ; and on the whole we suppose that this larger kind of journalism, in which Mr. Parton has of late been engaged, has added to the number of these reluctant. But it has also added largely to the number of his readers, and has immensely widened the circle which one day, when he has produced some crowning work of history or biography, will welcome it with all his faults, — and it will be pretty sure to have them all in greater or less degree; for he is not a man to do things by halves, and give his virtues alone.