Memoir of John Murray
John Wilson Croker to John Murray, 18 January 1825
Thank you, for the third time, for the prints, which,
however well done, lose half their merit with me; for I
| IRVING’S ‘CONQUEST OF GRANADA.’ | 259 |
never could read
the ‘Sketch
Book,’ nor, what d’ye call it? ‘Knickerbocker.’ Mr. Irving has a charming English style,
formed by a careful and affectionate study of Addison, perhaps a little too much sweetened; and so polished
that, although the surface is proportionably bright, it is nothing but surface.
I can no more go on all day with one of his books than I could go on all day
sucking a sugar-plum. The ‘American Dutchmen’ I do not understand
at all; an historical account of such people might be entertaining, but,
without any means of distinguishing how much is fiction and how much truth,
these stories puzzle and tire me. How should you like to see Jan Steen’s figures introduced in
Daniell’s Judean landscapes? “Si
vrai, ce n’est pas toujours vraisemblable.” I am so
ignorant as not to know how much is vrai, and so stupid as to think none of it vraisemblable.
Yours,
Joseph Addison (1672-1719)
English politician and man of letters, with his friend Richard Steele he edited
The Spectator (1711-12). He was the author of the tragedy
Cato (1713).
John Wilson Croker (1780-1857)
Secretary of the Admiralty (1810) and writer for the
Quarterly
Review; he edited an elaborate edition of Boswell's
Life of
Johnson (1831).
Jan Steen (1625 c.-1679)
Dutch artist renowned for his genre paintings.