The commendation bestowed upon Motley’s historical essays in “The North American Review” must have gone far towards compensating him for the ill success of his earlier venture.  It pointed clearly towards the field in which he was to gather his laurels.  And it was in the year following the publication of the first essay, or about that time (1846), that he began collecting materials for a history of Holland.  Whether to tell the story of men that have lived and of events that have happened, or to create the characters and invent the incidents of an imaginary tale be the higher task, we need not stop to discuss.  But the young author was just now like the great actor in Sir Joshua’s picture, between the allurements of Thalia and Melpomene, still doubtful whether he was to be a romancer or a historian.

The tale of which the title is given at the beginning of this section had been written several years before the date of its publication.  It is a great advance in certain respects over the first novel, but wants the peculiar interest which belonged to that as a partially autobiographical memoir.  The story is no longer disjointed and impossible.  It is carefully studied in regard to its main facts.  It has less to remind us of “Vivian Grey” and “Pelham,” and more that recalls “Woodstock” and “Kenilworth.”  The personages were many of them historical, though idealized; the occurrences were many of them such as the record authenticated; the localities were drawn largely from nature.  The story betrays marks of haste or carelessness in some portions, though others are elaborately studied.  His preface shows that the reception of his first book had made him timid and sensitive about the fate of the second, and explains and excuses what might be found fault with, to disarm the criticism he had some reason to fear.

That old watch-dog of our American literature, “The North American Review,” always ready with lambent phrases in stately “Articles” for native talent of a certain pretension, and wagging its appendix of “Critical Notices” kindly at the advent of humbler merit, treated “Merry-Mount” with the distinction implied in a review of nearly twenty pages.  This was a great contrast to the brief and slighting notice of “Morton’s Hope.”  The reviewer thinks the author’s descriptive power wholly exceeds his conception of character and invention of circumstances.

“He dwells, perhaps, too long and fondly upon his imagination of the landscape as it was before the stillness of the forest had been broken by the axe of the settler; but the picture is so finely drawn, with so much beauty of language and purity of sentiment, that we cannot blame him for lingering upon the scene. . . .  The story is not managed with much skill, but it has variety enough of incident and character, and is told with so much liveliness that few will be inclined to lay it down before reaching the conclusion. . . .  The writer certainly needs practice