MORE than eighty years ago Hazlitt wrote that of the three
notable writers whom the eighteenth century had produced,
in the North American colonies, one was "the author
(whoever he was) of the American Farmer's Letters."
Crèvecœur was that unknown author; and Hazlitt said
further of him that he rendered, in his own vividly charac-
teristic manner, "not only the objects, but the feelings, of
a new country." Great is the essayist's relish for passages
descriptive of "a battle between two snakes," of "the
dazzling, almost invisible flutter of the humming-bird's
wing," of the manners of "the Nantucket people, their
frank simplicity, and festive rejoicings after the perils and
hardships of the whale-fishing." "The power to sym-
pathise with nature, without thinking of ourselves or
others, if it is not a definition of genius, comes very near
to it," writes Hazlitt of our author. And his references to
Crèvecœur are closed with the remark: "We have said
enough of this ILLUSTRIOUS OBSCURE; for it is the rule of
criticism to praise none but the over-praised, and to offer
fresh incense to the idol of the day."

Others, at least, have followed that "rule of criticism,"
and the American Farmer has long enjoyed undisturbed
seclusion. Only once since the eighteenth century has
there been a new edition of his Letters, that were first
published at London in 1782, and reissued, with a few
corrections, in the next year. The original American
edition of this book about America was that published at
Philadelphia in 1793, and there was no reprint till 1904, ¹
when careless editing did all it could to destroy the value
of the work, the name of whose very author was misstated.

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