Various - The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862

At Baltimore he was very successful, after he got at it, in making money, but failed after the peace in 1816. This failure made him a lawyer. With his characteristic impetuosity, he renounced and denounced trade, determined to study law, and beat the profession with its own weapons.

This impulse drove him at rather more than railroad speed. He studied as if a demon chased him. By computation of then Justice Story, he accomplished fourteen years' hard work in four. During this time he was reading largely in half-a-dozen languages that he knew nothing of when he began, and maintaining himself by writing, either as editor of The Telegraph , coëditor of The Portico , (for which he wrote near a volume octavo in a year or two,) and also as joint-editor of Paul Allen's Revolution , besides a tremendous avalanche of novels and poetry. We have amused ourself casting up the amount of this four years' labor. It seems entirely too large for the calibre of common belief, and we suppose Neal will hardly believe us, especially if he have grown luxurious and lazy in these latter days. Crowded into these four years, we find: for the Portico and Telegraph , and half-a-dozen other papers, ten volumes; 'Keep Cool,' two volumes; 'Seventy-Six,' two volumes; 'Errata,' two volumes; 'Niagara and Goldau,' two volumes; Index to Niles' Register, three volumes; 'Otho,' one volume; 'Logan,' four volumes; 'Randolph,' two volumes; Buckingham's Galaxy, Miscellanies, and Poetry, two volumes; making the incredible quantity of thirty volumes. He could no more have gone leisurely and carefully through this amount of work, than a skater could walk a mile a minute on his skates. The marvel is, that he got through it on any terms, not that he won his own disrespect forever. We do not wonder that he manufactured more bayonets than bee-stings for his literary armory, but we wonder that he became a literary champion at all. With all the irons Neal had in the fire, we are not to expect Addisonian paragraphs; and yet he has in his lifetime been mistaken for Washington Irving, as we can show by an extract from an old letter of his, which we will give by and by.

A power that could produce what Neal produced between 1819 and 1823, properly disciplined and economized, might have performed tasks analogous to those of the lightning, since it has been put in harness and employed to carry the mail. When genius has its day of humiliation for the wasted water of life, Neal may put on sackcloth, for he never economized his power; but for the soul's fire quenched in idleness, or smothered in worldliness, certainly for these years, he need wear no weeds.

His novels are always like a rushing torrent, never like a calm stream. They all are dignified with a purpose, with a determination to correct some error, to remedy some abuse, to do good in any number of instances. They are not unlike a field of teasels in blossom—there are the thorny points of this strange plant, and the delicate and exceedingly beautiful blossom beside, resting on the very points of a hundred lances, with their lovely lilac bloom. Those who have lived where teasels grow will understand this illustration. We doubt not it will seem very pointed and proper to Neal. It must be remembered that the teasel is a very useful article in dressing cloth, immense cards of them being set in machinery and made to pass over the cloth and raise and clean the nap. A criticism taking in all the good and bad points of these novels, would be too extensive to pass the door of any review or magazine, unless in an extra. They are full of the faults and virtues of their author's unformed character. Rich as a California mine, we only wish they could be passed through a gold-washer, and the genuine yield be thrown again into our literary currency.

The character of his poems is indicated by their titles, 'Niagara' and 'Goldau,' and by the nom de plume he thought proper to publish them under, namely, 'Jehu O. Cataract.' But portions of his poetry repudiate this thunderous parentage, and are soft as the whispering zephyr or the cooing of doves. The gentleness of strength has a double beauty: its own, and that of contrast. Still, the predominating character of Neal's poetry is the sweep of the wild eagle's wing and the roar of rushing waters.

We read his 'Otho' years since, when we were younger than now, and our pulse beat stronger; and we read it 'holding our breath to the end'—or this was the exact sensation we felt, as nearly as we can remember, twelve years ago.

The character of Neal's periodical writing was just suited to a working country, that was in too great a hurry to dine decently. People wanted to be arrested. If they could stop, they had brains enough to judge you and your wares; but they needed to be lassoed first, and lashed into quietness afterward, and then they would hear and revere the man who had been 'smart' enough to conquer them. John Neal seemed to be conscious of this without knowing it. A veritable woman in his intuitions, he spoke from them, and the heart of the people responded. The term 'live Yankee' was of his coinage, and it aptly christened himself.

Neal went to Europe in 1823, and remained three years. That an American could manage to maintain himself in England by writing, which Neal did, is a pregnant fact. But his power is better proved than in this way. He left America with a vow of temperance during his travels; he returned with it unbroken. Honor to the strong man! He had traveled through England and France, merely wetting his lips with wine. He wrote volumes for British periodicals, and also his 'Brother Jonathan' in three volumes. After looking over the catalogue of his labors for an hour, we always want to draw a long breath and rest. There is no doubt that since his return from Europe in 1826, he has written and published, in books and newspapers, what would make at least one hundred volumes duodecimo. It would be a hard fate for such an author to be condemned to read his own productions, for he would never get time to read any thing else.

Neal's peculiar style caused many oddities and extravagances to be laid at his door that did not belong there. From this fact of style, people thought he could not disguise himself on paper. This is a mistake, for his papers in Miller's European Magazine were attributed to Washington Irving. We transcribe the paragraph of a letter from Neal, promised above, and which we received years since:

'The papers I wrote for Miller's European Magazine have been generally attributed to no less a person than Washington Irving—a man whom I resemble just about as much in my person as in my writing. He, Addisonian and Goldsmithian to the back-bone, and steeped to the very lips in what is called classical literature, of which I have a horror and a loathing, as the deadest of all dead languages; he, foil of subdued pleasantry, quiet humor, and genial blandness, upon all subjects. I, altogether—but never mind. He is a generous fellow, and led the way to all our triumphs in that 'field of the cloth of gold' which men call the literary '.

Neal went to England a sort of Yankee knight-errant to fight for his country. He had the wisdom to fight with his visor down, and quarter on the enemy. He took heavy tribute from Blackwood and others for his articles vindicating America, which came to be extravagantly quoted and read. His article for Blackwood on the Five Presidents and the Five Candidates, portraying General Jackson to the life as he afterward proved to be, was translated into most of the European languages. I transcribe another paragraph from an old letter. It is too characteristic to remain unread by the public:

'For my paper on the Presidents, Blackwood sent me five guineas, and engaged me as a regular contributor, which I determined to be. But I ventured to write for other journals without consulting him; whereat he grew tetchy and impertinent, and I blew him up sky-high, recalled an article in type for which he had paid me fifteen guineas, (I wish he had kept it,) refunded the money, (I wish I hadn't,) and left him forever. But this I will say: Blackwood behaved handsomely to me from first to last, with one small exception, and showed more courage and good feeling toward ' my beloved country' while I was at the helm of that department, than any and all the editors, publishers, and proprietors in Britain. Give the devil his due, I say!'