"Mr. Horace Gates, Hyacinth's assistant, on the 'Irving Magazine,' is Mr. J. Parton, late of the Home Journal. Mr. Parton has recently written a book for Fanny's new publishers, so she thought proper to puff him. Mr. P. is a talented writer, and may, for aught we know, be an excellent man; but he is unfortunate in sitting for the portrait of Mr. Horace Gates. We should prefer anything rather than praise from such a quarter.
"But of all the overdone specimens of goodness, the character of virtuous John Walter is the most ridiculous to those who know the original. John Walter is----laugh, ye gods! and hold your sides!--is--but we will spare the poor man's blushes. This pure and fragrant gentleman--who, by the way, never knew Fanny until after the establishment of her reputation, and her contract with Derby & Miller, for the publication of 'Fern Leaves'--has since devoted himself to her service, contented to lick what crumbs may fall to him from her table, as a reward for his brave championship. He 'puts through' the newspaper puffing which heralds her books, acting as her counsellor, companion, and gentleman friend generally--and so she makes an angel of him out of gratitude. Delicious John Walter!
"The story of Ruth Hall is nothing. There is no plot whatever; no thread of interest to hold one to its pages. There are some spicy, quite Ferny sketches, in the first half of the volume--but the rest is all chaff, filled in to swell the covers to a respectable capaciousness. Towards the close, for want of better matter, we are surfeited with letters from people nobody cares anything about, and a tedious phrenological examination, designed to set off the transcendent mental, moral and affectional qualities of that heavenly creature, Ruth--alias Fanny!
"The book abounds with horrors of cruelty and neglect--which all who are aware in what style Mrs. Farrington used to live, know to be false--until we come to the introduction of good John Walter, when everybody commences laughing. Indeed, such expressions as 'said Ruth, laughing,' 'said Mr. Walter, laughing,' 'said Katy, laughing,' 'said Ruth, beginning to laugh,' occur _ad nauseam_. Sometimes we have 'said Ruth, smiling,' which amounts to the same thing. And so the book draws to a verbose and feeble close. We are glad to have shut it up, never to open it again. We love not these bad-hearted books. Let us then hasten to take leave of this one, and of Fanny Fern, forever. It was no agreeable task we had to do, but we have done it conscientiously and faithfully; and here let it end."