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[page 373:]
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ART. XII. —
AMERICAN POETRY.
THAT
we
are not a poetical people, has been asserted so often and so roundly,
both
at home and abroad, that the slander, through mere dint of repetition,
has come to be received as truth. Yet nothing can be farther removed
from
it. The mistake is but a corollary from the old dogma, that the
calculating
faculties are at war with the ideal; while, in fact, it may be
demonstrated,
that the two divisions of mental power are never to be found, in
perfection,
apart. The highest order of the imaginative intellect is always
pre-eminently
mathematical, or analytical; and the converse of this proposition is
equally
true.
The idiosyncrasy of our political
position has stimulated
into early action whatever practical talent we possessed. Even in our
national
infancy we evinced a degree of utilitarian ability, which put to shame
the mature skill of our forefathers. While yet in leading-strings, we
proved
ourselves adepts in all the arts and sciences which promote he [[the]]
comfort of the animal man. But the arena of exertion, and of consequent
distinction, into which our first and most obvious wants impelled us,
has
been regarded as the field of our deliberate choice. Our necessities
have
been mistaken for our propensities. Having been forced to make
railroads,
it has been deemed impossible that we should make verse. Because it
suited
us to construct an engine in the first instance, it has been denied
that
we could compose an epic in the second. Because we were not all Homers
in the beginning, it has been somewhat too cavalierly taken for granted
that we shall be all Jeremy Benthams to the end.
But this is the purees insanity. The
principles of
the poetic sentiment lie deep within the immortal nature of man, and
have
little necessary reference to the worldly circumstances which surround
him. The poet in ARCADY, is, in KAMSCHADTKA, the poet still. The
self-same
Saxon current animates the British and the American heart; nor can any
social, or political, or moral, or physical conditions, do more than
momentarily
repress the impulses, which glow in our own bosoms as fervently as in
those
of our progenitors.
Those who have taken most careful
note of our literature
for the last ten or twelve years, will be most willing to admit that we
are
a poetical people; and in no respect is this fact more strikingly
evinced
than in the eagerness with which we ourselves seek information in
regard
to our poetry and our poets. But, alas ! we seek what is not easily to
be found. A distinct, connected, and, especially, a comparative
view of our poetical literature, has been long a desideratum.
But
how, or where, shall we supply it? Shall we pick it out for ourselves,
piecemeal, from the columns of the ephemeral press? Shall we look here
for even a few well-considered and honest opinions at random? The idea
is preposterous. The corrupt character of our ordinary criticism has
become
notorious. Its powers have, been prostrated by its own arm. The
intercourse
between critic and publisher, as it now almost universally stands, is
comprised
either in the paying and pocketing of black-mail, as the price of a
simple
forbearance, or [page 374:] in a direct system of
petty
and contemptible bribery, properly so called — a system even more
injurious
than the former to the true interest of the public, and more degrading
to the buyers and sellers of good opinion, on account of the more
positive
character of the service here rendered, for the consideration received.
We smile at the idea of any denial of
our assertions
upon this topic; — they are infamously true. In the charge of general
corruption,
there are, undoubtedly, some noble exceptions to be made. There are,
indeed,
some editors, who, maintaining, an entire independence, will receive no
books from publishers at all, or who will receive them with a perfect
understanding,
on the part of these latter, that unbiassed critiques will be
given.
But these cases have always been insufficient to have much effect upon
the popular mistrust; — a mistrust heightened by the exposure, no great
while ago, of the machinations of coteries in BOSTON — coteries
which,
at the bidding of leading booksellers, manufactured, as required from
time
to time, a pseudo-public opinion by wholesale, for the benefit of any
little
hanger-on of the party, or pettifogging protector of the firm. We
scarcely
expect to be believed — but to so high a pitch of methodical assurance
had the system of puffery at one time arrived, that certain publishers,
in the city to which we allude made no scruple of keeping on hand an
assortment
of commendatory notices, prepared by their men of all-work, and of
sending
their notices around to the multitudinous papers within their
influence, done
up within the fly-leaves of the book. The grossness of these base
attempts,
however, has not escaped indignant rebuke from the more honorable
portion
of the press. Tricks such as these will scarcely be attempted again;
and
we hail these symptoms of restiveness under the yoke of unprincipled
ignorance
and quackery — strong only in combination — as the harbinger of a
better
era for the interests of real merit, and of the national literature as
a whole.
It has become, indeed, the plain duty
of each individual
connected with the press, heartily to give whatever influence he
possesses,
to the good cause of integrity, and the Truth. The results thus
attainable
will be found worthy [[of]] his closest attention and best efforts. We
shall thus frown down all conspiracies to foist inanity upon the public
consideration, at the obvious expense of every man of talent who is not
a member of a clique in power. We may even arrive, in time, at
that
desirable point from which a distinct view of our men of letters may be
obtained, and their respective pretensions adjusted, by the standard of
a rigorous and self-sustaining criticism alone. That their several
positions
are as yet properly settled — that the posts which a vast number of
them
now hold, are maintained by any better tenure than that of the
chicanery
upon which we have commented — will be asserted by none but the
ignorant,
or the parties who have best right to feel an interest in the "good old
condition of things." No two matters can be more radically different
than
the reputation of some of our prominent littérateurs, as
gathered from the mouths of the people — who glean it from the
paragraphs
of the papers — and the same reputation as deduced from the private
estimate
of intelligent and educated men. We do not advance this fact as a new
discovery.
Its truth, on the [page 375:] contrary, is the
subject,
and has long been so, of every-day witticism and mirth.
Why not? Surely there can be few
things more ridiculous
than the general character and assumptions of the ordinary critical
notices
of new books. A back-woods editor, sometimes without the shadow of the
commonest attainment — always without time — often without brains —
does
not hesitate to give the world to understand that he is in the daily
habit
of critically reading and deciding upon a flood of publications,
one-tenth
of whose title-pages he may possibly have turned over —
three-fourths
of whose contents would be Hebrew to his most desperate efforts at
comprehension
— an whose entire mass and amount, as might be mathematically
demonstrated,
would be sufficient to occupy, in the most cursory perusal, the
attention
of some ten or twenty readers for a month. What he wants in
plausibility,
however, he makes up in obsequiousness — what he lacks in time, he
supplies
in temper. He is the most easily pleased man in the world. He admires
everything,
from the big dictionary of NOAH WEBSTER, to the last diamond edition of
TOM THUMB. Indeed his sole difficulty is in finding tongue to express
his
delight. Every pamphlet is a miracle — every book in boards is an epoch
in letters. His phrases, therefore, grow larger and larger every day;
and
if it were not for talking "HARRISON AINSWORTH," we might call him a
"regular
swell."
Yet, in the attempt at getting
definite information
in regard tn any one portion of our literature, the merely general
reader,
or the foreigner, will turn in vain from the lighter to the heavier
journals.
But it is not our intention here to dwell upon our Magazines.
Undoubtedly,
one of the very best of them was "Arcturus." It was edited by gentlemen
of taste, of high talent, and of much general literary knowledge. Of
the
honesty of Arcturus we have a high opinion — but what even it
did,
or was likely to do, in tho cause of judicious criticism, may be
gleaned
from a passage in one of its most elaborate contributed papers. It
says:
—
"But now, criticism has a
wider scope and
a universal interest. It dismisses errors of grammar, and hands over an
imperfect rhyme, or a false quantity, to the proofreader. It looks now
to the heart of the subject, and the author's design. It is a test of
opinion.
Good criticism may be well asked for, since it is the type of the
literature
of the day. A criticism, now, includes every form of
literature,
except, perhaps, the imaginative and the strictly dramatic. It is an
essay,
a sermon, an oration, a chapter in history, a philosophical
speculation,
a prose poem, an art-novel, a dialogue. It admits of humor, pathos, the
personal feelings of auto-biography, the broadest views of
statesmanship.
As the ballad and the epic were the productions of the days of Homer,
the
review is the native characteristic growth of the nineteenth century."
We must dissent from nearly all that
is here said.
The species of review which is designated as the "characteristic growth
of the nineteenth century," is only the growth of the last twenty or
thirty
years in GREAT BRITAIN. The French reviews, for example, which are not
anonymous; preserve the unique spirit of true criticism. And
what
need we say of the Germans ? — what of WINKLEMANN ? — of SCHELLING? —
of
GÖTHE — of AUGUSTUS WILLIAM ? — and of FREDERICK, [[extraneous
comma]]
SCHLEGEL? — that their magnificent critiques raisonnées,
differ from those of JOHNSON, of ADDISON, and of BLAIR, in principle
not
at all, — for the principles of these artists will not fail until
Nature
herself expires [page 376:] — but solely in their
more
careful elaboration, their greater thoroughness, their more profound
analysis
and application of the principles themselves. To say that a criticism
now
should be different in spirit, from a criticism at any previous period,
is to insinuate a charge of variability in laws that cannot vary — the
laws of man's heart and intellect — for here are the sole basis upon
which
the true critical art is established. And this art now, no more than in
the days of the "Dunciad," can, without neglect of its duty, "dismiss
errors
of grammar," or "hand over imperfect rhymes to the proof-reader." And
all
that which "Arcturus," maintains a criticism to be, is all that which
we
sturdily maintain it is not. Criticism is not, we think, an essay, nor
a sermon, nor an oration, nor a chapter in history, nor a philosophical
speculation, nor a prose-poem, nor an art-novel, nor a dialogue. In
fact,
It can be nothing in the world but a — criticism. But if it were all
that
"Arcturus" imagines, it is not so very clear why it might not equally
be
"imaginative," or dramatic — a romance or a melo-drama —or both. That
it
would be a farce cannot be doubted.
It is against this frantic spirit of
generalization
that we protest. We have a word, "criticism," whose import is
sufficiently
distinct, through long usage, at least; and we have an art of high
importance
and clearly ascertained limit, which this word is quite well-enough
understood
to represent. Of that conglomerate science to which Arcturus'
correspondent
so eloquently alludes, and of which we are instructed that it is
anything
and everything at once — of this peculiar science we are not
particularly
well qualified to speak; but we must object to the appropriation, in
its
behalf, of a term to which we, in common with a large majority of
mankind,
have been accustomed to attach a certain and very definitive idea. Is
there
no word but "criticism" which may be made to save [[serve]] the
purposes
intended. Is there any objection to Orphicism, or Dialism, or Alcottism
— or any other frequent compound indicative of confusion worse
confounded
?
But critical heresies such as these
are but a softened
expression, or reflection, of the ruling "cant of the day." By the
ruling
cant of the day we mean the disgusting practice of putting on the airs
of an owl, and endeavoring to look miraculously wise; — the affectation
of second-sight — of a species of extatic prescience — of an intensely
bathetic penetration into all sorts of mysteries, psychological ones in
especial; — an orphic, an ostrich affectation, which buries its head in
balderdash, and, seeing nothing itself, fancies, therefore, that its
preposterous
carcass is not a visible object of derision for the world at large; an
affectation particularly in vogue, just now, among a knot of miserable
bedlamites in BOSTON — a clique of pitiable dunderheads who go about
babbling
in parables, and swearing by CARLYLE, with a leer in one eye and a mass
of lachrymose hair plastered carefully over the other — a set of
thumb-sucking
babies and idiots, who could not do a better thing for their own
comfort
and that of the community than blow out the exceedingly small modicum
of
hasty-pudding which they imagine to be their brains.
Let us, by way of exemplification,
imagine one of
these gentlemen reviewing — as he calls it — the Paradise Lost. He
would
discourse of it thus: [page 377:] "The
Paradise Lost is the
earnest outpouring
of the oneness of the psychological MAN. It has the individuality of
the
true singleness. It is not to be regarded as a poem — but as a work
— as a multiple Theogony — as a manifestation of the Works and the
Days.
It is a pinion for the Progress — a wheel in the Movement that
moveth
ever and goeth alway — a mirror of Self-Inspection, held up by the Seer
of the Age essential — of the Age in esse — for the Seers of
the
Ages possible — in posse. We hail a brother in the Work."
Of the mere opinions of the donkeys who brag
thus — of their mere dogmas and doctrines, literary, aesthetical, or
what
not — we know little, and, upon our honor, we wish to know less.
Occupied,
laputically, in their great work of a Progress that never
progresses,
we take it for granted, also, that they care as little about ours. But
whatever the opinions of these people may be — however portentous the
"IDEA"
which they have been so long threatening to "evolve" — we still think
it
clear that they take a very roundabout way of evolving it. The use of
language
is in the promulgation of thought. If a man, or a SEER, or whatever
else
he may choose to call himself, while the rest of the world calls him an
ass — if he have an idea which he does not understand himself, the
least
thing he can do is to say nothing about it; for, of course, he can
entertain
no hope that what he, the SEER cannot comprehend, should be
comprehended
by the mass of common humanity; but if he have an idea which is
actually
intelligible to himself, and if he really wish to render it
intelligible
to others, we then hold it as indisputable that he should employ those
forms of speech which are the best adapted to further his object. He
should
speak to the people in that people's ordinary tongue. He should arrange
words, such as are habitually employed, in collocations, such as those
in which we are accustomed to see those words arranged. But to all this
the orphicist thus replies: " I am a SEER. My IDEA — the idea which by
Providence I am especially commissioned to evolve — is one so vast — so
novel — that ordinary words, in ordinary collocations, will be
insufficient
for its comfortable evolution." Very true. We grant the vastness of the
IDEA. But, then, if ordinary language be insufficient — the ordinary
language
which men understand — à fortiori will be insufficient
that
inordinate language which no man has ever understood, and which any
well-educated
baboon would blush in being accused of understanding. The SEER,
therefore,
has no resource but to oblige mankind by holding his tongue, and
suffering
his IDEA to remain quietly "unevolved," until some mesmeric mode of
intercommunication
shall be invented, whereby the antipodil brains of the SEER and of the
man of common sense, shall be brought into the necessary rapport. Meantime,
we " earnestly". ask if bread and butter be the vast IDEA in question —
if bread and butter be any portion of this vast IDEA — for we have
often
observed that when a SEER has to speak of even so usual a thing as
bread
and butter, he can never be induced to mention it outright. He will, if
you choose, say anything and everything, but bread or butter. He will
consent
to hint at buckwheat cake. He may even accommodate you so far as to
insinuate
oatmeal porridge — but if bread and butter be really the matter
intended,
we never yet met the gentleman of this peculiar school who could get
out
the three individual words — bread and butter.
And of our Quarterlies what shall we
say? — of the
aid which they [page 378:] are likely to afford us
in investigating the condition of our poetical literature ? The
articles
here are anonymous. Who writes ? Who causes to be written? Who but a
fool
would put faith in tirades which may be the result of personal
hostility
— or in panegyrics which, nine times out of ten, may be laid, directly
or indirectly, to the charge of the author himself ? It is in the favor
of these saturnine pamphlets that they contain, now and then, a good
essay de
omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, which may be looked into,
without
decided somnolent consequences, at any period not immediately
subsequent
to dinner. But it is useless to expect criticism from periodicals
called
Reviews, from never reviewing, as lucus is lucus à
non lucendo. Besides all men know, or should know — that these
books
are sadly given to verbiage It is a part of their nature — a condition
of their being — a point of their faith. A veteran reviewer loves the
safety
of generalities. He is, therefore, rarely particular. "Words, words,
words,"
are the secret of his strength. He has one or two ideas of his own, and
is both wary and fussy in giving them out. His wit lies, with his
truth,
in a well, and there is always a world of trouble in getting it up. He
is a sworn enemy to all things simple and direct. He gives no ear to
the
advice of the giant MOULINEAU — "Belier, mon ami, commencez au
commencement —
Ram, my friend, begin at the beginning." He either jumps, at once, into
the middle of his subject, or breaks in at a back door, or sidles up to
it with the gait of a crab; — no other mode of approach has an air of
sufficient
profundity. When fairly into it, however, he becomes, dazzled by the
scintillations
of his own wisdom, and is seldom able to see his way out. Tired of
laughing
at his antics, or frightened at seeing him flounder, the reader at
length
shuts him up with the book. "What song the Syrens sang," says Sir
THOMAS
BROWNE, "or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women,
although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture" —
but
it would puzzle Sir THOMAS, backed by ACHILLES and all the Syrens in
Heathendom,
to say, in nine cases out of ten, what is the object of a Quarterly
Reviewer.
But should the opinions promulgated
by our Quarterlies,
and by our press at large, be taken, in their wonderful aggregate, as
an
evidence of what American literature absolutely is and it may be said
that,
in general, they are really so taken — we shall find ourselves the most
enviable set of people upon the face of the earth. Our fine writers are
legion. Our very atmosphere is redolent of genius, and we, the nation,
are a huge well-contented chameleon, grown pursy by inhaling it. We are
teretes
et rotundi, enwrapped in excellence. All our poets are Miltons,
neither
"mute nor inglorious;" all our poetesses are "American Hemanses;" nor
will
it do to deny that all our novelists are either great Unknowns or great
Knowns, and that everybody who writes, in every possible or impossible
department, is the admirable CHRICHTON, or at least the admirable
CHRICHTON'S
ghost. We are thus in a glorious condition, and will remain so until
forced
to disgorge our ethereal honors. In truth, there is some danger that
the
jealousy of the Old World will interfere. It cannot long submit to that
outrageous monopoly of "all the decency and of all [page 379:]
the talent in which the Gentlemen of the press give such undoubted
assurance,
of our being busily engaged.
But we feel angry with ourself for
the jesting tone
of our observations upon this topic. The prevalence of the spirit of
puffery
is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust. Its buckling yet
dogmatical character — its bold, unsustained, yet self-sufficient and
wholesale
laudation, — is becoming, more and more, an insult to the common-sense
of the community. Trivial as it essentially is, it has yet been made
the
instrument of the grossest abuse, in the elevation of imbecility — to
the
manifest injury — to the utter ruin of true merit. Is there any man of
good feeling and of ordinary understanding — is there a single
individual
who reads these remarks — who does not feel a thrill of bitter
indignation,
apart from any sentiment of mirth, as he calls to mind instance after
instance
of the purest — of the most unadulterated quackery in letters, which
has
risen to a high post in the apparent popular estimation — and which
still
maintains it — by the sole means of a blustering arrogance — or of a
busy,
wriggling conceit — or of the most barefaced plagiarism — or even
through
the mere immensity of its assumptions — assumptions not only unopposed
by the press at large, but absolutely supported — supported in
proportion
to the vociferous clamor with which they are made — in exact accordance
with their utter baselessness and untenability ?
So firm, through a long endurance,
has been the hold
taken upon the popular mind — at least so far as we may consider the
popular
mind reflected in ephemeral letters — by the laudatory system which we
have deprecated, that what is, in its own essence, a vice, has become
endowed
with the appearance, and met with the reception of a virtue. Antiquity,
as usual, has lent a certain degree of speciousness, even to the
absurd.
So continuously have we puffed, that we have, at length, come to think
puffing the duty, and plain-speaking the dereliction. What we began in
gross error, we persist in through habit. Having adopted, in the
earliest
days of our literature, the untenable idea that this literature, as a
whole,
could be advanced by indiscriminate approbation bestowed on its every
effort
— having adopted this idea, without attention to the obvious fact, that
praise of all is bitter, although negative censure to the few
alone
deserving, and that the only possible result of the system, in the
fostering
way, would be the fostering of folly — we now continue our vile
practices.
through the supiness of custom, even while, in our national
self-conceit,
we repudiate that necessity for patronage and protection, in which
originated
our conduct. In a word, the press throughout the country has not been
ashamed
to make head against the very few bold attempts at independence which
have
been made, from time to time, in the face of the reigning order of
things.
And if, in one or two insulated cases, the spirit of a severe Truth,
sustained
by an unconquerable Will, was not to be so put down — then, forthwith,
were private chicaneries set in motion: — then was had recourse, on the
part of those who considered themselves injured by the severity of
criticism
— and who were so, if the just contempt of every ingenious man
is
injury — recourse to arts, and to acts of the most virulent indignity —
to untraceable slanders — to ruthless assassination in the dark. We say
these
things were [page 380:] done, while the press in general
looked
on, and, with a full understanding of the wrong perpetrated, spoke not
against the wrong. The idea had absolutely gone abroad — had grown up,
little by little, into toleration — that attacks, however just, upon a
literary reputation however attained, however untenable, were well
retaliated
by the basest and most unfounded traduction of personal fame. But is
this
an age — is this a day — in which it can be necessary even to advert to
such considerations as that the book of the author is the property of
the
public, and that the issue of the book is the throwing down of the
gauntlet
to the reviewer — to the reviewer whose duty is the plainest — the
duty,
not of approbation, nor of censure, nor even of silence at his own
will,
but at the sway of those sentiments — whether of admiration, whether of
scorn or of contempt — which are derived from the author himself,
through
the medium of his written and published words ? True criticism is the
reflection
of the thing criticised upon the spirit of the critic.
Turning, in our search for just
information, upon
our poetical literature, from the Newspapers, from the Monthly
Magazines,
and from the Quarterly Reviews — turning from these in despair, we
encounter
certain books, professing to select, or compile, from the works of our
native bards; and no better evidence can be adduced, of the general
interest
felt in my present subject, then is found in the fact that even these volumes
are
eagerly received by the public. They meet with success — at least with
sale — at periods when the general market for literary wares is in a
state
of stagnation. The "Specimens of American Poetry," by KETTELL — the
"Common-Place-Book
of American Poetry," by CHEEVER — Selection by General MORRIS — another
by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT — the "Poets of America," by Mr. KEESE — and
the
"Poets and Poetry of America," by RUFUS W. GRISWOLD — all these have
been
widely disseminated — and sold. In some measure, to be sure,
we
must regard their success as an affair of personalities. Each
individual
honored with a niche in the compiler's memory, is naturally anxious to
possess a copy of the book so honoring him — and this anxiety will
extend,
in some cases, to ten or twenty of the immediate friends of the
complimented;
while, on the other hand, purchasers will arise, in no small number,
from
among a very different class — a class animated by very different
feelings.
We mean the omitted — the large body of those, who, supposing
themselves
entitled to mention, have yet, very unaccountably, been left
unmentioned.
These buy the unfortunate book, as a matter of course, for the purpose
of abusing it with a clear conscience, and at leisure. But, holding
these
deductions in view, we are still warranted in believing that the demand
for works of the kind in question, is to be attributed, mainly, to the
general interest of the matter discussed.
As for the two books first
mentioned, we place
no very great emphasis upon them. The "Specimens" Mr. KETTELL
were,
in our opinion specimens of little beyond his own ill taste. A large
proportion
of what he gave to the world as American Poetry — to the exclusion of
much
that is really so — was the doggrel composition of individuals
unheard-of
and undreamed-of, except by Mr. KETTELL himself. Mr. CHEEVER'S
"Common-Place-Book"
had, at least, the [page 381:] merit of not belying its title, and was
excessively common-place. The "Selection" by General MORRIS
was
in so far good, that it did not fall short of its object. This object
looked
to nothing more than single brief extracts, from the writings of every
man in the country, who had established even the slightest reputation
as
a poet. The extracts, upon the whole, were tastefully made; but the
proverbial
kind feeling of the General seduced him, we fear, into the admission of
much which his judgement disapproved. It was gravely declared that we
had
more than two hundred poets in the land. The compilation of Mr. BRYANT
— from whom much was expected — proved a source of mortification to his
friends, and of disappointment to all — merely showing that a poet is,
necessarily, neither a critical nor an impartial judge of poetry. Mr.
KEESE
brought to his task, it not the most vigorous impartiality, at least a
decent taste, a tolerable judgment, and a better knowledge of his
subject
than had distinguished some of his predecessors.
Much, however, remained to be done —
and, in a very
large book, Mr. GRISWOLD has endeavoured to do it. The basis of his
compilation
is formed of short biographical and critical notice, with selections
from
the works of eighty-seven poets. In an Appendix, are included specimens
from the writings of some sixty or seventy more, whose compositions
have
either been too few, or in the editor's opinion, too bad, to
entitle
them to more particular notice. To each of these latter specimens, are
appended foot-notes, conveying a brief biographical summary, without
anything
of critical disquisition.
In saying that, individually, we
disagree with the
compiler of the "Poets and Poetry of America" in many — in very
many of his comparative estimates and general opinions, we are merely
suggesting
what, in itself, would have been obvious without the
suggestion.
It rarely happens that any two persons thoroughly agree upon any one
point.
It would be mere madness to imagine that any two could coincide in every
point of a case, wherein exist a multiplicity of opinions, upon a
multiplicity
of points. There is no one who, reading the "Poets and Poetry of
America,"
will not, in a hundred instances, be tempted to throw it aside, because
its prejudices and partialities are, in these hundred instances,
altogether
at war with his own. Had the work, nevertheless, been that of the
finest
critic in existence — and this, we are sorry to say, Mr. GRISWOLD is not
— there would still have been these inevitable discrepancies of
opinion,
to startle and to vex us, as now.
When we avow, therefore, that we
differ with the
compiler in much — in very much that he has advanced — this
difference
will not fail to be taken at the proper value of any unsupported and
merely
individual opinion. As such, it is [[of]] little worth. Very sincerely,
however, we do believe, that, as a general rule, he has not given us,
in
his selections, the best compositions of the poets respectively
mentioned.
As a matter of less importance — he has placed in his Appendix some two
or three whom he should have placed in the body of the book. He has
placed
in the body of the book some three or four whom he should have placed
in
the Appendix. He has omitted altogether some four or five whom we
should
have been tempted to introduce. On the [page 382:]other
hand, he has scarcely made amends by introducing some four or five
dozen
whom we should not have scrupled to treat with contempt. In several
instances,
he has rendered himself liable, we fear, to the charge of personal
partiality
— it is often so very difficult a thing to keep separate, in the mind's
eye, our conceptions of the poetry of a friend, from our impressions of
his good-fellowship. Indeed the task undertaken by Mr. GRISWOLD was one
of exceeding difficulty, and he has performed it with much credit to
himself.
lt demanded qualities, however, some of which he is too good-natured to
possess. It demanded analytical ability — a distinct impression of the
nature, the principles, and the aims of poetry — a thorough contempt
for
all prejudice at war with principle — a poetic sense of the poetic —
sagacity
in the detection and audacity in the exposure of demerit — in a word,
talent
and faith — the lofty honor which places more courtesy beneath its feet
— the boldness to praise an enemy and the more unusual courage to damn
a friend. It will not do to say that his book is a judicious book; but,
whatever be its faults, it is the best book of its class, and the only
source whence any distinct or satisfactory knowledge of our poetical
literature
is to be obtained.
We might write much more on this
subject, and might
notice the American poets in detail, but postpone our remarks until
another
opportunity. This will be afforded very shortly, not only by the
forthcoming
publication, amended, of a seventh edition of Mr. GRISWOLD'S book; but
of another volume, from which we expect much. Perhaps; in the latter
expectation,
we may be disappointed. |
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