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THE LITERATI OF NEW YORK CITY. —
NO. VI.
SOME HONEST OPINIONS AT RANDOM RESPECTING THEIR
AUTORIAL
MERITS,
WITH OCCASIONAL WORDS OF PERSONALITY.
BY EDGAR A. POE.
[column 1:]
CHARLES FENNO
HOFFMAN.
 Mr. Charles Fenno Hoffman has been
long
known to the public as an author. He commenced his literary
career
(as is usually the case in America) by writing for the newspapers — for
"The New York American" especially, in the editorial conduct of which
he
became in some manner associated, at a very early age, with Mr. Charles
King. His first book, I believe, was a collection
(entitled
"A Winter in the West") of letters published in "The American " during
a tour made by their author through the "far West." This work appeared
in 1834, went through several editions, was reprinted in London, was
very
popular, and deserved its popularity. It conveys the natural enthusiasm
of a true idealist, in the proper phrenological sense, of one
sensitively
alive to beauty in every development. Its scenic descriptions are
vivid, because fresh, genuine, unforced. There is nothing of the
cant of the tourist for the sake not of nature but of tourism.
The
author writes what he feels and, clearly, because he
feels
it. The style, as well as that of all Mr. Hoffman's books, is
easy,
free from superfluities, and, although abundant in broad phrases,
still singularly refined, gentlemanly. This ability to speak bodily
without
blackguardism, to use the tools of the rabble when necessary without
soiling
or roughening the hands with their employment, is a rare and unerring
test
of the natural in contradistinction from the artificial aristocrat.
Mr. H.'s next work was "Wild
Scenes in the
Forest and Prairie," very similar to the preceding, but more
diversified
with anecdote and interspersed with poetry. "Greyslaer" followed,
a romance based on the well-known murder of Sharp, the
Solicitor-General
of Kentucky, by Beauchampe. W. Gilmore Simms (who has far more
power,
more passion, more movement, more skill than Mr. Hoffman) has treated
the
subject more effectively in his novel "Beauchampe;" but the fact is
that
both gentlemen have positively failed, as might have been
expected. That both books are interesting is no merit either of Mr. H.
or of Mr.
S. The real events were more impressive than are the fictitious
ones. The facts of this remarkable tragedy, as arranged by
actual
circumstance,
would put to shame the skill of the most consummate artist. Nothing
was left to the novelist but the amplification of character, and
at this point neither the author of "Greyslaer" nor of "Beauchampe" [column
2:] is especially au fait. The incidents
might
be better woven into a tragedy.
In the way of poetry Mr.
Hoffman has also
written
a good deal. "The Vigil of Faith and other Poems" is the title of
a volume published several years ago. The subject of the leading
poem is happy — whether originally conceived by Mr. H. or based on an
actual
superstition, I cannot say. Two Indian chiefs are rivals in
love. The accepted lover is about to be made happy, when his betrothed
is
murdered
by the discarded suitor. The revenge taken is the careful preservation
of
the life of the assassin, under the idea that the meeting the maiden in
another world is the point most desired by both the survivors.
The
incidents interwoven are picturesque, and there are many quotable
passages;
the descriptive portions are particularly good; but the author has
erred,
first, in narrating the story in the first person, and secondly, in
putting
into the mouth of the narrator language and sentiments above the nature
of an Indian. I say that the narration should not have been in the
first
person, because, although an Indian may and does fully experience a
thousand
delicate shades of sentiment, (the whole idea of the story is
essentially
sentimental), still he has, clearly, no capacity for their various expression.
Mr. Hoffman's hero is made to discourse very much after
the manner
of Rousseau. Nevertheless, "The Vigil of Faith" is, upon the
whole,
one of our most meritorious poems. The shorter pieces in the
collection
have been more popular; one or two of the songs particularly
so
— "Sparkling and Bright," for example, which is admirably adapted to
song
purposes, and is full of lyric feelings. It cannot be denied,
however,
that, in general, the whole tone, air and spirit of Mr. Hoffman's
fugitive
compositions are echoes of Moore. At times the very words and
figures
of the "British Anacreon" are unconsciously adopted. Neither can
there be any doubt that this obvious similarity, if not positive
imitation,
is the source of the commendation bestowed upon our poet by "The Dublin
University Magazine," which declares him "the best song writer in
America,"
and does him also the honor to intimate its opinion that "he is a
better
fellow than the whole Yankee crew" of us taken together — after which
there
is very little to be said.
Whatever may be the merits of
Mr. Hoffman
as
a poet, it may be easily seen that these merits have been put in the
worst
possible light by the indiscriminate [page 158:]
and
lavish approbation bestowed on them by Doctor Griswold in his "Poets
and
Poetry of America." The compiler can find no blemish in Mr.
H.,
agrees with everything and copies everything said in his praise — worse
than all, gives him more space in the book than any two, or perhaps
three,
of our poets combined. All this is as much an insult to Mr.
Hoffman
as to the public, and has done the former irreparable injury — how or
why,
it is of course unnecessary to say. "Heaven save us from our friends
!"
Mr. Hoffman was the original
editor of "The
Knickerbocker Magazine," and gave it while under his control a tone and
character, the weight of which may be best estimated by the
consideration
that the work thence received an impetus which has sufficed to bear it
on alive, although tottering, month after month, through even that
dense
region of unmitigated and unmitigable fog — that dreary realm of outer
darkness, of utter and inconceivable dunderheadism, over which has so
long
ruled King Log the Second, in the august person of one Lewis Gaylord
Clark.
Mr. Hoffman subsequently owned and edited "The American Monthly
Magazine,"
one of the best journals we have ever had. He also for one year
conducted
"The New York Mirror," and has always been a very constant contributor
to the periodicals of the day.
He is the brother of Ogden
Hoffman. Their
father, whose family came to New York from Holland before the time of
Peter
Stuyvesant, was often brought into connection or rivalry with such men
as Pinckney, Hamilton and Burr.
The character of no man is more
universally
esteemed and admired than that of the subject of this memoir. He
has a host of friends, and it is quite impossible that he should have
an
enemy in the world. He is chivalric to a fault, enthusiastic,
frank
without discourtesy, an ardent admirer of the beautiful, a gentleman of
the
best school — a gentleman by birth, by education and by
instinct. His manners are graceful and winning in the extreme — quiet,
affable
and
dignified, yet cordial and dégagés. He converses
much,
earnestly, accurately and well. In person he is remarkably
handsome. He is about five feet ten in height, somewhat stoutly made.
His
countenance
is a noble one — a full index of the character. The features are
somewhat
massive but regular. The eyes are blue, or light gray, and full
of
fire; the mouth finely-formed, although the lips have a slight
expression
of voluptuousness; the forehead, to my surprise, although high, gives
no
indication, in the region of the temples, of that ideality (or love of
the beautiful) which is the distinguishing trait of his moral
nature.
The hair curls, and is of a dark brown, interspersed with gray. He
wears
full whiskers. Is about forty years of age. Unmarried.
——
MARY
E. HEWITT.
Mrs. Hewitt has become
known
entirely
through her contributions to our periodical literature. I am not
aware that she has written any prose, but her poems have been numerous
and often excellent. A collection of them was published not long ago in
an exquisitely tasteful form, by Ticknor & Co., of Boston. The
leading piece, entitled "Songs of Our Land," was by no means the most
meritorious,
although the largest in the volume. In general, these
compositions
evince the author's poetic fervor, classicism of taste and keen
appreciation
of the beautiful, in the moral as well as in the physical world. No one
of them, perhaps, can be judiciously commended as a whole, but
no
one of them is without merit, and there are several which would do
credit
to any poet in the land — still even these latter are rather
particularly
than generally commendable. They lack unity, totality, ultimate effect,
but abound in forcible passages. For example —
"Shall I portray thee in thy
glorious
seeming,
Thou that the Pharos of my darkness
art ?"
* * * *
*
* *
"Like the blue lotos on its own
clear
river
Lie thy soft eyes, beloved, upon my
soul."
* * * *
*
* *
"Here, 'mid your wild and dark
defile,
O'crawed and
wonder-whelmed I
stand,
And ask, 'Is this the fearful
vale
That opens on the
shadowy land
?'
"
* * * *
*
* *
"And there the slave — a slave no
more —
Hung reverent up the chain he
wore."
* * * *
*
* *
"Oh, friends, we would be
treasured still
!
Though Time's cold
hand should
cast
His misty veil, in after years,
Over the idol
Past,
Yet send to us some offering
thought
O'er Memory's
ocean wide
—
Pure as the Hindoo's votive lamp
On Ganga's sacred
tide." |
The conclusion of "The Ocean Tide to
the Rivulet"
puts me in mind of the rich spirit of Harne's [[Horne's]] noble epic
"Orion."
"Sadly the flowers their faded
petals
close
Where on thy banks they languidly
repose,
Waiting in vain to
hear thee
onward
press;
And pale Narcissus by thy margin
side
Hath lingered for thy coming, drooped
and
died,
Pining for thee
amid the
loneliness.
"Hasten, beloved! — here,
'neath th'
o'erhanging
rock!
Hark! from the deep, my
anxious hope to
mock,
They call me
backward to my
parent
main.
Brighter than Thetis thou, and, ah,
more fleet!
I hear the rushing of thy fair
white feet!
Joy, joy! —
my breast
receives
its own again!" |
The personifications here are
well managed,
and the idea of the ebb-tide, conveyed in the first line italicized, is
one of the happiest imaginable; neither can anything be more fanciful
or
more appropriately [page 159:] expressed than the
"rushing
of the fair white feet."
Among the most classical in
spirit and
altogether
the best of Mrs. Hewitt's poems, I consider her three admirable sonnets
entitled "Cameos." The one called "Hercules and Omphale" is noticeable
for the vigor of its rhythm. Another instance of fine
versification
occurs in "Forgotten Heroes."
"And the peasant mother at her
door,
To the babe that
climbed her
knee,
Sang aloud the land's heroic songs
—
Sang of
Thermopylæ.
"Sang of Mycale — of Marathon
—
Of proud
Platæa's
day,
Till the wakened hills, from peak to
peak,
Echoed the
glorious lay.
Oh, god-like name! — Oh,
god-like deed!
Song-borne afar
on every
breeze,
Ye are sounds to thrill like a battle
shout
—
Leonidas
! Miltiades!" |
I italicize what I think the effective points. In
the line,
a trochee and two iambuses are employed, in very happy
variation of
the three preceding lines, which are formed each of an anapæst
followed
by three iambuses. The effect of this variation is to convey the
idea of lyric or martial song. The first line of the next
quatrain
even more forcibly carries out this idea. Here the verse begins
with
an anapæst (although a faulty one, "sang" being necessarily long)
and is continued in three iambuses. The variation in the last
quatrain
consists in an additional foot in the alternating lines, a fuller
volume
being thus given to the close. I must not be understood as citing
these passages or giving their analysis in illustration of the
rhythmical skill of Mrs. Hewitt, but of an occasional
happiness to which
she is led
by a musical ear. Upon the whole, she has a keen sense of poetic
excellences, and gives indication, if not direct evidence, of great
ability. With more earnest endeavor she might accomplish much.
In character she is sincere,
fervent,
benevolent,
with a heart full of the truest charity — sensitive to praise and to
blame;
in temperament, melancholy (although this is not precisely the term);
in
manner, subdued, gentle, yet with grace and dignity; converses
impressively,
earnestly, yet quietly and in a low tone. In person she is tall
and
slender, with black hair and large gray eyes; complexion also dark; the
general expression of the countenance singularly interesting and
agreeable.
——
RICHARD
ADAMS LOCKE.
About twelve years ago, I
think, "The New
York
Sun," a daily paper, price one penny, was established in the city of
New
York by Mr. Moses [column 2:] Y. Beach, who
engaged Mr.
Richard Adams Locke as its editor. In a well-written
prospectus,
the object of the journal professed to be that of "supplying the public
with the news of the day at so cheap a rate as to lie within the means
of all." The consequences of the scheme, in their influence on the
whole
newspaper business of the country, and through this business on the
interests
of the country at large, are probably beyond all calculation.
Previous to "The Sun" there had
been an
unsuccessful
attempt at publishing a penny paper in New York, and "The Sun" itself
was
originally projected and for a short time issued by Messrs. Day
&
Wisner; its establishment, however, is altogether due to Mr.
Beach,
who purchased it of its disheartened originators. The first
decided movement of the journal, nevertheless, is to be
attributed to
Mr. Locke; and
in so saying I by no means intend any depreciation of Mr. Beach, since
in the engagement of Mr. L. he had but given one of the earliest
instances
of that unusual sagacity for which I am inclined to yield him credit.
At all events, "The Sun" was
revolving in a
comparatively narrow orbit when, one fine day, there appeared in its
editorial
columns a prefatory article announcing very remarkable astronomical
discoveries
made at the Cape of Good Hope by Sir John Herschell. The
information
was said to have been received by "The Sun" from an early copy of "The
Edinburgh Journal of Science," in which appeared a communication from
Sir
John himself. This preparatory announcement took very well, (there had
been no hoaxes in those days,) and was followed by full details of the
reputed discoveries, which were now found to have been made chiefly in
respect to the moon, and by means of a telescope to which the one
lately
constructed by the Earl of Rosse is a plaything. As these
discoveries
were gradually spread before the public, the astonishment of that
public
grew out of all bounds; but those who questioned the veracity of "The
Sun"
— the authenticity of the communication to "The Edinburgh Journal of
Science"
— were really very few indeed; and this I am forced to look upon as a
far
more wonderful thing than any "man-bat" of them all.
About six months before this
occurrence the
Harpers had issued an American edition of Sir John Herschell's
"Treatise
on Astronomy," and I had been much interested in what is there said
respecting
the possibility of future lunar investigations. The theme excited
my fancy, and I longed to give free rein to it in depicting my
day-dreams
about the scenery of the moon — in short, I longed to write a story
embodying
these dreams. The obvious difficulty, of course, was that of accounting
for the narrator's acquaintance with the satellite; and the equally
obvious
mode of surmounting the difficulty was the supposition of an
extraordinary
telescope. I saw at once that the chief interest of such a
narrative
must depend upon the reader's yielding his credence in some measure as [page
160:] to details of actual fact. At this stage of my
deliberations
I spoke of the design to one or two friends — to Mr. John P. Kennedy,
the
author of "Swallow Barn," among others — and the result of my
conversations
with them was that the optical difficulties of constructing such a
telescope
as I conceived were so rigid and so commonly understood, that it would
be in vain to attempt giving due verisimilitude to any fiction having
the
telescope as a basis. Reluctantly, therefore, and only half convinced,
(believing the public, in fact, more readily gullible than did my
friends,)
I gave up the idea of imparting very close verisimilitude to what I
should
write — that is to say, so close as really to deceive. I fell
back
upon a style half plausible[[,]] half bantering, and resolved to give
what
interest I could to an actual passage from the earth to the moon,
describing
the lunar scenery as if surveyed and personally examined by the
narrator. In this view I wrote a story which I called "Hans Phaall,"
publishing
it
about six months afterwards in "The Southern Literary Messenger," of
which
I was then editor.
It was three weeks after the
issue of "The
Messenger" containing "Hans Phaall," that the first of the "Moon-hoax"
editorials made its appearance in "The Sun," and no sooner had I seen
the
paper than I understood the jest, which not for a moment could I doubt
had been suggested by my own jeu d'esprit. Some of the
New
York journals ("The Transcript" among others) saw the matter in the
same
light, and published the "Moon story" side by side with "Hans Phaall,"
thinking that the author of the one had been detected in the author of
the other. Although the details are, with some exception, very
dissimilar,
still I maintain that the general features of the two compositions are
nearly identical. Both are hoaxes, (although one is in a tone
of
mere banter, the other of downright earnest;) both hoaxes are on one
subject,
astronomy; both on the same point of that subject, the moon; both
professed
to have derived exclusive information from a foreign country, and both
attempt to give plausibility by minuteness of scientific detail.
Add to all this that nothing of a similar nature had ever been
attempted
before these two hoaxes, the one of which followed immediately upon the
heels of the other.
Having stated the case,
however, in this
form,
I am bound to do Mr. Locke the justice to say that he denies having
seen
my article prior to the publication of his own; I am bound to add,
also,
that I believe him.
Immediately on the completion
of the "Moon
story," (it was three or four days in getting finished,) I wrote an
examination
of its claims to credit, showing distinctly its fictitious character,
but
was astonished at finding that I could obtain few listeners, so really
eager were all to be deceived, so magical were the charms of a style
that
served as the vehicle of an exceedingly clumsy invention.
It may afford even now some
amusement to
see
pointed out those particulars of the hoax which [column 2:]
should have sufficed to establish its real character. Indeed,
however
rich the imagination displayed in this fiction, it wanted much of the
force
which might have been given it by a more scrupulous attention to
general
analogy and to fact. That the public were misled, even for an
instant,
merely proves the gross ignorance which (ten or twelve years ago) was
so
prevalent on astronomical topics.
The moon's distance from the
earth is, in
round
numbers, 240,000 miles. If we wish to ascertain how near,
apparently,
a lens would bring the satellite, (or any distant object,) we, of
course,
have but to divide the distance by the magnifying, or, more strictly,
by
the space-penetrating power of the glass. Mr. Locke gives his
lens
a power of 42,000 times. By this divide 240,000, (the moon's real
distance,) and we have five miles and five-sevenths as the apparent
distance. No animal could be seen so far, much less the minute points
particularized
in the story. Mr. L. speaks about Sir John Herschell's
perceiving
flowers, (the papaver Rheas, etc.), and even detecting the
color
and the shape of the eyes of small birds. Shortly before, too, the
author
himself observes that the lens would not render perceptible objects
less
than eighteen inches in diameter; but even this, as I have said, is
giving
the glass far too great a power.
On page 18, (of the pamphlet
edition,)
speaking
of "a hairy veil" over the eyes of a species of bison, Mr. L. says —
"It
immediately occurred to the acute mind of Doctor Herschell that this
was
a providential contrivance to protect the eyes of the animal from the
great
extremes of light and darkness to which all the inhabitants of our side
of the moon are periodically subjected." But this should not be thought
a very "acute" observation of the Doctor's. The inhabitants of
our
side of the moon have, evidently, no darkness at all; in the absence of
the sun they have a light from the earth equal to that of thirteen full
moons, so that there can be nothing of the extremes mentioned.
The topography throughout, even
when
professing
to accord with Blunt's Lunar Chart, is at variance with that and all
other
lunar charts, and even at variance with itself. The points of the
compass, too, are in sad confusion; the writer seeming to be unaware
that,
on a lunar map, these are not in accordance with terrestrial points —
the
east being to the left, and so forth.
Deceived, perhaps, by the vague
titles Mare
Nubium, Mare Tranquilitatis, Mare Fæcunditatis, etc., given
by
astronomers of former times to the dark patches on the moon's surface,
Mr. L. has long details respecting oceans and other large bodies
of water in the moon; whereas there is no astronomical point more
positively
ascertained than that no such bodies exist there. In examining
the
boundary between light and darkness in a crescent or gibbous moon,
where
this boundary crosses any of the dark places, the line of division is
found
to be jagged; but were these dark places liquid they would evidently be
even. [page 161:]
The description of the wings of
the man-bat
(on page 21) is but a literal copy of Peter Wilkins' account of the
wings
of his flying islanders. This simple fact should at least have
induced
suspicion.
On page 23 we read thus — "What
a
prodigious
influence must our thirteen times larger globe have exercised upon this
satellite when an embryo in the womb of time, the passive subject of
chemical
affinity!" Now, this is very fine; but it should be observed that no
astronomer
could have made such a remark, especially to any "Journal of Science,"
for the earth in the sense intended (that of bulk) is not only thirteen
but forty-nine times larger than the moon. A similar
objection
applies to the five or six concluding pages of the pamphlet, where, by
way of introduction to some discoveries in Saturn, the philosophical
correspondent
is made to give a minute school-boy account of that planet — an account
quite supererogatory, it might be presumed, in the case of "The
Edinburgh
Journal of Science."
But there is one point, in
especial, which
should have instantly betrayed the fiction. Let us imagine the
power
really possessed of seeing animals on the moon's surface — what in such
case would first arrest the attention of an observer from the
earth? Certainly neither the shape, size, nor any other peculiarity in
these animals so soon as their remarkable position — they
would
seem to be walking heels up and head down, after the fashion of flies
on
a ceiling. The real observer (however prepared by previous
knowledge)
would have commented on this odd phenomenon before proceeding to other
details; the fictitious observer has not even alluded to the subject,
but
in the case of the man-bats speaks of seeing their entire bodies, when
it is demonstrable that he could have seen little more than the
apparently
flat hemisphere of the head.
I may as well observe, in
conclusion, that
the size and especially the powers of the man-bats (for example, their
ability to fly in so rare an atmosphere — if, indeed, the moon has any)
with most of the other fancies in regard to animal and vegetable
existence,
are at variance generally with alt [[all]] analogical reasoning on
these
themes, and that analogy here will often amount to the most positive
demonstration. The temperature of the moon, for instance, is rather
above that of
boiling
water, and Mr. Locke, consequently, has committed a serious oversight
in
not representing his man-bats, his bisons, his game of all kinds — to
say
nothing of his vegetables — as each and all done to a turn.
It is, perhaps, scarcely
necessary to add,
that all the suggestions attributed to Brewster and Herschell in the
beginning
of the hoax, about the "transfusion of artificial light through the
focal
object of vision," etc. etc., belong to that species of figurative
writing
which comes most properly under the head of rigmarole. There is a
real and very definite limit to optical discovery among the stars, a
limit
whose nature need only be stated to be understood. If, indeed,
the
casting of large [column 2:] lenses were all that
is
required, the ingenuity of man would ultimately prove equal to the
task,
and we might have them of any size demanded;* but, unhappily, in
proportion
to the increase of size in the lens, and consequently of
space-penetrating
power, is the diminution of light from the object by diffusion of the
rays. And for this evil there is no remedy within human reach; for an
object
is seen by means of that light alone, whether direct or reflected,
which
proceeds from the object itself. Thus the only artificial light
which
could avail Mr. Locke would be such as he should be able to throw, not
upon "the focal object of vision," but upon the moon. It
has
been easily calculated that when the light proceeding from a heavenly
body
becomes so diffused as to be as weak as the natural light given out by
the stars collectively in a clear, moonless night, then the heavenly
body
for any practical purpose is no longer visible.
* Neither of the
Herschellls
dreamed
of the possibility of a speculum six feet in diameter, and now the
marvel
has been triumphantly accomplished by Lord Rosse. There is, in
fact,
no physical impossibility in our casting lenses of even fifty
feet
diameter or more. A sufficiency of means and skill is
all
that is demanded. [[This footnote appears at the bottom of page 161,
column
2.]]
The singular blunders to which
I have
referred
being properly understood, we shall have all the better reason for
wonder
at the prodigious success of the hoax. Not one person in
ten
discredited it, and (strangest point of all!) the doubters were
chiefly
those who doubted without being able to say why — the ignorant, those
uninformed
in astronomy, people who would not believe because the thing
was
so novel, so entirely "out of the usual way." A grave professor of
mathematics
in a Virginian college told me seriously that he had no doubt of
the truth of the whole affair! The great effect wrought upon the
public mind is referable, first, to the novelty of the idea; secondly,
to the fancy-exciting and reason-repressing character of the alleged
discoveries;
thirdly, to the consummate tact with which the deception was brought
forth;
fourthly, to the exquisite vraisemblance of the
narration. The hoax was circulated to an immense extent, was translated
into
various
languages — was even made the subject of (quizzical) discussion in
astronomical
societies; drew down upon itself the grave denunciation of Dick, and
was,
upon the whole, decidedly the greatest hit in the way of sensation
— of merely popular sensation — ever made by any similar fiction
either
in America or in Europe.
Having read the Moon story to
an end and
found
it anticipative of all the main points of my "Hans Phaall," I suffered
the latter to remain unfinished. The chief design in carrying my
hero to the moon was to afford him an opportunity of describing the
lunar
scenery, but I found that he could add very little to the minute and
authentic
account of Sir John Herschell. The first part of "Hans Phaall,"
occupying
about eighteen pages of "The Messenger," embraced merely a journal of
the
passage between the two orbs and a few words of general [page
162:] observation on the most obvious features of the
satellite;
the second part will most probably never appear. I did not think
it advisable even to bring my voyager back to his parent earth.
He
remains where I left him, and is still, I believe, "the man in the
moon."
From the epoch of the hoax "The
Sun" shone
with unmitigated splendor. The start thus given the paper insured
it a triumph; it has now a daily circulation of not far from fifty
thousand
copies, and is, therefore, probably, the most really influential
journal
of its kind in the world. Its success firmly established "the penny
system"
throughout the country, and (through "The Sun") consequently, we
are indebted to the genius of Mr. Locke for one of the most important
steps
ever yet taken in the pathway of human progress.
On dissolving, about a year
afterwards, his
connection with Mr. Beach, Mr. Locke established a political daily
paper,
"The New Era," conducting it with distinguished ability. In this
journal he made, very unwisely, an attempt at a second hoax, giving the
finale of the adventures of Mungo Park in Africa —
the writer
pretending
to
have come into possession by some accident of the lost MSS. of
the
traveler. No one, however, seemed to be deceived, (Mr. Locke's columns
were a suspected district,) and the adventures were never brought to an
end. They were richly imaginative.
The next point made by their
author was the
getting up a book on magnetism as the primum mobile of the
universe,
in connection with Doctor Sherwood, the practitioner of magnetic
remedies.
The more immediate purpose of the treatise was the setting forth a new
magnetic method of obtaining the longitude. The matter was
brought
before Congress and received with favorable attention. [column
2:] What definite action was had I know not. A review
of the work appeared in "The Army and Navy Chronicle," and made sad
havoc
of the whole project. It was enabled to do this, however, by
attacking
in detail the accuracy of some calculations of no very radical
importance. These and others Mr. Locke is now engaged in carefully
revising; and my
own opinion is that his theory (which he has reached more by dint of
imagination
than of anything else) will finally be established, although, perhaps,
never thoroughly by him.
His prose style is noticeable
for its
concision,
luminousness, completeness — each quality in its proper place. He
has that method so generally characteristic of genius
proper. Everything he writes is a model in its peculiar way, serving
just the
purposes
intended and nothing to spare. He has written some poetry, which,
through certain radical misapprehensions, is not very good.
Like most men of true imagination,
Mr.
Locke is a seemingly paradoxical compound of coolness and excitability.
He is about five feet seven
inches in
height,
symmetrically formed; there is an air of distinction about his whole
person
— the air noble of genius. His face is strongly pitted
by
the small-pox, and, perhaps from the same cause, there is a marked
obliquity
in the eyes; a certain calm, clear luminousness, however,
about
these latter, amply compensates for the defect, and the forehead is
truly
beautiful in its intellectuality. I am acquainted with no person
possessing so fine a forehead as Mr. Locke. He is married, and
about
forty-five years of age, although no one would suppose him to be more
than
thirty-eight. He is a lineal descendant from the immortal author
of the "Essay on the Human Understanding." |
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