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[page 158, column 2, continued:]
HOFFMAN’S POEMS — BURGESS & STRINGER. — We advise Mr. Hoffman to print a new title page. We think he errs in supposing that the English reviewers “do the thinking of this country upon literary matters,”whatever may have been the case in former and greener times. The Foreign Quarterly, in particular, has of late been so well known as the special vehicle of abuse of this country, that its dicta pass for precisely what they are worth — viz: nothing at all. It was, perhaps, natural, for a modest man like Mr. Hoffman, to feel, at first, keenly wounded by such atrocious charges; and we are not sorry that he was so far moved as to be induced to collect and publish his scattered poems his scattered poems; but we regret his having chosen for the a title which refers so pointedly to te impudent attack of some anonymous scribbler. — A gentleman may feel the kicks of a jackass, but he should not resent them.
The instances adduced by the reviewer are too absurd even for such a critic. Moore's
Oh! blame not the bard if he fly to the bowers
Where Pleasure lies carelessly smiling at Fame.
are claimed as the original of a fine Anacreontic of Hoffman's
Blame not the bowl — the fruitful bowl!
Whence wit and mirth and music spring.
And amber drops elysian roll.
To bathe young Love's delighted wing.
What, like the grape Osiris gave,
Makes rigid age so lithe of limb?
Illumines memory's twofold wave,
And teaches drowning Hope to swim, &c.
And thus of others.
We think the respectable British reviews are among our very best reading; and we are willing to profit even by their severity, since, if not always just, it is usually decent. But we think it high time that the Foreign Quarterly were expunged from the republication list of those enterprising bibliopolists to whom we owe the others. Its style is always decidedly inferior, and its spirit, in everything connected with America, so imbued with the gall of bitterness, that we might suppose its principal contributors to be persons [column 3:] who were smarting under some rejection or contempt on our part, if it were not that France and Russia fare little better at their hands. Its whole tone is the worst possible, and it holds the unenviable position of being the only journal of any mark that, in this age of superior light, still breathes the bloodthirsty war-spirit. We want literature of a different temper, and it is fortunately abundant, as well from native as foreign sources.
Mr. Hoffman can afford to disregard disreputable critics, and we end as we began — by advising him to reprint his title-page.
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Notes:
This review was attributed to Poe by Killis Campbell.
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[S:0 - NYEM, 1844] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Misc notices (E. A. Poe ?, 1844)