∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
325/1-8} This introduces a reprint of a full chapter, which occupies 4 full cols. (pp. 331-32). It contains much about storms and an avalanche, q.v. on 207/6. The book, by Joel Tyler Headley, of vii + 138 p., is proleptically dated 1846.
325/19-28} S. Moss, PLB, 206-207, records a few of the bits of doggerel, scorn, and exchange items of derogation (e.g., from the Knickerbocker) that Miss Walter continued to publish well into 1846, to indicate her continuing sense of outrage over Poe's behavior and remarks. She was able to excerpt the Lyceum censure of Poe as an “unprincipled” man “defiled” by his own “venom,” in its 18th annual report.
325/29-69} The start of this has an odd connection with an earlier article in this vol. of the BJ: In the 8/16 issue, is the long sketch of “John Randolph, of Roanoke,” by Poe's friend F. W. Thomas (2.81-85), and in one anecdote Randolph quotes from King Lear: “The little dogs and all, / Tray, Bianeh (sic for Blanche), and all, / See — they bark at me” (13.6.65-67). The Nassau Monthly exemplified a trend of the period whereby the major colleges were founding general journals — chiefly literary, [page 247:] this being that of Princeton which, soon changed to the Nassau Literary Magazine, would last into the twentieth century. The commentator may have read “The Imp of the Perverse” “among the mass” of journals or annuals on his table, for it came out in the 7/45 Graham's (27.1-3) and also in the newly issued May Flower of 1846 (that is published at the end of 1845), pp. 11-22. The suggested source here is from Byron's Don Juan, 14.5, pointed out by no student of Poe. In Etudes Anglaises, 1976, 29.199-202, I traced the passage to Shakespeare, without comment on this source. Poe usually cites earlier works of Byron, but the suggestion sounds reasonable.
326/6-7} For the unplumbed relationship between Poe and Anne C. Lynch see 151 (c) nn above. There are touches of Poe in this tribute to Ole Bull's music that enable us to read between the lines: the “vulture of Unrest, / That whets its beak upon my heart, / Lies, charmed, within my breast” (11. 14-16). Surely this comes from the turmoil of “The Raven,” just as the “wild melodies” (37) might come from “Israfel.”
326/19-21} The second sentence is Poe's self-quotation from his rev. of Twice-Told Tales of Hawthorne, of 5/42 (H 11.107) which he was to repeat in the Hawthorne sketch of 11/47 (H 13.151) and develop in the “Philosophy of Composition.” Poe's understanding of “fugitive” is uncommon, for it usually means “temporary” or “ephemeral,” while the dictionary adds, “occasional” in its theme. Poe implies “brief” as in almost all lyric poetry. But it is true that Simms gives him the lead for this idea. Please note that the footnote for line 48 is on the next page (327).
327/43} For “Scheherazade” (TOM, 1165 ftnote.) Poe had used a similar fact derived from his friend Wyatt's Physiology, the basis of his Conchologist's First Book (1839). His asseveration of the leech-like behavior of publishers matches his own article of the BJ of 2/15 (1.103-104), reprinted by TOM, 1206-1210: “Some Secrets of the Magazine Prison-House.”
327/44-48} See notes to 88, 234 [facsimile text] for other attributions and views. See rev. in New World of 1/15/45, p. 108, which pins the book on Sir Richard Vivian (sic) and gives a summary which is very close to Poe's thesis in Eureka.
327/49-53} This journal seems not to have been launched, despite its hopeful name. Hoffman (1806-84), prominent as [page 248:] editor on many major journals, author of the Kentucky Tragedy novel Greyslaer (1840), many poetry collections and accounts of the West, left the literary scene through insanity in 1849. Poe's interest in the nascent magazine savors of his hopes for his own Stylus.
328/1-60} This is the first of four long articles on Mrs. Frances Sargent Locke Osgood (1811-50), “prolific author of rather thin poetry” (Concise DAB), who was perhaps the most meaningful object of Poe's ardent but Platonic attention at the time of Virginia's final decline and during the year following. The next article was in the 3/46 Godey's (promised at the very end of this article), followed by the “Literati” sketch of 9/46 and finally that in the 8/49 SLM. Each piece was reworked from the previous ones, with the last combining all three. The third (H 15.94-104) was one of the longest of the sketches. See PD, 69 for ten loci of Poe comment on her. Poe is correct about the pages of the volume; the London Wreath (1838) had 364 p. The Preface is correctly cited from p. 5.
In lines 30 and 45 Poe touches as always on her “grace” as an indefinable quality — a notion that he acquired from Horace Walpole (see M 209), and which is the burthen of his “sketch” of her. Unfortunately, Poe does not explain his meaning for “emblematical” (in 53), usually defined as symbolical. The three poets with whom she is compared were all reviewed and discussed by Poe; see M 104, notes a-d, for the links among them in his mind; also the BJ Index and PD, 13 for “Brooks,” 39 for “Gould,” and 97 for “Welby.” See also 54/55 and 210/56-58 above.
329/} This poem, from pp. 13-16, is transcribed faithfully save for a few accidentals and save for line 61 which read “dreams” for “beams.” Was it Osgood — through Poe — or Poe himself who “improved” the line? Is Poe reprinting the whole poem as a covert tribute to himself, object of her love, despite the “smokescreen” of stanza 2, ambiguously referring to her “dreaming childhood“? It is a strange coincidence that two tributary poems, “The Ideal” and “The Ideal Found,” by Anne Lynch, in the 6/21/45 BJ (see 151 (c) above), with Poe's headnote, set the tone and the verbal orientation of this one. But both are characteristic of the sentimental, Della Cruscan genre.
330/9-60} From the first, on pp. 105-106, Poe omits the subtitle, “A Song.” Collation reveals no substantive changes; similarly in “Aspirations,” pp. 131-33. Here too one can easily [page 249:] find a parallel to the situation facing Fannie Osgood, unhappily married and in love with “Israfel,” the selecting editor.
331/14-42} Poe's choice of “Lenore” (from p. 136) can not be without significance; first, it bears Poe's title for a poem about unhappy love, and it is set in Venice with a glass which breaks when touched with poison, just as in the Venetian tale of “The Assignation,” the covertly administered poison produces “a cracked and blackened goblet” in the revelation of the last sentence (TOM 166). In the “Literati” sketch (H 15.101) Poe similarly comments on this poem, but calls the verses “false dactyls” — a correction made in the 12/20 BJ on 347 (f) below.
331/43-61 & 332/1-27) There were five poems in all with the same title, this being on pp. 223-24. Two changes of text make one wonder whether F. Osgood determined them: 332/1: shrink / drink; 332/8: sigh / smile. In his “Annals” TOM, Poems, 556, notes this as a plea by the wife to her errant husband Samuel Stillman Osgood, who left us one of the few portraits of Poe. This poem came out first in the Evening Mirror of 12/10/44.
332/28-66 & 333/1-4) This volume is by Clinton G. Gilroy. Surely Poe is being slyly humorous about the indispensability of the book to scholars in the first three paras., the ideas of which come from the Preface (p. vi). In fact, Poe is really mocking the style and approach of Gilroy, exemplified in the excerpt. The Chinese Loom picture faces the title page and the other one faces p. 93.
333/5-25} This volume, by Charles Edwards Lester, has 239 p. To the title as given, should be added of the age of the Medici, and of our own times. Poe's first para. shows the effect upon him of the Young America movement. His sections on the men listed are these: Michael Angelo — 26-72; Galileo — 73-99; “The Quaker Painter, Benjamin West” — 220-29 and Bishop Berkeley — 212-19. As always Poe notices and mentions the physical appearance of the make-up and the pictures.
333/26-34} It has Introductory remarks on 2 pp. plus 419 of text.
333/35-40} This vol. of iv + 357 p. was by Charles Bindley (1796-1859), a writer on sporting subjects who regularly used this pseudonym. His revised and corrected ed. of Delabere Blaine's Encyclopaedia of Rural Sports came out in 1852. Harry Lorrequer [page 250:] (1837) was one of Charles Lever's (1806-72) accounts of the foxhunting Irish society of the period (mentioned in H 10.197, 11.1011; see also Charles O‘Malley by C. Lever in H 11.85-98).
333/41-48} This reprint of xxvii + 19-134 p. was published by Lea and Blanchard of Philadelphia. Poe infuses his characteristic humor into it and possibly his curious notion that the medical specialty comes from “pes, pedis” in Latin and not the Greek root “pod-” with two errors in the title and the last word of the rev. Or should we lay the blame at the door of the typesetter? Both the London and Philadelphia editions spell “chiropodist” correctly.
333/49-54} The poem, dedicated to General Zachary Taylor, numbers 5-7 p. of Preface, plus 8-69 plus 73-88 (Notes). From the poem, about the Florida war, I quote two lines to illustrate Poe's dictum: “Still from the watchful sentinel / Was heard the cheering sound, ‘All's well“’ (1, 11.7-8).
333/55-57} This novel, published in London, 1845, was by Thornton Leigh Hunt (1810-73), son of the essayist and poet. The Harper's ed., of 148 p., was reissued in 1864 and 1871. He became a journalist-associate of G. H. Lewes, poet, editor of his father's memoirs, and essayist.
333/58-61} The separate parts were collected in two volumes in 1846 in “a new and elegant translation profusely illustrated by the most eminent artists of Paris,” of 680 p. Part 5 covers pp. 192-236.
334/1-9} Poe here evades the slightest gesture toward a proper rev. of the worthy Thomas Arnold's sermons. For earlier revs. sec 231 and 261.
334/10-22} Poe often mentioned the beautiful socialite, Carolyn Norton, Sheridan's grand-daughter, who had befriended Frances Osgood in London (see M 104 note c). Surely he enjoyed the seeming paradox that “passion” destroys the effectiveness of a poem. Poe did not again take up or explicate this thesis in the BJ, but elsewhere he did (see R. D. Jacobs, Poe, pp. 346, 390-91). Two of the 23 stanzas of “The Dying Hour” (pp. 116-20) may be illustrative: (Stanza III) — “Stoop down, and kiss my brow! / The shadows round me closing / Warn me that dark and low / I soon shall be reposing. (Stanza IV) — “But while those pitying eyes / Are bending thus above me, / In vain the death-dews rise, — / [page 251:] Thou dost regret and love me!”
334/23-41} This is one of the few refs. by Poe to Mozart, the others being two allusions made by other writers of 1835 and 1836 (H 8.52, 9.200) and a bon mot by Mozart in M 271; Poe's preferences in music were invariably for a more florid and romantic style. The ref, in the excerpt is to a brief life of Mozart (1814) by Stendhal, pseud. of Marie-Henri Beyle, the great novelist.
334/42-59 & 335/1-5) See 269 (c) note, for this history in parts. Poe's protest in being circularized with propaganda accords with his opposition to puffing and all efforts to deprecate critical judgment.
335/7-45} Poe must have derived this news of his favorite, Anna Mowatt, from the daily press.
James E. Murdoch was a good friend of Poe and a probable assistant for dramatic material in the BJ, but Poe's evaluation is biased, for the press complained that Murdoch, especially in Shakespeare roles, was a good elocutionist, not a spontaneous actor (see Odell, 5.169, 181).
Mrs. Charles Kean had achieved tremendous success as Ellen Tree. They were at the Park Theatre in October, and opened in Thomas Noon Talfourd's stilted but then successful Ion in November; it had been played by Ellen Tree in 1837 (Odell, 168, 171). Poe's judgment here has been amply vindicated. After performing Twelfth Night, they left the city in mid-December.
The amateurs gave the play for charity, but very poorly (see Odell, 225).
The German opera was one of a series of attempts to bring foreign operas authentically to NY, and it failed like the others, after an elaborate Der Freischütz (of Weber) as part of a series of 24 performances, which were cut short in 1/46 (Odell, 224-25).
336/1-24} The “Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and Education” was a cooperative community (1841-47) nine miles from Boston, which included, during the years of its organization and growth, Dana, G. W. Curtis, Orestes Brownson, Alcott, W. H. Channing, Margaret Fuller, and, briefly, Hawthorne. In 1843 it came under the influence of Albert Brisbane, fresh from his studies under Charles Fourier in Paris and became the “Phalanx” as Poe derisively states. From 1845 its official organ was the Harbinger, a serious, reflective, and prevailingly Transcendentalist although varied and independent [page 252:] journal. After the demise of the Roxbury organization, following a fire, the magazine was continued at a New York “association” until 2/10/49. Its abolitionism and philosophical viewpoint naturally alienated Poe, who coined “Crazyites” for its supporters.
337/1-68 & 338/1-18) It was probably written by the editor George Ripley (1802-80), who graduated from Harvard into the Boston Unitarian ministry, and a keenly active life of writing and editing philosophical and reform literature, often translated from the German. He founded the Dial and helped organize Brook Farm; here he shows a broad and serious acquaintance with Poe's works and major ideas — perhaps the reason that Poe reprints it verbatim, despite its hostility. Poe might have even been flattered by the allusion to Wordsworth's “Peter Bell” (337/16-17) and the excerpt from Tennyson's “Palace of Art” at the end. He certainly enjoyed the grounds for his own abuse given him in “insanity” and “singed.”
338/19-} Prince Hal is from 1 Henry IV, 2.4.312, with “thou lovest me.” Poe's “Dutch uncle” traditionally reproves sharply but not unkindly (1.23). “King Log” in the “Fable of the Frogs” was the spiritless king of wood, followed by the esurient King Stork.
Concerning the imputed “motive of the publication,” Poe's reply seems confirmed indirectly according to Ostrom's Check List of the letters, ascribing two letters to the Lyceum Committee in 9-10/45 (see p. 608, nos. 570-71) but on indirect evidence only. Concerning the article in the Foreign Quarterly Review see 299 (b) note for the proof of its being by John Forster (see also TOM, Poems, 581), but since Forster, in 1/44, was finding a debt in “The Haunted Palace” (1839) to Tennyson's “Deserted House,” Poe's rejoinder ignores chronology seriously.
“Reform it altogether” is from Hamlet (3.2). In the last para. Poe quotes his favorite, Alexander Pope: “Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; / The rest is all but leather or prunella” (Essay on Man, 4.203-204).
339/1-42} This account and excerpt seem to come from a contemporary journal, probably British, but it might have been adapted by Poe, whose word-awareness might have dictated his singling out “saudade” (nostalgia) for comment. Joao Baptista da Silva Leitao. Visconde de Almeida Garrett, as of 1852 (17991854), was the leading Portuguese poet, novelist, and playwright, active in liberal politics which drove him to live in England and [page 253:] Paris in the 20s and 30s.
339/43-62} The explanation for Poe's savage attack on H. Norman Hudson lies in the information given in the notes to 299/1-22 above — basically Poe's recent discovery of Hudson's role in the Boston Transcript's abuse of him for the Lyceum reading. Poe always reprehended the excessive use of antithesis, q.v. in Discoveries in Poe, 12, concerning Victor Hugo. Line 47 indicates that previous refs. to Norman in the BJ are the work of Briggs, Watson, et al.
340/1-18} Clearly Poe enjoyed the misconceptions and notoriety arising from his “repulsive masterpiece” (TOM 1228) and used it all for magazine copy here and below [342 (a) and
355-56]. Colton's American Review of 12/45, 2.561-65, carried “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar” (its correct title). The Tribune reporter (just possibly Margaret Fuller) obviously knows Poe's works well, the second one being a reference to The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of 1838. The “bump” of faith comes from phrenology. In the word “transcendentalist” is a hint that Poe thought that it might be Fuller, author of the “just review” of Longfellow quoted in article (e) below. This Tribune article dates from 12/10 (pages 2/co1.2). For fuller treatment of this whole affair see TOM, 1228-32.
340/19-28} This para., taken verbatim from the 12/10 Tribune (to the word “Professorship”), alludes to a complicated academic situation owing its presence here to a request to Poe from Mrs. Ellet for an editorial on Dr. Henry's fitness but lack of “popularity” (see Poe Log of 12/15), followed by her withdrawal of the request on 12/16. Wm. C. Preston (1794-1860) served as college president from 1846-1851. Robert Henry (1792-1856) had a long career at the college (from 1818) teaching various branches of philosophy and literature, but sensitive and troubled in his presidency, declared terminated on 11/24/45. Mrs. Ellet's change of mind and the termination of the BJ revoked Poe's final intention.
340/30-42} For a full account and Poe's longer consideration of Maria Brooks (“Occidente”) see 357-58 [facsimile text], with a tempering of the comparison with Miss Barrett (see also PD, for both names of “Brooks”). By this time, Poe had no link of friendship with the Mirror's editor — now Hiram Fuller.
340/50-60} This comes from Margaret Fuller's Tribune rev. [page 254:] (12.10, 1/2-3) of Longfellow's Poems. While often at variance with the “bluestocking” he is delighted to air her marked reservations about Longfellow as person and writer.
341/1-42} It is clear that M. Fuller has been reading Poe's disparaging criticisms of Longfellow in the BJ and earlier journals, since so many strains are the same. Concerning the “dandy” charge, see notes to 38/46-51 and 312/65 above. The stanza is quoted from “Hymn to the Night” of 1839 with “cisterns” in the plural both in the Tribune and in Longfellow's page. Similarly, there should be a dash after the third line.
341/43-47} Poe here refers to the poem by R. S. Rowley, in the 12/6 BJ, 2.337-38, which has four eight-line stanzas. The third has only seven lines, lacking between lines 2 and 3: “They are fading, they are fading — / And, as one by one they set, / I do struggle to forget!” “They” are “Dim dreamings of the future” in this very faint offshoot of Wordsworth's “Intimations” ode. R. S. Rowley was also the author of “A College Reminiscence” in the 1/3/46 BJ, 2.401-403.
341/51-59} A few of the names in initials are obvious. “P. P. C.” is Philip Pendleton Cooke (q.v. in Index), his longstanding Virginia friend and correspondent. See his five-part poem “The Mountains” in the 12/20 BJ, 2.368-69, printed without editorial comment. “F. W. T.” must be Frederick W. Thomas, Poe's very close Washington friend (q.v. on 196 and 236 nn.). “A. M. L” is probably Abijah M. Ide, Jr., contributor to several issues (see 239/10, 245, 265, 322 [facsimile text]).
342/1-91 Poe is delighted to reprint his “Valdemar” and continue the banter over its veracity, begun in 340 (a) and proceeding into the next issue of the BJ (355-56). For the international aspects of the “case” — of especial delight to Poe-see the next phase and TOM's fine summarizing account (122832).
342/10-41} Prescott (1796-1859), the eminent, socially distinguished, handicapped historian of the Hispanic world, was too universally admired to be attacked. Poe borrows the information from para. 2 of the Preface, but deprecates the North American, as always, if not Prescott himself. When he speaks of the volume again, in 350 (a), it will be solely to introduce four paras. from the article on C. B. Brown, the first and last one mentioned here. Poe's interest in this precursor in narration was [page 255:] always keen.
342/42-53 & 343/12-62) The book has numbers ix-x + 13-184 p. See the Index for several passages on Cist and the notes, indicating a closer relationship than biographers have indicated. Poe's comment on the portrait duplicates that on T. C. Grattan (M 203). Poe had faithfully copied the first poem in the collection (pp. 13-15). He is apparently too cursory in reading even to notice the inversions in lines 45, 60. Perhaps Poe was rounding up his journalist friends throughout the country, since he sensed his growing need of allies.
344/1-33} This annual of 96 p., which features its “Ten Engravings” in the title, epitomizes the one-sided development of these gift books that started out with an emphasis on reading material with subsidiary illustrations. John Sartain (1808-97), the leading mezzotint engraver (and a good friend of Poe, his editor on Graham's), deplored the increase in number and the decline in their literary quality in the forties in the 2/49 Union Magazine (1.154; quoted in Mott, 421), but he grants an improvement in the art work. Poe clearly pays tribute to the latter in the full treatment of each of the engravings, and acutely singles out the best “article” in the volume, even though it was by Emerson, his customary butt of attack. Certainly Wm. Henry Furness (1802-96), Unitarian pastor, student of German literature, and abolitionist, was an undistinguished editor. Sartain was probably totally responsible for the art work choice and execution. Henry Inman (1801-46), immensely popular portrait and landscape painter, was to be mentioned by Poe in his “Literati” sketch of Halleck (H 15.56); his brother John (180146) had become a powerful influence in journalistic and publishing circles of the city. Emanuel Leutze (1816-68), famous for his large historical pictures, left America to study and work in Germany (1841-59). Sarah Setchel — the correct spelling-(1803-94) was a well-known British water-colorist. Sir Edwin Henry Landseer (1802-73) has left us a rich and now deprecated legacy of groups of animals and their masters. Poe's comment is perceptive. Frank Stone (1800-59) was a friend of Dickens. Joshua Cristall (1767-1847) was a successful water colorist and china painter. Paul Falconer Poole (1807-79) was a self-taught historical painter of some temporary fame then.
344/34-57} Poe was ferociously adverse to Emerson, for his “mystical” transcendentalism, his “aping” of Carlyle, and perhaps for his success as a lecturer and place as the Concord seer; see [page 256:] the ten refs. in PD, 31, of which only one is neutral (also M 188). But he acknowledged that some of his poems showed beauty “by flashes” (1841 “Autography” in H 15.260); hence his quoting the entire text of “A Fable” (from p. 38 of the annual). Poe inserts the stanzaic pattern but otherwise is accurate save for a few accidentals in his transcription. This was the first appearance of Emerson's poem, which would be collected in his 1847 volume.
344/58-62 & 345/1-9) Poe's rev. of this vol. is noteworthy for his reticence since “the best of Poe's early poems,” that is, “The Lake” (see TOM, Poems, 82-84) is contained in it. Two or three reprints of the vol. under different titles came out later. It uses G. Baxter's new color process for the frontispiece. The names mentioned by Poe, many of them his friends, have compositions, both prose and poetry, on the following pages: Sigourney, 13-15, 142-45, 371-37; Whittier, 31-36; Lowell, 47-51; Hoyt, 100-103; Tuckerman, 104, 337-39; Gould, 122-23, 264-65, 325; Simms, 199-219; Mowatt, 220; Mancur, 266-79; Sargent, 302303; “others” (Poe), 324.
345/10-18} The frontispiece is an engraving entitled “The Cottage Children,” with no artist given, serving as illustration for the first poem, of that title. The title page shows a child holding a banner, without the artist's name.
345/19-31} Robert Hamilton, the editor of this 354 p. annual, has four previous loci in the BJ (see the Index). The Hermann Winterhalter painting is called “Innocence.” “Cup Tossing” by Mrs. S. C. Hall, wife of the editor of the Book of Gems (see 112-15 [facsimile text]). The “noted pens” can be headed by E. A. Poe, for “Imp of the Perverse” (11-22). Others are Robert Hamilton, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, F. de la Motte Fouqué.
345/32-58} Perhaps it was the mystery of authorship or the “editing” by J. F. Cooper or the interest of the narrative — or all, which contributed to the relative success of this work, published in a 3-vol. ed. in London (1845), reprinted in Phila. in 1846. P, K. Foley, American Authors, 1795-1875, asserts that Cooper was certainly the author, but F, R. Lounsberry, in J. F. Cooper (1883), p. 299, denies it to him. R. E. Spiller, A Descriptive Bibliography of ... Cooper (1934), p. 209, attributes it to his daughter Susan Cooper. To use Poe's coinage — her grammar and dialogue were expectedly “Cooperish.” Perhaps Cooper pere helped to choose her pseudonym from the character in Scott's St. Ronan's Well, [page 257:] namely, Lady Penelope Penfeather, a patroness at the Spa; his novel The Pilot (1823) had been a deliberate analogue for Scott's The Pirate (1822).
346/7-28} The first is by the renowned innovative educator, Eliphalet Nott (1773-1866), and has 129 p. The second was by John McVicar (1787-1868), renowned clergyman and economist, who held the subject to be a branch of moral philosophy. The third, of 94 p., exploits the renown of Sir Humphry (correctly spelled) Davy (1778-1829), the renowned scientist, whose writings Poe may have used for a tale (see Br., Pin 135). How gratuitous and characteristic is the way Poe uses the atrocious writing for an insult against the detested Thomas Carlyle (see other refs. in Index)!
346/29-36} John Kitto (1804-54) worked his way up from workhouse poverty, although deaf, to writing for periodicals, narratives of his travels abroad, illustrative lives of the handicapped and illustrated works connected with the bible. This vol. is the renamed Pictorial History of Palestine (1840).
346/37-40} Horatio (“Horace”) Smith (1779-1849), banker and literatus of London, wrote satirical verses and a string of popular novels, which Poe used and discussed in various ways (see 144/52-58 for an article on the subject). This vol. of 168 p. contains two short novels, issued earlier this year in London.
346/45-48} All the parts, numbering well over 100, were collected into a 3-vol. set in 1847, entitled The Illustrated Shakespeare, ed. G. C. Verplanck. The hundreds of woodcuts were executed by H. W. Hewet, after designs by Kenny Meadows, Harvey, and others.
346/49-55} for the Lancet and John Frost's Pictorial History see the Index for previous issues.
347/1-9} Poe never managed more than this brief announcement for this “true poetry,” but see the Index for other refs. to C. F. Hoffmann. See 349 (a) for a rev. of Foster's ed. of Shelley's poetry and 350 (b) for Street's poetry.
347/14-28} Concerning article (d), Poe's statement here proves his assurance about managing to finance and promote the journal, now so close to the end of its tether.
Article (f) is a correction for 331/35, q.v. [page 258:]
Article (g) which extends onto p. 348 lengthily concludes this Editorial Miscellany, and bears Poe's “P” at the end. Yet his footnote “Mem.” clearly indicates that the long article, commenting on Leigh Hunt, as criticized in the SLM of 12/45 is not by Poe but by “L.” for that journal (pp. 737-42). The method and language of the excerpts are strikingly like Poe's. We must, however, attribute it to Henry Charles Lea (1825-1909), of Philadelphia, grandson of Matthew Carey, who was to be an historian, publisher, and reformer, and author of important scholarly studies. The identification is made by D. K. Jackson, Contributors ... to the SLM (1936), p. 75, based on E. S. Bradley's biography of Lea (1931), p. 367. Amazingly, he was only twenty at this time. Collation of the long excerpt (p. 742) shows no substantive changes, with only the spelling of “Shakespeare” (line 41) worth mentioning. The Latin, in line 28, should be “tetigit” as Poe says, in his note.
349/1-19} George G. Foster, enterprising editor of the first American “complete” ed. of Shelley, was more important in Poe's literary life than biographers and students have granted. See, e.g., Poe's praise of his periodical verse, his articles and his varied journalism in Alabama, St. Louis, and New York (“Autography” in H 15.237, and Letters, 117 n, 212, 212n). He was highly perceptive in his Preface here, a keen wit, as in his John-Donkey magazine of 1848, and a singularly unfortunate man, retrieved from prison by Rufus W. Griswold. Despite his wide scope and circle of associates, he is ignored by the DAB (1810 or 11-1856), but not completely by Matt (p. 780). For a fine résumé, see Dwight Thomas, “Poe in Philadelphia” (diss., 1978), pp. 765-66. The text was obviously pirated from the Moxon ed. of Shelley's works, edited by Mrs. Shelley, but the Preface is highly original, and perhaps offensive to Poe in linking the poet's thought to that of Fourier, but a curious footnote links Poe and Shelley (p. 12). Foster cites “Lines to an Indian Air” (now called “Indian Serenade”): “I arise from dreams of thee, / And a spirit in my feet / Has led me — who knows how?* / To thy chamber-window sweet!” His footnote reads: “Mr. Poe tells me that this was originally written ‘God knows how?’ But I have not felt at liberty to change the text sanctioned by Mrs. Shelley.” The text of 750 p. is truly well-printed for the period. Poe's objection to the “Fragments” of his beloved Shelley is strange. In the 1852 expanded ed. Foster indicates that the first was exhausted in less than 18 months, and he is “now” printing the full notes of “Queen Mab” (784 p. in all). [page 259:]
349/20-36} This was the fifth year for this well-known annual (of 304 p.) with the many illustrations by the famous John Gadsby Chapman, who had illustrated Poe's “The Elk” in the Opal published in 1843 (see 209 [facsimile text]). Poe is rather petty about refusing it a full rev., even though he obviously has a copy in hand, used for his reprint of the poem. The pages of the contributions are these: Osgood, 252-53; Lynch, 120-22; Mowatt, 98-99; Smith, 11-35 (prose), also, 125-32, also 135 (poem); Embury, 101-19 (prose) and 242 (poem); Gould, 195-96; Tuckerman, 38-52 (prose), 123-24; Hoffman, 91-97 (prose); Paulding, 136-37; Schoolcraft, 179-80, 197-201 (prose); Whittier, 202-208, 209-12 (poems). The Chapman illustrations are these: frontispiece, title page, facing pp. 53, 91, 125, 181, 209, 242, 245. At the end of the article, as if to strike out again at the ed. and his art “director” Poe concludes thus: “The engraving and general getting-up of ‘The Opal’ are discreditable in the last degree. A more wretched set of mezzotints we certainly never beheld.” For Poe's friendliness toward Lynch see 151, 326-27 n. above.
350/1-5} On 342 [facsimile text] Poe had promised another “discussion” of Prescott's book, now called by its subtitle, Miscellanies, but he too has great interest in Brown and probably approves Prescott's sensible analysis of Brown's weak use of ingenious machinery or such phenomena as ventriloquism in Wieland to explain the “supernaturalities” of his fiction. The quoted column and a half comes from the first essay, pp. 1-56, on Brown.
350/6-30} In more than one passage Poe deprecated the poems of Street (1811-81), poet, journalist, lawyer and NY State Librarian at Albany, for mere descriptiveness following Bryant's style. See M 167 and FS, “Autography” (H 15.254) and “Rationale of Verse” (14.255-56). It is noteworthy that Poe exempts Emerson's “Fable” (p. 344 [facsimile text]) from this sweeping denunciation of “Frogpondium.”
350/31-36 & 351/1-13) Poe had reviewed the first, 1839 ed. of Hyperion in 10/39 BGM (H 10.39-40), as a “farrago,” with much “rich thought” but little “labor” or “trouble,” shapeless and formless. He changes this contention here but continues to charge superficiality and an imitation of Germanic models. It has indeed been said to reflect Paul Richter and is, manifestly, a travel account through Germany, with German legends, works, and themes incorporated. Clearly, Poe is unsympathetic with the genre, and the author as well. [page 260:]
351/14-42} See 206-207 [facsimile text] for Poe's rev. of Headley's Letters from Europe [[Italy]], which contributed much to “Cask of Amontillado.” His criticism is similar in admiring his vivacity and pace and deploring his slack diction and grammar. Poe thoroughly reprehends him in a posthumous (1850) rev. of Headley's Sacred Mountains (H 13.202-209). Poe's scorn leads him to coin “Irishy” and “neck-or-nothingness” in para. 2. See Index for other passages.
351/43-57} This is the American reprint of George Gilfillan's First Gallery of Literary Portraits (1813-78), a reflection of Gilfillan's wide acquaintance with the British literati. There is a kind of poetic justice in Gilfillan's commenting on Godwin as having founded a small but distinguished school of writers in England and America, for Poe was among them in many ways. There are seventeen passages on Godwin or his works in Poe's writings, as I first noted in preparing my book Godwin Criticism (Toronto, 1967). This led to my study, “Godwin and Poe,” (Ch. 7, Discoveries in Poe, 107-27). Poe admired Godwin as a novelist whose prefaces adumbrated his own theories of fiction, not as the advanced social thinker of Political Justice. Emphasizing his opinion is the sidelining next to para. 2 in the Whitman BJ.
352/10-21} Edward Maturin (1812-81) migrated from Ireland to become professor of Greek in the College of South Carolina. Poe, having read the Gothic Melmoth (1820) as his refs. in “Letter to B ——— ” and a 1/42 rev. (H 11.13) show, flatters the son via the father, Charles Robert Maturin (1782-1824). Both the proper names are Poe coinages, the second after the 1816 play Bertram, which Kean produced at Drury Lane.
352/22-30} Charles Burdett was the author of the Wrongs of American Women (Trials of New York Seamstresses), reviewed on 261 [facsimile text]. In Chrysal or the Adventures of a Guinea (1760-65) by Charles Johnstone, a guinea is made to describe its various owners.
352/31-38} Perhaps the publication of this was motivated by the success of Plato Contra Atheos, by Tayler Lewis (q.v. on 15355). Is the last sentence Poe's honest conviction or simply pious tact?
352/41-61} Perhaps Poe is referring to the large “1846” on [page 261:] the title-page surrounded by Victorian curlicues. The Sartain mezzotint is of a painting by W. Salter, and Smillie's of a battlefield painting by R. Hinshelwood. The unsigned fashion plate recalls Poe's usual objection to the “namby-pamby” plates, as he called them. The contributors are these: N. C. Books, 1-3; Ann S. Stephens (the correct spelling), 4-12; Caroline Butler, 1319; A. B. Street, 20; T. H. Chivers, 20; Fanny Forrester, 33-39; Lowell, “To the Past,” 39; E. J. Eames, 44.
353/9-16} The author of The Froissart Ballads was Philip Pendleton Cooke, long a valued correspondent of Poe, whom he praised highly in the “Autography” of 12/41 (H 15.234) and mentioned often in the BJ (see Index). In his long, chatty letter of 8/9/46 he promised to review this collection of Cooke's poems (issued 1847), but never did. The “Pröem” (notice Poe's dieresis) was the subtitle for “Emily” on pp. 30-32 of Graham's. Poe is quoting from Richard Lovelace's “To Althea: From Prison”: “The gods that wanton in the air / Know no such liberty” (st. 1) — scarcely a very close parallel.
353/17-31} As usual, Poe lavishes high praise on Hunt's magazine (see the Index). The contents, given seriatim, by pages are these: 499-506 (John Spare); 507-12; 512-25; 526-34; 534-46; 546-50; 550-53; 553-55; 555-57; and editorial section, 557-92.
353/32-43} The Sadd mezzotint for “A Scene from the Pioneers” is opposite p. 43; the other, of “Mary Queen of Scots,” is opposite p. 41. These are the contributions: Osgood, 7; John Neal, 8-12; Sedgwick, 13-17; Sigourney, 18; Tuckerman, 19-22; E. F. Ellett (sic), 26-28; Gould, 28; Embury, 29-34; Paulding, 35-40; Maria Child, 43; Inman's is probably “Vogue la Galere” by J. I. (i.e., John Inman, brother of Henry Inman). For Miss Blackwell, an Englishwoman, see Poe's Letters, p. 370, 394, 397n.
354/1-9} The production of Richard III (in Cibber's version) on 1/7/46 was considered a great event of the year. The total cost for scenery, costumes, machines, etc. was $10,000 borne largely by Charles Kean (Odell 5.173-74). It set an example for lavish and realistic theatrical display that crossed the Atlantic during the next decade in London.
354/10-22} This criticism is in line with Poe's extensive campaign while editor of the SLM and also his anti-puffery comments in the BJ; see 334-35 (d). [page 262:]
354/23-28} Poe must be referring to 335/13 — not a very effusive statement. The excerpts are extremely favorable to Murdoch, being taken from the Boston Post, Daily Times, and Evening Transcript. His italics under “this” indirectly allude to his quarrel with the press over the Lyceum affair.
355/1} At the top of the column in the BJ is a three line item which may be by Poe. In style it differs from the full column to the left, “The Fine Arts,” and it oddly concerns a subject which entered into “The Oblong Box,” in the 9/44 Godey's, namely, a copy of Leonardo da Vinci's “Last Supper,” said to be “done by Rubini the younger, at Florence” (TOM 925). Here, we find the following:
“The Last Supper, from Leonardo da Vinci, has been engraved by A. L. Dick, in the most superb style of the art. It is a close copy of Raffaelle Morghen's engraving.”
Raphael Morghen (1758-1833) was a well known Italian engraver, a pupil of Volpato, celebrated for his burin engravings of excellent technique, among them being the “Last Supper” of da Vinci. The copy here discussed is by the staff engraver, apparently, of Godey's (q.v. on 80 [facsimile text]), where Poe may have seen this.
355/12-40 & 356/1-7) For this bantering article and letter see 340 (a) and the note. The whole account is given in detail by TOM 1228-32, who also follows in detail the parallel case of “Mesmeric Revelation” (1024-28), which gave Poe an article on 9/20 (see 254 [facsimile text]). Poe is inconsistent in the spelling of the name of the “eminent Mesmerist“ — left uncorrected. Dr. John Elliotson of London (1791-1868), a prominent physician and founder of the Phrenological Society, lost his medical post through his mesmerism prominence (1838), after which he started a “mesmeric hospital” and founded the Zoist for the cause. I have searched the magazine for news of this affair — fruitlessly. See TOM for other responses to the weird tale in the London press; also for P. P. Cooke's 8/4/46 interest and that of George W. Eveleth in 1848. The “universally copied” statement of the letter (sentence 1) has not led to the discovery of Boston reprints, as TOM indicates.
356/8-16} Philip Pendleton Cooke's “The Mountains,” a five part set of tercets, appeared in the 12/20 BJ, 2.368-69. Parts III and IV are largely devoted to a retelling of the legends of the heroes William Tell and Arnold Winkelreid; hence, Poe is reminded of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome (1842), in which [page 263:] “Horatius at the Bridge” tells a like heroic tale. For Poe and Cooke, see pp. 42 and 353 [facsimile text], and note the possible effect on “Annabel Lee,” appearing first in the 3/35 SLM, opposite Poe's “Berenice” (TOM, Poems, 480 n on title).
356/17-20} “The Modern Poetical Literature of Germany” was on pp. 369-373 of the BJ. Poe seems somewhat confused here about the authorship, since there were three brothers: the poet Adolphus, Theodore L. and Johann Ludwig Tellkampf (1808-76), who came to the U.S. in 1838, became Professor of German language and literature in Columbia College, returning to Germany in 1847 to participate in the politics of his country. The author was probably this J. L. T. Poe knew about the “celebrated German poet” from the account itself (p. 371), which mentions his “poems ... scattered through a great variety of periodical and fugitive publications.”
356/49} For John Neal of Portland, see the five entries in the Index. Neal (1793-1876), a most prolific author and editor of many publications and journals, early encouraging to Poe and his eulogist after death, wrote on “American Writers” for Blackwood's (1824-25), while living in England. This perhaps started this false rumor.
356/50-64 & 357/1-16) The memoirs of Henry Wikoff (181384) do not mention any such commission, but his travels and service in various diplomatic capacities gave him ample opportunity to be thus engaged.
The “charming book” was A Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening (1841) by Andrew Jackson Downing, whose further works on landscaping and domestic architecture, service on the Horticulturist, and designs for great estates helped him to make over “the face of rural America” (DAB) (see Briggs’ long review-summary of the second edition of Downing's book in the 4/5 BJ, 1.213-15). Poe's interest in the Treatise is evinced in “The Landscape Garden” of 10/42 (see TOM 700-702), which was expanded into “The Domain of Arnheim.” Poe's awareness of the control of environment as a basis for mankind's esthetic and spiritual growth has been increasingly studied (e.g., see Kent Ljungquist, The Grand and the Fair, 1984, pp. 129-37). We note also Poe's hostility to honors conferred by monarchs of no intrinsic superior qualifications.
357/62-67 & 358/1-11) Maria Gowen Brooks (1794-1845) was given the flattering name “Maria del Occidente” (Maria of the [page 264:] West) by Southey, who saw her long narrative poem Zöphiel, or The Bride of Seven through the press (1833). Poe thought it surpassed even E. O. Smith's Sinless Child (H 13.97) and praised her “abandon” and “sustained ideality” (13.156, 192). It is true that he never assigned the very highest rank to her (as in M 105). Poe's deprecation of Lamb's taste is based on an arguable premise — concerning the feminine nature of poetry, made even more untenable in his conclusion about the nonexistence of the “greatest poems” as yet; thus Poe obliterates Homer, Vergil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Milton!
358/9} For Wm. D. Gallagher, see 275/12-23 n. Poe early considered his poems critically, as in the 7/36 SLM (H 9.73-75) and the 1841 “Autography” (H 15.223), mixing high praise with sharp cautions, but there seemed to be a real friendship.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - BRP4J, 1986] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (B. R. Pollin) (December 1845)