Text: Lewis Gaylord Clark, “Editor's Table,” Knickerbocker Magazine (New York, NY), Vol. XXII, no. 1, July 1843, pp. 88-89

[page 68, continued:]

EDITOR'S TABLE.

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[page 88, continued:]

‘WHAT is more ridiculous to a dandy than a philosopher, or to a philosopher than a dandy?’ We thought of this query, while reading a description, in a communication before us, of a knot of fourth-rate dandies, the ‘apes of apes,’ which the writer encountered in the bar-room of an inn, in one of the fourth-rate towns of Maryland. Doubtless these artificial ‘humans’ looked upon our friend as quite to be pitied that he was not ‘one of us:’ ‘In their ultra dress, affected manners, drawling tones, and whey-faces, you might read the foolish inanity of an existence parallel in every respect to that of BEAU BRUMMEL, except that his was original absurdity, and theirs was folly on loan. It was Parisianism adulterated in London, qualified in Broadway, weakened in Chestnut-street, reduced in Baltimore, and at last in these provincial decoctions diluted to the lowest possible degree of insipidity, with scarce a perceptible tincture of the original liquid. These had no souls by nature; and the only idea they could inspire was one of humiliation, that apes were permitted to wear the likeness of God's image.’ . . . We annex below a few random comments from an old and favorite contributor, (a ‘scholar ripe and good,’ who holds a felicitous pen,) upon three or four papers in our May number: ‘JOHN QUOD is beyond all praise. I read the May chapters throughout with unqualified delight. The passage describing the old lawyer's affixing his own name, in his confusion, to the blind man's will, aroused me to unseemly, uproarious laughter; and the painting of Kornicker's manner, particularly his laugh, is scarcely inferior to COOPER'S account of Leatherstocking's noiseless, inward laugh, the impression of which could not fade from my fancy in a thousand years. I’ll wager my head that the May number of no Magazine in the world contains a sketch of more power and humor. As for the ‘Lay of Ancient Rome,’ I cannot praise it too highly. The imitations of ancient manners, and the keeping with ancient ideas, is excellent, excellent indeed; far better than the efforts of BULWER, in his ‘Last Days of Pompeii,’ or than any other late imitations which I just now remember to have seen. Fresh from the perusal of ANTHON'S ‘HORACE,’ (ANTHON'S classics are entirely unequalled,) and with LIVY in my reach, the verisimilitude strikes me as almost perfect. You cannot fail either, to observe that, as in the ‘Three Passages in the History of a Poet,’ there is a great deal of sweet poetry scattered about among the jewels of delicate criticism and mirthful wit. I believe my love for the old Greeks and Romans is a little unreasonable; but it is my first love. I often woo other mistresses, but I always return to my ‘prima donna.’ Twelve or fourteen years ago I ingorged all of SMOLLET, FIELDING, RICHARDSON, SCOTT, and COOPER, at one intemperate meal, and then lay some [page 89:] months inert and drowsy, like a huge boa-constrictor after swallowing a bullock. Then again for several years I dieted on Greek and Roman and early English literature. Once more I devoured all then published of EDGEWORTH, BULWER, JAMES, MARRYAT, and I know not how many others, rolled up in one monstrous mass. I wonder it had n’t killed me; but the process of digestion brought me again to a state of healthful depletion, and my natural appetite revived. So, although I am delighted with genius, or talent, or wit, or mere taste, no matter when or where I encounter it, yet I cannot forget my youthful worship, or forego my early gods. The death-scene in ‘The Young Englishman,’ I do declare, went to my very heart. I have had since continually before my eyes the poor youth, flying from his destroyer, whose unerring dart was already in his bosom. What a mournful comment on that most affecting passage of Virgil, where the wounded deer flies from the pursuer, (who is in truth her companion,) with the arrow for ever in her side — hæret lateri lethalis arundo — flies through the summer forests, all heedless of their greenness, and lies down by some blue streamlet, helpless and hopeless to die! Seeing the other day a number of ‘GRAHAM'S Magazine,’ I read in it an article by E. A. POE, who comes down on your old correspondent ‘FLACCUS’ like a mountain of lead! It is clear that ‘FLACCUS’ has in many places exposed himself to the charge of unmelodious rhymes, incongruous figures, and occasionally faulty taste. But there is a difference between a Pope that sometimes nods, and a CIBBER that never wakes! I am not easily moved, in the matter of poetry; I think, at least, that it must have merit to please me; and I well remember that FLACCUS'S metrical love-tale in your pages seemed to me very sweet and original, and strongly redolent of the early English odor. His ‘Epistle from my Arm-chair’ was in good hexameters, and his ‘Address to the President of the New-England Temperance Society’ had a TOM MOORE-ish spice of elegant wit about it, and might have been written by Mr. POE in about a century of leap-years.’ ... [[...]]