Text: Anonymous, “Edgar Allan Poe,” Pall Mall Gazette (London, UK), vol. LXV, whole no. 10,216, December 22, 1897, p. 4, col. 2

[page 4, column 2:]

Not many days ago a solitary critic has the good courage to speak of the “pinchbeck” of Poe. He had come to his own conclusions, and so had those French poets who, in the middle of the century, were resolved that the poetry of Poe was the final success of style. This last astonishing judgment, for which the fancy of Baudelaire gave authority to those who thought well to accept it, was doubtless a result of the “invincible ignorance” of the time. The Paris of the end of the century has made so surprising a confession of Teutonic music that the literature of England may also prove penetrable to the Latin intelligence one day to come. But in the meanwhile the English language was approached for the sake of all that is alien to its internal kingdom. Byron was the great and intelligible poet for the elders, and the younger men of the mid-century were advanced in their own eyes because they discovered Poe. If they had but had the words, they would no doubt have taken the Celtic glamour and other phrases from the men of to-day, and would have said all our tedious things before us.

Admiring Byron for his eloquence and Poe for his magic, the Frenchman thought he was admiring English poetry, aud went confidently astray in all the illusions. If this was the genius of the North, nothing was more accessible. It had not been worth while to make a difficulty of anything so easy. He knew these two foreign poets in their recesses, comme sa poche. At the same time he would have the honours of the explorer, and got them. Baudelaire, after reading Byron and Poe, was welcomed home with the welcome of a far traveller, and his face was searched for the report of strange things. Insensibly he dissembled and announced to Paris the genius of the North. Add to that eloquence and that magic, the trick and the friction of a strange tongue, and you have the illusion of style.

If the quality of Poe's talent had seemed to you to want a namewhich might well be; with your eyes shut you can recognize the taste of a wine perfectly well, and yet can hardly name it — a sight of his portrait must convince you how entirely this American poet was all Irishman. What his lineage really was is no doubt known, but I do not know it; his portrait shows the expression which speaks for itself. Assuredly no other race is so marked by the mere expression, apart from the construction, of its faces. The world would be even more interesting than it is if the other nations had their expression as distinctively as Ireland has hers. Aud to open one's eyes upon the visual aspect, as it were, of P’oe's talent when one meets the racial look in his face is a most conclusive thing.

Now this may be mistaken to imply an insult against the Celt. I approve the word pinchbeck for Poe, and then discover the name of the thing and proclaim it to be Irish. I would make haste, therefore, to say that there is English pinchbeck and French pinchbeck, and that either is distinguishable, and that mediocrity is always and everywhere her own dear self, though she goes better dressed perhaps in the French language than in other attire. There is no intention of making a comparison here, however, among several kinds of pinchbeck. And let no one dream that to say this is pinchbeck from Ireland is to intend any kind of slight upon Irish genius. It is simply that the conviction of Poe's race is a most enlightening explanation of the hasty enthusiasm of these French readers for him, and of the little obstacle they found in the way of their penetration into a strange literature. The thing must have been almost a surprise to themselves. It is not certain whether this Parisian appreciation had or had not an effect in swelling the admiration for Edgar Allan Poe here in England. And it seems that about no other poet has there been so great an uncertainty in minds generally well at rest on the questions of poetry and the poets. There has been interior misgiving, and consequently some rashness of expression. The judicious have almost been judicious enough to own a hesitation, and the confident have been in some doubt on which side they should bestow their emphasis.

There has been no orthodoxy and no heterodoxy on the question of Poe — no classical judgment. Opinion may have felt “the weight of too much liberty,” but it has had no other bonds or burdens. In reading Poe, the well-meaning reader has been left dreadfully to himself by the critics. He reminds one of Mr. Pinch when the Miss Pecksnif's went away from home, and suddenly and almost oppressively resigned the custody of the captain's biscuits and the red-currant wine, so that the young man had no one to limit the freedom of his enjoyments, and missed the sharp customary hand that had so long limited his sugar.

Frankly, the guides of opinion spoke with uncertainty as to the talent of Poe, and even when they were resolved to be certain they seemed too certain, and no one took them quite at their word. Poe has had his pledged admirers during this whole time of almost universal doubt. By some chance it has befallen that the toss-up of confidence has been all in his favour, and that the enthusiast has been just barely resolved to admire and not to ban. If there has been any very adverse judgment, it has not been, as far as I know, very conspicuous.

At last, however, in a time of peace, there seems likely to be a verdict, to be given without secret misgivings. It promises to be adverse, but with mitigations suggested by the manifestation of Poe's nature and race. “Pinchbeck” is the judgment, in a word, and the kind of pinchbeck has to be considered. A great deal of popular and not contemptible work in all the arts seems to have been achieved by the complete exploring of limited mysteries. Quite contemptible art, attempting things equally narrow, fails in that completeness, or only pretends to grasp at it. But take the famous intermezzo of “Cavalleria Rusticana” as a satisfactory of music, a passage that goes to the utmost, and searches the ends passage and the corners of the feeling cherished by the composer; and the same thing has been done on a larger scale by Rossini. it is no wonder if the hearer, strongly convinced that the music is exhaustive, and that it touches ultimates, thinks it to be great; whereas the ultimates in these cases are not remote to reach nor difficult to compass.

It may be somewhat thus with poetry, and especially with its mystery. A little mystery well presented — an intelligible mysteriousness, at any rate — may puzzle the fancy with more delight than a great mystery in the distance. And if any one should aver that the very character of is to be out of reach, let him read Edgar Allan mystery Poe, and sec how satisfactory mysteriousness may be made. The paradox must needs be accepted. Poe's mysteriousness is exceedingly satisfactory to the ordinary reader, and, without being a resolute gobemouche, one may be appalled by him, his raven, and his rhymes. If a critic may hazard a phrase about him, it would be to say that he had a real talent for a doubtful mysteriousness.

The versification, which has made much of the popularity of “The Raven,” “Ulalume,” Annabel Lee,” and the rest, is worthy of a peculiar praise. Like his thought, it is a limited thing, entirely done. It is beautifully free from faults. In his rather encumbered essay on “The Poetic Principle,” Poe does his own uncommon ear some injustice by his praise of Byron's versification in the poem beginning —

In the course of these stanzas there are at intervals these four grossly stumbling lines: —

In these the poet commits the vulgar fault of putting long and heavy syllables into the places prepared for light ones — heart, smile, hope, most; there are, moreover, false accents; and what can excuse such a packing together (in swift verse) of the syllables most The poet, besides, was at no expense of thought, and might have made his metre smooth without sacrificing anything. Poe says, “Although the rhythm here is one of the most difficult, the versification could scarcely be improved.”

And yet he committed no such blunders in his own work. He wrote true verse, and if we miss the slight friction of the truest verse of all — the verse which confesses the difficulties from which it suffers not — that lack is to be mentioned merely to show how very well Poe did, in metre as in What he was fell short, rather than what he did, Pinchbeck mystery. does not seem too harsh a word.