Text: Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “George H. Colton” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: The Literati of New York City (2026), pp. 7-8 (This material is protected by copyright)

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GEORGE H. COLTON.(1)

Mr. Colton is noted as the author of “Tecumseh,” and as the originator and editor of “The American Review,” a Whig magazine of the higher (that is to say, of the five dollar) class. I must not be understood as meaning any disrespect to the work. It is, in my opinion, by far the best of its order in this country, and is supported in the way of contribution by many of the very noblest intellects. Mr. Colton, if in nothing else, has shown himself a man of genius in his successful establishment of the magazine within so brief a period. It is now commencing its second year, and I can say, from my own personal knowledge, that its circulation exceeds two thousand — it is probably about two thousand five hundred. So marked and immediate a success has never been attained by any of our five dollar magazines, with the exception of “The Southern Literary Messenger,” which, in the course of nineteen months, (subsequent to the seventh from its commencement,) attained a circulation of rather more than five thousand.(2)

I cannot conscientiously call Mr. Colton a good editor, although I think that he will finally be so. He improves wonderfully with experience. His present defects are timidity and a lurking taint of partiality, amounting to positive prejudice (in the vulgar sense) for the literature of the Puritans. I do not think, however, that he is at all aware of such prepossession. His taste is rather unexceptionable than positively good. He has not, perhaps, sufficient fire within himself to appreciate it in others. Nevertheless, he endeavours to do so, and in this endeavour is not inapt to take opinions at secondhand — to adopt, I mean, the opinions of others. He is nervous, and a very trifling difficulty disconcerts him, without getting the better of a sort of dogged perseverance, which will make a thoroughly successful man of him in the end. He is (classically) well educated.

As a poet he has done better things than “Tecumseh,” in whose length he has committed a radical and irreparable error, sufficient in itself to destroy a far better book. Some portions of it are truly poetical; very many portions belong to a high order of eloquence; it is invariably well versified, and has no glaring defects, but, upon the whole, is insufferably tedious. Some of the author's shorter compositions, published anonymously in his magazine, have afforded indications even of genius.

Mr. Colton is marked in his personal appearance. He is probably not more than thirty, but an air of constant thought (with a pair of spectacles) causes him to seem somewhat older. He is about five feet eight or nine in height, and fairly proportioned — neither stout nor thin. His forehead is quite intellectual. His mouth has a peculiar expression difficult to describe. Hair light and generally in disorder. He converses fluently and, upon the whole, well, but grandiloquently, and with a tone half tragical, half pulpital.(3)

In character he is in the highest degree estimable, a most sincere, high-minded and altogether honourable man. He is unmarried.

[[Notes]]

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1 George Hooker Colton, October 25, 1818 - December 1, 1847, published Tecumseh; or the West Thirty Years Since, New York, 1847. It is a long narrative poem, 312 pages. Colton founded the American Review as of January 1845. There was some delay in getting out the first issue. Its chief glory lies in the publication, in its second number, of Poe's “Raven,” and later of “Ulalume.”

Rumors of a quarrel between this Colton and Poe are unfounded; it was Water Colton who wrote to Griswold approving his memoir. See Passages 1898, pages 262 and 276, and an article by Cullen Colton in American Literature, November 1938.

2 The reference to the Messenger is to the period Poe edited it.

3 “Pulpital” is a pleasantry; Colton's direct ancestors were ministers for five generations.