Text: Edgar Allan Poe and Thomas Ollive Mabbott, “Charles F. Briggs” The Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. IV: The Literati of New York City (2026), pp. 19-24 (This material is protected by copyright)

[page 19:]

CHARLES F. BRIGGS.(1)

Mr. Briggs is better known as Harry Franco, a nom de plume assumed since the publication, in the “Knickerbocker” of his series of papers called “Adventures of Harry Franco.”(2) He also wrote for the “Knickerbocker” some articles entitled “The Haunted Merchant,” and from time to time subsequently has been a contributor to that journal.(3) The two productions just mentioned have some merit. They depend for their effect upon the relation in a straightforward manner, just as one would talk, of the most commonplace events — a kind of writing which, to ordinary and especially to indolent intellects, has a very observable charm. To cultivated or to active minds it is in an equal degree distasteful, even when claiming the merit of originality. Mr. Briggs's manner, however, is an obvious imitation of Smollett, and, as usual with imitation, produces an unfavourable impression upon those conversant with the original. It is a common failing, also, with imitators, to out-Herod Herod(4) in aping the peculiarities of the model, and too frequently the faults are more pertinaciously exaggerated than the merits. Thus, the author of “Harry Franco” carries the simplicity of Smollett to insipidity, and his picturesque low-life is made to degenerate into sheer vulgarity. A fair idea of the general tone of the work may be gathered from the following passage: — (5)

If Mr. Briggs has a forte, it is a Flemish fidelity that omits nothing, whether agreeable or disagreeable; but I cannot call this forte a virtue. He has also some humour, but nothing of an original character. Occasionally he has written good things. [page 20:] A magazine article called “Dobbs and his Cantelope” was quite easy and clever in its way; but the way is necessarily a small one.(7) Now and then he has attempted criticism, of which, as might be expected, he made a farce. The silliest thing of this kind ever penned, perhaps, was an elaborate attack of his on Thomas Babington Macaulay, published in “The Democratic Review;” — the force of folly could no farther go.(8) Mr. Briggs has never composed in his life three consecutive sentences of grammatical English. He is grossly uneducated.

In connection with Mr. John Bisco he was the originator of the late “Broadway Journal” — my editorial association with that work not having commenced until the sixth or seventh number, although I wrote for it occasionally from the first. Among the principal papers contributed by Mr. B. were those discussing the paintings at the last exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts in New York. I may be permitted to say that there was scarcely a point in his whole series of criticisms on this subject at which I did not radically disagree with him. Whatever taste he has in art is, like his taste in letters, Flemish.(9)

Mr. Briggs's personal appearance is not prepossessing. He is about five feet six inches in height, somewhat slightly framed, with a sharp, thin face, narrow and low forehead, pert-looking nose, mouth rather pleasant in expression, eyes not so good, gray and small, although occasionally brilliant. In dress he is apt to affect the artist, priding himself especially upon his personal acquaintance with artists and his general connoisseurship. He is a member of the Art Union. He walks with a quick, nervous step. His address is quite good, frank and insinuating. His conversation has now and then the merit of humour, but he has a perfect mania for contradiction, and it is impossible to utter an uninterrupted sentence in his hearing. He has much warmth of feeling, and is not a person to be disliked, although very apt to irritate and annoy. Two of his most marked characteristics are vacillation of purpose and a passion for being mysterious. His most intimate friends seem to know nothing of his movements, and it is folly to expect from him a direct answer about anything. He has, apparently, traveled; pretends to a knowledge of French (of which he is profoundly ignorant); has been engaged in an infinite variety of employments, and now, I believe, occupies a lawyer's office in Nassau street. He is married, goes little into society, and seems about forty years of age.

 

[page 21:]

Griswold version of the article on Briggs:

MR. BRIGGS is better known as Harry Franco, a nom de plume assumed since the publication, in the “Knickerbocker Magazine,” of his series of papers called “Adventures of Harry Franco.” He also wrote for “The Knickerbocker” some articles entitled “The Haunted Merchant,” which have been printed since as a novel, and from time to time subsequently has been a contributor to that journal. The two productions just mentioned have some merit. They depend for their effect upon the relation in a straightforward manner, just as one would talk, of the most commonplace events — a kind of writing which, to ordinary, and especially to indolent intellects, has a very observable charm. To cultivated or to active minds it is in an equal degree distasteful, even when claiming the merit of originality. Mr. Briggs's manner, however, is an obvious imitation of Smollett, and, as usual with imitation, produces an unfavorable impression upon those conversant with the original. It is a common failing, also, with imitators, to out-Herod Herod in aping the peculiarities of the model, and too frequently the faults are more pertinaciously exaggerated than the merits. Thus, the author of “Harry Franco” carries the simplicity of Smollett to insipidity, and his picturesque low-life is made to degenerate into sheer vulgarity.

If Mr. Briggs has a forte, it is a Flemish fidelity that omits [page 22:] nothing, whether agreeable or disagreeable; but I cannot call this forte a virtue. He has also some humor, and more frequently of a smartness, allied to wit, but nothing of an original character. Occasionally he has written good things. A magazine article, called “Dobbs and his Cantelope,” was quite easy and clever in its way; but the way is necessarily a small one. And I ought not to pass over without some allusion to it, his satirical novel of “Tom Pepper.”(11) As a novel, it really has not the slightest pretensions. To a genuine artist in literature, he is as Plumbe to Sully. Plumbe's daguerreotypes(12) have more fidelity than any portrait ever put on canvass, but so Brigg's sketches of E. A. Duyckinck (Tibbings) and the author of Puffer Hopkins (Ferocious) are as lifelike as any portraits in words that have ever been drawn. But the subjects are little and mean, pretending and vulgar. Mr. Briggs would not succeed in delineating a gentleman.(13) And some letters of his in Hiram Fuller's paper — perhaps for the reason that they run through a desert of stupidity — some letters of his, I say, under the apt signature of “Ferdinand Mendoza Pinto,”(14) are decidedly clever as examples of caricature — absurd, of course, but sharply absurd, so that, with a knowledge of their design, one could hardly avoid occasional laughter. I once thought Mr. Briggs could cause laughter only by his efforts at a serious kind of writing.

In connexion with Mr. John Bisco, he was the originator of the late “Broadway Journal” — my editorial association with that work not having commenced until the sixth or seventh number, although I wrote for it occasionally from the first.(15) Among the principal papers contributed by Mr. B., were those discussing the paintings at the proceding exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts in New York. I may be permitted to say, that there was scarcely a point in his whole series of criticisms on this subject at which I did not radically disagree with him. Whatever taste he has in art is, like his taste in letters, Flemish. There is a portrait painter for whom he has an unlimited admiration. The unfortunate gentleman is Mr. Page.(16)

Mr. Briggs's is about five feet six inches in height, somewhat slightly framed, with a sharp, thin face, narrow forehead, nose sufficiently prominent, mouth rather pleasant in expression, eyes not so good, gray and small, although occasionally brilliant. In dress he is apt to affect the artist, felicitating himself especially upon his personal acquaintance with artists and his general connoisseurship. He walks with a quick, nervous step. His conversation has now and then the merit of humor, but he has a perfect mania for contradiction, and it is impossible to utter an uninterrupted sentence in his hearing. He has much warmth of feeling, and is not a person to be disliked, although very apt to irritate and annoy. Two of his most marked characteristics are vacillation of purpose and a passion for being mysterious. He has, apparently, travelled; has some knowledge of French; has been engaged in a variety of employments; and now, I believe, occupies a lawyer's office in Nassau-street. He is from Cape Code or Nantucket, is married, and is the centre of a little circle of rather intellectual people, of which the Kirklands, Lowell, and some other notabilities are honorary members. He goes little into society, and seems about forty years of age.

[[Notes]]

[page 23:]

1. Charles Frederick Briggs, December 30, 1804 - June 20, 1877, was a less bitter enemy of Poe, despite a quarrel over the editorial policy of the Broadway Journal. He wrote anonymously the introduction to the first American illustrated edition of Poe's Poems, 1859.

2. Adventures of Harry Franco, a Tale of the Great Panic, New York, 1839, 2 volumes, had not previously appeared in a magazine, as Briggs wrote Griswold, August 6, 1848; see Passages, 241.

3. The Haunted Merchant, New York 1843, did appear occasionally in the Knickerbocker, October 1839-September 1840.

4. “To out-Herod Herod,” Hamlet III, ii, 16, is a favorite phrase of Poe.

5. The quotation is from Harry Franco, Chapter IV (Vol. I, 22-23).

6. Judah Paddock's Narrative of the Shipwreck of the Ship “Oswego” off the Coast of South Barbary was issued bound up with an Authentic Narrative by James Riley, New York, 1818.

7. Dobbs and his Cantaloupe is in the Boston Miscellany, December 1842.

8. See Horace Walpole and Mr. Macaulay in Democratic Review, April 1844.

9. The articles are in the Broadway Journal, April 26-May 10, 1845. [page 24:]

10. The second paper on Briggs is obviously authentic, but the MS is not preserved, and a small interpolation is suspected.

11. Trippings of Tom Pepper, an Autobiography, New York, 1847, includes a satirical picture of Poe. He is represented as visiting Mrs. Ellet, and borrowing $50. A single glass of wine intoxicated him, he abuses Duyckinck, who excuses him on the ground of genius. Something of the kind is hinted also in Griswold's Memoir. The money was perhaps sought for the Stylus.

12. In regard to the Plumbe Daguerrean Gallery, John Plumbe was a photographer 1840-1847.

[[John Plumbe (1809-1857) was a welsh-born photographer who emigrated to the United States and set up a very successful photography studio in Washington, DC. According to the Columbian Fountain of Washington, DC for October 30, 1846, the Plumbeotype was an invention for “a cheap mode of multiplying likenesses take by a Daguerreotype. The sketches thus taken resemble pen and ink outlines, and are very characteristic” p. 2, col. 3. It was subsequently publicized in the Public Ledger for November 6-9, 1846. — JAS]]

13. “But . . . gentlemen” may be Griswold's interpolation, to alienate the sympathy of Duyckinck. The text here reads better if the two sentences stigmatized are omitted.

14. The signature, Ferdinand Mendoza Pinto, is the name of a Portuguese Jewish writer of travels whose veracity has been questioned. By a slight change the name may be punningly read to mean “Ferdinand, are you a liar? — I lie!” This is referred to in Poe's Sonnet to Mrs. Lewis, “the knight Pinto — Mendez Ferdinando”

15. Poe's name appears as an editor's in the tenth number of the Broadway Journal.

16. William Page, 1811-1884, a portrait painter, was the most intimate friend of Briggs.