Text: Edgar Allan Poe, “Frances S. Osgood”, from Literary America, 1848, manuscript

Very similar, but even more glowing, is the love-inspired eloquence of Edgar.

To this Elfrida replies:

And to this, Edgar:

The answer of Elfrida at this point is profoundly true to nature, and would alone suffice to assure any critic of Mrs. Osgood's dramatic talent:

The woman's soul here shrinks from the direct avowal of want of love for her husband, and flies to poetry and appeals to fate, by way of excusing that infidelity which is at once her glory and her shame.

In general, the “situations” of “Elfrida” are improbable or ultra-romantic, and its incidents unconsequential, seldom furthering the business of the play. The denouement is feeble, and its moral of very equivocal tendency indeed — but I have already shown that it is the especial office neither of poetry nor of the drama, to inculcate truth, unless incidentally. Mrs. Osgood, however, although she has unquestionably failed in writing a good play, has, even in failing, given indication of dramatic power. The great tragic element, passion, breathes in every line of her composition, and had she but the art, or the patience, to model or control it, she might be eminently successful as a playwright. I am justified in these opinions not only by “Elfrida,” but by “Woman's Trust, a Dramatic Sketch,” included, also, in the English edition.

Here the stranger details some incidents of the first wooing of Madelon by Rupert, and concludes with, Lady, my task is o’er-dost doubt me still?

The “Miscellaneous Poems” of the volume — many of them written in childhood — are, of course, various in character and merit. “The Dying Rosebud's Lament,” although by no means one of the best, will very well serve to show the earlier and most characteristic manner of the poetess:

The poetical reader will agree with me that few things have ever been written (by any poet, at any age,) more delicately fanciful than the passages italicised — and yet they are the work of a girl not more than fourteen years of age. The clearness and force of expression, and the nice appositeness of the overt and insinuated meaning, are, when we consider the youth of the writer, even more remarkable than the fancy.

I cannot speak of Mrs. Osgood's poems without a strong propensity to ring the changes upon the indefinite word “grace” and its derivatives. About every thing she writes we perceive this indescribable charm-of which, perhaps, the elements are a vivid fancy and a quick sense of the proportionate. Grace, however, may be most satisfactorily defined as “a term applied, in despair, to that class of the impressions of Beauty which admit of no analysis.” It is in this irresoluble effect that Mrs. Osgood excels any poetess of her country — and it is to this easily appreciable effect that her popularity is owing. Nor is she more graceful herself than a lover of the graceful, under whatever guise it is presented to her consideration. The sentiment renders itself manifest, in innumerable instances, as well throughout her prose as her poetry. Whatever be her theme, she at once extorts from it its whole essentiality of grace. Fanny Ellsler has been often lauded; true poets have sung her praises; but we look in vain for anything written about her, which so distinctly and vividly paints her to the eye as the half dozen quatrains which follow. They are to be found in the English volume:

This is, indeed, poetry — and of the most unquestionable kind-poetry truthful in the proper sense-that is to say, breathing of Nature. There is here nothing forced or artificial-no hardly sustained enthusiasm. The poetess speaks be cause she feels, and what she feels; but then what she feels is felt only by the truly poetical. The thought in the last line of the quatrain will not be so fully appreciated by the reader as it should be; for latterly it has been imitated, plagiarized, repeated ad infinitum: — but the other passages italicized have still left them all their original effect. The idea in the two last lines is exquisitely naive and natural; that in the two last lines of the second quatrain, beautiful beyond measure; that of the whole fifth quatrain, magnificent — unsurpassed in the entire compass of American poetry. It is instinct with the noblest poetical requisite — imagination. Of the same trait I find, to my surprise, one of the best exemplifications among the “Juvenile Rhymes.”

The point of all this, however, might have been sharpened, and the polish increased in lustre, by the application of the emory of brevity. From what the lover says much might well have been omitted; and I should have preferred leaving out altogether the autorial comments; for the story is fully told without them. The “‘Why do you weep?” “Why do you frown?” and “Why do you smile?” supply all the imagination requires; to supply more than it requires, oppresses and offends it. Nothing more deeply grieves it or more vexes the true taste in general, than hyperism of any kind. In Germany, Wohlgeborn is a loftier title than Edelgeborn; and in Greece, the thrice-victorious at the Olympic games could claim a statue of the size of life, while he who had conquered but once was entitled only to a colossal one.

The English collection of which I speak was entitled “A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England.” It met with a really cordial reception in Great Britain-was favorably noticed by the “Literary Gazette,” “Times,” “Atlas,” “Monthly Chronicle;” and especially by the Court Journal,” “The Court and Ladies’ Magazine,” “La Belle Assemblee,” and other similar works. “We have long been familiar,” says the high authority of the “Literary Gazette,” “with the name of our fair author. . . . Our expectations have been fulfilled, and we have here a delightful gathering of the sweetest of wild flowers, all looking as fresh and beautiful as if they had grown in the richest of English pasture in place of having been ‘nursed by the cataract.’ True the wreath might have been improved with a little more care — a trifling attention or two paid to the formation of it. A stalk here and there that obtrudes itself between the bells of the flowers, might have become so interwoven as to have been concealed, and the whole have looked as if it had grown in that perfect and beautiful form. Though, after all, we are perhaps too chary; for in Nature every leaf is not ironed out to a form, nor propped up with a wiry precision, but blown and ruffled by the refreshing breezes, and looking as careless and easy and unaffected as a child that bounds along with its silken locks tossed to and fro just as the wind uplifts them. Page after page of this volume have we perused with a feeling of pleasure and admiration.” The “Court Journal” more emphatically says: — “Her wreath is one of violets, sweet-scented, pure and modest; so lovely that the hand that wove it should not neglect additionally to enrich it by turning her love and kindness to things of larger beauty. Some of the smaller lyrics in the volume are perfectly beautiful — beautiful in their chaste and exquisite simplicity and the perfect elegance of their composition.” In fact, there was that about “The Wreaths of Wild Flowers” — that inexpressible grace of thought and manner — which never fails to find ready echo in the hearts of the aristocracy and refinement of Great Britain; — and it was here especially that Mrs. Osgood found welcome. Her husband's merits as an artist had already introduced her into distinguished society, (she was petted, in especial, by Mrs. Norton and Rogers,) but the publication of her poems had at once an evidently favorable effect upon his fortunes. His pictures were placed in a most advantageous light by her poetical and conversational ability.

Messrs. Clarke and Austin, of New York, have lately issued another, but still a very incomplete collection of “Poems by Frances S. Osgood.” In general, it includes by no means the best of her works. “The Daughter of Herodias” — one of her longest compositions, and a very noble poem, putting me in mind of the best efforts of Mrs. Hemans — is omitted: — it is included, however, in the last edition of Doctor Griswold's “Poets and Poetry of America.” In Messrs. C. and A.'s collection there occur, too, very many of those half sentimental, half allegorical compositions of which, at one period, the authoress seemed to be particularly fond — for the reason, perhaps, that they afforded her good opportunity for the exercise of her ingenuity and epigrammatic talent: — no poet, however, can admit them to be poetry at all. Still, the volume contains some pieces which enable us to take a new view of the powers of the writer. A few additional years, with their inevitable sorrow, appear to have stirred the depths of her heart. We see less of frivolity-less of vivacity — more of tenderness — earnestness — even passion — and far more of the true imagination as distinguished from its subordinate, fancy. The one prevalent trait, grace, alone distinctly remains. “The Spirit of Poetry,” “To Sybil,” “The Birth of the Callitriche,” and “The Child and its Angel-Playmate” would do honor to any of our poets. “She Loves Him Yet,” nevertheless, will serve, better than either of these poems, to show the alteration of manner referred to:

[[The remaining setences are missing from the manuscript]]

Upon the whole, I have spoken of Mrs. Osgood so much in detail, less on account of what she has actually done than on account of what I perceive in her the ability to do.

In character, she is ardent and sensitive, impulsive — the very soul of truth and honor; a worshipper of the beautiful, with a heart so radically artless as to seem abundant in art; universally admired, respected, and beloved. In person, she is about the medium height, slender even to fragility, graceful whether in action or repose; complexion usually pale; hair black and glossy; eyes a clear, luminous grey, large, and with singular capacity for expression.