Text: Edgar Allan Poe (ed. E. C. Stedman and G. E. Woodberry), “A Reply to Outis,” The Works of Edgar Allan Poe — Vol. VI: Litearary Criticism (1895), 6:136-198

[page 136:]

I

FOR the “Evening Mirror” of January 14, (1846), before my editorial connection with the “Broadway Journal,” I furnished a brief criticism on Professor Longfellow's “Waif.” In the course of my observations, I collated a poem called “The Death-Bed,” and written by Hood, with one by Mr. Aldrich, entitled “A Death-Bed.” The criticism, ended thus: —

Much discussion ensued. A friend of Mr. Longfellow's penned a defence, which had at least the merit of being thoroughly impartial; for it defended Mr. L., not only from the one-tenth of very moderate disapproval in which I had indulged, but from the nine-tenths of my enthusiastic admiration into the bargain. The fact is, if I was not convinced that in ninety-nine hundredths of all that I had written about Mr. Longfellow I was decidedly in the wrong, at least it was no fault of Mr. Longfellow's [page 137:] very luminous friend. This well-intended defence was published in the “Mirror,” with a few words of preface by Mr. Willis, and of postscript by myself. Still dissatisfied, Mr. L., through a second friend, addressed to Mr. Willis an expostulatory letter, of which the “Mirror” printed only the following portion: —

Not yet content, or misunderstanding the tenor of some of the wittily put comments which accompanied the quotation, the aggrieved poet, through one of the two friends as before, or perhaps through a third, finally prevailed on the good nature of Mr. Willis to publish an explicit declaration of his disagreement with “all the disparagement of Longfellow” which had appeared in the criticism in question.

Now when we consider that many of the points of censure made by me in this critique were absolutely as plain as the nose upon Mr. Longfellow's face — that it was impossible to gainsay them — that we defied him and his coadjutors to say a syllable in reply to them — and that they held their tongues and not a syllable said — when we consider all this, I say, then the satire of the “all” in Mr. Willis's manifesto [page 138:] becomes apparent at once. Mr. Longfellow did not see it; and I presume his friends did not see it. I did. In my mind's eye it expanded itself thus; — “My dear Sir, or Sirs, what will you have? You are an insatiable set of cormorants, it is true; but if you will only let me know what you desire, I will satisfy you, if I die for it. Be quick! — merely say what it is you wish me to admit, and (for the sake of getting rid of you) I will admit it upon the spot. Come! I will grant at once that Mr. Longfellow is Jupiter Tonans, and that his three friends are the Graces, or the Furies, whichever you please. As for a fault to be found with either of you, that is impossible, and I say so. I disagree with all — with every syllable of the disparagement that ever has been whispered against you up to this date, and (not to stand upon trifles) with all that ever shall be whispered against you henceforward, forever and forever. May I hope at length that these assurances will be sufficient?” But if Mr. Willis really hoped anything of the kind he was mistaken.

In the mean time Mr. Briggs, in the “Broadway Journal” — did me the honor of taking me to task for what he supposed to be my insinuations against Mr. Aldrich. My reply (in the “Mirror”) prefaced by a few words from Mr. Willis, ran as follows: —

At this point the matter rested for a fortnight, when a fourth friend of Mr. Longfellow took up the cudgels for him and Mr. Aldrich conjointly, in another communication to the “Mirror.” I copy it in full.

What I admire in this letter is the gentlemanly grace of its manner, and the chivalry which has prompted its composition. What I do not admire is all the rest. In especial, I do not admire the desperation of the effort to make out a case. No gentleman should degrade himself, on any grounds, to the paltriness of ex-parte argument; and I shall not insult “Outis” at the outset, by assuming for a moment that he (Outis) is weak enough, to suppose me (Poe) silly enough, to look upon all this abominable rigmarole as anything better than a very respectable specimen of special pleading.

As a general rule in a case of this kind, I should wish to begin with the beginning, but as I have been [page 148:] unable, in running my eye over “Outis”'s remarks, to discover that they have any beginning at all, I shall be pardoned for touching them in the order which suits me best. “Outis” need not have put himself to the trouble of informing his readers that he has “some acquaintance with Mr. Longfellow.” It was needless also to mention that he did not know me. I thank him for his many flatteries — but of their inconsistency I complain. To speak of me in one breath as a poet, and in the next to insinuate charges of “carping littleness,” is simply to put forth a flat paradox. When a plagiarism is committed and detected, the word “littleness,” and other similar words, are immediately brought into play. To the words themselves I have no objection whatever; but their application might occasionally be improved.

Is it altogether impossible that a critic be instigated to the exposure of a plagiarism, or still better, of plagiarism generally wherever he meets it, by a strictly honorable and even charitable motive? Let us see. A theft of this kind is committed — for the present we will admit the possibility that a theft of this character can be committed. The chances of course are, that an established author steals from an unknown one, rather than the converse; for in proportion to the circulation of the original, is the risk of the plagiarism's detection. The person about to commit the theft, hopes for impunity altogether on the ground of the reconditeness of the source from which he thieves. But this obvious consideration is rarely borne in mind. We read a certain passage in a certain book. We meet a passage nearly similar, in another book. The first book is not at hand, and we cannot compare dates. We decide by what we fancy the probabilities [page 149:] of the case. The one author is a distinguished man — our sympathies are always in favor of distinction. “It is not likely,” we say in our hearts, “that so distinguished a personage as A. would be guilty of plagiarism from this B. of whom nobody in the world has ever heard.” We give judgment, therefore, at once against B. of whom nobody in the world has ever heard; and it is for the very reason that nobody in the world has ever heard of him, that, in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred, the judgment so precipitously given is erroneous. Now then the plagiarist has not merely committed a wrong in itself — a wrong whose incomparable meanness would deserve exposure on absolute grounds — but he, the guilty, the successful, the eminent, has fastened the degradation of his crime — the retribution which should have overtaken it in his own person — upon the guiltless, the toiling, the unfriended struggler up the mountainous path of Fame. Is not sympathy for the plagiarist, then, about as sagacious and about as generous as would be sympathy for the murderer whose exultant escape from the noose of the hangman should be the cause of an innocent man's being hung? And because I, for one, should wish to throttle the guilty with the view of letting the innocent go, could it be considered proper on the part of any “acquaintance of Mr. Longfellow's” who came to witness the execution — could it be thought, I say, either chivalrous or decorous on the part of this “acquaintance” to get up against me a charge of “carping littleness,” while we stood amicably together at the foot of the gallows?

In all this I have taken it for granted that such a sin as plagiarism exists. We are informed by “Outis”, however, that it does not. “I shall not charge Mr. [page 150:] Poe with plagiarism,” he says, “for, as I have said, such charges are perfectly absurd.” An assertion of this kind is certainly funny, (I am aware of no other epithet which precisely applies to it;) and I have much curiosity to know if “Outis” is prepared to swear to its truth — holding right aloft his hand, of course, and kissing the back of D’Israeli's “Curiosities,” or the “Mélanges,” of Suard and André. But if the assertion is funny (and it is) it is by no means an original thing. It is precisely, in fact, what all the plagiarists and all the “acquaintances” of the plagiarists since the flood, have maintained with a very praiseworthy resolution. The attempt to prove, however, by reasoning à priori, that plagiarism cannot exist, is too good an idea on the part of “Outis” not to be a plagiarism in itself. Are we mistaken? — or have we seen the following words before in Joseph Miller, where that ingenious gentleman is bent upon demonstrating that a leg of mutton is and ought to be a turnip?

Is it possible? — is it conceivable that “Outis” does not here see the begging of the whole question? Why, of course, if the theft had to be committed “in open day “ it would not be committed; and if the thief “knew “ that every one would cry him down, he would be too excessive a fool to make even a decent thief if he indulged his thieving propensities in any respect. But he thieves at night — in the dark — [page 151:] and not in the open day, (if he suspects it), and he does not know that he will be detected at all. Of the class of wilful plagiarists nine out of ten are authors of established reputation, who plunder recondite, neglected, or forgotten books.

II

“I shall not accuse Mr. Poe of plagiarism,” says “Outis”, “for, as I have observed before, such charges are perfectly absurd” — and “Outis” is certainly right in dwelling on the point that he has observed this thing before. It is the one original point of his essay — for I really believe that no one else was ever silly enough to “observe it before.”

Here is a gentleman who writes in certain respects as a gentleman should, and who yet has the effrontery to base a defence of a friend from the charge of plagiarism, on the broad ground that no such thing as plagiarism ever existed. I confess that to an assertion of this nature there is no little difficulty in getting up a reply. What in the world can a man say in a case of this kind? — he cannot of course give utterance to the first epithets that spring to his lips — and yet what else shall he utter that shall not have an air of direct insult to the common sense of mankind? What could any judge on any bench in the country do but laugh or swear at the attorney who should begin his defence of a petty-larceny client with an oration demonstrating à priori that no such thing as petty larceny ever had been, or in the nature of things, ever could be committed? And yet the attorney might make as sensible a speech as “Outis” — even a more sensible one — anything but a less sensible one. Indeed, mutato nomine, he might employ “Outis”'s [page 152:] identical words. He might say — “In view, gentlemen of the jury, of all the glaring improbabilities of such a case, a prosecuting attorney should be very slow to make such a charge. I say glaring improbabilities, for it seems to me that no circumstantial evidence could be sufficient to secure a verdict of theft in such a case. Look at it. [Here the judge would look at the maker of the speech.] Look at it. A man who aspires to (the) fame (of being a beau) — who seeks the esteem and praise of all the world (of dandies) and lives upon his reputation (for broadcloth) as his vital element, attempts to win his object — how? By stealing in open day the finest waistcoats, the most beautiful dress-coats (no others are worth stealing) and the rarest pantaloons of another, and claiming them as his own; and that too when he knows that every competitor for (the) fame (of Brummelism) and every fashion-plate Magazine in the world, as well as the real owner, will be ready to identify the borrowed plumes in a moment, and cry him down as a thief. A madman, an idiot, if he were capable of such an achievement, might do it, gentlemen of the jury, but no other.”

Now, of course, no judge in the world whose sense of duty was not overruled by a stronger sense of the facetious, would permit the attorney to proceed with any such speech. It would never do to have the time of the court occupied by this gentleman's well-meant endeavor to show à priori, the impossibility of that ever happening which the clerk of this same court could show à posteriori had been happening by wholesale ever since there had been such a thing as a foreign count. And yet the speech of the attorney was really a very excellent speech, when we compare [page 153:] it with that of “Outis.” For the “glaring improbability” of the plagiarism, is a mere nothing by the side of the “glaring improbability” of the theft of the sky-blue dress-coat, and the yellow plaid pantaloons: — we may take it for granted, of course, that the thief was one of the upper ten thousand of thieves, and would not have put himself to the trouble of appropriating any garments that were not of indisputable bon ton, and patronised even by Professor Longfellow himself. The improbability of the literary theft, I say, is really a mere trifle in comparison with the broadcloth larceny. For the plagiarist is either a man of no note or a man of note. In the first case, he is usually an ignoramus, and getting possession of a rather rare book, plunders it without scruple, on the ground that nobody has ever seen a copy of it except himself. In the second case (which is a more general one by far) he pilfers from some poverty-stricken, and therefore neglected man of genius, on the reasonable supposition that this neglected man of genius will very soon cut his throat, or die of starvation, (the sooner the better, no doubt), and that in the mean time he will be too busy in keeping the wolf from the door to look; after the purloiners of his property — and too poor, and too cowed, and for these reasons too contemptible, under any circumstances, to dare accuse of so base a thing as theft, the wealthy and triumphant gentleman of elegant leisure who has only done the vagabond too much honor in knocking him down and robbing him upon the highway.

The plagiarist, then, in either case, has very reasonable ground for expecting impunity, and at all events it is because he thinks so, that he perpetrates the plagiarism — but how is it with the count who steps [page 154:] into the shop of the tailor, and slips under his cloak the sky-blue dress-coat, and the yellow plaid pantaloons? He, the count, would be a greater fool in these matters than a count ever was, if he did not perceive at once, that the chances were about nine hundred and ninety-nine to one, that he would be caught the next morning before twelve o’clock, in the very first bloom and blush of his promenade down Broadway, by some one of those officious individuals who are continually on the qui vive to catch the counts and take away from them their sky-blue coats and yellow plaid pantaloons. Yes, undoubtedly; the count is very well aware of all this; but he takes into consideration, that although the nine hundred and ninety-nine chances are certainly against him, the one is just as certainly in his favor — that luck is everything — that life is short — that the weather is fine — and that if he can only manage to get safely through his promenade down Broadway in the sky-blue dress-coat and the yellow plaid pantaloons, he will enjoy the high honor, for once in his life, at least, of being mistaken by fifteen ladies out of twenty, either for Professor Longfellow, or Phœbus Apollo. And this consideration is enough — the half of it would have been more than enough to satisfy the count that, in putting the garments under his cloak, he is doing a very sagacious and very commendable thing. He steals them, then, at once, and without scruple, and, when he is caught arrayed in them the next morning, he is, of course, highly amused to hear his counsel make an oration in court about the “glaring improbability” of his having stolen them when he stole them — by way of showing the abstract impossibility of their ever having been stolen at all. [page 155:]

“What is plagiarism?” demands “Outis” at the outset, avec l’air d’un Romain qui sauve sa patrie — “What is plagiarism, and what constitutes a good ground for the charge?” Of course all men anticipate something unusually happy in the way of reply to queries so cavernously propounded; but if so, then all men have forgotten, or no man has ever known that “Outis” is a Yankee. He answers the two questions by two others — and perhaps this is quite as much as any one should expect him to do. “Did no two men,” he says, “ever think alike without stealing one from the other? — or thinking alike, did no two men ever use the same or similar words to convey the thoughts, and that without any communication with each other? — To deny it is absurd.” Of course it is — very absurd; and the only thing more absurd that I can call to mind at present, is the supposition that any person ever entertained an idea of denying it. But are we to understand the denying it, or the absurdity of denying it, or the absurdity of supposing that any person intended to deny it, as the true answer to the original queries.

But let me aid “Outis” to a distinct conception of his own irrelevance. I accuse his friend, specifically, of a plagiarism. This accusation “Outis” rebuts by asking me with a grave face — not whether the friend might not, in this individual case, and in the compass of eight short lines, have happened upon ten or twelve peculiar identities of thought and identities of expression with the author from whom I charge him with plagiarising — but simply whether I do not admit the possibility that once in the course of eternity some two individuals might not happen upon a single identity [page 156:] of thought, and give it voice in a single identity of expression.

Now, frankly, I admit the possibility in question, and would request my friends to get ready for me a strait-jacket if I did not. There can be no doubt in the world, for example, that “Outis” considers me a fool: — the thing is sufficiently plain: and this opinion on the part of “Outis” is what mankind have agreed to denominate an idea; and this idea is also entertained by Mr. Aldrich, and by Mr. Longfellow — and by Mrs. “Outis” and her seven children — and by Mrs. Aldrich and hers — and by Mrs. Longfellow and hers — including the grand-children and great grand-children, if any, who will be instructed to transmit the idea in unadulterated purity down an infinite vista of generations yet to come. And of this idea thus extensively entertained, it would really be a very difficult thing to vary the expression in any material degree. A remarkable similarity would be brought about, indeed, by the desire of the parties in question to put the thought into as compendious a form as possible, by way of bringing it to a focus at once and having done with it upon the spot.

“Outis” will perceive, therefore, that I have every desire in the world to afford him that “fair play” which he considers “a jewel,” since I admit not only the possibility of the class of coincidences for which he contends, but even the impossibility of there not existing just as many of these coincidences as he may consider necessary to make out his case. One of the species he details as follows, at some length: —

After the fashion of “Outis” himself I shall answer his query by another. What has the question whether the chandelier friend committed a plagiarism, to do with the question whether the death-bed friend committed a plagiarism, or whether it is possible or impossible that plagiarism, generally, can be committed? But, merely for courtesy's sake, I step aside from the exact matter in hand. In the case mentioned I should consider material differences in the terms of description as more remarkable than coincidences. Since the tree really looked like a chandelier, the true wonder would have been in likening it to anything [page 158:] else. Of course, nine common-place men out of ten would have maintained it to be a chandelier-looking tree. No poet of any pretention however, would have committed himself so far as to put such a similitude in print. The chandelier might have been poetically likened to the crystallized tree — but the converse is a platitude. The gorgeous unaltered handiwork of Nature is always degraded by comparison with the tawdry gew-gaws of Art — and perhaps the very ugliest thing in the world is a chandelier. If “every reviewer in the land put the passage into Italics on account of the exceeding beauty of the imagery,” then every printer's devil in the land should have been flogged for not taking it out of Italics upon the spot, and putting it in the plainest Roman — which is too good for it by one half.

I put no faith in the nil admirari, and am apt to be amazed at every second thing which I see. One of the most amazing things I have yet seen, is the complacency with which “Outis” throws to the right and left his anonymous assertions, taking it for granted that because he (Nobody) asserts them, I must believe them as a matter of course. However — he is quite in the right. I am perfectly ready to admit anything that he pleases, and am prepared to put as implicit faith in his ipse dixit as the Bishop of Autun did in the Bible — on the ground that he knew nothing about it at all. We will understand it, then, not merely as an anonymous assertion but as an absolute fact, that the two chandelier authors “were not and never have been acquainted with each other, and that neither could have seen the work of the other before writing.” We will agree to understand all this as indisputable truth, I say, through motives of the purest charity, [page 159:] for the purpose of assisting a friend out of trouble, and without reference to the consideration that no third person short of Signor Blitz or Professor Rogers could in any conceivable manner have satisfied himself of the truth of the twentieth part of it. Admitting this and everything else, to be as true as the Pentateuch, it follows that plagiarism in the case in question was a thing that could not by any possibility be — and do I rightly comprehend “Outis” as demonstrating the impossibility of plagiarism where it is possible, by adducing instances of inevitable similarity under circumstances where it is not? The fact is, that through want of space and time to follow “Outis” through the labyrinth of impertinences in which he is scrambling about, I am constrained much against my sense of decorum, to place him in the high-road of his argument, so that he may see where he is, and what he is doing, and what it is that he is endeavoring to demonstrate.

He wishes to show, then, that Mr. Longfellow is innocent of the imitation with which I have charged him, and that Mr. Aldrich is innocent of the plagiarism with which I have not charged him; and this duplicate innocence is expected to be proved by showing the possibility that a certain, or that any uncertain series of coincidences may be the result of pure accident. Now of course I cannot be sure that “Outis” will regard my admission as a service or a disservice, but I admit the possibility at once; and not only this, but I would admit it as a possibility were the coincidences a billion, and each of the most definitive peculiarity that human ingenuity could conceive. But in admitting this, I admit just nothing at all, so far as the advancement of “Outis”'s proper argument is [page 160:] concerned. The affair is one of probabilities altogether, and can be satisfactorily settled only by reference to their Calculus.

II

“Pray,” inquires “Outis” of Mr. Willis, “did you ever think the worse of Dana because your friend John Neal charged him with pirating upon Paul Allen, and Bryant, too, in his poem of ‘THE DYING RAVEN’?” I am sincerely disposed to give “Outis” his due, and will not pretend to deny his happy facility in asking irrelevant questions. In the present case, we can only imagine Mr. Willis's reply: — “My dear sir,” he might say, “I certainly do not think much the worse of Mr. Dana, because Mr. Neal charged him with the piracy, but be so kind as not to inquire what might have been my opinion had there been any substantiation of the charge.” I quote “Outis”'s inquiry, however, not so much to insist upon its singular luminousness, as to call attention to the argument embodied in the capital letters of “THE DYING RAVEN.”

Now, were I, in any spasm of perversity, to direct “Outis”'s catechetical artillery against himself, and demand of him explicitly his reasons for causing those three words to be printed in capitals, what in the world would he do for a reply? As a matter of course, for some moments, he would be profoundly embarrassed — but, being a true man, and a chivalrous one, as all defenders of Mr. Longfellow must be, he could not fail, in the end, to admit that they were so printed for the purpose of safely insinuating a charge which not even an “Outis” had the impudence openly to utter. Let us imagine his thoughts while carefully [page 161:] twice underscoring the words. Is it impossible that they ran thus? — “I am perfectly well aware, to be sure, that the only conceivable resemblance between Mr. Bryant's poem and Mr. Poe's poem, lies in their common reference to a raven; but then, what I am writing will be seen by some who have not read Mr. Bryant's poem, and by many who have never heard of Mr. Poe's, and among these classes I shall be able to do Mr. Poe a serious injustice and injury, by conveying the idea that there is really sufficient similarity to warrant that charge of plagiarism, which I, “Outis”, the ‘acquaintance of Mr. Longfellow,’ am too high-minded and too merciful to prefer.”

Now, I do not pretend to be positive that any such thoughts as these ever entered the brain of “Outis”. Nor will I venture to designate the whole insinuation as a specimen of “carping littleness, too paltry for any man who values his reputation as a gentleman;” for, in the first place, the whole matter, as I have put it, is purely supposititious, and in the second, I should furnish ground for a new insinuation of the same character, inasmuch as I should be employing “Outis”'s identical words. The fact is, “Outis” has happened upon the idea that the most direct method of rebutting one accusation, is to get up another. By showing that I have committed a sin, he proposes to show that Mr. Aldrich and Mr. Longfellow have not. Leaving the underscored DYING RAVEN to argue its own case, he proceeds, therefore, as follows: —

The “rather quaint” is ingenious. Fully one-third of whatever effect the “Raven” has, is wrought by the quaintness in question — a point elaborately introduced, to accomplish a well-considered purpose. What idea would “Outis” entertain of me, were I to speak of his defence of his friends as very decent, very respectable, but rather meritorious? In the passages collated, there are two points upon which the “snarling critic” might base his insinuation — if ever so weak a “snarling critic” existed. Of these two points one is purely hypothetical — that is to say, it is disingenuously manufactured by Mr. Longfellow's [page 163:] acquaintance to suit his own purposes — or perhaps the purposes of the imaginary snarling critic. The argument of the second point is demolished by my not only admitting it, but insisting upon it. Perhaps the least tedious mode of refuting “Outis”, is to acknowledge nine-tenths of everything he may think proper to say.

But, in the present instance, what am I called upon to acknowledge? I am charged with imitating the repetition of phrase in the two concluding lines of a stanza, and of imitating this from Coleridge. But why not extend the accusation, and insinuate that I imitate it from everybody else? for certainly there is no poet living or dead who has not put in practice the identical effect — the well-understood effect of the refrain. Is “Outis”'s argument to the end that I have no right to this thing for the reason that all the world has? If this is not his argument, will he be kind enough to inform me (at his leisure) what it is? Or is he prepared to confess himself so absurdly uninformed as not to know that whatever a poet claims on the score of original versification, is claimed not on account of any individual rhythmical or metrical effects, (for none are individually original), but solely on account of the novelty of his combinations of old effects? The hypothesis, or manufacture, consists in the alteration of Coleridge's metre, with the view of forcing it into a merely ocular similarity with my own, and thus of imposing upon some one or two grossly ignorant readers. I give the verses of Coleridge as they are:

The verses beginning, “Then all averred,” etc., are arranged in the same manner. Now I have taken it for granted that it is “Outis”'s design to impose the idea of similarity between my lines and those of Coleridge, upon some one or two grossly ignorant individuals: at the same time, whoever attempts such an imposition is rendered liable at least to the suspicion of very gross ignorance himself. The ignorance or the knavery are the two uncomfortable horns of his dilemma.

Let us see. Coleridge's lines are arranged in quatrains — mine in couplets. His first and third lines rhyme at the closes of the second and fourth feet — mine flow continuously, without rhyme. His metre, briefly defined, is alternately tetrameter acatalectic and trimeter acatalectic — mine is uniformly octameter catalectic. It might be expected, however, that at least the rhythm would prove to be identical — but not so. Coleridge's is iambic (varied in the third foot of the first line with an anapæst) — mine is the exact converse, trochaic. The fact is, that neither in rhythm, metre, stanza, or rhyme, is there even a single point of approximation throughout; the only similarity being the wickedly or sillily manufactured one of “Outis” himself, appealing from the ears to the eyes of the most uncultivated classes of the rabble. The ingenuity and validity of the manufacture might be approached, although certainly not paralleled, by an attempt to show that blue and yellow pigments standing unmixed at separate ends of a studio, were equivalent to green. I say “not paralleled,” for even the mixing of the pigments, in the case of “Outis”, would be very far, as I have shown, from producing the supposititious effect. Coleridge's lines, written together, would result in rhymed iambic heptameter acatalectic, [page 165:] while mine are unrhymed trochaic octameter catalectic — differing in every conceivable circumstance. A closer parallel than the one I have imagined, would be the demonstration that two are equal to four, on the ground that, possessing two dollars, a man will have four when he gets an additional couple — for that the additional couple is somewhere, no one, after due consideration, will deny.

If “Outis” will now take a seat upon one of the horns of his dilemma, I will proceed to the third variation of the charges insinuated through the medium of the “snarling critic,” in the passage heretofore quoted.(1)

The first point to be attended to is the “ten to one that I never saw it before.” Ten to one that I never did — but “Outis” might have remembered that twenty to one I should like to see it. In accusing either Mr. Aldrich or Mr. Hood, I printed their poems together and in full. But an anonymous gentleman rebuts my accusation by telling me that there is a certain similarity between a poem of my own and an anonymous poem which he has before him, and which he would like to transcribe if it were not too long. He contents himself, therefore, with giving me, from this too long poem, three stanzas which are shown, by a series of intervening asterisks, to have been culled, to suit his own purposes, from different portions of the poem, but which (again to suit his own purposes) he places before the public in consecutive connection! The least that can be said of the whole statement is that it is deliciously frank — but, upon the whole, the poem will look quite as well before me, [page 166:] as before “Outis”, whose time is too much occupied to transcribe it. I, on the other hand, am entirely at leisure, and will transcribe and print the whole of it with the greatest pleasure in the world — provided always that it is not too long to refer to — too long to have its whereabouts pointed out — as I half suspect, from “Outis”'s silence on the subject, that it is One thing I will take it upon myself to say, in the spirit of prophecy: — whether the poem in question is or is not in existence (and we have only Nobody's word that it is), the passages as quoted, are not in existence, except as quoted by “Outis”, who, in some particulars, I maintain, has falsified the text, for the purpose of forcing a similarity, as in the case of the verses of Coleridge. All this I assert in the spirit of prophecy, while we await the forthcoming of the poem. In the mean time, we will estimate the “identities” with reference to the “Raven” as collated with the passages culled by “Outis” — granting him everything he is weak enough to imagine I am in duty bound to grant — admitting that the poem as a whole exists — that the words and lines are ingenuously written — that the stanzas have the connection and sequence he gives them — and that although he has been already found guilty of chicanery in one instance, he is at least entirely innocent in this.

He has established, he says, fifteen identities, “and that, too, without a word of rhythm, metre, or stanza, which should never form a part of such comparison” — by which, of course, we are to understand that with the rhythm, metre, and stanza (omitted only because they should never form a part of such comparison) he would have succeeded in establishing eighteen. Now I insist that rhythm, metre, and stanza, should form [page 167:] and must form a part of the comparison, and I will presently demonstrate what I say. I also insist, therefore, since he could find me guilty if he would upon these points, that guilty he must and shall find me upon the spot. He then, distinctly, has established eighteen identities — and I proceed to examine them one by one.

“First,” he says “in each case the poet is a broker-hearted lover.” Not so: — my poet has no indication of a broken heart. On the contrary he lines triumphantly in the expectation of meeting his Lenore in Aidenn, and is so indignant with the raven for maintaining that the meeting will never take place, as to call him a liar, and order him out of the house. Not only is my lover not a broken-hearted one — but I have been at some pains to show that broken hearts and matters of that kind are improperly made the subject of poems. I refer to a chapter of the articles entitled “Marginalia,” (p. —.) “Second,” says “Outis”, “that lover longs for some hereafter communion with the bird.” In my poem there is no expression of any such longing — the nearest approach to it is the triumphant consciousness which forms the thesis and staple of the whole. In “Outis”'s poem the nearest approach to the “longing” is contained in the lover's request to the bird to repeat a strain that assures him (the lover), that it (the bird), has known the lost mistress. “Third — there is a bird,” says “Outis”. So there is. Mine however is a raven, and we may take it for granted that “Outis”'s is either a nightingale or a cockatoo. “Fourth, the bird is at the poet's window.” As regards my poem, true; as regards “Outis”'s, not: — the poet only requests the bird to come to the window. Fifth, the bird being at the [page 168:] poet's window, makes a noise.” The fourth specification failing, the fifth, which depends upon it, as a matter of course fails too. “Sixth, making a noise attracts the attention of the poet.” The fifth specification failing, the sixth, which depends upon it, fails, likewise, and as a matter of course, as before. “Seventh, [the poet] was half asleep, dozing, dreaming.” False altogether: only my poet was “napping,” and this in the commencement of the poem, which is occupied with realities and waking action. “Outis”'s poet is fast asleep and dreams everything. “Eighth, the poet invites the bird to come in.” Another palpable failure. “Outis”'s poet indeed asked his bird in; but my raven walked in without any invitation. “Ninth — a confabulation ensues.” As regards my poem, true; but there is not a word of any confabulation in “Outis”'s. “Tenth — the bird is supposed to be a visitor from the land of spirits.” As regards “Outis”'s poem, this is true only if we give a wide interpretation to the phrase “realms of light.” In my poem the bird is not only not from the world of spirits, but I have specifically conveyed the idea of his having escaped from “some unhappy master,” of whom he had caught the word “nevermore” — in the concluding stanza, it is true, I suddenly convert him into an allegorical emblem or personification of Mournful Remembrance, out of the shadow of which the poet is “lifted nevermore.” “Eleventh — allusion is made to the departed.” Admitted. “Twelfth — intimation is given that the bird knew something of the departed.” True as regards “Outis”'s poem only. No such intimation is given in mine. “Thirteenth — that he knew her worth and loveliness.” Again — true only as regards [page 169:] “Outis”'s poem. It should be observed here that I have disproved the twelfth and thirteenth specifications purely for form's sake: — they are nothing more than disingenuous repetitions of the eleventh. The “allusion to the departed” is the “intimation,” and the intimation is that “he knew her worth and loveliness.” “Fourteenth — the bird seems willing to linger with the poet.” True only as regards my poem — in “Outis”'s (as quoted) there is nothing of the kind. “Fifteenth — there is a repetition, in the second and fourth lines, of a part, and that the emphatic part, of the first and third.” What is here asserted is true only of the first stanza quoted by “Outis”, and of the commencement of the third. There is nothing of it in the second. In my poem there is nothing of it at all, with the exception of the repetition in the refrain, occurring at the fifth line of my stanza of six. I quote a stanza — by way of rendering everything perfectly intelligible, and affording “Outis” his much coveted “fair play”:

Sixteenth, concerns the rhythm. “Outis”'s is iambic — mine the exact converse, trochaic. Seventeenth — regards the metre. “Outis”'s is hexameter, alternating with pentameter, both acatalectic.(1) Mine is [page 170:] octameter acatalectic, alternating with heptameter catalectic repeated in the refrain of the fifth verse, and terminating with tetrameter catalectic. Eighteenth and last has respect to the stanza — that is to say, to the general arrangement of the metre into masses. Of “Outis”'s I need only say that it is a very common and certainly a very stupid one. My own has at least the merit of being my own. No writer, living or dead, has ever employed anything resembling it. The innumerable specific differences between it and that of “Outis” it would be a tedious matter to point out — but a far less difficult matter than to designate one individual point of similarity.

And now what are we to think of the eighteen identities of “Outis” — the fifteen that he establishes and the three that he could establish if he would — that is to say, if he could only bring himself to be so unmerciful? Of the whole eighteen, sixteen have shown themselves to be lamentable failures — having no more substantial basis than sheer misrepresentation, “too paltry for any man who values his reputation as a gentleman and a scholar,” and depending altogether for effect upon the chances that nobody would take the trouble to investigate their falsehood or their truth. Two — the third and the eleventh — are sustained: and these two show that in both poems there is “an allusion to the departed,” and that in [page 171:] both poems there is “a bird.” The first idea that suggests itself, at this point, is, whether not to have a bird and not to have an allusion to a deceased mistress, would not be the truer features of distinctiveness after all — whether two poems which have not these items might not be more rationally charged with similarity than any two poems which have. But having thus disproved all the identities of “Outis”, (for any one comprehending the principle of proof in such cases will admit that two only, are in effect just nothing at all), I am quite ready, by way again of affording him “fair play,” to expunge everything that has been said on the subject, and proceed as if every one of these eighteen identities were in the first bloom and deepest blush of a demonstration.

I might grant them as demonstrated, to be sure, on the ground which I have already touched — that to prove me or any body else an imitator, is no mode of showing that Mr. Aldrich or Mr Longfellow is not. But I might safely admit them on another and equally substantial consideration, which seems to have been overlooked by the zeal of “Outis” altogether. He has clearly forgotten that the mere number of such coincidences proves nothing, because at any moment we can oblige it to prove too much. It is the easiest thing imaginable to suggest — and even to do that which “Outis” has failed in doing — to demonstrate a practically infinite series of identities between any two compositions in the world — but it by no means follows that all compositions in the world have a similarity one with the other, in any comprehensible sense of the term. I mean to say that regard must be had not only to the number of the coincidences, but to the peculiarity of each — this peculiarity growing less [page 172:] and less necessary, and the effect of number more and more important, in a ratio prodigiously accumulative, as the investigation progresses. And again — regard must be had not only to the number and peculiarity of the coincidences, but to the antagonistic differences, if any, which surround them — and very especially to the space over which the coincidences are spread, and the number or paucity of the events, or incidents, from among which the coincidences are selected. When “Outis”, for example, picks out his eighteen coincidences (which I am now granting as sustained) from a poem so long as The Raven, in collation with a poem not forthcoming, and which may, therefore, for anything anybody knows to the contrary, be as long as an infinite flock of ravens, he is merely putting himself to unnecessary trouble in getting together phantoms of arguments that can have no substance wherewith to aid his demonstration, until the ascertained extent of the unknown poem from which they are culled, affords them a purpose and a palpability. Can any man doubt that between The Iliad and the Paradise Lost there might be established even a thousand very idiosyncratic identities? — and yet is any man fool enough to maintain that the Iliad is the only original of the Paradise Lost?

But how is it in the case of Messieurs Aldrich and Hood? The poems here are both remarkably brief — and as I have every intention to do justice, and no other intention in the world, I shall be pardoned for again directing attention to them.(1)

Now let it be understood that I am entirely uninformed as to which of these two poems was first published. [page 173:] And so little has the question of priority to do with my thesis, that I shall not put myself to the trouble of inquiring. What I maintain is, that there are sufficient grounds for belief that the one is the plagiarised from the other: — who is the original, and who is the plagiarist, are points I leave to be settled by any one who thinks the matter of sufficient consequence to give it his attention. But the man who shall deny the plagiarism abstractly — what is it that he calls upon us to believe? First — that two poets, in remote parts of the world, conceived the idea of composing a poem on the subject of Death. Of course, there is nothing remarkable in this. Death is a naturally poetic theme, and suggests itself by a seeming spontaneity to every poet in the world. But had the subject chosen by the two widely separated poets, been even strikingly peculiar — had it been, for example, a porcupine, a piece of gingerbread, or anything unlikely to be made the subject of a poem, still no sensible person would have insisted upon the single coincidence as any thing beyond a single coincidence. We have no difficulty, therefore, in believing what, so far, we are called upon to believe. Secondly, we must credit that the two poets concluded to write not only on death, but on the death of a woman. Here the mind, observing the two identities, reverts to their peculiarity or non-peculiarity, and finding no peculiarity — admitting that the death of a woman is a naturally suggested poetic subject — has no difficulty also in admitting the two coincidences — as such, and nothing beyond. Thirdly, we are called upon to believe that the two poets not only concluded to write upon death, and upon the death of a woman, but that, from the innumerable phases of death, the [page 174:] phase of tranquillity was happened upon by each. Here the intellect commences a slight rebellion, but it is quieted by the admission, partly, of the spontaneity with which such an idea might arise, and partly of the possibility of the coincidences, independently of the consideration of spontaneity. Fourthly, we are required to believe that the two poets happened not only upon death — the death of a woman — and the tranquil death of a woman — but upon the idea of representing this woman as lying tranquilly throughout the whole night, in spite of the infinity of different durations which might have been imagined for her trance of tranquillity. At this point the reason perceives the evidence against these coincidences, (as such and nothing more), to be increasing in geometrical ratio. It discards all idea of spontaneity, and if it yield credence at all, yields it altogether on the ground of the indisputable possibility. Fifthly — we are requested to believe that our poets happened not only upon death — upon the death of a woman — upon the tranquil death of a woman — and upon the lying of this woman tranquilly throughout the night — but, also, upon the idea of selecting, from the innumerable phases which characterize a tranquil death-bed, the identical one of soft breathing — employing also the identical word. Here the reason gives up the endeavor to believe that one poem has not been suggested by the other: — if it be a reason accustomed to deal with the mathematical Calculus of Probabilities, it has abandoned this endeavor at the preceding stage of the investigation. The evidence of suggestion has now become prodigiously accumulate. Each succeeding coincidence (however slight) is proof not merely added, but multiplied by hundreds of thousands. [page 175:] Sixthly, we are called upon to believe, not only that the two poets happened upon all this, together with the idea of the soft breathing, but also of employing the identical word breathing, in the same line with the identical word, night. This proposition the reason receives with a smile. Seventhly, however, we are required to admit, not only all that has been already found inadmissible, but in addition, that the two poets conceived the idea of representing the death of a woman as occurring precisely at the same instant, out of all the infinite instants of all time. This proposition the reason receives only with a sneer. Eighthly, we are called upon to acquiesce in the assertion, that not only all these improbabilities are probable, but that in addition again, the two poets happened upon the idea of representing, the woman as stepping immediately into Paradise: — and, ninthly, that both should not only happen upon all this, but upon the idea of writing a peculiarly brief poem, on so admirably suggestive a thesis: — and, tenthly, that out of the various rhythms, that is to say variations of poetic feet, they should have both happened upon the iambus: — and. eleventhly, that out of the absolutely infinite metres that may be contrived from this rhythm, they should both have hit upon the tetrameter acatalectic for the first and third lines of a stanza: — and, twelfthly, upon the trimeter acatalectic for the second and fourth; and, thirteenthly, upon an absolute identity of phrase at, fourteenthly, an absolutely identical position, viz: upon the phrases, “But when the morn,” etc., and, “But when the sun,” etc., occurring in the beginning of the first line in the last stanza of each poem: — and, fifteenthly and lastly, that out of the vast multitude of appropriate titles, [page 176:] they should both have happened upon one whose identity is interfered with at all, only by the difference between the definite and indefinite article.

Now the chances that these fifteen coincidences, so peculiar in character, and all occurring within the compass of eight short lines, on the one part, and sixteen on the other — the chances, I say, that these coincidences are merely accidental, may be estimated, possibly, as about one to one hundred millions; and any man who reasons at all, is of course grossly insulted in being called upon to credit them as accidental.

IV

“I have written what I have written,” says “Outis”, “from no personal motives, but simply because, from my earliest reading of reviews and critical notices, I have been disgusted with this wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason.” I have already agreed to believe implicitly everything asserted by the anonymous “Outis”, and am fully prepared to admit, even, his own contradictions, in one sentence, of what he has insisted upon in the sentence preceding. I shall assume it is indisputable, then, (since Nobody says it) that first, he has no acquaintance with myself and “some acquaintance with Mr. Longfellow,” and secondly, that he has “written what he has written from no personal motives whatever.” That he has been disgusted with “the mangling of victims without rhyme or reason,” is, to be sure, a little unaccountable, for the victims without rhyme or reason are precisely the victims that ought to be mangled; but that he has been disgusted “from his earliest reading” with critical notices and reviews is credible enough, if we but [page 177:] imagine his “earliest reading” and earliest writing to have taken place about the same epoch of time.

But to be serious; if “Outis” has his own private reasons for being disgusted with what he terms the “wholesale mangling of victims without rhyme or reason,” there is not a man living, of common sense and common honesty, who has not better reason (if possible) to be disgusted with the insufferable cant and shameless misrepresentation practiced habitually by just such persons as “Outis”, with the view of decrying by sheer strength of lungs — of trampling down — of rioting down — of mobbing down any man with a soul that bids him come out from among the general corruption of our public press, and take his stand upon the open ground of rectitude and honor. The “Outis”es who practice this species of bullyism are, as a matter of course, anonymous. They are either the “victims without rhyme or reason who have been mangled by wholesale,” or they are the relatives, or the relatives of the relatives of the “victims without rhyme or reason who have been mangled by wholesale.” Their watchwords are “carping littleness,” “envious malignity,” and “personal abuse.” Their low artifices are insinuated calumnies, and indefatigable whispers of regret, from post to pillar, that “Mr. So-and-So, or Mr. This-and-That will persist in rendering himself so dreadfully unpopular” — no one, in the mean time, being more thoroughly and painfully aware than these very “Outis”es, that the unpopularity of the just critic who reasons his way, guiltless of dogmatism, is confined altogether within the limits of the influence of the victims without rhyme and reason who have been mangled by wholesale. Even the manifest injustice of a Gifford is, I grieve to say, [page 178:] an exceedingly popular thing; and there is no literary element of popularity more absolutely and more universally effective than the pungent impartiality of a Wilson or a Macaulay. In regard to my own course — without daring to arrogate to myself a single other quality of either of these eminent men than that pure contempt for mere prejudice and conventionality which actuated them all, I will now unscrupulously call the attention of the “Outis”es to the fact, that it was during what they (the “Outis”es) would insinuate to be the unpopularity of my “wholesale mangling of the victims without rhyme and reason” that, in one year, the circulation of the “Southern Messenger” (a five-dollar journal) extended itself from seven hundred to nearly five thousand, — and that, in little more than twice the same time, “Graham's Magazine” swelled its list from five to fifty-two thousand subscribers.

I make no apology for these egotisms, and I proceed with them without hesitation — for, in myself, I am but defending a set of principles which no honest man need be ashamed of defending, and for whose defence no honest man will consider an apology required. The usual watchwords of the “Outis”es, when repelling a criticism, — their customary charges, overt or insinuated, are (as I have already said) those of “personal abuse” and “wholesale (or indiscriminate) mangling.” In the present instance the latter solely is employed — for not even an “Outis” can accuse me, with even a decent show of verisimilitude, of having ever descended, in the most condemnatory of my reviews, to that personal abuse which, upon one or two occasions, has indeed been levelled at myself, in the spasmodic endeavors of aggrieved authors to rebut what I have ventured to demonstrate. [page 179:] I have then to refute only the accusation of mangling by wholesale — and I refute it by the simplest reference to fact. What I have written remains; and is readily accessible in any of our public libraries. I have had one or two impotent enemies, and a multitude of cherished friends — and both friends and enemies have been, for the most part, literary people; yet no man can point to a single critique among the very numerous ones which I have written during the last ten years, which is either wholly fault-finding or wholly in approbation; nor is there an instance to be discovered, among all that I have published, of my having set forth, either in praise or censure, a single opinion upon any critical topic of moment, without attempting, at least, to give it authority by something that wore the semblance of a reason. Now, is there a writer in the land, who, having dealt in criticism even one-fourth as much as myself, can of his own criticisms, conscientiously say the same? The fact is, that very many of the most eminent men in America whom I am proud to number among the sincerest of my friends, have been rendered so solely by their approbation of my comments upon their own works — comments in great measure directed against themselves as authors — belonging altogether to that very class of criticism which it is the petty policy of the “Outis”es to cry down, with their diminutive voices, as offensive on the score of wholesale vituperation and personal abuse. If, to be brief, in what I have put forth there has been a preponderance of censure over commendation, — is there not to be imagined for this preponderance a more charitable motive than any which the “Outis”es have been magnanimous enough to assign me — is not this preponderance, in a word, [page 180:] the natural and inevitable tendency of all criticism worth the name in this age of so universal an authorship, that no man in his senses will pretend to deny the vast predominance of good writers over bad?

I have no idea of commenting, at any length, upon this imitation, which is too palpable to be mistaken, and which belongs to the most barbarous class of literary piracy: that class in which, while the words of the wronged author are avoided, his most intangible, and therefore his least defensible and least reclaimable property, is appropriated. Here, with the exception of lapses which, however, speak volumes, (such for instance as the use of the capitalized “Old Year,” the general peculiarity of the rhythm, and the absence of rhyme at the end of each stanza), there is nothing of a visible or palpable nature by which the source of the American poem can be established. But then nearly all that is valuable in the piece of [page 186:] Tennyson, is the first conception of personifying the Old Year as a dying old man, with the singularly wild and fantastic manner in which that conception is carried out. Of this conception and of this manner he is robbed. What is here not taken from Tennyson, is made up mosaically, from the death scene of Cordelia, in “Lear” — to which I refer the curious reader.

In “Graham's Magazine” for February, 1843, there appeared a poem, furnished by Professor Longfellow, entitled the “Good George Campbell,” and purporting to be a translation from the German of O. L. B. Wolff. In “Minstrelsy Ancient and Modern, by William Motherwell, published by John Wylie, Glasgow, 1827,” is to be found a poem partly compiled and partly written by Motherwell himself. It is entitled the “Bonnie George Campbell.” I give the two side by side:

Professor Longfellow defends himself (I learn) from the charge of imitation in this case, by the assertion that he did translate from Wolff, but that Wolff copied from Motherwell. I am willing to believe almost anything rather than so gross a plagiarism as this seems to be — but there are difficulties which should be cleared up. In the first place how happens it that, in the transmission from the Scotch into the German, and again from the German into the English, not only the versification should have been rigidly preserved, but the rhymes, and alliterations? Again; how are we to imagine that Mr. Longfellow with his known intimate acquaintance with Motherwell's “Minstrelsy” did not at once recognise so remarkable a poem when he met it in Wolff? I have now before me a large volume of songs, ballads, etc. collected by Wolff; but there is here no such poem — and, to be sure, it should not be sought in such a collection. No collection of his own poems has been published, and the piece of which we are in search of must be fugitive — unless, indeed, it is included in a volume of translations from various tongues, of which O. L. B. Wolff is also the author — but of which I am unable to obtain a copy.(1) It is by no means improbable that here the poem in [page 188:] question is to be found — but in this case it must have been plainly acknowledged as a translation, with its original designated. How, then, could Professor Longfellow have translated it as original with Wolff? These are mysteries yet to be solved. It is observable — peculiarly so — that the Scotch “Toom” is left untranslated in the version of Graham's Magazine. Will it be found that the same omission occurs in Wolff's version?

In the “Spanish Student” of Mr. Longfellow, at page 80, will be found what follows:

A few passages farther on, in the same scene, we meet the following stage directions: — “he tries to embrace her, she starts back and draws a dagger from her bosom. “ A little farther still and “Victorian enters behind.” Compare all this with a “Scene from Politian, an Unpublished Tragedy by Edgar A. Poe,” to be found in the second volume of the “Southern Literary Messenger.”

The scene opens with the following stage directions:

The coincidences here are too markedly peculiar to be gainsayed. The sitting at the table with books, etc. — the flowers on the one hand, and the garden on the other — the presence of the pert maid — the reading aloud from the book — the pausing and commenting — the plaintiveness of what is read, in accordance with the sorrow of the reader — the abstraction — the frequent calling of the maid by name — the refusal of the maid to answer — the jewels — the “begone” — the unseen entrance of a third person from behind — and the drawing of the dagger — are points sufficiently noticeable to establish at least the imitation beyond all doubt. Let us now compare the concluding lines of Mr. Longfellow's “Autumn” with that of Mr. Bryant's “Thanatopsis.” Mr. B. has it thus:

Mr. Longfellow thus: —

Again, in his “Prelude to the Voices of the Night,” Mr. Longfellow says:

Sir Philip Sidney in the “Astrophal and Stella” has:

Again — in Longfellow's “Midnight Mass “ we read:

The Lady in Milton's “Comus” says:

And again: — these lines by Professor Longfellow will be remembered by everybody:

But if any one will turn to page 66 of John Sharpe's edition of Henry Headley's “Select Beauties of Ancient English Poetry,” published at London in 1810, he will there find an Exequy on the death of his wife by Henry King, Bishop of Chichester, and therein also the following lines, where the author is speaking of following his wife to the grave:

Were I disposed, indeed, to push this subject any farther, I should have little difficulty in culling, from the works of the author of “Outre Mer,” a score or two of imitations quite as palpable as any upon which I have insisted. The fact of the matter is, that the friends of Mr. Longfellow, so far from undertaking to talk about my “carping littleness” in charging Mr. Longfellow with imitation, should have given me credit, under the circumstances, for great moderation in charging him with imitation alone. Had I accused him, in loud terms, of manifest and continuous plagiarism, I should but have echoed the sentiment of every man of letters in the land beyond the immediate influence of the Longfellow coterie. And since I, “knowing what I know and seeing what I have seen” — submitting in my own person to accusations of plagiarism for the very sins of this gentleman against myself — since I contented myself, nevertheless, with simply setting forth the merits of the poet in the strongest light, whenever an opportunity was afforded me, can it be considered either decorous or equitable on the part of Professor Longfellow to beset me, upon my first adventuring an infinitesimal sentence of dispraise, with ridiculous anonymous letters from his friends, and moreover, with malice prepense, to instigate against me the pretty little witch entitled “Miss Walter;” advising her and instructing her to pierce me to death with the needles of innumerable epigrams, rendered unnecessarily and therefore cruelly painful to my feelings, by being first carefully deprived of the point? [page 196:]

V

It should not be supposed that I feel myself individually aggrieved in the letter of “Outis” He has praised me even more than he has blamed. In replying to him, my design has been to place fairly and distinctly before the literary public certain principles of criticism for which I have been long contending, and which, through sheer misrepresentation, were in danger of being misunderstood.

Having brought the subject, in this view, to a close, I now feel at liberty to add a few words, by way of freeing myself of any suspicion of malevolence or discourtesy. The thesis of my argument, in general, has been the definition of the grounds on which a charge of plagiarism may be based, and of the species of ratiocination by which it is to be established: that is all. It will be seen by any one who shall take the trouble to read what I have written, that I make no charge of moral delinquency against either Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Aldrich, or Mr. Hood: — indeed, lest in the heat of argument, I may have uttered any words which may admit of being tortured into such an interpretation, I here fully disclaim them upon the spot.

In fact, the one strong point of defence for his friends has been unaccountably neglected by “Outis”. To attempt the rebutting of a charge of plagiarism by the broad assertion that no such thing as plagiarism exists, is a sotticism, and no more — but there would have been nothing of unreason in rebutting the charge as urged either against Mr. Longfellow, Mr. Aldrich, or Mr. Hood, by the proposition that no true poet can [page 197:] be guilty of a meanness — that the converse of the proposition is a contradiction in terms. Should there be found any one willing to dispute with me this point, I would decline the disputation on the ground that my arguments are no arguments to him.

It appears to me that what seems to be the gross inconsistency of plagiarism as perpetrated by a poet, is very easily thus resolved: — the poetic sentiment (even without reference to the poetic power) implies a peculiarly, perhaps an abnormally keen appreciation of the beautiful, with a longing for its assimilation, or absorption, into the poetic identity. What the poet intensely admires, becomes thus, in very fact, although only partially, a portion of his own intellect. It has a secondary origination within his own soul — an origination altogether apart, although springing, from its primary origination from without. The poet is thus possessed by another's thought, and cannot be said to take of it, possession. But, in either view, he thoroughly feels it as his own — and this feeling is counteracted only by the sensible presence of its true, palpable origin in the volume from which he has derived it — an origin which, in the long lapse of years it is almost impossible not to forget — for in the mean time the thought itself is forgotten. But the frailest association will regenerate it — it springs up with all the vigor of a new birth — its absolute originality is not even a matter of suspicion — and when the poet has written it and printed it, and on its account is charged with plagiarism, there will be no one in the world more entirely astounded than himself. Now from what I have said it will be evident that the liability to accidents of this character is in the direct ratio of the [page 198:] poetic sentiment — of the susceptibility to the poetic impression; and in fact all literary history demonstrates that, for the most frequent and palpable plagiarisms, we must search the works of the most eminent poets.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 147:]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 165:]

1“I have before me,” to “part of such comparison,” ante, p. 298.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 169, running to the bottom of page 170:]

1This is as accurate a description as can be given of the alternating (of the second and fourth) lines in a few words. The fact is, they are indescribable without more trouble than they are worth — and seem to me either to have been written by some one ignorant of the principles of verse, or to misquoted. The line, however,

answers the description I have given of the alternating verses, and was, no doubt, the general intention for all of them.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 172:]

1See page 139.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 187:]

1Sammlung vorzuglicher Volkslieder der bekanntesten Nationen, grostentheils zun ersten male, metrisch in das Deutche ubertragen. Frankfurt, 1837.