∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[page 1, column 1, continued:]
OUR TABLE.
——
THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER — December, 1835. Richmond, Va. T. W. White. Monthly: pp. 68 8vo. $5per annum.
WE have long meditated a more extended notice of this elegant periodical than we have hitherto found leisure to give — not more on account of our numerous Southern friends, with whom it must necessarily be a favorite, than of our literature generally, to which the Messenger forms a very creditable addition. And notwithstanding that our columns for this week are mainly bespoken, we must not allow the current number — being the first of a new volume — to pass from our table without a brief glance over its contents:
“Sketches of the History and Present Condition of Tripoli, with some account of the other Barbary States,” is the opening paper, written by one evidently conversant with his subject, and whose chapters are calculated to add materially to the meagre stock of popular information hitherto possessed with regard to the history and present condition of the Barbary powers.
“Scraps from an Unpublished Drama, by Edgar A. Poe,” contains one or two stirring and many beautiful passages — but we are not partial to dramatic poetry.
— Speaking of poetry, we find some that is commendable, and much that we deem, with all deference, well nigh execrable. Of the former class is the following:
“OCTOBER.
“Thou ‘rt here again, October, with that queenly look of thine —
All gorgeous thine apparel and all golden thy sunshine —
So brilliant and so beautiful — ‘tis like a fairy show, —
The Earth in such a splendid garb, the heavens in such a glow.
‘Tis not the loveliness of Spring — the roses and the birds,
Nor Summer's light luxuriance and her lightsome laughing words;
Nor vet the fresh Spring's loveliness, nor Summer's mellow glee
Come o’er my spirits like the charm that's spread abroad by thee.
The gaily-mottled woods that shine — all crimson, drab and gold,
With fascination strong the mind in pensive musings hold,
And the rays of glorious sunshine there in saddening lustre fall —
‘Tis the funeral pageant of a king with his gold and crimson pall.
Thou’rt like the Indian matron, who adorns her infant fair,
E’er she gives it to thp Ganges’ flood, all bright, to perish there;
Thou easiest put the trusting buds with the lustre of the sky,
And clothest them in hues of Heaven all gloriously — to die.
Thou’rt like the tyrant lover, wooing soft his gentle bride —
Anon the fit of passion comes — and her smitten heart hath died;
The tyrant's smiles may come again, and thy cheering noonday skies,
But smitten hearts and flowers are woo’d in vain, again to rise.
Thy reign was short, thou Beautiful, but they were despot's hours —
The gold leaves meet the forest ground, and fallen are the flowers;
Ah, ‘tis the bitterness of Earth, that fairest, goodliest show,
Comes to the heart deceitfully, and leaves the deeper wo. ELIZA.”
Of the otherwise, nearly all that is intended for blank verse may serve as a specimen. It is singular that people will continue, in the face of good advice, to break up sober prose into unequal and most inharmonious lines, and then attempt to pass it off for verse, which it very remotely resembles. The following is extracted from an article which really contains poetry :
“The story goes, that a
Neglected girl (an orphan whom the world
Frown’d upon,) once strayed thither, and ‘twas thought
Did cast her in the stream.”
“An Address on Education,’‘ by Lucian Minor, is among the best articles in the Messenger. It were well if such a startling exhibition of facts, such an array of cogent reasonings, were presented to every influential citizen of our vast Union. We cannot resist the impulse to quote the dosing paragraphs;
“My fellow-citizens (if any such are before me) who do not possess wealth, and who have scarcely tasted of the cup of knowledge! You surely need no exhortation to quaff freely of that cup, when it shall come within your grasp: but I do exhort you to employ your influence as men, and your constitutional power as voters, in persuading your fellow citizens, and in prompting your public agents, to adopt the requisite measures for dispelling, now and forever, the clouds and darkness in which republican freedom can never long live.
“And if, at the remotest point of future time, to which we may look forward as witnessing the existence of human government any where, our democratic forms shall still retain, unimpaired, even their present purity, and present fertility of substantial freedom and happiness; much more, if they shall have waxed purer, and stronger, and more fruitful of good, with each revolving century, — defying the power or conciliating the love of foreign states — maintaining domestic harmony — oppressing none, protecting all — and so fully realizing the fondest hopes of the most sanguine statesman, that no “despair of the republic” can trouble the faintest heart: — all will be owing (under Providence,) to the hearkening of this generation and the succeeding ones, to that voice — not loud, but solemn and earnest — which, from the shrine of Reason and the tombs of buried commonwealths, reiterates and enforces the momentous precept — ”ENLIGHTEN THE PEOPLE!”
“Extracts from my Mexican Journal” are judicious and replete with information. We remark that, since recent occurrences have rendered Mexico an object of interest [column 2:] in this country, the observations of tourists and men of business who have lately visited that country are very liberally drawn upon by our Monthlies.
“The Wissahiccon,” and its romantic scenery, is made the subject of enthusiastic description — by a Philadelphian, of course. Well, truth to say, there are some enchanting spots out of Philadelphia, to say nothing of those within it. If we could only bring her self-satisfied citizens to admit that a civilized person may while away a season in New-York, without positive privation of all quiet, cleanliness, and comfort, why then we might in turn regard the Quaker capital as a very tolerable, inoffensive, well-behaved city. As it is, we must think of it, and hope that time will take the conceit out of her.
“Lionel Granby” is the title of a series of odd, pedantic, yet humorous and characteristic papers, which we are tempted to consider the best light reading in the Messenger. To an old-school Virginian, they must be delightful.
The critical department of the Messenger is managed with great candor, consideration and ability. We place the qualifications in this order, not that the ability is less prominent, but because it is perhaps of the three least enviable in a reviewer. The Editor examines with impartiality, judges with fairness, commends with evident pleasure, and condemns with moderation. May he live a thousand years! — or at least to have five thousand gratified, substantial and ‘available’ patrons!
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
Notes:
This text is taken from an apparently unique copy of the New-Yorker in the David Rubenstein Library of Duke University. The author of nearly all of the reviews in this number was Poe. Pollin accepts all of the reviews for December 1835 as being by Poe except the one on Robinson's The Practice in Courts of Law and Equity in Virginia. Since none of the reviews are signed, Greeley would surely have assumed that they were by a single hand.
∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
[S:0 - NYKR, 1835] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Bookshelf - Review of the Southern Literary Messenger For December 1835