Text: Ephraim George Squire, “[Review of The Poets and Poetry of America,” Poet's Magazine: A Repository of Original and Selected Poetry (Albany, NY), vol. I, no. 2, June 1842, monthly supplement, pp. ii-iii

[page ii, continued:]

THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA, with an Historical Introduction, by R. W. GRISWOLD; Philadelphia. Carey & Hart.

THIS work, in many respects, is a valuable one. It is one that we have long needed, for the darkness that already rests on the productions of our earlier poets was era dually deepening, and a few years more would have consigned them to irretrievable obscurity. Not that these productions are so valuable, intrinsically, but as marking that advancement in our national literature which has characterized its upward course for the last quarter of a century. In this respect, and in many others, the work is certainly important. It presents an array of names, and a varied excellence of material, which would confer high honor on the literature of any country, and of which we may justly feel proud. No one, unless blinded by the most inveterate prejudice, can turn over the pages of this book without discovering and admitting the evidences of that genius, which will, ere long, place the poetical literature of America first in the age. There are, indeed, many things that might better have been omitted, and, in our opinion, an undue prominence has been given to certain poetasters, while writers more deserving are scarcely noticed. We have neither time or spare to specify, but who ever thought before Mr. Griswold informed them of the fact, that Edgar A. Poe was entitled to a place among the Poets of America? Who ever dreamed that the cynical critic, the hunter up of small things, journeyman editor of periodicals, and Apollo's man of all work, was a favorite of the Muses, or wrote Poetry? It is certainly a “grotesque” discovery, and, we conjecture, had not Mr. P. taken particular pains to impress the fact upon Mr. Griswold s mind, the world would have remained in happy ignorance of his (Mr. P's) poetical abilities. We must think that Mr. Griswold's good nature was imposed upon in this, and one or two other instances, and that his personal prejudices have aided him in the discovery of genius where no one else suspected its existence.

However, these faults of judgment are not peculiar to this work alone, for nil compilations, in the nature of things, must be subject to them.

The work is got up in the style of Campbell's British Poets, and, after the manner of that work, the selections from our principal authors are prefaced with short biographical notices, very brief in some instances, but more extended in others. Selections from sixty-seven writers, in addition to the eighty-six whose productions fill the body of the work, form an appendix of thirty-six pages at the end of the volume.

In conclusion, we would remark that Mr. Griswold has fulfilled his task admirably, and deserves the thanks of every lover of American [page iii:] literature. Our own work, as a gatherer of the best current poetical literature of our country, though more copious and extended in its design, will form a proper continuation of Mr. Griswold's valuable repository.