Text: Anonymous, “Poe and Poetry: Edgar Allan Poe — Alexander Smith,” Dublin University Magazine (Dublin, Ireland), vol. XLII, no 1, July 1853, pp. 88-104

[page 88:]

WHAT shall we say of the personal character and the private life of Edgar Allan Poe? Shall we unnecessarily

cruelly recapitulating the circumstances of his mortal career, and, turning away from those results of his existence which are imperishable, apply ourselves to that portion of it “that doth fade”? Or shall we not better leave his defects as well as his merits (and he was not destitute of the latter), as an individual responsible being, reposing in that awful and ineffable asylum (again to us the language of the poet of “the Elegy”) —

If the poet had, in his writings, carried out the moral eccentricities of his conduct; if he had been cradled into poetry by an early, continuous, but not systematic proof of the “wrong;” and if he thus taught in “song” what he had “learned” in dissipation, the case would be very different. If the lyrics of Poe were immoral as they are beautiful, and if to the fascination of their melody had been superadded the fatal allurement of a pandering to the passions, then indeed it would be a paramount duty of the critic to point out the polluted sources from which he drew his inspiration, and the degraded channels in which his life-stream ran. But with Poe the very reverse of all this is the fact. If, as Garrick said of [column 2:] Goldsmith (referring to that nervous confusion or timidity which frequently saves men of genius from becoming that pre-eminently social bore — a great talker)

so it may be said of Poe, with even greater truth, that however he may have lived, he certainly “wrote like an angel;” if spotless purity of thought, and an ethereal spirituality of fancy may be considered to be the probable characteristics of the style of those celestial beings; if they were so unhappy as to be condemned to write poetry instead of living it.

The mysterious connexion of good and evil, in human nature, was perhaps never more curiously exemplified than in the case of our poet; and it is difficult to believe that the insane acts of recklessness of which we read, the apparent in gratidude [[gratitude]] to others, the suicidal destruction of his own happiness, the “unenjoying sensualism” of intoxication, could all emanate from the same individuality, which in happier moments delighted to construct those singular labyrinths of his prose fictions, which the clue of his own clear intellect could alone lay open; and those angelic utterances of song to which we have alluded, and which we are about to introduce more particularly to the reader.

The beautiful autobiographical passage in the “Adonais,” wherein Shelley [page 89:] describes the peculiarities of his own mental organisation, and the antagonism of opposing elements therein, seems not inappropriately to express the two agencies that made the life of Poe appear so inconsistent with his poetry. He was, says Shelley, speaking of himself —

What malign influence first drew this fatal cestus of infirmity around the moral energy of Poe, it is now difficult to say. That he felt it himself keenly is plain from the few bitter words which he has appended to the collected edition of his poems by way of preface. The allusion to his own opinion of the imperfections of these poems, we have no doubt, perhaps unconsciously included the short-comings and more important defects of his life, though as usual he throws the blame upon circumstances, which in candour he should have stated were in a great degree the result of his own misconduct. Alluding to the necessities of life which prevented him from applying himself to poetry with that entire devotion which would have resulted in something more commensurate with his ideas of the grandeur and dignity of the Muse, than those lyrics, which though inexpressibly sweet to us, were probably, to an intellectually proud spirit like his, but the lispings of a poetical childhood: he says: —

That true poetry is “a passion,” an impulse, an inspiration — a something that “cannot at will be excited” is unquestionably true; but we doubt very much that to a passionate nature like that of Poe, the elysium of leisure to which, like all poets, he looked forward as the period when his great work was to be produced, would have eventuated in the splendid results which his imagination had conceived. His own poems are almost decisive on this point. The only really valuable ones are those which seem to [column 2:] have been struck off like brilliant sparks from the glowing anvil of life. The inferior ones, which we read once from curiosity, but to which we seldom return again, are those written at a very early period of life, when it may be supposed he had some portion of that fatal leisure, enough to allow his passion to grow cold, and his happy improvisations to be lost in diffuse, and occasionally imitative harmonies. Repose, amid the stagnant competencies of life, like slumbering on the Pontine marshes by midnight, is death to some spirits. The collision of circumstances, and even the lowering of impending evils, not unfrequently strike from some hearts rays that illuminate the whole heaven of poetry, as the rushing together of two thunder-clouds lights up the darkness, and awakens the echoes of the night.

A few lines will be sufficient to mention the principal events of Poe's short and unhappy life, without entering into those painfully-minute details to which we have adverted. He was born at Baltimore, in Virginia, in the year 1811. His present editor remarks that the name is not a common one in England, and considers the poet to have been connected, though remotely, with a “highly respectable family of the same name in Ireland.” His father, David Poe, it is stated, having “married an enchanting actress of uncertain prospects,” adopted the precarious profession of his wife. They both, however, died young, leaving three children — of whom, we believe, Edgar was the eldest — totally unprovided for.

A rich and benevolent gentleman, named Allan, who had no children of his own, adopted the destitute Edgar, and brought him to England, where he placed him at school for five years. At the expiration of this period, in the year 1822, he returned to America, and was first sent to the academy at Richmond, and subsequently to the university at Charlotteville. His “eccentricities” (to use the mildest phrase) here commenced, and soon reached such a climax as to exhaust even the patience of his patron, who really acted, all through the wayward course of his adopted son, with more than the affection and forgiveness of a father. The evil taint in the mind or heart of Poe here became painfully distinct. satirised his benevolent and indulgent benefactor, wrote him a sharp and ungrateful [page 90:] letter, and then adopted the heroic determination of assisting the Greeks in their effort to shake off the Turkish yoke! He accordingly sailed for Europe; but instead of making his way to the “Isles of Greece,” and finding glory or a grave, like Byron, on —

the first place we hear of him turning up at is St. Petersburg. By the assistance of the American minister in that city, he was enabled to return to his native country. He was again received into favour by Mr. Allan, was entered by him as a cadet in the military academy, and terminated a very brief connexion with that institution by being “cashiered!”

“It seems to have been about this time,” says Mr. Hannay, “that he published, while still a boy, his first volume of poems — those comprised in his later collection as “Poems written in Youth.” There are, of course, obvious traces of imitation — adoptions of the metres of Scott — imitations of the verse of Byron; but there is the keenest feeling for the Beautiful, which was the predominant feeling of Poe's whole life; there is the loveliest, easiest, joyfullest flow of music throughout. There is, too, what must have been almost instinctive, an exquisite taste, “a taste which lay at the very centre of his intellect, like a conscience.”

These poems had a considerable success, which, however, seemed to have little effect on the conduct or circumstances of the poet, as the next event of any importance which took place in his life was his enlisting as a private soldier! Coleridge did the same thing in his “hot youth,” under the appropriate name of Mr. Comberbach, or Cumberback; and we do not hear whether it was the same incapacity for equestrian evolutions that led to the release of the American, as of the English poet, from the service of “the great god of war.” After disappearing from the sight of his friends in this way for some time, he suddenly reappeared, “thin, pale, and ghastly, with the mark of poverty branded upon him,” and being thus trained into an appropriate appearance [column 2:] and condition for the profession he at last adopted, he commenced life regularly at last as “a literary man.” Having reached the splendid success of making about one hundred pounds in a year — that tempting bait which literature or “the trade” holds out to men of brilliant minds and cultivated intellects — he conceived himself in a position to marry. He accordingly married his cousin, Virginia Clemm, “as poor as himself” — to use the language of one of his biographers, but who was, we firmly believe, all that his present editor describes her to be, “a most amiable, loveable, and lovely person.”

This was the bright spot that gleamed in the desert of poor Poe's life. We hear of their humble but elegant little home; his assiduous attention to whatever literary work the periodicals of the place supplied him with; we get a brief respite from the sad catalogue of eccentricities and irregularities, at other times so overloaded — all, we have no doubt, owing to the gentle and refining influence of the dear being by his side. She must have been (to use the language of one who has condescended to verse too seldom) —

But alas! the clasp of this dear and sustaining hand was soon to be severed by death; and the poet, now left wholly to himself (for they had no children), and uncontrolled by the unfelt and almost invisible in influence of the guardian angel of his home, relapsed into all his former errors; if, indeed, he did not become infected by new. That he was a devoted and attached husband is proved by the fact that even the death of her daughter did not diminish the affectionate interest, or lessen the active services, which his mother-in-law ever felt for Poe, and continued to offer to him during the remainder of his life. He always called her “his mother,” and the beautiful sonnet which he dedicated to her, after the death of his beloved Virginia, shows that to her, at least, he was not ungrateful: — [full page:]

“TO MY MOTHER.

The loss of his wife, however destructive of the happiness, and injurious in its consequences to the conduct and character of the poet, was, nevertheless, the sad source from which have flowed over the world those few sweet, stream-like, melodious wailings,

which have rescued the name of the mourner and the minstrel from oblivion. This is the “one fatal remembrance,” [column 2:] the “one shadow,” that under varying names and differing circumstances, is to be met with in almost all the subsequent poems of Poe, and which give a mournful beauty and interest to the otherwise monotonous brilliancy of his poetry, like cypresses in an Italian cemetery.

Take, for instance, the second stanza of Poe's most celebrated poem, “The Raven”: — [full page:]

We shall return to this poem and this subject presently, when we terminate our faint outline of the poet's life; and this we must do in the words of the editor of the present edition: —

It is a singular coincidence, when we recollect the astonishing resemblance that exists, not only between the entire genius, but, alas! some of the misfortunes of Edgar Allan Poe, and one with whose name our readers are at least familiar we mean James Clarence Mangan — that death should have visited both these twins of melody and misfortune in a public hospital, in the one year, and with an interval only of about ten weeks — our unfortunate but rarely-endowed countryman [column 2:] having terminated his mortal career on the 20th day of June, 1849, in the Meath Hospital in this city.

We have spoken of the extraordinary resemblance between the poetry of Poe and that of Mangan, and we shall presently adduce some instances of it. At present we shall merely express our regret, notwithstanding our pride in his genius, that the latter poet had the misfortune of being an Irishman. We do not know whether he would have fared better in the flesh, poor fellow, if our wish had been granted in time; but he easily might. At any rate, his “remains” would have been taken more reverent care of. Had he the good fortune of being an American, a judicious selection of his writings would long since have been made, and though he never would have obtained the popularity of Longfellow, we are confident that his poems would have been collected and preserved by some enterprising publisher in some such tasteful shrine as Messrs. Addey and Co. have raised to the memory of Poe, in the elegant little edition before us.

The most celebrated poem of our author is “The Raven” — one of the most fantastic, but melodious fantasias that ever the eccentric imagination of [page 92:] a poet composed to the accompaniment of words. The music of it haunts us ever after we have once heard it. There is something elfin and dream-like about it, and it sounds in our memory like the strain heard by the poet of Khubla Khan in his vision: —

This is its usual effect upon most readers. On those who have themselves a portion of “the gift and faculty divine” its influence is still more striking. They cannot rest until they set [column 2:] some of their own thoughts to the same fairy-like music, and tell the tale to some willing or unwilling auditor. In that case the reader or listener, like the wedding-guest in the “Ancient Mariner” of the poet we have just quoted, has no option —

We have already given a stanza from this poem: the entire is too long and too well known for quotation; but we shall give a few lines, taken unconnectedly, as specimens of the harmony to which we have alluded. What elaborate melody is there not in the first lines of the following stanza! [full page:]

The exquisite artifice of the first line (for it was no accidental combination that produced so fine an effect) is equalled, if not surpassed, by Mangan, [column 2:] in his noble German ballad, “Charlemagne, and the Bridge of Moonbeams.” Take the following three lines as a specimen: —

With another extract from this singular poem of Poe we shall pass on to others that are, perhaps, not so generally well known. It will be perceived that he again alludes to his lost wife

as Mangan says, in a poem of kindred beauty and power, “The Last Words of Al-Hassan”: —

Poe has devoted one poem, without any disguise or mystification whatever, to a recollection of his home, his happiness and his loss — that brief moment in his dark and clouded life, when

Written on the same distressing theme on which Longfellow's exquisite “Footsteps of Angels” is composed, it equals it in tenderness and grace, while it surpasses it in melody and originality. Sad as the living poet must have been in tracing this affectionate In Memoriam - this tribute to his departed wife-he, with growing fame and honour, and nascent consolations-what must have been the wretchedness of poor Poe, as he sang [column 2:] this mournfullest yet sweetest of elegies over his dead happiness and hopes, never to return or revive! How truly could he have realised the picture drawn by our own poet —

This lyric we give without abridgement; some there are who will scarcely read it without tears: —

“ANNABEL LEE.

With Poe, words cease to be mere conventional representatives of ideas; they speak with “most miraculous organ “ — they are musical notes. Surely, in the following lines, we are not reading a clever description of “The Bells.” Are we not listening to the very harmonies which they describe we can [column 2:] only give the first and second divisions of the poem: —

“THE BELLS

“Lenore” is another tribute to “ the one loved name.” We can give but the first stanza. There is the perfection of rhythmical art in the fourth line. Mark how the words glide into each other, like summer streams meeting in an unruffled lake. The accumulated alliteration, at the termination of the same line, is managed with consummate skill — [full page:]

Again, we have the same sad and bitter recollection, and melancholy foreboding that we meet everywhere in the poetry, perhaps more explicitly expressed in the following lyric than elsewhere: —

“ONE IN PARADISE.

Our readers must have remarked in the passages already quoted a peculiar habit of the poet — it can scarcely be called an artifice, it seems so appropriate and unforced — namely, the frequent repetition of a favourite line in most of the poems, which, with slight variations and those principally the substitution of one harmonious adjective for another, appears and reappears sometimes with an eccentric, but always with a melodious effect. It is this peculiarity of Poe's verse which so strikingly reminds us of Mangan's, although we think that the resemblance between the two men went much farther and deeper, and that this similarity in the mode of expression, original in each, clearly indicates a mental or psychological affinity.

Two or three additional examples from Poe will, perhaps, set this resemblance in a more striking light, when followed by a few stanzas from the scattered melodies of Mangan. We take the shortest specimens we can meet with: [full page:]

“EULALIE.

We take these stanzas from the beautiful lines entitled — [column 1:]

“FOR ANNIE.

Our last specimen of this class shall be the opening stanzas of a lament, so thoroughly Manganish in thought and expression, that we would have unhesitatingly assigned them to poor Clarence, had we met them without the writer's name attached to them, and had they been free from certain Cockney false rhymes, in the eighth stanza, which the correct and educated ear of Mangan would never have allowed him to perpetrate. It is rather annoying to find in a poet like Poe, such rhymes as “vista” and “sister” (p. 28), and “Leda” and “reader,” as at p. 14. We suppose he acquired this not very elegant peculiarity of pronunciation, during the five years he spent in England, at Stoke Newington, wherever that famous locality may be: —

ULALUME.

The entire poem is too long for quotation. It was probably written on the anniversary of the funeral of his “lost Lenore,” to which it seems to refer. Our space permits us only to give one poem of Mangan, in proof of the singular resemblance which we consider exists between him and Poe. It is fortunately one, however, which, along with proving in a sufficiently satisfactory manner, a similarity in the mechanism of their verse, by the introduction of these wild, yet sweet repetitions to which we have referred, equals, if indeed it does not surpass, in passion, in melody, in music-the very best efforts of the muse of Poe. We omit the first and last stanzas, which, though very beautiful in themselves, give a political or allegorical meaning to what should simply be (what it really is) one of the most passionate and melodious love songs ever written: —

DARK ROSALEEN.

BY JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN.

We think we have now established the resemblance between these two genuine poets to which we have referred — a resemblance that strikes us as a very singular literary fact, worthy of more particular investigation. Both writers have proved themselves to have been too rich in original thought and poetical power to have borrowed from the other. The poem which we have just given from the Irish poet will, we have no doubt, awaken the curiosity of many persons about his writings. They are certainly as deserving of being collected into a permanent form as those of the brilliant American, with whom we are at present more immediately concerned. As it is only fair that he should have the last word, we shall take our leave of Edgar Allan Poe, by quoting a simple but beautiful little ballad, which paints, under a transparent veil of allegory, that search after the impossible that hope of reaching the region of true happiness in this life. It is an especial favourite of ours: —

ELDORADO.

We have thus devoted some time to watching the brilliant, though eccentric evolutions of one of the late luminaries of the poetical empyrean of our cousin Jonathan, which, in departing, has thrown a quivering light of golden splendour over the highest regions of transatlantic song. We have now to look nearer home, and to chronicle the appearance of a dazzling meteor, willo’-the-wisp, star, planet, comet, sun, or moon (made of green cheese, and full of maggots), whichever it will eventually prove to be, which has just shot above the horizon of our own.* Comets are so plenty now-a-days (at least so the astronomers tell us), that nothing but a tremendous collision between these swift-flying high-comotives would draw the attention of the unscientific world to their proceedings, or rather the unscientific world has been so often deceived the cry of “Comet! comet!” like that of “Wolf! wolf!” has been so often raised, when no comet was to be seen — that it has grown quite sceptical upon the matter, and seems disposed to agree with Mrs. Prigg, that “there aint sich a person, or thing.” We shall not chronicle the various attacks of influenza, twitches of sore-throat, avant-couriers of asthma, incipient barkings of bronchitis, which we endured some years ago in looking out for that Mrs. Harris of the starry system - Halley's comet. We have grown wiser since then; and now when Professor Airy or Mr. Hind endeavours to inveigle us out of our comfortable quarters to get a peep at [page 97:] these interesting strangers, like Dr. Johnson, we can philosophically exclaim, “We can wait,” until the certainty or the advantage of the introduction becomes more apparent.

As it has been in the scientific, so has it been in the poetical world. Politicians and progressists (if we may coin a word) so often announced that the “coming MAN” had come, that the disappointed public got angry, and declared that the expectation should have foreshadowed a woman, and that it has been realised in the person of Mrs. Stowe; while every little poetical coterie worshipped its own diminutive Saint Catherine's wheel, as the star whose rays were destined to illumine the long vacant vault of poesy. It was thus that the good, easy, incredulous world smiled at the announcement which the Herschel of “The Critic” recently made, that he had just discovered a tremendous thundering, blazing, many-tailed, no-humbug of a comet, which was advancing with all the velocity of the steam-press, and which would soon appear, shaking its horrid hair in the face of the sceptics, and, as far as popular favour went

The public were, as usual, for a while, indifferent, so the critical astronomers had it all to themselves. Some of them, on turning their telescopes in the direction of the supposed luminary, were as dazzled as Herschel at the first sight of Uranus, which he described as resembling in brilliancy “a coach lamp,” the critics doubtless taking our poet for a similar adjunct to the chariot of Apollo. Others went blind, and were thus prevented from examining with any certainty the material or actual nature of the phenomenon. Others, on the contrary, phoo-phooed! and said it was but one of the brilliant belts that had slipped from the loins of Saturnian Keats, or a small new satellite revolving on the ever-growing atmosphere of Jupiter Shelley. There were not a few that said it was but a fire-baloon which some urchin had let off from Mr.Tennyson's garden. A still fewer number denied its existence altogether. All of them, however, had something or another to say on the subject. What have WE? We must look closely at it.

The principal poem in the collection -that one which has attracted the attention [column 2:] we have adverted to above, and to which our own remarks shall be confined-is called “A Life-Drama.” We doubt very much that this title is judiciously selected, as it raises expectations of actual portraitures of existence not certainly to be met with in the poem itself. We think “A Poet's Dream of Life,” or “Truth and Fiction from a Poet's Life:” the Dichtung und Wahrheit, which Goethe has so skilfully blended in his autobiography, would more clearly indicate the nature of the work that was to follow. This would be a trifling matter if the author did not appear to be under the impression that he was really traeing the outline of one of the grandest pictures the dramatic canvas can hold, namely, “ A LIFE,” and not combining those shining but unsubstantial atoms “of which dreams are made.” The poem is divided into thirteen scenes of unequal length, through a few of which we beg to conduct the reader, rapidly, indeed, but not carelessly.

The first scene introduces us at once to the hero Walter, a young poet, whose aspirations for

as he himself says, are written with all the enthusiasm that might be expected from so fond an idolater of this second divinity. His soul is “followed” (a rather incorrect word) [ocr errors]

Having, however, a sort of misgiving that his name, like that of Keats, “was writ on water,” he tears up the paper on which he had commenced to outroll his lay, and “paces the room with disordered steps.” Mr. Smith, somehow or another, has picked up these scattered sibyline leaves, and with them he commences his drama. Though having no direct resemblance, except the rhymes of the second, fourth, and fifth lines, to the opening stanza of the “Revolt of Islam,” they recall it to the mind, and leave an impression that the poet intended to have adopted the measure of that poem, which at the first difficulty he seems to have capriciously abandoned. Here they are: —

And then follow the three lines we have already quoted. There is nothing, perhaps, deserving of particular notice in this passage, except the evidence which it gives, at the very threshold of the poem, of the want of truth which characterises many of the similes and figures of our poet-beautiful and original as some of them unquestionably are. As they, indeed, form the principal feature of the poem as the poem seems to have been written rather as a vehicle for their introduction, than they to illustrate it; - we must draw particular attention to them as they occur. We have very little doubt that maidens at that uncertain period of life, or phase of existence, which the poet calls “wild,” occasionally

and small blame to them. “The Wild Irish Girl,” we may be tolerably certain, was thus somnolently blest, and it is not impossible that she may still continue to be so, now that her “hair is hoary.” But that most of the elderly “maidens” of our acquaintance, whose hair has assumed this venerable hue, have their midnight visions disturbed by apparitions of “ beaming youths of glory,” when their waking thoughts seem to be so charitably and happily occupied with the “babes and youths uproary” of their married brothers and sisters, we beg, for their sakes, respectfully to deny. But the poet continues

The last is one of those fine lines of which we shall find abundant examples. But what does the poet mean by his “awful joys.” Dull proser that we are, we looked at the end of the volume to see if, in any list of errata, this word should be printed “lawful;” but that would never suit “a beaming youth of glory,” like the poet Walter. It is a favourite word of the author, and be sure we shall meet with it pretty frequently. The next line is also a very fine one: —

Such, he says, is his life; but poesy, he continues rather affectedly, can, by a single smile, “clothe him with kingdoms.” This, we must confess, is a sort of apparel “a world too wide for our shrunk shanks.” We then come on the “wild maiden” again, who, it appears, has given up dreaming, and taken to something more substantial. The passage is a fine one, nevertheless:

He then proceeds to paint the agony of that soul which, with every inclination “to hew a name out upon time, as on a rock,” finds it a more difficult achievement than was at first imagined. In vain he endeavours to console himself with the philosophical reflection

Not content with this beautiful description of the moon, he must, in the very next lines, give a new occupation to that luminary which has rather a ludicrous effect

Why the moon should neglect the face of the earth, and apply its ablutions only to its “sides,” particularly as a little farther on in the poem our globe is represented as “lying on its back,” watching the silent stars? (p. 19), we are at a loss to imagine.

This position of our planet however prevents any irreverent critical Mephistopheles from suggesting another adjective in the place of the word “fair.” The soliloquy is continued a little longer in the same strain, and then the poet musters up courage enough to have a peepat this celestial washerwoman while champooing the sides of the earth

He then throws open the casement with the most cool-blooded determination that we have ever heard of, to make as many similes and images at her expense as he can. Some people there may be to whom the following will appear very fine, but to us it is sheer nonsense, at least that portion of it that relates to the “widow.” The fancy of the stars being the “hand-maidens” of the moon, is not very new. In Troilus and Cressida (Act 5, s. ii.), the faithless heroine swears

or, as Dryden more literally expresses it in his alteration of this play —

But with regard to the meaning of the entire passage, in its totality, the beautiful, calm joyousness of a moonlight night never really or naturally suggested the idea to the most imaginative mind. If, indeed, the figure bore any connection with the previous train of thought in the poet's mind, its introduction might be pardoned, but here its very abruptness shocks the mind of the reader almost as much as its extravagance —

He then tells us that there are “men” as well as “maids who love the moon;” that Adam had occasionally an innocent flirtation with the beloved of Endymion; and that Anthony (a tremendous favourite with our poet), was once caught ogling the lady of the night, by Cleopatra, who reprimanded the hero in the following words —

A certain matter-of-fact bishop is said to have declared, after reading “Gulliver's Travels,” that he did not believe a word of them. In the same manner we must be permitted to express [column 2:] our incredulity of this story. The fair Queen of the Nile would scarcely have ventured to recall the name of one, whom she had made every bit as “rich” as it was possible to make Anthony, and whose lips she had “crowned” exactly in the same way. The scene, however, concludes with some noble lines —

The next scene represents a sort of idyllic meeting between the poet and a lady, who is wandering about a forest with a fawn. He has been reading some book which has set him so soundly to sleep, that the lady has time to make a very exact examination of his appearance, and to make a poetical daguerrotype of him which might raise the envy of Professor Glukman. The poet lavishes his gifts with a liberal hand, for while he is described as rivalling the lady in beauty, she is made as poetical as himself; quite as apt and felicitous at a figure or a trope. As usual, there are passages of exquisite beauty side by side with affectations and extravagances such as we have pointed out. We are reminded of other poets occasionally in this scene, but still more so in the following one, where the resemblance strikes us as being more than accidental, which rather surprises us; as a certain daring, at least of illustration, is one of the characteristics of our author. The thought in the following line has, perhaps, spontaneously suggested itself to most poets —

But Mr. Longfellow has expressed it with such paramount felicity as to have made it almost exclusively his own —

The other passage we shall refer to at the proper time. As we are dividing our praise and censure pretty equally, we must support each by extracts: —

MAN AND NATURE.

A SLEEPING YOUTH.

GRATITUDE.

A POET.

THE FAME-FEVER.

BOOKS.

AN “APRIL FANCY.”

POETRY.

ANOTHER DEFINITION.

Most of these passages our readers will admit arc very beautiful; some of them, perhaps, bordering on that doubtful ground where fancy ends and conceit begins, but all of them expressed with a clearness and harmony [column 2:] mony that deserve and compel our approbation. But we are sorry to say there are many others of a very different description. First and foremost, with regard to our poet's rhymed or lyrical verses, we must pronounce them in general complete failures. The ear that seems so exquisitely modulated to all the harmonies of blank verse, forgets its cunning altogether when lighter measure is attempted. Thus, in a long poem introduced into the present scene, and supposed to have been written by some unknown friend of the hero, some one whose superiority to himself he acknowledges in the following rather humble confession: —

Or more figuratively, in the following correct and intelligible comparison: —

In this poem, attempted to be written in the metre of “Locksley Hall,” the correct flow and music of the lines are lost at least six times. The first break is at the fifth line, the second at the eleventh, the third at the thirty-fifth, the fourth at the fortieth, the fifth at the forty-sixth, and the sixth at the seventy-fifth line. We are thus particular to show that any charges we bring against our author are not made carelessly or at random, and that they are intended for his good. The poem itself is a sort of “life drama” within a life drama; a dream within a dream. The poet's friend seems to have gone through the same phases as the poet himself. The poet of “Rimini,” in some of the early editions of that poem, makes one of his heroes confess, that

But stout as they were, they must have been “ plain X” to the opinions of the gentleman who makes the following candid admission: —

A Papal Bull might have been correctly described as tearing away at some of the creeds, and getting himself occasionally [page 101:] torn in turn; but what a sublime picture of the poet tearing away at all the creeds in this frantic way is this? — now transpiercing the Nicene, now transfixing the Athanasian, now dandling them playfully on his horns, and tickling the Augsburg Confession with the tip of his tail! But although he has “stout notions” about the creeds, he has no doubt whatever that the souls of men are very sadly used and abused in this vale of tears. A greater than our author has told us of the “base uses” to which the body may be put after death; but long before that event, see how the soul suffers: —

What a novel meaning does not the second class of souls in the first line of the foregoing quotation give to a favourite phrase in general use among our rural countrymen! How often do we not hear them say, in their genuine patois, “Ah! but he had a tindher soul;” meaning, of course, one of those ill-treated souls whose occupation in this life is “lighting fires!” As to the second division, we suppose that the poet meant only to convey that some souls, like politicians of whom we have heard, were only “waiters” upon Providence!

As to the “lady” who is introduced into this scene, and with whom the poet of course falls in love-what shall we say of her courage in addressing the following query to a youth, with all the dangerous inclination to scepticism and ringlets of which we have read above? She is asking him what will be the subject of the poem, which he pretty plainly indicates he is about to astonish the world with

Moore had a much better couplet, on the same subject, in his early poems. Speaking of some “young wanton of [column 2:] an isle” (thanks to God, it can't be “Old Ireland”), he said —

These lines, though much more felicitous than Mr. Smith's, he had the good taste to expunge in the collected edition of his poems — an example which, here and elsewhere, our author may follow with advantage.

The poem, however, which the poet intends to write, is really a comprehensive work. It is, as the lady says —

It is to begin before the creation of anything, and end after the destruction of everything, containing

What is this after all, but a poetical version of the famous Welch pedigree, in the middle of which the genealogist parenthetically mentions, “about this time the world was created?” The scene concludes, of course, with another allusion to Marc Anthony and Cleopatra.

As might have been expected, the poet has fallen in love with the lady, and the third scene describes him as anxiously looking forward to their next interview. She has asked him to have a poem ready for that occasion, or as she expresses it in her truly feminine way —

Just as she would say to her milliner, in an easy colloquial tone

He feels quite satisfied of his own love, but he is not so certain of hers. If she would but return his affection what would he not do for her? We have heard of many generous promises made under similar circumstances, but never anything like the following. These promissory notes generally drawn at “three months after marriage,” and too easily “accepted” by the fair fiancée, are in most cases protested against at the expiration of that period; but our present lover puts any fear of that out of the question. He will begin at the beginning: —

He says (what a pity it was not “with [page 102:] her,” perhaps a more generous offer), but —

Well, the idea of a lover making his mistress up into a brown paper parcel, and superscribing the package with the admonitory notice, “brittle ware,” or “this side to be kept uppermost,” is certainly new. But he will do more: —

We trust, for the poor lady's sake, that none of the latter rough ornaments will attach themselves to her eyes.

It is in this scene occurs the passage, which we have stated so closely resembles a celebrated one which we shall presently lay before the reader, as to take it out of the class of accidental coincidences. Every reader of poetry is familiar with the beautiful passage in Shelley's “Alastor,” beginning —

He is described as —

The entire passage is too long for quotation, as is the corresponding one in Mr. SMith's poem, but a few lines will point out the resemblance we have referred to. He too describes,

And again —

In these lines the very words of Shelley are adopted, but the resemblance runs through the entire episode, which fills more than five pages. As in “Alastor,” we have the same wanderings amid the various aspects of nature, the same curiosity and interest awakened the same instinct that [column 2:] urges their steps to the sea-shore-the same dream or vision of

the same rapture and the same vague and mysterious termination. That there are beautiful lines and thoughts here as elsewhere through Mr. Smith's poem we freely admit, but these do not atone or account for his giving an abridged and more prosaic version of what Shelley had already done so inimitably well. Shelley, who described the voice and music of his ideal maiden in the following lines —

would never have gone bird-nesting for an illustration like our own poet

Walter and the lady meet in the fourth scene on the banks of a river. Before repeating the promised poem he again alludes to his departed friend, “the feeder of his soul,” pointing out the places where they had read the poets together, where they had drank

or hung

they being, we suppose, the unavoidable breaches or inexpressible modulations of the verse. The lady becomes impatient for the tale, which the poet will only recite beside a certain well, where once

We do not know how it is, but we always read this last line —

as we think the condition of his feelings, and not the position of his feet, ought to have been described. We cannot dwell upon the poem which Walter reads to the lady, and in which he paints his own, and as it turns out, his unsuccessful love for herself. Her fate is sealed. After his declaration she exclaims —

We must not, however, omit mentioning that the principal character in the poem recited by Walter, is a young Indian page “a cub of Ind,” as his proud mistress calls him, and certainly the most precocious “cub” that we ever had the misfortune to meet with or read of. This “lustrous Leopard,” another pet epithet for Young Ebony, though generally candid enough to declare —

was satisfied to put up with his haughty mistress as his mistress, if she had no objection. How the modest proposition was received may be imagined. At first, she mocked and sneered at him, principally, as it would seem, for his having

But fearing, we suppose, that the youth would promise to use a double quantity of bear's grease for the future, she orders him off

The whole of this episode, we must say, appears to us extravagant and unreal, with a decided smack of minor theatrical ranting. We cannot further pursue our minute analysis of the poem. The story can be told in a few words. The lady, who marries the old gentleman with the eyes of “cruel blue,” keeps her word, and dies exactly at the time she promised. Walter is, of course, much grieved; goes on a pilgrimage to her grave, and is rather angry that the daisies have not yet covered [column 2:] the fresh, red earth. He is shortly after induced by another friend of his, a new “feeder of his soul,” to go down to Bedfordshire with him on a visit to an old gentleman, named Mr. Willmott, who has a charming daughter of the still more charming name of Violet. This old gentleman must have had the most extraordinary notions of propriety, as the first evening they are all assembled in his comfortable parlour, and in his daughter's presence, he sets the two young men singing “roaring songs” which, without the wit or melody, have a thousand times the warmth and amativeness of those of Mr. Thomas Little. Miss Violet obligingly joins in this family concert. Such a beginning, of course, speedily brings on an appropriate termination. The young lady and the young visitor Walter, mutually seduce each other (we know not which is most or least to blame) on “the lawn,” probably opposite the very window where the good Mr. Willmott is reading the morning's Times. Remorse seizes on Walter; he flies away; he has serious notions of throwing himself from some rural “Bridge of Sighs,” but thinks better of it; writes a great poem, and then rushes headlong into dissipation, exactly in the way Byron has described the class of people, who

He disappears for three years; returns; makes an honest woman of Violet, and the last we hear of them is their going in together into their house to avoid the night dews, with a degree of matrimonial quiet perfectly delightful, after the fever of unrest in which author, hero, heroine, and reader have been so long kept.

Before concluding our observations on this remarkable poem, we must adduce a few more passages in support of the opinion we have expressed both of its beauties and of its defects. A fatiguing brilliancy, a straining after novel and singular combinations, is, no doubt, one of the most obvious characteristics of our author, but that he can err in the very opposite direction is equally true. In addition to the passages of this kind already given, we must offer a few others. In the first one, we have our old friend, Marc Anthony, again: —

A BOUNCE.

HOW POETS GECK.

A SHELLEY IDEA.

A THUMPING BONG.

THE RUBS OF LIFE.

A GIGLET.

If we reversed the twirl of the kaleidoscope, it must be admitted that a shower of glittering and beautiful thoughts and fancies would fall continuously before the eye! We must enumerate a few: —

A TRUE POET.

It were easy to multiply passages of greater and certainly of more striking beauty even than these, but it is unnecessary. We have said enough to show, that if we cannot be blind to the defects of our author, we are not insensible to his great and unquestionable merits. He has gained two important results by his present publication. He has obtained a hearing, and he has awakened expectation — two memorable triumphs which neither Shelley nor Keats (the influence of whose writings in the best portions of his book is perceptible), ever achieved during their lives, though now, as he himself truly says:

We look with hope and curiosity for his next work. Let it be a simpler, if a loftier temple, to the true divinity of song, to whose service and worship we think he is called. To do this he must, in the first place, turn away from his pagan idolatry of images, becoming as it were the iconoclast of his own fancy. He must abandon the affected jargon of little cliques and coteries, and use the universally received language of good sense and good taste. He must divest his mind of an idea that seems very strongly impressed upon it in the present poem, that not only

but that the same powerful passion is the one thought and sole occupation of everything in creation, from the sun, moon, and stars, which are perpetually ogling each other, to the waves and winds, that are eternally kissing and embracing, as well beings of their own species as everything else within their reach, in the most ardent and extraordinary manner. In this respect, his present poem is but an expansion of Shelley's little lyric, “Love's Philosophy”: —

Finally, he must be less liberal with his brilliants, or distribute them with more judgment. Were they all even of the first water, he must recollect that diamonds were never so valueless as in the “Valley of Diamonds” itself.

[[Footnotes]]

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 88:]

* “The Poetical Works of Edgar Allan Poe, with a Notice of his Life and Genius.” By James Hanney, Esq., with twenty Illustrations, &c. London: Addey and Co. 1853.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 93:]

* Viz., the angels a graceful fancy. ED.

[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 96:]

* “Poems.” By Alexander Smith. London: David Bogue. 1853.