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humourous.
HIT HIM AGAIN. — The editor of the Nashville Gazette quotes a passage from an article on Edgar A. Poe in the Edinburg Review, for April, 1858, with the following indignant remarks:
“This is refined Billingsgate, and nothing else, and its author a Highchurchman, or at least he is the responsible man, if we mistake not. We intend no defence of the poor misguided created who is the subject of such severe remarks, but we are taught to chide gently the erring by one who never erred. If the Rev. Sydney Smith, the editor of the Edinburg Review, had more of the scholar and less of national prejudice, he would have devoted the time expended in the before mentioned paragraph to a much better purpose by a more critical analysis of the writings of Poe. — In fact we think that the author [[The]] Raven and Annabel Lee is above and beyond the critical acumen of the reverend gentleman.
So do we, And, in fact, if the “reverend gentleman” had made tolerable use of his time since he took his flight from this lower world, he might be “above and beyond the critical acumen” of our intelligent cotemporary. But he hasn’t it seems, and he isn’t. He accordingly catches it in this vigorous style. Serves him right. What business, we should like to know, has the Rev. Sydney Smith to be hanging around this earth, editing the Edinburgh Review, writing “refined billingsgate,” venting his “national prejudice,” and displaying his “critical acumen” generally at the expense of other people as dead as himself? The thing is a ghostly innovation. It is a most unearthly indignity. It is an infernal outrage. Flesh and blood ought not to be expected to bear it. In the name of the profession we thank the vigilant and spirited editor of the Nashville Gazette for the merited rebuke which he has administered to the “reverend gentleman.” — Let him edit Reviews in his own world. We want no competition from that quarter. — Sydney Smith is behaving very shabbily. — He doesn’t get a lick amiss. Hit him again. He has parted from all his friends. He deserves every bit of it. We don’t know when we have had anything to do us so much good. — Lou. Journal.
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Notes:
The Lou. Journal is presumably the Louisville Journal of Louisville, KY. A copy with the original of the article quoted has not been located, although the University of Kentucky apparently owns a fairly good run of this period. Similarly, no copy of the Nashville Gazette of this period has been located. This article is the earliest reprint of what appears to be the full version of the Louisville Journal version. Rev. Sydney Smith (1771-1845) was a founding editor of the Edinburgh Review. The editor of the Nashville Gazette was apparently unaware of the Rev. Smith's death over a decade before the article in question appeared in the Edinburgh Review. A version of this article made it back across the ocean to be printed in the London Times for January 3, 1859, p. 9, col. 6. The confusion over Rev. Smith's impossible identity as the party responsible for the original article in the Edinburgh Review seemed to have taken some of the sting out of the exchange.
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[S:0 - CW, 1858] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - A Poe Bookshelf - Hit Him Again (Anonymous, 1858)