Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), August 9, 1845, vol. 2, no. 5, p. ???, col. ?

[page 75, column 1, continued:]

Wiley and Putnam's Library of American Books. No. III. Letters from Italy. By J. T. Headley. Wiley and Putnam.

This is a work to be read. Of books generally it is said, that one is fine, another artistical, another elegant, another vigorous: but the peculiar property of this book of Mr. Headley's is, that it is written to be read. He writes as a rapid talker speaks. He carries you along just as a man of animated gesture, quick eye, and earnest utterance takes you with him in the recital of a story or a sketch of character. Mr. Headley is an observer of great quickness; he sees at once and seizes all that suits his purpose. There is no escaping him, if he has the least interest to arrest an object and fix it on his page. These are perhaps more literally First Impressions of Travel than any ever published. They appear to have sprung directly to the eye of the traveller, flashed an instant in the brain, and then through a speedy pen to the reader. By relying merely on his own honest spontaneous impressions, he makes old things look new, and by steaming along, in true American style, through and over guide-books, itineraries, Eustace, Forsyth and company, he attains a merit analogous to that of high invention in imaginative writing. And although this spirit carries him at limes too far, it gives constant freshness to his record; merging faults of style and expression in the hurry of description and the eagerness with which he constantly presents the results of his observations to the reader. We are now and then taken aback, we confess, by an assertion of so broad and comprehensive a nature as to sweep the field of criticism and statement from end to end. For instance, he encounters at Florence a new artist, by name Dupre — a Frenchman by extraction, though an Italian by birth, who executed last year, unknown to any body, the model of a dead Abel, and Mr. Headley regards this figure “as equal, if not superior in its kind, to any statue ever wrought by any sculptor of any age.” Another peculiarity of this traveller of ours is, that by some happiness in his arrangement, by some good fortune for which he has bargained with Veturino, clerk of the weather, or other sufficient authority, whenever or wherever any thing marvellous or wonderful is to happen, he is always there to see. Whoever can be dissatisfied or object to such a companion, [column 2:] has a soul of adamant, and is altogether wanting in that gum elasticity, which has lately been set down as an attribute of the imagination of infants. We have nothing to say now of the Man Overboard (a small matter) nor of the Man in the Wall, nor of the Convulsed Man in the pit of the opera, nor of the six-barrelled Avalanches. Mr. Headley had gone, on a certain evening, to the well-known royal farms, constituting the great public drive and promenade of Florence. “The Duke's family were strolling around quite at their ease, and the whole place was as lively as Hyde Park at 5 o’clock in the evening. I walked home by the Arno, and entering the city, witnessed one of those spectacles that are constantly intruding themselves in our brightest dreams, and turning this world into a place of tears. As I was passing along the street, a little child hung playfully across the sill of a window, in the fourth story; suddenly it lost its balance, and came like a flash of light to the pavement. Its delicate form was crushed into one common mass by the blow. The mother rushed down like a frantic creature,” &c., &c. Now we will venture to say that no other Italian traveller encountered this sight. Nor do we impeach the credit of Mr. Headley. According to a homely saying, it is the early bird that catches the worm, and it is due to Mr. H's great spirit and courage that he should have and enjoy to the full, windfalls like this. He is often much more careful in his style and description than what we have said might seem to indicate. There are not a few passages tersely rendered, and, where he chooses, no one can be more pointed and descriptive in epithet than the author of these Letters. He has a good eye for the picturesque, as he often proves. His description of a dandy peasant is well made out.

Regretting one or two ommissions [[omissions]] in his account of American artists abroad, whom he should have seen and spoken of. we part with Mr. Headley, in the hope of an early meeting again. Find whatever fault we may with him, doubt his facts, denounce his grammar, grow angry over his prejudices, we cannot fail to read whatever he writes, and rising superior to our necessities as reviewers, read on to the end.