Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), October 4, 1845, vol. 2, no. 13, p. ???, col. ?

[page 198, column 2, continued:]

Editorial Miscellany.

——

THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH, the editor of the “Aristidean,” wrote for the “New Mirror,” a short time after it was established, a poem called “Ben Bolt” to which he appended his initials. From its simplicity of diction and touching truthfulness of narrative, it became popular, and being extensively copied, induced the author to acknowledge it. It runs thus:

Don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt?

Sweet Alice whose hair was so brown,

Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,

And trembled with fear at your frown?

In the old churchyard in the valley, Ben Bolt,

In a corner obscure and alone,

They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray,

And Alice lies under the stone.

 

Under the Hickory tree, Ben Bolt,

Which stood at the foot of the hill,

Together we’ve lain in the noonday shade,

And listened to Appleton's mill.

The mill-wheel has fallen to pieces, Ben Bolt,

The rafters have tumbled in,

And a quiet which crawls round the walls as you gaze,

Has followed the olden din.

 

Do you mind the cabin of logs, Ben Bolt.

At the edge of the pathless wood,

And the button-ball tree with its motley limbs,

Which nigh by the door-step stood?

The cabin to ruin has gone, Ben Bolt,

The tree you would seek in vain;

And where once the lords of the finest waved,

Grow grass and the golden grain.

 

And don’t you remember the school, Ben Bolt.

With the master so cruel and grim,

And the shaded nook in the running brook,

Where the children went to swim?

Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt.

The spring of the brook is dry,

And of all the boys that were schoolmates then,

There are only you and I.

 

There is change in the things I loved, Ben Bolt

They have changed from the old to the new;

But I led in the core of any spirit the truth,

There never was change in you.

Twelvemonths twenty have past, Ben Bolt.

Since first we were friends, yet I hail

Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a truth —

Ben Bolt, of the salt-sea gale.

Several musical people have attempted to adapt an air to these Words; and there are, in consequence, live editions of the song afloat, issued under the auspices of various publishers. In some of these a portion of the stanzas are taken — and in all there are various errors. They are such errors, however, us seem to be without intention, and bear every evidence of their accidental nature. The one before us is of a different kind. It occurs on two pages of music and words, published by Oliver & [page 199:] Ditsen, Washington street, Boston, with the following title: —

There's a change in the things I love. Composed and respectfully dedicated to his friend B. F. Baker, Esq., by Joseph P: Webster.

The evident intention of Mr. Webster is to claim the authorship of the words as well as the music — which latter has in it nothing remarkable. But whether this is, or is not, the intention of Mr. Webster, he has committed a most vile fraud upon Mr. English. Instead of printing the poem as given above, he gives four of the stanzas only, and in the following form — the italics, which mark the alterations and additions, being our own: —

O don’t you remember sweet Alice, Ben Bolt,

Sweet Alice with hair so brown;

Who wept with delight when you gave her a smile,

And trembled with fear at your frown.

In the old church-yard in the Abbey, Ben Bolt,

In a comer obscure and alone,

They have fitted a slab of the granite so gray,

And Alice lies under the stone.

 

O don’t you remember the wood, Ben Bolt,

That grew on the green sunny hill;

Where oft we have played ‘neath its wide-spreading shade,

And listened to Appleton's mill.

The mill bets gone to decay, Ben Bolt,

And the rafters have fallen in,

And a quiet has settled on all around,

In the place of the olden din.

 

O don’t you remember the school, Ben Bolt,

With the master so cruel and grim;

And the quiet nook and the running brook,

Where the school boys went to swim.

Grass grows on the master's grave, Ben Bolt,

And the running brook is dry:

And of all the boys who were schoolmates then,

There is only you and I.

 

There's a change in the things I love, Ben Bolt,

A change from the old to the new;

But I feel in the core of my heart, Ben Bolt,

There never was change in you.

Twelve months — twenty have passed, Ben Bolt,

But still with delight I hail

Thy presence a blessing, thy friendship a truth,

Ben Bolt of the salt sea gale.

Now, in the name of the craft of authors we protest against such impudent thieving as this. The thing is growing to a nuisance. No sooner does a literary man produce anything worthy of especial note, than some lack-brained fellow — some Mr. Joseph P. Webster — takes it up, and either passes it off as his own, or mangles it shamefully in an attempt at emendation — or perhaps both. If caught, he sneaks off in silence, like a detected robber of hen-roosts — if not, he chuckles at his successful rascality, and enjoys a reputation obtained for him by alien brains.

MUCH HAS been said, of late, about the necessity of maintaining a proper nationality in American Letters; but what this nationality is, or what is to be gained by it, has never been distinctly understood. That an American should confine himself to American themes, or even Prefer them, is rather a political than a literary idea — and at best is a questionable point. We would do well to bear in mind that “distance lends enchantment to the view. Ceteris paribus, a foreign theme is, in a strictly literary sense, to be preferred. Alter all, the world at [column 2:] large is the only legitimate stage for the autorial histrio.

But of the need of that nationality which defends our own literature, sustains our own men of letters, upholds our own dignity, and depends upon our own resources, there cannot be the shadow of a doubt. Yet here is the very point at which we are most supine. We complain of our want of an International Copyright, on the ground that this want justifies our publishers in inundating us with British opinion in British books; and yet when these very publishers, at their own obvious risk, and even obvious loss, do publish an American book, we turn up our noses at it with supreme contempt (this as a general thing) until it (the American book) has been dubbed “readable” by some illiterate Cockney critic, Is it too much to say that, with us, the opinion of Washington Irving — of Prescott — of Bryant — is a mere nullity in comparison with that of any anonymous sub-sub-editor of The Spectator, The Athenæum or the “London Punch”? It is not saying too much, to say this. It is a solemn — an absolutely awful fact. Every publisher in the country will admit it to he a fact. There is not a more disgusting spectacle under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting, first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous — secondly, because of its gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will — we know that, in no case, do they utter unbiassed opinions of American books — we know that in the few instances in which our writers have been treated with common decency in England, these writers have either openly paid homage to English institutions, or have had lurking at the bottom of their hearts a secret principle at war with Democracy: — we know all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland. Now if we must have nationality let it be a nationality that will throw off this yoke.

The chief of the rhapsodists who have ridden us to death like the Old Man of the Mountain, is the ignorant and egotistical Wilson. We use the term rhapsodists with perfect deliberation; for, Macaulay, and Dilke, and one or two others, excepted, there is not in Great Britain a critic who can be fairly considered worthy the name. The Germans and even the French are infinitely superior. As regards Wilson, no man ever penned worse criticism or better rhodomontade. That he is “egotistical” his works show to all men, running as they read. That he is ignorant” let his absurd and continuous schoolboy blunders about Homer bear witness. Not long ago we ourselves pointed out a series of similar inanities in his review of Miss Barrett's poems — a series, we say, of gross blunders arising from sheer ignorance — and we defy him or any one to answer a single syllable of what we then advanced.

And yet this is the man whose simple dictum (to our shame be it spoken) has the power to make or to mar any American reputation! In the last number of Blackwood, he has a cotinuation of the dull “Specimens of the British Critics,” and makes occasion wantonly to insult one of the noblest of our poets, Mr. Lowell. The point of the whole attack consists in the use of slang epithets and phrases of the most ineffably vulgar description. “Squabashes” is a pet term. “Faugh!” is another. “We are Scotsmen to the spine!’ says Sawney — as if the thing were not more than self-evidont. Mr. Lowell is called “a magpie,” an “ape,” a “Yankee cockney,” and his name is intentionally mis-written John Russell Lowell. Now [page 200:] were these indecencies perpetrated by any American critic, that critic would be sent to Coventry by the whole press of the country, but since it is Wilson who insults, we, as in duty bound, not only submit to the insult, but echo it, as an excellent jest, throughout the length and breadth of the land. Quamdiu Catilina? We do indeed demand the nationality of self-respect. In Letters as in Government we require a Declaration of Independence. A better thing still would be a Declaration of War — and that war should be carried forthwith “into Africa.”

A FRIEND “who knows,” writing to us in reference to the Whittier and Bulwer parallel, says,

En passant the gem which you present in your last, as attributed to both Whittier and Bulwer “went the rounds,” some years ago, as the property of George D. Prentice, to whom by the way, more than one of the Abolition poet's waifs have been awarded. A few years back “The Hesperian,” (Gallagher's Magazine, at Columbus, Ohio,) contained a little poem “To a Lady,” beginning “We are not strangers,” &c., over the signature of George D. Prentice, which had previously appeared in the “New England Review,” then conducted by Whittier, over the initials, J. G. W. But why speak of these things? — “de minimis nun curat lex.”

THE UNWORTHY cabal lately entered into by some of our most “influential” citizens, to foist upon the public attention, through a concerted movement of puffs anticipatory, a collection of rather indifferent and very unoriginal verses by one Mr. William W. Lord, has met, we rejoice to find, the most signal and universal rebuke. Tricks of this kind will scarcely be attempted again. A mere trick it was. Mr. Lord had written some matters of which he had an exalted opinion. In New Jersey he had for neighbour a very gentlemanly personage connected with the press. To him application was made, and the whole scheme was immediately arranged. Auspice Teucro nothing was to be feared. The press as a matter of course, would be dumb — or open its mouth only to echo the vos plaudite of the King. Mr. Appleton is invited to dinner. Mr. Lord is invited to recite his poems; he reads them, we have been informed, with remarkable unction. It is decided in full conclave, that henceforth he shall be the “American Milton.” No member of that illustrious assembly ever dreamed that there was anything farther to do — for this whole thing had, to a certain extent, been repeatedly managed before.

The result has placed Mr. Lord in a very remarkable, and certainly in a very amusing position. There is no immediate need, however, of his cutting his throat. The letter to Mr. Wordsworth, was the most absurd of all moves; or if a letter was to be sent to Mr. Wordsworth, why did Mr. Lord think it necessary to make use of Bishop Doanc as an amanuensis — or a catspaw? This was hardly fair play. To “one Mr. Lord” beseeching a complimentary letter about his own poems, the patriarch of the Lakes might have had no scruple in replying — “Mr. Lord, it is my honest opinion that your book is not much better than it should be” — but an answer of this kind was clearly impossible from so wellbred a man as Wordsworth, to his personal acquaintance, the Bishop of New Jersey. This letter then — or this presentation copy of the Poems — to Wordsworth was, after all, nothing in the world hut trick No. 2. The fact is, we are ashamed both of Mr. Lord and of his book. His chicaneries have done more to convince the public of his utter want of poetic (or of any other kind of) spirit, [column 2:] than even the bombast, egotism, and inanity of “Niagara” itself.

THERE IS a rumor that the plates of the Natural History Department of the Exploring Expedition book are in course of preparation either in London or Paris. Have we no artists at home — or no soul to sustain them? Perhaps the amiable “superintendent of the plates” at Washington can afford us some information about the truth or falsity of the report in question.

AMONG THE American books of exceeding merit which, through accident, have been nearly overlooked, we may mention “George Balcombe,” a novel by Judge Beverly Tucker, of Virginia, and “The Confessions of a Poet,” a very vigorous and powerful fiction by the author of “The Vision of Rubeta.”

IN OUR LIST, last week, of contributors to “The Broadway Journal,” we made some important omissions. We have published original articles from Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. Kirkland, Mrs. R. S. Nichols, Mrs. Child, Mrs. Lowell, Mrs. Hewitt. Miss Fuller, Miss Mary Orme, Miss Colman, Miss Lawson, Miss Wells, W. G. Simms, J. R. Lowell, H. R. Schoolcraft, H. T. Tuckerman, Park Benjamin, E. A. Duyckinck, T. D. English, Wm. Page (the artist), Wm. Wallace, A. M. Ide, Jr., Henry B. Hirst, Wm. A. Jones; the author of the Vision of Rubeta, Henry C, Watson, Littleton Barry and Edgar A. Poe. Our corps of anonymous correspondents is, moreover, especially strong.

IN A VERY complimentary notice, by Miss Fuller, of “Tales by Edgar A. Poe,” the critic objects to the phrases “he had many books but rarely employed them” — and “his results, brought about by the very soul and essence of method, had, in fact, the whole air of intuition.” We bow to the well-considered opinions of Miss Fuller, whom, of course, we very highly respect — but we have in vain endeavored to understand, in these cases, the grounds of her objections. Perhaps she will explain.

THE LONDON BUILDER, speaking of extraordinary mosaics, mentions an exquisite specimen — a portrait of Pope Paul V., in which the face alone consists of more than a million and a half of fragments, each no larger than a millet seed; and from this size up to two inches square, pieces are employed in various ways. Another celebrated specimen is that which Napoleon ordered to be made when his power was paramount in Italy. It was to be a mosaic copy of the celebrated “Last Supper,” by Leonardo da Vinci; and to be of the same size of the original, viz, 24 feet by 12. The artist to whom the task was entrusted was Glacono Raffaelle, and the men under his direction, eight or ten in number, were engaged for eight years on it. The mosaic cost more than seven thousand pounds — and afterwards came into the possession of the Emperor of Austria.

WE ARE DELIGHTED to hear that Wiley and Putnam's “Library of American Books,” is meeting with unequivocal success. We had feared that Americans would condescend to read nothing less than English. Even of our own book, more than fifteen hundred copies have been sold here.

THE EDITOR of “Graham's Magazine” assures us that certainly he has paid, (according to Dr. Griswold's contract.) for Mr. William Jones’articles — but that he (Mr. [page 201:] Graham) has not the slightest intention of ever using them. No doubt they are at Mr. Jones’ service.

TO CORRESPONDENTS. — Shall we not again hear from M. O.? Her many excellences are appreciated by no one more fully than by ourselves. A thousand thanks to W, G. for the beautiful lines without a title — also to the author of “Constance.”