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Editorial Miscellany
THOSE OF our city subscribers who failed to receive the Journal last week, are requested to send for it to the office, 304 Broadway. We shall endeavor to have it punctually delivered in future.
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MR. THOMAS H. LANE is the only person (besides ourself) authorized to give receipts or transact business for “The Broadway Journal.’‘
N. B. — This notice is not intended to apply to Mr. Wm. Fairman who, for the present, is our authorized agent in obtaining city subscriptions.
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MR. EDMUND BURKE, the editress of the “Frogpondian Teetotaller,” assures us, with tears in her eyes, that we are mistaken in supposing her “a little old lady in a mob cap and spectacles.”
Our present impression is that she lies. However — we will take another look at her when we pay our next visit to Frogpondium — which will be soon — as we have a fine poem that we wrote at seven months — and an invitation to “deliver” it before the Lyceum. They want it immediately — they can’t wait.
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THE MANNER in which we are maltreated, of late days, is really awful to behold. Every body is at us — little dogs and all.
The littlest of all the dogs is perhaps the “Nassau Monthly” — whatever is the “Nassau Monthly.” Only hear what it says:
Every one acquainted with the literature of the day knows tha we are abundantly supplied, it not in danger of being utterly overwhelmed, with a mass of writing, the characteristic of which it mere brilliancy of expression — a charming style. Examine it and you find no thought. You will find sparkling wit and an exquisite music of words, and this is all. These are the facts, we don’t intend to philosophize and so shall not seek for the causes. It may be the plentiful lack of genius in the present race of writers, the great mass of whom are mere penny-a-liners who have adopted writing as a mechanical trade, or it may be the general superficiality of the present race of readers which has induced this effect.
Our attention was attracted to this subject by an article of Edgar A. Poe, which lies among the mass on the table before us, headed “The Imp of the Perverse.” The author is an excellent illustration of the remarks we have just made. If asked to what species of the genus humbug this article properly attaches itself, we should reply to the humbug philosophical. We have not timeto analyze, but would say that the author introduces himself as in pursuit of an idea; this he chases from the wilderness of phrenology into that of transcendentalism, then into that of metaphysics generally; then through many weary pages into the open field of inductive philosophy, where he at last corners the poor thing, and then most unmercifully pokes it to death with a long stick. This idea he calls the “Perverse.”
Byron somewhere says,
“ — there's a courage which grows out of fear
Perhaps of all most desperate, which will dare
The wort to know it: when the mountains rear
Their peaks beneath your human foot, and there
You look down o’er the precipice, and drear
The gulf of rock yawn — yon can’t gaze a minute
Without an awful wish to plunge within it.”
If Mr. Poe had been content with this and the following stanza he might have saved himself his chase, and his readers the trouble of elucidating his philosophic nonsense.
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WE copy from “The Tribune” the truly beautiful lines which follow, not because they have not been universally copied and admired, but because we wish to place them carefully away within the leaves of our Journal as a precious record of unaffected pathos and enthusiasm.
A farewell to Ole Bull.
BY ANNE C. LYNCH.
THERE was a fountain in my heart
Whose deeps had not been stirred —
A thirst for music in my soul
My ear had never heard.
A feeling of the incomplete
To all bright things allied —
A sense of something beautiful,
Unfilled, unsatisfied.
But, waked beneath thy master-hand,
Those trembling chords have given
A foretaste of that deep, full life
That I shall know in Heaven.
In that resistless spell, for once
The vulture of Unrest,
That whets its beak upon my heart,
Lies, charmed, within my breast.
Pale Memory and flushed Hope forget;
Ambition sinks to sleep;
And o’er my spirit falls a bliss
So perfect that I weep.
Oh, Stranger! though thy Farewell notes
Now on the breeze may sigh
Yet treasured in our thrilling hearts
Their echo shall not die.
Thou'st brought us from thy Northern home
Old Norway's forest tones,
Wild melodies from ancient lands
Of palaces and thrones.
Take back the ‘Prairie's Solitude,’
The voice of that dry sea,
Whose billowy breast is dyed with flowers,
Made audible by thee.
Take back with thee what ne’er before
To Music's voice was given —
The anthem that ‘Niagara’ chaunts
Unceasingly to Heaven. —
The spirit of a people waked
By Freedom's battle-cry —
The Memory of their Washington’ —
Their song of victory.
Take back with thee a loftier Fame,
A prouder niche in Art,
Fresh laurels from our virgin soil,
And — take a Nation's heart!
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WE MAKE no apology to our readers for occupying so much of our space with the following pregnant extracts from Mr. Simms’ editorial farewell, in the last number of his Magazine:
The business, as conducted by Harper & Brothers, is pretty much that of every publishing house in the country, except that, in few instances, do we find the publishers to be printers also. That they are so, gives Harper & Brothers some advantage. The publishing cities are three in number. New-York takes the first rank [page 340:] in regard to the frequency of its issues. Philadelphia occupies the next place, and Boston the third. In the latter city, the tastes are more fastidious, and the critical standards more parochial. Here they do not often publish the works of any but New-England authors; and their local criticism, influencing the publishers necessarily, seems to have had the effect of narrowing their regards to such writings only, as, forbearing to offend conventional taste and opinion, are not likely to venture upon any of those daring outlawries which constitute what is called genius. A nice propriety of manner, a delicate taste, a subtle or a pretty fancy, admitting a little quaintness of style or its affectation as an ingredient that may serve instead of other condiment — these, with the requisite amount of recognized philosophy — are the qualities which satisfy commonly the Boston publisher. He puts forth the greatest amount of verse which is published in the country. He has a faith in Lowell and Longfellow, and Whittier, and even believes in Miss Gould and Mrs. Sigourney. That he is right in regarding the three former as persons of very considerable merit, is unquestionable. We look upon Lowell as decidedly the best of the three, more of a poet and less of an artist than Longfellow, and more pregnant with thoughts and fancies, original and fresh, than either. That he has certain affectations from which he has need to tree himself with all expedition, is probably the consequence of his too great subservience, just now, to the spirit that presides over his local criticism. Longfellow is an artist — delicate, graceful, ingenious — in all the respects of verse-making. He has an exquisite ear for the appreciation of the harmonies of language — but it strikes us that it would not be difficult to point to the ear-mark of another in the thoughts contained in every sentence which he ever penned. His first labors in verse were the most servile copyings of Bryant. The Germans and early English song writers furnish his present models. His drama of the ‘Spanish Student,’ with some pretty passages, is a bald and feeble copy, with little that is original, with nothing that is bold, and, very little that is marked with vivacity or spirit. It is the grace and sweetness of his verse, and that extreme simplicity of the thought which taxes no intellect to scan — which we read as we run — that constitutes his claims upon the reader. Whittier has energy and life. He is bold and manly, and with less of the spiritual, or higher element of poetry, possesses much of the faculty which is successful in the didactic, the moral and the descriptive. He has force enough for an ode writer, and upon national or sectional topics, could meet the requisitions of the moment with much more success than either of the former. A Fourth of July ode, — something on the battle of Bunker's Hill, or a vindictive apostrophe to Virginia, Carolina, or Louisiana, on the subject of slavery, and the treatment of good old Mr. Hoar, the representative of Massachusetts — would, at his hands, be a fierce lyric that would not discredit the days of Puritanism in its fervor, its energy, its concentrative audacity of aim and flight, His muse is declamatory at present — a few years hence and she will mature into the contemplative, and, unless she becomes more spiritual at the same time, will become drowsy in due degree with her loss of energy and blood. Our hope of these three, is in Lowell. But he must address himself to his work as if it were work, and abandon the making of fugitive verse. His genius will do better things in taking longer flights.* Hawthorne, a delicate, essayical prose writer, has a fine fancy of his own, which sometimes imps the soarings of the ambitious muse. — He is a naive and generous in his genius, quite unaffected, (as we think,) and capable, in another atmosphere, of more courageous things. Of Emerson, we frankly confess, our expectations are very high in spite of his Carlyleisms. We are not disposed to underrate Carlyle, but we loathe this readiness, which is so American (in our literature at least) of being this or that Englishman's man. Emerson's Essays declare a mind of his own, which can only be sure of itself and of future justice, by breaking loose, as soon as possible, from the leading strings of the European model. Some of his poetry has always seemed to us at once fresh, felicitous and true.
“‘The Poets and Poetry of Europe,” by Longfellow, has reached us. This is a volume that has been looked for with some anxiety. It is a work of interest and value, but not, altogether, such as we had [column 2:] a right to look for, at the hands of Mr. Longfellow. It will amply; answer the demands of the public, affording certainly, a general, and not incorrect idea, perhaps, of what the muse has been doing, in past and present times, upon the continent. But it has not been a labor of love with the editor. He has not expended much of his own time or talent upon it. His own good taste does not frequently inform its pages. He has been content to compile it from what. ever materials have been most convenient — has helped himself, without scruple, to the riffraff translations of beginners, who, learning the several languages, have sent their crude exercises to the magazines. Mr. Longfellow's own hands do not sufficiently appear in these translations, and the work might just as well have been executed by a common workman. Now, it is as a translator, that Mr. Longfellow's chief excellence appears, and his own reputation, no less than the public expectation, required that he should have given himself up more thoroughly to this performance. Still, the volume is a fair one, which will answer the proposed object.
In Near York, as might be expected in the case of the metropolis, there is a degree of activity in the publishing world, to which we find no approach in any other part of the country. This is due to several causes, — the great number of the population, — the commercial intercourse which it maintains by its shipping, with other places, and its intimate connection with Europe. We need not go into details. It is inevitable, perhaps, that the great metropolitan city of a country will be the place in which the men of science and literature will ultimately congregate. Here will they attain their levels, by comparison with rival minds, and in the determination of their several statures, fix the standard of merit for the guidance of a nation at large. It has been one of the evil circumstances in the way of just judgment, and of impartial criticism among us, that we have several rival publishing cities, in all of which, conflicting standards are set up, each swearing by its own particular idol. France has but one Palls, England but one London, and we hear nothing of the great names of either country, away from its capital city. New York must and will be our centre, and present indications seem to show that the period rapidly approaches, when her superiority will he completely acknowledged. The sufficient proof is in the fact, that hither tend writers from all quarters of the country, east and west, north and south, in order to obtain utterance through the medium of the press. We allude, now, to the purely literary and original writers. Compilers of school books, dictionaries, grammars, &c. as they address themselves only to a demand which is arbitrary and absolute, and appeal but little to the tastes, and wholly to the necessities of the country, are never suffered to enter into any general estimates of the literary doings of a people. It is ordinarily hard work to pursuade [[persuade]] one's immediate neighbors of his possession of any special merits; — “ ‘tis distance lends enchantment to the view,” — and this locally disparaging judgment, was still farther exercised by an influence, which has always been unfavorable to works of original character. Our publishers, — not usually men of letters themselves, — are in the habit of retaining certain employees, who examine manuscripts, and declare upon their merits. These persons, in the language of the trade, are ordinarily styled “readers.” An author whose merits are known to ‘the publisher, by frequent appearances before the public, is, of course, seldom or never subjected to an ordeal, which is sometimes an humiliating one, — since, as in the case of Scott and Bulwer, he most admirable writings of genius may be put under the ban, by an individual not capable of understanding them, or one who may have his own prejudices, or other personal virtues operating to make his, commit an injustice, from which. — at least so far as his employers are concerned, — there is seldom any appeal. It would amuse, did our syace allow, to point to the number of instances, in England and America, where books, which have proved subsequently the most famous and successful, have been thrown out and rejected, by the “readers” of some of the greatest publishing houses in the two countries. For an interesting view of this subject, let us refer the reader to the volume, by H. R. Horne, entitled “The False Medium,” a work intended to show by what variety of influences, the man of genius is kept from the hearing of the public. Now, a moment's reflection will serve to convince any reflecting mind that, ordinarily, the critic for a publishing house must, necessarily, give his judgment against works of original [page 341:] merit. He is engaged by the publisher, because of the supposed safety of his judgments. He is usually a person well read in the current literature of the day and country, — he is supposed to know what ordinarily pleases the public, what, in other words, is likely to sell, — and to be heedful that the works published shall offend no sects and parties, by which the success and circulation of the publication will be prevented, or impaired. To be able to pen a respectable common-place English paragraph in regard to the book he recommends, — to be able to say of it, that it is in the beaten track, that it violates no usages, or standard principles, — that it is in the common fashion of such things, — that it is safe, — will do, — must sell, — will suit the vulgar taste, and vex no vulgar prejudices, — these are all the ordinary requisites that go to make up the “reader” for a modern publishing establishment. Now, at the first blush of the matter, we must see that the very fact of originality is against the book offered for the examination of such a critic. The very requisition of the publisher, under and for whom he works, makes against the writer. He startles, — he may offend, — he is novel, but may not be popular. It is safer to reject than to publish, and the original production is vetoed accordingly. This s a frequent history in literature; and it arises from a cause, he operations of which are particularly manifest in the history of American literature. Thus guided, thus governed, our publishers do not keep pace with the progress of the very mind they teach. Having furnished their readers, for twenty years or more, with a certain class of books, calculated for a people in their leading strings, they are slow to discover that they, in time, come to need higher authorities. They fancy the popular mind to be as taey found it, and make no allowances for a progress inevitable from their own publications. These publications have gradually lifted the mind, and no longer suffice to satisfy its cravings. The people look around for stronger aliment, but the old publishers, having survived their mission, keep hammering away at the old rate, as if they still had to deal with children in their accidence. Suddenly, a new publisher starts up. A happy casualty informs him. A sudden suggestion unseals his vision. He sees, or fancies, an opening, — tries the experiment, — furnishes a new class of writings to his public, and leaps suddenly into fortune, rubbing his eyes and wondering at his own good and wholly unexpected luck. We have a case of this sort in the history of Wiley and Putnam's “Library of Choice Reading.”
He, therefore, whose object is pecuniary recompense, will do well to weigh cautiously the question before renouncing, for the pursuits of letters, the ordinary objects of Social enterprise and intustry. — The man whom nature drives, in his own spite, and in utter disre_ gard to his neighbors, has a destiny to obey, and must submit with meekness and patience to his allotment. But to him who hankerS after the creature comforts, let him turn to any other craft; securer in. any other, of much more worldly recompense than he will find in this. Nor is the pay derived from periodical writing of a better character. It should be better, for no species of literary labor is more utterly exhausting, as its habitual exercise demands constant transition of subject, and as constant transitions of the mind from thought to thought. But, of all the American periodicals, there is not one which pays all its contributors. Among the best of them, but one in a score receives any compensation, and this is usually an amount so small, as to discourage the industry of writers who set much value upon their performances. Godey's and Graham's Magazines, have been among me most liberal. having paid certain or their contributors for their articles, at rates which would notdis-credit the reported liberality of the British publishers. But the palmy (lays have gone by, even with these journals, and they were never marked with a white stone by the generality of contributors. These statements differ largely from some that occasionally make their way into the newspapers; but they are not tip, less true forall this. The vanity of authors frequently prompts them to report their anticipations as realized results; and a false civility, and something of the same passion, keeps the publisher from contradicting them. In the matter of magazine and periodical writing, we may add, that the author is constantly the victim of lying editors and publishers, who beguile him of his writings and abuse him, from their chair of criticism, if he ventures to complain. There is not a professional literary man of the country, who has not a long story to relate, of the arts by which he has been swindled of his contributions• by that class of insects of literature, whom Moore compares with the maggot who is said to feed and fatten upon the brains of the elk, — the noble animal perishing finally, the prey of the miserable insect which has fed upon his life.
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“The New York Evangelist” — in all respects an able, and what is still more rare, an unprejudiced journal, has a strongly condeMnatory review of “Festus” from which (the review) we quote a few passages, without altogether acquiescing in the opinions expressed.
In justice to the author of this poem, we ought to say that it was commenced before he was twenty years of age. This he tells us in its dedication to his father, calling it “a boyish feat,” and stating also that it took three years to complete it. This being the case, if his father read the poem before it was published, however rich might be the promises of genius which he saw in it, had he been a wise parent, he would have committed it to the flames, or locked it up for his son's perusal some ten years older. The genius possessed by its author could have lost nothing in the destruction of this wild, deformed, perverted offspring, and the world would have lost less. As it is, the father and son must have been educated under the strangest compound of grotesque beliefs and unbelief's that ever had existence, to have felt willing to exhibit to the world such a medley of insane speculation, bad theology, and blasphemous, immoral principles. If to many of the readers of this poem we seem harsh and severe, let it be remembered that we deny not the genius and talent manifest in many parts of It, a degree of genius that might have composed a poem which would instruct all mankind, and which the world would not willingly let die. But how can we justly praise the talents that are so wantonly, so miserably perverted and misapplied/
The genius and rich imagery in the poem will be praised by many, who care little or nothing fur its moral or immoral coloring and tendency, and.the gifts of imagination displayed in it are the very vehicles by which alone its poison can be carried into society. Divested of that, its doctrines would be rejected as the stale and depraved ravings of an impious mind; just as some of Byrun's productions would be seen nowhere but in filthy, festering, hawkshops, were it not that genius has stooped to dip up the mud, and put it in a jeweled case for respectable drawing-rooms and circulating libraries! Depraved genius does more to deprave the world, than any other source of evil.
AMHERST COLLEGE. — From the catalogue of Amherst College, just published, it appears that the number of undergraduates is 118, viz: Seniors 26, Juniors 23, Sophomores 35. Freshmen 34. Besides the President, Rev. Edward Hitchcock, LLD, there are five Professors, and two other instructors. The Hon. Wm. B. Calhoun lectures on political economy.
GERMAN NEWSPAPERS. — It will be remembered that by an edict of the German Government, German papers printed in the United States have been prohibited as entry into the Germanic States. Some German editors in this country have written to Mr. Buchanan proposing to send their papers to the U. S. Legation in Berlin, and asking whether, in the event of their in exception, the U. S. Government will acquiesce in that proceeding.
Mr. Buchanan replies that the German Diet have an undoubted right to make laws for the Germanic States, and that the T. States Government will not, of course, interfere with their execution. He says that the edict in question “must be condemned by liberal men on both sides of the Alantic [[Atlantic]],” but twat we cannot interfere with it in any way. — Tribune.
LITERATURE OF THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. — There are five newspapers now published at Honolulu; — four in English and one in the Hawaiian language; — a striking illustration of the power of Christian instruction, which, in the course of twenty-five years, has raised these islands from the lowest state of degradation to a respectable rank among civilized nations. [page 342:]
THE AUTHOR OF THE “VESTIGES.” — It is said that Sir Richard R. Vyvian, Bart. M. P. author of “Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,” is preparing for the press another philosophical work, to be entitled “The Harmony of the Visible Creation.”
NEW LITERARY PAPER. — Charles F. Hoffman, Esq., is about to assume the editorship of a new and expensive weekly journal of literature and criticism, which will be published by Hewitt, the embellisher of Shakspeare. The new paper is to be called the “Excelsior.”
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 340, column 1:]
* Here we disagree. A long poem is a paradox. Whatever hereafter shall be done greatly must be done in fugitive verse. — ED. B. J.
[The following footnote appears at the bottom of page 341, column 2:]
* We ourselves have no complaint to make on the, store. — ED. B. J.
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Notes:
This review was attributed as being by Poe by W. D. Hull.
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[S:0 - BJ, 1845] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Works - Criticism - Literary (Poe?, 1845)