Text: Edgar Allan Poe (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), December 13, 1845, vol. 2, no. 23, p. ???, col. ?

[page 357, column 2, continued:]

Editorial Miscellany.

THE BROADWAY JOURNAL may be obtained in the City of New York of the following agents: — Taylor, Astor House; Crosby, Exchange, William street; Graham, Tribune Buildings; Lockwood, Broadway and Grand; and Burgess & Stringer, Ann and Broad way.

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“THE HARBINGER — Edited by The Brook-Farm Phalanx” — is, beyond doubt, the most reputable organ of the Crazyites. We sincerely respect it — odd as this assertion may appear. It is conducted by an assemblage of well-read persons who mean no harm — and who, perhaps, can do less. Their objects are honorable, and so forth — all that anybody can understand of them — and we really believe that Mr. Albert Brisbane and one or two other ladies and gentlemen understand all about them that is necessary to be understood. But what we, individually, have done to “The Harbinger,” or what we have done to “The Brook-Farm Phalanx,” that “The Brook-Farm Phalanx” should stop the ordinary operations at Brook-Farm for the purpose of abusing us, is a point we are unable to comprehend. If we have done anything to affront “The Brook-Farm Phalanx” we will make an apology forthwith — provided “The Brook-Farm Phalanx” (which we have a great curiosity to see) will just step into our office, which is 304 Broadway.

In the mean time, by way of doing penance for any unintentional offence that we may have given The Phalanx, we will just [page 358:] copy, verbatim, a very severe lesson it has been lately reading to ourselves.

The Raven and other Poems. By EDGAR. A. POE. New York and London: Wiley and Putnam, 161 Broadway; 6 Waterloo Place. pp. 01.

Mr. Poe has earned some fame by various tales and poems, which of late has become notoriety through a certain blackguard warfare which he has been waging against the poets and newspaper critics of New England, and which it would be most charitable to impute to insanity. Judging from the tone of his late articles in the Broadway Journal, he seems to think that the whole literary South and West are doing anxious battle in his person against the old time-honored tyrant of the North. But what have North or South to do with affairs only apropos to Poe? He shows himself a poet in this, at least, in the magnifying mirror of his own importance. To him facts lose their barren literality — to him a primrose is more than a primrose; and Edgar Poe, acting the constabulary part of a spy in detecting plagiarisms in favorite authors, insulting a Boston audience, inditing coarse editorials against respectable editresses, and getting singed himself the meanwhile, is nothing less than the hero of a grand mystic conflict of the elements.

The present volume is not entirely pure of this controversy, else we should ignore the late scandalous courses of the man, and speak only of the “Poems.” The motive of the publication is too apparent; it contains the famous Boston poem, together with other juvenilities, which, he says, “private reasons — some of which have reference to the sin of plagiarism, and others to the date of Tenny-son's first poems” — have induced him to republish. Does he mean to intimate that he is suspected of copying Tennyson? In vain have we searched the poems for a shadow of resemblance. Does he think to convict Tennyson of copying him? Another of those self-exaggerations which prove, we suppose, his poetic imagination.

In a sober attempt to get at the meaning and worth of these poems as poetry, we have been not a little puzzled. We must confess they have a great deal of power, a great deal of beauty, (of thought frequently, and always of rhythm and diction,) originality, and dramatic effect. But they have more of effect than of expression; to adopt a distinction from musical criticism; and if they attract you to a certain length, it is only to repulse you the more coldly at last. There is a wild unearthliness, and unheavenliness, in the tone of all his pictures, a strange unreality in all his thoughts; they seem to stand shivering, begging admission to our hearts in vain, because they look not as if they came from the heart. The ill-boding “Raven,” which you meet at the threshold of his edifice, is a fit warning of the hospitality you will find inside. And yet the “Raven” has great beauty, and has won the author some renown; we were fascinated till we read it through; then we hated to look at it, or think of it again: why was that? There is something in it of the true grief of a lover, an imagination of a broken-heartedness enough to prove a lover in earnest, a power of strange, sad melody, which there is no resisting. So there is in all his poems. Mr. Poe has made a critical study of the matter of versification, and succeeded in the art rather at the expense of nature. Indeed the impression of a very studied effect is always uppermost after reading him. And you have to study him to understand him. This you would count no loss, if, when you had followed the man through his studies, you could find anything in them beyond the man and his most motiveless moods, which lead you nowhere; if you could find anything better at bottom than the pride of originality. What is the fancy which is merely fancy, the beauty which springs from no feeling, which neither illustrates nor promotes the great rules and purposes of life, which glimmers strangely only because it is aside from the path of human destiny? Edgar Poe does not write for Humanity; he has more of the art than the soul of poetry. He affects to despise the world while he writes for it. He certainly has struck out a remarkable course: the style and imagery of his earliest poems mark a very singular culture, a judgment most severe for a young writer, and a familiarity with the less hacknied portions of classic lore and nomenclature. [column 2:] He seems to have had an idea of working out his forms from pure white marble. But the poet's humility is wanting; a morbid egotism repels you. He can affect you with wonder, but rarely with the thrill of any passion, except perhaps of pride, which might be dignity, and which therefore always is interesting. We fear this writer even courts the state described by Tennyson:

There is something in all this which we really respect — an evident wish to be sincere, pervading the whole tone of the sermon — an anxious determination to speak the truth — at least as far as convenient. The Brook Farm Phalanx talks to us, in short, “like a Dutch uncle,” and we shall reply to it, very succinctly, in the same spirit.

“Very charitable to impute to insanity.” Insanity is a word that the Brook Farm Phalanx should never be brought to mention under any circumstances whatsoever. “No more of that, Hal, an ye love me.”

“The time-honored tyrant of the North.” Very properly [[Greek text]] — not [[Greek text]]. King Log at best. The sceptre is departed.

“Insulting a Boston audience” — very true — meant to do it — and did.

“Getting singed in return.” The singeing refers, we presume, to the doubling, in five weeks, the circulation of the “Broadway Journal.”

“Motive of the publication too apparent.” “The Raven, etc.,” was in the publishers’ hands a month or six weeks before we received the invitation from the Lyceum — and we read the last proofs on the evening before that on which we “insulted the Boston audience.” On these points The Brook Farm Phalanx are referred to Messrs. Wiley and Putnam.

“Discover no shade of resemblance to Tennyson.” Certainly not — we never could discover any ourselves. Our foot-note (quoted by the Phalanx) has reference to an article written by Mr. Charles Dickens in the London Foreign Quarterly Review. Mr. Dickens in paying us some valued, though injudicious compliments, concluded by observing, that “we had all Tennyson's spirituality, and might be considered as the best of his imitators” — words to that effect. Our design has been merely to demonstrate (should a similar accusation again be made) that the poems in question were published before Tennyson had written at all.

“Has acquired some renown by the Raven.” We cannot approve of the “some” — especially in the mouths of those worship. pers of Truth, The Brook Farm Phalanx.

The Brook Farm Phalanx knows very well — and so do we — that no American poem gained for its author even one half so much “renown’‘ in the same period of time. The renown is quite as small a thing as the poem — and we have therefore no scruple in alluding to it — although we do so only because it shocks us to hear a set of respectahle Crazyites talking in so disingenuous a manner. Reform it altogether, or give up preaching about Truth.

As for the rest, we believe it is all leather and prunella — the opinion of “The Snook Farm Phalanx.” We do trust that, in future,” The Snook Farm Phalanx” will never have any opinion of us at all. [page 359:]

THE MOST eminent living writer of Portugal, indeed the only one of any considerable eminence, is Senhor Almeida Garrett, a leading deputy of the ultra-liberal opposition in Lisbon, who has very high powers both as an orator and a poet; though his poetical works appear rather deficient in strength of original thought. His prose is both brilliant and powerful. His poems are of considerable extent, and not the least of their charms is that he is a good scholar and eminent for antiquarian research. He is of the blank-verse school, which in Portugal is a great misfortune. We extract the following as a favorable specimen, and the more willingly because it unfolds the beauties of a word, “Saudade,” upon the exclusive possession of which the Portuguese particularly pride themselves. There is certainly no one word in any other European language which conveys the same idea. It expresses the sweet yet painful sensation created by the contemplation of a beloved object from which we are separated: —

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MR. HUDSON, on Tuesday evening last, read to an audience of some two hundred persons, at the Society Library, his Lecture on Lear (or a portion of it) recently delivered at Boston, and much complimented in one or two of the Boston papers. We listened to the lecturer with profound “attention, and (for the first time) heard him throughout. He did not favorably impress us. His good points are a happy talent for fanciful, that is to say for unexpected (too often far-fetched) illustration, and a certain cloudy acuteness in respect to motives of human action. His bad points are legion — want of concentration — want of consecutiveness — want of definite purpose — want of common school education — utter incapacity to comprehend a drama out of its range of mere character — an absurd passion for the lower species, that is to say, for the too obvious species of antithesis — a more absurd rage for metaphor and direct simile, without the least ability to keep them within bounds, or to render them consistent, either per se, or with the matter into which they are introduced — to crown all, a pitiable affectation of humility altogether unbecoming a man, an elocution that would disgrace a pig, and an odd species of gesticulation of which a baboon would have excellent reason to be ashamed.

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THE TRIBUNE says: — “ The article in the American Review of this month, entitled ‘The Facts of M. Valdemar's Case, by EDGAR A. POE,’ is of course a romance — who could have supposed it otherwise? Those who have read Mr. Poe's visit to the Maelstrom, South Pole, &c., have not been puzzled by it, yet we learn that several good matter-of-fact citizens have been, sorely. It is a pretty good specimen of Poe's style of giving an air of reality to fictions, and we utterly condemn the choice of a subject, but whoever thought it a veracious recital must have the bump of Faith large, very large indeed.”

For our parts we find it difficult to understand how any dispassionate transcendentalist can doubt the facts as we state them; they are by no means so incredible as the marvels which are hourly narrated, and believed, on the topic of Mesmerism. Why cannot a man's death be postponed indefinitely by Mesmerism? Why cannot a man talk after he is dead? Why? — why? — that is the question; and as soon as the Tribune has answered it to our satisfaction we will talk to it farther.

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HON. WM. C. PRESTON has been elected President of the South Carolina College at Columbia. It is understood that he will accept and commence the duties of the Presidency early in the ensuing year. In the meantime, Rev. Dr. Hooper will discharge them. Rev. Dr. Henry has been offered the Greek Professorship, and we sincerely hope that he may accept it. The accession of Mr. Preston is of course, per se, and without reference to the secession of Dr. Henry, a subject of congratulation to the College — but upon the whole, some injustice, we think, has been done to the late President. We shall speak more fully in our next.

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THE MIRROR says:

The editor of the Philadelphia North American has “scared up a feminine genius — a poetical wonder — hear him: “The greatest poet of her sex who ever lived, is Maria Brooks. She is as much above Mrs. Hemans, Miss Landon, Mrs. Norton, et id omne genus, as they are above the sickliest sentimentalists of the chambermaids’ gazettes!!

There is, perhaps, some exaggeration in the North American's estimate of Mrs. Brooks, but far more in the Mirror's attempt at depreciation. Mrs. Maria Brooks, author of “Zophiel, or The Bride of Seven,” is fairly entitled to be called the greatest of American poetesses. Her imagination and audacity of thought and expression, are not far behind Miss Barrett. Her chief faults are bombast and extravagance.

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CONNOISSEURS and amateurs of Tea would do well to look over the Catalogue of Teas on sale at the warehouse of the Pekin Tea Company, No. 75 Fulton street. See advertisement in this week's Journal. Hitherto it has been impossible to procure really good green tea at less than a dollar per pound. The Pekin Company afford an exquisite article at 75 cents — other teas at proportionate rates. We can conscientiously recommend them.

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A late “Tribune” has a very just review of Longfellow. We quote a few passages: —

The portrait which adorns this volume is not merely flattered or idealized, but there is an attempt at adorning it, by expression thrown into the eyes, with just that which the original does not possess, whether in face or mind. We have often seen faces whose usually coarse and heavy lineaments were harmonized at times into beauty by the light that rises from the soul into the eyes. The intention Nature bad with regard to the face and its wearer, usually eclipsed beneath bad habits or a bad education, is then disclosed and we see what hopes Death has in store for that soul. But here the [page 360:] enthusiasm thrown into the eyes only makes the rest of the face look more weak, and the idea suggested is the anomalous one of a Dandy Pindar.

Such is not the case with Mr. Longfellow himself. He is never a Pindar, though he is sometimes a Dandy even in the clear and ornamented streets and trim gardens of his verse But he is still more a man of cultivated taste, delicate though not deep feeling, and some, though not much, poetic force.

Mr. Longfellow has been accused of plagiarism. We have been surprised that any one should have been anxious to fasten special charges of this kind upon him, when we had supposed it so obvious that the greater part of his mental stores were derived from the works of others. He has no style of his own growing out of his own experiences and observations of nature. Nature with him, whether human or external, is always seen through the windows of literature. There are in his poems sweet and tender passages descriptive of his personal feelings, but very few showing him as an observer, at first hand, of the passions within, or the landscape without.

This want of the free breath of nature, this perpetual borrowing of imagery, this excessive, because superficial, culture which he has derived from an acquaintance with the elegant literature of many nations and men, out of proportion to the experience of life within himself, prevent Mr. Longfellow's verses from ever being a true refreshment to ourselves. He says in one of his most graceful verses:

From the cool cistern of the midnight air

My spirit drank repose;

The fountain of perpetual peace flows there,

From those deep cisterns flows.

Now this is just what we cannot get from Mr. Longfellow. No solitude of the mind reveals to us the deep cisterns.

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Yet there is a middle class, composed of men of little original poetic power, but of much poetic taste and sensibility, whom we [column 2:] would not wish to have silenced. They do no halm but much good, (if only their minds are not confounded with those of a higher class,) by educating in others the faculties dominant in themselves. In this class we place the writer at present before us.

We must confess a coolness toward Mr. Longfellow, in consequence of the exaggerated praises that have been bestowed upon him. When we see a person of moderate powers receive honors which should be reserved for the highest, we feel somewhat like assailing him and taking from him the crown which should be reserved for grander brows.

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ERRATA. — Several, of a vexatious character, occurred in our last week's Journal — especially in the fine poem “Epicedium,” by Mr. Rowley; among other blunders, a whole line was omitted. We have taken measures to prevent anything of this kind for the 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.”

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To CORRESPONDENTS. —.Many thanks to the author of “The New Generation” — also to P. P. C.; we will write him fully in a few days. Our friends F. W. T. and P. B. shall also soon hear from us — if indeed they have not already quite given us up.

We are forced to decline “Remembrance” “Autumn,” and the Lines to Estelle — the Sonnet may appear.

The proposition of I. R. O. is respectfully declined.

The numbers desired by our friend A. M. I. can he obtained. We thank him sincerely for his late favor.