∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
25/1} This is the source of M 182 (q.v. for notes to details of para. 1) and is much like part of Poe's 2/12/45 review in the EM on English's Aristidean. The EM is the source of M 143 (q.v.).
25/6} “Magazine-ward” is Poe's coinage. For the topic, see Ostrom, Letters, pp. 247, 270. [page 23:]
25/10} caviare: Hamlet, II.ii.465.
25/19-20} The compound word is Poe's coinage (PCW, p. 34), also in EM. The hyphen is missing in the listing in PCW p. 34, (q.v.).
25/26} currente calamo: with a running pen; fluently; offhand.
25/36} Poe's coinage of “belaud” dates from 1841 (see PCW, 23).
25/45-46} Plates: Dacota Woman and Assiniboin Girl, Carl Bodmer, pinx ad nat[.], engraved by Rawdon, Wright and Hatch, 1st plate; View on the Delaware, near Bordentown, engraved by Smillie and Hinshelwood, artist appears to be Ch. Rodmer, but perhaps Carl Bodmer; The Love Letter (q.v. on p. 26), engraved by Illman and Sons. For Poe's earlier refs. to Dakotas and Assiniboins, see Julius Rodman, pp. 550-1, derived from Lewis and Clark's journal. For Poe's interest in Indians, see M 184a, and 55-56 [facsimile text].
26/2-3} Poe's decided opinion about magazine art helped to drive him from Graham's, or so he claimed (see Pollin, AL, 1968, 40.164-78).
26/6} Found on pp. 97-103.
26/7} Catharine M. Sedgwick (1789-1867), novelist, sister of Theodore and author of popular romantic domestic novels with realistic details. Poe often reviewed her works, and usually favorably (see PD, p. 83 for loci). “An Incident at Rome” (corrected from text) is on pp. 104-8.
26/9} Found on pp. 109-120.
26/14} The story is divided into nine chapters. For William Gilmore Simms, see Index of BJ and Br. Is it coincidental that two weeks later (3/15) Simms wrote on the “remarkable” Mr. Poe to Evert Duyckinck (see Poe Log for the date)?
26/15-17} “Serenading,” prose, pp. 121-2; “Lucy Dutton,” prose, pp. 125-7; “Foreign Mysteries,” prose, pp. 132-5. [page 24:]
26/17-19} Pp. 128-30 contain a few stanzas and “The Lay of the Lady Corinne,” “The Wild Wood Rose,” “The Lord of Delmaine,” and “The Fairy in the Shell,” plus untitled ballads. Frances Sargent Osgood (1811-50) was a minor poet, author of mediocre sentimental verse of varying popularity. She wrote under the pseudonym “Kate Carol” (cf. 69/25 [facsimile text]). For her close relationship with Poe, see M 209; also 54/53 for her magazine publications.
26/20-24} Pp. 142-44. See M 122, for Lowell's book defended against Wilson's criticism. See also EM of 1/11/45 for Poe's review showing his present partiality to a man later abhorred for his abolitionist views. Even now Poe tempers his praise with “peculiar abilities” in mentioning the review of Conversations on Some of the Old Poets by James Russell Lowell.
26/25} Pub. 1845, Pref. iii-iv, Intro. v-viii + 797.
27/35} From Longfellow's “Psalm of Life”: “We ... leave behind us / Footprints on the sands of time.”
27/40} Such a comparison via the Egyptian mummy is the theme of “Some Words” (TOM 1175-1201).
27/44} This chapter is found on pp. 752-85.
27/45} Robert Henry (1718-90), of Scotland, pensioned for his History of England (eventually 6 vols., 1781-93).
27/48} “During the last session of congress, Mr. Tyler communicated to the senate a treaty formed with the republic of Texas, by which that state was to become a member of the Union. The treaty was not ratified by the senate” (p. 784).
27/49} 1st part, “Ancient History,” 1-323; 2nd part, “Modern History,” 327-797.
27/63} The letter is printed in the 3/8 BJ (pp. 158-59) with no comment.
27/69} Poe's apology for his sharp remarks (24/60 [facsimile text]) confirms the good relationship with Graham, who handsomely defended Poe's posthumous name in the 3/50 Graham's. [page 25:]
28/1-7} It is Poe, not Briggs, who assigns the term “Longfellow War” to this unfortunate series of articles in the Mirror and BJ, as the denial of editorial “we” shows. Briggs disaffiliated himself from all of it in his column “Thefts of American Authors,” in BJ of 2/15, mildly reproaching the Mirror for publishing Poe's initial attack (BJ 1.109, not included in my facsimile volume), but not mentioning Poe's name. Notice Poe's side-marking ref. to this page, probably for Mrs. Whitman's benefit. Since Poe here gives, very cursorily, the “history” thus far, I refer the reader to my account in the Intro. for details of the continuity of the episodes in the “War.”
28/24} EM, 1/25/45. [[This reference is actually to Poe's subsequent article on the matter — JAS]]
28/30-33} The friend was George S. Hillard (1808-79), lawyer, orator, intimate with Northeast literati, q.v. in R. B. Shuman, PMLA, 1961, 76.155-56. See also Moss, Poe's ... Battles, 157n, 158-61. The 1/15 letter from Boston was published by Willis in the 1/20 Evening Mirror with a headnote about Poe's Waif notice as “written in our office by an able though very critical hand, and we give the following reply to them from as able a friend of Longfellow's in Boston. We add also the reply to the ‘reply,’ and declare the field open. We judge the poet by ourself when we presume that he prefers rubbing to rust — sure of being more brightened than fretted.” With the title “Post-Notes by the Critic,” Poe's “Postscript” followed immediately after the letter — proof enough of Willis' participation in the “War”: “If ever a man had cause to ejaculate, ‘Heaven preserve me from my friends!’ it is Mr. Longfellow. (para.) My ‘literary strictures' on the poem consisted, generally, in the assertion, that it is the best of poems, one of which, at least, should have been received with acclamation. (para.) I defy Professor Longfellow and his friend conjointly to say a rational word in defence of the ‘identical illustration’ to which, as gently as possible, I objected. (para.) I defy that I misconceived either rhythm or metre — call for the proofs — and assert that Professor Longfellow knows very little about either. If the proofs are called for here I will give them. (para.) Mem: it is by no means impossible, however, that on the points, I may err. I may know nothing about rhythm — for I remember (with regret) that it was precisely the rhythm of Mr. Longfellow in the proem, which elicited my unqualified [page 26:] applause. (para.) I did not dispute Mr. Longfellow's ‘right’ to construct his book as he thought proper. I reserve to myself the right of thinking what I choose of the construction. (para.) I mentioned my idea that the anonymous contributions were perhaps, in general, Mr. Longfellow's, because I thought so, and because every body thought so. If they are not — what then? Does the friend, however, mean to persist in the assertion, that not one of them is Mr. Longfellow's? (para.) As ‘the charge of habitually imitating other American poets requires no especial reply’ — it shall surely rest undisturbed by any reply of mine. (para.) It seems to me that the whole state of the case may be paralleled thus: / A accosts B, with — ‘My dear friend, in common with all mankind, and the angels, I regard you as a demi-god. Your equal is not to be found in the country which is proud to claim you as a son ... but permit me! there is a very — a very little speck of dust on the extreme end of your nose — oblige yourself and your friends by brushing it away.’ ‘Sir,’ replies B, ‘what you have asserted is wholly untrue .... I consider you a malignant critic, and wish to have nothing further to do with you — for know that there are spots upon the sun, but my proboscis is a thing without spot!“’
28/34-36} Poe's allegation of Longfellow's prodding his second friend, i.e., Charles Sumner, into writing a protest has no factual basis. The poet tried to remain above such brawls (see Moss, 164-65; and Pollin, Mi Q, 1984, 37.4, 475-82).
28/42} The negative “not” belonging before “accessible” was inadvertently omitted from the WM, 1.287; but not from EM, 2/5/45 (and also dropped from the BJ, Harrison and Shuman's article). Lowell unfortunately was dragged into the controversy over Longfellow's originality, but nevertheless helped Poe to secure the Lyceum lecture invitation.
28/52} It was not only other friends of Longfellow but also his very partial magazine publisher, George R. Graham, who extracted from Willis an avowal that “he dissented from all the disparagement of Longfellow” in the rev. of The Waif (EM, 2/14; WM 2/22, 1.317). Surely Poe is joking about “the satire ... in Mr. Willis' manifesto,” especially since he had just complained about the letters of two of Longfellow's “coadjutors.”
28/61} From Hamlet, 1.2.185 (“In my mind's eye, Horatio”), and interesting as insight into Poe's behaving like a stage director, manipulating his dramatis personae for a spectacular [page 27:] public effect. (See also 29/4: “If I die for it” — pure melodrama!)
29/8} This is Jupiter the Thunderer, a standard Latin epithet as in Ovid's Metamorphoses, 1.170. Poe's allusion is clearly stimulated by a remark made by Willis in the 2/5 EM (WM of 2/8, p. 287) in his apology for the fracas over Longfellow and Poe (p. 2, cols. 2-3), stating that he had expected better replies from the Boston papers, but only the letter from Sumner came. “Thunder was sometimes ‘out to pasture.“’ Willis again shows (see n. to 28/30-33 above) his hopes of creating a newspaper ruckus that will attract readers; he also here leads the way for disrespectful language — a way taken up by Poe vehemently. Poe's tacit joke here is that through the Outis letter he has become a Grace (or Fury) himself.
29/19-20} Poe so particularly alludes to Briggs' defense of James Aldrich, then inscribing the page at the side for Mrs. Whitman's benefit, that we must transcribe the burden of the article in the BJ of 2/15, 1.109; the poems compared are “The Death-Bed” by Thomas Hood and “A Death-Bed” by James Aldrich (q.v., below): “We can discover no resemblance between these verses, sufficient to warrant the charge of plagiarism, excepting the measure and the subject, which are certainly not peculiar to Hood; the thoughts are by no means identical. We are very sure that the Mirror would not be guilty of accusing any one of a literary theft without good reason, but we do not perceive the warrant for the accusation in this case. Mr. Aldrich is the last man in the world to be guilty of so disreputable an artifice, and certainly would never have committed a theft of this kind, which would have been certain to meet with instant detection. The truth is, that his lines appeared in the New World in 1840; and two years afterward, when Hood's lines first appeared, he copied them himself into the same paper of which he had become an assistant editor. There is certainly a curious coincidence of feeling between the verses of Mr. Aldrich, and those of Hood; but such things are very common in all the poets, from Homer downwards. There is no such thing as originality of sentiment; expression is all that any poet can claim as his own. There is hardly a name in Mr. Griswold's catalogue of American poets, less obnoxious to the charge of plagiarism than that of James Aldrich.” The final two paras. of Briggs' article very reasonably speak about the universal charges of plagiarism leveled against popular and great authors, citing the Rover's attack upon Longfellow concerning the Motherwell-Wolff poem and the charge against Mrs. Ellet. It may have been Briggs' [page 28:] remarks which gave Poe his striking notion of the “poetic sentiment” as making the artist so sensitive to the excellences of others that he unconsciously incorporates merits that he perceives into his own work. Curiously, in his “Lit.” sketch of James Aldrich (1810-56) he offers this excuse for the “poetical thefts” for which he again arraigns him (H 15.62-64). Considering the small talent of this magazinist, minor editor, and poetaster, this is too generous on Poe's part, but even his newly found parallel, between “Molly Gray” and Tennyson's “Airy, fairy Lilian!” seems far-fetched. Briggs was mistaken, in the para. given above, about the primacy of Aldrich's lines, for Hood's poem first appeared in the 8/36 Englishman's Magazine, supposedly on the death of his sister, while Aldrich's appeared in the 5/19/41 New World and in Keese's 1842 anthology.
29/40} The original EM article included “the” just before “poems” as is needed by the sense.
29/82} It would be easy to compile a longer list of the differences in language between the two poems — surely no inconsiderable factor in judging the equivalence of both on such a commonplace theme. It is noteworthy that the singularity of Poe's ideal “poetical topic” — “the death of a beautiful woman” — condemns all well-read authors of aspiring genius to a uniformity that easily might be considered imitative (“Phil. of Composition” para. 18). Poe himself, as “Outis,” in the 3/1 EM, acknowledges this element in his first para., reprinted below.
30/2 ff.} This article on “Plagiarism,” by “Outis” (Greek for “no man”; cf. Odysseus' trick played on the gullible Polyphemus) appeared first in the EM, 3/1, and, soon after, in the WM, 3/8, 1.346-47. As one of the central documents in the “Longfellow War” it deserves attention. To my mind it is unquestionably Poe's hoax contribution, aiming to preserve interest in the controversy in both the Mirror with Willis' connivance and in the BJ, probably without Briggs' awareness (since he would have subsequently revealed the truth after falling out with Poe). Mary Phillips, in working on Poe — The Man (Phila., 1926) felicitously decided that the MS. of “The Reviewer Reviewed” showed the same tactics as the “Outis” defense of Longfellow — a clever hoax in which Poe, the anonymous author, sedulously attacked Poe the author for detailed faults (pp. 956-96). Killis Campbell, on the basis of the incomplete document, instead proposed C. C. Felton, the entirely inappropriate friend of Longfellow as “Outis” in University of Texas Studies in English, [page 29:] 1928, No. 8, 107-109, repeating this in The Mind of Poe (229). TOM “inclined to believe” him to be Poe in his 1969 Poems (557), and in his Tales, which includes “A Reviewer Reviewed” complete by “Walter G. Bowen,” concludes that “Outis” is Poe (1378-79). Sidney Moss (Poe's Lit. Battles, 169 and 170n), following Campbell, thinks otherwise. My major points are these: a) It is written in a clever imitation of Poe's manner, as Quinn (454) admits, although he does not think it to be Poe. Yet why should any friend or defender of Longfellow and Aldrich ape Poe's manner and introduce such dubiety into the dispute? How could he be so clever about tricks of phrasing and even the slight misquotation of Gray's line (lines 60-61), typical of Poe? b) This parallels Poe's attack on his own methods in tale-writing presented in “The Reviewer Reviewed” (TOM 1377-87, especially n. 17), a manuscript that convinced Mary Phillips and TOM. c) Why otherwise should Poe so promptly and completely reprint so long an attack on himself? It makes good points, shows much information, and would be worthy of suppression, rather than exposure, were it not Poe's. See Poe's letter (Ostrom, 282-84) to Jeremiah Hunt, Jr., who, as ed. of the Ithaca National Archives of 3/13, had criticized this very “Outis” reply in the present issue of the BJ. Poe casuistically explains his reprinting the “letter of Outis itself, to which I wish to give all the publicity in my power ... [for] the more thorough refutation. ... There will be four chapters in all” (of reply). Does not this sound like a preplanned campaign of essay-responses? d) The joke about Poe's name, taker. almost verbatim from an 1839 Philadelphia paper would be unknown to a Boston friend of Longfellow and not quoted even if known (see 31/24, repeated 60/1). e) The picturesque instance about a letter matching a phrase by Whittier is basically inapposite and unverifiable; why not use instances drawn from the works as published of two separate known poets? Moreover, why be so vague about the date, the title of “the splendid annual” and the title of the poem (see para. 2 below)? f) The half-truth about the similarity of the use of the repetend is most unlikely to occur to any ordinary observer, but not to Poe, who loved that poem and knew it well (PCW, 106). g) The exaggerated denial in the last para. of knowledge of Mr. Aldrich, sufficiently known for his editorial work on the New World, and included in a brief biographical sketch in Griswold's PPA, is the unrealistic opposite of the awareness of journalistic chitchat hinted immediately before. h) And why should a defender of Longfellow go out of his way, in the penultimate para., to praise “The Raven” for its “power,” etc.? [page 30:]
30/13-37} As is indicated in (e) in the above note, there are truly absurd elements about this whole comparison, so vaguely presented as to be unverifiable. Why not name the writer of the letter, especially if it has been published? What is the annual containing the poem and what is its title? The biographies of John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) and the bibliographies fail to evidence early contributions to “splendid annuals.” Whittier often revised his reprinted poems, of which the editions are lacking critical apparatus. Closest to the cited line is a section of “The Pageant” in The Complete Poetical Works (Boston: Osgood and Co., 1876; collected at intervals from 1848 with “Note by the Author to the Edition of 1857”), pp. 263-64, “The gleaming treebolls, ice-embossed, / Hold up their chandeliers of frost” (st. 4) and “The flora of the mystic mine-world / Around me lifts on crystal stems / The petals of its clustered gems!” (st. 7). Unfortunatley [[Unfortunately]], untenable is the theory that “The Pageant” is the later form of an earlier poem with the sought-for line, since Thomas Franklin Currier, A Bibliography of J. G. Whittier (Harvard UP, 1937), p. 318, establishes its printed date as 1871 in Winter Poems by favorite American Poets, p. 13. This shifts the identification to the vaguer possibility of an uncollected poem on a wintry scene with this image from his early years which was noted “by every reviewer in the land, for the exceeding beauty of the imagery” (Outis' letter, 30/28-29) but was never reprinted or recorded! We must assume then that the germ of the image or description stayed with Whittier for 40 years, until 1870. How much more likely that the whole matter is a “confirmatory” spoof devised by Poe?
30/26} The word “is” (rendering the sentence meaningless) does not appear in the Mirror texts, but is reprinted in the Harrison volume.
30/45-49} See 29/19-20 for the true dates of both poems.
30/60-61} The quotation, slightly modified as was often Poe's habit in quoting, comes from Gray's “Progress of Poesy,” 3.4: “Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn.”
30/74-75} The biblical text is Gen. 32:26, whatever the poem to which “Outis” refers.
30/94} The word “madam” is an obvious typo for “madman.” The other substantive changes in the BJ from the Mirror texts (with the BJ line shown) are as follows: 14 those / these; 63 on [page 31:] the / on to the; 79 specially / specifically.
31/5} John Neal (1793-1876), prolific ed. and author, early and late of Portland, intermediately of London and Baltimore, was one of Poe's staunchest defenders, even after his death (see MM 197b, 216 for data). Early he and Tobias Watkins largely wrote Paul Allen's (1775-1826) two-vol. History of the American Revolution (1818) and revised his narrative poem Noah (1821). The three were members of the Baltimore literary Delphian Club, which published the monthly Portico (1816-18). [[Note: This entry, and the next, are actually reversed in terms of order in the text — JAS]]
31/6} Richard Henry Dana Jr. (1815-82), famous for his Two Years Before the Mast (1840) was author of the popular “The Dying Raven” which may have contributed hints to Poe's “Raven” according to TOM's ambiguous suggestion (Poems, 372 for lines 38-47). In general Poe was indifferent or even hostile to Dana (q.v. in M 290 and loci in PD, 25) but surely borrowed from “The Buccaneer” (1827) for “Metzengerstein.” There is no record that I have found of Neal's charging Dana with “pirating upon” Bryant for his poem “The Dying Raven.” In fact, Dana had sent his first poem, “The Dying Crow,” to editor Bryant for the first issue of the New-York Review in which it appeared (5/1825) under its new name, with advised changes. Bryant never wrote on such a topic, unless Poe is implying that his “To a Waterfowl,” a totally different bird-poem, furnished some ideas. It is all the type of nonsense that evidences a hoax-letter written by Poe himself, playing the role of “Outis.”
31/9} Poe was very partial to the poetry of Edward Coote Pinkney (1802-28), whose name he always misspelled as here. TOM thinks his poetry influenced by that of Pinkney. As the son of the brilliant and haughty lawyer and diplomat William Pinkney (1764-1822) he was reared in Baltimore and London. The father was posthumously attacked by John Neal for his arrogance in the novel Randolph (1823), for which the son vainly sought a duel, but the gossip about Willis' plagiarizing from the son's poetry is unsubstantiated. Later Poe traces a close connection between his celebrated “Health” and a poem by George Hill (see M 208a for this and other details about Pinkney).
Lydia Maria (Francis) Child (1802-80) was very early a popular (and prolific) writer of periodical tales, novels, and poems, and prominent too as an abolitionist ed. Poe reviewed her Philothea (128-34) and cites a poem in his “Lit.” sketch (H 15.105-107), Poe's allusion here to Neal's charge that Willis had [page 32:] borrowed something from her poem is either spurious or lost in the labyrinth of rumor.
31/20-22} These comprise lines 43-45 of “Sea Weed.”
31/24} This proves Poe's authorship. See Alexander's Weekly Messenger, 12/18/39, 4/1-2, Poe's article, “Enigmatical and Conundrumical,” #25: “Why ought the author of the ‘Grotesque and Arabesque’ to be a writer of verses? Because he's a poet to a t. Add t to Poe makes it Poet.”
31/52-53, 55-56} Lines 52-53 are 93-96 in “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and 55-56 are 99-102. The first word of line 55 should be “Then” and not “They.”
31/67} “went on a-warbling” in the EM.
31/79-83} Two non-Poeian touches occur here: “hereafter” used adjectivally and “dosing.” Word Index, 102 gives 3 instances with “z” spelling, none with “s” for “sleeping”; but these are weak counter arguments.
31/91} Surely, if the poem cited by “Outis” enables him to make fifteen parallels or similitudes with lines in “The Raven” we must conclude that it too has been created by Poe for this occasion and for its use in the following episodes of the “Longfellow-War.” Since Poe has planned the whole campaign for reasons of publicity, first for the Mirror and next for the BJ, which he had just joined, it would be easy to speak of an “anonymous poem” seen “some five years ago.” Totally unknown and totally third-rate, it could contain all the cues that he needed for his argument. Writing a cliche-ridden set of verses was child's play for the versatile Poe, who easily wrote parodies and take-offs (see Poems, 485-90, “Comic Rhymes”; “Don Pompioso” 7, “O Tempora” 8, et al., q.v. on pp. 150, 219, 328-29, 339, 340, 382, 424, 449). There are strange elements in his explanation and shaping of the three stanzas that can only thus be explained. For example, he says “it is too long,” but all the needed elements for his analysis and analogy of the two poems are here in the three stanzas. He could have made this point himself, but instead speaks of it as potentially very long (51/10 [facsimile text]), despite his habit of analysis. The material of the stanzas is too apt for Poe's purposes and even employs three lines of his own verse, modified: Line 1 savors of “Thou wert my dream” of the 1831 Intro. to “Al Aaraaf” (line 2) and line 4 [page 33:] sounds much like “A Dream” (written for Mrs. Jane Stanard's death, in 1827): “But a waking dream of life and light / Hath left me broken-hearted” (3-4; Poems, 79). Line 7 echoes “Al Aaraaf” (1.20): “Away — away — ‘mid seas of rays that roll” (p. 100); and lines 1, 6 of “The Valley Nis” (p. 191): “Far away — far away ... ,” The first stanza too and the general title and theme are reminiscent of Shelley's “To a Skylark” which Poe had been reading in 1830 just before writing the new Intro. to “Al Aaraaf” (Poems, 159-60, note to lines 20-21). Other phrases remind us of the “cento-like” composition of this “poem,” such as Shakespeare's “Unto the sweet bird's throat” (As You Like It, 2.5.4) and “give me excess of it ... / That strain again!” (Twelfth-Night, 1.1.2, 4), and Milton's “Sweet bird” in Il Penseroso (1.61). The name Clare would readily spring to the mind of an idolator of Tennyson, whose poem “Lady Clara Vere de Vere” (1832) probably entered into Poe's “Lenore” of 2/43 in Lowell's Pioneer (see Pollin, Names, 1975, 23.1-5). And all of these main subjects were departed, much-mourned beloved maidens. The medial rhymes were a favorite device of Poe's but unlikely for another writer in three stanzas so otherwise banal as these. All told, these factors and others that might be detailed make this sentimental parody eligible for entrance into the canon of poems of Poe, who naturally could never acknowledge them in the fixedly anonymous “Outis” article.
32/10} The reference is to the parody on “The Raven” entitled “The Owl” in the 2/17 EM (1/6) and in the 2/22 WM, p. 311, signed “Sarles.” For line 11 the EM reads “any other.”
32/29} ex-parte: in the interests of one side only.
32/35} See M 191b for this, and other loci, taken from “Le Belier” in A. Hamilton's Contes de Féerie.
32/67} For Poe's stress on “the Calculus of Probabilities” see “Marie Rogêt” (TOM, 724, 774 n2; also Letters, 385).
32/74} See Thos. Haynes Bayley's (sic) I'd be a Parody (lines 1, 3 garbled), first pub. in Sharpe's London Mag., 1829. The poem is, of course, itself a parody on Bayley's own “I'd be a Butterfly”: “I'd be a butterfly; living a rover, / Dying when fair things are fading away!” (st. 3). Bayly — the correct spelling — (1797-1839) produced songs, 5 novels, 36 stage pieces, quickly and popularly.
33/3} typo: “the” is missing at the end of the line. [page 34:]
33/34} See Pin Intro. for Poe's error about “André” (really Andere, others) as coed. with Suard of the 1803 Mélanges. See Pin Intro. for Isaac D‘Israeli's Curiosities of Lit., which Poe plundered for the items in Br.
33/44} For Poe's full use of Joe Miller's Jests (1739), probably J. Mottlcy's work, in “Autography” see TOM Tales, 259286; also 307 n26, for Poe's mixing Miller and J.S. Mill. See note b for his use of these comestibles and Bentham's disciple for his attack on illogic.
33/58} Q.v. Thessalonians 1.5.2: “The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” See PD, pp. 86-7 for this in “Masque.”
33/59-61} This sentence is quoted by Poe in para. 1 of M 198, a discussion of plagiarism.
34/1} Although marked with a “P” in the Whitman copy, this sketch has never before been included in a collection of Poe's writings. Other marks of Poe's style show in the ridicule given to the term “authoress”; the mention of “the New-York Katy-Did, and the Bunker- Hill Katy-Didn't” from “Thingum Bob, Esq.”; the allusion to autographs (cf. “Autography,” H 15.139); and the reference to “too blue” ink, in relation to Fuller, shows Poe's prejudice against professional blue-stockings (cf. FS 1).
Sarah Margaret Fuller (1810-50) edited the Dial as a member of the Transcendentalist circle (hence the ref. in the last phrase). In 1844 she accepted Horace Greeley's invitation to become literary editor of the New York Tribune. It was probably with Greeley in mind that Poe mentioned Hoboken, as it was a notorious setting for duels, and as Fuller's employer he might have taken offense.
It was from Fuller that Poe derived the expression “A Dream Within a Dream,” which appeared in his “Literati” sketch of her in 8/46. Poe was reportedly seen with her in the company of Mrs. Osgood, and it was under his instructions that the caricature by Samuel E. Brown of Boston was done (the features fitting descriptions by contemporaries).
For a full account of this sketch, cf. Pollin, “Poe on Margaret Fuller in 1845: An Unknown Caricature and Lampoon,” Women and Literature, Spring 1977.
35/3} See sequel on 57/42 ff. [facsimile text]. [page 35:]
35/8} See Mott, Am. Periodicals, 1.358-63, for the popularity then of the mammoth weekly papers, which have deteriorated and shredded out of existence, as with this one (no copy is left in NYC). Others were the NY World and the Boston Notion.
35/11} poppyish: q.v. PCW, p. 34.
35/20} See Poe's review (p. 18) for confirmation of his statements, which verify his critical honesty, as did his reviews in the SLM a decade earlier. NB: Poe did not review the “Minor Poems” and carelessly, it seems, accepts the Emporium's error.
35/31} Delivered at the New-York Historical Society, 2/28/45.
35/35} No full detailed account of Poe's hopes and efforts to join the profitable American “lecture circuit” has been presented, nor can it be here. Following the 1842 publication of Griswold's Poets and Poetry of America, very soon reprinted and then revised frequently, Poe developed a talk on major poets in the volume and on his views of poetry, given in Phila., 11/21/43; Wilmington, Del., 11/28; and Newark, Del., 12/32; Baltimore, 1/31/44; Reading, Pa., 3/13; and now New York. Accounts from the press inform us of the content (Phila., Sat. Museum, 11/21; Del. State Journal, 11/28 and 1/2/44; Baltimore Sun, 3/21/44; q.v. in J.B. Nolan's Israfel in Berkshire, pub. in Reading, 1948). Fullest are the New York papers, some cited below. Poe also wrote rather smugly and exaggeratedly about the lecture in letters (q.v. that of 3/17/45 to J. Hunt, Jr., in Letters, 283-4; see also Quinn, EAP, pp. 457-8 for a summary).
35/47} For Poe's long-fought battle against the “puffing system,” which favored mediocre books if written in America or by close or influential friends, see Sidney Moss, Poe's Literary Battles (Durham, 1963), pp. i-62. The bluntness of his attacks upon Theodore Fay's Norman Leslie (1836) certainly undermined his relations with the chiefs of literary journalism early in his career.
35/51-52} N.P. Willis' account, typically laudatory of Poe, began with an announcement in the Evening Mirror of 2/27, and anticipates “Damascene slicing” and “fine carving” by Poe's “critical blade.” The report of the 3/1 issue of the Evening Mirror praises the acidic style with which certain authors were attacked, [page 36:] and mentions an audience of two to three hundred. It was reprinted in the Weekly Mirror of 3/8, 1.347 (see The Prose Works of Nathaniel Parker Willis, 1845, p. 775).
In the New York Daily Tribune Margaret Fuller (q.v. in 34/1 note) gave a well-balanced, articulate report of Poe's lecture, disparaging Poe's reading. The piece ends thus: “We are rather ashamed to add that this Lecture by a Poet and critic of genius and established reputation was listened to but by some three hundred ... people. Any dancing dog or summerseting monkey would have drawn a larger house.”
A terse, well-balanced summary in the 4/45 Democratic Review (16.413) mentioned the need for a just and independent criticism as his main topic, his deprecation of puffery and derogation of “popular idols,” his recitations of Bryant, Willis, and Halleck, his disapproval of Dana as favored by the NAR. It advocated publication of the lecture, revised and augmented. Very likely this was by Evert A. Duyckinck (1816-78).
A small “report” objected to his remarks on New England poets in the Boston Atlas of 3/4, and the NY Herald condemned his censure of all and implied self-superiority as a poet (see Poe Log for 3/2/45).
John Louis O’Sullivan (1813-95), lawyer, journalist, diplomat, helped found and edit the United States Magazine and Democratic Review (1837-46). In his Morning News of 3/1/45 appeared a long “rave” review of the lecture.
35/70} See 42 [facsimile text] for his quoting in full “Florence Vane,” recited at the lecture.
36/1} This represents a summation of Poe's views on American satirists and their role, which were presented at intervals through reviews: first, in a rev. of Wilmer's Quacks of Helicon in the 9/41 Graham's (H 10.182-95) and last in 1849. He uses the same refs. and ideas to introduce each one, in almost identical terms: the clumsy mock epic, M‘Fingal (1782) of the Connecticut wit John Trumbull (1750-1831); the Croaker Papers (1819) by Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) with the aid of J. R. Drake; and The Vision of Rubeta by Laughton Osborn (1809-78), q.v. in MM 133, 215, and “Lit.” sketch (H 15.44-9). The so-called sequel is Arthur Carryl (1841). Newly introduced is the sarcastic ref. to W. E. Channing (1818-1901), friend of Emerson, who was savagely derided in the 8/43 Graham's (H 11.174-90). The names and major ideas of the first three paras. of the present essay are reshaped or adapted for the start of Poe's rev. of Lowell's Fable for Critics in the 3/49 SLM (H 13.165-7).
36/15} The friend is most likely Willis at the Evening Mirror, who knew England and its aristocracy well.
36/34} A buried ref. to the panorama from Aetna (TOM 1278/4) and also a legend about Empedocles (see Pollin, Pin 151, and PS, 1978, 11.21-6).
36/45} See Letters, p. 197 for his noted scorn of this quality.
36/49} Pub. by the Association, 1844, 31p.
37/5} Poe often cites the satire Hudibras of Samuel Butler (1612-80), as in Br. (8 loci, q.v. in Index) and Tales (q.v. in Index, 1417). He may have used the notes to the 1744 ed. of Grey (Pin 94).
37/6} For Laughton Osborn and his works in relation to Poe's views see M 133 (plus Index entries); also, on this passage, see Poe to Osborn, 8/15/45 (Letters, 293-5 and Supple. 4 of AL, 1974, 45.527-8).
37/14} Park Benjamin (1809-64), abandoned law for journalism in 1834, worked as editor for the New England Magazine, Greeley's New Yorker, the New World, and the NY Evening Signal, and wrote much mag. verse. His criticism was noted for its acidity (DAB); q.v. in PD, p. 9.
37/15} Cf. prononcés in “Thingum Bob, Esq.” (TOM, 1137).
37/25} Poe noted the misprint of “Petameter” himself.
37/29-45} Page 11/209-26.
38/13} mutate nomine: under a changed name.
38/20} Poe's penchant for the theatrical scene set-up, as here, is basic, says N.B. Fagin, The Histrionic Mr. Poe (Balt., 1949).
38/27} A personal hit here — Longfellow was a great dandy of his time (see Simms' ed. ref. in the Patriot, quoted by Poe, 38/45; also 38/51 below).
38/28} A Poe coinage from “Beau Brummel.” [page 38:]
38/30} An allusion to the fable of the jay who dressed up in peacock feathers.
38/42} Could the “foreign count” be the Count D‘Orsay, London's leading dandy (see preceding para.) and a chief figure in Willis' reports to the press from London (collected in Inklings)?
38/45} See 312/64-5 [facsimile text] for Simms' attack on Longfellow's dress.
38/48} “upper ten thousand”: An expression for the cream of society, created by N.P. Willis, here used facetiously (see illustration, p. 15).
38/50} bon ton: good style, fashionable taste.
38/51} Longfellow was noted for his impeccable dress and propriety. See H. S. Gorman, A Victorian American ... Longfellow (1926), pp. 54, 77, 156, 163, 210.
38/53} Poe uses this as “whole cloth” or without basis, i.e., a lie.
39/1} Poe ascribed to Griswold's PPA the phrase “gentleman of elegant leisure” and often used it depreciatively (see M 158a).
39/39} Used in Poe's Wakondah (rev., H 11.25), derived from Hugo's Notre Dame, VI., vi, q.v. in Discoveries in Poe, ch. 1.
39/43} Proof conclusive? Poe was born in Boston.
40/3-13} A passage of inexcusable vulgarity, says Quinn, EAP, p. 455.
40/12-13} Lines from A Drama of Exile (1.98) cited on p. 11 are somewhat reminiscent of this.
40/20-48} See p. 30 above for this passage.
40/61} Note Poe's 38 compounds ending in “looking” (PCW, pp. 17-18).
40/69} Poe deplores the “rage for glitter” in “Phil. of Furniture” (TOM 499). [page 39:]
41/3} nil admirari: to be astonished at nothing (Horace, Epodes, 1.6.1).
41/12} For this alleged reply of Talleyrand see FS 28c.
41/21} Signor Antonio Blitz (1810-77), magician and ventriloquist. He came to America in 1834 and made his début at Niblo's Garden in 1835. Blitz later settled in Phila., leasing the Phila. Museum lecture room for his winter performances. One of his most popular acts was with trained canaries.
Prof. Rogers is either Henry Darwin (1808-66) or his brother William Barton (1804-82), who advanced in 1842 highly abstruse theories about the origin of mountains.
41/24} Pentateuch: the first five books of the Old Testament.
41/51} For Poe's other uses of Laplace's theory see CS 2n.
42/2} See 35 (b) for the lecture.
42/4} Poe knew this poem well, for it varies only in accidentals (save for “hope” in line 7). Poe praised the poem (which he, as ed. of BGM printed) in his “Autography” of Cooke (1816-50), poet, lawyer, and frequent correspondent with Poe (H 15.234). For their close lit. relations, see TOM, Poems, 211, 323, 480, 560, and Letters as indexed on 646. The theme here suits Poe's prescription in the “Philosophy of Composition” Poe intended to have Cooke (and Lowell) write a preface for his critical account, “Literary America” (see Quinn, 561).
42/5} From Froissart Ballads and other poems, Phila., Carey and Hart, 1847, pp. 171-73.
43/2} Inaugural Address, delivered Tuesday evening, Jan. 7, 1845, before the Mechanics Institute of the City of New York. Meetings were held at City Hall (the Institute is now located at 20 W. 44th St.). Address pub. 1845, 23p.
James J. Mapes (1806-66), agriculturist and chemist, applied scientific principles to farming, later developing successful chemical plant foods.
43/3} The reasons for assigning this to Poe are inferential: the lively style, different from that of Briggs (as Hull asserts) [page 40:] and Poe's interest both in the topic — the “arts of design” and the sponsoring agency. For the latter see the transcribed speech on “aerial navigation” (in this very issue of the BJ, pp. 169-70, not reprinted in the present text) with many side-linings in the Whitman copy, as though Poe is confirming scientific data already used in his “Balloon Hoax” of 1844.
43/23} Perhaps the passages on “Caryatides” here eventually led to Poe's use of them very integrally in “Hop-Frog” (1849; see TOM Tales, 1351, 1353).
43/31} Charles L. Barritt, actuary. Name signed after announcement of meeting dates. See no. 8 (2/22), 1.115-7 for his article, “Why Are Not the Sciences Better Understood?”
43/34} George Cruikshank's Omnibus; a vehicle for frolic and fun, 1845, 72p. See Poe's 1/42 comment on the artist (H 11.15). See M 291 a and f for the lack of humor and melancholy in Hood.
43/40} Vol. XVI, no. LXXXI.
43/43} The editor was J. L. O’Sullivan (q.v. in 35/52 [facsimile text]). Poe always lauded this journal, which published the first two installments, and later, in 1846, nos. VI and VII of the “Marginalia” (see Br., XV, XXIV).
43/44} The Late Acting President, pp. 211-4.
43/51} The Presidents of Texas, pp. 282-91, by C. Montgomery.
43/53} This is The Devotional Family Bible, ed. by Rev. Alexander Fletcher, containing the Old and New Testaments, published by R. Martin and Co. of NY, with notes, marginal refs. and a steel engraving in each part (priced at 25 cents). Briggs had reviewed part I in no. 8 of 2/22 (1.125), and in no. 15 (4/12), 1.226-7, he would rev. III, both revs. being much longer than this one. The terseness of this and the small space allotted it make it possible, if not likely, that Poe wrote the rev.; Hull thinks not.
43/58} The Literature of Fiction, pp. 268-82, by Auguste D‘Avezac (1780-1851), New Orleans lawyer and diplomatic officer in Europe.
44/5} “[Park] Benjamin and his colleague James Aldrich left [page 41:] it in March, 1844, being succeeded by Henry C. Deming and the Rev. James McKay, and later by Charles Eames. There is no doubt that it was much tamer in its last two years — more like the old New-Yorker — and it was merged in 1845 into the Emporium.” — from Mott, A History of American Magazines, (1957), 1.361-2. See a letter of 2/14/49 from Poe (Letters, 428) proving Poe's personal acquaintance with Eames, who had written a flattering headnote for the 2/1/45 reprint of “The Haunted Palace” and for the 2/15 reprint of “Ligeia” (see Poe Log for those dates).
44/12} Perhaps in reciprocity, the New World soon published a kindly parody of “The Raven” in three stanzas about Poe as the bold warrior of the BJ defending truth, reprinted as “A Gentle Puff” in the 4/26 BJ (see p. 102, art. c).
44/18} Both editions published in 1845 by the same publisher, xii, (13)-396p. The promised rev. did not appear, but see M 161a-c, and the sketch of George Bush (1796-1859) in “Lit.” of 5/46 (H 15.6-7).
44/19-35} It is likely that Briggs was largely responsible for writing this article, but with some help from Poe concerning his tale and the general issue of originality. Since Poe was also much concerned over the issue of woodcuts as illustrations for journals, this is included. For the issue of plates in the BJ, as promised in the “Prospectus” and embodied in vol. 1, see my Intro. to this vol. Illustrations can be found on these pages with those bearing traces of Gavarni's original design starred: 8*, 57, 89, 105, 136*, 153, 168, 200, 232*, 289; the vignettes are all typical of satirical Gavarni sketches (216, 232, 289). A few plates seem to be by a “Rodman” while many are marked with the name of Samuel E. Brown (of Boston) who seems chiefly to be responsible for the plates. Neither has any distinction or lasting reputation. Gavarni was the very well known name of Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier (1801-66), who early became renowned for his lithographed sketches of the fashions, types, characteristics, foibles and habits of Parisians of all ages and classes. First through Les Gens du monde and then Charivari his fame spread, and he was sought after for illustrations of books by Sue, Balzac, et al. It is perhaps his L‘Oeuvre Celebre de Gavarni (Paris, 184-) that this article designates in line 23 as the source of several of its sketches (see next para.). Its statement “in regard to the first one” is this: “We give an instance of the present taste, which every body will see has not been exaggerated, as the fashions usually are in the fashion plate, of [page 42:] ladies' magazines” (1.8, the article on “Fashion” and its gross distortions). The promise in line 33, to begin a series of “original drawings by artists of genius,” was not kept and one suspects the same inept artist (Rodman) in the rest save the Gavarni print on 1.232 (82 [facsimile text]). While Poe mentions Gavarni no place else, we know his strong admiration of the French school of illustration, and partiality for such sketches (see his refs. to Grandville, e.g., Letters, 224, 232, 247; see also Discoveries in Poe, ch. on the “Stylus”). The plates clearly proved too costly to be continued by the impecunious editor of vol. 2 — Poe himself.
Four of the drawings in the first part of the BJ are taken directly from L‘Oeuvre Celebre de Gavarni, which has the subtitle of “479 original sketches,” of which three are reproduced in my facsimile-volume. They are all included in sections, rather than on numbered pages, sometimes with different titles and details. I am listing them in the order of their appearance in my text: A, on 1 [facsimile text]) originally on 1.8 of 1/14 — for “The Bustle” — Section 19, “Exposition des produits de l‘Industrie” (with the placard in the window originally saying, in French, “petticoats and crinolines”); B, on 15 [facsimile text]) originally in 1.136 of 3/1, for “One of the Upper Ten Thousand” — Section 3, entitled “Freshly decorated”; C, on 82 [facsimile text]) “A Presentation at a Literary Soirée,” originally on 1.232 of 4/12-section 30, with the title “Presenters and presented”; D) originally on 1.168 of 3/15, in a letter describing a typical “Speculator in Stocks” (not reproduced in my facsimile) — from section 15. It may be assumed that other plates in the BJ, as suggested above, are taken from other Gavarni sources, by Briggs and Poe. As for “the Life of a Lion” (i.e., “Some Passages in the Life of A Lion” — the new title in the BJ, 1.164-66, for “Lion-izing”) — Poe here refers to his 1839 Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque, reprinting the tale from the 5/1835 SLM. It could scarcely be called “an originality.” It would also be included in his forthcoming Tales (pp. 58-63) of 1845.
44/38} Clearly Poe was being attacked for republishing his old tales, even though “Lionizing” of Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque was much revised for its appearance in this number (1.164-6).
44/41} The essay by Hertzman, “Thoughts of a Silent Man, No. 2” on pp. 163-64, is a laudation of T. Nichols' Vestiges of Creation for controverting modern skepticism; it ends with a sonnet to the author. This is one of five inspirational essays by Hertzman beginning on BJ, pages 151, 184, 212, 227. No major [page 43:] American catalogues list any books by Hertzman.
45/4} For the letter of Outis, and its role in the “saga” see pp. 30-32 above.
45/6} Poe a little reluctantly complied with the popular American voice, acclaiming Wm. Cullen Bryant (1794-1878) as our greatest living poet. Two dozen reviews, articles, passages, etc. on Bryant show his admitted merit and importance (PD 14 for loci), although his 1/37 SLM rev. of his poems (H 9.268-305) offers reservations about his skill in versification, the range of his subjects, and his freshness of language. Yet he praises even the “beauty” of his “didactic conclusion” occasionally (H 9.300).
45/43-45} He quotes Outis, 31/3.
46/29-31} See line 2: “Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore” and Poe's stress on “the fantastic” aim in “Philosophy of Composition” (paras. 29-32; H 14.205-206).
46/61-62} See 126/31-35 for Poe's alteration in citation of the format of “Raven” lines.
46/70} Again, as in 31/55, 46/27, Poe substitutes “they” for “then.”
47/24-32} See “Rationale of Verse,” based on the 3/43 “Notes on English Verse” for Poe's views on meter and “equivalence” which Lowell mocked in “A Fable for Critics.” See this also in MM 133, 147 with refs. to Gay Wilson Allen and J. A. Greenwood, but Poe's whimsy here is clear.
48/25-27} This seems a very good clue to the truth — that the three stanzas are really by Outis, that is, by Poe. He complains about not being shown them and suspects them to be “falsified, for ... forcing a similarity.” Surely, the “raven” and “dream-bird” coincidental similarities are otherwise too many!
48/55} For this private spelling of Arabic Aden or Adn or Eden (as in “Raven” line 93) see PCW, 83, which traces it to Bulwer's novel Leila.
48/62-63} Poe refers to M 104 concerning Amelia Welby's poem of “the class passionate.” [page 44:]
49/35-36} This is close to the last sentence of “Philosophy of Composition” in the 4/46 Graham's and, embedded in this sequential analysis of his intentions and meaning for various lines, it reveals the genesis of his essay of the next year. At the very end “the intention of making him emblematical of Mournful and Neverending Remembrance is ... seen” (plus quoted lines).
49/41} See 31/91 (middle of note) for this as being in an early poem by Poe.
50/15-17} See the headnote to the American Review first printing, of 2/45, 1.143-45, “in which it is thought Poe had a hand” (Poems, 360-61), which states: “In regard to its measure, it may be noted that if all the verses were like the second, they might properly be placed merely in short lines ... but the presence in all the others of one line — mostly the second in the verse ... give (sic) the versification an entirely different effect.” In confirmation, Willis praised its “masterly ingenuity of versification” and Brooks, ed. of the NY Express of 2/5, praised its “originality of versification” — an opinion quoted by the 3/45 SLM (q.v. in Poems, 361-62).
51/16} See this possibility refuted from the nature of the 3 stanzas provided in 31/91 note ad in. In line 13 above, “so long” should be “as long.”
51/58-61} Poe is being disingenuous here, since he knew very well that Thomas Hood (1799-1845) was 11 years older than James Aldrich (1810-56) and had begun publishing at an early age; this poem, said to be on his sister's death, had appeared in the 8/31 Englishman's Mag. while Aldrich's first came out in the 5/29/41 New World of which he was associate ed. Poe's “Lit.” sketches are full of just this sort of detail, which he sedulously researched and stored when suitable. See M 160 for his use of Aldrich as imitator. Significant is the fact that eight poems by J. Aldrich are included by Griswold in the Poets and Poetry of America (1843 ed., pp. 383-84), including this and the “Lines” of M 160, whereas Poe had only three (pp. 387-88) — a disproportion distasteful to the poet.
52/12-13} This must have been the germ of or a stage in the evolution of para. 18, epitomized in “The death, then, of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetical topic in the world” (H 14.201). [page 45:]
52/43} See 32/67, 41/51.
54/2-10} Thomas Willis White (1788-1843) was a successful printer of Richmond who founded the SLM in 8/34 (not 1835) to give a cultural or literary voice to the South, as his Prospectus stated (see it reprinted in D. K. Jackson, The Contributors ... to the SLM [Charlottesville, 1936], v-vi. Poe became ed., contributing also revs. and creative works, late in 1835 to the beginning of 1837, when he left for NYC. For White see D. K. Jackson, Poe and the SLM (Richmond, 1934), 16-18; also, TOM, Poems, “Annals,” 545-47. The clear error in dating needs explanation-perhaps that Poe supplied Briggs with details of the whole article, patently known only to Poe — and left it to his write-up, as Hull suggests. However, the style is more that of Poe than of Briggs; I suspect a rewrite by Poe and an oversight concerning the date, for Poe had even reviewed the SLM for the Baltimore papers, late in 1834 (see Jackson, Poe and the SLM, pp. 5, 30). Likewise, the pro-Southern slant of the whole article and inordinate praise of the SLM's influence betokens Poe rather than Briggs, friend of the abolitionist Lowell. See Poe Log for 3/28 for Briggs' epistolary defense of the BJ on the issue against the abolitionist attack by Robert Carter in his paper The Liberator. Yet Briggs was publishing, in 5 installments, from 2/15 to 3/29, on 106, 117, 137, 170, 202, the inept, tedious “fairy tale” derived from Irving's Alhambra, “Great Tower of Taradant” by “Robert Oliver.”
54/13} James Ewell Heath (1792-1862), author of the novel Edge-Hill and an anonymous play, and the state auditor of Virginia (1819-49), served as unpaid ed. until 5/1835, when he handed the SLM post over to Edward V. Sparhawk (1798-1838). The latter, who had published poetry and been a NY newspaper reporter, issued three numbers before he and White apparently had a clash over editorial policies; this led to Poe's taking over, after White, on his own and with the help of friends, rather ineffectively edited the SLM.
54/19} “Secession” is not a very accurate word. It was a complex situation of mutual ill-will and dissension between Poe and T.W. White, partly caused by White's disapproval of Poe's dissipation (he was supposedly drinking heavily at times during the early period of his marriage in Richmond). See Quinn, pp. 258-60.
54/22} Benjamin Blake Minor (1818-1905), lawyer and [page 46:] educator (L.L.B., William and Mary, 1839) who practiced mainly in Richmond, edited the SLM 1843-47. He served as president of the University of Missouri, 1860-62.
54/47} This and lines 13-15 above show the desire to promote Poe's name for gaining subscribers.
54/50} The Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine, Embracing Literature in Every Department. Embellished with the Finest Steel and Mezzotint Engravings, Music and Colored Fashion, Vol. I.
54/52} “The Children of Mount Ida,” pp. 145-54, prose with poetic introduction, by Lydia Maria (Francis) Child (1802-1880), author and abolitionist, q.v. in PD, p. 20.
54/53} “A Flight of Fancy,” p. 185, poem. “Our Engravings” (John Inman and Robt. West, eds.): “The Infant St. John and the Lamb” — Johnson Sc. The title of the second plate was not reproduced, but there is a short description of both at the end of the magazine “Franklin — the Man in the Boy” — (name of artist not given), tells the story of Franklin giving up a loaf of bread to feed a woman and her children.
This issue also contained a piece by C. Donald MacLeod (see 18/13 and 54/55), “Myrrha of Ephesus,” p. 167, a prose tale, with poems, of Christian conversion in classical times.
54/55} The Columbian was important to Poe for a number of reasons. Mrs. Osgood, an important figure in Poe's life (q.v. M 209; Quinn, EAP; TOM, “Annals” in Poems.), also had poems placed in the 1/45 and 3/45 issues. Poe overestimated MacLeod's renown (q.v. 18/13) owing to his works' appearances in the mag. Volume 11 (1/44-12/44) contained three tales by him: “Lucia Norea: A Tale of the Days of Sallust,” p. 80, with 2 poems; “The Prisoners of Chios, A Legend of the Greek Isles,” p. 154; “Truce unto Death: A Romance of Athens,” p. 245.
Volume II is also noteworthy for its relation to Poe's tales. It contained the first appearances of “Mesmeric Revelation” (8/44), “Angel of the Odd” (10/44), and “Byron and Miss Chaworth” (12/44). The 8/44 issue also contained J.T. Headley's “A Sketch. A Man Building a Wall,” the source of Poe's “The Cask of Amontillado.”
“The Domain of Arnheim” found its first publication in The Columbian 3/47 issue. [page 47:]
55/1} See p. 80(c) [facsimile text] for the follow-up, and M 184 for Poe's adaptation of the last paragraph on p. 56. The type size of para. 3 is misleading, for everything that follows is by “a correspondent of valued opinions” until the last para. (q.v.).
56/7} David Dudley Field (1805-94), a lawyer long active in politics as an Anti-Slavery Democrat. He was instrumental in reforming penal, political and civil procedural codes in New York, Many of his codes were adopted elsewhere in the USA and abroad (DAB),
56/58-77} Poe's misspelling of Appalachia corresponds to that of the pamphlet of the NYHS committee (for the report, see 80/30),
56/71} Poe elsewhere is not concerned to do justice to the American Indian as “despoiled” and “killed,” as we see in his treatment of the Missouri Basin savages in “Julius Rodman” (see chapters 3-5 and notes thereto, on pp. 621-32, and his frequent derisive use of “Kickapoo” — loci on p. 191 of Word Index). On the other hand, Dirk Peters, a half-caste, is a demi-hero in Pym.
56/75} See M 184b for Irving's role in the naming movement, and the note to 80/30 [facsimile text] for a quotation in the committee's report.
57/1} Rebecca Shepard (Reed) Nichols (1819-1903); the stanzas appear in a poem called “Lament of the Old Year” in her collection Songs of the Heart and the Hearth-Stone, Thomas, Cowperthwait and Co., Phila., 1851, pp. 271-5.
57/36} dactyllic: see his correction, 69/23 [facsimile text].
57/50} Coverlid is an accepted variation of coverlet (cf. 35/7: counterpane).
57/60} See 35/1 [facsimile text] for Poe's rather adversarial comments on this weekly, of which no extensive file exists available to me. This helps to prove the fragility of the “mammoth” papers, poor in fiber quality and bound to shred from the numerous foldings required for storage. See p. 244 for Poe's report of a less unfavorable comment on him in the Emporium. In M 35 Poe similarly jokes about the long ears of a fabled cat. [page 48:]
57/63} For “P. P. C. of Va.” see Philip Pendleton Cooke, in 42/4 n.
57/66} This appeal came early in the Poe-Osgood relationship, for “Ellen” was an occasional pseudonym of Frances Osgood, used for “To the Evening Star,” a poem in the March issue of the Columbian Magazine (i.e., the C. M. here). The apparent response was quick, for in the 4/5 BJ appeared “The Rivulet's Dream” (1.215) by “Kate Carol,” in the 5/12 BJ (231) “Love's Reply” (by Osgood) plus “Spring” by “Violet Vane,” and in the 5/31 BJ (347) “Lenore” by “Clarice” reprinted in Poe's review in 12/13 BJ (2.354) — all the authors being F. Osgood under pseudonyms.
58/3-7} This comes from the last para. of Outis on p. 32.
58/12} The meaning of “Outis” in Greek is, of course, Nobody.
58/16-23} The fault of Outis in the poorly placed modifying phrase, giving Poe a chance for humorous attack, is a slight reason for ascribing it to another writer, save that Poe, in the haste and stress of the whole campaign, the “Longfellow War,” may have produced sentences that he could justly emend later, such as 51/13 [facsimile text] above. Whether inserted carelessly or even deliberately as part of the whole joke, his criticism of his own style, as here (and as he did in “The Reviewer Reviewed”), makes the hoax even more convincing.
58/36} Poe's coinage (OED).
58/44} The phrase, meaning “hither and thither,” coming from old tennis court usage for the banging of balls, was originally in this style, not the modern “from pillar to post.”
58/52} Wm. Gifford (1756-1826), prominent Anti-Jacobin critic and ed. of the Quarterly Rev.
58/55} For John Wilson (Christopher North, q.v. at 9/19 [facsimile text]), see SM 1 and 7. For Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59), historian, see Br. Index.
59/7} Cf.54/17.
59/9} The 12/41 issue said “from 5,500 to 25,000 subscribers” [page 49:] and by 5/42, to 40,000 according to Poe and Sartain (Quinn, pp. 330, 342).
59/34} Poe is correct about the “ten years,” which began with the 1835 SLM See his published defense against the charge of “slashing and cutting” in the letter to the Richmond Compiler editor of 1836 (Letters, 100-2, and the note thereon).
59/60-69 & 60/1-21} See pp. 31-2, above, for this passage with the notes. The cited lines comprise 43-45.
60/6-7} “The Haunted Palace” (lines 26-29) reads: “Through which came flowing, flowing, flowing / And sparkling evermore, / A troop of Echoes ... ”(p. 316).
60/27} For 4 more loci of this Poe coinage see PCW, p. 37.
60/32-34} See M 147, especially note g, for Poe on age-old love of rhyme.
60/57-80} Much of the following, even in wording, comes from Poe's rev. of Longfellow's Voices of the Night in the 2/40 Burton's (H 10.71-80, specifically, 76-80). See especially the last para. transferred to 61/67-82 (q.v.).
60/59-60} In the BJ of 4/26/45, renamed “To F———” (lines 8-10).
60/78} Poems, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, with illustrations by D. Huntington (Carey and Hart, Phila., 1845), is used for collations on pp. 60-61 [facsimile text], but no accidentals are recorded.
61/11} Christie Eleyson / Christe, eleyson!; also 61/15, low / slow; also one / twelve.
61/67-82} Poe transcribed from his 2/1840 rev. of Voices, in order to support his current charge of Longfellow's “imitation” (called “plagiarism” in 1840), the two poems by Longfellow and Tennyson and the final paragraph (shorn of its last sentence) with very few substantive changes (H 10.76-80).
61/68} See Mrs. R.S. Nichols, “Lament of the Old Year” (cf. 57/1) and Miss E.J. Bayard's “Funeral Chant for the Old Year” (Griswold, Female Poets of Am., p. 357). [page 50:]
61/82} See two poems on the same topic in the 2/45 Graham's: “Dirge for the Old Year” by Wm. Hosmer (p. 74) and “A Requiem for the Old Year” by T.B. Read (p. 56).
61/85} Lear, 5.3. See the same point made in a long review (probably largely by Poe) in the 4/45 Aristidean, reprinted in American Library, p. 768.
62/31} Poe learned of this from Lawrence Labree's NY mag. The Rover, 2/8/45, p. 336, which derived its data from the Buffalo Western Lit. Messenger of 1/25/45, p. 336. Longfellow sent an explanation of the affair, 2/19/45 (obviously after The Rover's charge but before Poe's), to Graham, whose magazine published the letter on 5/45. It is given in H 17.382-5, without the German text of Wolff. Longfellow denies having read Motherwell's 1827 poem before seeing the German, and explains that the translation was part of Karl Gollmick's Der Sangersall, offered as original compositions in 1842 (see Moss, Poe's Lit. Battles, 162-64, for fuller explanation). Properly it is Gollmick, and Mary Phillips, 975-77, erroneously gives it as Gollmich.
62/58} “Toom”: empty.
62/60} Pp. 80-3, Act 2, Cambridge 6th ed. (1844). See Poe's long rev. of this in “The American Drama,” American Whig Review, 8/45 (H 13.54-73), in which he charges plagiarism from Cervantes, not himself, as here.
62/86-8} Properly, Halle der Volker: Sammlung vorzuglicher ... grosstentheils zum erstenmale metrisch ... ubertragen, meaning, Hall of the people: a collection of excellent folksongs of the major nations, most of them translated for the first time into metrical German.
64/31} A pious vow? / A vow — a vow?
64/49} This spelling is given only for an 1867 entry, among many others in the OED.
64/60-70} Collated with Bryant's Poems (NY, 1843), p. 33: no substantive changes seen.
64/72} To / For (on p. 106) [page 51:]
64/82-86} Used also in M 138.
65/5} Sharpe was the publisher, Henry Kett was the editor, of this, the 2nd edition.
65/27-28} From Politian by Poe (Poems, 272/11).
65/38} See American Library, 502 (757.32) and Moss, Poe's Lit. Battles, 176, 193-95, for the “epigrams” of Cornelia Wells Walter, ed. of the Boston Transcript.
65/41} Longfellow's aloof stance relating to the literary battles of the day makes it seem unlikely that he instigated anyone to do any thing. There is no evidence that he knew Cornelia Walter, although it is likely that, being a hack, she fulfilled her position by seeking some sort of introduction and making even occasional distant contact with the celebrity.
65/42} Poe gives a finely discriminating evaluation of Anna Cora Ogden Mowatt (1819-70), later Mrs. Wm. F. Ritchie, as magazine poet, playwright (Fashion), pamphlet novelist (Evelyn and The Fortune Hunter), and elocutionary reader and actress (as of 1845), in a long “Lit.” sketch (H 15.27-32), embodying material from these two Fashion revs. and that on 177-78. She continued writing romantic narratives, theatrical accounts and an autobiography, etc. after 1846, when she withdrew to live in Europe in 1861. For the published play see 76/6 [facsimile text].
66/42} haut ton: high social standing.
66/69} Macbeth: 3.4.109.
67/2} An allowed variant of accessory. 67/22) Hamlet, 5.1.261.
67/47} A cant name for a Frenchman (Brewer). 67/57) hackneyism: a Poe coinage.
67/61} For Poe's use of Sheridan, see Pin 50, M 112, FS 32 and H 9.178, 12.117, 125.
67/67-8} The lounge for the actors once normally provided by theaters. [page 52:]
68/24} inartisticalities: Poe's coinage.
68/35} Cf. EM, 1/9/45, WM, 1/18/45, “Does the Drama of the Day Deserve Support?” adapted to MM 131, 171, q.v. for discussions.
68/47} Poe's views on the Am. stage plays of the period are discussed by N.B. Fagin, The Histrionic Mr. Poe, 107-24, and by Robert Jacobs, 382-87. Poe derived the idea of intrigue in Spanish drama from A.W. Schlegel, q.v. above and M 186d. Odell remarks on this rev. and that of 4/5 of Fashion, finding this one far less perceptive and pointed than the second (5.100).
68/59} London, 1841. Dion[ysius] Boucicault (1820-90), skilled adapter of plays from novels (originally Bourcicault).
68/64} In a letter from the Griswold MSS., the photostat of which is in the U. Va. Library, it is found that Mrs. Mowatt wrote to Poe on a Thursday evening:
“(I regret that) I have not a more legible manuscript of the Comedy to submit to your perusal — ... your criticism will be prized — I am sorry that they could not have been made before preparations for the performance of the Comedy had progressed so far.”
At the end of the review Poe acknowledges that the criticism was based on the MS. After he saw the play several times, Poe wrote another review, in a more sympathetic vein (p. 76). Fagin notes (107) his claim to seeing it 10 times.
68/79-81} Poe comments on several actors in the 2nd rev., p. 78.
68/95} Note that many auditors of Poe's poetic readings complained of his sing-song delivery (e.g., Margaret Fuller in the Tribune, 3/1/45).
69/22} See 57/36, also her stanzas in BJ 1.248.
69/25} Pseudonym of Frances Osgood, q.v. in Index. See p. 75 [facsimile text] for her poem and p. 205 for Poe's four line response, “Impromptu,” discussed in TOM, Poems, 379-80. See BJ, 1.231 for her “Love's Reply.” (However, according to J.G. Varner, “Note on a Poem Attributed to Poe,” Am. Lit., 1936, 8.668, Kate Carol, that is, Mrs. Osgood herself, was author of these [page 53:] lines. The confusion arose, he claims, from the couple's habit of addressing poems to one another in the BJ.) See also Poe Log, entry for 3/1/45 for Mrs. Osgood's account of Poe's effort to invite her interest and judgment during March.
69/27} “Violet Vane” is another of Osgood's pseudonyms, used for her “So Let It Be” in the 4/5 BJ, 1.217, to which Poe replied in “To——” on 5/24 (BJ 1.325); see TOM, Poems, 381-2. Cf. “Violet Vane's” poem “Spring” in BJ 1.231.
69/30} This issue contains two long Briggs revs., a “Longfellow War” installment, much on the drama, music, and art, but no short revs. See below and 78-79 [facsimile text] for Poe's promised revs. of 4/5.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - BRP4J, 1986] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Editions - The Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe (B. R. Pollin) (March 1845)