∞∞∞∞∞∞∞
160 [[161]]/1-18} The failure to publish, on 7/5/45, evidences the managerial, editorial, and financial crisis of the magazine at the end of June: the growing dissension between Briggs and Poe, the latter's return to his tippling habits under strain, the decline in subscriptions, and Bisco's growing impatience with the lack of profit. For details on these factors and on Briggs' efforts to replace Bisco with J. Smith Homans and surprising withdrawal, himself, from the BJ, see H. Ehrlich's survey, reprinted in my Introduction (text at footnote 36 through 52). Without question Poe played a role in the writing of Bisco's statement.
162/1} Poe's copy has survived. See M Intro., note a.
162/4} Henry Beck Hirst (1817-74), an eccentric bird-seed store-keeper, poet, and lawyer, of Phila. was Poe's intimate friend during his residence there (see Woodberry, Life of Poe, 2.419-200). He helped Poe write the biting rev. of Griswold's PPA, for the Phila. Saturday Museum of 1/28/43 (H 11.220-43) with an unquestionably Poe content and style, and he wrote the biography of Poe in the same journal of 3/4/43, crammed with the ana and poems supplied by Poe himself. Despite Poe's later cooling to Hirst because of his parody of “The Haunted Palace” (see TOM, Poems, 317, and Quinn, 354-55), Hirst wrote a moving, sympathetic obituary notice in the Phila. Courier of 10/20/49 (Quinn, 653-54). In 1848 appeared his Endymion in 4 parts. He died insane.
The first para. of the rev. is a combination of Poe's personal knowledge and material from the Preface: that “Most of the [page 120:] following poems were written” during “preparation for the Bar,” that some had been published in magazines anonymously, and that the book's “uncouthness” is due to the subject rather than the author. The pages are v-vi + 168.
162/7-8} This compound is a Poe coinage.
162/21} Poe means any (other). ...
162/25} For Poe's half-dozen uses of this coinage for exaggeration see PCW, 28.
162/26-28} Hirst may have contributed to Poe's theory and knowledge of prosody, ripened in 1843 as the PPA rev. and Pioneer “Notes on ... Verse” show.
162/46} This is in The Various Writings of Cornelius Mathews (NY: Harper, 1843), pp. 91-115. Hirst's is on pp. 11-27.
162/52-62} The quotations are from 13, 16. Hirst wrote “teeth” not “tusks.”
163/37-42} The quotations are from pp. 22, 25, 26, with “swept” for “slept” in line 23.
Poe coined the compound “Nat Leeism” as on 11/45 (where he uses a hyphen, q.v.). His praise of an allegory, although attenuated, is unusual. The poems discussed from lines 25-75 are found on pp. 31-39. Presumably Poe believes it to imitate Tennyson's “The Lady of Shalott” and treats its pedestrian awkwardness in kindly fashion.
164/5-89} These poems occur on pp. 48-52. The substantive variants are these: 11) swifts ... glide, 35) sung / sang.
164/90-91} This poem (pp. 53-56 in Hirst's vol.) was reprinted as “beautiful” in the 5/31 BJ (see 136a).
165/1-18} In the final line of the stanza from “Unseen River” (on p. 54) Poe apparently found exquisite the alliterative “r” at the very end; he seems to be exempting the poem from his condemnation of early and obvious allegory, as in his locus classicus of anti-allegory condemnation in the 11/47 Godey's rev. of Hawthorne's tales (see H 13.148-49), and also in Hirst's “Eros” (on pp. 60-63). In the Hawthorne rev. he had also exempted Bunyan's work, as well as Fouque's Undine, but omitted [page 121:] Spenser's poem. In phrasing and idea lines 4-6 are a prelude to his ending for “Phil. of Comp.” claiming that only at “the very last line” of “The Raven” “the intention of making him emblematical of Mournful and Neverending Remembrance is permitted distinctly to be seen” (para. 36).
165/19-46} These two poems are on pp. 64-69, 70-73. It may be Poe's occasional ref. to the general idea, as in “Israfel,” that makes him “redeem” this quatrain. For the last phrase, see Pope's Essay on Criticism (2.162): “The sound must seem an echo to sense.”
165/47-55} “Everard Grey” (pp. 74-75) first appeared in the 10/43 Snowden's Ladies' Companion. It could not be cited for a “dactylic line” in the “Notes on English Verse” of 3/43, so much earlier in the year, but in “The Rationale of Verse” of 1848 (para. 57, H 15.241), Poe illustrates the “caesura” (as he terms a truncated foot) by quoting a line (without author) which is obviously adapted from the second line of the BJ passage: “Pale as a lily was Emily Gray” (see TOM, Poems, 395). Is it of any significance that Poe had used, as his pseudonym “Edward S. T. Grey” in 1844, and repeatedly afterwards (Discoveries in Poe, 38384) and that in 8/45 Frances Osgood published, in Graham's, a story called “rather indiscreet” by TOM (Poems, 383) because the beloved married man is very like Poe? (See the many Osgood items in the Index of the BJ.) We also note line 10 of “The Sleeper” (1841): “The lily lolls upon the wave,” showing Poe's partiality for the flower and the situation.
165/56-60} The three poems are on pp. 76-79, 81, and 82-84. One might expect Hirst, proprietor for a time of a bird-seed store, to know the Latin name (“Fringilla”) for a “chaffinch.” The most noted poet, Bryant, would have approved of this sort of nature poem, probably inspired by one of his. Poe's adjective “equivocal” seems totally unwarranted, but strangely he does not mention the very limping meter of the lines. The second poem opens thus: “Hurrah for brown Autumn, hurrah! hurrah!”
166/1-23} The pages for these poems by Hirst are as follows: 85-87, 88-91, 92-94, 99, 100-103, 104-105, 106-107, and 108-110. Poe has changed nothing but accidentals and added the italics for pointed ref. or underscored approval. His point about “Eleanore” is simply that Tennyson's “Oriana” uses the title-name as a constant refrain (four times per stanza) — enabling him to avow his knowledge of Tennyson's works rather than to prove [page 122:] Hirst's “source” of inspiration. “Eulalie Vere” is curiously linked to Poe himself in that Hirst published this as “Elenor Long” in Snowden's Ladies' Companion of 6/43. Since Poe's manuscript for his own “Eulalie” (1844), published in the 7/45 American Review and on 8/9/45 in the BJ, once belonged to Henry Hirst himself, we may assume some link between the two friends in Phila. concerning this curious name. (TOM, Poems, 348 also makes this point.) Moreover, the name from the French for “Eulalia” for “fair speech” after whom was named St. Eulalia, contributed to “Ulalume,” especially as Poe pronounced that curious title (See Poems, 419-20). Even the second name “Vere” has a definite Poe connection, involving the important poem “Lenore” (q.v. in Poems, 334 n. to line 3, and Pollin, Names, 1974, 23.1-5). Last-concerning the distich from “Ellena” it is strange that Poe ignores the obvious resemblance to Coleridge's mariner's report on the roars of the ice: “Like noises in a swound!” (I, st. 15).
166/24-76} The remaining poems in this column cover these pages: 111-112, 113-15, 116-17, 118-19, 120-21, 122-24, 125-26, 12728. Only accidentals are changed (save for added italics/ and o‘er / on on line 42). It is difficult to determine an error in line 26, whereas the plural verb “disturb” in line 32 should be singular. Barry Cornwall was the penname of Bryan Waller Procter (misspelled as “Proctor” by Poe) (1787-1874), writer of pretty songs, now forgotten, a tragedy, biographies, and a friend of the London literati (see 16, 126 above). Poe's appraisal is accurate. In line 62 Poe uses “nerve” to mean “force” or “strength” as often in his adjective “nervous.”
Poe's arbitrary and idiosyncratic significance for the word “caesura” as here (line 75) is consistent with his definition of this “foot” in the disputed rev. of Griswold's PPA of 1/28/43, sometimes claimed as a joint product of Poe and Hirst (see above), q.v. in H 11.227-29. I doubt Hirst's ability to evolve this prosodic theory independently and persuade Poe into adopting it for his later essays. It has not convinced later theorists of poetry at all.
167/1-3 [[43]]} This vol. of 228 pages, priced at 50 cents, was no. 2 in the series “Library of American Books.” The figure in the review looks like an “11” — showing perhaps Poe's indifference or distress over the vol. for its meagre and unbalanced selection (see below). The first in the series was Journal of an African Cruiser, ed. by Hawthorne (see pp. 147-48). Poe's vol. was announced as pub. in the Daily Tribune on 6/26/45 (see TOM, 1397-98 for a commendatory para. on the first three titles of the series in the [page 123:] Weekly Mirror of 4/26/45). The pub. was certainly the result of the public acclaim over “The Raven” of January, but Poe privately and here in public took issue with the choices of Evert Duyckinck, the firm's literary adviser. For once Poe was promised a kind of European pub. in that Wiley and Putnam had a London office and used the American sheets with an English title page (apparently reaching the London reviewers by the end of July or early August).
167/1-23} The poems in these lines are located as follows: 127-28 (from preceding page), 129-31, 132-34, 135-36, 137-42, 14345. No substantive changes are made save that for line 15, Hirst wrote “bard and glowing.” In designating “one instance” as “hexameter catalectic” Poe seems to have erred, for the 4th line of the stanzas seems to read as heptameter. Below, Poe seems to be objecting to the irregularity (or variations of feet) in line 22, for he rigidly advocates strict, almost metronomic metrical patterns.
167/24-42} These sonnets are on pages 163, 162, and 168. No substantive changes are printed, but an accidental is highly significant, Poe's inserting parentheses around line 38. This involves two poems of Poe, thus: The last three lines of his second “To Helen,” that is, to Helen Whitman, read: “While even in the meridian glare of day / I see them still — two sweetly scintillant / Venuses unextinguished by the sun!” (Poems, 447; TOM properly cites Hirst's “Astarte” and refers to the other poem). The earlier poem, “Eulalie,” of 1844, includes, in its third and last stanza: “For her soul gives me sigh for sigh / And all day long / Shines bright and strong / Astarte within the sky” (p. 349; TOM indicates the name as that of the Phoenician for the planet Venus). One has the feeling that in the rambles along the Wissahickon Creek in Phila. Poe must have led the way in discussing such arcane, astronomical lore and that he was pleased to reprint Hirst's sonnet embodying his own hints, in the first poem, “Eulalie.” Before taking leave of this rev., we must note an interesting MS., a verbal sketch of Hirst by Poe left to Griswold for posthumous publication, obviously dating from 1848, for after indicting Hirst for hyperism, as above, and imitativeness, he notes his Saturday Courier attack upon Poe for “stealing” concepts and language in “Ulalume” from Hirst's “Endymion” published in the 7/44 SLM. Poe refutes this and then shows that Hirst stole ideas from the early “Lenore” for his “Penance of Roland” in the 1/48 Graham's — a passage moreover of atrocious grammar. Poe amusingly rebukes him. Hirst's [page 124:] obituary notice of Poe came out before this sketch (Works, 1850, vol. III, 209-213; H 13.209-213).
167/45-59} The twelve titles are given in the order of their printing with three errors, of a sort, proving, I think, that Poe merely handed the vol. to his typesetter for this part of the rev. He must have ignored the Table of Contents in favor of using the running heads of the tales, for the umlaut over “Maelstrom” and the circumflex over “Rogêt” (both erroneous and unnecessary) are omitted there alone (the umlaut is included in the Table of Contents and “chapter” title); likewise, the undifferentiated type might have led to the careless lower case form for “conversation” (line 48). This small matter, uncorrected, plus the brevity of the rev. typifies Poe's distress over the “arrangement” and lack of full scope. Poe repeated this criticism in public again via a para. in The Aristidean of 9/45 (p. 238), perhaps directly or else using the hand of English supplied with copy by Poe. (For vindication of Duyckinck's choices, see Jay B. Hubbell, Merrill Facsimile Text [1969], xxi.) Poe's letters discussed this theme often: on 1/8/46 he proposed for a second vol., another collection “far better than the first” (Letters, 309); on 8/9/46 he complained to P. P. Cooke that Duyckinck in stressing the “analytic stories” ignored his sense of “book-unity” respecting “the widest diversity of subject, thought, and ... tone and manner of handling” (328-29); similarly on 12/15/46, to Eveleth (332). Quinn explains his acceptance of the choice through the need for money, his royalty being eight of the fifty cents per copy (realizing, he said, about $120 for the successful sale of 1500 copies, pp. 464-66). Incidentally, much later in his “sequel to Mr. Lowell's memoir” of Poe, Philip Pendleton Cooke incorporated this information about the inadequate selection in the 1/1848 SLM.
Poe had fears about the narrowness of the selection as killing a varied critical and popular appeal, but the response was far flung and often favorable throughout America and abroad (see digests of the revs., PS, 1980, 13.24-26).
167/65} It has 327 p. and was announced on p. 157. Throughout, he praises Anthon as always (see Index entries). Poe may have owed his views on English prosody to the precursory vol. by Anthon. The incorrectly repeated “as” (line 70) shows Poe's haste in processing this rev.
168/1-5} The few specific points come from the Preface. [page 125:]
168/6-14} This book of 1-4 + 6-264 p., by the universally known “Christopher North” of Blackwood's Mag. is an Am. reprint of a much earlier British ed., with which Poe seems to be familiar in his 10/36 SLM rev. of another work (H 9.199). In general, he despises the criticism of Wilson, but respects his creative work, poetry and fiction. For details see SM 1 (plus notes) and SM 7, also Poe's rev. of his book on Burns in the 9/6 BJ below. The Preface, by R. Hamilton, tells of the book's popularity in England and Scotland and speaks of its “intense interest” and its “simple, natural and pathetic ... style.”
168/15-21} This vol. is of 3-5 + 6-282 p. Its Pref. by the same person in ref. to (a) above speaks “of the same delicious pathos,” lists the characters, discusses the background of the novel, and praises its religious and moral qualities.
168/22-28} Although this is a mere announcement, it suggests the ready availability to Poe of Macaulay's essays, which he frequently read and quoted. Judging from names mentioned in his work, he discarded (or sold) the other two vols. in the trio which appeared thus: I, 758 p., Essays Critical and Miscellaneous: T. Babington Macaulay, with portrait engraved by T. Sartain from a picture by Henry Inman. II, 1-6 + 390 p., Critical and Miscellaneous Essays of Archibald Alison (the correct spelling), with a portrait engraved by Sartain from a picture by J. Watson Gordon. III, 5 + 480 p., The Works of Rev. Sydney Smith, with a portrait engraved by Sartain.
168/29-41} This item reminds us of the rush to reprint British journals (as well as books) and the unfair competition that they offered to Am. magazines and their contributors. Pointedly Poe, ed. and magazinist, underscored their low prices. Yet today these Am. reprints have disappeared from almost every large library, and my page refs. must be to the British editions: the first, a rev. of Old and New London, ed. by the misc. author and publisher, Charles Knight, in 6 vols. (book of the same title), on pp. 259-318; the second, a rev. of the book by the same title, by the Hon, Caroline Norton, Sheridan's granddaughter, who had promoted Poe's friend Frances Osgood in London (see M 104 and note c [the rev. on pp. 460-72]).
168/43-46} Poe greatly respected this British publication, as his several allusions and short revs, indicate (see Index to BJ) and especially note his words: “No medical periodical equals The Lancet” (p. 92). His interest stems from the broad scope of the [page 126:] topics covered, such as “human magnetism,” and the sober treatment.
168/48-54} For the numerous refs. to this journal see the BJ Index, and for its founder George H. Colton see M 191 (and Mott, pp. 750-54). Its importance in “first” publishing, after the Mirror's stolen march, Poe's “Raven” and other works in 1845 made Poe generally considerate in such summarizing revs. The first article is by Joel Tyler Headley, rarely called “clever” by Poe (see the abusive rev. in the 10/1850 SLM, H 13.202-209). Edwin P. Whipple (1819-86), broker, lecturer, lit. critic, was a fine reviewer and critic, even at this early stage, who evoked Poe's laudation (see his article of 1/1849, left in MS. in the Hirst papers at the Huntington Library, pub. in Graham's of 1/1850; H 13.193-202). The rev. of Griswold's book is on pp. 30-58, and the portion on Tennyson (45-48) would appear reprinted in the next issue of the BJ, 170-71 [facsimile text]. For numerous refs. to and articles on Tennyson in Poe's works, see Indices to BJ and Br. and, especially, M 44. Whipple's long rev. (pp. 30-58) was collected in the 1848, 2 vol. work Essays and Reviews (NY), 1.285-354, a slight proof of the popular appeal among thoughtful readers of his excellent searching essays. He starts with a discourse on poetry, discusses Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, and Scott, and controverts Griswold's low ranking of Tennyson (see next issue's reprint).
168/54-61} William Ross Wallace (1819-81), Kentucky-born lawyer and poet of NYC, was friendly with the Mirror literati and always with Poe, whose extravagant praise, as here, 170, and 307, M 290, and even the Hirst-Poe 1843 rev. of Griswold's PPA (H 11.241) suggest a needed treatment of their relationship. A frequent magazine contributor, author of Battle of Tippecanoe (1837), he eventually won renown for his “And the hand that rocks the cradle” etc. in the 1851 Meditations in America. The cited poem (27-29) wins from ed. Colton the tribute of comparison with Elizabeth Barrett Barrett.
169/1-20} The ref. to Barrett and Schiller is easily explained in the headnote to her poem “The Dead Pan,” which, with its slightly varied refrain for its 39 stanzas of “Pan, Pan, is dead” was another hint for the refrain-ingenuity of “The Raven.” The first para. of the note is this: “Excited by Schiller's ‘G6tter Griechenlands,’ and partly founded on a well-known tradition mentioned in a treatise of Plutarch (‘De Oraculorum Defectu’), according to which, at the hour of the Saviour's agony, a cry of [page 127:] ‘Great Pan is dead!’ swept across the waves in the hearing of certain mariners, — and the oracles ceased.” In her third para. she explains her inscription of the poem to her friend and fellow-poet, John Kenyon, whose “graceful and harmonious” paraphrase of Schiller's poem turned her thoughts to the topic. Since it was Schiller's poem of 1788 that awakened Goethe's respect for him, one may doubt that Poe had truly read it before his glib award of the palm to Wallace for the best treatment of the theme.
In collation this quotation shows a line omitted by Poe right after line 16: “And wed Creation to Divinity — “. This stanza is full of the defect that Poe granted, Wallace's “excessive rhetoricianism,” but thought him “richly eloquent” and “noble” as a man (see M 290a).
169/21-40} Late in 1835 Poe had conducted a “war” against the puffery of T.S. Fay's Norman Leslie in the Knickerbocker. His antagonism to this journal and its editor Lewis Gaylord Clark (whose name he probably deliberately misspelled) was so great that Briggs, one of the early contributors to it, took care of all notices for the journal in vol. 1 (see Mott, 606-611). Poe, annoyed at the scorn of his Peter Snook article, is overeager to mock Lewis G. Clark's ignorance, for his correction is partly incorrect in that Montaigne, in his Essays (Bk. 1, ch. 16) is here quoting an old French proverb for “Every man to his taste,” in which the preposition “a“is needed. As for Clark's next “blunder” — it is true that this phrase from Horace's Epistles (I, 6.1.1) is usually taken to mean “wonder at nothing” but Creech translates: “To admire nothing, as most are wont to do” etc., while Pope, in his “Imitations of Horace” reads: “Not to admire, is all the art I know / To make men happy and to keep them so.”
Concerning the derogation of his “wig” — see 315/37 [facsimile text] for the same remark, apparently stemming from the social significance of a well-kept, appropriate periwig in the 18th century — an item neglected only by a thorough reprobate (see “William Wilson,” TOM, 428/34, 913/20, 1012/2, 1185/7, 1234/11).
169/41-47} Poe showed his awareness of the rich scientific contributions of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) as early as “Hans Pfaall” (Imaginary Voyages, 403, footnote), but now the ensuing publication of Kosmos in parts (1, 2, 3, 1845-47) aroused his interest in a universally applicable theory of all scientific laws that eventually led to his writing of Eureka. To the world renowned German naturalist, traveler, savant in numerous fields of science, humanist, and humanitarian, Poe dedicated his cosmological “Poem” Eureka explaining that his plan was [page 128:] “synaeretical” (q.v. in PCW, 38), because “he discusses the universality of material relation” (H 16.187); at the end too he cites a passage from Kosmos on “Translatory Motion” with an English translation in his text (299), with the implication that it is his own. It certainly reads more idiomatically than the tr. that follows this one, obviously written by one more skilled in German than English. Needless to say, Poe was incapable of translating Kosmos or, according to Briggs, any German at all. His egregious errors in such words as “leiden” and “andere” support Briggs' scorn (see his letter to Lowell of 7/16/45 in Woodberry, 2.143). Note also that Mrs. Ellet, who knew Poe well, on 12/16/45, rescinded her request for a favor which contained a simple German phrase in part because “you would not decipher my German manuscript” (see Poe Log for 12/15 and 12/16).
The work “critick” for “critique” is a standard 18th century spelling, obsolescent for 1845, but not disallowed. It may represent the unchanged word used by the translator, like the “true” for which Poe would use “authentic” or “literal.” The column (on p. 15) following this short note explains the provenance of vol. I of Kosmos which has just been published in Berlin, dedicated to the King of Prussia. It was developed from lectures of 1827-28 and seeks to “exhibit the worth and close connexion of all the laws of nature.” It apparently comprised a letter sent to the ed. of the Kölnische Zeitung (i.e., of Cologne), the whole then reprinted in the New York Deutsche Schnellpost of 7/2/45 (page 2). This was a well established daily in German, with a long publishing history, whose name was equivalent to Telegraph (see Discoveries in Poe, 172 for Poe's use of the name in “Von Kempelen”). For other refs. in the BJ see 236 for the paper and for Humboldt, 234, 247, 281.
170/1-60} See 168/48-54 for Edwin P. Whipple's article in the 7/45 issue of The American Review: A Whig Journal from which Poe reprinted the section on Tennyson (pp. 45-48; 1.322-26 of the 1848 vol.), shorn only of the first three sentences of the para. concerning Griswold's “slip” in making the poet only of fourth rank. To Poe, Tennyson was supreme among living poets. It is Whipple's general view of poets also that causes this extraordinary praise of the critic. Surely, this sentence, second in para. 4, echoes or parallels sentiments voiced by Poe: “Poetry is that sublime discontent with the imperfection of actual life, arising from the vision of something better and nobler, of which actual life is still speculatively capable” (1.288 of the 1848 ed.). In sidelining most of this quoted passage for his own or Mrs. Whitman's attention, he seems to be stressing his view of lines 9-10, [page 129:] oddly reminding us of Baudelaire's making a similar statement about Poe's expressing his own thoughts.
The quotation is virtually perfect save for line 13: a keen / of keen. The quatrain in 41-44 is stanza 13 from “A Dream of Fair Women.”
171/1-60} This too proves accurate upon collation with Whipple's original text, save that both texts misspell “Oenone” (with an “Ae” now corrected). Poe had independently misspelled that title in the 12/44 M 44. The ending quotation is from the first stanza of “The Lotus Eaters.”
171/61-72} Even during his editorship of the SLM Poe had decried dependence in literary tastes and in shaping creative efforts upon the countries of Europe, particularly England; hence his satires of Disraeli and Bulwer Lytton and his stress upon originality. This indigenous development was a main objective in the establishment of the Penn magazine, then become the Stylus. Now he could join forces in 1845 with an increasingly vocal and well defined group, as shown through this speech, published as Americanism: an address delivered before the Eucleian Society of the New York University / 30th June, 1845, 34p. For Poe's role in voicing these fundamental views and associating himself with the group see Perry Miller, The Raven and the Whale (1956), p. 135, and Claude Richard, Studies in Bibliography, 1968, 21.25-58. Certainly, however, Poe's adherence was tentative and incomplete, as line 63 shows. Presumably he refers to the European “young” movements which had inspired the name and many of the platform principles, such as that of Italy, promoted by the exiled Mazzini, or that of Germany, which was eventually upheld by Heinrich Heine, or even of England, which was to be joined by Benjamin Disraeli (although very different in most of its aims). Poe's declaration of support here explains his favorable treatment of Mathews' nationalistic, allegorical Big Abel and Little Manhattan (see reviews on 257 f., 285 f.). In thus extensively excerpting the Address Poe is virtually publishing a manifesto for the BJ, although his commitment for the half year left of the journal would be tempered by his own individualistic tendencies and views, as always.
171/73-84} In the collations of the material (from pp. 19-32 of the pamphlet) I shall list not only substantive changes but several accidentals which aid the reading. These will cover the excerpts on 172-73, as the markings will indicate: 171/79 and [page 130:] insist / and to insist; 172/4 proclaimed / declaimed; 13 in humor, / in humor, the copy of; 26-27 institutions; 29 sketchers; 45 Here,; 55 nature,; 66 whatever; 77 stranger might; 79 that single / that; 83 in New / at New; 173/4 the engravers; 12 chanted; 14 pleasing and majestic; 21 and friend; 22 (3 pages deleted); 23 A National; 30 of a national; 38 brother. Let him sustain his interest against every other class.; 44 that he, one; 47 selfjustified and self-sustained etc.
173/52-62} There can be no doubt that this fairly long rev. is by Poe, although carelessly presented. The content accords well with his sentiments in other BJ revs. of and allusions to Hazlitt works (see Index), and the style is typical of Poe's. A reason for not signing it may be the obvious promotional aspects of paras. 1-2, fully half Poe's content. Poe had to flatter Wiley and Putnam, his own publisher for the tales and the soon to be published poems. Moreover, he desperately needed their advertising, and indeed elicited a sizable column on their new or forthcoming or available books in most issues of the journal. The firm was, apparently, taking the lead in issuing various series that could provide a respectable library to the growing middle classes with “improved taste” — a kind of Harvard Classics plus Literary Guild concept. For example, it advertised in the BJ of 9/27, different series: Books of Travels, Classic Fiction (Fouque, Peacock, Zschokke, Martin Tupper, et al.), “English Literature” (Hazlitt, Hunt, Wilson), Biography, “Old English Literature” (ed. by Basil Montagu and Lamb), its “American Series” (Hawthorne, Poe, Headley, Mathews). Certainly these were better than the “feuilleton” novels of the mammoth papers or the newsprint pamphlets that sold for pennies, although sometimes they were titles by Dickens or Bulwer in pirated editions freshly set from the steamer-borne copy. We wonder what Poe must have thought of his own Tales, very readable indeed, but as drab and inelegant a volume in type and in format as could be imagined. Soon he would be able to take pride in the sale — he said — of 1500 copies (Letters, 301), proving that the “juste milieu” had been attained; but Poe often enviously commented on the sumptuous format of poems by Longfellow, which subordinated text to design and pictures. Referring to the “tact” of the selective editor was Poe's method of currying favor with Evert Duyckinck, to whom Poe wrote a long series of letters from 11/45 to 2/49 concerning books for loan, puffs of his work to be placed, tales and poems to be inserted or recommended, autographs to be supplied, etc. Despite all the favors conferred (or perhaps because of them) Evert (and his brother George) [page 131:] were far from flattering of Poe in their Cyclopaedia of American Literature article on Poe (1855, ref. ed. 1866).
173/60-76} In line 60 is a usage (“kind of books”) that would have caused Poe to pounce on an author under rev. In line 71 he is using “quagmire” in a far less apt way than in M 276, where he says of “American Letters,” “they are in a condition of absolute quagmire.” As for a “happy medium” between “the ponderous and the ephemeral” — this is a third piece of evidence of the insincerity of the introduction of this rev.
174/1-12} The first five lines are so poorly written as to make one suspect that Poe had no or little hand in them; vide, “the ... sale of the Library was indispensible” (an allowed but old fashioned variant) and “... of a gravity” etc., plus “well gotten up, but of a sufficiently standard character to warrant. ... ”And this is followed by “whose” used for “of which” plus the words “implicitly following a good lead.” But then we come to a favorite Poe phrase, “les moutons de Panurge” (Panurge's sheep), borrowed from Pantagruel, 4.8, as used in the 5/41 Graham's (H 10.122) and “Rationale of Verse” (para. 17) (H 14.217). And below we find a citation of Jeffrey and Gifford and of Wilson, typically full of prejudice, as Poe almost always claimed. Then the Poe origin becomes fixed.
174/13-19} This vol. by William Hazlitt (1778-1830), major essayist, especially on literature, philosophy, and art, was originally published with “Reign” for “Age” in 1821. When his Literary Remains were published by his son in 1836, Poe reviewed it for the 9/36 SLM (H 9.140-45) with unusual care. I suspect that the essays included in the vol. are the only ones by Hazlitt that he read, save for those conned for the BJ (see Index). Surely nobody would support his dictum in line 34.
This vol., vii-viii + 218 p., has a Preface by Hazlitt's son with a long complimentary excerpt from the Edinburgh Review, but the “quotation” is not found there; it sounds like Poe's invention. The phrase “vivida vis” is usually accompanied by It animi” to mean “the living force of the mind” — a rather unjustifiable truncation! What does he mean by “glowing fancy” in a critic, as a mark of comparison with the merits of Macaulay?
174/20-32} Poe is usually less favorable to Thomas Macaulay (1800-59) (q.v. via Indices for Br. and BJ). As seen, Poe had little respect for the poet and essayist Leigh Hunt, here alluding to his [page 132:] Imagination and Fancy, No. 4 in W. and P.'s Library of Choice Reading (see rev. in 99-101 above).
For John Wilson, the great “Christopher North” of Blackwood's, who rarely drew a favorable word from Poe, see SM 1 and 7, and the BJ Index.
For Charles Lamb, whose ready wit and whimsy Poe seemed to like (lines 26-27 seem to allude to the second), see several BJ refs. and revs. and M 109 for a very good joke.
Francis Jeffrey (1773-1850), the founder and ed. of the Edinburgh Review, was often cited by Poe (see PD, 59; MM 61, 92, 181, 221). Every one knew about Wm. Gifford (1756-1826), first ed. of the Quarterly Rev., Latin translator, assailant in print of Keats, ed. of the Elizabethans, but Poe probably read nothing by him (mere mention on p. 19 [facsimile text]). Certainly it was safe to see no point of “approximation” between them and the radical Hazlitt.
174/33-74} What can Poe mean by “an age of dishonesty” — an age that included Shelley, Keats, Byron, Godwin, Robert Owen, and their numerous friends? Having read and reviewed the Literary Remains, he knew of the frankness of Liber Amoris, his anti-Malthus stand and book on the subject, his vindication of Godwin in the face of the anti-Jacobin hysteria, and his attempt to deliver a balanced view of the great mormio Napoleon.
The excerpt comes from “Lecture VIII: On the Spirit of Ancient and Modern Literature — on the German Drama, contrasted with that of the Age of Elizabeth” (pp. 195-218). Collation shows the following changes: 53 five-and-twenty years; also the translation; 63 confined / confined; opposition / oppression; 66 later / late; 71 that instant / at that instant.
175/17} By Poe's day everyone knew that this was by Thomas Hope (1770-1831), a wealthy dilettante and traveler, whose long picaresque novel had been published in 1819.
175/22-44} The vol. has 336 p. and a multiplicity of authors, of whom Murdoch (1811-93) would be best known (as a light comedian, as well as lecturer and teacher). Brief revs. of, or refs. to him or his work can be found on 105, 112, 247, 252, 296, 300. The section on metre is pp. 292-296, scarcely full enough to have given Poe any help with his theories. The age seemed to be obsessed with improving its standards of speech — probably as a means of social climbing. Note Anna Mowatt's and George Vandenhoff's public readings and the latter's book of model exercises (82, 90 [facsimile text]). [page 133:]
The word “orthophony” in the title is given by the OED without date as “the science of correct speech or enunciation” and with no ref. to its being obsolete, but the word is not given in two unabridged dictionaries consulted — of 1923 and 1945.
The language of the last sentence is more colloquial than is Poe's wont.
175/45-68} Intro.: iii-xviii + 564 p. Alexander Reid (180260), professor and later headmaster of a Scottish school, had great success with this dictionary, now pirated in America, with an 18th ed. by 1864.
The four “improvements” laid down by the ed. are not those given by Poe who does derive his from the content of the preliminary matter. Poe's third point is not entirely tenable, although usually true. For Poe's reviews of other dictionary texts see the category of “dictionaries” in the Index and for his acute interest in language development and usage see preface to PCW.
176/1-6} This publication is by Henry Ustick Onderdonk (1789-1858), the middle initial being wrong for both author and publisher in the BJ text. The author was a physician and Episcopal clergyman who was suspended at his own request from office, for alcoholism. Far different was the suspension trial of his brother Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk (1791-1861), which was widely bruited in the press (see the humorous picture, “A Suspended Bishop” (BJ of 2/8, 1.89) with letter press not by Poe.
176/7-12} Anna Mowatt performed for two weeks at Niblo's to good reviews which were somewhat less spirited and laudatory than in her earlier runs (see 65-69, 76-78 [facsimile text]) as Odell indicates (5.156-57). Poe may have attended less regularly than the first run of Fashion, for he omits mention of her role in the comedy of The Honeymoon and in The Pride of Lammermoor, and also Faint Heart (Odell, 5.156-67).
176/14-38} Poe offers an interesting combination here of Anna Mowatt which perhaps stems from such factors as hi; increasing sympathy with the Young America's opposition to the domination of national taste by the British, the respect owed a talented, well to do socialite whose husband's reverses induced her to take up the pen and the buskin (see Odell, 5.99). Poe knew, as did all, that loyalty to her teacher in elocution and acting made her faithful to Mr. W.H. Crisp, regardless of the eminence of Edwin Forrest (1806-72), popular for his “animal [page 134:] vigor and sonorous voice” (DAB).
176/39-63} This para. with its proud avowal of his mother's profession has become a locus classicus concerning Poe's orientation to the theatre. Unquestionably, the low status of the actor, especially in Puritanical, moralistic America, had haunted Edgar ever since his entrance into the family of the prosperous, bourgeois, staid John Allan in 1811, after the miserable death (12/8/11) of Elizabeth Arnold Poe. Significantly, Poe omits mention of his inebriate actor-father David Poe, at times lampooned by the critics deriding his faltering presence and poor diction — all the circumstances of his death being entirely obscure. See Quinn for a thorough account of the life and career of Elizabeth Arnold (Hopkins) Poe (1787-1811) (Poe, ch. 1, “The Heritage,” 1-50 and Appendix I, “The Theatrical Career of Poe's Parents,” 697-724) and N. Bryllion Fagin, The Histrionic Mr. Poe, for the view of Poe's being peculiarly adapted to the life of the stage by nature, interests, physique, talents, associations and friendships (31-66). Certainly the final sentence has the defiant grandiloquence of a stage utterance.
177/1-31} The performance as Pauline was on 7/14/45 (see Odell, 5.156-57). Poe was sufficiently fond of the play by Bulwer and of this analysis to make it serve as M 177 in the 11/46 Graham's, which he starts with the following: “A hundred criticisms to the contrary notwithstanding, I must regard ... ”etc. For a full collation of his changes see M 177 note a; likewise, for further details about the play itself, including a summary of the plot. This is one of his then popular plays, others being Richelieu (1838) and Money (1840) (see 177b). Even Poe was captivated by the sentiments and “theatrical flair,” vide his comparison to Shakespeare's “creation,” and the intensity of his language in the last two sentences.
Poe's ref. to the heroine of Samuel Richardson is appropriate enough but shows no great knowledge of the book any more than other refs. to that novelist's works (H 8.54 and 10.218). We often have the impression that Poe's fictional reading was almost confined to the contemporary best sellers, a consequence of his career in reviewing.
Sentence 4 has a comparison derived from Jer. 4:19 and Sir Philip Sidney's Defense of Poesy, q.v. in M 177b.
177/32-66} Much of this section was lifted almost verbatim for the substance of part of Poe's “Lit.” sketch of Mrs. Mowatt in 1846 (H 15.31-32). Poe confessed to seeing Fashion perhaps a half [page 135:] dozen times on 4/5 (see p. 76 and Odell, 5.98-99 for its 20 nights), so that he could have scrutinized her every feature and gesture for lasting memory. Certain predilections of Poe are prominent: his attraction to grace of movement (see his statements about Mrs. Osgood), to a strong, determined facial outline, e.g., what he terms a Roman or Hebrew nose, to a well-projected voice (American in accent!), in general to a “naturalness” rather than aristocratic reserve. We note that Poe italicizes the summarizing word “naturalness” at the foot of p. 177).
I must correct a blunder about this word as mistakenly printed by Harrison (H 12.188), namely “naturalism” from which I concluded in PCW that Poe preceded the “first usage of this meaning in the arts and in criticism” according to the OED's “first” of 1850; reluctantly I withdraw the priority for Poe (PCW, 31).
In reordering his sentences for the “Lit.” sketch, Poe did the following: lines 35-47 became para. 13 (on 15.32) and the last sentence, 47-48, cut down was merged above it. Lines 49-63 were the substance of para. 12, and the last two lines on 177 and 178/3 became the start of para. 12.
178/19-21} A new auditorium had just been opened at the Battery for Castle Garden, where light entertainment, such as varieties and dances, were regularly shown: on 6/18 a Hungarian pas by Desjardins (as one of several numbers — “dance and posings in scant attire” is reported by Odell, 5.160). Poe, who might have seen the great Fanny Ellsler in 1840-41, always evinced a keen interest in dance (see Pollin, SAR 1980, 169-82).
178/28} The Old Bowery had burned down on 9/22/36. Rebuilt by 1/2/37, this had lasted until a fire destroyed it on 4/25/45; it was to reopen on 8/4/45 as “the most beautiful ... in America,” holding 4,000 persons (Odell, 5.161, 186).
179/1-12} Poe is unusually kind to this obscure poetaster (1806-78) for some reason, not known. He asked Duyckinck where he lived for his “Lit.” sketch on 1/30/46 (Letters, 313), which remains a major source of information about him (H 15.37-38, although based chiefly on this BJ rev. [not in DAB]; Appleton's Cyclopaedia calls him a “very good man, and a rather good poet”). In the sketch Poe tells us that the work was never completed, and none of the essays or sketches were published. This part had 32 pages, of which 6 were front matter. Why indeed should Poe have devoted more than four pages to this mediocrity? Clearly, from the two publishers' names, we can [page 136:] assume Hoyt's involvement in a self-printing subsidy.
179/13-54} It was a medieval affectation of the age to insert a “u” in the spelling of words in “-ant” as Poe usually did in “Auncient Mariner.” The two poems come from pp. 7-8. Poe is remarkably clement to this post-Augustan versification, full of cliches and second-hand sentiments and imagery. His italics for the selected “defects” certainly are warranted.
180/6-69} Poe's comparison justly suggests a similarity between the subjects in two different fields, both of which borrow from the pastoral tradition so popular in the narrative art of verse and genre pictures, typified by Goldsmith's “Deserted Village,” known to all readers. Poe knew also that Asher Brown Durand (1796-1886) had recently shown his “new” picture, “An Old Man's Reminiscences” (its correct title), which is probably now in the Albany Institute and Historical and Art Society (see John Durand, Life and Times of Asher B. Durand, 1894, p. 173; see photographic copy in the Frick Museum, FARL 15718). The picture shows an old man with flowing locks, seated beneath a tree, retrospectively seeing children playing ball, riding on a hay cart, swinging, fishing, etc. — all normal activities exploited by both artist and poet. (See Briggs‘review of the picture as exhibited, in the 5/3 BJ, 1.276.) We still esteem Durand for his illustrations and landscapes; his picture of Thomas Cole and Bryant overlooking the Hudson in the Catskills served as the cover for the 1982 telephone directory. Poe surely knew the article by Briggs on “The Art Union Pictures” in the 1/4 BJ, 12-13, which very warmly reviews the 12/20/44 exposition in New York City of works by the Hudson River School of artists: Durand, Cole, Weir, and Cropsey, starting with Durand's “large landscape,” called “The Passing Shower.”
In derogating the mechanical repetition of each first line at the end of the stanza Poe must be thinking of his own varied and integrated refrain in “The Raven.” As for the italicized lines here and on 181-82, containing “pathos and imagination“-we are struck by the conventionality and complacency of Poe's taste on this occasion. He even forgets to reprehend the frequent inversions (lines 24, 30, 42, 53). It is remarkable that for so long a transcription as this (180-82) only the accidentals were changed, save for one line that implies almost a rewriting by Poe: the morn shall no more bring / no more the morn shall bring (181/45).
182/25-30} Poe was very partial to the poems of Oliver [page 137:] Wendell Holmes (1809-94), considered especially as a humorist and satirist; yet I doubt his knowing more than a few of his short poems, such as “Old Ironsides” and “The Last Leaf,” the proper name of what he here terms “Old Man” (see also his ref. to the poem in the Hoyt “Lit.” sketch and quotation of two stanzas in the 6/42 Graham's rev. [H 11.126]). His again insisting upon our being reminded “too forcibly” for one stanza out of twentyfour makes us aware that showing this kind of alertness in the “spotting” of likenesses with the implication of imitation or plagiarism is pretentious and basically misleading. Holmes' 7th stanza (the penultimate) reads thus: “I know it is a sin / For me to sit and grin / At him here; / But the old three-cornered hat, / And the breeches, and all that, / Are so queer!” (1st pub. in the 1/26/1831 Amateur). Mockery at his old-fashioned queerness is not basic to st. 2 of Hoyt's poem; it is the “pilgrim” whose feelings are primary and who reminisces upon his own past, melancholy over his own decline. As for Poe's pleasure in the “ninety-three” (181/23) it would be more pointed were we informed of the significance of a date that has no historical ref. (Washington's second inauguration?) and chanced to be two years away from Hoyt's birthdate. Presumably the year signifies simply the date of planting, fifty-three years ago. Is this truly “refined art” of “natural pathos“?
182/31-65} Concerning the “pencil” of the “white spire” (181/55) — if Longfellow had published this metaphor and moralistically developed the idea of a church steeple as tracing the man's life story, just imagine how harsh Poe's strictures would be. As for “New” — he continues to disapprove of the mechanical repetitiveness of the refrain device.
The title “Boemus” seemed to offer the typesetters much trouble, being so strange in appearance. Presumably it is Hoyt's creation, perhaps from the Greek root for “roar.” By changing the “B” to “Pr” one produces a word that is somewhat familiar; moreover, Poe's capital “P” and “B” are not always clear; hence, the word in Godey's (for the “Lit.” sketch) and in Griswold's and in Harrison's dependent ed. became “Proemus.” It is the third stanza of Hoyt's poem. Poe is here invoking the well-known war-songs of Thomas Campbell (1777-1884), such as “Hohenlinden” and “Ye Mariners of England” (see H 8.306 for ref.). Poe makes frequent ref. to his numerous poems, reviewed his life of Petrarch, and respected his editing of the New Monthly (see PD, 17; Br.: Pin 4, 38, 78, MM 139A, 212).
182/66-68} Published by Wm. H. Colyer. See 145/20-22 [page 138:] [facsimile text]; also 213.
183/3-8} The Roman Pontiffs: or a sketch of the lives of the supreme heads of the Roman Catholic Church with a biography of one of the most distinguished of their number .... Translated from an original and very popular work, just published in France. [1845] 40 pages
The biography is of Alexander VI, pp. 20-40.
183/9-14} Hammond's Letters on Southern Slavery: addressed to Thomas Clarkson, the English Abolitionist. 32 p.
The letters, of 1/28/45 and 3/24/45, were written by Gov. James Henry Hammond (1807-64), apparently in retirement, since he states that he has “abundant leisure,” in response to a Circular Letter written by Clarkson which was “addressed to professing Christians in our Northern States, having no concern with Slavery, and to others there.” Hammond received the letter from the Rev. Willoughby M. Dickinson, who was then apparently residing in Ipswich, also Mr. Clarkson's residence. Hammond, a S.C. lawyer and planter, early advocate of secession, was governor of S.C. 1842-44. In 1858, in his reply to Seward, he called slaves and factory hands “mudsills of society” and declared “Cotton is King.” Poe's “nervously” means “strongly” or “forcefully“.
The brevity of this “rev.” may result from Poe's knowing the anti-slavery views of his Northern readers. He discreetly merely hints his own views. Reared in upper-class Richmond circles, he could not be otherwise in his sentiments as Killis Campbell (The Mind of Poe) and others assume, but he was as rabid as the reviewer in the 4/1836 SLM, of Paulding's Slavery in the U.S. and Drayton's South Vindicated. Unfortunately Harrison included the rev. as Poe's (8.265-75), but Ostrom's Letters included one by Poe to Beverley Tucker, of 5/2/36 (190-91) conclusively showing Tucker's authorship of the rev. Even Quinn, assuming Harrison to be accurate, goes astray in this matter (248-49). Bernard Rosenthal's long article trying to restore the rev. to the Poe canon uses special pleading and casuistical reasoning which are still unconvincing (PS, 1974, 7.29-38).
183/15-55} For details of these performances and casts at Niblo's see Odell (5.156-57). Poe still maintains his fervid admiration of Anna Mowatt's acting, appearance, etc., even roseately seeing her audience as “fashionable, and very intellectual” despite their objectionable love of “rhodomontade” below. On 7/14 she was Pauline in Bulwer's Lady of Lyons, and [page 139:] on 7/17, she was Juliana in John Tobin's (1770-1804) The Honeymoon. Poe's summary is sufficiently explicit about its absurd plot and poor characterizations — witness to the low average level of the theatre of the day. The 3 lines are in II, i of Tobin's play.
183/56-70} Poe's faithfulness in attending each of her varied vehicles is touching, especially since there are hints that his enthusiasm is waning. The distich comes from Twelfth Night (3.2.157) with “her lip” substituted for “his lip.” Poe's remembrance of the music was of Donizetti, not of Bellini, who first produced the opera to a libretto by Salvatore Commarano. There are three other loci for Bellini in Poe's works, but none for Donizetti.
184/1-22} Poe is here developing more fervidly his praise of Mrs. Mowatt for her “naturalness” as stated in 177/66 [facsimile text]. He certainly wishes to foster a simple, inartificial style of delivery and stage presence such, we assume, as W.H. Crisp was disinclined to advocate (see lines 12 and 48 below). Poe insists upon her sense of “natural elocution” by contrast with the stylized gestures and deliberate phrasings enjoined by the “schools.” In his tendency toward verbal flourishes here he produces a sentence far from clear in meaning: “Mrs. Mowatt, as she now stands ... to give lessons to her” (13-15). Obviously, the natural artist is said to be able to teach the trained disciple, but “routine” is scarcely the heart of her acting merit.
184/24-53} Poe was consistent in his devotion to Scott's novel, The Bride of Lammermoor, calling it, in the 12/35 SLM (H 8.64) “that most pure, perfect, and radiant gem” of fiction; and in the 2/36 issue “the purest and most enthralling” novel, “better than any by Bulwer” (8.33, 8.23). There is no doubt in Poe's mind that such a work could be transposed or adapted to the stage successfully, although here ineptly attempted, resulting in failure. In Poe's specifications of outstanding scenes involving Mrs. Mowatt, we clearly apprehend the marked variations from our present concepts of “naturalness” which then prevailed.
Poe's last sentence uses an adaptation of Byron's 1816 poem: “When we two parted / In silence and tears? Pale grew thy cheek and cold” (1-2).
185/1-9} Poe had left the employ of the Mirror during February when he became a member of the BJ staff (see the announcement to “Readers” in the 2/22 issue [1.127]). Willis and [page 140:] Morris were then co-editors of the Mirror, but Willis, always afflicted by wanderlust and hoping to duplicate the success of his earlier reports from Europe, later collected into volumes (Pencillings by the Way, Inklings of Adventure, Loiterings of Travel), gave up his share of the journal (Hiram Fuller had bought a share) and had gone to England and Germany in 6/45. For Poe's generally favorable views on Willis, see his long “Lit.” sketch (H 15.9-18) which incorporates much of his article in the BJ of 1/18 (see pp. 16-18 [facsimile text]). See also the numerous items on Willis in the Index.
185/10-24} From 1834 to the present, Willis had become the chief American reporter abroad, always moving about with light, bantering or descriptive pen in hand, and, especially in England, finding his way into socially distinguished or literary circles, fascinating to his readers back home. His letters about the salon of Lady Blessington, in 1836, had inspired the satirical “Lionizing” by Poe. The Mirror had first printed them; others were intended for Willis' new journal the Corsair, shared with T.O. Porter (1839-40), and always when collected into volumes they vividly provided Americans with the sense of sophisticated travel. This series was announced in the 7/5/45 Weekly Mirror (p, 198). The first letter of 7/12 (p. 216) spoke of Willis' illness (see above). Poe is quoting from his letter in the 7/26 issue, 251-52 (preceding week of the Daily Mirror).
185/25-47} The carriage described was named after Henry Brougham, Lord Chancellor of England. This whole article as reprinted from Willis' letter is, in a sense, a tacit apologia by Poe, whose article “Street-Paving” of 4/19 (94-96) had strongly advocated the very wooden blocks here discountenanced. No doubt Willis too is admitting his own error in the Mirror articles on the subject, q.v. in notes to 94/1 above, also showing the provenance in Poe's general interest in the topic.
186/6-8} Poe had long been interested in ballooning and devoted many tales to the subject, beginning with the 1835 “Hans Pfaall” and continuing through the “Balloon-Hoax” of 4/13/44, and “The Angel of the Odd” (10/44) to “Mellonta Tauta” of 2/49. A key figure in the history of the subject in England was Charles Green (1785-1870), an exhibition balloonist who made 526 ascents beween 1821 and 1852, first used carburetted hydrogen gas, went up from England to Germany in the “Great Nassau” balloon in 1836, and invented the guide-rope. For his background role in Poe's tales see Imaginary Voyages, pp. 470-71, [page 141:] 475-76; Tales, 1063-66, 1306 n5; also, see BGM, 1840, 6.247 for 5 paras. on Green (Poe being ed. though not author).
It is probable that this item comes from a newspaper of no very recent vintage, for Green made his 299th ascent by 7/30/44 and averaged almost one per month (q.v. in L.T.C. Rolt, The Aeronauts, 1966).
186/9-12} See Punch 8.256: “Bentley's Miscellany of this month contains a story of a husband being very nearly poisoned by the lover of his wife, — the poison having been sent to the cook to be mixed up with a dish of which the husband alone was passionately fond. This is afterwards explained away by the husband himself, as a trick he had resorted to in order to poison his wife's mind against the aforesaid lover. This story is very funnily told, and is called ‘The Plum Pudding‘; but unfortunately, the very same incidents were described in Hood's Magazine, two months back. The story was there entitled ‘The Herring Pie.’ We only mention this circumstance as a most extraordinary coincidence.”
One doubts the French origin of this bit of fluff, and the accuracy of Poe's memory.
186/13-14} This little note to Richard Henry Stoddard was the start of a complicated and far-reaching relationship with Poe that produced two “memorial” poems on him and a continuation of the damaging “Executorship” by Griswold through the “editorship” of his works with newly derogatory “memoirs” (q.v. in Poe's follow-up on p. 198).
186/15-19} It was the obligation of Briggs to produce this Index, but he was no longer present. The statement of intention here indicates that a “rush” job would be performed — and so it turned out. The unpaged Index has been bound into the first vol. in the few bound copies that I have seen (see Canny and Heartmann's Bibliography, 1943, p. 168). It may bear traces of Poe's instructions to his staff if not of his personal selection and formulation of topics, but it is very far from representing everything of importance in the magazine or offering ready access to its materials. For a discussion of this Index, see my Intro.
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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) (July 1845)