Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), February 15, 1845, vol. 1, no. 7, p. ??

[page 105:]

HORACE GREELEY.

WE have been importuned to follow up our portraits of “Mi Boy” and the “Brigadier,” with the portraits of the other prominent editors of the New York press; and we shall endeavor to do so lest we be accused of partiality towards our friends of the Mirror. We present our readers this week with a full length portrait of the Editor of the Tribune, which will be recognized directly by all who know him.

Horace Greeley is so widely known by his Tribune, that we could hardly hope to add anything to the knowledge of the people by giving either an analysis of his genius or a history of his life. It is well known that a few years since he was a journeyman printer in New York, and that he is now the editor and proprietor of a leading daily paper. He first made himself known as the editor of the New Yorker, a very respectable semi-literary weekly newspaper, but he has become famous as the editor of the Tribune. Perhaps no paper in the country has exercised a more extended or a healthier influence upon the public morals. No ordinary man could by the mere force of industry and integrity gain the position of a leading editor, in a political party, at a time like the present, when intelligence is so universally diflused, and men are so exacting of those who labor for them. We may, therefore, safely designate Mr. Greeley as a remarkable man; if not a genius. The gravest charges that have ever been made against him are, that he eats bran bread and is in favor of Fourierism. The Fourierism we believe he has never denied, but the bran bread is a more questionable matter. We can testify to his eating boiled chicken not long since, and he has confessed that he was partial to good things provided they were not too good. It is a singular fact that the world will forgive anything in a man sooner than self-denial, and we have no doubt that the suspicion of eating bran-bread has gained Mr. Greeley more enemies than his eating up the substance of a dozen widows and orphans in luxurious dinners, could have done.

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Mr. Greeley owes his eminence mainly to his pen; people listen to his speeches because they have read his writings. His style is admirably adapted for his uses, but would hardly wear well in a hook. He is a disciple of Cobbett, and of Course prides himselt on grammatical correctness; but he is an admirer of Macaulay, and is of course givento flashiness of expression. His coloring is so hot, that his style can never be elevated, because he starts from the top of a subject at the outset. He has yet to learn the advantage of a low tone in his composition.. We have rarely seen a piece of writing from his. pen which did not contain the adjectives thrilling, burning or splead:d sometimes these are varied by the use of glorious or brilliant. We take up this morning's paper, and the first sentence which our eye rests upon is the following paragraph:

“The address of CASSIUS M. CLAY to the People of Kentucky, which was given in our last, must electrify every generous and manly heart. In compactness and force of sricument, in fertility and cogency of illustration, in the burning Eloquence of Truth and Conviction, this Address has rarely if ever been exceeded.”

We have been very careful not to caricature Mr. Greeley in our drawing, but it was quite impossible to give the elevated expression of his countenance in this style of engraving.