Text: C. F. Briggs (?), Literary, Broadway Journal (New York), February 22, 1845, vol. 1, no. 8, p. ??

[page 119:]

AMERICAN PROSE WRITERS.

NO. V

HENRY T. TUCKERM AN.

As a descriptive limner and critical essayist, the fidelity and elegance of Mr. Tuckerman's pen, have procured for him a large class of admirers, even among those upon whom his vigorous independence of thought is more or less thrown away. His bold paper on Shelley, proved, by the attention it excited, that he possessed far stronger characteristics of mind, than were to be found in the Elia-like felicity of style which constituted his first claim to popularity. Unlike Washington Irving, who, by his melodious combinations of words, frequently satisfies the reader for exceeding diffuseness of ideas, Mr. Tuckerman's quiet beauty of language, and delicate imagery, often so delight the mind, that we forget for the moment, the noble thoughts which they garbed; and it is not until we have gratified our sense of harmony, that we fully discern the vigorous ideas which have been thus conveyed to the intellect. Just as in listening to the music of Bellini, we are first struck with its exceeding tenderness, and not until we have bathed our very souls in sweetness, do we realize its mighty suggestiveness.

As an essayist, Mr. Tuckerman is almost without a rival. His tales, considered merely as tales, are, we think, less successful. They abound in graphic description and in beautiful language, but they are only sketches. Actions, events, the commonplace-ism of outward life, which make up so much of the vraisemblance of a fate, are not his forte. Opinion, sentiment, the great truths of spirit-life, and their application to the daily wants of humanity, — these are the subjects around which his mind and heart find their true occupations. No one looks with gentler eye upon his kind; in no heart is the fountain of sympathy more generous in its outpourings. But he seeks to do good to man, not by beguiling him from himself with some well-constructed fiction, but rather by bringing him to the well-spring of truth, that he may drink and live.

“Isabel of Sicily” was evidently designed to embody the results of the author's observations during a residence upon that beautiful island. To avoid the egotism usually found in a traveller's journal, Mr. Tuckerman has woven a light web of romance, and upon that embroiders his facts, thus adopting a precisely opposite course from that of most writers. To its somewhat injudicious title, may be attributed its want of immediate popularity in this country, while running through two editions in England. They who disdain to suffer their intellect to dally with any thing but truth, are deterred from looking into a work bearing so fanciful a name, while the inveterate devourer of fiction is lamentably disappointed, because the anticipated novel is not a story of Italian passion. Yet no one can look into the book a second time, without being struck with the acuteness, the clearness of perception, and the high-toned philosophy of its accomplished author.

The “Italian sketch-book” is free from this trifling defect of mere mechanical form, and at an earlier period of our literary history, when there were more readers and fewer writers, would have instantly secured to its author an enviable reputation. We say fewer writers, not because Mr. Tuckerman has been eclipsed among the many; but simply because writing has now become a trade, and, like all other trades, it is so overstocked, that trickery of all sorts is necessary to secure a clique of readers for each aspirant after fame, while the true author, disdaining the petty arts of the mere popularity-seekers, is often unheard amid the din of noisy declaimers.

But, as we said before, it is as the essayist, and especially the critical essayist, that Mr. Tuckerman occupies his true position.

“We confess a partiality for the essay. In the literature of our vernacular tongue it shines conspicuous, and it is environed with the most pleasing associations. The essay is to prose literature, what the sonnet is to poetry; and, as the narrow limits of the latter have enclosed some of the most beautiful poetic imagery, and finished expressions of sentiment, within the compass of versified writing, so, many of the most chaste specimens of elegant periods, and of animated and embellished prose, exist in the form of essays. * * * A volume of essays subserves the purpose of a set of cabinet pictures, or a portfolio of miniature drawings; they are the multum in parvo of literature; and, perused, as they generally are, in moments of respite from ordinary occupation, turned to on the spur of mental appetite, they not unfrequently prove more efficient than belles-lettres allurements of greater pretension.”

Such are Mr. Tuckerman's remarks upon the essay in his beautiful paper on the “Characteristics of Lamb.”’ He has done much towards proving his own assertions, and illustrating his own apt comparison, for not only has he written the most finished essays, but his hand has also framed the most Shakesperian sonnets ever penned on this side of the great waters. His “Rambles and Reviews” is a book to be left lying on one's table, — to be taken up in those moods of the mind, when, wearied with the petty details of common-place outer lite, we seek refreshment at the well-spring of poetic truth. The sketches of Italian life and scenery are at once graphic and suggestive. They are like Claude Lorraine pictures, not only truthfully drawn and colored, but also possessing that indescribable charm of atmosphere, which seems to transport one instantly to the very scene depicted.

Yet, if we were called on to rescue any one portion of Mr. Tuckerman's prose works from destruction, we should certainly lay hold of his “Thoughts on the Poets.” Never did the true spirit of poetry find a nobler exponent. If any one doubts this, let him only read the essay on Goldsmith, full of a fine discriminating sense of the truthfulness and simplicity which made “poor Goldsmith” so winning as a friend, so delightful as a writer; then let him turn to the criticism on Pope, contained in the same volume. Compare the appreciating warmth with which the critic speaks of the poet, who

“Cherished throughout his whole life an earnest faith in one better nature; who realized the universal beauty and power of Love; who rejoiced in the exercise of all those tender and noble sentiments which are so much more honorable to man than the highest triumphs of mind;” —

Compare this with his clear and critical perception of Pope,

“The bright enamel of whose rhymes is like a frozen lake, over which we glide like a skater before the wind, surrounded by a glittering landscape of snow.”

The hallowed mystery of a gentle mind, diseased beyond all leech-craft, — the thrilling picture of a soul full of love and truth, o’ertasking its powers until it found only darkness in the infinite, — the melancholy image of a spirit framed but to fine issues, yet yielding its tones to the rude touch of appetite, were never more delicately and powerfully depicted than in Mr. Tuckerman's criticisms on Cowper, Shelley, and Burns. Each of those gifted minds could say

“My spirit's bark Is driven

Far from the shore, far from the trembling throng

Whose sails were never to the tempest given;”

but few, even of their most ardent admirers, could have afforded so discriminating and philosophic an extenuation of the errors which the brightness of their fame made visible to the world.

Whether he portrays characters like these, or points us to the more sparkling fancy of Moore, uttering itself in song, — the chivalric muse of Campbell, breathing its trumpet-voiced appeal in measured, but heart-thrilling tones, — the fierce and [page 120:] passionate spirit of Alfieri proclaiming its powerful will in with their evil Tuscan language but in Runic verse, he ever hears the low breathed moaning of that oracle which dwells in the sanctuary of the poet's heart. Himself a true poet, in the highest and loftiest sense of the term, he knows how to interpret the dark sayings of humanity.

Should it be supposed that the interest of these essays may depend much upon the associations connected with their subject, and that therefore they afford no fair test of Mr. Tuck-erman's powers, we would refer to his “Lyrical Poetry,” and his “Thoughts on Music,” as evidences of his poetic taste and sensibility, while, for vigor of thought, elegance of diction, and aptness of illustration, we can rind nothing finer in our literature. than the “Philosophy of Travel,”* and “New England Philosophy.”’ The latter, especially, is remarkable for its close analysis of, and its unanswerable arguments against those modes of thinking and acting, which would subject the warm impulses of the generous heart to the cold dictation of the calculating head. E.

* Published in the Democratic Review.