UC-NRLF 
 
 
 
 
 
THE 
 
 POETS AND POETRY 
 OF AMERICA 
 
 A SATIRE BY " I.AVANTK," RF.IM ROM THE 
 
 IN II1IL. \DFirMIA IN 
 
 1847. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY ARGU- 
 MENT \RLES, TO 
 W THAT IT WAS NSkI 
 
 if 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 \JAMIN & HI I I 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY 
 
 OF 
 
 AMERICA 
 
 A SATIRE 
 (By "LAVANTK," published in Philadelphia, 1847) 
 
 WITH AM INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT 
 
 TO PROVE THAT " LAV ANTE " WAS 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN POE 
 
 AND AM APPENDIX or NOTES BY 
 
 GEOFFREY QUARLES 
 
 "A *atir fa, of course, no /*rr." POB 
 L - 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BENJAMIN AND BI.I.I. 
 1887 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1887, BY 
 BENJAMIN & BELL. 
 
 TROW8 
 
 PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY, 
 NEW YORK. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 SATIRE. 
 
 INDEX TO SATIRE. 
 NOTES. 
 
* THE 
 
 UHIVBRSITT 
 
 INTRODUCTORY AROTMKNT. 
 
 POE (/<*/) + POE (eccentric) = " LAVANTE." 
 
 WHILE pursuing a course of reading in quite an- 
 other direction than that of either satire or Poc, the 
 small publication which is the subject of this 
 argument came before our notice. The title prom- 
 ised something of interest, a cursory perusal provoked 
 the surmise that this was no ordinary production, 
 and soon the irresistible impression forced itself 
 " surely this must be the work of Poc 
 
 Then followed the natural distrust of so rapid a 
 judgment, and the improbabilities trooped up in for- 
 midable array, can it be that th< ; contem- 
 poraries of the poet know nothing of this ; can it be 
 that the biographers of Poe have never heard of it ; 
 can it he that this " Lavantc " is unknown to the dic- 
 tionary-makers and the writers of the time ? These 
 and many other difficulties suggested themselves, yet 
 the careful re-perusal of the satire only deepened the 
 original impression into something very like convic- 
 tion, until the case, after investigation, stood, and 
 Is thus : Either Poe wrote this satire, or some- 
 body else, still unknown, wrote it with Poe's ex 
 ence, Poe's doctrines, Poc's animus, and in Poe's 
 language. 
 
 As a matter of course we set about a systematic 
 inquiry in cr promised to yield practical re- 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 suits, and it has been as exhaustive as has been 
 practicable. The list of publications searched in 
 this quest may as well be given at once. 
 
 Griswold's edition of Foe's Works, with Life, 4 
 vols. Ingram's Life* Letters, and Opinions of Poe, 2 
 vols., 1880. Gill's Life of Foe. R. H. Stoddard's 
 New Memoir of Poe, 1887. Woodberry's Biography 
 of Poe, American Men of Letters, 1885. Stedman's 
 Essay on Poe, American Poets, 1884. The Broad- 
 way Journal, 1845 ; American Literary Magazine, 
 1847-48; Godefs Lady's Book, 1847-48; Southern 
 Literary Messenger, 1835-36-37, 1845-48; Southern 
 Literary Journal, 1836; Graham's Magazine, 1841 
 48; LittelPs Living Age, 1847-48; Southern Quar - 
 terly Review, 1847-48 ; Literary American, 1848 ; 
 Evening Mirror, 1841-42 ; Philadelphia Ledger 
 (daily), 1847 ; Dictionary of Pseudonyms (Gushing 
 and Frey) ; ditto (Haynes) ; Hudson's History of 
 American Journalism; Poole's Index of Periodical 
 Literature; Allibone's Dictionary of Authors ; L. 
 A. Wilmer's Our Press Gang, 1859; Mrs. Whit- 
 man's Poe and his Critics, 1860, besides notable 
 articles on Poe in the North American Review, 1856, 
 and in later American and English magazines. Per- 
 sonal inquiries have also been made of eminent libra- 
 rians and contemporary authors of note. The sum- 
 total of all these investigations is that no one of these 
 showed any knowledge whatever of " Lavante," nor, 
 in fact, of the existence of the satire until informed 
 of it. This negative evidence being confirmatory, 
 so far as it counts, of the theory here discussed, it 
 remains only to lay the facts before the reader, and 
 commend them to his consideration. 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 7 
 
 The satire is written in heroic couplets in the man- 
 ner of Dryden, Pope, and their imitators. It is 
 fairly well printed, in mere pamphlet form, small oc- 
 tavo, or I2mo, and the poem of about 950 lines 
 fills 33 pages. The title-page (which we reproduce 
 almost in fac-simile) contains no name of author, but 
 the foot of the poem has the signature " Lavante." 
 It seems to have been a cheap production, five or 
 ten cents at most. ' The appearance of the thing is 
 altogether against its being a work of merit We 
 took it up as a purely local trifle, probably coarse, 
 certainly ephemeral ; it was its intrinsic merit that 
 won closer attention. 
 
 It is of some importance to introduce the satire by 
 observations of an a priori character. Poe was not 
 an ordinary man, and any work of his is not to be 
 correctly judged by ordinary standards. In th 
 stance it is advisable and necessary to review the 
 antecedent probabilities and the circumstantial evi- 
 dence before examining the claims of the satire it- 
 self. It may be said by some, at the outset, that 
 Poe never did write a poetical satire, ergo it is very 
 unlikely that this should be his. We therefore pro- 
 ceed to combat any such prejudice by showing that 
 the improbability is by no means so great as may be 
 supposed. The subject may be considered thus : 
 . the arguments in favour of the Poe authorship ; 
 second, the arguments against it being the produc- 
 tion of another pen ; and, third, the characteristics 
 and intrinsic quality of the satire. 
 
 >t, then, it is undoubted that Poe had the gift 
 of satire, and the animus to exercise it. The story 
 of his career is the story of conscious genius imper- 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 fectly appreciated, of ambition foiled, thwarted, and 
 soured into the bitterest scorn and spite. In his 
 masterly and profoundly sympathetic essay Mr. E. 
 C. Stedman speaks of the " obvious ferocity" of 
 Poe's keen satire, which " raised a hubbub in its 
 day and made him the bogey of his generation." 
 This " Lavante " satire is the handiwork of a disap- 
 pointed poet, who resolves to wind up long years of 
 writhing under the consciousness of being unappre- 
 ciated and misjudged, by putting on record his pro- 
 test, his defence, his theory of true poetry, and 
 his reasons for begrudging the laurels bestowed on 
 his less worthy contemporaries, whom he satirizes 
 by name. In the admirable " Life " by Ingram 
 (vol. i. , p. 92) it is stated that young Poe used to write 
 lively squibs and satires at West Point, " upon which 
 his reputation had been built up." A stronger tes- 
 timony is that of the series of papers entitled the 
 " Autography," on which the above-named work 
 may again be quoted (vol. i., p. 130). In the South- 
 ern Literary Messenger (December, 1835) Poe " com- 
 menced that system of literary scarification that 
 crucial dissection of book-making mediocrities 
 which, while it created throughout the States terror 
 of his powerful pen, at the same time raised up 
 against him a host of implacable although unknown 
 enemies, who henceforth never hesitated to ^accept 
 and repeat any story to his discredit." This series 
 of satires was elaborated, according to Mr. Wood- 
 berry in his well-weighed, just, and comprehensive 
 Life of Poe, p. 153 (American Men of Letters series), 
 into " a concise view of over a hundred native 
 writers, in three papers, entitled ' Autography/ an 
 
.TRODCCTORY ARGCME.\'T. 9 
 
 expansion of similar articles in the Messenger for 
 1836." We shall recur to these " Autography " pa- 
 pers ; for the present it suffices to state that they exhib- 
 it a powerful gift of satire and an abundant animus. 
 
 Evidence of both the power and the will to pulver- 
 ize his rivals in poetry and journalism teems through 
 all Poe's critical writings. He practically created 
 the art of sound, scientific criticism in this country. 
 He held clear views, and stated them with a force 
 which, if not always gracious in it gracefully 
 
 put. This won him the applause of the general 
 reader, but also the ill-will of the writers with whom 
 he had to compete, and the editors on whose favour 
 he had to rely for employment and fame. 
 
 N. P. Willis, for whom Poc sub-edited the / 
 ing Mirror in 1844, tells how he had occasionally to 
 request Poe "to erase a passage coloured too lr 
 with his resentments against society and mankind " 
 (Ingram, i., 262). About the same time Poe wrote a 
 caustic satire on "The Mutual Adm ricty 
 
 of Editors, entitled 'The Literary Life of Thingum 
 Bob, Esq. 1 " The "Autography" satires extended 
 from 1835 to 1841, and it is to be noted, as bearing 
 upon the date of the " Lavante " poem (1847), th.u 
 Poe waxed more bitter and furious ns the years 
 by. In 1845 Poe's writings in the " Broadway Jour- 
 nal" then partly edited by him, plunged him into 
 perpetual troubles, as illustrated in his self-defence 
 against the champions of Longfellow, whom Poe so 
 bitterly charged with " plagiarism," " stealing," 
 etc. In the same Journal : 1845, ?oe re- 
 
 produced a complimentary parody of " The Ra 
 which he headed " A Gentle Puff." It shows he was 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 glad enough to avail himself of any friendly hand. 
 The lines, of course, refer to himself. 
 
 " Neither rank nor station heeding, with his foes around him 
 bleeding, 
 
 Sternly, singly, and alone his course he kept upon that 
 floor ; 
 
 While the countless foes attacking, neither strength nor val- 
 our lacking, 
 
 On his goodly armour hacking, wrought no change his vis- 
 age o'er, 
 
 As with high and honest aim he still his falchion proudly 
 bore, 
 
 Resisting error evermore." 
 
 In the same pages Poe gives this farther proof of 
 his animosity by declaring " we ourselves have had 
 the honour of being pirated without mercy ; . . . 
 we have written paper after paper which attracted no 
 notice at all until it appeared as original in Bentlefs 
 Miscellany or the Paris Charivari. The Boston No- 
 tion abused i The House of Usher,' but when Bentley 
 stole it and published it anonymously, the Notion 
 not only lauded it, but copied it in toto " (Ingram, 
 ii. , 35) . So high was the feeling of some literary cir- 
 cles against Poe's criticising pen, that in June, 1846, 
 Codecs Lactys Book in which Poe had been writ- 
 ing a series of papers on " The Literati " of the day 
 announced its receipt of anonymous and other let- 
 ters bidding it be careful what it allowed Poe to say. 
 The editor added, *' We are not to be intimidated," 
 and it hints that false scandals were being circulated 
 to Poe's detriment. Poe was plaintiff in a libel suit 
 against the Evening Mirror, of which he had been 
 sub-editor, and was awarded substantial damages, a 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. \ \ 
 
 fact to which we shall again refer as having a pecu- 
 liar significance. 
 
 The " Lavante " satire opens with a slash at Rufus 
 Griswold. This notorious defamer of Poe had sup- 
 planted him in the editorial chair of Graham* s Jour- 
 In 1843 Griswold produced his book on the 
 " Poets of America," which was a brazen attempt to 
 place the poets upon the high and low pedestals which 
 he decreed they were to occupy for all time. Gris- 
 wold's pets have mostly dropped out of the roll of 1 
 and among those whom during their life he tried to 
 damn with faint and reluctant praise was Edgar Al- 
 lan Poe. The " Lavante" satire is not long in con- 
 fessing that this Poet-making presumption of Gris- 
 wold is the prime cause ofi: l>een penned, 
 and it heaps cruel ridicule on his attempt to play 
 the god and dispense his favours and thundcrbo' 
 
 iiim. \Vlnl-- ( iriswold's name is thus prominent, 
 that of Poe is NOT found among the thirty poets dealt 
 Mr. George R. Graham says (1850) in his vindi- 
 cation of Poe (who had been editor of Graha? 
 fine) : iswold and Poe were for years totally 
 
 uncongenial, if not enemies, and during that period 
 Mr. Poe, in a scathing lecture upon the ' Poets of 
 America, 1 1843, gave Mr. G. some raps over the 
 knuckles of force sufficient to be remembered. He 
 had, too, in the exercise of his functions as critic, 
 put to death summarily the literary reputation of 
 some of Mr. Griswold's best friends." (In that crit- 
 ique Poe suggested that Griswold had accepted pay- 
 ment for placing c< i " poets " hi; 
 
 Vhat a cartoon," exclaims Mr. Stedman, " he 
 (Poe) drew of the writers of hU time the corrective 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 of Griswold's optimistic delineations ! " We hope 
 Mr. Stedman's words may be allowed to stand good 
 in regard to this satire, to which they so fitly apply. 
 
 The " Lavante " satire was published in 1847. 
 That year stands out as the darkest and judging 
 by the known work the least productive of Poe's 
 life. His poor wife died in January. He had for 
 some time been driven to drink by despair of her 
 recovery and by despondency over his own ill-fate. 
 After her death he kept out of sight, and told no one 
 what he did. Says Ingram (ii., 119) : " He led a 
 secluded life with his mother-in-law, . . . rarely 
 forsaking the precincts of his sorrow-hallowed cot- 
 tage. . . . During this time he published little, 
 and that little had been chiefly written previous to 
 1847." What was he so secretly pondering and con- 
 cocting ? For Poe was never idle in brain, though 
 he had a strange love for secrecy and mystery. It 
 is said he was planning " Eureka," but that was not 
 all. (In the "New Memoir" prefixed to the 1887 
 Household edition of " Poe's Select Works," Mr. R. 
 H. Stoddard who claims that his "is the only life 
 of Poe which can be said to be written with no inten- 
 tion but that of telling the truth " informs us that 
 "the first traceable poem after the death of Poe's 
 wife was a piece of indifferent blank verse to ' M. L. 
 S.' " It is true that these lines appeared in the 
 Home Journal of March, 1847, but in the above 
 edition, and in that of Griswold, they are given 
 among the " Poems Written in Youth.") 
 
 We must go back for a moment in our quest of 
 Poe's work in the spring of 1847. 
 
 In 1843 he lectured in Baltimore on " The Poets 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 13 
 
 and Poetry of America," in which he severely criti- 
 cised the claims of the poets of the time, and gave 
 Griswold the terrible drubbing for his book, then re- 
 cently published. Two years later, in 1845. I 
 peated this lecture in New York, omitting all mention 
 of Griswold (which omission will be cited hereaft 
 showing the variableness of Poc's judgments, accord- 
 ing as he needed favours from his subjects or other- 
 wise). The American Review , February, 1845, says 
 that in this lecture Poe " made unmitigated war upon 
 the prevalent Puffery, and dragged several popular 
 idols from their pedestals." He was in turn made to 
 feel the resentment of those he so unceremoniously 
 degraded, but it only made him the more de 
 Writing a few weeks after this lecture Poe K 
 
 "Could I have invented any terms more explicit 
 wherewith to express my contempt of out 
 course of corruption and puffery, I should have cm- 
 ployed them beyond the shadow of a doubt. Should 
 
 >;k of anything more expressive hcreaj: 
 endeavour either to find or make an opportunity j 
 
 m to the public" (Ingram, i., 291). We 
 /c these words as having a most important bear* 
 ing on the following significant announcement ( 
 we quote from Woodbcnry, p. 280) in the Home 
 Journal of March 20, 1847, that there would shortly 
 be published " The Authors of America, In Prose 
 and Verse, by Edgar Allan Poe." This, says Mr. 
 Woodbcrry, neverappta 
 
 What more probable than that Poe was secretly 
 versifying the essence of these lectures, partly as a 
 novel distraction from his overwhelming trouble, 
 partly in defiant revenge upon his censors, who kept 
 
14 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 his pen from work that paid, and partly from another 
 set of secret motives which will appear later. 
 
 But the " Lavante " satire was anonymous ! So, 
 singularly enough, was the one poem Poe published 
 in this same year, 1847, the " Ulalume," which ap- 
 peared in the December American Review. And 
 how could the note of defiance be more clearly 
 sounded than in the words of Poe's letter, above 
 quoted, unless it be in the last lines of the " Lavante " 
 satire : 
 
 " Should public hate upon my pen react, 
 No matter this I will not aught retract." 
 
 In this connection may be noted the following from 
 Ingram (ii., 102) : " It was Poe's intention to repub- 
 lish ' THE LITERATI ; some Honest Opinions about 
 Autorial Merits and Demerits, with occasional Words 
 of Personality, together with Marginalia, Suggestions, 
 and Essays, by Edgar A. Poe.' In December, 1846, 
 Poe writes : 6 I am now at this body and soul.' " This 
 somewhat ponderous prospectus may or may not have 
 been the forerunner of the neater title-page promised 
 in March, 1847 ; probably Poe had changed his in- 
 tention meantime, as the later one promised " verse." 
 Ingram, who loses no opportunity to have a pardon- 
 able fling at Griswold, remarks on this that the MS. 
 of this work passed into Griswold's hands at Poe's 
 death, and has never been seen since. It is true 
 that Griswold had such papers from Mrs. Clemm as 
 were thought necessary for the memoir, but there 
 does not seem sufficient evidence to warrant this im- 
 putation. If Poe altered his intention between De- 
 cember, 1846, and March, 1847 (as he may well have 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 15 
 
 done, for the death of his wife had a tremendous ef- 
 fect upon his mind and his plans) there is nothing im- 
 probable in the supposition that the Home Jc 
 announcement indicated his later determination to 
 turn the prose, " honest opinions . . . occasional 
 words, . . . marginalia, suggestions, and ess 
 into a crisp satire in verse. And supposing that he 
 published this poem anonymously, the rough prose 
 MS. would probably have been destroyed by himself, 
 to prevent identification by comparisons. 
 
 Thus far, we have ascertained that Poe had ample 
 grounds for feeling aggrieved at his contemporary 
 poets and journalists ; that he gratified his desire 
 for revenge by satirizing them persistently and 
 : ously in his prose writings ; that he satirized 
 in lectures ; that he burned to lash them in 
 some enduring composition, and pledged himself to 
 do so in verse ; that he had a long leisure tim 
 sore need for some light t >uM mitigate 
 
 his gloom after his wife's death in 1847 ; that he is- 
 sued one of his best poems anonymously in that 
 : and that the defiant tone in which he lectured 
 and wrote is precisely the dominant note of the 
 " Lavantc " satire. It appears possible thai a new 
 objection, or difficulty, may lurk in the following re- 
 mark by Mr. Stoddard, the objection that the pub- 
 lishers were no great friends of Poe, and that the 
 poet himself was too poor to publish on his own ac- 
 count. Mr. Stoddard says, of this period following 
 the death of Mrs. Poe in January, 1847, "how Poe 
 contrived to live we have to conjecture, for he is not 
 known to have done any literary work, from which 
 he could have derived money as he needed it." It 
 
1 6 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 is unfortunate that Mr. Stoddard omits a fact which 
 we submit has a very significant bearing on our ar- 
 gument, viz. : the fact that Poe received $225 as 
 damages in his action against the Evening Mirror 
 for libel. With the legal expenses this cost the Mir- 
 ror $492. According to Poe himself, this was on 
 the 1 7th February, and the announcement of the 
 new publication, " in prose and verse, by E. A. 
 Poe," appeared on the 2Oth March. Considering 
 his intention, his leisure, his disgust at the publish- 
 ers, and his sudden acquisition of (to him) so large a 
 sum, it seems highly probable that Poe would spend 
 $50 or so on the secret gratification of his cherished 
 whim. 
 
 Passing now, and as briefly as possible, to the 
 second set of considerations, we found there were 
 two writers of satire who might possibly have 
 written this of " Lavante," and of these the condi- 
 tions seemed to suit one. His name has already 
 been given in the list of works consulted, Lambert 
 A. Wilmer. Curiously enough, the only clew to 
 Wilmer as a satirist we have found is in Poe's well- 
 known review of " The Quacks of Helicon," by this 
 author. This remarkable critique at first seemed to 
 dispose of the notion that Poe was " Lavante." 
 Further acquaintance with it, however, strongly con- 
 firmed the original impression, as will be gathered 
 from what follows. We have not been able to dis- 
 cover " The Quacks of Helicon," nor converse with 
 anyone who has read it. Nor have we succeeded in 
 finding any reviews or notices of it except that by 
 Poe. It seems to have been published in 1841. 
 The only references to it that we have seen are the 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 17 
 
 title, as given in Allibone's Dictionary, and the de- 
 scription of Wilmer as " author of ' The Quacks of 
 Helicon/" on the title-page of his book, " Our Press 
 Gang." So far as our inspection of the serials of 
 the period warrants the judgment, it would seem as 
 if the existence of that work is only known through 
 Poe's review of it. It was singular that Wilmer's 
 initials, " L. A.," should be the same as the first two 
 letters of " Lavante," and the style, the bias, the 
 pungency of the satire certainly resembled the - 
 acteristics of "The Quacks of Helicon," so far as 
 v enables us to judge. Another discourag- 
 ing point was the fact that Poe speaks in the i < 
 of Wilmer as his personal friend, and warmly ap- 
 plauds the intention and the power of his perform- 
 ance. Very unlikely that a reviewer who thus 
 praises and endorses a friend's poem should set 
 about an identical thing, as though to rival and 
 eclipse his friend. So the inquiry grew more inter- 
 esting for the new elements of mystery and contra- 
 diction, and from here the discussion ncccs 
 acquires, in part, a psychological character. If we 
 find the \\ pothesis eliminates itself, or tends 
 
 to, then comes the problem how to make a cap out 
 of the in. aerials secrecy, spite, self-gratification, 
 and inconsistency that shall fit the head of Poe bet- 
 in that of anyone else. 
 
 Lambert A. Wilmer was a friend of Poe for a 
 years. He started the Saturday Visitor in I 
 more in 1833, and Poe won two of the prizes on 
 
 . which began their acquaintance. Like Poe, 
 Wilmer was penniless, and found the way rough 
 enough without making it worse for himself, which, 
 
 2 
 
1 8 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 however, he invariably used to do. He contrived to 
 set everybody by the ears, and turn his friends into 
 foes. So far as we know him from occasional men- 
 tion, and from his own autobiographical statement 
 in " Our Press Gang," Wilmer must have been one 
 of the most cantankerous, self-opinionated men ever 
 known. He bears out, and actually glories in, the 
 less formidable facts included in the letter of Poe, 
 which we are about to cite, that he (Wilmer) had to 
 leave Philadelphia " on tramp," penniless and 
 friendless, and from that time until about 1853 he 
 was always in poverty, and being scouted because of 
 his unfortunate habit of saying the wrong thing at 
 the wrong time to the wrong person. The " Press 
 Gang" book is his Parthian shaft at the journalistic 
 profession, which he had exchanged for some com- 
 mercial interest, and he revels in malicious glee, as 
 he " exposes" the thousand and one rascalities that 
 degrade every member, great and small, of " Our 
 Press Gang" with the solitary exception (of course) 
 of the virtuous Wilmer. 
 
 Now to recur to Poe's review of Wilmer's 1841 
 satire. He reviews it, not because of, but in spite of, 
 its qualities. He says candidly the author of " The 
 Quacks of Helicon" is his friend, and he wishes 
 the poem success, yet in the very outset Poe pro- 
 ceeds to damn it for its " gross obscenity," and the 
 " filth which disgraces it." 
 
 What is the meaning of this ? It discloses itself in 
 the avowal by Poe that he goes out of his way to do 
 a disagreeable act, solely because " it is the truth, 
 and for that reason we wish it God-speed." Here is 
 to be noted Poe's overpowering desire to chastise his 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 19 
 
 rivals and censors by any sort of rod, however dirty, 
 if only it leaves a mark. This is worth emphasizing 
 for the present purpose, and we therefore make the 
 following extracts from his review : 
 
 " We repeat, // is the truth which he (Wilmcr) has spoken. 
 
 . He has asserted that we are clique-ridden ; and who 
 does not smile at the truism of that assertion ? Hr m.iintains 
 that chicanery is, with us. a far surer road than talent to dis- 
 tinction in letters. Who gainsays thi The inter- 
 course between critic and publisher, as it now almost univer- 
 sally stands, is comprised either in the paying and pocketing 
 of blackmail, as the price of a simple forbearance, or in a 
 direct system of petty and contemptible bribery. ... Is 
 there any man of good feeling and of ordinary understand- 
 ing . . . who does not feel a thrill of bitter indignation 
 as he calls to mind instance after instance of the pur- 
 est, the most unadulterated quackery in letters, which has 
 risen to a high post in the apparent popular estimation. 
 We should have no trouble in pointing out, to-day, some 
 twenty or thirty so-called literary personages, who, if not 
 idiots, as we half think them, or if not hardened to all sense 
 of shame by a long course of disingenuousness, will now blush 
 
 . and tremble. h the help of a hearty good- 
 
 will, even w may yet tumble them do 
 
 It is beyond dispute that Poc did "tumble do 
 a good many worthless idols, as all his competent 
 biographers testify. Mr. Stoddard, howt 
 tures to think or rather, to say "Poc destroyed 
 no reputation ; he was a powerless iconoclast." 1 Yet 
 in the Mail and Express of April 23, 1887, the v. 
 of the " Literary Notes " speaks of " nonentities like 
 Percival and Sprai; 
 
 The case now stands thus, Poc has stretched a 
 point, against his better judgment and good taste, 
 to dr.i^ the *' filthy " sat;; .end into unim 
 
20 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 prominence, solely because it attacked the persons 
 against whom Poe harboured the keenest animosity. 
 
 What we have now to explain is how it could hap- 
 pen that Poe should turn round and try to undo his 
 friendliness to Wilmer by writing a rival satire on 
 the same theme and in the same style, though with- 
 out the glaring offences. The explanatory facts that 
 are here given supply a twofold answer ; first, Poe 
 soon fell out with his " friend ; " second, he thus had 
 a double motive for wiping out the satire he had 
 praised, and also his own friendly review of it, which 
 remained on record, perhaps, as we have said, the 
 only record of its existence. 
 
 Within two years from Poe's review of Wilmer's 
 "Quacks" we find Poe fiercely attacking his quon- 
 dam friend. This is sufficiently attested by the fol- 
 lowing extract from a letter written by Poe from 
 Philadelphia, August 28, 1843, which we take from 
 Woodberry (p. 191). Poe demands that his corre- 
 spondent shall give up a letter which Wilmer is sup- 
 posed to have written against Poe. 
 
 Here is the extract : "I believe I know the vil- 
 lain's name. It is Wilmer. In Philadelphia no one 
 speaks to him. He is considered by all as a repro- 
 bate of the lowest class. Feeling a deep pity for 
 him I endeavoured to befriend him, and you remem- 
 ber that I rendered myself liable to some censure by 
 writing a review of his filthy pamphlet called l The 
 Quacks of Helicon.' He has returned my good of- 
 fices by slander behind my back. All here are anx- 
 ious to have him convicted for there is scarcely a 
 gentleman in Philadelphia whom he has not libelled, 
 through the gross malignity of his nature." 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 21 
 
 To this it is only necessary to add a brief sum- 
 mary of the results of our efforts to exhaust the 
 \Vilmer clew. Lambert A. Wilmer and Poe were 
 never friends again. Wilmer issued no more poeti- 
 cal compositions. He appears not to have sought 
 special repute as a writer of verse. His " Quacks " 
 ipparently a tabooed book, and no trace of it is 
 found in a general perusal of the serials of the time. 
 Wilmer was a journalist and a pro- . He 
 
 published his book, " Our Press Gang," in 18^, 
 describing himself on the title-page as "Author of 
 the Quacks of Helicon" also of a grammar and a 
 biography, but makes no claim to be the author of 
 the " Lavantc " satire. This is a striking consider- 
 ation, for Wilmer was a very proud man, and having 
 written a satire that was unanimously condemned for 
 its dirtiness, he would assuredly have gloried to own 
 the " Lavantc " satire, if he had written it, because 
 it is pure in tone and style, and meritorious through- 
 out He was a man of very pronounced character. 
 In his " Press Gang " he gives his portrait and writes 
 fully and freely about himself, concealing nothing. 
 As the burden of that book is the bitter complaint 
 11 his penwork had been condemned, would he 
 not have flourished this clever and unobjectionable 
 "Lavantc" satire in the face of the world as a tii- 
 umphant vindication of his ability and his purity ? 
 
 By his silence as to this, and by his claim of the 
 objectionable " Quacks " he clearly negatives the 
 supposition that Wilmer might have be< 
 It is not necessary to enlarge upon such minor points 
 as the omission of Poe's name from the " Lavante " 
 satire. Had Wilmer written it he would have b 
 
22 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 fied the writer of the letter quoted above, even if he 
 had wrapped it in praises of Poe's technical skill. 
 According to Woodberry, Wilmer sent a letter to the 
 Baltimore Commercial of May 23, 1866, containing 
 some favourable recollections of Poe. According to 
 Dr. Allibone's Dictionary of Authors, Wilmer died 
 in 1863, but authorities delight to differ. From what 
 we have seen of Wilmer as a writer, and know of him 
 as a man, he is scarcely likely to have had either the 
 reposeful leisure, the cast of thought, or the graceful 
 pen that produced this "Lavante" satire. The 
 pseudonym "Lavante" is not in any of the diction- 
 aries, nor is it likely that Wilmer ever wrote anony- 
 mously. He was not that kind of man. As regards 
 others, it is of course quite possible there may have 
 been a score of versifiers capable of producing a 
 poetical satire in 1847. All we say is, that among 
 them we have failed to find a satisfactory " Lavante." 
 If a claimant shall come forward he must fulfil these 
 conditions : He must first of all be a poet himself of 
 high merit ; he must be animated by a contemptuous 
 jealousy of other poets whom he conscientiously feels 
 are his inferiors, but who are set above him ; he must 
 be a firm holder of the Poe theory of poetry ; and yet 
 he must have dominating reasons for avoiding all 
 mention of Poe's name or works. These conditions 
 limit the field of choice, and, short of proof positive, 
 it will be difficult to be convinced that there exists a 
 stronger claimant than Poe. 
 
 The third division of the inquiry is now reached : 
 What are the intrinsic quality and characteristics of 
 the " Lavante " satire, and how far do they tally with 
 those of Poe, the poet and the man ? 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 23 
 
 The first difficulties (as they may appear) are 
 these : if Poe was " Lavante," he must have acted 
 cunningly, and, to a certain extent, deceitfully ; lie 
 must have been an extreme egotist ; he must have 
 been inconsistent, because several passages and a 
 'missions in the " Lavante" satire do not quite 
 square with other judgments in his prose writings ; 
 he must have condescended to imitation; and he 
 must have furbished up into new shape much of his 
 old work. Undoubtedly the " Lavante" satire sug- 
 gests these points at the outset. We deal with them, 
 again as briefly as possible, before proceeding t 
 
 -t, as to the deceit, or cunning. This would 
 seem to lurk in the invention of a pseudonym not un- 
 likely to suggest " L. A. Wilmcr " or " Lau, 
 Osborn," author of the satirical " Vision of Rub 
 because it begins with " La." There is not much in 
 but the author of " The Purloined Letter" was 
 not lacking in subtlety of resource, and wh 
 the whim to preserve his own anonymity by trailing 
 the scent in another quarter, he was not likely to fail 
 of success. 
 
 Yet there is a euphony in the word " Lavante " 
 
 curiously suggestive of Poe. One of his characters 
 
 in " Politian" is named " Lalagc." Elsewhere we 
 
 find " lanthc," " Levaritc," " Lalande," " enwrit- 
 
 "silcntncss," and " rcd-littcn." Mr. Stcdman 
 
 rks on Poe's love of smooth-flowing words, 
 
 selected or coined, for use and re-use, a number of 
 
 what have been called ' beautiful words/ . . . 
 
 halcyon, scintillant, Ligcia, . . . D'Eloi 
 
 and the like ; everything was subordinate to sound." 
 
24 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 In the " Lavante " satire we find the words "aid- 
 ance," "idlesse," "Pallas," "distain," and "re-veer," 
 and the remarkable use of the caesura, which forms 
 the subject of a note in the Appendix. The above 
 words are by no means the common property of 
 common rhymesters. 
 
 Poe loved the mysterious, and revelled in mystify- 
 ing others. His famous hoaxes are sufficiently 
 familiar. He was great at cryptography, of which 
 we have more to say hereafter. There are many 
 other instances of Poe's fancy for misleading his 
 readers. In the Southern Literary Messenger, vol. 
 for 1836, is an anonymous article on Poetry. An 
 editorial foot-note says, " These detached passages 
 form part of the preface of a small volume printed 
 some years ago for private circulation. They have 
 vigour and much originality, but of course we shall 
 not be called upon to endorse all the writer's opin- 
 ions." The " writer" was no other than Poe him- 
 self ; the book in which this article appeared was his 
 own 1831 volume of poems, and the editor who 
 penned this foot-note was also Poe. Later he did not 
 shrink from anonymously attacking and ridiculing 
 Griswold by name, and drawing a contrast between 
 Griswold and Poe, to the disparagement of the 
 former. This was in the Saturday Museum, at the 
 end of 1843 (Woodberry, pi 195). In Lowell's short- 
 lived " Pioneer" Poe (who had asked for employ- 
 ment on it) wrote favorably of Lowell, and adversely 
 criticised Longfellow. By and by Poe fell foul of 
 Lowell, and yet later still we find him asking Lowell 
 to write a biographical notice of him (Poe). Accord- 
 ing to his needs and prospects Poe's printed judg- 
 
INTRODUCTOR Y ARGUMENT. : ; 
 
 merits on his more powerful contemporaries varied, 
 now rose-coloured and now black as a gibbet. We 
 have already mentioned that " Ulalume " was pub- 
 lished anonymously in the same year as the * * La- 
 " satire, but there was this peculiarity about 
 it Poe wrote to Willis, requesting him to copy the 
 poem from the American Review into his " Home 
 Journal," and to preface it with an editorial note 
 asking who the author could be. " The R 
 also published anonymously, in the American Re- 
 vieW) as by " Quarles," with a pi >te calcu- 
 
 lated to throw the reader entirely off the scent The 
 unreliableness of his mood (and this cover- 
 difficulty as to " inconsistency ") is further shov 
 the fact that although from 1843 to 1845 Poc's hos- 
 tility to Griswold knew no bounds, he absolutely 
 avoided all criticism of Griswold when he repeated 
 his lecture in New York in 1845. Why ? Because 
 Griswold was then in a position to do him harm or 
 good, and Poe was more and more in need of any 
 sort of lift Woodbcrry (p. 224) : " Poe was 
 
 now endeavouring to renew his acquaintance (with 
 Griswold), plainly from selfish motives." Stoddard 
 states that Poe reprinted some of his old stories in 
 the Broadway Journal with the new signature " Lit- 
 tleton 
 
 The next point is the egotism of " Lavante." The 
 reference already made to Poe's cl itude 
 
 toward his censors, rivals, and the Press bears on 
 It needs no elaboration. The critic, con- 
 scious of his own mastery, cannot but beegotis' 
 and his egotism is but the mintmark of his quality. 
 In a moment of unrestrained outrightncss Po 
 
26 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 plied to a friend who had referred to public opinion, 
 " What care I for the judgment of a multitude, 
 every individual of which I despise ? " (Ingram, ii., 
 94.) Next day he felt he must tone this sentiment 
 down somewhat, but it was there, and it came right 
 out like a blow from the shoulder. Another expres- 
 sion, made in the course of a discussion upon his 
 " Eureka," Poe neither retracted nor modified. 
 Said he, solemnly, " My whole nature utterly re- 
 volts at the idea that there is any Being in the uni- 
 verse superior to myself " (Ingrain, ii., 144). Sted- 
 man acutely observes that " the central figure in all 
 Poe's writings, however disguised, is himself." 
 
 It will be noticed that there are no female poets 
 named among the thirty in this satire. Stoddard 
 quotes Poe as stating, " I cannot point an arrow 
 against any woman " (p. 145). 
 
 Now as to the suspicion of imitation. Poe was 
 if ever there was an original genius. But the great- 
 est original genius is obliged to use spoons, knives, 
 and forks to eat with. He has to be content with 
 the existing roads and streets if he goes to walk. 
 All poets use the common laws of language, with 
 more or less variation from the common use, and 
 Poe if he wanted to write a satire in heroic coup- 
 lets, in the manner of Dryden and Pope, had to 
 write in heroic couplets, of course. This is no de- 
 traction from any man's merit. It is not plagiarism. 
 It need not be imitation. But there must necessar- 
 ily be resemblance, and, assuming that " Lavante " 
 had reasons for preserving his secrecy, it would fol- 
 low that he would not take pains to make any strik- 
 ing distinction between his verses and those of an 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGU.V 2~ 
 
 ordinarily facile writer. Stedman remarks that 
 " Poe could do nothing with a measure like blank 
 verse." Those accustomed to verse-composition 
 know it is impossible to gain effects such as those in 
 " The Raven" or " The Bells" in the heroic couplet 
 measure. More than once we find Poe regretting 
 that certain pieces under review were written in this 
 familiar measure, which, in his amusingly pedantic 
 manner when writing of rhythm he dignifies with the 
 strict name of " iambic pentameters." At first this 
 seem an argument against the Poe authorship 
 of this satire, but the following admission entirely 
 removes the difficulty. 
 
 " We cannot deny, it is true, that the satiric 
 model oi the days in question (Pope and Dryden, 
 and the heroic couplet) is insusceptible of improve- 
 ment, and that the modern author who dc\ 
 therefrom must necessarily sacrifice something of 
 merit at the shrine of originality*' (Poe's review of 
 " The Quacks of Helicon"). The italics arc ours. 
 At the risk of repetition we put it that this deliberate 
 opinion, coupled with his equally emphatic and sig- 
 nificant declaration that "a satire is, of course, no 
 poem," clearly shows that when, or if, Poe contem- 
 plated a satire in verse, he would write it in heroic 
 couplets, though he felt in advance it would b 
 possible to impress it with the stamp of the original 
 genius of which he was so justly proud. 
 
 But, if need be, it is not very difficult to show that 
 Poe could imitate, or at least borrow an idea 
 or a pattern, when he chose. Even " The Raven " 
 that most unique of all strange poems was anony- 
 mously put out only fourteen months after the New 
 
28 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 Mirror of October 14, 1843, had published Albert 
 Pike's " Isadore," which strikingly foreshadows the 
 " Raven," with its " nevermore " refrain. Here is a 
 verse : 
 
 " Thou art lost to me forever, I have lost thee, Isadore, 
 Thy head will never rest upon my loyal bosom more, 
 Thy tender eyes will nevermore gaze fondly into mine, 
 Nor thy arms around me lovingly and trustingly entwine, 
 Thou art lost to me forever, Isadore ! " 
 
 Stoddard does not mention this striking coinci- 
 dence in his Memoir. " Lavante " has a gentle lash 
 at this same " Sir Pike : " 
 
 " So glide thy music, so expire thy song, 
 So melt thy melody into the soul 
 That not thy foe may say it all was stole." 
 
 The f l Autography " satires are imitation letters by 
 the persons whose autograph signatures are given, 
 and after each humorous forgery Poe solemnly 
 pens a stinging estimate of the character of each vic- 
 tim, founded upon the style of composition and the 
 calligraphy ! The force of cunning satire could no 
 farther go. If evidence were demanded of further 
 versatility we might point to Poe's serious disquisi- 
 tion on the science of " Street Paving," and the 
 " Philosophy of Furniture," and to his really re- 
 markable facility as an utterer of slangy abuse, on 
 demand, of which his " Reply " to an attack is a rich 
 specimen. It appeared in the Saturday Gazette in 
 1846, and filled several columns in the same strain as 
 this in which Poe speaks of his former employer and 
 friend Briggs's " brandy-nose, who is only one-third 
 described when this nose is omitted." Some other 
 
INTRODUCTORY AK 2 $ 
 
 9 
 
 friends figure as "blatherumskites." All this goes to 
 show that Poe was a many-sided man. " Only this, 
 and nothing more." That he continually re-served 
 most of his writings in new style after intervals is too 
 well-known a fact to need more than bare mention. 
 Hence the probability that Poe occupied himself dur- 
 ing those secluded months of 1847 with turning into 
 verse the satirical lectures he had delivered and 
 could not get published but which he vowed he 
 would intensify and make permanent 
 
 The last point that arises is this : Does Poe's 
 characteristic theory of the poetic principle find an 
 echo in the " Lavante" satire? Not only does it 
 find an echo but the satire is simply one sustained, 
 eloquent paraphrase of Poe's essays and utterances 
 on that subject. It is scarcely necessary to quote 
 Poe on so familiar a theme. Perusal of the satire 
 will be the most convincing testimony to those 
 acquainted with his critiques, but we give an appen- 
 dix of parallel passages in the form of notes. It may, 
 however, be pointed out here that " Lavante " intro- 
 duces his poem by a quotation from Crabbc. \Vh.it 
 Poe thought of Crabbe may be gathered from this 
 sentence in his review of Longfellow. He is arguing 
 tli it if Truth rather than Beauty is the criterion of 
 Art, " then Jan Steen is a greater artist than Angelo, 
 and Crabbe a greater poet than Milton." Then 
 delicious touch of irony :ite " selecting these 
 
 lines from Crabbe as his motto for the satire : 
 
 "And with his moral and religious views 
 Woos the wild fancies of an infant muse, 
 Inspiring thoughts that he could not express, 
 Obscure sublime ! his secret happiness." 
 
30 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 % 
 
 To use this, from the tamest of all tame " poets " 
 as his heraldic tin-whistle, with which to usher in his 
 victims, is a left-handed compliment which the bards 
 no doubt thoroughly appreciated. (Note that both 
 in the Poe article and the " Lavante " satire refer- 
 ence is made to " Angelo," without the " Michael.") 
 
 One or two further considerations may be indicated 
 here. It has been frequently remarked that the po- 
 etry of Poe lacks the religious element, as conven- 
 tionally understood, and that he was not what Gris- 
 wold most valued in poets, a " moral " instructor. 
 The writer of this " Lavante " satire not only comes 
 under this censure, but throughout the whole of it 
 contends that the didactic and the moral are not the 
 purpose of Poetry. So did Poe, and, as will be seen, 
 in almost identical terms. It may, again, be asked, 
 Why should Poe not have owned this satire if he 
 wrote it ? The main answer to this is found in the 
 thread of the argument here adduced, but there are 
 others ; e.g., he was extremely sensitive, and with 
 his strict views of poetic excellence, he was chary of 
 acknowledging what might not seem to bear his in- 
 dividuality. Further, he was not in a position, in 
 1847, to stand the brunt of additional ill-will. Again, 
 rinding the anonymous publication (if it really was 
 circulated) had fallen flat, his pride was too keen to 
 own a failure. Again ; he may well have found it 
 advisable to withdraw or suppress it for his own rea- 
 sons. We have only traced the existence of three 
 copies, and they are in public libraries. And a peru- 
 sal of the satire goes far to explain why the persons 
 named in it were more likely to forget and ignore it 
 than talk it into the fame it well deserves and is now 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 31 
 
 certain to enjoy. Those familiar with the minor 
 mannerisms of Poe will recognize most of them in 
 the satire. Among these are the rather pedantic 
 preference for " which" instead of " that ; " an oc- 
 casional faulty rhyme, despite his acute L 
 dundant syllable here and there, and the plentiful 
 use of alliteration. Noteworthy, too, isthegrim 
 sistence that makes him go out of his way to dub his 
 contemporaries by the intended contemptuous term 
 " bards," which word occurs forty-seven times, while 
 the word " poet " is used less than half a dozen times 
 and always with profound respect. There arc 
 ous signs that this satire was written while Poe was 
 deeply engaged in the studies that resulted in the 
 .'' \\hich all the authorities agree absorbed 
 him during the early part of 1847. The allusions to 
 astronomy and to birds, and the simile of the < 
 a metaphysician, arc to be considered not only in the 
 light of the " Eureka," but also of the f.ict th.it Poe 
 used to wander at nights star-gazing ; th.i: 
 
 i liking for birds, and used to tamo thorn 
 that his pet cat was often on his table \\hon writing. 
 
 c ouplet strikingly recalls the " Eurck 
 
 "Seek out, admire, and love (he constant laws 
 Which guide the world by one Eternal Cause." 
 
 There now remains but to summarize the argument 
 based upon the evidence thus briefly adduced. 
 
 i Poe owes grudges to Griswold and his pet 
 " po< 
 
 2. He lectures on " The Poets and Poetry of 
 America," weaving in much of what he had written 
 in his reviews. 
 
32 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 3. His lectures cause a stir, and he creates ene- 
 mies. 
 
 4. He vows he will publish a still sharper critique 
 upon them. 
 
 5. In January, 1847, his wife dies, and he is mood- 
 ily occupied for some weeks or months, publishing 
 nothing. In February he gains $225 by an action for 
 libel. In March he announces as soon to appear 
 " The Authors of America, in Prose and Verse, by 
 Edgar A. Poe." 
 
 6. This is said never to have appeared, but he had 
 issued many pieces besides "The Raven" anony- 
 mously, and " Ulalume " appeared anonymously 
 that year. 
 
 7. An anonymous satire in verse did appear in 
 1847, of which no history is ascertainable, but which, 
 intrinsically and by other considerations, exactly fits 
 the conditions of the theory that this is Poe's versified 
 lecture, the persons Poe had adversely criticised be- 
 ing named in it, but not Poe himself. 
 
 8. The absence of any other " Lavante " of 
 equal claims to the authorship, and the fact that the 
 satire itself and thq pseudonym are unknown to the 
 authorities in American Literature. 
 
 SUPPLEMENTARY. 
 
 SINCE the foregoing was written it occurred to us 
 that Poe, who was so given to mystification in his 
 literary work and in his conversation about himself, 
 might possibly have indulged his whim occasionally 
 for a purpose. It seemed not improbable that the 
 constructor of the ingenious acrostic enigmas " A 
 
INTRODUCTORY A. 33 
 
 Valentine" and** An Enigma," containing the names 
 of " Sarah Anna Lewis " and " Frances Sargent Os- 
 good," might sign his own name in some crypto- 
 graphic fashion in, at any rate, his anonymous poems. 
 It might serve for identification in case of doubt. 
 We made the experiment, and here are the results. 
 Let it be admitted at the outset that the letters form- 
 ing " Edgar Allan Poe " are such as can be compa- 
 ratively easily buried in ordinary words. Still, there 
 are points in what we now proceed to record which 
 are curious, and far from valueless, though we only 
 submit this as a curios: 
 
 Assuming that such cryptogram-signature would 
 probably be found in the last couplet, we examined 
 nd found these peculiarities. The lines arc : 
 
 "SHOULD PUBLIC HATE UPON MY PEN REACT, 
 NO MATTER THIS I WILL NOT AUGHT RETRACT." 
 
 We find that the above couplet contains all the 
 letters in the name 
 
 EDGAR ALLAN PC! 
 They also contain the following words : 
 "AMERICAN POETS AND POETRY: A SATIRE." 
 Or these : 
 
 " A SATIRE. EVERY WORD TRUE ; EDGAR ALLAN 
 POE." 
 
 Or these : 
 
 A TRUE AND HONEST SATIRE, BY EDGAR AL- 
 LAN POE." 
 
 Neither of the titles of the satires referred toby 
 Poe " The Quacks of Helicon" and "The Vision 
 of Rubeta "can be got out of this couplet. It must 
 3 
 
34 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 
 
 be borne in mind that we are dealing with a strange 
 and whimsical order of mind, that enjoyed, rather 
 than scorned, such trivial exercises as these. 
 
 If it is remarked that a good many other names 
 and titles can be made-up out of this couplet, so be 
 it. Yet it is none the less striking that the names of 
 Griswold, Lowell, Holmes, Pike, Benjamin, Long- 
 fellow, Dawes, Pinckney, Willis, Whittier, Clarke, 
 Halleck, Tucker, Hoffman, Parker, possibly able if 
 not likely to have written such a satire, cannot be 
 found in the cryptogram-couplet! 
 
 Poe's gifted friend, Mrs. Whitman, carries the an- 
 agram whim to an extreme pitch in her charming 
 vindication of the poet, when she finds in " Edgar 
 Poe" " a god-peer." Yet there is something to be 
 said for the anagram, if only as an amusing pastime. 
 
 If it be objected that Poe was too fine an artist in 
 word-jugglery to perpetrate such poor jokes as these, 
 we must call Mr. Stedman to testify that " in gen- 
 uine humour Poe seemed utterly wanting," and as 
 to its quality we again cite from Ingram, who says 
 (ii. , p. 286), " His love of hidden hoaxing is well ex- 
 emplified by the names of the personages in this lit- 
 tle romance (' The Thousand and Second Tale of 
 Scheherazade') ; for instance, the incidents are as- 
 sumably derived from the oriental work ' Tellmenow 
 Isitsoornot' (Tell me now is it so or not), which is 
 compared, for its rarity, with the ' Zohar ' (So ah) 
 of ' Jochaides ' (Joke aids)." Again, the hero of his 
 would-be humorous account of " Some Words with 
 a Mummy" is " Count Allamistakeo " (All a mistake, 
 o). Elsewhere we find the name " Vondervotteim- 
 ittis" (Wonder what time it is). By way of testing 
 
INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 35 
 
 
 
 the frequency of the occurrence of the letters in the 
 three names of Poe we examined the final couplets 
 of a hundred sonnets, and they occur in only thirty- 
 three. The first couplet of " The Raven " contains 
 not only " Edgar Allan Poe/' but also " Quarles," 
 the pseudonym under which it appeared in the 
 American Review. In " Ulalume," which was pub- 
 lished anonymously, it is curious that all the letters 
 of Poe's name come in the first couplet, except the 
 g, but the second line is made to do duty as a third 
 it might almost seem for the sole purpose of sup- 
 plying that missing lett 
 
 .ic skies they were ashen and sober ; 
 The leaves they were crisped and sere 
 The leaves they were m/fori^f and sere." 
 
 Why not " withered," except for some fanciful 
 reason ? Out of the 42 poems in GriswokTs edition 
 of Poe, 36 have Poe's name in some form, in the 
 first or last lines. The names 
 
 Edgar Poe (Lavantc), 
 yield this anagi 
 
 A Real Poet AvcngM. 
 And the words 
 
 Poe, Lavantc, 
 give 
 
 No Valet. E. A. P., 
 
 a sentiment quite in accord with that of the satire and 
 all Poe's critical writings. As Poe was unique and 
 eccentric, he must be dealt with on other than ordi- 
 lines. In his very able sketch, Mr. J. R. Lowell 
 says : " Poe combines in a very remarkable man- 
 ner two faculties which are seldom found united, a 
 power of influencing the mind of the reader by the 
 
36 INTRODUCTORY ARGUMENT. 
 
 impalpable shadows of mystery, and a minuteness of 
 detail which does not leave a pin or a button un- 
 noticed. . . . Having resolved to bring about 
 certain emotions in the reader, he makes all sub- 
 ordinate parts tend strictly to the common cen- 
 tre. Even his mystery is mathematical to his own 
 mind. To him x is a known quantity all along." 
 We venture one step further, and submit that no cir- 
 cumstance, however apparently trivial, singular, or 
 inconsistent, can safely be left out of the estimate, 
 when the subject of discussion is the wholly unique, 
 sphinx-like Edgar Poe. 
 
 HOW POE WOULD HAVE WRITTEN A SATIRE. 
 
 (The following extract may serve as a pre- 
 face and a criterion, before reading the satire :) 
 " It (the ' Vision of Rubeta ') fails in the 
 principal element of all satire sarcasm be- 
 cause the intention to be sarcastic ... is 
 permitted to render itself manifest. The 
 malevolence appears. The author has not 
 many superiors in downright invective ; but 
 this is the awkward left arm of the satiric 
 Muse. That satire alone is worth talking 
 about which at least appears to be the genial, 
 ^^good-humored, out-pouring of irrepressible 
 ^merriment." Poe on Lowell, in The Literati. 
 
 veral irregularities in the use or non-use of 
 capitals, in punctuation, and possibly of spelling will be no- 
 ticed in the satire ; they are in the original, which seems to 
 have been either carelessly revised or purposely confused. 
 
THE 
 
 POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA 
 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
 WILLIAM a YOUNG-NO. ITS RACE STREET 
 
 1847 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF 
 AMERICA. 
 
 A SATIRE. 
 
 " And with his moral and religious views 
 Woos the wild fancies of an infant muse, 
 Inspiring thoughts that he could not express, 
 Obscure sublime I his secret happiness." 
 
 CRABBB. 
 
 CLIME of the brave ! entire from sea to sea I 
 Vain is thy boast that thou art blest and free ! 
 Oh servile slave to eastern rules and rhyn 
 Almost from Milton's blank to Chaucer's chime ! 
 Thy own proud bards behold t a motley band 
 To lead the music of their native land. 
 Immortal GRISWOLD! thine the deathless name 
 Shall bear the palm of more than mortal fame ! 
 For thine the lofty boast at once to save 
 The humble bard perchance from hapless grave, 
 
 h liis crown thy fadeless laurel bays, 
 And with thy nursling gain undying praise. 
 Yea thine alone to search o'er Delphian height 
 Inch shall give to gods and men delight ; 
 At once to snatch from each lone wandering muse 
 All which on earth could profit or amuse, 
 Then rise and soar o'er loftier peaks away, 
 And bask in Phoebus' pure effulgent ray ! 
 1 Blest be thy name ! nor grief thy pleasure 
 Nor fade thy life but with the morning star t 
 
 * It is in the invaluable collection of Griswold that I have 
 found the plot and groundwork of the Tale. 
 
4 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Awake, satiric muse ! awake in might 2 
 To strike, for Poesy's insulted right ! 
 Awake in spite of SAUNDERS and the fools 
 Who think of thee, as I of PARKER'S rules, 
 That thou art weak and not that deathless fame 
 Awaits thy course to crown the empty claim ! 
 The chase is up, arise and onward press, 
 If mean the game, yet not the sport is less ! 
 Keen be the jest, yet just the pointed stroke 
 To silence folly in her shameless cloak ; 
 Let impulse lead, not prudence guide the song, 
 Nor laughter fail to cheer the muse along. 
 
 What age can boast improvements like our own, 
 
 3 When men to gods, and idiots bards have grown ? 
 No want of rhyme, though oft as light as chaff, 
 Vain as a bustle or a cenotaph ; 
 
 4 Dreams, clouds, or gas-light, all are made 
 At cheapest rate by Espy or a blade ! 
 
 Oh wondrous age ! whose glories far excel 
 All which romancers dream or fictions tell ! 
 When monster banks can raise a monstrous panic, 
 And infants gain their growth by means galvanic ! 
 Thus population, like the mania, speeds 
 O'er Western wilds and noxious prairie meads, 
 New States are born, new stars our banner bless, 
 And struggling realms are caught like men at chess ! 
 6 Our green-house bard and critic-puff behold 
 With native lead to make them brave and bold, 
 " Whose tow'ring brow and eagle eye " might tell 
 With them undoubted genius, talent dwell ! 
 Not in the past such lovely quacks were caught, 
 When Horace sung and elder Cato taught ! 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 5 
 
 Oh ! had they lived that censor's scowl to claim 
 Soon had they found the downward path to fame. 
 No trace were left to tell their sunken race 
 In life as worthless as in dying base. 
 Not theirs the crime to wield the pointless pen, 
 Nor mine the task to lift the scourge again. 
 
 In modern times, who may not hope for praise 
 When all we ask is but unmeaning lays ? 
 *And thoughtless bards can suit the servile throng 
 With heartless verse and worse than worthless song ? 
 No theme Byronic, not the critic strain 
 Of reckless Pope, in thought and meaning plain ; 
 Nor joyous Hope, by Campbell taught to please 
 Alike when life is sad or wrapt in ease ; 
 Not these the subjci our times demand, 
 
 To please the public and to curse the land 1 
 But all enough if but the poet paint 
 Some fleeting shadow by a touch as faint. 
 Recount those hues which in the autumn streak 
 The woodland grove or distant mountain peak ; 
 Some sickly dream relate to close the rln 
 The task is done complete without a crii 
 No more we ask, no more the bard can give 
 In times like these can mind or merit live ? 
 Can genius flourish, or but scorn the crew 
 Such slaves to art and superficial view ? 
 No ! but for this the poet yields his name, 
 That public taste may canvass on his claim, 
 Condemn the false, approve the true to life, 
 Or sink the whole to end at once the strife ; 
 No genius he who not demands in pride 
 That final word to be his future guide. 
 
6 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 
 
 7 Such is my crime before this righteous age ! 
 Too proud to stoop, or heed the critic's rage ; 
 I printed but to suit the present whim, 
 Without a preface or a suppliant hymn ! 
 Some others too have sought the luckless play ; 
 To all I pledge the boon of health to-day, 
 
 But ere I close let none repine to see 
 That public trash is held most wondrous free. 
 Oh ! for an arm less feeble than my own 
 To sweep from dust Apollo's sacred throne ! 
 Too much the chaff infests the precious grain ; 
 When shall a Pope or Byron live again ? 8 
 
 9 The poet's heart, the poet's sense sublime 
 
 Was born for torture and his soul for rhyme ; 
 
 Intense his feeling and severe his pain, 
 
 That sullen frown no more from love would gain ; 
 
 So nice his texture, and so fine the mould 
 
 None e'er can guess what ne'er to sight is told, 
 
 Nor search the secrets of a soul like his 
 
 Or from the common mind imagine this, 
 
 The hope, the fear, the rapture and delight 
 
 Are all his own and impulse all his light. 
 
 Earth, air, and sea, the planet and the sun 
 
 Are but the elements of art begun ; 
 
 The inner world, the sphere of thought and mind, 
 
 The mysteries that make and move mankind, 
 
 To him are servile, and for him were made, 
 
 Yea, but for him, would still from beauty fade. 
 
 Thus noble wit, as by a skill divine, 
 
 Ennobles nature and prevents decline ; 
 
 Thus beauty sways and anguish rends the heart, 
 
 By passion wrought into the height of art. 
 
THE POETS A.VD POETKV OF AMERICA. J 
 
 When meanest scribblers dare to woo the muse, 
 And print for praise in GRAHAM'S Post- Re vie, 
 When soulless bards can seek in art to find 
 The hopeful substitute for wit or mind ; 
 Each moonstruck boy his tuneful harp prepare 
 And all may flood the land with rhymes of air ; 
 Then wake, my muse ! can'st thou not scribble too, 
 Strike for the prize the self-same path pursue. 
 
 But who the first shall feel thy rising ire, 
 Of all the throng that curse the sacred lyre ? 
 Or wilt thou fall, as downward falls the plague, 
 On lofty BRYANT, DANA, HALLECK, SPRAGUE? 
 
 10 Are these alas ! the noblest and the best, 
 Must satire's self forever sink to rest? 
 
 Too much in vain in vain such \ge 
 
 . unoffending bard and vacant page! 
 
 The night was up, when all serene and glad 
 Each tuneful bard was for the banquet clad, 
 
 11 While GRISWOLD'S self, like Jeffrey on his throne, 
 Was raised sublime, and to a god was blown. 
 
 No mortal sign to m 
 
 Where still appear the hues of wrath or grace ; 
 All care, in calm composure sunk to rest, 
 A gracious smile betrays him greatly 1 
 Wlulc trembling bards in eager strife appear 
 
 nod to gain, the end of hope and : 
 Close by is set an altar's shining frame 
 For vows and incense to our god of Fame. 
 There bend the suppliant throng intent to seek 
 Propitious smiles in mercy to the weak, 
 As oft of old the weary pilgrim bent 
 When Pytho swelled till madness gave her 
 
8 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 12 First comes great WILLIS, trembling to his heels, 
 Invokes the god, and for his country feels. 
 But few indeed could boast such matchless head, 
 So well proportioned and so rich in lead ; 
 Each fearful bump, phrenologists would say 
 Was thunder proof till thunder's self decay ; 
 So thick the skull where few ideas meet, 
 For dulness and delay a calm retreat. 
 
 13 Next comes our noble Doctor, HOLMES we call, 
 Still bent to jest in spite of wit and gall, 
 Still prone to rhyme with or without a soul, 
 Style, ornament, and rhyme the poet's whole. 
 Those tin-pan toys which catch the listless ear, 
 Awhile delight, then worse than vile appear. 
 One hand presents, in picture of his pain, 
 Some slender sheets from travail of the brain, 
 Light as the air, or that which gave them birth, 
 Some slight reflection from a land of dearth. 
 Humble his prayer, and meek his subjects' mien, 
 In hopes few frowns to gain a smile between. 
 
 Approaching next with incense each in hand, 
 Proud DOANE and DANA take their reverent stand ; 
 One famed for moral, one for ghostly song, 
 While one might pray to help the tune along. 
 Poor DOANE ! for one thou sure wilt grace obtain, 
 By practice taught that heartless prayer is vain ! 
 Fear not, be free in speech, and yet be true, 
 Nor mention once, e'en by mistake, the Jew, 
 Lest might such freedom prove some breach of law, 
 That priest. and bard must stand in equal awe. 
 
 Grave as the gravest and more comical 
 In solemn suit appears great PERCIVAL, 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 9 
 
 A moonshine wit with something of the calf, 
 A mooncalf clown, the hero of a laugh ! 
 Who Cobb and Webster tortures into rhyme 
 Without one thought to fill the vacant time ; 
 To him all art, all argument, supremely flat 
 Appear, like metaphysics to a cat ; 
 So like the mole, so fitted for the dark, 
 The mental eye ne'er saw a mental spark ! 
 
 There bend meek BURLEIGH, CLIO, and SIR PIKF, 
 All goosequill armed, all friends to goose alike ; 
 Great masters of the pen, who n ilag 
 
 Till Pegasus his tail shall cease to wag! 
 Sons of a day, who justly measure time ! 
 One virtue sure, a duty, not a crime. 
 
 : these attend SPRAGUE, SIMMS and BENJAMIN, 
 All heroes of the lyre without a sin ; 
 14 Then HOFFMAN, SARGENT and the rest, 
 Approach the altar and adore the best ; 
 While last of all appears the humble Hn r , 
 Weak in reflection, nind and will. 
 
 h look of torture, visage of distress, 
 And all but perfect m.mi.i, fast they press 
 
 i m.my a groan and tear in eye, 
 Fame, fame, undying fame, their ceaseless cry. 
 Thus cries the leech in holy Scripture phrase, 
 Still sucks tenacious, still persistent prays (?preys). 
 
 Thus each, his suppliant prayer preferred, regains 
 
 ^eat, and sits in emptiness of brains. 
 All are content ; assurance sways the breast, 
 That each at last shall be supremely blest ; 
 No doubt remains that each shall hence ot> 
 Immortal fame and death without a pain. 
 
10 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Pleased with the incense and the vow sincere, 
 The god assents and calms each needless fear. 
 
 Then passed the ready bowl from hand to hand, 
 Whilst feast and verse now animate the band ; 
 The cry for fame propitious heard at last, 
 Thanks to the throne in murmurs fill the blast, 
 On tiptoe some, as all with heels more light 
 Than head, express ineffable delight ; 
 Some heels reversed, as truly held in trance 
 Attempt the mystic mazes of the dance 
 Some sprawling shout sincere the awful name 
 Of Folly's son, the Arbiter of fame ; 
 The rest, in fitful inspiration mad, 
 By monkey feats proclaim their spirits glad. 
 
 Then spoke the god. " Some farther test I name, 
 The loftier fame to win, and life to claim ; 
 Who highest soars where Phoebus shines afar, 
 By light unhurt, himself a living star, 
 Ascends Parnassus and o'ertops its head, 
 Shall gain the prize a life beyond the dead. 
 Though all immortal, his the highest name, 
 Who highest soars in spite of sun and flame." 
 
 Scarce closed, when all prepared for instant flight, 
 Icarus-like, ascend on pinions light, 
 Their recent wings in open sunlight glare, 
 While croaking voices fill the rending air. 
 Thus startled oft arise the cawing crows, 
 By instinct taught the dread of secret foes, 
 Right merry yet, in spite of human wrong, 
 Mount in confusion croaking still for song, 
 Tumultuous they, as mingling gales contend 
 That sport the while, then sterner tempest end ; 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. IT 
 
 Thus like the eagle borne upon the gale 
 
 Above the clouds our airy harpies sail ; 
 
 At last approach where wind and tempest rage 
 
 Well thought that wit and wind should combat wage ! 
 
 Thus swiftly sweep by distance dim and vague, 
 
 Almost unseen poor DANA, DOAXE and SPRAI 
 
 Lost to the sight and just beneath the moon, 
 
 Our day-stars CLIO, HOFF, are at their noon. 
 
 Some lost to hope the clouds in terror clasp, 
 
 As hopeless hope incites the senseless grasp ; 
 
 As floats the hawk sublime for want of care, 
 
 Gyre after gyre repeated cuts the air ; 
 
 Thus they distressed and tempest-tost app 
 
 Whirl with the wind and at its whim re- veer. 
 
 Sad thought that flight so well begun should fall 
 
 To wild confusion, terrible to all ! 
 
 As meteors darting from the upper sky, 
 
 All headlong plunge, a harpy host from high, 
 
 'Twere sad to tell, and long the tale to say 
 
 How each was swept again to nat 
 
 Some hung on trees as from the flood of old 
 
 seen the fish by antique Ovid told ; 
 Some from the rocks dependent swing in air; 
 With feeble grasp to save the last des] 
 There WILLIS lies, full blasted to a cave, 
 As that were meant his last and living gra 
 Great BURLEIGH there is cast in lonely grot 
 Apparent still in travail for a thought. 
 As birds dislodged, or by the hawk pursued 
 So lie the pack in that confusion rude. 
 Who would not laugh that laughing scene to see, 
 That mount by wits posscss'd from cave to tree ? 
 
12 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 15 All hail, great DANA ! in thy shrouds of fear, 
 With goblin shapes and mystic Buccaneer ! 
 Proud hero of the isle ! that Corsair's home 
 Whose deeds of blood distain the ocean's foam! 
 Proud in thy simple verse, so light and free, 
 Proud in thy wild creation, Captain Lee ! 
 That son of Cain, whose brow the breezes fan, 
 A cursing sprite, whose mortal hate is man ; 
 Long trained in crime, he with his ghostly crew, 
 Till waking vengeance tells that fate is due, 
 When lo ! the dawn-time revel broke perforce 
 That vengeance comes in shape of spectre horse. 
 Poor Mat ! condemned to ride that fearful steed 
 In dark atonement for a demon's deed ! 
 Poor Mat ! whose mystic steed might almost pass 
 By chance a ' spectre horse ' for Balaam's ass ! 
 Poor Mat ! that steed of thine ! whose words but 
 
 strain 
 
 To aid the torture of thy burning brain ! 
 Immortal Dana ! in thy tale of crime 
 No lack of sense but Lee can close the rhyme ! 
 Too much compress'd thy tale, hence might it burst, 
 Scare all thy sprites and make us fear the worst ! 
 All hail, the bard ! with skill supremely graced, 
 By themes like these to guide the public taste ! 
 When this shall be, may genius cease to fling 
 Her genial inspiration from its spring, 
 Great Jeffrey once again resume his seat 
 As bold in judgment as in folly great ; 
 Each simple bard befriend the witch of Saul, 
 And soar aloft with soaring PERCIVAL ! 
 Oh, matchless DANA ! great in all but fame ! 
 When others fail do thou essay the game ; 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 13 
 
 14 Let not our faith in human might dc< 
 Nor earth despair while DAXA hails the day. 
 Some daring stroke do thou attempt, for sure 
 Our bards some physic need, or caustic cure ; 
 Out with thy drugs ! thy sinking patient see 
 
 rightful mania and the syncope ! 
 Great bard, awake ! some model just and great 
 Do thou ensure, then yield thee to thy fate I 
 Thus shall the latest age thy name revere 
 And critics quail for once in hopeless fear. 
 
 17 Immortal SPRAGUE! son of the newborn day, 
 
 While odes on odes arise in long array, 
 
 And freshness breathes around each airy theme 
 
 The fitting subject for a summer dream ! 
 
 If lays like thine in sterling wit excel 
 
 Then bid we all to wit a last farewell, 
 
 Consult no more the matchless tales of Crabbe, 
 
 Seek truth in ghosts, or sense in senseless V 
 
 Not thine the skill to long experience due 
 
 The heart to melt, to hold the constant view, 
 
 To drag reflection from its calm abode 
 
 One thought to start or guide upon its road ; 
 
 Enough unmeaning rhyme without an aim, 
 
 In sense as weak as in expression tame. 
 
 So true thy fancy to the forms of 
 
 It ne ;t conceived a mortal strife. 
 
 So much thy subject and thy verse alike 
 
 As rough and reckless c .y strike, 
 
 Claim equal praise and equal praise procure 
 
 Tli.it each hath charms so fitted to allure ! 
 
 Blest be thy verse t when odes uncounted claim 
 
 To vie with Pope and Dryden in their fame I 
 
14 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Write on thou yet mayst reap unfading bays, 
 Some angel add to earth, some spirit raise ! 
 Write on the grandest souls at times are weak, 
 Let age, experience and thy dulness speak, 
 No matter what the erring rules of fate 
 With time thy name shall be supremely great. 
 
 18 Shall HALLECK not one passing moment claim ? 
 Blest bard ! immortal in Bozzaris' name ! 
 No dream of Hope, so sacred and divine, 
 No theme didactic, toilsome, weary, thine ; 
 Too much thy native fire that thought to bear, 
 As that might sink thee hopeless in despair ; 
 But those who bled and fell in freedom's cause 
 Thy worthier theme attest it our applause ! 
 Nay though the hero bravely fought and fell, 
 Though thy own music fall like magic spell, 
 Grant that thy palm and praise is fairly won, 
 Is all achieved that mortal might have done ? 
 Call not beneath thee song so just and great, 
 Which mightier bards in loftier verse relate ! 
 Scorn the vile throng as if in vengeance set 
 To write for each vile monthly and gazette ; 
 Extend thy sphere, thy native powers expand, 
 And as confess'd immortal poet stand. 
 
 When vicious taste and critics both combine 
 To nourish bards unfit in prose to shine, 
 When senseless fools in eager haste declare, 
 For want of true, that worse than false is fair, 
 Create, forsooth, some idol haply dumb, 
 No matter what, from Nimrod to Tom Thumb, 
 Call pigmy bards, for want of better, great, 
 The very giants of our modern date. 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 15 
 
 Shall shameful durance bend in silent awe, 
 Or greet as right and just such lawless law ? 
 No sooner see the orbs of night explode, 
 The land in arms, and torture on its road, 
 Than trust decision taught by fear (see note 14) 
 To hireling slaves enlisted by the year ! 
 
 Hail, SAUNDERS ! prince of typographic men, 
 How pure thy heart, how faultless is thy pen I 
 Calm as the breath of Ceylon's spicy gale 
 Thy genius, talent, eloquence, unveil. 
 Not such a flame could antique annals know. 
 Close shamed Demosthenes or Cicero ! 
 Oh, hadst thou lived when awful Jeffrey reigned, 
 Thy fame at least had with the world remained. 
 Immortal SAUNDERS ! o'er thy lofty name 
 Slow flits the shadow of thy deathless fame t 
 Not for thy idle sneer shall cease my verse, 
 Not for the dread of editorial curse ; 
 Yet o'er the bard the muse may wave her wing, 
 And critics praise when infant poets sing. 
 Health to prejudging SAUNDERS! o'er his brow 
 
 future years in joy unheeded flow t 
 Yea, o'er his lofty brow, in " pride of place," 
 May friend and foe the palm of honour trace. 
 
 O mighty goddess of celestial light, 
 Immortal Liberty ! thy presence plight I 
 Flow on the beam of Luna's dying 
 And wake around thy son a genial day ; 
 May Pleiad, Hyad, Dryad nymj 
 Nor envy breathe one thought to silent 1 1 
 
1 6 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Attend, ye stars, and form the radiant crown, 
 
 Thou, Liberty, invest thy awful son ! 
 
 Ye nymphs ! entwine the deathless laurel wreath 
 
 Nor Lethe doom our joy to secret death ! 
 
 Thus shall the laurels that thy brow entwine 
 
 Excel the bays of the immortal Nine ; 
 
 Thus shall the crown invest thy awful brow 
 
 While trembling bards beneath thy sceptre bow. 
 
 Ye politicians ! haste ere yet on high 
 
 Your mighty chief ascends his native sky, 
 
 Ere on his Pegasus he floats the air 
 
 Borne through the blaze of Berenice's hair ! 
 
 Ye statesmen, heroes, bards ! with trembling mien, 
 
 Salute the glorious chief of mortal men ! 
 
 Ye sons of freedom ! swell the sighing breeze 
 
 With plaudits to this awful Pericles ! 
 
 A starry god within the vaulted sky, 
 Behold his blaze of immortality ! 
 Albeit his radiant presence we must weep, 
 Perchance his beam may light us when we sleep, 
 Cast its bright ray o'er Dian's cloudless skies, 
 And greet with milder light our tearful eyes ! 
 No more we ask ; perchance too high request 
 Might grieve thy soul and break thy wonted rest. 
 Fine aspirant to wild Draconic power, 
 How much we dread thy beam may deign to lower, 
 Shed one dull ray to Clay's chaotic night, 
 And dim our eyes with thy celestial light ! 
 
 The chase is on who next comes coursing in ? 
 19 Who but the great and graceless BENJAMIN ? 
 Taught but for love and sport to snatch the lyre 
 And waste in air his genial fun and fire. 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 1 7 
 
 Such is the force of genius in its might, 
 To force the muse in scorn of rule and right ! 
 Such is the charm of fame to lead the throng, 
 To seek uncalled the sacred mount of song. 
 How free thy pen, how swift thy volumes sweep 
 Their perfect flood to break our thoughtless sleep ! 
 How like the deluge of the olden time 
 Come bursting forth the fountains of thy rhyme ! 
 As reckless too, nor spare their instant wrath 
 In chance for life to seek some mountain path, 
 Nor leave the wretch one fleeting hour to save 
 His time of slumber from untimely grave I 
 Pray, not to weary mortal be unkind ; 
 Spare for the sake of sense and all mankind, 
 Spare for the mercy due to brother fools, 
 And learn in time to rhyme by juster rules. 
 
 'Hail soft Humanity ! whose genial ray 
 Delights the soul along thy simple lay I 
 Friend of the slave ! whose rough and rugged verse 
 Might burst his chains, his hopeless fate reverse t 
 
 .v claim to blest Apollo's sacred 1 
 Since not his beams thy lifeless notes insj 
 But well attest each vacant page and 1 
 Not thine the care, the zeal and strength divine 
 To prove thy muse the offspring of his care, 
 Unsought his grace, or not received thy prayer. 
 
 2 
 
1 8 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Nor empty rhyme can claim the proper place 
 Of native fire and nature's modest grace, 
 But feelings deep with genius must combine 
 To make the bard by nature meant to shine. 
 No matter this let blame be light to thee, 
 Thine be the boast of soft humanity ; 
 Thus gentle maidens ne'er shall blush to see 
 One stain of earth to mar virginity, 
 And hoary sires shall greatly joy to find 
 No base seduction to the youthful mind. 
 No matter now for genius, mind or sense, 
 A puff is grandeur, fool is no offence ; 
 With morals pure, and fancy mild and trim, 
 Our bard is perfect all complaint is whim. 
 
 Delightful BURLEIGH ! hold thy matchless strain 
 21 Lest secret envy swear thy labour vain ; 
 Some future cause may need thy servile pen, 
 Abate thy heat, let patience live again ! 
 
 Not weary yet ? Then turn we each and all 
 To greet with peace the soaring PERCIVAL, 22 
 As upward borne in flight but just begun, 
 He with his eagle soars to greet the sun. 
 What muse so high as Clio dare ascend 
 That scarce her voice the ear may comprehend ? 
 What if her airy flight she cease not soon, 
 Some reckless power should drive her to the moon ? 
 Farewell to hope ! farewell to Clio's name, 
 May weeping earth in phrenzy now exclaim, 
 Such is our fate, our fondest hopes expand, 
 One moment bloom, then seek the better land ! 
 Celestial bard ! who then in rhyme shall fail 
 If thou for careless verse art not in jail ? 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 19 
 
 Whose awful strokes in equal rhyme and blank 
 Might sink another world, explode another bank ; 
 Whose pencil ne'er one fault will cancel o'er, 
 Lest in its course it chance to meet with more ; 
 Such strange enchantment binds, or right or wrong, 
 The first fond thought which dulness aids along ! 
 Blest age ! when thoughtless dabblers into rhyme 
 Are like the sands upon the shore of time. 
 No want of themes ; how fair this gentle earth, 
 To give to bards and song an equal birth ! 
 
 All hail ! great searcher of the human heart, 
 As great in prose as in poetic art, 
 "Immortal WILLIS, hail ! in whom combine, 
 The base and great with wit to make thce shin 
 An exile from thy native land and home, 
 Well pleased in other lands to rhyme and roam, 
 Lest villain hands should strive to make thee just 
 To hungry creditors, ill-fed on trust ; 
 As light in heart as fickle in thy mind, 
 Canst thou describe the motives of mankind ? 
 Hast thou acquired r skill to sing 
 
 The flood of feeling from its fountain spring? 
 As well might Etna's fiery summit bloom, 
 Or light surround the cypress-shaded tomb, 
 As thou relate in numbers fresh and true 
 Whence actions spring, or life its essence drew ! 
 Yet canst thou write, from eastern shore, the change 
 Of faithless custom, ever wild and strange, 
 Of rhyme from thence some talc of hopeless love 
 To please fair Venus or her silly dove ; 
 Address the Spring or April in a lay, 
 With Wordsworth for thy tune in mellow May, 
 
2O THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Enough to gain the Western critic's praise 
 And crown thy brow with fadeless laurel bays ; 
 Enough to gain, where more should own the name, 
 A poet's prize, a poet's envied fame ! 
 Such is the toil, and such the slightest care 
 To swell to-day this bubble of the air ! 
 
 24 In meads of green and woodland shades at rest, 
 Next view the younger BRYANT greatly blest, 
 Who with his brother-bards alone can sing 
 That streamlets gild and flowers deck the spring, 
 Nor little thinks how slight the profit hence 
 When beauty charms, not aids our common sense ; 
 How slight the gain to gaze till time is old 
 On Moskvan domes with cross and spires of gold, 
 (Which Baird might tell in lectures by the way 
 In needful aid of science in his day.) 
 Nor graceful art deserves our graver care, 
 Save as the traits of mind are written there ! 
 Vain thought ! that Nature rules in human life 
 Or art can aid us in the spirit's strife 
 With cold existence, or can backward turn 
 The fearful flame where pride and passion burn ! * 
 
 When sunset softly gilds the western sky 
 And all but paints enchantment to the eye, 
 Nor wakes a sense, but wakes to love the hue 
 From farewell beam on skies of azure blue ; 
 
 * Such are the views which open on him who would inquire 
 into the essence by which man is distinguished as a rational 
 and moral being. Compared with it what are all the phe- 
 nomena of nature, what is all the history of the world, the 
 rise and fall of empires, or the fate of those who rule them ? 
 ABBRCROMBIE. 
 
THE POETS A. YD POETRY OF AMERICA. 21 
 
 Can scene like this, the fairest of our earth, 
 Awake the thoughts of more than mortal birth, 
 Or rouse the nobler feelings of the soul ? 
 Or is delight the poet's noblest goal ? 
 Has not the heart its passions, as the brain 
 The power to light the fancy in its train ? 
 
 ! there are springs of thought and feeling chaste, 
 No vulgar eye hath to their fountain traced ; 
 
 .nows the bard but half his proper art 
 Who aims to please the eye, not rend the heart. 
 
 *Thus bent the awful bard of modern time 
 To worship Nature in her native clime t 
 Contracted in thy sphere as in thy sense, 
 *I surely mean not, WHITTIER, an offence. 
 Ne'er hast thou strayed in thought, or roam'd afar 
 Beyond the Hudson or the polar star, 
 Nor made thy genius or thy wit expand 
 To burst in air, like rockets o'er the land t 
 Nay, hadst thou watched Aurora in her dance, 
 It sure had rapt thy muse in solemn trance, 
 Or some magnetic power had caught thy 1, 
 And dragged thee on to perish in despair! 
 
 hap if thence had fled thy burning soul, 
 Condemned to ride the rough revolving p< 
 Could earth rejoice, thy goddess nature sing. 
 Or birds return to cheer the birth of spring ? 
 Could tender hearts but at thy mischief bleed, 
 Astride the pole to guide thy fitful steed ? 
 Or lovely maidens at thy fate dist: 
 But pray that jade at times an hour of rest ? 
 No WHITTIER no! thou must not stray (sec note 
 
 ip like this might snatch thy wits a\\v 
 
 VP f MB * 
 
22 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Nor seek the south, where spring for ever reigns 
 To deck the sunny mount and sloping plains, 
 Lest too much heat should melt thy feeble brain, 
 And turn thy wat'ry muse to mist again ! 
 No WHITTIER no ! far better than to roam, 
 To cherish pride in love of sacred home, 
 And worship Nature in her solitude 
 Beneath thy native sky and mountains rude ; 
 Thus safe to sing thy tale of childhood o'er, 
 Till infants shout and humbly ask for more. 
 
 It is not goddess Nature in her pride 
 With whom the charms of earth and air reside, 
 But mental essence traced unto its spring, 
 Can teach the native bard his art to sing. 
 
 Or for success, must passion be the theme 
 
 For magic art to picture in a dream ? 
 
 But wherefore laugh if youth should dare to tell 
 
 What all confess, and some may know too well. 
 
 27 Such is thy boast, proud HOLMES, to touch the heart, 
 
 If not by genius, by thy native art ! 
 
 For grant thy lofty strain but once begun, 
 
 How rich and how exhaustless is thy fun ! 
 
 As true thy song, no doubt, as holy writ, 
 
 One merit more it has some idle wit. 
 
 No doubt enough thy talent by its birth 
 
 To cure at once our nature from its dearth, 
 
 Make idiots gods, at least in form and shape, 
 
 From noble SAUNDERS to his puny ape, 
 
 And purge the public taste from sickly bile 
 
 By perfect metamorphosis of style ! 
 
 So light thy verse, a plaything of the air, 
 
 Must mortal live on unsubstantial fare, 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 3 
 
 Or he who takes it for an ague chill, 
 Must own at least it was a pleasant pill, 
 Content to try whate'er our Doctor give, 
 Nor cherish life when he shall cease to live. 
 Strange time to trifle in poetu 
 When most esteem it an unmeaning chart, 
 And all confess, when truth asserts her throne, 
 That western bards are worse than feeble grown ! 
 v Hail, gentle HILL! whose varied beauties shine 
 
 native beams of the immortal Nine ! 
 Far is thy flight o'er classic mount and isle, 
 To where Athena's ruins strive to smile, 
 And Greece, undying Greece, is left to weep 
 That hero, bard and sage in silence sleep. 
 Oh blest ! though late indeed, that sunken land, 
 One touch to gain from thy redeeming hand ! 
 " Oh blest ! in aidance of her hopeless night 
 To gain from thce one beam of future light I 
 Such is thy magic skill from death to save 
 The last dim shadows from a living grave t 
 Such is thy art to gild the glory past, 
 How man must mourn if thou hast sung thy 
 Boeotian HILL! whose merits all repose 
 In rhyming nouns, unfit for proper prose I 
 Nor sense thy care ; enough unmeaning rhyme 
 To make thy fustian strain accomplish time. 
 
 * In sable cowl, beside his awful throne, 
 Behold the sacred scribbler, Bishop DOANE t 
 Who, lowly bending in his calm r< 
 Can strike for fame and for Apollo's s 
 Assume alike, as if for change the while 
 The parson's fearful scowl or poet's smile, 
 
24 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Invoke the silent moon or Him who made, 
 As each at times may suit his double trade, 
 Explore the mystic depths of thought divine, 
 Then soar aloft and with the planets shine ! 
 Thanks to the Muse who sheds on all her light 
 Till blacklegs sing and bishops stoop to write ! 
 Thanks to great Griswold and the fertile age . 
 That make and save the bard and priceless page ! 
 Blest time ! when all from priest to clown may sing, 
 A sickly love or mania touch the string ! 
 No dearth of rhyme ; or might our Bishop pray 
 Till rhyme and sense alike had passed away. 
 
 31 Unhappy CLARKE ! whose fate to pity lends 
 All which with tender thought and feeling blends ! 
 Thine was the heart whose passions deep and strong, 
 Not pride, impelled to seek the mount of song ; 
 Nor thine the lays which fit the tuneless lyre, 
 That sleeping Muse to dulness might inspire, 
 But that which melts and moulds the manly heart, 
 By genius taught the force of grace and art. 
 Peace to thy shade ! in joy supremely blest, 
 May bliss thy soul compose to needful rest. 
 
 Not such the master of the classic lay, 
 Blest child of god and goddess passed away ! 
 Or who that sings the gods, albeit unlike, 
 82 More seems their proper son than ALBERT PIKE ? 
 Or whose the envied skill such theme to try 
 Nor make in lifeless song the deathless die ? 
 Gods of the antique world ! once more return 
 Let fanes arise and gifted altars burn, 
 That he, your son, Apollo's latest priest, 
 May sing your praise, and on your victims feast. 
 
THF. POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 25 
 
 Oh Albert Pike ! stick to thy godlike lay, 
 
 Thy gods and goddesses in long array ! 
 
 No matter if in wit and judgment \vcak, 
 
 Thy faults confess, their grace and pardon seek. 
 
 Out with thy notes ! thy voice shall far rebound, 
 
 Till deeper tones than Orphic swell the sound, 
 
 Each brawling cat shall own the matchless tune, 
 
 And oaks shall bow the leafy pride of June. 
 
 As some soft stream which glides unheard along, 
 
 So glide thy music, so expire thy song, 
 
 So melt thy melody into the soul 
 
 * That not thy foe may say it all was stole ! 
 Oh ALBERT PIKK! how much the gods should 
 To thec the clearer title to their thro: 
 
 How much approve their offspring as divine 
 
 ings their might and vindicates their line! 
 Long may they joy to grace thy rising name. 
 And gild thy Liter a^e with godli 1 
 Then hence to join their banquet lull 
 
 Nor ease thy pride with more than Y 11 ! 
 
 * Now clear the way prepare our next to meet, 
 The forest child in shape of ALFRED STREET ! 
 Whose god, the rur.il Pan, in secret shade, 
 Where nymphs repose and more than love is made, 
 Grant but thy horn and hounds then wake the muse, 
 Crack at the chase till day her light refuse 1 
 
 Oh ALFRED STREET! when shall we meet again 
 
 mind of might, thy own prolific pen ? 
 Thy modest muse in sylvan shades at rest, 
 So sweeps her fire along thy heaving breast, 
 Thy moving strain so falls upon the car, 
 So helpless falls the tribute of a tear I 
 
26 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Some hunter lost where none could go astray, 
 
 Or but in dream, as thou in many a lay, 
 
 Some forest scene where dogs might hunt the game, 
 
 Thy worthy theme, thy ground of fadeless fame ! 
 
 No matter if thy verse is sometimes weak, 
 
 A slighter cause would scarce for vengeance speak 
 
 None if thy crime should be to rhyme in vain 
 
 The self same path thy brother bards have ta'en. 
 
 Alone we fear, lest by her nature mild 
 
 Thy muse be lost amid her woodland-wild, 
 
 Nor by her feeble voice alarm the chase 
 
 Till hope is lost, and past her hour of grace. 
 
 But such, in sooth, our modern bards appear, 
 The fittest subjects for our fitful jeer. 
 So free the muse to wanton in embrace 
 With every fool who dares to give her chase, 
 That boys may write and infants snatch the pen 
 To praise her charms in woodland cave and glen. 
 For grant but needful impudence and pride, 
 With less of wit than vanity allied ; 
 Some soft amour, perchance by scorn repaid, 
 Three grains of sense our bard is ready made ! 
 As noble, too, the critics of our land 
 To cherish all who dare to lift the hand ; 
 Spontaneous as mushrooms to grace the spring, 
 As soft to all the tribe who dare to sing ! 
 
 Precocious ffi SARGENT ! to the drama dear, 
 As wild in verse as Pallas in her sphere, 
 Less soft in tone than owlets of the night, 
 By shame compell'd to shun the common light ! 
 Yet proud in thy Velasctfs name of dread 
 As that might raise to life the lifeless dead, 
 
THE POETS AXD POETRY OF AMERICA. 1} 
 
 Make angels weep, the sternest quail in fear, 
 Till final anguish shed the helpless tear ! 
 Who then shall fail if verse like thine shall gain 
 The palm of praise, or not the curse of Cain ? 
 If such the child of genius and of taste, 
 What carl may not in language be as chaste ? 
 Not thine the loftier wit or nicer sense 
 To guard thy verse and save from harsh often c 
 Thyself a living proof that senseless pride 
 Most richly thrives where sense is most denied. 
 Great thanks to thee and thy dramatic Muse, 
 That palm to claim was thine alone to lose, 
 Nor leave to Hillhouse all the praise or blame, 
 But link to his thy worse than worthless name ! 
 
 In dreamy mask behold, with brow of pride 
 * The southern SIMMS in grandeur glide ! l4 
 Hold Pegasus, thy fearful pace, nor bear 
 That lord of thine beyond the realms of air ! 
 Oh ! spare the fatal truth of all our fears, 
 Spare for the priceless meed of sighs and tears 1 
 Not I ring's self could more romance imp 
 To grace the tale and hide the lure of 
 So fresh in thought, so rich in thoughtless mind, 
 Spare, for the sake of verse and all mankind I 
 Thus shall our bard delay his lifeless rhyme, 
 To sing the requiem to the death of time. 
 
 But where the tragic muse the drama where ? 
 
 No voice replies, save echo through th 
 
 Oh double shame to genius and the age t 
 
 No bard to trace the spirit in its rage, 
 
 To paint despair revenge the wild and free 
 
 Invent a plot or touch catastrophe. 
 
28 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 Not quite so high our poet dares to aim, 
 
 Nor heeds the drama in his thirst for fame. 
 
 Why sleeps the mind ? can daring teach no more 
 
 The grand conception rich from mental lore ? 
 
 Is passion fled, the curbless and the strong, 
 
 That idlesse reigns the master of the song ? 29 
 
 Why trembling view the trophies of the past 
 
 While mind survives and music fills the blast ? 
 
 What mind has done can mind again achieve, 
 
 Shame on the faithless doubts can ne'er relieve. 
 
 Let inspiration light her guiding fire, 
 
 Breathe through the soul a holy, calm desire, 
 
 Compel to action, and inflame the breast, 
 
 Long taught by ease to hold inglorious rest ; 
 
 The self-same elements as yet remain 
 
 Let thought awake the drama live again ! 
 
 Blest art invention ! for to thee is due 
 
 The proudest boast, the praise of something new ! 
 
 Not feeble fancy in her airy flight, 
 
 At her own shadow sure to take affright, 
 
 But that which dares in aidance of our strife 29 
 
 To add some fresher charm to vary life. 
 
 Colossal thought ! gigantic vastitude ! 
 
 Ideal grandeur built in structure rude ! 
 
 What pride to trace the bold inventive art 
 
 That elevates and swells the mind and heart ; 
 
 What joy to soar as high as mind can go 
 
 37 To catch the thought which led an Angelo, 
 
 Expand the sense with bold conception's flight 
 
 And almost tremble at our dizzy height ! 
 
 All daring images and forms which dwell 
 
 With fearless fancy in her awful cell ; 
 
THE POETS A\D POETRY OF AMERICA. 29 
 
 All dancing fairies of the silver night, 
 
 And ghosts more terrible than men in fight ; 
 
 The muse who guides, and god who moves the song, 
 
 Invention, airy art ! to thee belong, 
 
 Perfection, true, shall mortal ne'er attain 
 
 While all confess our nature's hopeless chain. 
 
 Still what we may, should daring still achieve, 
 Conception furnish and the fancy weave. 
 Oh could we grasp the infinite of grand, 
 And catch sublime from angels where they stand, 
 Like these ideal, and as light and free. 
 Embrace immortal and as clearly see ; 
 Leave earth and false conception far behind, 
 Then might some praise await the human mind. 
 
 But wherefore longer hunt such worthless game, 
 The toil so well repaid by all but fame ? 
 Perchance unfclt, my shaft may idly i 
 No matter this my best regards to all 1 
 Or if unhurt I from the strife withdraw, 
 One cause alone our bards revere the law I 
 But if my spirit some may wish to 
 Crack at the muse I pledge a prompt reply. 
 The task unsought ; I would not seek to be 
 Corrector of this age of poesy ; 
 * But when our bards disdain poetic laws, 
 Slight sense indeed to ask a better cause I 
 
 . none hath dared the loftier paths of song, 
 but must own that senseless praise is wrong ? 
 m If hence their mortal hate my path oppose, 
 My heart is strong I with the challenge close. 
 
 I would no more let each his style correct, 
 .id stand as man, erect. 
 
30 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 For still, in spite of reason and the laws 
 
 Shall ceaseless rhyme the senseless RUFUS DAWES ? 
 
 Neglect the rules of order and the muse, 
 
 Nor share the fate of Jonah or the Jews ? 
 
 41 Shall LOWELL still by dreams inflate his pride, 
 And ramble most where most the mists reside ? 
 
 42 Shall GOODRICH leave his Parley by the end, 
 And seek by rhyme to raise an outcast friend ? 
 Or fools maintain without some slight offence 
 That rhyme can spring from ev'ry hue of sense ? 
 Correct, correct your folly and your style, 
 
 I ask no more, unless at times to smile, 
 This done, I lay for ever down the pen 
 That ne'er shall strive to make you blush again. 
 
 Sons of the brave, awake ! but let the mind 
 Assert her sway, and thought be unconfined, 
 The lusts of sense no longer rule retain, 
 And mind, not matter, be the rage again ! 
 Let this, no more by toys or trifles bound 
 Resume its might, and by its might confound ; 
 Despise each idol of the heart and eye, 
 All save that fame which is not born to die ; 
 Approve the deathless flame to mortals given, 
 Ascend the sky and claim its kindred heaven ! 
 Land of the fair, awake ! let genius rise 
 Explore the goal and press the bold emprise ! 
 Let nicer taste each faulty phrase detect, 
 Commend the true, the false and light reject ; 
 Seek out, admire and love the constant laws 
 Which guide the world by one Eternal Cause ; 
 Thus let the bard his awful tale relate, 
 As grand in subject, as in meaning great. 
 
THE POETS AXD POETRY OF AMERICA. 31 
 
 Clime of the free ! might but thy bards reclaim 
 Their by-gone censure from enduring shame ! 
 Ask but the bard, the Ascrean sage, to say, 
 Did genius guide him, or his muse betray ? 
 Hath Homer sung but by his native might, 
 By genius led to Fame's eternal height ? 
 Let genius wake and touch the magic string 
 Nor list thy sons but when the gifted sing ; 
 Let inspiration gain the just applause, 
 Nor bards be blest but for a proper cause. 
 
 Arise, yc bards ! assume the nobler lay! 
 
 Let common sense and genius lead the \\ 
 
 New worlds create of deathless thought and mind, 
 
 And prove yourselves an honour to mankind ; 
 
 Ne'er let the muse those meaner themes regard, 
 
 Or not complain the poet's fate is hard t 
 
 Let * Cambridge rouse her proud adopted son 
 
 The bard to dare, nor themes sublime to shun ; 
 
 Let BRYANT, HALLECK, SPRAGUE, once more 
 
 awake, 
 
 Till newer beams shall on their vision break, 
 More fearless muse ascend on loftier v. 
 And distant realms shall with their plaudits ring. 
 Awake, ye bards ! and hammer out a style, 
 44 If not from Pope, from grandeur and Carlyle ! 
 Abyss of thought and mass of mind profound t 
 If not a model, let it not confound. 
 Be genius fearless, yet as chaste and true 
 As Maro sung or old Apelles drew ; 
 The fancy bold, yet cautious in her flight 
 To scan the world and search the realms of light, 
 Thus shall our land some future honour claim 
 From her own bards, to crown her rising name. 
 
32 THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 
 
 45 With you, ye minor bards, I hold not war ; 
 Much as yourselves would I that strife abhor, 
 Too dull your muse offence to give or take, 
 My hate to rouse, or at my thrust awake ; 
 
 So cold your strain, so dead your accents fall, 
 
 Great thanks to Griswold that ye live at all ! 
 
 Oh ! better far that each would but appear 
 
 As nature meant, a native muleteer, 
 
 Would hold the plough, prepare or guide the plane, 
 
 Nor curse the land with senseless trash again. 
 
 Still must we hear some infant poet born, 
 
 46 Some noble CRANCH or CROSWELL most forlorn ? 
 Shall perfect swarms, like insects dim the air, 
 
 Like weeds arise and bloom without a care ? 
 Great bards ! without a title or a name, 
 Persist in verse an airy thing is fame ! 
 No Pope shall raise his blasting voice to curse 
 Your dream of dulness, or your idle verse, 
 No Byron breathe sarcastic death to quell 
 The harmless muse, or sink to native hell ; 
 No fear be bold, in freedom's land ye live, 
 Whose critics kiss and loving hearts forgive. 
 
 Thus have I sought some proper ire to show 
 Where priest could puff and editor could blow 
 A mooncalf swell to match a gazetteer, 
 Yet each insist a bard he must appear ! 
 I too can rhyme, and in my time have sung 
 When hope was high, and infant muse was young, 
 Too proud in sense, too much of manly tone, 
 I gave but challenge to be heard and known, 
 No crouching prayer to gain the critic round, 
 No favour sought, nor common mercy found. 
 
THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. 33 
 
 Yet thanks to western fools ! in haste to kill 
 c They could not gall me with satiric quill ! 
 Once more I wait a better chance to meet 
 That noble pack the hounds of Goslin Street ! 
 Alike I scorn great GRISWOLD'S brow of rage, 
 Young BRYANT'S scowl or BURLEIGH'S wrathful page; 
 Let southern puff and northern giant rise 
 I lisp to all take physic and be wise ! 
 Once could I bear all which the best can bear, 
 Could scorn at pain, and hate at times the fair, 
 But now, by slight experience taught to strike, 
 m I but repel where others make dislike ; 
 
 * Too well my gentle spirit some may know : 
 Cry up the chase I can repay a blow ; 
 Once I could bend or feign to bend the knee. 
 When conscience told 'twas order's just decree, 
 I could dissemble scorn, and strive to seem 
 
 As calm as love embracing in a dream ; 
 No change ' could drag resentment from its r< 
 My brow was smooth, my heart was well posse 
 What now is done, not prudence would recall, 
 If pain ensue, what sooner might befall ? 
 Should public hate upon my pen react, 
 
 * No matter this I will not aught retract. 
 
 LAVANTE. 
 
 qy. " charge." ED. 
 
INDEX TO SATIRE 
 (NOT IN THE ORIGINAL). 
 
 old, 3, 7, 32 
 
 Saunders, 4, i 
 
 Bryant, 7, 20, 31,33 
 
 Dana, 7, 8, n, 12 
 
 Halleck, 7, 14, 3 1 
 
 Sprague, 7,9,11,13,3! 
 
 Willis, 8, n, 19 
 
 Holmes, ...... 8, 22 
 
 Doane, 3,1 
 
 Pcrcival, 8, 9, 1 1 . i S 
 
 Burleigh, 9 II l8 33 
 
 Pike, 
 
 Simms, 9, 27 
 
 Benjamin, . . . . . . . 9, 16 
 
 Hoffman, 9, n 
 
 Sargent, 9, 26 
 
 \Vhitticr, 17 (?), 21 
 
 23 
 
 Clarke, ..... 24 
 
 Stn 25 
 
 Dawes, 30 
 
 Lowell, ....... 30 
 
 Goodrich, ....... 30 
 
 Cranch, 32 
 
 Crosswell, 32 
 
 Longfellow, 31 
 
NOTES. 
 
 1 " I* Mr we ask his pardon the Reverend Mr. Gris wold, the man 
 of varied talents, of genius, of known skill, of overweening intellect, he 
 was somewhUe pictured, or is he the arrant literary quack he is now en- 
 tided by the American press f . . . One of the most clumsy liter- 
 ary thieves, who, in his wildest aspirations, never even dreamed of an 
 original thought." Poc f * review of Griswold's book on the Poets. 
 
 *' A satire is, of course, no/0r*v," says Poe in his review of Bryant 
 (voLiu., p. i8a, Griswold's ed.). The italics are his. This bears out the 
 hypothesis that Foe's ensutveos* to criticism, and his passion for orir 
 iaality were additional reasons for publishing "a satire* 1 
 
 The imiquiPMi of "The Raven " and "The Bells" is not | 
 
 I r r 
 
 .' If we are to believe the critics and the press at Urge, says Poe, "we 
 shall find ourselves the most enviable people on the bee of the earth. 
 Our fine writers are legion. . . . All our poets are Miltons, neither 
 
 mutji rif^ ImiiMia mmut ^iilni In il>_tt i Ko 
 
 mv DOT HgjonouSi ano everyuooy WDO WTIICS . is me 
 admirable Crichtoo. or. at Itait. the admirable Crichtoo'* ghost.** Poe 
 in the review of Q**t** / l/ttic**." 
 
 Poe has a Margtaofift " note on Dr. Espy, a scientist who, he says, 
 borrowed from Bacon. 
 
 In his critique of Griswold's book Poe charges C. with being a puff 
 in the mask of a critic. 
 
 " I allude to the heresy of Tk* DbUctit, a heresy too palpably false 
 to be long tolerated, but one which, in the brief period it has already en- 
 dured, may be amid to have accomplished more in the corruption of our 
 poetical literature than all its other enemies combined. . . . Every 
 poem, it is said, should inculcate a moral, and by this moral is the poet- 
 kaJ merit of the work to be adjudged. We Americans especially have 
 patronised this happy idea ; and we Boston tans, very especially, have 
 developed it in fulL"-Poc in " Tk< /W/r / Vir/>6>." 
 
2 NOTES. 
 
 7 " The fact is son^e persons should write at once a Magazine Paper 
 exposing ruthlessly exposing, the dessous de cartes of our literary af- 
 fairs. He should show how and why it is that the ubiquitous quack in 
 letters can always ' succeed,' while genius, (which implies self-respect, 
 with a scorn of creeping and crawling) must inevitably succumb." Poe 
 on Bayard Taylor, in The Literati. 
 
 " That the opinion of the Press is not an honest opinion ... is 
 never denied by the members of the Press themselves. . . . Let in 
 America a book be published by an unknown, careless, or uninfluential 
 author ; if he publishes it ' on his own account ' he will be confounded at 
 finding that no notice is taken of it at all." (Does not this remark of 
 Poe to some extent explain why this "Lavante " satire seems to have 
 been ignored by the Press ? Poe proceeds to describe at some length 
 how certain authors contrive by underhand means to get their bocks 
 puffed, and he adds), " the effect of this system is obvious. In ninety- 
 nine cases out of a hundred, men of genius, too indolent and careless 
 about worldly concerns to bestir themselves after this fashion have also 
 that pride of intellect which will prevent them, under any circumstances, 
 f. om evv n insinuating, by the presentation of a book to a member of the 
 Press, the desire to have that book reviewed. They, consequently and 
 their works, are utterly overwhelmed and extinguished in the flood of the 
 apparent public adulation upon which in gilded barges are borne tri- 
 umphant the ingenious toady and the diligent quack." Poe on W. 
 Cullen Bryant, in The Literati. 
 
 8 Poe invokes the " spirits of Pope, Byron, et al., forgive our desecra- 
 tion of the name " poetry for Gris wold's rhymes. Ibid. 
 
 9 " We shall reach more immediately a more distinct conception of 
 what true poetry is by mere reference to a few of the simple elements 
 which induce in the poet himself the true poetical effect. He recog- 
 nizes the ambrosia which nourishes his soul, in the bright orbs that shine 
 in Heaven, in the volutes of the flower, ... in the blue distance 
 of mountains, in the grouping of clouds, ... in the star-mirroring 
 depths of lonely wells. . . . He owns it in all noble thoughts, in all 
 unworldly motives, in all holy impulses, in all chivalrous, generous and 
 self-sacrificing deeds. He feels it in the beauty of woman, ... in 
 her burning enthusiasms, but above all, ah ! far above all, he kneels to 
 it, he worships it in the faith, in the purity, in the strength, in the alto- 
 gether divine majesty of her lovef Poe, in " The Poetic Principle*' 
 
 10 (Referring to Griswold's book.) " If ever such a thing as literary ruin 
 exists, nine-tenths of the Poets (!) of America are ruined for ever by the 
 praise of Mr. Griswold ! This is our unvarnished opinion ; and as we 
 
:-S. 3 
 
 have established the fact of our knowing something of Poetry and its 
 concomitants, and that Mr. Griswold is as ignorant of it and them as a 
 Kickapoo Indian, we fancy it will pass for current coin." Poe's critique 
 ofGriswold'sbook. 
 
 I 1 Griswold " rose from comparative insignificance to be the idol of all 
 the poetical editors and would-be great men in America." ItfuL 
 
 Mr. Willis is yet young. . . . Without being handsome . . . 
 his face is somewhat too full, or rather heavy in its lower portions. 
 Neither his nose nor his forehead can be defended ; the latter would 
 puzzle phrenology." Poe, in The Lit, 
 
 " However highly we respect Mr. Willis* talents we feel nothing but 
 comeiapt far his affectation*," Poe, in the Broadway Journal, Oc- 
 tober n, 1845. 
 
 *' The very best, in my opinion, poem which Willis has ever written 
 ("The shadows lay along Broadway**) . . . breathes an earnest- 
 ness, an evident sincerity of sentiment, for which we look in vain through 
 U the other works of this author." Poe's t Tke Poetic Principle." 
 (See also note 23.) 
 
 II " Griswold says, * at a versifier Holmes is equal to Tennyson, and 
 with th same patient effort would every way surpass him/ We advise 
 Dr. Holmes, who does possess some merit as a versifier, to beg Mr. 
 Griswold not to puff him, or be may depend upon his poems being in- 
 continently d d." Poc's critique on Griswold. (See not* 17.) 
 
 I he caesura (a pause introduced for the purpose of producing 
 harmony) has been used by afl our poets, hat with a perfect ignorance of 
 its present character. This discovery, as well as this mode of scansion, 
 
 of oar language than any living grammarian, critic, or essay- 
 
 PoeOfamiHthMtyhisownaseofitu the fourth of the following 
 lines from his " Haunted Palace.* It gives a striking emphasis, and is 
 to osed three times in this satire, 
 
 Once a fair and stately pamct 
 
 Radiant palace reared its bead. 
 
 In the monarch Thought's dominion* 
 
 It stood there! 
 
 Never seraph spread a pinion 
 
 Over fabric half so fair !-/*<* 
 
 " Hoffman's only merit is his wealth." Ibid. 
 Griswold uioaoMBM HnflmM a brilliant poet, speaks of his graphic 
 
4 NOTES. 
 
 descriptive powers, richness and purity of style, and places him also in 
 the front rank as a novelist. No American equal to him as a song 
 writer. (We note that in the chorus to each verse of a long song, 
 Hoffman makes "room " rhyme to "moon.") Griswold devotes five 
 pages more to specimens of this writer than he allows to any other Ameri- 
 can poet. Poe elsewhere hints that Griswold accepted payment from 
 certain writers for extra space devoted to their rhymes. 
 
 15 "As regards Dana, it is more than possible that I may be doing 
 him wrong. I have not read him since I was a boy, and must read him 
 carefully again. The Frogpondians have badgered me so much that I 
 fear I am apt to fall into prejudices about them." Foe's Letter, Decem- 
 ber 15, 1846 (Ingram, ii., 103). 
 
 Griswold pronounces Dana a true poet. Dana had written "The 
 Dying Raven" in 1825, and had lectured on "Poets and Poetry" in 
 1839. 
 
 16 "It is to be hoped that common-sense, in the time to come, will 
 prefer deciding upon a work of art rather by the impression it makes, by 
 the effect it produces, than by the time it took to impress the effect, or by 
 the ' sustained effort ' which had been found necessary in effecting the 
 impression. The fact is that perseverance is one thing and genius quite 
 another." Poe, in " The Poetic Principle" 
 
 17 Griswold praises Sprague for his good sense, vivid descriptions, 
 and faultless style. 
 
 " I hold that the phrase ' a long poem ' is simply a flat contradiction 
 in terms. A poem deserves its title only inasmuch as it excites by ele- 
 vating the soul." Ibid. 
 
 18 " In versification Mr. Halleck is much as usual. . . . 'Marco 
 Bozzaris' has certainly some rhythm, but its author, in short, writes care- 
 lessly, loosely, and as a matter of course seldom effectively so far as the 
 outworks of literature are concerned. . . . Mr. Halleck in the appar- 
 ent public estimate maintains a somewhat better position than that to 
 which, on absolute grounds he is entitled." Poe, in The Literati. 
 
 " It" (" Infatuation," a poem spoken before the Mercantile Library 
 Association, October, 1844) " is not sufficiently pronounced in its object 
 to warrant us in classing it with ' legitimate ' satire, but there is enough 
 in it, we think, to show conclusively that the author might succeed if he 
 pleased in this class of writing, at least as well, if not very much better 
 than any of his countrymen who have preceded him. The poem is full 
 of nerve, point and terseness the thrusts are dexterous and well aimed 
 
NOTES. 5 
 
 and the versification peculiarly good of its kind." Poe, in the Broad- 
 way Journal^ March 15, 1845. 
 
 * " Man is, in fact, only incidentally a poetic theme : we mean the 
 heart and intellect of Man matters which the pseudo-transcendentalists 
 of Frogpondium are perpetually attempting to force into poetry with no 
 other object than to impart to their doggrel an air of profundity." Poe, 
 in BroadnMiy Journal^ December 27, 1845 . 
 
 ** Griswold describes Burleigh as at one time a printer, afterwards an 
 editor and lecturer. He gives fourteen specimens of Burlcigh's rhymes 
 and only three of Poe's poems. 
 
 - swold pronounces Percival the most prolific and fanciful of 
 American poets. Few are move learned than he. The poem " Clio " 
 was published in three sections, at intervals. H e ad d *." Percival lacks 
 the artistic skill, or declines the labour, without which few authors gain 
 immortality.'* 
 
 \s a poet Mr. Willis is not entitled, I think, to so high a rank 
 as he may justly claim for his prose, . . . 1 : styU proper may be 
 called extravagant, 4**rrs, pointed." Poe, in Tkt Litrrati. 
 
 void praises Willis for his " exquisite finish and melody, his lan- 
 guage pore, varied and rich, his imagination brilliant, and his wit of the 
 finest quality " (See note i a.) 
 
 N Rryant a better poet than Longfellow ? Certainly not, for in 
 Longfellow's pages the spirit of poetry -VrV*//r>- walks abroad, while 
 Bryant's sole merit is tolerable versification and fine marches of descrip- 
 tion. LoogfaOow is unquestionably the best poet m America."- Poe's 
 Critique of Griswold's /W/i. 
 
 " It will never do to daim for Bryant a genius of the loftiest order, 
 bm there has been latterly, since the days of Mr. Longfellow and Mr. 
 LoweO, growing disposition to deny htm /ri* in may respect 
 Thanatopsis' is the pom by which Bryant is best known, 
 but it is by no means his best poem. . . . The concluding thought 
 it exceedingly noble, and has done wonders for the success of the whole 
 composition. . . . He is, in the ' minor morals,* the most gener- 
 ally correct of our poets "Poe, in " Tkt Littrati." (See note 
 
 * " I need scarcily observe that a poem deserves its title only inas- 
 much as it excites, by elevating the soul. . . . He who shall simply 
 me. with however glowing enthusiasm, or with however vivid a truth of 
 description, of the sights, and sounds, and odors, and colours, and senti- 
 ments, which greet kim in common with all mankind he, I say, has 
 yet failed to prove his divine title." Poe, in Tkt Pett 
 
6 NOTES. 
 
 26 "A fine versifier . . . but in taste, and especially in imagina- 
 tion which Coleridge has justly styled the soul of all poetry he is ever 
 remarkably deficient. His themes are never to our liking.' 1 Poe, in the 
 " A utograjky" 
 
 Griswold describes Whittier as one of the secretaries of the Anti- 
 Slavery Society. Many of his best poems relate to slavery, they have a 
 manly vigour of thought and language, and breathe the spirit of true 
 liberty. 
 
 27 Griswold predicts for Holmes an enduring reputation ; says he pos- 
 sesses a rich vein of humour, with learning and originality, and great 
 skill as an artist. (See note 13.) 
 
 28 Griswold describes Hill as a recluse, with a style severe, some- 
 times embarrassing. 
 
 29 See reference to this word "aidance," and others, in Introduction. 
 
 30 < More extensively known in his clerical than in a literary capacity." 
 Poe, in the "Autography" 
 
 In his Broadway Journal Poe printed an amusing caricature rep- 
 resenting Bishop Doane astride of the devil, holding on by the gigantic 
 horns while soaring over Trinity Church steeple. The point of this seems 
 to have referred to the temporary suspension of the Bishop, pending a 
 legal inquiry into some charge of which we believe he was acquitted. 
 
 Griswold included Bishop Doane in his " Poets," and gave several 
 specimens, adding that the reverend writer's contributions to the religi- 
 ous literature of the day were "more numerous and valuable." 
 
 31 " Mr. Clark (Lewis Gaylord) once did me the honour to review my 
 poems, and I forgive him. Mr. C. as a literary man is as smooth as 
 oil, or a sermon from Doctor Hawks ; he is noticeable for nothing in the 
 world except for the markedness by which he is noticeable for nothing." 
 Poe, in The Literati. 
 
 The passage in the satire evidently refers to the then deceased brother 
 of the above. In The Literati Poe says that L. G. Clark "is known 
 principally as the twin brother of the late Willis Gaylord Clark, the 
 poet, of Philadelphia." 
 
 32 " His ' Hymns to the Gods,' and * Ode to the Mocking Bird,' are 
 the chief basis of his reputation. . . . A keen sense of the beautiful 
 and graceful, . . . picturesque . . . verging on effeminacy. 
 In force he is deficient." Poe, in the "Autography" 
 
 Griswold introduces Pike as the son of a journeyman shoemaker. He 
 was of a gloomy temperament. His principal poems were on "The 
 Gods." In a brief notice of The Knickerbocker magazine, Poe says : 
 
NOTES. 7 
 
 ** It presents its customary table of contents, besides a grand f&c* d* 
 resistance composed of A. Pike " 
 
 Poe had probably heard that he had been suspected of plagiarizing 
 the refrain idea of " The Raven," from Pike's poem on the loss of 
 44 Isadore." The allusion to stealing is a bold one. 
 
 As a descriptive poet Mr. Street is to be highly commended. . . . 
 He appears, however, not at any time to have been aware that mert de- 
 scription is not poetry at all We demand creation. About Mr. Street 
 there seems to be no spirit. He is all matter substance what the 
 chemists would call ' simple substance 'and exceedingly Minpi 
 Jfoyfes&s. 
 
 "Vda*c "Its merits are very inconsiderable; . . . 
 
 to those who meddle little with books, some of his satiric papers must 
 appear brilliant." Poe, in Tkt Litt> 
 
 In the Scmtkern Litfrary MttttHftr, vol. ii., p. 305, Poe sums up 
 Sargent's work as "flatter than stale beer.** 
 
 * " The best novelist which this country has, upon the whole, pro- 
 duced. . . . His earlier works . . . were disfigured by many 
 inaccuracies of style, and especially by the prevalence of the merely re- 
 pulsive, where the horrible was the object ; but in invention, in vigour, in 
 movement, in the power of exciting interest and in the artistical manage- 
 ment of his themes, be has surpassed, we think, any of his countrymen.*' 
 Poe, in Bro*<t-nn\y 7**r*ai, October 4, 1845. 
 
 (Simms was a Southerner, and it was a point of honour with Poe 
 always to praise the South, to vex the hated *' Frogpondians" of the 
 
 Monk 
 
 "See //jWav/*M for reference to Foe's peculiarity in naming " An- 
 gelo" without the "Michael.*' 
 
 (Compare the twenty verses, beginning with "Blest art, invention,** 
 with Poe's " Philosophy of Composition." In both there is a unique 
 exaltation of inventiveness and new forms of verse.] 
 
 " We shall premise with a sh rt notice on the art of versification ; 
 an art which our best poets are ignorant of or wilfully misunderstand." 
 Poe's critique of Griswold's book. 
 
 * Poetry, in its most confined sense, is the result of versification, but 
 may be more properly defined as tkt rhythmical Jtrumtfcatit* oftx- 
 
 '" We knew very well that among (the Bostonians) there existed a 
 predetermination to abuse us under tiny circumstances. ... The 
 Frogpondians may as well spare us their abuse. If we cared a fig for 
 
8 NOTES. 
 
 their wrath we should not first have insulted them to their teeth, and 
 then subjected to their tender mercies a volume of our Poems : that, we 
 think, is sufficiently clear. The fact is, we despise them and defy them 
 (the transcendental vagabonds !) and they may all go to the devil to- 
 gether." Poe, in Broadway Journal, November 22, 1845. 
 
 40 " No man in America has been more shamefully overestimated (than 
 Rufus Dawes). . . . These stupidities. . . . His works . . . 
 mere verbiage. . . . There is not a page of anything he has written 
 which will bear for an instant the scrutiny of a critical eye. . . . This 
 abominable rigmarole." Poe, in The Literati. 
 
 41 Griswold says, "Mr. Lowell is still a dreamer, and he strives in 
 vain to make his readers partners in his dreamy spiritual fancies." 
 
 " But for some slight foreknowledge of the literary opinions, likes, 
 dislikes, whims, prejudices and crotchets of Mr. James Russell Lowell, 
 we should have had much difficulty in attributing so very loose a bro- 
 chure ("Fable for the Critics") to him. . . . Some good hints 
 (? hits) and some sparkling witticisms do not serve to compensate us for 
 its rambling plot . . . and for the want of artistic finish so particu- 
 larly noticeable throughout the work especially in its versification. 
 . . . Is there no originality on the face of the earth ? Mr. Lowell's 
 total want of it is shown at all points. . . . It is a fashion among 
 Mr. Lowell's set to affect a belief that there is no such thing as South- 
 ern Literature. . . . All whom he praises are Bostonians. Other 
 writers are barbarian*, and satirized accordingly if mentioned at all. 
 To show the general manner of the fable, we quote a portion of what 
 he says about Mr. Poe : 
 
 Here comes Poe with his Raven, like Barnaby Rudge 
 Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge ; 
 Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters, 
 In a way to make all men of common sense d n metres ; 
 Who has written some things far the best of their kind ; 
 But somehow the heart seems squeezed out by the mind. 
 
 . . . Mr. Lowell should not have meddled with the anapaestic rhythm ; 
 it is exceedingly awkward in the hands of one who knows nothing 
 about it and who ivill persist in fancying he can write it by ear. . . . 
 As it is, no failure was ever more complete or more pitiable. . . . 
 (He should) leave prose, with satiric verse, to those who are able to 
 manage them, while he contents himself with that class of poetry for 
 which, and for which alone, he seems to have an especial vocation the 
 poetry of sentiment. This, to be sure, is not the very loftiest order of 
 
NO: 9 
 
 verse ; for it is far inferior to either that of the imagination or that of the 
 passions but it is the loftiest region in which Mr. Lowell can get his 
 breath without difficulty." Poe, in The Literati. 
 
 Goodrich was the maker-up of the once popular M Peter Parley's 
 Annual," and ^occasionally dabbled in mild verse. 
 
 " Poe constantly girded at the Boston School of Poets. In his " Po- 
 etic Principle " he says : 
 
 "It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far 
 south. Had he been a New Englandcr. it is probable that he would have 
 been ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal 
 which has so long controlled the destinies of American letters in conduct- 
 h*fe^cJbd'n*Jir**taw'iMJMkm* N More than once 
 in his other writings Poe ridicules the pundits of Frog pondium. To- 
 wards 1847. for various reasons, he considerably modified his harsh criti- 
 cisms of Longfellow, Lowell, and the rest. 
 
 " Much as we admire the genius of Mr. LongfeDow we are fully sen- 
 
 * ' ' ' ..... ' ' ' ' - ' i ; . . 
 
 great and his ideality high. But his conception of the *i*u of poesy * 
 off wretif."Poc oo Longftlforv. 
 
 "Mr. Longfellow, decidedly the most audacious imitator in America, 
 is markedly original, or. in other words, imaginative, upon the whole." 
 Marfi*alia. (.See note 24.) 
 
 "The poetic sentiment (even without reference to the poetic power) 
 implies a peculiarly, perhaps an abnormally keen appreciation of the 
 beautiful, with a longing lor its assimilation, or absorption, into toe po* 
 ctk identity. What the poet intensely admires tiBBoan thus, in very 
 fact, although only partially, a portion of his own inteflecf-Poe Oft 
 
 Poe her* indulges his sarcasm at the Cariylean style. In one ol 
 hisrefcmwtoith<peak()ftr^ "jarring, inappcopciate, mean, and 
 in every way monstrous assemblages of false imagery u the urces of 
 Carlyle." -Poe on Brainard. in Tkt Littrnti. 
 
 GnVwold includes about 150 writers in his " Poets of America." Of 
 these about so are generally fanuliar names, though perhaps few aver- 
 age readers could name particular poems by each of them. Among 
 those whom Griswold treats with the very scantiest notice is Poe, who is 
 almost the only one upon whose poetic qualities Griswold says absolutely 
 nothing. Out of Griswold' s 150 immortals the following are undoubted- 
 ly the first seven ; we give them in alphabetical order : Bryant, Hal- 
 leek, Holmes, Longfellow, Lowell, Poe, Whittkr. 
 
10 NOTES. 
 
 46 The conceits of Mr. Cranch, . . . he is full of conceits . . . 
 but the conceits of Mr. Cranch are, for the most part, conceits intention- 
 ally manufactured, for conceit's sake. . . . We see every moment 
 that he has been at uncommon fains to make a fool of himself." Poe, 
 in The Literati. 
 
 Griswold quotes Bishop Doane as saying that " Crosswell has more 
 unwritten poetry in him than any man he knows." Crosswell was a 
 clergyman. 
 
 47 " Whenever a book is abused, people take it for granted that it is I 
 who have been abusing it." Poe, in "Marginalia" 
 
 48 The Harbinger (1845) said that Poe's fame was " degenerating 
 into notoriety, through a certain blackguard warfare which he had been 
 waging against the poets and newspaper critics of New England, and 
 which it would be most charitable to impute to insanity." 
 
 49 In his article on " Mr. Longfellow and other Plagiarists," Poe thus 
 resents " the insufferable cant and shameless misrepresentation, prac- 
 tised habitually by just such anonymous enemies as ' Outis,' with the 
 view of decrying by sheer strength of lungs of trampling down of 
 rioting down of mobbing down any man with a soul that bids him come 
 out from among the general corruption of our public press, and take his 
 stand upon the open ground of rectitude and honour. ... In re- 
 gard to my own course ... I will now unscrupulously call the at- 
 tention of the ' Outises ' to the fact that it was during what they would 
 insinuate to be the unpopularity of my * wholesale mangling of the vic- 
 tims without rhyme or reason,' that, in one year, the circulation of the 
 Southern Messenger extended itself from seven hundred to nearly five 
 thousand, and that in little more than twice the same time, Graham 's 
 Magazine swelled its list from five thousand to fifty-two thousand sub- 
 scribers. I make no apology for these egotisms, . . . for in myself 
 I am but defending a set of principles which no honest man need be 
 ashamed of defending, and for whose defence no honest man will con- 
 sider an apology required. ... I have to refute only the accusation 
 of mangling by wholesale and I refute it by the simplest reference to 
 fact. What I have written remains, and is readily accessible in any of 
 our public libraries." 
 
 "The manner in which we are maltreated, of late days is really 
 awful to behold. Everybody is at us little dogs and all." Poe, in 
 Broadway Journal, December 6, 1845. 
 
 80 " In the late lecture on the * Poets and Poetry of America,' de- 
 livered before an audience made up chiefly of editors and their connec- 
 tions, I took occasion to speak what I know to be the truth, and I endeav- 
 
NOTES. I i 
 
 cured so to speak it that there should be no chance of misunderstanding 
 what it was I intended to say. I told these gentlemen to their teeth, that, 
 with a very few noble exceptions, they had been engaged for many 
 yean in a system of indiscrimii.ate laudation of American books a 
 system which, more than any other one thing in the world, had tended 
 to the depression of that ' American Literature ' whose elevation it was 
 designed to effect. I said this, and very much more of a similar ten- 
 dency, with as thorough a distinctness as I could command. Could I, 
 at the moment, have invented any terms more explicit, wherewith to ex- 
 press my contempt of our general editorial course of corruption and 
 puffery, I should have employed them beyond the shadow of a doubt ; 
 and should I think of anything more expressive hereafter^ I will en- 
 deavour either to find or to make an opportunity for its introduction Jo 
 the public. 
 
 " And what, for all this, had I to anticipate ? In a very few cases the 
 open, and, in several, the silent approval of the more chivalrous portion of 
 the press ; but in a majority of msttum, I should have been weak in- 
 deed to look for anything but abuse. . . . To my vfliners I return 
 also such thanks as they deserve, inasmuch as without what they have 
 done me the honour to say, there would have been much of point want- 
 ing In the compliments of my friends. Had I, indeed, from the former 
 received any less equivocal tokens of disapprobation, I should, at this 
 oment, have been looking about me to discover what sad blunder I 
 had committed. I am mot* sincere in what I iy."-Poe, in 
 
IN PREPARATION TO BE ISSUED IN THE FALL 
 
 SELECTION 
 
 FROM THE 
 
 POETRYoELEIGH HUNT 
 
 With a Prefatory Sketch and a reproduction 
 of a portrait in water colors 
 
 Y SIR DAVID \VILKI 
 
 Hitherto unpublished and now in the possession 
 of the publishers 
 
 To be daintily printed in a 12mo volume 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS 
 
YA 02144 
 
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 Wy^XS??o<5$ 
 
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