Chapter V: Part 5

As a man, Mr. Clark was universally esteemed. His warm heart, frank nature, and social qualities endeared him to all his friends, and he has left a blank in the little circle which he was wont to grace. To the last he enjoyed the society of his friends. He breathed to them the wish that no venomous tongue should be suffered to insult his fame when he was dead, and thus rob his orphan boy of his father’s only heritage—his name. God knows, the heart that could entertain aught evil towards the departed deserves not the companionship or sympathy of mankind. The dying moments of Mr. Clark were filled with the memory of his lost wife—to whom he has written some of the sweetest verses in the language—and his parting request was that he should be buried by her side, at the same hour of the day at which she was interred. Need we say his request was religiously fulfilled?

The closing days of the poet are finely drawn in the following lines, for which we are indebted to Robert Morris, Esq., another of our valued contributors, and one of the circle of Mr. Clark’s friends. They need no eulogy at our hands. They will commend themselves to all who loved the departed, or admire true poetry.

A DEATH SCENE IN THE CHAMBER OF A POET.

Come hither, friend! My voice grows thin and weak—
My limbs are feeble, and I feel that Death
Will soon achieve his conquest. Look not sad!
The being best beloved has gone before—
Why should _I_ tarry here? An angel form
Beckons me on. Amid my morning dreams,
I hear _her_ voice and see her starry eyes!
That voice so full of woman tenderness;
Those eyes that mirrored an unsullied soul!
Then look not sad! My peace is made with God,
And in the hope, which is the dawn of Heaven—
The Christian’s hope—I will a little hence
On my mysterious journey. Soon—how soon!—
The truth will break upon me! The dim stars,
Which now, this mellow night, like sands of gold,
Glitter amid the distance—it may be
That I may pass their confines on my course;
That peopled worlds may greet my spirit’s gaze!
Look, gentle friend, how brightly do they shine!
How like to living things! How beautiful!
How more than wonderful the mighty hand
That placed them there, all radiant with light!

Oh, God! in whose high presence soon my soul
Will stand uncovered, what a worm am I
Amid thy wonders vast and infinite!
And yet I feel th’ immortal burns within—
The quenchless light of an eternal soul!
Yes! as the frame decays; as this frail dust
Sinks to its native earth, the spirit’s wings
Unfold, and all within seems eager for the flight!

My voice is almost lost. Friend!—faithful friend,
Long tried and well beloved—before I leave
This summer scene of earth, yon fields and flowers—
Alas! like youth and life, they soon will fade—
I have a boon to crave. My boy, my only boy,
Will soon be fatherless! Forgive this tear;
It is among the last.

Hither, my child!

There lives his mother’s image—her soft eyes,
So large and full and dove-like; her brown hair,
So rich and silken, and her cheek of rose!
Oh! what a fate was hers! But yesterday,
All youth and hope and beauty; and to-day,
A banquet for the cold and creeping worm!
But far above the grave her spirit dwells,
Among the white-robed circles of the blest:
In that bright clime where Faith and Fancy soar,
And Love and Hope and Joy walk hand in hand.

But to the boon.
I would not, when my dust
Lies still and cold, leave bitter memories.
I would not leave a wound in any breast,
But fain with all the world would die in peace,
Forgiving all, and asking all forgiveness.
The only legacy that I may leave
My idol boy, is a weak dream of fame:
A phantom that has cheated me of life,
And fails me now, I fear, before the grave.
And yet, how that wild dream, tempting and bright,
Has spanned my youthful life, as does the bow
The summer storm! And now, e’en while I gaze.
And feel the mortal passing slowly off,
How dust still clings to dust, and a desire
Burns at my breast, that justice may be done
My memory!—that he, in after time—
(Poor child, how little recks he of this scene!—)
May speak his father’s name with love and pride.

* * * * * * * * * *

A hand—a friendly hand!—mine eyes grow dim—

His pale lip quivered, and the hectic tinge
Passed from his hollow cheeks. And see, he sleeps!
Alas! ’tis Death’s unchangeable repose—
The spirit of the poet soars to God!

Mr. Clark possessed poetic talents of no ordinary merit. He belonged to the school of Goldsmith and Pope, rather than to that of Byron or Coleridge. He was more remarkable for sweetness than passion, for melody than force, for fancy than imagination. The rank to which he belonged was not the highest, but in that rank he occupied one of the foremost stations. He was distinguished for his grace and euphony. Few men have written so elegantly as Mr. Clark; no man has excelled him in the melody of numbers. He obviously devoted the greatest attention to the composition of poetry, and no piece left his hand until it had received its utmost polish. There was a deep abiding sense of religion in his compositions which commend them to every heart. He was indeed almost the first poet to render the poetry of religion attractive; for Young, Cowper, Wordsworth, and even Milton, too often fail in this. But Mr. Clark was always successful, breathing, as he did, aspirations after a higher and better state of being, and emulating, if that were possible, the rapt enthusiasm of the Hebrew poet, when dreaming of the “better land”—that land to which he has now followed his long-wept wife. Yes! he has gone—

“Gone to his Heavenly Father’s rest!
The flowers of Eden round him blowing,
And on his ear the murmur blest
Of Siloa’s waters softly flowing!—
Beneath that Tree of Life which gives
To all the earth its healing leaves!
In the white robe of angels clad,
And wandering by that sacred river,
Whose streams of loveliness make glad
The city of our God forever!”

Why should we mourn his loss? This is no home for the weary spirit. Earth has nothing to satisfy the immortal mind; but, with a reach after higher and holier things, it struggles to be away, satisfied only when roaming free through the wide expanse of Eternity.

* * * * *

FAREWELL! IF EVER FONDEST PRAYER,

A BALLAD—WRITTEN BY LORD BYRON.

MUSIC COMPOSED BY
J. DODSLEY HUMPHREYS.

_Philadelphia_: John F. Nunns, _184 Chesnut Street_.

Farewell if ever fondest prayer for others’ weal availed on high,
Mine will not all be lost in air,
But waft, but waft thy name beyond the sky.
’Twere vain to speak, to weep, to sigh,
Oh more than

tears of blood can tell,
When wrung from guilt’s expiring eye,
Are in that word farewell.
Are in that word farewell, farewell,
When wrung from guilt’s expiring eye,
Are in that word, are in that word farewell.

These lips are mute, these eyes are dry,
But in my breast and in my brain,
Awake the pangs that pass not by,
The thought, the thought that ne’er shall sleep again.
My soul nor deigns nor dares complain,
Though grief and passion there rebel,
I only know we lov’d in vain.
I only feel farewell,
I only feel farewell, farewell,
I only know I loved in vain,
I only feel, I only feel farewell.

* * * * *

Sports and Pastimes.

ANGLING.

The prevailing attributes and domestic economy of fishes may be described as exactly the reverse of those of birds. These gay and airy creatures possess the power of surveying distinctly, at a glance, an immeasurable extent of horizon; their acute perception of sound appreciates all intonations, and their glad voices are exquisitely skilled in their production. Though their bills are hard, and their bodies closely covered by down and feathers, they are by no means deficient in the sense of touch. They enjoy all the delights of conjugal and parental affection, and perform their incumbent duties with devotedness and courage. They cherish and defend their offspring, and will sometimes even die in their defence; and of all the wonderful labors of instinctive art, none is so beautiful as the formation of their mossy dwellings. With what deep and continuous affection does the female brood over her cherished treasures!—how unwearied is the gallant male in his tender assiduities, and with what melodious love does he outpour that rich and varied song by which he seeks to soothe her sedentary task!

“Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods!”

But close at hand, on that umbrageous bough, sits the fond partner of his joys and sorrows, so that it is in no spirit of selfish solitary musing that he ever murmurs, by woodland stream and shadow-haunted brook, “a music sweeter than their own.” The slender winged and glossy plumaged swallow, which skims the verdure of the new-mown meadow, or dimples the surface of the breezeless lake—the ponderous but giant-pinioned eagle, winging his way from distant isles, o’er waters glittering with redundant life—the proud, far-sighted falcon, which, launching from some hoar cliff or lightning-scathed peak,

“Doth dally with the wind, and scorn the sun,”—

the wild and fearful lapwing, with graceful crest and dark dilated eye, are each and all enslaved for many a long-enduring season by this love of offspring, and toil in its support from dewy morning until latest eve.

But it is far otherwise with our voiceless dwellers in the deep, who exhibit but few attachments, are conversant with no interchanging language, and cherish no warm affections. Constructing no dwellings, they merely shelter themselves from danger among the cavernous rocks of the ocean, in the silent depths of lakes, or beneath the murky shade of the overhanging banks of rivers; and the cravings of hunger alone seem to exercise a frequent or influential action over their monotonous movements. We must not, however, conceive that the life of fishes is not one of enjoyment, for we know that the Great Creator “careth for all his creatures;” and it ought perhaps rather to be said that we cannot appreciate the nature of their feelings, than that they are in any way fore-doomed to a negation of pleasure. Assuredly, however, the hand of nature has been most prodigal in bestowing on their external aspect every variety of adornment. Their special forms are infinite, their proportions often most elegant, their colors lively and diversified—and nothing seems wanting, either in their shape or structure, to excite the unfeigned admiration of mankind. Indeed, it almost appears as if this prodigality of beauty was intended solely for such an end. The brightness of metallic splendor, the sparkling brilliancy of precious gems, the milder effulgence of the hues of flowers, all combine to signalize fishes as among the most beautiful objects of creation. When newly withdrawn from their native element, or still gliding submerged amid its liquid coolness, their colors, fixed or iridescent, are seen mingling in spots, or bands, or broader flashes—always elegant and symmetrical, sometimes richly contrasted, sometimes gradually softened into each other, and in all cases harmonizing with a chaste fulness of effect which Titian and Rubens might envy, but could never equal. For what reason, then, it has been asked, has all this adornment been bestowed on creatures which can scarcely perceive each other amid the dim perpetual twilight of the deep? Shakspeare has already said that there are “more things in _heaven_ and _earth_ than are dreamt of in our philosophy;” and we fear it is no answer to the foregoing question to add, that the same observation applies with even greater truth to the “_waters beneath the earth_.”

NUTRITION AND GROWTH OF FISHES.

The nutritive functions of fishes follow the same order of progression as those of the other classes of the vertebrated kingdom. They seize, and in some measure divide, their food with their teeth; they digest it in the stomach, from whence it passes into the intestinal canal, where it receives a supply of bile from the liver, and frequently a liquid similar to that of the pancreas; the nutritive juices, absorbed by vessels analogous to lacteals, and probably taken up in part also directly by the veins, are mingled with the venous blood which is flowing towards the heart, from whence it is pushed to the branchiæ, in which, coming in contact with the water, it is converted into arterial blood, and then proceeds to the nourishment of the whole body.

Fishes are in general extremely voracious, and the rule of “eat or be eaten,” applies to them with unusual force. They are almost constantly engaged either in the active pursuit or patient waiting for their prey—their degree of power in its capture depending, of course, on the dimensions of the mouth and throat, and the strength of the teeth and jaws. If the teeth are sharp and curved, they are capable of seizing and securing either a large and fleshy bait, or the slenderest and most agile animal; if these parts are broad and strong, they are able to bruise the hardest aliment; if they are feeble or almost wanting, they are only serviceable in procuring some inert or unresisting prey. Fishes indeed, in most instances, show but little choice in the selection of their food, and their digestive powers are so strong and rapid as speedily to dissolve all animal substances. They greedily swallow other fishes, notwithstanding the sharp spines or bony ridges with which they may be armed; they attack and devour crabs and shell-fish, gulping them entire, without the least regard to the feelings of their families; they do not object occasionally to swallow the young even of their own species, and the more powerful kinds carry their warfare into other kingdoms of nature, and revel on rats, reptiles and young ducklings, to say nothing, gentle reader, of the ferocious shark, which not seldom makes a meal even of the lord of the creation. A particular friend of ours has his right leg in the West Indies, in consequence of an act of aggression alike unpleasant and uncalled for, and which a Christian-minded pedestrian finds it easier to forgive than forget. The species which live chiefly on vegetables are few in number, almost all fishes preferring pork to green peas.

The growth of these creatures depends greatly on the nature and amount of food, different individuals of the same species exhibiting a large disparity in their dimensions. They grow less rapidly in small ponds or shallow streams, than in large lakes and deep rivers. We once kept a minnow, little more than half an inch long, in a small glass vessel for a period of two years, during which time there was no perceptible increase in its dimensions. Had it continued in its native stream, subjected to the fattening influence of a continuous flow of water, and a consequent increase in the quantity and variety of its natural food, its cubic dimensions would probably have been twenty times greater; yet it must have attained, long prior to the lapse of a couple of years, to the usual period of the adult state. The growth itself seems to continue, under favorable circumstances, for a length of time, and we can scarcely set bounds to, certainly we know not with precision, the utmost range of the specific size of fishes. Salmon sometimes attain a weight of eighty pounds and upwards, and the giant pike of Kaiserslautern is alleged to have measured nineteen feet, and to have weighed 350 pounds. No doubt, an incorrect allegation does not in any way increase the actual size of fishes, and few people now-a-days can take exact cognizance of what was done at Mannheim in the year 1497; but, even in these degenerate days, amid our own translucent waters, and among species in no way remarkable for their ordinary dimensions, we ever and anon meet with ancient individuals which vastly exceed the usual weight and measure of their kind. But, in spite of this, let no angler, whether in the bloom of early youth, the power of matured manhood, or with the silver locks of “hoar antiquity” above his wrinkled brow, ever induce within himself, or express to others, the belief that, at all times and places, he is perpetually catching enormous trouts in vast numbers, because we happen to know that this is not the case. We don’t insist upon any one weighing every fish he captures, but we insist that no one, after jerking out a few pair, will maintain next morning, or even that very night, that he has had a most toilsome but very glorious day, and has killed five dozen and four of the finest trouts the human eye ever gazed upon. “All men are liars”—and several anglers—is a proposition the exact import of which depends much on the mode of construction.

THE MUSCULAR MOVEMENTS OF FISHES.

The vertebral column, composed of numerous articulations, united by cartilages which permit of certain movements, curves with great facility from side to side; but the vertical motion is much more restricted, chiefly in consequence of the projection of the upper and under spiny processes of the vertebræ. The great organ of movement in all fishes is the tail. The muscles, by which it is brought into play, extend in lengthened masses on either side of the vertebral column. The body, being supported chiefly by the swimming bladder, (which, however, is absent in several species), is propelled forward by the rapid flexure of the extremity acting laterally upon the resistance offered by the water. Generally speaking, neither the pectoral nor the ventral fins are of any material use during swift progressive motion; they rather serve to balance the body, or to aid its gentler movements while in a state of comparative repose. In _flying fishes_, as they are called, the pectoral fins are of such great length and expansion as to support these creatures in the air; and the strength of muscular action might probably suffice even for a longer flight, but for the necessity of constant moisture for the purposes of respiration. The drying of the gills in an individual of this class is attended by results analogous to those produced in the case of a land animal; and a flying fish is obliged to descend to respire, in like manner as a swimming quadruped, or disguised mammiferous animal, as we may term a whale, is under the necessity of ascending for the same purpose.

The heads of fishes exercise but a slight movement independent of the rest of the body, but the jaws, opercular bones, branchial arches, and other parts, are very free in their motions. The muscles, like those of other vertebrated animals, are composed of fleshy fibres more or less colored, and of tendonous fibres of a white or silvery aspect. With the exception, however, of certain spinal muscles, which are sometimes of a deep red, the flesh of fishes is much paler than that of quadrupeds, and still more so than that of birds. In several species it is even entirely white.

THE NERVOUS SYSTEM AND SENSES OF FISHES.

As fishes respire through the intervention of water alone, that is, as they can scarcely avail themselves, in rendering their blood _arterial_, of anything more than the small portion of oxygen contained in the air which is suspended in the water, their blood is necessarily cold, and the general energy and activity of their senses are by no means so great as those of quadrupeds and birds. Their brain also, though of similar composition, is proportionally much smaller, whether as compared with the total size of the body, with the mass of nerves which proceed from it, or with the cavity of the cranium in which it is contained. In the turbot (_Gadus lota_) for example, the weight of the brain to that of the spinal marrow is ascertained to be as 8 to 12, and to that of the whole body as 1 to 720; and it has been ascertained that the brain of a pike, weighed in proportion to the whole body, is as 1 to 1305. Now, in many small birds, the brain, viewed in relation to the rest of the body, is equal to a twentieth part. In the generality of fishes, the spinal cord extends along the whole of the caudal vertebræ, and it is thus that it preponderates over the brain; but the fishing frog, or sea devil (_Lophius piscatorius_), the moon fish (_Lampris guttatus_), and a few others, form exceptions to this rule, the spinal marrow disappearing before it reaches the eighth vertebra. The brain of fishes by no means fills up the cavity of the cranium; and the interval between the _pia mater_, which envelopes the brain itself, and the _dura mater_, which lines the interior of the skull, is occupied only by a loose cellulosity, frequently impregnated by an oil, or sometimes, as in the sturgeon and thunny, by a more compact fatty matter. It has also been remarked that this void between the cranium and the brain is much less in young subjects than in adults; from which it may be inferred that the brain does not increase in an equal proportion with the rest of the body. Cuvier, in fact, has found its dimensions nearly the same in different individuals—of the same species—of which the general size of one was double that of the other.

Although we should be sorry to lower the subjects of our present observation in the estimation of society, we think it undeniable that, of all vertebrated animals, fishes exhibit the smallest apparent symptoms of refined sensibility. Having no elastic air to act upon, they are necessarily mute, or nearly so, and all the sweet sensations which the delightful faculty of voice has called into being among the higher tribes, are to them unknown. Their glazed, immovable eyes, their fixed and bony faces, admit of no playful range in their physiognomical expression, of no variation connected with emotion. Their ears, surrounded on every side by the bones of the cranium, destitute of external conch, without any internal cochlea, and composed merely of certain sacks and membranous canals, scarcely suffice for the perception of the loudest sounds. Yet they will sink affrighted into the darksome depths of lakes, beneath the banks of rivers, or in oceans blue profound, when the “sky lowers and mutters thunder,” and with elemental fierceness the sheeted lightning flashes broad and bright above their liquid dwellings.

* * * * *

REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.

_The Quacks of Helicon: A Satire. By_ L. A. Wilmer.
_Philadelphia: Printed by J. W. Macclefield._

A satire, professedly such, at the present day, and especially by an American writer, is a welcome novelty, indeed. We have really done very little in the line upon this side of the Atlantic—nothing, certainly, of importance—Trumbull’s clumsy poem and Halleck’s “Croakers” to the contrary notwithstanding. Some things we have produced, to be sure, which were excellent in the way of burlesque, without intending a syllable that was not utterly solemn and serious. Odes, ballads, songs, sonnets, epics, and epigrams, possessed of this unintentional excellence, we could have no difficulty in designating by the dozen; but, in the matter of directly-meant and genuine satire, it cannot be denied that we are sadly deficient. Although, as a literary people, however, we are not exactly Archilocuses—although we have no pretensions to the ηχεηντες ιαμβοι—although, in short, we are no satirists ourselves, there can be no question that we answer sufficiently well as subjects for satire.

We repeat, that we are glad to see this book of Mr. Wilmer’s; first, because it is something new under the sun; secondly, because, in many respects, it is well executed; and, thirdly, because, in the universal corruption and rigmarole amid which we gasp for breath, it is really a pleasant thing to get even one accidental whiff of the unadulterated air of _truth_.

The “Quacks of Helicon,” as a poem and otherwise, has many defects, and these we shall have no scruple in pointing out—although Mr. Wilmer is a personal friend of our own;[4] and we are happy and proud to say so—but it has also many remarkable merits—merits which it will be quite useless for those aggrieved by the satire—quite useless for any _clique_, or set of _cliques_, to attempt to frown down, or to affect not to see, or to feel, or to understand.

-----

[4] Of Mr. Poe’s.

Its prevalent blemishes are referrible chiefly to the leading sin of _imitation_. Had the work been composed professedly in paraphrase of the whole manner of the sarcastic epistles of the times of Dryden and Pope, we should have pronounced it the most ingenious and truthful thing of the kind upon record. So close is the copy, that it extends to the most trivial points—for example to the old forms of punctuation. The turns of phraseology, the tricks of rhythm, the arrangement of the paragraphs, the general conduct of the satire—everything—all—are Dryden’s. We cannot deny, it is true, that the satiric model of the days in question is insusceptible of improvement, and that the modern author who deviates therefrom, must necessarily sacrifice something of merit at the shrine of originality. Neither can we shut our eyes to the fact, that the imitation, in the present case, has conveyed, in full spirit, the higher qualities, as well as, in rigid letter, the minor elegances and general peculiarities of the author of “Absalom and Achitophel.” We have here the bold, vigorous, and sonorous verse, the biting sarcasm, the pungent epigrammatism, the unscrupulous directness, as of old. Yet it will not do to forget that Mr. Wilmer has been _shown how_ to accomplish these things. He is thus only entitled to the praise of a close observer, and of a thoughtful and skilful copyist. The images are, to be sure, his own. They are neither Pope’s, nor Dryden’s, nor Rochester’s, nor Churchill’s—but they are moulded in the identical mould used by these satirists.

This servility of imitation has seduced our author into errors which his better sense should have avoided. He sometimes mistakes intention; at other times he copies faults, confounding them with beauties. In the opening of the poem, for example, we find the lines—

Against usurpers, Olney, I declare
A righteous, just, and patriotic war.

The rhymes _war_ and _declare_ are here adopted from Pope, who employs them frequently; but it should have been remembered that the modern relative pronunciation of the two words differs materially from the relative pronunciation of the era of the “Dunciad.”

We are also sure that the gross obscenity, the filth—we can use no gentler name—which disgraces the “Quacks of Helicon,” cannot be the result of innate impurity in the mind of the writer. It is but a part of the slavish and indiscriminating imitation of the Swift and Rochester school. It has done the book an irreparable injury, both in a moral and pecuniary view, without effecting anything whatever on the score of sarcasm, vigor or wit. “Let what is to be said, be said plainly.” True; but let nothing vulgar be _ever_ said, or conceived.

In asserting that this satire, even in its mannerism, has imbued itself with the full spirit of the polish and of the pungency of Dryden, we have already awarded it high praise. But there remains to be mentioned the far loftier merit of speaking fearlessly the truth, at an epoch when truth is out of fashion, and under circumstances of social position which would have deterred almost any man in our community from a similar Quixotism. For the publication of the “Quacks of Helicon,”—a poem which brings under review, by name, most of our prominent _literati_, and treats them, generally, as they deserve (what treatment could be more bitter?)—for the publication of this attack, Mr. Wilmer, whose subsistence lies in his pen, has little to look for—apart from the silent respect of those at once honest and timid—but the most malignant open or covert persecution. For this reason, and because it is the truth which he has spoken, do we say to him from the bottom of our hearts, “God speed!”

We repeat it:—_it is_ the truth which he has spoken, and who shall contradict us? He has said unscrupulously what every reasonable man among us has long known to be “as true as the Pentateuch”—that, as a literary people, we are one vast perambulating humbug. He has asserted that we are _clique_-ridden, and who does not smile at the obvious truism of that assertion? He maintains that chicanery is, with us, a far surer road than talent to distinction in letters. Who gainsays this? The corrupt nature of our ordinary criticism has become notorious. Its powers have been prostrated by its own arm. The intercourse between critic and publisher, as it now almost universally stands, is comprised either in the paying and pocketing of black mail, as the price of a simple forbearance, or in a direct system of petty and contemptible bribery, properly so called—a system even more injurious than the former to the true interests of the public, and more degrading to the buyers and sellers of good opinion, on account of the more positive character of the service here rendered for the consideration received. We laugh at the idea of any denial of our assertions upon this topic; they are infamously true. In the charge of general corruption there are undoubtedly many noble exceptions to be made. There are, indeed, some very few editors, who, maintaining an entire independence, will receive no books from publishers at all, or who receive them with a perfect understanding, on the part of these latter, that an unbiassed _critique_ will be given. But these cases are insufficient to have much effect on the popular mistrust: a mistrust heightened by late exposure of the machinations of _coteries_ in New York—_coteries_ which, at the bidding of leading booksellers, manufacture, as required from time to time, a pseudo-public opinion by wholesale, for the benefit of any little hanger on of the party, or pettifogging protector of the firm.

We speak of these things in the bitterness of scorn. It is unnecessary to cite instances, where one is found in almost every issue of a book. It is needless to call to mind the desperate case of Fay—a case where the pertinacity of the effort to gull—where the obviousness of the attempt at forestalling a judgment—where the wofully over-done be-Mirrorment of that man-of-straw, together with the pitiable platitude of his production, proved a dose somewhat too potent for even the well-prepared stomach of the mob. We say it is supererogatory to dwell upon “Norman Leslie,” or other by-gone follies, when we have, before our eyes, hourly instances of the machinations in question. To so great an extent of methodical assurance has the _system_ of puffery arrived, that publishers, of late, have made no scruple of keeping on hand an assortment of commendatory notices, prepared by their men of all work, and of sending these notices around to the multitudinous papers within their influence, done up within the fly-leaves of the book. The grossness of these base attempts, however, has not escaped indignant rebuke from the more honorable portion of the press; and we hail these symptoms of restiveness under the yoke of unprincipled ignorance and quackery (strong only in combination) as the harbinger of a better era for the interests of real merit, and of the national literature as a whole.

It has become, indeed the plain duty of each individual connected with our periodicals, heartily to give whatever influence he possesses, to the good cause of integrity and the truth. The results thus attainable will be found worthy his closest attention and best efforts. We shall thus frown down all conspiracies to foist inanity upon the public consideration at the obvious expense of every man of talent who is not a member of a _clique_ in power. We may even arrive, in time, at that desirable point from which a distinct view of our men of letters may be obtained, and their respective pretensions adjusted, by the standard of a rigorous and self-sustaining criticism alone. That their several positions are as yet properly settled; that the posts which a vast number of them now hold are maintained by any better tenure than that of the chicanery upon which we have commented, will be asserted by none but the ignorant, or the parties who have best right to feel an interest in the “good old condition of things.” No two matters can be more radically different than the reputation of some of our prominent _litterateurs_, as gathered from the mouths of the people, (who glean it from the paragraphs of the papers,) and the same reputation as deduced from the private estimate of intelligent and educated men. We do not advance this fact as a new discovery. Its truth, on the contrary, is the subject, and has long been so, of every-day witticism and mirth.

Why not? Surely there can be few things more ridiculous than the general character and assumptions of the ordinary critical notices of new books! An editor, sometimes without the shadow of the commonest attainment—often without brains, always without time—does not scruple to give the world to understand that he is in the _daily_ habit of critically reading and deciding upon a flood of publications one tenth of whose title-pages he may possibly have turned over, three fourths of whose contents would be Hebrew to his most desperate efforts at comprehension, and whose entire mass and amount, as might be mathematically demonstrated, would be sufficient to occupy, in the most cursory perusal, the attention of some ten or twenty readers for a month! What he wants in plausibility, however, he makes up in obsequiousness; what he lacks in time he supplies in temper. He is the most easily pleased man in the world. He admires everything, from the big Dictionary of Noah Webster to the last diamond edition of Tom Thumb. Indeed his sole difficulty is in finding tongue to express his delight. Every pamphlet is a miracle—every book in boards is an epoch in letters. His phrases, therefore, get bigger and bigger every day, and, if it were not for talking Cockney, we might call him a “regular swell.”

Yet in the attempt at getting definite information in regard to any one portion of our literature, the merely general reader, or the foreigner, will turn in vain from the lighter to the heavier journals. But it is not our intention here to dwell upon the radical, antique, and systematized rigmarole of our Quarterlies. The articles here are anonymous. Who writes?—who causes to be written? Who but an ass will put faith in tirades which _may_ be the result of personal hostility, or in panegyrics which nine times out of ten may be laid, directly or indirectly, to the charge of the author himself? It is in the favor of these saturnine pamphlets that they contain, now and then, a good essay _de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis_, which may be looked into, without decided somnolent consequences, at any period not immediately subsequent to dinner. But it is useless to expect criticism from periodicals called “Reviews” from never reviewing. Besides, all men know, or should know, that these books are sadly given to verbiage. It is a part of their nature, a condition of their being, a point of their faith. A veteran reviewer loves the safety of generalities, and is therefore rarely particular. “Words, words, words” are the secret of his strength. He has one or two ideas of his own, and is both wary and fussy in giving them out. His wit lies with his truth, in a well, and there is always a world of trouble in getting it up. He is a sworn enemy to all things simple and direct. He gives no ear to the advice of the giant Moulineau—“_Belier, mon ami, commencez au commencement._” He either jumps at once into the middle of his subject, or breaks in at a back door, or sidles up to it with the gait of a crab. No other mode of approach has an air of sufficient profundity. When fairly into it, however, he becomes dazzled with the scintillations of his own wisdom, and is seldom able to see his way out. Tired of laughing at his antics, or frightened at seeing him flounder, the reader at length shuts him up, with the book. “What song the Syrens sang,” says Sir Thomas Browne, “or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, though puzzling questions, are not beyond _all_ conjecture”—but it would puzzle Sir Thomas, backed by Achilles and all the Syrens in Heathendom, to say, in nine cases out of ten, _what is the object_ of a thorough-going Quarterly Reviewer.

Should the opinions promulgated by our press at large be taken, in their wonderful aggregate, as an evidence of what American literature absolutely is, (and it may be said that, in general, they are really so taken,) we shall find ourselves the most enviable set of people upon the face of the earth. Our fine writers are legion. Our very atmosphere is redolent of genius; and we, the nation, are a huge, well-contented chameleon, grown pursy by inhaling it. We are _teretes et rotundi_—enwrapped in excellence. All our poets are Miltons, neither mute nor inglorious; all our poetesses are “American Hemanses;” nor will it do to deny that all our novelists are great Knowns or great Unknowns, and that every body who writes, in every possible and impossible department, is the admirable Crichton, or at least the admirable Crichton’s ghost. We are thus in a glorious condition, and will remain so until forced to disgorge our ethereal honors. In truth, there is some danger that the jealousy of the Old World will interfere. It cannot long submit to that outrageous monopoly of “all the decency and all the talent” in which the gentlemen of the press give such undoubted assurance of our being so busily engaged.

But we feel angry with ourselves for the jesting tone of our observations upon this topic. The prevalence of the spirit of puffery is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust. Its truckling, yet dogmatical character—its bold, unsustained, yet self-sufficient and wholesale laudation—is becoming, more and more, an insult to the common sense of the community. Trivial as it essentially is, it has yet been made the instrument of the grossest abuse in the elevation of imbecility, to the manifest injury, to the utter ruin, of true merit. Is there any man of good feeling and of ordinary understanding—is there one single individual among all our readers—who does not feel a thrill of bitter indignation, apart from any sentiment of mirth, as he calls to mind instance after instance of the purest, of the most unadulterated quackery in letters, which has risen to a high post in the apparent popular estimation, and which still maintains it, by the sole means of a blustering arrogance, or of a busy wriggling conceit, or of the most barefaced plagiarism, or even through the simple immensity of its assumptions—assumptions not only unopposed by the press at large, but absolutely supported in proportion to the vociferous clamor with which they are made—in exact accordance with their utter baselessness and untenability? 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, in the perusal of these words, through consciousness of the shadowy nature of that purchased pedestal upon which they stand—will now tremble in thinking of the feebleness of the breath which will be adequate to the blowing it from beneath their feet. With the help of a hearty good will, even _we_ may yet tumble them down.

So firm, through a long endurance, has been the hold taken upon the popular mind (at least so far as we may consider the popular mind reflected in ephemeral letters) by the laudatory system which we have deprecated, that what is, in its own essence, a vice, has become endowed with the appearance, and met with the reception of a virtue. Antiquity, as usual, has lent a certain degree of speciousness even to the absurd. So continuously have we puffed, that we have at length come to think puffing the duty, and plain speaking the dereliction. What we began in gross error, we persist in through habit. Having adopted, in the earlier days of our literature, the untenable idea that this literature, as a whole, could be advanced by an indiscriminate approbation bestowed on its every effort—having adopted this idea, we say, without attention to the obvious fact that praise of all was bitter although negative censure to the few alone deserving, and that the only result of the system, in the fostering way, would be the fostering of folly—we now continue our vile practices through the supineness of custom, even while, in our national self-conceit, we repudiate that necessity for patronage and protection in which originated our conduct. In a word, the press throughout the country has not been ashamed to make head against the very few bold attempts at independence which have, from time to time, been made in the face of the reigning order of things. And if, in one, or perhaps two, insulated cases, the spirit of severe truth, sustained by an unconquerable will, was not to be so put down, then, forthwith, were private chicaneries set in motion; then was had resort, on the part of those who considered themselves injured by the severity of criticism, (and who were so, if the just contempt of every ingenuous man is injury,) resort to arts of the most virulent indignity, to untraceable slanders, to ruthless assassination in the dark. We say these things were done, while the press in general looked on, and, with a full understanding of the wrong perpetrated, spoke not against the wrong. The idea had absolutely gone abroad—had grown up little by little into toleration—that attacks however just, upon a literary reputation however obtained, however untenable, were well retaliated by the basest and most unfounded traduction of personal fame. But is this an age—is this a day—in which it can be necessary even to advert to such considerations as that the book of the author is the property of the public, and that the issue of the book is the throwing down of the gauntlet to the reviewer—to the reviewer whose duty is the plainest; the duty not even of approbation, or of censure, or of silence, at his own will, but at the sway of those sentiments and of those opinions which are derived from the author himself, through the medium of his written and published words? True criticism is the reflection of the thing criticised upon the spirit of the critic.

But _à nos moutons_—to the “Quacks of Helicon.” This satire has many faults besides those upon which we have commented. The tide, for example, is not sufficiently distinctive, although otherwise good. It does not confine the subject to _American_ quacks, while the work does. The two concluding lines enfeeble instead of strengthening the _finale_, which would have been exceedingly pungent without them. The individual portions of the thesis are strung together too much at random—a natural sequence is not always preserved—so that although the lights of the picture are often forcible, the whole has what, in artistical parlance, is termed an accidental and spotty appearance. In truth, the parts of the poem have evidently been composed each by each, as separate themes, and afterwards fitted into the general satire, in the best manner possible.

But a more reprehensible sin than any or than all of these is yet to be mentioned—the sin of indiscriminate censure. Even here Mr. Wilmer has erred through imitation. He has held in view the sweeping denunciations of the Dunciad, and of the later (abortive) satire of Byron. No one in his senses can deny the justice of the general charges of corruption in regard to which we have just spoken from the text of our author. But are there _no_ exceptions? We should indeed blush if there were not. And is there _no_ hope? Time will show. We cannot do everything in a day—_Non se gano Zamora en un ora_. Again, it cannot be gainsaid that the greater number of those who hold high places in our poetical literature are absolute nincompoops—fellows alike innocent of reason and of rhyme. But neither are we _all_ brainless, nor is the devil himself so black as he is painted. Mr. Wilmer must read the chapter in Rabelais’ _Gargantua_, “_de ce qu’ est signifié par les couleurs blanc et bleu_”—for there is _some_ difference after all. It will not do in a civilized land to run a-muck like a Malay. Mr. Morris _has_ written good songs. Mr. Bryant is not _all_ a fool. Mr. Willis is not _quite_ an ass. Mr. Longfellow _will_ steal, but perhaps he cannot help it, (for we have heard of such things,) and then it must not be denied that _nil tetigit quod non ornavit_.

The fact is that our author, in the rank exuberance of his zeal, seems to think as little of discrimination as the Bishop of Autun[5] did of the Bible. Poetical “things in general” are the windmills at which he spurs his rozinante. He as often tilts at what is true as at what is false; and thus his lines are like the mirrors of the temples of Smirna, which represent the fairest images as deformed. But the talent, the fearlessness, and especially the _design_ of this book, will suffice to save it even from that dreadful damnation of “silent contempt” to which editors throughout the country, if we are not very much mistaken, will endeavor, one and all, to consign it.

-----

[5] Talleyrand.

* * * * *

_Biography and Poetical Remains of the late Margaret Miller
Davidson. By_ Washington Irving. _Philadelphia: Lea and
Blanchard._

The name of Lucretia Davidson is familiar to all readers of Poetry. Dying at the early age of seventeen, she has been rendered famous not less, and certainly not more, by her own precocious genius than by three memorable biographies—one by President Morse, of the American Society of Arts, another by Miss Sedgwick, and a third by Robert Southey. Mr. Irving had formed an acquaintance with some of her relatives, and thus, while, in Europe, took great interest in all that was said or written of his young countrywoman. Upon his return to America, he called upon Mrs. Davidson, and then, in 1833, first saw the subject of the memoir now before us—a fairy-like child of eleven. Three years afterwards he met with her again, and then found her in delicate health. Three years having again elapsed, the MSS. which form the basis of the present volume, were placed in his hands by Mrs. Davidson, as all that remained of her daughter.

Few books have interested us more profoundly. Yet the interest does not appertain solely to Margaret. “In fact the narrative,” says Mr. Irving, “will be found almost as illustrative of the character of the mother as of the child; they were singularly identified in taste, feeling, and pursuits; tenderly entwined together by maternal and filial affection, they reflected an inexpressibly touching grace and interest upon each other by this holy relationship, and, to my mind it would be marring one of the most beautiful and affecting groups in modern literature, to sunder them.” In these words the biographer conveys no more than a just idea of the exquisite loveliness of the picture here presented to view.

The MSS. handed Mr. Irving, have been suffered, in great measure, to tell their own thrilling tale. There has been no injudicious attempt at mere authorship. The compiler has confined himself to chronological arrangement of his memoranda, and to such simple and natural comments as serve to bind rather than to illustrate where no illustration was needed. These memoranda consist of relations by Mrs. Davidson of the infantine peculiarities of her daughter, and of her habits and general thoughts in more matured life, intermingled with letters from the young poetess to intimate friends. There is also a letter from the bereaved mother to Miss Sedgwick, detailing the last moments of the child—a letter so full of all potent nature, so full of minute beauty and truth and pathos, that to read it without tears would be to prove one’s self less than human.

The “Poetical Remains” of this young creature, who perished (of consumption) in her sixteenth year, occupy about two hundred pages of a somewhat closely printed octavo. The longest poem is called “Lenore,” and consists of some two thousand lines, varying in metre from the ordinary octo-syllabic, to the four-footed, or twelve-syllabled iambic. The story, which is a romantic love-tale, not ill-conceived in its incidents, is told with a skill which might put more practised bards to the blush, and with occasional bursts of the truest poetic fire. But although as indicative of her future power, it is the most important, as it is the longest of her productions, yet as a whole it is not equal to some of her shorter compositions. It was written not long before her death, at the age of fifteen, and (as we glean from the biography) after patient reflection, with much care, and with a high resolve to do something for fame. As the work of so mere a child, it is unquestionably wonderful. Its _length_, viewed in connection with its keeping, its unity, its adaptation, and completeness, will impress the metaphysician most forcibly, when surveying the capacities of its author. Powers are here brought into play which are the last to be matured. For fancy we might have looked, and for the lower evidences of skill in a perfect versification and the like, but hardly for what we see in Lenore.

Yet remarkable as this production is, from the pen of a girl of fifteen, it is by no means so incomprehensible as are some of the shorter pieces. We have known instances—rarely, to be sure—but still we have known instances when finer poems in every respect than Lenore have been written by children of as immature age—but we look around us in vain for anything composed at eight years, which can bear comparison with the lines subjoined—

“TO MAMMA.

“Farewell, dear mother, for a while
I must resign thy plaintive smile;
May angels watch thy couch of wo,
And joys unceasing round thee flow.

“May the almighty Father spread
His sheltering wings above thy head.
It is not long that we must part,
Then cheer thy downcast drooping heart.

“Remember, oh! remember me,
Unceasing is my love for thee!
When death shall sever earthly ties,
When thy loved form all senseless lies,

“Oh! that my form with thine could flee,
And roam through wide eternity;
Could tread with thee the courts of heaven,
And count the brilliant stars of even.”

Nor are these stanzas, written at ten, in any degree less remarkable—

“MY NATIVE LAKE.

“Thy verdant banks, thy lucid stream,
Lit by the sun’s resplendent beam,
Reflect each bending tree so light
Upon thy bounding bosom bright.
Could I but see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain!

“The little isles that deck thy breast,
And calmly on thy bosom rest,
How often, in my childish glee,
I’ve sported round them, bright and free!
Could I but see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain!

“How oft I’ve watch’d the fresh’ning shower
Bending the summer tree and flower,
And felt my little heart beat high
As the bright rainbow graced the sky.
Could I but see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain!

“And shall I never see thee more,
My native lake, my much-loved shore
And must I bid a long adieu,
My dear, my infant home, to you?
Shall I not see thee once again,
My own, my beautiful Champlain?”

In the way of criticism upon these extraordinary compositions, Mr. Irving has attempted little, and, in general, he seems more affected by the loveliness and the purity of the child than even by the genius she has evinced—however highly he may have estimated this latter. In respect, however, to a poem entitled “My Sister Lucretia,”—he thus speaks—“We have said that the example of her sister Lucretia was incessantly before her, and no better proof can be given of it than in the following lines, which breathe the heavenly aspirations of her pure young spirit, _in strains to us quite unearthly. We may have read poetry more_ _artificially perfect in its structure, but never any more truly divine in its inspiration._” The nature of inspiration is disputable—and we will not pretend to assert that Mr. Irving is in the wrong. His words, however, in their hyperbole, do wrong to his subject, and would be hyperbole still, if applied to the most exalted poets of all time.

* * * * *

_Incidents of Travel in Central America, etc. By_ John L.
Stephens. _Two Volumes. New York: Harper and Brothers._