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International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, by Various

V >> Various >> International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1,




He was not remarkably original in invention. Indeed some of his
plagiarisms are scarcely paralleled for their audacity in all literary
history: For instance, in his tale of "The Pit and the Pendulum," the
complicate machinery upon which the interest depends is borrowed from a
story entitled "Vivenzio, or Italian Vengeance," by the author of "The
First and Last Dinner," in "Blackwood's Magazine." And I remember having
been shown by Mr. Longfellow, several years ago, a series of papers which
constitute a demonstration that Mr. Poe was indebted to him for the idea
of "The Haunted Palace," one of the most admirable of his poems, which he
so pertinaciously asserted had been used by Mr. Longfellow in the
production of his "Beleaguered City." Mr. Longfellow's poem was written
two or three years before the first publication of that by Poe, and it
was during a portion of this time in Poe's possession; but it was not
printed, I believe, until a few weeks after the appearance of "The
Haunted Palace." "It would be absurd," as Poe himself said many times,
"to believe the similarity of these pieces entirely accidental." This was
the first cause of all that malignant criticism which for so many years
he carried on against Mr. Longfellow. In his "Marginalia" he borrowed
largely, especially from Coleridge, and I have omitted in the
republication of these papers, numerous paragraphs which were rather
compiled than borrowed from one of the profoundest and wisest of our own
scholars.[D]


[Footnote D: I have neither space, time, nor inclination for a
continuation of this subject, and I add but one other instance, in the
words of the Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post," published while Mr.
Poe was living:

"One of the most remarkable plagiarisms was perpetrated by Mr. Poe, late
of the Broadway Journal, whose harshness as a critic and assumption of
peculiar originality make the fault in his case more glaring. This
gentleman, a few years ago, in Philadelphia, published a work on
Conchology as original, when in reality it was a copy, near verbatim, of
'The Text-book of Conchology, by Captain Thomas Brown,' printed in
Glasgow in 1833, a duplicate of which we have in our library, Mr. Poe
actually took out a copyright for the American edition of Captain Brown's
work, and, omitting all mention of the English original pretended, in the
preface, to have been under great obligations to several scientific
gentlemen of this city. It is but justice to add, that in the second
edition of this book, published lately in Philadelphia, the name of Mr.
Poe is withdrawn from the titlepage, and his initials only affixed to the
preface. But the affair is one of the most curious on record."]


In criticism, as Mr. Lowell justly remarks, Mr. Poe had "a scientific
precision and coherence of logic;" he had remarkable dexterity in the
dissection of sentences; but he rarely ascended from the particular to
the general, from subjects to principles; he was familiar with the
microscope but never looked through the telescope. His criticisms are of
value to the degree in which they are demonstrative, but his unsupported
assertions and opinions were so apt to be influenced by friendship or
enmity, by the desire to please or the fear to offend, or by his constant
ambition to surprise, or produce a sensation, that they should be
received in all cases with distrust of their fairness. A volume might be
filled with literary judgments by him as antagonistical and inconsistent
as the sharpest antitheses. For example, when Mr. Laughton Osborn's
romance, "The Confessions of a Poet," came out, he reviewed it in "The
Southern Literary Messenger," saying:

"There is nothing of the _vates_ about the author. He is no poet-and
most positively he is no prophet. He avers upon his word of honor that
in commencing this work he loads a pistol and places it upon the table.
He further states that, upon coming to a conclusion, it is his intention
to blow out what he supposes to be his brains. Now this is excellent.
But, even with so rapid a writer as the poet must undoubtedly be, there
would be some little difficulty in completing the book under thirty days
or thereabouts. The best of powder is apt to sustain injury by lying so
long 'in the load.' We sincerely hope the gentleman took the precaution
to examine his priming before attempting the rash act. A flash in the
pan--and in such a case--were a thing to be lamented. Indeed there would
be no answering for the consequences. We might even have a second series
of the 'Confessions.'"--_Southern Literary Messenger_, i. 459.

This review was attacked, particularly in the Richmond "Compiler," and
Mr. Poe felt himself called upon to vindicate it to the proprietor of the
magazine, to whom he wrote:

"There is no necessity of giving the 'Compiler' a reply. The book is
_silly enough of itself_, without the aid of any controversy concerning
it. I have read it, from beginning to end, and was very much amused at
it. My opinion of it is pretty nearly the opinion of the press at large.
I have heard no person offer one serious word in its defense."--_Letter
to T.W. White_.

Afterward Mr. Poe became personally acquainted with the author, and he
then wrote, in his account of "The Literati of New-York City," as
follows:

"The Confessions of a Poet made much noise in the literary world, and no
little curiosity was excited in regard to its author, who was generally
supposed to be John Neal.... The 'Confessions,' however, far surpassed
any production of Mr. Neal's.... _He_ has done nothing which, as a whole,
is _even respectable_, and 'The Confessions' are quite remarkable for
their artistic unity and perfection. But on higher regards they are to be
commended. _I do not think, indeed, that a better book of its kind has
been written in America_....Its scenes of passion are intensely wrought,
its incidents are striking and original, its sentiments audacious and
suggestive at least, if not at all times tenable. In a word, it is that
rare thing, a fiction of _power_ without rudeness."

I will adduce another example of the same kind. In a notice of the
"Democratic Review," for September, 1845, Mr. Poe remarks of Mr. William
A. Jones's paper on American Humor:

"There is only one really bad article in the number, and that is
insufferable: nor do we think it the less a nuisance because it inflicts
upon ourselves individually a passage of maudlin compliment about our
bring a most 'ingenious critic' 'and prose poet,' with some other things
of a similar kind. We thank for his good word no man who gives palpable
evidence, in other cases than our own, of his _incapacity_ to distinguish
the false from the true--the right from the wrong. If we _are_ an
ingenious critic, or a prose poet, it is not because Mr. William Jones
says so. The truth is that this essay on 'American Humor' is
Contemptible both in a moral and literary sense--is the composition of an
_imitator and a quack_--and disgraces the magazine in which it makes its
appearance."--_Broadway Journal_, Vol. ii. No. 11.

In the following week he reconsidered this matter, opening his paper for
a defense of Mr. Jones; but at the close of it said--

"If we have done Mr. Jones injustice, we beg his pardon: but we do not
think we have."

Yet in a subsequent article in "Graham's Magazine," on "Critics and
Criticism," he says of Mr. Jones, referring only to writings of his that
had been for years before the public when he printed the above
paragraphs:

"Our most analytic, _if not altogether our best critic_, (Mr. Whipple,
perhaps, excepted,) is Mr. _William A. Jones_, author of 'The Analyst.'
How he would write elaborate criticisms I cannot say; but his summary
judgments of authors are, in general, discriminative and profound. In
fact, his papers on _Emerson_ and on _Macaulay_, published in 'Arcturus.'
are better than merely 'profound,' if we take the word in its now
desecrated sense; for they are at once pointed, lucid, and just:--as
summaries leaving nothing to be desired."

I will not continue the display of these inconsistencies. As I have
Already intimated, a volume might be filled with passages to show that
his criticisms were guided by no sense of duty, and that his opinions
were so variable and so liable to be influenced by unworthy
considerations as to be really of no value whatever.

It was among his remarkable habits that he preserved with scrupulous care
everything that was published respecting himself or his works, and
everything that was written to him in letters that could be used in any
way for the establishment or extension of his reputation. In
Philadelphia, in 1843, he prepared with his own hands a sketch of his
life for a paper called "The Museum." Many parts of it are untrue, but I
refer to it for the purpose of quoting a characteristic instance of
perversion in the reproduction of compliments:

"Of 'William Wilson,' Mr. Washington Irving says: 'It is managed in a
highly picturesque style, and its singular and mysterious interest is
ably sustained throughout. In point of mere style, it is, perhaps, even
superior to 'The House of Usher.' It is simpler. In the latter
composition, he seems to have been distrustful of his effects, or,
rather, too solicitous of bringing them forth fully to the eye, and thus,
perhaps, has laid on too much coloring. He has erred, however, on the
safe side, that of exuberance, and the evil might easily be remedied, by
relieving the style of some of its epithets;' [since done.] 'There would
be no fear of injuring the graphic effect, _which is powerful_.' The
italics are Mr. Irving's own."

Now Mr. Irving had said in a private letter that he thought the "House of
Usher" Was clever, and that "a volume of similar stories would be well
received by the public." Poe sent him a magazine containing "William
Wilson," asking his opinion of it, and Mr. Irving, expressly declining to
_publish_ a word upon the subject, remarked in the same manner, that "the
singular and mysterious interest is well sustained," and that in point of
style the tale was "much better" than the "House of Usher," which, he
says, "might be improved by relieving the style from some of the
epithets: there is no danger of destroying the graphic effect, which
is powerful." There is not a word in _italics_ in Mr. Irving's letter,
the meaning of which is quite changed by Mr. Poe's alterations. And this
letter was not only published in the face of an implied prohibition, but
made to seem like a deliberately-expressed judgment in a public reviewal.
In the same way Mr. Poe published the following sentence as an extract
from a letter by Miss Barrett:

"Our great poet, Mr. Browning, the author of 'Paracelsus,' etc., _is
enthusiastic in his admiration_ of the rhythm."

But on turning to Miss Barrett's letter, I find that she wrote:

"Our great poet, Mr. Browning, author of 'Paracelsus,' and 'Bells and
Pomegranates,' was struck much by the rhythm of that poem."

The piece alluded to is "The Raven."

It is not true, as has been frequently alleged since Mr. Poe's death,
that his writings were above the popular taste, and therefore without a
suitable market in this country. His poems were worth as much to
magazines as those of Bryant or Longfellow, (though none of the
publishers paid him half as large a price for them,) and his tales were
as popular as those of Willis, who has been commonly regarded as the best
magazinist of his time. He ceased to write for _The Lady's Book_ in
consequence of a quarrel induced by Mr. Godey's justifiable refusal to
print in that miscellany his "Reply to Dr. English," and though in the
poor fustian published under the signature of "George R. Graham," in
answer to some remarks upon Poe's character in _The Tribune_, that
individual is made to assume a passionate friendship for the deceased
author that would have become a Pythias, it is known that the personal
ill-will on both sides was such that for some four or five years _not a
line by Poe was purchased for Graham's Magazine_. To quote again the
"Defense of Mr. Poe" in the _Southern Literary Messenger_:

"His changeable humors, his irregularities, his caprices, his total
disregard of everything and body, save the fancy in his head, prevented
him from doing well in the world. The evils and sufferings that poverty
brought upon him, soured his nature, and deprived him of faith in human
beings. This was evident to the eye--he believed in nobody, and cared for
nobody. Such a mental condition of course drove away all those who would
otherwise have stood by him in his hours of trial. He became, and was, an
Ishmaelite."

After having, in no ungenerous spirit, presented the chief facts in Mr.
Poe's history, not designedly exaggerating his genius, which none held in
higher admiration, not bringing into bolder relief than was just and
necessary his infirmities. I am glad to offer a portraiture of some of
his social qualities, equally beautiful, and--so changeable and
inconsistent was the man--as far as it goes, truthful. Speaking of him
one day soon after his death, with the late Mrs. Osgood, the beauty of
whose character had made upon Poe's mind that impression which it never
failed to produce upon minds capable of the apprehension of the finest
traits in human nature, she said she did not doubt that my view of Mr.
Poe, which she knew indeed to be the common view, was perfectly just, as
it regarded him in his relations with men; but to women he was different,
and she would write for me some recollections of him, to be placed beside
my harsher judgments in any notice of his life that the acceptance of the
appointment to be his literary executor might render it necessary for me
to give to the world. She was an invalid--dying of that consumption by
which in a few weeks she was removed to heaven, and calling for pillows
to support her while she wrote, she drew this sketch:

"You ask me, my friend, to write for you my reminiscences of Edgar Poe.
For you, who knew and understood my affectionate interest in him, and my
frank acknowledgment of that interest to all who had a claim upon my
confidence, for you, I will willingly do so. I think no one could know
him--no one _has_ known him personally--certainly no woman-without
feeling the same interest. I can sincerely say, that although I have
frequently _heard_ of aberrations on his part from the 'straight and
narrow path,' I have never _seen_ him otherwise than gentle, generous,
well-bred, and fastidiously refined. To a sensitive and
delicately-nurtured woman, there was a peculiar and irresistible charm in
the chivalric, graceful, and almost tender reverence with which he
invariably approached all women who won his respect. It was this which
first commanded and always retained my regard for him.

"I have been told, that when his sorrows and pecuniary embarrassments had
driven him to the use of stimulants, which a less delicate organization
might have borne without injury, he was in the habit of speaking
disrespectfully of the ladies of his acquaintance. It is difficult for me
to believe this; for to _me_, to whom he came during the year of our
acquaintance for counsel and kindness in all his many anxieties and
griefs, he never spoke irreverently of any woman save one, and then only
in _my_ defense; and though I rebuked him for his momentary
forgetfulness of the respect due to himself and to me, I could not but
forgive the offense for the sake of the generous impulse which prompted
it. Yet even were these sad rumors true of him, the wise and
well-informed knew how to regard, as they would the impetuous anger of a
spoiled infant, balked of its capricious will, the equally harmless and
unmeaning phrensy of that stray child of Poetry and Passion. For the few
unwomanly and slander-loving gossips who have injured _him_ and
_themselves_ only by _repeating_ his ravings, when in such moods they
have accepted his society. I have only to vouchsafe my wonder and my
pity. They cannot surely harm the true and pure, who, reverencing his
genius, and pitying his misfortunes and his errors, endeavored, by their
timely kindness and sympathy, to soothe his sad career.

"It was in his own simple yet poetical home, that to me the character of
Edgar Poe appeared in its most beautiful light. Playful, affectionate,
witty, alternately docile and wayward as a petted child-for his young,
gentle, and idolized wife, and for all who came, he had, even in the
midst of his most harassing literary duties, a kind word, a pleasant
smile, a graceful and courteous attention. At his desk, beneath the
romantic picture of his loved and lost Lenore, he would sit, hour after
hour, patient, assiduous, and uncomplaining, tracing, in an exquisitely
clear chirography, and with almost superhuman swiftness, the lightning
thoughts--the 'rare and radiant' fancies as they flashed through his
wonderful and ever-wakeful brain. I recollect, one morning, toward the
close of his residence in this city, when he seemed unusually gay and
light-hearted. Virginia, his sweet wife, had written me a pressing
invitation to come to them; and I, who never could resist her
affectionate summons, and who enjoyed his society far more in his own
home than elsewhere, hastened to Amity-street. I found him just
completing his series of papers entitled 'The Literati of New York.'
'See,' said he, displaying, in laughing triumph, several little rolls of
narrow paper, (he always wrote thus for the press,) 'I am going to show
you, by the difference of length in these, the different degrees of
estimation in which I hold all you literary people. In each of these, one
of you is rolled up and fully discussed. Come, Virginia, help me!' And
one by one they unfolded them. At last they came to one which seemed
interminable. Virginia laughingly ran to one corner of the room with one
end, and her husband to the opposite with the other. 'And whose
lengthened sweetness long drawn out is that?' said I. 'Hear her!' he
cried, 'just as if her little vain heart didn't tell her it's herself!'

"My first meeting with the poet was at the Astor House. A few days
previous. Mr. Willis had handed me, at the _table d'hote_, that strange
and thrilling poem entitled 'The Raven,' saying that the author wanted my
opinion of it. Its effect upon me was so singular, so like that of 'weird
unearthly music,' that it was with a feeling almost of dread, I heard he
desired an introduction. Yet I could not refuse without seeming
ungrateful, because I had just heard of his enthusiastic and partial
eulogy of my writings, in his lecture on American Literature. I shall
never forget the morning when I was summoned to the drawing-room by Mr.
Willis to receive him. With his proud and beautiful head erect, his dark
eyes flashing with the elective light of feeling and of thought, a
peculiar, an inimitable blending of sweetness and hauteur in his
expression and manner, he greeted me, calmly, gravely, almost coldly; yet
with so marked an earnestness that I could not help being deeply
impressed by it. From that moment until his death we were friends;
although we met only during the first year of our acquaintance. And in
his last words, ere reason had forever left her imperial throne in that
overtasked brain, I have a touching memento of his undying faith and
friendship.

"During that year, while traveling for my health, I maintained a
correspondence with Mr. Poe, in accordance with the earnest entreaties of
his wife, who imagined that my influence over him had a restraining and
beneficial effect. It _had_, as far as this--that having solemnly
promised me to give up the use of stimulants, he so firmly respected his
promise and me, as never once, during our whole acquaintance, to appear
in my presence when in the slightest degree affected by them. Of the
charming love and confidence that existed between his wife and himself,
always delightfully apparent to me, in spite of the many little poetical
episodes, in which the impassioned romance of his temperament impelled
him to indulge; of this I cannot speak too earnestly--too warmly. I
believe she was the only woman whom he ever truly loved; and this is
evinced by the exquisite pathos of the little poem lately written, called
Annabel Lee, of which she was the subject, and which is by far the most
natural, simple, tender and touchingly beautiful of all his songs. I have
heard it said that it was intended to illustrate a late love affair of
the author; but they who believe this, have in their dullness evidently
misunderstood or missed the beautiful meaning latent in the most lovely
of all its verses--where he says,

"'A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee,
So that her _high-born kinsmen_ came,
And bore her away from me.'

"There seems a strange and almost profane disregard of the sacred purity
and spiritual tenderness of this delicious ballad, in thus overlooking
the allusion to the _kindred angels_ and the heavenly _Father_ of the
lost and loved and unforgotten wife.

"But it was in his conversations and his letters, far more than in his
published poetry and prose writings, that the genius of Poe was most
gloriously revealed. His letters were divinely beautiful, and for hours I
have listened to him, entranced by strains of such pure and almost
celestial eloquence as I have never read or heard elsewhere. Alas! in the
thrilling words of Stoddard,

"'He might have soared in the morning light,
But he built his nest with the birds of night;
But he lie in dust, and the stone is rolled
Over the sepulcher dim and cold;
He has canceled the ill he has done or said,
And gone to the dear and holy dead.
Let us forget the path he trod,
And leave him now to his Maker, God.'"

The influence of Mr. Poe's aims and vicissitudes upon his literature, was
more conspicuous in his later than in his earlier writings. Nearly all
that he wrote in the last two or three years--including much of his best
poetry,--was in some sense biographical: in draperies of his imagination,
those who take the trouble to trace his steps, will perceive, but
slightly concealed, the figure of himself. The lineaments here disclosed,
I think, are not different from those displayed in his biography, which
is but a filling up of the picture. Thus far the few criticisms of his
life or works that I have ventured have been suggested by the immediate
examination of the points to which they referred. I add but a few words
of more general description.

In person he was below the middle height, slenderly but compactly formed,
and in his better moments he had in an eminent degree that air of
gentlemanliness which men of a lower order seldom succeed in acquiring.

His conversation was at times almost supramortal in its eloquence. His
voice was modulated with astonishing skill, and his large and variably
expressive eyes looked repose or shot fiery tumult into theirs who
listened, while his own face glowed, or was changeless in pallor, as his
imagination quickened his blood or drew it back frozen to his heart. His
imagery was from the worlds which no mortals can see but with the vision
of genius. Suddenly starting from a proposition, exactly and sharply
defined, in terms of utmost simplicity and clearness, he rejected the
forms of customary logic, and by a crystalline process of accretion,
built up his ocular demonstrations in forms of gloomiest and ghastliest
grandeur, or in those of the most airy and delicious beauty--so minutely
and distinctly, yet so rapidly, that the attention which was yielded to
him was chained till it stood among his wonderful creations--till he
himself dissolved the spell, and brought his hearers back to common and
base existence, by vulgar fancies or exhibitions of the ignoblest
passion.

He was at all times a dreamer--dwelling in ideal realms--in heaven or
hell--peopled with the creatures and the accidents of his brain. He
walked the streets, in madness or melancholy, with lips moving in
indistinct curses, or with eyes upturned in passionate prayer, (never for
himself, for he felt, or professed to feel, that he was already damned,
but) for their happiness who at the moment were objects of his
idolatry;--or, with his glances introverted to a heart gnawed with
anguish, and with a face shrouded in gloom, he would brave the wildest
storms; and all night, with drenched garments and arms beating the winds
and rains, would speak as if to spirits that at such times only could be
evoked by him from the Aidenn, close by whose portals his disturbed soul
sought to forget the ills to which his constitution subjected him--close
by the Aidenn which were those he loved--the Aidenn which he might never
see, but in fitful glimpses, as its gates opened to receive the less
fiery and more happy natures whose destiny to sin did not involve the
doom of death. He seemed, except when some fitful pursuit subjugated his
will and engrossed his faculties, always to bear the memory of some
controlling sorrow. The remarkable poem of "The Raven" was probably much
more nearly than has been supposed, even by those who were very intimate
with him, a reflection and an echo of his own history. _He_ was that
bird's

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