_Zinzendorff, and other Poems. By Mrs. L. H. Sigourney, New York:
Published by Leavitt, Lord & Co._ 1836.
_Poems--By Miss H. F. Gould, Third Edition. Boston: Hilliard, Gray &
Co._ 1835.
_Poems; Translated and Original. By Mrs. E. F. Ellet. Philadelphia:
Key and Biddle._ 1835.
Mrs. Sigourney has been long known as an author. Her earliest
publication was reviewed about twenty years ago, in the North
American. She was then Miss Huntley. The fame which she has since
acquired is extensive; and we, who so much admire her virtues and her
talents, and who have so frequently expressed our admiration of both
in this Journal--we, of all persons--are the least inclined to call in
question the justice or the accuracy of the public opinion, by which
has been adjudged to her so high a station among the _literati_ of our
land. Some things, however, we cannot pass over in silence. There are
two kinds of popular reputation,--or rather there are two roads by
which such reputation may be attained: and it appears to us an
idiosyncrasy which distinguishes mere fame from most, or perhaps from
_all_ other human ends, that, in regarding the intrinsic value of the
object, we must not fail to introduce, as a portion of our estimate,
the means by which the object is acquired. To speak less abstractedly.
Let us suppose two writers having a reputation apparently equal--that
is to say, their names _being equally in the mouths of the
people_--for we take this to be the most practicable test of what we
choose to term _apparent popular reputation_. Their names then are
equally in the mouths of the people. The one has written a great
work--let it be either an Epic of high rank, or something which,
although of seeming littleness in itself, is yet, like the
Christabelle of Coleridge, entitled to be called _great_ from its
power of creating intense emotion in the minds of great men. And let
us imagine that, by this single effort, the author has attained a
certain quantum of reputation. We know it to be possible that another
writer of very moderate powers may build up for himself, little by
little, a reputation equally great--and this, too, merely by keeping
continually in the eye, or by appealing continually with little
things, to the ear, of that great, overgrown, and majestical gander,
the critical and bibliographical rabble.
It would be an easy, although perhaps a somewhat disagreeable task, to
point out several of the most popular writers in America--popular in
the above mentioned sense--who have manufactured for themselves a
celebrity by the very questionable means, and in the very questionable
manner, to which we have alluded. But it must not be thought that we
wish to include Mrs. Sigourney in the number. By no means. She has
trod, however, upon the confines of their circle. She does not _owe_
her reputation to the chicanery we mention, but it cannot be denied
that it has been thereby greatly assisted. In a word--no single piece
which she has written, and not even her collected works as we behold
them in the present volume, and in the one published some years ago,
would fairly entitle her to that exalted rank which she actually
enjoys as the authoress, _time after time_, of her numerous, and, in
most instances, very creditable compositions. The validity of our
objections to this adventitious notoriety we must be allowed to
consider unshaken, until it can be proved that any multiplication of
zeros will eventuate in the production of a unit.
We have watched, too, with a species of anxiety and vexation brought
about altogether by the sincere interest we take in Mrs. Sigourney,
the progressive steps by which she has at length acquired the title of
the "American Hemans." Mrs. S. cannot conceal from her own discernment
that she has acquired this title _solely by imitation_. The very
phrase "American Hemans" speaks loudly in accusation: and we are
grieved that what by the over-zealous has been intended as
complimentary should fall with so ill-omened a sound into the ears of
the judicious. We will briefly point out those particulars in which
Mrs. Sigourney stands palpably convicted of that sin which in poetry
is not to be forgiven.
And first, in the _character of her subjects_. Every unprejudiced
observer must be aware of the almost identity between the subjects of
Mrs. Hemans and the subjects of Mrs. Sigourney. The themes of the
former lady are the unobtrusive happiness, the sweet images, the
cares, the sorrows, the gentle affections, of the domestic
hearth--these too are the themes of the latter. The Englishwoman has
dwelt upon all the "tender and true" chivalries of passion--and the
American has dwelt as unequivocally upon the same. Mrs. Hemans has
delighted in the radiance of a pure and humble faith--she has looked
upon nature with a speculative attention--she has "watched the golden
array of sunset clouds, with an eye looking beyond them to the
habitations of the disembodied spirit"--she has poured all over her
verses the most glorious and lofty aspirations of a redeeming
Christianity, and in all this she is herself glorious and lofty. And
all this too has Mrs. Sigourney not only attempted, but
accomplished--yet in all this she is but, alas!--an imitator.
And secondly--in points more directly tangible than the one just
mentioned, and therefore more easily appreciated by the generality of
readers, is Mrs. Sigourney again open to the charge we have adduced.
We mean in the structure of her versification--in the {113} peculiar
turns of her phraseology--in certain habitual expressions (principally
interjectional,) such as _yea!_ _alas!_ and many others, so frequent
upon the lips of Mrs. Hemans as to give an almost ludicrous air of
similitude to all articles of her composition--in an invincible
inclination to apostrophize every object, in both moral and physical
existence--and more particularly in those mottos or quotations,
sometimes of considerable extent, prefixed to nearly every poem, not
as a text for discussion, nor even as an intimation of what is to
follow, but as the actual subject matter itself, and of which the
verses ensuing are, in most instances, merely a paraphrase. These were
all, in Mrs. Hemans, mannerisms of a gross and inartificial nature;
but, in Mrs. Sigourney, they are mannerisms of the most inadmissible
kind--the mannerisms of imitation.
In respect to the use of the quotations, we cannot conceive how the
fine taste of Mrs. Hemans could have admitted the practice, or how the
good sense of Mrs. Sigourney could have thought it for a single moment
worthy of her own adoption. In poems of magnitude the mind of the
reader is not, at all times, enabled to include in one comprehensive
survey the proportions and proper adjustment of the whole. He is
pleased--if at all--with particular passages; and the sum of his
pleasure is compounded of the sums of the pleasurable sensations
inspired by these individual passages during the progress of perusal.
But in pieces of less extent--like the poems of Mrs. Sigourney--the
pleasure is _unique_, in the proper acceptation of that term--the
understanding is employed, without difficulty, in the contemplation of
the picture _as a whole_--and thus its effect will depend, in a very
great degree, upon the perfection of its finish, upon the nice
adaptation of its constituent parts, and especially upon what is
rightly termed by Schlegel, the _unity or totality of interest_. Now
it will readily be seen, that the practice we have mentioned as
habitual with Mrs. Hemans and Mrs. Sigourney is utterly at variance
with this unity. By the initial motto--often a very long one--we are
either put in possession of the subject of the poem; or some hint,
historic fact, or suggestion is thereby afforded, not included in the
body of the article, which, without the suggestion, would be utterly
incomprehensible. In the latter case, while perusing the poem, the
reader must revert, in mind at least, to the motto for the necessary
explanation. In the former, the poem being a mere paraphrase of the
motto, the interest is divided between the motto and the paraphrase.
In either instance the _totality_ of effect is annihilated.
Having expressed ourselves thus far in terms of nearly unmitigated
censure, it may appear in us somewhat equivocal to say that, as
Americans, we are proud--very proud of the talents of Mrs. Sigourney.
Yet such is the fact. The faults which we have already pointed out,
and some others which we will point out hereafter, are but dust in the
balance, when weighed against her very many and distinguishing
excellences. Among those high qualities which give her, beyond doubt,
a title to the sacred name of poet are an acute sensibility to natural
loveliness--a quick and perfectly just conception of the moral and
physical sublime--a calm and unostentatious vigor of thought--a
mingled delicacy and strength of expression--and above all, a mind
nobly and exquisitely attuned to all the gentle charities and lofty
pieties of life.
The volume whose title forms the heading of this article embraces one
hundred and seventy-three poems. The longest, but not the best, of
these is Zinzendorff. "It owes its existence," says the author, "to a
recent opportunity of personal intercourse with that sect of
Christians who acknowledge Zinzendorff as their founder; and who, in
their labors of self-denying benevolence, and their avoidance of the
slight, yet bitter causes of controversy, have well preserved that
sacred test of discipleship 'to love one another.'" Most of the other
pieces were "suggested by the passing and common incidents of
life,"--and we confess that we find no fault, with their "deficiency
in the wonderful and wild." Not in these mountainous and stormy
regions--but in the holy and quiet valley of the beautiful, must
forever consent to dwell the genius of Mrs. Sigourney.
The poem of Zinzendorff includes five hundred and eighty lines. It
relates, in a simple manner, some adventures of that man of God. Many
passages are very noble, and breathe the truest spirit of the Muse. At
page 14, for example.
--------------The high arch
Of the _cloud-sweeping forest_ proudly _cast_ (casts)
A solemn shadow, for no sound of axe
Had taught the monarch Oak dire principles
Of Revolution, or brought down the Pine
Like haughty baron from his castled height.
Thus dwelt the kings of Europe--ere the voice
Of the crusading monk, with whirlwind tone
Did root them from their base, with all their hosts,
_Tossing the red-cross banner to the sky_.
Again at page 21, we have something equally beautiful, in a very
different way. The passage is however much injured by the occurrence
of the word 'that' at the commencement of both the sixth and seventh
line.
------Now the infant morning raised
Her rosy eyelids. But no soft breeze moved
The forest lords to shake the dews of sleep
From their green coronals. The curtaining mist
Hung o'er the quiet river, and it seemed
_That Nature found the summer night so sweet_
_That 'mid the stillness of her deep repose_
_She shunned the wakening of the king of day_.
All this is exquisite, and in Zinzendorff there are many passages of a
like kind. The poem, however, is by no means free from faults. In the
first paragraph we have the following:
------Through the _breast_
Of that fair vale the Susquehannah roam'd,
Wearing its _robe_ of _silver_ like a bride.
Now with a noiseless current gliding slow,
Mid the rich _velvet_ of its _curtaining_ banks
It seemed to sleep.
To suppose the Susquehannah roaming through the _breast_ of any
thing--even of a valley--is an incongruity: and to say that such false
images are common, is to say very little in their defence. But when
the noble river is bedizzened out in _robes of silver_, and made to
wash with its bright waters nothing better than _curtains of velvet_,
we feel a very sensible and a very righteous indignation. We might
have expected such language from an upholsterer, or a _marchande des
modes_, but it is utterly out of place upon the lips of Mrs.
Sigourney. To liken the glorious objects of natural loveliness to the
trappings and tinsel of artificiality, is one of the lowest, and at
the same time, one of the most ordinary {114} exemplifications of the
_bathos_. At page 21, these verses occur:
No word was spoke,
As when the friends of desolated Job,
_Finding the line of language all too short_
_To fathom woe like his_, sublimely paid
That highest homage at the throne of grief,
Deep silence.
The image here italicized is striking, but faulty. It is deduced not
from any analogy between actual existences--between woe on the one
hand, and the sea on the other--but from the _identity of epithet_
(deep) frequently applied to both. We say the "deep sea," and the
expression "deep woe" is certainly familiar. But in the first case the
sea is actually deep; in the second, woe is but metaphorically so.
Sound, therefore--not sense, is the basis of the analogy, and the
image is consequently incorrect.
Some faults of a minor kind we may also discover in Zinzendorff. We
dislike the use made by the poetess of antique modes of
expression--here most unequivocally out of place. For example.
_Where_ the red council-fire
Disturbed the trance of midnight, long they sate.
_What time_, with hatred fierce and unsubdued,
The woad-stained Briton, in his wattled boat,
Quailed 'neath the glance of Rome.
The versification of Zinzendorff is particularly good--always
sweet--occasionally energetic. We are enabled to point out only one
defective line in the poem, and in this the defect has arisen from an
attempt to contract _enthusiasm_ into a word of three syllables.
He who found
_This blest enthusiasm nerve his weary heart_.
There are, however, some errors of accentuation--for example:
So strong in that mis_an_thrope's bosom wrought
A frenzied malice.