The English or American reader, whose only biography of Beethoven has
been the translation of Schindler's work by Moscheles, will be pleased
to find scattered through Marx's two volumes a number of interesting
extracts from the "Conversation-Books." These are not always given
exactly as in the originals, although the sense is preserved intact.
For instance, (Vol. I. p. 341,) speaking of the original overture to
"Leonore,"--afterwards printed as Op. 138,--Marx says, "It shows us, as
in a mirror of past happiness, a view of that which is hereafter to
reward Leonore and raise Florestan from his woe. Yes, Beethoven himself
is in theory of this opinion. In his Conversation-Books we read the
following:--
"Aristotle, in his 'Poetics,' remarks, 'Tragic heroes must at first
live in great happiness and splendor.' This we see in Egmont. 'Wenn sie
nun [so] recht glücklich sind, [so] kommt mit [auf] einem Mal das
Schicksal und schlingt einen Knoten um ihr Haupt [über ihren Haupte]
den sie nicht mehr zu lösen vermögen. Muth und Trotz tritt an die
Stelle [der Reue] und verwegen sehen sie dem Geschicke, [und sie sehen
verwegen dem Geschicke,] ja, dem Tod in's Aug'.'"
The words in brackets show the variations from the original; they are
slight, but will soon be seen to have significance.
Again, Marx says, (Vol. II. p. 214, note,) "In one of the
Conversation-Books Schindler remarks, 'Ich bin sehr gespannt auf die
Characterizirung [der Sätze] der B dur Trio......Der erste Satz träumt
von lauter Glückseligheit [Glück und Zufriedenheit]. Auch Muthwille,
heiteres Tändeln und Eigensinn (mit Permission--Beethovenscher) ist
darin.'" [Should be "und Eigensinn (Beethovenische) is darin, mit
Permission."]
On page 217 of the same volume is part of a conversation between
Beethoven and his friend Peters, dated 1819. The Conversation-Book from
which it is taken is dated, in Beethoven's own hand, "March and April,
1820."
But enough for our purpose, which is to prove that Marx knows nothing
of the Conversation-Books from personal inspection, although he always
quotes them in such a manner as to impress the reader with the idea
that the extracts made are his own. Now, 1st, all his extracts are in
the second edition of Schindler's "Biography;" 2d, all the variations
from the original are found word for word in Schindler's excerpts; 3d,
the first of the above three examples, which Marx takes for an
expression of Beethoven's views, was written by Schindler himself, for
his master's perusal!
But though a biography give us nothing new in relation to the hero,
still it may be of great interest and value from the manner in which
well-known authorities are collected and digested, and the facts
presented in a picturesque, fascinating, living narrative. Such a work
is Irving's "Goldsmith." Such a work is not Marx's "Beethoven." It is
neither one thing nor another,--neither a biography nor a critical
examination of the master's works. It is a little of both,--an attempt
to combine the two, and a very unsuccessful one. Biography and
criticism are so strangely mixed up, jumbled together,--anecdotes of
different periods so absurdly brought into juxtaposition,--chronology
so oddly abused,--that one can obtain a far better idea of the man
Beethoven by reading Marx's authorities than his digest of them; and as
to his works, those upon which we want information, which we have no
opportunity to hear, which have not been subjects of criticism and
discussion for a whole generation,--on these he has little or nothing
to say.
But the extreme carelessness with which Marx cites his authorities is
worthy of notice; here are a few examples.
Vol. I. p. 13. Here we find the well-known anecdote of Beethoven's
playing several variations upon Righini's air, "Vieni Amore," from
memory, and improvising others, before the Abbé Sterkel. Wegeler is the
original authority for the anecdote, the point of which depends upon
the fact that the printed variations were a composition by Beethoven.
Marx here and elsewhere in his book attributes them to Sterkel!
Ib. p. 31. Speaking of the pleasure Van Swieten took in Beethoven's
playing of Bach's fugues, and of the dislike of the latter to being
urged to play, Marx quotes as follows: "He came then (relates Ries, who
became his pupil in 1800) back to me with clouded brow and out of
temper," etc. To _me_,--Ries,--a boy of sixteen,--and Beethoven already
the composer all of whose works half a dozen publishers were ready to
take at any prices he chose to fix!--Ries relates no such thing.
Wegeler does, but of a period five years before Ries came to Vienna;
moreover, he relates it in relation to Beethoven's dislike to being
urged to play in mixed companies,--the fact having no relation whatever
to Van Swieten's weekly music-parties.
Ib. p. 33. Beethoven is now twenty-five. "At this time, as it seems,
there has been no talk of ill health." Directly against the statement
of Wegeler.
Ib. p. 38. The Concerto for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15, "Probably
composed in 1800, since it was offered to Hofmeister Jan. 5, 1801." He
relates from Wegeler, that Beethoven wrote the finale when suffering
violently from colic. How is it possible for a man to overlook the next
line, "I helped him as much as I could with simple remedies," and not
associate it with Wegeler's statement that he himself left Vienna "in
the middle of 1796"? This fixes the date absolutely four or five years
earlier than Marx's probability. He is equally unlucky in his reading
of the letters of Hofmeister; for the Concerto offered him Jan. 5,
1801, was not this one, but that in B flat, Op. 19.
Ib. p. 186. The Sonata, Op. 22, "Out of the year 1802." If Marx will
turn to the letters to Hofmeister again, he will find this Sonata
offered for publication with the Concerto.
Ib. p. 341. "Schindler, who, however, first became acquainted with
Beethoven in 1808, and first came into close connection with him in
1813." Compare Schindler, 2d ed. p. 95. "It was in the year 1814 that I
first became personally acquainted with Beethoven." In 1808 Schindler
was a boy of thirteen years, in a Gymnasium, and had not yet come to
Vienna.
Vol. II. p. 86. Sonata, Op. 57. "The finale, as Ries relates, was
begotten in a night of storm"; and on this text Marx discourses through
a page or two. Ries relates no such thing.
Ib. p. 179. "Once more, relates Schindler, the two (Goethe and
Beethoven) met each other," etc. For Schindler, read Lenz.
Ib. p. 191. "The Philharmonic Society in London presented to him.....a
magnificent grand-piano forte of Broadwood's manufacture." Schindler
says expressly, "Presented by Ferd. Ries, John Cramer, and Sir George
Smart." Cannot Marx read German?
Ib. p. 329. We give one more instance of Marx's method of citing
authorities,--a very curious one. It is an extract from a letter
written to the Schotts in Mayence, signed A. Schindler, containing an
account of Beethoven's last hours, and published in the "Cäcilia," in
full. Here is the passage;--
"When I came to him, on the morning of the 24th of March, (relates
_Anselm Hüttenbrenner_, a musical friend and composer of Grätz, who had
hastened thither to see Beethoven once more,) I found his whole
countenance distorted, and him so weak, that, with the greatest
exertions, he could bring out but two or three intelligible words."
Anselm Hüttenbrenner!
Throughout those volumes we find a certain vagueness of statement in
connection with the names of musicians with whom Beethoven came in
contact, which raises the question, whether Marx has no biographical
dictionary in his house, not even a copy of Schilling's Encyclopædia,
for which he wrote so many biographies, and "indeed all the articles
signed A. B. M."? At times, however, the statements are not so vague.
For instance,--in the anecdote already referred to, Marx makes the two
Rombergs and Franz Ries introduce the "fifteen-year-old virtuoso" to
Sterkel,--that is, in 1785 or '86. At that date, (see Schilling,)
Andreas Romberg was a boy of eighteen, Bernard a boy of fifteen;
moreover, they did not come to Bonn until 1790, when Beethoven was
nearly twenty years old. In 1793-4 Marx makes Schenck "the to him
[Beethoven] well-known and valued composer of the 'Dorfbarbier,'"
--which opera was not written until some years later. In 1815
died Beethoven's "friend and countryman, Salomon of Bonn, in
London." It is possible that Beethoven may have occasionally seen
Salomon at Bonn, but that violinist went to London at least as early as
1781, after having then been for several years in Prince Henry's chapel
in Berlin.
These things may, perhaps, strike the reader as of minor importance,
mere blemishes. So be it then; we will turn to a vexed question, which
has a literary importance, and see what light Marx throws upon it. We
refer to Bettine's letters to Goethe upon Beethoven, and the composer's
letters to her, the authority of which has been strongly questioned.
Marx gives them, Vol. II. pp. 121-135, and we turned eagerly to them,
expecting to find, from one who has for thirty years or more lived in
the same city with the authoress, the _questio vexata_ fully put to
rest Nothing of the kind. He quotes them from Schindler with
Schindler's remarks upon them, to which he gives his assent. As to the
letters of Beethoven to Bettine, he has not even done that lady the
justice to give them as she has printed them, but rests satisfied with
a copy confessedly taken from the English translation! Of these Marx
says,--"These letters,--one has not the right, perhaps, to declare them
outright creations of fancy; at all events, there is no judicial proof
of this, no more than of their authenticity,--if they are not imagined,
they are certainly translated... from Beethoven into the Bettine
speech. Never--compare all the letters and writings of Beethoven which
are known with these Bettine epistles--never did Beethoven so
write..... If he wrote to Bettine, then she has poetized [überdichtet]
his letters,--and she has not done even this well; we have in them
Beethoven as seen in the mirror Bettine." He adds in a note, "In the
highest degree girl-like and equally un-Beethovenlike are these
constant repetitions: 'liebe, liebste,--liebe, liebe,--liebe,
gute,--bald, bald'!"
What does Marx say to this beginning of a letter to Tiedge,--"Jeden Tag
schwebte mir immer folgende Brief an Sie, Sie, Sie, immer vor"? Or to
these repetitions from a series of notes written also from Töplitz in
the summer of 1812? "Leben Sie wohl liebe, gute A." "Liebe, gute A.,
seit ich gestern," etc. "Scheint der Mond .... so sehen Sie den
kleinsten, kleinsten aller Menschen bei sich," etc.
And so on this point Marx leaves us just as wise as we were before.
There is a gentleman who can decide by a word as to the authenticity of
these letters of Beethoven, since he originally furnished them for
publication in the English translation of Schindler's "Biography." We
refer to Mr. Chorley, of the "London Athenaeum." Meantime we venture to
give Marx's opinion as much weight as we think it deserves, and
continue to believe in the letters; more especially because, as
published by Bettine herself in 1848, each is remarkable for certain
peculiarly Beethoven-like abuses of punctuation, orthography, and
capital letters, which carry more weight to our minds than the
unsupported opinions of a dozen Professors Marx.
Justice requires that we pass from merely biographical topics, which
are evidently not the forte of Professor Marx, to some of those upon
which he has bestowed far more space, and doubtless far more labor and
pains, and upon which, in this work, he doubtless also rests his claims
to our applause.
On page 199 of Vol. I. begins a division of the work, entitled by the
author "Chorische Werke." In previous chapters, Beethoven's pianoforte
compositions-sonatas, trios, the quintett, etc., up to Op. 54,
exclusive of the concertos for that instrument and orchestra-have been
treated. In this we have a very pleasing account of the gradual
progress of the composer from the concerto to the full splendor of the
grand symphony.
"The composer Beethoven," says Marx, "was, as we have seen, also a
virtuoso. No one can be both, without feeling himself drawn to the
composition of concertos. These works then follow, and in close
relation to the pianoforte compositions of Beethoven, with and without
the accompaniment of solo instruments; and to them others, which may
just here be best brought under one general head for notice. From them
we look directly upward to orchestral and symphonic works. To all these
we give the general name of 'choral' works, for want of a better,--a
term which in fact belongs but to vocal music, and is exceedingly ill
adapted to a part of the compositions now under consideration. The
term, however, is used here as pointing at the significance of the
orchestra to Beethoven."
Marx's theory of Beethoven's progress, taking continually bolder and
loftier flights until he reaches the symphony, must necessarily be
based upon the chronology of the works in question,--a basis which he
adopts, but evidently, in the case of two or three of them, with some
hesitation; yet the theory has too great a charm for him to be lightly
thrown aside.
We will bring into a table the compositions which he is now
considering, together with his dates of their composition, that we may
obtain a clearer view of their bearings upon the point in question.
Concerto in C for Pianoforte and Orchestra, Op. 15. 1800. (See p. 38.)
do. in B flat Op. 19. 1801.
do. in C minor, Op. 37. Not dated.
Six Quatuors for Bowed Instruments, Op. 18. Published in 1801-2,
but "begun earlier."
Quintett, Op. 29. 1802.
Septett, Op. 20. Not dated.
Prometheus, Ballet Op. 43. Performed March 28,
1801.
Grand Symphony, Op. 21. 1799 or 1800.
do. do. Op. 36. Performed 1800.
A glance at the dates in this table throws doubt upon the theory; the
doubt is increased by the consideration that all these important works
are, according to Marx, the labor of only three years! But let us turn
back and collect into another table the pianoforte works which are also
attributed to the same epoch.
Pianoforte Trio, Op. 11. 1799.
Three Pianoforte Sonatas, Op. 10. 1799.
Two do. do. Op. 14. 1799.
Adelaide, Song, Op. 46. 1798 or '99.
Sonata for Piano and Horn, Op. 17. 1800.
do. Pathétique, Op. 13. 1800.
Cliristus am Oolberg, Canta Op. 85. 1800.
Quintett, Op. 16. 1801.
Sonata, Op. 22. 1802.
do Op. 26. 1802.
do Op. 28. 1802.
From this list we have excluded works which Marx says were _published_
(_herausgegeben_) during these years, selecting only those which he
calls "aus dem Jahre,"--belonging to such a year.
Marx himself (Vol. I. p. 246 _et seq_.) shows us that the works above
mentioned, dated 1802, belong to an earlier period; for in the "first
months" of that year Beethoven fell into a dangerous illness, which
unfitted him for labor throughout the season.
We have, then, as the labor of three years, three grand pianoforte
concertos with orchestra, six string quartetts, a quintett, a septett,
a grand ballet, and two symphonies, for _great_ works; and for minor
productions,--by-play,--nine pianoforte solo sonatas, one for
pianoforte and horn, a pianoforte trio, a quintett, the "Adelaide," and
the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"--a productiveness (and such a
productiveness!) not surpassed by Mozart or Handel in their best and
most marvellous years.
But these twenty-eight works, in fact, belong only in part to those
three years. The first concerto was finished before June, 1796; the
second in Prague, 1798; the third was performed late in the autumn of
1800. A performance of the first symphony is recorded at least ten, of
the second at least three, months before that of the ballet. As
this--the "Prometheus"--was written expressly for Vigano, the arranger
of the action, it is not to be supposed that any great lapse of time
took place between the execution of the order for and the production of
the music. In fact, Marx has no authorities, beyond Lenz's notices of
the _publication_ of the works in the above lists, for the dates which
he has given to them; none whatever for placing the works of the first
of our lists in that order; certainly none for placing Op. 37 before
Op. 18, Op. 29 before Op. 20, and Op. 48 before Op. 21 and Op. 36. And
yet, at the close of his remarks upon the septett, Op. 20, we read,
"Each of the compositions here noticed" (namely, those in the first
list down to the septett) "is a step away from the pianoforte to the
orchestra. In the midst of them appears the first (!) orchestral work
since the chivalrous ballet, to which the boy (?) Beethoven in former
days gave being. It was again to be a ballet,--'Gli Uomini di
Prometeo.'" Then follow remarks upon the ballet, closing thus:
"On the 'Prometheus' he had tried the strength of his pinions; in the
first symphony, 'Grande Sinfonie,' Op. 21, he floated calmly upon them
at those heights where the spirit of Mozart had rested."
No, Herr Professor Marx, your pretty fancy is without basis.
Chronology, "the eye of History," makes sad work of your theory. Pity
that in your "researches" you met not one of those lists of the members
of the Electoral Chapel at Bonn, which would have shown you that the
young Beethoven learned to wield the orchestra in that best of all
schools, the orchestra itself!
Three chapters of Book Second (Vol. I. pp. 239-307) are entitled
"Helden Weihe," (Consecration of the Hero,) "Die Sinfonie Eroica und
die ideale Musik," (The Heroic Symphony and Ideal Music,) and "Die
Zukunft vor dem Richterstuhl der Vergangenheit" (The Future before the
Judgment-Seat of the Past). Save the first fourteen pages, which are
given to Beethoven's sickness in 1802, the testament which he wrote at
that time, and some remarks upon the "Christ on the Mount of Olives,"
these chapters are devoted to the "Heroic Symphony,"--its history, its
explanation, and a polemical discourse directed against the views of
Wagner, Berlioz, Oulibichef, and others.
The circumstances under which this remarkable work was written, the
history of its origin and completion, are so clearly related by Ries
and Schindler, that it seems hardly possible to make any great blunder
in repeating them. Marx has, however, a very happy talent for getting
out of the path, even when it lies directly before him.
"When, therefore, Bernadotte," says he, "at that time French Ambassador
at Vienna, and sharer in the admiration which the Lichnowskis and
others of high rank felt for Beethoven, proposed to him to pay his
homage to the hero [Napoleon] in a grand instrumental work, he found
the artist in the best disposition thereto; perhaps such thoughts had
already occurred to his mind. In the year 1802, in autumn, he put his
hand already to the work, began first in the following year earnestly
to labor upon it, and, with many interruptions, and the production of
various compositions in the mean time, completed it in 1804."
From this passage, and from remarks in connection with it, it is clear
that Professor Marx supposes Bernadotte to have been in Vienna in
1802-3, and to have ordered this symphony of Beethoven. Schindler's
words, when speaking of his conversation with the composer in 1823, on
this topic, are,--"Beethoven erinnerte sich lebhaft, dass Bernadotte
wirklich zuerst die Idee zur Sinfonie Eroica in ihm rege gemacht hat"
(Beethoven remembered distinctly that it really was Bernadotte who
first awakened in him the idea of the "Heroic Symphony"). On turning to
the article on Bernadotte in the "Conversations-Lexicon," we find that
the period of his embassy embraced but a few months of the year 1798.
It seems to us a very suggestive and important fact toward the
comprehension of Beethoven's design in this work, that the conception
of it had been floating before his mind and slowly assuming definite
form during the space of four years, before he put hand to the
composition. Six years passed from the date of its conception before it
lay complete upon his table, with the single word "Bonaparte" in large
letters at the top of the title-page, and "L. Beethoven" at the bottom,
with nothing between. And what, according to Marx, is this product of
so much study and labor? A musical description of a battle; a funeral
march to the memory of the fallen; the gathering of the armies for
their homeward march; a description of the blessings of peace. A most
lame and impotent interpretation! Marx somewhere says, that Beethoven
never wrought twice upon the same idea; hence the funeral march of the
Symphony cannot have been originally intended in honor of a hero,--we
agree with him so far,--for this task he had once already accomplished
in the Sonata, Op. 26. But then, if the first movement of the Symphony
be a battle-piece, how came its author to compose another, and one so
entirely different, in 1812?
How any one--with the recollection of Beethoven's fondness for
describing character in music, even in youth upon the pianoforte,--with
the "Coriolanus Overture" before him, and the "Wellington's Victory at
Vittoria" at hand,--and, above all, with any knowledge of the
composer's love for the universal, the all-embracing, and his contempt
for minute musical painting, as shown by his sarcasms upon passages in
Haydn's "Creation"--can suppose the first movement of the "Heroic
Symphony" to be in the main intended as a battle-picture, passes our
comprehension. It may be so. It is but a matter of opinion. We have
nothing from Beethoven himself upon the point, unless we may suppose,
that, when, four years later, he printed upon the programme, at the
first performance of the "Pastoral Symphony," "Rather the expression of
feeling than musical painting," he was guarding against a mistake which
had been made as to the intent of the "Eroica."
We have no space to waste in following Marx, either through his
exposition of his battle theory, his explanations of the other
movements of the Symphony, or his polemics against previous writers.
His programme seems to us little, if at all, better than those which he
controverts. Instead of this, we venture to offer our own to the
reader's common sense, which, if it does not satisfy, at least shows
that Marx has not put the question forever at rest.
"Rather the expression of feeling than musical painting" seems to us a
key to the understanding of this, as well as of the "Pastoral
Symphony." Mere musical painting, and the composition of works to
order,--as is proved by the "Wellington's Victory," the "Coriolanus
Overture," the music to "Prometheus," to the "Ruins of Athens," the
"Glorreiche Augenblick," to say nothing of minor works, such as the
First and Second Concertos, the Horn Sonata, etc.,--Beethoven could and
did despatch with extreme rapidity; but works of a different order, for
which he could take his own time, and which were to be the expression
of the grand feelings of his own great heart,--the composition of these
was no light holiday-task. He could "make music" with all ease and
rapidity; and had this been his aim, the extreme productiveness of the
first years in Vienna shows that he might, perhaps, have rivalled
Father Haydn himself in the number of his instrumental compositions.
His difficulty was not in writing music, but in mastering the poetic
conception, and finding that tone-speech which should express in epic
progress, yet in obedience to the laws of musical form, the emotions,
feelings, sentiments to be depicted. Hence the great length of time
during which many of his works were subjects of meditation and study.
Hence the six years which elapsed between the conception and completion
of the "Heroic Symphony."
Beethoven passed his youth near the borders of France, under a
government which allowed a republican personal freedom to its subjects.
He was himself a strong republican, and old enough, when the crushed
people over the border at length arose in their terrible energy against
the King, to sympathize with them in their woe, perhaps in their
vengeance. What to us is the horrible history of those years was to him
the exciting news of the day; and it is not difficult to imagine the
changes of feeling with which he would follow the political changes in
France, the hopes of humanity now apparently lost in the gloom of the
Reign of Terror, and now the rising of the day-star, precursor of a
glorious day of republican freedom, in the marvellous successes of the
cool, determined, energetic, stoical young conqueror of Italy, living,
when Bernadotte fired his imagination by his descriptions of him, with
his wife, the widow of Beauharnais, in a small house in an obscure
street of the capital.
To us, then, the first movement of the "Heroic Symphony" is a study of
character. In the "Coriolanus Overture" we have one side of a hero
depicted: here we see lain, in all his aspects; we behold him in sorrow
and in joy, in weakness and in strength, in the struggle and in
victory,--overcoming opposition, and reducing all elements of discord
to harmony and order by the force of his energetic will. It may be
either a description of Napoleon, as Beethoven at that time understood
his character,--we are inclined to this opinion,--or it may be a more
general picture of a hero, to which the career of Napoleon had
furnished but the original conception. The second movement is to us the
wail of a nation ground to the dust by the iron heel of
despotism,--France under the old _régime_,--France in the Reign of
Terror,--France needing, as few nations have needed, the advent of a
hero. The scherzo, with its trio, is not a form for minute painting of
_how_ the hero comes and saves; nor is this necessary; it has been
sufficiently indicated in the first movement. _We_ hear in it the
awakening to new life, from the first whispers of hope, uttered
mysteriously and with trembling lips, to the bright and cheering
expression of a nation's joy,--not loudly and boisterously,--(Beethoven
never gives such a language to the depths of happiness,)--in the
exquisite passages for the horns in the trio. We agree with Marx
in feeling the finale to be a picture of the blessings of that peace
and quiet which the hero once more restores,--but peace and quiet where
liberty and law, justice and order reign.
One fact in relation to the finale of this symphony has caused
Professor Marx no little trouble. The movement is a theme and
variations, with a fugue, and was also published by Beethoven as a
"Theme and Variations for the Pianoforte," Op. 35, dedicated to Moritz
Lichnowsky. The theme is from the finale of the "Prometheus." Now what
could induce Beethoven to make this use of so important a work, as such
a finale to such a symphony, is to our Professor a puzzle. It troubles
him on page 70, (Vol. I.,) again on page 212, and finally on page 274.
The same theme three times employed,--he may say four, for it is one of
the six "Contredanses" by Beethoven, which appeared about that
time,--and the third time _so_ employed! Lenz happens to have
overlooked the fact,--and so has Marx,--that the Variations for the
Pianoforte, Op. 35, were advertised in the "Leipziger Musikalische
Zeitung," already in November, 1803. How long Beethoven had kept them
by him, how long it had taken them to make the then slow journey from
Vienna to Leipzig, to be engraved, corrected, and made ready for sale,
we are not informed. A very simple theory will account for all the
phenomena in this case.
A very beautiful theme in the finale of "Prometheus" is admired.
Beethoven composes variations upon it, and, to render it more worthy of
his friend Lichnowsky, adds the fugue. The work becomes a favorite, and,
the theme being originally descriptive of the happiness of man in a state
of culture and refinement, he decides to arrange it for orchestra, and
give it a place in the new symphony. How if Lichnowsky proposed it?
A large proportion of the three chapters under consideration, as,
indeed, of many others, is directed against Oulibichef,--
"Oulibichef-Thersites," as he names him in the Table of
Contents. The very different manner in which he treats this gentleman,
throughout his work, from that in which he speaks of Berlioz, Wagner,
Lenz, is striking; but Oulibichef is dead, and cannot reply. Some of
the Russian's contrapuntal objections to the "Heroic Symphony" are well
answered; but, as we are satisfied with the poetic explanation of the
work by neither, we must confess, that, after the crystalline clearness
of Oulibichef, the muddy wordiness of Marx is not to edification.
We turn now to the chapters devoted to the opera "Leonore," afterwards
"Fidelio,"--one of the most interesting topics in Beethoven's musical
history. Here, at length, we do find something beyond what Ries and
Schindler have recorded,--no longer the close coincidence in matters of
fact with Lenz; indeed, the account of the changes made in transforming
the three-act "Leonore" into the two-act "Fidelio" we consider the best
piece of historic writing in the volumes,--the one which gives us the
greatest number of new facts, and most clearly and chronologically
arranged. It is really quite unfortunate for Professor Marx, that
Professor Otto Jahn of Bonn gave us, some years since, in his preface
to the Leipzig edition of "Leonore," precisely the same facts, from
precisely the same sources, and in some cases, we had almost said, in
precisely the same words. The "coincidence" here is striking,--as we
cannot suppose Marx ever saw Jahn's publication, since he makes no
reference to it. In the errors with which Marx spices his narrative
occasionally, the coincidence ceases. Here are some instances.
--According to Marx, one reason of the ill success of the
opera at Vienna, in 1805-6, was the popularity of that upon the same
subject by Paer. The Viennese first heard the latter in 1809.--Again,
at the first production of the "Fidelio," in 1814, Marx says, the
Leonore Overture No. 3 was played because that in E flat was not
finished. Seyfried says expressly, the overture to the "Ruins of
Athens,"--Marx speaks of the proposals made to Beethoven in 1823 to
compose the "Melusine," and still another text,--and so speaks as to
leave the impression, that, from the "fall of the opera" in 1806, the
composer had purposely kept aloof from the stage. Does the Professor
know nothing of Beethoven's application in 1807 to the Theater-
Direktion of the imperial playhouses, to be employed as regular
operatic composer?--of the opera "Romulus?"--of his correspondence with
Koerner, Rellstab, and still others? It appears not.
We must close our article somewhere; it is already, perhaps, too long;
we add, therefore, but a general remark or two.
To many readers Marx's discussions of Beethoven's last works will be
found of interest and value, though written in that turgid, vague,
confused style--"words, words, words"--which the Germans denominate by
the expressive term, _Geschtwätz_. This is especially the case with his
essays upon the great "Missa Solemnis," and the "Ninth Symphony."
We cannot rise from the perusal of this "Life of Beethoven" without
feeling something akin to indignation. Were it a possible supposition,
we should imagine it to be a thing manufactured to sell,--and, indeed,
in some such manner as this; The labors of Lenz taken without
acknowledgment for the skeleton of the work; Wegeler, Ries, Schindler,
and Seyfried at hand for citations, where Lenz fails to give more than
a reference; Oulibichef on the table to supply topics for polemical
discussion; a few periodicals and papers, which have come accidentally
into his possession, to afford here and there an anecdote or a letter;
the works of Professor A. B. Marx supplying the necessary authorities
upon points in musical science. As for any original research, that is
out of the question. Why stop to verify a fact, to decide a disputed
point, to search out new matter? The market waits,--the publisher
presses,--so, hurry-skurry, away we go,--and the book is done!
Seriously, such a book, from one with such opportunities at command, is
a disgrace to the institution in which its author occupies the station
of Professor.
When Schindler wrote, Johann van Beethoven, the brother, and Carl van
Beethoven, the nephew, were still alive, and feelings of delicacy led
him to do little more than hint at those domestic and family relations
and sorrows which for several years rendered the great composer much of
the time unfit for labor, and which at last brought him to the grave.
When Marx wrote, all had passed away, who could be wounded by a plain
statement of the facts in the case. Until we have such a statement,
none but he who has gone through the labor of studying the original
authorities, as they exist in Berlin, can know the real greatness,
perhaps also the weaknesses, of Beethoven in those last years. None can
know how his heart was torn,--how he poured out, concentrated all the
love of his great heart upon his adopted son, but to learn "how sharper
than the serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child." Nothing of
all this in Marx. He quotes Schindler, and therewith enough.
Long as this article has become, we have referred to but the more
important of the passages which in reading we marked for
comment,--enough, however, we judge, to show that the biography of
Ludwig van Beethoven still remains to be written.
_The American Draught-Player_; or the Theory and Practice of the
Scientific Game of Chequers. By HENRY SPAYTH. Buffalo, New York.
Printed for the Author.
Almost everybody plays the game of draughts, but few have any insight
into its beauties; and many who look upon chess as a science rather
than an amusement regard draughts as a childish game, never suspecting
what eminent ability and painful research have been expended in
explaining a game which is inferior to chess only in variety and far
superior in scientific precision. Mr. Spayth's book is accordingly
addressed to a comparatively narrow circle of readers; but those who
are competent to judge of its merits will find it a work of great
value. The author, who is an enthusiastic votary of the game, and has
no superior among our American amateurs, offers a judicious selection
from the treatises of such foreign writers as the severe and critical
Anderson, the brilliant but capricious Drummond, Robert Martin, perhaps
the first of living players, Hay, Sinclair, and Wylie, besides many
valuable games from Sturges and Payne, who will never be rendered
obsolete by modern improvements,--together with the labors of such
acknowledged masters in America as Bethell, Mercer, Ash, Drysdale, and
Young, and the contributions of such rising players as Howard, Brooks,
Fisk, Boughton, Janvier, Hull, and Thwing. But his labors have not been
merely those of a compiler. Out of fifteen hundred games, more than
five hundred are the composition of Mr. Spayth himself.
The results of so much labor and skill cannot, of course, be fully
criticized by us. The merits of the volume can be fairly tested only by
long and constant use. We shall, however, venture to point out some
faults in Mr. Spayth's treatment, premising that his is by far the best
treatise upon the game yet published, and the only treatise worthy of
the name that has ever appeared in this country. Anderson's arrangement
of the games, which Mr. Spayth has adopted, is both clear and concise;
and we are glad to see that our author has adhered to the old system of
draught-notation, which is infinitely superior to any of the new plans.
The condensation and clear presentation of Paterson's somewhat abstruse
essay on "The Move and its Changes" is every way admirable, and many of
the problems are remarkable for beauty and difficulty.
We think that too much prominence has been given to certain openings.
While glad to see that model of all openings, the _Old Fourteenth_,
which is to draughts what the _Giuoco Piano_ is to chess, illustrated
by 186 games, of which 127 are original with the author, the brilliant
_Fife_ (the _Muzio_ of chess-players) explained by 67 games, the
_Suter_ by 72 games, and the _Single Corner_ by 258 games, we regret
that only 24 specimens should be given of the _Double Corner_, 42 (and
only 11 of these original) of the _Defiance_, and 51 (with but 14
original) of the fascinating and intricate _Ayrshire Lassie_, an
opening of which American students know very little. We regret this
meagre explanation of the three latter openings all the more that we
expected a particularly full and lucid presentment of them from Mr.
Spayth.
The definition of certain openings seems to us also incorrect and
inconsistent. The Scottish school, whom Mr. Spayth has sometimes
followed too closely, as in this instance, are singularly deficient as
theorists, and have never given the game anything like a philosophical
treatment. The _Whilter_ is _not_ "formed by the first three or five
moves." The bare notion of forming one opening in two different ways is
absurd and contradictory. The time will come when draught-players will
understand that the _Whilter_ is formed by the first three moves,
namely, 11.15--23.19--7.11, or else, 10.15--23.19--7.10, which is
really the same thing. The distinctive move of the opening is 7.11;
there is nothing characteristic in the 9.14--22.17, which may
intervene: those moves leave the game free to develop itself into a
_Fife_, a _Suter_, or even an _Old Fourteenth_; but the move of 7.11
determines the opening at once and finally. Then, under the title of
the _Double Corner_ the author includes several distinct openings,--and
so, too, under the _Bristol_. In this latter case, the Scottish
treatises are right and Mr. Spayth is wrong. A strange confusion is
also caused by the attempt to include a number of different openings
under the head of "Irregular."
It is useless to linger over the exhaustive plan of all our
draught-writers, but, in adopting their plan, Mr. Spayth's fault has
been merely that of his predecessors, and his merits are all his own.
The true plan for a draught-treatise is that adopted by Staunton in his
chess-writings. No man has time to write a treatise which shall embody
the entire practice of the game; and even if such an exhaustive
treatise were written, no man would ever have time to master its
instructions. But the theory can be fully set forth, and is as yet
almost entirely undeveloped. The subject of odds alone presents an
extensive field for future investigations.
We have found fault with Mr. Spayth's new volume wherever we honestly
could; and we dismiss it with an emphatic repetition of the opinion,
that it is by far the best work upon the game that has ever been
published.
_The Adopted Heir._ By MISS PARDOE. Philadelphia: T. B. Peterson &
Brothers.
Miss Pardoe ought to do better than this. There is much ability
displayed in her "Court of France"; and she has written a very clever
story, entitled "The Romance of the Harem." But this book is thoroughly
feeble and commonplace. The customary rich and whimsical nabob, whom we
all know so well, has returned to England, and is deliberating upon the
claims to his wealth of his several relations. His decision is soon
formed, but shrouded in an impenetrable mystery, which is open to the
usual objection to the novelist's impenetrable mysteries, of being
perfectly transparent. Having divined who will be the heir, after
reading forty pages, we are a little impatient that Miss Pardoe should
cherish the secret with every imaginable precaution until the 350th
page, when she brings it out with a flourish, as if no human sagacity
could possibly have discovered it.
This keeping secrets that are no secrets, the besetting weakness of
novelists, was once quite affecting. When Nicholas Nickleby acted at
Mr. Crummles's theatre, a thrill of terror ran through the
unsophisticated spectators, as the wicked relation poked a sword at him
in the dark in every direction except where his legs were plainly
visible. But readers are more exacting now. And we are all frightfully
sagacious. Long reading of novels gives a fatal skill in anticipating
their issues. If in the first chapter the poor little brother runs away
to sea, his anxious friends may bewail his loss, but we remain calm in
the conviction that he will return, yellow and rich, precisely in time
to frustrate the designs of the wicked, and to reward innocence and
constancy with ten thousand a year. All the good people in a story may
be puzzled to detect the author of an alarming fraud; but we know
better, and, fixing with more than a detective's accuracy upon the
gentlemanly, plausible villain, drag him forth long before our author
is ready to present him to our (theoretically) astonished eyes. The
whole village may be deceived by the venerable stranger, with his white
hair and benevolent spectacles, but our unerring eye instantly discerns
in him Black Donald, the robber-captain; and if we do not tremble for
our heroine, it is only because we are morally certain that her deadly
peril is only an excuse for her inevitable lover's "dashing up on a
coal-black barb, urged to his utmost speed," and delivering the
desolate fair, who has won our regard alike by her indignant virtue,
and the skill with which, while laboring under uncontrollable
agitation, she constructs sentences so ponderous and intricate that Mr.
Burke's periods are trifles in comparison. And we know all this, simply
because there are certain things to be done, and only so many people to
do them. Miss Austen, indeed, could keep her secrets impenetrable; but
the art died with her, and our common sense is daily insulted by these
weak attempts at mystery. If the secret is one that cannot be
kept, why, let the author tell it us at once, and we can then follow
with sympathy the attempts to baffle those in the story who are trying
to detect it, instead of being offended with a shallow artifice. Here
lies the artistic error of that very clever book, "Paul Ferroll." We
all see at once that Mr. Ferroll murdered his wife, and the author
would have lost nothing and gained much by taking us into his
confidence.
The style of the "Adopted Heir" is at once pompous and feeble. From
writers of the Mrs. Southworth school we should expect nothing else;
but Miss Pardoe was capable of something better.
_Fanny_. From the French of ERNEST FEYDEAU. New York: Evert D. Long &
Co.
If there be any one thing worse than French immorality, it is French
morality. This is a moral book, _à la Française_, and weak as
ditch-water. Nor is the ditch-water improved by being particularly
dirty.
Edward, who is a mere boy, is in love with Fanny. This is natural
enough. Fanny, who is decidedly an old girl, who has been married for
fifteen years, and who has three children, is not less desperately in
love with Edward, whom she regards with a most charming sentiment, in
which the timid passion of the maiden blends gracefully with the
maturer regard of an aunt or a grandmother. This is not quite so
natural. Certainly, it can hardly be that she is fascinated by Edward,
who is the most disgustingly silly young monkey to be found in the
whole range of French novels. But the mystery is at once disclosed when
we read the description of Fanny's husband. He is "a species of bull
with a human face." "His smile was not unpleasing, and his look without
any malicious expression, but clear as crystal." We begin to comprehend
his inferiority to Edward,--to sympathize with the youth's horror at
the sight of this obnoxious husband, "who seems to him," as M. Janin
says in his preface, "a hero--what do I say?--a giant!--to the loving,
timid, fragile child." "In fine, a certain air of calm rectitude
pervaded his person." Execrable wretch! could anything be more
repulsive to true and delicate sentiment (as before, _à la Française_)
"I should say his age was about forty." Our wrath at this last atrocity
can hardly be controlled. It seems as if M. Feydeau, by collecting in
one individual all the qualities which most excite his abhorrence and
contempt, had succeeded in giving us, in Fanny's husband, a very
tolerable specimen of a gentleman. We pardon all to the somewhat
middle-aged lady, whose "feelings are too many for her"; and we only
regret that M. Feydeau did not see the eminent propriety of increasing
the lady's admiration by having this brutal husband pull Edward's
divine nose or kick the adored person of the _pauvre enfant_ down
stairs.
_Life Without and Life Within: or, Reviews, Narratives, Essays, and
Poems_. By MARGARET FULLER OSSOLI, Author of "Woman in the Nineteenth
Century," "At Home and Abroad," "Art, Literature, and the Drama," etc.
Edited by her Brother, ARTHUR B. FULLER. Boston: Brown, Taggard, &
Chase.
Of this volume little more need be said than that, had Margaret Fuller
Ossoli edited it, she might have reduced its size. Yet it is not
surprising that love and reverence should seek with diligence and save
with care whatever had emanated from her pen; and if the matter thus
laid before the world take something from her reputation, it also
completes the standard by which to measure her power. She appears to
have been without creative faculty, yet her perception of the gift in
others was often remarkable, and it pleased her to hold the possessor
of it up to admiration. Hence she devoted much time and attention to
the critical examination of art, music, and literature, and succeeded
in giving the works and lives which she reviewed a fresh interest and a
fuller meaning. Her articles on Goethe and Beethoven, in this volume,
furnish ample evidence of her capacity to appreciate the works and the
men of genius, and that, if she could not give good reasons for the
aberrations and eccentricities of their courses, she at least had a
heart large enough to look kindly upon them. Of books she was
a student and a lover; and in the short notices of new ones, which are
transferred from "The Tribune" to these pages, there is hardly one that
has not some thought of value to author as well as reader. Indeed, all
her prose writings are suggestive, and thus are capable of opening
vistas in the quickened mind which were unknown before. Authors of this
class often dart a ray into the recesses of our souls, so that we see
what they never saw, gain what they never gave. A book that increases
mental activity is incomparably better than one that multiplies
learning. The value of knowledge that lies in libraries is
overestimated by all save those who read Nature's runes. The Countess
Ossoli gathered from the garners, rather than from the glorious field,
and therefore she does not range with the marked originals. In this
rank she was not born. Her poems--which we think injudiciously
published--place her far down among the multitude. From these untuneful
utterances we gladly turn to her prose. There she shows strength of
character and goodness of heart. One aim, never lost sight of, is
perceptible through all, and gives unity to the whole; this is a
fervent desire to ennoble human life; consequently her works will long
have influence, and continue to call forth praise.
_Lectures on the English Language_. By GEORGE P. MARSH. New York:
Charles Scribner, 1860. pp. vi., 697.
An American scholar of wide range, at the same time thorough and
unpretentious, is a rarity; a philologist who is neither perversely
wrongheaded nor the victim of a preconceived theory is a still greater
one; yet we find both characters pleasantly united in the author of
these Lectures. Decided in his opinions, Mr. Marsh is modest in
expressing them, because they are the result of various culture and
long reflection, and these have taught him that time and study often
render the most positive conclusions doubtful, especially in regard to
such a topic as Language. Deservedly honored with diplomatic employment
in Europe, he has done credit to the choice of the Government by
turning the long leisure of a foreign mission to as great profit by
study and observation as if he had been a Travelling Fellow and these
had been the conditions of his tenure.
Addressed to a mixed audience, to the laity rather than to students,
these Lectures are more popular than scholastic in their character. Mr.
Marsh alludes to this with something like regret in his Preface. We
look upon this as by no means a misfortune. The book will, for this
very reason, reach and interest a much larger number of readers; and
while there is nothing in it to scare away those who read for mere
entertainment, they whose studies have led them into the same paths
with the author will continually recognize those signs, trifling, but
unmistakable, which distinguish the work of a master from that of a
journeyman. Scholarship is indicated not only by readiness of allusion,
and variety and aptness of illustration, but by a thorough
self-possession and chastened eloquence of style. A genius for language
comes doubtless by nature, but Mr. Marsh is too wise a man to believe
that a knowledge of it comes in the same way; his learning has that
ripened clearness which tells of olden vintages and of long storing in
the crypts of the brain; he has nothing in common with the easy
generalizers who know as little of roots as Shelley's skylark, and who,
seeking a shelter in welcome clouds, pour forth "profuse strains of
unpremeditated art" upon questions which above all others are limited
by exact science and unyielding fact.
We believe we are not going too far when we say that Mr. Marsh's book
is the best treatise of the kind in the language. It abounds in nice
criticism and elegant discussion on matters of taste, showing in the
author a happy capacity for esthetic discrimination as well as for
linguistic attainment. He does not profess to deal with some of the
deeper problems of language, but nevertheless makes us feel that they
have been subjects of thoughtful study, and, within the limits he has
imposed upon himself, he is often profound without the pretence of it.
We have spoken warmly of this volume, for it has both interested and
instructed us, and because we consider it one of the few thoroughly
creditable productions of Cisatlantic scholarship. We hope the
appreciation it meets with will be such that we shall soon have
occasion to thank Mr. Marsh for another volume on some kindred theme.
_The Marble Faun._ A Romance of Monte Beni. By NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 2
vols. Boston: Ticknor & Fields. 1860.
It is, we believe, more than thirty years since Mr. Hawthorne's first
appearance as an author; it is twenty-three since he gave his first
collection of "Twice-told Tales" to the world. His works have received
that surest warranty of genius and originality in the widening of their
appreciation downward from a small circle of refined admirers and
critics, till it embraced the whole community of readers. With just
enough encouragement to confirm his faith in his own powers, those
powers had time to ripen and toughen themselves before the gales of
popularity could twist them from the balance of a healthy and normal
development. Happy the author whose earliest works are read and
understood by the lustre thrown back upon them from his latest! for
then we receive the impression of continuity and cumulation of power,
of peculiarity deepening to individuality, of promise more than
justified in the keeping: unhappy, whose autumn shows only the
aftermath and rowen of an earlier harvest, whose would-be
replenishments are but thin dilutions of his fame!
The nineteenth century has produced no more purely original writer than
Mr. Hawthorne. A shallow criticism has sometimes fancied a resemblance
between him and Poe. But it seems to us that the difference between
them is the immeasurable one between talent carried to its ultimate,
and genius,--between a masterly adaptation of the world of sense and
appearance to the purposes of Art, and a so thorough conception of the
world of moral realities that Art becomes the interpreter of something
profounder than herself. In this respect it is not extravagant to say
that Hawthorne has something of kindred with Shakspeare. But that
breadth of nature which made Shakspeare incapable of alienation from
common human nature and actual life is wanting to Hawthorne. He is
rather a denizen than a citizen of what men call the world. We are
conscious of a certain remoteness in his writings, as in those of
Donne, but with such a difference that we should call the one super-
and the other subter-sensual. Hawthorne is psychological and
metaphysical. Had he been born without the poetic imagination, he would
have written treatises on the Origin of Evil. He does not draw
characters, but rather conceives them and then shows them acted upon by
crime, passion, or circumstance, as if the element of Fate were as
present to his imagination as to that of a Greek dramatist. Helen we
know, and Antigone, and Benedick, and Falstaff, and Miranda, and Parson
Adams, and Major Pendennis,--these people have walked on pavements or
looked out of club-room windows; but what are these idiosyncrasies into
which Mr. Hawthorne has breathed a necromantic life, and which he has
endowed with the forms and attributes of men? And yet, grant him his
premises, that is, let him once get his morbid tendency, whether
inherited or the result of special experience, either incarnated
as a new man or usurping all the faculties of one already in
the flesh, and it is marvellous how subtilely and with what
truth to as much of human nature as is included in a diseased
consciousness he traces all the finest nerves of impulse and motive,
how he compels every trivial circumstance into an accomplice of his
art, and makes the sky flame with foreboding or the landscape chill and
darken with remorse. It is impossible to think of Hawthorne without at
the same time thinking of the few great masters of imaginative
composition; his works, only not abstract because he has the genius
to make them ideal, belong not specially to our clime or generation;
it is their moral purpose alone, and perhaps their sadness, that mark
him as the son of New England and the Puritans.
It is commonly true of Hawthorne's romances that the interest centres
in one strongly defined protagonist, to whom the other characters are
accessory and subordinate,--perhaps we should rather say a ruling Idea,
of which all the characters are fragmentary embodiments. They remind us
of a symphony of Beethoven's, in which, though there be variety of
parts, yet all are infused with the dominant motive, and heighten its
impression by hints and far-away suggestions at the most unexpected
moment. As in Rome the obelisks are placed at points toward which
several streets converge, so in Mr. Hawthorne's stories the actors and
incidents seem but vistas through which we see the moral from different
points of view,--a moral pointing skyward always, but inscribed with
hieroglyphs mysteriously suggestive, whose incitement to conjecture,
while they baffle it, we prefer to any prosaic solution.
Nothing could be more original or imaginative than the conception of
the character of Donatello in Mr. Hawthorne's new romance. His likeness
to the lovely statue of Praxiteles, his happy animal temperament, and
the dim legend of his pedigree are combined with wonderful art to
reconcile us to the notion of a Greek myth embodied in an Italian of
the nineteenth century; and when at length a soul is created in this
primeval pagan, this child of earth, this creature of mere instinct,
awakened through sin to a conception of the necessity of atonement, we
feel, that, while we looked to be entertained with the airiest of
fictions, we were dealing with the most august truths of psychology,
with the most pregnant facts of modern history, and studying a profound
parable of the development of the Christian Idea.
Everything suffers a sea-change in the depths of Mr. Hawthorne's mind,
gets rimmed with an impalpable fringe of melancholy moss, and there is
a tone of sadness in this book as in the rest, but it does not leave us
sad. In a series of remarkable and characteristic works, it is perhaps
the most remarkable and characteristic. If you had picked up and read a
stray leaf of it anywhere, you would have exclaimed, "Hawthorne!"
The book is steeped in Italian atmosphere. There are many landscapes in
it full of breadth and power, and criticisms of pictures and statues
always delicate, often profound. In the Preface, Mr. Hawthorne pays a
well-deserved tribute of admiration to several of our sculptors,
especially to Story and Akers. The hearty enthusiasm with which he
elsewhere speaks of the former artist's "Cleopatra" is no surprise to
Mr. Story's friends at home, though hardly less gratifying to them than
it must be to the sculptor himself.
_A Trip to Cuba_. By Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE. Boston: Ticknor & Fields.
1860. pp. 251.
For readers of the "Atlantic," this little volume will need no further
commendation than the mere statement that nearly a quarter of it is
made up of hitherto unpublished material. Here and there it seems to us
a little too personal, and the public is made the confidant of matters
in which it has properly no concern. This, perhaps, is more the fault
of the present generation than of the author; but it is something we
feel bound to protest against, wherever we meet it. In other respects,
the book is one which we may thank not only for entertainment, but for
instruction. In its vivid picturesqueness, it furnishes the complement
to Mr. Dana's "To Cuba and Back." Mrs. Howe has the poet's gift of
making us see what she describes, and she is as lively and witty as a
French _Marquise_ of the seventeenth century, when a _De_ in the name,
petticoats, and Paris were an infallible receipt for cleverness. Toward
the end of her volume, Mrs. Howe enters a spirited and telling protest
against a self-constituted censorship, which would insist on a
traveller's squaring his impressions with some foregone theory of right
and wrong, instead of thankfully allowing facts to rectify his theory.
A traveller is bound to tell us what he saw, not what he expected or
wished to see; and it is only by comparing the different views of many
independent observers that we who tarry at home can arrive at any
approximate notion of absolute fact. The general inferiority of modern
books of travel is due to the fact that their authors write in the fear
of their special fragment of a public, and report of foreign countries
as if they were drummers for Exeter Hall or the Southern Planters'
Association, rather than servants of Truth.
_Poems by Two Friends_. Columbus, Ohio: Follett, Foster, & Co. 1860.
pp. 162.
The Two Friends are Messrs. John J. Piatt and W. D. Howells. The
readers of the "Atlantic" have already had a taste of the quality of
both, and, we hope, will often have the same pleasure again. The volume
is a very agreeable one, with little of the crudeness so generally
characteristic of first ventures,--not more than enough to augur richer
maturity hereafter. Dead-ripeness in a first book is a fatal symptom,
sure sign that the writer is doomed forever to that pale limbo of
faultlessness from which there is no escape upwards or downwards.
We can scarce find it in our hearts to make any distinctions in so
happy a partnership; but while we see something more than promise in
both writers, we have a feeling that Mr. Piatt shows greater
originality in the choice of subjects, and Mr. Howells more instinctive
felicity of phrase in the treatment of them. Both of them seem to us to
have escaped remarkably from the prevailing conventionalisms of verse,
and to write in metre because they have a genuine call thereto. We are
pleased with a thorough Western flavor in some of the poems, especially
in such pieces as "The Pioneer Chimney" and "The Movers." We welcome
cordially a volume in which we recognize a fresh and authentic power,
and expect confidently of the writers a yet higher achievement ere
long. The poems give more than glimpses of a faculty not so common that
the world can afford to do without it.
_Vanity Fair_, Frank J. Thompson, 113 Nassau Street, New York.
(Weekly.)
This is the first really clever comic and satirical journal we have had
in America,--and really clever it is. It is both sharp and
good-tempered, and not afraid to say that its soul is its own,--which
shows that it has a soul. Our readers will be glad to know where they
can find native fun that has something better in it than mere _patois_.
_Twenty Years Ago and Now_. By T. S. ARTHUR. Philadelphia: G. G. Evans.
In attempting a novel, Mr. Arthur has gone beyond his powers. This
story is not new, and is not interesting; and its only merits are the
quiet, unpretending style and kindly spirit shown in the author's
little tales of mercantile life, many of which are very good.