CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE, AND THE LITERARY CHARACTER ILLUSTRATED. By
I. C. D'ISRAELI, Esq., D. C. L., F. S. A. With Curiosities of American
Literature. By RUFUS W. GRISWOLD. Complete in one volume. New-York: D.
APPLETON AND COMPANY, Broadway.
The ensuing remarks refer rather to the Supplement to D'ISRAELI'S
'Curiosities of Literature,' edited by Rev. RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, than to the
well-known work to which it adds its attractions. It is an excellent
collection of the many odd and quaint and foolish and good things which
our forefathers 'did and performed.' Mr. GRISWOLD has spiced his work with
a variety, though he has done it more judiciously than a splenetic author
whom he introduces in his work, who, in a vexatious mood at some severe
criticisms on a former book, puts a dozen or more rows of interrogation
and exclamation-points, commas, semicolons, etc., and tells his readers
'they may pepper and salt it as they please.' Mr. GRISWOLD well
understands the history of American literature; and we venture to say
there is no man in the country who knows the names and contents of so many
American books as he. This knowledge he has found of great service to him,
enabling him to lay his hand at once on those things most worthy of
preservation. If he had understood the linking process a little better, it
would perhaps have added to the interest of his work. A sort of running
commentary would have given greater vivacity to the numerous extracts. The
way isolated specimens of an author are introduced affects very much the
impression they make. But Mr. GRISWOLD has succeeded well in gathering up
the ravelled ends of our early literature; and the present edition of
D'ISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature will be the only one for the future
in the American market. The most 'curious' part of our literary history is
embraced in the revolution, with the short period preceding and following
it. The British and Tories furnished endless themes to the pasquinader and
ballad-maker, while the grave rights involved in the struggle called forth
the efforts of more serious and thoughtful pens. The Puritans of
New-England wrote most; and there is a union of the soundest sense with
the most childish folly, the strongest character with the weakest
prejudices in our good Yankee forefathers, that is quite incomprehensible.
Like the Puritans of England in the time of CROMWELL, when called into the
hall of debate to discuss the rights of man, or into the field to battle
for them, he were a bold man who dare smile at them. Yet in their
religious acts they were often bigoted, intolerant and puerile. The same
incongruity is seen in their tastes. Men of deep poetical sentiment, they
often murdered poetry for conscience sake. A man who could write a defence
of the colonies with a pen that fairly glowed with the burning Saxon that
fell from it, would not be shocked at all at the impropriety of the
following epitaph on a tomb-stone:
'Here lies Jonathan Auricular,
Who walked in the ways of God perpendicular.'
Mr. GRISWOLD gives us a specimen of the versification of the 137th psalm,
in the Bible; one of the sweetest lyrics ever written, beginning 'By the
rivers of Babylon there we sat down; yea, we wept when we remembered Zion;
we hanged our harps upon the willows,' etc. This psalm, whose exquisite
beauties are so well preserved in our common English version, was put into
verse with the rest of the psalms, by our pious forefathers. To their
credit we can say, however, that the authors of the first version declare
that they 'have attended to conscience rather than to elegance' in
completing their work. We cannot excuse President DUNSTER of Harvard
College, so easily, who revised the edition and sent it forth with the
advertisement that they had in it a 'special eye both to the gravity of
the phrase of sacred writ, and to the sweetness of the verse;' especially
when we find this same sweet psalm completely murdered by him. After
stumbling along through two stanzas, he thus paraphrases. 'They that led
us into captivity,' he says:
Required of us a song, and thus
Askt mirth us waste who laid,
Sing us among, a Zion's song,
Unto us then they said.
The LORD'S song sing can we, being
In stranger's land?--then let
Lose her skill my right hand if I
Jerusalem forget.
Let cleave my tongue my palate on
If mind thee doe not I,
If chief joys o'er I prize not more,
Jerusalem my joy,' etc., etc.
Such wretched stuff as this our good forefathers sung with the profoundest
gravity; and those who thus murdered the king's English and the Hebrew's
poem were called 'poets!' Yet this same age could produce such poets as
Mrs. ANN BRADSTREET, of whom her great panegyrist, JOHN NORTON, in a
poetical description of her says:
'Her heart was a brave palace, _broad street_,
Where all heroic simple thoughts did meet,
Where nature such a tenement had ta'en,
That other souls to hers dwelt in a lane.'
The _pun_ here is good, but the comparison might have been dropped sooner
without damage. The poem of Mrs. BRADSTREET, entitled 'Contemplations,'
possesses a great deal of merit, and proves her to be worthy of the
extravagant praise of her extravagant admirer. The extracts from the
poetry of Governor WOLCOTT are very favorable to the poetic reputation of
the governor. But the richest thing in the whole collection is the 'Simple
Cobbler of Aggawam,' occupying ten columns. The king-fashionable ladies,
and long-haired young gentlemen, are successively put on the cobbler's
lapstone and hammered most industriously. And we must say, cobbler as he
is, he appears to us to give vastly more _blows_ than he takes stitches.
This part of the work alone is worth the price of the whole book. It is
quite too long to quote entire, and a mere extract would do it injustice.
FRENEAU was a rare character, and his pasquinades on RIVINGTON, a tory
editor, are rich specimens. The confession he puts in the mouth of
RIVINGTON, in his 'Address to the Whigs of New-York' immediately after the
close of the war, is equal to 'Death and Dr. Hornbook' on the poor Scotch
quack.
This RIVINGTON, however, was not a more unlucky dog than another tory
named BENJAMIN TOWNE, editor of the 'Pennsylvania Evening Post.' Supposing
the cause of the rebels to be hopeless, he undertook to win favor and
reward from the British by the most unsparing abuse of the Americans. But
when the cause of freedom finally triumphed, the unlucky editor was left
on the sand. Without money, without patrons, he found himself in the midst
of those whom he had traduced, and dependent on them for a livelihood. In
this emergency, he goes to the celebrated Dr. WITHERSPOON for aid. The
stern republican doctor would listen to nothing, unless TOWNE would make
his peace with his country by a most humble confession. Finding no other
resource, he consented to publish in his paper any thing the doctor would
write. This confession is given by Mr. GRISWOLD at length; and if the tory
editor does not make himself out a most precious scoundrel, the fault is
certainly not with the doctor. He acknowledges that he had lied without
limit, and was willing to publish bigger lies had they been brought him;
he assures the people that he did every thing for personal gain, and was
willing to do and say any thing now for the same purpose. He was moreover
a brave man! 'I hope,' says he, 'the public will consider that I have been
a timorous man, or if you will, a coward from my youth, so that I cannot
fight; my belly is so large that I cannot run; and I am so great a lover
of eating and drinking that I cannot starve. When these things are
considered, I hope they will fully account for my past conduct, and
procure me the liberty of going on in the same _uniform_, tenor for the
future.' The collection teems with rich matter, and we have not even
skimmed the surface. Here and there only have we touched a point. We could
fill twice the space allotted us, with the revolutionary ballads alone,
for the gathering of which Mr. GRISWOLD deserves our thanks. New-England
epitaphs come in for their share; and there is a capital anecdote of Dr.
DWIGHT and Mr. DENNIE, at which we gazed and pondered wistfully for a long
time, in the hope, (a vain one, we are sorry to say,) of being able to
present it to our readers.
This collection of Mr. GRISWOLD brings together and preserves what was
before floating around and slowly disappearing with the lapse of time. Our
early literature is now grafted on a work which will secure its life; and
those peculiar characteristics of a remarkable age, which grow more
valuable the more distant the point from which we view them, will never
pass away. Nothing is more difficult than to preserve the scanty and
fugitive literature of an early age. A _great_ work will live; but those
fragments which are thrown off here and there, in a careless or earnest
moment, perish, because they _are_ fragmentary. They do not belong
together in a book, and cannot stand alone. In a later period of the
history of the country, this would be of little consequence, because there
is enough else to stand as exponents of that age. But these fragments are
all that is left to tell us how our fathers felt, and thought, and spoke.
Without them, we are without every thing. This collection greatly enhances
the value of the English edition, and cannot fail to increase its already
extensive sale.
NORTH-AMERICAN REVIEW FOR THE APRIL QUARTER. Number CXXIII. pp. 268.
Boston: OTIS, BROADERS AND COMPANY. New-York: C. S. FRANCIS AND
COMPANY.
There has not been issued for many a long month so good a number of this
excellent and venerable Quarterly, as the one before us. It abounds in a
good variety, alike of theme and style; and there is a manly, vigorous
tone, and an independence of thought and expression, which we have not
before observed, at least in so marked a degree. The number opens with a
caustic and well-deserved critique upon the writings of JAMES, the
novelist; and we are the more gratified at this, because the defects of
this romancer are the besetting sins of certain of our own novelists, who
had at one time a fair degree of transient popularity. A lack of skill in
the creation or accurate delineation of individual character, which,
instead of representing men and women, are didactic exhibitions of the
author himself, projected into various personages, and all bearing an
unmistakable family resemblance--this it is that is at the bottom of the
sudden decadence into which the writings of one or two of our more
prolific romancers have fallen, past all redemption; and this is the great
fault of Mr. JAMES. 'To be successful in the exact delineation of
character,' says the reviewer, 'requires a rare combination of powers--a
large heart and a comprehensive mind. It is the attribute of universality;
it can be obtained only by outward as well as inward observation; not by
that habit of intense brooding over individual consciousness, of making
the individual mind the centre and the circumference of every thing, a
habit which only makes of the writer an egotist, and limits the reach of
his mind.' Mr. JAMES has certain types of character which he generally
reproduces in each successive novel. His heroine is idealized into
something which is neither spirit, nor flesh and blood. 'His women, like
his men, are ideas and feelings embodied; they are constructed, not
created nor painted; built, not drawn. They do not stand boldly from the
canvass.' His rascal is an unmitigated rascal, intermingled with the
machinery of his plot, and appearing regularly in every novel. 'Mr. JAMES
is a great spendthrift of human life. The carelessness with which he
slays, evinces the feebleness with which he conceives. If his personages
were real to his own heart or imagination, he would not part with them so
easily, nor kill them with such _nonchalance_.' A very faithful
description is given of Mr. JAMES'S style; and it is one which will apply
with equal force, though certainly in a subordinate case, to certain of
our own novelists, whom the reader will readily recall, but whom it would
be invidious perhaps to mention. 'His style,' says the reviewer, 'has
little flow and perspicuity, and no variety. It is usually heavy,
lumbering, and monotonous. Half of the words seem in the way of the idea,
and the latter appears not to have strength enough to clear the passage.
Occasionally, a short, sharp sentence comes like a flash of lightning from
the cloud of his verbiage, and relieves the twilight of his diction. There
are but few felicitous phrases in his manifold volumes. He has hardly any
of those happy combinations of words which stick fast to the memory, and
do more than pages to express the author's meaning. He has little command
of _expression_. His imagery is common; and his manner of arranging a
trite figure in a rich suit of verbiage, only makes its essential
commonness and poverty more apparent. His style is not dotted over with
any of those shining points, either of imagery or epigram, which illumine
works of less popularity and pretension.'
The review of Mr. JAMES'S works is followed by an excellent critique upon
the poems of Mr. JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL, which receive due commendation.
There are some 'rough truths' in the reviewer's opening remarks. 'We have
among us little companies of people, each of which 'keeps its poet,' and
not content with that, proclaims from its small corner, with a most
conceited air, that its poet is the man of the age.' Instances are
mentioned, closing with this irresistible climax: '_One man_ thinks
CORNELIUS MATHEWS has written the finest American poetry!' In allusion to
the whimsical peculiarities of Mr. CARLYLE--a man of genius, learning, and
humane tendencies--and their effect upon the servile tribe of imitators,
the reviewer observes: 'The study of German became an epidemic about the
time that CARLYLE broke out; the two disorders aggravated each other, and
ran through all the stages incident to literary affectation, until they
assumed their worst form, and common sense breathed its last, as the
'_Orphic Sayings_' came; those most unmeaning and witless effusions--we
cannot say of the brain, for the smallest modicum of brains would have
rendered their appearance an impossibility--but of mere intellectual
inanity.' The American Euphuists, being possessed of the demon of
affectation, strive to set themselves apart from the common herd, imagine
that they are inhabitants of a sublimated ether, and look down with
pitying contempt on all who profess an inability to detect a meaning in
their vapid and mystical jargon. 'These be _truths_;' and our readers will
bear us witness that months ago, with but little variation of terms, we
promulgated them in these pages.
There is an excellent paper upon the 'Forest Lands and the Timber Trade of
Maine;' it is full of interest, despite the nature of its general theme.
The 'Boundary Question' did not indicate the first usurpations of the
British in Maine. It was the acts of parliament that forbade the use of
water-falls, the erecting of machinery, of looms and spindles, and the
working of wood and iron; that set the king's arrow upon trees that rotted
in the forest; that shut out markets for boards and fish, and seized sugar
and molasses, and the vessels in which these articles were carried; and
that defined the limitless ocean as but a narrow pathway to such of the
lands that it embosoms as wore the British flag; it was these
restrictions, to release which the revolution was created. The articles
upon the various 'Theories of Storms,' and 'The Recent Contest in
Rhode-Island,' we have not found leisure from pressing avocations to
peruse. The paper on 'Architecture in the United States' is from the pen
of one who '_knows_ whereof he writes;' and he has not been sparing of
deserved satire upon the sad and ridiculous mistakes of those among us who
are miscalled architects. High praise is awarded to our Trinity Church,
now in progress of erection. 'In size, in the delicacy and propriety of
its decoration, and in the beauty of its general effect, it surpasses any
church erected in England since the revival of the pointed style.' In a
notice of the 'Writings of Miss BREMER,' MARY HOWITT 'suffers some,' on
account of a certain hysteric preface of hers to a translation of one of
the Swedish lady's productions, in which she complains of the American
translations from this popular writer. Among the 'Critical Notices' which
compose the last article in the Review, is a critique upon Mr. CORNELIUS
MATHEWS'S 'Writings,' including his poem on 'Man in his Various Aspects,'
which embodies the opinions we have ourselves expressed in relation to
them. Since the unfounded charge of being 'actuated by private pique,'
which was brought against us by the author, cannot be assumed against the
North American Review, we trust that our 'complainant' will not object
that we fortify our own estimate of his literary merits by grave
authority. The following is an extract:
Mr. MATHEWS has shown a marvellous skill in failing, each failure
being more complete than the last. His comedy of 'The Politicians'
is 'the most lamentable comedy;' and the reader exclaims, with
Hippolyta, 'This is the silliest stuff that ever I heard.' The
'Career of Puffer Hopkins' is an elaborately bad imitation of
DICKENS; and must be ranked in fiction where 'The Politicians'
stands in the drama. It aims at being comical, and satirical upon
the times. The author studies hard to portray the motley
characters which move before the observer in a large city; but he
has not enough of the vision and the faculty divine, to make them
more than melancholy ghosts of what they profess to be. The
attempts at humor are inexpressibly dismal; the burlesque
overpowers the most determined reader, by its leaden dulness. The
style is ingeniously tasteless and feeble. He who has read it
through can do or dare any thing. Mr. MATHEWS suffers from several
erroneous opinions. He seems to think that literary elegance
consists in the very qualities which make elegance impossible.
Simplicity and directness of language he abominates. When he has
an idea to express, he aims, apparently, to convert it into a
riddle, by inventing the most forced, unnatural, and distorted
expressions. If the thing can be obscured, he is sure to obscure
it. He seems to say to the reader, 'Can you guess? do you give it
up?' But then, less obliging than the maker of charades, he leaves
the puzzled victim without an explanation at last. He studies a
singularity of phrase at once crabbed and finical, and overloads
his pages with far-fetched epithets, that are at once harsh and
unmeaning. He seems to have been told that he has wit and humor,
and--strange delusion!--to believe it. He writes as if he imagined
that he possessed the inventive power: never was a greater
mistake. These qualities and these mistakes make his prose
writings unreadable and intolerable, at least all the later ones.
But when to the charms of his ordinary style are added the
attractions of verse, then the sense aches with the combined and
heightened beauties. The present volume exaggerates all his
literary vices. The plan of these poems is very well; if executed
with taste and power, the volume would have been interesting. As
it is, we have here and there a good line, a striking figure, or a
bold expression. But most of the poems are deformed by harshness
of versification, feebleness of thought, and every species of bad
writing. Compounded words, never seen before, and impossible to be
pronounced, epithets detailed on service for which they are wholly
unfit, figures that illustrate nothing but their own absurdity,
and rhymes that any common book would die of, astonish the reader
on every page. Had the poet purposely aimed to twist the English
language into every conceivable form of awkwardness; had he
designed to illustrate, for the use of beginners, every possible
defect and every positive fault of diction; his success in
accomplishing the object could not have been more complete.'
We annex a few of the 'original' beauties which the reviewer has selected
from Mr. MATHEWS'S poem. Two or three of them, we perceive, are identical
with those which we ourselves selected from that luminous effort of the
mind and the imagination:
'We had marked many characteristic passages in the present volume,
to illustrate the observations we have felt called on to make. But
we have space only for a few lines. In the first poem, besides
many other absurdities of thought as well as expression, occurs
this line:
'Strides he the globe, or CANVASS-TENTS the sea.'
Who ever heard of the verb to _canvass-tent_? To _canvass-back_
the sea would be much more rational.
In the second poem we find this luminous line:
'CLEAR AS THE CLEAR, round midnight at its full,'
which must be very clear indeed.