lyrical poems; but there are also two or three articles in blank verse,
whose exceeding merit awaken a desire to see a further exertion of the
author’s talents in this unfettered mode of versification. The power
which he evinces in “the Alchemist’s Daughter” and “A Vision of Death,”
prove the existence of resources for which the friends of his former
volume scarcely gave him credit. We own ourselves astonished at the
versatility of Mr. Read’s genius, at the ease with which he passes from
lyrical to the highest order of poetry, with the scope of thought which
is shown in his unveilings of man’s inner nature, and with the dramatic
variety and intensity of his diction. We scarcely recognize the same
hand in the lyrical and dramatic poems; both are beautiful, but of
widely different orders of beauty. The former are characterized by a
purity of thought and sentiment, a delicate refinement and nicety in the
choice of phrases, a brilliant and constant play of fancy in figures the
most apt and glowing, a striking spirit of individuality, and a
versification the most varied and harmonious. The transition from the
lyrical to the dramatic pieces is at the same time both delightful and
startling. The style changes at once, the author vanishes from sight,
and is lost in our sympathy for the imaginary creatures of his mind. In
the dramatic compositions the language is vigorous, passionate and
condensed, dealing rather in the bold metaphor than in the more ornate
but less difficult simile, and seeking effect rather by force and
earnestness than by beauty and delicacy of expression. This is as it
should be, and proves our author the possessor of powers which must
eventually place him in the very first rank of poets. But we must leave
general criticism, and proceed to substantiate our high opinions by the
text before us.
The volume opens with a poem replete with the most picturesque and
striking imagery. There is a beautiful contrast between the desolate,
frozen appearance of nature—
“When old Winter, through his fingers numb,
Blows till his breathings on the windows gleam;
And when the mill-wheel, spiked with ice, is dumb
Within the neighboring stream;”
and the fervent feeling which appears to have dictated this friendly
tribute to one whose presence can at all seasons make
“A summer in the heart.”
Passing some half dozen poems, every way worthy of special notice, but
omitted on account of our confined space, we come to “The Beggar of
Naples.” This is one of the longest and most striking poems in the book;
in a versification the most irregular but the most harmonious, indulging
in the wildest flights of fancy, but never soaring beyond the common
ken. The story is simple, and turns on the power with which a virtuous
love may shape the destiny of the meanest. The picture of the beggars
hanging round the sunny corners of the streets, tells with a few
skillful touches more than a whole library of statistics.
“Avoiding every wintry shade,
The lazzaroni crawled to sunny spots;
At every corner miserable knots
Pursued their miserable trade,
_And held the sunshine in their asking palms,_
_Which gave unthanked its glowing alms,_
Thawing the blood until it ran
As wine within a vintage runs.”
The italicized lines are eminently suggestive; and in the contemplative
mind, awaken a long train of the most solemn thoughts—thoughts of
Heaven’s indiscriminate bounty, and man’s unthankful forgetfulness, of
the beggar’s hands overflowing with the gifts of nature, but all empty
of the gifts of churlish human charity. The listlessness of the beggar’s
life, the vacant sense and brain of the purposeless idler, is admirably
portrayed in the following lines:—
“Upon the beggar’s heart the matin hymn
Fell faint and dim;
As when upon some margin of the sea
The fisher breathes the briny air,
And hears the far waves symphony,
But hears it unaware.
The music from the lofty aisle,
And all the splendor of the sacred pile—
The pictures hung at intervals
Like windows, giving from the walls
Clear glimpses of the days agone.
* * * * *
All were unheeded,
And came but as his breath;
Or if there came a thought, that thought unheeded
Even in its birth met death.”
The awakening from this lethargy, at the first touch of love, is
unrivaled:—
“At once upstarting from his knees,
He watched her as she went;
The blood awakened from its slothful ease,
Through all his frame a flaming flood was sent;
_He stood as with a statue’s fixed surprise,_
_Great wonder making marble in his eyes!_”
What can surpass the simple grandeur of the concluding lines of this
passage? The new light which at once bursts on his aroused senses is
thus happily described:—
“All things at once became a glorious show;
Now could he see the sainted pictures glow;
And instantly unto his lips
Rolled fragments of old song—
Fragments which had been thrown
Into his heart unknown.” &c.
His shame at his tattered appearance, at his companions, and at his base
mode of life, are singularly beautiful and truthful strokes. That a soul
so aroused should struggle for and reach the first ranks of fame is
nothing strange, and that he should wed his deliverer is strict poetical
justice. From “The Deserted Road” we clip the following felicitous local
touches:—
“Here I stroll along the village,
As in youth’s departed morn,
But I miss the crowded coaches,
And the driver’s bugle-horn;
“Miss the crowd of jovial teamsters,
Filling buckets at the wells,
With their wains from Conestoga,
_And their orchestras of bells_.”
“The Alchemist’s Daughter,” amid a host of stirring lines, contains the
following beautiful passages. Lorenzo, speaking of the marriage of his
young mistress—
“Her mother died long years ago, and took
One half the blessed sunshine from our house,
_The other half was married off last night_.”
This is genuine poetry, and we recognize it at once. Again, describing
the rising moon,—
“Mark how the moon, as by some unseen arm,
Is thrust toward heaven like a bloody shield.”
The following noble burst should go far to cheer those whose labors
appear to produce no immediate results:—
“Are there no wrongs but what a nation feels—
No heroes but among the martial throng?
Nay, there are patriot souls who never grasped
A sword, or heard a crowd applaud their names—
Who lived and labored, died, and were forgot;
And after them the world came out and reapt
The field, and never questioned who had sown.”
From this garden of dainty devices let us, before leaving, cull a few
choice flowers. From “The New Village” we would fain extract the whole
stanza, describing the forest-life of the Indian maids, which concludes
thus—
“The daisies kiss their foot-falls in the grass,
_And little streams stand still to paint them in their glass_.”
In “A Vision of Death,” the flowers over the grave of a beautiful
maiden, are thus invoked:—
“Bloom, bloom,
Ye little blossoms! _and if beauty can,_
_Like other purest essences, exhale_
_And penetrate the mould, your flowers shall be_
_Of rarest hue and perfume_.”
From “The Realm of Dreams,” we extract this exquisite couplet:
“And where the spring-time sun had longest shone
And violet looked up, _and found itself alone_.”
The above has a positive fragrance, that unexplainable odor which at
once distinguishes genuine poetry, however disguised, from all
imitations, however ingenious. No one but a true poet could have written
this passage, which, for its suggestive delicacy, is scarcely rivaled in
our language. From the same poem we extract this simile, describing the
unruffled quiet of a small mountain lake:—
“Through underwood of laurel, and across
A little lawn, _shoe-deep with sweetest moss,_
I passed, and found the lake, _which, like a shield_
_Some giant long had ceased to wield,_
_Lay with its edges sunk in sand and stone,_
_With ancient roots and grasses overgrown._”
The descent of the mystic spirit of the lake is thus pictured:
“Then noiselessly as moonshine falls
Adown the ocean’s crystal walls,
And with no stir or wave attended,
Slowly through the lake descended;
_Till from her hidden form below_
_The waters took a golden glow,_
_As if the star which made her forehead bright_
_Had burst and filled the lake with light._”
Observe the beautiful melancholy, and the slow, swaying versification of
the following description of a deserted quay:—
“The old, old sea, as one in tears,
Comes murmuring with his foamy lips,
And knocking at the vacant piers,
Calls for his long-lost multitude of ships.”
We would gladly extend this imperfect notice to twice its prescribed
length; for we are aware that in our limited bounds we can do but
partial justice to merits so conspicuous; and, perhaps, in our bungling
haste to pluck that which caught our fancy, we have passed by beauties
which would have arrested the eyes of others. We are conscious of having
bestowed on this volume the most unmixed praises; and the censorious may
ask us, what has become of our critical gall? The province of criticism
is two-fold—to cheer with praise, or to correct with censure; and we
belong to that good-natured portion who exercise the former calling.
What is deliberately done can be followed by no apology. Whatever we
have said, has been supported with solid material from the work before
us; and our readers may judge by the extracts, whether we have done our
author that worst of all injustice which arises from over commendation.
* * * * *
_Poems. By Oliver Wendall Holmes. A New Edition. Boston: Wm. D.
Ticknor & Co. 1 vol. 16mo._
It gives us great pleasure to announce the appearance of a new and
revised edition of Dr. Holmes’s poems, printed in a style of simplicity
and elegance creditable to the publishers and appropriate to him. It
contains a large number of pieces which have never before appeared in
any collection of his poems, and also a number which are now printed for
the first time. A volume which is so emphatically “a nest of spicery,”
which sparkles on every page with wit, fancy, and imagination, and which
contains some of the most perfect specimens of versification and true
poetical expression ever produced in the country, will be sure of a
rapid and a large circulation. The author has been literally mobbed for
many years to prepare an edition of his poems, and we now have one which
fairly reflects his character and powers.
In criticising a poet, the too common method pursued by the craft is to
fix upon him some time-honored and time-worn phrases and epithets, which
apply to him only as they apply to all poets, and to avoid that task of
analysis which would bring out the peculiarities of his genius. Holmes
has especially suffered from this mode of criticism; and thus one of the
most singular and individual of our poets, a man who, whatever may be
thought of the scope and domain of his genius, is still a strictly
original writer, is described in terms which are as applicable to
Longfellow and Bryant as to him.
The great mental peculiarity of Holmes is fineness of
intellect—subtilty in the perception of resemblances, subtilty in the
perception of differences, and subtilty in the conception of remote and
filmy shades of thought. He has a most acute and inevitable perception
of the ludicrous, but it is ever passed through his intellect before it
is expressed; and, accordingly, his wit and humor have the certainty of
demonstration, and never miss their mark. He has a no less acute
perception of the pathetic, the beautiful, and the grand, but he never
hazards their expression from the simple impulse of enthusiasm, but
passes them also through his intelligence, scrutinizes them as they lie
mirrored on his imagination, and gives them utterance only when he is
satisfied intellectually and consciously of their validity and
excellence. Such a man would naturally be accused of lacking
sensibility, sensitiveness to impressions; but no careful reader of his
writings, who considers their singular wealth and variety of sensuous
imagery, of niceties and felicities of description, can fail to discern
the intense sensibility to external objects they continually imply,
however much he may be puzzled to account for the form in which it is
expressed. The truth is, we should judge, that Holmes’s extreme
sensitiveness made him skeptical, or fearful of the quality, and that he
arraigned his impressions, his spontaneous combinations and strange
freaks of juxtaposition, his teeming throng of fanciful images, his
impatient, voluble, and affluent verbal extravagances, before the
tribunal of his intellect, to see if they would bear the tests by which
the bizarre is discriminated from the picturesque, levity from wit,
drollery from humor, sentimentality from pathos, flightiness from
ideality. Were it not for his detecting, exacting, sure and fine
intellect, there would be no rein on his wild colt of a fancy, and the
result would be more portentous freaks of deviltry and mischievousness,
and perhaps more direct expression of impatient passion and tender
feeling, but the whole would be but splendid disorder and aimless
brilliancy. It is thus from the very fulness and fierce pressure of his
sensitive nature for expression, that Holmes has become so eminently an
intellectual poet, and that all his writings indicate an intense working
of faculties rather than a heedless expression of affinities. Take up
any one of his poems, witty or serious, subject it to the chemical
processes of criticism, and it is surprising what seemingly untameable
elements of thought and emotion are revealed. This mastery of his
impulses, as seen in the intellectual form of their expression, is the
peculiarity of Holmes, and gives to his poems that character of
certainty, decision, and restrained exuberance, which constitutes so
much of their charm. Such a man must have rejected more brilliancies and
grotesque strokes of fanciful wit, than most men have ever conceived.
Nothing which his fancy or his wit, his Ariel or his Puck, pitches into
his mind, can pass muster, unless it can bear the sharp, close,
microscopic glance of his sure and subtle intellect.
In respect to the intellectuality of his processes, Holmes bears some
resemblance to Tennyson, with the exception that Tennyson’s mind pierces
patiently into a different and more mysterious domain of spiritual
phenomena, and bears the marks of a slower reduction of film to form.
The mind of Holmes acts with the rapidity of lightning. It examines and
dissects as instantaneously as it feels and conceives. There is no
patient contemplation of the object of his thought, but a quick, brisk,
almost nervous seizure of it. His mind works with such intensity, all
its faculties are so perfectly under his control, that what it grasps it
grasps at once with the celerity of intuition. Nothing comes to him by
degrees and slow steps. He does not wait for the Muse to turn her
countenance gradually upon him, unfolding feature after feature, but he
impatiently seizes her by the shoulders, twirls her round, and looks her
right in the face. He is not abashed by her reproof, and disregards all
her airs and assumptions of dignity. He seems plainly to tell her that
he will stand none of her nonsense—that he knows her secret—that she
cannot impose upon him—that if she do not choose to smile he can sail
along very well without her assistance. Such spiteful treatment from any
body else, would draw down her wrath; but Holmes seems a favorite, and
has his mischievous ways indulged.
There is observable in Holmes’s long poems one defect which springs from
the refinement of his perceptions. Though his writings evince no lack of
vivid and palpable imagery, the curious subtilty of his mind leads him
often into a remoteness of allusion whose pertinence and beauty are not
apprehended by the ordinary reader. The leading idea of some of his
poems, though obvious enough if sharply scrutinized, is still not
prominent enough to enforce attention of itself. The result is that
“Poetry” and “Urania,” appear at first like aggregates of brilliant
parts rather than as vital wholes. The unity of each is perceived only
on an after examination. This is an artistical defect which mars their
excellence and effectiveness.
The present edition of Holmes, while it contains a complete collection
of his published pieces, is enriched with some after dinner poems, which
were not intended for the public eye. These seem to have been thrown off
extempore, but they teem with brilliancies of wit and fancy, and are
full of fine audacities of expression. Of these the best are
“Terpsichore,” “A Modest Request,” and “Nux Postcænatica,” which contain
enough spirit and poetry to make a reputation, and which almost add to
that which Holmes has already made. The drinking song, slily called “A
Song of Other Days,” is almost unmatched for the grandeur and splendor
of its imagery, and the heartiness of its tone. The “Sentiment” which
follows this right royal Anacreontic, is as glorious a tribute to water
as the other is to wine—thus satisfactorily proving that Holmes is
indebted to neither for inspiration. One of the most beautiful and
brilliant of the poems added in this edition, is that on the Ancient
Punch Bowl, and the mode in which sentiment and wit are made to shake
hands, and dwell cosily together, is grandly humorous. “Urania,” we
suppose, must be considered on the whole, the best production in the
volume. It has touches of sentiment and pathos, so graceful, so pure,
and so elusive—not to speak of its satirical and witty portions—that
it would be in vain to place any other poem of the author before it.
We have only space to refer to one more admirable peculiarity of Holmes,
a natural consequence of the vigor, affluence and fineness of his
intellect, and that is the _re-readableness_ of his productions. There
is a perpetual stimulant in them which we cannot drain dry. On a fourth
or fifth perusal some refinement of allusion or analogy, some delicacy
of thought or expression, some demure stroke of humor, which did not at
first fix the attention, repays the diligent reader. Indeed to read one
of his poems for the purpose of taking in its whole meaning at once,
would require the mind to be as thoroughly awake and active as if it
were engaged on Hume or Butler. The very gladness and briskness with
which his verse moves, the flood of radiance poured out upon it, the
distinctness of much of the imagery, interfere, on the first perusal,
with the perception of his minor felicities and remote combinations of
fancy and wit. Holmes, indeed, is a poet to have constantly on the
parlor-table, not one to be consigned to a shelf in the library; for
there is hardly a page not brightened by those fine fancies which age
does not dim, and which “sparkle like salt in fire.”
* * * * *
_United States Fiscal Department._
In a republican government entire simplicity in all that relates to
public affairs, is not only convenient to the officers, but is a duty to
the public, every man of whom is a party in the business. We are
reminded of the value of simplicity and order by two quarto volumes now
before us, which point out the order, and show how simplicity is to be
attained in whatever relates to the fiscal department of the government
of the United States.
The title of these volumes is expressive of their valuable contents. “A
Synopsis of the Commercial and Revenue System of the United States, as
Developed by Instructions and Decisions of the Treasury Department, for
the Administration of the Revenue Laws: Accompanied with a Supplement of
Historical and Tabular Illustrations of the Origin, Organization and
Practical Operations of the Treasury Department and its various Bureaus,
in Fulfillment of that System: In Eight Chapters, with an Appendix. By
Robert Mayo, M.D. 2 vols. 4to.”
We have not space to enter into details of this truly great work. All
that is set forth in the promises of the title page is amply sustained
by the body of the work, and an amount of information is given, truly
astonishing to those who have not had experience in the numerous
ramifications of the overgrown department. While there is scarcely a
relation which any citizen could occupy with regard to the treasury
department, in all its forms, and while the duty of every officer
connected with that branch of government, whatever may be his grade, is
amply set forth, it seems as a matter of course that at least one in
every hundred of the citizens of this country should have a copy of this
instructive work, for the benefit of himself and of the others to whom
he is the _centurion_. And while these various kinds of information are
given, the work incidentally contains a history of the department.
Loan holders, applicants for remuneration, and all who have any
connection or business with the treasury department, are instructed by
these volumes how to proceed—how they ought to proceed—and how others
have proceeded. Dr. Mayo has done a public service by preparing these
volumes. We hope the public will remember him and his work.
* * * * *
_The Women of the Bible; Delineated in a series of Sketches of
Prominent Females mentioned in Scripture. By Clergymen of the
United States. Illustrated by eighteen characteristic
engravings. Edited by the Rev. J. M. Wainwright, D. D. Phila:
Geo. S. Appleton, 164 Chestnut street._
This book is as remarkable for the felicity of its design as for the
beauty of its execution. The plates which adorn it are eighteen in
number, and they are among the best and most exquisite specimens of the
engraver’s art that it has ever been our good fortune to examine. The
articles have been written by clergymen of the United States,
distinguished for their talents, and eminent for their piety; and they
have truly rendered a meet offering for those to whom it is
appropriately dedicated, “thoughtful readers, men as well as women, the
one being interested equally with the other, in what constitutes the
character of mother, wife, daughter, sister.” As the inside of the book
is rich and attractive, so the skill and taste of the binder have made
its exterior truly magnificent. The style is new in this country, being
a rich, massive arabesque, and its execution reflects the highest credit
upon Mr. J. T. ALTEMUS, of this city, under whose
supervisory direction the work was accomplished.
* * * * *
_The Republic of the United States of America; Its Duties to
Itself, and its Responsible Relations to other Countries. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 1 vol. 12mo._
In this volume the author enters upon an elaborate defense of the
democratic party of the union, the administration of President Polk, and
the Mexican War. As a partisan production it may be considered able and
moderate. The writer, however, in his remarks on war in general, and the
Mexican war in particular, falls into some offensive cant of his own, in
attempting to upset some popular cant of another kind.
* * * * *
_Mrs. Sigourney’s Poems._
Carey & Hart have published, in one beautiful volume, uniform with their
editions of Longfellow, Bryant and Willis, the Poems of Lydia H.
Sigourney, a lady who has been long before the public as a writer, and
whose fine powers have ever been devoted to good objects. She richly
deserves the compliment of such an edition, and we have no doubt that
its success will be triumphant. The volume contains many poems which
have never before been included in a collection of her works, and many
which are now published for the first time. The illustrations by Darley
are the best, both in respect to design and execution, which have
appeared in Carey & Hart’s editions of the American poets. They all
exhibit Darley’s singular power of making the countenance physiognomical
of the mind, even of the most elusive qualities of thought and emotion,
and of bringing out character distinctly and decisively.
* * * * *
_Notes of a Military Reconnoisance of the Route to California
with the advanced Guard of the Army of the West, Commanded by
General S. W. Kearney. By W. H. Emory, U.S.A._