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

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


Скачать книгу
his poems, which he so pertinaciously asserted had been used by Mr. Longfellow in the production of his "Beleaguered City." Mr. Longfellow's poem was written two or three years before the first publication of that by Poe, and it was during a portion of this time in Poe's possession; but it was not printed, I believe, until a few weeks after the appearance of "The Haunted Palace." "It would be absurd," as Poe himself said many times, "to believe the similarity of these pieces entirely accidental." This was the first cause of all that malignant criticism which for so many years he carried on against Mr. Longfellow. In his "Marginalia" he borrowed largely, especially from Coleridge, and I have omitted in the republication of these papers, numerous paragraphs which were rather compiled than borrowed from one of the profoundest and wisest of our own scholars.8

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

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

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

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

      Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

      Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

      Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

      Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

      1

      This statement was first printed during Mr. Poe's lifetime, and its truth being questioned in some of the journals, the following certificate was published by a distinguished gentleman of Virginia:

      "I was one of several who witnessed this swimming feat. We accompanied Mr. Poe in boats. Messrs. Robert Stannard, John Lyle, (since dead) Robert Saunders, John Munford, I think, and one or two others, were also of the party. Mr. P. did not seem at all fatigued, and walked back to Richmond immediately after the feat—which was undertaken for a wager.

"ROBERT G. CABELL."

      2

      The writer of an eulogium upon the life and genius of Mr. Poe, in the Southern Literary Messenger

1

This statement was first printed during Mr. Poe's lifetime, and its truth being questioned in some of the journals, the following certificate was published by a distinguished gentleman of Virginia:

"I was one of several who witnessed this swimming feat. We accompanied Mr. Poe in boats. Messrs. Robert Stannard, John Lyle, (since dead) Robert Saunders, John Munford, I think, and one or two others, were also of the party. Mr. P. did not seem at all fatigued, and walked back to Richmond immediately after the feat—which was undertaken for a wager.

"ROBERT G. CABELL."

2

The writer of an eulogium upon the life and genius of Mr. Poe, in the Southern Literary Messenger, for March, 1850, thus refers to this point in his history:

"The story of the other side is different: and if true, throws a dark shade upon the quarrel, and a very ugly light upon Poe's character. We shall not insert it, because it is one of those relations, which we think, with Sir Thomas Browne, should never be recorded,—being 'verities whose truth we fear and heartily wish there were no truth therein … whose relations honest minds do deprecate. For of sins heteroclital, and such as want name or precedent, there is ofttimes a sin even in their history. We do desire no record of enormities: sins should he accounted new. They omit of their monstrosity as they fall from their rarity; for men count it venial to err with their forefathers, and foolishly conceive they divide a sin in its society…. In things of this nature, silence commendeth history: 'tis the veniable part of things lost; wherein there must never arise a Pancirollus, nor remain any register but that of hell.'"

3

THE NARRATIVE OF ARTHUR GORDON PYM, OF NANTUCKET; comprising the Details of a Mutiny and Atrocious Butchery on board the American Brig Grampus, on her way to the South Seas—with an account of the Re-capture of the Vessel by the Survivors; their Shipwreck, and subsequent Horrible Sufferings from Famine; their Deliverance by means of the British schooner Jane Gray; the brief Cruise of this latter Vessel in the Antarctic ocean; her Capture, and the Massacre of the Crew among a Group of Islands in the 84th parallel of southern latitude; together with the incredible Adventures and Discoveries still further South, to which that distressing calamity gave rise.—I vol. 12mo. pp. 198 New-York, Harper & Brothers, 1838.

4

The controversy is wittily described in the following extract from a Parisian journal, L'Entr*ficte, of the 20th of October, 1846:

"Un grand journal accusait l'autre jour M. Old-Nick d'avoir volé un orang-outang. Cet intéressant animal flânait dans le feuilleton de la Quotidienne, lorsque M. Old-Nick le vit, le trouvâ à son goût et s'en empara. Notre confrère avait sans doute besoin d'un groom. On sait que les Anglais ont depuis long-temps colonisé les orangs-outangs, et les ont instruits dans Part de porter bottes. Il paraitrait, toujours suivant le meme grand journal, que M. Old-Nick, après avoir derobé cet orang-outang à la Quotidienne, l'aurait ensuite cédé au Commerce, comme propriété à lui appartenant. Je sais que M. Old-Nick est un garçon plein d'esprit et plein d'honneur, assez riche de son propre fond pour ne pas s'approprier les orangs-outangs des autres; cette accusation me surprit. Aprés tout, me dis-je, il y a éu des monomanies plus extraodinaires que celle-là; le grand Bacon ne pouvait voir un bâton de cire à cacheter sans se l'approprier: dans une conférence avec M. de Metternich aux Tuileries, l'Empereur s'aperçut


Скачать книгу

<p>8</p>

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

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