Powhatan; a Metrical Romance, in Seven Cantos. By Seba Smith. New York: Harper and Brothers.
What few notices we have seen of this poem, speak of it as the production of Mrs. Seba Smith. To be sure, gentlemen may be behind the scenes, and know more about the matter than we do. They may have some private reason for understanding that black is white—some reason into which we, personally, are not initiated. But, to ordinary perception, “Powhatan” is the composition of Seba Smith, Esquire, of Jack Downing memory, and not of his wife. Seba Smith is the name upon the title-page; and the personal pronoun which supplies the place of this well-known prænomen and cognomen in the preface, is, we are constrained to say, of the masculine gender. “The author of Powhatan,”—thus, for example, runs a portion of the prolegomena—“does not presume to claim for his production the merit of good and genuine poetry, nor does he pretend to assign it a place in the classes or forms into which poetry is divided”—in all which, by the way, he is decidedly right. But can it be that no gentleman has read even so far as the Preface of the book? Can it be that the critics have had no curiosity to creep into the adyta—into the inner mysteries of this temple? If so, they are decidedly right too.
“Powhatan” is handsomely bound. Its printing is clear beyond comparison. Its paper is magnificent, and we undertake to say (for we have read it through with the greatest attention) that there is not a single typographical error in it, from one end to the other. Further than this, in the way of commendation, no man with both brains and conscience should proceed. In truth, a more absurdly flat affair—for flat is the only epithet which applies in this case—was never before paraded to the world, with so grotesque an air of bombast and assumption.
To give some idea of the tout ensemble of the book—we have first a Dedication to the “Young People of the United States,” in which Mr. Jack Downing lives, in “the hope that he may do some good in his day and generation, by adding something to the sources of rational enjoyment and mental culture.” Next, we have a Preface, occupying four pages, in which, quoting his publishers, the author tells us that poetry is a “very great bore, and won’t sell”—a thing which cannot be denied in certain cases, but which Mr. Downing denies in his own. “It may be true,” he says, “of endless masses of words, that are poured forth from the press, under the name of poetry”—but it is not true “of genuine poetry—of that which is worthy of the name”—in short, we presume he means to say it is not in the least little bit true of “Powhatan;” with regard to whose merits he wishes to be tried, not by the critics (we fear, in fact, that here it is the critics who will be tried), “but by the common taste of common readers”—all which ideas are common enough, to say no more.
We have next, a “Sketch of the Character of Powhatan,” which is exceedingly interesting and commendable, and which is taken from Burk’s “History of Virginia:"—four pages more. Then comes a Poem—four pages more—forty-eight lines—twelve lines to a page—in which all that we can understand, is something about the name of “Powhatan”
“Descending to a distant age,
Embodied forth on the deathless page”
of the author—that is to say, of Jack Downing, Esquire. We have now, one after the other, Cantos one, two, three, four, five, six, and seven—each subdivided into Parts, by means of Roman numerals—some of these Parts comprehending as many as six lines—upon the principle, we presume, of packing up precious commodities in small bundles. The volume then winds up with Notes, in proportion of three to one, as regards the amount of text, and taken, the most of them, from Burk’s Virginia, as before.
It is very difficult to keep one’s countenance when reviewing such a work as this; but we will do our best, for the truth’s sake, and put on as serious a face as the case will admit.