The English of the author is neither better nor worse than in his former novels. His language was always inflated, often bombastic. He personifies as desperately as ever. His allegories are as plentiful as Sancho Panza’s proverbs, or as an old maid’s ailings. The same straining after effect, the same attempts at fine writing which were such glaring defects in his former novels, are here perceptible. Through every line, the author looks out, eager, like Snug the joiner, to tell you he is there.
There are many fine thoughts, nevertheless, in these volumes; and, on the whole, the book is a valuable addition to our imaginative literature.
If we have dwelt longer on the faults than on the merits of “Zanoni,” it is because the latter are more apparent to the popular eye. We have dealt out, however, even-handed justice to the book, since the province of a critic is not that of the state advocate, who argues only on one side, but rather that of the judge who sums up the case, and of the jury who are sworn “a true verdict to give according to the evidence.” With this remark, we leave “Zanoni” to its fate.
The Poets and Poetry of America, with an Historical Introduction. By Rufus Willmot Griswold. One vol. Carey & Hart: Philadelphia.
This is the best collection of the American Poets that has yet been made, whether we consider its completeness, its size, or the judgment displayed in its selections. The volume is issued in a style commensurate with its literary worth. The paper, type and printing are unexceptionable. Messrs. Carey & Hart have, in “The Poets and Poetry of America,” published the finest volume of the season.
The editor begins his selections of American Poets with Frenau, prefacing them, however, with an historical introduction evincing considerable research. In this introduction he shows that, prior to the revolution, the pretenders to the muse in the colonies scarcely rose to the level of versifiers. From Frenau downwards, the chain is kept up to the youngest poet of the day. About eighty-eight authors are embraced in the body of the work. To the selections from each author is prefixed a short but clear biography. The editor has not always been guided, in making his selections, by the relative merit of the various authors, but, in cases where the writers have published editions of their poems, he has been less copious in his extracts, than when the poet has left his works to take care of themselves. Thus we have the whole of Dana’s “Buccanier,” of Whittier’s “Mogg Magone,” of Sprague’s “Curiosity,” and of Drake’s “Culprit Fay.” Most of C. Fenno Hoffman’s songs are also included in the collection. But Pierpoint’s “Airs of Palestine,” are excluded, as are the longer and best poems of Willis. At the end of the volume is an appendix, in which about fifty writers, whom the editor has not thought worthy of a place in the body of his book, figure under the name of “Various Authors.” Such is the plan of the work. A word, in detail, on its merits.
We have said that this volume is superior to any former collection of the American Poets, whether we regard its size, its completeness, or the taste displayed in the selections. This is our general opinion of the book. We do not, however, always coincide with the judgment of the editor. There are several writers in the Appendix who have as good claims to appear in the body of the work, as others who figure largely in the latter more honorable station. There are many mere versifiers included in the selection who should have been excluded, or else others who have been left out should have been admitted. Perhaps the author, without being aware of it himself, has unduly favored the writers of New England. Instances of all these faults will be noticed by the reader, and we need not further allude to them.
The editor has scarcely done justice to some of our younger poets, either in his estimate of their genius, or in his selections from their poems. A glaring instance of this is the case of Lowell, a young poet, to whom others than ourselves have assigned a genius of the highest rank. We would have been better pleased to have seen a more liberal notice of his poems. We know that, with the exception of “Rosaline,” better selections might have been made from his works. A few years hence, Mr. Griswold himself will be amazed that he assigned no more space to Lowell than to M’Lellan, Tuckerman, and others of “Οι Πολλοι.” Holmes is another instance of the injustice done an author by the editor’s selections. The author of “Old Ironsides” has written better poems than that, all about the old man, of whom
“My grandmamma has said—