"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 Poe is withdrawn from the titlepage, and his initials only affixed to the preface.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.">[
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.
Afterward Mr. Poe became personally acquainted with the author, and he then wrote, in his account of "The Literati of New-York City," as follows:
"The Confessions of a Poet made much noise in the literary world, and no little curiosity was excited in regard to its author, who was generally supposed to be John Neal…. The 'Confessions,' however, far surpassed any production of Mr. Neal's…. He has done nothing which, as a whole, is even respectable, and 'The Confessions' are quite remarkable for their artistic unity and perfection. But on higher regards they are to be commended. I do not think, indeed, that a better book of its kind has been written in America….Its scenes of passion are intensely wrought, its incidents are striking and original, its sentiments audacious and suggestive at least, if not at all times tenable. In a word, it is that rare thing, a fiction of power without rudeness."
I will adduce another example of the same kind. In a notice of the
"Democratic Review," for September, 1845, Mr. Poe remarks of Mr. William
A. Jones's paper on American Humor:
"There is only one really bad article in the number, and that is insufferable: nor do we think it the less a nuisance because it inflicts upon ourselves individually a passage of maudlin compliment about our bring a most 'ingenious critic' 'and prose poet,' with some other things of a similar kind. We thank for his good word no man who gives palpable evidence, in other cases than our own, of his incapacity to distinguish the false from the true—the right from the wrong. If we are an ingenious critic, or a prose poet, it is not because Mr. William Jones says so. The truth is that this essay on 'American Humor' is Contemptible both in a moral and literary sense—is the composition of an imitator and a quack—and disgraces the magazine in which it makes its appearance."—Broadway Journal, Vol. ii. No. 11.
In the following week he reconsidered this matter, opening his paper for a defense of Mr. Jones; but at the close of it said—