NEW PUBLICATIONS.
Ballads, Lyrics, and Hymns. By Alice Carey, 8vo., pp. 333. New York: Hurd Houghton. 1866.
Literature knows no sex, but critics do, and in courtesy we must say to Miss Carey, we think better of her than of her book; and while judging what is before us purely on its aesthetic merits, we incline to believe that the selections here compiled do not show her at her best. This book might just possibly [{573}] have been good, only it is not. It appears to consist of gatherings from the grist of a respectable and old-established mill, whose brand is familiarly known wherever mild magazines and sensation periodicals have penetrated. The most prominent quality it demonstrates is the tireless industry—or the well-oiled machinery—of the fair miller. The style throughout is just of the kind to be the first in a "Poet's Corner;" best characterized, perhaps, by the word "unexceptionable," as used by the domestic critic, if one there be, of Frank Leslie or the Ledger. Generally, there is nothing whenever to quarrel with—grammatically, socially, theologically, or practically. We should not be in the least surprised if Miss Carey's manuscripts even came in accurately punctuated. The whole book is like the perfection of a gentleman's toilet; every constituent part is so correctly "got up," that once out of sight, we cannot recall a single thing beyond the impression of the tout ensemble.
There is considerable thinking, without any notable novelties in thought. The fact is, no one who has not tried can appreciate the difficulty of finding something salient to fasten an opinion on. The main impression of the serious and heavy parts of the volume on our mind was that the authoress loved God, meant to be religious and tender-hearted, and thought the world cold and the sectarians narrow-minded: laudable conclusions all, which we rather agree with on the whole, but which do not show cause why they should exist in such splendid binding.
If this were all; if the book consisted utterly, as it does mainly, of versified unremarkableness, all were well enough. It would sell all the same, and descend in its due course to the limbo of respectable mediocrity, which cannot be damned because it never had a chance to be saved. But there are gleams amid the commonplace that make it, to our mind, one of the saddest books we ever opened—said with the unfulfilled promise of a busy yet wasted life. While there is not, we believe, a single true poem in her book, we do think Miss Carey might once have written poetry. There are traces of talent, like the abrasions on the high Alpine ridges where avalanches or glaciers went by them that are long since melted into the valley below, and gone to join the sea. We do not think Miss Carey ever had a very great supply of poetic power—never so much as Phoebe Carey, who has enough poetry in her to equip any ten of the other lady contributors whose versicles pay as well as hers; but what there was has been sapped and drained off as fast as it accumulated, in a thousand paltry rillets of verse that at most can only be silver threads in the passing sunshine. Had she ever been suffered to let her thoughts and fancies gather and mingle, perhaps she could have written well. She has not only considerable command of language, but some character: there has always been something respectable about Miss Carey that set her apart, somehow, from the other newspaper writers of miscellaneous verses, and to it she probably owes the present distinction of being the only one whose productions are thought worth making a book from. But the woman has never had a chance. As fast as an idea budded, it was contracted for in advance and plucked long before ripeness, for the greedy children that will have their green fruit. If a fancy strayed into her brain, it was not hers to do with as she liked. It must be carved and served up in as many different styles as possible; made into a long poem for one paper and a short poem for another, and dashed into a third as a flavoring ingredient for a string of hired rhymes. Now, is there not a strange pathos in the idea of making a life-long business of doing that ill which one might do well, and which is only worth existence when well done; of dribbling and frittering away every finer impulse; of chipping the heart's crystals up into glaziers' diamonds; of subsisting on oneself, Prometheus and vulture in one? And how infinitely sadder with the consciousness all the while that if one could but get a respite, this same work, wrought in freedom, might win all that hope asks?
Consciously or unconsciously, this, we believe, is the discipline through which Miss Carey has passed. We think so from the manner, and from the places, in which we come upon the fragments of promise that shine here and there. They are often repeated in other lines—sometimes verbatim; they are not the substance but always the sauce of the poem; they are never sustained or developed. Everything goes to show that she has reached that fatal state of enervation when the mind, from long desuetude, [{574}] and from never having a fair chance to think out anything, he comes next to incapable of any continued political thought at all. The exertion of developing a happy idea into its best form is too much for the unused and enfeebled imagination.
So much for the conjectural inside view of these verses, the actual outside view remains. Whether it be a sad fact or simply a fact, there is nothing to read twice in the book. It is not poetry, but it is a piece of very good judgment on the part of the publisher—just what they want. And if we understand their motives, we shall earn their good will by saying that this is a safe, trustworthy, and entirely harmless work, innocuous to families and schools, superbly bound, finished, and printed, and fit, beyond almost any work we know of, for a present from very affectionate young men to very amiable young ladies.
BEETHOVEN'S LETTERS. (1790-1836.) From the collection of Dr. Ludwig Nohl; also his Letters to the Archduke Rudolph, Cardinal-Archbishop of Olmutz, from the collection of Dr. Ludwig Ritter von Kochel. Translated by Lady Wallace; with a portrait and facsimile. 2 vols., 12mo. Hurd & Houghton.
These letters of the illustrious maestro are arranged under three heads: Life's Joy a and Sorrows, Life's Mission, Life's Troubles and Close. They are of quite a miscellaneous character, and refer to every conceivable event of life, displaying much good humor and not a little ill humor in their short, quick, impatient sentences. As a letter-writer he is far inferior to Mozart, with whom the reader comes at once into sympathy, and of whose letters very few indeed are wanting in sentiments of universal interest. On the contrary, a very large number of these letters of Beethoven will be read simply because Beethoven wrote them, and will not bear a reperusal Yet they will, no doubt, find a welcome place beside those of his great brother artist on the table of every admirer of the grand music or these two grand geniuses. His enthusiastic, and we may add, somewhat imaginative editor and compiler, Dr. Nohl, is perhaps better qualified to form a judgment upon the general tenor and worth of these letters than we are, and we therefore quote the following from his preface to the present work: "If not fettered by petty feelings, the reader will quickly surmount the casual obstacles and stumbling-blocks which the first perusal of these letters may seem to present, and quickly feel himself transported at a single stride into a stream where a strange roaring and rushing is heard, but above which loftier tones resound with magic and exciting power. For a acute year life breathes in these lines; and under-current runs through their apparently unconnected import, uniting them as with and electric chain, and with firmer links than any mere coherence of subjects could have effected. I experienced this myself to the most remarkable degree when I first made the attempt to arrange, in accordance with their period and substance, the hundreds of individual pages bearing neither date nor address, and I was soon convinced that a connected text (such as Mozart's letters have, and ought to have) would be here entirely superfluous, as even the best biographical commentary would be very dry work, interrupting the electric current of the whole, and thus destroying its peculiar effect."