The North-American Review for the January quarter is one of the best issues of that ‘ancient and honorable’ Quarterly which we have encountered for many months. It contains eight extended reviews, five brief ‘Critical Notices,’ and the usual quarterly list of new publications. The first article is upon the ‘Poets and Poetry of America,’ a work ‘which has travelled through many States and four editions,’ and for the production of which Mr. Griswold is justly commended. In the progress of this paper, the writer indulges in a sort of running commentary upon the more conspicuous poets included in the compiler’s collection, as Bryant, Halleck, Sprague, Dana, Percival, Longfellow, Willis Gaylord Clark, Holmes, Whittier, etc., etc. Of Bryant the reviewer among other things remarks:
‘Mr. Griswold says finely of Bryant, that ‘he is the translator of the silent language of nature to the world.’ The serene beauty and thoughtful tenderness, which characterize his descriptions, or rather interpretations of outward objects, are paralleled only in Wordsworth. His poems are almost perfect of their kind. The fruits of meditation, rather than of passion or imagination, and rarely startling with an unexpected image or sudden outbreak of feeling, they are admirable specimens of what may be called the philosophy of the soul. They address the finer instincts of our nature with a voice so winning and gentle; they search out with such subtle power all in the heart which is true and good; that their influence, though quiet, is resistless. They have consecrated to many minds things which before it was painful to contemplate. Who can say that his feelings and fears respecting death have not received an insensible change, since reading the ‘Thanatopsis?’ Indeed, we think that Bryant’s poems are valuable, not only for their intrinsic excellence, but for the vast influence their wide circulation is calculated to exercise on national feelings and manners. It is impossible to read them without being morally benefitted. They purify as well as please. They develope or encourage all the elevated and thoughtful tendencies of the mind.’
We are glad to see the reproof which the reviewer bestows upon those critics of Longfellow’s poetry, who to escape the trouble of analysis, offer some smooth eulogium upon his ‘taste,’ or some lip-homage to his ‘artistical ability,’ instead of noting the tendency of his writings to touch the heroic strings in our nature, to breathe energy into the heart, to sustain our lagging purposes, and fix our thoughts on what is stable and eternal. The following is eminently just:
‘The great characteristic of Longfellow, that of addressing the moral nature through the imagination, of linking moral truth to intellectual beauty, is a far greater excellence. His artistical ability is admirable, because it is not seen. It is rather mental than mechanical. The best artist is he who accommodates his diction to his subject. In this sense, Longfellow is an artist. By learning ‘to labor and to wait,’ by steadily brooding over the chaos in which thought and emotion first appear to the mind, and giving shape and life to both, before uttering them in words, he has obtained a singular mastery over expression. By this we do not mean that he has a large command of language. No fallacy is greater than that which confounds fluency with expression. Washerwomen, and boys at debating clubs, often display more fluency than Webster; but his words are to theirs, as the roll of thunder to the patter of rain. Language often receives its significance and power from the person who uses it. Unless permeated by the higher faculties of the mind, unless it be not the clothing, but the ‘incarnation of thought,’ it is quite an humble power. There are some writers who repose undoubting confidence in words. If their minds be filled with the epithets of poetry, they fondly deem that they have clutched its essence. In a piece of inferior verse, we often observe a great array of expressions which have been employed with great effect by genius, but which seem to burn the fingers and disconcert the equanimity of the aspiring word-catcher who presses them into his service. Felicity, not fluency, of language is a merit.’
Exactly; yet these same ‘fluent’ versifiers are the persons who talk with elaborate flippancy of the ‘simple common-places’ of this noble poet! The reviewer adds: ‘Longfellow has a perfect command of that expression which results from restraining rather than cultivating fluency; and his manner is adapted to his theme. He rarely, if ever, mistakes ‘emotions for conceptions.’ His words are often pictures of his thought. He selects with great delicacy and precision the exact phrase which best expresses or suggests his idea. He colors his style with the skill of a painter. The warm flush and bright tints, as well as the most evanescent hues of language, he uses with admirable discretion. In that higher department of his art, that of so combining his words and images that they make music to the soul as well as to the ear, and convey not only his feelings and thoughts, but also the very tone and condition of the soul in which they have being, he likewise excels.’ The reviewer illustrates these remarks, by citing the ‘Psalms of Life,’ the ‘Saga of the Skeleton in Armor,’ ‘The Village Blacksmith,’ etc., which were written by Mr. Longfellow for the pages of this Magazine, and adds, that our poet indulges in no ‘wild struggles after an ineffable Something, for which earth can afford but imperfect symbols. He appears perfectly satisfied with his work. Like his own ‘Village Blacksmith,’ he retires every night with the feeling that something has been attempted, and something done.’ There is a subtle analysis of the style of that first of comic poets, Holmes, for which we shall endeavor to find space hereafter. Of the writings of the late lamented Willis Gaylord Clark, the reviewer remarks, that they ‘are all distinguished for a graceful and elegant diction, thoughts morally and poetically beautiful, and chaste and appropriate imagery. They exhibit much purity and strength of feeling, are replete with fancy and sentiment, and have often a searching pathos and a mournful beauty, which find their way quietly to the heart.’ The poetry of our friend and correspondent Whittier is warmly commended: ‘A common thought comes from his pen ‘rammed with life.’ He seems in some of his lyrics to pour out his blood with his lines. There is a rush of passion in his verse, which sweeps every thing along with it.’ The remaining references are to the lady-poets, Mesdames Brooks, Child, Sigourney, Smith, Welby, Hall, Ellet, Dinnie, Embury, Hooper, the Davidsons, etc. The whole article is well considered; and we cordially commend it to the attention of our readers. The remaining papers are upon Palfrey’s admirable ‘Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity,’ ‘Trade with the Hanse-Towns, the German Tariff-League;’ ‘Gervinus’s History of German Poetry;’ ‘Debts of the States,’ an excellent and most timely article;’ ‘Prescott’s History of Mexico;’ ‘Sam Slick in England;’ and a valuable dissertation on Libraries, based upon the catalogue of the library of Brown University.
Joseph C. Neal’s ‘Charcoal Sketches.’—Right glad are we to welcome from the teeming press of Messrs. Burgess and Stringer a new edition of these most humorous and witty sketches, illustrated with engravings by D. C. Johnston, of Boston. We have re-perused them with renewed delight, and awakened again the echoes of our silent sanctum, in the excess of our cachinnatory enjoyment. Our friend Morton M‘Michael, in the ‘advance Graham’ for February, (which by the way contains a breathing likeness of the sketcher,) has the following remarks upon the papers composing the volume before us, which we most cordially endorse: ‘No one, who has his faculties in a healthy condition, can read them and not feel convinced that they are the productions of a superior and highly gifted mind. They not only smack strongly of what all true men love, genuine humor; rich, racy, glorious humor; at which you may indulge in an honest outbreak of laughter, and not feel ashamed afterward because you have thrown away good mirth on a pitiful jest; but when you have laughed your fill, if you choose to look beneath the surface, which sparkles and bubbles with brilliant fancies, you will find an under current of truthful observation, abundant in matter for sober thought in your graver moments. In all of them, light and trifling as they seem, and pleasant as they unquestionably are, there is a deep and solemn moral. The follies and vices which, in weak natures, soon grow into crimes, are here presented in such a way as to forewarn those who are about to yield to temptation, not by dull monitions and unregarded homilies, but by making the actors themselves unconscious protestants against their own misdoings. And to do this well requires a combination of abilities such as few possess. There must be the quick eye to perceive, the nice judgment to discriminate, the active memory to retain, the vigorous pen to depict, and above all, the soul, the mind, the genius, call it what you will, to infuse into the whole life and spirit and power. Now, all these qualities Neal has in an eminent degree, and he applies them with the skill of an accomplished artist. What he does he does thoroughly, perfectly. His portraits, which he modestly calls sketches, are unmistakeable. The very men he wishes to portray are before you, and they are not only limned to the outward eye, but they speak also to the outward ear, and in sentences thickly clustered with the drollest conceits, they convey lessons of practical philosophy, and make revelations of the strange perversities of our inward nature, from which even the wise may gather profitable conclusions.’ Our friend speaks of Mr. Neal’s being ‘comparatively little known.’ We have good reason to believe that one great cause of this is, that his name has often been confounded with that of another and altogether different species of Neal, whose infinite twattle—infinite alike in degree and quantity—has prejudiced the public mind against any thing that may seem to come in ‘questionable shape’ from a questionable source. This error has had its advantages to one party, no doubt, since there was ‘every thing to gain and nothing to lose;’ an advantage however which the prefix of the first two initials of our friend and correspondent to passages from his work which may hereafter find their way into the newspapers, will transfer to the rightful recipient. But to the volume in question, from which we are about to make a few random selections, illustrating the characters of sundry ‘city worthies,’ who are ‘comprehended as vagrom men’ by the ‘charleys’ or watchmen of the good City of Brotherly Love. Let us begin with the soliloquy of the poetical Olympus Pump:
‘‘Genius never feels its oats until after sunset; twilight applies the spanner to the fire-plug of fancy to give its bubbling fountains way; and midnight lifts the sluices for the cataracts of the heart, and cries, ‘Pass on the water!’ Yes, and economically considered, night is this world’s Spanish cloak; for no matter how dilapidated or festooned one’s apparel may be, the loops and windows cannot be discovered, and we look as elegant and as beautiful as get out. Ah!’ continued Pump, as he gracefully reclined upon the stall, ‘it’s really astonishing how rich I am in the idea line to-night. But it’s no use. I’ve got no pencil—not even a piece of chalk to write ’em on my hat for my next poem. It’s a great pity ideas are so much of the soap-bubble order, that you can’t tie ’em up in a pocket handkerchief, like a half peck of potatoes, or string ’em on a stick like catfish. I often have the most beautiful notions scampering through my head with the grace, but alas! the swiftness too, of kittens, especially just before I get asleep; but they’re all lost for the want of a trap; an intellectual figgery four. I wish we could find out the way of sprinkling salt on their tails, and make ’em wait till we want to use ’em. Why can’t some of the meaner souls invent an idea-catcher for the use of genius? I’m sure they’d find it profitable, for I wouldn’t mind owing a man twenty dollars for one myself.’
Mr. Fydget Fyxington is another worthy, who reverts continually to ‘first principles,’ and is full of schemes and projects, especially when he chances to have ‘a stone in his hat.’ Hear him:
‘‘Nothin’s fixed no how; our grand-dads must a been lazy rascals. Why didn’t they roof over the side-walks, and not leave every thing for us to do? I ain’t got no numbrell, and besides that, when it comes down as if raining was no name for it, as it always does when I’m cotch’d out, numbrells is no great shakes if you’ve got one with you, and no shakes at all if it’s at home. It’s a pity we ain’t got feathers, so’s to grow our own jacket and trowsers, and do up the tailorin’ business, and make our own feather beds. It would be a great savin’; every man his own clothes, and every man his own feather bed. Now I’ve got a suggestion about that; first principles bring us to the skin; fortify that, and the matter’s done. How would it do to bile a big kittle full of tar, tallow, beeswax and injen rubber, with considerable wool, and dab the whole family once a week? The young’uns might be soused in it every Saturday night, and the nigger might fix the elderly folks with a whitewash brush. Then there wouldn’t be no bother a washing your clothes or yourself, which last is an invention of the doctor to make people sick, because it lets in the cold in winter and the heat in summer, when natur’ says shut up the porouses and keep ’em out. Besides, when the new invention was tore at the knees or wore at the elbows, just tell the nigger to put on the kittle and give you a dab, and you’re patched slick; and so that whole mobs of people mightn’t stick together like figs, a little sperrits of turpentine or litharage might be added to make ’em dry like a house-a-fire. ’Twould be nice for sojers. Stand ’em all of a row, and whitewash ’em blue or red, according to pattern, as if they were a fence. The gin’rals might look on to see if it was done according to Gunter; the cap’ins might flourish the brush, and the corpulars carry the bucket. Dandies could fix themselves all sorts of streaked and all sorts of colors. When the parterials is cheap and the making don’t cost nothing, that’s what I call economy, and coming as near as possible to first principles. It’s a better way, too, of keeping out the rain, than my t’other plan of flogging people when they’re young, to make their hides hard and water-proof. A good licking is a sound first principle for juveniles, but they’ve got a prejudice agin it.’
‘A pair of Slippers’ brings us acquainted with another original personage, who one dark night soliloquizes on this wise: