University of Virginia Library

EDWARD MOLTON TO GEORGE STAFFORD.

You have taken my breath away, dear Stafford! what
a storm of interrogatories! would you carry me, and all
my faculties, at once, by a coup de main? However, let
me answer you, briefly, if I can, as many, as I can.

And first, I thank you, heartily for your letter. Short
as it is, it was very welcome to me; and I am already
looking with impatience for another. Several of mine
are on the way; and one, in particular, of four or five
sheets, in which you will find all your queries about
painting anticipated.

And first for Byron. If I remember right, I spoke to
you only of his Don Juan. You cannot agree with me.
I am sorry for it, for I feel convinced that I am right—

right, I mean, in my opinion, although I may have failed
in expressing it. Once more, therefore, let me place my
thought before you, respecting him; and, particularly,
respecting his Don Juan; for, of that only, I spoke before;
and I should like to bring you over to my doctrine.

Byron is a compound, you know, of contrarieties.—
The elements of which he is fashioned, are forever at
war. The very thoughts of his heart hold no affinity
with each other. They can never assimilate, happen
what will. We might believe him deranged—but, if he
be, it is a moral derangement, not an intellectual one.

He has just dashed into the region of tragedy, not
with pinions of fire, but in a chariot, of old fashioned
Corinthian brass, that rumbles along, through the skies,
like the Lord Mayor's coach on a gala-day—over the
rough pavement of London. Yet is there the same surly,
dark, bitter and unpropitiating character, throughout
all that he has written, except in his Don Juan. But
that!—O, the blood starts and thrills, when it is named,
as if, barefooted, one had trodden upon a nest of
matted flowers—full of coiled serpents. There is such
a wicked, wanton levity,—such a flippant blasphemy,
and all that, in Don Juan.

Such at least, your reviewers, dear Stafford, declare
to be the sum and substance of the poem. And, with so
much distempered eloquence and beautiful invective, hath
it been assailed, that, when a plain matter-of-fact man,
in his sober senses, takes it up, he is amazed to find how
little there is of profligacy or irreligion in it.

But, the ball once struck, must be kept up, though it
fire the heavens. And to denounce, with all the thunder
and lightning of genius, the poem of Don Juan, has become
a matter so fashionable of late, that it is really
somewhat ridiculous, when one looks at the real importance
of the thing. It is all—wind and fire—ocean and
tempest—confederating

It was a sort of prize question, like the death of Napoleon,
given out to the four corners of the earth, by
the sound of trumpet; a question upon which it seemed
impossible to be extravagant; and therefore, all the ambitious

spirits of the age have been out; and the noise of
their contention hath been very terrible—very—dear
Stafford!

There was a young and passionate writer in Blackwood's
Magazine, whose eloquence is so burning and
brilliant, that, touch what subject he will, the alloy and
earthiness drop away; and a beautiful vapour arises, by
a sort of intellectual alchymy, which blinds and dazzles
us to the operation, by its miraculous colouring:—a writer,
who can be traced, like the serpent of a flower garden,
through all his involutions, by the changeable glitter and
fascination that follow him;—or by the coloured vapour
that hovers over the spot, where he has hidden himself:—
and it happened that he, in the mere wantonness of power,
like Rousseau, when he battled against civilization,
bethought himself of abusing Byron, under the name of
Don Juan. He threw himself upon the poem, with much
the same spirit, and with much the same terrour and
splendour of aspect too, that we might look for, in a young
Leopard, who had leaped, by mistake, upon a creature
like himself.

But he acquitted himself nobly. It was impossible to
read the denunciation of Don Juan, without quailing.—
If you had never read the poem, you would have thought,
after reading the criticism, that, since the earth was created,
there never had been so perilous, wily, and beautiful a
devil, among its flowers and perfume. You would have
trembled, from head to foot; and, perhaps, have proscribed
the poem, as something charged with pestilence and
death, to all that was tender, delicate or holy in religion,
affection, or morality. The game was well run, in your
country; and some of our staunchest huntsmen are out
upon the track, in America, at this moment. But it won't
do. Their intentions are good, I have no doubt—but
they have acted unadvisedly. The harmless pleasantry;
the licentiousness and imbecility of Don Juan, have been
made too terrible by it. The poem has become so notorious
and popular, that—I am half inclined to suspect a
conspiracy between the reviewers and the publishers, and
perhaps Lord Byron himself;—for nothing could be more
profitable than such abuse.

The poem has been abundantly over-rated. There are
parts in it, which Byron says, are so “very fine” that he
does not pretend to understand them, himself. The
greater part is the mere ribaldry of conversation. Yet
it has, altogether, been denounced, as the most dangerous,
wonderful, and profligate poetry that was ever written.
Ridiculous!—Its power does not often appear; but, when
it does, there is a colour and a light about it, that cannot
be forgotten. Its beauty too, is, now and then, bewitching,
simple and sweet. Take this example—Haidee,
Juan's loved one, dies, broken hearted—and is buried—with
vitality—the vitality of love and passion, at
her heart. Ah, it is unparalleled, for that devout tenderness—that
bleeding of the torn bosom—over branch
and bough, fruit and blossom—which all people must
feel.

But these melancholy, tender and mournful touches
are not of frequent occurrence.

And as to its dangerous tendency; there has been too
much fuss made about that already. We read Shakspeare,
Cervantes, Fielding, Smollet, Gibbon and Hume,
and Rousseau. Why do we not rend and scatter their
leaves—and reprobate them, as fiercely, for their brutal
licentiousness, passionate eloquence, or infidel scoffing?
For my part, I have no such apprehension concerning
the influence of Don Juan. By permitting it to be read;
or, at least, by not making any particular fuss about it,
you will permit it to die a natural death. Prohibit the
cup; and, though it were known to be drugged with delirium,
you excite a burning thirst, which will be slaked
at the peril of perdition. Would you prevent a child
from drinking wine? do not worry him, eternally, with
interdiction. If you do, you only excite a curiosity to
understand the reason of all your alarm; you only

provoke him to say that there must be, after all,
some secret pleasure, to counterbalance the nausea
that he feels, while his taste is unperverted; and, therefore,
he persists, even to intoxication, that he may know
the truth. So with Don Juan. By interdicting it continually,
you have made it familiar to the thought of
your women. But why interdict it at all? Are you afraid
of your daughters and wives? What! have you so little
confidence in the virtue and discretion of your dear ones!
Depend upon it, that the woman, who could be corrupted
by reading Don Juan, could never be prevented from
reading it; or from doing worse, on a fitting opportunity,
by any care of yours; and that she would not be worth
the trouble of your guardianship. I know women well,
much better it may be, than these very men, who affect
so to venerate them, that they dare not permit a taint of
impurity to approach them. I have a higher opinion
too, of their virtue. I am willing to expose them—and
confident of their resistance. They are not. I, for my
part, have learnt that, that is not virtue, which has not
been tempted; and that many a fallen woman is more
pure—because she has withstood more temptation, than
many, who are yet upright.

No—If the people who understand the matter, will let
the poison alone, its fiery and dissolving, and corrosive
properties will be forgotten. They will be neutralized,
by the air and dew of heaven. Let Don Juan alone—
and my life on it, that it is forgotten in another twelve
month.

One word more of Byron, however, while I am
in the humour. This downfall is near, and he knows it.
Every thing that he has done of late, has been one desperate
attempt, after another to regain, his old ascendency.
His defence of Pope is impertinent and ridiculous. His
war with Southey is contemptible. His speculations about
the unities are presmptious and insulting. We know
that he disdains them. What else he may do, in his infatuation,
it is impossible to predict; but, nothing that
he can do, will astonish me, though he should become a
wandering Arab; a paltry Gazetteer; or even a clamourous
demagogue. All these last vehement aberrations of

his, are only the final struggles, of a dethroned Archangel,
whose magnificent wings have borne him, too high
above their natural element, into an atmosphere, too pure
for him to fly in; and a world, too confounding for his
contemplation. They that inhabit there, have struck
him to the heart. Already, is he reeling in his descent;
and the bright confusion that we see now and then, in
our glimpses of him, amid the darkness where he lost
himself, in his blind and wayward journeying, above the
stars, is but the convulsive discharges of a mind, that
God hath nearly extinguished; forced into uncommon
brightness, by violent and unexpected concussion, with
the invisible and inconceivable.

It is emphatically the meteorology of that man's mind,
which we are made to study; sun-shine and storm—hurricane
and lightning—the phenomena of a heart, made
up of all the elements that have no affinity to each other
—all the materials of decay; and all the principles of immortality—earth
and fire.

Weary of walking on the earth, and flying in the same
heaven with other men, he has sought to burrow in the
one, and to get above the other.

My belief is, that Byron's whole aim is, to be thought
more wicked than he is. The world have consented to
humour him. They have agreed to believe that he hath
a devil. Alas, they are mistaken. A devil, at heart,
would be firmer in purpose. Devils are less wavering.
And, spite of all opinion to the contrary, I maintain that
Byron is a much better man, husband, and father; and a
much weaker one, too, than the world believe. He has
none of that iron constancy of nature; that impenetrability
of soul, which a great scoundrel must have. He
knows this; and, therefore, he affects to be a misanthrope;
a scoffer; and a tyrant. Pho---pho—Lord George
Gordon Byron would be a very pleasant sort of a fellow,
if he had not been born with a club foot. I am altogether
in earnest. It is that, which has made him what
he is. A deformed man must be better than other men;
or he must become vindictive, testy, suspicious and melancholy.
He cannot enjoy a thousand pleasures, which
are common to them; and, for that very reason, he persuades

himself that they are far more delightful than they
are. He cannot dance, or walk, or ride, or fence—or
appear in places of amusement, except as a sort of qualified
spectacle. Ambition has no charms for him—or,
at least, none but an evil ambition has. And why? Ask
yourself, my dear Stafford, what is the aim, the ultimate
and final aim of all ambition. Is it not—reflect a moment,
before you reply;—is it not the love of woman?—
Can there be an exception—was there ever an exception
—think you—where the ambitious man was capable of
enjoying her love? Charles of Sweden, and Frederick
of Prussia are apt illustrations. How, then, is a deformed
man to be ambitious? Not, surely, as other men
are; for, though he should be loved, he cannot but distrust
the sincerity of that love. To him, it will either be feigned,
or mistaken; he will call it appetite or infatuation.
He would not dare to be happy, lest he should perpetuate
his deformity. Stafford—Stafford—were you a deformed
man, would you hazard the begetting of monsters? I
feel what I say; and I conscientiously believe that a deformed
man must be radically a better man, and constitutionally
a kinder man, if he be sociable and amiable to
any degree, than any tolerably well fashioned man.
What has been the affectation of Byron? Has it not
been, continually, as it always will be, with men of perverted
power, and distempered bearts, to depreciate
whatever is unattainable to him? Are not all his women
—what they ought not to be?—and, is not this, perfectly
reconcileable to my supposition?

But what will be his reputation, with posterity?
Which of his multitudinous works will survive? I do
believe that I can tell. His tragedies are contemptible.
His poems are fine mataphysical prose—compounded of
magnificent, but not splendid, and puerile thought. They
are never great, nor simple. But his Cain; Manfred;
and the Ode to Napoleon will outlive all else that he
has written. They are imprinted all over, with the
imperishable features of strength and beauty. They
will remain, till men shall seek to comprehend, as men
now rake among the pyramids, for the vestiges of an
ancient world—the nature of that man's mind, which,

in our time, sought for immortality, where, to have obtained
it, would have damned him; the disposition of a man
who sought to hide himself among the constellations of
heaven; and then fell, headlong, from his elevation—
and was buried, after all, in only a more celestial kind
of earth, than other men are content to be buried in; but
an earth, nevertheless, that, to his notion, was impregnant
with oil and odour, and gave out continual exhalations
of light, and mystery or beauty:—of a man, in short,
whose grave shall be a place of subterranean musick,
forever and ever.

“Have we any great men?” you ask. Alas, many.
They are plentiful “as blackberries,” and, about as valuable.
Every ten miles square has its Solon or Lycurgus;
its Cicero and Demosthenes. Every town is fruitful,
in the greatest men of the age—of men, who, had
they been born in Greece, or Rome, or Great Britain,
would have held the nations of the earth in thraldom.
So you might believe, if you would trust to our Biographies,
and political writings. And yet, we have a few,
a very few, even in these, our days of degeneracy, who
would have done some honour to the Roman and Greek
republicanism, when it was most awful, most simple,
and most unrelenting. We have men, that are stern as
death. The last age of course, being an age of revolution,
abounded more in the mighty. There were the
writers of the Federalist, of whom you speak. They
were good men, and true. Lately, we have contented
ourselves, with talking about what they did. Our great
men are content with reviewing the works of the great
men that lived then. Thus, Mr. Robert Walsh, who has
been persuaded into a notion that he is one of the former,
had the presumption, some years ago, to review the Federalist.
It was rather an unlucky adventure for him.
He praised parts, for discoveries, that were known, from
the time of Aristotle's politicks; and spoke lightly enough,
or not at all, of other parts, which really were great discoveries
in legislation. In short, he wrote a review of
a work, the scope and greatness of which, he could not
comprehend, unless he were to begin his whole reading
again. But the people swallowed it; to their notion, it

was about the finest thing in the world; when, in reality,
it is an elaborate, tedious, timid piece of composition,
without one stroke of the lawyer, the statesman, or the
politician in it.

But, while I am upon Mr. Walsh, let me give you
some notion of him, as in your country he has been (when
he deserved it less,) mistaken for a great man.

Mr. Walsh is a man of no genius; if, by genius,
we are to understand any inherent, peculiar activity,
brilliancy, originality, or disposition of the mind. But,
he is a man of plain good sense; some intellectual hardihood,
but not much; and respectable acquirements.—
He is rather below the middle size; with a countenance,
that indicates a cold, watchful, inquiring disposition,
united with a little self distrust, and too much
anxiety about the good opinion of other men. He is destitute
of originality; and has nothing, absolutely nothing,
of that quick, intuitive perception of the beautiful and
natural, which is the distinguishing property of genius.
Consequently, his opinion, not being a natural judgment,
is not to be depended upon. No man on earth is more
firmly persuaded of his own independent temper, and
freedom from prejudice, than this gentleman;—and
yet, it is well understood by them that know him, that
no man is more obedient to authority—or more a slave
to it:—that under a great name, almost any thing would
pass, with him—and that, under no name at all, or an
humble one, nothing,---except it were a matter of profit,
or to conciliate the publick. By this, I mean, for example
that Mr Walsh is too distrustful of himself; and is,
in reality, so incapable of judging, except, by laborious
comparison, which keeps him under a continual fear of
imposition, that he would never dare, unless driven to it,
by the publick sentiment, to be the herald of any unknown
genius.

He obtained a reputation too suddenly; and he could
not sustain it. But, he lost it, too suddenly—and will,
probably, recover a portion of it back again. He is far
from being a great man; but, I do believe that he is an
able one—about a third rater—and that, if he would get
a little the better of his oracular arrogance—and stately

nothingness—that profoundly classical air, which he
carries forever about him—discharge his heart of its
hoarded bitterness—forgive the world, for having turned
his head; and for not keeping it turned, by main force;
become a little more magnanimous; and, a little less
unhappy and suspicious; a little more original and bold;
and conceal his alarm, when he is properly arraigned,
—I do almost believe that he might do something decent,
to be remembered by. But, let me tell the whole
truth of the man. He went aloft, too fast and too far,
at first; and then, of course, he came down, too fast and
too far. He wants that high-minded intellectual courage,
which delights in breathing above the rest of men
—and braving a stormy atmosphere; he dare not be the
first man to pronounce any opinion—and, usually, contrives
to be a little behind the sentiment of the publick;
taking care to fortify and entrench himself, at every step,
against any change in their opinion, by a cautious,
cold, qualifying, and stately phraseology, in which he
never commits himself. He affects to superintend the
wilderness of American literature; yet, no man, in America,
is worse fitted for the business. He wants a natural
relish---and the natural power, for exploring the
beautiful labyrinth; disentangling the wild, flowering
luxuriance; or laying open the abundant waters; and
hidden, solitary greenness of a great world, to the eye.
He wants courage and honesty. Like the writers of the
North American Review, he is destitute of feeling; and
all his enthusiasm is artificial; he has no heart, and dare
not hazard a downright opinion, either pro or con, until
he have secured a party, to support him through it, or
to participate in the ridicule, if the publick should set him
at naught. A pretty example occurs to me, just at this
moment. Mr Walsh had the audacity, when Moore's
Loves of the Angels appeared, to treat it as a mawkish,
common-place, sensual piece of work—and the North
American, in its usual tone, contrived to talk about it,
in a general way. And yet, there doesn't live the man,
who has any natural relish for poetry, that sap o' the
heart, which, in the sunshine and light of the world,
sets it a flowering all over---who can read it, without
a continual thrill, of quiet, deep thankfulness. Most of
it is pure poetry—a part, sublime—and, all through it,
are spots of insupportable brightness and beauty. But,
to return again, for a moment, to Mr. Walsh.

He is but just beginning to find, after many revolutions,
a proper level. He thinks clearly; reasons with
great force, at times; and, were he not a little too much
addicted to Edmund Burke, whose passion and power he
is really unable to appreciate; but whom he has sometimes
imitated, very unadvisedly, and awkwardly, I
think,—he would be passably eloquent. Nay, I can
point to passages that are full of energy, boldness, and
breadth; and he has uttered, in the course of a long political
career, two or three burning and bitter sarcasms,
which will, probably, outlast all else, that he has ever
written. As a critick, I think humbly of him, where
plain good sense, or fine taste is required.

In the matter of poetry, for example, he is utterly incompetent
to decide. He has no feeling, no conception
of it. God has left that element out of his heart. And
education has only made him worse. Any tolerable
rhymer might impose upon him—(were it not for his
reading; for he appears to be quite familiar with the
old British poets, rather as a matter of education, like
geometry, than anything else.—) almost anything, for
the labour of Milton, or Dryden, and a few other such
men. If he detected the counterfeit, it would not be by
any revolting of the heart; any indignant, wrathful,
movement of his blood; or outraged sensibility—but, by
his memory. Enough for him, if it were written by them,
to consecrate the basest trash; and enough, if it were not,
to make him wonder at the absurdity of one, who should
think of attempting poetry, after such men! Robert
Walsh has no notion of the fact;—and, if he were told of
it—it would startle him, as if a thunderbolt had exploded
at his feet—that the very newspaper poets of the nineteenth
century, often betray more of the richness, raciness,
sweetness and majesty; strength and simplicity;
nay, of all that constitutes poetry, than all the ancient
British Classicks together. Yet, it is true—and if the man
had any heart, he would feel it; and, perhaps, for I think

that he has the worldly wisdom to do so, for his own
profit—he would then tell the world of it.

Mr. Walsh ought to confine himself to serious, substantial
essays; to discharge his heart of all political rancour;
and go about some such work as the history of
America; like a man that would build for himself, something
more permanent than a newspaper fame, which
the first wind may scatter, and the first rain dissolve.

He ought never to touch the gentle and more spiritual
plants of literature, that issue from the air—without deriving
any nourishment from the earth—or gush, like
coloured water, spontaneously, from the over-heated
earth, trembling in the wind, and flowering all over.—
Yet he does touch them—he does—and they wither when
he does—and, tremble, as if endued with vitality and
sensation—or shrink, as with a palsy—contracting and
shivering, as at the approach of something unnatural
and hateful.” Thus, it is not long since, that he
had the presumption to fall upon Washington Irving (him,
that you so love, notwithstanding his sickly and delicate
affectation,) in the way of criticism. But Mr. Walsh
had better let him alone. He was not the man to
detect the weak and sore places about the heart of Irving;
and he could no more understand the delicacy and
sensitiveness of such a nature, than Irving could, the
gigantick control of a statesman—sitting unconcerned,
between the past and the future—and regulating the
operations of the present, with the steadiness of aDeity.

Let me give you an example. I remember one, where
Mr. Irving, in one of his happiest humours, when the
thought seemed to flow out of his heart, as from a fountain,
with a sweet, mournful and sorrowing musick—
something imaginary and spiritual—with here and there
a faint flourish of cheerfulness;—was telling something
about an old family mansion, where the heaviness
and grandeur of other times, were perpetually intruded
upon, by the pert and flippant innovations of the present.
There was something of family pride, and patrician jealousy,
to be seen in the very furniture. And the older
chairs, said Mr. Irving, were all standing haughtily together,
and aloof from the modern ones—as if they associated

to rebuke and discountenance all further plebeian
encroachment. The thought was well-turned and natural
—and I wish that I could remember the words; for I see
that I have spoilt it. Yet, Mr. Walsh dared to treat it
as a conceit. Nor was this all; he went through one of
the Sketch Books, with the same ignorant audacity; and
laid the iron hand of criticism, upon every beautiful and
innocent thought there—crushing, with a spiteful emphasis,
whatever appeared most timid and delicate. It
was barbarous. I have never forgiven him. There were
parts enough about Mr. Irving, accessible to one that understood
him—parts, that were diseased, and that required
a stern and healthful application; but Mr. Walsh was
not the man—even if the medicine were put into his
hand, to drug a spirit like Irving. They could never
touch—never approach, without a mutual jarring of antipathy.
As well might the men that—
amuse themselves with nursing geraniumsa;—or, attempt
to battle with shadows; and minister, with the
dagger and chalice in their hand, “to a mind diseased.”

Mr. Irving is no poet—Mr. Walsh is no poet. But the
former has a natural relish for poetry; and the latter has
no relish at all, either natural or acquired. Both affect a
poetical feeling:—but it is less ridiculous in the former,
because there is, with all his sentimentality and squeamishness,
and melancholy, a holy, quiet and sweet spirit,
forever haunting the lonely avenues to his brain.—
And no man writes so happily, so touchingly, so naturally,
when his spiritualizing refinement gives way for a
moment. And then his humour—how captivating it is!
You are delighted; and you have no trouble in communicating
your delight. You have no argument, no reasoning
to waste—you have only to point to the page, and
the thing is done. Observe—I do not speak of his BRACE
BRIDGE HALL—that, you are to answer for. It is a disgrace
to Irving; and a disgrace to his countrymen.—
It is altogether English.

Such is the character of Mr. Irving; such that of Mr.
Walsh. It is perfectly ridiculous for the latter to talk
of poetry, or sentiment. They are something, of which
he has not, and never had the faintest conception. Nor
is it necessary that he should have. He will get along
the faster in this world; and die a wiser and richer man,
than if he had. A relish for poetry never helped to
make any man truly great. It may make him interesting,
or ridiculous—but nothing more. And when Mr.
Walsh laid his hand, with the best disposition in the
world, I dare say, to nurse them, upon the violets that
Irving had tufted the green earth with, about his dwelling—and
crushed them—had that hand been stung to
death, he would have deserved it, for his blundering—
but he hath left some blood upon the flowers—and carried,
away, what he is yet ignorant of—a perfume, that is not
natural to him.

I hardly know what to say of our other writers. They
are numerous enough; and, oftentimes, well characterized.
But our taste is bad. Our literature is corrupt and
eprverted; one class of our writers are all of the sleepy,
milk and water-school of Addison; another, intemperate
and florid. They never change characters—never. No
matter what may be the theme, their language is the
same. They go—the former, to a fire as to a funeral;
and the latter, to a funeral as to a fire. One is never
on stilts; the other, always. As a people, we are too fond
of the unnaturally smooth, continued and entangled
sentence. Nothing else is classical with us. No matter
how abrupt and hazardous the thought is, in its nakedness,
it is not the etiquette of our school, to reveal it
boldly;—and, when you should be able to pursue the
meaning, as vividly, as a creature wrought upon tapestry,
you find it so warped and webbed into it, with
such perpetual involution, departure and entanglement,
that is impossible to follow it; and you throw the work
by, as you would a web of different coloured yarns,
where all was beautiful, and brilliant, and unmeaning.
It were easy to give you a specimen of the higher style
among us—it is not a little like what you may see every
day, in the labour of men, who have been drilled after artificial

models;—and, if you turn to your Edinburgh Review,
you will, now and then, find the happiest illustration.
It is a work of great influence here; and, though
I defy you to point out a page of English, in the last two
volumes,—unpolluted with jargon, barbarism, or provincialism,
yet it is one of our standards.

Some are men, like Dr. Johnson, who never know
what to do with a big word, or when to let it go.—They
crowd epithet upon epithet, until their style is a sort of
dislocated blank verse. One distinct blow will leave a
distinct impression. Many blows will leave none at all.
One seal, though it be a feeble one, set fairly, will leave
an impression; where many, that are more beautiful, put
one upon the other, will leave none. In reading, one
emphatick word, properly applied, may electrify you:—
many have no effect at all. So, one powerful thought,
though it be not the very best in the world, will be remembered
forever, when judiciously applied, where many
that are better, if crowded together, will be forgotten,
as soon as heard. The attention is distracted; the faculties
chafed and irritated, by the multiplication of good
words; and the immeasurable length of what are called
classical sentences. Do men talk so, in conversation?
Do they even declaim, or think so? No. Then why do
they write so? Should not their writing be a transcript
of their thought? One would think, sometimes, that the
words which they use, had been stumbled upon, and that
they, fearful of not finding them again, when they should
want them, had huddled them all in together-to make sure
of them: or, that they were willing to become familiar
with them by use—no matter when or where—as people
rehearse, very unseasonably, at times, what they hope to
practise, on some other occasion, impromptu:—or, that
they were lecturing on tautology.

Such writers, if they had a dozen seals, would never
be satisfied with giving you the impression of any one of
them, upon a letter. No! they would stamp the whole
set, one upon the other.

It were as rational, to hope, by writing again and
again, over what is already written, in different coloured
ink, (which is admitting that the words are not synon

imous) in the hope of rendering you thought more distinct?

But, so it is; and there are men among us, who seem
to have a constitutional dread of coming to the point—
and some of them pass for orators.—They approach a
subject as if it were a wild beast, by going round and
round it; and there is one man,[1] a smooth, gentlemanly,
agreeable speaker, to all the world, among whose qualifications,
beside that of never ending a sentence, never!
---is that of never touching his subject, but as if it were
a globe—and all the extremities of his fingers were globular
too; of course they cannot touch but in one point,
and that, he seems to avoid, with a mortal dislike:---and,
sometimes, when I have known him to blunder, with the
most innocent countenance in the world, upon it---I have
seen him thrown back, as if electrified.---Yet, he always
keeps on, with the same quiet manner, as if nothing in
the world had happened.--Nay, if he ran against a line of
battle-ship, or an island, while he was playing about in his
painted cock-boat;---and were sent to the bottom, he
would be the last to suspect it himself---or, as soon as
he could get his breath, he would, probably, be the first
man to condole with both, for their shipwreck!

I think that I may give you an illustration of his manner,
and that of some of our writers, at the same time.--
“If one might be permitted, under any circumstances
whatever, to think that a transaction so notorious, had
been perpetrated as it was, I should be inclined to say,
quite positively, if I am not mistaken, and do rightly
understand the subject, which I must confess is a very
difficult one, as I have, on more than one occasion said,
with considerable emphasis to the gentlemen of this society,
for which, if I am wrong, I humbly submit myself
to the reproof of the chair, which has been so long filled
with a dignity and courtesy, that, if I may be allowed
to express my opinion—for there is nothing, which I
more heartily depise, than adulation, I should say, in
short sir—it is my opinion that—if the subject were rightly
considered, it would be found very difficult, very difficult
indeed.”

You smile—my dear friend. But there is more than
one man in America, who writes and talks such deliberate
smooth nonsense as that—and that too, without the
slightest suspicion, in his own mind, or that of a hearer,
that he is paddling about and about the subject. But
he talks on—like your parliamentary speakers, permitting
no pause or break in the sound; and knowing that
there is no memory to follow him; and that the note-takers
will make English of it, at their leisure—and imagine
a meaning, if it be possible; or, if that cannot be,
make an apology, and totally omit it; or add that the
articulation of the gentleman was so timid and faint, or
so rapid and vehement; or, that they were carried away
by his eloquence, so confounded by the noise that followit,
that, “they” have done him great injustice--injustice!
--the cruellest thing, that they could do, would be to do him
justice.

You speak of Mr. Trumbull.—There is, to be sure, a
great deal of humour and drollery about him; but he is
no poet. Yet we have poets—poets, of every character
and degree; and more than one that, if he were in your
country, would be placed in the first rank. There is a
young man, (whose name I know not) at New-York,
who has just been amusing us with a tissue of wit, whim
and poetry, that show him to have within him, powers
of the most varied and attractive character. Nay, some
of his lines would make your blood thrill—and there
are passages in his Fanny, (a poem written in imitation
of Don Juan) that Lord Byron, himself, could not
read, without a flutter of pride at the heart. The worst
fault of our poets, is, that they will borrow and imitate.—
This I cannot endure. Yet all of them are guilty of it—
all—I cannot except one. Some affect originality too,
to such an excess, that you are kept aching eternally after
the thought. Such men would not do the commonest
thing in a common way.—There is the author of Niagara,
for example-the chief notion that he has of greatness,
is that of being unlike everybody else.—He would'nt use
his pocket-handkerchief, I dare say, as other people use
theirs. But why complain of our poets for imitation?—
when yours are literally a school of imitators. I can

trace half a dozen to Wordsworth—There is Colridge—
Hunt—Bary Comwall—and even Byron himself. Nay,
show me one page of your English poetry, ancient or
modern, of unadulterated originality; and I will go down
on my knees before it. There is a Mr. Allen, also, here,
whom I have already mentioned to you, who makes poetry—when
he least intends it;—and almost always fails
when he goes about it, in downright earnest. There is
a Mr. Pierpont too, who has written one or two poems,
that have been praised all over our country—for everything
that is wonderful or pleasant, among the anointed
of Apollo. One reveres his chief poem, for its strength and
grandeur--another, for its sweetness and tenderness--one
for this, and another for that. And nothing can be more
ridiculous. There is no intoxication; no delirium; nothing
of the marvellous in it. It is a temperate, mild,
beautiful affair—and that is all; but some of his little
poems—a few hymns—are among the most exquisite in
our language.

The poet's mind appears too much warped and trammelled
by his fondness for Beattie and Campbell, and
that school, ever to astonish. He never alarms nor inflames—he
never thunders nor lightens—there are no
phenomena, agitated into life, by his sorcery—but there
are passages of surpassing beauty, and vividness in his best
poem; with quite too much that is feeble and common place.

There is also a Mr. Bryant, of whom I know nothing,
except that I once saw some lines, a very few, that awed
me. He is a poet. There is a Mr. Osborne too, of
whom you may have heard a good deal, because for the
last ten years, he was the only standard poet of our
country. Yet what has he written?—It were difficult to
tell. Some short pieces of fifty or an hundred lines—
with here and there a great thought; but never a whole
page of poetry in his life.[2] There is Dr. Percival, who,
if he had not been praised by Mr. Walsh, I should call a
very fine poet; but, as it is, I do confess that I am in doubt;
and, were it not for certain lines to Consumption; and
a few very beautiful passages in certain other short pieces
of his, I should not have mentioned him. But they

are delightful—full of composure, delicacy, and tender
feeling—a natural melancholy, and rich harmony. He
wants boldness, originality and vehemence; but he is a
man of unquestionable genius, and an honour to our country.
The worst of it is, that our men of genius, have a
foolish notion, that, to be melancholy, unsocial, and
misanthropical, is the only way to prove to the world,
that they are men of genius. Alas—there are ailments
of the constitution and heart, common to men of sensibility,
and they are always men of genius, which, if they
are wise, they will rather conceal than betray. It is
humiliating to be pitied—but, to be pitied by the world, is
enough to kill a poetical nature, while in actual flower;
enough to freeze the sweet fountain that trembles in his
heart, at every change of the atmosphere about it---foretelling
sunshine and rain, the sunshine and rain of popular
favour, like a barometer. So much for Dr. Percival.

And then there is Mr. Paulding.---By the way, can you
ascertain who wrote the notices of his Backwoodsman,
in some of your papers. He is charged with it, here---
but I cannot believe such a thing. I am more charitable.
The poem is a silly, affectedly simple—sluggish
stupifyng affair, enough, to be sure; but there is a very
good reason why it should be favourably received in England,
without charging Mr. P—as the author of the
reviews. This was your policy. I understand it. By
taking up the Backwoodsman, and praising it, as you
have, for the best specimen of our transatlantick poetry;
what must your good people have thought of the rest.—
The best specimen of our poetry!—gracious heaven—we
have boys, mere children, who would weep, for shame, to
be suspected of the authorship, although some passages
are very fine and very free.

Yet Mr. Paulding is really a man of talent. Some
of his prose is excellent. He is only a little too ambitious;
and, in attempting to balance himself for the higher
regions of composition, he shivered awhile—eddied, and
then came down—for what reason it might be difficult to
tell—upon his head. His letters from Old England,
however, are an honour to him and to us.[3] One cannot

help loving his heart, and admiring his head, when less
indiscriminately employed.

There is a Mr. Fessenden also, who once buttoned
himself up; and mounted the stilts of rhyme—but, he had
better remained in prose—slept quietly—and been
gathered to his fathers, for what he is, in all probability,
a troublesome, honest, well meaning sort of a man.

There was also another young man—I dont know his
name, who wrote a poem called Chrystalina, some years
ago, in New-York. It was a work of extraordinary
merit, though very tedious; less for a want of power and
opulence of thought in the author, than from his fearfulness,
and unwillingness to lose aught that he had once
written:—good or bad, in it went—with all its variations.
He might be made a great poet.

There is another man too, named Neale,[4] (did I mention
him?) who has written some poems—a—history—
and a tragedy; the latter of which, comes nearer, I should
imagine, to your notions of the sublime than any thing
of the day. It is darkness and mystery from beginning
to end. The catastrophe is striking—but nobody can
understand it. And so with his poetry. You are alarmed,
agitated,—but it would be difficult to tell why. He
affects scholarship; yet a part from some shocking blunders
in latin, such as “exitomnes;” Ala, a woman “solus.”
There are some barbarisms and vulgarities, that will
constantly provoke you. For instance, he makes one
of his characters ask, “who have I slain?—who have I
hidden,” &c.and his chief notion of blank verse would seem
to be, that it should consist of ten syllables—more or less;
and, sometimes, one would fancy that he had written a
page or two, while in heat;—and then, counted off the
words, into lines of ten or a dozen syllables each;—for
very often, where the thought is strong and beautiful,
there is a total want of rhythm and cadence. But alas!
—it is the fashion of the age. He affects too, a colloquial
manner, even on the most solemn occasion. His
names too, are infinitely amusing—turkish—and
christian. O-la is a hero—and A-la, a heroine in the
same piece!—Achmet, Selim and Otho. Did you ever

read Barry Cornwall's Mirandola? I send you a copy
of Otho. Compare the passages that I have marked, for
yourself. Are not such resemblances astonishing? Otho
was published a long time before Mirandola. It is not
at all probable, that Barry Cornwall; or, rather, Mr.
Proctor, had even seen it; for, it is but little known in
America: and if he had seen it, will any man suppose
that so fine a genius would borrow so largely from an
unknown American tragedy. The very words are the
same, in more than one case; and the sentiments. manner,
and incidents more surprisingly alike, than those
of Manuel and Lear. I was very forcibly struck with
them; and, it was not till I had satisfied myself, that Otho
had been first published here, that I could believe
them to be accidental. I have recently seen a novel of
his, called Keep Cool—a foolish, fiery thing—with a good
deal of nature and originality; and much more than a
good deal of nonsense and flummery in it. There is a
history of the American Revolution too, part of which
was written by him;—most shamefully printed—it comes
out under the name of Paul Allen. There are other
works attributed to him; but denied, it is said, by him;
one of which, called Logan—is, to my notion, little other
than one interminable dream—without moral or design—but
alive with some tremendous apparitions: and
another, called Seventy-six, which I cannot but think altogether
too good, and too great a work for him to have
written. There are really some meaning, and some sort of
design, to be seen in Seventy-Six.

His characteristick as a POET, is—a laboured originality
in every thing; which is exceedingly ridiculous. He seems
to have no settled design; no purpose in view, but merely
to rhyme on, head over heels, page after page, as if to
get rid of some delirium upon him.—He rains his imagery
upon you; and rages through all heaven and earth for
epithets; and nothing is more common than for him,
when comparing one thing with another, to add half a dozzen
gratuitous comparisons to each. Thus, he will say
that such a sky is like the blush of a fountain, at sunset
—which is like the plumage of a seraphim, ruffled and
rippling all over, in the wind—which plumage is like

changeable silk—which silk is like the ocean, in a calm,
covered with “oily gold and green,”—like some steely
weapon in the setting sun—and here, you perceive, he
gets back to just where he started from. But enough
of him—You never could get through his poem, I am
sure; and the story goes that his own mother took to her
bed, when it apeared, and has not held up her head
since.

But after all, I don't see any great use in poetry.—
Whatever can be said well in poetry, may be said better
in prose. The chief advantage of poetry is, that it may
be more easily remembered; and transmitted, by tradition.
But, tradition and memory are repositories, altogether
too expensive and uncertain, while books are
so plenty and so cheap. One might as well commit a
geography as a poem, now. In the time of Homer and
Ossian, it was very different; geography, itself, could
only be transmitted in poetry.

Another mischief in poetry, (I speak of what other
men call poetry---rhythm, cadence, measure, and rhyme,
which are not at all essential to what I call poetry,) is,
that it leads us to admire a thing for its difficulty—apart
from all consideration of its beauty or utility. I cannot
do this. Hence, I do not love the learning of the German
musick, nor the refinement of the modern Italian;—nor
can I endure their opera dancing. So thought Alexander,
when he rewarded the man, who amused him by
shooting small seed through the eye of a needle, with
miraculous dexterity—by presenting him with a half
bushel of seed. Yet, what is rhyme, and all the artificial
constraints of poetry, but the vestiges of that barbarous
taste, which formerly delighted in conundrums,
acrosticks, rebuses, riddles, and alliteration? It is
worse. Pope, to be sure, persuaded himself that he
could rhyme, better than he could prose. I do not deny
it. He was never eloquent or impassioned. He never
thought poetry, nor understood it. He was naturally
addicted to epigram—sententious, laconick, pungent,
stinging brevity:---but, notwithstanding his authority,
I say, that men naturally seek to express themselves in
prose; and that rhyme and cadence, and all that, are only
temptations to a round-about, inadequate mode of expression---so

that you never get the first thought of a
poet, except in a prosaick passage.

Nor is it all wonderful, that, after a time, men should
have come to accept of poetical language for poetical
thought; the embellishments of poetry, for poetry itself,
as they have at this day. Take any page of what you
call poetry, that you will, ancient or modern; and I
will point to a page of what the world call prose, which
shall contain more poetical thought and expression.---
Look at our modern poems, I care not whose, and you
will be ashamed of your foolish infatuation, if you come
to examine the thought nakedly; the number and variety;
the beauty, freshness, and originality of the pictures.---
How much of it is poetical language! How little of it
poetical thought!

I hope to see this done with. I believe that I shall
live to see it done with. I do not say this, out of ignorance
or obstinacy; for I can write poetry—what men
call poetry, quite as readily as I can prose; and I conscientiously
believe what I am saying; nay, more—I believe
that the age of poetry is past; that such men as
Lord Byron, had better throw by poetry, altogether; and
take up prose writing, if they want to be remembered,
for another century. He is coming to it, already, step
by step, in the perverseness of Childe Harold, and his tragedies;and
in the familiar, colloquial manner of Don Juan.
Let them write fiction—but, let their fiction be in prose;
let them put out all their power, upon a literature that
all may read, century after century—I do not mean
quote, and keep in their libraries, but read. The
day of the Epick has gone by, never to return. No matter
what may become of the world—it will never be
again, a sufficient time, under the dominion of any one
people, nation or tongue, for any one poem, ever to become,
again, a work of immortality, or even of national
pride.

But, what shall these men write?—Novels or Romances?—If
they aim to instruct the publick, the very
multitude; and not to allure or amaze, let them write Novels,
like those of Miss Edgworth; which are fine, natural
models, destitute of phrensy; useful, and uniformly
attractive; but, if they aim to do something more; to take

captive the hearts of the mighty; let them write Romances,
with such kind of exaggeration, as you find in
the best parts of the Waverly novels;—but let it be more
frequent, and lasting, vivid and intense. I say exaggeration—because,
if there be no exaggeration, there will be
none of that trance-like agitation and excitement, which
nothing but poetry can produce in the blood of men. Are
the incidents and characters of the Waverly novels natural?
No.—They are all exaggerated, more or less;—
and the best parts of the whole, are the most exaggerated
—such as the characters of Jenny Deame, Bailey Jarvis,
Claverhouse, Meg Merrilies, &c. &c. and that is the
reason,---because they are unnatural; and not, because they
are natural, that they affect us; unnatural, I mean, because
they are not like any thing in the nature of our
experience. If they were, we should care little for them.
In one sense, they are natural, because we do not see,
at once, that they are impossible. Nor, are they historically
true, in one single case.

Yes—I do, in my heart, believe that we shall live to
see poetry done away with—the poetry of form, I mean---
of rhyme, measure, and cadence. Yet, in place of it, will
arise a mightier poetry, which will be the work of the
mightiest. The revolution is at hand; men are trying
every kind of experiment, to perpetuate their strength, in
the eternal language of musick and poetry; and they
will, I have no doubt, leave such a legacy behind them,
in what the world now call prose, that another generation
will treat what this calls poetry, as we now treat the
alliteration and acrosticks of the generations that are gone.

But will poetry itself become extinct. No, never.—
You never can put out that light. As well might you
hope to blot out the polar system. No: poetry is the
“divinity within us.” It will be the better understood;
and far more devoulty worshipped, when this revolution
shall have taken place; when the great, beautiful
thought, of the anointed among men,shall be disincumbered
of words without meaning. Poetry is the naked
expression of power and eloquence. But, for many hundred
years---poetry has been confounded with false musick---measure
and cadence---the soul with the body---the
thought with the language---the manner of speaking,

with the mode of thinking. The secondary qualities of
poetry have been mistaken for the primary ones.

What I call poetry, has nothing to do with art or learning.
It is a natural musick---the musick of woods and waters;
not that of the orchestra. It is a fine, volatile essence,
which cannot be extinguished or confined, while there is
one drop of blood in the human heart, or any sense of
Almighty God, among the children of men. I do not
mean this, irreverently---I mean, precisely, what I say---
that poetry is a religion as well as a musick. Nay---
it is eloquence.---It is, whatever affects, touches, or disturbs
the animal or moral sense of man. I care not
how poetry may be expressed, nor in what language, it
is still poetry; as the melody of the waters, wherever
they may run; in the desert or the wilderness; among
the rocks or the grass, will always be melody. It is
not artificial musick---the musick of the head---of learning,
or of science; but it is one continual voluntary of the
heart; to be heard every where---at all times---by day--
and by night, whenever men will stay their hands, for
a moment, or lift up their heads and listen. It is not the
composition of a master; the language of art, painfully
and entirely exact; but, it is the wild, capricious melody
of nature---pathetick or brilliant, like the roundelay
of innumerable birds whistling all about you, in the wind
and water—sky and air; or the coquetting of a river breeze
over the fine strings of an Eolian harp---concealed among
green leaves and apple blossoms.

All men talk poetry, at some time or other, in their
lives; even the most reasonable, cold-hearted, mathematical
and phlegmatick; but most of them, without knowing
it—and women, yet more frequently, than men: and young
children too, talk it, perpetually, when alarmed or delighted.
Yet they never talk in rhyme; nay, nor in blank
verse. Even the writers of tragedy—the most perverse
of God's creatures—do now and then, stumble upon this
truth—for, in all their passionate and deepest passages,
they do all that they can, to get rid of the foolish restraint
of rhythm. And when they do not—they are, to the
full, as absurd as the opera-singer—who murders and
makes love, by the gamut.

Poetry too, is the natural language of the human
heart—its mother-tongue; and is, just as naturally resorted
to, on any emergency or distress, by the devout—the
terrified—the affectionate—the tender-hearted and the
loving—the widowed and the afflicted—as a man's native
tongue is, when, after having been a great while among
strangers, where he has learnt a strange language, good
enough for all the common purposes of life—he is called
upon, by some signal, and unexpected calamity, to pray
aloud; or to cry out, with a broken and bowed spirit, or
a crushed heart. Instantly, that man over-leaps all time
and space—and, falls down, before the woman that he
loves; or his Maker, with the very language that his mother
taught him, when he fell upon his little knees, and
lisped the dictated prayer after her, syllable by syllable.
Just so, it is, with poetry. Prose will do for common
people; or, for all the common occasions of life, even
with uncommon people. We cannot drive a better bargain,
or make a better argument in poetry, than in prose.
But strike us here, into our very vitals, with some weapon
of fire; and see how instantly a combustion takes place,
inwardly—within all of us—flaming at our eyes, and
trembling on our tongues, like inspiration. The poetry
within us takes fire, and becomes audible and visible.—
We might have died, without thinking that we were
combustible, but for something that had jarred all our
blood, like an earthquake.

I speak of this matter, freely and boldly, because I
know that I am competent to speak of it—and fully authorized
to bear witness against the mischievous and
perverted tendencies, of poetical thought, when it is
put, like a beautiful child, or a strong giant, into shackles
and gyves; hand-cuffs and pinions. Some men affect to
talk about it; and to give rule for it, who never had a poetical
idea in their heads. Fools! they might as well
learn eloquence from an automation; or swimming, by
seeing other people swim, as how to make poetry, by reading
and studying the great masters—and listening to the
jackasses, who are called criticks; not one, in a million of
whom ever was, or ever will be a poet. Why?—because
if a man be a poet, he will lack, nine hundred and ninety

nine times out of a thousand, either the judgment; or the
moral courage; or the honesty, to criticise boldly; and to
speak of poetry as it deserves; and more than that, if
he be a poet, he will be above the practice of criticism.

My notion, in one word, is—that poetry is the natural
language of every human heart, when it is roused--or inflamed,
or agitated, or affected: and that prose, on the
contrary, is the natural language of every human heart,
on all other occasions; and that rhyme, or blank verse,
or regular rhythm, is altogether as artificial, unnatural
and preposterous a mode of expression, for the true poet;
as the use of a foreign idiom, or foreign phrase, is
to the true home-bred man. The Romans affected to
talk Greek; the Germans do talk French—as if they were
ashamed of their mother language; and so do poets talk
in rhyme or blank verse—but, let them all talk ever so
beautifully, one can always discover that it is not natural
to either of them. They are too Attic—or too
provincial—too exact, or too slovenly.

To put this in another light---one example will do
more than a volume of abstract reasoning. Could you
possibly hold out to read any poem, by the greatest poet
that ever lived, which should contain as many words,
as one of the Waverly novels? It would be about five
or six times as long, as Paradise Lost. If it were the
best of poetry, would you not get the sooner tired of
it? Assuredly. In the confusion of such a beautiful and
confounding exhibition of power and brightness, your
senses would lose all their activity: they would reel
under it; and retain no distinct impression at all.—
It would be like seeing a multitude of beautiful women,
at the same moment—in a place, crowded with august
personages—innumerable pictures—statuary—delicious
musick and fire works.—What would you remember of
the whole?—nothing.

How many volumes of prose do you read in a year?
and how many would you read, if the same things were
told in verse! Probably not a hundredth part, as many
as you do now; hence the superiority of prose, if
one want to convey instruction, or amusement; or obtain
reputation, glory, or popularity.

Do not tell me that poetry will out-last prose. That
is no longer true. More volumes of poetry are written
now, in one year, than there used to be of prose, in a century,
before the invention of printing. Epicks are out
of fashion: poetry cannot live, unless it be continually
read: and no poetry will be so continually read as
fine prose.

But if the prose be very fine—very pungent, great,
fiery and beautiful—it will not be relished by the mob.
Hence madam de Staehl is not popular: and, hence, the
Waverly novels are; nay, in proportion to the great
excellence of any writer, will be the limited number of
his admirers. He, who means to be popular, must dilute
not only his characters—incidents—and doctrines,
but his thought and language. He must make his heroes
angels or devils—Sir Charles Grandisons, or Laras
and Marmions:—in that, he must do as the Waverly
man has done; but even he has not diluted enough.—
Therefore, miss Edgeworth will outlast him in popularity;
not that her power is worthy of comparison, for a moment,
with his—in reality—yet, in another age, it
will be far more highly appreciated, and more generally
understood —She is always on a level with the ordinary
capacities of men.

The result of all that I can say, therefore, is, that
the first rate works of genius—no matter of what kind—
never have been—are not—and never will be, so generally
popular, as the second or third rate.

All men quote Shakspeare and Milton; and often
without knowing it; yet who reads either? I have never
met with but one man who had read Paradise Lost
through—or who was willing to acknowledge it;—and
he made a boast of it, as if he had achieved something
miraculous—: adding, with a shake of the head—when
he was asked his opinion of it, that, “for his part—other
men might say what they pleased—but it was a
d—d fine poem—only he did'nt believe more than one
half of it.” So with Mad. de Staehl. Every body talks
about her—yet who reads her?—only the eloquent and
polite; and half of them, because they are ashamed not
to have read her.[5] Yet, had all these persons written in

an humble style, they would have been, at this hour,
in the hands, and upon the tables of all the world, as the
Spectator, and the Vicar of Wakefield have been.

Stay —here is a newspaper, open before me. Now I
will make a bet, that, on opening it. I shall find some
foolish quotation, from no matter whom, but somebody,
who is only quoted, not read; which will travel through
every paper in America—solely because the newspaper
editors are attracted by it, in the page,—no matter
what is tailed to it. Just as I thought! Here is an
account of a black woman, who killed herself for love,
or jealously. So the editor introduces the story with—

There Stafford!—six months hence, you may open a
paper from Alabama; some part of the interiour, where
they have just heard of the abdication of Napoleon; and
are beginning to make a fuss about the Baltimore mob;
the sea serpent; or your trial of the queen—and you will
find that very quotation. Yet nobody can tell why it
was there; and as for the merit of the thought, can any
thing be more beastly—or less beautiful—or apt—or
descriptive of that passion Jealousy, whom even
Collins, in his paroxysm of inspiration, has described
but feebly—that pale woman, with the haggard-lip.—
Nay, the very best poetry, and the purest of old times,
may be met with now, in such constant use, that we
are no longer affected by it, in any way. These newspaper
men cannot speak of children, but as the “pledges
of affection:” of a fire, but as the “devouring element;”
of death, but as the “insatiate archer;” nor of the dew,
on the grass, but as the “gems of the morning.”—
What shall be done to them? what, for ourselves: let us
be distinguished by our simplicity, on all common occasions,
by a language always fitted to the subject. Remember
my words. A great revolution is at hand.—
Prose will take precedence of poetry: or rather poetry will
disencumber itself of rhyme and measure; and talk in
prose—with a sort of rhythm, I admit—for there never
was an eloquent sentence, written or spoken, since the

creation of the world, without a rhythm and cadence
in it—a musick of its own—it is a part of the nature of
eloquence, to be poetical and melodious. Yes, I repeat
it—Poetical thought, written like prose, will yet supersede
poetry, in the affection and reverence of the age.—
Rhyming will be confined to songs—and blank verse to
sonnets:—chiefly, that the former may be remembered;
and the latter wondered at, like any foolish exercise of
ingenuity.

Finally, there is a Mr. Walter—the author of some
strange, beautiful, trashy, fantastick and disordered
poetry. Yet he has written but little, and I cannot
waste my time on him. So much for our poets. I have
enumerated all that I can now recollect. Good night—
one of these days I shall answer the rest of your inquiries.