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Some Sources of the Essays in Robert Walsh's
Didactics
by
Guy Woodall
Robert Walsh (1784-1859), highly influential conductor of the Philadelphia National Gazette and Literary Register and of the American Quarterly Review, relinquished his editorial offices in the opening months of 1836. The first of these journals, a tri-weekly newspaper, he had edited since 1820; the second, a high quality literary review, since 1827. The commencement of Walsh's career as a public journalist, however, may be dated back to 1803 when he became a respected contributor to Joseph Dennie's Port Folio.[1] It was from his vast journalistic store that Walsh compiled his significant collection of essays under the title of Didactics: Social, Literary, and Political.[2]
The Didactics was a notable achievement of Walsh's mature years. Published at the end of his long and illustrious editorial career, it can be considered as his nunc dimittis and final word on social, literary, and political matters which he had discussed in journals, mainly his own, over a period of thirty years. He assembled the material for the work during a severe illness in late 1835 and early 1836. The work was put to press on February 2, 1836, and bore a dedication to Dr. J. K. Mitchell, a well-known Philadelphia physician, who had tended him during his sickness. In an "Advertisement" in the first volume (pp. vii-ix), Walsh explained that he had undertaken the work at the insistence of Carey, Lea and Blanchard, publishers, who had wanted him to select from his works "articles of practical sentiment and literary reference" for publication. The articles that he selected, so he explained, were the products of his pen that dated back to 1810. They were originally contained in inedited manuscripts, articles for reviews, pamphlets, and a fifteen-years' file of his newspaper. He
Since Walsh left no record of the dates of the compositions and the journals in which they were originally published, scholars using the Didactics have had to content themselves with less bibliographical information than they desired. Upon reviewing the Didactics shortly after it appeared, Edgar Allan Poe expressed pleasure that he was seeing some essays which he had read before but whose patrimony he had not known;[3] Poe, however, made no mention of where he had seen some of the essays earlier. Not all of the original sources and dates have been identified, but the following have been gleaned from here and there.
"Happiness" (I, 2-17) originally bore the title of "Homily" in the National Gazette and Literary Register, March 31, 1829, p. 1, cols. 1-3. A correspondent using the signature of "Eudoxia" asked Walsh to write on the subject.
"Female Training" (I, 17-32) was at first an essay in two parts, the last of which appeared as "Didactics" in the National Gazette and Literary Register, April 21, 1829, p. 1, cols. 1-4; and April 24, 1829, p. 1, cols. 2-5. A correspondent who signed herself "Evadne" had requested that Walsh write on the subject.
"Wedded Love" (I, 32-46) first appeared as a part of "Female Biography," American Quarterly Review, V (June, 1829), 438-473; also, a part of this essay appeared earlier in "Bishop Heber's India," American Quarterly Review, IV (September, 1828), 115-156.
"The Stage" (I, 101-106) was composed mainly from two editorials which appeared originally in the National Gazette and Literary Register, respectively, January 2, 1822, p. 4, cols. 1-2; and January 30, 1822, p. 2, col. 5. The first of these editorials was written as a response to a correspondent, signing himself as "A Parent," who wanted the theatre in Philadelphia abolished because of its immorality; the second was in response to one "Melancthon" (said by the editor to be a "man of taste") who also wanted the theatre abolished.
"Lord Byron and Morality" (I, 141-146) was a composite essay made up of editorial strictures written against the poet in the editorial column of the National Gazette and Literary Register, March 2, 1832, p. 1, col. 1. This editorial was only a part of a literary war waged by Walsh for years against the poet and his influence in America.[4]
"Revision and Correction" (I, 166-171) was, in a large part, lifted from "American Poetry," American Quarterly Review, VI (September, 1829), 240-262.
"General Miscellany" (I, 191-219) was collected from many sources, but two pages, 198-199, came from "Carter's Letters from Europe," American Quarterly Review, II (December, 1827), 539-584.
"Sentences" (I, 220-234) is a miscellany of highly sententious sentences and paragraphs obviously drawn from many editorials. One substantial paragraph (p. 228) on the subject of nationalism first appeared in the National Gazette and Literary Register, November 18, 1834, p. 2, col. 4. Walsh penned this editorial in defense of the excellent national character of the North American Review and his own American Quarterly Review, both of which had been impugned as non-American by the editor of the Richmond Compiler. Other aphoristic statements in this essay (p. 234) appeared initially under the title of "Editorial Saws" in the National Gazette and Literary Register, October 31, 1829, p. 1, cols. 1-2; and November 10, 1829, p. 1, col. 2.
"Phrenology" (II, 56-65) was a piece of Swiftian satire that was first inserted in the National Gazette and Literary Register on April 13, 1822, p. 1, cols. 1-3. This essay was only one of many of Walsh's editorial jibes at the phrenologists. It was this piece alone that Edgar Allan Poe, who credited phrenology much, found fault with when he reviewed Walsh's work.[5]
"Slander" (II, 70-77) was extracted partially from an essay entitled "Didactics" in the National Gazette and Literary Register, May 16, 1835, p. 2, cols. 1-2.
"Force of Imagination" (II, 78-85), probably the oldest essay included in Didactics, appeared in two installments in Joseph Dennie's Port Folio, IV (August 25, 1804), 265; and IV (September 1, 1804), 273.
"Female Intellect" (II, 128-135) first appeared in "Female Biography," American Quarterly Review, V (June, 1829), 438-473.
"William Pinkney" (II, 158-165) was a tribute written upon the death of the diplomat, an old friend of the author. This eulogistic editorial, written as a lapidary sketch, appeared first in the National Gazette and Literary Register, March 16, 1822, p. 1, col. 1. John Neal, an implacable literary enemy of Walsh, saw the editorial and wrote: "I never heard the truth spoken of him [Pinkney] — I never saw the truth written of him. Mr. Walsh — in his modesty had the kindness to manufacture an inscription, under circumstances which the Baltimore bar will not soon forget, — wherein he seems to have exhausted his own dictionary." — John Neal, Randolph: A Novel (n.p., 1823), II, 238.
"Collegiate Education" (II, 165-171) was written first as a part of a review of William Wirt's Old Bachelor in "The Old Bachelor," The Analectic Magazine, XII (October, 1818), 265-294. It was "Collegiate Education" which most impressed Edgar Allan Poe when he reviewed Didactics for the Southern Literary Messenger.[6] Poe's excellent impression contrasts to that which William Wirt had when he read Walsh's review back in 1818. Derogating Walsh's abilities as a critic, Wirt wrote to his friend Francis W. Gilmer: "But in truth I really think him deficient in the chief ingredient of a critic, I mean native delicacy of tact which informs a man intuitively & infallibly what is beauty and what is not. . . . He knows, too, the just principles by which criticism should be regulated toward the author: that it is the business of the critic to praise as well as to censure, whenever they are due. He understands, also, the mechanical rules of criticism. But all this cannot supply the native want of sensitive delicacy without which a man can never be a great critic."[7]
"Oxford" (II, 171-176) is an epistolary essay which young Walsh wrote as "Letter from England" in the Port Folio, N.S. II (February, 1810), 132-150.
"Duelling" (II, 183-189) appeared first as a part of an editorial on the subject of honor in the National Gazette and Literary Register, March 30, 1830, p. 1, cols. 2-3.
"Washington Irving" (II, 217-222) was composed mainly from three editorials in the National Gazette and Literary Register, July 17, 1824, p. 3, col. 4; May 24, 1832, p. 2, col. 2; March 31, 1835, p. 2, cols. 1-2.
"Dr. Parr and Scholarship" (II, 231-234), a tribute to the great classicist, was originally a part of Walsh's "Memoirs of Dr. Parr," American Quarterly Review V (March, 1829), 233-258.
It is quite likely that sources of other essays than these listed will be discovered, but since some of the compositions never got into print, the time and circumstances of their writing will forever remain unknown.
Notes
For an account of Walsh's early literary career, see my "The Relationship of Robert Walsh, Jr., to the Port Folio and the Dennie Circle: 1803-1812," The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XCII (April, 1968), 195-219.
Robert Walsh, Didactics: Social, Literary, and Political (Philadelphia: Carey, Lea & Blanchard, 1836), 2 vols. Walsh's book was reviewed favorably in several leading journals; e.g., Edgar Allan Poe, "Walsh's 'Didactics,'" The Southern Literary Messenger, II (May, 1836), 399-401; Lewis Gaylord Clark, "The Didactics," The Knickerbocker, or New York Monthly Magazine, VII (July, 1836), 110; John G. Palfrey, "Walsh's Didactics," The North American Review, XLIII (July, 1836), 257-261; [anon. rev.] "Didactics: Social, Literary, and Political," The Christian Examiner and General Review, 3rd Series, XXI (November, 1836), 268-269.
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