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(5) Poems. By Edward Foskett. (Kegan Paul.)
(6) The Pilgrimage of Memory. By John Thomas Barker. (Simpkin, Marshall and Co.)
THE POETS' CORNER II 61
Reviews
(7) Errata. By G. Gladstone Turner. (Longmans, Green and Co.)
(8) Nivalis. By J. M. W. Schwartz. (Kegan Paul.)
GREAT WRITERS BY LITTLE MEN
(Pall Mall Gazette, March 28, 1887.)
In an introductory note prefixed to the initial volume of 'Great Writers,' a series of literary monographs now
being issued by Mr. Walter Scott, the publisher himself comes forward in the kindest manner possible to give
his authors the requisite 'puff preliminary,' and ventures to express the modest opinion that such original and
valuable works 'have never before been produced in any part of the world at a price so low as a shilling a
volume.' Far be it from us to make any heartless allusion to the fact that Shakespeare's Sonnets were brought
out at fivepence, or that for fourpence-halfpenny one could have bought a Martial in ancient Rome. Every
man, a cynical American tells us, has the right to beat a drum before his booth. Still, we must acknowledge
that Mr. Walter Scott would have been much better employed in correcting some of the more obvious errors
that appear in his series. When, for instance, we come across such a phrase as 'the brotherly liberality of the
brothers Wedgewood,' the awkwardness of the expression is hardly atoned for by the fact that the name of the
great potter is misspelt; Longfellow is so essentially poor in rhymes that it is unfair to rob him even of one,
and the misquotation on page 77 is absolutely unkind; the joke Coleridge himself made upon the subject
should have been sufficient to remind any one that 'Comberbach' (sic) was not the name under which he
enlisted, and no real beauty is added to the first line of his pathetic Work Without Hope by printing 'lare' (sic)
instead of 'lair.' The truth is that all premature panegyrics bring their own punishment upon themselves and,
in the present case, though the series has only just entered upon existence, already a great deal of the work
done is careless, disappointing, unequal and tedious.
Mr. Eric Robertson's Longfellow is a most depressing book. No one survives being over-estimated, nor is
there any surer way of destroying an author's reputation than to glorify him without judgment and to praise
him without tact. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of the first true men of letters America produced,
and as such deserves a high place in any history of American civilisation. To a land out of breath in its greed
for gain he showed the example of a life devoted entirely to the study of literature; his lectures, though not by
any means brilliant, were still productive of much good; he had a most charming and gracious personality, and
he wrote some pretty poems. But his poems are not of the kind that call for intellectual analysis or for
elaborate description or, indeed, for any serious discussion at all. They are as unsuited for panegyric as they
are unworthy of censure, and it is difficult to help smiling when Mr. Robertson gravely tells us that few
modern poets have given utterance to a faith so comprehensive as that expressed in the Psalm of Life, or that
Evangeline should confer on Longfellow the title of 'Golden-mouthed,' and that the style of metre adopted
'carries the ear back to times in the world's history when grand simplicities were sung.' Surely Mr. Robertson
does not believe that there is any connection at all between Longfellow's unrhymed dactylics and the
hexameter of Greece and Rome, or that any one reading Evangeline would be reminded of Homer's or Virgil's
line? Where also lies the advantage of confusing popularity with poetic power? Though the Psalm of Life be
shouted from Maine to California, that would not make it true poetry. Why call upon us to admire a bad
misquotation from the Midnight Mass for the Dying Year, and why talk of Longfellow's 'hundreds of
imitators'? Longfellow has no imitators, for of echoes themselves there are no echoes and it is only style that
makes a school.
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