For reasons fairly evident Bryant seldom used the Evening Post for the publication of his poems; he was too modest, and the magazines of the day too earnestly besought2 him for whatever he might write. In 1832 he brought out “The Prairies” in it, and in 1841 “The Painted Cup”—that was all in early years. He had no time for literary essays, even had he felt the Post the place for them. As for the new books, no one yet thought that dailies should give them more than brief notices; moreover, Bryant disrelished book-reviewing, a task against which he had protested while a magazine editor, and he never quite trusted his judgment3 upon new volumes of poetry. The Evening Post had less literary distinction in his early editorship than might be supposed; but it had much literary interest.
The most interesting book comments of the thirties were upon British travels in America. England did not like it when Hawthorne, in “Our Old Home,” called the British matron beefy. The United States did not like Dickens’s portrait of Col. Jefferson Brick, praising the ennobling institution of nigger slavery; of Prof. Mullit, who at the last election had repudiated4 his father for voting the wrong ticket; and Gen. Fladdock, who halted his denunciation of British pride to snub Martin Chuzzlewit when he learned that Martin had come in the steerage. At that period the United States was as sensitive as a callow youth. “We people of the Universal Yankee Nation,” remarked the Evening Post in 1833, “much as we may affect to despise the strictures of such travelers as Fearon, Capt. Roos, Basil Hall, and Mrs. Trollope, are yet mightily5 impatient under their censure6, and manifest on the appearance of each successive book about our208 country a great anxiety to get hold of it and devour7 its contents.”
Most Americans joined in indiscriminating complaints over the animadversions of the British travelers. A few were inclined to applaud the less extreme criticism in the hope that the sound portions might be taken to heart. Bryant thought that the country had been “far too sensitive” to Basil Hall, calling that naval8 traveler “a good sort of prejudiced English gentleman, who saw things in a pretty fair light for a prejudiced man.” He had a high opinion of parts of Miss Martineau’s travels, though he wrote his wife that she had been given a wrong impression in some particulars by Dr. Karl Follen and the narrow-minded Boston abolitionists. Twice he asked Evening Post readers (1832–3) to remember that although Mrs. Trollope might be shrewish, she was also shrewd, and that if she had exaggerated some of the national foibles, she had sketched9 others accurately10. In her “Domestic Manners of the Americans,” he believed, “there was really a good deal to repay curiosity. That work, notwithstanding all its misrepresentations, exaggerations, and prejudices, was a very clever and spirited production, and contained a deal of truth which, however unpalatable, has at least proved of useful tendency.” He called Capt. Marryat’s “Diary in America” a “blackguard book,” more flippant than profound, and deplored11 the fact that Charles Augustus Murray’s “Travels in America,” which was issued at the same time (1839), and was the work of “a well-disposed, candid12, gentlemanly sort of person,” would not have one-tenth the sale. An excerpt14 from the dramatic criticism of the Evening Post in September, 1832, shows how effective Mrs. Trollope actually was in improving our manners. At a performance by Fanny Kemble, a gentleman, between acts, assumed a sprawling15 position upon a box railing:
Hissings arose, and then bleatings, and then imitations of the lowing of cattle; still the unconscious disturber pursued his chat—still the offending fragment of his coat-tail hung over the side.209 At last there was a laugh, and cries of “Trollope! Trollope! Trollope!” with roars of laughter, still more loud and general.
But the most important visit of a foreigner after Lafayette’s was the American tour of Dickens in the early months of 1842. It is of special interest in the history of the Evening Post as marking the active beginning of a campaign in which it took the leading part among American dailies—the campaign for international copyright, lasting16 a full half century.
“The popularity of Mr. Dickens as a novelist throws almost all other contemporary popularity into the shade,” the Evening Post had exclaimed on March 31, 1839, when each successive installment17 of “Nicholas Nickleby” was being received with unprecedented18 enthusiasm in America. “His humor is frequently broad farce19, and his horrors are often exaggerated, extravagant20, and improbable; but he still has so much humor, and so much pathos21, that his defects are overlooked.” His striking originality22 the paper also praised. In 1840–41 came the “Old Curiosity Shop,” which, as the Post noted23, was issued in numbers as rapidly as the text could be brought overseas, and caught up in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia by piratical publishers. When Dickens spoke24 at a public dinner in Boston he recalled how from all parts of America, from cities and frontier, he had received letters about Little Nell. There were few educated Americans who were not acquainted with these books, or with the earlier “Pickwick” or “Oliver Twist”; and the news that this genius of thirty was to visit the country sent a thrill throughout it.
Before the end of January, 1842, readers of the Evening Post and other New York papers learned how Dickens had reached Halifax and been given a reception in the Parliament House. A few days after, the Post published an account of his welcome in Boston. He was at the Tremont House, the halls and environs of which were crowded; one distinguished25 caller followed another; whenever he went out to see the sights, or the theater, he was given an ovation26; and deputations were arriving210 with invitations from distant cities and towns. “Mr. Dickens, we fear, is made too much a lion for his own comfort,” observed the paper, and repeated the warning next day. On Feb. 2 it gave nearly an eighth of its reading matter to an account of plans for the great Boz Ball, as laid at a public meeting at the Astor House, presided over by Mayor Robert H. Morris. The Park Theater was to be converted into a ballroom27, and its alcoves28 fitted up into representations of the Old Curiosity Shop’s corners, in which scenes from Dickens’s novels might be illustrated29. On Feb. 7 there appeared an account of the ceremonial Dickens dinner in Boston, with the happy speech of Mayor Quincy. An invitation to a public dinner in New York, signed among others by Bryant and Theodore Sedgwick, had meanwhile been dispatched to Dickens.
The Boz Ball on the fourteenth was, said the Evening Post in an account that was half news, half editorial, “one of the most magnificent that has ever been given in this city. The gorgeousness of the decorations and the splendor31 of the dresses, no less than the immense throng32, glittering with silks and jewels, contributed to the show and impressiveness of the occasion. It is estimated that nearly 3,000 people were present, all richly dressed and sparkling with animation33.” Dickens’s letters bear this out—“from the roof to the floor, the theater was decorated magnificently; and the light, glitter, glare, noise, and cheering baffle my descriptive powers.” The great crowd made dancing an ordeal34, but the novelist and his wife remained until they were almost too tired to stand. Some of the newspapers drew heavily upon the imagination in their personal references to Dickens. They told how, while a charming young man, bright-eyed, sparkling with gayety and life, his freedom of manner shocked a few fashionable people; how he could never have moved in such fine society in England; and how he was “apparently thunderstruck” by the magnificence about him. The Evening Post confined its personal observations to the statement that Dickens wore black, “with a gay vest,” and that his wife appeared in a white figured Irish tabinet211 trimmed with mazarine blue flowers, with a wreath of the same color about her head, and pearl necklace and earrings35. It described the tableaux36 in full—Mr. Leo Hunter’s fancy dress party, the middle-aged37 lady in the hotel room that Pickwick invaded, Mr. and Mrs. Mantalini in Ralph Nickleby’s office, the Stranger and Barnaby Rudge, and so on.
The Boz Dinner, at which Bryant was a leading figure, received no less than three columns, crowding out all editorial matter—pretty good evidence that Bryant himself wrote the report. Washington Irving presided, and made a few halting remarks, toasting Dickens as the guest of the nation. “There,” he said as he took his seat (Bryant of course did not mention this), “I told you I should break down, and I’ve done it.” The Evening Post gave a full transcript38 of Dickens’s speech, much of which was a tribute to Irving, and which concluded with a reference to the presence of Bryant and Halleck as making appropriate a toast to American literature. The dinner closed with a storm of applause for the sentiment, “The Works of Our Guest—Like Oliver Twist, We Ask for More”; and the Evening Post was soon reporting Dickens’s reception in Washington.
Some observers were puzzled by the enthusiasm of Dickens’s reception, and the Courrier des Etats Unis tried to account for it by several theories: first, because Americans were eager to refute the accusation39 that they cared nothing for art and everything for money; second, because they supposed Dickens was taking notes, and wished to conciliate his opinion; and third, because the austere40 Puritanism of America, restraining the people from many ordinary enjoyments41, made them seize upon such occasions as a vent42 for their natural love of excitement.
Bryant admitted that there was force in the third part of this explanation, but in the Evening Post he took the simpler view that the cordiality originated in the main from a sincere admiration43 for the novelist’s genius. He pointed44 out that Dickens’s excellences45 were of a kind that212 appealed to all classes, from the stableboy to the statesman. “His intimate knowledge of character, his familiarity with the language and experience of low life, his genuine humor, his narrative46 power, and the cheerfulness of his philosophy, are traits that impress themselves upon minds of every description.” But his higher traits were such as particularly recommended him to Americans. “His sympathies seek out that class with whom American institutions and laws sympathize most strongly. He has found subjects of thrilling interest in the passions, sufferings, and virtues47 of the mass.” For itself, while regretting a certain excess of fervor48 in Dickens’s welcome, the Evening Post regarded it as a healthy token. “We have so long been accustomed to seeing the homage49 of the multitude paid to men of mere50 titles, or military chieftains, that we have grown tired of it. We are glad to see the mind asserting its supremacy—to find its rights generally recognized. We rejoice that a young man, without birth, wealth, title, or a sword, whose only claims to distinction are in his intellect and heart, is received with a feeling that was formerly51 rendered only to conquerors52 and kings.”
Dickens’s visit was not merely for pleasure or observation, and in his endeavors to promote the cause of international copyright legislation the Post was already keenly interested. As early as 1810 Coleman, under the heading, “Imposition,” had attacked the pirating of “Travels in the Northern Part of the United States,” by Edward A. Kendall, an Englishman whom Coleman knew, as not only “a trespass53 upon the rights of the author,” but a fraud upon the public, since the edition was mutilated. In 1826 he or Bryant had commented acridly54 upon the appearance of a Cambridge edition of Mrs. Barbauld’s poems at the same time that the New York publishers, G. and C. Carvill, brought out an authorized55 edition the profits of which went to the author’s heirs. Miss Martineau, sojourning in America in 1836, had taken up the question with Bryant. Upon returning home she had sent him a copy of a petition by many English writers,213 including Dickens and Carlyle, to Congress, together with copies of brief letters by Wordsworth, Miss Edgeworth, Lord Brougham, and others indorsing it; and it was published with hearty56 commendation in the Evening Post.
The question was one in which Bryant, like Cooper and Irving, had a selfish as well as altruistic57 interest. All American authors were trying to sell their wares58 to publishers and readers who could get English books without payment of royalty59. Each of Dickens’s works, as it appeared, was snapped up and placed on the market for twenty-five cents or less. “Barnaby Rudge,” during his tour of this country, was advertised in the Evening Post as available, complete, in two issues of the New World, for a total cost of sixteen and one-fourth cents. The next week it was issued under one cover for twenty-five cents. The novels of Bulwer, Disraeli, and Ainsworth were presented in the same way, as was the poetry of Hood60 and Tennyson. Napier’s “Peninsular War” was advertised in the Post in 1844 by J. S. Redfield in nine volumes at a quarter dollar apiece, and Milman’s edition of Gibbon, with his notes copyright in England, by Harpers in fifteen parts at the same price.
In his speech at the Boston dinner “Boz” boldly set forth61 the injustice62 which he believed the lack of an American international copyright law was doing English writers. Several Boston journals were offended, while the paper-makers belonging to the “Home League” in New York met to express opposition63 to any new copyright legislation. Bryant at once (on Feb. 11) took Dickens’s side in the Evening Post. If the American laws allowed every foreigner to be robbed of his money and baggage the moment he landed, he wrote, and closed the courts to his claims for redress64, the nation would be condemned66 as a den1 of thieves. “When we deny a stranger the same right to the profits of his own writings as we give to our citizens, we commit this very injustice; the only difference is that we limit the robbery to one kind of property.”
At the New York dinner Dickens advanced the same214 subject in a few words. “I claim that justice be done; and I prefer the claim as one who has a right to speak and be heard,” the Evening Post quoted him. He breakfasted with Bryant and Halleck, and was entertained at the poet’s home, where he probably spoke to him in private and received assurances of the Post’s support. On May 9 there appeared a letter from Dickens “To the Editor of the Evening Post,” dated April 30 at Niagara Falls, in which he repeated his appeal. With it he enclosed a short letter from Carlyle, wherein the Scotchman thanked him because “We learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in America stir up the question of international copyright, and thereby67 awaken68 huge dissonance where else all were triumphant69 unison70 for you.” He also enclosed a much longer address “To the American People,” signed by Bulwer, Campbell, Tennyson, Talfourd, Hood, Leigh Hunt, Hallam, Sydney Smith, Rogers, Forster, and Barry Cornwall. This eminent71 group pointed out that the lack of an international copyright agreement was a serious injury to American authors, who had to compete on unfair terms with the British; and it argued that the supply of standard English books in a cheap form would not really be diminished by such copyright legislation. Books were sold at a high or low price not because they were copyrighted or uncopyrighted, but in proportion as they obtained few or many readers; and the educational system of the United States guaranteed a large reading public.
Bryant reinforced these letters with an editorial, remarkable72 as an expression of confidence in the brilliant future of American letters. It was a mistake, he maintained, to suppose that in the absence of an international copyright agreement the United States had wholly the best of the situation:
Within the last year, the number of books written by American authors, which have been successful in Britain, is greater than that of foreign works which have been successful in this country. Robertson’s work on Palestine, Stephens’s Travels in Central215 America, Catlin’s book on North American Indians, Cooper’s Deerslayer, the last volume of Bancroft’s American history, several works prepared by Anthon for the schools—here is a list of American works republished in England within the year for which we should be puzzled to find an equivalent in works written in England within the same time, and republished here. Our eminent authors are still engaged in their literary labors73. Cooper within a fortnight past has published a work stamped with all the vigor74 of his faculties75, Prescott is occupied in writing the History of Peru, Bancroft is engaged in continuing the annals of his native country, Sparks is still employed in his valuable historical labors, and Stephens is pushing his researches in Central America, with a view of giving their results to the world. We were told, the other day, of a work prepared for the press by Washington Irving, which would have appeared ere this but for the difficulties in the way of securing a copyright for it in England, as well as here.
He drew an inspiring picture of the effect of the success of these authors in raising up aspirants76 for literary fame. Irving had just told him, he wrote, “that if American literature continued to make the same progress as it had done for twenty years past, the day was not very far distant when the greater number of books designed for readers of the English language would be produced in America.”
The editor continued his unavailing efforts for a sound copyright law year after year, decade after decade. He took pains to do justice to the opposition, recognizing that it was by no means all mercenary, and that economists77 like Matthew Carey advanced arguments worthy78 of examination. When Dickens published a letter (July 14, 1842) in the London Morning Chronicle, asserting that the barrier to the reform in America was the influence of “the editors and proprietors79 of newspapers almost exclusively devoted80 to the republication of popular English works,” and that they were “for the most part men of very low attainments81, and of more than indifferent reputation,” Bryant hastened in the Evening Post to call this a misrepresentation. He knew many sincere and respectable men who condemned the international copyright proposals from the best of motives82. But216 the crusade was always near his heart. When in 1843 a petition for the needed law was presented to Congress by ninety-seven firms and persons engaged in the book trade, he supported it, and he did the same when ten years later five New York publishers addressed Secretary of State Everett in behalf of a copyright treaty with Great Britain. At this time he believed that the chief obstacle was the simple indifference83 of Congressmen; that they did not comprehend the question, nor try to comprehend it, because no party advantage or disadvantage was connected with it.
In the thirties and forties book-reviewing, in the strict sense of the phrase, was almost unknown in the New York daily press. The chief exceptions to the rule were furnished by Edgar Allan Poe, who in the middle forties contributed some genuine criticism to N. P. Willis’s Mirror and other journals, and by Margaret Fuller. Miss Fuller, writing in the Tribune for more than a year and a half preceding her visit to Europe in 1846, performed a signal service to American letters by her courage and acuteness, for her criticism of Longfellow as too foreign in his themes and of Lowell as too imitative had a salutary effect upon those poets. But Poe and Margaret Fuller were passing meteors in New York journalism84. Until George Ripley and John Bigelow joined the Tribune and Evening Post respectively in 1849 mere hasty notices were given most books.
The newspaper most conspicuously85 in a position to pronounce upon new volumes was the Evening Post, for the literary judgment of Bryant and Parke Godwin was excellent. But Bryant had no ambition to be known as a critic. Apart from his shrewd but not deeply penetrative discourses86 upon Irving, Cooper, Verplanck, and Halleck, he wrote only a half-dozen extensive literary essays, the best known being his really fine “Poets and Poetry of the English Language,” with its insistence87 upon a “luminous style.” Moreover, so straitened were the paper’s circumstances and so small in consequence was its staff, that he and Godwin had no time for reading and217 reviewing. “I see the outside of almost every book that is published, but I read little that is new,” runs a letter of Bryant’s to Dana in 1837. Frank avowal88 was frequently made that a formal review was not within the Evening Post’s powers. The notice of Cooper’s “Wyandotte” (1843) opened with the remark that “we have not had time to read it, but we are informed by the preface....” Five years later Bryant wrote of J. T. Headley’s “Cromwell”: “We have not time in the midst of the continual hurry in which those are involved who write for a daily newspaper, to examine the work with any minuteness; this will be done doubtless by professed89 critics.”
Slight as were the Post’s comments upon most books, a particular interest attaches to those upon current volumes of poetry, for Bryant wrote them; his associate, John Bigelow, has expressed surprise that Parke Godwin, in his biography, did not collect them. In the “Fable for Critics,” Lowell speaks of Bryant’s “iceolation,” and biographers of both Longfellow and Poe have accused him of indifference to these younger poets. There is much evidence, however, as in Bryant’s admiring letter to Longfellow in 1846, that the charge is unfair; and a study of the Evening Post files indicates that its editor carefully followed the work of his juniors in poetry, was glad to bring it to public notice, and was a good deal more prone90 to over-praise than to underrate it. Bryant was the dean among American poets, the first to gain fame, and regarded by Griswold, Walt Whitman, and many others as the best of them; as the Bryant Festival in 1864 showed, in which Holmes, Lowell, Emerson, and Whittier participated, they all looked up to him.
Longfellow was the next eldest91 of the truly great poets. In the pages of the United States Review in the twenties some of his earliest poems are found side by side with Bryant’s. In later life he acknowledged to Bryant how much he owed the latter: “When I look back upon my early years, I cannot but smile to see how much in them is really yours. It was an involuntary imitation,218 which I most readily confess.” Bryant was interested in his career long before he had published a volume of verse, and took care in the Evening Post to give his first two books, the prose “Outre Mer” (1835) and “Hyperion” (1839) due praise. Of the former he said that it “is very gracefully92 written, the style is delightful93, the descriptions are graphic94, and the sketches95 of character have often an agreeable vein96 of quiet humor.” The latter was treated a little less warmly. The romance is “tinged with peculiarities98 derived99 from the author’s fondness for German literature,” Bryant wrote, and its strain of deeper reflection “now and then passes into the grand dimness of German speculation100.” The story was slight, and had little attraction for those who wished a narrative of crowded incident. But the verdict as a whole was favorable: “upon the slender thread of his narrative the author has hung a tissue of agreeable sketches of the different parts of Germany, supposed to be visited by the hero, delineations of character, and reflections upon morals and literature.”
The Evening Post’s review of Longfellow’s first volume of poems, “Voices of the Night” (1839; signed J. Q. D.) was short but flattering. It quoted the purest poetry of the little book:
I heard the trailing garments of the night
Sweep through her marble halls!
and its criticism emphasized the two youthful qualities which should have been most emphasized, simplicity103 and freshness. “These voices of the night breathe a sweet and gentle music, such as befits the time when the moon is up, and all the air is clear, and soft, and still. The original poems in the volume are characterized by the truest simplicity of thought and style; the thin veil of mysticism which is thrown over some of them adds only grace to the picture, without tantalizing104 the eye.” Longfellow’s second volume, the “Poems on Slavery” (1842), came as a shock to a society as yet not inured105 to anti-slavery doctrines106. The editors of Graham’s Magazine219 wrote the author that the word “slavery” was never allowed to appear in a Philadelphia magazine, and that the publisher objected to have even the title of the book mentioned in his pages. Till a later date Harper’s in New York similarly objected to mention of the slavery question. But Bryant quoted “The Slave’s Dream” in full, and said of the sheaf: “They have all the characteristics of Longfellow’s later poems, adding to the grace and harmony of his earlier, a vein of deeper and stronger feeling, maturer thought, bolder imagery, and a more suggestive manner.”
Thus the successive issues of Longfellow’s verse were all hailed with kindly108 appreciation109. When “Ballads and Other Poems” appeared, Bryant praised (Jan. 10, 1842) the “grace and melody” with which the author handled hexameters in a translation from Tegner, and the “noble and affecting simplicity” of the result, while he pronounced the miscellaneous poems beautiful. “Evangeline,” four years later, inspired the publication in the Post of an anonymous110 burlesque111 imitation, next the editorial columns, which it is almost certain is Bryant’s. He wrote such humorous trifles till his latest years, and he accompanied this with some remarks upon German hexametric verse, with which he was thoroughly112 familiar. Dated “in the ante-temperance period of our history,” it showed old Tom Robinson seated in his elbow chair:
220
Red was the old man’s nose, with frequent potations of cider,
Made still redder by walking that day in the teeth of the north wind.
“Bring your poor uncle a mug of cider up from the cellar.”
Straightway rose from the chimney nook the obedient Jemmy ...
Opened the cellar door, and down the cellarway vanished.
Full and fresh, the old man took it and raised it with both hands,
Stretched out his legs to the fire, while his nose grew redder and redder.
When “The Seaside and the Fireside” was published in 1850, Bryant gave especial praise to “The Building of the Ship,” in many ways the best poem Longfellow ever wrote. An unpoetical subject; but “the author treats it with as much grace of imagery as if it were a fairy tale, and finds in it ample matter suggestive of beautiful trains of thought.” He quoted the fervent121 closing apostrophe to the nation threatened by civil war, “Sail on, O union, strong and great!”; and by accident, in the adjoining column, part of the Post’s Washington correspondence, lay a paragraph describing the sensation aroused by the secessionist manifesto122 of Clingman, a fire-eating North Carolina Congressman123. Of “Hiawatha” in 1855 Bryant said:
A long poem, founded on the traditions of the American aborigines, and their modes of life, is a somewhat hazardous124 experiment. Longfellow, however, has acquitted125 himself quite as well as we had expected. The habits of the Indians are gracefully idealized in his verses, and we recognize the author of “Evangeline” in the tenderness of the thoughts, the richness of the imagery, and the flow of the numbers.... A love story is interwoven with the poem, and the narrative of Hiawatha’s wooing is beautifully and fancifully related. The canto126 of The Ghosts is wrought127 up with a fine supernatural effect, and the mysterious departure of Hiawatha, with which the poem closes, after the appearance of the first messenger of the Christian128 gospel among his countrymen, is well imagined.
Lowell’s first two volumes of poems were moderately commended. “There are fine veins129 of thought in Lowell’s verse, with frequently a fresh and vigorous expression,” Bryant remarked of the second (Feb. 12, 1848). For Emerson there was a more glowing word of praise. He is “a brilliant writer, both in prose and verse, though221 perhaps, as a poet, too reflective, too subjective130, the modern metaphysician would call it, to suit the popular taste,” Bryant commented in the Post of Jan. 4, 1847, when Emerson’s first collection was issued. “His little address in verse to the humble131 bee is, however, one of the finest things of the sort—a better poem, in our estimation, than Anacreon’s famous ode to the cicada.” Whittier’s verse, he thought in 1843, writing of “Lays of My Home,” “grows better and better. With no abatement132 of poetic120 enthusiasm, his style becomes more manly13, and his vein of thought richer and deeper.” References to Poe, anterior133 to the obituary134 of Oct. 9, 1849, which Bryant did not write, for he was then abroad, and which called him a “genius” and “an industrious135, original, and brilliant writer,” are few. The Evening Post had remarked in 1845 that he was at least within a “t” of being a poet, and had followed his lectures that year at the Society Library. The Express on April 18 stated that he had discoursed136 at length upon the poets, and criticized his views. At this the Post professed amazement137, for its reporter had distinctly heard Poe postpone138 the lecture; had he delivered it exclusively to the Express?
It is pleasant to record that Nathaniel Hawthorne’s genius was recognized and forcibly described. Not always promptly139, but always emphatically, the Evening Post recommended “The Scarlet Letter,” “Twice-Told Tales,” “The House of Seven Gables,” and other books to its readers. It expressed the hope in 1851 that the success of the first-named “will awaken him to the consciousness of what he seems to have been writing in ignorance of, that the public is an important party, not only to the author’s fame, but to his usefulness.” It thought that much as he had accomplished140, he had not yet done justice to his powers. Two years later it congratulated him upon the leisure that his appointment as consul141 at Liverpool should afford, and recalling that he was just at the age when Walter Scott first appeared as a novelist, said that it saw no reason why the latter half of Hawthorne’s life might not be equally brilliant. Unfortunately, the222 romancer had but eleven more years to live. To quote three short comments upon books by other great prose authors, one of which appeared in 1842, another in 1849, and the third in 1850, will show the general character of such notices, and illustrate30 how little criticism was given:
THE DEERSLAYER, or THE FIRST WAR PATH, Cooper’s last novel, is one of his finest productions. In the wild forest where the scene is laid, and in the wild life of the New York hunters of the last century and their savage142 neighbors, his genius finds the aliment of its finest strength. The work is, as he observes, the first act in the life of Leatherstocking, though written last, and it exhibits this singular being, one of the most strongly marked and most interesting creatures of fiction, in his early youth, fresh from his education among the Delawares, and now for the first time employing in war the weapon which had gained him a reputation as a hunter. The narrative is one of intense interest from beginning to close, and the characters of the various personages with whom the hero of the story is associated, are drawn143 with perhaps more skill, and a deeper knowledge of human nature, than in most of the author’s previous novels.
* * * * *
THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL, by Francis Parkman, is a pleasant book relating adventures and wanderings in the western wilderness144, and describing the life of the western hunters and the Indian tribes. It will give those who are about to make the journey across the Rocky Mountains a good idea of the country lying between us and the regions on the Pacific Coast, and of the savage people who roam over it.
* * * * *
EMERSON’S REPRESENTATIVE MEN.—We have received from J. Wiley, of this city, Emerson’s Seven Lectures on Representative Men, just published by Phillips, Sampson, and Company, of Boston. The work is strongly marked by the characteristics of the author—brilliant coruscations of thought, instead of a quiet, steady blaze—an avoidance of everything like a coherent system of opinions—a large range of comparison and illustration, with an occasional haziness145 of metaphysical conception, in which the reader is apt to lose his way. These lectures are occupied with the delineation102 of the characters of half a dozen of the greatest men that ever lived, each of whom Mr. Emerson makes the representative and exponent146 of a certain class. One of these223 great men is Plato, on whose intellectual character the author expatiates147 like one who is truly in love with his subject.
It was deemed incumbent148 upon the Evening Post to print at least this much concerning every noteworthy American book, but it recognized no duty as regarded English works. Sometimes a volume, like Carlyle’s “Chartism,” would receive a column and a half, while sometimes important productions would get never a word. The Evening Post’s criticism of Dickens’s “American Notes” is given by Parke Godwin in his life of Bryant—a criticism praising some of the novelist’s fault-finding and taking exception chiefly to his remarks on American newspapers. “Martin Chuzzlewit” was reviewed in 1843, and the American scenes were pronounced a failure for two reasons. “In the first place, the author knows very little about us, and in the second place, the desire of being vehemently149 satirical seems to unfit him for what he wishes to do, and takes from him his wonted humor and invention.” But no later work by Dickens, up to the Civil War, seems to have been noticed.
Yet with all its shortcomings, the Evening Post maintained a literary tone. In part this arose from the pure English and the allusiveness150 of Bryant’s editorial style; in part from the unusual attention paid to magazines and book news; and in part from the fact that literary people were attracted to it because Bryant was its editor. When G. P. R. James and Martin Tupper visited America, they published original verse in it. Miss Catharine Sedgwick, the novelist, sent it travel sketches in 1841 and later. During the years 1834–41 Cooper published many letters in the Evening Post upon his various libel suits and other personal matters, and at one time had Bryant’s journal actively151 enlisted152 on his side. “Cooper, you know,” Bryant explained to Dana in a letter of Nov. 26, 1838, “has published another novel, entitled “Home as Found,” rather satirical I believe on American manners. A notice of it appeared in the Courier newspaper of this city, a very malignant153 notice indeed, containing some stories about Cooper’s private conversations. Cooper arrived224 in town about the time the article was published, and answered it by a short letter to the Evening Post, in which he gave notice that he should prosecute154 the publishers of the paper. It is a favorite doctrine107 with him just now that the newspapers tell more lies than truths, and he has undertaken to reform the practice, so far as what they say respects him personally.” Webb’s attack was said to have been occasioned by Cooper’s having cut his acquaintance. The Evening Post denounced it as proceeding155 from personal pique156, “grossly malignant,” and “swaggering and silly”; and in the spring of 1841 Cooper sent the Post reams of controversial material.
Walt Whitman earned Bryant’s grateful notice by his journalistic activities in Brooklyn in behalf of the “Barnburner” Democracy, and was praised for his tales in the Democratic Review, one of which the Evening Post reprinted (1842). During 1851 he contributed five articles. The first, called “Something About Art and Brooklyn Artists,” eulogized the paintings of several obscure men, and the second, “A Letter From Brooklyn,” told of the changes across the East River—how Bergen Hill was nearly leveled, a huge tract101 had been reclaimed157 from the sea near the Atlantic Dock, and Fifth Avenue was still unpaved and neglected. Whitman went down to the eastern end of Long Island that summer, for, as he wrote the Post, “I ... like it far better than I could ever like Saratoga or Newport.” In two June letters from Paumanok he described the joy of bathing in the clear, cold water, derided158 the stiff ceremoniousness of city boarders, gave some good advice to boarding-house keepers, and depicted159 two old natives of Marion and Rocky Point, “Uncle Dan’l” and “Aunt Rebby.” Upon his return he sent a rather rhapsodic description of the opera at Castle Garden, with Bettini singing. It does not appear that Bryant had any personal interest in Whitman, and it was unfortunate that no effort was made to extend his brief connection.
Something should be said about the Evening Post’s miscellaneous columns, a wallet into which was thrown225 a wide assortment160 of reprinted selections. Now it was a chapter of Lord Londonderry’s Travels; now Ellery Channing’s reminiscences of his father; now an article from Fraser’s on old French poetry; now a chapter from Cooper’s “Wing and Wing”; now Tennyson’s “Godiva,” Longfellow’s “Spanish Student,” or Spence’s anecdotes161 of Pope. Much might be said also of its reports of literary lectures, the course by Emerson upon “The Times” in the spring of 1842 and Holmes’s course upon modern poetry in the fall of 1853 being especially well covered. Emerson was an earnest but not popular speaker, and the writer for the Post, either Bryant or Parke Godwin, was at first cold to him. But within a few days he was remarking that the addresses grew upon one’s admiration. “Emerson convinces you that he is a man accustomed to profound and original thought, and not disposed, as at the outset you are inclined to suspect, to play with and baffle the intellects of his readers. He is eminently162 sincere and direct, strongly convinced of his own views, and anxious to present them in an earnest and striking manner.” Parke Godwin himself early in the fifties became a lyceum star, along with Holmes, Curtis, Greeley, Horace Mann, Orville Dewey, and others.
As for drama, the most important appearances occurred, and the most important criticism was written, while Leggett was one of the editors. Leggett, as Abram C. Dayton tells us in “Last Days of Knickerbocker Life,” was regarded as the especial champion of Edwin Forrest, who had made his début in 1826, and who was a warm favorite with the “Bowery Boys” and all other lovers of florid, stentorian163 acting164. Certainly Leggett praised him highly and constantly in the Evening Post. In 1834 a gold medal was presented Forrest by a committee including Bryant and Leggett, who recalled in the newspaper how he had come to the city quite unknown, and had given the first electrifying165 demonstration166 of his powers when he consented, as an act of kindness to a poor actor, to appear at a benefit as Othello.
When on Sept. 18, 1832, Charles Kemble made his226 first American appearance as Hamlet, he was honored with the longest dramatic criticism in the journal’s history, almost three and a half columns. His towering, manly form, his Roman face, and his histrionic ability impressed Leggett, who thought that while he did not have the flashes of dazzling brilliance167 that Kean had, his grace, ease, and elegance168 almost atoned169 for the lack, and would have a good effect upon American acting. Fanny Kemble made her bow the following night, and was at once hailed as displaying “an intensity170 and truth never, we believe, yet exhibited by an actress in America, certainly never by one so young.” Later, after seeing the two in more performances, Leggett concluded that they were admirable in comedy, but uneven171 in tragedy.
Bryant’s interest in the theater was mainly a literary interest, yet he seems to have been the writer of a series of editorials in 1847, arguing for an American theater. He spoke of the new Broadway Theater, and the sailing of the manager to England to engage talent. Why supply the new stage from abroad? protested the Evening Post. “Is it to be merely a house of call for such foreign artists as may find it agreeable or profitable to visit us, at such times as they may chance to select? Or is it to be an American establishment of the highest class, with a well-selected and thoroughly trained company permanently172 employed, varied173 by star engagements as a brilliant relief to the sober background, and enlivened, from time to time, by ability from abroad? Does it, in a word, propose to go on the old beaten track so often condemned, or to draw a line for a new period ...?” Bryant had no use for provincialism in any form.
But when the sentiment of Forrest’s supporters for an “American” theater led them in May, 1849, while their hero was playing at the Broadway House, to attack the English tragedian Macready at the Astor Place Opera House in a bloody174 riot, the Evening Post had to condemn65 their conduct. Its liking175 for Forrest himself was much cooled a year after, when, following his separation from his wife, he attacked the author N. P. Willis with a whip227 on Washington Square. Two days later Forrest met Bryant and Parke Godwin walking down Broadway, and furiously demanded who had written the Evening Post’s report of the assault, in which Forrest was said to have struck Willis from behind. Godwin, who thoroughly sympathized with Mrs. Forrest in her quarrel with her husband, replied that he was the author. The actor then turned upon him ferociously176, said that the report was a d——d lie from beginning to end, that he would hold Godwin responsible for several things, and that he had told Godwin that he meant to cane177 Willis. “I replied,” Godwin later testified, “that these were not just the terms that he used, and that he told me formerly that he meant to cut his damned heart out; to which Mr. Forrest muttered something in reply....” So much for the manners of the fifties.
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1
den
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| n.兽穴；秘密地方；安静的小房间，私室 | |
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besought
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| v.恳求，乞求（某事物）( beseech的过去式和过去分词 )；(beseech的过去式与过去分词) | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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repudiated
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| v.（正式地）否认( repudiate的过去式和过去分词 )；拒绝接受；拒绝与…往来；拒不履行（法律义务） | |
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5
mightily
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| ad.强烈地；非常地 | |
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censure
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| v./n.责备；非难；责难 | |
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devour
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| v.吞没；贪婪地注视或谛听，贪读；使着迷 | |
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naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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sketched
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| v.草拟（sketch的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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deplored
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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excerpt
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| n.摘录，选录，节录 | |
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sprawling
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| adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着） | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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installment
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| n.(instalment)分期付款；(连载的)一期 | |
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unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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farce
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| n.闹剧，笑剧，滑稽戏；胡闹 | |
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extravagant
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| adj.奢侈的；过分的；(言行等)放肆的 | |
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pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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originality
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| n.创造力，独创性；新颖 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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ovation
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| n.欢呼，热烈欢迎，热烈鼓掌 | |
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ballroom
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| n.舞厅 | |
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alcoves
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| n.凹室( alcove的名词复数 )；（花园）凉亭；僻静处；壁龛 | |
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29
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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illustrate
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| v.举例说明，阐明；图解，加插图 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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animation
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| n.活泼，兴奋，卡通片／动画片的制作 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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earrings
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| n.耳环( earring的名词复数 )；耳坠子 | |
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tableaux
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| n.舞台造型，（由活人扮演的）静态画面、场面；人构成的画面或场景( tableau的名词复数 )；舞台造型；戏剧性的场面；绚丽的场景 | |
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middle-aged
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| adj.中年的 | |
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transcript
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| n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书 | |
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accusation
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| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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40
austere
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| adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的 | |
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41
enjoyments
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| 愉快( enjoyment的名词复数 )； 令人愉快的事物； 享有； 享受 | |
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42
vent
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| n.通风口，排放口；开衩；vt.表达，发泄 | |
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43
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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44
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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45
excellences
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| n.卓越( excellence的名词复数 )；（只用于所修饰的名词后）杰出的；卓越的；出类拔萃的 | |
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46
narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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47
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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48
fervor
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| n.热诚；热心；炽热 | |
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49
homage
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| n.尊敬，敬意，崇敬 | |
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50
mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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51
formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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52
conquerors
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| 征服者，占领者( conqueror的名词复数 ) | |
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53
trespass
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| n./v.侵犯，闯入私人领地 | |
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54
acridly
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| adj.辛辣的；刺鼻的；（性格、态度、言词等）刻薄的；尖刻的 | |
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55
authorized
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| a.委任的，许可的 | |
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56
hearty
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| adj.热情友好的；衷心的；尽情的，纵情的 | |
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57
altruistic
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| adj.无私的，为他人着想的 | |
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58
wares
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| n. 货物, 商品 | |
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59
royalty
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| n.皇家，皇族 | |
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60
hood
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| n.头巾，兜帽，覆盖；v.罩上，以头巾覆盖 | |
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61
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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62
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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64
redress
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| n.赔偿，救济，矫正；v.纠正，匡正，革除 | |
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65
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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66
condemned
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| adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词 | |
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67
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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68
awaken
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| vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起 | |
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69
triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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70
unison
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| n.步调一致，行动一致 | |
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71
eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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73
labors
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| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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75
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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76
aspirants
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| n.有志向或渴望获得…的人( aspirant的名词复数 )v.渴望的，有抱负的，追求名誉或地位的( aspirant的第三人称单数 )；有志向或渴望获得…的人 | |
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economists
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| n.经济学家，经济专家( economist的名词复数 ) | |
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78
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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80
devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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81
attainments
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| 成就，造诣； 获得( attainment的名词复数 )； 达到； 造诣； 成就 | |
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82
motives
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| n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 ) | |
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83
indifference
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| n.不感兴趣，不关心，冷淡，不在乎 | |
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84
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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85
conspicuously
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| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
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86
discourses
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| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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avowal
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| n.公开宣称，坦白承认 | |
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professed
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| 公开声称的，伪称的，已立誓信教的 | |
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prone
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| adj.(to)易于…的，很可能…的；俯卧的 | |
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91
eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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92
gracefully
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| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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93
delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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graphic
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| adj.生动的，形象的，绘画的，文字的，图表的 | |
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95
sketches
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| n.草图( sketch的名词复数 )；素描；速写；梗概 | |
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96
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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97
tinge
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| vt.(较淡)着色于，染色；使带有…气息；n.淡淡色彩，些微的气息 | |
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98
peculiarities
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| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
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99
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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100
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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101
tract
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| n.传单，小册子，大片(土地或森林) | |
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102
delineation
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| n.记述；描写 | |
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103
simplicity
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| n.简单，简易；朴素；直率，单纯 | |
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104
tantalizing
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| adj.逗人的；惹弄人的；撩人的；煽情的v.逗弄，引诱，折磨( tantalize的现在分词 ) | |
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105
inured
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| adj.坚强的，习惯的 | |
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106
doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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107
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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108
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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109
appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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110
anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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111
burlesque
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| v.嘲弄，戏仿；n.嘲弄，取笑，滑稽模仿 | |
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112
thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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113
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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114
hearth
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| n.壁炉炉床，壁炉地面 | |
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115
urchin
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| n.顽童；海胆 | |
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116
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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117
vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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118
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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119
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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120
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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121
fervent
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| adj.热的，热烈的，热情的 | |
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122
manifesto
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| n.宣言，声明 | |
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123
Congressman
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| n.（美）国会议员 | |
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124
hazardous
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| adj.(有)危险的，冒险的；碰运气的 | |
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125
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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126
canto
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| n.长篇诗的章 | |
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127
wrought
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| v.引起；以…原料制作；运转；adj.制造的 | |
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128
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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129
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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130
subjective
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| a.主观(上)的，个人的 | |
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131
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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132
abatement
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| n.减(免)税，打折扣，冲销 | |
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133
anterior
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| adj.较早的；在前的 | |
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134
obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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135
industrious
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| adj.勤劳的，刻苦的，奋发的 | |
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136
discoursed
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| 演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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137
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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138
postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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139
promptly
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| adv.及时地，敏捷地 | |
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140
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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141
consul
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| n.领事；执政官 | |
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142
savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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143
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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144
wilderness
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| n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠 | |
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145
haziness
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| 有薄雾，模糊； 朦胧之性质或状态； 零能见度 | |
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146
exponent
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| n.倡导者，拥护者；代表人物；指数，幂 | |
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147
expatiates
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| v.详述，细说( expatiate的第三人称单数 ) | |
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148
incumbent
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| adj.成为责任的，有义务的；现任的，在职的 | |
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149
vehemently
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| adv. 热烈地 | |
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150
allusiveness
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151
actively
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| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
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152
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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153
malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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154
prosecute
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| vt.告发；进行；vi.告发，起诉，作检察官 | |
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155
proceeding
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| n.行动，进行，(pl.)会议录，学报 | |
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156
pique
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| v.伤害…的自尊心，使生气 n.不满，生气 | |
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157
reclaimed
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| adj.再生的；翻造的；收复的；回收的v.开拓( reclaim的过去式和过去分词 )；要求收回；从废料中回收（有用的材料）；挽救 | |
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158
derided
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| v.取笑，嘲笑( deride的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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159
depicted
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| 描绘，描画( depict的过去式和过去分词 )； 描述 | |
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160
assortment
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| n.分类，各色俱备之物，聚集 | |
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161
anecdotes
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| n.掌故，趣闻，轶事( anecdote的名词复数 ) | |
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162
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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163
stentorian
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| adj.大声的，响亮的 | |
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164
acting
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| n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的 | |
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165
electrifying
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| v.使电气化( electrify的现在分词 )；使兴奋 | |
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166
demonstration
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| n.表明，示范，论证，示威 | |
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167
brilliance
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| n.光辉，辉煌，壮丽，（卓越的）才华，才智 | |
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168
elegance
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| n.优雅；优美，雅致；精致，巧妙 | |
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169
atoned
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| v.补偿，赎（罪）( atone的过去式和过去分词 )；补偿，弥补，赎回 | |
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170
intensity
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| n.强烈，剧烈；强度；烈度 | |
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171
uneven
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| adj.不平坦的，不规则的，不均匀的 | |
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172
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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173
varied
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| adj.多样的，多变化的 | |
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174
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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175
liking
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| n.爱好；嗜好；喜欢 | |
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176
ferociously
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| 野蛮地，残忍地 | |
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177
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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