William 1806-70. Philip The South. eenth-century taste, making no intellectual changes. so long as human slavery was the basis of its physical life. I shall hereafter refer to the quality of the newborn Southern imagination. That it exists, in fresh and hopeful promise, is now beyond doubt. A few of the earlier Southern writers-one of whom was Simms, the novelist-poet-worked courageously, but with more will and fluency than native power; so that, in spite of their abundant verse, such a lyrist as Pendleton Cooke was long the typical Southern poet, a name joined with the memory of a single song. A collection of the earlier Southern poetry worth keeping would be a brief anthology, which a little volume might contain, and in which more than one of Albert Pike's productions certainly should be found. Poe, whose pieces would occupy one third of it, sought the literary market, deserting Richmond and Baltimore for Philadelphia and New York. He lived in the Northern atmosphere, and, like Bryant, took his part in the busy movement of its civic life and work. Pendleton Cooke: 1816-50. Poe. James Hillhouse: diner Calkins Besides the Eastern poets whom I have named, there were others who still more closely followed 1789-1841. English models: among them, the orthodox bards of John Gar- Connecticut, Hillhouse and Brainard, compared with whom Percival, the eccentric scholar and recluse, Brainard: shines by virtue of a gift improved by no mean culture. His lyrics and poems of nature, though infeGates rior to Bryant's, so resemble them that he would be Percival: called the latter's pupil, had not the two composed in the same manner from the outset. 1796-1828. James 1795-1856. Allow made. These writers and some others of their time must, ances to be in all fairness, be judged by it. They had their modest laurels and rewards, and were the bright selected few of their country and period, no less distinguished, though within a smaller horizon, than their HALLECK.-DRAKE. latter-day successors. Their work was the best of its kind which America could show; it had the knack of making itself read in the annuals and school-books, and influenced the sentiment of more than one generation. Were Dana and Allston flourishing now, they would accomplish feats then impracticable, and doubtless would be at no disadvantage among our present favorites, nor less receive our honor and support. Fashion is a potency in art, making it hard to judge between the temporary and the lasting. Are we sure that our popular poets are better in native faculty? If they have a finer understanding and a defter handling of their craft, these may be partly a consequence of the fact that not Montgomery and Wilson, but Keats, and Wordsworth, and Tennyson, and their greater masters, have supplied the models of a recent school. Irving. 39 It was natural, also, that the literary centre should New York. shift from place to place, along a sea-board whose capital was scarcely yet defined. New York early drew together a number of bright young wits and songsters. The fame of the prose-romancers, Cooper Cooper and and Irving, and their success with home themes, were gratifying to the local and national pride, and encouraged at the time, as far as literature was concerned, a broader American sentiment than prevailed in New England. That was a spirited little group of "The rhyming satirists whose fancy brightened the pages 1819-25. of Coleman's "Evening Post." Two young writers, Halleck and Drake, worked in comradeship until the one sustained a more than common misfortune in the other's untimely death. These two men were real poets; such is the impression left as one reads, after many years, the verse composed by them. Had they been born half a century later, they now would work Croakers," Pioneers. John Joseph Drake: more elaborately, but with less certainty of reputation. Their best pieces were at once so received into popular affection that the authors' names still last. Both of these poets had humor, and a perception of its legitimate use. They, with Bryant and his school, with Brockden Brown, Paulding, Cooper, Irving, and Miss Sedgwick, writers of prose, and the dramatist Payne, author of "Brutus" and other bygone plays, and of that abiding carol, "Home, Sweet 1791-1852. Home,' were the first Americans whose work gave any substantial evidence of a native movement in ideal or creative literature. Drake died in his twentyRodman sixth year, leaving a daughter, through whom his 1795-1820. poetic gift has been transmitted to our day. He had a quick, genuine faculty, and could be frolicsome or earnest at will. As an exercise of that delicate imagination which we term fancy, The Culprit Fay, although the work of a youth schooled in fairy-lore and the metres of Coleridge, Scott, and Moore, boded well for his future. "The American Flag" is a stirring bit of eloquence in rhyme. The death of this spirited and promising writer was justly deplored. His talent was healthy; had he lived, American authorship might not so readily have become, in Griswold's time, a vent for every kind of romantic and sentimental absurdity. Drake also would have stimulated the muse of Halleck, whose choicest pieces were composed before he 1790-1867. had outlived the sense of that recent companionship. He, too, was a natural lyrist, whose pathos and eloquence were inborn, and whose sentiment, though he wrote in the prevailing English mode, was that of his own land. As we read those favorites of our schoolboy days, "Burns" and "Red Jacket" and "Marco Bozzaris," we feel that Halleck was, within his bounds, a national poet. Circumstances dulled his fire, and Fitz- Halleck: INCREASED ACTIVITY. 4I literary he lived to write drivel in his old age. But the early Growing lyrics remain, nor was there anything of their kind in activity. our home-poetry to compete with them until long after Henry their first production. Theodore Tucker Charles 1806-84. George ris: 1802 64. Thomas Dunn 1819 Hoyt : 1810-78. William The impulse given to poetry and belles-lettres by man: the example of the early poets and novelists increased 1813-71. with the appearance of fresh strivers after literary Fenno fame. In the East, names began to be mentioned Hoffman: that now are great indeed; others, then more commonly known, have passed almost out of memory. Pope Mor A few teachers of sound literary doctrine, like E. T. Channing, of Cambridge, were sowing good seed for future harvests. In New York, the writings of Willis and Tuckerman, of the song-makers Hoffman, Mor-English: ris, and English, of Verplanck, the Duyckincks, Benja- Park Benmin, Griswold, and other editors and bookwrights, and jamin: the parade of new versifiers, male and female, betok-1809-64. ened a taste, however crude and ill-regulated, for the Ralph pursuit of letters. Occasionally a note of promise was heard, from some quaint genius like Ralph Hoyt, or some aspirant like Lord, of whom great things were predicted, and who, in spite of Poe's vindictive on- Lord: slaught, was and is a poet. A good deal of eloquent and high-sounding verse was produced by such writers as Ross Wallace and Albert Pike. In the East, John lace: 1819Neal, William Ware, Lunt, Hillard, Mrs. Child, and in regions farther south, Conrad, Kennedy, and Pike: Simms, were active at this time. There were others 1809whose claim to attention will be frequent throughout John this work. But to enumerate all who, in the second 1793-1876. quarter of this century, held themselves of much ac- George count is quite beyond my need and intention. Of the New York group, Willis perhaps had the most Robert adroit and graceful talent, but it was not always exer- Taylor cised as by one possessing convictions. His kindness, Wilber force 1819 William Ross Wal 81. Albert Neal: Lunt: 1803-85. Conrad: 1810-58. Parker Willis: 1806-67. erati." Nathaniel tact, and experience of the world made him an arbiter in a provincial time. They also seriously exposed him to the three worldly perils of which, no less than in the days of the Apostle John, the children of the Lord must have a care. A few of his lyrics are charmingly tender and delicate, but he never did himself full justice as a poet, nor realized the purpose of his "The Lit- ambitious boyhood. The bustle of the Literati, as Poe chose to call them, and the concentration of thriving journals and book-houses in Philadelphia and New York, whither most roads then seemed to lead, made for a while the scribbling class of this middle region very conspicuous and alert. Their kith and kin, scattered throughout the States, multiplied in numbers. The first green fruit of a school-system, under which boys and girls had models set before them, and were incited to test their own skill in composition, fell in plenty from the tree. Each county had its prodigy contributing to the annuals and magazines. Lowell's "mass-meeting" of poets was in continuous session, made up of those who wrote verse, read and praised it one to another, and printed it for their countrymen to read and praise. The dull and authoritative felt the responsibilities of the situation. Never was a more united effort made, with malice prepense, to create an indigenous school. It was thought essential that purely American themes and incidents should be utilized. Cockney poets, emulating the method of Cooper, sent fancy ranging through the aboriginal forest, and wreaked their measures upon the supposititious Indian of that day. Powhatan and Tecumseh became the heroes of hot-pressed cantos, now extinct. The Spirit of Wakondah was invoked by one bard, and made to tower above the Rocky Mountains, more awe-inspiring than Camoëns's Spirit Pseudo Americanism. |