Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, No. 6, June 1850Various
General
Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXVI, No. 6, June 1850
Various
Literature -- Periodicals; Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals
This edition of Longfellow contains all his poems, and makes two finely
printed volumes of some five hundred pages each, at about half the
original price. In their present tasteful form they will doubtless have
a large circulation, for their author is the most popular poet of the
day on both sides of the Atlantic. His poems sell better in England than
those of Tennyson, Browning, Mrs. Browning, Bailey or Milnes. This wide
popularity he has fairly won by his merits, as he has not lacked carping
critics or envious defamers to obstruct his path to success. The source
of the fascination he holds equally over cultivated and uncultivated
minds is partly owing to the fine humanity and sweetness of his spirit.
Good nature is a portion of his genius; without this good nature, man,
says Bacon, is but “a better kind of vermin;” but we are sorry to say
that it is not a prominent characteristic of many minds largely gifted
with the poetic faculty. Longfellow, in addition to this heartiness,
full of seriousness which does not exclude cheer, has a broad and
imaginative mind, which has assimilated and inwrought into its own
substance the spirit of many literatures; and this gives a vital
richness to his thought which no other contemporary poet but Tennyson
can be said to possess. Probably few poets ever excelled him in the
difficult art of preserving an equilibrium of ambition and capacity, so
that nothing is attempted which is not satisfactorily performed. Many
poets who aim higher than Longfellow, please less, because we are
conscious of the stir and sting of great aspirations which are
unaccompanied by sufficient imagination to give them adequate form and
expression, and the result is that the mind is disturbed rather than
exalted. In Longfellow aspiration and inspiration are perfectly
harmonized.
* * * * *
_The Angel World, and Other Poems. By Philip James Bailey,
author of “Festus.” Boston: Ticknor, Reed & Fields. 1 vol.
16mo._
“Festus,” a monstrous agglomeration of irreconcilable opinions, lit up
with fancy, and seasoned with warm sensations, was Mr. Bailey’s first
bantling—
“Got while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.”
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