Edgar Allan Poe: His Life, Letters, and Opinions — John H. Ingram, 1880, volume II — reading text

no one understood, but at its conclusion gave the audience a treat which almost redeemed their disappointment. This was the recitation of his own ‘Raven,’ which he repeated with thrilling effect. It was something well worth treasuring in memory. . . . Poe,” adds this authority,“after he returned to New York, was much incensed at Boston criticism on his poem.” Probably the poet was not incensed to any very great extent at what was said about him, but doubtless deemed it a favourable opportunity, for his journal’ sake, to make what he termed “a bobbery.” A just view of the case was taken by a contemporary publication, the Charlestown Patriot, when it remarked that for a man endowed with such a genius, and constituted as was Poe, “it was a blunder to accept the appointment which called him to deliver himself in poetry before the Boston Lyceum. Highly imaginative men,” as it says truly, “can scarcely succeed in such exhibitions. . . . In obeying this call to Boston,” it continues, “Mr. Poe committed’ another mistake. He had been mercilessly exercising himself as a critic at the expense of some of their favourite writers. The swans of New England, under his delineation, had been described as mere geese, and those, too, of none of the whitest. . . . Poe had dealt with favourites of Boston unsparingly, and they hankered after their revenge. In an evil hour, then, did he consent to commit himself, in verse, to their tender mercies. It is positively amusing to see how eagerly all the little witlings of the press, in the old purlieus of the Puritan, flourish the critical tomahawk about the head of their critic. In their eagerness for retribution, one of the papers before us actually congratulates itself and readers on the (asserted) failure of the poet. . . . Mr. Poe committed an error in consenting to address an audience in verse, who, for three mortal hours, had been compelled to sit and hear Mr. Caleb Cushing in prose. The attempt to speak, after this, in. poetry, and fanciful poetry, too, was sheer madness. The most patient audience in the world must have been utterly exhausted by the previous infliction. But it is denied that Mr. Poe failed at all. He had been summoned to recite poetry. It is asserted that he did so. The Boston Courier, one of the most thoughtful of the journals of that city, gives us a very favourable opinion of the performance which has been so harshly treated. ‘The poem,’ says that journal, ‘called “The Messenger Star,’ ” was an eloquent and classic production, based on the right principles, containing the essence of true poetry, mingled with a gorgeous imagination, exquisite painting, every charm, of metre, and a graceful delivery.’ ” A week after the recitation of his poem Poe began to comment, in a tone of badinage, upon the remarks made by some of the Bostonian papers with respect to his recent performance: “We have been quizzing the Bostonians,” was his assertion, “and one or two of the more stupid of their editors and editresses have taken it in high dudgeon.” In the next issue of the Broadway Journal, the poet, after quoting a vindicatory paragraph from the Boston Sunday Times, proceeds “Our excellent friend Major Noah has suffered himself to be cajoled by that most beguiling of all little divinities, Miss Walters of the Transcript. We have been looking all over her article, with the aid of a taper, to see if we could discover a single syllable of truth in it, and really blush to acknowledge that we cannot. The adorable creature has been telling a parcel of fibs about us, by way of revenge for something that we did to Mr. Longfellow (who admires her very much), and for calling her ‘a pretty little witch’ into the bargain. “The facts of the case seem to be these; — We were invited to ‘deliver’ (stand and deliver) a poem before the Boston Lyceum. As a matter of course, we accepted the invitation. The audience was ‘large and distinguished.’ Mr. Cushing preceded us with a very capital discourse. He was much applauded. Can arising we were most cordially received. We occupied some fifteen minutes with an apology for not ‘delivering,’ as is usual in such cases, a didactic poem — a didactic poem, in our opinion, being precisely no poem at all. After some further words — still of apology — for the ‘indefinitiveness’ and ‘general imbecility’ of what we had to offer — all so unworthy a Bostonian audience — we commenced, and, with many interruptions of applause, concluded. Upon the whole, the approbation was considerably more (the more the pity too) than that bestowed upon Mr. Cushing. “When we had made an end, the audience of course arose to depart — and about one-tenth of them, probably, had really departed, when Mr. Coffin, one of the managing com mittee, arrested those who remained by the announcement that we had been requested to deliver ‘The Raven.’ We delivered ‘The Raven’ forthwith — (without taking a receipt) — were very cordially applauded again — and this was the end of it, with the exception of the sad tale invented to suit her own purposes by that amiable little enemy of ours, Miss Walters. We shall never call a woman ‘a pretty little witch’ again, as long as we live. “We like Boston. We were born there — and perhaps it is just as well not to mention that we are heartily ashamed of the fact. The Bostonians are very well in their way. Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good. Their common is no common thing — and the duck-pond might answer, if its answer could be heard, for the frogs. “But with all these good qualities the Bostonians have no soul. They have always evinced towards us the basest ingratitude for the services we rendered them . . . When we accepted, therefore, an invitation to ‘deliver’ a poem in Boston, we accepted it simply and solely because we had a curiosity to know how it felt to be publicly hissed, and because we wished to see what effect we could produce by a neat little impromptu speech in reply. Perhaps, however, we overrated our own importance, or the Bostonian want of common civility — which is not quite so manifest as one or two of their editors would wish the public to believe. We assure Major Noah that he is wrong. The Bostonians are well-bred — as very dull persons very generally are. “It could scarcely be supposed that we would put ourselves to the trouble of composing for the Bostonians anything in the shape of an original poem. We did not. We had a poem (of about five hundred lines) lying by us — one quite as good as new — one, at all events, that we considered would answer sufficiently well for an audience of Transcendentalists. That we gave them — it was the best that we has-for the price — and it did answer remarkably well. Its name was not ‘The Messenger Star’ — who but Miss Walters would ever think of so delicious a little bit of invention as that? We had no name for it at all. The poem is what is occasionally called a ‘juvenile poem’ — but the fact is, it is anything but juvenile now, for we wrote it, printed it, and published it, in book form, before we bad fairly completed our tenth year. We read it verbatim, from a copy now in our possession, and which we shall be happy to show at any moment to any of our inquisitive friends. . . . “As regards the anger of the Boston Times and one or two other absurdities — as regards, we say, the wrath of Achilles — we incurred it — or rather its manifestation — by letting some of our cat out of the bag a few hours sooner than we had intended. Over a bottle of champagne that night, we confessed to Messrs. Cushing, Whipple, Hudson, Field, and a few other natives who swear not altogether by the frog-pond — we confessed, we say, the soft impeachment of the hoax. Et hinc illcs irm We should have waited a couple of days.” This lengthy letter did not conclude Poe’s comments upon the matter; for three weeks he permitted the affair to remain dormant, so far as his own journal was concerned, but at the expiration of that period he issued another long editorial, beginning with the remark, “As we very confidently expected, our friends in the southern and western country (true friends and tried) are taking up arms in our cause — and more especially in the cause of a national as distinguished from a sectional literature. They cannot see (it appears) any further necessity for being ridden to death by New England.” After quoting certain opinions of the press, the poet goes on to say, that if asked “What is the most exquisite of sublunary pleasures?” the reply would be “the making a fuss, or, in the classical words of a Western friend, the ‘kicking up a bobbery;’ ” adding, “never was a ‘bobbery’ more delightful than that which we have just succeeded in ‘kicking up’ all round about Boston Common. We never saw the Frogpondians so lively in our lives. They seem absoutely to be upon the point of waking up . . . to certain facts which have long been obvious to all the world except themselves — the facts that there exist other cities than Boston . . . other vehicles of literary information than the ‘Down-East Review.’ ” Other newspaper opinions are then cited, and other over-wrought banterings indulged in, and then what was really the gist of the article was given in these words: — “We knew very well that, among a certain clique of the Frogpondians, there existed a predetermination to abuse us under any circumstances. We knew that write what we would they would swear it to be worthless. We knew that were we to compose for them a ‘Paradise Lost’ they would pronounce it an indifferent poem It would have been very weak in us, then, to put ourselves to the trouble of attempting to please these people. We preferred pleasing ourselves. We read before them a ‘juvenile,’ a very ‘juvenile’ poem — and thus the Frogpondians were had — were delivered up to the enemy bound hand and foot Never were a set of people more completely demolished. They have blustered and flustered, but what have they done or said that has not made them more thoroughly ridiculous? what, in the name of Momus, is it possible for them to do or to say? “We ‘delivered’ them the ‘juvenile poem,’ and they received it with applause. This is accounted for by the fact that the clique (contemptible in numbers as in everything else) were overruled by the rest of the assembly. These malignants did not dare to interrupt by their preconcerted hisses the respectful and profound attention of the majority. . . . The poem being thus well received, in spite of this ridiculous little cabal — the next thing to be done was to abuse it in the papers. Here, they imagined, they were sure of their game. But what have they accomplished? The poem, they say, is bad. We admit it. We insisted upon this fact in our prefatory remarks, and we insist upon it now, over and over again. “Repelled at these points, the Frogpondian faction hire a thing they call the ‘Washingtonian Reformer’ (or something of that kind), to insinuate that we must have been ‘intoxicated’ to have become possessed of sufficient audacity to ‘deliver’ such a poem to the Frogpondians. In the first place, why cannot these miserable hypocrites say ‘drunk’ at once, and be done with it? In the second place, we are perfectly willing to admit that we were drunk — in the face of at least eleven or twelve hundred Frogpondians who will be willing to take oath that we were not. We are willing to admit either that we were drunk, or that we set fire to the Frogpond, or that once upon a time we cut the throat of our grandmother. The fact is, we are perfectly ready to admit anything at all-but what has cutting the throat of our grandmother to do with our poem, or the Frogpondian stupidity? We shall get drunk when we please. As for the editor of the ‘Jeffersonian Teetotaler’ (or whatever it is), we advise her to get drunk too, as soon as possible — for when sober she is a disgrace to the sex, on account of being so awfully stupid. “N. B. The