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

surprises me. It is the first I heard of it — with the exception of a hint in one of your previous letters-but which I did not then comprehend Please let me know as many particulars as you can remember — for I must see into the charge. Who edits the paper? who publishes it? &c. &c. &c. About what time was the accusation made? I assure you that it is totally false. In 1840 I published a book with thus title — ‘The Conchologist’s First Book: A system of Testacious Malacology, arranged especially for the use of Schools, in which the animals, according to Cuvier, are given with the shells, a great number of new species added, and the whole brought up, as accurately as possible, to the present condition of the science. By Edgar A. Poe. With illustrations of a 15 shells, presenting a correct type of each genus.’ “This, I presume, is the work referred to. I wrote it in conjunction with Professor Thomas Wyatt, and Professor McMurtrie, of Philadelphia — my name being put to the work, as best known and most likely to aid its circulation. I wrote the Preface and Introduction, and translated from Cuvier the accounts of the animals, &c. All school-books are necessarily made in a similar way. The very title-page acknowledges that the animals are given ‘according to Cuvier.’ This charge is infamous, and I shall prosecute for it, as soon as I settle my accounts with ‘The Mirror.’* — Truly your friend, E. A. POE.” The poet’s letter having given the title-page minus only the words, “Published for the Author by Haswell, Barring ton, and Haswell,” and “Second Edition” added to the title of second issue, it need not be repeated, but the “Prefaces” to the first and second editions are worth recapitulation. The first is: — “The term ‘Malacology,’ an abbreviation of ‘Malacology,’ from the greek μαλαχος, soft, ζωον, an animal, and λογος, a discourse, was first employed by the French naturalist, De Blainville, to designate an important division of Natural History, in which the leading feature of the animals discussed was the softness of the flesh, or, to speak with greater accuracy, of the general envelope. This division comprehends not only the Mollusca, but also the Testacea of Aristotle and of Pliny, and of course, had reference to molluscous animals in general, — of which the greater portion have shells. “A treatise concerning the shells, exclusively, of this greater portion, is termed, in accordance with general usage, a treatise upon Conchology or Conchyliology; although the word is somewhat improperly applied, as the Greek conchylion, from which it is derived, embraces in its signification both the animal and the shell. Ostracology would have been more definite. “The common works upon this subject, however, will appear to every person of science very essentially defective, inasmuch as the relation of the animal and shell, with their dependence upon each other, is a radically important consideration in the examination of either. Neither in the attempt to obviate this difficulty is a work upon Malacology at large necessarily included. Shells, it is true, form, and, for many obvious reasons, will continue to form, the subject of chief interest, whether with regard to the school or the cabinet; still there is no good reason why a book upon Conchology (using the common term) may not be malacological as far as it proceeds. “In this view of the subject, the present little work is offered to the public. Beyond the ruling feature — that of giving an anatomical account of each animal, together with a description of the shell which it inhabits, — I have aimed at little more than accuracy and simplicity, as far as the latter quality can be thought consistent with the rigid exactions of science. “No attention has been given to the more History of the subject; it is conceived that any disquisition on this head would more properly appertain to works of ultimate research, than to one whose sole intention is to make the pupil acquainted, in as tangible a form as possible, with results. To afford, at a cheap rate, a concise, yet a sufficiently comprehensive, and especially a well illustrated school-book, has been the principal design. “In conclusion, I have only to acknowledge my great indebtedness to the valuable public labours, as well as private assistance, of Mr. Isaac Lea, of Philadelphia. To Mr. Thomas Wyatt, and his excellent Manual of Conchology, I am also under many obligations. No better work, perhaps, could be put into the hands of the student as a secondary text-book. Its beautiful and perfectly well-coloured illustrations afford an aid in the collection of a cabinet scarcely to be met with elsewhere. E. A. P.” The Preface to the second edition is: — “In issuing a second edition of this ‘Conchology,’ in so very brief a period since the publication of the first large impression, the author has little more to do than to express the high pleasure with which he has seen his labours well received. The success of the work has been decided; and the entire design has been accomplished in its general introduction into schools. “Many important alterations and additions are now made; errors of the press carefully corrected; and the work, upon the whole, is rendered more worthy of the public approbation. E. A. P.” For the novice, Captain Brown’s “Text Book” may bear some resemblance to Poe’s “First Book,” from the simple fact that both treatises are founded upon one and the same system; but the absurd charge, that ohe is, therefore, a plagiarism of the other, can only have been made through gross ignorance or wilful falsehood. As a sequence of these scientific studies, Poe published a translation and digest of Lemonnier’s “Natural History,” and some other kindred writings. On the title-page of the Gentleman’s Magazine for 1840 appear the names of Burton and Poe as jointeditors, although the duties of the former were merely nominal, all the editorial labour devolving upon the poet. For the new volume Poe agreed to write a romance, to be published in serial form, and the first instalment of this story appeared in the January number. “The Journal of Julius Rodman being an Account of the First Passage across the rocky Mountains of North America ever achieved by Civilised Man.” The projected work was never completed in Burton’s Magazine, for reasons that will be seen further on, and its authorship was never hinted at by the various journalists who have published “Memoirs of Poe,” until the happy discovery of a letter from the poet to Burton first gave us the clue to its existence. The publication of “Rodman’s Journal” in the complete form in which, there is some reason for believing, Poe left the story, would certainly sustain, if it could not increase, its author’s reputation. It is written in the realistic manner of “Arthur Gordon Pym,” and although the fragment at present published breaks off at the moment when the “Journal” first begins to brow exciting, there is every probability that the remainder of the work was calculated to prove of absorbing interest. The non-publication in a complete form of the tale was, doubtless, due to the subsidence of public interest in exploration of the district to which the “Journal” refers. The tale was carried on through the six first numbers of the Gentleman’s for 1840, and even in its present fragmentary state, is well worthy perusal on account of the idiosyncrastic manner in which its author identifies himself with his hero — a hero who suffers from “hereditary hypochondria;” “was possessed with a burning love of nature; and worshipped her, perhaps, more in her dreary and savage aspects, than in her manifestations of placidity and joy.” It is unnecessary to furnish an analysis of the work, but some comments upon it by Mr. William Sawyer,* one of Poe’s staunchest admirers and a poet himself, are apposite here: “Without being one of Poe’s most striking, this is certainly one of his most remarkable works,” he observes. “It displays singular learning of a varied and exhaustive nature, and is a peculiar example of his unique power of giving his fancies the air of reality. Julius Rodman is placed before us as a real flesh-and-blood adventurer, and the early part of the narrative is occupied with details of the preparations for the journey, told to the minutest particular, as if seen to, and set down at the moment by one engaged in making them. The companions of the expedition are all described in detail, so that we seem to live among the persons with whom we are setting out; and after we are once on the journey the incidents, big and little, are recorded day by day as in a log, without literary effort, so that the vraisemblance is perfect. . . . The narrative is left unfinished. The Rocky Mountains are not crossed so far as we are permitted to accompany the party, and it is doubtful whether the hand which worked so deftly so far, ever added another line to what would, if carried to completion, have been a work of the type of ‘Robinson Crusoe ’ — a fictitious personal narrative, with the stamp of reality set upon it by the creative power of genius, aided by exceptional capacity for observation and knowledge.” Poe’s only other contribution to the Gentleman’s for January calling for notice, is a review of Moore’s “Alciphron.” In the course of this critique he advanced the proposition — not a very novel one, perhaps — that the mind of man can imagine nothing which has not really existed. Granting, “we can imagine a griffin, and that a griffin does not exist,” he says in summing up, “not the griffin certainly, but its component parts. It is a mere compendium of known limbs and features — of known qualities. Thus with all that seems to be new — which appears to be a creation of intellect — it is resolvable into the old. The wildest and most vigorous effort of mind cannot stand the test of this analysis.” This same critique also contains Poe’s views, in opposition to those of Coleridge, on the suggested difference between Fancy and Imagination, he citing, as example of the merely fanciful, some lines from “The Culprit Fay“a then popular American piece — and, as of the loftiest imagination, a piece from Shelley’s “Queen Mab.” The February and March issues of the magazine contained little of value by Poe beyond “Rodman’s Journal;” there was his sketch, in the former, of “The Business Man“-then headed “Peter Pendulum;” — various odds and ends, and a portion — some being by another hand — of the book notices. These latter included a review of Longfellow’s “Voices of the Night,” in which, whilst awarding his countryman very high praise as a poet, he charged him with plagiarising the conception of “The Midnight Mass for the Dying Year” from Tennyson’s “Death of the Old Year.” Beyond instalments of “Rodman’s Journal,” the April and May numbers did not contain much noticeable writing by Poe, but the former included “Silence: a sonnet,” with the burden of “No more” — the germ of a refrain to be so famous hereafter — and the latter a critique on Bryant, and an essay on “The Philosophy of Furniture.” The last sketch was subsequently revised and enlarged, but even then portrayed its author’s artistic love of the luxurious and beautiful. With the June number the Gentleman’s Magazine passed from Mr. Burton’s hands into the possession of Mr. George R. Graham, and, at the same time, Edgar Poe’s editorial duties came to an end. The following letter from the poet to Mr. Burton will throw some light upon the affair: — “SIR, — I find myself at leisure this Monday morning, June r, to notice your very singular letter of Saturday. . . . I have followed the example of Victorine and slept upon the matter, and you shall now hear what I have to say. In the first place, your attempts to bully me excite in my mind scarcely any other sentiment than mirth. When you address me again preserve, if you can, the dignity of a gentleman . . . I shall feel myself more at liberty to be explicit. As for