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By Root 16540 0

“Encore! — give it to them, the vagabonds! — it serves them right.” It seems to us that, in America, we have refused to encourage satire — not because what we have had touches us too nearly — but because it has been too pointless to touch us at all. Its namby-pambyism has arisen, in part, from the general want, among our men of letters, of that minute polish — of that skill in details — which, in combination with natural sarcastic power, satire, more than any other form of literature, so imperatively demands. In part, also, we may attribute our failure to the colonial sin of imitation. We content ourselves — at this point not less supinely than at all others — with doing what not only has been done before, but what, however well done, has yet been done ad nauseam. We should not be able to endure infinite repetitions of even absolute excellence; but what is “McFingal” more than a faint echo from ­“Hudibras”? — and what is “The Vision of Rubeta” more than a vast gilded swill-trough overflowing with Dunciad and water? Although we are not all Archilochuses, however — although we have few pretensions to the [[Greek text:]] xxxxx xxxx [[:Greek text]] although, in short, we are no satirists ourselves — there can be no question that we answer sufficiently well as subjects for satire.

“The Vision” is bold enough — if we leave out of sight its anonymous issue — and bitter enough, and witty enough, if we forget its pitiable punning on names — and long enough (Heaven knows) and well constructed and decently versified; but it fails in the principal element of all satire — sarcasm — because the intention to be sarcastic (as in the “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” and in all the more classical satires) is permitted to render itself manifest. The malevolence appears. The author is never very severe, because he is at no time particularly cool. We laugh not so much at his victims as at himself, for letting them put him in such a passion. And where a deeper sentiment than mirth is excited — where it is pity or contempt that we are made to feel — the feeling is too often reflected, in its object, from the satirized to the satirist — with whom we sympathize in the discomfort of his animosity. Mr. Osborn has not many superiors in downright invective; but this is the awkward left arm of the satiric Muse. That satire alone is worth talking about which at least appears to be the genial, good-humored outpouring of irrepressible merriment.

“The Fable for the Critics,” just issued, has not the name of its author on the title-page; and but for some slight fore-knowledge of the literary opinions, likes, dislikes, whims, prejudices and crotchets of Mr. James Russell Lowell, we should have had much difficulty in attributing so very loose a brochure to him. The “Fable” is essentially “loose” — ill-conceived and feebly executed, as well in detail as in general. Some good hints and some sparkling witticisms do not serve to compensate us for its rambling plot (if plot it can be called) and for the want of artistic finish so particularly noticeable throughout the work — especially in its versification. In Mr. Lowell’s prose efforts we have before observed a certain disjointedness, but never, until now, in his verse — and we confess some surprise at his putting forth so unpolished a performance. ­The author of “The Legend of Brittany” (which is decidedly the noblest poem, of the same length, written by an American) could not do a better thing than to take the advice of those who mean him well, in spite of his fanaticism, and leave prose, with satiric verse, to those who are better able to manage them; while he contents himself with that class of poetry for which, and for which alone, he seems to have an especial vocation — the poetry of sentiment. This, to be sure, is not the very loftiest order of verse; for it is far inferior to either that of the imagination or that of the passions — but it is the loftiest region in which Mr. Lowell can get his breath without difficulty.

Our primary objection to this “Fable for the Critics” has reference to a point