The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [744]
at such conception, in the case of our lighter works especially, very fully and properly understood. In truth, the corrupt nature of our ordinary criticism has become a bye-word and a reproach. Its powers have been prostrated by its own arm. The intercourse between critic and publisher, as it now almost universally stands, is comprised either in the paying and pocketing of blackmail, as the price of a simple forbearance, or in a direct system of petty and contemptible bribery properly so called — a system even more injurious than the former to the true interests of the public, and more degrading to the buyers and sellers of good and evil opinion, on account of the more positive character of the service here rendered for the consideration received. We smile at the idea of any denial of our assertions upon this topic — they are even notoriously true. In the charge of general corruption, there are, undoubtedly, one or two noble exceptions to be made. There are, indeed, some very few editors who, maintaining an entire independence, will receive no book from the publishers at all, or receive them with the perfect understanding on the part of these latter that an utterly unbiassed critique will be given. But these rare cases are insufficient to have much influence upon the popular mistrust — a mistrust which is heightened by a knowledge of the chicaneries of certain northern literary cliques, which, at the bidding of leading booksellers, manufacture, as it is needed from time to time, a pseudo-public-opinion by wholesale, for the benefit of any little hanger-on of the body, or pettifogging protector of the firm. We speak of these things not at all in merriment, but in the bitterness of scorn. We speak, too, only of things painfully notorious. It is unnecessary to cite instances, where one is found in almost every issue of a book. It is needless to call to mind the desperate case of FAY — a case where the pertinacity of the effort to gull — where the obviousness of the attempt at forestalling a judgement — where the wofully overdone be-Mirror-ment of that man of straw, together with the pitiable platitude of his stupid production, proved a dose somewhat too potent for even the well-prepared stomach of the mob. We say it is supererogatory to dwell upon Norman Leslie, or any other by-gone follies, when we have to-day, before our eyes, an example of the full working of the machinations alluded to, in the numerous and simultaneous anticipatory puffments of Charles Vincent, and of his worthy coadjutor, Sydney Clifton. The grossness of these base attempts, however, has not escaped without many an indignant rebuke from the more honorable portion of the press; and we hail these symptoms of restiveness under the yoke of unprincipled ignorance and quackery (strong only in combination) as the harbingers of a better era for the interests of real merit, and of the national literature as a whole. It has become, indeed, the plain duty of each individual connected with our periodicals, heartily to give whatever influence he possesses to the good cause of integrity and the truth. The results thus attainable will be found worthy his closest attention and best efforts. We shall thus frown down all conspiracies to foist inanity upon the public consideration at the expense of every person of talent who is not a member of a coterie in power. We may even arrive, in time, at that desirable point, from which a distinct view of our men of letters may be obtained, and their several pretensions adjusted by the standard of a rigorous and self-sustaining criticism alone. That heir respective positions are as yet properly settled; that the posts which a vast number of them now hold are maintained by little better tenure than the chicanery upon which we have commented, will be asserted in full by none but the ignorant, or the parties who have the best right to feel an interest in the "good old condition of things." No two matters can be more radically different than the reputation of some of our prominent litterateurs, as gathered from the mouths of the people,