The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [748]
In the fulfilment of our purpose, already stated, we shall endeavor, at least, to be perspicuous. We shall not reject the manifest advantages of method. We shall be pardoned for proceeding as if such things as previous criticisms were not. It is our desire, especially, to bear upon the reader's mind the fullest impression of the honesty of our opinions — an impression derivable from the internal evidence afforded by these opinions themselves. We shall make it manifest that we fear no man nor set of men — yet would not have it supposed, for a moment, that we design to deal at all in the language of that region where, Addison assures us, "they sell the best fish and speak the plainest English."
In our next article under this head we shall comment upon the novels of CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN. The whole series of papers may be drawn out to some length — but this is a necessary evil. It may also chance that some of those with whom we are related on terms of honest, social friendship, come under the ban — and others, whose contributions to the pages of this Magazine place them in the light of coadjutors, and, of a consequence seem to elevate them above the wholesome investigations of critical impartiality, may accuse us of a lack of urbanity and literary comity in discussing their graver labors in the spirit of severe truth. The reader whose attention has been lent to a perusal of our foregoing remarks will understand the principles governing us in all such cases, and we can but say to those who may be directly concerned, that we think not less favorably of the man while it becomes our duty to expose the faults of the author.
To our co-laborers in the Press, we offer the results of our investigations, no less than to our readers. We ask from them candid consideration, and an impartial verdict. If they find us trenching upon well-deserved rights and invading meritorious reputation (for we by no means arrogate to our views freedom from error, on the contrary, in many cases we have gathered wholesome advice and improved opinions out of the censure of our professional brethren, ) we shall expect to be rebuked, and will thank our censors for exposing our errors. If the judgements we shall, from time to time, express, be in accordance with the views taken of the same subjects by our cotemporaries, we trust to receive the benefit resulting from such similarity of critical opinion. Honest in our aim, the errors that may mark our progress will be the errors of judgement merely; in starting we allow no personal prejudices to sway us, and, consequently, whatever, that our reviewers may deem objectionable, be found in our strictures, let them do us the justice to believe that the matters on which they found their exceptions did not originate in any pre-established objections to the author personally.
In granting to us the advantages of the position we have claimed, our readers, whether professional or private, will be all the better enabled to estimate the good or evil results of our labor.
AMERICAN POETRY (LECTURE)
THAT we are not a poetical people, has been asserted so often and so roundly, both at home and abroad, that the slander, through mere dint of repetition, has come to be received as truth. Yet nothing can be farther removed from it. The mistake is but a corollary from the old dogma, that the calculating faculties are at war with the ideal; while, in fact, it may be demonstrated, that the two divisions of mental power are never to be found, in perfection, apart. The highest order of the imaginative intellect is always pre-eminently mathematical, or analytical; and the converse of this proposition is equally true.
The idiosyncrasy of our political position has stimulated into early action whatever practical talent we possessed. Even in our national infancy we evinced a degree of utilitarian ability,