poetical literature ? The articles here are anonymous. Who writes ? Who causes to be written? Who but a fool would put faith in tirades which may be the result of personal hostility — or in panegyrics which, nine times out of ten, may be laid, directly or indirectly, to the charge of the author himself ? It is in the favor of these saturnine pamphlets that they contain, now and then, a good essay de omnibus rebus et quibusdam aliis, which may be looked into, without decided somnolent consequences, at any period not immediately subsequent to dinner. But it is useless to expect criticism from periodicals called Reviews, from never reviewing, as lucus is lucus à non lucendo. Besides all men know, or should know — that these books are sadly given to verbiage It is a part of their nature — a condition of their being — a point of their faith. A veteran reviewer loves the safety of generalities. He is, therefore, rarely particular. "Words, words, words," are the secret of his strength. He has one or two ideas of his own, and is both wary and fussy in giving them out. His wit lies, with his truth, in a well, and there is always a world of trouble in getting it up. He is a sworn enemy to all things simple and direct. He gives no ear to the advice of the giant MOULINEAU — "Belier, mon ami, commencez au commencement — Ram, my friend, begin at the beginning." He either jumps, at once, into the middle of his subject, or breaks in at a back door, or sidles up to it with the gait of a crab; — no other mode of approach has an air of sufficient profundity. When fairly into it, however, he becomes, dazzled by the scintillations of his own wisdom, and is seldom able to see his way out. Tired of laughing at his antics, or frightened at seeing him flounder, the reader at length shuts him up with the book. "What song the Syrens sang," says Sir THOMAS BROWNE, "or what name Achilles assumed when he hid himself among women, although puzzling questions are not beyond all conjecture" — but it would puzzle Sir THOMAS, backed by ACHILLES and all the Syrens in Heathendom, to say, in nine cases out of ten, what is the object of a Quarterly Reviewer.
But should the opinions promulgated by our Quarterlies, and by our press at large, be taken, in their wonderful aggregate, as an evidence of what American literature absolutely is and it may be said that, in general, they are really so taken — we shall find ourselves the most enviable set of people upon the face of the earth. Our fine writers are legion. Our very atmosphere is redolent of genius, and we, the nation, are a huge well-contented chameleon, grown pursy by inhaling it. We are teretes et rotundi, enwrapped in excellence. All our poets are Miltons, neither "mute nor inglorious;" all our poetesses are "American Hemanses;" nor will it do to deny that all our novelists are either great Unknowns or great Knowns, and that everybody who writes, in every possible or impossible department, is the admirable CHRICHTON, or at least the admirable CHRICHTON'S ghost. We are thus in a glorious condition, and will remain so until forced to disgorge our ethereal honors. In truth, there is some danger that the jealousy of the Old World will interfere. It cannot long submit to that outrageous monopoly of "all the decency and of all the talent in which the Gentlemen of the press give such undoubted assurance, of our being busily engaged.
But we feel angry with ourself for the jesting tone of our observations upon this topic. The prevalence of the spirit of puffery is a subject far less for merriment than for disgust. Its buckling yet dogmatical character — its bold, unsustained, yet self-sufficient and wholesale laudation, — is becoming, more and more, an insult to the common-sense of the community. Trivial as it essentially is, it has yet been made the instrument of the grossest abuse, in the elevation of imbecility — to the manifest injury — to the utter ruin of true merit. Is there any man of good feeling and of ordinary understanding — is there a single individual who reads these remarks — who does not feel a thrill