The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Edgar Allan Poe [925]
Mr. Hoffman was the original editor of “The Knickerbocker Magazine,” and gave it while under his control a tone and character, the weight of which may be best estimated by the consideration that the work thence received, an impetus which has sufficed to bear it on alive, although tottering, month after month, through even that dense region of unmitigated and unmitigable fog — that dreary realm of outer darkness, of utter and inconceivable dunderheadism, over which has so long ruled King Log the Second, in the august person of one Lewis Gaylord Clark. Mr. Hoffman subsequently owned and edited “The American Monthly Magazine,” one of the best journals we have ever had. He also for one year conducted “The New York Mirror,” and has always been a very constant contributor to the periodicals of the day.
He is the brother of Ogden Hoffman. Their father, whose family came to New York from Holland before the time of Peter Stuyvesant, was often brought into connexion or rivalry with such men as Pinckney, Hamilton and Burr.
The character of no man is more universally esteemed and admired than that of the subject of this memoir. He has a host of friends, and it is quite impossible that he should have an enemy in the world. He is chivalric to a fault, enthusiastic, frank without discourtesy, an ardent admirer of the beautiful, a gentleman of the best school — a gentleman by birth, by education and by instinct. His manners are graceful and winning in the extreme — quiet, affable and dignified, yet cordial and dégagés. He converses much, earnestly, accurately and well. In person he is remarkably handsome. He is about five feet ten in height, somewhat stoutly made. His countenance is a noble one — a full index of the character. The features are somewhat massive but regular. The eyes are blue, or light gray, and full of fire; the mouth finely formed, although the lips have a slight expression of voluptuousness; the forehead, to my surprise, although high [[,]] gives no indication, in the region of the temples, of that ideality (or love of the beautiful) which is the distinguishing trait of his moral nature. The hair curls, and is of a dark brown, interspersed with gray. He wears full whiskers. Is about forty years of age. Unmarried.
MARY E. HEWITT.
I AM not aware that Mrs. Hewitt has written any prose; but her poems have been many, and occasionally excellent. A collection of them was published, in an exquisitely tasteful form, by Ticknor & Co., of Boston. The leading piece, entitled “Songs of our Land,” although the largest, was by no means the most meritorious. In general, these compositions evince poetic fervor, classicism, and keen appreciation of both moral and physical beauty. No one of them, perhaps, can be judiciously commended as a whole; but no one of them is without merit, and there are several which would do credit to any poet in the land. Still, even these latter are particularly rather than generally commendable. They lack unity, totality — ultimate effect, but abound in forcible passages. For example:
Shall I portray thee in thy glorious seeming,
Thou that the pharos of my darkness art? . . . . .
Like the blue lotos on its own clear river
Lie thy soft eyes, beloved, upon my soul. . . . . .
And there the slave, a slave no more,
Hung reverent up the chain he wore. . . . . .
Here ‘mid your wild and dark defile
O’erawed and wonder-whelmed I stand,
And ask — “Is this the fearful vale
That opens on the shadowy land?” . . . . .
Oh, friends! we would be treasured still,
Though Time’s cold hand should cast
His misty veil, in after years,
Over the idol Past,
Yet send to us some offering thought
O’er Memory’s ocean wide,
Pure as the Hindoo’s votive lamp
On Ganga’s sacred tide.
Mrs. Hewitt has