These resolutions were not adopted. The following was proposed, and received a majority of the votes of those present: "Resolved, That there is nothing in the action of Horace Greeley, relative to the bailing of Jefferson Davis, calling for proceedings in this Club " CHAPTER XXXIII. MISCELLANEOUS. Horace Greeley upon poetry and the poets-He objects to being enrolled among the poets -His advice to country editor-His religious opinions-Upon marriage and divorce -His idea of an American college-How he would bequeath an estate-How he became a protectionist-Advice to ambitious young men-To the lovers of knowledgeTo young lawyers and doctors-To country merchants-How far he is a politician-A toast-Reply to begging letters. FROM a great heap of clippings, which have been accumulating for many years, I select a few which throw light upon the character of the man. HIS PECULIAR OPINIONS RESPECTING POETRY One of Mr. Greeley's lectures is upon poetry and poets, and it contains some opinions so curious and original that I insert an outline of it: "All men, he said, are born poets; not that he meant to imply that every cradle held an undeveloped Shakespeare,- far from it. But it was not the less true that young children were poets. The child who thought the stars were gimlet-holes to let the glory of heaven through, was a poet. The uncorrupted child instinctively perceives the poetic element in nature. Every close observer must have noticed how naturally the unschooled child comes to talk poetically. Emerson says the man who first called another a puppy or an ass was a poet, discerning in those animals the likeness of the individual, symbolic of his moral nature. Imagination and the poetic element are ever most fertile in the youth, whether of men or nations, and to this might be ascribed that wild extravagance of our popular stories,― of the land being so fertile that if you planted a crow-bar overnight, in the morning it would be sprouting forth iron spikes and tenpenny nails, or of the pumpkin-vine that grew so fast that it outran the steed of the astonished traveller. The Englishman was so fenced in by forms and rules and conventionalities, that the poetic element was choked out of him. Hence, the English poets were more appreciated in America than in England, and there were more Americans who read Scott and Byron, and, he believed, Shakespeare, than there were Englishmen. "The most vulgar error of a vulgar mind, with respect to poetry, was the confounding it with verse, or with even rhyme. Fond mothers would take from some secret drawer the cherished productions of her children, imagining that because they were in rhyme they were therefore poetry, when indeed there was no more poetry in them than in an invitation to pass the baked potatoes. To the fresh, unhackneyed soul, rhyme was as repulsive as a foolscap and bells. Many of the best poems were not written metrically. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was the epic of Methodism, but he wrote hideous doggerel when he attempted verse, as the introduction to that work proved. There can scarcely be a surer proof that a youth has ceased to be a poet than when he begins to rhyme. Yet the poet of our day must be a vassal to the onerous rule. A wild colt of a young bardling will now and then spurn the yoke, as Donald Clark did, and Walt Whitman is doing; but the latter, though he had received the commendation of one of our greatest poets, would never receive sufficient notice from the critics to be knocked in the head by a volume of the Edinburgh Review. "The Book of Job the lecturer considered the simplest, grandest, as well as oldest of pastoral poems. David, the warrior-king, had bequeathed to us psalms in which were to be found a more fitting interpretation of our aspirations and spiritual needs than in all the religious poets of the intervening ages. He reigns King of Psalmody till time shall be no more. "Of Greek poetry Mr. Greeley said he had no right to say much. The Greek epic held substantially the place of the modern novel. Greek life, as depicted by Homer, was rude and stern, and not distinguished for its virtues. About the merit of Homer's poems, it might be imprudent to contradict the verdict of scholars who ranked them so high, but he would secretly cherish his own opinion. Where was the youth, in England or this country, who sought a translation of the Iliad for amusing reading? There were ten copies of the Arabian Nights read for one of Homer. Still, we must be grateful to the epic for originating tragedy. Eschylus was the lineal child of Homer. "Of the Romans the lecturer said that they were never a poetic people. They had Horace, an Epicurean, philosophizing in verse; Juvenal, a biting satirist; Virgil, a weaver of legendary lore, — but the compositions of these writers smell of the land, while from the Augustan age to Dante there was nothing worth reading. One must be as devout a Catholic as Dante to enjoy his Inferno. "Proceeding to the consideration of English poetry, Mr. Greeley had nothing to say in favor of Chaucer or Spenser. Whoever, he asked, sat down to read them otherwise than as a task? For his part, he voted the Faerie Queene a bore. Let the gathering dust bury it out of sight. "Shakespeare he did not love, because of his Toryism, but was not insensible to his wonderful genius. His puns were, in the lecturer's opinion, mostly detestable, and his jokes sorry. He was an intense Tory. No autocrat born in the purple had a more thorough contempt for the rabble. With Shakespeare only the court cards counted. His world was bounded by the fogs of London and the palace of Whitehall. He must have heard Raleigh and Drake, and other adventurous spirits, who had visited America, talk of the New World, and yet he never referred to any portion of it, except in that inaccurate allusion the still-vexed Bermoothes.' He was no friend of the people. He saw in the million only the counters wherewith kings and nobles played CHAPTER XXXIII. MISCELLANEOUS. Horace Greeley upon poetry and the poets-He objects to being enrolled among the poets -His advice to a country editor-His religious opinions-Upon marriage and divorce -His idea of an American college-How he would bequeath an estate-How he became a protectionist-Advice to ambitious young men-To the lovers of knowledgeTo young lawyers and doctors-To country merchants-How far he is a politician-A toast-Reply to begging letters. FROM a great heap of clippings, which have been accumulating for many years, I select a few which throw light upon the character of the man. HIS PECULIAR OPINIONS RESPECTING POETRY One of Mr. Greeley's lectures is upon poetry and poets, and it contains some opinions so curious and original that I insert an outline of it: "All men, he said, are born poets; not that he meant to imply that every cradle held an undeveloped Shakespeare,- far from it. But it was not the less true that young children were poets. The child who thought the stars were gimlet-holes to let the glory of heaven through, was a poet. The uncorrupted child instinctively perceives the poetic element in nature. Every close observer must have noticed how naturally the unschooled child comes to talk poetically. Emerson says the man who first called another a puppy or an ass was a poet, discerning in those animals the likeness of the individual, symbolic of his moral nature. Imagination and the poetic element are ever most fertile in the youth, whether of men or nations, and to this might be ascribed that wild extravagance of our popular stories, — of the land being so fertile that if you planted a crow-bar overnight, in the morning it would be sprouting forth iron spikes and tenpenny nails, or of the pumpkin-vine that grew so fast that it outran the steed of the astonished traveller. The Englishman was so fenced in by forms and rules and conventionalities, that the poetic element was choked out of him. Hence, the English poets were more appreciated in America than in England, and there were more Americans who read Scott and Byron, and, he believed, Shakespeare, than there were Englishmen. "The most vulgar error of a vulgar mind, with respect to poetry, was the confounding it with verse, or with even rhyme. Fond mothers would take from some secret drawer the cherished productions of her children, imagining that because they were in rhyme they were therefore poetry, when indeed there was no more poetry in them than in an invitation to pass the baked potatoes. To the fresh, unhackneyed soul, rhyme was as repulsive as a foolscap and bells. Many of the best poems were not written metrically. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress was the epic of Methodism, but he wrote hideous doggerel when he attempted verse, as the introduction to that work proved. There can scarcely be a surer proof that a youth has ceased to be a poet than when he begins to rhyme. Yet the poet of our day must be a vassal to the onerous rule. A wild colt of a young bardling will now and then spurn the yoke, as Donald Clark did, and Walt Whitman is doing; but the latter, though he had received the commendation of one of our greatest poets, would never receive sufficient notice from the critics to be knocked in the head by a volume of the Edinburgh Review. "The Book of Job the lecturer considered the simplest, grandest, as well as oldest of pastoral poems. David, the warrior-king, had bequeathed to us psalms in which were to be found a more fitting interpretation of our aspirations and spiritual needs than in all the religious poets of the intervening ages. He reigns King of Psalmody till time shall be no more. "Of Greek poetry Mr. Greeley said he had no right to say much. The Greek epic held substantially the place of the modern novel. Greek life, as depicted by Homer, was rude and stern, and not distinguished for its virtues. About the merit of Homer's poems, it might be imprudent to contradict the verdict of scholars who ranked them so high, but he would secretly cherish his own opinion. Where was the youth, in England or this country, who sought a translation of the Iliad for amusing reading? There were ten copies of the Arabian Nights read for one of Homer. Still, we must be grateful to the epic for originating tragedy. Eschylus was the lineal child of Homer. "Of the Romans the lecturer said that they were never a poetic people. They had Horace, an Epicurean, philosophizing in verse; Juvenal, a biting satirist; Virgil, a weaver of legendary lore,- but the compositions of these writers smell of the land, while from the Augustan age to Dante there was nothing worth reading. One must be as devout a Catholic as Dante to enjoy his Inferno. “Proceeding to the consideration of English poetry, Mr. Greeley had nothing to say in favor of Chaucer or Spenser. Whoever, he asked, sat down to read them otherwise than as a task? For his part, he voted the Faerie Queene a bore. Let the gathering dust bury it out of sight. 66 Shakespeare he did not love, because of his Toryism, but was not insensible to his wonderful genius. His puns were, in the lecturer's opinion, mostly detestable, and his jokes sorry. He was an intense Tory, No autocrat born in the purple had a more thorough contempt for the rabble, With Shakespeare only the court cards counted. His world was bounded by the fogs of London and the palace of Whitehall. He must have heard Raleigh and Drake, and other adventurous spirits, who had visited America, talk of the New World, and yet he never referred to any portion of it, except in that inavourate allusion the still-vexed Bermoothes.' He was no friend of the people, He saw in the million only the counters wherewith kings and nobles played |