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Edited with an Introduction by
EDD WINFIELD PARKS

1942

The University of Georgia Press

Athens

The University of Georgia Press

Second printing 1967

Printed in the United States of America

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A poet's prose frequently has a double value. It may have
an inherent distinction, and it may help to explain and round
out his poetry. When his prose is mainly concerned with the
theory and practice of his craft, or with the background of
life out of which his own verse is written, the poet speaks
with an unusual authority. He is giving explicitly what
otherwise is only implicit in his work.

This is true of Timrod's essays. In them, Timrod becomes
the analyst, the debater, the man at once attacking and de-
fending: he ceases to be the artist, that he may talk about
the principles of his art. His talk is vigorous and interesting,
if not completely valid. There are blind spots which he did
not recognize; in compensation, there are the opinions that
came from long thought and quick moments of insight.

I have re-published all of Timrod's essays, and in the notes
all of his identified editorials that deal with literature. Three
essays are reprinted from RusselVs Magazine; the fourth,
"A Theory of Poetry," from Timrod's manuscript. Since in
one essay he was directly answering William J. Grayson's
little-known essay, "What is Poetry?", I have added this in
an appendix. In the Introduction, I have levied freely on
Timrod's letters, published and unpublished, wherever they
add to his critical thought or illustrate his reading.

VI PREFACE

The preparation and publication of this book was made
possible by a grant-in-aid from the University Center of
Georgia, and by the co-operation of the oflRcials of the Uni-
versity of Georgia. For permission to use unpublished let-
ters, and Timrod's copy of "A Theory of Poetry," I am
indebted to Miss Ellen Fitz-simmons and the Charleston
Library Society; for unpublished letters and passages from
the unpublished autobiography of William J. Grayson, to
Professor R. L. Meriwether and the South Caroliniana Li-
brary of the University of South Carolina; for Timrod*s
letters to Rachel Lyons, to Professor William Fidler and the
University of Alabama Library. The Timrod material in the
Paul Hamilton Hayne Collection at Duke University has
recently been published by Professor Jay B. Hubbell in The
Last Years of Henry Timrod. It is pleasant to record a spe-
cific indebtedness for the use of excerpts from the letters in
that book, and a general one to Professor Hubbell for his aid.
I have used a few items from Professor Guy Cardwell's The
Uncollected Poems of Henry Timrod. Mr. Marshall Uzzell
read the manuscript, and made several valuable sugges-
tions. In addition, I have been greatly helped in preparing
this book by the staflFs of the University of Georgia Library,
University of North Carolina Library, Duke University Li-
brary, Library of the College of Charleston, the Library of
Congress, and the New York Public Library; by Mrs.
Brainard Cheney of the Vanderbilt University Library and
Mrs. Minna C. Martin of the Emory University Library;
and by Mrs. Henry D. Holmes. In all of the work I have had
the generous and intelligent co-operation of my wife, Aileen
Wells Parks.

E. W. P.

on tenia

PREFACE V

INTRODUCTION 3

THE CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF THE SONNET 61

WHAT IS POETRY? 69

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 83

A THEORY OF POETRY 103

APPENDIX: William J. Grayson "What is Poetry?" 135

NOTES 157

INDEX 177

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TIMROD AS CRITIC

Timrod's prose and verse are closely related. They reveal
the same intense, disciplined mind, the narrow range of
interests, and a constant preoccupation with aesthetic and
ethical and strictly poetic problems. Much of his early
criticism was cast in verse; with one exception, his essays
discuss the ontology of poetry. Although he worked as tutor
and newspaper editor during most of his adult life, these
jobs were a means to living. His justification, his reason for
being, was in his poetry. Even in the harshest days of war
and reconstruction, of poverty and illness, he continued to
write: his best poem is a product of these years.

The war gave depth to his thought, intensity to his feel-
ings. His note of melancholy was wrenched into the deeper,
more abiding note of tragedy. The poems become dramatic
contrasts. He retained his earlier concepts of nature and
mind and soul; against these he set the blood and hatred of
war. He found his individual theme late in his short life and
he wrote only a few poems on it; but his earlier verse and
his critical ideas combined to give him the technical equip-
ment needed for an authentic final achievement.

Timrod made three formal attempts to define the nature

4 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

of poetry. Indirectly through other poems, essays, and edi-
torials he revealed in glancing allusions or brief, considered
statements his pre-occupation with this problem. His basic
ideas did not change. The later presentations do not con-
tradict the earlier; rather, they show the full development
of his thought, and the final form of a tenable, rounded
aesthetic of poetry.

A protecting cloak of fiction and of poetic convention is
thrown around his first attempt. "A Vision of Poesy" ^ is cast
in verse; the protagonist is an anonymous fictional charac-
ter. But the sentiments spoken by him and to him are the
beliefs of Henry Timrod; in thought, although not in fact,
the work is autobiographical.

"A Vision of Poesy" is the product of youth; it is, Playne
notes, marred "by a too evident lack of harmony and unity
of parts, proceeding from the fact that the narrative was
composed in sections, and after the lapse of periods so long
between the different bouts of composition, that much of
the original fervor of both conception and execution must
have evaporated." ^ The underlying concept is clear enough.
Timrod is presenting the subjective sources of poetry; or,
in Hayne's phrase, "the true laws which underlie and deter-
mine the noblest uses of the poetical faculty."

The protagonist as a youth had more than ordinary sensi-
bility. Strange portents had marked his birth; afterward, the
child had seemed withdrawn, and frightened his parents by
a strange far look and by "brief snatches of mysterious
rhymes." ^ He is conscious of uncomprehended mysteries,

1 Poems of Henry Timrod ( Memorial Edition, with memoir by J. P. K.
Bryan; Boston, 1899, and Richmond, 1901), 74-100. Later references to
this book will be to: Timrod, Poems.

2 Paul Hamilton Hayne ( ed. ) , The Poems of Henry Timrod ( New York,
new revised edition, 1872), 30-31.

3 Timrod, Poems, 75.

INTRODUCTION 5

of an intuitive understanding which he can not order with
thought, and of strange emanations from natural phe-
nomena. He is troubled by dreams and disturbed by
thoughts that alike elude his grasp. One night when he has
gone in solitude to a favorite nook deep in the woods, a
spirit appears to him— or seems to appear. She is the angel
of Poesy, and she reveals the high mission of the true poet.

The task of Poesy is closely related to that of religion,
though definitely subordinate to this "mightier Power." She
helps to keep the world spiritually "forever fresh and
young"; ^ to arouse in men the nobler emotions and desires;
to "turn life's tasteless waters into wine"; and to inspire poets
to seek as much knowledge as men can learn, and to trans-
late that knowledge so that ordinary men can understand
it. But Poesy can only "sow the germ which buds in human
art." The poet himself determines the result. If he is, as poet,
worthy, he must be pure and consecrated; he must belong
"to the whole wide world." Timrod deliberately reverses the
famous statement of Keats on beauty and truth: the poet
must be "assured that Truth alone / Is Beauty." Mindful of
this, he sings not merely for himself, or of his own subjec-
tive thoughts and longings; he sings for those who grope
and wonder, and can not sing.

Timrod breaks off the fable to comment directly on the
inability of the poet to present his full concept. The idea
had seemed alive "to the Poet's hope within my heart," but
as it became an actuality, the concept lost its semblance of
life.^

The third section of "A Vision of Poesy" describes a man
growTi old while yet in the prime of life, a poet who has

4 Ibid., 85. The following quotations in this paragraph are from pages
85-90.

5 Ibid., 90-92. Quotation on 91.

6 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

largely failed because, misunderstanding the sources of art,
he has yielded to a morbid subjectivity. This concern with
self, partly brought on by the scorn of the world and by the
disdain of the woman he loved, had vitiated his poetic ac-
complishment. He returns home to die. But the angel of
Poesy appears to console him. Although the fault of hidden
selfishness had marred his verse, he had been scornful of
specious falsehood, and he had uttered "Truths that for
man might else have slumbered long." This ingrown mor-
bidity had prevented his attaining full stature, for the great
poet "spheres worlds in himself." He must be concerned
with the mysteries of his own soul and mind, but "on the
surface of his song these lie / As shadows, not as darkness":
he makes use of the personal light to help clarify the general
darkness.^

Timrod points the contrast between partial achievement
and completeness. A complete poem is an ethical poem; it
not only functions within itself, it acts upon the world to
make for positive good. His terms are romantic, and his
words often abstract. As a poem, "A Vision of Poesy" is un-
even, frequently unconvincing, and at best achieves only a
limited success. As a vehicle for his critical theories, it is
less persuasive than his essay, "A Theory of Poetry."

Several writers have suggested that Timrod in this poem
was greatly influenced by Shelley's "Alastor." "^ Since Tim-
rod's immature work seems a beginning yet also an integral
part of his critical theory, and is so treated here, it is useful
to compare the two poems.

Both Shelley and Timrod write of an idealistic young poet

6 Ibid., 92-100. Quotations 98-99.

■^ To cite one old and one very recent example: G. A. Wauchope, Henry
Timrod: Man and Poet ( Bulletin of the University of South Carolina, 1915),
22, and G. A. Cardwell, Jr., The Uncollected Poems of Henry Timrod
(Athens, Georgia, 1942), 4.

INTRODUCTION

who finds tragedy rather than a fulfillment of genius; in each
poem, the young man broods in solitude upon the majesty
and mystery of nature. The resemblances are circumstan-
tial, not spiritual. Alastor is essentially Shelleyan, or
Byronic. He is dedicated to poetry, to earth, to nature. But
in his quest of the spirit of poetry he left an "alienated
home, / To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands"; he
has pursued "Nature's most secret steps" in strange and far-
oflF places, and in the "awful ruins of the days of old." ^ It is
essentially a traveler's concept of nature, not a mystic's; the
revelation that he could never hope to find at home might
somehow come to him in Arabia or Ethiopia or the Arctic.
Although Shelley states the opposite, Alastor apparently
seeks understanding through experience, not through con-
templation. Timrod's young poet has an entirely diflferent
concept of nature. He is more Wordsworthian than Shel-
leyan, although he lacks Wordsworth's certitude and spirit-
ual rapport with nature. It is the Wordsworthian mystical
comprehension that he seeks. For that, he goes deep into the
woods and takes as teachers the leaves, the trees, the stars,
the sky, and the wind. He depends upon intuitive reverie,
rapt contemplation, and revelation; ^ he seeks them in the
familiar solitude of his own region instead of in the wander-
ings of Alastor.

Each poem uses a dream symbol. But Alastor 's is a simple
dream of a maid who typifies the spirit of poesy. Her voice
"was like the voice of his own soul." She represents the unat-
tainable perfection that he yearned for.^^ She is an oriental
goddess or houri for whom Alastor feels a physical as well as

8 The Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley ( edited by Mrs. Shelley;
Boston, 1881), I. Above quotations, 162-63.

9 Timrod, Poems, 75-76, 81-85.

10 Shelley, op. cit., 164-66. Following quotation, 163.

b THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

mental passion; having known her in a dream, he can never
be satisfied with the earthly love that a woman can give. His
wanderings become wilder, more frantic: seemingly, the
ideal unattainable in life might somehow be attained in
death. The anonymous poet in "A Vision of Poesy" does not
have the sensation of "shuddering limbs and . . . gasping
breath;" he is not, in fact, quite certain whether he has in his
solitude dreamed of a maiden, or been visited by a spirit:
" 'Here was it that I saw, or dreamed I saw, / I know not
which, that shape of love and light.' " ^^

However briefly, Alastor possessed the maid who personi-
fied poetry; in Timrod's vision. Poesy remains aloof and re-
mote. She will not give the young poet full knowledge of
the mysteries, but only so much as a mortal can know. Even
then, she limits her promise severely. She gives the fire and
genius, but the "true bard is his own only Fate." ^^ The poet
fails in Timrod's version through his own human faults, and
not through a vain quest after the unattainable. He too has
known solitude, brought on him by the scorn of a material
world and the scorn of a beautiful woman. But Poesy, while
she comforts him, places the blame directly on him; he has
grown too enwrapped in his own thoughts, and heeded too
little the cares and aspirations of other people.

Timrod's concept of the ideal has little relation to Shel-
ley's. Alastor sought a perfection that had, except in the
strikingly physical personification of poesy as a woman, no
concern with the things or people of this world; he sought
it by romantic, concretely geographical wanderings. In his
Preface, Shelley notes that "The Poet's self-centred seclu-
sion was avenged by the furies of an irresistible passion

11 Timrod, Poems, 93.

12 Ibid., 85, 88.

INTRODUCTION [)

pursuing him to speedy ruin." ^^ But Alastor is self-centered
before his dream, as well as afterward; and the dream itself
encourages this egoism and leads him to destruction. Tim-
rod's poet fails, at least in part, because he forgets or ignores
the nobility of his vision. He has had his moments of insight
and of accomplishment. He has been "A priest, and not a
victim at the shrine." ^^ His work has had positive value; it
leads to loneliness and sorrow, but not to ruin.

In death, as in life, these imaginary poets present basic
differences that are more important than their superficial
resemblances. Shelley set out to write an allegorical
tragedy; Timrod sought to give meaning to a poet's life
through a complex vision. Even the machinery and forms of
the poems differ. Timrod may have found in "Alastor" a
suggestion that kindled his poetic imagination; but Tim-
rod's philosophy was too far removed from Shelley's for this
suggestion to do more than start him on his own way.

In other respects, Timrod's resemblance to Shelley is
slight. ^^ Each believed in the nobility and the mystical
power of poetry; each man was integrally a part of the
romantic movement. Timrod had read Shelley's "A Defence
of Poetry," and twice he quotes approvingly, but inaccu-
rately, the definition of poetry as "the record of the best and

13 Shelley, op. cit., 157-58.

14 Timrod, Poems, 99.

15 Several critics have thought they detected a stronger influence than I
can find. Peirce Bruns (in the Conservative Review, I: 263-77, May, 1859,
p. 268) makes by far the strongest statement that I have seen; he thinks
there is little resemblance between W^ordsworth's handling of nature, and
Timrod's: "Timrod, in this regard, at least, is far nearer to Shelley." Walter
Hines Page (in the South-Atlantic, I: 359-67, March, 1878, p. 365) says
that two or three stanzas of "A Summer Shower" remind him by their ex-
quisite movement and beautiful fancy of Shelley's "Cloud." Jay B. Hub-
bell (The Last Years of Henry Timrod, Durham, 1941, p. 127) suggests
that Timrod's "Song" (first line: "The Zephyr that toys with thy curls") is
"reminiscent of Shelley's 'Love's Philosophy.' "

10 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

happiest moments of the happiest and best minds." ^^ These
words had impressed Timrod as truth; he was in full agree-
ment. But the extent of his disagreement with Shelley's ideas
is most apparent in their respective treatment of inspiration.
In the paragraph preceding his definition, Shelley had iden-
tified poetry as something divine, and the poem as super-
nally inspired: "I appeal to the greatest poets of the present
day, whether it is not an error to assert that the finest
passages of poetry are produced by labour and study. The
toil and the delay recommended by critics can be justly
interpreted to mean no more than a careful observation of
the inspired moments, and an artificial connexion of the
spaces between their suggestions by the intertexture of con-
ventional expressions." ^^

Without mentioning Shelley's words and probably with-
out considering them worth a rejoinder, Timrod contra-
dicts this theory of art. He insists on making a clean and
sharp distinction between the subjective essence of poetry
and the objective, tangible poem.^^ This distinction governs
his treatment of inspiration. He felt that a poet's mind had
to be stimulated, roused, inspired. The stimulation might
come from within, through a chance day-dream or dazzling
thought; it might come after long contemplation of some
natural or human phenomenon; the spark might be kindled
by some external pretty face or casual word. In his college
days, "Every pretty girl's face acted upon me like an in-
spiration;" ^^ in his greatest poetry, the tragedy of war

1^ In "What is Poetry?" and "A Theory of Poetry."
1'^ Shelley, "A Defence of Poetry."

18 In varying forms, this distinction appears in three of Timrod's essays:
"The Character and Scope of the Sonnet," "What is Poetry?", and "A
Theory of Poetry," For a good, brief discussion of his essays, see G. P.
Voigt, "Timrod's Essays in Literary Criticism," in American Literature,
VI: 163-67, May, 1934.

19 Hayne, op. cit., 19.

INTRODUCTION 11

served as a more powerful stimulus. But this inspiration,
whatever its cause, acted upon the mind of the poet, taking
hold of his imagination or being played upon by his fancy.
There was a mystical quality involved; the poet differed
from the ordinary man principally in his being able to ex-
press this inspiration: "The ground of the poetic character
is more than ordinary sensibility." ^^

When he presented his idea of inspiration through the
objectifying medium of poetry, Timrod emphasized the
mystical concept. His youthful poet not only gets a sense of
mystery from the trees, skies, and winds, he also murmurs
rhymes which he does not himself understand, and feels
dull, clinging memories of a mystic tongue and a once-clear
comprehension.^^ Inspiration, embodied in the form of the
angel of Poesy, rouses, troubles, and perplexes his soul, and
drives his mind on to such knowledge as mortals can attain;
she is the light of the poetic imagination. Yet even in this
romantic concept, Timrod allows to inspiration only the
function of beginning the poetic process. The poet's reach
depends upon himself. He alone can govern his poem, and
he must do it through his own knowledge and technique.^^^

When he spoke more prosaically, in his own person, Tim-
rod shied away from defining inspiration. He knew, for him-
self, that it existed, but he knew also that it had limits. In
trying to prove that the sonnet was no more artificial than
oth^ r forms of verse, he stated flatly that "If the poet have
his hour of inspiration ( though we are so sick of the cant
of which this word has been the fruitful source, that we
dislike to use it) it is not during the act of composition. A
distinction must be made between the moment when the

20 Timrod, "W^hat is Poetry?"

-1 Timrod, "A Vision of Poesy," Poems, 75.

22 Ibid., 85-88.

12 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

great thought first breaks upon the mind . . . and the hour
of patient and elaborate execution. It is in the conception
only that the poet is the vates. In the labor of putting that
conception into words, he is simply the artist." -^ Otherwise,
the poet would be merely an improvisator, and "perhaps,
poetry would be no better than what improvisations usually
are.

This antipathy to inspiration as a substitute for art may
have led to Timrod's writing a defence of the sonnet. It
seems more probable that the work was the outgrowth of a
heated argument, or of some bit of reading that aroused his
mind. Hayne suggests that admiration for Wordsworth was
responsible, and that Timrod is defending the form "against
the assaults of a large body of depreciators with admirable
skill and effect." "^ Whatever the cause, the ideas expressed
are Timrod's, and they help to adumbrate his mind.

The essay begins uncompromisingly. There is, first, an
aristocratic disdain of popular taste. The sonnet "has never
been a popular form of verse;" it is never likely to be. But
the popularity and comprehension of a poet's work rarely
begin with the multitude. A few cultivated persons under-
stand and explain his work; gradually, after these explana-
tions seep downward, his verses may become popular. In
the essay, Timrod makes no attempt to reconcile this doc-
trine with his belief that the poet must speak what men
dimly feel but can not say for themselves.

He is emphasizing the artistry that a completed poem
should have. The sonnet is artificial only as all forms of
verse are artificial; that it is one of the more difficult forms

23 Timrod, "The Character and Scope of the Sonnet." For bibliographical
details, see note 1 to this essay.

24 Hayne, op. cit., 26. Hayne gives no hint as to whether these depreci-
ators were personally known to Timrod. In the essay, a scornful reference
is made to Samuel Rogers' attack on the sonnet.

INTRODUCTION 13

means that it presents a greater challenge to the artist. The
enforced condensation requires him to order his thought
before he writes, to discard the irrelevant and to concen-
trate on "one leading idea, around which the others are
grouped for purposes of illustration only." Since great
poetry had been written in the sonnet form, Timrod, a
traditionalist, believed that the form was good: the particu-
lar result depended upon the individual poet.

In defending the sonnet, Timrod was dealing only with
the tangible or objectified form. He was not attempting to
define poetry; he was simply arguing the validity of one
type. His next essay is an attempt to distinguish between the
poem, and poetry. It is a defence of his concept of poetry,
written in answer to a direct attack. Both essays are entitled
"What is Poetry?" The first is by William J. Grayson; the
second is by Timrod."^

The disagreement, at least superficially, was one of defi-
nition. Grayson was a neo-classicist, Timrod a romantic.
Grayson was inclined to answer his question by consider-
ing the form; Timrod, by considering the essence or prin-
ciple of poetry. The argument is in no sense a new one.
Aristotle attempted to differentiate between essence and
form, at a time when the word poetry included practically
all imaginative writing; with the de-limitation of the word
in English usage, and with no accepted word to signify the
older, larger concept, confusion still results. When the
scientist Joseph LeConte discussed the nature of poetry, he
began by carefully considering the dual nature of the term.

-•'> It seems necessary to be specific because at least two of Timrod's
biographers have quoted from Grayson's essay and attributed the quota-
tions to Timrod. Since both essays are reprinted in this book, my quotations
can easily be restored to their proper context. For the resemblances between
Grayson's essay and his unpublished autobiography, see note 1 under
Grayson. For bibliographical details, see note 1 to each essay.

14 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

The form is verse. In essence, prose addresses only the emo-
tions and the understanding; poetry addresses also the
imagination and the aesthetic sense. There can be no clear
line of demarcation: although lacking the form, much prose
is in essence poetry; and much verse, despite its formal
quality, is not poetry .^^

Grayson allows only the single meaning. Paraphrasing
Dr. Johnson, he declares poetry to be "rythmical composi-
tion and a poet, one who composes in measure." The
peculiar quality of poetry is in the form of arranging words,
without regard to the ideas expressed. All other definitions
lead to confusion. To him the terms prose poems and poetic
prose seemed "as incongruous as the phrases, round square
and oblong circle." Such phrases were simply a "mystical
jargon of rapturous superlatives" freely used by the "trans-
cendental oracular school" of Coleridge and his followers.
They sought to give to poetry qualities that poetry did not
have. An example of this was in Coleridge's defining poetry
"as the proper antithesis not of prose but of science. What
more is this than to insist on using words contrary to their
common acceptation? According to general usage, is not art
the proper antithesis of science?" Also, is it not enough to be
a good poet, when poetry itself "is the noblest, most refined,
pointed and energetic of the two modes by which among all
people, thought and emotion are expressed by language"?

By Grayson's standards, all verse is poetry. A casual bit
of doggerel belongs to the genre as surely as the finest work
of Milton or Shakspere. Once this is allowed, the province
of inquiry changes: from asking what it is, we turn to an
examination of the quality of a poem. Here, figurative lan-
guage may be used effectively, but the labelling of a poem

26 Joseph LeConte, "On the Nature and Uses of Art," in the Southern
Presbyterian Review, XV: 519-20, Jan., 1863.

INTRODUCTION 15

as prosy does not mean that the work is prose; it means
simply that the writer was a clumsy poet. The intrinsic merit
can be judged, but the simple and clear distinction between
poetry and prose must remain steadfast.

Grayson's essay infuriated Timrod. He objected particu-
larly to the "illogical confusion of the ideas conveyed by the
terms poem, and poetry" which Grayson had used as iden-
tical in reference. A poem is objective, tangible, a thing
complete within itself; poetry is subjective, an essence or
feeling rather than a definable reality. Then the antithesis
to prose becomes, properly, metre; if this is recognized, the
question ceases to be how to distinguish poetry from prose,
and becomes an inquiry into "those operations of the human
faculties, which, when incarnated in language, are gener-
ally recognized as poetry."

A part of the definition, therefore, turns on the character
of the poet. He must have "a more than ordinary sensibility,"
and out of this characteristic must come a "medium of strong
emotion" which can fuse and transform the objects and
thoughts which are the material of poetry. From this power-
fully emotional imagination there comes naturally a lan-
guage which differs from the language of prose. The poet's
words are sensuous, picturesque, and impassioned; they
are short and concrete. Although the thought may be ab-
stract, the poetic expression of that thought must have life,
form, and color. Abstract words make the verse prosaic,
until the work "no longer calls up the image which it ex-
presses; it merely suggests the thought which it stands for."
The poet is not content with words that convey the mean-
ing; he seeks also the most beautiful, in sound and in asso-
ciation, so that his words will "challenge a slight attention to
themselves."

The form is important, but it is not all-inclusive. Timrod

16 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

is willing to admit that "there may be such a thing as a
prose-poem." Yet he admits it reluctantly. Concentrated,
heightened thought and emotion find their natural and
proper expression in verse. In a long poem, certain parts
will inevitably be merely skillful verse, but the artistry of
the writer must so fuse these passages with the impassioned
poetry that the entire work will be an organic whole.

As criticism, the essay suffers from being a rebuttal as
well as an affirmation. The lines of the argument had been
drawn in unshaded black and white by another man; they
outraged Timrod's sense of the philosophical and the mys-
tical, which he felt to be at the heart of poetry; but the
narrow matter-of-factness of the preceding argument made
a reasoned answer difficult. He was forced to deny rather
than to disprove. The most valuable part of his reply is in
the place that he could most tangibly take hold of his ad-
versary's dicta: in the matter of poetic language. Signifi-
cantly, here, Timrod is on the side of Dante, and not of
Wordsworth. He declares that words in themselves have
beauty and euphony and concreteness; in this, he answers
Grayson convincingly.

In his longest and best essay, "A Theory of Poetry," ^^
Timrod develops and completes his earlier attempts at defi-
nition. After dismissing briefly Grayson's essay, he con-
siders Foe's dogmatic statements that a long poem is a
contradiction in terms and that the poetical sentiment is
derived only from the sense of the beautiful.

In response to the first dictum, Timrod presents two an-
swers. One has to do with the reading of poetry. Although
a psychal excitement is necessarily transient, it does not
follow that poetry must be read in that mood. In fact, the

-■^ For bibliographical details, see note 1 to "A Theory of Poetry." See
also, on Timrod's idea of a poet's mind, note 108.

INTRODUCTION 17

reading of the greatest poetry "is characterized ... by a
thoughtful subhmity and the matured and ahnost inex-
haustible strength of a healthy intellect." Granted this qual-
ity of mind, the reader need not complete a poem at one
sitting to preserve its unity of effect. If he reads the first
book of Paradise Lost, he will bring to the second and third
books all the impressions of his former reading; he will feel
a deeper richness as he continues. The mind will be con-
scious of the vast unity of the poem, so that "its grand pur-
port and harmonious proportions become more and more
clearly apparent."

The length of a poem has nothing to do with its excel-
lence. Only the author can know how long a poem should
be; and only through "the ordeal of criticism" can the
author's success or failure be determined. Timrod admits
that he is inclined to consider Dante's Divine Comedy as
three distinct poems, and Spenser's Faerie Qiieene a succes-
sion of poems. The character of the poem and the intention
of the poet may be responsible for a lack of unity. But the
poet, if he has artistry enough, can impose order and secure
unity. Not all of his poem will in the subjective sense be
genuine poetry; parts of it will inevitably be verse, but
"these parts may be raised so far above the ordinary level of
prose by skillful verse as to preserve the general harmony of
the poem and materially to insure its unity as a work of art."

With Poe's theory that poetry was limited in subject to
"the sense of the beautiful," Timrod dissented vigorously.
He was willing to grant the validity of this kind of poetry,
and even to admit that Poe had "fixed with some definite-
ness one phase of its merely subjective manifestation. It is,
indeed, to the inspiration which lies in the ethereal, the re-
mote and the unknown, that the world owes some of its
sweetest poems; and the poetry of words has never so

18 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

strange a fascination as when it seems to suggest more than
it utters."

But to admit the vahdity of the kind was not to accept
this kind as the only, or even the highest, poetry. Litera-
ture is not independent of life, or of truth. The creation of
beauty is a sufficient aim for a writer; it is not the highest
or noblest aim.

Essentially, Timrod was an ethical critic. He did not pro-
pose to limit its scope, but he was convinced that the great-
est poetry must have an ethical content. Poe had attempted
to reduce the many and varied sources of poetry to a single
element, beauty. There are other, equally valid sources:
particularly, power and truth. A poem need not be philo-
sophical, but it can embody philosophy; every poet has the
right "to make his art the vehicle of great moral and philo-
sophical lessons."

Some miscellaneous ideas garnered from letters, edito-
rials, and poems help to round out Timrod's poetic theory.
One concerns standards of poetry. He required a high level
of performance of himself; since his mind was not easily
malleable, he found it hard to excuse poor work in others.
Even brotherly affection could not lead him to pardon bad
poetry: "Sissie has been sending me several sheets of her
nonsense. Poor girl! She has very little to amuse her, and
I found it hard to tell her the truth about them. But of all
things in the world, I think a poetaster the most contempti-
ble; and to save myself the discredit of having one for a
sister, I have written to her, treating her versicles without
mercy." ^^ This brutal letter has not survived, and there is
no record of his sister's verses.

28 Letter to Emily, March 25, 1861, in Timrod-Goodwin Collection,
South Caroliniana Library. V^. P. Trent ( William Gilmore Simms, 233-34 )
thinks Timrod's inability to conceal his dislike of poor poetry may have led

INTRODUCTION 19

Soon after he assumed the editorship of the Daily South
Carolinian, Timrod wrote an editorial, "To our Poetical
Contributors." This was a public performance; also, it may
be, Timrod had mellowed somewhat in his opinion of mere
versifiers. Whatever the reason, he begins mildly. But the
concluding sentences are, under their politeness, as uncom-
promising as words can well be:

We have a heart to sympathise with all lovers of poetry, not
excepting those who are incompetent to appreciate it critically,
and who, in consequence, sometimes, mistake its weeds for its
flowers. The instinct which leads all men to delight in the musi-
cal expression of sentiment is a divine one, and we may not de-
spise it even where its action happens to be vitiated by defects
of judgment and taste. Such, indeed, is our reverence for that
instinct, that we are inclined to accord some respect even to the
writer of bad verse. Indifferent rhyme may occasionally be the
offspring of genuine feeling, for poetry is an art in which no one
can excel without genius and cultivation. Where, then, the of-
fender has the excuse of natural emotion, we think he ought to
be treated with great gentleness. Yet, at the same time, we would
advise all in whom the aura divina is wanting, to suppress their
productions, however unaffected may have been the impulse
which led to these compositions. There is no necessity of giving
to the public verses, the only merit of which is in the source
from which they spring. With regard to the poetical criminal
whose inspiration is vanity alone, we have no mercy for him
whatever. There ought to be a pillory for the punishment of
every evil-doer of this stamp.

We may as well state at the outset, that the standard upon
which we have fixed, and by which we shall measure all poetical
contributions to our columns, is high, and that to that standard

to a temporary estrangement with Simms: "Timrod was critical by nature
and Simms was vulnerable in many places. Timrod knew that he could
write real poetry, while Simms could not, and it probably vexed him to
hear the elder man airing his often crude views upon poetical subjects in
his positive Johnsonian manner." For Timrod's attitude toward Simms, see
also note 3 to "Literature in the South."

20 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

we shall adhere, without reference to any other considerations
tlian tliose of merit or demerit. While there are in the English
language so many exquisite poems not very well known, we
shall prefer to give selections from these, or even from authors
who, however familiar, can never lose their perennial freshness,
than to afflict our critical readers with such effusions as, in the
corner of some newspapers, appear under the head of original
verse. -^

One who reads today the poetry that Timrod included
may feel that he frequently relaxed his standards. But he
was publishing, or quite often reprinting, the work of peo-
ple whom he knew personally. In addition to his own and
some of his father's work, Timrod used many poems by his
friends: Hayne, Simms, Bruns, and Requier; several by
two men— Harry Lyndon Flash and James Ryder Randall
—whom he had met in his days as war correspondent; a
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich and part of one by Whit-
tier; and quotations from many English poets. He felt him-
self unduly handicapped: he could not pay for original
contributions, and he did not himself receive the papers
that came to the office. Even his opportunity to clip and
reprint was limited. ^*^

A few technical remarks are interesting. In a letter to
Hayne, Timrod writes that he has "the right poet's inclina-
tion to plunge at once in medias res." ^^ In another letter,

-9 Columbia Daily South Carolinian, Jan. 19, 1864.

30 Letter to Hayne, July 10, 1864, in Hubbell, op. cit., 32: "I do not
know whether you have published any verses lately, but if so, you may
possibly be surprised that they are not copied in the Carolinian. The reason
is that I never see a literary paper. Fontaine immediately seizes on them
for his wife who keeps them on file. If you should ever wish anything to
appear in the Carolinian,— I mean of course after you ha\'e sold it to some
other paper not too mean to buy it— you must send it to me."

31 March 30, 1866; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 59. On March 7, 1866,
Timrod used tlie same phrase to Hayne, but without relating it to poetry
( Hubbell, op. cit., 51 ) : 'T like usually to plunge in medias res."

INTRODUCTION 21

Timrod defends himself against dogmatic remarks by
James Wood Davidson; after reading Davidson's criticism
of his poetry, Timrod wrote indignantly to Hayne:

Did you mark what the fellow says about the use of my & thy
before vowels? "A well established principle of euphony de-
mands the use of mine & thine. ["] One would think that Mr.
Davidson must have scrutinized closely all the great masters,
and found this rule invariably observed" [sic]. I turn to Tenny-
son (Talking Oak) and read "And even into my inmost ring"
(D. objects to ["] thy inmost heart"). Again, "Then Close and
dark my arms I spread"— "Showering thy gleaned wealth into
my open breast" &c Sec I could quote a half dozen similar in-
stances. Even this fool's favorite Poe has "My Mother, my own
Mother who died early." The truth is, of course, that this rule
is not, like similar rules in Greek & French, imperative in
English. The poet has the privilege of using either form as his
ear dictates. Mr Davidson has no ear, and therefore he cannot
understand that if I had crunched together so many ns as I
would have done if I had written "in thine unmingled scorn,"
so far from consulting the laws of euphony, I should have
been guilty of a cacophony. But you know these things as
well as I.^"

To the same friend, he wrote his opinion of prize-poems
in general, and specifically of one that Hayne had just pub-
lished. His criticism is mild, yet exact:

I received your prize poem this morning— thank you for send-
ing it. It is a very noble production indeed— quite worthy of the
crown— but may I be so frank as to tell you that its excellence
seems to me rather rhetorical than poetical. This fault, how-
ever, belongs to all prize-poems,— to mine, I think, in a far
greater degree than your own. The poet cannot draw his purest
and subtlest strains except from his own unremunerated heart. ^^

^- To Hayne, March 7, 1866; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 52-53.

•^""^To Hayne, July 11, 1867; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 87-88. Hayne's
prize-poem was "The Confederates in the Field;" Timrod's, "Address De-
livered at the Opening of the New Theatre at Richmond" ( 1863).

22 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

These are direct statements. Ideas embodied in poems
are indirect: they represent the poet speaking dramatically,
and not necessarily in his own person. Yet, if evaluated with
reasonable caution, the thought in many poems can be
read as a valuable extension of his remarks in prose. In vary-
ing forms but with the same core of meaning, basic ideas
that troubled his mind appear and re-appear.

One is partially objective. The values of the world seemed
to him material values; those of poetry were ethical, spir-
itual, and aesthetic. He could find no way to reconcile these
opposites. Yet if poetry were to have meaning for the world,
the values of poetry must be accepted by it. Otherwise, a
man's poetry became a private possession, and there was
little reason for him to put his thought into an objectified
form.^^

Although the period in which he lived was in his estima-
tion less materialistic than the eighteenth century,^^ it felt
little need for intellectual and spiritual knowledge. Some-
times the very structure of the world appeared to make this
structure of society inevitable: since men were bound to
matter, space, and time, then "Communion with the spirit
land / Died with the last inventions." It was a prosaic day,
in which the world falsified its dreams. ^^

The poem "Youth and Manhood" combines this feeling
of the world's indifference with the poet's sense of being
aloof, and therefore removed. But he suspects that his youth
is a reason for his inhabiting a freer, loftier region: the men

34 See "A Vision of Poesy" and "A Theory of Poetry"; also, the discussion
and notes below; and "A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter Night," in Poems,
109-13.

3"> See "A Theory of Poetry."

36 The poem is titled, perhaps significantly, "A Little Spot of Dingy
Earth"; in Cardwell, Uncollected Poems, 67-71. The quotations are from
pp. 70-71.

INTRODUCTION 23

who toil and plod may have simply, in the endless strife,
lost faith with youth. With a young man's arrogant prayer,
Timrod closes his poem:

If the same toil which indurates the hand

Must steel the heart,
Till, in the wonders of the ideal land,

It have no part;

Oh! take me hence! I would no longer stay

Beneath the sky;
Give me to chant one pure and deathless lay,

And let me die! ^*'

The desire for death may have been rhetorical; the feel-
ing which permeates the poem was real. It intensified rather
than lessened. When he asked himself, or possibly was
asked in such a way that he could not shake the query
from his mind, why he did not write more poetry, his feeling
about the indifference to that art breaks forth: "the world,
in its worldliness, does not miss / What a poet sings." But
the writer in objectifying his thought has somehow cast it
away from him. Thus the thought, dream, or fancy loses
its personal application.^^

Closely related to this is his feeling that some truths are
better left unsaid, that "Too broad a daylight wraps us all."
Perhaps Timrod was half-ashamed of the mystical part of
his thoughts, and hesitant about voicing them too plainly.
He believed that there were impenetrable mysteries, which
could be intuitively known and in part understood; he felt
that richness was lost when too much was explained. Appar-
ently uncertain in his own beliefs, he knew only that intro-

'■^"^ "Youth and Manhood," in Poems, 24-26.
38 "Why Silent," in Poems, 45.

24 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

spection lost much when it was forced into the semi-reaUty
of words. ^^

Another phase of his dissatisfaction is most clearly stated
in the poem "Retirement." In a dramatic soliloquy, the poet
advises a friend that a lonely house awaits them; there the
two can build "A wall of quiet thought, and gentle books /
Betwixt us and the hard and bitter world." In that retreat,
they can shut out unpleasant news, and dally with peace-
ful thoughts and feelings. ^^ Another form of his discontent
shows in passages that express an inability to loose his
thoughts and at the same time to order and discipline them.
The dim monotones of an embryonic poem bewilder his
brain "With a specious and cunning appearance of thought
/ I seem to be catching but never have caught." ^^

He felt, also, that men did not understand or value medi-
tation. If a man worked, even though he labored only at the
paltry trade of sonnet-writing, he should have tangible re-
sults to show. Men accustomed to a "busy vacancy" had no
patience with a man's lying fallow, with simply observing
and thinking: he was an idler, and to be sneered at.^^

These troubled expressions are too much a part of his

39 Sonnet V, "Some truths there be are better left unsaid"; in Poems, 173.
The same thought appears also in "A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter
Night," 111:

While in the fears that chasten mortal joy,
Is one that shuts the lips, lest speech too free,
With the cold touch of hard reality,
Should turn its priceless jewels into dust.
He was also convinced that a poet could not fully understand what he
intuitively knew or felt. See Sonnet XIV, "Are these wild thoughts, thus
fettered in my rhymes," and the poem "Dreams," in Poems, 182 and 101-
102.

40 "Retirement," in Poems, 136. See also "Sonnet— In the Deep Shadow,"
in Uncollected Poems, 53.

41 "Vox et Praeterea Nihil," in Poems, 31.

42 Sonnet IV, "They dub thee idler, smiling sneeringly," in Poems, 172.

INTRODUCTION 25

mind to be disregarded. His dissatisfaction with his com-
pleted work is a compomid of many elements. "^'^ He could
occasionally profess an aristocratic disdain of the world's
opinion; ^^ beyond question, he had a low opinion of mass
intelligence. Yet a private art intended for the few seemed
to him an imperfect and largely useless art. The poet had a
function to perform: to translate for this mass-mind the
aspirations and thoughts which, otherwise, it could never
grasp.^^ The poet was minister of truth, power, and beauty;
he was a responsible agent, performing a function that no
other agent could perform.^^

This may be at the heart of Timrod's discontent. He was
confident of his poetic power, yet, judging from his early
poems, it seemed to him a power without adequate direc-
tion or control. His work was too much abstracted from
reality, both within itself and in its audience. It was not
enough to write graceful love lyrics or give voice to his
personal feelings. In that manner, the poet could find relief

43 See, for typical examples, "To Anna," in Uncollected Poems, 92; "A
Vision of Poesy," section II; Sonnet X, in Poems, 178; "Why Silent," in
Poems, 45; also, two letters from Emily Timrod Goodwin to Hayne ( Nov.
23, 1867, in Timrod-Goodwin Collection, South Caroliniana Library):
"With regard to our brother's age I must be candid with you. The year of his
birth was written down by my father as the 8th of December 1829 [actually,
W. H. Timrod recorded Henry's birth in his day-book as occurring Dec. 8,
1828]; but Hal always said 1830. He thought he had accomplished so little
that he made himself a year younger than he really was." On Oct. 22, 1867,
in a letter to Hayne describing his death, Emily wrote ( quoted in Hayne,
op. cit., 61-62; Ms. in Timrod-Goodwin Collection): "After the Doctor
went, he said to me, 'And is this to be the end of all— so soon! and I have
achieved so little? I thought to have done so much. I had just before my
first attack fallen into a strain of such pure and delicate fancies. I think
this winter I would have done more than I have ever done; I should have
written more purely, and with greater delicacy."

■14 See the opening paragraphs of "The Character and Scope of the
Sonnet."

45 "A Vision of Poesy," in Poems, 87-88.

46 See "A Theory of Poetry;" also note 108.

26 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

for his own impatient spirit; but he had not, as artist, at-
tained full manhood.^^

If this reading of his work is correct, Timrod until 1860
was a poet in search of a theme. Before that time, he found
many themes, and he wrote good poems on some of them.
But only infrequently did such a poem satisfy him. His
concept was noble; in comparison, his performance was
inadequate. So he was influenced heavily and directly by
the writers he most admired, while he was painfully work-
ing out for himself the passage from their ideas to his own.

The war gave him a theme. Timrod was ready for it, with
a technique that had become individual to himself, and
capable of translating this matter of poetry into poetry
itself. Whether rightly or wrongly, he felt that in his theme
he had found common ground with his people, that he was
giving expression to what they dimly felt. In this poetry
the direct and sometimes embarrassing evidences of in-
debtedness disappear; his thought had grown strong
enough to absorb the earlier influences and to transmute
them until they become an integral part of his own thought.

The finest and clearest expression of that thought is not
in the early ( and factually erroneous ) paeans to a coming
victory.^* It is rooted in tragedy. In victory as in defeat, the
tragedy would remain; and it would be almost equally piti-
less for victor and vanquished. Against this tragedy of men
Timrod sets the eternal quality of nature with its inherent
peacefulness; and he sets against it, also, the faith of human
beings. With this sombre awareness of death there came
also, in 1865, the personal tragedy of the death of his only
son. The man who wrote "Spring," "Christmas," "A Mother's

47 "A Vision of Poesy," in Poems, 88 and 97-99.

48 The best example of this is the conclusion of "The Cotton Boll," in
Poems, 11.

INTRODUCTION 27

Wail," and the final "Ode" had experienced universal emo-
tions.

These poems are not, in the technical sense, major poems,
and Timrod is not a major poet. But in them Timrod has
magnificently embodied his concept of poetry. When he
was simply voicing in restrained and powerful verse the
emotions that had become a part of him, he was an authen-
tic poet.

A vast amount of Southern intellectual energy was ex-
pended, in the years 1830-1860, in presenting arguments
and pleas for a regional intellectual independence. These
partisan efforts to create a literary nationalism brought little
in the way of tangible results. If the discussion was unprof-
itable, the problem itself was painful, engrossing, and ap-
parently inescapable.^^

To this forensic arena of bitterness and vexation, Timrod
came late.^^ By 1859 the South was almost unified in its
opposition to the North. The easy, popular thing to do was
to throw hard verbal bricks at Boston and New York.
Timrod does his share of this, but he does not absolve his
own region of blame or responsibility. The Southern author
is "the Pariah of modern literature" because he is caught
between hostility and contempt abroad and scornful indif-
ference at home: "It is the settled conviction of the North
that genius is indigenous there, and flourishes only in a
Northern atmosphere. It is the equally firm conviction of

49 For an excellent discussion of this subject, see J. B. Hubbell, "Literary
Nationalism in the Old South," in American Studies in Honor of William
Kenneth Boyd (Durham, 1940), pp. 175-220.

50 With his essay, "Literature in the South" ( 1859). For bibliographical
details, see note 1 to this essay.

28 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

the South that genius— hterary genius, at least— is an exotic
that will not flower on a Southern soil."

Timrod reserves his sharpest thrusts for Southerners.
Native writers are neglected because literature is consid-
ered an epicurean amusement, and because readers prefer
the classical and neo-classical to the modern romantic
authors. The writer himself is not esteemed in a land where
taste is archaic and judgment is uninformed. Timrod never
doubted the superiority of nineteenth-century writing; he
was troubled only that readers and teachers seemed fre-
quently to prefer Pope to Wordsworth, and remained ob-
livious to "that most important revolution in imaginative
literature . . . which took place a little more than half a
century ago." The men who brought about that revolution
had introduced a mystical element into verse, which dis-
tinguished it from earlier kinds, and into criticism an analy-
sis which deduced its laws from nature and truth rather
than from the authority of particular writers.

Equally provincial and almost equally harmful was the
current demand from another group for a superficial
"Southernism in literature." It closely resembled the earlier
demand for "Americanism in literature," and each meant
only that "an author should confine himself in the choice of
his subjects to the scenery, the history, and the traditions"
of his own section or country. Without any qualification,
Timrod labelled this a false and narrow criterion by which
to judge of true nationality. It is in the handling of a sub-
ject, and not in the subject itself, that the characteristics of
a writer are revealed, and "he alone, who, in a style evolved
from his own individual genius, speaks the thoughts and
feelings of his own deep heart, can be a truly national
genius." To such a writer, the circumscription of subjects
was foolish and unfortunate. The author must have the

INTRODUCTION 29

right to choose accordmg to his own needs and taste; that
he would not thereby lose his nationality was easily proved
by the Roman plays of Shakspere and the French novels
of Scott.

In January, 1864, Timrod began to write a series of edi-
torials ^^ that continue and in part repeat his essay, "Litera-
ture in the South." The war, he thinks, has brought about
one improvement: the blockade has cut off the supply of
English and Northern books, and thus has forced South-
erners to read native works. In turn. Southern authors,
awake "to the fact that they have at last an audience," have
been writing vigorously, and with enough ability to indi-
cate "that a new era of intellectual energy is dawning upon
us." These books and the best of the literary magazines and
papers show "the national mind struggling to find fit and
original expression." If there is much imitation and many
indifferent books, there is also evidence that Southern liter-
ature is beginning to "trust to its native strength alone." ^^

Although he favored an independence of foreign models
and asked for a literature that would reflect and reveal the
Southern mind,^^ Timrod did not want a local color litera-
ture. He rephrases his earlier concept: "There is but one

^1 On January 13, 1864, the Columbia Daih/ South Carolinian an-
nounced in its columns the valedictory of R. V^. Gibbes, M. D., and its new
ownership by F. G. De Fontaine & Co. De Fontaine was to be editor, and
as "associate editor we have secured the services of HENRY TIMROD,
ESQ." He was responsible for the editorials; he helped also with other
sections of the paper. In a letter to Hayne, Timrod disclaims the author-
ship of most of the book notices; see page 50 of Introduction. All the
editorials that contain literary criticism are printed in the notes to
"Literature in the South" and "A Theory of Poetry." J. B. Hubbell, op. cit.,
133-45, reprints five of them.

^- The first of his editorials, entitled "Southern Literature," Jan. 14, 1864.

^3 "Southern Nationality," Jan. 16, 1864, and "Nationality in Literature,"
Jan. 19, 1864. The quotation in this paragraph is from "Nationality in
Literature."

30 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

way to be a truly national writer, and that is by being a
truly original writer . . . the man of original genius draws
his matter from the depth of his own being; and the national
character, in which, as a unit of the nation, he shares, finds
its utterance through him."

Timrod also considers the parallel demand for a national
song. Most songs of this kind he thinks worthless from a
literary point of view. "The Star-Spangled Banner" and
"Rule Britannia" gained popularity through their effective
refrains, and not through any merit as poetry; with the ex-
ception of "Maryland, My Maryland," no Southern song
attained even that type of popularity. Since people do not
choose their songs on the basis of poetic merit, the poets
are not to blame. Timrod lists four things as necessary to
the success of a national song: "Its verse must run glibly on
the tongue; it must contain somewhere, either in a stanza
or in a refrain, a sentiment, tersely and musically expressed,
which appeals to some favorite pride, prejudice, or passion
of the people; it must be married to an effective, but not
complicated air, and it must be aided by such a collocation
of accidents as may not be computed." The poet even of
genius cannot control all of these elements; the Confed-
eracy possessed no writers equal to the task of expressing
"the whole great soul of a nation within the compass of a
few simple and melodious verses." But the task was worth
attempting, and he hoped that writers would, in the effort,
"find inspiration enough to draw forth the utmost capacity
of their genius." ^"^

He was not optimistic. The turbulence and excitement
of war might be excellent as a period of germination, but

54 "National Songs," Jan. 24, 1864. See also his letter to Rachel Lyons,
Sept. 6, 1861, in Southern Literary Messenger, II: 609, Nov., 1940.

INTRODUCTION 31

not as a period of growth. Yet the intense emotion which
prevents a poet from writing well at the time may give
strength and character to his thought. After a period of
meditation, which could come only with the return of
peace, Southern writers might be able to write great
poems. ^^

The editorials themselves suffer from this lack of tran-
quillity. On August 25, 1864, Timrod described his work to
Hayne: "I have not written a line of verse for a twelve-
month. All the poetry in my Nature has been fagged out of
me I fear. I work very hard,— besides writing the leaders
of the paper I often descend into the local column, as you
must have noticed by such articles as Literary Pranks^ Ar-
senal Hill, and the Troubles of a Midsummer Night. My
object is to show that a poet can drudge as well [as] a duller
man, and therefore I don't complain." ^^ It was one thing
to drudge uncomplainingly, and presumably Timrod was
equal to that task; it was quite another under the circum-
stances to write with strength and intelligence. Even dwarf
essays require a sustained thought that Timrod often
seemed unable to give to them.^*^

55 "VV^ar and Literature," Feb. 28, 1864, and an editorial without a title,
Sept. 15, 1864.

56 Quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 43.

57 The Daily South Carolinian stopped with the burning of Columbia on
Feb. 17, 1865, Its printer, Juhan A. Selby (Memorabilia and Anecdotal
Reminiscences of Columbia, S. C, Columbia, 1905, 101 ) writes that as
Sherman's army approached he and Timrod "issued a 'thumb-sheet' two
or three times a day," with shells dropping near the building. Timrod
wrote some editorials, 1865-66, for the Phoenix (started in Columbia
March 21, 1865, but moved before December to Charleston) . Trent, op. cit.,
292, says that Timrod did not "contribute a line for weeks together."
Timrod (letter to Hayne, March 30, 1866; in Hubbell, op.cit., 60) writes
that Fontaine "started the Carolinian" again in Charleston: "I have hacked
for him for four months, and have not yet received one month's pay. The
truth is, Fontaine can't pay."

32 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

III

Few writers have ever indicated so precisely the major
influences upon their art as Timrod did. He expressed fre-
quently and quite frankly his indebtedness to Wordsworth;
he praised the work of Milton and of Tennyson; and he is
said to have completed a metrical translation of the poems
of Catullus/*^ Although he knew the works of many other
poets, these four influenced him most directly and imme-
diately. Hayne notes that "his reading was more exact than
varied. His unerring critical tact rejected the false and
meretricious; but for authors of his deliberate choice, his
affection daily increased." ^^

First in his affection was Wordsworth. In the morning of
his career, writes his close friend Hayne, "Timrod looked
up to Wordsworth as his poetical guide and exemplar." ^^
Wordsworth seemed not only his personal mentor, but the
guiding spirit of poetry in his time: "The poet who first
taught the few simple but grand and impressive truths
which have blossomed into the poetic harvest of the nine-
teenth century was Wordsworth . . . When he began to
write, it was with the purpose of embodying in all the
poetic forms at his command the two truths of which the
poets and readers of his time seemed to him completely
incognizant. These were, first, that the materials and stimu-
lants of poetry might be found in the commonest things
about us; and second, behind the sights, sounds, and hues
of external nature there is 'something more than meets the
senses, something undefined and unutterable which must

58 J. P. K. Bryan, in Introduction, Poems, xxxiii.

59 Hayne, op. cit., 18-19.

60 Ihid., 21.

INTRODUCTION 33

be felt and perceived by the soul' in its moments of rapt
contemplation. This latter feeling it is that constitutes the
chief originality of Wordsworth." In Timrod's estimation,
this feeling did not appear in Shakspere or his contempo-
raries, in Milton or his followers, in Dryden, Pope, Thom-
son, or Cowper. But it "has been caught up and shadowed
forth" by every poet from Byron to Tennyson.^^

An individual adumbration of this feeling or idea appears
in Timrod's poetry. He felt himself to be in the tradition of
Wordsworth.^- When a correspondent suggested to him
that his poem "Katie" was Byronic in tone, Timrod an-
swered that the resemblance was "merely a verbal one," and
that the particular couplet under discussion is "made the
text of a train of sentiment which is much more Words-
toorthian than Byronic in its character." ^^

This admitted influence permeates his work in the dec-
ade 1850-60. The need for dealing with common and hu-

^1 "A Theory of Poetry."

^" In a thoughtful discussion of Timrod's life and work, Peirce Bruns
(in Conservative Review, I: 268, May, 1899) disagreed flatly with this;
but he apparently was not familiar with Timrod's prose: "It has been said
that he was most deeply influenced by Wordsworth. But this is manifestly
erroneous. The mistake, we suppose, has arisen from Paul Hayne's state-
ment that Timrod's favorite poem was Wordsworth's 'Intimations of Im-
mortality from Recollections of Early Childhood,' a poem which is cer-
tainly the most un-Wordsworthian of all the Lake Poet's works. Surely
there can be no resemblance between the 'cloudy pantheism' of Words-
worth and the clear-cut, definite forms under which Timrod envisaged
the flowers of nature. Timrod, in this regard, at least, is far nearer to
Shelley."

Trent, op.cit., 235, states without qualification of Timrod: "That he was
dominated by Tennyson ... is perfectly true."

There are obvious borrowings in thought from Wordsworth's "Ode on
Intimations of Immortality" in Timrod's "Dramatic Fragment," Poems,
105-06.

^"^ Letter to Rachel Lyons, in "Unpublished Letters of Henry Timrod,"
edited by WiUiam Fidler, Southern Literary Messenger, II: 610-11, Nov.,
1940.

34 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

man things is emphasized by the angel of Poesy in the
"Vision;" ^* it is expHcitly stated by Timrod in a sonnet on
poetry:

POET! if on a lasting fame be bent

Thy unperturbing hopes, thou will not roam

Too far from thine own happy heart and home;

Cling to the lowly earth, and be content!

So shall thy name be dear to many a heart;

So shall the noblest truths by thee be taught;

The flower and fruit of wholesome human thought

Bless the sweet labors of thy gentle art.

The brightest stars are nearest to the earth,

And we may track the mighty sun above,

Even by the shadow of a slender flower.

Always, O bard, humility is power!

And thou mayst draw from matters of the hearth

Truths wide as nations, and as deep as love.^^

This was not a plea for a limited provincialism. Rather,
it represents his belief that universality could be secured
through the method of handling immediate and well-
known objects, and through giving a new richness to or-
dinary things.

The major influence of Wordsworth is to be found in
Timrod^s concept of nature. Although he knew the classical
poets and drew intellectual sustenance from them, he spoke
truly of having "fed my muse with English song / Until her
feeble wing grew strong." ^^ In particular it had fed upon
the intuitive, contemplative mysticism of the romantic
poets. That his own concept of nature deviated from
Wordsworth's somewhat, he consciously realized; but he

fi^ "A Vision of Poesy," in Poems, 86-89 and 99.

c-"^ Poems, 169.

66 "A Dedication," in Poems, 37.

INTRODUCTION 35

knew likewise that he had started from Wordsworth's
premise.

Both men are conscious of spiritual qualities no longer
understood; instead of setting this consciousness in the pe-
riod before birth and in early childhood, Timrod feels that
he must some time, some where, have existed in a finer
and more sensitive form:

O mother! somewhere on this lovely earth

I lived, and understood that mystic tongue,

But, for some reason, to my second birth
Only the dullest memories have clung.^"^

For both poets, these memories can best be stimulated by
nature.

In Timrod's view, nature can provide an ethical basis for
poetry; she is so bountiful that her lessons "may be gath-
ered from the very dust we tread beneath our feet." ^^ He
admits that it is possible to disregard truth and yet to write
good poetry, by concentrating on subjective beauty. Even
in attaining this narrow end, nature can help the writer.
Timrod grants readily that there need be no moral shut
within the bosom of the rose; equally, that poems may be
judged, without regard to morality, in "simple reference
to their poetical effect." The contemplative or philosoph-
ical poet is "influenced by a vaster purpose . . . [he] aims
to create beauty also, but . . . desires at the same time
to mould this beauty into the shape of a temple dedicated
to Truth." Beauty is implicit, but is made to serve a loftier
end: in Milton, to justify God's ways to man; in Words-

67 "A Vision of Poesy," in Poems, 78. In the poem "Dramatic Fragment,"
105-06, he says that "We are born ... in miniature completeness;" we
do not change, but only grow and develop; and childhood is *a sort of
golden daylight."

68 "A. Theory of Poetry." Later quotations in this paragraph are from
the same essay.

36 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

worth, to give meaning to natural phenomena and richness
to famiHar things.

Timrod tried to accept Wordsworth's view of a benefi-
cent, all-heaHng, wisdom-bestowing nature. It represented
to him a tenable ideal and a way to contentment. But his
own unquiet spirit and his first-hand observation frequently
contradicted the words of the older poet. He recommended
a study of Wordsworth to Rachel Lyons, in significant
words: "I am quite sure that nobody could devote a month
or many months to that grand old bard, without being
made wiser and better. I myself would be a far happier
man if I could follow his teaching, rather than my own
dark and perturbed spirit." ^^ This happiness he could never
attain.

In "The Summer Bower," Timrod describes a secret
covert, deep in the woods, that he had often gone to when
depressed by grief or distressed by joy. There, usually, he
"found the calm I looked for, or returned/ Strong with the
quiet rapture in my soul." One day, "most sick in mind," he
sought this tranquil place, but he found there no comfort
for vain repinings, sickly sentiments, or inconclusive sor-

69 Fidler, op. cit., II: 651. Emily Timrod Goodwin, in writing of her
brother's love of nature, did not mention the influence of Wordsworth, but
emphasized the influence of their mother ( Letter, Emily to Hayne, Sept. 25,
1872, in Timrod-Goodwin Gollection, South Caroliniana Library; quoted
in Hayne, p. 41 ) : "It was from her, more than from his gifted father, that
my brother derived that intense, passionate love of Nature which so dis-
tinguished him. Its sights and sounds always afforded her extreme delight.
Shall I ever forget the almost childish rapture she testified, when, after
a residence in the pent-up city all her life, she removed with me to the
country? A walk in the woods to her was food and drink, and the sight of
a green field was joy inexpressible.

"From my earliest childhood, I can remember her love for flowers and
trees and for the stars; how she would call our attention to the glintings of
the sunshine through the leaves; to the afternoon's lights and shadows, as
they slept quietly, side by side; and even to a streak of moonlight on the
floor."

INTRODUCTION 37

rows. Nature had sympathy and medicinal virtue for hu-
man suffering, but only "In her own way and with a just
reserve;" for a certain kind of introspective suffering— a
kind that Timrod knew only too well— nature had no balm:

But for the pains, the fever, and the fret
Engendered of a weak, unquiet heart.
She hath no solace; and who seeks her when
These be the troubles over which he moans,
Reads in her unreplying lineaments
Rebukes, that, to the guilty consciousness.
Strike like contempt."^^

The fault was in himself, he thought, and not in nature.

As poet Timrod was scrupulously honest with himself.
He could not use material that had not become a part of
his being, no matter what powerful sanction that material
might have. What he could do was convict himself of lack-
ing philosophy and understanding. In an article written
immediately after Timrod's death, William Gilmore Simms
traces this lack of certainty to a lack of profundity: "he
labored in no field of metaphysics; he simply sang . . .
with a native gift, of the things, the beauties, and the
charms of nature. He belonged, in the classification of liter-
ary men, to the order that we call the contemplative; and
without the deeper studies and aims of Wordsworth, he
yet belonged to his school . . . The fields, the wayside,
the evening twilight, stars and moon, and faint warblings
of the birds in green thickets— these were the attractions for
his muse. These he meditated in song and sonnet, and his
songs emulated all the gentle intuition of nature." '^^

Simms had only a partial understanding of Timrod. The

"^0 "The Summer Bower," in Poems, 106-08.

"^1 W. G. Simms, "The Late Henry Timrod," in Southern Society, I:
18-19, Oct. 12, 1867; also in Hubbell, op. cit., 153-65.

38 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

qualities he describes are profusely scattered through the
poems : Timrod was observant, with a quick eye and reten-
tive mind; he wrote many descriptive passages that are
accurate and beautiful. The external properties of nature
provided a suitable poetic framework. In his best work,
the function of nature was more fundamental, more inte-
gral, than decoration or the kind of intuition that Simms
described. Nature typified the best aspects of life; it hinted
at things about which man could only guess. When war
came, this peaceful, eternal force contrasted with man's
inhumanity and shortsightedness.

Although less pervasive, the influence of Tennyson was
equally direct. Timrod*s friends in Charleston first detected
that influence in his poem "The Arctic Voyager;" "^^ since
Timrod borrowed obviously and freely from Tennyson's
"Ulysses" in thought and in structure, detection was easy
and inevitable. Even more directly derived from "Ulysses"
is the beginning of "Lines to R. L.": "That which we are
and shall be is made up / Of what we have been." '^^ Timrod
develops this idea through the entire poem, in a manner
individual enough; he is writing to a young lady, and his
mood is removed from that of "Ulysses." Perhaps he wished
deliberately to call Tennyson's poem to the reader's mind,
for contrast. The borrowing is too plain not to be inten-
tional.

Timrod liked the dramatic soliloquy. He used the form

72 Hayne, op. cit., 24.

73 "Lines to R. L.", in Poems, 131. An allusion which takes for granted a
knowledge of Tennyson is given in "Lines," Poems, 191:

I saw, or dreamed I saw, her sitting lone,
Her neck bent like a swan's, her brown eyes thrown
On some sweet poem— his, I think, who sings
CEnone, or the hapless Maud:
"Lines" was first published in Russell's Magazine, VI: 459, Feb. 1860.

INTRODUCTION 39

effectively in such poems as "A Dramatic Fragment," "The
Summer Bower," and "A Rhapsody of a Southern Winter
Night." From Tennyson, also, Timrod adapted the form of
"Break, Break, Break" for his own poem, "Hark to the
Shouting Wind," although he makes subtle and interesting
changes both in the metrics and the idea.

This general indebtedness to Tennyson, likewise, was
openly stated in "A Theory of Poetry;" in fact, Timrod
implies that he was aware of it earlier than Hayne was. In
treating Foe's theory of poetry, Timrod notes that it leads
inevitably to the conclusion that Tennyson is the noblest
poet who ever lived, and also to the conclusion that Foe is
second only to Tennyson. After acquitting Foe of any petty
vanity, Timrod adds: "I yield to few, and only to that ex-
travagant few who would put him over the head of Milton
himself, in my admiration of Foe, and I yield to none in a
love which is almost a worship of Tennyson, with whose
poems I have been familiar from boyhood, and whom I yet
continue to study with ceaseless profit and pleasure. But
I can by no means consent to regard him as the first of
Foets." Tennyson's accomplishment is broader and finer
than Foe's theory would provide for: his "large nature
touches Foe on the one side and Wordsworth on the other."

His most striking comment on Tennyson reveals that
Timrod was conscious of a softness and immaturity in some
poems. He had met a young lady who seemed passionately
fond of poetry, but who had "not yet got beyond the period
which goes into ecstasies over Locksley Hall, and into sleep
over In Memoriam." ^^

'7'* Typed copy of letter to Emily, from Charleston, Feb. 10, 1862, in
Timrod-Goodwin Collection, South Caroliniana Library. The original is
missing.

40 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Timrod's copy of Tennyson has survived, but there is
httle to be learned from a study of his Hght markings. The
pocket-size volume, now re-bound, is badly worn and the
opening pages have been lost; on the fly-leaf, Timrod's wife
has written: "This volume of Tennyson belonged to Henry
Timrod. He carried it constantly, for many, many years." "^^
But any significant notes were made elsewhere: with the
exception of his Catullus, Timrod did not annotate his
books.

That he considered Milton superior to Tennyson and
possibly even to Wordsworth is made clear in "A Theory
of Poetry." Timrod's analysis of Paradise Lost is based on
close study of the poem. But it is difficult to find in his work
such unmistakable echoes as can be found of Wordsworth
and Tennyson. Technically, he took from Milton the ex-
tended simile, and it retained its place after the influence
of Tennyson had been so completely absorbed that it dis-
appears. In "The Cotton Bill," the lines beginning "As men
who labor in that mine / Of Cornwall" indicate how com-
pletely he had made this poetic device his own."^^

"^5 While she owned the book, Mrs. Lloyd wrote to V^. A. Courtenay
(March 15, 1898; letter in Memories of the Timrod Revival 1898-1901,
Charleston Library Society ) : "1 have a little worn copy of Tennyson which
he always carried with him. It never left him. He had it from the time
when he was almost a boy. It is marked by him, and some of the pages
turned down by him." It may be noted that Mrs. Lloyd was frequently
given to over-statement.

The one pencilled note deals with the line from Section II of "The
Princess": "The Rhodope that built the pyramid." Timrod noted: "Herod-
otus says that this pyramid wrongly ascribed by some to Rhodope was
built by Mycerinus." This testifies more to a knowledge of the Greek
historian ("Euterpe," Ch. CXXXIV) than to his known appreciation of
Tennyson. Timrod has also marked a few lines in "CEnone," in "The Palace
of Art," in "A Dream of Fair Women," in "In Memoriam," and in "Maud."

■76 For another example, see Poems, 136-37. Timrod's eight volume set
of Milton (London: Pickering, 1851) is now in the Timrod Museum at
Florence, S. C. It reveals no notes or markings; presumably Timrod owned

INTRODUCTION 41

The influence of Browning is slight, and readily appar-
ent in only one poem, "Prasceptor Amat." Here the resem-
blance is one of form rather than of thought: Timrod
employs the couplet in a manner similar to that of "My Last
Duchess," and the poem is a dramatic monologue rather
than a soliloquy. But Timrod's whimsical story of the emo-
tions of a tutor seems frequently to embody the mannerisms
and verbal obscurities of Browning for the effect of parody.
It seems evident, from his remarks in "A Theory of Poetry,"
that Timrod considered himself well-acquainted with the
works of Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but that
his admiration had been partly checked by some over-
enthusiastic admirers. A theory of poetry could be drawn
from their practice, he notes; but it would exclude many
other excellent poets. The application of this doctrine was
the work of their followers. In 1866 he complains of
Davidson's ''niaiseries in regard to Wordsworth and Mrs
Browning." '^^

The influence of Shelley has been previously treated.
That of Keats appears to be negligible, although certain

a copy of Milton earlier. On a fly-leaf, in Timrod's writing but without a
date, is the notation, "from his esteemed, departed friend, Mrs. Emma P.
Blake." The material in the Timrod Museum has only association or senti-
mental value.

"^'^ Letter to Hayne, March 7, 1866; in Hubbell, oj). cit., 54. In an un-
dated letter to Emily from Copse Hill ( probably May or August, 1867;
Timrod-Goodwin Collection, South Caroliniana Library ) he described Jean
Ingelow as a "worthy successor of Mrs. Browning's"; and on Aug. 24, 1864,
he closed an editorial on the imperfections of contemporaneous judgments
with her "titanic lines," beginning "Every age, / Through being beheld too
close, is ill-discerned / By those who have not lived past it." Ludwig Lewi-
sohn {Books We Have Made, 53; scrapbook in Charleston Library Society,
from Charleston News and Courier, Sundays July 5-Sept. 20, 1903) sug-
gests that "A 'Dramatic Fragment' is an attempt in the jerky, but pictur-
esque, blank verse of Elizabeth Barrett Browning."

42 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

personal similarities in the lives of the two men have called
forth unconvincing comparisons of their work."^^

The poems in Timrod's Autographic Relics,'^^ mainly
written in the 1840's, reveal a marked indebtedness to the
lyrics of Byron ^^^ and the lyrics and anacreontics of Moore.
This was a transitory influence, but in Timrod's youth it was
a strong one. Although he published in 1857 a poem
strongly reminiscent of Moore, he indicated in the same
magazine a realization of Moore's superficiality.^^

Timrod's early liking for James Thomson lasted longer
than his fondness for Moore. One of his earliest poems
( dated 1843 ) , has beside it a note, "Written in a blank leaf
of Thompson's Castle of Indolence;" the nine-line poem
makes a comparison between the English poet's dream
country, where he "created a fancied realm," and the "sad

"^^ See page 5 of introduction, and "A Vision of Poesy," in Poems, 90.
The semi-personal, semi-literary comparison is well illustrated by L. Frank
Tooker's comment (in the Century, LV, n.s. 33: 932-34, April, 1898):
"The reader is constantly reminded of the cumulative sadness that was the
lot of Keats, as he is reminded of the latter 's excessive sensibility of tem-
perament. Indeed, in spirit the two poets were essentially kin, though in
poetic insight and expression— in the true province of the poet— Timrod, of
course, dwelt on a lower plane. He also dwelt in a different atmosphere,
for while the influence of Keats may be traced in his work, the feeling, the
local coloring, the habit of thought, are his own."

'^0 Ms. in Charleston Library Society. These poems have all been pub-
lished in Cardwell, The Uncollected Poems of Henry Timrod (1942).

80 Hayne, who disliked Byron, expressly notes (p. 67) "the absence from
his works of all morbid arraignments of the Eternal justice or mercy; all
blasphemous hardihood and whining complaint— in a word, all Byronism
of sentiment."

81 "Song— When I bade thee adieu," published in Russell's Magazine,
I: 489, Sept. 1857; in Uncollected Poems, 108; the opening section of "The
Character and Scope of the Sonnet," ( Russell's, May, 1857 ) reveals his
doubt of Moore's validity as a poet. The manuscript poem is in Autographic
Relics, and may have been written several years earlier. I fully agree with
Cardwell ( op. cit., 3-4 ) that "in spirit and subject matter, Timrod's early
verse seems much like the poetry of Moore."

INTRODUCTION 43

reality" of a Carolina school room.^^ Thomson's handling
of nature seemed too matter-of-fact for Timrod to rate him
as a truly significant poet: he had concentrated too much
on description, and neglected the symbolic meaning.^'^

Timrod's knowledge of Chaucer may have been slight.
Once, in celebrating the flower that he loved so well, Tim-
rod mentions that a daisy called to mind that these were
"Chaucer's favorites, little pink-tipped stars." ^^

Timrod's highest tribute to Spenser was embodied in an
editorial attacking England for her pretended neutrality:
"there are few of us so free from the strong spell of her great
literature as to be able to hate her without considerable
reluctance." In contrast to England's materialism, one re-
members "the ethereal enchantments of SPENSER, and in
recalling that he too, that mystic wanderer into fairyland,
was one of her children, we are well nigh seduced into be-
lieving that a land which has given birth to so divine a
creature cannot be organically affected by a vice so incon-
sistent with the character of its offspring." ^^ This admira-
tion for Spenser's work may indicate that the Elizabethan
poet had not become a favorite until late in life. Hayne sug-

82 "In Bowers of Ease," in Autographic Relics, and in Uncollected Poems,
78; see also 119, n. 68. Timrod consistently spells the poet's name Thomp-
son; a few editions show this spelling, and Timrod may have owned one
of them.

Worth noting among these very early poems is Timrod's parody of
Charles Wolfe's "The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna." The first
two lines show its schoolboy, mock-occasional character: "Not a grin was
seen, not a giggle heard / As the tutor breath'd his last." The poem is de-
scribed as "his first known effort," but is dated 1844. It is printed in
Uncollected Poems, 23.

83 See "A Theory of Poetry."

84 "Field Flowers," in Uncollected Poems, 100.

85 Editorial without title. Daily South Carolinian, Aug. 3, 1864. The only
other author named is Shakspere; Timrod contrasts England's narrowness
of policy with his universal sympathies. The newspaper's spelling: etherial.

44 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

gests, however, that the metrical form of "A Vision of
Poesy" is "that employed by Shakspeare in his 'Venus and
Adonis,' by Spenser in his 'Astrophel/ and Cowley in his
least ambiguous verses." ^^

The songs of Burns Timrod praises mildly; he notes that
they have become a folk possession— possibly after they
had been talked about and drawn to general attention by
a few discerning men.^"^ In an editorial on the appropriate-
ness of the names of the months, he calls the Scottish poet
as witness: "We have Burns' authority for asserting that
'November chill blows loud with angry sough.' " ^^ Tim-
rod's work belongs in a later tradition, and Bums influ-
enced him only as his songs had become a part of a larger
current of thought.

Timrod used Shakspere's works freely and with evident
familiarity. But this use is primarily as a source of allusions
that would not require explanation. When he was com-
peting in a contest that seemed to require references to
dramatic characters, he employed brief descriptions and
personifications of Lear, Hamlet, Juliet, and Miranda; ^^
when he sought a fit and concluding epithet to express his
sense of indebtedness to England, he wrote "Shakespeare's

^^' Hayne, op. cit., 31; see also "A Theory of Poetry."

^"^ See "The Character and Scope of the Sonnet."

8'^ "Names of Months Phonetically Expressive," in Hayne, op. cit., 50-51.
Playne gives no source, but says that it was written "after the surrender at
Appomattox." Somewhat similar remarks appear in the Daily South Caro-
linian, Oct. 2 and 4, 1864, but there Timrod says: "The reader must, him-
self, make what he can of November, We don't like the month, and shall,
therefore, say nothing about it."

^^ "Address Delivered at the Opening of the New Theatre at Richmond,"
in Poems, 69-73. See also "Field Flowers," in Uncollected Poems, 99-102;
and the later, revised version, "Two Field Flowers," in Hubbell, op. cit.,
128-30.

INTRODUCTION 45

England." ^^ His liking for Shakspere may have been inher-
ited. His father had, in his boyhood, read the plays by
moonlight, and had considered Shakspere "his favorite
companion." ^^

Shakspere was used, once, as justification. In a letter to
Hayne, Timrod objects bitterly to Simms' describing him
as indolent and on one occasion reading a "yellow-covered
novel. Now I remember the occasion very well. I was really
sick with a most painful malady— a stricture, but I didn't
tell him that— and I was reading Shakspeare. I have not
read ten novels in as many years, and I never read trash,
not even Mr. Simms." ^^

When Timrod was dying, two lines from Shakspere
troubled him with their haunting precision. He wondered
at first if he could not will himself to live;^^ but the next
day he quoted Milton's "Death reigns triumphant," and,
after that, he "asked me if I remembered the lines from
Shakespeare's King John, he had quoted to me on our last
walk on the meadow back of Mrs. Stack's house. These
lines commence—

And none of you will bid the winter come
And thrust his icy fingers in my maw,

etc and alludes to the fearful consuming internal fires from
which the dying Monarch suffered. He said I little thought
I should suffer from what in reading those lines had caused

^^ "A Dedication," in Poems, 38.

01 Letter from Emily Timrod Goodwin to Hayne, quoted in Hayne, op.
cit., 9, and in Hubbell, op. cit., 170. The romantic story may not, however,
have impressed Henry as much as it did Emily.

92 June 4, 1867; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 83.

93 Letter, Emily Timrod Goodwin to Hayne, Oct. 22, 1867 (in Timrod-
Goodwin Collection, South Caroliniana Library). Timrod thought that he
might "make an effort, like Mrs. Dombey," and regain his health.

46 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

me so much horror." ^^ This is graphic testimony to the
power that Shakspere's hnes could wield on his thought.

That he knew something of Shakspere's contemporaries
Timrod reveals in the course of a letter to Hayne, lambast-
ing "this milk & water' Dennis of Southern criticism," James
Wood Davidson. Dekker's lines "about Christ's being 'the
first true gentleman that ever breathed/ had never fallen
on Mr Davidson's ear. By-the-way, Mr Simms has in more
than one place attributed that passage to Middleton. I have
assured him over and over again that he was mistaken, but
to no purpose. Please show him, when you next meet, the
passage in the last scene of the 1st Part of 'The Honest
Whore.' " ^^

Although he wrote many love lyrics, he does not seem
to have been drawn into the cavalier or metaphysical tradi-
tion. One sonnet has the old and well-worn poetic idea that
Marvell expresses magnificently in "To His Coy Mistress;"
a few lines, especially, remind one of that earlier poem:

So everywhere on earth,
This foothold where we stand with slipping feet.
The unsubstantial and substantial meet,
And we are fooled until made wise by time.^^

But the metaphysical style was not intellectually in fashion.
Timrod's poetry seems nearer to it than does the poetry of
most of his contemporaries. Hayne, who disliked such in-

^-i Letter from Emily Timrod Goodwin to Edith Goodwin, Oct. 29, 1867,
in Timrod-Goodwin Collection, South Caroliniana Library. A letter from
Emily Goodwin to Hayne (Oct. 22, 1867; see note 93) describes the same
incident in a slightly different form.

95 Letter to Hayne, March 7, 1866, Hubbell, op. cit., 54. Hubbell identi-
fies the Simms attribution as in Beauchampe (New York, 1856), p. 118.
Timrod mentions this erroneous identification again in a letter to Hayne,
March 26, 1867 (Hubbell, op. cit., 76). Hayne, op. cit., 56, also talks of
Timrod's quoting Ford or Fletcher.

96 Sonnet XI, in Poems, 179.

INTRODUCTION 47

tellectual daring, writes that "A Cry to Arms" contains "one
of the few palpable conceits I can recall, which would seem
not merely admissible, but charming/' ^^

Timrod seems equally removed from the cavalier tradi-
tion. He makes only a casual reference to Suckling; other-
wise, his knowledge of these poets must be by assumption
only, and any indebtedness must be proved by rather
doubtful parallels. ^^

That he was fundamentally religious is made clear in
many poems and letters. His fondness for the Hebrew
stories and characters in the Bible led naturally in his po-
etry to references and allusions; two poems, in fact, depend
largely upon such extended reference for body and mean-
ing.^^ These poems reveal only a knowledge and use of
easily available, well-known material. It may be, subjec-
tively, that Timrod made a close association between the
Bible and poetry, but hesitated to put this idea into writing.
In a paragraph which he wrote and then deleted, Timrod
identifies the spirit of poetry as second only to that of re-

^'^ Poems, 144-46. Hayne, op. cit., 37, gives it as "A Call to Arms." Two
of the mild conceits from the poem, and typical of the kind that Timrod
wrote, are:

And feed your country's sacred dust
With floods of crimson rain!

Does any falter? let him turn

To some brave maiden's eyes,
And catch the holy fires that burn
In those sublunar skies.
I suspect that Hayne was referring to the second example, or possibly to
the personification of the Southern woman as the lily, and the man as the
palm-tree.

98 Letter to Rachel Lyons, Feb. 3, 1862, in Southern Literary Messenger,
II: 646, Dec, 1940. See also note 114.

^ "Madeline" was first published in The Southern Literary Messenger,
XVIII: 212, April, 1852; in Poems, 32-36. "La Belle Juive," in the Charles-
ton Daily Courier, Jan. 23, 1862; in Poems, 57-59; Timrod enclosed a man-
uscript copy to Rachel Lyons in his letter to her, Jan. 20, 1862.

48 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

ligion: "The sentiment of poetry as it thus developed in the
mind is the very ground on which ( apart from Revelation )
we base our hopes of immortality & this fact should make
it the next sacred thing to the great chart of Salvation." ^"^
Although he discarded the statement as part of his address,
Timrod undoubtedly believed it to be truth.

Any reconstruction of Timrod's reading must necessarily
be incomplete. As a rule, his references are casual and sug-
gestive, but the samplings indicate a rather exact knowl-
edge of English poetry, and a wider acquaintance than
Hayne implies. Some of his estimates of authors and side
remarks have a penetrating incisiveness, though they are
incomplete and at best give only a partial picture.

In his essays, Timrod quotes from many sources. In addi-
tion to those already noted, he lifted illustrative bits from
such writers as Francis Bacon, ^^^ Charles Lamb, Matthew
Arnold, Arthur Henry Hallam, John Sterling, Henry Taylor,
and Aubrey de Vere. He expressed great admiration for
Coleridge, whom he called the noblest critic that ever lived,
and he quoted or paraphrased both from the prose and the
poetry. Since Timrod's own work was frequently appearing
in them, he must have been familiar with the diverse ma-
terial in the Southern Literary Messenger and RusseWs
Magazine. It seems probable that he was also well ac-
quainted with the easily available English and Northern
magazines. ^"^ His quotations and remarks display only that
knowledge for which he had an immediate use.

100 See note 13 to "A Theory of Poetry."

101 His three-volume set of Bacon (Novum Organum, Advancement of
Learning, and Essays) is in the Timrod Museum at Florence, S. C. It is not
marked or annotated.

1"- Both Russell's and the Messenger used many brief quotations from
English authors and magazines. Timrod himself, or a colleague, inserted
many short pieces into the columns of the Daily South Carolinian in 1864:
items from or about Carlyle, Thackeray, Dickens, Wilkie Collins, Lamb,

INTRODUCTION 49

Thus, a hasty answer to a sister's question gives his opin-
ion of the work of Charlotte Bronte: "I have not time to
write a criticism of Villette; but I agree with most people
that it is inferiour to Jane Eyre. It is by no means a bread
and butter thing however." He comments briefly on the
naturalness of the characters, but thinks the "conclusion
of the book is a specimen of claptrap unworthy of the author
of Jane Eyre. . . . You have heard me admire Miss
Bronte's skill in sky- and weather-painting. There are many
such pictures in this book; but their style is more ambi-
tious than those in Jane Eyre and Shirley— they are less
simple, sketchy, and graphic, and I don't like them half so
well. However, the moonlight scene in the park is magnifi-
cent." ^^^ Timrod's opinion of Charlotte's sisters remains
unknown.

Hayne's belief that Timrod read with more exactness
than variety is partially borne out by Timrod's frank state-
ment that an outside stimulus was responsible for his read-
ing Ovid and Persius.^^^ Yet in the war and post-war years

Sidney Smith, Herbert, Cotton, Lamartine, Artemus Ward, Josh Bilhngs,
Whittier, T. B. Aldrich, and so on. The editorial shears apparently worked
on English, Northern, and Southern papers without much discrimination;
probably, on whatever came to hand. In writing to the South Carolina
author Clara Dargan, asking her for contributions to a proposed paper,
Timrod said that her story, "Philip, My Son," "in my opinion, would com-
pare favourably with the best of Blackwood's" ( quoted in Hubbell, op. cit.,
90). On May 5, 1864, he editorialized hotly about an "extract from an
article" by Oliver Wendell Holmes in the Atlantic Monthly. Holmes is
called an "objurgatory doctor," though perhaps an honest abolitionist; but
in response to Holmes' question as to what stand Tennyson and Dickens
have taken on slavery, Timrod answers that Dickens "has probably pene-
trated the true character of the political PECKSNIFFS of the North," and
that Tennyson's "pure and lofty name" has been taken in vain by "the small
Boston versifier."

103 Letter from Henry to Emily, July 29, 1853, in Timrod-Goodwin Col-
lection, South Caroliniana Library.

10^ Letters to Hayne, March 7, 1866 and March 26, 1867; quoted in
Hubbell, op. cit., 54 and 76.

50 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

there is another side to the picture. Books were scarce, and
difficult to obtain. In December of 1861 he wrote that the
"camp is life," and that there were "No new books, no
reviews, no appetizing critiques, no hterary correspond-
ence, no intellectual intelligence of any kind!" ^^^ He con-
tinued to feel a need for books and magazines, but mainly
he did without them. Even his position as an editor did not
help much, as he explained to Hayne: "You are aware that
it is the rule of all papers and periodicals that the books
which are sent to be noticed are the perquisites of him who
criticizes them. Having ^noticed' one or two books, and
finding that Fontaine took possession of them notwith-
standing, I reminded him of the rule, when he said that for
the future then, he would notice the books himself. One
pleasant consequence of this is that his wretched criticisms
are credited to me by the public, while all my leaders are
attributed to him." ^^^

This desire for new books became more acute. Timrod
felt himself out of the current of intellectual thought; he
expressed this discontent to his more fortunate friend, and
incidentally gives an excellent criticism of Augusta Evans
Wilson:

I have read (skippingly) St Elmo. Somebody lent it to my
wife— I could not have got it otherwise— for nobody sends me
books or magazines, and of course I can't purchase them. I have
yet to see Jane [sic] Ingelow, Swinbume,^^^ and Robert Bu-
chanan—each of whom I long to be acquainted with. Nor have

105 Letter to Rachel Lyons, Dec. 10, 1861 (in University of Alabama
Library ) .

106 Letter to Hayne, July 10, 1864; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 32.

107 By July 11, 1867, Timrod was familiar enough with Swinburne's work
to write Hayne ( Hubbell, op. cit., 88 ) : "Your criticism of Swinburne also
pleases me much; but I must express my regret that you have left his
obscurity untouched."

INTRODUCTION 51

I read a line of Simm's [sic] Serial— nor laid my eyes upon a
single number of the "Old Guard."

I quite agree with you with regard to St Elmo, and the char-
acter of Miss Evan's [sic] talents. I met her, you know, in Mo-
bile—took tea with her several evenings in succession. She talks
well, but pedantically now and then; tliough not so pedantically
as she writes. She has very peculiar, but very false and shallow
opinions about poetry and poets. ^*^^

Later in the month, Timrod again wrote to Hayne, ex-
pressing eagerness over a possible visit to Copse Hill. In
addition to the "aromatic pine-land atmosphere" and the
"happy prospect of your own society," Timrod adds that
he is also tempted because "you speak of the publishers
sending you their new books! You can aflFord to put up with
what Mr. Simms really appears to consider appetizing fare,
so unctuously does he refer to it ( I mean 'hog and hominy')
if, mean time, instead of having your imagination starved,
it (or she?) is free to wander in fresh literary pastures." ^^

In less than a week, according to Hayne, Timrod was at
Copse Hill, for a "month's sojourn." The two men sauntered
through the pine forest, rested on the hill-sides, and talked
literature. In August the visit was repeated. Hayne con-

I'^s Letter to Hayne, April 13, 1867 (in Timrod-Goodwin Collection,
South Caroliniana Library ) . The serial was Joscehjn.

In a letter to Rachel Lyons (July 7, 1861; in Southern Literary Messen-
ger, II, 605-06, Nov. 1940), Timrod criticized "the 'Beulah' of your friend
Miss Evans" as a "very clever work," but without any especial excellence
or "any marked originality in the style and characters of the story." He
objects particularly that "Beulah's transition from scepticism to Faith is
left almost wholly unaccounted for."

For Miss Evans' theory concerning poets, Timrod had only contempt:
"I think it would not be difficult to show that Poetry is not merely a noble
insanity; and that the errors and eccentricities of poets have not been in
consequence of, but in spite of the influence of the poetical temperament.
In fact, the poet, in his completest development, involves the metaphysi-
cian, and is a more sound, wholesome, and perfect human being, than the
gravest of those utterers of half-truths who set up as philosophers."

1^9 Quoted in Hayne, op. cit., 54.

^9 -pjjE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

solidates his acP^^^ ^^ ^^^^ *^^ ^^^i*^' ^^^ ^^ describes
Timrod as apo.^^^'^P^^^^S "twilight in the language of
Wordsworth's sc^^^^^^^'" quoting the Ehzabethan dramatist
John Ford and wondering if perhaps he was quoting
Fletcher, memor^^"^g ^ ^^^^^^ ^^ J^^^ Ingelow, and read-
ing Robert Bucll^^^^^' ^^ talking about his desire to live to
be ''flftu or fiftv'^^^' ' ^^""^^^^ commented on the picture
of old aire give^^ "^ Charles Reade's Never Too Late to
Mend? '''

Timrod wrote ^^ ^'^ ^^^*^'' ^"'^^X *^^* "Hayne has plenty
of new books— I ^^^^^^ from an embarras de richesses. It is

hard to tell whicP ^^ ^^g^^^ fiist. I distract by insane attempts

pp " 111
to read all at onr^*

The extent of Timrod's knowledge of classical poetry is
difficult to estim'^*^- ^^^ friends thought him deeply if not
widely read; H^^^^ writes that while Aeschylus revolted
him, he was char™^^ ^Y Sophocles, revelled in "the elegant
art of Virc^il " ai^^ never wearied of Horace and Catullus.
i P K Brvan gc*^^ even farther, and finds a direct indebt-
edness'to CatullP^' "^* *^"^^^ ^^^^''^ '^ '^^^^ ^""'Y elegance of
Catullus ' alway^ ^'^^ delight, and a metrical translation of
whose poems he ^^^ completed." '''

^^oihid., 54-58. Af'f ^'"^'^'^^'''^^fjy ^^°f V "'"^"^ ^^7 T'
1 or?^ . rr-. 1 >^ )dwin Collection) that Henry had once read to her
1870: in Timrod-Go(.^^. » i • i i i j ■ j ^ ■^ ^ ^

,. ,- ,,,, ittier, which he had copied while at your house,

some lines from Wh „ , r, oao j \onn\ ,.^ ^ ^ \.^ ^ £

Tj A f ( ■ T] ^ Bookman, 9:343, June, 1899) thought that some of

rj.. -^ ^, ■,. . led one of Whittier. H. T. Thompson, Henrii Timrod,

Timrod s lines remmc ,, ..^.x n i." i • J c ^7 r -^

-,- - fl . t . f f . r^mirod s The Past appeared in the Sounjcrn L/ferary

Tiyf \ 'l \jf i«?^)' Whittier praised the poem in a letter to Hayne.

. '^ "^ '^ •. 91 elates the story without mentioning Whittier's name,

y ' 1 ' r 7i " icouraging effect" of the letter on Timrod.
and speaks of the ei^^.^ Collection, South Caroliniana Library.

112 H T cT ^^' 1- ^- ^- ^'y^'^^ ^" Poems, xxxiii. A former student

r rr^r ^yp^' ^P- . ' ''ipposed to have inspired his "Praeceptor Amat," Miss

of Timrod s who is sv^^^^^^^ ^.^^^^ .. \ ^^ ^^^^j^ ^^ ^^.^ ^.^^^ ^^ ^.^ ^^^.^^

tehcia Robinson, say: ^^^ studying, and was rarely without some book
would allow m readi:^^^^ ^ j^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^ ^^^^^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^^.^^^

in his hand. . . . He -^

INTRODUCTION 53

If it ever existed in fact, the translation has disappeared.
W. A. Courtenay could not locate it, although he believed
that Timrod not only had completed the work but had also
had it set in type, in the same manner as the poems for an
English edition. When he asked Mrs. Lloyd for the proof-
sheets of this translation, he got what is possibly the final
answer: "I cannot recall that he commenced a metrical
version of Catullus, but I have no doubt but that he con-
templated doing it at some time ... I am sure it was
never begun." However, she admits in another letter that
"I did not preserve all Henry's papers," so her disclaimer is
not conclusive. ^^^

It is impossible without vague guesswork to trace a direct
indebtedness in Timrod's original poetry to that of Catullus.
There are similarities of tone and manner, but there is, also,
the possibility that these are traceable to an English inter-
mediary.^^^ Of Timrod's direct knowledge, no doubt exists.

and able to read fluently French, German, Latin and Greek" (quoted in
Wauchope, Henry Timrod, 12-13). Simms (in Southern Society, I: 18,
Oct. 12, 1867) wrote: "He was a good Latin scholar, something of a
Grecian, and possessed a fair general acquaintance with some of the Con-
tinental languages." Henry Austin, op. cit., 342, thinks one line of "A Dedi-
cation" is "well-nigh as luscious with liquids as its prototype in Vergil's
First Eclogue." H. T. Thompson, Henry Timrod, 15, tells of acquiring "a
copy of Gooper's Vergil now unfortunately lost, which Timrod had used at
school, and which the writer afterwards used. The pages of this old book
were embellished with caricatures in pencil, and accompanied with dog-
gerel \ erses in Timrod's handwriting which embodied pungent and sarcas-
tic criticism of his classmates."

113 Letters, March 15, 1898, and March 30, 1900, in Memories of the
Timrod Revival 1898-1901 (bound Ms. volume in Charleston Library
Society).

ii'* Professor Gardwell seems definitely convinced of this. In the Intro-
duction to Uncollected Poems of Henry Timrod, 4-5, he notes: "Some
possible classic parallels there are. The quatrain 'There is I know not what
about thee,' is of course similar to Martial, I. xxxii (cf. also Catullus,
LXXXV ) : but it is clearly playing upon Brown's famous impromptu trans-
lation rather than upon Martial's original. One may compare both 'Sweet

54 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

His copy of Catullus is available, and is extensively anno-
tated; it lends support to the statements that Timrod either
translated or intended to translate the poems, for it is the
only one of his extant books that shows numerous notes and
markings. Yet these may reveal only a student's transcrip-
tion from lectures or commentaries. Timrod's notes indi-
cate an interest in poetic metaphor, in idiomatic expres-
sion, in variant readings suggested by commentaries, and
in identifying persons and places, especially the Greek and
Latin synonyms for the same name.^^^

On the flyleaf, Timrod has quoted lines of poetry from

let not our slanderers' and 'Let V tj prattle' with Catullus, V, but the

similarities are quite general. For an example of a faint reminiscence of the
Anacreontea, compare Ode 8 (numbering of the Loeb edition) with the
verses 'For high honours.' For another faint echo of a classic poem, com-
pare 'Six months s such a wonderful time' with Horace, I, v. Here, as in
the instance of Martial, I. xxxii, mentioned above, an English intermediary
or poem on a similar theme ( cf . Suckling's 'Out upon it!') is probably to
be assumed." Peirce Bruns, op. cit., 270, says that "from all Timrod's lighter
verse there breathes gently . . . the faint, sweet perfume of Catullus'
'Dainty Volume,' " and compares Timrod's "A Dedication" with Catullus,
LXXV.

ii^> Timrod's pocket-size copy, now in the Charleston Library Society,
included the works of three Latin poets : Catulli, Tibulli, et Propertii, Opera
(London, 1822), I give an example of each type of annotation: IV:
utrumque . . . pedem, underscored, with note "The lower corners of the
sails and the ropes by which they were made fast were called pedes;" limpi-
dum lacum, underscored, with note, "Lake Benacus." X: caput unctius
referret, "a metaphor for becoming rich." XXXH: meridiatum, "to pass the
noon, to take one's siesta." LL "Ad Lesbiam," "The first three stanzas of
this poem are translated from Sappho's celebrated ode preserved by
Longinus." LXL Julia Manlio . . . bona cum bona / Nubit alite virgo,
"Julia will her Manlius wed, / Good with good, a blessed bed. Leigh Hunt."
LXHL 11. 6-8, "Note the abrupt transition to the feminine gender"; 1. 75,
"Condemned as a spurious line by the best commentators." LXXXIX:
omnia plena puellis / Cognatis, "crowds of female cousins— idiomatic as
omnia miseriarum plenissima ( Cicero ) ."

The TibuUus has no marks or notes; the Propertius a few underlinings,
two or three notes on words, and one change in punctuation: I, XX, 32,
"Ahl dolor ibat," to "Ah dolor! ibat."

INTRODUCTION 55

Ovid, Martial, and Frangois Maynard (in French). They
indicate that Timrod considered Catullus' life more virtuous
than his writings; the Martial runs, "Lasciva est nobis pa-
gina, vita proba est." And the French verse notes that if the
author's pen is evil, his life is decorous. Presumably these
quotations seemed appropriate: it may be that Timrod felt
some justification or palliation was needed for the more
licentious passages.

His copies of Tibullus, Propertius, Cornelius Nepos, and
Statins ^^^ have survived, but they contribute little that is
significant beyond the record of his ownership. In spite of
the quotation from Ovid on the flyleaf of Catullus, Timrod
did not read the entire poem until 1866. In a letter to Hayne,
he attacks James Wood Davidson's critical acumen and
classical scholarship; to prove that Davidson's knowledge
was faulty, he cites a personal experience: "I borrowed from
him not long ago a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses, of which
I had hitherto only read fragments in the original. He told
me that he had only glanced into it himself and spoke of the
difficulty of the Latin. I took the book home and found it
perfectly easy Latin for very ordinary scholarship. I read it
through with little more trouble than so much English." ^^^

A year later, in again commenting on Davidson's igno-
rance, Timrod gives a little more information on his own
reading: "Of Horace he literally knows nothing. I have
tried him with several other authors— but he seems to be
familiar with none of them. The other day he spoke in rap-
tures of Persius. I had not then read Persius, but curious to
see D's taste, I went to the library and glanced over his

iiG Cornelii Nepotis Vitae (The Regent's Classics. Pocket Edition. Lon-
don, 1819); bound in the same volume, Pomponii Melae, De Situ Orbis,
Libri Tres (London, 1819); P. Papinii Statii Opera (London, 1822).

117 March 7, 1866; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 53-54.

56 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Satires." ^^^ From the lack of enthusiasm impKcit in this
statement, a glance was apparently enough.

Though he used "Aglaus," the name of a Greek pastoral
poet, as an early pseudonym, and though he was certainly
conversant with Greek literature, there are no indications of
its eflFect upon him. In "Praeceptor Amat," he manages to use
a Greek phrase cleverly enough that it fits naturally into the
mock-pedantic context, and into the rhyme as well as the
rhythm. ^^^ Likewise, one can only guess at his knowledge of
German. His father was proud of his German descent ( the
name was originally Dimroth), and served as Captain of
the German Fusiliers during the Seminole War. The one
tangible result of this German blood is a translation, "Song
of Mignon," from the Wilhelm Meister of Goethe. Appar-
ently Timrod did not consider it worth publishing; Simms
speaks of it, justly, as "not worthy of his pen." ^^^

A few times Timrod mentions his interest in French. He
wrote his sister that his pronunciation was considered "ele-
gant," and he occasionally employs a French phrase in his
correspondence. ^^^ His extant copy of Rousseau's La Nou-
velle Helotse has no marginal comments; ^^^ he does not

118 Letter to Hayne, March 26, 1867; quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 76.

11^ In the same poem, Timrod speaks of a "much- valued edition of
Homer," and of "the Greek's multitudinous line." Walter Hines Page, in the
South- Atlantic, I: 367 (March, 1878), writes that "A Mother's Wail" is
Timrod's most nearly perfect poem, and to the reader of Simonides seems
almost Greek-like.

120 On W. H. Timrod's war service, see G. A. Cardwell, Jr., "William
Henry Timrod, the Charleston Volunteers, and the Defense of St. Augus-
tine," in ISlorth Carolina Historical Review, XVIII: 27-37, Jan., 1941. The
"Song of Mignon" is printed in Uncollected Poems, 103-04; Simms' remark
is quoted in Hubbell, op. cit., 122 n.

121 Letter to Emily, July 4, 1851 ( in Timrod-Goodwin Collection, South
Caroliniana Library). In the letter to Hayne, March 7, 1866, he speaks of
Davidson's critical niaiseries, which deserve only "a round dozen 'grands
coups de pieds dans le derriere.' "

122 Now in the Timrod Museum at Florence, S. C.

INTRODUCTION 57

mention the French author in any known letter, or remark
on Rousseau's treatment of nature. Yet when he wanted it,
Timrod found an apt quotation in French to describe
Catullus.

There is a strong and pleasant temptation for any writer
on Timrod to play up a father's influence. Every account of
William Henry Timrod portrays him as attractive, studious,
and independent, an excellent bookbinder who was proud
of his craftsmanship, a good citizen and soldier, and an
affectionate husband and parent. Although the local news-
paper frequently mentioned his name in connection with
the activities of the Fusiliers and the German Friendly
Society, he clipped for his Daybook only the annual an-
nouncement of the officers of the Charleston Library
Society; these show him a director from 1827 to 1829.^-^ He
talked well about literature, and attracted to him the ablest
men in Charleston. If his poetry was definitely minor and
frequently derivative, it had also a fimi craftsmanship and
occasional excellence.

In 1814, William Henry Timrod published his one book,
Poems, on Various Subjects}^^ In his maturer days, he was

123 See Hayne, op. cit., 8-17, and Hubbell, op. cit., 165-78; Timrod's
Daybook, in the Charleston Library Society, has been preserved only for
the four years 1825-1829. James McCarter, who employed Timrod for over
ten years, wrote to Hayne in 1867: "His wonderful powers of conversation,
his genial manner, his pleasant and amiable temper, his exquisite humour,
and pungent wit, soon gathered round him a knot of clever young men, who
relished his company, and enjoyed his jokes," so that his workshop was
called Timrod's Club ( Hubbell, op. cit., 173-74 ) . Hayne quotes several of
his later poems, including "To Harry."

124 A tiny volume of 78 pages. The first poem, "Quebec," is subtitled
"In Imitation of Campbell's Hohenlinden"; "A Dream" is a weak, conven-
tionalized poet's vision of a "beauteous maid" who vanishes when the poet
wakes; "To Pyrrha" has above the title, "Horace, Book I, Ode V, Imitated";
\'arious poems celebrate the charms of such pastoral ladies as Julia, Celia,
Thyrsa; on p. 61 the poet calls himself Strephon; several poems are remotely

58 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

ashamed of this youthful work, and regretted the pubhca-
tion.^^^ Later verses were pubhshed in local magazines, and
four of them appear in The Charleston Book ( 1845 ) . This
work reveals that William Timrod had read Moore and
Byron; it shows a maturer mind and a better command of
verse. That Henry was pleased with his father's poems is
easily proved: in 1864, he re-printed several in the Daily
South Carolinian.

The elder Timrod died on July 28, 1838, when Henry was
ten years old. Any personal influence was very early in
Henry's life, and cannot be traced in his poetry. Simms, who
knew both father and son, fancied that there was a general
resemblance, but he suggests nothing more: Henry's
"genius was, in some degree, inherited. His father— William
H. Timrod— was a poet before him . . . He wrote freely
and frequently. He published a volume of poems in Charles-
ton, some fifty years ago, the general characteristics of
which somewhat resembled those of his son. He, too, was a
lover of nature, and his poems were meant frequently to
illustrate her phases." ^^^

It would also be pleasant, but I believe equally impos-
sible, to find evidence of direct indebtedness to the

in the Cavalier tradition, with the air sometimes hsted under the title ( p. 57,
"Song," / "Air— The Glasses Sparkle on the Board"); a few are sonnets;
"Sullivan's Island" is a didactic poem in heroic couplets. The most interest-
ing, "Noon. An Eclogue" has three negro characters, Sampy, Cudjoe, and
Quashebo; and some negro dialect which the author explains in footnotes.
The poem is a deliberate mixture of dialect and high-flown language; two
women who are talked about are Clarissa and Jemimah. Many of the blank
pages of the Daybook contain later poems.

i-"* Hubbell, op. cit., 166: "In an undated letter Emily Timrod Goodwin
wrote to Hayne: 1 heard him regret deeply that he had ever allowed them
to appear in print, so meanly did he think of them.' "

i-^«W. G. Simms, in Southern Society, I: 18-19, Oct. 12, 1867; quoted
in Hubbell, op. cit., 155.

INTRODUCTION 59

Charleston writers of his day. The men who with Hugh
Swinton Legare wrote the distinguished papers in the
Southern Review were no longer active, but the group that
congregated at Russell's Bookshop and Simms' town house
had wit and intelligence. Simms, James Mathewes Legare,
S. Henry Dickson, John Dickson Bruns, and several others
wrote capable and occasionally distinguished verse; Peti-
gru, Grayson, Russell, and similar men had taste and ener-
getic opinions. To them all, literature was alive. These
doctors, lawyers, merchants, and writers talked heatedly
yet intelligently of books and ideas; they had magazines at
hand to publish their shorter work when, and if, they got
around to putting it on paper.^^^

To the younger men, this intellectual atmosphere was
bracing. They considered themselves an integral part of an
active group, working in the tradition of English poetry yet
contributing something new and individual. Timrod, Hayne
and Bruns, the classicists della Torre and Gildersleeve, and
other young men talked freely with each other; undoubt-
edly, each profited by the criticism of the others. ^^^ In-
evitably, the tension of increasing bitterness directed their
thoughts from literature to immediate political and eco-

127 For a vivid account of this group, see P. H. Hayne, "Ante-Bellum
Charleston," in The Southern Bivouac, I: 327-36, Nov. 1885.

128 Unfortunately, no record of this criticism exists, except in the writ-
ings of Hayne and Bruns on Timrod. Yates Snowden ( "A Reminiscence
of Henry Timrod," Charleston News and Courier, Dec. 20, 1903) tells of
one gathering of five young men: Timrod, Bruns, John della Torre, William
A. Martin, and the unnamed narrator. Bruns claimed that della Torre had
discovered the Latin original of a recent poem of Timrod's; della Torre read
as the original his own translation into 13th century Latin. Timrod, non-
plussed, protested innocence until the other men laughed at him and ad-
mitted the hoax. Years later, Rachel Lyons Heustis remembered especially
Timrod's "entire absence of jealousy or unkind criticism of contemporary
poets," and his willingness to listen to criticism of his own verse ( letter to
W. A. Courtenay, March 20, 1899, in Memories of the Timrod Revival
1898-1901).

60 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

nomic problems; the war itself disrupted their lives. Each
writer was forced to develop his powers alone, and under
difficulties.

Timrod knew an intellectual and personal loneliness.
Physical weakness prevented him from taking an active part
in the war. These personal deprivations are not expressed in
his poems, but they helped to add intensity and strength to
his work. Only through his writing could he become identi-
fied with the thought and emotion of his region. This, at
least, he achieved. His opportunity for meditation, for de-
velopment, for an expression in poetry of his own critical
ideals, was cut short by poverty and death.

^ ne K^naracter a?ia Q) cope op t/ie QJonnet

iiniiiiiiniiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

The sonnet has never been a popular form of verse. Those
who maintain that the poet should address himself to the
popular heart alone, may regard this as a significant fact.
We are not, however, so disposed to consider it. As far as
we know anything of that interesting organ, the popular
heart understands very little about poetry, and cares less.
The audience of the poet, "fit, though few," ^ is even more
limited than that of the musician. As there are a great many
persons wholly unable to enjoy the music of an overture,
or an opera, so there are a still greater number who are
equally incompetent to appreciate an epic or a sonnet. We
appeal to the experience of every earnest lover and true
critic of poetry. How often have his sensibilities been
shocked while reading to divers representatives of this
popular heart, some noble passage which has stirred his
own soul to its very depth. The subtle melody has fallen on
deaf ears. The deep thought, the lofty imagination have
not been comprehended at all. "Very good, I dare say, but—
I am no critic," or, "quite pretty, but after all, give me a
song of Moore's." The enthusiastic reader shuts the book
with an internal malediction. In truth, we are not inclined
to regard this popular heart as a human heart at all. It is
only a mean, narrow, unintelligent thing, which beats some-

62 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

times under fine broadcloth, and sometimes under coarser
textures, to the tune of dollars and cents. Where, since the
time of Milton, has the reputation of every poet, with the
single exception of Burns, commenced? Not with the mul-
titude. A few cultivated persons explain their admiration
to the popular heart, which echoes it much as an empty
room echoes a voice. Even the popularity of the songs of
Burns and Moore we are disposed to attribute rather to the
airs to which they have been married than to the excellence
of their poetry.

It is not our object, in this essay, to argue the sonnet into
popularity. The attempt would be not less absurd than that
of the foolish fellow who tried to teach an ape to read. We
only design to answer some of the objections urged against
this form of verse by people who should know better. There
is Rogers. That complacent poet has remarked that "he
had never attempted to write a sonnet, as he could see no
reason why a man, who had anything to say, should be tied
down to fourteen lines." ^ He adds, somewhat condescend-
ingly, that it "did very well for Wordsworth, as its strict
limits prevented him from lapsing into that diffuseness to
which he was prone." That a poet who was wont to confine
himself to four couplets a day, as much we suspect from
actual sterility in word and thought, as with any design of
polishing his verse, should speak in terms of such cool dis-
paragement of the style of Wordsworth, is amusing enough.
But with the banker's strictures upon the author of Lao-
damia, we have nothing to do. What shall we say in reply to
that objection which turns upon the impossibility of com-
pressing the thoughts of Mr. Rogers within the compass of
fourteen lines. The answer lies in a nutshell. It is plain that
Mr. Rogers had never reflected upon the nature of the son-
net. He did not know that it partakes— with certain differ-

CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF THE SONNET 63

ences which will be soon alluded to— of the nature of a
stanza. We can give no reason wherefore, in the Spenserian
stanza, the verse should always, and the sense generally
conclude with the ninth line, except that the nice ear of the
poet, by whom it was invented, so determined it. The poets
who followed the inventor finding the stanza to be one of
great variety, sweetness and strength, adopted it, without
inquiring why it might not consist of eight or ten lines. In
the same manner, the sonnet was the invention of some
other poet of happy taste; and this little harp of fourteen
strings, after having been swept with great effect by the
hands of a few great masters, has been accepted and ap-
proved as one of the legitimate instruments of poetry.
There are certain ears on which music of every kind— Mo-
zart's as well as Milton's— can fall only in parts; and to such
ears it is not surprising that no sufficient reason can be
given why the sonnet should never transgress or fall short
of the limits which have been assigned it. But the educated
poetical ear, capable of appreciating the music of the son-
net as a whole, will detect in it a strain of melody, which,
like an air that has been played out, comes naturally and
easily to a close at the fourteenth line. We do not say that
this effect is always produced, but it will be always pro-
duced whenever the sonnet is properly written. And the
poet who complains of the shackles that bind him, lacks
either skill or genius.

An objection will be suggested to the above remarks by
that which constitutes the difference between the sonnet
and the stanza. The latter often leaves the sense incomplete,
and may run into a succeeding stanza; while the sonnet,
even when used as the stanza of a long poem, ( as in Words-
worth's poem on the river Duddon, and in his ecclesiastical
sonnets,) must be at the same time a complete poem in

64 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

itself. This objection is of course no answer to what we have
urged as to the musical effect of the sonnet as a stanza, but
points only to the additional trammels which it imposes on
the poet. That it does impose such additional trammels we
acknowledge at once. But what then? The poet finds ready
made to his hand, an air of exquisite sweetness to which he
may set his thought, and to which, if he possesses the due
degree of skill, he may, by means of pause and cadence, give
the most delightful variations without destroying or mar-
ring the effect of the original melody. Must he refuse to em-
ploy it simply because it is difficult? That many poets have
written bad sonnets only proves a difficulty which nobody
denies, and which those poets had not the ability to over-
come.

It is not long since we heard the law of the sonnet ascribed
to the same caprice which once led men to write verses in
the shape of triangles and other geometrical figures. That
that law depends upon something more than caprice, we
think we have already said enough to show. But the remark
could scarcely have been made in earnest. No apology
whatever could be forged, by the most ingenious critic,
which could justify in the slightest degree the freaks of
pedantry alluded to. But it will not be denied that the sonnet
admits at least of a very plausible defence. No good poetry
that we have ever heard of has been pressed into the figure
of a trapezoid. But it will not be denied that much noble
poetry has been given to the world through the medium of
the sonnet.

The sonnet has been called artificial. It is artificial, but
only as all forms of verse are artificial. There are persons
who imagine poetry to be the result of a sort of mystical in-
spiration, scarcely to be subjected to the bounds of space
and time. Others regarding it as the outgushing of a present

CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF THE SONNET 65

emotion, cannot conceive how the poet, carried on by the
"divine afflatus," should always contrive to rein in his
Pegasus at a certain goal. All this is simply ridiculous. If the
poet have his hour of inspiration ( though we are so sick of
the cant of which this word has been the fruitful source, that
we dislike to use it) it is not during the act of composition.
A distinction must be made between the moment when the
great thought first breaks upon the mind,

"leaving in the brain

A rocking and a ringing," ^

and the hour of patient and elaborate execution. It is in the
conception only that the poet is the vatcs. In the labor
of putting that conception into words, he is simply the
artist. A great poet has defined poetry to be "emotion recol-
lected in tranquility." ^' No man with grief in his heart, could
sit straightway down to strain that grief through iambics.
No man, exulting in a delirium of joy, ever bubbles in
anapaests. Were this so, the poet would be the most won-
derful of improvisators; and, perhaps, poetry would be no
better than what improvisations usually are. There can be
no doubt that much of the most passionate verse in the Eng-
lish, or any other language, has been

"Thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre." ^

The act of composition is indeed attended with an emo-
tion peculiar to itself, and to the poet; and this emotion is
sufficient of itself to give a glow and richness to the poet's
language; yet, it leaves him at the same time in such com-
mand of his faculties that he is able to choose his words
almost as freely, though by no means so deliberately, as the
painter chooses his colors. We are inclined to think that the
emotion of the poet somewhat resembles in its metaphysical

66 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

character, those inexphcable feehngs with which we all wit-
ness a tragic performance on the stage— feelings which,
even while they rend the heart, are always attended by a
large amount of vivid pleasure.

It would be easy to multiply quotations in confirmation of
our remarks. Wordsworth speaks of himself as

"Not used to make
A present joy the matter of his song;" "^

and Matthew Arnold separates, as we have separated, "the
hour of insight" from the hour of labor.

"We cannot kindle when we will,

The fire that in the heart resides.
The spirit bloweth and is still,

In mystery our soul abides:
But tasks in hours of insight willed
May be through hours of gloom fulfilled." ^

Is it not also a significant fact that the best loved verses
have been written by men who, at the time of writing them,
had long passed that age during which love is warmest, and
the heart most susceptible? The songs of Moore's middle
age are far superior to the Anacreontics of his passionate
youth.

We confess we are unable to see the stigma conveyed in
the term artificial, as applied to the sonnet. The poet is an
artist, and, we suppose, he regards every sort of stanza but
as the artificial mould into which he pours his thought. The
very restriction so much complained of, he knows to be, in
some respects, an advantage. It forces him to condensation;
and if it sometimes induces a poetaster to stretch a thought
to the finest tenuity, what argument is that against the
sonnet? As well might Jones object to the violin of Paganini,
because his neiehbor Smith is a wretched fiddler.

CHARACTER AND SCOPE OF THE SONNET 67

The sonnet is designed, as it is peculiarly fitted for the
development of a single thought, emotion, or picture. It is
governed by another law not less imperative than that
which deteiTnines its length. This law the cavillers have not
as yet interfered with, doubtless, because they know noth-
ing of its existence. Yet, perhaps, it is that which constitutes
the chief difficulty in the composition of the sonnet. We do
not know how else to characterize it but as the law of unity.
In a poem made up of a series of stanzas, the thought in the
first stanza suggests the thought in the second, and both
may be equally important. The concluding stanza may have
wandered as far in its allusions from the opening stanza, as
the last from the first sentence in an essay. In other words,
the poet has the liberty of rambling somewhat, if his fancy
so dispose him. In the sonnet this suggestive progress from
one thought to another is inadmissible. It must consist of
one leading idea, around which the others are grouped for
purposes of illustration only. Most of the sonnets of Words-
worth meet this requirement exactly. Whatever be the num-
ber of the images they contain, they are usually perfect in
the unity of the impression which they leave upon the mind
of the reader.

At some future time we shall return to this subject, and
passing by many cavils equally as trivial as those we have
discussed, we will examine and illustrate more fully the laws
which govern this department of verse. At present we will
only say that we claim for it a proud distinction, as it is
represented in English literature. We believe that we could
gather from it a greater body of tersely expressed and valu-
able thought, than from any equal quantity of those fugitive
verses, the laws of which are less exacting. It abounds in
those "great thoughts, grave thoughts," ^ which, embodied
in lines of wonderful pregnancy, haunt the memory forever.

68 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Brief as the sonnet is, the whole power of a poet has some-
times been exemphfied within its narrow bounds, as com-
pletely as within the compass of an epic. Thought is inde-
pendent of space, and it would hardly be an exaggeration
to say that the poet— the minister of thought— enjoys an
equal independence. To-day his "stature reaches the sky," ^'^
to-morrow he will shut himself up in the bell of a tulip, or
the cup of a lily.

J^nat id ^^yoetruf

iiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiritiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim

There are certain operations of the human mind upon itself
and the world without, which, when they take form and
body in language, have been denominated Poetry. To de-
scribe the nature of these operations, in a single definition,
has long been the aim of the philosophical critic. No per-
fectly satisfactory definition has yet been attained. We
could quote a score, gathered from different sources— all
more or less wide of the mark. As we recall them, we are
reminded of a childish search once actually commenced by
ourselves, after the pot of gold which is said to lie buried at
the foot of the rainbows.

A writer in the July number of this Magazine has at-
tempted to settle the question.

By very improperly making poetry the antithesis of prose
(prose, as Coleridge justly observes,^ being properly op-
posed only to metre), and by confounding the subjective
with the objective of poetry, he has arrived, with some
plausibility, at what he offers us as a definition of poetry. It
is, in reality, an extremely poor dictionary definition of a
poem.

The truth is, the writer has altogether mistaken the ques-
tion. That question is, as we have already implied, not how
to define the forms of poetry, nor how to distinguish poetry
from prose (the philosophic critic would as soon think of

70 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

contrasting a virtue with a colour), but what is that ele-
ment in human nature— what, we repeat, are those opera-
tions of the human faculties, which, when incarnated in
language, are generally recognized as poetry.

The theory of the writer is, that poetry is a mere synonym
for a composition in verse. Hence, the general dissatisfac-
tion occasioned by his article— a dissatisfaction which we
have heard expressed by many who, displeased they
scarcely knew why, and dimly conscious of the true faith,
were yet unable to find, in their own undefined notions, a
logical refutation of the heresy. The genuine lovers of
poetry feel that its essential characteristics underlie the
various forms which it assumes. Ask any man of sensibility
to define poetry, and he will endeavor to convey to you some
idea, vague, doubtless, and shadowy, of that which, in his
imagination, constitutes its spirit. The few poets who have
attempted to solve the question, have looked rather into
themselves than into the poems which they have written.
One describes poetry as "emotion recollected in tranquil-
ity;" another, as "the recollection of the best and happiest
hours of the best and happiest minds." ^ These definitions—
if definitions they can be called— are inadequate enough;—
but they indicate, correctly, we think, the direction in which
the distinctive principle of poetry is to be sought.

It is time that we should place the argument which we
are discussing before the reader. We shall, perhaps, omit a
passage here and there, but the reader has only to turn to
the July number of this Magazine to see the argument in
extenso:

''What is Poetry?

"It will help us in knowing what it is, to determine first
what it is not. It is not the nature of the thoughts expressed

WHAT IS POETRY? 71

that makes a book a poem. It is not beauty of imagery, nor
play of fancy, nor creative power of imagination, nor ex-
pression of emotion or passion, nor delineation of character,
nor force, refinement or purity of language, that constitutes
the distinctive quality of poetry. Because it is evident that
there are passages in prose capable of being compared, in
all these properties, not disadvantageously, with the noblest
productions of the ancient or modem muse. Take for an
example of beautiful imagery, the often quoted passage
from Milton's Tractate on Education, where he expatiates
on the delights of learning: T will lead you to a hill-side,
laborious, indeed, on the first ascent, but else so smooth, so
green, so full of goodly prospects and melodious sounds on
every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charm-
ing;' or Burke's eulogy on the adventurous hardihood of the
seamen of America, or his description of the French Queen,
&c.

"Where, in poetry, shall we find invention, fancy, imag-
ination, more abundantly exhibited than in the writings of
Defoe, or Fielding, or Scott, or Dickens? ***** And yet,
unless it be metaphorically to sustain a theory, no one calls
Tom Jones, or Robinson Crusoe, or Ivanhoe, a poem.''

Then follow two quotations from the Bible, which, in
spite of the sublimity of the one, and the beauty of the
other, are pronounced (and we make no dangerous admis-
sion in saying very properly pronounced) to be "prose,
nevertheless."

"A prose translation of the IHad, containing every senti-
ment and description, faithfully expressed, would not be a
poem. The passage from Milton, if turned into his own
sonorous verse, would be as genuine poetry as the Comus or
Paradise Lost. Turned into metrical form, by the commonest

72 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

hand even, the prose is changed into poetry, the words re-
maining the same:

"We lead your footsteps to a mountain side
Laborious on the first ascent, but else
So smooth, so green, so full of goodly sights.
And sounds melodious, that the harp itself
Or song of Orpheus, not more charming seemed."

"But if it is not the thought, sentiment or imagery, either
grand or beautiful, that makes the distinctive quality of
poetry, what is it that does? If the distinguishing property
be not in the substance, it must be in the form of the work; if
not in the conceptions, it must be in the words that express
them.

"But the words of a language are common to prose and
poetry.

"It must be, then, in the form of arranging words that we
find the peculiar something that constitutes poetry.''

With a few more remarks, not very material to the argu-
ment, the writer concludes that poetry may be defined "as
the expression, by words, of thought or emotion, in con-
formity with metrical and rythmical laws."

The sophistry of this argument lies principally in a very
illogical confusion of the ideas conveyed by the terms poem,
and poetry. The italics, which are our own, are meant to
call the attention of the reader to the repeated change from
one term to the other, as if they were identical in significa-
tion.—The writer would have us infer that because it is
impossible to call Ivanhoe a poem, it must follow that it
does not contain a single element of poetry. And in a pas-
sage which we have not quoted, he seems to insist that be-
cause "no one can deny that the work of Lucretius is a
poem;" we are, therefore, to infer that, from the beginning
to the end, it is all poetry. We shall endeavor soon to show

WHAT IS POETRY r

the absurdity of these conclusions, if, indeed, this simple
statement be not all that is necessary to condemn them.

The reader ought also to observe, without our aid, that
the writer sets out with the notion tacitly, though perhaps
unconsciously assumed, that poetry is just what his defini-
tion describes it to be, that his definition is implied and
taken for granted in the very arguments by which he
reaches it— in a word, that his whole train of reasoning is but
a simple petitio principii. For it is plain that, unless we
accept his definition of poetry, or one no less narrow, it is
impossible to recognize that antithesis of prose to poetry on
which the whole argument is based. It is equally plain that,
without recognizing that antithesis, it is impossible to see
any force in those arguments drawn from the fact that there
are to be found in prose, passages equal in point of "fancy,
passion, or imagination," to many noble passages in verse.

Do we speak literally, or ( as this writer avers, drawing,
we admit, a legitimate inference from his own definition)
are we employing a mere figure of speech, when we com-
mend a passage of prose, teeming with passion and imagina-
tion, as true and genuine poetry?

Before answering this question, we must be permitted to
say something as to our conclusions on the nature of poetry.
We shall not pretend to give the reader an adequate defini-
tion. Our purpose in this essay is not to establish a theory
of our own, but simply to expose the falsehood and super-
ficiality of the one before us.

Coleridge remarks that the question. What is poetry? is
very nearly the same with. What is a poet? ^ The distinctive
qualities of poetry grow out of the poetic genius itself.

The ground of the poetic character is a more than ordi-
nary sensibility. Other qualifications, indeed, are necessary

74 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

to complete our idea of the poet, but for the ends of our
argument, it will be necessary to consider this one alone.
From this characteristic of the poet results what we regard
as an essential characteristic of poetry,— a characteristic
which should be left out of no definition; we refer to the
medium of strong emotion, through which poetry looks
at its objects, and in which, to borrow a chemical metaphor
of Arthur Hallam's, it "holds them all fused." ^ Hence, again,
is derived a third peculiarity in the language of poetry,
which, with a difference in the degree, not the kind of its
force, arising from an imagination more than usually vivid,
is the language natural to men in a state of excitement, is
sensuous, picturesque, and impassioned.^

It is, in fact, only when we come to speak of the language,
or of the forms of poetry, that we are moving in the same
plane of argument with the writer. What distinguishes the
language of poetry? The writer maintains that it is the
metrical and rythmical arrangement of the words. We, on
the contrary, are disposed to think it is the character of the
language itself.

One of the members upon which the writer's faulty syl-
logism is made to rest, is the following statement: "The
words of a language are common to poetry and prose." This
needs considerable qualification.

Nothing is better known to the poet than the fact that
prose and verse have each a vocabulary of their own. Words,
and even forms of expression, are still used in verse which
are considered obsolete by the prose-writer. On the other
hand, verse rejects a large number of words which are part
of the legitimate stock of prose. Among these are most of the
long words in the English tongue. Why are they rejected?
Simply on account of their metrical impracticability? That,

WHAT IS POETRY? 75

doubtless, is a good reason for excluding them from verse,
but why does poetry endorse that exclusion— what con-
stitutes their unfitness to express the passions and emotions
of poetry? The answer is easy. Poetry does not deal in pure
abstractions. However abstract be his thought, the poet is
compelled, by his passion-fused imagination, to give it life,
form, or color. Hence the necessity of employing the sen-
suous, or concrete words of the language; and hence the
exclusion of long words, which in English are nearly all
purely and austerely abstract, from the poetic vocabulary.
Whenever a poet drags a number of these words into his
verse, we say that he is prosaic; and by this we mean, not
that he has written prose ( for verse can never be prose ) , nor
that he is simply deficient in spirit and vivacity, as this
writer implies, but that he has not used the legitimate lan-
guage of poetry; he has written something which is only
distinguished from the ordinary dead-level of unimpas-
sioned prose by the feet upon which it crawls. In the course
of our poetical reading, we have seen the employment of a
single abstract word impart to a line all the effect of prose.
An instance occurs to us at this moment, but as it is taken
from the writings of a poet very near home, we forbear to
quote it.

We must not be understood to say that abstract words
and abstract thinking are the sole sources of the prosaic. A
passage may be rendered prosaic by a phrase not itself
abstract in word or meaning, which has been made com-
monplace by constant repetition. But such a phrase will
generally be found to have lost, with its novelty, the pic-
turesqueness which it at first possessed. It no longer calls up
the image which it expresses, it merely suggests the thought
which it stands for, and affects the mind in exactly the same
manner as the boldest abstraction.

76 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

If verse may sometimes be prosaic, prose may sometimes
be poetic. Poetry is a subtle spirit, and appears in different
guises, and in various places. In prose, indeed,

"Her delights
Are dolphin-like, and show themselves above
The element they sport in;" "^

yet, even in that domain, her movements are at times
scarcely less free and graceful than when she is floating
through the Heaven of Song.

It is a characteristic of poetry in its aim to create beauty,
that it levies, for this purpose, its contributions on every
side. Not content, as the ordinary prose-writer should he,
with such words as are simply the most proper to express the
meaning to be conveyed, it seeks also the most beautiful—
the sound, and the associations connected with a word,
being taken into consideration as well as the sense. The
words of poetry, without interfering with the general effect,
challenge a slight attention to themselves. This is what
Coleridge meant when he described poetry as "the best
words in the best order." '^

When, therefore, we meet with a passage of prose, which,
while it is kindled into eloquence by the beauty which it
strives to embody, seems also to be revelling in its own, and
the language of which is sensuous, picturesque and passion-
ate, we may with perfect justice pronounce that passage to
be poetry. Many such passages are to be found in the writ-
ings of Milton, and of Jeremy Taylor.

"I looked upon a plain of green,

That some one called the land of prose,
Where many living things were seen
In movement or repose.

WHAT IS POETRY f

"I looked upon a stately hill,

That well was named the Mount of Song,
Where golden shadows dwelt at will,
The woods and streams among.

"But most this fact my wonder bred,

Though known by all the nobly wise,
It was the mountain streams that fed
TJie fair green plains amenities.'' * '-^

We are inclined to agree with the writer, in refusing the
title of a just poein to any work which is not metrical in
form. Yet we respect the opinions of those who maintain
that there may be such a thing as a prose-poem. Doubtless,
much could be said in support of those opinions. But such is
the avidity of poetry in gathering up its materials for the
creation of beauty, so necessary does it seem that its lan-
guage should possess every charm of which language is
capable, that it appears to demand verse as its natural and
proper expression. Moreover, those who are disposed to
agree with us in our views of poetry, will see that no poem,
no long poem at least, can be (Coleridge says it ought not
to be ) all poetry. ^^ Whether a poem be narrative, or
philosophical, there will be parts and aspects of its subject
wholly insusceptible of genuine poetic treatment. Verse,
therefore, is required to preserve these parts in some sort of
keeping with the poetry, the object being the production of
a harmonious whole.

The reader now holds in his hand the key to all the sophis-
tical arguments of the writer. He will see that while we
acknowledge the work of Lucretius to be a poem, we may
yet declare that much of it is not poetry. He will see, also,
that without denying the passage from Milton's Tractate on
Education to be prose, we may yet assert that it contains

* Sterling.

78 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

the genuine elements of poetry. And so on with all the rest
of the writer's various illustrations.

The writer speaks much about logical precision, and the
confusion into which this subject has been thrown by a
misconception of what he chooses to term the figurative ex-
pressions of poetic prose, and prosaic verse. The real source
of this confusion is the opposition of poetry to prose. For
this relation of the two to each other, the writer may indeed
urge the precedent of common usage, and the practice of
many good writers.— But the impropriety was exposed long
ago by Coleridge and Wordsworth,^^ and we hardly ex-
pected to see it repeated at this date in the pages of
Russell's Magazine.

Much of the article we have been examining is consumed
in illustrating the profound truth that tastes differ. They do,
indeed. There must be a vast difference between the taste
of a man who regards the Ancient Mariner as the noblest
of all ballads, and the taste of another who has read through
that poem with no other sensation than what is vulgarly
termed a turning of the stomach. Of the comments upon this
strange, weird production of Coleridge, we shall remark
little more than that they seem to us to be conceived very
much in the spirit of Charles Lamb's literal Scotchman. ^^
And in regard to the assertion that the poem is an offence
against a principle of Coleridge himself— Coleridge having
said that every poem should be common sense, at least ^^—
we may be permitted to suggest it as not impossible that,
between the poet's philosophical notion of common sense,
and this writer's, there were few points of resemblance.
Coleridge certainly did not refer to that quibbling common
sense which would apply to a supernatural story,— much the
same sort of logic that is resorted to by papas, when they

WHAT IS POETRY? 79

endeavor to prove to the satisfaction of little boys the non-
existence of ghosts.

Of the caricature of Wordsv^orth it is difficult to speak
without indignation.

We had once a conversation with a prosaic friend of ours
upon the subject of poetry. After pronouncing the whole
tribe of poets to be a set of conceited coxcombs, our friend
added that he was sure no poet could "truly enjoy the
beauties of Nature. The fellows can't look at a sunset with-
out thinking of the fine things which might be said about
it." We said nothing, for our friend would not have under-
stood us, if we had told him that a man who looked at a
sunset in such a spirit, was not, and could not be, a poet.
Yet such was the spirit in which, according to this writer,
Wordsworth was accustomed to look at Nature. No one, at
all familiar with the writings of Wordsworth, would have
made this accusation; and we cannot help suspecting that it
is based upon a perusal of the titles of the poems, rather than
of the poems themselves. For passage after passage might
be adduced, so wholly incompatible with the character as-
signed to Wordsworth, that, for the sake of the writer's taste
and common sense, we must conclude that he knew nothing
at all about them.

Perhaps no poet ever felt so deeply, certainly none has
ever described so admirably, that complete abandonment
of the soul to the influences of Nature, in which

"Thought is not; in enjoyment it expires." ^^

Take the following lines, from the poem composed near
Tin tern Abbey:

"Nature then

To me was all in all. I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,

80 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love
TJiat liad no need of a remoter charm
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye."

And who will believe that the passage which follows these
lines— transcendental though it may be— could be the pro-
duction of a coxcomb, who traded with Nature for his
poetry? In what fitting language it depicts those moods of
ecstatic contemplation, in which the soul, through a faculty
not dependent upon the senses, feels the presence of that
mysterious and universal principle, of which the world is a
manifestation!

"And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts: a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused.
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and die living air.
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

It is useless to multiply quotations to prove the ground-
lessness of a charge which we can scarcely believe was made
in earnest. A few more remarks as to what seems to us an
unfair use of the authority of Coleridge, and we have done.

Coleridge has charged upon certain portions of the poems
of Wordsworth, "a matter-of-factness" by which he meant
an occasional, and somewhat superfluous, minuteness of
detail. ^^ The fault is probably to be traced to a too great
desire, on the part of the poet, to bring the groupings and
situations of his few characters distinctly before the mind of

WHAT IS POETRY r

the reader. The writer insidiously represents this charge as
a general one; and in attempting to account for the blemish,
he caricatures in the grossest manner the lofty sense which
Wordsworth ever entertained of his office as a poet, and his
loving and life-long devotion to its duties.— The whole is so
strikingly unjust, that we shall not take the trouble to argue
the point.

Coleridge has elsewhere done ample justice to Words-
worth's powers of imaginative description. And Ruskin has
pronounced him to be the great poetic landscape painter of
the age.

We should like the writer to point out anything like "a
matter-of-factness" in the description of the breaking up of
the storm in the second book of the Excursion; in the de-
scription of the "twin mountain brethren," as seen from the
cottage of the Solitary; in the sonnet on Westminster
Bridge; in the sonnets, "Methought I saw the footsteps of a
Throne," "It is a beauteous evening, calm and free," and
"The world is too much with us;" in the blank verse entitled
a Night Piece; in the poem on Yew Trees (than the greater
part of which, it is impossible to conceive anything further
removed from matter-of-fact); in the Ode on the Intima-
tions of Immortality; in the burst which concludes the Song
at the Feast of Brougham Castle, and the exquisite quatrains
which close that poem; in the Danish Boy; in the Boy of
Winandermere; in the stanzas commencing, "Three years
she grew in sun and shower;" in the character of the poet
as sketched in A Poet's Epitaph; in the austere and spiritual
grandeur of Laodamia; or (we are getting out of breath)
in the following italicised line of enchanted and enchanting
beauty— a whole fairy poem in itself, and alone sufficient to
absolve Wordsworth of this charge against him— with

82 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

which, whether abruptly or not, we shall conclude our
article:

"That tall fern
So stately, of the queen Osmunda named,
Plant lovelier, in its own retired abode,
On Grasmere's beach, than Naiad by the side
Of Grecian brook, or Lady of the Mere,
Lone-sitting bij the shores of old Romance." ^^

tJ^iteratare in the QJouth

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

We think that at no time, and in no country, has the posi-
tion of an author been beset with such pecuHar difficulties
as the Southern writer is compelled to struggle with from
the beginning to the end of his career. In no country in
which literature has ever flourished has an author obtained
so limited an audience. In no country, and at no period that
we can recall, has an author been constrained by the indif-
ference of the public amid which he lived, to publish with a
people who were prejudiced against him. It would scarcely
be too extravagant to entitle the Southern author the Pariah
of modem literature. It would scarcely be too absurd if
we should compare his position to that of the drawer of
Shakspeare, who stands in a state of ludicrous confusion
between the calls of Prince Hal upon the one side and of
Poins upon the other.^ He is placed, in fact, much in the
same relation to the public of the North and the public of
the South, as we might suppose a statesman to occupy who
should propose to embody in one code a system of laws
for two neighbouring people, of one of which he was a
constituent, and who yet altogether diflFered in character,
institutions and pursuits. The people among whom the
statesman lived would be very indignant upon finding, as
they would be sure to find, that some of their interests had

84 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

been neglected. The people for whom he legislated at a dis-
tance would be equally indignant upon discovering, as they
would [be] sure to fancy they discovered, that not one of
their interests had received proper attention. Both parties
would probably unite, with great cordiality and patriotism,
in consigning the unlucky statesman to oblivion or the exe-
cutioner. In precisely the same manner fares the poor
scribbler who has been so unfortunate as to be born South
of the Potomac. He publishes a book. It is the settled con-
viction of the North that genius is indigenous there, and
flourishes only in a Northern atmosphere. It is the equally
firm conviction of the South that genius— literary genius, at
least— is an exotic that will not flower on a Southern soil.
Probably the book is published by a Northern house.
Straightway all the newspapers of the South are indignant
that the author did not choose a Southern printer, and ad-
dress himself more particularly to a Southern community.
He heeds their criticism, and of his next book,— published by
a Southern printer— such is the secret though unacknowl-
edged prejudice against Southern authors— he finds that
more than one half of a small edition remains upon his
hands. Perhaps the book contains a correct and beautiful
picture of our peculiar state of society. The North is inatten-
tive or abusive, and the South unthankful, or, at most, in-
different. Or it may happen to be only a volume of noble
poetry, full of those universal thoughts and feelings which
speak, not to a particular people, but to all mankind. It is
censured at the South as not sufficiently Southern in spirit,
while at the North it is pronounced a very fair specimen of
Southern commonplace. Both North and South agree with
one mind to condemn the author and forget his book.

We do not think that we are exaggerating the embarrass-
ments which surround the Southern writer. It cannot be

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 85

denied that on the surface of newspaper and magazine
hterature there have lately appeared signs that his claims
to respect are beginning to be acknowledged. But, in spite
of this, we must continue to believe, that among a large
majority of Southern readers who devour English books
with avidity, there still exists a prejudice— conscious or un-
conscious—against the works of those authors who have
grown up among themselves. This prejudice is strongest,
indeed, with a class of persons whose opinions do not find
expression in the public prints; but it is on that account more
harmful in its evil and insidious influence. As an instance,
we may mention that it is not once, but a hundred times,
that we have heard the works of the first of Southern
authors ^ alluded to with contempt by individuals who had
never read anything beyond the title-pages of his books.
Of this prejudice there is an easy, though not a very flatter-
ing, explanation.

The truth is, it must be confessed, that though an edu-
cated, we are a provincial, and not a highly cultivated
people. At least, there is among us a very general want of a
high critical culture. The principles of that criticism, the
basis of which is a profound psychology, are almost utterly
ignored. There are scholars of pretension among us, with
whom Blair's Rhetoric ^ is still an unquestionable authority.
There are schools and colleges in which it is used as a text-
book. With the vast advance that has been made in critical
science since the time of Blair few seem to be intimately ac-
quainted. The opinions and theories of the last century are
still held in reverence. Here Pope is still regarded by many
as the most correct of English poets, and here, Kaimes,^
after having been everywhere else removed to the top
shelves of libraries, is still thumbed by learned professors
and declamatory sophomores. Here literature is still re-

86 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

garded as an epicurean amusement; not as a study, at least
equal in importance, and certainly not inferior in difficulty,
to law and medicine. Here no one is surprised when some
fossil theory of criticism, long buried under the ruins of an
exploded school, is dug up, and discussed with infinite
gravity by gentlemen who know Pope and Horace by heart,
but who have never read a word of Wordsworth or Tenny-
son, or who have read them with suspicion, and rejected
them with superciliousness.

In such a state of critical science, it is no wonder that we
are prudently cautious in passing a favourable judgment
upon any new candidates for our admiration. It is no wonder
that while we accept without a cavil books of English and
Northern reputation, we yet hesitate to acknowledge our
own writers, until, perhaps, having been commended by
English or Northern critics, they present themselves to us
with a "certain alienated majesty." There is another class of
critics among us— if critics they can be called— which we
must not pass over. This class seem disposed to look upon
literature as they look upon a Bavarian sour-krout, a Stras-
bourg pate, or a New Zealand cutlet of "cold clergyman."
It is a mere matter of taste. Each one feels himself at liberty
to exalt the author— without reference to his real position in
the world of letters, as settled by a competent tribunal—
whose works afford him the most amusement. From such a
principle, of course, the most fantastic and discordant
opinions result. One regards that fanciful story, the Culprit
Fay of Drake, as the greatest of American poems; and an-
other is indignant if Tennyson be mentioned in the same
breath with Longfellow. Now, it is good to be independent;
but it is not good to be too independent. Some respect is
certainly due to the authority of those who, by a careful and
loving study of literature, have won the right to speak ex

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 87

cathedra. Nor is that independence, but license, which is
not founded upon a wide and deep knowledge of critical
science, and upon a careful and respectful collation of our
own conclusions, with the impartial philosophical conclu-
sions of others.

In the course of these remarks, we have alluded to three
classes of critics, the bigot, the slave, and we cannot better
characterize the third, than as the autocratic. There is yet a
fourth, which feels, or professes to feel, a warm interest in
Southern literature, and which so far is entitled to our re-
spect. But, unfortunately, the critical principles of this class
are quite as shallow as those of any of the others; and we
notice it chiefly to expose the absurdity of one of its favourite
opinions, adopted from a theory which some years ago arose
at the North, and which bore the name of Americanism in
literature. After the lapse of a period commensurate with
the distance it had to travel, it reached the remote South,
where it became, with an intensity of absurdity which is
admirable indeed, Southernism in literature.^ Now, if the
theory had gone to the depth of that which constitutes true
nationality, we should have no objections to urge against it.
But to the understandings of these superficial critics, it
meant nothing more than that an author should confine him-
self in the choice of his subjects to the scenery, the history,
and the traditions of his own country. To be an American
novelist, it was sufficient that a writer should select a story,
in which one half the characters should be backwoodsmen,
who talked bad Saxon, and the other half should be savages,
who talked Choctaw translated into very bombastic Eng-
lish. To be an American poet, it was sufficient either in a
style and measure imitated from Pope and Goldsmith, or in
the more modern style and measure of Scott and Words-
worth, to describe the vast prairies of the West, the swamps

88 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

and pine forests of the South, or the great lakes and broad
rivers of the North. It signified nothing to these critics
whether the tone, the spirit, or the style were caught from
European writers or not. If a poet, in genuine Scott, or
genuine Byron, compared his hero to a cougar or grisly
bear— patriotically ignoring the Asiatic tiger or the African
lion— the exclamation of the critic was, "How intensely
American!" ^

We submit that this is a false and narrow criterion, by
which to judge of the true nationality of the author. Not in
the subject, except to a partial extent, but in the manage-
ment of the subject, in the tone and bearings of the thought,
in the drapery, the colouring, and those thousand nameless
touches, which are to be felt rather than expressed, are the
characteristics of a writer to be sought. It is in these par-
ticulars that an author of original genius— no matter what
his subject— will manifest his nationality. In fact, true orig-
inality will be always found identical with true nationality.
A painter who should paint an American landscape exactly
in the style of Salvator or of Claude, ought scarcely to be
entitled an American painter. A poet who should write a
hymn to Niagara in the blank verse of the Ulysses or the
Princess, ought not to be entitled an American poet. In a
word, he alone, who, in a style evolved from his own individ-
ual nature, speaks the thoughts and feelings of his own deep
heart, can be a truly national genius. In the works of such a
man, the character which speaks behind and through him—
as character does not always speak in the case of men of
mere talent, who in some respects are usually more or less
under the sway of more commanding minds— will furnish
the best and highest types of the intellectual character of
his countrymen, and will illustrate most correctly, as well as
most subtly— perhaps most correctly because most subtly—

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 89

the nature of the influences around him. In the poetry of
such a man, if he be a poet, whether its scenes be laid in his
native country or the land of faery, the pines of his own
forests shall be heard to murmur, the music of his own
rivers shall swell the diapason, the flowers of his own soil
shall bud and bursty though touched perhaps with a more
ethereal and lasting grace; and with a brighter and more
spiritual lustre, or with a darker and holier beauty, it will be
his own skies that look down upon the loveliest landscapes
of his creation.

We regard the theory of Southernism in literature as a
circumscription, both unnecessary and unreasonable, of the
privileges of genius. Shakspeare was not less an Englishman
when he wrote Antony and Cleopatra, than when he drama-
tized the history of the kings of England. Sir Walter was not
less a Scotchman when he drew the characters of Louis XL
and Charles the Bold, than when he conceived the charac-
ters of Edie Ochiltree and Balfour of Burley. We do not
suppose that until this theory germinated in the brain of its
foolish originator, it ever occurred to an author that in his
selection of subjects, he was to be bounded by certain geo-
graphical limits. And if in addition to the many difiiculties
which he has to overcome, the Southern author be expected,
under the penalty of being pronounced un-Southern in
tone, and unpatriotic in spirit, never to pass the Potomac on
one side, or the Gulf on the other, we shall despair of ever
seeing within our borders a literature of such depth and
comprehensiveness as will ensure it the respect of other
countries, or permanence in the remembrance of posterity.
No! the domain of genius is as wide as the world, and as
ancient as creation. Wherever the angel of its inspiration
may lead, it has the right to follow— and whether exhibited
by the light of tropic suns, or of the Arctic morning, whether

90 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

embodied in the persons of ancient heroes, or of modem
thinkers, the eternal verities which it aims to inculcate shall
find in every situation, and under every guise, their suitable
place, and their proper incarnation.

We should not like to convey the impression that we
undervalue the materials for prose and poetry, which may
be found in Southern scenery, Southern society, or Southern
history. We are simply protesting against a narrow creed,
by means of which much injustice may be done to a writer,
who, though not less Southern in feeling than another who
displays his Southernism on the surface of his books, yet
insists upon the right to clothe according to the dictates of
his own taste, and locate according to the dictates of his
own thoughtful judgment, the creatures of his imagination.
At the same time we are not blind to the spacious field which
is opened to the Southern author within his own immediate
country. The vast aboriginal forests which so weightily
oppress us with a sense of antiquity, the mountains, tree-
clad to the summit, enclosing unexplored Elysiums, the
broad belt of lowland along the ocean, with its peculiar
vegetation, the live-oak, stateliest of that stately family,
hung with graceful tillandsia, the historical palmetto, and
the rank magnificence of swamp and thicket, the blue
aureole of the passion flower, the jessamine, with its yellow
and fragrant flame, and all the wild luxuriance of a bounti-
ful Flora, the golden carpet which the rice plant spreads for
the feet of autumn, and the cotton field white as with a soft,
warm snow of summer ^— these are materials— and these are
but a small part of them— from which a poet may draw an in-
spiration as genuine as that which touched with song the
lips of English Thomson, or woke to subtler and profounder
utterance the soul of English Wordsworth. Nor is the struc-
ture of our social life— so different from that of every other

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 9i

people, whether ancient or modern— incapable of being
exhibited in a practical light. There are truths underlying
the relations of master and slave; there are meanings be-
neath that union of the utmost freedom with a healthy con-
servatism, which, growing out of those relations, is charac-
teristic of Southern thought, of which poetry may avail her-
self not only to vindicate our system to the eyes of the world,
but to convey lessons which shall take root in the hearts of
all mankind. We need not commend the poetical themes
which are to be found in the history of the South; in the
romance of her colonial period; in the sufferings and
struggles of her revolution; in the pure patriotism of her
warriors and statesmen, the sterling worth of her people,
and the grace, the wit, the purity, the dignity, delicacy and
self-devotion of her women. He who either in the character
of poet or novelist shall associate his name with the South
in one or all of the above-mentioned aspects, will have
achieved a more enviable fame than any which has yet
illustrated the literature of America.

We pass to a brief discussion of an error still more preva-
lent than the theory just dismissed. We know nothing more
discouraging to an author, nothing which more clearly
evinces the absence of any profound principles of criticism,
than the light in which the labours of the poet and the
novelist are very generally viewed at the South. The novel
and the poem are almost universally characterized as light
reading, and we may say are almost universally estimated
as a very light and superficial sort of writing. We read novels
and poems indeed, with some pleasure, but at the same time
with the tacit conviction that we are engaged in a very
trivial occupation; and we promise ourselves that, in order
to make up for the precious moments thus thrown away, we
shall hereafter redouble our diligence in the study of history

92 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

or of mathematics. It is the common impression that while
there is much practical utility in a knowledge of Euclid and
the Calculus, no profit whatever is to be derived from works
of poetry and fiction. Of two writers, one of whom should
edit a treatise on the conic sections, and the other should
give to the world a novel equal in tragic power and interest
to the Bride of Lammermoor, the former would be consid-
ered the greater man by nine persons out of ten.

It would be from the purpose of this article to go into a
minute examination of the prejudices upon which these
opinions are founded. But we may be permitted a few words
on the subject. What are the advantages which are supposed
to result from the study of the mathematics— not, we mean,
to those who are to devote their lives to science, but to that
more numerous class who, immediately upon graduation,
fling aside Playfair,^ and separate into doctors, lawyers, and
politicians? The answer is, we believe, that the study of
mathematics is calculated to accustom the student to habits
of close reasoning, and to increase his powers of concentra-
tion. Some vague generality is usually added about its in-
fluence in strengthening the mind.

Now, it is a notorious fact that mathematicians are for
the most part bad reasoners out of their particular province.
As soon as they get upon topics which do not admit of pre-
cise definitions and exact demonstrations, and which they,
nevertheless, invariably insist upon subjecting to precise
definitions and exact demonstrations, they fall naturally
enough into all sorts of blunders and contradictions. They
usually beg the question at the outset, and then by means of
a most unexceptionable syllogism, they come to a conclusion
which, though probably false in fact, is yet, it must be con-
fessed, always logically consistent with their premises.

Now, it will not be denied that such a method of reason-

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 93

ing is the very worst possible which could be employed by
a lawyer or a politician. The laws, and their various interpre-
tations, the motives, the objects, the interest in their thou-
sand contradictory aspects, which must form the staple of
the arguments of professional and public men, are not to be
treated like the squares and circles of geometry. Yet that a
familiarity with mathematical modes of proof does not lead
to the error of using those modes of proof upon subjects to
which they are wholly inapplicable, is evident to anybody
who has noticed the style of argument prevalent among the
very young orators who have not long cut the apron strings
which tied them to a too strictly mathematical Alma Mater.
They bristle all over with syllogisms, write notes in the form
of captions, invariably open a speech (that is if it be not a
fourth of July oration, and if they have anything to prove )
with a statement, and end with Q. E. D. corollary and
scholium. Not until the last theories have been erased from
their memory, or until they shall have learned by repeated
reverses the absurdity of which they are guilty, do they
begin to reason like men of practical sense.

It must not be inferred that we are arguing against the
study of the mathematics. It has its uses— though we think
not the uses commonly assigned to it. These we cannot stop
to particularize, but we may mention that if it could do
nothing but furnish us with the clearest idea we have of the
nature of absolute truths, it would still be an important
study.

We shall probably be thought paradoxical when we say
that we believe that the study of poetry as an art in con-
junction with the science of criticism— and this not with the
design of writing poetry, but merely to enable the student to
appreciate and to judge of it— will afford a better prepara-
tive training than all the mathematics in the world, to the

94 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

legal or political debater. Poetry, as Coleridge well remarks,
has a logic of its own; ^^ and this logic being more complex,
more subtle, and more uncertain than the logic of the
demonstrative sciences, is far more akin than the latter can
be to the dialectics of common life. And when we consider
that while we are mastering this logic, we are at the same
time familiarising ourselves with the deepest secrets of the
human heart, imbuing our natures with the most refining
influences, and storing our minds with the purest thoughts
and the loveliest pictures of humanity, the utility of poetry
as a study seems to be established beyond a question.

It seems strange, that in this nineteenth century, one
should be called upon to vindicate poetry from aspersions
which have been repeatedly and triumphantly disproved.
Nevertheless, so generally accepted at the South is the
prejudice which degrades poetry into a mere servant of our
pleasures,^^ that upon most ears, truths, (elsewhere so
familiar as to be trite ) upon which it bases a loftier preten-
sion, fall with the startling novelty of paradox. How many
look upon the imaginative faculty simply as the manufac-
turer of pretty conceits; how few know it as the power
which, by selecting and combining materials never before
brought together, in fact, produces pictures and characters
in which there shall be nothing untruthful or unnatural,
and which shall yet be as new to us as a lately found island in
the Pacific. How many of us regard poetry as a mere crea-
ture of the fancy; how few appreciate its philosophy, or
understand that beneath all the splendour of its diction and
imagery, there is in its highest manifestations at least a sub-
stratum of profound and valuable thought; how very few
perceive the justice of the eloquent definition of Coleridge:
"That poetry is the blossom and fragrance of all human wis-
dom, human passions, learning, and language;" ^^ or are

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 95

prepared to see, as it is expressed in the noble verse of
Taylor, that

Poetry is Reason's self -sublimed;

Tis Reason's sovereignty, whereunto

All properties of sense, all dues of wit.

All fancies, images, perceptions, passions,

All intellectual ordinance grown up

From accident, necessity, or custom.

Seen to be good, and after made authentic;

All ordinance aforethought, that from science

Doth prescience take, and from experience law;

All lights and institutes of digested knowledge.

Gifts and endowments of intelligence

From sources living, from the dead bequests,—

Subserve and minister.^ ^

We hurry on to the comparative merits of history and
fiction.

It is not generally understood that a novel may be more
truthful than a history, in several particulars— but, perhaps,
most of all in the delineation of character. The historian,
hampered by facts which are not seldom contradictory, is
sometimes compelled to touch and retouch his portrait of
a character in order to suit those facts. Consequently, he
will often give us a character not as it existed, but his idea of
that character— a something, the like of which was never in
heaven above, nor on the earth beneath. On the other hand,
the novelist, whose only obligation is to be true to nature, at
least paints us possible men and women, about whose
actions we can reason almost with as much accuracy as if
they had really lived, loved, acted and died. In doing this, he
at once reaches a higher truth than is often attainable by
the historians, and imparts to us lessons far more profitable.
More of human nature can be learned from the novel of Tom
Jones than from a History of the whole Roman Empire—

96 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

written, at least, as histories are commonly written. Again,
while it is to history we look for an account of the dynasties,
the battles, sieges, revolutions, the triumphs and defeats of
a nation, it is from the historical novel that we glean the best
idea of that which it is infinitely more important for us to
know— of the social state, the manners, morals, opinions,
passions, prejudices, and habits of the people. We do not
hesitate to say, that of two persons, one of whom has only
read Hume's chapter on Richard L, and the other only the
Ivanhoe of Scott, the latter will be by far the better ac-
quainted with the real history of the period.

We need not say that we are not quite so silly as to be-
lieve that it is possible, by any force of argument, to bring
about a reformation in the tastes of the reading community.
It is, unfortunately, not in the power of a people to confer
together and say, "Come, now, let us arise, and build up a
literature." ^^ We cannot call meetings, and pass resolutions
to this purpose, as we do with respect to turnpikes, railways,
and bridges. That genuine appreciation, by which alone
literature is encouraged and fostered, is a plant of slow
growth. Still, we think something may be done; but in the
meanwhile let it not be forgotten that, in spite of every dis-
advantage, the South already possesses a literature which
calls for its patronage and applause. The fate of that litera-
ture is a reproach to us. Of all our Southern writers, not one
but Poe has received his due measure of fame. The immense
resources and versatile powers of Simms are to this day
grudgingly acknowledged, or contemptuously denied.
There have been writers among us who, in another coun-
try, would have been complimented with repeated editions,
whose names are now almost forgotten, and whose works
it is now utterly impossible to obtain. While our centre-
tables are littered with the feeble moralizings of Tupper,

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 97

done up in very bright morocco; and while the corners of
our newspapers are graced with the ghbly versified com-
mon-places of Mackey, and of writers even more worth-
less than Mackey, there is, perhaps, scarcely a single book-
seller in the United States, on whose face we should not
encounter the grin of ignorance, if we chanced to inquire
for the Froissart ballads of Philip Pendleton Cooke.

It is not without mortification that we compare the recep-
tion which the North gives to its literature to the stolid
indifference of the South. There, at least, Genius wears the
crown, and receives the tributes which are due to it. It is
true, indeed, that not a few Northern authors have owed
in part their successes to the art of puffing— an art nowhere
carried to such a height of excellence as in the cities of
New York and Boston. It is true that through the magic
of this art, many a Bottom in literature has been decked
with the flowers and fed with the apricots and dewberries
of a short-lived reputation. But it is also true, that there is
in the reading public of the North a well-founded faith in
its capacity to judge for itself, a not inconsiderable knowl-
edge of the present state of Poetry and Art, and a cordial
disposition to recognize and reward the native authors who
address it.

We are not going to recommend the introduction at the
South of a system of puffing. "No quarter to the dunce,"
whether Southern or Northern, is the motto which should
be adopted by every man who has at heart the interests of
his country's literature. Not by exalting mediocrity, not by
setting dullness on a throne, and putting a garland on the
head of vanity, shall we help in the smallest degree the
cause of Southern letters. A partiality so mistaken can only
serve to depreciate excellence, discourage effort, and dis-
gust the man of real ability. We have regretted to see the

98 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

tenderness with which a volume of indifferent poetry is
sometimes treated— for no other reason that we could dis-
cover than that it was the work of a Southerner— by those
few clever and well-meaning critics, of whom the South is
not altogether destitute. The effect of this ill-judged clem-
ency is to induce those who are indisposed to admit the
claims of Southern literature upon their admiration, to look
with suspicion upon every verdict of Southern criticism.

We have but one course to suggest to those who are
willing, from a painful conviction of the blended servility,
superficiality, and antiquated bigotry of criticism among us,
to assist in bringing about a reformation. It is to speak the
rude truth always. It is to declare war equally against the
slaves of English and Northern opinions, and against
the slaves of the conventional schools of the eighteenth
century. If argument fail, perhaps satire may prove a more
effective weapon. Everything like old fogyism in literature
should be remorselessly ridiculed. That pert license which
consults only its own uneducated taste, and that docility
which truckles to the prestige of a foreign reputation should
be alike held up to contempt. It should be shown in plain,
unflattering language that the unwillingness with which
native genius is acknowledged, is a bitterer slander on the
country and its intellect than any of the falsehoods which
defile the pages of Trollope, Dickens, Marryatt, or Basil
Hall.^^ It would be no injustice to tell those who refuse to
credit that the South has done anything in prose or poetry,
that in their own shallowness and stupidity they have found
the best reasons for their incredulity; and they should be
sternly reminded, that because a country annually gives
birth to a thousand noodles, it does not follow that it may
not now and then produce a man of genius. Nor should any
hesitation be felt to inquire boldly into the manner in

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 99

which the tastes of our youth are educated. Let it be asked
on what principle we fill our chairs of belles-lettres; whether
to discharge properly the duties of a critical teacher, a
thorough acquaintance with English literature be not a
rather indispensable requisite, and how it is that in one
institution a learned professor shall maintain the Course
of Time ^^ to be the greatest of English epics, and in an-
other an equally learned professor shall deny, on the ground
that he could never read it, save as a very disagreeable task,
the transcendent merits of Paradise Lost. Is it not a fact,
of which we may feel not unreasonably ashamed, that a
student may pass four years under these misleaders of
youth, and yet remain ignorant of that most important rev-
olution in imaginative literature— to us of the present day
the most important of all literary revolutions— which took
place a little more than half a century ago. The influence
of the new spiritual philosophy in producing a change from
a sensuous to a super-sensuous poetry, the vast difference
between the school represented by Wordsworth, and the
school represented by Pope, the introduction of that mys-
tical element into our verse which distinguishes it from the
verse of the age of Shakspeare, the theory of that analyt-
ical criticism which examines a work of art "from the heart
outwards, not from surface inwards!" and which deduces
its laws from nature and truth, not from the practice of
particular writers; these surely are subjects which, in an
institution devoted to the purpose of education, may not
be overlooked without censure. At the risk of exciting the
derisive smiles of those who attach more value to the settle-
ment of a doubtful accent, or a disputed quantity, than to
a just definition of the imaginative faculty, or a correct
estimation of the scope and objects of poetry, we avow
our belief that a systematic study of English literature,

100 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

under the guidance of proper expounders— even at the ex-
pense of the curriculum in other respects— would be at-
tended with the highest benefits to the student and the
community. Such a course of study would assist more than
anything else in bringing about that improvement in taste
which we need so much, and for which we must look espe-
cially to the generation now growing up about us. We do
not expect much from those whose opinions are already
formed. It is next to impossible thoroughly to convert a
confirmed papist; and there are no prejudices so difiicult
to overcome as the prejudices of pedantry and age.

After all, the chief impediment to a broad, deep, and
liberal culture is her own self-complacency. With a strange
inconsistency, the very persons who decry Southern litera-
ture are forever extolling Southern taste. Southern learn-
ing, and Southern civilization. There is scarcely a city of
any size in the South which has not its clique of amateur
critics, poets and philosophers, the regular business of
whom is to demonstrate truisms, settle questions which no-
body else would think of discussing, to confirm themselves
in opinions which have been picked up from the rubbish
of seventy years agone, and above all to persuade each
other that together they constitute a society not much in-
ferior to that in which figured Burke and Johnson, Gold-
smith and Sir Joshua. All of these being oracles, they are
unwilling to acknowledge the claims of a professional
writer, lest in doing so they should disparage their own
authority. It is time that their self-complacency should be
disturbed. And we propose satire as the best weapon, be-
cause against vanity it is the only effective one. He who
shall convince this, and every other class of critics to which
we have alluded, that they are not in advance of their age,

LITERATURE IN THE SOUTH 101

that they are even a httle behind it, will have conferred an
incalculable benefit upon them, and upon the South.

We shall not admit that in exposing the deficiencies of
the Southern public, we have disparaged in the slightest
degree the intellect of the South. Of that intellect in its
natural capacity none can conceive more highly than our-
self. It is impossible not to respect a people from whom
have sprung so many noble warriors, orators and statesmen.
And there is that in the constitution of the Southern mind,
in the Saxon, Celtic and Teutonic elements of which it is
composed, and in the peculiar influences amidst which
these elements have been moulded together, a promise of
that blending of the philosophic in thought with the en-
thusiastic in feeling, which makes a literary nation. Even
now, while it is in one place trammeled by musty rules and
canons, and in another left to its own unguided or mis-
guided impulses, it would be unjust to deny it a quickness
of perception, which, if rightly trained, would soon convert
this essay into a slander and a falsehood. We will not believe
that a people with such a mental character can remain much
longer under the dominion of a contracted and illiberal
culture. Indeed, we think the signs of a better taste may
already be noticed. The circle of careless or prejudiced
readers, though large, is a narrowing circle. The circle of
thoughtful and earnest students, though a small one, is a
widening circle. Young authors are rising up who have
won for themselves at least a partial acknowledgment of
merit. The time must come at last when the public shall
feel that there are ideas characterizing Southern society, as
distinguished from Northern and English society, which
need the exposition of a new literature. There will be a
stirring of the public mind, an expectation aroused which
will ensure its own gratification, a demand for Southern

102 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

prose and poetry, which shall call forth the poet and prose
writer from the crowds that now conceal them, and a sym-
pathy established between author and public, which shall
infuse inspiration into the one, and heighten the pleasure
and profit of the other. Then, indeed, we may look for a
literature of which we shall all wear the honours. We shall
walk over ground made classic by the imaginations of our
poets, the thoughts we speak shall find illustration in verse
which has been woven by Southern hearths; and the winds
that blow from the land, and the waves that wash our level
coast, shall bear to other nations the names of bards who
know how to embody the spirit of their country without
sinking that universality which shall commend their lessons
to all mankind.

ox^ i^ heor^ of^ ^:yoetr^

iiitiiiiiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

It is not without some hesitation and considerable diffi-
dence that I have selected Poetry as the subject of my essay.
It is so familiar a topic, and to be familiar is in the opinion
of so many to be commonplace, that I may well distrust my
ability to give it interest. Yet after all it is not quite so old
as the stars which the knowledge that they have shone for
thousands of centuries has not made commonplace to those
who look at them rightly. I encourage myself by the reflec-
tion that the freshness of my theme is not less eternal.
Moreover as I design to discuss the subject with a special
purpose, in regard to which I have some sincere and not
carelessly digested opinions, I may hope perhaps to elicit
so much attention at least as usually honest thought, how-
ever weakly embodied, and earnest convictions, however
inadequately maintained, [receive].

I desire to arrive, if possible, at a comprehensive and
satisfactory theory of poetry, but more especially to exam-
ine, and to enter my protest against certain narrow creeds
which seem to me to be growing into fashion, to expose the
falsity of that taste which is formed by particular schools,
and which lead necessarily to a narrow and limited culture,
and to assist, as far as it lies in my power, in the establish-
ment of a generous and catholic criticism.

103

104 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

I must premise that in the first portion of my essay, I shall
use the word poetry in accordance with common usage, as
synonymous with poetical literature, or the embodiment of
poetry in rhythmical language. As I proceed, however, I
shall endeavour to show that it ought to [be] employed
in a more restricted, and less material sense. I will add that
in whatever illustrations I may use, I shall confine myself
to English Poetry, as amply sufficient for my purpose.

There have been few poetical eras without their peculiar
theories of poetry. But no age was ever so rich in poetical
creeds as the first half of the present century. The exposi-
tions of some of these creeds are not without value, one or
two indeed though incomplete are profound and philo-
sophical; but the majority are utterly worthless. Every little
poet "spins toiling out his own cocoon," ^ and wrapping
himself snugly in it to the exclusion of others, hopes to go
down thus warmly protected to posterity.

I shall pass most of these theories to consider only two-
one of which I shall discuss at some length. The first is that
definition of poetry which represents it simply as the ex-
pression in verse of thought, sentiment, or passion; and
which measures the difference between the poet and the
versifier only by the difference between the depth, power,
and vivacity of their several productions. This definition
was ably advocated not long ago in a well-known Southern
periodical, by one of the most acute of Southern writers.^
It would not be difficult to prove its total inadequacy, but I
do not think it necessary to do so, except so far as the proof
of that inadequacy may be involved in the establishment
of a theory altogether opposed to it. I am the less inclined
to give it a minute examination, because though the idea
is an old one, and in strict accordance with the common
usage of the word poetry, it has never become popular, nor

A THEORY OF POETRY 105

is it likely to become so, as it fails to satisfy even those who
displeased they do not know why, and dimly conscious of
the true faith, are yet unable to discover in their undefined
emotions a logical refutation of the heresy. The genuine
lovers of poetry feel that its essential characteristics under-
lie the various forms which it assumes, however dim and
shadowy those characteristics may seem to them, and not-
withstanding that they elude the search like the jar of gold
which is fabled to be buried at the foot of the rainbow.

The second theory which I desire to examine critically
was propounded a number of years ago."^

Poe begins his disquisition with the dogma that a long
poem does not exist, that the phrase a long poem is simply
a flat contradiction in "terms." He proceeds: "A poem de-
serves its title only inasmuch as it excites by elevating the
soul. The value of a poem is in the ratio of this elevating
excitement. But all excitements are, through a psychal ne-
cessity, transient. That degree of excitement which would
entitle a poem to be so called at all, cannot be sustained
throughout a composition of any great length. After the
lapse of half an hour at the very utmost, it flags— fails— a
revulsion ensues— and then the poem is in effect and in
fact no longer such."

I am disposed to think that the young lady who pores
till midnight over a metrical novel of Scott's, and wakes up
the next morning with her bright eyes dimmed and a little
swollen, or the young poet who follows for the first time
the steps of Dante and his guide down to the spiral abysses
of his imaginary hell, could not easily be induced to assent
to the truth of these assertions. The declaration made with
such cool metaphysical dogmatism that "all excitement [s]
are through a psychal necessity, transient" needs consider-
able qualification. All violent excitements are indeed tran-

106 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

sient; but that moderate and chastened excitement which
accompanies the perusal of the noblest poetry, of such
poetry as is characterized not by a spasmodic vehemence
and the short-lived power imparted by excessive passion,
but by a thoughtful sublimity and the matured and almost
inexhaustible strength of a healthy intellect, may be sus-
tained, and is often sustained during a much longer period
than the space of thirty minutes. I am willing to grant,
however, that this excitement has also its limit, and that
that limit is too narrow to permit the perusal, with any
pleasure, at one sitting of more than a fraction of a poem
of the length of Paradise Lost. I shall quote another para-
graph, and then proceed to show that this acknowledgment
leads to no deduction that justifies the theory which Poe
has built upon it.

"There are, no doubt, many who have found difficulty
in reconciling the critical dictum that the Paradise Lost is
to be devoutly admired throughout with the absolute im-
possibility of maintaining for it, during perusal, the amount
of enthusiasm which that critical dictum would demand.
This great work, in fact, is to be regarded as poetical, only
when, losing sight of that vital requisite in all works of art,
Unity, we view it merely as a series of minor poems. If, to
preserve its unity, we read it (as would be necessary) at a
single sitting, the result is but a constant alternation of ex-
citement and depression. After a passage of what we feel to
be true poetry, there follows, inevitably, a passage of plati-
tude which no critical prejudgment can force us to admire;
but if, upon completing the work, we read it again, omitting
the first book— that is to say commencing with the second
—we shall be surprised at finding that admirable which we
before condemned. It follows from all this that the ulti-

A THEORY OF POETRY 107

mate, or absolute effect of even the best epic under the sun,
is a nulhty— and this is precisely the fact."

Let me call attention to the fact that even if the argu-
ment I have just read prove all it assumes to prove, it
amounts only to this— it shows not that a long poem does
not, or may not exist, but that if there could be such a thing
as a long poem its effect except as a series of short poems
would be null and void. This point, however it must be
confessed, if properly established, would be an almost suffi-
cient justification of Poe's theory; and I only mention it by
way of causing it to be remarked that the demonstration is
not quite so direct and positive as it appears at first sight,
or as if the author had analyzed the work of which he speaks
and shown at what point the first poem ends, and the second
begins.

But I deny boldly and without reservation the truth of
that assertion upon which the whole argument hinges, that
to preserve in effect the unity of a great poem, it should be
read through at a single sitting. And to substantiate my
denial, I shall not fear to examine the effect of that very
poem to which Poe has appealed.

I suppose then the Reader who takes up Paradise Lost to
begin its perusal in a spirit not unbecoming that divine
production, and with the reverence of one who enters upon
holy ground. He must have "docile thoughts, and purged
ears." ^ A poem the aim of which is "to justify the ways of
God to man" is not to be entered upon at any season, and
never when our only wish is to beguile a vacant moment.
The time and even the place should be in harmony with
the lofty theme. Charles Lamb in a spirit of proper appreci-
ation says "that Milton almost needs a solemn service of
music to be played" before we approach him. I can under-
stand the earnest reader opening the book with feelings of

108 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

devotion not much inferior to those which inspired the
great bard himself in his subhme invocation to the third
person of the Trinity.

"And chiefly thou O Spirit that dost prefer
Before all temples the upright heart and pure,
Assist me for thou knowest! Thou from the first
Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread,
Dovelike, sat'st brooding o'er the vast abyss
And mad'st it pregnant! What in me is dark
Illumine, what is low, raise and support
That to the height of this great argument,
I may assert Eternal Providence
And justify the ways of God to Man.

I affirm that he who takes up Paradise Lost in this spirit will
lay it down at the completion of the first [book], or if (as
is not unlikely) he should have been beguiled further, at
the completion of the second book, not simply with an im-
pression of satisfied [,] still less of satiated gratification, but
in a state of mind in which awe and delight are blended
together in a deep though sober rapture. I say too that upon
his resuming the book at some future time, if he come to it
with the same reverential precautions, and not as one who
must finish a book to-night because he began it yesterday,
there will occur no such utter disconnection between his
perusal of the first, and his perusal of the second part of the
poem as will produce an effect at all similar to that which
is produced by the perusal of two distinct poems. I say that
no hiatus of platitude, whether real or the result merely of
jaded attention, is sufficient so to separate two parts of an
artistically constructed poem like Paradise Lost, as to dis-
turb the general harmony of its effect. And the thoughtful
reader instead of sitting down to the study of the third book
as to a new poem, brings with him all the impressions of
his former reading to heighten the colour and deepen the

A THEORY OF POETRY 109

effect of that which is before him. The continuation of the
poem seems all the more beautiful because he is familiar
with the beginning, and necessarily so from the roundness
and completeness of a structure the parts of which add
alike to the strength and grace of the whole and of each
other. It has been correctly remarked of the extracts which
go by the name of the beauties of Shakspeare,^ that those
passages lose more by being torn from the context than the
dramas themselves would lose by being deprived of those
passages altogether. This is true also, though doubtless not
to so great an extent, of Paradise Lost, and it could not be
true if each book, or part of a book, could affect us as
strongly when considered as portions of a series of poems,
as when regarded as fractions of an harmonious whole. For
instance the situation of the happy pair in Paradise is ren-
dered a thousand times more pathetic than it would have
been otherwise by our knowledge of the power of the
tempter who is plotting their destruction without; and of
that power we could have no adequate conception if we had
not seen the mighty Archdemon, his form not yet deprived
of all its original brightness, his face intrenched with the
deep scars of thunder, treading in unconquerable forti-
tude the surface of the burning marie, or if we had not
beheld him in the mighty council assembled together un-
der the roof of Pandemonium, assuming, in haughty pre-
eminence of courage and hatred, the bold adventure of
scouting with hostile purposes the universe of God Omnip-
otent, if we had not followed him in his dusky flight through
Hell, and his encounter with the grim though Kingly
Shadow, in his painful voyage through Chaos and his
meeting, in which the mean but profound subtlety of his
genius is brought distinctly into action, with the Archangel
Uriel, and so on down to the moment when he alights upon

110 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

the summit of Niphates and turns to reproach the Sun and
blaspheme its Creator; if we had not from all these sources
derived an indelible impression of the cunning, ferocity,
the indomitable pride and daring recklessness of his char-
acter. Again, the fate of the guilty but repentant lovers
touches us infinitely more deeply because we have been
made familiar with the beauty of the home from which
their sin has expelled them, that vast garden which with
the eternal bloom of forests abound [s] with fruit more
precious than that of the Hesperides, its undulations of hill
and valley, its grottoes, fountains and "crisped brooks
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold" '^ and feeding
with nectar "Flowers of all hues, and without thorn the
rose"— which with all this variety seems almost as extensive
as a kingdom, and yet is compact enough to occupy only
the champaign head of a steep and imperious wildness
which surrounds it as with its protecting wall. But of course
that which affects us most profoundly, and that which the
Poet meant to affect us most profoundly, is not the loss of
Eden, but the difference between the primal condition of
innocence from which they fell, and which is described
with a softness and purity that no merely amatory poet has
ever equaled, with the state of mind in which after being
dismissed by the angel, they look back to behold the East-
ern Gate, "With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms,"
and then turning, with the world before them, but with
slow and wandering steps

"Through Eden take their solitary way."

I might go on and by minuter examination show still
subtler connections between the several parts of the poem,
but it is not necessary. I am satisfied to reaffirm my position
that every portion of Paradise Lost is bound together by

A THEORY OF POETRY 111

the closest relations, and helps to give force to all; and as
the light about us is not produced solely by the direct rays
of the Sun, but is composed of millions of atmospherical
and other reflections, so the ultimate and aggregate effect
of this truly great creation is made up of the innumerable
lights and cross-lights which each book sheds upon the
other[s]. So as day by day the reader, such a reader, at
least, as I have described moves onward through the varied
beauties and sublimities of the poem, its grand purport
and harmonious proportions become more and more clearly
apparent,— it is "vastness which grows, but grows to har-
monize. All musical in its immensities—" ^ and when at the
conclusion he lays the book reverently aside, it is with the
feelings, not of one who has passed through a series of tran-
sient though noble excitements, but rather of one whose
spirit filled with a long train of lofty thought and unsur-
passable imagery, has grown almost to the size of that
which it has been contemplating. To such a reader it would
not seem too much to inscribe on the title-page of Paradise
Lost, as an invitation to all those yet unacquainted with it,
the fine stanza applied by a later Bard to the most magnifi-
cent of earthly temples

"Enter! its grandeur overwhelms thee not;

And why? It is not lessened; but thy mind,
Expanded by the genius of the spot,

Has grown colossal, and can only find

A fit abode wherein appear enshrined
Thy hopes of immortality; and thou

Shalt one day, if found worthy, so defined.
See thy God face to face, as thou dost now
His Holy of Holies, nor be blasted by his brow." ^

I shall not notice the sarcasms which Poe directs against
those who measure the merit of a book by its length, as I

112 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

have said nothing from which it could be inferred that I
regard size as a criterion of excellence. It is one thing to
say that a poem of twelve books may be good, and another
thing to say that a poem is good because it contains twelve
books. I am not going to deny, however, that a poem may
be extended to so great a length as to preclude the pos-
sibility of its operating upon our feelings with unity of
effect, as witness the Fairy Queen. Yet, it should be ob-
served in justice to Spenser that that production is in fact,
what Poe maintains the epic of Milton to be, a succession
of poems having no real connection with each other. Per-
haps the same may be said of the Iliad of Homer. I do not
refer to the Columbiad ^*- because if that ponderous pro-
duction could be crushed into a space no bigger than that
occupied by an epigram, not a drop of genuine poetry could
be forced from it. If I should be asked to fix the limit beyond
which a poem should not be extended, I can only answer
that that must be left to the taste and judgment of the Poet
based upon a careful and appreciative study of the few
great masters. The ordeal of criticism will settle afterwards
how far unity has been preserved or violated. In general it
may be remarked that the plot of a poem should be so
compact, as not to involve scenes and subjects of too great
diversity. As a consequence of this principle, I have always
regarded the Divine Comedy of Dante in its progress
through Hell, Purgatory and Heaven as three distinct
poems.

I do not wish it to be supposed that I look upon Paradise
Lost as in all respects a perfect poem. It has many of the
faults inseparable from all human productions. Indeed I
so far agree with Poe that I concede that by no possibility
can a poem as long as Paradise Lost be all poetry (Cole-
ridge, the profoundest poetical critic of any age, says [it]

A THEORY OF TOETRY 113

ought not to be all poetry ^^ ) from beginning to end. How-
ever noble the theme, there will be parts and aspects which
do not admit of the presence of genuine poetry. Herein,
however, I differ from Poe, inasmuch as I maintain that
these parts may be so raised above the ordinary level of
prose by skillful verse as to preserve the general harmony
of the poem, and not materially to injure its unity as a work
of art. And in the distinction between poetry and a poem,
between the spirit and its body which Poe recognizes when
he comes to develope his theory, but which he blinks, or
ignores altogether in his remarks upon Paradise Lost, I
shall look for the justification of my position.

I hold that the confusion of these terms, of the subjective
essence with the objective form[,] is the source of most of
the errors and contradictions of opinion prevalent upon
this subject. The two should be carefully distinguished, and
should never, in any critical discussion, be allowed to mean
the same thing. What then is Poetry? In the last century if
you had asked this question, you would have been answered
readily enough; and the answer would have been the defi-
nition which I dismissed a little while ago as unworthy of
minute examination. But the deeper philosophical criticism
of the present century will not remain satisfied with this
surface view of poetry. Its aim is to penetrate to its essence,
to analyze and comprehend those impressions and opera-
tions of the mind acting upon, and being acted upon by,
mental or physical phenomena, which when incarnated in
language, are recognized as the utterances of Poetry, and
affect us like the music of angels. That this is the aim of
present criticism I need not attempt to show by quotation,
since it looks out on the pages of the most popular writers
of the day. Indeed so very general has the feeling become
that it is not of the forms of poetry that we need a descrip-

114 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

tion, that if you ask any man of common intelligence who
is not merely a creature of facts and figures, to define
poetry, he will endeavour to convey to you his idea, vague
doubtless and shadowy [,] of that which in his imagination
constitutes its spirit. The poets who attempt to solve the
question look rather into themselves than into the poems
which they have written. One, very characteristically,
when his own poems are considered, defines it as "emo-
tions recollected in tranquillity," and another as "the rec-
ollection of the best and happiest moments of the best
and happiest minds." ^" These definitions— if definitions
they can be called— are unsatisfactory enough, but they
indicate correctly the direction in which the distinctive
principle of poetry is to be sought.

I think that Poe in his eloquent description of the poetic
sentiment as the sense of the beautiful, and in its loftiest
action as a struggle to apprehend a supernal loveliness, a
wild effort to reach a beauty above that which is about us,
has certainly fixed with some definiteness one phase of its
merely subjective manifestation.^^ It is indeed to the in-
spiration which lies in the ethereal, the remote, and the
unknown, that the world owes some of its sweetest poems;
and the poetry of words has never so strange a fascination
as when it seems to suggest more than it utters, to call up
by implication rather than by expression those thoughts
which refuse to be embodied in language, and to hint at
something ineffable and mysterious of which the mind can
attain but partial glimpses. But in making this feeling, and
this feeling only, constitute the poetic sentiment, Poe only
verifies the remark of one of the most luminous critics of
this century, that it is as little to men of peculiar and orig-
inal genius as to the multitude, that we must look for broad
and comprehensive critical theories. Such men have usu-

A THEORY OF POETRY 115

ally one faculty developed at the expense of others; and
the very clearness of their perception of one kind of excel-
lence, impairs their perception of other and different kinds
of excellence. Their theories being drawn from their own
particular tastes and talents, just suffice to cover themselves
and those who resemble them. The theory of Poe leads
directly to the conclusion ( and this he boldly avows ) that
Tennyson is the noblest Poet that ever lived; since no other
poet that ever lived has possessed so much of that ethere-
ality and dim suggestiveness which Poe regards, if not as
the sole, at least as the highest characteristic of a poem. I
am constrained to add too that while the theory leads to
the conclusion that Tennyson is the noblest of poets, it
leads as surely to the conclusion that Poe is next to the
noblest. At the same time I must do Poe the justice to
acquit him of the petty vanity of wishing to lead his readers
to such a conclusion— his theory I regard as a natural and
logical result evolved from his own beautiful and very
peculiar genius. Like the fabled Narcissus, he fell in love
unconsciously with his own shadow in the water. I yield to
few, and only to that extravagant few who would put him
over the head of Milton himself, in my admiration of Poe;
and to none in a love which is almost a worship of Tenny-
son with whose poems I have been familiar from my boy-
hood, and whom I yet continue to study with ceaseless
profit and pleasure. But I can by no means consent to re-
gard him as the first of Poets, and I am sure that Tennyson
himself would repudiate the compliment, and the theory
which seems to justify it. The very merit which that theory
mainly insists upon, is not characteristic of more than one
third part of the poems of Tennyson, who as a poet possesses
(what Poe had not) other qualities besides his intense spir-
itualism, of a more human and earthly tendency which

116 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

could not fail to bring him into affinity with other tastes,
and constrain him to demand a broader creed.

In order to perceive the real narrowness of Poe's theory,
it is but necessary to examine the list of those elements
which he says induces in the poet the true poetical effect,
and mark how carefully he selects only such appearances
as are simply beautiful or simply mysterious, and how sed-
ulously he excludes all that is sublime and terrible in the
phenomena of nature. "The Poet," he says, "recognizes the
ambrosia which nourishes his soul in the bright orbs of
heaven,— in the volutes of the flower,— in the clustering of
low shrubberies— in the slanting of tall Eastern trees— in
the blue distance of mountains— in the grouping of clouds
—in the gleaming of silver rivers— in the repose of seques-
tered lakes. He perceives [it] in the songs of birds— in the
harp of yEolus— in the sighing of the night-wind— in the
perfume of the violet— and in the suggestive odours that
come to him at eventide over dim oceans from far distant
and undiscovered lands." I have not enumerated all the
influences to which he refers, but every one of them, will
be found upon examination to bear the same general char-
acter of quiet and gentle beauty. Let me ask, in my turn, if
there be no excitement of the poetical faculty in the clouded
night as well as in the bright one,— in the rack of clouds
by which the stars are driven in, as well as in the purple
islands and crimson archipelagoes of sunset,— in the terror-
stricken rain fleeing before the tempest, as well as in the
gentle and refreshing showers of April— in the craggy dan-
gers, as well as in the blue distance of mountains— in the
rush of the tornado which opens a road through deep, un-
travelled and illimitable forests, as well as in the faint and
fragrant sigh of the zephyr— in the lightening which shat-
ters some great Admiral ^^ doomed never again to be heard

A THEORY OF POETRY 117

of— in the ear-splitting crash of the thunder, the stricken
pine, and the blasted heath— in the tiger haunted jungles of
India— in the vast Sahara over which the sirocco sweeps
like the breath of hell— in the barren and lonely cape
strown with wrecks, and the precipitous promontory which
refuses to preserve even a single plank of the ships that
have been crushed against it— in the fearful tale suggested
by the discovery of a human skeleton upon a desert and
uninhabited island— in the march of the Pestilence— in the
bloody battle of freedom— and in the strange noises and
wild risks of an Arctic night when the Great Pack has
broken up, and an Arctic storm is grinding and hurling
the floes in thunder against each other.

In the same manner when the eloquent Poet comes to
seek the mental stimulants of poetry, he finds them "in all
unworldly motives— in all holy impulses— in all chivalrous
and self-sacrificing deeds"; but he does not, like the pro-
founder Wordsworth, see them in the tranquil comforts of
home,— in the dignity of honest labour— in the charities
of the beggar— and in those every-day virtues over which
the human soul of Wordsworth's Muse broods in pleased
contemplation. He sees no appeal to the faculty in "the
common things that round us lie",— ^^ in the fairy tales of
Science— in the magic of machinery— in the pen that writes
and the types that immortalize his argument— in truth as
truth merely— and in the lessons of which Nature is so
bountiful that they may be gathered from the very dust
that we tread beneath our feet.

I think that when we recall the many and varied sources
of Poetry, we must perforce confess that it is wholly impos-
sible to reduce them all to the simple element of beauty.
Two other elements at least must be added: and these are
power when it is developed in some noble shape, and truth

118 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

—whether abstract or not— when it affects the common
heart of mankind. For the suggestion of these two addi-
tional principles, I suppose I ought to say that I am in-
debted to Hunt; but I cannot help adding that I had fixed
upon the same trinity of elements long before I became
acquainted with his delightful book on Imagination and
Fancy. ^''

It is then in the feelings awakened by certain moods of
the mind when we stand in the presence of Truth, Power,
and Beauty, that I recognize what we all agree to call
Poetry. To analyze the nature of these feelings, inextricably
tangled as they are with the different faculties of the mind,
and especially with that great faculty which is the prime
minister of Poetry,— Imagination— is not absolutely neces-
sary to the present purpose. Let us be satisfied with having
ascertained the elements which excite in us the sentiment
of Poetry, and, with having thus in a measure fixed its
boundaries; and proceed at once to consider it as it appears
when embodied in language.

Of course I hold with those who maintain that Poetry
may develope itself in various modes— in Painting, Sculp-
ture, Architecture, Music, as well as in words. Indeed there
is no divining in what quarter this subtle and ethereal spirit
may not make its appearance. Though verse is its most
natural garment, it sometimes looks out upon mankind in
the guise of prose where "its delights Are dolphin-like, and
show themselves above The element they sport in." ^^ We
are talking with a lovely, intelligent woman who assures
us that she has no expression for the Poetry that is in her,
and afterwards proceeds to recount [the] story of some
noble martyrdom, when behold! in the proud flush that
mantles her forehead, and the smile that comes up from

A THEORY OF POETRY 119

the depth of her beautiful eyes, the visible presence of
Poetry itself.

Our present business, however, is only with the devel-
opment of Poetry in words.

I look upon every poem as strictly a work of art, and on
the Poet, in the act of putting poetry into verse, simply as
an artist. If the Poet have his hour of inspiration (though
I am so sick of the cant of which this word has been the
fruitful source, that I dislike to use it ) it is not during the
work of composition. A distinction must be made between
the moment when the great thought strikes for the first
time along the brain, and flushes the cheek with the sudden
revelation of beauty, or grandeur,— and the hour of patient
and elaborate execution. The soul of the Poet, though con-
strained to utter itself at some time or other, does not burst
into song as readily as a maiden of sixteen bursts into mu-
sical laughter. Many poets have written of grief, but no
poet with the first agony at his heart, ever sat down to
strain that grief through iambics. ^^ Many poets have given
expression to the first raptures of successful love, but no
poet, in the delirium of the joy, has ever babbled it in ana-
pests. Could this have been possible, the poet would be the
most wonderful of improvisers, and perhaps a poem would
be no better than what improvisations always are.

It would be easy to prove the truth of these remarks by
the confessions of the Poets themselves. Poe has described to
the world the manner in which he slowly built up the poem
of the Raven. ^^ A greater poet than Poe speaks of himself
as "not used to make A present joy the matter of his song," ^^
and of his poems, which the "Muse accepts, deliberately
pleased," ^^ as ''thoughtfully fitted to the Orphean lyre."
The labour through which Tennyson has attained that per-
fection of style which is characteristic of his poems, must

120 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

have been almost infinite. And Matthew Arnold— a poet
not widely known in this country, but one who in the esti-
mation of the English critical Public— sits not very far be-
low Tennyson— separates as I have separated the hour of
insight, from the hour of labour.

"We cannot kindle when we will

The fire that in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still;

In mystery our soul abides;
But tasks in hours of insight willed
May be through hours of gloom fulfilled." -^

Does this fact lessen the merit of the Poet, or the charm of
his poem? I do not see why it should do so, any more than
the fact that the Eve in your library which was once but a
beautiful idea in the mind of its creator, was slowly chiseled
from a block of shapeless marble, should deprive the sculp-
tor of his glory, or mar for a single instant the eflFect of the
faultless symmetry and suggestive countenance of the
statue.

It must not be forgotten that my present aim is to show
how it is possible that a poem, without being all poetry
from beginning to end, may be complete as a work of art.
Now there are two classes of poets differing essentially in
their several characters. The one class desires only to utter
musically its own peculiar feelings, thoughts, sentiments,
or passion, without regard to their truth, or falsehood, their
morality or their want of morality, but in simple reference
to their poetical effect. The other class with more poetry at
its command than the first, regards Poetry simply as the
minister— the highest minister indeed but still only the min-
ister—of Truth, and refuses to address itself to the sense of
the Beautiful alone. The former class is content only to
create Beauty, and writes such poems as the Raven of Poe,

A THEORY OF POETRY 121

or the Corsair of Byron. The latter class aims to create
Beauty also, but it desires at the same time to mould this
Beauty into the shape of a temple dedicated to Truth. It is
to this class we owe the authorship of such poems as the
Paradise Lost of Milton, the lines on Tintern Abbey, and
the Excursion of Wordsworth, and the In Memoriam of
Tennyson. The former class can afford to write brief and
faultless poems because its end is a narrow one; the latter
class is forced to demand an ampler field, because it is influ-
enced by a vaster purpose.

Take a poet of the last mentioned class at the commence-
ment of his work. Imbued with a love of truth, conscious of
the noble character of his mission as a poet, convinced
that a poem should, to use the words of Bacon, help and
confer to magnanimity, morality as well as delectation,^^
he chooses a subject the beauty of which may be so devel-
oped as to subserve an ulterior and loftier end. The end of
Milton's poem is the glory of God and a justification of his
ways toward man. The end of the poems of Wordsworth
is to evolve the spiritual meanings that lie behind the
phenomena of Nature, and to show that the materials of
Poetry may be gathered from the common and familiar
things of existence. The end of the poems of Tennyson who,
in his large Nature touches Poe upon the one side, and
Wordsworth on the other, is at times, as purely the creation
of beauty as Poe could desire it to be. But it is not less
often to inculcate the profoundest lessons of a human phi-
losophy, and to do this he sounds in one poem the remotest
metaphysical depths, he embodies the whole history of a
sorrow in another, and in a third he converts into magnifi-
cent verse, the doubts, fears and perplexities through which
the soul attains at last a ground on which to rest its hopes
of immortality.

122 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

The poet who has such ends as these in view is not Hkely
to measure the length of his poem by the rules of Poe's
theory. If his subject be in the main poetical, he is careless
if its complete development, involve the treatment of here
and there a prosaic topic, and necessitate the composition
of a few thousand instead of one hundred and fourteen
lines. But at the same time in the development of this sub-
ject, he will not forget that he is an artist; and that he is
bound to produce, as far as possible, an harmonious work
of art. He will take care that all his topics have reference
to the general purpose of his poem; and when they are
unpoetical, he may not seldom use them as the musician
uses his discords, or as the painter his shadows, to
strengthen by contrast the effect of that which is genuinely
poetical. He will endeavour also, by every artifice of verse
and language, to raise these necessarily unpoetical portions,
as near as may be, to the height of the loftier portions of
his creation. Thus Milton has contrived, by a melodious
arrangement, to impart a wonderful charm to a mere list
of geographical names. And thus Tennyson by clearness
and sometimes picturesqueness of expression, and by the
unequalled perfection of his rhythm, has succeeded in
giving a poetical air to thoughts which in any other hands
would have been the baldest and most prosaic abstractions.

It seems to me that I have now made plain what I mean
when I say that a poem may be complete without being, in
the highest and most legitimate sense, poetical in all its
parts. If a poem have one purpose, and the materials of
which it is composed be so selected and arranged as to
help enforce it, we have no right to regard it as a series of
minor poems because there may occur an occasional flaw in
the structure. And he who persists in reading such a poem
as so many short ones, besides losing the pleasure of con-

A THEORY OF POETRY 123

templating the symmetrical development of a work [of]
art, will fail to grasp the central purpose of the Poet.

It seems to me that I may strengthen still farther my
theory that truth as much as beauty is a source of poetry, by
a reference to the works of a Poet who always refused to
separate them. When Poe speaks of the impossibility of
"reconciling the obstinate oils and waters of Poetry and
Truth," he is, unconsciously to himself, confounding Truth
with Science and Matter of fact. It is of course impossible
to see poetry in the details of business, in the arguments
and commonplaces of politicians, or in the fact that the
three angles of any triangle are equal to two right angles.
But there is poetry in the truths of the mind and heart, in
the truths that affect us in our daily relations as men, and
even in the grand, general truths of Science, when they
become familiar to us, and help us to understand and ap-
preciate the beauty of the Universe. This is what Coleridge
meant in part when he represents Poetry as "the blossom
and the fragrance of all human knowledge, human
thoughts, human passions, emotions, language," ^* and
what Wordsworth meant when he not less eloquently de-
scribes it "as the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge;
the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of
all Science." ^^ But a few specimens from those poems, the
source of whose inspiration is truth, will do more than any
remarks of mine to establish my opinion.

The poet who first taught the few simple, but grand and
impressive truths which have blossomed into the poetic
harvest of the 19th century, was Wordsworth. The poetic
literature of the age which preceded the appearance of
Wordsworth was in general wholly artificial and conven-
tional. In saying this, I do not mean to condemn it— on the

124 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

contrary, I am grateful to those poets who gave expression
to the very httle poetry which was to be found in the forms,
fashions, and sentiments of an age which, in the face of
the materiahsm about us, I beheve to have been infinitely
more material than the present one. But the moment these
poets wandered away from society to enter the domain of
Nature, they became blind, or if they saw at all, it was
through a haze of falsehood. The descriptive poems of
Pope are below contempt. I need not remind you of the
famous moonlight scene in the Iliad which Coleridge, De
Quincey and Macaulay have shown to be full of the most
absurd inaccuracies. Passages equally inaccurate might be
taken from Windsor Forest. It was to Wordsworth, mainly,
that we owe that couching of the Poetic eye which enables
it to observe truly the appearances of Nature, and to de-
scribe them correctly.

I have already said something as to the aims of the poems
of Wordsworth. When he began to write, it was with the
purpose of embodying in all the poetic forms at his com-
mand, the two truths of which the poets and readers of the
time seemed to him completely incognizant. These were,
first, that the material and stimulants of poetry might be
found in some of the commonest things about us, and sec-
ond that behind the sights, sounds and hues of external
Nature, there is "something more than meets the senses,
something undefined and unutterable which must be felt
and perceived by the soul" ^^ in its moments of rapt con-
templation. It is this latter feeling that constitutes the orig-
inality of Wordsworth. It is not to be found in Shakspeare
or his contemporaries. It is not to be found in Milton, and
of course not in Milton's successors, not in Dryden or Pope,
not in Thomson or Cowper. It appeared for the first time

A THEORY OF POETRY 125

in literature, in the lines of Wordsworth written near Tin-
tern Abbey. Since then it has been caught up and shadowed
forth in every shape by every poet from Byron to the pres-
ent English Laureate.^^ I cannot understand how anyone
can read that profound poem, and remain satisfied with
the dictum of Poe that the sole office of a poem should be
the development of beauty alone. I shall not apologize for
quoting an extract from it. After describing the mere ani-
mal pleasure with which the appearances of Nature affected
his youth, the poet proceeds to speak of those moods in
which he has looked behind those appearances to detect
the spirit of which they were but the varied expression.

"I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood
Their colours, and their forms, were tlien to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love
That had no need of a remoter charm.
By thought supplied, or any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. That time is past,
And all its aching joys, are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn, nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed, for such loss I would believe
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on Nature not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh, nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns

126 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

And the round ocean, and the Hving air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

It is in the prefatory verses to the Excursion, that he
announces his doctrine that the domain of Poetry lies as
well in the familiar as in the remote,

"Beauty— a living presence of the earth
Surpassing the most fair ideal forms
Which craft of delicate spirits hath composed
From earth's materials— waits upon my steps;
Pitches her tents before me as I move,
An hourly neighbour. Paradise and groves,
Elysian, fortunate fields, like those of old
Sought in the Atlantic main, why should they be
A history only of departed things.
Or a mere fiction of what never was?
For tlie discerning intellect of man
When wedded to this goodly universe
In love and holy passion, shall find these
A simple produce of the common day." ^^

Wordsworth indeed always regarded the poet as a teacher
and in the elucidation in various modes of the ideas con-
veyed in the passages which I have quoted, he recognized
the business of his life. And in sooth if he had done nothing
more than give these truths to the world, he would be en-
titled to our lasting gratitude. In his many exemplifications
of them in his poems, he has opened new and unexplored
regions of loveliness, he has shown us how it is possible by
the mere act of pressing a spade into the earth, to bring it
up rich in poetical ore; and he has taught us how the soul
may detect, not only in the changing clouds and the suc-
cession of the flowers, but in the fixed and steady linea-

A THEORY OF POETRY 127

ments of rock and mountain, [an] expression ever varying;
and as if he had given us another sense, though in reahty
he has only roused us to the knowledge of one which we
must often have used unconsciously, but whose revelations
we had, in our ignorance, interpreted wrongly he has en-
abled us to see even in the material universe about us, the
actual presence of the power of the Invisible.

But it is not the revelation alone of the two cardinal doc-
trines of his poetic creed that we owe to Wordsworth. We
are indebted to him for the inculcation of a love of nature
which, to the passionate extent it was carried by Words-
worth, had never before found expression in the literature
of any age or people. We are indebted to him for hundreds
of single lines, which in their brief compass enshrine more
beauty and wisdom than is to be found in many poems, and
which have stamped themselves like proverbs on the com-
mon memory. In the two books of the Excursion entitled
A Churchyard among the Mountains, and which following
out my theory, I have always separated in my mind from
the body of the work, as composing a complete poem in
themselves, he has described with exquisite pathos, the
heart-histories of the humble; and in the Prelude—

An Orphic song indeed
A song divine of high and passionate thoughts,
To their own music chanted" ^^

he has given us with as much metaphysical truth, as poetic
power, an account of the gradual growth and formation of
a poetic mind, while in the ode on the Intimations of Im-
mortality from Recollections of early Childhood, which,
if we except perhaps Milton's Hymn of the Nativity, is
undoubtedly the noblest ode in the language, he has flung
a new and sacred lustre over the life of Infancy.

128 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

In this brief summary, I have by no means gone over all
the ground upon which Wordsworth has built the immor-
tal structure of his fame. I have said enough, however, to
show how profoundly he recognized the inspiration of
Truth. But I cannot help calling the attention further to
the manner in which the element of truth appears in his
descriptions of the feminine character. No other poet save
Tennyson, and the great bard who imagined Cordelia and
Miranda, Ophelia and Imogen, has ever depicted that char-
acter with the purity, tenderness and fidelity of Words-
worth. There are no amatory poems in Wordsworth— none
at least of that sort which Moore and Byron have made
popular, in which a woman is in the same breath addressed
as an angel, and wooed as the frailest of sinners. It is usu-
ally only in her relations of wife, mother, sister or friend
that Wordsworth alludes to woman; and he speaks of her
always with the respect, and at the same time, with the
gentle and courteous freedom of an affectionate and hon-
ourable husband, or brother. Familiar as they probably are
to all present, I cannot resist the temptation of quoting
the lines in which the interesting wife of the poet will go
down to posterity

"She was a phantom of delight
When first she gleamed upon my sight;
A lovely Apparition, sent
To be a moment's ornament;
Her eyes as stars of twilight fair,
Like twilight's too her dusky hair;
But all things else about her drawn
From May-time and the cheerful dawn,
A dancing Shape, an Image gay.
To haunt, to startle and waylay.

A THEORY OF POETRY 129

I saw her upon nearer view

A spirit yet a woman too!

Her household motions Hght and free

And steps of virgin hberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A creature not too bright and good

For human nature's daily food;

For ti'ansient sorrows, simple wiles.

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.

And now I see with eye serene
The very pulse of the machine;
A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
A traveller between life and death;
The reason firm, the temperate will,
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
A perfect woman nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit still, and bright
With something of an angel light." ^^

Wordsworth never could have been brought to agree
with Poe that a true poem is written for the poem's sake
alone. The theory which Poe very naturally evolved from
his own genius, Wordsworth quite as naturally would have
thought incompatible with the high office of a poet as
thinker, seer, teacher, and bard. On the other hand, the
broader vision of Tennyson has enabled him to detect the
truth which lies upon the side of Poe, and the truth which
lies upon the side of Wordsworth. The proof that a poet
may aim at beauty alone without respect to an ulterior
purpose, he sees in every daisy and buttercup of an English
meadow.

"O, to what uses shall we put
The wild-weed flower that simply blows?
And is there any moral shut
Within the bosom of the rose?" ^^

130

THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

But not the less does he recognize the right of the poet to
make his art the vehicle of great moral and philosophical
lessons, not less does he recognize his right to grapple with
the darkest problems of man's destiny, to discuss the fears
and perplexities of the spirit, and the faith which triumphs
over them, and even to drop now and then, a silken line
into the dim sea of metaphysics.

I have been induced to undertake a refutation of Poe's
theory while attempting to establish another which ( such
is the difficulty of the subject) may not improbably turn
out to be equally objectionable, not because I believe it to
be the one most prevalently adopted, but because I regard
it as the one most artfully put, and at the same time most
likely to excite interest in a Southern audience. I have not
time to examine any other of those theories which seem to
me to present false views of poetiy. There is an admirably
written essay prefixed to the second edition of the poems
of Matthew Arnold in which that poet endeavours to show
that all the poets of the present century have been working
on mistaken principles, and that the ancients were the only
true masters of the poetical art. A theory (to the full as
true as Poe's ) might also be drawn from the works of the
Brownings which would lead to the exclusion of Poe from
the roll of great poets, as surely as the theory of Poe would
lead to the exclusion of the Brownings. I do not regret,
however, the necessity of passing over the many plausible
half-truths which go to make up the creed of this or that
poet, as the principal object I have proposed to myself in
this essay, is to call attention to the narrowness of them all.
A very little examination will generally prove that they
have grown out of the idiosyncrasies of the poets them-
selves, and so necessarily seldom attain a greater breadth

A THEORY OF POETRY 131

than suffices to shelter the theorist and the models from
which he has drawn his arguments and his inspiration. Yet
every one of these creeds has its disciples; and the con-
sequence is, the growth of particular schools in the study
of which the taste becomes limited, and the poetic vision,
except in one direction, is deprived of all its clearness. I
am not protesting against an evil existing only in my imag-
ination. I have known more than one young lover of poetry
who read nothing but Browning, and there are hundreds
who have drowned all the poets of the past and present in
the deep music of Tennyson. But is it not possible with the
whole wealth of English literature at our command to at-
tain views broad enough to enable us to do justice to genius
of every class and character [?] That certainly can be no
true poetical creed which leads directly to the neglect of
those masterpieces which though wrought hundreds or
thousands of years ago, still preserve the freshness of their
perennial youth. It is not from gratitude simply— though
we owe them much— to the many poets whose "thoughts
have made rich the blood of the world" ^^ that I desire to
press their claims upon attention. In the possession of a
fame as immortal as Truth and Nature, they can aflPord to
look with indifference upon a temporary suspension of
admiration. The injury falls only on such as slight them,
and the penalty they pay, is a contracted and contracting
insight, the shutting on them forever of many glorious vistas
into the universe of mind and matter, and the loss of
thousands of images of grace and beauty and grandeur.
OhI rest assured that there are no stereotyped forms of
poetry. It is a vital power, and may assume any guise, and
take any shape— at one time towering like an Alp in the
darkness, and at another sunning itself in the bell of a tulip.

132 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

or the cup of a lily. Until you shall have learned to recog-
nize it in all its various developments, you will have no
right to echo back the benison of Wordsworth,

"Blessings be on them and eternal praise,
The poets who on earth have made us heirs
Of Truth and pure delight in heavenly lays!" ^^

f^_yCLppenaix

William J. Grayson

Jj^hat 10 iJ'oetrvf

llllllltllllllllllllllllllllllllllMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIII

What is Poetry? What constitutes the poetic Character?
What are the distinctive features of the School of Enghsh
Poets?

These inquiries are short, but they cover a large space. We
will confine our present article to the first— to the question,
what is Poetry?

Can any question be more common-place? To ask what
is prose would hardly be more so. Who is unable to answer
either the one or the other? In the multitude of books, what
reader is at a loss to determine which one is poetry and
which prose? Yet, if we judge from the number and vague-
ness of the descriptions of poetry which we frequently hear,
we must conclude that it is the most difficult of all things
to understand or define. It is a mysterious power. Every-
body admires it, but nobody condescends to tell what it is.
Poet and philosopher, orator and critic, have aU in turn
exalted it with equal zeal, if not equal knowledge, and have
so clothed it in robes of purple and fine linen, as to induce
us to regard it as something supernatural and divine.

It is natural enough that the Poet should magnify his
calling. His craft in his eyes is something more than human.
It gives to airy nothings local habitations and names. It is
the gift of a celestial power. The Muse speaks through the

135

136 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Poet and inspires his song. He never opens his hps without
supphcating her aid. Homer invokes her to sing the wrath
of his hero and its dire evils to the Grecian host. Virgil
supplicates all the divinities of earth and heaven to help him
while he instructs the husbandman in the science of sowing
and reaping, of planting the vine and olive, of managing
bees and cattle. Milton asks the Heavenly Muse's aid when
he essays things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme. It is a
divinity always that sings, the poet is the instrument only.
He himself has about him something that is divine. No
vulgar joys or employments command attention with him
on whom, at his birth, Melpomene has looked with favoring
eyes. He is prophet as well as poet— sacer vates. He belongs
to the sanctuary. Let the multitude— the profanum vulgus—
stand apart and afar. His communings are with Gods or
Celestial Spirits. He is borne aloft by no earthly wing— non
usitata penna— and his head is among the stars.

We submit ourselves to these voices of the oracle and our
minds are filled with vast and vague conceptions of the char-
acter of the Poet and the nature of his art. Now and then an
infidel is rude enough, perhaps, to question their divinity.
Occasionally a barbarian may be found savage as Gole-
ridge's Schoolmaster, old Bowyer," when animadverting on
the performances of his young bards whose verses were
filled with Lyres, Pierian Springs and inspiring Muses.—
"Lyre, harp!" he would say; poh, boy, you mean pen and
ink; "Pierian Spring!" ah, true, the pump in the Cloister
yard; "the Muse!"— yes, yes, I understand, you are thinking
of your nurse's daughter. But such carping spirits are out-
side barbarians and evidently come within the meaning and
limits of Horace's "oJi profanum vulgus et arceo." ^ Those
of gentler training hold a better faith and cherish devout
and indefinite conceptions of the artist and the sacred art—

APPENDIX 137

"the vision and the faculty divine." It is their attention that
the Poet invokes in his "favete Unguis," and not that of the
incredulous and profane.

But if the Poet glorifies his calling, the Orator is hardly
behind him in doing it reverence. In the exuberance of his
rhetoric he forgets or scorns all the requisitions of logic or
sober thought. How the Roman orator expatiates on the
divine arts, in his defence of the poet Archias! ^ "Other arts,
he tells us, are dependent on learning, practice, persevering
efforts, but the Poet derives his power from nature alone;
he is self-dependent; there breathes through his soul a cer-
tain divine spirit, the peculiar gifts of the Gods." Hence, he
says, our Ennius, the old Roman bard, called the Poets
sacred. Among the most refined and cultivated nations, their
name is hallowed. No people is so barbarous as not to rever-
ence it. Rocks and deserts echo the Poet's song. Cruel wild
beasts stand still arrested by the charms of his voice. Cities
and States contend for the honor of being his birth place.
What are the glorious exploits of the hero if he fails to
obtain the aid of the sacred bard, who alone can give them
immortality [?] The wonderful deeds of his own consulship,
the wisdom, the eloquence, the statesmanship, which saved
the great republic and crushed the conspiracy of Catiline,
would have been incomplete, and without their crowning
glory in his eyes, had the Muse's votary, whose cause he was
defending, withheld the expected eulogy.

Grave Philosophers take up the subject with almost equal
enthusiasm. If Plato banished the Poets from his ideal re-
public, it was, perhaps, an indirect compliment to the
seductive powers of their art which overshadowed the
Philosopher's less alluring dreams and visions. But one at
least equal to Plato, does all honor to the gentle craft. No
more noble sketch of the limits and purposes of poetry can

138 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

be conceived than that which Bacon gives in the "Advance-
ment of Learning," nor is tliere one that more severely re-
bukes the low and vile purposes to which the art of poetry
has been sometimes degraded by its unworthy votaries. He
makes it to be [the] office of Poetry to repair the inequalities
of fortune, to redress the wrongs of virtue, to introduce us
into a higher world of being, to cheer, purify and elevate the
heart.

The Poets, Orators, and Philosophers may exalt the divine
art extravagantly, but they are honest as well as earnest in
their praise. Their commendations do no harm if they are
received with a discreet and proper spirit. We are not able
to say as much for the Critics. Their zeal is not always at-
tendant on knowledge. They love refinements and subtle
speculations. They are not content vdth seeing through a
millstone no better or farther than other people. They make
poetry not divine only, but unintelligible. They embody the
eulogies of rhetorician and poet in canons and definitions.
In discussing the nature of poetry, they do what Selden ^
says the Catholic does in the question of transubstantiation
—they turn rhetoric into logic, not without evil conse-
quences. Poetry becomes transmuted, in their hands, into
an indefinable something, which is neither prose nor verse,
but which may be found indiflFerently in either. Poets and
Orators exalt poetry vaguely by extravagant figures of
speech. The Critics turn these figures into curious distinc-
tions and definitions, until at last we are puzzled to know
where poetry or prose begins or ends.— Poetry becomes
prose and prose becomes poetry. The confusion of ideas
and language is endless, and we talk of prose poems and
poetic prose, as if these terms were not as incongruous as
the phrases, round square and oblong circle.

These vague conceptions naturally lead to false theories.

APPENDIX 139

They are numerous accordingly. One Critic announces,
authoritatively, what he calls the invariable principles of
poetry, and according to these, gives judgment on all
poems and poets. Another decides that it is identical with
the delineation of the forms of external nature or of passion
and emotion, subjects it to the terms of a corresponding
definition, and thus limits the art to one only of its numer-
ous departments. So Aristotle, if one may venture to intro-
duce so great a name, defines poetry to be an imitative art.
He had in his mind, probably, that province of poetry which
exhibits to the eye, on the stage, a mimic representation of
the actions and passions of mankind, and which makes so
large a part of the glory of Athenian literature. To this alone
the definition seems properly applicable. So every Critic has
his bed of justice in the shape of theory or canon, and poetry
is cramped or curtailed to suit its length, breadth and
depth.

Nothing is more amusing, in their way, than these fanci-
ful standards of criticism, and nothing more ridiculous than
the conclusions to which they sometimes lead. One Critic,
in conformity witli his essential principles of poetry, deter-
mines that certain classes of poets are no poets at all. They
are not conversant with that order of subjects to which, by
his essential principles, all poetry is confined. He excludes
the Satirists, for example, from the precincts of Parnassus.
The satires of Juvenal, Horace, Dryden, Churchill, are not
poems. Mr. Harnay ^ thinks that the very existence of the
doubt as to their claims shows the accuracy of the theory by
which they are excluded. His inference ought to be that the
absurdity of the conclusion proves the falsity of the theory.
The doubt exists no where except in the minds of those who
maintain the opinion that produces it.

Poets, termed critics, like Bowles ^ and Wordsworth, are

140 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

as prone as others to false speculation and erroneous judg-
ments. Wordsworth began his career with a creed of essen-
tial principles. In those days he disparaged Virgil, thought
slightingly of Gray's elegy, repudiated Pope, and could see
nothing admirable in Johnson's magnificent imitations of
Juvenal. He lived to renounce his theory, at least in prac-
tice. Indeed, he freely confessed, when older and wiser, that
he once talked a great deal of what he was willing his friends
should entirely forget. Yet he was tenacious of his creed. He
did not often praise the works of other poets. He was unlike
Walter Scott in that respect. He was also unlike him in
being always ready to defend his own. In one of these de-
fences, contained in a letter to an American friend, who had
ventured to hesitate dislike to the simple beauties of the
"Idiot Boy," he replies to the criticism in these words: "You
begin what you say upon the Idiot Boy,' with the observa-
tion that nothing is a fit subject for poetry which does not
please. But here follows a question: Does not please whom?
Some have little knowledge of natural imagery of any kind
and, of course, little relish for it; some are disgusted by the
very mention of the words pastoral poetry, sheep or shep-
herds; some cannot tolerate a poem with a ghost or any
supernatural agency in it. * * * * Others are disgusted
with the naked language of some of the most interesting
passions of men because it is indelicate or gross or vulgar,
as many fine ladies could not bear expressions in the
'Mother' and the 'Thorn,' and as in the instance of Adam
Smith, who could not endure the ballad of 'Clym of the
Clough,' because the author had not written like a gentle-
man. <^ <* * * I return then to the question, please whom
or what? I answer, human nature, as it has been and will be.
And where are we to find the best measure of this? I answer,
from within." ^

APPENDIX

141

All this is very true, and it is precisely because it is tine
that we see so great a variety in the poetry of all nations.
Because tastes are different, therefore poetry assumes a
diversity of forms, applies itself to all subjects, addresses
itself to all minds, and becomes, like them, multiform in
shape and character. The resources of the poets for pleasing
must be as various as the tastes to be pleased. If there are
"Idiot Boys" there must be "Londons," and "Rapes of the
Lock," and "Elegies in Country Church Yards." If we have
Wordsworths, we must have Virgils and Popes also. The
diversity in taste growing out of the difference, mental and
moral, of human minds, is natural and unavoidable. It is this
variety that is alone consonant to what Wordsworth calls
the "eternal nature and great moving spirit of things." ^
Each class of readers has its favorite subjects and poets, and
admires and prefers them with equal reason.

These varieties in taste and judgment meet us at every
turn. There is hardly a poem in the English language, or we
suppose in any other, which is not differently valued by dif-
ferent classes of readers. Ossian was once almost universally
admired. Blair gives it a high place among poems. The great
Napoleon was addicted to reading it. Dr. Johnson, on the
other hand, treated scornfully the ghostly creations of the
Northern bard, and the same diversity of appreciation still
exists, with, perhaps, a diminished number in the ranks of
his admirers.

The old dramatic writers have been at one time neglected,
at another eulogized without limit.

The ancient ballad poetry, once almost forgotten, has
again taken possession of the public mind. The ruder and
more uncouth the language and the metre, the greater the
admiration. Chevy Chace modernized as criticized by Addi-
son, was not judged to be equal to the old rough original.^^

142 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Everybody read, everybody imitated or admired. Still there
were exceptions. The sturdy old master of vigorous common
sense ridiculed ballads and imitators. He was accustomed
to say that any one may write such verses all day long. He
sustained theory by example. Boswell gives us a specimen
of an extemporized imitation produced to prove the asser-
tion. It reminds us of Goldsmith's Edwin and Angelina,
although not quite as pathetic:

Hermit hoar in solemn cell

Wearing out life's evening gray,
Strike thy bosom, sage, and tell

Where is bliss and which the way;
Thus he said, and saying, sighed,

Scarce repressed the starting tear,
When the hoary sage replied.

Come my lad, and drink some beer.^^

A very pleasant termination certainly, and much more
natural than that of Chevy Chace, where men fought upon
their stumps when deprived of their legs I

When their legs were smitten oflF
They fought upon their stumps.

The "Ancient Marinere," the wonder of ballads, creates
the same diversity of judgment with different classes of
readers. Some think it the most charming poem in the lan-
guage, and are delighted with its ghastly dead men, putrid
seas, and crawling abominations. Others judge it to be
drawn out to a wearisome length; its hideous images pro-
duce disgust at last instead of giving them pleasure; they
regard it as offending against the first principle of good
poetry, according to the authority of Coleridge himself— the
principle that every poem should be common sense at
least.^^ They insist that whatever amount of rhyme it may
contain, there is no reason whatever in a poem which rep-

APPENDIX 143

resents a wedding guest as caught by a lunatic on his way to
a kinsman's marriage, held by his button, during the night,
within sight and hearing of the merriment, and made to
listen to the long yarn of an old sailor, unable or unwilling to
get away. They believe that the glittering eye, instead of
fixing the guest, would assuredly have induced him to run
away or call for the help of the nearest police officer, and
that it would have been much more in conformity with
probability to make the seizure of the unfortunate listener
happen, not before, but after the festival, when being filled
with wine and wassail, the maudlin carouser would have
been a fit, and perhaps a willing auditor, to the lunatic old
Salt.

Sir Walter Scott, as often as he read the "Vanity of human
expectations," ^^ shed tears of sympathy and delight over
the noble and pathetic picture of common disappointment
and sorrow; Wordsworth could find nothing in it worthy of
remark, except a clumsy personification at the beginning.

The world of readers admire Shakspeare enthusiastically.
Coleridge thinks it as impossible to displace advantageously
a single word in his poetry as it is to push out a stone from
one of the pyramids with one's hand,^^ although, it may be
remarked in passing, commentators have been pushing
these words out and in, with their pens, for more than a hun-
dred years. Other critics, like Voltaire, describe him as a
barbarous violater of the unities and other principles of the
legitimate drama, and Byron and Rogers, to say nothing of
inferior names, are cold in their devotions to the Bard of
Avon.

We regard Milton as supreme in sublimity and beauty,
"his soul is like a star that shines apart;" ^^ some of the
German critics class him with Klopstock and the Paradise
Lost with the Messiah.

144 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Tennyson's last poem, which, to some readers, is Tenny-
son's "Maud," to others is Tennyson's "MaudHn."

On the night of his attack on the heights above Quebec,
while silently dropping down the stream with muffled oars,
beneath the overhanging shadows of its dark and lofty
banks, under all the excitement of a dangerous military
movement, on the eve of a battle which changed the for-
tunes of a continent. General Wolfe slowly repeated the
elegy in a country church yard; and now, gentlemen, he
said, on concluding, I would rather be the author of this
poem than to be the victor in a great battle. Others find in
it nothing but borrowed phrases ingeniously dovetailed.—
They think the Curfew bell was tolled by the poet at an im-
proper hour, and consider the charge on the owl, of com-
plaining against intrusion on her solitaiy reign, as signally
unjust to that sweet singer of the night season, as Words-
worth considers her to be. Coleridge professed to prefer
Collins to Gray, whom he affected to believe a man of taste
and learning only, without imagination. Whereas, in truth,
if such chimeras as the Mariner or Abyssinean maid had
presented themselves to Gray's pure taste, he would have
run away from them with horror and disgust.

No writer writes to all minds. No preacher is able to reach
all hearts. Even Wordsworth himself affords a strong illus-
tration of the truth of this maxim, substantially his own. He
has been unduly depreciated— he has been as unreasonably
praised. Some place him at the head of the writers of his
age, others talk of him with slender reverence. They are
even disposed to think that as the "Curse of Kehama," and
"Madoc," and "Thalaba," have passed away and been for-
gotten, the "Prelude" and the "Excursion," the "Idiot Boy"
and the "White Doe of Rylestone," will follow on the same
road to oblivion; that in professing to discover a new or

APPENDIX 145

better way to the hill of the muses, he really bewildered
himself in the fogs at its base; and that he came into the
community of Poets ungraciously and ungracefully, with
the air of a quack doctor in possession of a patent medicine,
and not like a regular bred son of the craft. Coleridge him-
self, although the most partial of critics, admits that there
are lines in his friend's verses absolutely intolerable— lines
introduced, it would seem, as he says, for no purpose but to
vindicate his peculiar principles of art.^*' We may naturally
expect to find something hard and mechanical in the man,
and in his works, who would set out to make poetry in the
nineteenth century in conformity with a certain newly in-
vented theory. And just so it is. He was a sort of verse making
machine all his life. He lived to manufacture verses. His
morning and evening walks were taken to levy poetical
black mail from every stock and stone, every shrub and
flower, every bird and butterfly.— The daisy that to Peter
Bell was a daisy and nothing more, was to Wordsworth a
very different and much more important object— it was a
peg to hang verses upon. He turned over every pebble in
his path to see if there might not be a stanza lurking be-
neath it. If he sat down on an occasional bench it produced
a poem. If he visited a river it was made to rhyme. If he re-
turned again to its banks it was forced to do double duty.
Not an old thorn bush in his neighborhood escaped the gen-
eral tax. Every creature within reach, asses and idiots,
pedlars and prostitutes, brought grist to his indefatigable
mill. He wrote with a sort of malice prepense. He walked to
make verses. He traveled to make verses. He never thought
of his bill but only of his rhymes. He looked on nature as a
kind of poetical milch cow, which he was never tired of
milking— a mass of raw material to be made up into metrical
dresses. He interrogated her without ceasing, examined her

146 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

minutest details, and turned every discovery to a rhyming
purpose. He deals with her as a task master requiring his
work to be done. He hunts up the daffodil or daisy, he does
not stumble on them accidentally like Burns, when he turns
one up with his plough. See, accordingly, the difference in
the manner of the two writers— the words of Burns seem to
gush from his heart, warm, fresh, touching in their tender-
ness and beauty. Wordsworth's utterances are mechanical,
as if he had walked a mile with a trowel in his hand and dug
up the flower over which he makes his lamentations with
the express purpose to make them. There is about his poems
what Coleridge calls "a matter of factness," and which he
imputes to the over minuteness of the descriptions.^^ But
Coleridge has not asked himself what this over minuteness
proceeded from. It was itself an effect, not a cause. The
whole sprung from the trade like spirit of his friend's poetry.
Not that he wrote for gain. He wrote to write. It was his
business, his occupation, his trade. He wrote from the eye
and the head, and not, like Burns, from the heart. The verses
came from him not like a stream flowing from a fountain,
but like water pumped into and from a reservoir. The ob-
jects producing them were not ready witnesses volunteering
a willing testimony, they were dragged into court and tor-
tured into confession. He regarded his subjects and charac-
ters in the manner of a spectator ab extra— to use another
phrase of Coleridge concerning him; he feels for them, not
with them. He looked on nature as capability Brown,^^ the
great landscape gardener, was accustomed to look, only
to see what could be made of her in reference to his art.
Each of them valued her as a means to accomplish an end.
What is here to make a garden, asked one; what can I turn
into a poem was the inquiry of the other.

In this infinite diversity of taste and judgment so obvious

APPENDIX 147

to all, if a poet's claims to be free of the corporation of poets
are disputed by some theoriser in essential principles, we
may reply, therefore, to the assertion, that he does not
please as a poet, by asking Wordsworth's question— does not
please whom? The minds are infinitely varied to whom
poetry is addressed. Poetry itself is endless in its forms and
in its grades of merit. Parnassus is not a hill of precipitous
rocky sides, like the stone mountain in Georgia, with a nar-
row summit, affording scanty accommodation to a few great
masters of song, as some who know nothing about it affect
to think. Its sides are sloping woodlands resonant with
melodies and harmonies various as the songs of birds, from
the chirping of the sparrow to the warbled notes of the
nightingale or mocking bird, each one of them with a charm
of soothing and delight for some one or other among the
listeners. The great masters of song alone may occupy the
summit, but every thicket and dell and bosky bourne from
side to side, has its attendant melody. Let them all be en-
joyed according to the hearer's taste, and carefully and
reverently cherished, but let no rascal marauder enter the
sacred precincts to murder or maim the humblest and
gentlest of its inmates. The least pretending of the poets
gives pleasure, and helps to fill up the measure of sweet
sounds acceptably to some indulgent and attentive ear. One
makes nature his subject, hill and valley, grove and field,
flowers and trees and running streams, and the thousand
sights and sounds that she presents in summer and winter,
spring or autumn. Another delineates the passions that agi-
tate the heart— love, fear, hate, revenge. Others, as Byron
says, "rise to truth and moralize their song," not stoop to
truth, as originally written,^^ and array their moral teach-
ings in sonorous and attractive verse. Others scourge the
vices of their times with indignant rage and scorn, like

148 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Juvenal, or with playful severity, like Horace. Another is
the poet of refinement, of wit, sense and polished society,
and condenses the maxims of life in pointed, brilliant and
harmonious verse. And so on without end, all deserve and
may receive admiration and applause, and we may prefer
one or the other without derogating from the claims of
either to his own proper measure of honor and reward. All
this is plain enough, so long as we are free from the be-
wildering phantoms of a theory. But let the critic once sei
up his peculiar standard of poetry, founded on what he con-
siders the invariable principles of art, and no one can tell
at what conclusions he may arrive. Instead of sound and
catholic taste co-extensive with art and nature, he substi-
tutes some narrow judgment as limited as his own views. He
excludes himself from the length and breadth of nature and
poetry to wall himself up in some corner of their domain,
insisting that there is nothing beyond his own boundaries.

Setting aside, then, the speculations and refinements on
what is supposed to be the essential principle of poetry and
their mischievous consequences, let us try to arrive at a
more homely and common sense, as well as comprehensive
and logical answer to the question with which we began—
the question, what is poetry?

It will help us in knowing what it is, to determine first
what it is not. It is not, then, the nature of the thoughts ex-
pressed that makes a book a poem. It is not beauty of
imagery, nor play of fancy, nor creative power of imagina-
tion, nor expression of emotion or passion, nor delineation
of character, nor force, refinement or purity of language,
that constitutes the distinctive quality of poetry. Because it
is evident that there are passages in prose capable of being
compared, in all these properties, not disadvantageously,
with the noblest productions of the ancient or modem muse.

APPENDIX 149

Take, for an example of beautiful imagery, the often quoted
passage from Milton's Tractate on Education, where he
expatiates on the delights of learning, "I will lead you to a
hill side laborious, indeed, on the first ascent, but else so
smooth, so green, so full of goodly prospects, and melodious
sounds on every side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more
charming," or Burke's eulogy on the adventurous hardihood
of the seamen of America, or his description of the French
Queen, radiant with hope and joy, at whose slightest need
the sword of every gallant gentleman should have been
ready to fly from its scabbard. Where in poetry shall we find
invention, fancy, imagination, more abundantly exhibited
than in the writings of Defoe or Fielding, or Scott or
Dickens? What poet excites more readily than they do the
emotions of pity or love, contempt or hatred, anger or fear.
And yet, unless it be metaphorically only or to sustain a
theory, no one calls Tom Jones or Robinson Crusoe or Ivan-
hoe a poem. The grandest example of the sublime is the
simple passage from Genesis, "God said let there be light
and there was light." The most exquisitely beautiful of all
ethical teaching is from the sermon on the Mount, "Ye have
heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy friends and
hate thy enemies, but I say unto you, love your enemies,
bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you,
and pray for them that despitefully use you and abuse you,
that ye may be the children of your Father in Heaven, for
He maketh his sun to shine on the evil and on the good, and
sendeth his rain on the just and on the unjust." But all this
is plain prose nevertheless. A prose translation of the Illiad,
containing every sentiment and description faithfully ex-
pressed, would not be a poem. The passage from Milton, if
turned into his own sonorous verse, would be as genuine
poetry as the Comus or Paradise Lost. Turned into metrical

150 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

form by the commonest hand even, the prose is changed
into poetry, the words remaining the same.

We lead your footsteps to a mountain's side,
Laborious on the first ascent, but else
So smooth, so green, so full of goodly sights,
And sounds melodious, that the harp itself.
Or song of Orpheus not more charming seemed.

But if it is not the thought, sentiment, imagery, either
grand or beautiful, that makes the distinctive quality of
poetry, what is it that does? If the distinguishing property
be not in the substance, it must be in the form of the work,
if not in the conceptions it must be in the words that express
them.

But the words of a language are common to poetry and
prose.

It must, then, be in the form of arranging words, that we
find the peculiar something that constitutes poetry. Cole-
ridge defines prose to be "words in their best order," and
poetry, the "best words in the best order." ^^ If he had made
the distinction to consist in the order, and not in the words,
it would be nearer the truth. For certainly the "best words"
are as fully the property of fine passages in prose as they
are of poetry. It is in the order, then, and not in tlie words,
that the point of distinction is to be found.— Poetry must be
defined, not from the ideas expressed, nor from the words
expressing them, but from the form in which these words
are arranged. This may be illustrated very clearly from the
passage of Milton already quoted. A slight change in the
order of the words changes it from prose to poetry.

As all language is the articulate expression of thought or
emotion, so every language recognizes two forms of ex-
pressing them— one more free and loose called prose, and
one, more restricted and subjected to certain rules, called

APPENDIX 151

poetry. This is the universal law of expressing thought in all
languages. Poetry is nothing more than one of the grand
divisions of articulate sounds, found among all cultivated
nations, and designated by similar terms. There are but two,
and so Milton asks the muse to aid him in telling things un-
attempted yet in prose or rhyme, meaning that they had
never been attempted in any form at all. The certain rules
to which, as we say above, the poetic form of expressing
thought or emotion is subjected, are rules of metre and
rythm. They exist in similar forms in all languages. We may,
therefore, define poetry to be the expression, by words, of
thought or emotion, in conformity with metrical and lythmi-
cal laws.

Each of these great divisions of language is co-extensive
with the limits of human thought and emotion. The whole
compass of man's mind and heart is within the reach of
either. Poetry is confined to no such whimsical boundaries
as those of Mr. Bowles. It is true there are subjects more
suitable to one mode of expression than the other, and it
would indicate a want of taste and judgment to mistake in
the use of one or the other as the topic may require. But the
error would in nowise touch the validity of the distinction
between them. It may be true, for example, that prose is
more suitable than poetry for the exposition of a philosophi-
cal system, and Lucretius may have been injudicious in ex-
pounding the doctrines of Epicurus in any other fonn than
prose; but no one ever doubts that his work is a poem. It
may be said that the fine descriptive passages, and not the
metaphysics, constitute the poetry. But no critic has yet
undertaken to maintain that certain portions of the work are
not poetry at all. And yet, if we abandon the only solid and
true distinction between prose and poetry, and discriminate
between this and that passage as poetry or not poetry, in

152 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

reference to the ideas expressed, and not to the form of ex-
pression, we shall be compelled to cut up this and every
long poem into slips of alternate poetry and non-poetry,
according to the images and thoughts which we find in them.
The Illiad will then be a poem, where Achilles shouts from
the ramparts, and puts to flight the advancing and victorious
Trojans by the terrors of his voice alone; or, where Helen is
represented on the walls of Troy, describing to Priam, and
naming the chiefs of the Grecian hosts arrayed on the plain
below; but it will be no poem where, in the catalogue, the
names of tribes, cities, chiefs and countries, are enumerated.
The Paradise Lost will be a poem where Satan calls to his
fallen multitudes, weltering in the fiery gulf confounded,
though immortal— or where the charms of Paradise or the
beauty and grace of Eve are described; but not where, in
long discussions, the poet makes "God the father turn a
school divine." "^ And so of every long poem in every
language.

So, too, in all the great prose writings of every country,
we shall find long passages which are to be considered
poetry, the purpose of the authors to write prose only, to
the contrary notwithstanding.

But those who are jealous of the dignity of poetry, and
who carry in their memories and imaginations the brilliant
rhetorical descriptions of the art found among poets and
orators, are not content with being told that the art of poetry
is a mere form of expressing thought. And yet what higher
account can be given of poetry than this, that it is the
noblest, most refined, pointed and energetic of the two
modes by which among all people, thought and emotion are
expressed by language. Language itself is something won-
derful. It is the gift of God. All that poets and orators say of
poetry may be said of language. It is a divine art, and of this

APPENDIX 153

divine art the poets are masters of the highest form. The
greater the artist, the greater his mastery in this instrument,
by which he rules the hearts and minds of men. Homer
paints with a word. Virgil's style or diction is inimitable. To
Horace belongs the curiosa felicitas of words.^^ In Milton
and Shakspeare, according to Coleridge, you cannot alter a
word without spoiling a line. To be the master of this won-
derful power in any form, divinely imparted as it is, confers
high distinction— to be its master, in its noblest form, makes
the poet's honor and constitutes his art.

If we are met with the question, what, then, are we to
consider as poetry the metrical lines, assigning its number
of days to each month, or shall we class the stanzas extem-
porized by Johnson as such? We would meet the one ques-
tion by another— are we to regard the chat at a corner, or
the plain talk of a laborer, or the slang of a pot house, as
prose? In either case there is a wide interval between the
lowest and highest specimens of the two divisions of lan-
guage—between the doggerel and Comus, between the
slang and Burke— but not more so in the one than in the
other. The question as respects both refers not to the trivial-
ity of the thing expressed, but to the form of expression, and
the answer in both must be the same.

But it is said again, the ordinary phrases of conversation
intimate a difference between poetry and mere verse— we
say of a clumsy poet, that he is a mere versifier, and of a dull
poem, that it is no better than prose. But we are not to
understand this as meaning that the writer is not a poet and
his work not a poem. Such phrases mean only that the poet
and poem are deficient in vivacity or vigor, or refinement
and finish. It is a criticism which touches the execution and
not the form of the work. We say of a tedious talker that he
is prosy or a proser, but we do not mean that he is speaking

154 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

something different from prose. So, we say of a man that he
is effeminate or womanUke, or an ass, or a mule or a fox, or
a tiger, but in no case do we intend to say that he is not a
man. We propose only to designate the qualities or charac-
ter of the party, and not the sex or genus to which he belongs.
The critic, however, seizes on these figurative expressions,
in reference to poetry, and turns the whole subject into
confusion by mistaking and confounding two questions
essentially different— the one asking to what category of
expression a work belongs, the other what degree of merit it
may possess; one inquiring into its nature, the other into its
merits.

When from asking whether a book is a poem, we turn to
examine into its faults and beauties, the whole province of
inquiry is changed. The critic may lavish upon it any
amount of disparaging names that his nomenclature hap-
pens to include. It may be dull, stupid, prosaic, but he can by
no means convert it into prose. We can allow him any lati-
tude of censure, but we protest against his giving point to
his censure by confounding all logical distinction in the
modes of expressing thought. A bad poem is still a poem, the
most excellent prose is still prose, and the landmarks must
remain undisturbed by the conflicting parties.

The department of literature to which a writer belongs,
will not depend on the subject treated, but on the form of
expression in which he treats it; in making poetry to con-
sist in the noblest form of language, itself so noble a distinc-
tion of man, we in no respect derogate from the dignity of
the art, it is the noblest form of that noble faculty without
which thought itself would perish or be deprived of its
wings.

(Sooted

ana
Ofnje

NOTES

The Character and Scope of the Sonnet

1 "The Character and Scope of the Sonnet" was pubhshed in Russell's
Magazine, I: 156-59 (May, 1857). It was reprinted in The Outlook,
LXXVII: 706-9 (July 23, 1904). The editor in an introductory note praises
Timrod as poet and as critic, and erroneously claims that he is publishing
the article for the first time. This version twice breaks one paragraph into
two, and omits quotation marks from "the hour of insight" and from
"stature reaches the sky." Otherwise, except for slight changes in punctu-
ation, the two versions are identical.

2 Milton, Paradise Lost, VII, 31: "fit audience find, though few."

3 Recollections of the Table-Talk of Samuel Rogers, New York, 1856,
p. 207.

■* Quotation not located.

5 Wordsworth, "Observations Prefixed to 'Lyrical Ballads'": "I have
said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes
its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity."

6 Wordsworth, The Prelude, I, 233.

'^ Wordsworth, The Prelude, I, 46-47: "not used to make / A present
joy the matter of a song."

8 Arnold, "Morality," stanza 1. The italics are Timrod's.

9 Aubrey de Vere, "Sorrow."
10 Milton, Paradise Lost, IV, 988.

157

NOTES

Timrod's "What is Poetry?"

1 Timrod's "What is Poetry?" was published in Russell's Magazine, II:
52-58 (October, 1857). The "writer in the July number" is Grayson; since
his essay is re-printed in this book, the reader can compare Timrod's
lengthy quotations with Grayson's entire argument.

I have corrected the following typographical errors: in fl 23, semetimes:
sometimes; in the last ll, Laodimia: Laodamia.

2 See the "Definition of Poetry" at the beginning of the 1836 edition of
"Literary Remains," or "Shakspeare, with introductory matter on Poetry,
the Drama, and the Stage": "Poetry is not the proper antithesis to prose,
but to science. Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to metre." Timrod
may also be referring to Coleridge's famous definition, in the Biographia
Literaria, Ch. XIV: "A poem is that species of composition, which is op-
posed to works of science, by proposing for its immediate object, pleasure,
not truth." In this chapter and in XVIII, Coleridge discusses the problem
of metre as opposed to prose. See note eleven.

3 In his "Observations Prefixed to 'Lyrical Ballads,' " Wordsworth
writes: "I have said that poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity: the
emotion is contemplated till, by a species of reaction, the tranquillity gradu-
ally disappears, and an emotion, kindred to that which was before the sub-
ject of contemplation, is gradually produced, and does itself actually exist
in the mind."

Shelley, in "A Defence of Poetry," wrote that "Poetry is the record of
the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds."

4 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. XIV.

5 Arthur Henry Hallam, "On Some of the Characteristics of Modern
Poetry and on the Lyrical Poems of Alfred Tennyson," in the Remains in
Prose and Verse of Arthur Henry Hallam with a Memoir, edited by Henry
Hallam (London, 1863), pp. 304-305.

6 Timrod is adapting to his own argument, with some changes, Milton's
definition of poetry ("Letter to Samuel Hartlib: On Education," frequently
called the "Tractate on Education," 1644) as being "more simple, sensuous,
and passionate" than logic and rhetoric.

158

NOTES 159

7 Shakspere, Antony and Cleopatra, V, 2, 88-90. See note 16, "A Theory
of Poetry."

8 Coleridge, Table Talk, July 12, 1827: "I wish our clever young poets
would remember my homely definitions of prose and poetry; that is, prose
—words in their best order; poetry— the best words in their best order,"

^ "Prose and Song," in The Poetical Works of John Sterling (Phila-
delphia, 1842), 232.

10 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. XIV: "In short, whatever specific
import we attach to the word. Poetry, there will be found involved in it, as a
necessary consequence, that a poem of any length, neither can be, nor ought
to be, all poetry. Yet if an harmonious whole is to be produced, the remain-
ing parts must be preserved in keeping with the poetry; and this can be
no otherwise effected than by such a studied selection and artificial arrange-
ment, as will partake of one, though not a peculiar property of poetry."

11 The Coleridge reference is given in note 2. In the second footnote in
"Observations Prefixed to 'Lyrical Ballads,'" Wordsworth writes: "I here
use tlie word 'Poetry' ( though against my own judgement ) as opposed to
the word Prose, and synonymous with metrical composition. But much
confusion has been introduced into criticism by this contradistinction of
Poetry and Prose, instead of the more philosophical one of Poetry and
Matter of Fact, or Science. The only strict antithesis to Prose is Metre; nor
is this, in truth, a strict antithesis, because lines and passages of metre so
naturally occur in writing prose, that it would be scarcely possible to
avoid them, even were it desirable."

12 See Lamb's "Imperfect Sympathies," in Essays of Elia.

13 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Chapters XIV and XVIII.

14 Wordsworth, The Excursion, I, 213: "Thought was not; in enjoyment
it expired." In this and the quotation from "Tintern Abbey," the italics are
Timrod's. He omits two parenthetical lines from "Tintern Abbey," and his
punctuation differs slightly from the Oxford text in both quotations from
that poem.

15 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. XXII. For the next paragraph,
see the same chapter, and Ruskin's Modern Painters, Part III, Sec. 2, Ch. 4.

16 Wordsworth, Poem IV of "Poems on the Naming of Places," the first
line beginning, "A narrow girdle of rough stones and crags." The italics
are Timrod's; the punctuation differs from the Oxford text; and in the last
line, "Lone-sitting" should be "Sole-sitting."

NOTES

Literature in the South

1 "Literature in the South" was first pubHshed in RusselVs Magazine, V :
385-95 (August, 1859). It probably served also as a speech at Cheraw,
South Carolina; in the Courant, a magazine published at Columbia, H. H.
Caldwell wrote a brief paragraph (I, 1, May 5, 1859): "We see in the
Cheraw papers accounts of the Lecture of Henry Timrod, our young
Carolina Petrarch, who has been holding forth on 'The Southern Author.' "

For a good survey of this general subject, see Jay B. Hubbell's "Literary
Nationalism in the Old South," in American Studies in Honor of William
Kenneth Boyd, Durham, 1940, pp. 175-220.

I have made the following typographical changes: 1|8, Thompson:
Thomson; 1112, carollary: corollary; Theories has: theories have; 1121,
Maryatt: Marryatt.

2 Shakspere, Henry IV, Part I, II, iv, 42-90.

3 Undoubtedly William Cilmore Simms. Timrod's own attitude toward
Simms varied. On Feb. 9, 1860, Hayne wrote Simms asking for a review
of Timrod's Poems: "When leisure and inclination coincide, will you not
oblige me by a brief review of Timrod's Poems? I know, after what has
occurred, he can urge no possible claim upon your notice" (W. P. Trent,
William Gilmore Simms, p. 233). Trent remarks that Timrod was highly
critical of Simms' poetry and poetical views, but he also quotes from a
letter apparently no longer extant (p. 297: Timrod to Simms): "Somehow
or other, you always magnetize me on to a little strength." For other ex-
amples of Timrod's impatience with Simms, see his letters to Hayne in
J. B. Hubbell's The Last Years of Henry Timrod, pp. 54 and 82-84. Worth
noting as significant in this relationship, however, are two items that ap-
peared in the columns of the Daily South Carolinian (May 3, 1864, and
Aug. 7, 1864) during Timrod's editorship, and almost certainly written
by him. They show an unaffected cordiality. The first item is here given
in full: "We had the pleasure of welcoming to our office, yesterday,
WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS, Esq., poet, critic, novehst, historian, and
one of the oldest living editors of the South. No man has done half so
much as this wondrously prolific writer to create a Southern literature,
whether by the achievements of his own broad genius or by the generous
encouragement which he has lavished upon younger aspirants. No name

160

NOTES

161

shines forth more brightly on tlie pages of letters than his, and unquestion-
ably there is no brain on this continent that has labored more assiduously
and successfully to transmit to posterity the great lessons of the past and
present.

"Mr. SIMMS has been and will continue to be, a contributor to our
columns."

The second speaks of Simms as "Brimming over with delightful talk,
showering his golden thoughts on every hearer, uttering more philosophy
in half an hour than would suffice to fill a respectable volume, striking or
startling all around with the profundity and originality of his observations,
scattering curious and recondite information with a lavish hand, full of
genius and sense and spirit . . ."

4 Hugh Blair (1718-1800) published his widely used Lectures on
Rhetoric and BcUes-Lettres in two volumes at Edinburgh, 1783. An Amer-
ican edition was published in Philadelphia in 1784. After 1787, the work
was frequently re-published, usually in three volumes.

5 Probably a typographical error. Henry Home, Lord Kames ( 1696-
1782) published his three-volume Elements of Criticism at Edinburgh,
1762. It was twice revised and enlarged ( 1763, 1788), and was reprinted
many times.

6 Even in the emotionalism that was prevalent during the Civil War,
Timrod held steadfastly to this idea. Shortly after he became an editor
of the Columbia Daily South Carolinian, Timrod published an editorial
that in part repeats his essay (Jan. 19, 1864) :

By nationality in literature, we do not mean simply the choice of sub-
jects peculiar to the country of the writer. It would be quite possible for
a Southern poet to write a hundred odes to the Confederate flag, or for a
Southern novelist to fill his book with descriptions of Southern scenes, and
yet to be un-Southern in every respect. If, in the construction of plot or
poem, a trace of foreign models appear, we must deny the author all right
to be considered as national in the true sense of the word.

On the other hand, an author may travel a thousand miles away from
home, yet, nevertheless, preserve his nationality. Shakspeare wandered to
Rome, and Scott to Palestine, each without losing his title to rank as a
representative writer of his nation.

We have been led to these remarks, from the consideration of a very
common error among the critics of the South. This error consists in sup-
posing what v^e have just denied, that an author is Southern, in proportion
as his lyrics relate to the South, and his thought and imagery are drawn
from Southern sources. In the opinion of these philosophers, all his trees
should be palmettoes, and all his fields white with cotton.

The question really lies in a nut shell. There is but one way to be a truly
national writer, and that is by being a truly original writer. No one who
does not speak from himself can speak for his country, and, therefore, no

162 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

imitator can be national. But the man of original genius draws his matter
from the depth of his own being; and the national character, in which, as a
unit of the nation, he shares, finds its utterance through him without his
will. It is of no consequence, in his case, into what century, or what ultima
thule, he may stray; he will still carry with him those characteristics which
he imbibed from the national influences around him. And wherever he
may lay the scenes of his stories, it shall so happen, that, without violating
a single propriety of place or climate, the pines of his own forest shall be
heard to murmur, his own rivers shall roll in music, the flowers of his own
soil, touched perhaps with a more lasting and ethereal grace, shall shed
their perfume over his pages, and his own skies will look down upon the
loveliest landscapes of his creation.

We must not be understood in the above remarks to mean anything
inconsistent with the necessities of dramatic characterization. The Romans
of Shakspeare are all Romans, and when that great poet ventriloquises
through the person of Antony, he does not permit the tones of Shakspeare to
be heard. Nevertheless, even in his Roman plays, the English qualities of
his genius are apparent in the muscular strength of his style, and in that
very power, which the writers of no nation have displayed to such a degree
as those of England, of putting off his own character and assuming that
of another.

We conclude with a brief word to the young authors of the South. Let
them not be too careful to confine themselves to Southern [sic] topics. If
they are led by some inner inspiration, and not by the mere caprice of
choice, they may find, even amid the Arctic ice, or the luminous seas of
the tropics, spots upon which they may plant, never to be taken down, the
flag of their country's genius!

"^ In 1864, Timrod thought that intellectual independence might be
forced upon the South ( Daily South Carolinian, Jan. 14, 1864 ) :

The great and troubled movement through which we are passing has
stirred the Southern mind to an unwonted activity. No pre-eminently great
man, indeed, has arisen amid the turmoil, but the people are beginning to
think with an independence which they never evinced in their former pro-
vincial position.

It is with reference to literature only that we wish to speak briefly of
this improvement in the national character. It is an improvement which,
in the department of letters, at least, we owe to the very blockade that has
cut off so completely our supplies of Northern and of English books. Forced
to supply ourselves, we have, also, learned to criticise without regard to
foreign models, and criticism in growing independent has likewise be-
come sensible.

Our authors are waking up to the fact that they have at last an audience.
More novels, histories, and poems have been written at the South within
the last two years than within any previous ten. Most of these, doubtless,
have been of merit sufficiently indifferent, but still some of them have

NOTES 163

been clever, and all tend to show that a new era of intellectual energy is
dawning upon us. . , .

8 Timrod used this same figure effectively in "The Cotton Boll":

To the remotest point of sight,
Although I gaze upon no waste of snow,
The endless field is white;
Timrod also uses this figure in "Ethnogenesis."

9 John Playfair (1748-1819), Outlines of Natural Philosophy, 2 vols.,
London, 1812-14.

10 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. I.

11 At least a partial change in sentiment, and a public demand for one
kind of poetry, was the subject of an editorial by Timrod in the Columbia
Daily South Carolinian, Jan. 24, 1864:

A short while ago, everybody was calling for a national song. The few
poets who are to be found in the Confederacy, were importuned to write
one, and many attempts to supply the want were made, both by poets
and poetasters, without the slightest success. Good and bad poems were
written, but none, with the exception of "My Maryland," and that only
for a little time, touched the heart of the people so deeply as to become
one of its representive [sic] songs.

We are not to blame our poets for this failure. A nation does not choose
its songs on the ground of poetical merit. In fact, it does not choose them
at all. It is impossible to trace where a song begins its career of popularity,
and its diffusion throughout a nation depends upon some fortunate con-
junction of time, mood, association, and circumstance. Judgn g from the
character and history of the few established poems of this kind which we
possess, there are but four things necessary to the success of an attempt to
write a national song. Its verse must run glibly on the tongue; it must con-
tain somewhere, either in a stanza or a refrain, a sentiment, tersely and
musically expressed, which appeals to some favorite pride, prejudice or
passion of the people; it must be married to an effective, but not com-
plicated air, and it must be aided by such a collocation of accidents as may
not be computed.

If the above essentials are not wanting, it little matters, so far as popu-
larity is concerned, whether the song as a whole, be worthless, in a literary
point of view or not. The "Star Spangled Banner" is utterly destitute of
every thing that deserves the name of poetry. But it was commended to
the popular heart by its refrain, which embodies in a form concise and
sounding enough, the Yankee's pride in his country. "Rule Britannia" also
owes it rank as a national song to the chorus alone; the rest of the poem,
although the song was written by the author of the "Castle of Indolence,"
being the merest fustian.

The reader will understand, that we have been speaking of what national
songs have been, not what they ought to be. A national song which would
be worthy of the name— a song in which the poet should express the whole
great soul of a nation within the compass of a few simple and melodious

164 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

verses— enclosing, like the enchanters of Eastern story, a giant within the
cup of a lily— such a song would imply, in its composition, a genius not less
than that which wrote Paradise Lost. We have, indeed, at this day, no
poets who are equal to production of this lofty character. Nevertheless,
there are not wanting, in the Confederate States, a few genuine children
of song, and we would be glad to see them renewing their efforts in this
direction. Surely, in the present situation of their country, struggling for
its liberties against overpowering odds, and isolated from the rest of the
world— a situation more full of pathos and grandeur than anything in Greek
or Roman story— they ought to find inspiration enough to draw forth the
utmost capacity of their genius. If they are true to their duty and their
vocation— if they can catch the spirit which wakes our blood-stained valleys
with shouts of battle, and which goes forth in words of unconquerable
cheer from our desolated hearths, they may yet accomplish among them
a song, which, however, it may fall short of the ideal to which we have
briefly alluded, may stir the heart more than the roar of a thousand patriot
cannon!

12 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. XV.

13 Sir Henry Taylor, in Preface to Philip Van Artevelde.

14 This also, Timrod thought in 1864, might be brought about by the
war ( Columbia Daily South Carolinian, Jan. 15, 1864 ) :

Everybody remembers how difficult a thing it was, before the war, to
establish and keep up a Southern periodical. Now periodicals are springing
up like daisies in every direction, and, what is more, with all the hardiness
of those little field flowers, they seem destined to live and flourish for some
time. This success is not simply owing to the fact that Southern magazines,
having no longer to contend with Northern publications, are devoured for
the want of other and better reading. The Southern mind is aroused, and
in its awakening energies there is a reciprocity of action between the
writers and readers. As readers increase, so do writers, and the reverse is
also true. Moreover, the nationality of the Southern people is becoming,
under the influence of passing events, more and more sharply defined, and
that nationality begins to demand an expression of its own. Any attempt,
however feeble, to satisfy this demand will meet with encouragement and
support. . . .

15 Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (1832);
Charles Dickens, American Notes for General Circulation ( 1842 ) ; Fred-
erick Marryatt, A Diary in America, with Remarks on its Institutions
(1839); Basil Hall, Travels in North America in the years 1827 and 1828
(1829). Dickens and Trollope gave especial offence to Southerners by
their disparaging remarks on the region.

16 Robert Pollok's (1789-1827) The Course of Time (1827) was a ten-
book poem in blank verse, on spiritual life and the destiny of man. Twelve
thousand copies were sold in the first eighteen months; the 25th edition
appeared in 1867.

NOTES

A Theory of Poetry

1 "A Theory of Poetry" was delivered as a lecture before the Methodist
Female College, Columbia, S. C, in the winter of 1863-64. Timrod's widow,
Mrs. Kate Goodwin Timrod Lloyd, wrote to W. A. Courtenay that she
could not find the exact date of the lecture, "But I am quite sure it was
some time in 63— before we were married, but were engaged. He handed
me the manuscript, which I gave you, as he left the rostrum. It was given
in aid of the poor soldiers who as you will well know were in a most
deplorable condition, half starved, and half -clothed." (Letter, March 7,
1901, bound in Memories of the Timrod Revival, Charleston Library
Society). In an earher letter (March 15, 1898), Mrs. Lloyd had mentioned
the manuscript, and said that the Century had declined it because of its
length.

The manuscript is now in the Charleston Library Society; since it is
exactly as Timrod wrote it, I have used it as the best text. It is quite legible,
written in ink, and needs very little editing. No title is given on the manu-
script; stamped on the binding is the title, "An Essay on Poetry." Since this
seems to have no more validity than the title by which the essay is gener-
ally known, I have kept the title, "A Theory of Poetry."

After receiving the manuscript, Courtenay had the pages carefully pasted
within heavy cut-out pages (Timrod had written on both sides of the
paper) and sumptuously bound. From this original a manuscript was
prepared for magazine publication before 1901. Many changes, but very
few improvements, were made by this unknown editor, and no indication
of changes was given. The worst feature of the editing was to remove some-
thing of Timrod's individuality and force; to make his style conform more
to the ordinary magazine style of the year 1900, and in that way to make
his work seem more stereotyped than it was.

Apparently the essay was not published until 1901, when it. was printed
in a slightly abridged form in The Independent, the first installment en-
titled "A Theory of Poetry," LIII: 712-16, March 28, 1901; the second
and third installments, "The Rationale of Poetry," LIII: 760-64, 830-33,
April 4 and April 11, 1901. An introductory note signed H. A. (Henry
Austin ) praises Timrod as a poet and critic whose reputation is rising, and

165

166 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

explains that the essay has been shghtly edited: the sentences referring to
occasion of dehvery deleted (actually, the first three paragraphs), occa-
sional missing conjunctives supplied, quotations and historical facts cor-
rected. Austin notes as one error Timrod's statement that Poe was born in
the South, and takes occasion to claim Poe as "Boston's most distinguished
and hitherto unappreciated son." The introductory note to Part II explains
that Timrod had no adequate edition of Poe, but most of the distortion of
Poe's phrasing is only in the magazine version, and not in Timrod's manu-
script.

"A Theory of Poetry" was re-printed without any reference to earlier
publication in the Atlantic Monthly, XCVI: 313-26, September, 1905. It
restores the three opening paragraphs, but otherwise does not differ materi-
ally from the earlier printed version.

A pencilled paragraph by Timrod above the body of the essay was used
as an introduction for a second lecture. This paragraph is given here, as
not belonging to the essay itself:

"It is with considerable hesitation that I chose the subject of the essay
which I read for the second time to-night. It was so familiar that I thought
I might well distrust my ability to give it interest. Yet I shall go over it
with less diffidence than last night— because I address the gentler sym-
pathies and less cautious criticism of a more youthful audience. Moreover,
I repeat what I said then."

The essay was prepared as a speech. The punctuation was intended to
aid the writer in speaking, and not to aid a reader unfamiliar with it; but
Timrod's punctuation is certainly no more confusing than that of his editor.
For this book, where words or marks of punctuation have seemed abso-
lutely necessary, these have been added in brackets; two of Timrod's dele-
tions are given in the appropriate notes; in HIO, Timrod had written point,
and above it fact, without any deleting— I have used point in the text; and
the following obvious corrections have been made: 113, synonomous:
synonymous; lf8, pschyal: psychal; is is: as is; 1111, the the: one the
deleted; till, dusky is written over and is indistinct. This seems the best
reading; jjll, famility: familiar; quotation marks omitted after brooks;
!I14, comprend: comprehend; 1116, quotation marks removed before Great
Pack, since they were not closed; HIS, what what: one what deleted; 1122,
one who . . . sit: sits; quotation marks deleted after "insight," as Timrod
had himself deleted them before "hour;" 1127, proceeded: preceded; in-
accuries: inaccuracies; that that couching: one that deleted; appearance:
appearances; 1128, Thompson: Thomson.

2 Tennyson, "Two Voices," 1. 180.

3 Timrod is referring to Grayson's "What is Poetry?", which is re-
printed in this book.

NOTES 167

■* Apparently Timrod cut the manuscript after ". . . years ago." As
originally written, and partly crossed out, the paragraph read: "The second
theory which I desire to examine critically was propounded a number of
years ago by the most exquisite poetical genius to which the South has yet
given birth. It seems to me an exceedingly narrow one, but yet it is so full
of beautiful half-truths, and is supported with so much skill and eloquence,
that on many it exercises a dangerous fascination. I allude to the 'Poetic
Principle' of Poe. I will not fear that I shall be accused of presumption in
assailing it, because the only boldness of which I am conscious is that of
an earnest faith, and of a passionate and studious love of the essence and
the art of Poetry."

All of Timrod's quotations from Poe are from "The Poetic Principle."
There are slight inaccuracies and omissions, but in no instance is Poe's
thought distorted. In the next paragraph, Timrod first wrote, "excitements
are, though a psychal necessity, transient." Apparently he then attempted
to jam an r in front of the o, to make the word through, as it should be.
The 0 is heavily inked and blurred.

5 Charles Lamb, "Detached Thoughts on Books and Reading," in Last
Essays of Elia ( 1833 ) : "Milton almost requires a solemn service of music
to be played before you enter upon him. But he brings his music, to which,
who listens, had need bring docile thoughts, and purged ears."

^The Beauties of Shakspear, edited by William Dodd (1729-77), 2
vols. London, 1752. See Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. III.

"^ Paradise Lost, IV, 238. In the next line, "Flowers of all hues" is from
Book IV, 256. The lines at the end of the paragraph are at the close of the
poem; the last line should be "Through Eden took their solitarie way."

8 This quotation was an after-thought, and was crowded in between
two hues; not located.

9 Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto IV, Stanza CLV. The
punctuation differs slightly from that of the standard text.

10 Joel Barlow's Columbiad ( 1807).

11 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. XIV. An interlinear addition.
The quotation is given in note 10, Timrod's "What is Poetry?".

12 Wordsworth, "Observations Prefixed to 'Lyrical Ballads,' " and
Shelley, "A Defence of Poetry." See note 3, Timrod's "What is Poetry?".

13 At this point the following sentences were evidently cut during the
composition of the essay: "It is indeed to a sort of discontent with the un-
reahties and imperfections of earth, and in the perception of a higher
existence than the life which we actually lead, that the world owes the
inspiration of some of the noblest poems in its possession. The sentiment
of poetry as it thus developed in the mind is the very ground on which
(apart from Revelation) we base our hopes of immortality, and this fact
should make it the next sacred thing to the great Chart of Salvation."

168 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

i-i Paradise Lost, I, 294: "the Mast / Of some great ammiral"— i.e., the
ship that carries the admiral. Later in this sentence, Timrod interhned
"the orient" above the word "India," but did not delete the latter; the
phrase "of ships" was deleted after the word "wrecks."

15 \Yords worth, "A Poet's Epitaph," 1. 49: "In common things that
round us lie."

1^ Leigh Hunt, Imagination and Fancy, or Selections from the English
Poets, illustrative of those First Requisites of their Art; with Markings of
the Best Passages, Critical Notices of the Writers, and an Essay in answer
to the Question, "What is Poetry?", 1844.

1'^ Shakspere, Antony and Cleopatra, V, 2, 88-90:

His delights
Were dolphin like; they show'd his back above
The element they lived in
I have added quotation marks after in, in accordance with Timrod's usage.
1^ The preceding lines, beginning with "the hour of patient and elaborate
execution," were lightly underscored in pencil, possibly as a guide to
emphasis in reading. A few phrases were not underscored.

19 See Poe's "The Philosophy of Composition."

20 Wordsworth, The Prelude, 1, 1. 47. See note 7 on "The Sonnet."
The strength of Timrod's belief in this is best illustrated in two editorials
published in war-time:

WAR AND LITERATURE

It is not during the present war, (the Atlanta Confederacy, and its
eloquent appeal to the writers of the day, notwithstanding,) that we can
look for any great achievements in literature. Thought now flows mainly
but in one channel, and boils along, in too turbulent a stream to be con-
fined within the limitations of polished prose or harmonious verse. To the
poet this remark is particularly applicable. No greater error prevails, than
the very common one of supposing that a state of excitement is favorable
to the production of poetry. The contrary, indeed, is the fact. WORDS-
WORTH'S definition of poetry, as "emotion recollected in tranquility,"
though, doubtless, especially characteristic of his own works, is yet also
true, to a great extent, with regard to every genuine votary of song. A cer-
tain amount of composure is always necessary to the composition of a poem.
What emotion is felt during the composition, is not the grief or joy to which
the poet is attempting to give expression, but that grief or joy idealized
by the influences of imagination and of time. One would suppose, how-
ever, from the manner in which most people talk of the subject, that no
sooner does a poet feel the rapture of a successful love, than he bursts
at once into anapaests, and that, in the depths of his profoundest despair,
he is prepared to tell his sorrow in quatrains that shall sound like a passing
bell. If this were so, he would be the most wonderful of improvisatores.
But, as we have already said, such is not the case. Very rarely does the

NOTES 169

poet make a present feeling the matter of his song. It is only when that
feeling has become somewhat subdued, and when he has had time to
brood over its operations in his soul, that he proceeds to embody it in the
music of his verse. Hence it is, that we need not look to see the stormy
emotions of the struggle through which we are passing, reduced imme-
diately to song. Peace must bring its soothing influences before the poet,
who shares with all of us the agitation of the strife, can regain that calm
which the practice of his art demands.

While, however, the tumult of revolution is undoubtedly incompatible
with the composition of poetry, it operates, on the other hand, not without
much salutary effect upon the poetical genius. In the very excitement which
seals for awhile the poet's lips, he is receiving an education which shall
bear the noblest fruits in the future. With a soul strengthened and ele-
vated by the grand emotions which have stirred its profoundest depths,
and with a mind filled with recollections of the deeds of heroism and self-
sacrifice which he has witnessed, he will be the better able hereafter to
breathe into his works the whole spirit of that period, the disturbing ele-
ments of which have only imposed a temporary silence upon his muse.

Convinced of the truth of the above remarks, we are not among those
who are disposed to complain of the present apparent inactivity of the
poetical mind. It is our firm belief that in the brain of every true poet of
the Confederacy sleeps many a poem, which, though it may not burst into
blossom, until the return of peace, shall show in the color of all its petals
that its roots are deep in the blood-enriched soil of the now pending revo-
lution. {Daily South Carolinian, Columbia, February 28, 1864.)

{no heading)
We noticed not long ago, in one of our exchanges, a complaint that the
war had produced no poetry likely to live beyond the present generation.
This sweeping assertion is unjust to at least a dozen fine lyrics that we
could name; yet there is no doubt that the stormy emotions of the time
have not found any very general expression in verse. This fact however,
would not surprise us if we only remembered that in these latter days of
the world, at least, war has never produced much poetry. At a period when
cruel commotion was staining the daisies of England with the blood of
her best and bravest men, there lived one of the greatest poets that ever
achieved an immortality upon earth. Yet, though warmly enlisted in the
contest, and though he contributed a great deal of glorious prose to the
cause which he espoused, he has left scarcely a single line of verse which
would indicate that he had not written in the midst of the profoundest
peace. There was nothing Tyrtoean in the author of Paradise Lost. Again,
when that same England was summoning all her energies and tasking all
her strength to crush the first Emperor of the French, there flourished
within her borders such a chorus of poets as, except "in the spacious time
of great ELIZABETH," the world had never heard. But while the
mighty struggle that was going on had its influence upon the tone and char-

170 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

acter of their thoughts, these poets nevertheless drew their inspiration
mainly from the more peaceful influences around them. Other instances
might be adduced, but the above are enough to show that war, in spite of
the virtues which it developes and the emotions which it stirs, does not
readily obtain representation in poetry, even where there is no deficiency of
poetical genius. The explanation of the fact must be left to the metaphysical
critic; but we may suggest that it may partly be found in the meditative
character of the poets and poetry of the present age. The poet of the nine-
teenth century is a philosopher, and the poetry of the nineteenth century is
marked rather by thought than passion. Hence we have but few such bursts
of mere martial enthusiasm as the Marseillaise Hymn in the poetical litera-
tme of the day. We need not look, therefore for more than an occasional
poem of this kind from the South, (Sept. 15, 1864.)

-1 Wordsworth, TJie Excursion, I, 11. 105-6: "The high and tender Muses
shall accept / With gracious smile, deliberately pleased." The "Orphean
lyre" is in The Prelude, I, 1. 233. I have completed the quotation marks
after lyre. The italics are Timrod's.

22 Arnold, "Morality," stanza 1. The italics are Timrod's.

23 Francis Bacon, Of the Advancement of Learning, Book II ( 1605) : "So
as it appeareth tliat poesy serveth and conferreth to magnanimity, mo-
rality, and delectation." (p. 88 of The PJiilosophical Works of Francis
Bacon, edited by John M. Robertson, 1905). Works of Francis Bacon,
London, 1826, VII, p. 128, gives the Latin of the 1622 version: Adeo ut
poesis ista, non solum ad delectationem, sed etiam ad animi magnitudinem,
et ad mores conferat.

24 Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch. XV.

25 Wordsworth, "Obser\'ations Prefixed to 'Lyrical Ballads.' "

26 Cf . "Tintern Abbey," 11. 95 ff . Quotation not located.

27 Tennyson became Poet Laureate in 1850, succeeding Wordsworth.

28 Wordsworth, The Excursion, Preface, 11. 42-55. The punctuation and
capitalization vary from that of the Oxford edition. Likewise, the quotation
from "Tintern Abbey" (11. 75-102) shows some divergences.

29 Coleridge, "To William Wordsworth," 11, 46-48, in Sybilline Leaves.

30 Wordsworth, Poems of the Imagination, VIIL The only deviation of
any importance is in the last line. It should read: "With something of
angelic light," Final quotation marks added,

31 Tennyson, "The Day-Dream," 11, 201-204.

32 Tennyson, The Princess, Part ii, 1, 165 ( Student's Cambridge Edi-
tion, 1898), Timrod wrote "the blood the blood,"

33 Wordsworth, "Personal Talk," 11, 51-54:

Blessings be with them— and eternal praises,
Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares—
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!

NOTES 171

The following sentence at the end was evidently written in as an after-
thought and then rejected: "I do not counsel the rejection of a single
favourite but desire only that that favourite should not furnish the rules
by which you measure the merits of the most dissimilar productions."

NOTES

Grayson's "What is Poetry?"

1 Grayson's "What is Poetry?" was published in Russell's Magazine, I:
327-37 (July, 1857). The essay was one part of his defence of eighteenth-
century poetry; it was the work of an older man who found himself un-
sympathetic to the ideas and work of the Romantic poets.

William John Grayson was born at Beaufort, South Carolina, on Nov. 12,
1788. After attending various private schools in his home town, in New
York and in Newark, he entered South Carolina College as a sophomore
on Feb. 7, 1807, and graduated Dec. 7, 1809. Of his college days he
remembered later that he and James L. Petigru spent a summer night
"over the wild wit of Rabelais," and that daylight found them "engaged in
the coarse but irresistible merriment of the modern master of broad humor
and boisterous wit." More decorously, but with equal enthusiasm, they
read to each other the writings of Horace, Bacon, Dryden, and Pope.
(Grayson, Memoir of James L. Petigru, 42-44).

Grayson taught at Beaufort and Savannah; studied law; edited the
Beaufort Gazette; and as a strong advocate of Nullification served ten years
in the South Carolina Legislature. He also represented the Beaufort district
in Congress ( 1833-37) and was Collector of Customs of the Port of Charles-
ton, 1841-53. In this period Grayson changed his political ideas and became
a strong opponent of secession, presenting his beliefs through numerous
pamphlets. The most notable of these, strongly influenced in manner of
argument by Jonathan Swift, are the Letters of Curtius. After being re-
moved as Collector, Grayson purchased the Fair Lawn Plantation near
Charleston, thus following "the approved Custom in closing every kind
of a career" ( Petigru, 136 ) .

Since he felt that "my calling had left me," he began writing poems
and essays. In 1854, he published The Hireling and the Slave, a book-
length attack on the inhumanity of industrialism and defence of the
humaneness of slavery. But Grayson had thrown the argument into poetry
not merely "to diversify the mode, if not the matter, of the argument;" he
sought, also, to offer "some variety to the poetic forms that are almost
universally prevalent" by returning to the "School of Dryden and Pope."
{The Hireling and the Slave, 1854, p. xv). Although his work received
more praise for its didactic than for its poetic qualities, Grayson was quickly

172

NOTES 173

accepted as one of the Charleston hterary coterie. A frequenter of Russell's
Bookshop, he was on intimate terms with Simms, Petigru, Dickson, Bruns,
Hayne, and Timrod. When this group started Russell's Magazine in 1857,
Grayson took an active part as a sub-editor and regular contributor. A
lover of argument, he debated fiercely with S. Henry Dickson in Russell's
on the subject of duelling, and his attack on romantic poetry so excited
Timrod that he immediately prepared an answering essay.

In his unpublished autobiography,* Grayson presents in a slightly dif-
ferent form most of the arguments in "What is Poetry?" He felt that Cole-
ridge beclouded every issue that he touched, and that Wordsworth's
mechanical use of nature, Shelley's metaphysical sentiments, Keats's "reno-
vated pagan deities," and Southey's Hindu "mythological monsters" all
led to a "transcendental oracular school" of poetry and criticism. Grayson's
allegiance was elsewhere: "My select friends are not of the new schools.
I adhere to the old masters and their followers. I believe in Dryden and
Pope ... I have faith in the ancient classical models, the masters directly
or indirectly of all the great poets of modern times . . . The sin of modern
poetry consists in exaggeration of sentiment, of passion, of description, of
every thing. It wants simplicity and truth. It seeks to be sublime and be-
comes inflated. It strives to be deep and is obscure only. It strains after the
new and the wonderful and sinks into the grotesque and unintelligible.
The modern poet finds the field of thought occupied and is driven to shifts
and expedients." (122-23, 247-48).

Grayson thought of himself as an advocate of common sense, a follower
in criticism of Samuel Johnson. He had no patience with theories of inspira-
tion: the poet is simply "a very pains taking individual and works as hard
at his trade as any other intellectual laborer . . . He toils after thoughts,
words, and images. Sometimes they come readily. Sometimes they refuse
to come at all. His tools are pen and ink. His inspiration is the same as
that of every other mental workman, the excitement of thought." ( 135;
275). With equal vigor, Grayson objected to the idea that poets are a
mysterious race of a particular moral nature different from the rest of man-
kind, and thus not amenable to the same judgments. Poets have a diversity
and peculiarity of temperament common to men, not because they are
poets but because they are men: "It would be as rational, perhaps more
so, to ascribe Byron's licentiousness to his deformed foot than to his genius
for poetry." (139, 283). He thought that the greatest of English poets-
Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspere, and Milton— were men of moral character,

* Manuscript, The Autobiography of William J. Grayson, written in
1863; typescript edited by Robert Duncan Bass, 1933; both in the South
Caroliniana Collection, University of South Carolina Library. The first
page number is to the manuscript; the second to Bass's edition. Practically
all of Grayson's remarks on literature are in Ch. XI.

174 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

but he was also positive that the best verse did not excuse evil: "The best
songs are the crackling of thorns under a pot compared with the interests
of truth and virtue." ( 140, 285-6).

In his autobiography, Grayson drily remarks about Timrod's response
to his charge that Wordsworth was mechanical in his enthusiasm: "I said
so once and was nearly annihilated by an indignant admirer who over-
whelmed me with quotations to prove how much I was in error. The quota-
tions did not change my opinions." ( Unnumbered leaf between 124 and
125; 251-2).

Grayson's mind was dogmatic, but it was evidently stimulating. He
enjoyed writing, and he had a salty, apt command of metaphor that makes
his prose readable and diverting. In addition to his essays and numerous
short poems, he wrote two other long poems. The Country (1858) and
Marion (1860). During the War he wrote, also, the Memoir of James L.
Petigru, which was not published until 1866; and his autobiography, which
has not been published. He died at Newberry, South Carolina, on Oct. 4,
1863.

I have retained all of Grayson's individualities of style, including some
errors that were undoubtedly caused by bad printing and proof-reading.
The obvious mistakes in the text that I have corrected are: 112, discription:
description; 1|4, Poets invokes: Poet invokes; fl5, a superfluous quotation
mark after the word immortality; tjll, on the poetry: in the poetry; 1116,
kingsman's: kinsman's; 1123, it's sides: its sides.

^ In the Biographia Literaria, Ch. I, Coleridge describes the poetic
training given him at Christ's Hospital under "a very severe master, the
Reverend James Bowyer." Bowyer (or Boyer) emphasized the logic in
poetry, and abominated trite and inexact phrasing. Coleridge notes: "Lute,
harp, and lyre. Muse, Muses, and inspiration, Pegasus, Parnassus, and Hip-
picrene were all an abomination to him. In fancy I can almost hear him
now, exclaiming 'Harp? Harp? Lyre? pen and ink, boy, you mean! Muse,
boy, Muse? Your nurse's daughter, you mean! Pierian spring? Oh aye! the
cloister-pump, I suppose!' " For other tributes to Bowyer, see Coleridge's
Table Talk, Aug. 16, 1832, and Charles Lamb's essay, "Christ's Hospital
Five-and-Thirty Years Ago."

3 Horace, "odi profanum volgus et arceo," Carm. 3.1.1. The phrases in
the preceding paragraph may have been suggested by Horace, especially
the "non usitata nee tenui ferar / penna," Carm. 2.20.2. The phrase "favete
linguis" is also from Horace, Carm. 3.1.2.

4 Cicero, Pro Archia. Grayson paraphrases rather than translates, but he
gives the exact meaning of the passage, and gives also an accurate summary
of the remainder of the oration.

5 John Selden ( 1584-1654) in his History of Tythes ( 1618) gave offence

NOTES

175

to the clergy, and the book was suppressed by public authority. His many
works were collected by Dr. David Wilkins.

6 Evidently a misprint. James Hannay (1827-73), English essayist and
novelist, wrote Satire and Satirists (1854).

7 William Lisle Bowles (1762-1850) edited the works of Pope (1806)
and his unfavorable comments and his critical theory roused a critical
furore that lasted into the 1820's. Bowles wrote that images and thoughts
derived from nature and the passions were always superior to tliose de-
rived from art and manners; therefore, Pope was an inferior poet. Many
writers defended Pope against Bowles; most notably, Byron in a Letter to
John Murray. The Wordsworth reference is to the "Observations Prefixed
to 'Lyrical Ballads'" (1800).

8 In a letter from Wordsworth to an English friend, John Wilson ( Chris-
topher North), June, 1802, in The Earhj Letters of William and Dorothy
Wordsworth ( 1787-1805), edited by Ernest de Selincourt, pp. 292-98.

9 Ibid.

10 Addison in two Spectator papers (#70, May 21, 1711, and #74,
May 25, 1711) discussed the ballad form, using "Chevy Chase" as an ex-
ample. Percy's Reliques of Ancient English Poetry gives a very long, an-
cient version. The two lines below do not appear in Addison's discussion;
Percy in Part II, 11. 121-2:

For when both his leggis wear hewyne in to.
Yet he knyled and fought on hys kne.
Chace was a variant spelling, and the original form was probably Cheviat.

11 In his Life of Johnson, Oxford Edition, 1904, II: 121-22, Sept. 18,
1777, Boswell related the story and quotes the poem. Johnson is here re-
ferring to imitation rather than to ballads: "He [Johnson] observed, that a
gentleman of eminence in literature had got into a bad style of poetry of
late. 'He puts ( said he, ) a \'ery common thing in a strange dress till he
does not know it himself, and thinks other people do not know it.' Boswell.
'That is owing to his being so much versant in old English poetry.' Johnson.
'What is that to the purpose. Sir? If I say a man is drunk, and you tell me
it is owing to his taking much drink, the matter is not mended.' "

12 Perhaps Coleridge's most striking statement of good sense in poetry
(not common sense) comes at the end of Ch. XIV of the Biographia Liter-
aria: "Finally, Good Sense is the Body of poetic genius, fancy its drapery.
Motion its life, and imagination the soul that is every where, and in each;
and forms all into one graceful and intelligent whole." See also Ch. XVIII.
Wordsworth in his "Observations Prefixed to 'Lyrical Ballads' " says that
his practice of honest description and natural diction must have some worth,
"as it is friendly to one property of all good poetry, namely, good sense."

Grayson's spelling of Marinere deviates from Coleridge's practice, as

176 THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

well as ordinary usage. It may be intended to suggest a ballad quality, or
an archaic form.

12 Samuel Johnson's The Vanity of Human Wishes ( 1749 ) . Scott, writing
about Samuel Johnson in his Lives of Eminent Novelists and Dramatists
(p. 501 of 1887 ed., Chandos Classics), makes a more general statement:
"The 'Vanity of Human Wishes,' the deep and pathetic morality of which
has often extracted tears from those whose eyes wander dry over pages
professedly sentimental."

1"^ Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Ch, I.

!•'' From Wordsworth, "Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour." The
line reads: "Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart."

1^* See Coleridge's Biographia Literaria, Ch. IV, and the first half of
Ch. XXII. On the preference for Collins over Gray, see Ch. I.

17 Ibid., Ch. XXII.

1'^ Lancelot Brown ( 1715-1783), known as "Capability Brown," revived
the natural style of landscape-gardening, and laid out the gardens at Kew
and Blenheim.

19 Originally written by Pope, "Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," 1. 339:

And thought a lie in verse or prose the same.
That not in fancy's maze he wander'd long,
But stooped to truth, and moralized his song

Byron, "Letter to John Murray, Esq., on the Rev. W. L. Bowles's Stric-
tures on the Life and Writings of Pope," in The Works of Lord Byron,
London, 1832, VI: 369.

2f> Coleridge, Table Talk, July 12, 1827. See note 8, Timrod's "What is
Poetry?"

21 Pope, Imitations of Horace: Epistles, Book II, Epistle 1, 1. 103: "And
God the Father turns a school-divine."

22 This high praise of Horace is by Petronius, Satyricon, Ch. CXVIII.

INDEX

Addison, Joseph, 141, 175

"Address Delivered at the Opening
of the New Theatre at Rich-
mond," 21n, 44n

Advancement of Learning, 48n,
138, 170

Aeschylus, 52

"Aglaus," 56

"Alastor," 6-9

Aldrich, T. B., 20, 49n

American Studies in Honor of Wil-
liam Kenneth Boyd, 27n, 160

Americanism in literature, 28-29,
87-88

Anacreontea, 54n, 66

"Ancient Mariner, The," 78, 142-3,
144, 175-6

"Ante-Bellum Charleston," 59n

Antony and Cleopatra, 89, 159, 168

Appomattox, 44n

Archias, 137, 174

"Arctic Voyager, The," 38

Aristotle, 13, 139

Arnold, Matthew, 48, 66, 120, 130,
157, 170

"Arsenal Hill," 31

"Astrophel," 44

Atlantic Monthly, 49n, 166

Austin, Henry, 52n, 53n, 165-6

Autobiography of William J. Gray-
son, The, 173

Autographic Relics, 42, 43n

Bacon, Francis, 48, 121, 138, 170,

172
Ballads, 141-42, 175-76
Bass, Robert Duncan, 173
Beauchampe, 46n
Beauties of Shakspear, The, 167
Beauty in poetry, 5, 16-18, 25, 35-

38, 76-77, 114-21, 123, 125, 129

177

Beulah, 51n

Bible, The, 47-8, 71, 149

Bilhngs, Josh, 49n

Biographia Literaria, 158, 159, 163,

164, 167, 170, 174, 175, 176
Blackwood's, 49n
Blair, Hugh, 85, 141, 161
Bookman, The, 52n
Books We Have Made, 41n
Boston, 27, 49n, 97, 166
Boswell, James, 142, 175
Bowles, WiUiam Lisle, 139, 151,

175, 176
Bowyer, James, 136, 174
"Boy of Winandermere, The," 81
"Break, Break, Break," 39
Brevity, 16-18, 67-68, 77, 105-07,

111-112, 121-22
Bride of Lammermoor, The, 92
Bronte, Charlotte, 49
Brown, Lancelot, 146, 176
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 41,

130
Browning, Robert, 41, 130-1
Bruns, John Dickson, 20, 59, 173
Bruns, Peirce, 9n, 33n, 54n
Bryan, J. P. K., 4n, 32n, 52
Buchanan, Robert, 50, 52
Burke, Edmund, 71, 100, 149, 153
"Burial of Sir John Moore after

Corunna," 43n
Burns, Robert, 44, 62, 146
Byron, George Gordon, 7, 33, 42,

58, 88, 121, 125, 128, 143, 147,

167, 173, 175, 176

Calculus, 92
Caldwell, H. H., 160
"Call to Arms, A," 47n
Campbell, Thomas, 57n

178

THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Cardwell, Guy A. Jr., 6n, 22n, 24n,
42n, 53n, 56n

Carew, Thomas, 82

Carlyle, Thomas, 48n

Castle of Indolence, 42, 163

Catullus, 32, 40, 52-5, 57

Cavaher poetry, 46-47, 57-58n

Century, The, 165

"Character and Scope of the Son-
net, The," 10, 12-13, 25n, 42n,
44n, 61-8, 168. Notes: 157

Charleston, 31n, 38, 39n, 57, 58,
59, 172, 173

Charleston Book, The, 58

Charleston Daily Courier, 47n

Charleston Library Society, 57

Charleston News and Courier, 4 In,
59n

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 43, 173

"Chevy Chace," 141-2, 175

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 167

Christ, 46

"Christmas," 26

"Christ's Hospital Five-and-Thirty
Years Ago," 174

Churchill, Charles, 139

"Churchyard among the Moun-
tains, A," 127

Cicero, 54n, 174

Civil War, 3, 10-11, 26-27, 29-31,
38, 49-50, 60, 161-64, 168-70,
174

"Cloud," 9n

"Clym of the Clough," 140

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor, 14, 48,
69, 73, 76, 77, 78, 80-1, 94, 112,
123, 124, 136, 142, 143, 144, 145,
146, 150, 153, 158, 159, 163, 164,
167, 170, 173, 174, 175, 176

Collins, Wilkie, 48n

Colhns, Wilham, 144, 176

Columbia, S. C, 20n, 29n, 31n

Columhiad, 112, 167

"Comus," 71, 149, 153

Conceit, the, 46-47

"Confederates in the Field, The,"
21n

Confederacy, 30, 163-4, 169

Confederacy, Atlanta, 168
Contemplation, 7, 24, 35-38, 80,

158, 168-70
Cooke, Philip Pendleton, 97
Copse Hill, 41n, 51
Cornelius Nepos, 55
"Corsair, The," 121
"Cotton Boll, The," 26n, 40, 163
Country, The, VIA
Courant, The, 160
Course of Time, The, 99, 164
Courtenay, W. A., 40n, 53, 59n, 165
Cowley, Abraham, 44
Cowper, Wilham, 33, 124
"Culprit Fay, The," 86
"Curse of Kehama," 144

Daily South Carolinian, 19-20, 29n,

31n, 43n, 44n, 48n, 58, 160-1,

161-3, 163-4, 168-9
"Danish Boy," 81
Dante, 16, 17, 105, 112
Dargan, Clara, 49n
Davidson, James Wood, 21, 41, 46,

55, 56n
"Day-Dream, The," 170
De Quincey, Thomas, 124
De Vere, Aubrey, 48, 157
"Death reigns triumphant," 45
"Dedication, A," 34n, 45n, 53n, 54n
"Defence of Poetry, A," 9-10, 158,

167
Defoe, Daniel, 71, 149
Dekker, Thomas, 46
della Torre, John, 59
Dennis, John, 46
"Detached Thoughts on Books and

Reading," 167
Dickens, Charles, 48n, 49n, 71, 98,

149, 164
Dickson, S. Henry, 59, 173
Diction, 14-16, 21, 71, 74-76, 122,

148-54, 159, 174, 175
Dimroth, 56

Divine Comedy, 17, 112
Dodd, William, 167
"Dramatic Fragment, A," 33n, 35n,

39, 41n

INDEX

179

"Dream, A," 57n
"Dream of Fair Women," 40n
Dreams, 4-5, 7-9, 22, 23, 42-43
"Dreams," 24n

Dryden, John, 33, 124, 139, 172,
173

Editorials by Timrod (quoted), 18-
20, 29-31, 41n, 43, 44, 49n, 160-
64, 168-70

"Edwin and Angelina," 142

"Elegy in a Country Churchyard,"
140, 141, 144

Elements of Criticism, 161

Ennius, 137

Epicurus, 151

"Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot," 176

Essays ( Bacon ) , 48n

Essays of Elia, 159

"Ethnogenesis," 163

Euclid, 92

Euphony, 21, 122

"Euterpe," 40n

Evans, Augusta, see Wilson, Au-
gusta Evans

Excursion, The, 81, 121, 126, 127,
144, 159, 170

Faerie Queene, 17, 112

Fancy, 11, 25n, 71, 73, 88, 94-95,

118, 148-49, 168, 175
"First Eclogue," 53n
Fielding, Henry, 71, 149
Fiction, 4, 49, 50-52, 71, 87-89, 91-

92, 95-96, 105, 149, 160, 161-62
Fidler, William, 33n, 36n
"Field Flov^ers," 43n, 44n
Flash, Harry Lyndon, 20
Fletcher, John, 46n, 52
Fontaine, F. G. De, 20n, 29n, 31n,

50
"For high honours," 54n
Ford, John, 46n, 52
French, 21, 53n, 55, 56-7
Froissart Ballads, 97
Fusiliers, German, 56, 57

Genesis, 149

German, 53n, 56, 101, 143

German Friendly Society, 57

Gibbes, R. W., 29n

Gildersleeve, Basil, 59

Goethe, Wolfgang, 56

Goldsmith, Oliver, 87, 100, 142

Goodwin, Edith, 46n

Goodwin, Emily Timrod, 18n, 25n,

36n, 39n, 41n, 45n, 46n, 49n, 52,

56n, 58n
Gray, Thomas, 140, 144, 176
Grayson, WiHiam J., 13-16, 59, 69-

72, 133-54, 158, 166, 172-6
Greek, 21, 53n, 54, 56, 137

Hall, Basil, 98, 164
Hallam, Arthur Henry, 48, 74, 158
"Hark to the Shouting Wind," 39
Hayne, P. H., 4, 12, 20, 21, 25n,

29n, 31, 32, 33n, 36n, 39, 41n,

42n, 43, 44n, 45, 46, 47n, 48, 49,

50, 51-2, 55, 56n, 57n, 58n, 59,

160, 173
Hannay, James, 139, 175
Hebrew literature, 47-8
Henry IV, 160
Henry Timrod, 52n, 53n
Henry Timrod: Man and Poet, 6n,

53n
Herbert, George, 49n
Herodotus, 40
Heustis, Rachel Lyons, see Lyons,

Rachel
Hireling and the Slave, The, 172
History, 27-31, 90-91, 95-96, 160,

161-62, 163-64, 168-70
"Hohenlinden," 57n
Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 49n
Home, Henry, 161
Homer, 56, 112, 136, 152-3
Honest Whore, The, 46
Horace, 52, 54n, 55, 57n, 86, 136,

139, 148, 153, 172, 174, 176
Hubbell, Jay B., 9n, 20n, 27n, 29n,

31n, 37n, 41n, 44n, 46n, 160
Hume, David, 96
Hunt, Leigh, 54n, 168
"Hymn of the Nativity," 127

180

THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

"Idiot Boy," 140, 144

Iliad,71, 112, 149, 152

Imagination, 7, 10-11, 13, 15, 19,
21, 28, 32, 35, 61, 64, 71, 73-76,
80-81, 88, 90, 94-95, 99, 110-11,
114, 117-20, 124, 131, 147-49,
151-52, 158, 161-62, 167, 168-
69, 175

Imagination and Fancy, 168

Imitations of Horace, 176

"Imperfect Sympathies," 159

Improvisations, 12, 65-66, 119, 142,
168-69

"In Bowers of Ease," 43n

"In Memoriam," 39, 40n, 121

Independent, The, 165

Ingelow, Jean, 41n, 50, 52

Inspiration, 4-5, 7, 9, 10-12, 17-18,
19, 21, 30, 32-38, 64-66, 89-90,
118-20, 135-37, 162, 164, 167,
168-70, 173

"Intimations of Immortality from
Recollections of Early Child-
hood," 33n, 81, 127

Intuition, 4-5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 21, 23-
24, 34-38, 113-14, 135-37

"It is a beauteous evening, calm
and free," 81

Ivanhoe, 71, 72, 96, 149

Jane Eyre, 49

Johnson, Samuel, 14, 100, 140, 141,

153, 173, 175, 176
Joscelyn, 51n
Juvenal, 139, 140, 148

Kames, Lord, 85, 161
"Katie," 33

Keats, John, 5, 41-2, 42n, 173
King John, 45-6

"La Belle Juive," 47n

La Nouveile Helo'ise, 56

Lamartine, 49n

Lamb, Charles, 48, 78, 107, 159,

167, 174
Language, 14-16, 17-18, 21, 33, 54,

71-72, 74-76, 114, 122, 143, 150-

54, 159, 174

"Laodamia," 62, 81, 158
Last Essays of Ella, 167
Last Years of Henry Timrod, The,

cited frequently in footnotes to

Introduction, 160
"Late Henry Timrod, The," 37n
Latin, 52-56, 59n
LeConte, Joseph, 13-14
Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-

Lettres, 85, 161
Legare, Hugh Swinton, 59
Legare, James Mathewes, 59

"Let V y prattle," 54n

"Letter to John Murray," 175, 176
"Letter to Samuel Hartlib: On

Education," 158
Letters of Curtius, 172
Lewisohn, Ludwig, 41n
"Lines," 38n
"Lines to R. L.," 38
"Literary Nationalism in the Old

South," 27n, 160
"Literary pranks," 31
Literary Remains, 158
"Literature in the South," 19n, 27-

29, 83-102. Notes: 160-4
"Little Spot of Dingy Earth, A,"

22n
Lloyd, Mrs. Kate Timrod, 40, 53,

165
Local Color, 28-30, 42n, 58n, 87-

89, 161-62
Locksley Hall, 39
"London," 141
Longfellow, Henry W., 86
Longinus, 54n
"Love's Philosophy," 9n
Lucretius, 77, 151
Lyons, Rachel, 30n, 33n, 36, 47n,

50n, 51n, 59n

Macaulay, T. B., 124

Mackay, Charles, 97

"Madoc," 144

Marryatt, Frederick, 98, 160, 164

Marvell, Andrew, 46

"Maryland, My Maryland," 30, 163

"Maud," 38n, 40n, 144

INDEX

181

"^Madeline," 47n

Marion, 174

"Marseillaise Hymn," 170

Martial, 53n, 55

Matter-of-factness in poetry, 16,
78, 80-81, 123, 145-46, 159, 174

Maynard, Frangois, 55

McCarter, James, 57n

Memorabilia and Anecdotal Remi-
niscences of Columbia, S. C, 31n

Memoir of James L. Petigru, 172,
174

Memories of the Timrod Revival,
40n, 53n, 59n, 165

Messiah, The, 143

Metamorphoses, 55

Metaphysical poetry, 46-47

"Methought I saw the Footsteps of
a Throne," 81

Metre, 14, 15, 39, 56, 69, 72, 74-
77, 104, 113, 122, 149-53, 158,
159

Middleton, Thomas, 46

Milton, John, 14, 32, 33, 35, 39, 40,
45, 62, 63, 71, 76, 77, 107 112,
115, 121, 122, 124, 127, 136,
143, 149-50, 151, 153, 157, 158,
167, 173, 176

Modern Painters, 159

Moore, Thomas, 42, 58, 61, 62, 66,
82, 128, 158

"Morahty," 157, 170

"Mother," 140

"Mother's Wail, A," 26-7, 56n

"My Last Duchess," 41

Mycerinus, 40n

"Names of the Months Phonetically
Expressive," 44n

Napoleon, 141

"National Songs," 30, 163-64

"Nationality in Literature," 29n,
161-63

Nature, 7, 9, 10-11, 26-7, 32-8, 43,
44, 49, 57, 79-81, 99, 115-19,
121, 124-28, 131, 138, 140-43,
145-47, 158, 161-62, 169, 173,
175, 176

Neo-classicism, 13, 22, 28, 33, 85-6,

98, 99, 104-5, 123-5, 139-41,
172-3, 175, 176

Never Too Late to Mend?, 52

New York, 27, 97

"Night Piece, A," 81

"Noon. An Eclogue," 58n

NortJi American Review, The, 93

Novum Organum, 48n

"Observations Prefixed to 'Lyrical

Ballads,'" 157, 158, 159, 167,

170, 175
"Ode," 27

"OEnone," 38n, 40n
"On the Nature and Uses of Art,"

14n
Oratory, 137-8, 152-53, 174
Ossian, 141
"Out upon it!", 54n
Outlines of Natural Philosophy,

163
Outlook, The, 157
Ovid, 49, 55

Page, Walter Hines, 9n, 56n
"Palace of Art, The," 40n
Paradise Lost, 17, 40, 71, 99, 106,

107-13, 121, 143, 149, 152, 157,

164, 167, 168, 169
"Past, The," 52n
Percy, Thomas, 175
Persius, 49, 55-56
Personal Talk, 170
Petigru, James L., 59, 172, 173
Petronius, 176
"Philip, My Son," 49n
Philip Van Artevelde, 164
Philosophy, 7-9, 18, 35, 37-38, 51n,

67, 69-70, 77, 80, 85, 92, 94-95,

99, 100, 104, 110-11, 113, 120-
22, 124-27, 130, 137-39, 149,
151-52, 161, 170, 173

"Philosophy of Composition, The,"

168
Phoenix, The, 3 In
Plato, 137
Playfair, John, 92, 163

182

THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

Poe, Edgar Allan, 16-17, 21, 39, 96,
105-07, 111-13, 114-16, 119,
120, 121, 122, 123, 125, 129,
130, 166, 167, 168

Foems (Timrod), 160

Poems of Henry Timrod (Hayne
ed. ), frequently cited in foot-
notes to Introduction

Poems of Henry Timrod ( Memorial
ed.), frequently cited in foot-
notes to Introduction

Poems of the Imagination, 170

"Poems on the Naming of Places,
IV," 159

Poems on Various Subjects, 57-58

"Poetl if on a lasting fame be bent,"
34

Poetasters, 18-20, 62, 66, 96-97,
153, 163

Poetic diction, 14-16, 21, 71, 74-76

"Poetic Principle, The," 105ff., 167

Poetic prose, 14, 16, 69-78, 112-13,
138, 148-54, 159

"Poet's Epitaph, A," 81, 168

Pollok, Robert, 164

Pomponius, 55n

Pope, Alexander, 28, 33, 85, 86, 87,
99, 124, 140, 141, 172, 173, 175,
176

Power in poetry, 18, 25, 117-18

"Prasceptor Amat," 41, 52n, 56

"Prelude," 127, 144, 157, 168, 170

"Princess, The," 40n, 88, 170

Propertius, 54n, 55

"Prose and Song," 76-77, 159

"Quebec," 57n

Rabelais, 172
Randall, James Ryder, 20
"Rape of the Lock, The," 141
"Rationale of Poetry, The," 165
"Raven, The," 119, 120
Reade, Charles, 52
Reading (Timrod's), 32-60
PiecoUections of the Tahle-Talk of
Samuel Rogers, 157

Religion and poetry, 5, 42n, 47-48,
107-10, 121, 127, 130, 136-37,
167

Reliques of Ancient English Poetry,
175

Remains in Prose and Verse of Ar-
thur Henry Hallam, 158

"Reminiscence of Henry Timrod,
A," 59n

Requier, A. J., 20

"Retirement," 24

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 100

"Rhapsody of a Southern Winter
Night, A," 22n, 24n, 39

Robinson, Felicia, 52n

Robinson Crusoe, 71, 149

Rogers, Samuel, 12n, 62-63, 143,
157

Rousseau, 56-57

"Rule Britannia," 30, 163

Russell, John, 59

Russell's Magazine, 38n, 42n, 48,
69, 70, 78, 157, 158, 160, 172,
173

Sappho, 54n

Satire, 98, 100, 139, 147-48, 175

Satires, 207n, 209-10

Satyricon, 176

Science, 14, 92-94, 117, 123, 158,

159
Scott, Walter, 29, 71, 87-88, 89,

96, 105, 140, 143, 149, 161, 176
Selby, Julian A., 31n
Selden, John, 138, 174
Seminole War, 56
Sensibility, 4-5, 11, 15, 42n, 70, 73-

74
Shakspere, WiHiam, 14, 29, 33,

43n, 44-46, 83, 89, 99, 109, 124,

128, 143, 153, 159, 160, 161,

162, 167, 168, 173
"Shakspeare, with introductory

matter on Poetry, the Drama,

and the Stage," 158
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 6-10, 33n,

41, 158, 167, 173

INDEX

183

"She was a phantom of dehght,"

128-29
Shirley, 49
Simile, Miltonic, 40
Simms, W. G., 18n, 19n, 20, 31n,

33n, 37-38, 45, 46, 51, 53n, 56,

58, 59, 96, 160-61, 173
Simonides, 56n
"Six months's such a wonderful

time," 54n
Smith, Adam, 140
Smith, Sidney, 49n
Snowden, Yates, 59n
"Song/Air— Tlie Glasses Sparkle on

the Board," 58n
"Song" ("The Zephyr that toys

with thy curls"), 9n
"Song at the Feast of Brougham

Casde," 81
"Song of Mignon," 56
"Song— When I bade thee adieu,"

42n
Songs, national, 30, 163-64, 169-70
Sonnet, 11-13, 24, 61-68, 157
"Sonnet— In die Deep Shadow,"

24n
"Sonnet IV— They dub thee idler,

smiling sneeringly," 24n
"Sonnet V— Some truths there be

are better left unsaid," 24n
"Sonnet X," 25n
"Sonnet XI," 46n
"Sonnet XIV— Are these wild

thoughts, thus fettered in my

rhymes," 24n
Sophocles, 52
"Sorrow," 157
Southern Bivouac, The, 59n
"Southern Literature," 29n, 162-63
Southern Literary Messenger, 30n,

33n, 47n, 48, 51n, 52n
Southern nationalism, 27-31, 83-

102, 130, 160-64
"Soutliern Nationality," 29n
Southern Review, The, 59
Southern Society, 37n, 53n, 58n
Southey, Robert, 173

Spenser, Edmund, 17, 43-44, 112,

173
"Spring," 26n
Statins, 55

Sterling, John, 48, 76-77, 159
St. Elmo, 50-51
"Star-Spangled Banner, The," 30,

163
Sublimity, 17, 105-6, 108, 110-11,

113, 116, 149, 163-64, 173
Suckling, John, 47, 54n
"Sullivan's Island," 58n
"Summer Bower, The," 36-37, 39
"Summer Shower, A," 9n
"Sweet let not our slanderers," 53n
Swift, Jonathan, 172
Swinburne, Algernon, 50
Sybilline Leaves, 170

Table Talk, 159, 176

"Talking Oak," 21

Taylor, Henry, 48, 95, 164

Taylor, Jeremy, 76

Tennyson, Alfred, 21, 32, 33, 38-

40, 49n, 86, 115, 119-20, 121,
122, 128, 129, 131, 144, 166, 170

Thackeray, W. M., 48n
"Thalaba," 144

"Theory of Poetry, A," 6, 10, 16-18,
22n, 25n, 29n, 33n, 35n, 39, 40,

41, 43n, 44n, 48n, 103-32, 159.
Notes: 165-71

"There is I know not what about

thee," 53n
Thompson, H. T., 52n, 53n
Thomson, James, 33, 42-43, 90,

124, 160, 166
"Thorn," 140, 141
"Three years she grew in sun and

shower," 81
Tibullus, 54n, 55
Timrod-Goodwin Collection, 18n,

25n, 36n, 39n, 41n, 45n, 46n,

49n, 51n, 52n, 56n
"Timrod's Essays in Literary Criti-
cism," lOn
Timrod, William Henry, 25n, 36n,

45, 56, 57-58

184

THE ESSAYS OF HENRY TIMROD

"Tintem Abbey, Lines on," 79-80,

121, 125-26, 159, 170
"To Anna," 25n
"To Harry," 57n
"To his Coy Mistress," 46
"To our Poetical Contributors"

(quoted), 19-20
"To Pyrrha," 57n
"To William Wordsworth," 170
Tom Jones, 71, 95, 149
Tooker, L. Frank, 42n
"Tractate on Education," 71, 77,

149-50, 158
Trent, W. P., 18n, 31n, 33n, 160
"Troubles of a Midsummer Night,"

31
Truth in poetry, 5, 6, 7, 18, 23, 25,

35-38, 68, 94-95, 117-18, 120,

123-28, 130, 131-32, 170, 173,

174, 176
Tupper, M. F., 96
"Two Field Flowers," 44n
"Two Voices," 166

"Ulysses," 38, 88

Uncollected Poems of Henry Tim-
rod, cited frequently in notes to
Introduction

Unity, 13, 16-18, 63-64, 67-68, 77,
106-14, 120, 122-23, 127, 143,
151-52, 159, 175

"Unpublished Letters of Henry
Timrod," 33n, 36n

"Vanity of Human Wishes," 143,

176
"Venus and Adonis," 44
Vergil, 52, 53n, 140, 141, 153
Villette, 49
"Vision of Poesy, A," 4-11, 22n,

25n, 26n, 34, 35n, 42n, 44
Voigt, G. P., lOn
Voltaire, 143
"Vox et Prseterea Nihil," 24n

"War and Literature," 3 In, 168-69
War, Civil, 3, 10-11, 26-27, 29-31,

38, 49-50, 60, 161-64, 168-70,

174
Ward, Artemus, 49n
Wauchope, G. A., 6n, 53n
"Westminster Bridge," 81
"What is Poetry?" (Grayson), 13-

16, 68-72, 133-54, 166. Notes:

172-76
"What is Poetry?" (Timrod), 10,

11, 13-16, 69-82, 167. Notes:

158-59
"White Doe of Rylestone," 144
Whittier, John G., 20, 49n, 52n
"Why Silent," 23n, 25n
Wilhelm Meister, 56
William Gilmore Simms, 18n, 31n,

33n, 160
"William Henry Timrod, the

Charleston Volunteers, and the

Defense of St. Augustine," 56n
Wilson, Augusta Evans, 50-51
Wilson, John (Christopher North),

175
"Windsor Forest," 124
Wolfe, Charles, 43n
Wolfe, Gen. James, 144
Words, 14-16, 17-18, 21, 33, 54,

71-72, 74-76, 114, 122, 143, 150-

54, 159, 173, 175
Wordsworth,William, 7, 9n, 12, 16,

28, 32-36, 39, 40, 41, 52, 62, 63,

66, 67, 78, 79-82, 86, 87, 90, 99,

117, 121, 123, 124-29, 132, 139-

40, 141, 143, 144-47, 157, 158,

159, 167, 168, 170, 173, 174,

175, 176
"World is too much with us, The,"

"Yew Trees," 81

"Youth and Manhood," 22-23

The essays of Henry Timrod, main
814.3T586eC.2

3 IEIdE D3173 bS3D

APR 0 1 1996 MAR 1 5 ^P^

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