enabled to bring into its list of contributors a better corps of writers, perhaps, than has ever before or since been boasted by such a work. Among these were Richard H. Dana, Esq., Washington Allston, J. F. Cooper, Bryant, Longfellow, Hoffman, Willis, and others. While he was editor, the circulation of the Magazine increased from seventeen thousand to twenty-nine thousand. He has published a large number of volumes anonymously. One of these is a collection of his verses, and two others constitute a novel. He has also brought out anonymously, partly or entirely written by himself, six or eight works on history and biography, which, though they have satisfied the critics and the publishers, appear, from being unacknowledged, not to have satisfied their author. He has printed, at sundry times, seven discourses on subjects of history and philosophy, and a volume of sermons. In reviews, magazines and newspapers he has written largely; enough to fill a dozen octavo volumes. In 1844 he published Curiosities of American Literature.' We are indebted to him, moreover, for an edition of the prose works of Milton, preceded by an eloquent and valuable Life,' published in 1846. This was the first modern reprint of Milton's prose, and was a voluntary contribution by the editor to the fortunes of a worthy and interesting man of genius, the Rev. Herman Hooker, D.D., then struggling to establish himself as a publisher. 6 Dr. Griswold's position as a man of letters, however, is chiefly owing to his biographies and literary histories and disquisitions, in the 'Poets and Poetry of America,' 1842; the Poets and Poetry of England in the Nineteenth Century,' 1844; the Prose-Writers of America,' 1846,' and the 'Female Poets of America,' 1848. For the difficult office of determining and representing and pourtraying the respective merits of the authors of America, in which he has risen to an easy supremacy, and which now by common consent has been delegated to his hands, he undoubtedly has many rare qualifications. The mental attribute which he possesses in the most distinguishing degree, and to which his success is largely owing, is judgment. Το say that he excels by that attribute is to award perhaps the highest praise that could be bestowed. The loftiest and rarest quality of the mind is judgment. It is above invention; it is beyond eloquence; it is more than logic. In every employment and every condition of life, private and public, deliberative and executive, the ascendancy of judgment over talent, wit, passion, imagination, learning, is evinced at once by the rarity of the endowment, and by the superiority which it is certain to confer upon its possessor. As a comparative critic, his opinions are always entitled to weight. Sensitive to the finest indications of literary promise; apt to detect essential merit, under whatever guise of oddity or affectation or bad taste; acute in perception, and comprehensive in sympathy; he always holds aloft, firmly and steadily, the scale of just decision, and reports the result without prepossession and without timidity. He possesses a rapid and sure coup d'œil. He surveys the merits of a volume with a scrutiny as piercing as it is brief, and arrives promptly at a result which will commonly be found to stand the test of prolonged examination. His sagacity has been so often displayed and approved, that there is probably no one among us whose opinion on a question of literary merit would have greater influence with the judicious minds of the country. His shrewdness in prognosticating the popular taste is not less acute, and his perception of what is likely to be successful is as accurate as his appreciation of what is really meritorious. The literary abilities displayed in the original portion of these works are entitled to very high rank, and are undoubtedly the sufficient cause of their popularity and permanence. Dr. Griswold's style is fresh, brilliant, delicate, perhaps over-delicate, but never feeble, and rarely morbid. With unerring accuracy, he always indicates the strong points of his subject; yet he indicates rather than seizes them. The outlines of truth are always traced with nicety and precision; yet are they traced rather than channeled. His coloring is refined, soft, suggestive; dealing in half tints, or mixed hues, more usually than in simple and contrasted colors. His perceptions are keenly intelligent, and full of vitality and vividness; but they are too mercurial, fugitive and hasty; they want fixity, persistency and prolongation. He touches some rich element of truth or beauty, but he does not linger upon it to develope and unfold its deep and full resources; he merely touches it, and is off in search of some remote conception, which he will strike and bound away from, like a glancing sunbeam. A discussion by him, therefore, is a series of gentle and delightful flashes, not a steady and prolonged blaze. The fault lies more in the school than in the performer. If he uses water-colors rather than oils, it is because the style is in mode, and not because the genius of the artist could not glow upon canvass as well as glitter upon paper. But moral qualities of a very unusual and very elevated sort were needed for an undertaking like the one which we speak of, and it is here that Dr. Griswold's character rises to excellence. From partiality, from prejudice, from the bias of anger and the warp of affection, his nature seems to be wholly free. A writer so void of literary jealousy never was created upon the earth. He comes to his work, too, without any of those inveterate predilections or antipathies of taste which most men, as highly educated, contract. His views are not moulded in the forms of any systems, classes, or modes of criticism. His candor, sincerity, and utter fearlessness in avowing his genuine convictions are of inestimable value; and there is not only a perfect honesty in his mind, but a thorough freedom even from unintended predispositions and unconscious obliquities. Even where he cannot enjoy he appreciates, and he points out and expounds for the participation of others that which perhaps to himself may afford no pleasure. With some of the people in these volumes his relations are those of affectionate intimacy; with others they are decidedly hostile; yet cavil itself might be defied to show an instance in which he has over-valued the merits of a friend or done unfairness to the titles of an enemy. But while we affirm that the author of these volumes has displayed in them remarkable qualities of mind and accomplishment, we admit at the same time that what he has yet done is not worthy of the capacity which he certainly possesses. Our settled judgment is, that Dr. Griswold is a man of very superior and uncommon talents, and that he is destined to achieve much that shall be far beyond the line of his heretofore endeavors. We consider ourselves to be accurately acquainted with his nature; we have seen him closely at sundry times, and in various emergencies; with a severe, rather than a partial eye, we have explored and measured a character which interested our scrutiny. We are satisfied that neither the public nor Dr. Griswold himself has formed a just and adequate appreciation of the original and commanding abilities which he has. If opinion has fallen below his performances, they again are below his powers. His own great infirmity if so interesting a peculiarity may thus be called-consists in a want of mental self-reliance; an absence of deep, broad confidence, in his own inherent and inborn strength. And that perhaps has betrayed the judgment of the public; for the latter is usually not disposed to take a man at a higher rate than he asks for himself. The community recognises him as an acute, searching, and correct critic; as a profound bibliographer and annalist; and as master of a bright, pointed, and discursive style, light enough to lend grace to the airiest topics, and vigorous enough to dash at the weightiest. Dr. Griswold is more than all that. He is a man of genius; abounding in the resources of inventive thought; gifted, evidently and copiously, with the vision and the faculty divine,' which give to the world more than they gain from it, and glorify all that they perceive. There is a class of minds, whose dynamical condition is not quite accordant with their statical condition; who, in what they do, never perfectly represent what they are. Studied in themselves, they interest and impress; followed in their works, they disappoint. Endowed, unmistakably, with the characteristics of superiority, whenever they put themselves in action, some unlucky element mixes itself up with the operation, some trick of weakness displays itself, some false bias, some fatal affinity comes athwart the effort, to make it miscarry, and the movement which commenced from genius concludes in commonplace. The fault lies rather in the temperament than in the talent. In Dr. Griswold's case, the misfortune, hitherto, has been that his interest in literary subjects has been so irritable, and his energy sprang with such instantness to seize every scheme which flashed before him, that the strong and firm capacities of his intellectual being have not had opportunity calmly and consistently to develop themselves. But within and beneath the volatile curiosity which is engrossed by externality, and almost entirely detached from it, is a deep, subtle, intenselyvital sensibility, which is a fund of creative affluence, and which, when fully worked out by the owner, will yield magnificent results. Separated from the electrical excitability of the upper and outer surface of the character, there lies a large substratum, whose action possesses a galvanic power and exhaustlessness. Hitherto, he seems not to have been able to master, and get the management and use of his genius. With the power, he possesses much of the impatience of that nervous temparament, which, when controlled, is inspiration and energy, but when unsubjected, is distraction and weakness. Time, which sometimes builds up a character, by a process of breaking down its infirmities, will advance this person into a higher sphere of effort and distinction. When he has worked out and off the too fertile alluvion, whose rapid fertility has misled him as to the true wealth of his own being, he will discern the genuine treasures with which nature has endowed him, and will address himself to the duty which rests upon the depository of such resources. Of late, we have witnessed a decided increase in the force and freedom with which his native inspiration of thought throws itself abroad. What a profound, complete and exquisite estimate of the character of Poe, is that which has recently been copied through the papers. Yet it was thrown off within a few hours after the intelligence of his death reached the city by telegraph. We venture to predict a new and far brighter future for the fame of Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Ere many years are past, he will have vindicated his title to take rank among the most shining of our original authors. Dr. Griswold possesses remarkable powers of conversation. At a dinner-table of literary men, and men of the world, few will equal him int he original, rapid, brilliant flow of his remarks. Such a scene is well suited to display the variety of his powers, and almost unlimited resources of his information. When animated by the presence of a company which commands his respect, and kindles his ambition, he seems to rise to a higher grade of faculties, to be gifted with new powers of memory, and to be furnished with unfailing supplies of appropriate and eloquent language. At such times, his discourse has the readiness, the fluency and the correctness of written composition. With a mind quickly susceptible to every suggestion of enlightened curiosity, he catches any topic which you may present, glances with swift yet natural transition from the thing before him to something a thousand leagues away from him; enters, if invited, upon a critical discussion of some doubtful and difficult subject in literary history, gives you new, particular, and exact views of it; or discusses the topics of the day, with a vivid interest, and such interior knowledge as might seem attainable only by one habitually behind the scenes in all places. At the least, he always keeps his company awake, and if a little given to paradox, he is not the less on that account a very lively and very agreeable companion. His social virtues are excellent. He is a firm, devoted friend. He will go through fire and water to serve those whom he respects and values. As an enemy, he is dignified and not at all vindictive. In many instances he has treated with noble magnanimity, those who did him grievous wrong. When the confidence of his mind is given, he displays a chivalrous fidelity and loyalty. As the Quarterly once said of Dr. Parr, he would never think of cutting an old friend merely because he happened to be going to Botany Bay. When the town lays a man down, Dr. Griswold is disposed to take him up with increased ardor. He has a sort of Coriolanus-passion for unpopularity in a good These are the peculiarities of a noble nature; and if they provoke the impertinence of the canaille of scribblers, they attract and interest the sympathies of gentlemen. cause. J. H. M. VISIONS. THOU dost come to me in dreams, Or we seem to stray together, And the earth with flowers is dight. Trees are round, whose spreading shade Seems inviting us to rest; 'Let us then, dear beauteous maid, Seat us on Earth's fragrant breast, Birds like joyous spirits sing 'Mid the branches every where; And near fountains upward fling Dewy freshness on the air, Making music rich and rare. Thou dost lean upon my breast In whose depths pearls faintly shine. And I feel thy balmy breathing, And thine eye· -thy love-lit eye; Half unclosed, yet who can tell ; Break, enchantress, break the spell, Now my soul is lapped again |