Critical Notices [pp. 112-128]

SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER.
I come where the fountains
Their freshness diffuse,
And the flowers smile the sweetest,
Impearled with the dews.
In thy wild forest home,
Oh! I come to inhale
The pure balmy air
And the health-breathing gale.
Ye Nymphs of the woodlands!
Then dress your green bowers:
Bid vines spread their foliage,
And Spring wake her flowers.
Oh! bid your bright waters
Gush sparkling along,
And the wild forest bird
Charm the valleys with song;
For I come o'er the hills
To thy cool shady courts,
To quaff at thy fountains
And join in thy sports.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
MRS. SIGOURNEY-MISS GOULD-MRS. ELLET.
Zinzen(lorff, and other Poems. By Mrs. L. H. Sig,ourney,
New York: Published by Leavitt, Lord S Co. 1836.
Poems —By Miss H. F. Goutld, Third Edition. Boston:
Hilliard, Gray S Co. 1835.
Poems; Translated and Original. By Mrs. E. F. Ellet.
Philadelphia: Key and Biddle. 1835.
Mrs. Sigourney has been long known as an author.
Her earliest publication was reviewed about twenty
years ago, in the North American. She was then Miss
Huntley. The fame which she has since acquired is
extensive; and we, who so much admire her virtues
and her talents, and who have so firequently expressed
our admiration of both in this Journal-we, of all persons-are the least inclined to call in question the justice or the accuracy of the public opinion, by which
has been adjudged to her so high a station among
the literati of our land. Some things, however, we
cannot pass over in silence. There are two kinds
of popular reputation,-or rather there are two roads
by which such reputation may be attained: and it
appears to us an idiosyncrasy which distinguishes
mere fame from most, or perhaps from all other human
ends, that, in regarding the intrinsic value of the object,
we must not fail to introduce, as a portion of our estimate, the means by which the object is acquired. To
speak less abstractedly. Let us suppose two writers
having a reputation apparently equal-that is to say,
their names being equally in the mouths of the people-for
we take this to be the most practicable test of what we
choose to term apparent popular reputation. Their names
then are equally in the mouths of the people. The one
has written a great work-let it be either an Epic of high
rank, or something which, although of seeming littleness in itself, is yet, like the Christabelle of Coleridge,
entitled to be called great from its power of creating intense emotion in the minds of great men. And let us
imagine that, by this single effort, the author has attained a certain quantum of reputation. We know it
to be possible that another writer of very moderate
powers may build up for himself, little by little, a reputation equally great-and this, too, merely by keeping
continually in the eye, or by appealing continually with
little things, to the ear, of that great, overgrown, and majestical gander, the critical and bibliographical rabble.
It would be an easy, although perhaps a somewhat
disagreeable task, to point out several of the most popular writers in America-popular in the above mentioned
sense-who have manufactured for themselves a celebrity by the very questionable means, and in the very
questionable manner, to which we have alluded. But it
must not be thought that we wish to include Mrs. Sigourney in the number. By no means. She has trod,
however, upon the confines of their circle. She does
not owe her reputation to the chicanery we mention, but
it cannot be denied that it has been thereby greatly assisted. In a word-no single piece which she has written, and not even her collected works as we behold them
in the present volume, and in the one published some
years ago, would fairly entitle her to that exalted rank
which she actually enjoys as the authoress, time after
time, of her numerous, and, in most instances, very creditable compositions. The validity of our objections to
this adventitious notoriety we must be allowed to consider unshaken, until it can be proved that any minultiplication of zeros will eventuate in the production of a unit.
We have watched, too, with a species of anxiety and
vexation brought about altogether by the sincere interest we take in Mrs. Sigourney, the progressive steps
by which she has at length acquired the title of the
"American Hemans." Mrs. S. cannot conceal from her
own discernment that she has acquired this title solely
by imitation. The very phrase "American Hemans"
speaks loudly in accusation: and we are grieved that
what by the over-zealous has been intended as complimentary should fall with so ill-omened a sound into the
ears of the judicious. We will briefly point out those
particulars in which Mrs. Sigourney stands palpably
convicted of that sin which in poetry is not to be forgiven.
And first, in the character of her subjects. Every
unprejudiced observer must be aware of the almost
identity between the subjects of Mrs. Hemans and the
subjects of Mrs. Sigourney. The themes of the former
lady are the unobtrusive happiness, the sweet images, the
cares, the sorrows, the gentle affections, of the domestic
hearth-these too are the themes of the latter. The
Englishwoman has dwelt upon all the "tender and truite"
chivalries of passion-and the American has dwelt as
unequivocally upon the same. Mrs. Hemans has delighted in the radiance of a pure and humble faith-she
has looked upon nature with a speculative attentionshe has "watched the golden array of sunset clouds,
with an eye looking beyond them to the habitations of
the disembodied spirit"-she has poured all over her
verses the most glorious and lofty aspirations of a redeeming Christianity, and in all this she is herself glorious and lofty. And all this too has Mrs. Sigotirney
not only attempted, but accomplished-yet in all this
she is but, alas!-an imitator.
And secondly —in points more directly tangible than
the one just mentioned, and therefore more easily appreciated by the generality of readers, is Mrs. Sigourney again open to the charge we have adduced. We
mean in the structure of her versification-in the pecu
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