15 is, that having an elm tree, which stood before his house, cut down, he found that without some interposition, when it was nearly down, it would fall upon his house. it, and the axe-men, perhaps, or some schoolboys who chanced to pass Accordingly, ropes were fastened about that way, laid hold of them, and pulled the tree down in an opposite direction from the house. that the age of a tree might be told by the number of concentric rings Our author, remembering it had been said contained in its trunk-and that the wetness or dryness of any particular year might be told by the width of the several circles-and remembering, that seven years before there had been a drought-thought his elm, which had just been felled, would present a good opportunity for testing the truth of the above theory, and proceeded to examine the rings. Sure enough, that circle which was the seventh from the outer one, and corresponded to the year of drought, was very narrow. The rings, which corresponded to other dry years, were also found narrow; and those which corresponded to years which our author remembered to have been wet, were found to be wide. The result of the examination by Mr. Tupper was his essay called "Yesterday." In this piece he tells about his elm tree which was cut down, and about examining the rings. He then goes on to compare the heart of man to the elm and its concentric circles. proceeds "From that elm tree's sap, distil the wine of truth." "Heed ye those hundred rings, concentric from the core, He Seven years agone there was a drought,-and the seventh ring is narrowed; Thus, man, thou art a result, the growth of many yesterdays, That stamp thy secret soul with marks of weal or woe: Thou art an almanac of self, the living record of thy deeds; Spirit hath its scars as well as body, sore and aching in their season: Lo, here, the heart-wood rotten; lo, there, perchance the sap-wood sound." This extract is a fair sample of "Proverbial Philosophy." We will not particularize farther. In the meantime, however, we will generalize, after this manner :-If there is a single poetical thought in the whole volume, we have not been able, by a cursory search, to discover it. There is none of that passion or philosophy of sentimentnone of that fancy of expression-none of that melody of dictionnone of the je ne sais quoi (the something unknown), which can only be judged of by its soul-stirring effect-there is not one particle of these things which go to make up poetry, within the whole compass of "Proverbial Philosophy." On the contrary, this melange consists of stupid, stale, common-place truisms, measured off in irregular lines, without any melody, and whose only remarkability consists in the quaintness of their inversion, and the grotesqueness of their expression. Take away from them these characteristics, and clothe the ideas-if, indeed, you can find them after being denuded of their outre dress-in a plain garb of good English, and you might rank our author's productions with the most nonsensical and stupid schoolboy productions of the day. Now, we have protested, and we protest again, against writers being made great, because they express themselves so as not to be understood. Talleyrand said that the use of language was to conceal our ideas. Some people make it the means of concealing their want of ideas. Carlyle's great forte lies in this, and so does Emerson's. Tupper seems anxious to profit by their example. We can inform him, that his long, limping, drawling lines, are not poetry. He has never been permitted even to kneel at the foot of Parnassus, much less to gather the ivy from its brow, and transplace it upon his temples. We will speak now of Mr. Tupper's connection with America. For some time before his visit to this country, we had occasionally seen or heard of pieces called poems, emanations from his pen, in which he professed to think highly of our people. We thought, however, that they savored somewhat of a patronizing manner, which indicated a want of proper furniture in the upper story of their author. Our impression has been fully sustained by his recent course. On the morning of his arrival in the harbor of New-York, he put forth in the Evening Post the following lines, which Harper's Magazine pronounces "graceful :" "Not with cold scorn or ill-dissembled sneer, Ungraciously your kindly looks to greet, After long hope and promise many a year, Shall tread your happy shores; my heart and voice Suffer my simple fervors to do good, As one poor pilgrim haply may and can, Speaks from his heart to touch his fellow man." We have italicised those portions of the above lines on which we mean to comment. Mr. Tupper represents the American people crowded around the wharf to witness his landing. See them-as they exist in our author's crazed brain, gazing upon the eighth wonder of the world, about to land upon American soil! They have "kindly looks" with which "to greet" the distinguished stranger. They feel themselves so much honored to meet such a one "face to face." Yet they do not expect these same "kindly looks" on his part. Oh no! Such poor devils as they must thank God for Mr. Tupper's visit; and at the same time they are greeting him with "kindly looks," they, poor fellows and semi-barbarians, must expect nothing but to be ungraciously greeted" with "cold scorn or ill-dissembled sneer!" But how astonished will they be, how agreeably surprised, and how 17 humbly grateful for the favor bestowed upon them by this mighty Briton, when he very graciously tells them, that although such crea tures as they are have no right to expect any thing else, yet he will not ungraciously meet them with "cold scorn or ill-dissembled sneer." How kind, how patronizing, how condescending! Serus in cœlum redeas, dinque Follat. Hic magnos potius triumphos, Mr. Tupper speaks of his "willing feet, after long hope and promise many a year treading your happy shores." understand, that he has been promising us for many years that he He gives us to would confer upon us the favor of a visit. Now he comes to fulfill his promise, and keep us from grieving any more over his long absence. Well, what will he do, now that he has come? tells us in the poem we are commenting upon, and more fully tells He partly us in his New-York speech, which we shall presently notice. In the poem he says, he has "simple fervors to do good," and very simple they are indeed! This "doing good," we suppose, means enlightening and protecting this benighted and impotent land, the land of all others which needs enlightenment and protection from such a man as Tupper. So much for the sentiment of the lines which " Harpers' Magazine" pronounces "graceful." Let us now examine their verbal construction. Our author is very much at fault even in this. He means to say to the Americans, "I do not intend to meet you to greet your kindly looks with cold scorn or ill-dissembled sneer." Here there are two parties in contemplation by Mr. Tupper, I and you, himself and the Americans. But there is a strange conglomeration of these parties in our poet's manner of expressing himself. For he says, "We meet face to face to greet your kindly looks :—that is, we, Mr. Tupper and the Americans, meet face to face to greet your, the Americans', kindly looks. Now, how the party of Americans standing on the wharf to see Mr. Tupper could greet their own kindly looks, we are at a loss to determine, unless Mr. Tupper's uniting himself with them, and saying "we," would enable them to do so. author believes himself fully capable of impossibilities, it is barely And as our possible he intended to perform one in this instance. tended that when Mr. Tupper wrote we, he meant by it I, as kings, If it be coneditors, and reviewers do, be it remembered he then involves himself in a worse dilemma than before. For he says, we meet face to face. Here there is a meeting of more faces than one, and the question would arise, "How could the author meet himself face to face?" This again would be utterly inexplicable, unless we are to suppose that, in using the plural pronoun we, he thought that he had been ac tually transformed into more than one. of a man who is very celebrated for any quality or characteristic, We sometimes hear it said 2 VOL. I. "he is two of them." Perhaps Mr. Tupper really thinks he is "two of them." Or, perhaps, after all, our poet wrote with a mirror before him, and thus was enabled to say, we meet face to face." 66 Now it would have been very easy for America's "Protector" to express himself clearly, in good English, had he only understood the English language. He could have expressed himself thus : Not with cold scorn* or ill-dissembled sneer, By God's good favor, safely landed here, My friends and brothers face to face I meet. Or if the man had not been the concentrated essence of egotism, and had contemplated the possibility that Americans, as well as himself, might sneer, he could have written, Not with cold scorn or ill-dissembled sneer Oh friends and brothers, face to face we meet. But after all, does Mr. Tupper mean anything, or nothing, by "illdissembled sneer?" What kind of sneer is this? What does he mean by "kindred love," in the context in which kindred is used? What does he mean by "knit to heaven and earth by gratitude?" If the lines we are commenting upon be a poem, it is, to say the least of it, one in which there is bad grammar and much obscurity. The latter quality its author doubtless intended it should have, in order to make it look deep and mysterious. The bad grammar he probably could not help, because he knew no better. There is another poem being published in the papers, composed by our author, which also shows how much good he expects to accomplish by his visit to the New World, and how complacently and patronizingly he assures us of his good will," with his heart in his hand, to give it wherever he please." We quote the whole poem, that the good, if any, may be seen along with the bad: "Shall it be with a tear or a smile, Old World, With a pang at the heart, Or in cold-blooded stoical style, Old World? In truth it must be with a tear, Old World, The lingering mind Looks sadly behind, In doubt, and reluctance, and fear, Old World. *This idea of "scorn" and "scornful" is quite familiar to Mr. Tupper when speaking of America. He could not even write his "Address to the Union" without introducing it:"Were I but some scornful stranger, Still my counsel would be just," &c. &c.-[ED.] Yet ever, by land and sea, Old World, And happily travel with me, Old World! So thus with a spirit of rest, New World, I seek your bright shores of the West, New World! My work to fulfill, And do what I do for the best, New World! Gratefully here for a space, New World, To feel always at home With brothers in every place, New World. No dignified dullness to freeze, New World, With my heart in my hand, To give it wherever I please, New World." One would suppose Mr. Tupper had but two familiar acquaintances, and those were the Old and New World. Perhaps he has been long enough acquainted with the Old World to excuse his excessive familiarity with that. But we can't help thinking of what we once heard a clown tell a little boy in a circus, when we see with what familiarity he addresses the New World, to which he had not even been introduced. A little boy-one of the dramatis personæ of the circus-stepped up to the clown, and leaned his hand upon his shoulder in a very familiar manner. Thereupon the clown, with an arch look of supreme contempt, told him that he was too d- -d familiar, on a short acquaintance." Is Mr. Tupper aware that "familiarity breeds contempt?" If we mistake not, Englishmen have complained somewhat of the rude and indelicate familiarity of Yankees, and Heaven knows we blame them not; for they have usually formed their estimate of Yankees from the itinerant tribe of peddlers who peregrinate, not inhabit, New-England. Might not the New World now retort, and say there was at least "considerable" familiarity in one Englishman, if not more? There is nothing very clear in the foregoing poem, and it is rendered very unintelligible by the author's accustomed mysteriousness. For instance, what does he mean, when he tells the Old World God "will happily travel with" him? But whatever amount of fame Mr. Tupper has gained as a poet, it is likely to be eclipsed by that which he has acquired as an orator. Walter Scott wrote some of the best poetry the world ever saw, and had he never written the Waverly Novels, would have been famous as a great poet, and perhaps looked upon as the Homer of Scotland. As it was, his prose threw his poetry in the shade, and he is famous as Walter Scott the novelist, and not Walter Scott the poet. So of |