Weekly national intelligencer. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1841-1869, 1845-03-08
NATIONAL INTELLIGENCER.
NOTES ON NEW BOOKS.


These contain the amount usual to this sensbl,
and skilful journal of useful articles among which
that in No. 81, on our China trade 1--WE mean TO
not IN China,) and that in No. 90, on French Spo
lianons of our Commerce, are specially opportunt
and interesting.
The Complete Works of Mrs.. Hemmas, re-
printed entire from the last London edition
edited by her sister; in vols; New Y ork, D.
Appleton a. Co., 1885, l2mo., 1895 pages
small type, with ten engravings.
These are pretty and fanciful volumes, decorated
somewhat as BELTS their to be set off, let Thomp-
son or Milton say what they will of beauty's not
needing the foreign aid of art
We were scarcely aware till we saw this com
pleie edition, of the prodgious quantity OF verse
which this very popular poeess has left. Her
many admirers must rejoice at this opportunity OF
possessing themselves, in these elegant volumes, of
much that has hitherto been inaccessible to them.
We are not sure but that in the present Pro
gress OF Poesy " it is rapidly becoming necessary
10 apply TO the art science which has been lately
found highly useful TO many others, and to treat it.
like the remaining branches of productive industry
statistically.
The poems OF Mrs. HEMANs, reckoned at forty
lines to the page. he pages would contain ifty-two
ffty-four,) would make near fifty thousand lines,
OF which nearly the whole consists of original COM
positions She lived about forty years, we believe
SnaKsPEARE ffly-two. He is supposed to have
written during nearly thirty years; she seems to
have begun at fourteen, Thus writing about twenty
SIX nothing deducted for the period of wooing, OF
nursing, the necessities of needework and of house
keeping. His productions exceed hers, i'll the num-
Der Of verses, probably one-third. But his plays
are thought TO have been finished at about the rate
OF one year. He Is reputed 10 have never blot |
ted line, and is considered, with all his genius to
have been very rapid and incorrect writer. But
il Is clear that Mrs HEMANs exceeded him in speed
# she did not equal him in genius.
MILToN began TO write at about seventeen, and
lived 10 sixty-seven, thus composing during fifty
years. His Paradise Lost is about ten thousand
lines; the Paradise Regained about two thousand
Samson Agonlses one thousand seven hundred
Comus one thousand; his other poems about six
thousand three hundred making, in all, about
tweniy-one thousand verses, nearly two-ffths OF
the quantity produced BY him, in fifty years, that
Mrs III. composed IN twenty-six. Here, again, the
inieriory in facility Of genius TO mediocrity con
spicuoas. Ii is certain that II, with all his con-
summaie learning and vast powers, he had written
as much as she, us quality must have been greatly
injured. lie produced about five hundred lines
year; she about four times that quantity.
DRYDES's original produeuons-sin they in
clude his plays--it il is difficult to count His reg
ular poems, including his TRANSACTIONS make about
sixty thousand lines. lie began almost in his child
hood, and lived 10 be seyenty-one, writing inces-
sanity by contract. Near sixty years may be reck-
oned for his painful and enforced authorship, some
twcnty-eight OF which were for the stage. Sup
posing this part Of his tolls about equal to the other
ne viii still have averaged only about two thousand
lines year. But this includes great BODY OF
TRANSACTIONS. lie Is, however, the utmost example
of literary fertility. Excluding his plays utterly
without merit his rate of production translated and
original, IS about thousand lines the year. His
learning was high, his labor prodgious.
PoPE, the next greatest Of English writers, began
at twelve and died at fifty-seven; producing in for
y-fve years about forty thousand lines, some eigh,
thousand Of which at most are original. Transla-
lions included lin the chief of which he was assist
ed ne wrote at less than half the rate of Mrs. He
MANS. His original poetry was at less than the |
rate OF two hundred lines the year. He, too. was
learned and diligent.
GRAY, the next of our great bards, lived ffty-ive
years. He began to crne about twenty, and left
about one thousand verses. lie was, after MnToN,
the next most learned of our poets.
BYRON, beginning at twelve and ending at thirty
seven produced aboutforty thousand verses, or one
fifth less than Mrs. HEaAss during about the same
number Of years. His intellectual wealth, natural
and acquired, large, his vigor Of genius consid
cradle, and his facility OF composition as great as
any body can safely indulge. He wrote, that is TO |
than, in long one, that mightiest and most inven-
tive Of all geniuses, HOMER, in comparison with
whom all other poets are almost nothing lie tr
pied the productions of VIRGIL and TAsso; he
greatly exceeded the volume of DANTE and ARIosTo
and he doubled MnToN, writing about twenty
FIVE years less.
OF the rival celebrities of those copious vcrsi-
fiers, WORDSWORTH, SoUTHEY, and ScoTT, who
strummed away upon poetry let down TO its lowest
pegs, we need not pretend TO enumerate the verses
Joan of Arc and Madoc aud Thalaba and Kehama,
and so forth, no man can tell the quantity of for
the simple that nobody ever got to the end
of them. AS for the Excursion, the case is still
worse for il is without beginning as well as
without an end-answering perfectly, indeed, TO
BYRoS's description Of it
" Wordswor,hs last quar,o, By the way, is bigger
Than any the birthday Of typography
A clumsy, frowzy poem, called the Excursion,
Writ a manner which Is my aversion"
All these, then, might have had some poetry
IN them had they not taken such prodigious pains
10 dilute il. Ii il world of water, inspissaed with
the smallest smack Of spirits. II is, in poetry,
what might be made in coffee, Il according TO 4
western hgure) man were TO tic cofIee-bean 10
him and swim the Ohio Or, rather, perhaps,
we should put the thing in an opposite sense il is
must, undistlled into brandy: il is corn in the
brewers tub little iermented but not rec,ifed and
ethereaized into the mighty force Of whiskev that
makes one wink II he tastes IT, II is. in brief, the
very small beer OF poetry and we do not know
how the character of the noble and s,ro,c can he