New-York tribune., 1868-04-23
THE FRATERYITY OF LETTERS.

w neli Henry fltlulnR, lne nioo0 S'"'" ''
most improvident of literary men, on the 2oth
of June, 1854, sick, poor, and, for once IN Ills
life, half f-hearted, kissed for the last time those
children upon whom he says he "d0ted WIN u
"mother-like fondness,n the eminent book
seller, Mr.. Samuel Richardson, was chuck
ling in his back shop, and writing 10
some ancient virgin OF correspondent
that Fielding, the author OF Joseph
"Andrews.r having half killed himself by hard
drinking. had gone off to Lisbon, and would
write no more caricatures of the chaste Pamela.
IL seems to have been peculiarly OF literary
life in those days to hate, to quarrel, to sneer,
to libel, and to keep up constant hre OF cpl
grams, pasquinades, and similar blrd-shot.
| Genius was as irritable then as in the times OF
Horace and when his biographers dwell
| upOn the morbid sensibility of Goldsmith,
we think they should remember by what
horde of hungry and il-natured rivals in busi-
ness he was surrounded. There can be no pos
sible doubt that we are living and writing in
| better day. If those who have read the speech
es made at the dinner of the Press to Mr.. Dick
ems last Saturday evening have failed
to notice the kindly bumor by which
they were marked, they must pardon us
for saying that they have missed
the pleasantest popularity of the entertain
ment. Everybody seemed to be good -natured.
The veterans of many newspaper wars left their
tomabawks down town, and broke bread tOge
ther with Eastern amenity. This was simply the
finest compliment which they could pay to their
distinguished guest; and it was eminently his
due, because he stands at the head of school
of literature the very first to acknowledge the
value of kindness, and courtesy, and cOnsidera-
ton for human nfrmity TO appreciate this,
we must remember that very long ago In the
general history of letters and almost up to our
own day, satire simply for the sake of the per-
sona pain which it gave maintained dscred-
| liable importance. II was thought to be an evil
dence of greatness that merely clever writer
could render fellow writer, whether clever or
not ridiculous and contemplate in the eyes OF
| the world 1t is fnghtful to look back upon
| the Grub-street muck and melee, and to recol-
| lect that this Sitting of noses and cropping of
ears, this stabbing in the dark or in the day
| light, in the back or in the breast, was the
regular calling of some who were Ignorant,
and of some who, to their shame, were well
| educated 1t is our good fortune, whatever our
station, to live in time when to be dlstln-
| guished as a writer is not necessarily 20 be
| detested by crowd of disappointed dwellers
! In the back slums of literature. 1t Is
| pleasant to consider that if we have III Amer
lea, rs yet, produced no poet of the highest
| class, our literature il almost entirely free from
| the blot of SATIRE and that our very best at
tempts in that department-the poems OF Mr..
! Hosea Bigelow-are so thoroughly good
natured that they do not deserve to be
regarded as satirical at all. We have
the fun, the wit, the humor. but not
| the blistering viruence of the old schoo! OF
snarlers and sneerers. Language such as Mill
ton constantly used in bis prose works would
not now be tolerated. Poems like Dryden's
MacFlecknoe,n or Popes "Dunciad," or
Churchirs Prophecy of Famine" or even
Byrons English Bards," might now, if they
could be produced, attract attention, but they
| would be received without any general relish.
| There are those who regret that satire has
grown od-fashoned, and who fancy that in
the mutual courteses of literary men they
discover evidence of lack of earnestness and
the signs of dilletanti indifference They
suppose that there can be no healthy lite
nature unless pretenders are stigmatized
rs knaves, as idiots, rs thieves, and as
ounces. They are full of the obsolete idea
! that a man of letters should, as q matter of
course, always have half-a-d0zen quarrels upon
his hands, and that he never shines so brightly
as when breaking the head of a brother scrib-
| bier. Now il one wishes to understand of how
| little value is truculent and unsparing abuse
which in no sense of the word is criticism at all,
| he should look through the earlier volumes of
| The London Quarterly Reriew and mark what Mr..
| William Clifford thought of Shelley, of Eazlett,
| of Keats and of Leigh Hunt, or he should
| read the famous, never to be forgotten, and
never TO be forgiven, article of Jeffrey upon
Wordsworth; and it will then gradually dawn
upon his mind, perhaps, that good books live,
and that bad books die, not by the
fiat of individual praise or blame but
| by the decision of their own virtues
and the doom of their own vices. There is
strength in satire, and so there is strength in
the railing accusations of fish-wives; but weak
ness and stupidity are, by the laws of their
own nature, ephemeral, and may be left TO
pass away without the creation of bad blood,
and without any ink-shed needessly profuse.
| IL is sometimes said of q choice wine that
there is not headache in n hogshead of it;
and it is possible that the time may come when
| the differences of literature and even of poll
ties may be rid of the poison of personal acri-
mony, and be vitalized only by an honorable de-
sire for the promotion of truth and the right.
1t is conceded, We believe, that among nations
there is daily increasing disinclination to
engage in war. Why should it not be
so7 Is there to be perpetual material
without any corresponding moral advance
ment7 And if nations are indeed to forget
venerable feuds and prejudices which long
since lapsed into absurdties, why should not