The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1871-02-03
New Books.

PoEMs. By Bret Harte. Boston: Jas. R. os-
good & Co. 1871. Charleston: Holiness
Book House.
What is poetry? The question is eternally
asked; and yet among all the thousand and
one answers, volunteered from every posi-
BILE quarter, and couched in every conceiva-
bIe tone from the oracular to the common
place, no definition has apparently been in
vented sufficiently concise and comprehen-
sive to satisfy the critical inquirer. MIR.
Carlyle may tell US, with mystic emphasis,
that s.poetry is the attempt which man
smakes to renderhis existence harmonious,
and the disciple OF Leigh Hunt and Horne
Tooke may contemptuously rejoin that
'poetry is metrical languages" but when we
have heard both .oraeles, we. are as far as
ever froniSp5ssessfng d satisfactory defni-
ton of aasartI whose yotaries claim for it an
horizon bounded on the zone shand by the
mighty themes OF i'fate,I fresiwill, fore
"knowledge q absolute" and ontKe other by
the freaks;and misdemeapors ofsthe "Heaths
zen Chineer We have no intention Of ad-
ding another to the list Of abortiye eattempts.
to solve this vexed question, but contenting
ourselves with merely limiting at the uncer-
tainty which invests 1t, shall proceed to
discuss briefly the individual claims which
Mr. Bret Harte puts forth in the elegant
little volume, which lies before US. The.
book contains iOrty-six poems" eight OF
which comprise the "poems in dialect, now
SO famous through the length aud breadth
OF the land or these it is sufficient to say
That, as thoroughly original and peculiar pro-
ducts Of an exceptional phase OF existence
they have force and truth, and rugged
pathos about them, which can hardly fail to
secure them Immortality. The relation which
they bear to the pioneer-civilization OF the
great West, is very much that which is borne
by the old Scotch and English ballads to the
rough, wild, half fbarbarous civilization OF
the Border! Country which gave them birth,
-I'--i--------.i-:-.---
nearly as long q lease OF life, When such
bits ofquaint pathos as 'Cicely," "Jim" and
s.Flynn Of Virginia" are once dropped into.
the world, the heart OF humanity is not very
likely ever to forget or outgrow them. The
young lady in the popular novel, who "hates
'al poetry except when it's jolly" and the
man Of exquisite culture and refined taste, to
whom, in the largest sense Of the noble words,
s.NMa Auniiiant alicnum est" will alike own
the potent spell Of that touch OF nature that
makes the whole world kin.
The other, poems in thesbook have no
special merit, and seryeSchieAY to display
Mr.. Harss's Institutional defects which the
bizarre shape of'the verses. In dialect may
have concealed. "Her Letter. The Re
.turn ofsBelisarius, and Twenty Years.
should hayesb sbeen.placed ,amonslhe "Paro-
'dies" at,the, end Of the book ioEshey ere
palpable limitations Of the ,ntmftabfe Praed.
Dickens in Camp" is perhaps the best
poem drawn forth by the great masters
death; but most of the other verses are dis
figured by false quantities and defective
rhyme, which deserve no pity from the critic,
"Epicurean" is properly accented on the
aud not on the third syllable;
.'materia" does not rhyme with "tell, nor
'talk" with "New York." nor "heiress'
with "rarest" nor 'jaw" with "Thor."
Whenever Mr.. Harte steps out OF the tun-
mel, or the rancho or the mine, he becomes
slipshod and commonplace. We have said
before tha: we think the verses in dialect
will live. It will certainly be better for the
authors fame that the rest OF the. volume
should speedily and eternally die.