The Portland daily press., 1874-05-07
THE r ESS.
gHRSUDAY MORNING, MAY 2. 1874
Tho Now Game of Authors.

nnrd1nce -
principles the umpires may proceed So all
e,e, by favor and individual fancy and had
there been a hundred sets of judges, each, no
doubt, would have reached conclusion diff
ferent from all Others.
No more settled are the canons of literary
criticism,and Richard Grant White and other
literary gentlemen who are preparing lists of
"the hundred greatest writers that ever lv-
sd' will hear as great buzz about their ears,
As if score Of matrons with eyes of hire ana
cheeks Of flame had come to uphold the hon
or of their babes. Mr.. White, for INSTANCES
10 able to find room for no American III no
list. but, by expanding it SO as 10 e'iipiaoe
sail authors of eminent merit" he manages
to squeeze in Emerson and Hawthorne.
But why complain? You may as we'll find
fsult with mans preferences in the matter
Of cooking oysters as in his literary tastes. so
purely personal are they. Take for instance
the one literary judgment which might seem
to be universally accepted-the one which
hardly a school teacher in the country would
hesitate to lay down dogmatically to his pu-
Uitss nduCty, eudt OudnCopCdlC 10 blc utoU Va
poets-we find that no assumption has been
oftener disputed by those best qualifi :
cd to judge. DR.. johnson is notorious
for his moderate estimate of the
Arst among the sons of song" Charles Lamb
says with characteristic felicity of expression
that the names of some other poets have
s'nner relish to the ear than Milton and
Shakespeare. ''The sweetest names, and
Vhich carry perfume in the mention, are
Kit Marlowe, Drayton, Drummond OF Haw-
thornden and Cowley." Dickens too, found
Shakespeare bore and called Hamlet "that
puted in this way, of course harmony of
opinion on other points is not to be expected.
II class in mathematics start off with radi-
eally different opinions of the multiplication
table, concert of action will hardly be attain
cd. There have been many persons well
versed in Greek and therefore capable of judy
ing, who preferred Pope's Homer to the
original, the version being so free that Bent
Icy told the author that il was ''a pretty
poem," but he mustn't call 1t Homer.
The most obvious way to Judge of an au-
thor 5 merit is to find out how generally he is
read and how many copies of his works are
odd; but it is also the most unjust way. You
cannot get at the worth of writer, as you
can that of squash by his mere weight OF
matter. If this rule were to be adopted, the
twoTuppers-Martin Farquhar and j. G. Hol-
land-woIld head the list in England and
America, while Browning and Lowell would
stand ANONYMOUSLY at the very bottom. De
Miles American Senator asserted with conf
dence that Watts was the greatest of English
poets because his works were ''better known
and better loved throughout England and
America than the whole lot of them" Words
worth was little read ia his own time and has
gained but little in popular favor since his
death, yet Mr.. Palg ave, in his Golden
Treasury" which contains perhaps the most
pleasing selections from the poets ever made,
quotes more from Wordsworth than from any
other author.
That one mans meat is another mans
poison is doubly true in literature. What
number of times we have been assured that
the distinctively American poet had arrived.
Walt Whitman was for a long time the fore
most aspirant for that honor. Emerson him
self gave him kingy nod and foreign adj
mirers were numerous. And all the while
most persons of cultivated minds could see
nothing but absolute lawlessness in "Leaves
of Grass and 'sDrum-Taps." 1t is only a
few months ago that the Literary World, a
very repuraufe aurnorTry, pronotnced Gen.
Lew. Waace's story, ''The Fair God," the
American novel. We do not know that its
opinion was adopted by any other reviewer,
and the book is already well nigh forgotten.
There have been numberless sbest American
poems," the latest being, accor ling to the
Westminster Reoiew, 7. Buchanan Reads
"The Closing Scene," which is certainly an
exquisite production but there are score
or two more poems in the field claiming the
same RANK.
The very mention of the name of Victor
Hugo will throw some of his literary con-
temporaries into commissions, their detesta-
ton of his politics undoubtedly reacting on
their judgment, but by the greater part
of the reading world he is held TO be the
leading author of the age. 1t is upon such
accidental circumstances that decided opin-
ions often depend. The poems of Ossian were
greatly lauded and their writer made peer
of Homer, so long as their antiquity was I'M
disputed, but their popularity declined as
soon as their modern authorship was sus-
pected. There was something, however,
about their solemn roll and thunder that was
always pleasing to the sublime soul of Ma
poleon.
Criticism, then, being so arbitrary and
vacillating in its methods, we need not grieve
that Mr.. White and other explorers find few,
if any, American books that are worth their
notice. There is some comfort in the knowl-
edge that Emerson is made candidate for
the position of Lord Rector of the Uniyer-
sity of Glasgow, that Mark Twain's books
are pirated in London and that Tom Hughes
is always quoting Lowel's ''Biglow Papers,"
These facts show that the great European
mind, which has produced a Il the good books.
Is ~ least dimly conscious of us in America.
There is still more comfort in the idea that
it is quite competent for any person of extern
slve reading and mature judgment to make
up list of "greatest writer's in which the
names of Cotton Mather, Tom Paine, Benz.
1ienklin, Jonathan Edwards, J. Fenimore
Cooper, Washington Irving, Edgar A. Poe,
Osnning and all the later worthless of Amer
icsn literature shall occupy conspicuous
Dlsces Nay, some Maine man might include
ia his roll of honor John Neal and David
Barter and not blush for it. These names are
quite as good as several which appear in Mr.
Whites list
JUDGE BLoDGETT of Chicago has recently
Oadered decision maintaining the right Of
SMen to compensation as agents for their
husbands. Jonathan Hay, of Freeport, Hi
mis- hana ho, ~