New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-08-06
Reform which only few weeks ago promised
things 30 many and so desirable.
BIDDLE AND HIS YEBSES.

Mr.. Horace p. Biddle Is, or at least he ought
to be, rigidly respectable person, for he -
a Democratic candidate for the Supreme Court
of Indiana. His opponents must be not only
malevOlent to an uncommon degree, but ex-
ceedingly short of ammunition for after ex-
amning with microscopical eyes the career of
Mr.. Ridde from the cradle to the pres
ent year of his age, they discover that
long ago, in the rosy morning of existence.
poor Mr. Biddle-published volume OF
poems. He penned stanzas when he
should have been engrossiDg. lie read
Byron when he should have been reading
Blackstone. He damaged his legal character
for life when he could not have known the
value of character. by Irritation with the
Nine Ladies. 1t is of record that he rhymed.
The thing is out of print, but those who hate
Mr.. Biddle talk of new edition. Other great
lawyers, it is true, have done the same thing.
Everybody knows the verse GLOW sweet an
"Ovid was in Murray lost! !" Then there was
Sir William Jones, who INDUCED in verse long
before he gave us his admirable Treatise on
the Law of Bailments. Then there was Mr..
Justice Story. not only one of the best judges,
but one of the most vouminOus legal authors
of the age, who wrote poems, aud very bad
ones, even after he left college.
Biddle of Indiana is not alone in his juve-
nile indiscretion. Not only lawyers, but mer-
chants, doctors of divinity, doctors OF med
icine, and even editors of newspapers, have
versiiied before they knew better. Ills the
folly of an ingenious and active mind. Early
birds will be singing at sunrise Boys ana
girls are the most persistent of hooking
birds. and a good many of them when they
hear sweet note are not to be blamed if they
try to reproduce it. AT best it is a graceful
weakness and, thank the destinies! it is one
which goes with the gristle in majority OF
instances. This is the reason why we are
never savage with the young folk who send
us bushels of stanzas, but do tendeTly cOnslgn
their metrical offerings to the oblivion of the
waste basket. Who blows up a child for
having the measles2 Why do not Mr.. Biddle's
enemies lampoon him for having had the
whooping-cough Still, Biddle must permit
US to use his case for the benevolent
purposes of warning. If he has any
of the tenderness Of the poet left in his calf
skin nature he will not object to being made
sad, sweet example. He is not in this I'M
fortunate scrape because he wrote poems long
ago, but because he madly collected them In Il
volume. In ladies' albums they would have
slept the sleep of oblivion. In the Poets |
Corner of the county newspaper they would
have been forever forgotten. Preserved in
Mr.. BddleS archives, they would have been
re-read by him only to experience the fiery
fate of John Rogers. 1t is his wretched little
book which has done the business, and bad
business it is.
We commend the lease to the solemn con-
sderation of young men and women who pine
to see their names upon tite-page and who
hunger for the glory of binding. When they
are TEMPTED to bore booksellers and to send
fat rolls OF MSS. to publishers, let them trem5le
at the prospect of laying up food for adult
repentance We know that it seems harsh to
say this, but our conscience would be heavy
within us did not raise cry OF warning
to the young American against the perlls OF
p0etcal publication. Write, dear children, in
private as much as you please, and whisper to
yourselves that your filagree canto is perfectly
lovely. Send it to the magazines and get SIX
pence line for it, ii you can get no more.
Heaven forbid that you should not manufac-
ture any honest goods for which there is
market! But for poems in volumes, as a gen.
eral rule, the publishers will tell you that there
is no market Moreover, that which seemed
comparatively innocent in detail may be
most melancholy in the aggregate. 'Tis the
permanence of the thing, too, which
is dangerous. If you are masculine blossom
possibly even if you are of the feminine
sort-you may, years hence, be candidate
for one office or another; and then you may
be sure that the opposition will discover your
poor book, though buried in the center of
the earth or hidden in the depths of the sea.
Print in pamphlet, if you please, but beware
of binding
These are the hacyon days when the American