New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-11-09
EAM0NS And EORGOTTEM.

FAMOUS IND FORGOTIEN
| A bit of bad verso Is welteIing over the sea
of the newspapers with the name OF the late
| Mr.. Willis attached to it rs that of the gentle
man it is "by." Notwithstanding the natural
| ANNOYANCE which one feels at such blunder,
| il is amusing to conjecture what drOll or gro
tesaue thing would have been elected from
that clever writer were he living to disown
the bantling. Seeing the familiar name
once more in print takes us back
| to n literary period when most OF the
present popular writer's were either unborn or
| sprawling in long clothes; when Dana and
Haleck and Bryant were the three great poets
of whom we Americans were exceedingly proud ;
when we had however, q mob of ladies and
gentlemen who wrote with an ease out OF all
proportion to the ease with which they were
read-Sigourney, Ellct, Dawes, Mellen. Will
cox. Percival, Park Benjamin. and ninety-and-
nine others, whose works sleep tho sleep OF
mediocrity in the catacomb compilations OF
Cheever and Griswold. Most of these lyrical
people anticipated undying fame very few of
them received any money for their warblings
and none of them got much; the market for
verse was bad then, and yet they kept on
rhymmg with pertinacious patience worthy
of better cause.
| Some poets are much run after and coddled
and presented with checks signed Scribner,
| Harper, OsgoOd, Bonner; other poets, strum
they never so strideutly, get no checks at all
only curt notes from magazine editors full
of sorrowr and "regret," and " really we
" are not printing much poetry about this
" time, but next year, or the year after,
eve may" &C., &c. 1t all comes OF put
| ting goods on the market which the mar
ket does not want. And as for abiding
| famc-look at the case of a really clever
man like Mr.. Willis. Apart from his
poetry. he was one of the most agreeable prose
writers of his day-nOt without Alterations,
| little given to cOncets, not often much in
earnest, but always elegant and usually en-
teItaining, with taste when he pleased TO
use it, almost infallbe, and with a way of
winning and keeping the public attention.
Moreover, he was not afraid of work,
social as his habits were-in short, skill
| full, painstaking, assduous producer OF
tales, sketches, essays, editorials, criticisms,
| itineraries, useful as well as pleasing reports
of what his eyes had well observed of men,
| of manners, OF views by sea and of sights by
| land He was not man to work Tor nothing,
nor yet for the love of work and lie was one
of the first American writers well paid for
! literary labor. We can remember, before his
| i'll health and the establishment Of his own
newspaper came to limit his labor, that he
Was writing regularly for at least four monthly
magazines. The booksellers too were glad to
| have the volumes in which these periodical
estrays were gathered together. Altogether,
this was a prosperous literary life, but it was
of a Kind of which oblivion is the condition.
| We say this because young people who send
Ms their poetry sometimes talk of their desire
| for earthly immortality. They want to be
read and admired and loved two centuries
hence; some Of them are above writing fer
money. though we notice that they all take it
when il is offered; and we have known the
rejected to threaten an appeal to Princess
| Posterity. We mention this tendency to the
obsolete in the faircst reputation for the
reason that so many who come to US for
literary employment would not understand us
| if VIC were to tell them what is per-
fectly true, that there are scores OF writer's,
utterly anonymous and sure to remain so, and
willing and even glad to remain SO, to whom
reputation is only valuable as it secures en-
ployment-schOlars, thinkers, as patient OF
labor as any dtcher or digger, well read, mas
| tiers of all literary resources, and lovers OF
their business for its own sake. They like
praise and they dislike blame, but it is pre-
cisey as carpenter likes the one or dislikcs
other. They are too busy with the bread and
butter problem to think much about fame.
| And it is lucky that they are s0--that
they have 80 emotions, aspirations, yean-
ings, or other sublilnities of. the sort;
for every one Of them will be as
decidedly forgotten five years after death as if
| he had never written a stickful. When they
die their obituaries will be mere mention.
The man who does the funereal for the news
paper will suddenly discover that he knows
nothing OF lie conirale to whom he has been
saying good morning. FOR ten years, and will
bore everybody for particulars of the bhth and
parentage of the deceased.
Literary labor is so fast becoming distinct
branch of industry that it ia well for young
people to understand precisely what ii is. The
profession has it, prize; but they are few aud