The Sunday tatler and Jersey City express. (Jersey City, N.J.) 1883-1886, 1886-09-05

An Appreeiatiye Critics Estimate of Hugh
Farrar McDeruorrs Muse.

EHrfuE NtcDcrsuotfs littscs
From the Albany Argus. July 1871
met, the other day, in one of my ram
bles among journalists, the new poet, Mr..
Hugh Farrar McDermott, whose pretty
little volume, issued by the Putnams, has
gone through several editions, and who
really deserves the success he has won
for his blind Canary" is one of the finest,
freshest and most native poems of its kind
that has fallen from the nib of poets pen
for many years. McDermott has received
hosts of compliments OF perfunctory sort
from newspaper critics and correspond
ents here, there and everywhere; but a
really discriminating estimate of his work,
serious and well-m ensured, such as its
merits deserve, i have not yet had The
pleasure of perusing Yet, any one who
will carefully read that grand fragment,
'sSelf-C ommuning," will agree, l think,
that Mr.. McDermott is destined to rank
very high in the history of our poetic
literature-that he is not mere idle,
ephemeral rhymer, spinning verses accord.
ing to his own or the popular fancy, but
real creator-a new voice that has
spoken. There is something Shelleyau in
Self-Communing"-ah imaginative grace
and breadth that the light hand of the
Blind Canary" by no means prepares one
for. None who has ever read will ever
forget some passages of SheileY's ALAS
tor"-yast, vague and fantastic as il is,
and, like an oriental pagoda, tipped with
jingling bells ut every salient angle. The
impression one gets is that of lightning
smothered of dark night, and only
breaking out now and then in sudden,
binding zigzags that travel along the
horizon. 1t is light as day for an Instant;
the trees, the rocks, the hills flash on the
eve like parts of spectral landscape, and
then disappear. The rest is midnight,
with the prelusive silence that presages an
impending rush of rain.
Now, one contracts something akin to
this impression in reading some of McDer-
motifs more interpretive work; and it is
so different from the graceful, easy, degage
STYLE of such ballads as the 'sBlind Canary"
and .'Castle Morr, that one rather won
ders man should be master of two
methods so diverse, or at home in moods
SO unlike each other.
But was going to give curious remi-
niscence of the man, whom, it appears,
have known for almost or quite twenty
years, without knowing it. When first
came to New York, a beardless youngster,
with vast aspirations and small perform
ance. and went on the News" thea a
donble-sheet morning daily, one of the
compositors was young man with fea
lures that ran over with fun and humor-
most iantalizing and incurable quiz.
Being in the transcendental, Emersonian
stage of mental development, and not
averse to little quZzing also, recollect
that used to PROFOUND the most incom-
prehensible, philosophical paradoxes and
psychological riddles, with gravity that
might have gone far to settle my claims to
cell in lunatic asylum, if newspaper
office had not been as near that thing as
can well be imagined.
Years went by, and lost track of my
uuizzical friend. His name never knew;
but his face | never forgot, and when l
received a pretty little volume inscribed
to MY old friend and associate, Francis
Gerry Fairfield, u wondered speculatively
how il should come to pass that | should
know distinguished poet SO well, aud yet
should not know him at all. The inscrip
ton on the fly leaf proved to be true, how
ever, when, at last, came to meet and be
formally introduced to Hugh Farrar Nc
Dermott, the poet for, 10, in him re-
discovered my lost friend aud admirer of
years before, the quizzical composition on
the DAILY News" whose wit and humor
had begulled many weary hour. He is
forty years old now-successful, prosper
GUS and celebrity. And he deserves his
fame; for he has written poems that will
live in literature; and, what is equally to
be commended, has never gone into the
business OF poetizing on the occurrences
of the day by way of attracting attention.
By birth the new poet is a Bostonian,
and he was once pet of DIR. Holmes. His
portrait (Which serves as frontispiece) is
what such things usually are not, namely,
an excellent presenlment of his handsome,
luminous lineaments. Few authors can
afford to prefix their faces to their vol
umes. More than this, McDermott is q
gentleman of elegant manners; dresses
fashionably and without the least affecta-
tion of poetic eccentricity; and is one of
the most companionable members of the
New York Press Club. liked him for
himself, when I did not know his name;
/ doubly like him for the rare effectiveness
of intellect that has woven into artistic
fabric the story of the Blind Canary" and
the reverie life of Self-Communlng."