Literary Gossip

image 1image 2image 3image 4cropped image 1

LITERARY GOSSIP.

We see that some Boston quid nunc has been visiting the great Carlyle,¹ and sends the product to the Transcript. Thomas lives still at Chelsea, on the Thames, in a very simple manner and in a retired situation. He still holds his old opinion in reference to our American great men—namely, that Franklin was super-eminent and the rest comparative pigmies. The typos will doubtless endorse the sage of “Sartor Resartus.”

The “Cosmopolitan Art Journal” publishes a sketch of the life of T.B. Aldrich,² a young poet, who, if he could conquer his imitative propensities, might do something worth remembering. Aldrich is but twenty one, and is a native of New Hampshire. He was tied down to a merchant’s desk, at first, but soon found more congenial employment on the “Home Journal.” “The Tragedy,” a striking poem, published lately in Harper’s Weekly was by him.

“Putnam’s” has been discontinued. It is understood, that it is to be merged into Emerson’s United States Magazine.

The death of Rufus Wilmot Griswold³ is a very noticeable literary event. Griswold was the very head and front of all literary compliers and editors. None could approach him in this department, and no man had so extensive and varied a knowledge of even the obscurest nooks and corners of American literature. Many a budding poetess owes to him nearly all her reputation as an authoress. His treatment of poor Poe, however, is a blot upon his memory which it will require all our charity to erase. He was an impersonation of literary jealousy and uncharitableness,—and what can be more bitter?

A BIOGRAPHER BITTEN.—Mrs. Gaskell,⁴ we perceive by our literary exchanges, English and American, is getting it, right and left, for alleged mistatements in her “Life of Charlotte Bronte.” A correspondent of the London News denies “on authority” almost all of the stories concerning the cruel treatment to which Charlotte and her sisters were subjected by her father and puts down the statements concerning his destroying their shoes, cutting his wife’s silk dresses, firing off pistols to relieve his passion and the like, as puerilities unworthy of credence. The truth is, Mrs. Gaskell in her book hit upon altogether too many unpleasant truths to render the result at all palatable to the people interested, and she is now paying the penalty. The author of “Mary Barton” is, however, too brave a woman to be put down in this manner. Especially in the matter of Branwell Bronte and his fate, every candid reader of the book must feel assured that nothing more than the facts have been stated.

ALEXANDER SMITH⁵ ONCE MORE.—The lovers of poetry in these degenerate latter days will rejoice with us that the author of “A Life Drama” is about to issue a volume of “City Poems,” which will doubtless be worthy of his fame. Ticknor & Fields are his American publishers. We have seen a few “specimen coins” and they have, in our view, the true ring of the genuine metal.

JERROLD,⁶ SHAKSPEARE, AND MRS. COWDEN CLARK⁷.—The following paragraph has been travelling the “rounds of the press” for about long enough, considering that there is not a word of truth in it:

“WITTY AND JUST.—Douglas Jerrold’s death recalls Mrs. Cowden Clarke’s capital dedication to her ‘Concordance of Shakspeare,’ which is neat and good—‘To Douglas Jerrold, the first wit of the age, this Concordance of Shakspeare, the first wit of any age, is dedicated by Mrs. Cowden Clarke, of a certain age and no wit at all.’”

On referring to the work on question we find the following: “This work is consecrated to the memory of Shakspeare and to the use of the British Nation, whose brightest ornament is his genius, by Mary Cowden Clarke.” So much for the dependence to be placed on floating items of “literary gossip.”

THE GRANDSON OF HIS GRANDFATHER.—Mr. Bristed,⁸ grandson of the late John Jacob Astor, is said to have recently purchased a beautiful villa at Baden, and is astonishing “the natives” with his fleet trotting horses.

Charles is a brilliant but superficial and intensely conceited fellow. His “Upper Ten Thousand” was one of the first and certainly among the cleverest of satires upon our anomalous “upper crust” society.

The Paris correspondent of the Tribune writes—

Buchanan Read,⁹ the poet-painter, passed through Paris last Saturday, on his way to Rome. A selection of his shorter miscellaneous poems has, I am told, recently been published in London, containing, among others, the “Iceberg,” of which Thackeray once said to a friend of mine, that he esteemed it among the first of modern ballads; and “Midnight,” of which Walter Savage Landor wrote to a brother poet—“In Read’s ‘Midnight,’ America steals a march upon us. I opened the book there, and shall not close it again until I have gone through with it.”

The N.Y. Evening Post, a very good authority, says:

“There is a rumor that Prof. Longfellow¹⁰ is preparing a new volume of poems, which is probably true. Lowell is much engaged in his duties as professor; he lectures on the literature of modern languages, and is busy in preparing his first course of lectures. Personally he is very popular with the students; he holds a levee for his classes every Thursday evening, and once in a while, of a Saturday, he collects a few students, and rambles off into the country for a walk and a quiet pic-nic.”

HAWTHORNE.—The Union says of Mr. Hawthorne:¹¹

“This distinguished author has resigned the consulate at Liverpool, which place he has filled for four years with great ability and credit to himself, as well as most satisfactorily to the Government. It is understood that Mr. Hawthorne will spend a year in Italy, and then return to educate his children in their native land. Freedom from the cares of office will enable this favorite writer to prepare and publish a work which he has been for some time contemplating; and, as the “Scarlet Letter” followed his retirement from one office, we may expect as an early result of this resignation, a book in no wise inferior to that remarkable romance in power and popularity.”

---