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That the extent of a poetical work is, ceteris paribus, the measure
of its merit, seems undoubtedly, when we thus state it, a proposition
sufficiently absurd--yet we are indebted for it to the Quarterly
Reviews. Surely there can be nothing in mere size, abstractly
considered--there can be nothing in mere bulk, so far as a volume
is concerned, which has so continuously elicited admiration from these
saturnine pamphlets! A mountain, to be sure, by the mere sentiment of
physical magnitude which it conveys, does impress us with a sense
of the sublime--but no man is impressed after this fashion by the
material grandeur of even "The Columbiad." Even the Quarterlies have
not instructed us to be so impressed by it. As yet, they have not
insisted on our estimating "Lamar" tine by the cubic foot, or Pollock
by the pound--but what else are we to infer from their continual
plating about "sustained effort"? If, by "sustained effort," any little
gentleman has accomplished an epic, let us frankly commend him for the
effort--if this indeed be a thing conk mendable--but let us forbear
praising the epic on the effort's account. It is to be hoped that common
sense, in the time to come, will prefer deciding upon a work of Art
rather by the impression it makes--by the effect it produces--than by
the time it took to impress the effect, or by the amount of "sustained
effort" which had been found necessary in effecting the impression. The
fact is, that perseverance is one thing and genius quite another--nor
can all the Quarterlies in Christendom confound them. By and by, this
proposition, with many which I have been just urging, will be received
as self-evident. In the meantime, by being generally condemned as
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