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And weariness a name.
It was the misfortune of Mr. Pinckney to have been born too far south.
Had he been a New Englander, it is probable that he would have been
ranked as the first of American lyrists by that magnanimous cabal which
has so long controlled the destinies of American Letters, in conducting
the thing called "The North American Review." The poem just cited is
especially beautiful; but the poetic elevation which it induces we must
refer chiefly to our sympathy in the poet's enthusiasm. We pardon his
hyperboles for the evident earnestness with which they are uttered.
It was by no means my design, however, to expatiate upon the merits
of what I should read you. These will necessarily speak for themselves.
Boccalini, in his "Advertisements from Parnassus," tells us that Zoilus
once presented Apollo a very caustic criticism upon a very admirable
book:--whereupon the god asked him for the beauties of the work. He
replied that he only busied himself about the errors. On hearing this,
Apollo, handing him a sack of unwinnowed wheat, bade him pick out all
the chaff for his reward.
Now this fable answers very well as a hit at the critics--but I am by no
means sure that the god was in the right. I am by no means certain that
the true limits of the critical duty are not grossly misunderstood.
Excellence, in a poem especially, may be considered in the light of an
axiom, which need only be properly put, to become self-evident. It is
not excellence if it require to be demonstrated as such:--and thus to
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