Read Ebook: Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine Volume 62 Number 385. November 1847. by Various

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"As in music all notes have their own expression, and combinations of them have such diversity of effect upon the mind, may not the analogy hold good with regard to colours? Has not every colour its own character? And have not combinations of them effects similar to certain combinations in sounds? This is a subject well worth the attention of any one who has leisure and disposition to take it up: and I am persuaded that the old masters either worked from a knowledge of this art, or had such an instinctive perception of it, that it is to be discovered in their works. Suppose a painter were to try various colours on boards, and combinations of them--place them before him separately with fixed attention, and then examine the channels into which his thoughts would run. If he were to find their character to be invariable, and peculiar to each of the boards put before him, he would learn that before he trusts his subject to the canvass, he should question himself as to the sentiment he intends it to express, and what combination of colours would be consentient or dissentient to it.

"This will certainly account for the colours of the old painters being so much at variance with common nature, sometimes glaringly at variance with the locality and position of the objects represented." "This knowledge of the effect of colours is certainly very remarkable in the Bolognese school. Who ever saw Corregio's backgrounds in nature, or indeed the whole colour of his pictures, including figures? Examine his back-ground to his Christ in the garden--what a mystery is in it! The Peter Martyr, at first sight, from the charm of truth that genius has given to it, might pass for the colour of common nature; but examine the picture as an artist, and you will come to another conclusion, and you will the more admire Titian."

Some critics have been misled by the simplicity of art in this masterpiece of Titian's, and have greatly admired the exactness with which he has drawn and coloured every object; but they have been deceived by that perfect unity which exists in all its parts, and have wrongly conceived the kind of naturalness of the picture. It is full of this sympathetic naturalness of colour; we are thoroughly satisfied, and ascribe that general naturalness to each particular part. Indeed if it were altogether in colour and forms no more than common nature, there would be no real martyrdom in it--it would be but a vulgar murder; but every part is in sympathy with the sentiment. Had Titian merely represented the clear sky of Italy, and brought out prominently green-leaved trees and herbage, because such things are, and were in such a scene where this martyrdom was suffered, the picture would not have been as it is, and must ever be, the admiration of the world and a monument of the genius of Titian. There was wanted a sky in which angels might come and go, and hover with the promise of the crown and glory of martyrdom, and there must be an under and more terrestrial sky, still grand and solemn, such as might take up the tale of horror, and tell it among the congenial mountains; and such there is in the voluminous clouds about the distant cliffs. And it is very observable that, in this picture, Titian, the colourist, is most sparing of what we are too fond of calling colour. Colour, indeed, there is, and of the greatest variety, but it is all of the subdued hues, with which the very ground and trees are clothed, that nothing shall presume to shine out of itself in the presence of the announcing angels, and to be unshrouded before such a deed.

"God's work invisible, Not undiscover'd, their true stamp impress On thought, creation's mirror, wherein do dwell His unattained wonders numberless."

Of late years some painters have taken up the novelty of representing scriptural subjects as under the actual scenery and climate of the holy land, and attempted besides to portray the characteristics of the race,--a thing never dreamed of by the great painters of history. They are partial to skies hot and cloudless, and to European feelings not agreeable; forgetful of a land of promise and of wonder, and that these subjects belong, and must be modified to the mental vision of every age and country. They abhor the voluminous and richly coloured clouds, as unnatural. Can they not feel the passage--

"Who maketh the clouds his chariot?"

Let then, not only their forms, but their colours too, be as far as may be worthy Him whom they are said to bear. They are, as it were, the folding and unfolding volumes wherein the history of all creation is written. As they are prominent in the language of poetry, so should they ever be the materials for poetic art.

I must not, however, forget that I began this paper with questioning the title of Rubens as a colourist. It has been shown, that I consider no painter a colourist, who does not unite the two essentials of colour,--agreeability, and its perfect sympathy with the subject.

I purposely pass by his allegorical pictures as mere furniture for walls, not being subjects of sentiment; nor should I very much care if his "Peace and War" were in the sorry condition which has been wrongly given to it.

Deficient, then, as I think him to have been in these two essentials, I am still disposed to question his claim to the title, and to ask, "Was Rubens a colourist?" If the answer be in the negative, it may be worth while to consider the precise point from which his style may be said to have deviated from the right road; nor is it here necessary to particularise, but to refer to the Italian practice generally, which will be found to consist chiefly in this--in the choosing a low key; and for the greatest perfection of colouring, the proper union of the two essentials of good colouring, it may be safe to refer, first to the Venetian, the Lombard, and then to the Bolognese schools. Not that the Roman school is altogether to be omitted. Out of his polished style, Raffaelle is often excellent--both rich in tone, and, where he is not remarkably so, often sentimental. Some of his frescoes, as the Heliodorus, are good examples. And in that small picture in our National Gallery, the "St Catherine," the sentiment of purity and loveliness is admirably sustained in the colouring. There is in the best pictures of that school no affected flashiness of high lights--no flimsiness in the unsubstantial paint in the shadows; there is an evenness throughout, which, if it reach not the perfection of colouring, is the best substitute for it.

Power is not inconsistent with modesty--with forbearance. In the flashy style, all the force is expended, and visibly so; and as in that excess of power the flash of lightning is but momentary, we cannot long bear the exhibition of such a power rendered continuous. In the more modest--the subdued style--the artist conceals as much as may be the very power he has used, thereby actually strengthening it; for while you have all you want, you know not how much may be in reserve, and you feel it unseen, or may believe it to be unseen, when in fact it is before your eyes, though half veiled for a purpose.

Let not any painter who would be a colourist deceive himself into the belief that the most vivid and unmixed colours are the best for his art, nor that even they are the truest to nature, in whatever sense he may take the word nature. It is easy enough to lay on crude vermilion, lake, and chrome yellows; yet the colours that shall be omitted shall be infinite, and by far more beautiful than the chosen, and for which, since the generality are not painters, nor scientific in the effects of colours, there are no names. Let a painter who would have so limited a scale and view of colour do his best, and the first flower-bed he looks at will shame him with regard to those very colours he has adopted, as with regard to those thousand shades of hues, mixed and of endless variety, which are still more beautiful. We scarcely ever in nature see a really unmixed colour; and that the mixed are the most agreeable may be more than conjectured, from the fact that, of the three, the blue, the red, and the yellow, the mixture of the two will be so unsatisfactory, that the mind's eye will, when withdrawn, supply the third.

A few words only remain to be said. To complete, practically, agreeability of colouring, there is wanting a more perfect vehicle for our colours. Much attention has, of late years, been directed to this subject; and there is every reason to believe not in vain. I wait, impatiently enough, Mr Eastlake's other volume, in which he promises to treat of the Italian methods. He has been indefatigable in collecting materials,--has an eye to know well what is wanted; and, as a scholar and collector of all that has been written on art, in Italian, as well as other languages, has the best sources from which to gather isolated facts, which, put together, may lead to most important discoveries.

Mrs Merrifield, also, whose translation from Cennino Cennini, and whose works on fresco painting are so valuable, has been collecting materials abroad, and will shortly publish her discoveries. The two proofs to which we are to look are documents and chemistry. The secret of Van Eyck may have been found out, but its modification under the Italian practice will be, perhaps, the more important discovery. I am glad also to learn, that Mr Hendrie intends to publish entire with notes, the "De Magerne MS." in the British Museum. I believe artists are already giving up the worst of vehicles, the meguilp, made of mastic, of all the varnishes the most ready to decompose, as well as to separate the paint, and produce those unseemly gashes which have been the ruin of so many pictures.

FOOTNOTES:

Titian's palette was most simple: the great variety in the colouring of his pictures was effected by the fewest and most common colours--browns I believe he did not use, of which we boast to possess so many; the ochres, red and yellow, with his black and blue, made most or all of his deepest tones, the great depth being given, by glazing over with the same, and touching in here and there slight varieties, more or less of the red or yellow, lighter or darker being used in these repetitions. Hence the harmony of his general tones--upon which, as the subject required them, he laid his more vivid colours. I believe the best painters have used the simplest palette--the fewest colours. Our own Wilson is said to have replied to one who told him a new brown was discovered, "I am sorry for it." But by far the most injurious of all our pigments is asphaltum; it always gives rather rottenness than depth.

Mr Etty has written a letter, which has been lithographed and widely circulated, bearing so directly upon this subject, that I cannot refrain from noticing it. And this I do, because the authority of a Royal Academician, and one, I believe, selected to be judge in the distribution of the prizes in Westminster Hall Exhibition, cannot but have an influence, both with the public and the rising professors of the art.

He speaks of his high purposes in his choice of the subject of Joan of Arc and other pictures, and the process by which those purposes were brought to completion. He tells us, that in his enthusiasm he visited, as a pilgrim, the spot where the heroic and tragic scenes of his subject were enacted. He presumes that the houses there are now pretty much what they were then; and he has thought an exact representation of them necessary to historical truth, and he has accordingly introduced them.

Enthusiasm is good, but it should in this, as in all human concerns of importance, be under the guidance of strong principles. Now here the principles of historical painting, which separate that great act from the lower and imitative, are violated.

Had an eyewitness described as he felt the event which Mr Etty has undertaken to paint, would he have told of or portrayed to the mind's eye, and prominently, the very houses, with all their real accidents of material and colours, so that, were a tile off a roof, your sympathy must be made to stay for the noticing it?

This precision is not for historical painting, for it is in antagonism with poetry, It is wrong in colouring as in design. With regard to the first, the question should be asked--How would memory have coloured it to the spectator in his after vision? How would imagination colour it in the page of history? Details of this kind are sure to vulgarise a subject, and by their little truths destroy the greater--the heroism, the devotion--to which the eye would most naturally have been riveted, so as to have seen little else, and to have been quite out of a condition to arithmetise the pettinesses of things. Such treatment would better suit the levity of the author of the "Pucelle" than the grave historian or the still more serious and impressive historical painter. It is very important that Mr Etty, if he is likely to be again selected to pronounce judgment upon works of the competitors for rewards in historical painting and honour, revise his opinions, and test them by the established principles which are applicable alike to poetry and to painting; and without the practical use of which, genius, if it could co-exist, would be but an inane and objectless extravagance.

THE AMERICAN LIBRARY.

We are not--as the title placed at the head of this paper, till further explained, might seem to imply--we are not about to pass in review the whole literature of America. Scanty as that youthful literature is, and may well confess itself to be, it would afford subject for a long series of papers. Besides, the more distinguished of its authors are generally known, and fairly appreciated, and we should have no object nor interest just at present in determining, with perhaps some nearer approach to accuracy than has hitherto been done, the merits of such well-known writers as Irving, Cooper, Prescott, Emerson, Channing, and others. But the series now in course of publication by Messrs Wiley and Putnam, under the title of "Library of American Books," has naturally attracted our attention, bringing as it were some works before us for the first time, and presenting what--after a few distinguished names are bracketed off--may be supposed to be a fair specimen of the popular literature of that country.

On the other hand, we shall be able to introduce to our readers one volume, at least, which they will be willing to transfer from the American to the English library. The "Mosses from an old Manse," is occasionally written with an elegance of style which may almost bear comparison with that of Washington Irving; and though certainly it is inferior to the works of that author in taste and judgment, and whatever may be described as artistic talent, it exhibits deeper traces of thought and reflection. What can our own circulating libraries be about? At all our places of summer resort they drug us with the veriest trash, without a spark of vitality in it, and here are tales and sketches like these of Nathaniel Hawthorne, which it would have done one's heart good to have read under shady coverts, or sitting--no unpleasant lounge--by the sea-side on the rolling shingles of the beach. They give us the sweepings of Mr Colburn's counter, and then boastfully proclaim the zeal with which they serve the public. So certain other servants of the public feed the eye with gaudy advertisements of every generous liquor under heaven, and retail nothing but the sour ale of some crafty brewer who has contrived to bind them to his vats and his mash-tub.

The first book we opened of this series is one called, with a charming alliteration, "Views and Reviews," by the author of "The Yemassee, &c." whom we fortunately learn, from another quarter, to be a gentleman of the more commodious name of Mr Sims; and the first words which caught our eye were "Americanism in Literature," printed in capital letters, it being the title of an essay which has for its object to stimulate the Americans to the formation of a national literature. This appears to be a favourite subject with a certain class of their writers, more distinguished for ardour than for judgment. Mrs Margaret Fuller, in her Papers on Literature and Art, is also eloquent on the same theme. Let us first hear Mr Sims. There is in this gentleman's enthusiasm a business-like air which is highly amusing.

As the freedom Mr Sims is struggling for, is the release from superior genius, superior intelligence, from philosophy and taste, we may surely congratulate him, at least, on his own personal attainment of it. He has "struck the blow" for himself--whatever blow was necessary. He is free. Free, and as barren, as the north wind. Free as the loose and blinding sand upon a gusty day--and about as pleasing and as profitable. His "Views and Reviews" demonstrate in every page that he has quite liberated himself from all those fetters and prejudices which, in Europe, go under the name of truth and common sense.

An original idea!--and such as is to animate a whole nation! Certainly it sounds fit and congruous that the new world, as their continent has been called, should give us a new truth; and yet, as this new world was, in fact, peopled by inhabitants from the old, who have carried on life much in the same way as it has been conducted in the ancient quarters of the globe, we fear there is little more chance of the revelation of a great original idea in one hemisphere than the other.

But it is altogether a superfluous and futile anxiety which agitates these writers. A national literature the Americans will assuredly have, if they have a literature at all. It cannot fail to assume a certain national colour, although it would be impossible beforehand to fix and determine it. No effort could prevent this. And how egregious a mistake to imagine that they would hasten the advent of an American literature by discarding European models, and breaking from the influence of European modes of thought! It would be a sure expedient for becoming ignorant and barbarous. They cannot discard European models without an act of mental suicide; and who sees not that it is only by embracing all, appropriating all, competing with all, that the new and independent literature can be formed?

Nationality one is sure to have, whether desirable or not, but the great writers of every people are unquestionably those who, without foregoing their national character, rise to be countrymen of the world. Mr Sims, instead of complaining that his fellow-countrymen are European, should be assured of this, that it is only those who rise to European reputation that can be the founders of an American literature. The day that sees the American poet or philosopher taking his place in the high European diet of sages and of poets, is the day when the national literature has become confirmed and established.

Here is truth and eloquence, at one blow, enough to stagger the strongest of us. "It is the artist only who is the true historian," he again resolutely affirms. We should apprehend that, unless history were allowed to stand on a separate basis of its own, supported by its own peculiar testimony, it could be of little use even in enlarging the boundaries of art. History is said to enable the artist to transcend the limits which the modes of thought and feeling of his own day would else prescribe to him. But if the rules by which we judge of truth in history be no other than those by which we judge of truth or probability in works of fiction, --if history has not its own independent place and value--it can no longer lend this aid--no longer raise art above, or out of the circle in which existing opinions and sympathies would place her. Each generation of artists would not learn new truths from history, but history would be rewritten by each generation of artists. How, for example, could a Protestant of the nineteenth century, with whom religion and morality are inseparably combined--with whom conscience is always both moral and religious--how could he, guided only by his own experience, represent, or give credit to that entire separation of the two modes of feeling, moral and religious, which encounters us frequently in the middle ages, and constantly in the Pagan world? Surely a fact like this, learned from historical testimony, has a value of its own, other and greater than any fictitious representation which an artist might supply. But even this fictitious representation, as we have said, would grow null and void if not upheld by the independent testimony of history; the past would become the attendant shadow merely of the present.

We must state, in justice to Mr Sims, that this outbreak against science is the preluding strain to his "Wigwams and Cabins," where he has the intention of dealing with the supernatural and the marvellous. Let him tell his marvels, and welcome; a ghost story is just as good now as ever it was; but why usher it in with this didactic folly? Of these tales, as we do not wish again to refer to the works of Mr Sims, we may say here, that they appear to give some insight into the manner of life of the early settlers, and their intercourse with the savages. In this point of view they might be read with profit, could we be sure that the pictures they present were tolerably faithful. But a writer who has no partiality whatever for matter of fact, and who systematically prefers fiction to truth, comes before us with unusual suspicion, and requires an additional guarantee.

Amongst this lady's criticisms upon English poets, we remarked some names, very highly lauded, of which we in England have heard little or nothing. This, in our crowded literature, where so much of both what is good and what is bad escapes detection, is no proof of an erroneous judgment on her part. We, on the contrary, may have been culpably neglectful. But when we looked at the quotations she makes to support the praise she gives, we were speedily relieved from any self-reproach of this description. Passages are cited for applause, in which there is neither distinguishable thought, nor elegance of diction, nor even an attempt at melody of verse; passages which could have won upon her only could have won upon her only by a seeming air of profundity, by their utter contempt of perspicuous language, and a petulant disregard of even that rhythm, or regulated harmony, which has been supposed to distinguish verse from prose. For very manifest reasons, however, these are not the occasions on which we prefer to test the critical powers of Mrs Margaret Fuller. It is more advisable to observe her manner when occupied upon established reputations, such as Scott, and Byron, and Southey.

Our critic partakes in the very general opinion which places the prose works of Sir Walter Scott far above his poetry. It is an opinion we do not share. Admirable as are, beyond all doubt, his novels, Sir Walter Scott, in out humble estimation, has a greater chance of immortality as the author of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, than as the author of Waverley. That, perhaps, is our heresy, and Mrs Fuller may be considered here as representing the more orthodox creed. And thus it is she represents it.

If Coleridge said this in the haste and vivacity of conversation, it was great in justice to his memory to record and print it. "Not twenty lines!"--"relation to nothing!" Why, there are scores of lines in his earliest poem alone, which will ring long in the ears of men, for they have relation to the simple unalterable, universal feelings of mankind.

"Oh, said he that his heart was cold!"

We will not believe it. We are tempted to answer with a torrent of quotation; but this is not the place.

"To one who has read," continues Mrs Fuller, "Scott's novels first, and looks in his poems for the same dramatic interest, the rich humour, the tragic force, the highly wrought, yet flowing dialogue, and the countless minutiae in the finish of character, they must bring disappointment." He who looks for all and exactly the same things in the poems which he had found in the novels, will assuredly, like other foolish seekers, be disappointed. Sir Walter Scott did not put his Bailie Nicol Jarvie nor his Andrew Fairservice into rhyme; nor does a lay of border chivalry embrace all that variety of character, or of dialogue, which finds ample room in the historical romance.

One other specimen of the lady's eloquence and critical discrimination must suffice. She is characterising Southey.

"The muse of Southey is a beautiful statue of crystal, in whose bosom burns an immortal flame. We hardly admire as they deserve, the perfection of the finish, and the elegance of the contours, because our attention is so fixed on the radiance which glows through them."--

The young phoenix rises from the ashes of the old; so far we comprehend. This, metaphorically understood, would infer that a new and stronger passion rose from the ashes of the old and defunct one. But into the allegorical signification of Mrs Fuller's phoenix, we confess we cannot penetrate. We have a dim conception that it would not be found to harmonise very well with that other meaning conveyed to us in so dazzling a manner by the illuminated statue. Pity the lady could not have found some other poet to take off her hands one of those images: we are not so heartless as to suggest the expediency of the absolute sacrifice of either.

It is not to be supposed that this authoress is always so startling and original as in these passages. She sometimes attains, and keeps for a while, the level of commonplace. But we do not remember in the whole of her two volumes a single passage where she rises to an excellence above this. If we did, we should be happy to quote it.

There is, in the usual sense of the word, no passion in these tales, neither is there any attempt made at dramatic dialogue. The bent of Mr Poe's mind seems rather to have been towards reasoning than sentiment. The style, too, has nothing peculiarly commendable; and when the embellishments of metaphor and illustration are attempted, they are awkward, strained, infelicitous. But the tales rivet the attention. There is a marvellous skill in putting together the close array of facts and of details which make up the narrative, or the picture, for the effect of his description, as of his story, depends never upon any bold display of the imagination, but on the agglomeration of incidents, enumerated in the most veracious manner. In one of his papers he describes the Mahlstrom or what he chooses to imagine the Mahlstrom may be, and by dint of this careful and De Foe-like painting, the horrid whirlpool is so placed before the mind, that we feel as if we had seen, and been down into it.

The passing crowd entertains him with its motley variety of costume and character. He has watched till the sun has gone down, and the streets have become indebted for their illumination solely to the gas lamps. As the night deepened, the interest of the scene deepened also, for the character of the crowd had insensibly but materially changed, and strange features and aspects of ill omen begin to make their appearance.

With his brow to the glass of the window, our author was thus occupied in scrutinising the passengers, when suddenly there came within his field of vision a countenance, which at once arrested and absorbed all his attention. It bore an expression which might truly be called fiendish, for it gave the idea of mental power, of cruelty, of malice, of intense--of supreme despair. It passed on. There came a craving desire to see the face of that man again--to keep him in view--to know more of him. Snatching up his hat, and hastily putting on an over-coat, our excited observer ran into the street, pursued the direction the stranger had taken, and soon overtook him.

It was now growing late, and it began to rain. The crowd within the square dispersed. With a gesture of impatience, the stranger passed into a bye-street almost deserted. Along this he rushed with a fearful rapidity which could never have been expected from so old a man. It brought him to a large bazaar, with the localities of which he appeared perfectly acquainted, and where his original demeanour again returned, as he forced his way to and fro, without aim, amongst the host of buyers and sellers, looking at all objects with a wild and vacant stare.

All this excited still more the curiosity of his indefatigable observer, who became more and more amazed at his behaviour, and felt an increased desire to solve the enigma. The bazaar was now about to close; lamps were here and there extinguished, every body was preparing to depart. Returning into the street, the old man looked anxiously around him for an instant, and then with incredible swiftness, threaded a number of narrow and intricate lanes which led him out in front of one of the principal theatres. The amusements were just concluded, and the audience was streaming from the doors. The old man was seen to gasp as he threw himself into the crowd, and then the intense agony of his countenance seemed in some measure to abate. He took the course which was pursued by the greater number of the company. But these, as he proceeded, branched of right and left to their several homes, and as the street became vacant, his restlessness and vacillation re-appeared. Seized at length as with panic, he hurried on with every mark of agitation, until he had plunged into one of the most noisome and pestilential quarters, or rather suburbs of the town. Here a number of the most abandoned of the populace were reeling to and fro.

"The spirits of the old man," the author shall conclude the story in his own words, "again flickered up, as a lamp which is near its death hour. Once more, he strode onward with elastic tread. Suddenly a corner was turned, a blaze of light burst upon our sight, and we stood before one of the huge, suburban temples of intemperance--one of the palaces of the fiend, Gin.

Still less should we raise an objection on the manifest improbability of this vigilant observer, a convalescent too, being able to keep upon his legs, running or walking, the whole of the night and of the next day, In a picture of this kind, a moral idea is sought to be portrayed by imaginary incidents purposely exaggerated. The mind passing immediately from these incidents to the idea they convey, regards them as little more than a mode of expression of the moral truth. He who should insist, in a case of this kind, on the improbability of the facts, would find himself in the same position as that hapless critic who, standing before the bronze statue of Canning, then lately erected at Westminster, remarked, that "Mr Canning was surely not so tall as he is there represented;" the proportions, in fact, approaching to the colossal. "No, nor so green," said the wit to whom the observation had been unhappily confided. When the artist made a bronze statue, eight feet high, of Mr Canning, it was evidently not his stature nor his complexion that he had designed to represent.

Amongst the tales of Mr Poe are several papers which, we suppose, in the exigency of language, we must denominate philosophical. They have at least the merit of boldness, whether in the substratum of thought they contain, or the machinery employed for its exposition. We shall not be expected to encounter Mr Poe's metaphysics; our notice must be here confined solely to the narrative or inventive portion of these papers. In one of these, entitled "Mesmeric Revelations," the reader may be a little startled to hear that he has adopted the mesmerised patient as a vehicle of his ideas on the nature of the soul and of its immortal life; the entranced subject having, in this case, an introspective power still more remarkable than that which has hitherto revealed itself only in a profound knowledge of his anatomical structure. As we are not yet convinced that a human being becomes supernaturally enlightened--in mesmerism more than in fanaticism--by simply losing his senses; or that a man in a trance, however he got there, is necessarily omniscient; we do not find that Mr Poe's conjectures on these mysterious topics gather any weight whatever from the authority of the spokesman to whom he has intrusted them. We are not quite persuaded that a cataleptic patient sees very clearly what is going on at the other side of our own world; when this has been made evident to us, we shall be prepared to give him credit for penetrating into the secrets of the next.

In another of these nondescript papers, "The Conversation of Eiros and Charmion," Mr Poe has very boldly undertaken to figure forth the destruction of the world, and explain how that great and final catastrophe will be accomplished. It is a remarkable instance of that species of imaginary matter of fact description, to which we have ventured to think that the Americans show something like a national tendency. The description here is very unlike that with which Burnet closes his "Theory of the Earth;" it is confined to the natural history of the event; but there is nothing whatever in Mr Poe's manner to diminish from the sacredness or the sublimity of the topic. With some account of this singular and characteristic paper we shall dismiss the volume of Mr Poe.

The world has been destroyed. Eiros, who was living at the time, relates to Charmion, who had died some years before, the nature of the last awful event.

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