It is a poem of wonderful picturesqueness, tenderness, and
simplicity, and the situations are all conceived with the truest
artistic feeling. Nothing can be better, to our thinking, than the
picture of Standish and Alden in the opening scene, tinged as it is with
a delicate humor, which the contrast between the thoughts and characters
of the two heightens almost to pathos. The pictures of Priscilla
spinning, and the bridal procession, are also masterly. We feel charmed
to see such exquisite imaginations conjured out of the little old
familiar anecdote of John Alden's vicarious wooing. We are astonished,
like the fisherman in the Arabian tale, that so much genius could be
contained in so small and leaden a casket. Those who cannot associate
sentiment with the fair Priscilla's maiden name of Mullins may be
consoled by hearing that it is only a corruption of the Huguenot
Desmoulins--as Barnum is of the Norman Vernon.
Indifferent poets comfort themselves with the notion that contemporary
popularity is no test of merit, and that true poetry must always wait
for a new generation to do it justice. The theory is not true in any
general sense. With hardly an exception, the poetry that was ever to
receive a wide appreciation has received it at once. Popularity in
itself is no test of permanent literary fame, but the kind of it is and
always has been a very decided one.
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