The highest peak of our Parnassus is,
according to these gentlemen, by far the most thickly settled portion of
the country, a circumstance which must make it an uncomfortable
residence for individuals of a poetical temperament, if love of solitude
be, as immemorial tradition asserts, a necessary part of their
idiosyncrasy.
Mr. Poe has two of the prime qualities of genius, a faculty of vigorous
yet minute analysis, and a wonderful fecundity of imagination. The first
of these faculties is as needful to the artist in words, as a knowledge
of anatomy is to the artist in colors or in stone. This enables him to
conceive truly, to maintain a proper relation of parts, and to draw a
correct outline, while the second groups, fills up, and colors. Both of
these Mr. Poe has displayed with singular distinctness in his prose
works, the last predominating in his earlier tales, and the first in his
later ones. In judging of the merit of an author, and assigning him his
niche among our household gods, we have a right to regard him from our
own point of view, and to measure him by our own standard. But, in
estimating the amount of power displayed in his works, we must be
governed by his own design, and, placing them by the side of his own
ideal, find how much is wanting. We differ from Mr. Poe in his opinions
of the objects of art. He esteems that object to be the creation of
Beauty, and perhaps it is only in the definition of that word that we
disagree with him.
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