Mr. Howells, of all men, does not need to be told that, as wine of the highest flavor and most delicate bouquet is made from juice pressed out by the unaided weight of the grapes, so in expression we are in danger of getting something like acridness if we crush in with the first sprightly runnings the skins and kernels of words in our vain hope to win more than we ought of their color and meaning.  But, as we have said, this is rather a temptation to which he now and then shows himself liable, than a fault for which he can often be blamed.  If a mind open to all poetic impressions, a sensibility too sincere ever to fall into maudlin sentimentality, a style flexible and sweet without weakness, and a humor which, like the bed of a stream, is the support of deep feeling, and shows waveringly through it in spots of full sunshine,—­if such qualities can make a truly delightful book, then Mr. Howells has made one in the volume before us.  And we give him warning that much will be expected of one who at his years has already shown himself capable of so much.

EDGAR A. POE[1]

[Footnote 1:  The following notice of Mr. Poe’s life and works was written at his own request, and accompanied a portrait of him published in Graham’s Magazine for February, 1845.  It is here [in R.W.  Griswold’s edition of Poe’s Works (1850)] given with a few alterations and omissions.]

The situation of American literature is anomalous.  It has no centre, or, if it have, it is like that of the sphere of Hermes.  It is divided into many systems, each revolving round its several sun, and often presenting to the rest only the faint glimmer of a milk-and-water way.  Our capital city, unlike London or Paris, is not a great central heart, from which life and vigor radiate to the extremities, but resembles more an isolated umbilicus, stuck down as near as may be to the centre of the land, and seeming rather to tell a legend of former usefulness than to serve any present need.  Boston, New York, Philadelphia, each has its literature almost more distinct than those of the different dialects of Germany; and the Young Queen of the West has also one of her own, of which some articulate rumor barely has reached us dwellers by the Atlantic.

Perhaps there is no task more difficult than the just criticism of contemporary literature.  It is even more grateful to give praise where it is needed than where it is deserved, and friendship so often seduces the iron stylus of justice into a vague flourish, that she writes what seems rather like an epitaph than a criticism.  Yet if praise be given as an alms, we could not drop so poisonous a one into any man’s hat.  The critic’s ink may suffer equally from too large an infusion of nutgalls or of sugar.  But it is easier to be generous than to be just, and we might readily put faith in that fabulous direction to the hiding-place of truth, did we judge from the amount of water which we usually find mixed with it.