Page:Edgar Allan Poe - how to know him.djvu/178

158 ure is cloaked. In each, there is a quarrel—that is to say, angry words pass between the parties. In each the beholder is enraged. In each the cloak and sword fall upon the floor. The "villain, unmuffle yourself," of Mr. H. is precisely paralleled by a passage at page 56 of "William Wilson."

In the way of objection we have scarcely a word to say of these tales. There is, perhaps, a somewhat too general or prevalent tone—a tone of melancholy and mysticism. The subjects are insufficiently varied. There is not so much of versatility evinced as we might well be warranted in expecting from the high powers of Mr. Hawthorne. But beyond these trivial exceptions we have really none to make. The style is purity itself. Force abounds. High imagination gleams from every page. Mr. Hawthorne is a man of the truest genius. We only regret that the limits of our Magazine will not permit us to pay him that full tribute of commendation, which, under other circumstances, we should be so eager to pay.

[The Drama of Exile and Other Poems, by Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, reviewed in The Broadway Journal, January 4 and 11, 1845. Poe's poems are so instinct with rhythmical repetitions that every reference to the subject in his critical reviews is an aid in the interpretation of his own art. In Ralph Hoyt's Old, Poe thought the repetition overdone: "In his continuous and absolutely uniform repetition of the first line in the last of each stanza, he has by much exceeded the legitimate limits of the quaint, and im-