Page:Edgar Poe and his critics.djvu/37

 among a list of cabalistical volumes Gresset’s ‘Vertvert,’ ''evidently in complete ignorance of what he is talking about. Gresset’s ‘Vertvert’ is the antipodes of Poe’s ‘Raven,’'' though the comic interest of the former and the tragic interest of the latter turn alike on the reiteration of bird-language.”

The process of reasoning by which Mr. Poe’s “superficial acquaintance with the literature of other lands” is deducible from the fact that “Gresset’s ‘Vertvert’ is the antipodes of Poe’s ‘Raven,’” may be very apparent to the learned reviewer, but is certainly not quite clear to the common reader.

We are not aware that any of the works cited in this catalogue bear a resemblance to the Raven. Mr. Poe must certainly be acquitted of intending to suggest such a resemblance, since the Raven was at the time unwritten. The Edinburgh critic, after admitting that Poe’s Raven belongs to “that rare and remarkable class of productions that suffice, singly, to make a reputation,” assumes, oddly enough, that “the originality apparent