Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/137

 % GEORGE D. PRENTICE. George Denis on Prentice was born on the eighteenth of December, 1802, in the town of Preston, in the State of Connecticut. Such was his early ripeness of intel- lect that he was appointed the principal of a public school before he was fifteen years of age. He went to College, and graduated at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, in the year 1823. He then studied the profession of the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. In 1828, he established the New England Weehly Review, at Hartford, Connecticut. Leaving John G. Whittier to conduct the Review, in the summer of 1830, Mr. Prentice removed to Kentucky, and wrote the life of Henry Clay.* In November of the same year, he established The Louisville Journal, and has been its chief editor ever since. The fame of the Journal is not only superemi- nent in the West, but it is known throughout the Union as an influential and popular gazette. In the broad universality of its scope, it comprehends every thing that a journal, political, literary and commercial, may be expected to possess. Whatever may be the sacrilege of giving utterance to such an opinion, I cannot forego saying, that in my estimation, George D. Prentice is one of the most perfect masters of blank verse in America, and that his writings in that style contain as much of the genuine element of genius in poetry as those of any of our countrymen. To such as question this decision, I can but refer to his two poems — one upon the " Flight of Years," and his lines upon the " Mammoth Cave." His " Dead Mariner," and other rhymed pieces, evince how exquisite a master he is of versification. He has a fine musical ear, and the harmony of his numbers flows with the most mellifluous measure, while his verse is graced with diction as chaste as it is elegant. Every thing he preserves in the amber of his poesy is selected with unerring taste. What he has written as a poet only makes us wish for more. King George is said to have asked Dr. Johnson why he had ceased to write. " I think I have written enough," replied the Doctor. " It would have been enough," re- turned the King, "were it not so well written." The precious fame the poet pur- chases, is generally at the cost of business success in every other affair of life, and not infrequently at the expense of losing credit for all practicability of mind — reason being generally supposed to exist in inverse ratio to fancy and imagination — prose and prosiness being frequently mistaken as indices of profoundness and philosophy, while poetry has a popular co-relative connection with superficiality and impractica- bility. But none who see the spirit of this true genius, winging his way along the level face of the earth, as Goethe says, '* in the glow and smoke, Where the blind million rush impetuously ' To meet the Evil One" — ( 121 )
 * Bion^raphy of Henry Clay. By George D. Prentice. Hartford : Hanmer and Phelps, 1831. 12mo, pp 304.