The Literati of New York/No. III/Henry Cary

Doctor Griswold introduces Mr. Cary to the appendix of "The Poet and Poetry," as Mr. Henry Carey, and gives him credit for an Anacreontic song of much merit entitled, or commencing, "Old Wine to Drink." This was not written by Mr. C. He has composed little verse, if any, but, under the nom de plume of "John Waters," has acquired some note by a series of prose essays in "The New York American" and "The Knickerbocker." These essays have merit, unquestionably, but some person, in an article furnished "The Broadway Journal," before my assumption of its editorship, has gone to the extreme of toadyism in their praise. This critic (possibly Mr. Briggs) thinks that John Waters "is in some sort a Sam Rogers" — "resembles Lamb in fastidiousness of taste" — "has a finer artistic taste than the author of the "Sketch Book' " — that his "sentences are the most perfect in the language — too perfect to be peculiar" — that "it would be a vain task to hunt through them all for a superfluous conjunction," and that "we need them (the works of John Waters !) as models of style in these days of rhodomontades and Macaulayisms!"

The truth seems to be that Mr. Cary is a vivacious, fanciful, entertaining essayist — a fifth or sixth rate one — with a style that, as times go — in view of such stylists as Mr. Briggs, for example — may be termed respectable, and no more. What the critic of the B. J. wishes us to understand by a style that is "too perfect," "the most perfect," etc., it is scarcely worth while to inquire, since it is generally supposed that "perfect" admits of no degrees of comparison; but if Mr. Briggs (or whoever it is) finds it "a vain task to hunt" through all Mr. John Waters' works "for a superfluous conjunction," there are few schoolboys who would not prove more successful hunters than Mr. Briggs.

"It was well filled," says the essayist, on the very page containing these encomiums, "and yet the number of performers," etc. "We paid our visit to the incomparable ruins of the castle, and then proceeded to retrace our steps, and, examining our wheels at every post-house, reached," etc. "After consultation with a mechanic at Heidelberg, and finding that," etc. The last sentence should read, "Finding, after consultation," etc. — the "and" would thus be avoided. Those in the two sentences first quoted are obviously pleonastic. Mr. Cary, in fact, abounds very especially in superfluities — (as here, for example, "He seated himself at a piano that was near the front of the stage") — and, to speak the truth, is continually guilty of all kinds of grammatical improprieties. I repeat that, in this respect, he is decent, and no more.

Mr. Cary is what Doctor Griswold calls a "gentleman of elegant leisure." He is wealthy and much addicted to letters and virtû. For a long time he was President of the Phœnix Bank of New York, and the principal part of his life has been devoted to business. There is nothing remarkable about his personal appearance.