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From the Nation, September 13, 1906.
Some day, so Mr. Leigh assures us, he intends to bring out a compendious work on Poe. Meanwhile, he is obliging enough to stay our stomach with this wafer-like volume by way of makeshift. As a self-constituted authority on the subject he is naturally very severe with every one else who has ever written about it. One of the papers or "notes," of several successive layers of which the book is composed, consists of a vigorous denunciation of recent editors, biographers, and critics. Only two have succeeded in satisfying him--Mr. Stedman and Mr. Mable, who ought to be very thankful at securing by good luck what was probably unobtainable by any exercise of human foresight. A brief quotation will illustrate Mr. Leigh's critical manner--we can hardly say, manners:
That the author of these elegant extracts [from Mr. Woodberry's :Life of Poe"] has the advantage of poor Poe in that "he belongs to the men of originally perfect power" and not to mere gentlemen of culture is probably true. That Prof. Woodberry is--or was--a powerful poet was impressed on the public mind by his cordial reviewers in the select literary papers, about the time his "power" produced the biography. The title, if memory serves, of his poetry book was "The North Shore Clock and other Poems." It was pronounced a striking piece, but has not recently been heard in these Western parts, though Connecticut products as a rule are quite popular here.
To judge from this and other specimens of his criticism, Mr. Leigh's chief qualification for his contemplated opus is to be found in the circumstance that some years ago he discovered in the Astor Library a satire, signed Lavante, on Griswold's "Poets and Poetry of America." This poem he ascribed to Poe and reprinted with an argument to sustain his ascription, under the pseudonym of "Geoffrey Quarles." Apparently, however, the exhibit carried very little conviction to either editors or critics. And now in his second note he reasserts himself, epitomizes his argument, and illustrates the satire with a running and connective commentary. The argument, as so abbreviated, does not seem very cogent--and as for the poem, while it may be Poe's, it might just as well be any one's else who could versify and read Pope.
The most interesting thing in the book, however, is a portrait, or rather two portraits, of Poe, intended to emphasize the irregularities of his head and features. One is the lateral reverse of the other; and the upper is split down the middle in such a way as to show, when one or the other flap is raised, what the poet would have looked like, if the design of either side had been carried out symmetrically. The effect is very curious.
