THE FEMALE POETS OF AMERICA. BY RUFUS WILMOT GRISWOLD. WITH ADDITIONS BY R. H. STODDARD I AM OBNOXIOUS TO EACH CARPING TONGUE THAT SAYS MY HAND A NEEDLE BETTER FITS; A POET'S PEN ALL SCORN I THUS SHOULD WRONG, FOR SUCH DESPITE THEY CAST ON FEMALE WITS. • BUT SURE THE ANTIQUE GREEKS WERE FAR MORE MILD, ELSE OF OUR SEX WHY FEIGNED THEY THOSE NINE, AND POESY MADE CALLIOPE'S OWN CHILD1- SO MONGST THE REST THEY PLACED THE ARTS DIVINE CAREFULLY REVISED, MUCH ENLARGED, AND CONTINUED TO THE PRESENT TIMR With Portraits on Steel, from Original Pictures. NEW YORK: JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 779 BROADWAY. P5587 1873 ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1843, BY CAREY & HART, IN THE OFFICE OF THE CLERK OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1973, by JAMES MILLER, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. New York: J. J. Little & Co., Printers, 10 to 20 Astor Placo. PREFACE. Ir is less easy to be assured of the genuineness of literary ability in women than in men. The moral nature of women, in its finest and richest development, partakes of some of the qualities of genius; it assumes, at least, the similitude of that which in men is the characteristic or accompaniment of the highest grade of mental inspiration. We are in danger, therefore, of mistaking for the efflorescent energy of creative intelligence, that which is only the exuberance. of personal "feelings unemployed." We may confound the vivid dreamings of an unsatisfied heart, with the aspirations of a mind impatient of the fetters of time, and matter, and mortality. That may seem to us the abstract imagining of a soul rapt into sympathy with a purer beauty and a higher truth than earth and space exhibit, which in fact shall be only the natural craving of affections, undefined and wandering. The most exquisite susceptibility of the spirit, and the capacity to mirror in dazzling variety the effects which circumstances or surrounding minds work upon it, may be accompanied by no power to originate, nor even, in any proper sense, to reproduce. It does not follow, because the most essential genius in men is marked by qualities which we may call feminine, that such qualities when found in female writers have any certain or just relation to mental superiority. The conditions of æsthetic ability in the two sexes are probably distinct, or even opposite. Among men, we recognise his nature as the most thoroughly artist-like, whose most abstract thoughts still retain a sensuous cast, whose mind is the most completely transfused and incorporated into his feelings. Perhaps the reverse should be considered the test of true art in woman, and we should deem her the truest poet, whose emotions are most refined by reason, whose force of passion is most expanded and controlled into lofty and impersonal forms of imagination. Coming to the duty of criticism, however, with something of this antecedent skepticism, I have reviewed the collection of works which my task brought before me, with frequent admiration and surprise; and leaving to others the less welcome task of rejecting pretensions, which must inspire interest, if they can not command acquiescence, I content myself with expressing, affirmatively, my own conviction, that the writings of Mrs. Maria Brooks, Mrs. Oakes-Smith, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. Whitman, and some others here quoted, illustrate as high and sustained a range of poetic art, as the female genius of any age or country can display. The most striking quality of that civilization which is evolving itself in America, is the deference felt for women. As a point in social manners, it is so pervading and so peculiar, as to amount to a national characteristic ; and it ought to be valued and vaunted as the pride of our freedom, and the brightest hope of our history. It indicates a more exalted appreciation of an influence that never can be felt too deeply, for it never is exerted but for good. In the aosence from us of those great visible and formal institutions by which Europe has been educated, it seems as if Nature had designed that resources of her own providing should guide us onward to the maturity of civil refinement. The increased degree in which women among us are taking a leading part in literature, is one of the circumstances of this augmented distinction and control on their part. The proportion of female writers at this moment in America, far exceeds that which the present or any other age in England exhibits. It is in the West, too, where we look for what is most thoroughly native and essential in American character, that we are principally struck with the number of youthful female voices that soften and enrich the tumult of enterprise, and action, by the interblended music of a calmer and loftier sphere. Those who cherish a belief that the progress of society in this country is destined to develop a school of art, original and special, will perhaps find more decided indications of the infusion of our domestic spirit and temper into literature, in the poetry of our female authors, than in that of our men. It has been suggested by foreign critics, that our citizens are too much devoted to business and politics to feel interest in pursuits which adorn but do not profit, and which beautify existence but do not consolidate power: feminine genius is perhaps destined to retrieve our public character in this respect, and our shores may yet be far resplendent with a temple of art which, while it is a glory of our land, may be a monument to the honor of the sex. The American people have been thought deficient in that warmth and delicacy of taste, without which there can be no genuine poetic sensibility. Were it true, it were much to be regretted that we should be wanting in that noble capacity to receive pleasure from what is beautiful in nature or exquisite in art-in that venerating sense-that prophetic recognition-that quick, intense perception, which sees the divine relations of all things that delight the eye or kindle the imagination. One endowed with an apprehension like this, becomes ourer and more elevated, in sentiment and aspiration, after viewing an embodi |