Halleck, Willis, Holmes, Pike, Simms, Whittier, Cranch, are to a great extent echoes of the opinions Poe had already expressed in his "Literati" and in his lectures on "The Poets and Poetry of America." The satire has all Poe's arrogance, egotism, and intensity; it shows the same mental limitations, the same poverty of wit and humor, the same disregard for truth, the same petty spite and malice. As the editor remarks, "Either Poe wrote this satire, or somebody else, still unknown, wrote it with Poe's experience, Poe's doctrines, Poe's animus, and in Poe's language." In the "Supplementary" note the editor overreaches himself by too much subtilty. He rightly argues that, as Poe was fond of ingenious mystifications, he might sign his own name in some cryptographic fashion in his anonymous poems. The last couplet runs as follows:
Should public hate upon my pen react,
No matter this: I will not aught retract.
This couplet contains all the letters in the name of Edgar Allan Poe. It also contains all the letters of these words, "American Poets and Poetry, a Satire;" or these, "A True and Honest Satire by Edgar Allan Poe." This is not so bad. However, "Quarles" then goes on to find that "Edgar Poe (Lavante)" yields this anagram: "A Real Poet Aveng'd,"—which is ingenious. But why, if Poe chose the pseudonyme with a view to this anagram, did he not perfect the latter by calling himself "Levante" (a name actually used in one of his poems)? Then "Edgar A. Poe (Levante)" would have yielded "A Real Poet Avenged," without the awkwardness of the elision, and with his full name exactly as he signed it.
"Miss Bayle's Romance, a Story of To-Day" (Henry Holt & Co.), is another attempt to paint the American girl abroad, this time from the point of view of an Englishman, possibly Grant Allen. Miss Bayle is the daughter of a Chicago millionaire who has made his money in shady railroad transactions. Her great beauty, and her father's millions, gain admission for her into the highest English circles, even those of royalty; she is toasted at banquets and celebrated in the newspapers, and ends by marrying a British lord. Evidently the author likes her and intends us to like her. But in this he fails. She has nothing to recommend her but frankness and good nature (we are told, indeed, that she is clever, but are given none of her clever sayings), and these good qualities are overshadowed by her essential vulgarity. A great deal of pains has been expended to throw an air of lifelikeness over the book. Real persons—the Prince of Wales, Gladstone, Labouchere, Lord and Lady Randolph Churchill—are introduced under their own names, and other well-known persons under very thin disguises. Long extracts are given from the letters of Mrs. and Miss Bayle, which are painfully lifelike,—just the sort of letters that the every-day man gets from his wife, his sister, and his sweetheart. The author's evidently very accurate knowledge of Europe and of America has been laid under contribution. The names of Chicago, New York, Boston, and London papers, of the steamers that ply on various rivers, of leading hotels and restaurants in the New World and the Old, the characteristics of numerous out-of-the-way localities,—all these give the book that appearance of accuracy and reliability and that exhilarating interest which we look for only in a guide-book. Indeed (to drop airy persiflage), the book is dull in spite of the author's evident cleverness. The best thing in it is the sketch of Ezra P. Bayle, a typical American financier. The various tricks by
