tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85707183750106618102024-03-29T06:30:22.911-05:00MelvillianaOriginal research and riffs on Herman Melville, authorship, and nineteenth-century American literature.Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.comBlogger1306125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-83217000306727513772024-03-23T14:50:00.025-05:002024-03-26T19:51:13.620-05:00Portrait of the late private Malcolm Melville, given to Company B by his father on February 11, 1868<div>We knew that Herman Melville gave a framed picture of Malcolm (called "Macky" or "Mackie" by family members) to the New York State Militia unit his deceased son had proudly served in. And we knew all about the mission to get it back a few years later, which Herman eventually accomplished in the summer of 1872 under the direction of his wife Elizabeth aka "Lizzie." Both events, the donation and complicated retrieval, are documented by Jay Leyda in <a href="https://archive.org/details/melvillelog0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">The Melville Log volume 2</a> (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1951; Gordian Press, 1969) at pages 691 and 726; and judiciously narrated by Hershel Parker in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WuoN7Udm4-wC&pg=PA742&lpg=PA742&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Herman Melville: A Biography volume 2</a>, 1851-1891 at pages 646-7, 742-3 and 746.</div><div><br /></div><div>Something we did not know is revealed herein, the exact date of the original gift. Parker timed it shortly after the tragedy of Malcolm's death on September 11, 1867, figuring the image of their son might have been too painful for the distraught parents to bear in their bereavement, and therefore was</div><blockquote><div>"too hastily given away during their first grief."</div><div></div></blockquote><p>However, as recorded in the New York <i>Dispatch </i>on February 16, 1868 the "beautiful portrait of the late private Melville" in uniform was not presented to Malcolm's comrades-in-arms until five months after his death, in February of the following year. According to this previously unknown announcement, transcribed below, the portrait of Malcolm Melville was bestowed on Tuesday, February 11, 1868 "at the regimental armory" by "a well-known author," namely his father Herman. Misspelled "Hermann" with two "n's" in the published newspaper account. As indicated elsewhere (New York <i>Dispatch</i>, April 26, 1868, for example) the regimental armory was then located on the corner of Hall Place and Seventh street. Activities of the "SECOND REGIMENT" are detailed under the broad heading, "The National Guard / The Coming Anniversary of Washington's Birthday."</p><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Xr6ZKET290P6EoUxf_2rnuQZNfkLJvF9JieT_xojM5Sszd21RpYjwg9w5B2NyO08meRDO0ZIJZlicQAPnHOzj-f5YOXDOpE07LNBluuttuSGgo327ZRvrjabY6XDCz60IAAgo77MeppXB4y2q0g6K5ty4HwLWD59NdElTDl5DSOllWt176UpnI8Zjbw_/s837/New_York_dispatch_1868-02-16_9.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="837" data-original-width="715" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-Xr6ZKET290P6EoUxf_2rnuQZNfkLJvF9JieT_xojM5Sszd21RpYjwg9w5B2NyO08meRDO0ZIJZlicQAPnHOzj-f5YOXDOpE07LNBluuttuSGgo327ZRvrjabY6XDCz60IAAgo77MeppXB4y2q0g6K5ty4HwLWD59NdElTDl5DSOllWt176UpnI8Zjbw_/w547-h640/New_York_dispatch_1868-02-16_9.png" width="547" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York <i>Dispatch</i> - Sunday, February 16, 1868<br />via <a href="http://genealogybank.com">genealogybank.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><blockquote><h2 style="text-align: center;">SECOND REGIMENT.</h2>On Wednesday evening last, Company C, of the Second Regiment, gave their second annual ball at the regimental armory, in Seventh street, corner of Hall place. The large drill-room was elegantly decorated with flags and bunting, while above and in front of the orchestra on the north side of the room was a large gas jet in the form of an eagle, and the inscription "Company C." A large company was assembled, prominent among whom were many of the officers and members of the First, Second, Third, Eighth, Twelfth, and other regiments. Capt. Irving, who officiated as Floor Manager, Sergeants Duffy, Parker, Wall work, Judson, and others of the committees were assiduous in their attentions to the guests. The ball was one of the best ever given in the armory. <span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">Company B, of the Second, on Tuesday evening last held an election at the regimental armory.</span> Lieut. Col. De Courcy presided. The following was the result of the election: Second Lieutenant, George O. Starr was elected Captain; First-Lieut. John Hennessey having declined the position. Sergeant Joseph H. Carter was elected Second Lieutenant vice Starr promoted. Private Samuel P. Weir was elected a Sergeant. Lieut. Carter served as a Lieutenant in a volunteer regiment during the late war, and was several times severely wounded. <span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">On the same evening a beautiful portrait of the late private Melville, recently deceased, was presented to the Company by Mr. Hermann Melville, father of the deceased, and a well-known author."</span></blockquote><p>Here deemed "a beautiful portrait," the picture of Malcolm is variously referenced in extant family correspondence as a tintype or enlargement thereof, "a colored photograph of the full length figure" (his mother's words in a letter to Catherine "Kate" Gansevoort) and (again in the words of his mother) "the much wished for picture of our dear boy." In <a href="https://archive.org/details/hermanmelvillecy0000metc" target="_blank">Herman Melville: Cycle and Epicycle</a> (Harvard University Press, 1953) page 222, Eleanor Melville Metcalf described the item as </p><blockquote><p>"<i>a hand-colored photograph of him</i> [Malcolm] <i>in uniform, which Herman had presented to his National Guard company</i>."</p></blockquote><p>Presumably the picture of <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/53228031/malcolm-melville" target="_blank">Malcolm Melville</a> (1849-1867) that Company B received from Herman Melville at the regimental armory on Tuesday, February 11, 1868 was or looked very like the watercolor portrait reproduced by Hennig Cohen and Donald Yanella as the frontispiece in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cg6WTraFEJ4C&printsec=frontcover&source#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Herman Melville's Malcolm Letter</a> (Fordham University Press and The New York Public Library, 1992). Then (as now?) at the <a href="https://www.pittsfieldlibrary.org/" target="_blank">Berkshire Athenaeum</a>, the portrait in <i>Herman Melville's Malcolm Letter </i>shows Malcolm Melville wearing his regimental uniform. As explained in the caption,</p></div><div><blockquote>"The date and artist are unknown, but the watercolor may be posthumous, after a tintype of Malcolm in uniform." </blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BoazxSMyhmsdj8z1fJDat8ga2ZkFqz6K_SKHaU6vKwbRA1B5gosWwpKmUcTKDI5Bv9SR8ZyE4bgL-W6QfhJSFD31chVi1fj2yf4jlXg3hiKs3k16AFC5antfV_oGmKOceAA6OLmgRVjJ71zp76v4fyTwKrTIi6mZF306ml2b_l9QtvnrXcm1QlEn4S2D/s190/melvillemalcolmletter.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="190" data-original-width="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6BoazxSMyhmsdj8z1fJDat8ga2ZkFqz6K_SKHaU6vKwbRA1B5gosWwpKmUcTKDI5Bv9SR8ZyE4bgL-W6QfhJSFD31chVi1fj2yf4jlXg3hiKs3k16AFC5antfV_oGmKOceAA6OLmgRVjJ71zp76v4fyTwKrTIi6mZF306ml2b_l9QtvnrXcm1QlEn4S2D/s16000/melvillemalcolmletter.jpg" /></a></div><p>Malcolm, first child of Elizabeth and Herman Melville, died at the age of 18 on September 11, 1867 when he shot himself in bed with a revolving pistol that he kept under his pillow. Newspapers called it suicide, following the coroner's determination after a formal inquest. People closest to the deceased objected to the charge of "insanity," however "temporary," in the earliest pronouncements. Certain that Malcolm's death must have been accidental, grieving family members and influential advocates rebutted the imputation of any serious emotional or mental disturbance. In the 20th century, influential commentators revived the suicide theory, sometimes mixing dubious or inappropriately applied methods of psychoanalysis with large doses of mind-reading and projection. </p><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-pittsfield-sun/143981032/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=143981032&width=700&height=1876&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 26 Sep 1867, Thu <em>The Pittsfield Sun (Pittsfield, Massachusetts)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a><div><br /></div>Heading the list of jurors for the coroner's inquest was a neighbor and highly regarded dentist named Alfred Starr, the father of Malcolm's friend and fellow soldier in the National Guard, George Starr. In NYC both sons of Elizabeth and Herman Melville became friends with sons of their neighbor Alfred Starr. Born in 1849, George Starr was exactly Malcolm Melville's age and a leader in their volunteer infantry unit, Company B of the Second Regiment, National Guard of the State of New York. <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=-x8TAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA248&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Frederick James Starr</a> (1853-1902) was almost two years younger than Stanwix Melville (1851-1886). When Fred Starr took over his father's business he offered to re-hire Stanwix (aka "Stanny" or "Stannie") who had previously worked for Alfred. As things turned out Stanwix very briefly apprenticed with another dentist, Dr. Read, before heading west to Kansas and beyond. </div><div><br /></div><div>Malcolm's friend and then Second Lieutenant <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/207852122/george-oscar-starr" target="_blank">George Oscar Starr</a> (1849-1915) got elected to Captain (replacing William D. Marsh) on the same evening that Company B received the "beautiful portrait of the late private Melville" presented by Herman Melville. George reportedly had warned Malcolm not to be so careless with guns before Malcolm shot himself. </div><div><div><br /></div><div>One fact not down in Jay Leyda's <a href="https://neglectedbooks.com/?p=8244" target="_blank">Melville Log</a> or any Melville biography, yet nonetheless true: Malcolm's good friend George O. Starr would later become world-famous as the managing director of Barnum & Bailey's Greatest Show on Earth.</div></div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eQFWhx7uaElY9Qq1fQRJ8dxLrRqd-FXWqacwQC1OwWJuQgB3Sq8JulRgE5_GSuP5FjICco-URoO8xIcT_V3puYzVZZgDYW-wIFuoiJ-kiVWTWQ9Pmk1uu4L9q2y0EzFqRP7JxcoqHUjpNA4sgv4albX18hux_9waiR9IyOW9hjZCBGALUDgC8o7mYAgr/s872/Evening_Post_1915-09-10_7.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="872" data-original-width="802" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_eQFWhx7uaElY9Qq1fQRJ8dxLrRqd-FXWqacwQC1OwWJuQgB3Sq8JulRgE5_GSuP5FjICco-URoO8xIcT_V3puYzVZZgDYW-wIFuoiJ-kiVWTWQ9Pmk1uu4L9q2y0EzFqRP7JxcoqHUjpNA4sgv4albX18hux_9waiR9IyOW9hjZCBGALUDgC8o7mYAgr/w589-h640/Evening_Post_1915-09-10_7.png" width="589" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York <i>Evening Post</i> - September 10, 1915</td></tr></tbody></table>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-10455878334128324172024-03-05T13:51:00.013-06:002024-03-07T06:30:52.929-06:00Footnote on pelican-beach<span style="font-size: medium;">'Tis barren as a pelican-beach.* </span><div><br /></div><div>* <i>barren as a pelican-beach</i>. The simile in the third line of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55907/in-the-prison-pen" target="_blank">In the Prison Pen</a> compares the locale of a Southern prison to a remote hellscape or wasteland, figuring its forlorn captives as a penal colony of sorrowful-looking and probably starving pelicans. Evoking the biblical "pelican in the wilderness," as the afflicted, physically emaciated supplicant calls himself in <a href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/psalms/102-6.htm" target="_blank">Psalm 102.6</a>, the imagery here draws also from a cluster of pelican associations in other writings by Melville, especially <i>Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities</i> (1852) and "The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles" (1854). Typically Melville regards the appearance of pelicans as <i>lugubrious</i> = mournfully sad. To his eye their angular forms and frequently empty pouches make them look eternally lean and hungry. <a href="https://archive.org/details/pierre00melv/page/362/mode/2up" target="_blank">In Pierre</a> Melville's narrator likens poor, miserably undernourished philosophers and social reformers (lined up on the curb outside a diner) to "<span style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 20px;">lean rows of broken-hearted pelicans on a beach; their pockets loose, hanging down and flabby, like the pelican’s pouches when fish are hard to be caught.</span>" Pelicans in "The Encantadas" are depicted as sad, "penitential," oddly immobile and ghostly endurers of Job-like suffering in the Galápagos Islands:<div><blockquote>But look, what are yon wobegone regiments drawn up on the next shelf above? what rank and file of large strange fowl? what sea Friars of Orders Gray? Pelicans. Their elongated bills, and heavy leathern pouches suspended thereto, give them the most lugubrious expression. A pensive race, they stand for hours together without motion. Their dull, ashy plumage imparts an aspect as if they had been powdered over with cinders. A penitential bird indeed, fitly haunting the shores of the clinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented Job himself might have well sat down and scraped himself with potsherds. -- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pr_9b1Xs8NMC&pg=PA316&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles</a> - Sketch Third, Rock Rodondo in <i>Putnam's Monthly</i> for March 1854; reprinted in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4KYOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA309&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Piazza Tales</a> (1856) at page 309.</blockquote>Thus represented in military and monastic metaphors as "wobegone regiments" of pitifully sad and abandoned creatures arranged in "rank and file," Melville's battle-worn and scourged penitents of pelicans seem the very emblem of suffering in captivity. Suggestive analogues can be found in published works by other writers, notably <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T8eeNDtjugEC&pg=PR5&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Pelican Island</a> (1827) by James Montgomery and Thomas Beale's <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8hVUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA212&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Natural History of the Sperm Whale</a> (1839), both quoted (for different reasons, not directly connected with pelicans) in the <a href="https://archive.org/details/MobyDick1851HermanMelville/page/n17/mode/2up" target="_blank">Extracts section</a> of <i>Moby-Dick</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Closer to home, geographically, lurks a possible local allusion. The depiction of Virginia's <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/belle-isle-prison/" target="_blank">Belle Isle Prison</a> in the James river across from Richmond as "a low, <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">sandy, barren waste</span>, exposed in summer to a burning sun, without the shadow of a single tree" in the 1864 report by the U. S. Sanitary Commission, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Wa86AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA158&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> <i>of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of War in the Hands of the Rebel Authorities</i>, may have reminded Melville of "Barren Island," mostly "a sand-bank known as Pelican beach." So described in multiple editions of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DcnFzyQvYCAC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Appleton's Dictionary of New York and Its Vicinity</a>. </div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDJ66V1yGE6nmNgxvqxcWM7wOQsWJFQUylbe3Bejj48fitPVoUNwQnk_inYUFQCUC5bOssvDmj23cA8xTfohAqyAOCG842goBv9S3357_Vq7xeoIX3naNYl4GzkL2s7rnRC4hns8soxNIdGHg9FH_hdpeYSxPsRAbPpDVtzcV7UYhWdNAD28w6UF4f2I82/s1096/1879-Barren.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="1096" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDJ66V1yGE6nmNgxvqxcWM7wOQsWJFQUylbe3Bejj48fitPVoUNwQnk_inYUFQCUC5bOssvDmj23cA8xTfohAqyAOCG842goBv9S3357_Vq7xeoIX3naNYl4GzkL2s7rnRC4hns8soxNIdGHg9FH_hdpeYSxPsRAbPpDVtzcV7UYhWdNAD28w6UF4f2I82/w640-h160/1879-Barren.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Whatever else it may suggest, Melville's pelican imagery as adapted to "In the Prison Pen (1864)" figuratively represents the maltreated prisoner in his place of confinement. Through allusion to the "pelican of the wilderness" in Psalm 102, Melville's pelican-beach simile links the emaciated body of the psalmist to the emaciated bodies of Union soldiers released from Belle Isle and other Southern prisons, pictured in words and engraved images as "living skeletons" in the 1864 <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>. <br /><div><br /></div><div>For <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/12/poem-of-the-week-in-the-prison-pen-by-herman-melville" target="_blank">Carol Rumens</a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>Related post:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/03/meagerness-on-pelican-beach.html" target="_blank">Meagerness on a pelican-beach</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/03/meagerness-on-pelican-beach.html</li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-19024901810905720682024-03-03T07:45:00.060-06:002024-03-07T06:33:11.043-06:00Meagerness on a pelican-beach<blockquote><p></p></blockquote><h1><div style="text-align: left;">the matter and sources of Melville's</div><div style="text-align: left;">"In the Prison Pen (1864)"</div></h1><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7jldwcpELX1RBb61ssYRpsCdyJoHcpfHn7tg5_85WgZrgiN3WILwWuq05HVQpxddqkTq8wtHROh4irSXQBM1hxJY-KLQN3C8jneVHQuvWm8DtFIDHjdzoZRNzwmPwX-vqa3o_sIdpLtz4zxpUtYvDfFoReP86x-ucRw_xTHMeJtoqxecvNUXDEzHNIT6s/s1600/Pelican.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="945" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7jldwcpELX1RBb61ssYRpsCdyJoHcpfHn7tg5_85WgZrgiN3WILwWuq05HVQpxddqkTq8wtHROh4irSXQBM1hxJY-KLQN3C8jneVHQuvWm8DtFIDHjdzoZRNzwmPwX-vqa3o_sIdpLtz4zxpUtYvDfFoReP86x-ucRw_xTHMeJtoqxecvNUXDEzHNIT6s/w378-h640/Pelican.jpeg" width="378" /></a> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Meager were his looks;<br /> Sharp misery had worn him to the bones.<br /> --Shakespeare, <a href="https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/romeo-and-juliet/read/5/1/" target="_blank">Romeo and Juliet - Act 5 scene 1</a> </blockquote><blockquote>... <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">like lean rows of broken-hearted pelicans on a beach</span>; their pockets loose, hanging down and flabby, like the pelican's pouches when fish are hard to be caught. --Herman Melville, <a href="https://archive.org/details/pierre00melv/page/362/mode/2up" target="_blank">Pierre or The Ambiguities</a> (1852) page 362.</blockquote><blockquote>A penitential bird indeed, fitly haunting the shores of the clinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented Job himself might have well sat down and scraped himself with potsherds. --Melville, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=pr_9b1Xs8NMC&pg=PA316&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles</a> - Sketch Third, Rock Rodondo in <i>Putnam's Monthly</i> March 1854; reprinted in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=4KYOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA309&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Piazza Tales</a> (1856) at page 309.</blockquote><blockquote><i>Wie kann es sein, dass Gefangene überhaupt hungerten, und warum zieht man den, von dem hier die Rede ist, zum Skelett abgemagert aus der Menge, als ob sie ihn zerdrückt hätte? </i> </blockquote><blockquote>--B. S. Orthau and B. Oskars, „In the Prison Pen“: <i>ein Gedicht und sein Hintergrund </i>in TraLaLit, <a href="https://www.tralalit.de/2021/06/30/in-the-prison-pen/" target="_blank">30 June 2021 - Essay</a></blockquote><p>Carol Rumens, award-winning poet and <a href="https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/en/researchers/carol-rumens(8b58a74d-7f67-4d11-a3c2-f673328710c7).html" target="_blank">Bangor University Professor</a>, has lately showcased Melville's heartbreakingly bleak Civil War poem <a href="https://archive.org/details/battlepiecesaspe1866melv/page/118/mode/2up" target="_blank">In the Prison Pen</a> as her <i>Guardian</i> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/12/poem-of-the-week-in-the-prison-pen-by-herman-melville" target="_blank">Poem of the week</a>. Besides attending to the form of the poem (ballad stanza) and its point of view, her reading nicely highlights Melville's deployment (deemed mostly effective) of poetic language and devices including strategic use of monosyllables, vivid diction ("gashed and hoar" prisoners, looking like ghosts), inversion (the old literary trick of putting adjective after noun, as in "faces dim"), bestial imagery (the words <i>pen</i> and <i>lair </i>and<i> den </i>signifying the captive soldier's "reduction from human to animal") and repetition (chiefly of <i>throngs</i> and <i>dead</i> in the final stanza). </p><div><p></p><blockquote><i><span style="font-size: medium;">'Tis barren as a pelican-beach.</span></i></blockquote><p></p><p>Professor Rumens does not fail to address the pelican in the first stanza, where Melville or his speaker compares the desolate place of the prisoner's confinement to the "barren" emptiness of <i>a pelican-beach</i>, whatever that is. </p><blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 21.25px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">"The third-line simile needs a footnote I’m unable to supply. What is a pelican-beach?"</span></p></blockquote><p>Wondering the same, I thought it might prove useful to investigate further and attempt an answer. In <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/03/footnote-on-pelican-beach.html" target="_blank">a footnote, ideally</a>, to be constructed after I get over the mild shock of discovering that somebody wanted one. Let me begin by observing that a pretty good footnote--or end-note, technically speaking--already exists in the 2009 Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810126053/published-poems/" target="_blank">Published Poems</a> (Volume 11 in <i>The Writings of Herman Melville</i>)<i> </i>edited by Robert C. Ryan, Harrison Hayford, Alma MacDougall Reising, and G. Thomas Tanselle. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLrt998HVJd5EqnnX1gzQ1hEw4K8VFXEpB9dnL-7g0DN_WvkKbiKl9mbH0r2ZxzN_pHo1r8sEcdczFhNQkCseO9vcKaIpu3QnbW6T2VWXc48zVJ5sIR4NFAf0-ZpKmGld0hJeaUO_OgwB2U-G6sQJCIL_UF77EIkWkb50dXIH5JT-Qz_haG4zfpeokdevn/s1319/NN-Published-Poems-653.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1085" data-original-width="1319" height="329" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLrt998HVJd5EqnnX1gzQ1hEw4K8VFXEpB9dnL-7g0DN_WvkKbiKl9mbH0r2ZxzN_pHo1r8sEcdczFhNQkCseO9vcKaIpu3QnbW6T2VWXc48zVJ5sIR4NFAf0-ZpKmGld0hJeaUO_OgwB2U-G6sQJCIL_UF77EIkWkb50dXIH5JT-Qz_haG4zfpeokdevn/w400-h329/NN-Published-Poems-653.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p>In this the most scholarly edition of Melville's <i>Battle-Pieces </i>to date,<i> </i>the relevant editorial note to "IN THE PRISON PEN" appears on page 653 (of 940) citing a biblical example of Melville's figurative pelican:</p><p></p><blockquote>DISCUSSIONS. 86.3 <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">barren as a pelican-beach] Psalm 102: 'I am like a pelican of the wilderness</span>: I am like an owl of the desert." Melville marked the next verse "I watch, and am as a sparrow alone upon the house-top") in one of his Bibles (see the discussion at 64.0 above).</blockquote><p>You can't blame Carol Rumens or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/12/poem-of-the-week-in-the-prison-pen-by-herman-melville" target="_blank">The Guardian</a> for ignoring it, not when Hershel Parker, General Editor of <i>Published Poems, </i>did likewise. Ever keen to break new ground, Parker<i> </i>chose not to bother about "pelican-beach" in his end-note to "In the Prison Pen" for the 2019 Library of America edition <a href="https://www.loa.org/books/610-complete-poems/" target="_blank">Herman Melville: Complete Poems</a>, pages 944-945, and thus removed any temptation to cross-reference Psalm 102. To the same effect, the "sparrow alone upon the house top" cited in the longer Northwestern-Newberry discussion of "The House-top, another poem in <i>Battle-Pieces</i>, has flown. Alas! no feather of a sparrow, pelican, owl, or any other trace of <a href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/psalms/102-6.htm" target="_blank">Psalm 102:6</a> made it into Parker's generally excellent end-notes for <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TBB0DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT846&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">the LOA edition</a>. </p><p>Nevertheless, the dropped cross-reference to Psalm 102, verse 6 "I am like a pelican of the wilderness" pointed up a biblical text that is and always will be rich with significance for a sympathetic reading of "In the Prison Pen." Conventionally presented in KJV chapter headings as "A prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed," the whole of Psalm 102 could be seen to resonate with the sorrowful plight of severely maltreated prisoners. </p><blockquote>"It is calculated for an afflicted state, and is intended for the use of others that may be in the like distress." -- Matthew Henry, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ncOUlKzidYsC&pg=PA483&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">An Exposition of the Book of Psalms</a> (London, 1853).<br /></blockquote><p>Also by way of allusion, this time unmistakable, the Psalms of David come into play again in the fourth stanza of Melville's poem. As there shown with blunt clarity and precision, no divine protection from the "smiting sun" like that promised to the righteous in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm%20121%3A6&version=KJV" target="_blank">Psalm 121:6</a> ("The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night.") is available to the poor soldier confined in Melville's shelterless and godforsaken prison pen. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFgFqvtQu7AWxllcdzFrFVYcrGGzCIcmxgbJLQBV7Z-1njpdovLIcABaneeG0Z2777a3VcGE7rar46_iB_y4z8tmnLqv3qEaiFv21mf9eCZDg7dIawLBYYREZcBz60bFzxD7oB7To-sMZBQJdvHgp6WbmJFT9nCJqgMVPKQNTnd9vpRhkLFnvRtl8rDhtN/s4256/pelicans-Santa-Cruz.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2832" data-original-width="4256" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFgFqvtQu7AWxllcdzFrFVYcrGGzCIcmxgbJLQBV7Z-1njpdovLIcABaneeG0Z2777a3VcGE7rar46_iB_y4z8tmnLqv3qEaiFv21mf9eCZDg7dIawLBYYREZcBz60bFzxD7oB7To-sMZBQJdvHgp6WbmJFT9nCJqgMVPKQNTnd9vpRhkLFnvRtl8rDhtN/w640-h426/pelicans-Santa-Cruz.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div>Pelicans elsewhere in Melville's writings are almost always portrayed as sad, pitiable creatures whose angular forms and typically empty pouches make them look eternally lean and hungry. Repeatedly, Melville labels the pelican <i>lugubrious</i> which according to Webster's 1848 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=xGIPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA610&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">American Dictionary</a> means "Mournful; indicating sorrow." Along with deep sadness, usual associations for Melville include food or the lack of it, poverty, hunger, remote island habitats, desolation, arrangement in ordered rows, especially of soldiers or monks, penance, endurance of Job-like suffering, Hell. </div><div><br /></div><div>In <i>Pierre</i> (1852) Melville likened undernourished philosophers and would-be social reformers, living cheaply in the "Church of the Apostles" but here lined up on the curb outside a diner, to </div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><blockquote>"lean rows of broken-hearted pelicans on a beach."</blockquote></span></div><div>Melville's figuration of pelicans as mournful objects of condemnation and punishment is most overt in the following passage from <i>The Encantadas</i>, <a href="https://archive.org/details/piazztales00melvrich/page/308/mode/2up" target="_blank">Sketch Third, Rock Rodondo</a>:</div><blockquote>But look, what are yon wobegone regiments drawn up on the next shelf above? what rank and file of large strange fowl? what sea Friars of Orders Gray? Pelicans. Their elongated bills, and heavy leathern pouches suspended thereto, give them the most lugubrious expression. A pensive race, they stand for hours together without motion. Their dull, ashy plumage imparts an aspect as if they had been powdered over with cinders. A penitential bird indeed, fitly haunting the shores of the clinkered Encantadas, whereon tormented Job himself might have well sat down and scraped himself with potsherds.</blockquote><p>Thus represented in military and monastic metaphors as "wobegone regiments" of pitifully sad and abandoned creatures arranged in "rank and file," Melville's battle-worn and scourged penitents of pelicans seem the very emblem of suffering in captivity. Here then and without meaning to we have stumbled upon the perfect footnote to <i>pelican-beach</i>, already provided by Melville himself in "The Encantadas." A pelican-beach might be any blank shore unprotected from the elements where rows of mournfully sad, tormented, perpetually lean and hungry-looking creatures have been condemned to stand, endure inexplicable punishment and inevitably die. Specifically with respect "In the Prison Pen," Melville's simile in the third line figures the locale of a Southern prison as a remote hellscape or wasteland, and its forlorn captives as a penal colony of sorrowful and probably starving pelicans.</p><div>Allusion to the afflicted supplicant as "a pelican of the wilderness" in Psalm 102.6 would complement Melville's more private symbolism, although elements of Melville's favored cluster of associations with <i>pelican</i> can also be found in other works, notably <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=T8eeNDtjugEC&pg=PR5&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Pelican Island</a> (1827) by James Montgomery and Thomas Beale's <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8hVUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA212&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Natural History of the Sperm Whale</a> (1839), both quoted (in connection with whales, not pelicans) in the <a href="https://archive.org/details/MobyDick1851HermanMelville/page/n17/mode/2up" target="_blank">Extracts section</a> of <i>Moby-Dick</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div>Closer to home lurks a possible local allusion. The depiction of Virginia's <a href="https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/belle-isle-prison/" target="_blank">Belle Isle Prison</a> in the James river as <span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: serif; font-size: 16.6px;"> </span></div><div><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: serif; font-size: 16.6px;"></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: serif; font-size: 16.6px;">"</span>a low, sandy, barren waste, exposed in summer to a burning sun, without the shadow of a single tree"</blockquote></div><div>in the 1864 report by the U. S. Sanitary Commission, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Wa86AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA158&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> <i>of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of War in the Hands of the Rebel Authorities,</i> may have reminded Melville of "Barren Island," mostly "a sand-bank known as Pelican beach." So described in multiple editions of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DcnFzyQvYCAC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Appleton's Dictionary of New York and Its Vicinity</a>. </div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAaD3A-ZNfCeTvf3xn24SAGB-PMfJOIvxEmbb__EsbFHrdhY72PZXB0dfPhYygStEM4nqj5sup5ilB06OtPxbNi6cTJgPmRGlqINVgVacTZrj1sknn-BcIFl8rnlM1-RlY2WiCeRymeL6W_GxrnAp2f85bFc0G0rMznsOCb4ytyWqvVRTnBAksWbUlCWsd/s1096/1879-Barren.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="274" data-original-width="1096" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAaD3A-ZNfCeTvf3xn24SAGB-PMfJOIvxEmbb__EsbFHrdhY72PZXB0dfPhYygStEM4nqj5sup5ilB06OtPxbNi6cTJgPmRGlqINVgVacTZrj1sknn-BcIFl8rnlM1-RlY2WiCeRymeL6W_GxrnAp2f85bFc0G0rMznsOCb4ytyWqvVRTnBAksWbUlCWsd/w640-h160/1879-Barren.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Whatever else it may suggest, Melville's pelican imagery as adapted to "In the Prison Pen (1864)" figuratively represents the maltreated prisoner in his place of confinement. Through allusion to the "pelican of the wilderness" in Psalm 102, Melville's <i>pelican-beach</i> simile links the emaciated body of the psalmist to the emaciated bodies of Union soldiers released from Belle Isle and other southern prisons, pictured in words and engraved images as "living skeletons" in the 1864 <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>. </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkqsUsF5mi4xr-nndyoE3tngBgj2xeZxSTxxTxkZUwtCnnIbDXcG8lJcGoIfI-hG5hiN6xDeFPvbBVeBDllaQVmpfezQoXQyTC-hJBqYEKxPRrw3bBSI9MWAPYYZyLDMav24rR-U9K90gwezZpuxu92hY8p6hMfBcz43Wqim-WdyfDvAxVZRannP1bV1D/s842/Narrative-Privations-LOC-image13.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="842" data-original-width="610" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkqsUsF5mi4xr-nndyoE3tngBgj2xeZxSTxxTxkZUwtCnnIbDXcG8lJcGoIfI-hG5hiN6xDeFPvbBVeBDllaQVmpfezQoXQyTC-hJBqYEKxPRrw3bBSI9MWAPYYZyLDMav24rR-U9K90gwezZpuxu92hY8p6hMfBcz43Wqim-WdyfDvAxVZRannP1bV1D/w464-h640/Narrative-Privations-LOC-image13.jpg" width="464" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lccn.loc.gov/02001967" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> <br />U. S. Sanitary Commission, 1864 via <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/02001967/" target="_blank">Library of Congress</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div><p>As I write, 160 years after its publication, multiple copies of the 1864 volume edited by Valentine Mott <i>et al.</i> are being offered by antiquarian booksellers via <a href="http://abebooks.com" target="_blank">abebooks.com</a>. The most valuable ones still have the original four illustrations of emaciated men, formerly prisoners-of-war. These engraved images were all made from photographs now accessible online via the <a href="https://lccn.loc.gov/2013645514" target="_blank">Library of Congress</a>.</p><p>Mathew Henry, again, on the extremely gaunt figure of the psalmist in Psalm 102:</p><blockquote>"His body was macerated and emaciated, and he was become a perfect skeleton, nothing but skin and bones."</blockquote><p>In a recent <a href="https://www.tralalit.de/2021/06/30/in-the-prison-pen/" target="_blank">essay for TraLaLit</a>, B. S. Orthau and B. Oskars understand Melville's "pelican beach" as a possible allusion to Belle Isle Prison at Richmond, Virginia. Along with a verse translation of "In the Prison Pen" in German, their 2021 contribution „In the Prison Pen“: <i>ein Gedicht und sein Hintergrund</i> introduces historical context needed just to begin to comprehend the suffering that Melville has poetically depicted. In the hosts of "plaining ghosts" surrounding the prisoner in Melville's third stanza, Orthau and Oskar find allusion to Dante's Inferno as well as Virgil's <i>Aeneid</i>. Their essay in German indiscriminately treats conditions in Northern and Southern prisons as essentially the same, without reference to the 1864 investigation and report by the U. S. Sanitary Commission. Nevertheless, Orthau and Oskar have boldly stated what I take herein to be the main question posed at the close of Melville's poem:</p><blockquote>How can it be that prisoners were starving at all, and why is the person in question pulled out of the crowd, emaciated to a skeleton, as if they had crushed him? -- <a href="https://www.tralalit.de/2021/06/30/in-the-prison-pen/" target="_blank">https://www.tralalit.de/2021/06/30/in-the-prison-pen/</a> +Google Translate</blockquote><div>Also confronting the issue of starvation in southern prisons, Martin Griffin in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=uq0nAQAAMAAJ&q" target="_blank">Ashes of the Mind: War and Memory in Northern Literature, 1865-1900</a> (University of Massachusetts Press, 2009) thoughtfully regards the human subject of "In the Prison Pen" as an "emaciated and mentally devastated prisoner in the hands of a regime that does not care about the condition or fate of those under its control." Being crucial to the setting and theme of Melville's poem, Griffin’s insights about the <a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/hell-hath-new-name" target="_blank">atrocities at Andersonville</a> and "death-in-life" as "the dominating motif" merit wider attention:</div><div><blockquote>The poem reflects the situation that obtained in the Confederate prison camp at Andersonville in Georgia, a site of starvation and disease that cost the lives of over twelve thousand Union soldiers....The possibility of a kind of death-in-life, of life as a death-in-waiting, becomes the dominating motif of "In the Prison Pen (1864.)" </blockquote><blockquote>--Martin Griffin, <a href="https://www.umasspress.com/9781558496903/ashes-of-the-mind/" target="_blank">Ashes of the Mind</a>, page 88.</blockquote></div><p>After the war, <a href="https://www.famous-trials.com/andersonville" target="_blank">Henry Wirz</a>, "keeper of the Andersonville rebel prison pen" was hanged "for inhuman treatment, resulting in numberless deaths, of the captives in his charge" as reported in the New York <i>Daily Herald</i> on November 11, 1865. </p><p>As pointed out in the aforementioned editorial notes to "Prison Pen" in the back of the Northwestern-Newberry edition of <i>Published Poems</i>, Melville's go-to source for other poems in <i>Battle-Pieces</i> reprinted lengthy and frequently horrifying testimony before the U. S. Senate on "The Returned Prisoners"; available to Melville in the<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=389JAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false"> Rebellion Record: A Diary of American Events</a> volume 8, edited by Frank Moore, Document 2, pages 80-98. While these first-hand accounts in the <i>Rebellion Record</i> are obviously relevant to the hellish experience Melville poetically depicts, the 1864 <a href="https://archive.org/details/narrativeofpriva00unit_0/page/n1/mode/2up" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> will be shown to exhibit more and better verbal correspondences to "In the Prison Pen."</p></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT09o8qRXIDkceWZ_Iu_gT4rw8MXfuf9hyVi2ZrMt5L_P1RbkDg7sxvZCG47GpkjZXZ9yx8pmOX8-enDqWRDaCsX1pPw4n1Y8SNVYi59JcLzYToivios5M9MPEWpCkhmmYRSz7kYOtkvF6Ln5JYHVxexdC3KHwKpVFgViV3tg41iUFhjqV-Hf3n-sXO4mr/s650/1864-Narrative-title.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="650" data-original-width="423" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjT09o8qRXIDkceWZ_Iu_gT4rw8MXfuf9hyVi2ZrMt5L_P1RbkDg7sxvZCG47GpkjZXZ9yx8pmOX8-enDqWRDaCsX1pPw4n1Y8SNVYi59JcLzYToivios5M9MPEWpCkhmmYRSz7kYOtkvF6Ln5JYHVxexdC3KHwKpVFgViV3tg41iUFhjqV-Hf3n-sXO4mr/s16000/1864-Narrative-title.jpg" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>The official report by the U. S. Sanitary Commission, generously quoted in newspapers and magazines, documented and condemned the severe maltreatment of Union soldiers in Rebel prisons, most notoriously Belle Isle in Virginia and Andersonville in Georgia. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b2895058?urlappend=%3Bseq=301%3Bownerid=9007199273874565-305" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> no. 1066 (November 5, 1864) contains the main report; two weeks later (November 19, 1864) <i>Littell's</i> gave <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b2895058?urlappend=%3Bseq=381%3Bownerid=9007199273874565-395" target="_blank">the Appendix</a> supplemented by the <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b2895058?urlappend=%3Bseq=422%3Bownerid=9007199273874565-436" target="_blank">Deposition of Private Tracy</a> and other new information about the "Sufferings of the Prisoners at Andersonville, GA." Substantial excerpts were also available in major U.S. newspapers including the New York <i>Times</i> on September 5, 1864 and New York <i>Tribune, </i>in the semi-weekly edition of November 8, 1864. In <i>Battle-Pieces</i> Melville has assigned "In the Prison Pen" to 1864 and arranged it to appear between <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55906/sheridan-at-cedar-creek" target="_blank">Sheridan at Cedar Creek</a> dated "October 1864" and <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55908/the-college-colonel" target="_blank">The College Colonel</a>, about a wounded officer and former POW who had experienced "lean brooding at Libby" prison in Richmond, Virginia. Before composing "In the Prison Pen" Melville evidently had read some version of the 1864 <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>, as indicated by correspondences of language and imagery in each of its five stanzas. </div><div><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">In the Prison Pen</span></h3></blockquote><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></h3><span style="font-size: medium;"><div style="text-align: center;">(1864)</div><br />LISTLESS he eyes the palisades<br /> And sentries in the glare;<br />’Tis barren as a pelican-beach —<br /> But his world is ended there.<br /><br />Nothing to do; and vacant hands<br /> Bring on the idiot-pain;<br />He tries to think—to recollect,<br /> But the blur is on his brain.<br /><br />Around him swarm the plaining ghosts<br /> Like those on Virgil’s shore—<br />A wilderness of faces dim,<br /> And pale ones gashed and hoar.<br /><br />A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;<br /> He totters to his lair —<br />A den that sick hands dug in earth<br /> Ere famine wasted there,<br /><br />Or, dropping in his place, he swoons,<br /> Walled in by throngs that press,<br />Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead —<br /> Dead in his meagerness.</span> <span>[spelled </span><i>meagreness</i><span> in </span><a href="https://archive.org/details/battlepiecesanda00melvrich/page/118/mode/2up" target="_blank">Battle-Pieces</a><span>]</span></blockquote><blockquote><div><div class="o-grid" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 27.5px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><div class="o-grid-col o-grid-col_10of12" style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; float: left; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; vertical-align: baseline; width: 638.359px;"></div></div></div><div>Text via Poetry Foundation:</div></blockquote><blockquote><div><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55907/in-the-prison-pen" target="_blank">https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55907/in-the-prison-pen</a></div></blockquote></div>The fourth stanza of "In the Prison Pen" calls attention to the attenuated physical forms of men kept in outdoor prison-pens like Belle Isle and Andersonville. Melville's captive soldier is pictured as the victim of unrelieved "famine" that has "wasted" his body, along with disease and extremes of temperature. Formerly, when he was only sick from the filth of his environment, and not yet too weak, too hungry, and too brain-damaged to move, the prisoner could at least dig a hole in the ground for some protection from the elements. These and other key details poetically mirror the accounts of maltreatment in the 1864 <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>. Specific parallels to the language and imagery of Melville's poem in the 1864 report by the U. S. Sanitary Commission are shown below, with links to digital versions of cited passages, accessible online via Google Books, HathiTrust Digital Library, and the Internet Archive. Words shared between the 1864 <i>Narrative</i> and Melville's "Prison Pen" include forms of <i>idiot</i>, <i>sun</i>, <i>shed</i>, <i>tree</i>, <i>totter</i>, <i>dug</i>, <i>faces</i>, <i>famine</i>, and the phrase <i>throng that pressed</i>, echoed in Melville's phrase <i>throngs that press</i>.<br /><br /></div><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE'S PRISON PEN </h3><blockquote>LISTLESS he eyes the palisades<br /> And sentries in the glare;</blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Andersonville</h3><div><blockquote>This prison is an open space, sloping on both sides, originally seventeen acres, now twenty-five acres, in the shape of a parallelogram, without trees or shelter of any kind. The soil is sand over a bottom of clay. <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">The fence is made of upright trunks of trees, about twenty feet high, near the top of which are small platforms, where the guards are stationed.</span> Twenty feet inside and parallel to the fence is a light railing, forming the "dead line," beyond which the projection of a foot or finger is sure to bring the deadly bullet of the sentinel.... </blockquote><blockquote>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA260&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Deposition of Private Tracy</a>, Supplement in <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>, page 260; reprinted in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA410&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 410.</blockquote><h3>MELVILLE<br /></h3></div><blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>Nothing to do; and vacant hands</span><br /><span> Bring on the idiot-pain;</span></span></div></blockquote><div><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Belle Isle and Andersonville</h3><blockquote>Many had lost their reason, and were in all stages of idiocy and imbecility. -- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA58&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 58; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=swZFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA301&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 301.</blockquote><blockquote><div>The mental condition of a large portion of the men was melancholy, beginning in despondency, and tending to <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">a kind of stolid and idiotic indifference.</span> Many spent much time in arousing and encouraging their fellows, but hundreds were <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">lying about motionless, or stalking vacantly to and fro,</span> quite beyond any help which could be given them within their prison walls. These cases were frequent among those who had been imprisoned but a short time. There were those who were captured at the first Bull Run, July, 1861, and had known Belle Isle from the first, yet had preserved their physical and mental health to a wonderful degree. Many were <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">wise and resolute enough to keep themselves occupied</span>—some in cutting bone and wood ornaments, making their knives out of iron hoops-others in manufacturing ink from the rust from these same hoops, and with rude pens sketching or imitating bank notes or any sample that would involve long and patient execution. -- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA265&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Deposition of Private Tracy</a>, Supplement in <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i> page 265; <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.b2895058?urlappend=%3Bseq=426%3Bownerid=9007199273874565-440" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age v.83</a> page 414.</div></blockquote><div><h3 style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE </h3><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">He tries to think—to recollect, <br /> But the blur is on his brain.</span></blockquote><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Libby Prison and Belle Isle</h3><blockquote>Many of them had <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">partially lost their reason, forgetting even</span> the date of their capture and every thing connected with their antecedent history. They resemble, in many respects, patients laboring under cretinism. </blockquote><blockquote><div>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA179#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Testimony of Surgeon De Witt C. Peters</a>, Supplement in <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i> page 179; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA387&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age v.83</a> page 387.</div></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE</h3><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Around him swarm the plaining ghosts<br /> Like those on Virgil’s shore—</span></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;"></span></blockquote></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Libby and Andersonville</h3><blockquote>"They were <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">constantly complaining of hunger;</span> there was a sad, and insatiable expression of face impossible to describe."</blockquote><blockquote><p>-- Libby Prison described by Surgeon Nelson D. Ferguson in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA41&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 41; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA383&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 383.</p></blockquote><blockquote><div>On entering the Stockade Prison, we found it crowded with twenty-eight thousand of our fellow-soldiers. By <i>crowded</i>, I mean that it was difficult to move in any direction without jostling and being jostled.</div></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA260&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Deposition of Private Tracy</a>, Supplement in <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i> page 260; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA410&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 410.</p><blockquote></blockquote>The new-comers, on reaching this, would exclaim: <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">"Is this hell?"</span> yet they soon would become callous, and enter unmoved the horrible rottenness.<br /><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA263&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Deposition of Private Tracy</a>, Supplement in <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i> page 263; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA413&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 413. </p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE </h3><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">A wilderness of faces dim,<br /> And pale ones gashed and hoar.</span></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS </h3><blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>The photographs of these diseased and emaciated men, since so widely circulated, painful as they are, do not, in many respects, adequately represent the sufferers as they then appeared.<br /><blockquote style="text-align: left;"></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"></blockquote>The best picture cannot convey the reality, nor create that startling and sickening sensation which is felt at the sight of a human skeleton, with the skin drawn tightly over its skull, and ribs, and limbs, weakly turning and moving itself, as if still a living man! And this was the reality.<br /><blockquote style="text-align: left;"></blockquote>The same spectacle was often repeated as the visitors went from bed to bed, from ward to ward, and from tent to tent. The bony faces stared out above the counterpanes, watching the passerby dreamily and indifferently. Here and there lay one, half over upon his face, with his bed clothing only partially dragged over him, deep in sleep or stupor. It was strange to find <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">a Hercules in bones;</span> to see the immense hands and feet of a young giant pendant from limbs thinner than a child's, and that could be spanned with the thumb and finger! </blockquote><blockquote>... But however unlike and various the cases were, there was one singular element shared by all, and which seemed to refer them to one thing as the common cause and origin of their suffering.<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"> It was the peculiar look in every face.</span> The man in Baltimore looked like the man just left in Annapolis. Perhaps it was partly the shaven head, the sunken eyes, the drawn mouth, the <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">pinched and pallid features-partly, doubtless, the grayish, blighted skin</span>, rough to the touch as the skin of a shark. But there was something else: an expression in the eyes and countenance of utter desolateness, <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">a look of settled melancholy, as if they had passed through a period of physical and mental agony which had driven the smile from their faces forever.</span> All had it: the man that was met on the grounds, and the man that could not yet raise his head from the pillow.<br /><br />It was this which arrested the attention of some of the party quite as much as the remarkable phenomenon of so many emaciated and singularly diseased men being gathered together, all, with few exceptions, having been brought from the same prisons in the South.<br /></blockquote><blockquote><p>-- "Living Skeletons" described in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JqjKH1ipEDYC&pg=PA25&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> pages 25-26; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA293&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 293. </p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE </h3><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">A smiting sun. No shed, no tree;</span></blockquote><p></p><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Belle Isle</h3><blockquote>But the portion on which the prisoners are confined, is low, sandy, and barren, <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">without a tree</span> to cast a shadow, and <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">poured upon by the burning rays of a Southern sun.</span></blockquote><blockquote><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hts_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA45&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a>, page 45; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA298&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 298. </p></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">But thousands had no tents, and no shelter of any kind. Nothing was provided for their accommodation....<span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">not a cabin or shed</span> was built. </div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"> --<span><span><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA46#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a>, pages 46-7; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA298&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 298. </span></span></div></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"> MELVILLE</h3><h3><span style="font-size: large; font-weight: 400;"></span><blockquote style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-size: large;"> He totters to his lair —</span></blockquote></h3><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Belle Isle</h3><h3><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: small;"><blockquote>Many were so weak that they had to be carried ashore on stretchers, and died in the brief transit. Others <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">tottered to</span> the hospital, with the little strength they had remaining, only to die in a few hours. Some of them were found covered with bad and extensive sores, <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">caused by lying on the sand.</span> Many had lost their reason, and were in all stages of idiocy and imbecility. One had become incurably insane in his joy at being delivered.</blockquote></span></span></div><blockquote style="font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hts_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA48&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 58; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA299&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 301. </p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE</p></h3><span style="font-size: large;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">A den that sick hands dug in earth</span></blockquote><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Belle Isle</h3><blockquote><p>Some of the men <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">dug holes in the sand</span> in which to take refuge.</p></blockquote><blockquote><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hts_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA48&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 48; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA299&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 299.</p></blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;"> MELVILLE</h3><p></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Ere famine wasted there,</span></blockquote><p></p><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS</h3><blockquote>It will be enough for most people that the captives were <i>hungry</i> day and night, and suffered <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">the gnawing pains of famine</span>, with its dreams and delusions. It will be enough that they became weak and emaciated to the degree in which they were found when exchanged. It will be enough that they were poisoned by foul air and over-crowding; and that they were exposed in the depth of winter, to the cold, without shelter and without covering. It will be enough that thousands of them became hideously diseased, and that most of them miserably perished.<br /><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hts_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA63&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 63; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=swZFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA303&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 303.</p></blockquote><blockquote>The proportion of deaths from starvation, not including those consequent on the diseases originating in the character and limited quantity of food, such as diarrhea, dysentery and scurvy, I cannot state; but, to the best of my knowledge, information and belief, there were scores every month. We could, at any time, point out many for whom such a fate was inevitable, as they lay or feebly walked, mere skeletons, whose emaciation exceeded the examples given in Leslie's Illustrated for June 18, 1864.</blockquote><blockquote><p>--Deposition of Private Tracy in Supplement, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JqjKH1ipEDYC&pg=PA267&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 267; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA414&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 414.</p></blockquote><p></p><h3 style="text-align: left;">MELVILLE</h3><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Walled in by throngs that press,</span></blockquote><p></p><h3>NARRATIVE OF PRIVATIONS AND SUFFERINGS - Fort Delaware</h3><blockquote>We were struck by the assured yet affable air with which General Schöpf moved through <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">the dense throng that pressed</span> to look at the visitors. </blockquote><blockquote><div>-- tour of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA81&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">United States Prison at Fort Delaware</a> described in <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i> page 81; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=swZFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA307&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 307.</div></blockquote><p>The last-listed item above demonstrates a close verbal match to Melville's "throngs that press" in the "dense throng that pressed" to view the "assured yet affable" General <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/4908/albin_francisco_schoepf" target="_blank">Albin Francisco Schoepf</a> or Schöpf as he led visiting inspectors from the Sanitary Commission on a tour of Fort Delaware. As described in the 1864 <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>, this "throng" of curious Rebels had enjoyed decent and humane treatment as prisoners-of-war at Fort Delaware, unlike the cruelly abused Union soldiers at Belle Isle and Andersonville. So far, the verbal correspondence in the cited passage to Melville's "throngs that press" in the final stanza of "In the Prison Pen" is the only one I have found that refers to Confederate prisoners-of-war being held in a Union facility. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzN3V0KXT02VNeYLb4MKlHCAkpfQ7DbXPx37U7LiuT2etcwms3HeZgxkXUcSse77HjKU0G3D-ISazJxLOWovDpnC2jsAxTvA01TelniXb70qcYtdTzUREeXbrWD7rDIkiPvUKtu8CIv6VhD6VjWGxoW2RUKwsI84o3V1e-0okw94sDCdKGVlo0jG-GXWxE/s2162/Rebel-Cruelty-Starved-Soldiers.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1577" data-original-width="2162" height="467" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzN3V0KXT02VNeYLb4MKlHCAkpfQ7DbXPx37U7LiuT2etcwms3HeZgxkXUcSse77HjKU0G3D-ISazJxLOWovDpnC2jsAxTvA01TelniXb70qcYtdTzUREeXbrWD7rDIkiPvUKtu8CIv6VhD6VjWGxoW2RUKwsI84o3V1e-0okw94sDCdKGVlo0jG-GXWxE/w640-h467/Rebel-Cruelty-Starved-Soldiers.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">REBEL CRUELTY - OUR STARVED SOLDIERS<br /><a href="https://archive.org/details/harpersweeklyv8bonn/page/384/mode/2up" target="_blank">Harper's Weekly v8 page 385</a> - June 18, 1864</td></tr></tbody></table><p>Engraved pictures of emaciated soldiers appeared in <i>Harper's Weekly</i> for June 18, 1864, presented there to illustrate "the effect of rebel cruelty to our prisoners" in Belle Isle and other southern prisons. Importantly I think for a better understanding of what Melville means by <i>meagreness</i> in the last line of "In the Prison Pen," the <i>Harper's</i> editors described these and other such images of "Our Starved Soldiers" as "photographs from life, or rather from death in life." </p><blockquote><h2 style="text-align: center;">REBEL CRUELTY</h2>THE pictures which we publish to-day of the effect of rebel cruelty to our prisoners are fearful to look upon; but they are not fancy sketches from descriptions; they are <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">photographs from life, or rather from death in life</span>, and a thousand-fold more impressively than any description they tell the terrible truth. It is not the effect of disease that we see in these pictures; it is the consequence of starvation. It is the work of desperate and infuriated men whose <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">human instincts have become imbruted</span> by the constant habit of outraging humanity. There is no civilized nation in the world with which we could be at war which would suffer the prisoners in its hand to receive such treatment as our men get from the rebels; and the reason is, that none of them are slaveholding nations, for now where are human life and human nature so cheap as among those who treat human beings like cattle.... -- <i>Harper's Weekly</i> for June 18, 1864 page 387. </blockquote><blockquote><a href="https://archive.org/details/harpersweeklyv8bonn/page/386/mode/2up"> https://archive.org/details/harpersweeklyv8bonn/page/386/mode/2up</a></blockquote><p>Later in the same year <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=FId1IM6Zee0C&pg=PA691&lpg=PA691&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Harper's Weekly</a> endorsed the Sanitary Commission report:</p><p></p><blockquote>"It exposes the treatment of all Union prisoners from the moment of their capture to their exchange, especially in the Lib[b]y Prison and on Belle Isle at Richmond. The narrative is derived from the testimony of prisoners themselves, substantiated by the medical investigations of scientific experts; and such a hideous and revolting tale was never told. It's value is completed by an equally careful report of the condition and treatment of rebel prisoners in Union hands at Fort Delaware, Point Lookout, and elsewhere. The verbal testimony of the Union sufferers is appended to the report." -- <i>Harper's Weekly</i>, October 29, 1864, page 691.</blockquote><p></p><p>However, while approving the veracity and noble aims of the 1864 volume, the editors at <i>Harper's</i> now regard the testimony therein as too gruesome and graphic to reprint in a family magazine:</p><blockquote><p> "The harrowing and sickening details we cannot reproduce."</p></blockquote><p>Melville, likewise, would not tell all, even if he could. His poetic recreation of an outdoor "Prison Pen" in <i>Battle-Pieces</i> is suitably restrained, leaving just enough clues to the suffering experienced therein to invite empathy for the lone sufferer he has chosen to depict. This typically is Melville's way of transforming source-material. As exemplified in "Benito Cereno," "The Encantadas," and <i>Israel Potter</i>, Melville's re-writes characteristically individualize and ennoble their human subjects. Respecting "In the Prison Pen," I like how the late <a href="https://www.addisonindependent.com/2023/07/27/john-p-mcwilliams-jr-83-of-middlebury/" target="_blank">John P. McWilliams Jr</a> put it, long ago:</p><div><blockquote>Melville looks sympathetically and directly at the human individual, Northerner or Southerner, trapped in an historical disaster over which he has no control. A listless, crazed prisoner drops dead under the barren glare of the sun ("In the Prison Pen")....</blockquote><p>Possibly he anticipated some 21st century commentators by missing the significance of Melville's word <i>meagreness </i>in the last line. Nonetheless, McWilliams gets the main effect of it all which (as I take it) is, like the sight of a desert flower, to soften the heartbreak and desolation experienced either in the natural world or Melville's aesthetic approximation thereof, through Pity:</p><blockquote><p>"At such moments, epic inflation dissolves into pity for the suffering individual." </p></blockquote><p></p><blockquote>McWilliams, John P. “‘Drum Taps’ and <i>Battle-Pieces</i>: The Blossom of War.” <i>American Quarterly</i> 23 no. 2 (May 1971) pages 181–201 at 188. <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2711924">https://doi.org/10.2307/2711924</a>.</blockquote><p></p><p>Belle Isle they say held 10,000 prisoners at one time; Andersonville 35,000. At Belle Isle, as <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hts_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA185&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">testified by Dorothea Lynde Dix</a>, "about twenty-five died daily." At Andersonville, according to the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=hts_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA267&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">deposition of Prescott Tracy</a> the number of daily deaths rose from 30-40 a day to over 130 a day. Somehow the one Melville has imagined must do for a representative sufferer. The one is enough or ought to be given that, as Melville believed with Madame de Staël,</p><blockquote>"A man, regarded in a religious light, is as much as the entire human race."</blockquote><p>Marked and inscribed with an erased annotation in Melville's copy of <i>Germany </i>(New York, 1859) volume 2; images are accessible online courtesy of <a href="https://id.lib.harvard.edu/alma/990070683580203941/catalog" target="_blank">Houghton Library, Harvard University</a>:</p><ul style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Verdana, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.4px; list-style: inside none;"><li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><span class="label plink" style="font-weight: bold;">Persistent Link</span> <a href="https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:fhcl.hough:10819791?n=353" style="color: blue;">https://nrs.lib.harvard.edu/urn-3:fhcl.hough:10819791?n=353</a></li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><span class="label desc" style="font-weight: bold;">Description</span> Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine), 1766-1817. Germany. New York, Derby & Jackson, 1859. Herman Melville copy. AC85 M4977 Zz859s2 vol.2. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.Pt. IV. Chapter IX. Of the contemplation of nature.</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><span class="label page" style="font-weight: bold;">Page</span> p.348: Markings in pencil (seq. 353)</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><span class="label repo" style="font-weight: bold;">Repository</span> Houghton Library</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><span class="label inst" style="font-weight: bold;">Institution</span> Harvard University</li><li style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;"><span class="label access" style="font-weight: bold;">Accessed</span> 28 February 2024</li></ul>Melville's recovered comment in the second volume of <i>Germany</i> is transcribed in <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.234569/page/n477/mode/2up" target="_blank">American Renaissance</a> (Oxford University Press, 1941) by F. O. Matthiessen who pertinently observes Melville's "continued assertion of the nobility, not of nobles but of man" on page 443.</div><div><br /></div>Probably the freest expression of radically democratic bias appears in Melville's "ludicrous" but true claim that </div><blockquote><div>"a thief in jail is as honorable a personage as Gen. George Washington."</div></blockquote><blockquote><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=e3yC2dZESVwC&pg=PA401&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne</a>, May 1851 </p></blockquote><p>What matters in this view is inner dignity, however hidden or obscured by worldly misfortune. One person with a soul to save may inspire focused literary devotion, never a mob. </p><p>As poet Carol Rumens explained it in the<i> Guardian</i>, Melville's repetition of the word <i>dead </i>in the closing lines of "In the Prison Pen" beats like a drum, pounding home the "insignificance" of the deceased prisoner.</p><div><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 21.25px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #121212; font-family: GuardianTextEgyptian, "Guardian Text Egyptian Web", Georgia, serif; font-size: 21.25px; font-variant-ligatures: common-ligatures;">He is “dead in his meagreness” with no trace of honour or regret, only a reiteration of his insignificance. </span></blockquote><p>To be honest I'm not sure how to understand the prisoner's alleged <i>insignificance</i>. Is the assertion of "his insignificance" supposed to be the poet's? Hopefully not, since dead or alive his experience is significantly the main focus of "In the Prison Pen." I guess we might take "insignificance" to reflect the callous indifference of prison keepers to one man's fate, and by implication the cosmic indifference of the universe to human existence, suffering, and death. The end in this view recalls the close of <i>Moby-Dick</i>. Ahab perished chasing the White Whale, and all but one of his crew drowned with the sinking of his ship the <i>Pequod</i>, but "the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago." As appreciated by Rumens in her reading of "In the Prison Pen," Melville's poetic expression of <i>something</i> reaches the mark of "tragic utterance" in the end. </p><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"></div><blockquote>Till forth from the throngs they bear him dead—<br /> Dead in his meagerness. -- "In the Prison Pen" via <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55907/in-the-prison-pen">Poetry Foundation</a></blockquote><a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/55907/in-the-prison-pen"></a><div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; font-family: adobe-garamond-pro, Garamond, Baskerville, "Baskerville Old Face", "Hoefler Text", "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 25px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 1em; text-indent: -1em; vertical-align: baseline;"></div>Melville's last word is not "insignificance" but <i>meagreness. </i>It might be we need a better dictionary to comprehend it. For most of the 19th century, the word <i>meagreness</i> (or <i>meagerness</i> in the standard American spelling) primarily denoted "Leanness; want of flesh."</div></div></div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqO_0oKQdPkpXSF-TXzUVU9vKGaFPskerDI3PfCfsQ19yWkHzrpv8LbWtqNNFWSGLdPJVOGargrtmzsXud3u7D85TSB0KmmzAk5sgERSNdFsnHrBlVeJ2E0fA42ibJES0jB4qSC7uXZlo_jUmUVlnueamSANkhVrNc4mjqKMAAh8-PNPiuD-OCv5Wh_E-7/s804/1848-meager.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="546" data-original-width="804" height="435" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqO_0oKQdPkpXSF-TXzUVU9vKGaFPskerDI3PfCfsQ19yWkHzrpv8LbWtqNNFWSGLdPJVOGargrtmzsXud3u7D85TSB0KmmzAk5sgERSNdFsnHrBlVeJ2E0fA42ibJES0jB4qSC7uXZlo_jUmUVlnueamSANkhVrNc4mjqKMAAh8-PNPiuD-OCv5Wh_E-7/w640-h435/1848-meager.jpeg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Noah Webster, <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008684992" style="text-align: left;" target="_blank">An American Dictionary of the English Language</a> <br />(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1848)</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote><div><b>MEAGER, MEAGRE </b><i>a</i>. [Fr. <i>maigre</i>; Sp., It. <i>magro</i>; L. <i>macer</i>.] </div></blockquote><blockquote><div>1. Destitute of flesh; or having little flesh....<br /><br /></div><div><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">SYN. Thin ; lean ; lank ; gaunt ; starved ; hungry ; poor ; emaciated ;</span> scanty ; barren.</div></blockquote><blockquote><b>MEAGERNESS</b>, n. <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">1. Leanness; want of flesh.</span> 2. Poorness; barrenness; want of fertility or richness. 3. Scantiness; barrenness.<br /></blockquote><p>The first five synonyms given for the root word <i>meager/meagre </i>in Webster's <a href="https://archive.org/details/americandictiona00websuoft/page/820/mode/2up" target="_blank">American Dictionary of the English Language</a> (Springfield, Mass., 1865) page 821 are <i>lean</i>, <i>lank</i>, <i>gaunt</i>, <i>starved</i>, and <i>hungry</i>. Seventh (after <i>poor</i>) is <i>emaciated</i>. </p><p>Let's look again at the way Melville ends "In the Prison Pen." Possibly "Dead" in the final line of verse does not only or merely repeat like a drumbeat "dead" in the line before. Unexpectedly, rather, the second "Dead" introduces new information, qualifying or modifying or in some way explicating the meaning of "dead" in the previous line. As represented at the start of this fifth and final stanza, the prisoner has fainted and collapsed on the ground. The reason he fell was elliptically and perhaps allusively given in the stanza before: "famine" had "wasted there" in the open-air stockade, recalling the journey of Shelley's furies from "cities famine-wasted" to torture the hero ("nailed" to the mountain-wall) in the first act of <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DlcJAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA45&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Prometheus Unbound</a>. </p><p>After Melville's prisoner drops, presumably debilitated through long starvation, he is carried away "dead," out of the "throngs" inside the prison pen. But here comes the twister.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHDDhLi_iEG24zN6CztIDLsjWyqpVFi9mPeOYn-A0sSyTTudEjbKwPlamjlgQx0lxFk7-V5qtZJa_wbrYXJCjhwJjANeNwhHZeMLhApQPiIkRaO3z6o_k4i6HailNhGx5E8Tcn-Uu8UM5Z71JyezIfx5969IqonC8iuwAU766edPxoiTGXZiz1CpY1IGKU/s919/Narrative-Privations-LOC-9.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="919" data-original-width="680" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHDDhLi_iEG24zN6CztIDLsjWyqpVFi9mPeOYn-A0sSyTTudEjbKwPlamjlgQx0lxFk7-V5qtZJa_wbrYXJCjhwJjANeNwhHZeMLhApQPiIkRaO3z6o_k4i6HailNhGx5E8Tcn-Uu8UM5Z71JyezIfx5969IqonC8iuwAU766edPxoiTGXZiz1CpY1IGKU/w474-h640/Narrative-Privations-LOC-9.jpg" width="474" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/02001967/" target="_blank">Library of Congress</a> - Image 9</div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>Narrative of privations and sufferings of United States </i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>officers & soldiers while prisoners of war </i>(1864)</div></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p></div> Defining and elaborating "dead" the final line informs, "in his meagreness." <div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;">Dead in his meagreness.</span></blockquote><p></p><p>Which is to say, dead in his leanness; dead in his having so little flesh. Dead, in other words, in his being and looking morbidly lean, lank, gaunt, starved, emaciated. Thus interpreted as modifying "dead," the phrase <i>in his meagreness </i>implies the prisoner might be alive, albeit barely. </p><span style="font-size: large;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-size: large;">It was their invariable reply in answer to the question, "What was the matter?"</span><br style="font-size: large;" /><p><span style="font-size: large;">"That they had been starved, exposed, and neglected on Belle Isle." </span></p></blockquote><p><span style="font-size: large;"></span></p><p></p><blockquote>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TkZ3AAAAMAAJ&pg=PA59#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 59.</blockquote><p></p><p>In this light, Melville's achievement of "tragic utterance" at the end of "In the Prison Pen" lies not in his insisting on the insignificance of one dead prisoner-of-war, or the sad fact of his demise--conceivably a mercy, bringing relief from earthly suffering--but rather, in Melville's confronting the shockingly emaciated form in which the prisoner could have survived. Many did. Pictures of emaciated soldiers made after their release from Belle Isle and other southern prisons circulated in popular newspapers and magazines like <a href="https://archive.org/details/harpersweeklyv8bonn/page/384/mode/2up" target="_blank">Harper's Weekly</a> and <a href="https://hswv.pastperfectonline.com/Archive/22A74005-93C1-4E1D-A418-123332120140" target="_blank">Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper</a>, as well as in the widely available <i>Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</i>. </p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHFaeigoCtyM6YRMKeY5c5qvCGOagHT09OIGqTQ_NeRaJBO8BcLyrI2Rwl0n9VN4vKL8jBIKvT8PdEaqE9Ud2s0kXpuSdPgFxsUUsQFZ8wMyqUA6sAQo_D0tAWjGW-AUo8R1eia6_27J-oKQukaZXE4fBThzmOzdY2A-L46nRltKjwSDOZKOvJnwtq0hnG/s4842/2020.01.34-1.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4842" data-original-width="3345" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHFaeigoCtyM6YRMKeY5c5qvCGOagHT09OIGqTQ_NeRaJBO8BcLyrI2Rwl0n9VN4vKL8jBIKvT8PdEaqE9Ud2s0kXpuSdPgFxsUUsQFZ8wMyqUA6sAQo_D0tAWjGW-AUo8R1eia6_27J-oKQukaZXE4fBThzmOzdY2A-L46nRltKjwSDOZKOvJnwtq0hnG/w442-h640/2020.01.34-1.jpg" width="442" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-size: small; text-align: start;">Collection of the Historical Society of Western Virginia<br />and the Roanoke History Museum, 2020.01.34.</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Doubtless Melville had seen one or more of these illustrations, engraved from photographs, before he composed "In the Prison Pen." Investigators found some POW's released in the 1864 exchange barely alive, in worse condition than those pictured. Close to death from "<i>starvation</i>," as reported in the deposition of Prescott Tracy, their</p><blockquote>"fate was inevitable, as they lay or feebly walked, <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">mere skeletons</span>, whose emaciation exceeded the examples given in Leslie's Illustrated for June 18, 1864. -- in Supplement, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=JqjKH1ipEDYC&pg=PA267&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a> page 267; <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=vidLuRfIwY0C&pg=PA414&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Littell's Living Age</a> page 414.</blockquote>Thinking it through again, the turn to the image of death-in-leanness or want-of-flesh at the end of "In the Prison Pen" may be said to dramatize published testimony by surgeons and other caregivers on the U.S. Sanitary Commission, frequently describing the appearance of released POW's as that of "living skeletons":<blockquote>The photographs of these diseased and emaciated men, since so widely circulated, painful as they are, do not, in many respects, adequately represent the sufferers as they then appeared.<br /><br />The best picture cannot convey the reality, nor create <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">that startling and sickening sensation which is felt at the sight of a human skeleton,</span> with the skin drawn tightly over its skull, and ribs, and limbs, weakly turning and moving itself, as if still a living man! And this was the reality.<br /><br />The same spectacle was often repeated as the visitors went from bed to bed, from ward to ward, and from tent to tent. The bony faces stared out above the counterpanes, watching the passerby dreamily and indifferently. Here and there lay one, half over upon his face, with his bed clothing only partially dragged over him, deep in sleep or stupor. It was strange to find a Hercules in bones; to see the immense hands and feet of a young giant pendant from limbs thinner than a child's, and that could be spanned with the thumb and finger! Equally strange and horrible was it to come upon a man, in one part shrivelled to nothing but skin and bone, and in another swollen and misshapen with dropsy or scurvy; or further on, when the surgeon lifted the covering from a poor half-unconscious creature, to see the stomach fallen in, deep as a basin, and the bone protruding through a blood-red hole on the hip.</blockquote><blockquote>Of course these were the worst cases among those that still survived. Hundreds like them, and worse even than they, had been already laid in their graves. </blockquote><blockquote><p>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=A_E6AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA25&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Narrative of Privations and Sufferings</a>, "Living Skeletons" page 25.</p></blockquote><p>Along with the figurative "pelican-beach" that is replete with symbolic meaning in the first stanza, Melville's image of death-in-meagerness in the fifth poetically represents the startling effects of starvation experienced by prisoners-of-war in open-air stockades, particularly Belle Isle and Andersonville. </p><blockquote>THE pictures which we publish to-day of the effect of rebel cruelty to our prisoners are fearful to look upon; but they are not fancy sketches from descriptions; they are <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">photographs from life, or rather from death in life</span>, and a thousand-fold more impressively than any description <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">they tell the terrible truth. </span>It is not the effect of disease that we see in these pictures; it is the consequence of starvation.</blockquote>Like the images of emaciated soldiers in <i>Harper's Weekly</i> and elsewhere, Melville's verse pictures "death in life" in the wasted form of one "Dead in his meagreness." In poetry Melville tells "the terrible truth" about his and their suffering, and in some measure, through pity, redeems and softens it.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQt__0QXPpoeAhd5ZDTrIvN1oVdRFWv8ZZGHy3Kn34VZF_GBFK8imRj-tFm5m8MjOR0L8eTPR9gc9687vCDnIgpN3FPEVMi9IT5kuwpKAyxvWzhHvVx-hyjPEGK-zZybbxpiKxCiXSn93U6ZDksQNk06W7mLd8DcazJayK9beY2yhOAyL6opcB3aPpcy1b/s2430/Belle-Isle.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1733" data-original-width="2430" height="456" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQt__0QXPpoeAhd5ZDTrIvN1oVdRFWv8ZZGHy3Kn34VZF_GBFK8imRj-tFm5m8MjOR0L8eTPR9gc9687vCDnIgpN3FPEVMi9IT5kuwpKAyxvWzhHvVx-hyjPEGK-zZybbxpiKxCiXSn93U6ZDksQNk06W7mLd8DcazJayK9beY2yhOAyL6opcB3aPpcy1b/w640-h456/Belle-Isle.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div>Former prisoner-of-war Morgan E. Dowling, a Civil War veteran who had served with the 17th Michigan Infantry Regiment, approved. Dowling quoted the whole of Melville's poem "In the Prison Pen" as a fitting conclusion to the narrative of his experiences at Belle Isle in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=zYjhAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Southern Prisons: Or, Josie, the Heroine of Florence</a> (Detroit, 1870): </div><div><div><blockquote>"And in concluding my account of what we underwent at Belle Island, I subjoin the following stanzas by Herman Mellville, which so beautifully portray the feelings of the soldier...."</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4MlFJ7cjjWYsJd7aY8b4YN74KmBBsq39no-a69uFmOkoN1CCznDSAEgMbB4U066Cs4ob_PC9HRx5mgVK5UdqoJCc7X9nVmoxQpe-oxDNKGUanpCsJDS0T3SBG9n1ZvPlLsPMdkHPY0K_Km4J6vdY0S9h-zMexoDgTbRCEaXXgie3ZI26LBAKe0iE9iGw_/s5882/pelican-rock.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3921" data-original-width="5882" height="427" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4MlFJ7cjjWYsJd7aY8b4YN74KmBBsq39no-a69uFmOkoN1CCznDSAEgMbB4U066Cs4ob_PC9HRx5mgVK5UdqoJCc7X9nVmoxQpe-oxDNKGUanpCsJDS0T3SBG9n1ZvPlLsPMdkHPY0K_Km4J6vdY0S9h-zMexoDgTbRCEaXXgie3ZI26LBAKe0iE9iGw_/w640-h427/pelican-rock.jpg" width="640" /></a></div></div></div>
<br />Related post:<div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/03/footnote-on-pelican-beach.html" target="_blank">Footnote on pelican-beach</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/03/footnote-on-pelican-beach.html</li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-47130813187369616362024-03-03T04:53:00.002-06:002024-03-03T04:54:30.830-06:00If in Money We Trust<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/am8SbwxFaMY?si=XRb2BkwWGICzFa_-" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-7425372599479608392024-02-29T18:08:00.039-06:002024-03-01T20:49:30.200-06:00Abridged "Admiral of the White" in the St. Paul SUNDAY PIONEER PRESS<p>Following up on my discovery that <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html" target="_blank">Allen Thorndike Rice</a> arranged for the simultaneous publication of Melville's poem "The Admiral of the White" in multiple U. S. newspapers including the <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">Cincinnati Times-Star</a>, I confirmed this morning that an abridged version of Melville's poem did in fact appear on May 17, 1885 in the Sunday edition of the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83016792/" target="_blank">St. Paul Pioneer Press</a>. The Minnesota Historical Society's <a href="https://www.mnhs.org/library" target="_blank">Gale Family Library</a> has the relevant issue on microfilm. Parking at the <a href="https://www.mnhs.org/historycenter" target="_blank">Minnesota History Center</a> in downtown St. Paul (across from our magnificent Cathedral) is still free for library users--but not for long, they tell me. With a reserved reader/printer and kind help from library staff I was able to find and view the right reel during my visit earlier today. </p><p>Many thanks to all at the Gale Family Library, and to John Gretchko for prodding me to go. The long version of Melville's 1885 poem "The Admiral of the White" was later collected in <a href="https://onlineonly.christies.com/s/herman-melville-collection-william-s-reese/john-marr-659/158087" target="_blank">John Marr and Other Sailors</a> (1888), slightly revised and re-titled <a href="https://poets.org/poem/haglets" target="_blank">The Haglets</a>. The Minnesota abridgment of Melville's poem appears on page 17 of the Sunday <i>Pioneer Press</i> along with two prose articles, "Letters of Marque" by Gail Hamilton (the pseudonym of Mary Abigail Dodge) and a tribute to Kingsley by <a href="https://www.victorianweb.org/authors/farrar/bio.html" target="_blank">Frederic William Farrar</a>. While I expected to find some version of "The Admiral of the White," I was surprised and of course delighted by the high praise extended in the header, by way of introducing "A Striking Tale in Verse from the Pen of Herman Melville." True, the editor in his enthusiasm does not seem to know or care about <i>Battle-Pieces</i> (1866) and <i>Clarel </i>(1876) and appears to mistake "White" for the name of the doomed ship, but what of that. It's always good to find Melville highly placed in "A Galaxy of Genius," ranking first among other "Eminent Authors."</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGfgxcg6VgTq0yT6AbPVmy2jz3rdFtNEdvP4H8c3v3gfRiB3gNW4RHPyaqEzbbbt3tojJU0gtvQuMKm7KnYTfYzzFn4m5l9NuapJPiK7EsfQvbW6KKrq1JP2MMr7TzoxU7DO-qPePbZgXBlaWzoKB6b9gIFyD3u5UHGLf2SNWrpxC3h1n06MUjzaUJEFTe/s1514/17May1885-Admiral-PioPress-header.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1514" data-original-width="770" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGfgxcg6VgTq0yT6AbPVmy2jz3rdFtNEdvP4H8c3v3gfRiB3gNW4RHPyaqEzbbbt3tojJU0gtvQuMKm7KnYTfYzzFn4m5l9NuapJPiK7EsfQvbW6KKrq1JP2MMr7TzoxU7DO-qPePbZgXBlaWzoKB6b9gIFyD3u5UHGLf2SNWrpxC3h1n06MUjzaUJEFTe/w325-h640/17May1885-Admiral-PioPress-header.jpg" width="325" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sunday <i>Pioneer Press</i> - St. Paul, MN<br />May 17, 1885<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>Our shortened St. Paul version of "The Admiral of the White" omits many lines of verse including all of the first two stanzas and part of the third, lines 1-18 of "The Haglets" as printed on pages 218-225 in the 2009 Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810126053/published-poems/" target="_blank">Published Poems</a>, edited by Robert C. Ryan, Harrison Hayford, Alma MacDougall Reising and G. Thomas Tanselle. Who supplied the three prose transitions, <span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;">highlighted</span> in my transcription below, added to fill gaps in the story resulting from editorial deletions? Allen Thorndike Rice? Chief editor <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/51051295/joseph-albert-wheelock" target="_blank">Joseph Albert Wheelock</a> himself, or an assistant in the literary department? Probably not the poet, I suppose. None of these clever connectors appears in the differently abridged version printed on the same Sunday in the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1885-05-17/ed-1/seq-9/" target="_blank">New York Daily Tribune</a>. </div><div><div><br /></div>From the St. Paul Sunday <i>Pioneer Press</i> of May 17, 1885, page 17:<div><br /><div><div><span style="text-align: center;"><h1><span style="font-size: x-large;">A GALAXY OF GENIUS.</span></h1></span><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;">ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTIONS FROM <br />EMINENT AUTHORS.</span></h2>A Striking Tale in Verse from the Pen of Herman Melville—In "Letters of Marque" Gail Hamilton Discusses in Her Own Characteristically Breezy and Independent Fashion a Number of Questions Concerning the Modern Young —Rev. Canon Farrar Contributes an Appreciative Tribute to the Memory of the Late Charles Kingsley.<p></p></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><div><h2 style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;">THE ADMIRAL OF THE WHITE.</span></h2></div></div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">BY HERMAN MELVILLE.<br />[Copyright, 1885, by Thorndyke Rice. All rights reserved.]</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The famous author of "Omoo," "Typee" and other widely known books has dropped into poetry, and in this domain of literature displays the same breeziness, the same dash and spirit that characterized his former works. He tells the story of the fate of the gallant crew of the White, wrecked and lost in Southern seas. The admiral has just fought the "arm'd Plate Fleet whose sinking flagship's colors fell," and is now crowding sail ahead to carry the news of his victory.</span></div></div></blockquote><div><br /><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">The eddying waters whirl astern,<br />The prow, a seedsman, sows the spray;<br />With bellying sails and buckling spars<br />The black hull leaves a Milky Way;<br />Her timbers thrill, her batteries roll,<br />She reveling speeds exulting with pennon at pole.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But ah, for standards captive trailed<br />For all their scutcheoned castles’ pride—<br />Castilian towers that dominate Spain,<br />Naples, and either Ind beside;<br />Those haughty towers, armorial ones,<br />Rue the salute from the admiral’s dens of guns.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">* * * * * * * [omitting "Ensigns and arms...conflict sped," lines 31-42]</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> But out from cloistral gallery dim,<br />In early night his glance is thrown;<br />He marks the vague reserve of heaven,<br />He feels the touch of ocean lone;<br />Then turns, in frame part undermined,<br />Nor notes the shadowing wings that fan behind.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />There, peaked and gray, three haglets fly,<br />And follow, follow fast in wake<br />Where slides the cabin-luster shy,<br />And sharks from man a glamour take.<br />Seething along the line of light,<br />In lane that endless rules the war-ship’s flight.<br /></span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;"></span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: #d0e0e3;">The storm increases in a terrific furry [fury] and the good ship narrowly escaped being driven on land.</span> </span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><span>[omitting "The sea fowl here..."luminous antlers vast," lines 55-90]</span></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> In trim betimes they turn from land,<br />Some shivered sails and spars they stow;<br />One watch, dismissed, they troll the can.<br />While loud the billow thumps the bow—<br />Vies with the fist that smites the board,<br />Obstreperous at each reveller’s jovial word.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Of royal oak by storms confirmed,<br />The tested hull her lineage shows;<br />Vainly the plungings whelm her prow—<br />She rallies, rears, she sturdier grows.<br />Each shot-hole plugged, each storm-sail home,<br />With batteries housed she rams the watery dome.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p>* * * * * * * [omitting "Dim seen adrift...eager neighborhood," lines 103-114]</p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Plumed with a smoke, a confluent sea,<br />Heaved in a combing pyramid full,<br />Spent at its climax, in collapse<br />Down headlong thundering stuns the hull:<br />The trophy drops; but, reared again,<br />Shows Mars’ high-altar and contemns the main.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="background-color: #d0e0e3; font-size: medium;">It is midnight of the Old Year. "The Old Year fades, the Old Year dies at sea." During a lull the sailors </span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><span>[keeping line 138 but omitting everything else from "Rebuilt it stands..." to "Laced Sleeves round the board," lines 121-137 and 139- 153]</span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Draw near in heart to keep them warm:<br />"Sweethearts and wives!" clink, clink, they meet,<br />And, quaffing, dip in wine their beards of sleet.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">"Ay, let the star-light stay withdrawn,<br />So here her hearth-light memory fling,<br />So in this wine-light cheer be born,<br />And honor’s fellowship weld our ring—<br />Honor, our Admiral’s aim foretold;<br /><i>A tomb or a trophy</i>,, and lo, ’t is a trophy and gold!"</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">But he, a unit, sole in rank,<br />Apart needs keep his lonely state,<br />The sentry at his guarded door<br />Mute as by vault the sculptured Fate;<br />Belted he sits in drowsy light,<br />And hatted nods—the Admiral of the White.</span></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="background-color: #d0e0e3; font-size: medium;">He dozes on, unmindful of the present, dreaming of old victories and of rich armadas that he has captured. But the end is at hand.</span></p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> [omitting "He dozes, aged with watches...old Armadas drowned," lines 169-192] </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ha—yonder! are they Northern Lights?<br />Or signals flashed to warn or ward?<br />Yes, signals lanced in breakers high;<br />But doom on warning follows hard;<br />While yet they veer in hope to shun,<br />They strike! and thumps of hull and heart are one.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> [omitting "But beating hearts ... lit the magnet's case," lines 199- 210]</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><br /></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ah, what may live, who mighty swim,<br />Or boat-crew reach that shore forbid,<br />Or cable span? Must victors drown—<br />Perish, even as the vanquished did?<br />Man keeps from man the stifled moan,<br />They shouldering stand, yet each in heart how lone.</span> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Some heaven invoke; but rings of reefs<br />Prayer and despair alike deride<br />In dance of breakers forked or peaked.<br />Pale maniacs of the maddened tide;<br />While, strenuous yet some end to earn,<br />The haglets spin; though now no more astern.<br /> Like shuttles hurrying in the looms<br />Aloft through rigging frayed they ply—<br />Cross and recross—weave and inweave,<br />Then lock the web with clinching cry<br />Over the seas on seas that clasp<br />The weltering wreck where gurgling ends the gasp.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Ah, for the Plate-Fleet trophy now,<br />The victor’s voucher, flags and arms;<br />Never they’ll hang in Abbey old<br />And take Time’s dust with holier palms;<br />Nor less content, in liquid night,<br />Their captor sleeps—the Admiral of the White.</span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Imbedded deep with shells</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> And drifted treasure deep,</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Forever he sinks deeper in</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Unfathomable sleep—</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> His cannon round him thrown,</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> His sailors at his feet,</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The wizard sea enchanting them</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> Where never haglets beat.</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> On nights when meteors play</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> And light the breakers dance,</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The Oreads from the caves</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> With silvery elves advance;</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> And up from ocean stream,</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> And down from heaven far,</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The rays that blend in dream</span></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> The abysm and the star.</span></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><p>Of the seven scheduled appearances of "The Admiral of the White" announced as forthcoming in the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star </i>for May 14, 1885, three have yet to be verified: </p><ol><li>New York Tribune ✅</li><li>Boston Herald ✅</li><li><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Philadelphia Press</span></li><li><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Detroit Post</span></li><li>St. Paul Pioneer-Press ✅ </li><li><span style="background-color: #f4cccc;">Chicago Times</span></li><li>Cincinnati Times-Star ✅</li></ol><p>Still looking to confirm printings of Melville's poem in the Philadelphia <i>Press</i>, Detroit <i>Post</i>, and Chicago <i>Times</i> on or about May 17, 1885.</p><p>Related posts:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">Syndicated in Cincinnati</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html" target="_blank">More on Thorndike Rice and his 1885 newspaper syndicate</a></li><li>https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/1885-check-endorsed-by-herman-melville.html" target="_blank">1885 check endorsed by Herman Melville for deposit</a> https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/1885-check-endorsed-by-herman-melville.html</li></ul><p></p></div></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-7415181603887789052024-02-18T05:14:00.001-06:002024-02-18T05:14:53.569-06:00Herman Melville's Clarel - In The Shadow Of Greatness<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/9lEuI1JlQBM?si=TiLmCM8QVZkIChYI" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-1398345187703695412024-02-13T15:32:00.020-06:002024-02-29T21:27:15.756-06:001885 check "endorsed by Herman Melville for deposit"<div>As previously shown on Melvilliana </div><div><ul><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html</a></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html" target="_blank">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html</a></li></ul><div>Herman Melville's 1885 poem <a href="https://poets.org/poem/haglets" target="_blank">The Admiral of the White</a>, later printed in <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libraryscience/18/" target="_blank">John Marr and Other Sailors</a> (1888) as "The Haglets," was syndicated by Allen Thorndike Rice for publication in more newspapers than we knew, including the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i>. <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">Admiral of the White</a> appeared in the weekly edition of the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i> on May 21, 1885, "Copyrighted by Allen Thorndike Rice."</div></div><div><br /></div><div>Today (Happy Mardi Gras y'all 🎉🎉🎉) I stumbled on a documentary record of what might well have been Melville's payment for the poem in the form of a check from "A. Rice" dated May 2, 1885 and "endorsed by Herman Melville for deposit." Said check (no longer extant?) was included as a signed Melville item with "Literary Letters and Manuscripts" in the auction catalog of Anderson Galleries for Sale Number 2298. A brief description appears on page 89 of the Anderson Galleries catalog, <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=EErQAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA6-PP9&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Autograph Collection of a Late American Author</a> (New York, 1928). Listed as item #658, the check with Melville's signature was offered in the Third Session on December 4, 1928:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiJUrhlTATBhx7c6ar5DT2GYcyeecNXlOxsOxHhsVXcAF4K6KdT5jYl__LJoPnCMIpRi3AZd_Nsqs68xhmLM-2Hae5zysvePdM36DedJn43MR5NE64ruuxNp9nVYrpvXq6bKM1qkSYPMr5ZpbLfuBTeW8Ylh9qh774xSpr6VEBEp3Cq3qsopfYxMhc8Cm/s2960/1885-Melville-Rice.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="2960" height="102" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpiJUrhlTATBhx7c6ar5DT2GYcyeecNXlOxsOxHhsVXcAF4K6KdT5jYl__LJoPnCMIpRi3AZd_Nsqs68xhmLM-2Hae5zysvePdM36DedJn43MR5NE64ruuxNp9nVYrpvXq6bKM1qkSYPMr5ZpbLfuBTeW8Ylh9qh774xSpr6VEBEp3Cq3qsopfYxMhc8Cm/w640-h102/1885-Melville-Rice.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><blockquote><div>658 MELVILLE (HERMAN). Printed and written D. s., 1 p., oblong 8vo. New York. May 2, 1885. Check by A. Rice endorsed by Herman Melville for deposit. </div></blockquote><blockquote><a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015078674242?urlappend=%3Bseq=531%3Bownerid=13510798895671981-541" target="_blank">https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015078674242?urlappend=%3Bseq=531%3Bownerid=13510798895671981-541</a></blockquote><p>Less than two years later, the check resurfaced in the Plaza Art Galleries, Inc. catalog of <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001762886" target="_blank">Noted American and English authors of the last 150 years</a>, <i>in first editions from the library of Philo C. Calhoun</i>. Evidently Bridgeport, Connecticut lawyer and book collector Philo Clarke Calhoun (1889-1964) had acquired the May 2, 1885 letter (at the 1928 Anderson auction?) and stuck it in the front of his highly collectible 1st edition of <i>Moby-Dick, </i>"Rare in any form, and particularly so in BLUE cloth."</p><div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMsZJY_82gBL20_LeIL_fvBYObs1QZDsRU0sq-h9aDt-mPeyvdjinXHsDbR21vH2WsO-tEHO1PdT6JAXmQkK0vHzUGWvw7oXFziGTbznr3HFZDr4Qwp4Ok2fRoYcETt6LTBeuG4fk_BdhTmXBsddqhAm7GSGANAS_Sdjh8DtmOpgpS4WcC7lN5tVGexQD7/s3022/Melville-cheque.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1045" data-original-width="3022" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMsZJY_82gBL20_LeIL_fvBYObs1QZDsRU0sq-h9aDt-mPeyvdjinXHsDbR21vH2WsO-tEHO1PdT6JAXmQkK0vHzUGWvw7oXFziGTbznr3HFZDr4Qwp4Ok2fRoYcETt6LTBeuG4fk_BdhTmXBsddqhAm7GSGANAS_Sdjh8DtmOpgpS4WcC7lN5tVGexQD7/w640-h221/Melville-cheque.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Calhoun's first American edition of <i>Moby-Dick</i> is listed #320 in the Plaza Art Galleries catalog for "Public Sale No. 776," held on March 20 and 21, 1930. According to the description on page 44, the date of the attached <i>cheque</i> with Melville's signature is May 2, 1885, same as the date of the <i>check</i> described in the 1928 Anderson Galleries catalog.</div><blockquote>"... Affixed to the inner front cover is a cheque dated May 2, 1885; bearing MELVILLE"S SIGNATURE as an endorsement. Melville autograph material is seldom met with."</blockquote><blockquote><a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015033687156?urlappend=%3Bseq=52%3Bownerid=13510798883686487-56" target="_blank">https://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.39015033687156?urlappend=%3Bseq=52%3Bownerid=13510798883686487-56</a></blockquote></div><div>The 1930 Plaza Art Galleries catalog does not name the issuer of the "cheque" that Melville endorsed, but it bears the identical date and thus would appear to be the same "check" from "A. Rice" described in the 1928 Anderson Galleries catalog. This "A. Rice" I take to be Allen Thorndike Rice who had arranged for the newspaper syndication of Melville's poem "The Admiral of the White" later on in May 1885. </div><div><br /></div><div>Allen Thorndike Rice was still paying authors by check in November. On November 29, 1885 Rice wrote a check for 120 dollars to author Harriet Prescott Spofford. Signed "A. T. Rice" and endorsed by Spofford on the back, this item is now in the Abernethy collection at <a href="https://archivesspace.middlebury.edu/repositories/2/archival_objects/11837" target="_blank">Middlebury College Special Collections & Archives</a>.</div><div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/aberms.spoffordhep.fragment.check" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>So now we at least have some reason to believe Rice paid Melville, and a better idea of when. Who knows how much? Or what happened to the physical check from Rice that Melville endorsed? If you now have or ever happen to see a 1st American edition of <i>Moby-Dick</i> in blue, take a look. </div></div><div><br /></div><div>Related post:</div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html" target="_blank">Abridged Admiral of the White in St Paul Pioneer Press</a> https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html</li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-88938671466961396262024-02-13T08:30:00.002-06:002024-02-13T08:30:39.748-06:00Professor Longhair - Mardi Gras in New Orleans<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LR82f0GJgXg/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/LR82f0GJgXg?si=FsYy_jPdsxtpcytH" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-10867973330984782092024-02-10T05:21:00.000-06:002024-02-10T05:21:34.487-06:00Professor Longhair - They Call Me Dr Professor Longhair<div><span style="font-size: medium;">"Well you know I know I'm not a Doctor,</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;">But I wouldn't advise you to try to prove I'm not a Doctor's son...."</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div>
<iframe frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/kGqoo3QEcyY?si=aNAf7ZyyD24yRn7o" width="480"></iframe></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-66325826628863661082024-02-03T09:16:00.063-06:002024-02-03T18:10:26.674-06:00The Arrotino, Knife-Grinder aka The Listening Slave, Melville's "carved Roman slave" in MOBY-DICK chapter 126What famous classical sculpture does Herman Melville invoke in <a href="https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moby-Dick_(1851)_US_edition/Chapter_126" target="_blank">Moby-Dick Chapter 126, the Life-Buoy</a> when he or his narrator Ishmael compares the rapt attentiveness displayed by startled sailors to that of "the carved Roman slave"?<div><blockquote>At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch—then headed by Flask—was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly—like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s murdered Innocents—that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave</span>, while that wild cry remained within hearing. </blockquote><blockquote><p>-- <a href="https://archive.org/details/mobydickorwhale01melv/page/576/mode/2up" target="_blank">Moby-Dick Chapter 126, The Life-Buoy</a></p></blockquote><p>Melville's use here of the definite article (<i>the</i> not <i>a</i>) indicates one specific work, evidently a marble statue of some kind, or bust, although the object is not further particularized. I take this work of art to be real and pretty well-known, famous enough that Melville could expect readers to recognize it with minimal descriptive fussing on his part. The biggest clue to the thing he means is conveyed in the main point of comparison between sailors and the marble slave, their shared attitude as rapt listeners. As Ishmael relates, upon hearing an eerie cry in the dark, "plaintively wild and unearthly," the whale-men on watch froze like statues. For a time they remained stationary, "transfixedly listening, like the carved Roman slave." Via Ishmael's simile, Melville thus compares the crew's motionless bewitchment to that exhibited by an apparently familiar work of visual art. Although unnamed, whichever "carved Roman slave" Melville had in mind is introduced in the Life-Buoy chapter of <i>Moby-Dick</i> as a model of eternally attentive listening.</p></div><p>In his end-notes for the 1972 <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.536713/page/n945/mode/2up" target="_blank">Penguin edition of Moby-Dick</a>, Harold Beaver suggested that Melville's "carved Roman slave" might designate "the 'Dying Gaul' often called the 'Dying Gladiator.'" Online, the <a href="https://melville.electroniclibrary.org/editions/versions-of-moby-dick/126-the-life-buoy" target="_blank">Melville Electronic Library</a> offers a textual note that makes similarly tentative connections to the famous <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul" target="_blank">Dying Gaul</a> or <a href="https://www.museicapitolini.org/en/opera/statua-del-galata-capitolino" target="_blank">Dying Gladiator</a> in the Capitoline Museum. In earlier writings (<i>Mardi</i> and <i>White-Jacket</i>) Melville had referred specifically to the Dying Gladiator, so clearly he knew of it. But the sculpture alluded to in <i>Moby-Dick</i> has a characteristic, fixed expression of <i>listening</i> (Melville's word) that the suffering figure of the Gaul manifestly lacks. Mortally wounded, the fallen warrior looks downward, however intently. In his sad condition the Dying Gaul or Gladiator is always dying, rather than listening. </p><p>The far more likely candidate for Melville's "carved Roman slave" is the well-known sculpture at the Uffizi Galleries in Florence called <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/knife-grinder-tribune" target="_blank">the Arrotino or Knife-Grinder</a>, also known as "The Scythian." Both the statue and a place Melville might have seen it in some form before writing <i>Moby-Dick</i> have been positively identified by Hershel Parker in a footnote to Chapter 126 for the<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393285000" target="_blank"> 3rd Norton Critical Edition</a> of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, on page 376:</p><p></p><blockquote>"In London, Melville could have seen a cast of this famous statue, which is in the Tribune of the Uffizi Museum, in Florence, Italy."</blockquote><p>Melville had visited <a href="https://archive.org/details/journalofvisitto0000melv_i2b8/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">London and the Continent in 1849-1850</a>.</p><p></p><p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1swH9lA9YFHn_DEqU8J3cSiApvGupZtXS7E5uJdNJbf1JSszz8aL9bjAb0Kmq60rS8kO_qvZXqp3txgjCZrgqkVGrkMDr-yUgZk42qwy7n_uU_r57_GI8USXJaIEV-WhT7ce2PtLnQZm7bTgfMoA9QDwFC-xdNYzAWUy2DFTYP3wMwJeTQEz4ijySuPtq/s1378/Arrotino-Uffizi.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1378" data-original-width="1051" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1swH9lA9YFHn_DEqU8J3cSiApvGupZtXS7E5uJdNJbf1JSszz8aL9bjAb0Kmq60rS8kO_qvZXqp3txgjCZrgqkVGrkMDr-yUgZk42qwy7n_uU_r57_GI8USXJaIEV-WhT7ce2PtLnQZm7bTgfMoA9QDwFC-xdNYzAWUy2DFTYP3wMwJeTQEz4ijySuPtq/w488-h640/Arrotino-Uffizi.jpeg" width="488" /></a></p><p>The sculpture is well described by Cristiana Barandoni on the <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/knife-grinder-tribune" target="_blank">Uffizi Galleries</a> website: </p><blockquote style="font-family: "PT Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;">The sculpture, sold by the Mignanelli family to Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici, and was bought to Florence in 1677 and placed on display in the Tribune, where it can still be seen. It is known as the “Arrotino” and shows a kneeling man who is sharpening a knife on a stone. The man, who has long eyebrows, recessed pupils and swollen eyelids, is looking upwards, his forehead marked with deep frown lines. The semi-naked figure, wearing a light cloak over his right shoulder, was initially thought to be a Scythian, or even a royal barber plotting against the state. In the 16th century, the idea was put forward that the sculpture could be part of a group depicting the flaying of Marsyas. The figure was therefore identified as a slave, preparing the blade used to torture the satyr. </blockquote><blockquote><p style="font-family: "PT Sans", sans-serif; font-size: 17.6px;"> <span style="font-size: 17.6px;"><a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/knife-grinder-tribune" target="_blank">https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/knife-grinder-tribune</a></span></p></blockquote><p></p><p>Joseph Addison, in frequently reprinted <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=ewdXAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA243&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Remarks on Several Parts of Italy</a>, influentially described <a href="https://www.virtualuffizi.com/the-arrotino%2C-ancient-sculpture-at-the-uffizi.html" target="_blank">the Arrotino</a> as "the Roman Slave whetting his Knife and listening." Then as now, the sculpture was exhibited in the <a href="https://www.friendsofflorence.org/projects/friends-of-florences-10th-anniversary-project-the-tribune-uffizi-gallery/" target="_blank">Tribune, Uffizi Gallery</a> with other world-famous works including the celebrated <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/medici-venus" target="_blank">Medici Venus</a>, Dancing Faun or <a href="https://www.friendsofflorence.org/projects/friends-of-florences-10th-anniversary-project-the-tribune-uffizi-gallery/" target="_blank">Dancing Satyr</a>, and <a href="https://www.uffizi.it/en/artworks/wrestlers" target="_blank">Wrestlers</a>:</p><blockquote>In the same Chamber is <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">the Roman Slave whetting his Knife and listening,</span> which from the Shoulders upward is incomparable. The two Wrestlers are in the same Room.</blockquote><blockquote><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBHK4gvKuWD_UQNvOFCQjAqdzXnwTUQxVDIP3kib5WG37mF5t0hGd8q29-8uVuH8ahuXiCqwXN8oz3rS2MKcv3YzLahvTIYhjNiKsUBap5GF1Ef386oOavL0HNHCc68MWr7trYG18RMdh39wS3grrw2afi6_UlN8_Mo-_rkWHEO_sd68hDLQDgZoxE1T9f/s2250/Arrotino.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2250" data-original-width="1497" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBHK4gvKuWD_UQNvOFCQjAqdzXnwTUQxVDIP3kib5WG37mF5t0hGd8q29-8uVuH8ahuXiCqwXN8oz3rS2MKcv3YzLahvTIYhjNiKsUBap5GF1Ef386oOavL0HNHCc68MWr7trYG18RMdh39wS3grrw2afi6_UlN8_Mo-_rkWHEO_sd68hDLQDgZoxE1T9f/w426-h640/Arrotino.png" width="426" /></a><br /></blockquote><p>Guidebooks of Melville's time noted that the <i>Arrotino</i> was </p><blockquote><div>"called also the Knife-grinder and <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">the Listening Slave</span>" </div></blockquote><blockquote>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=NoFMPl4j5L8C&pg=PA373&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Italy by Josiah Conder</a> Volume 3 (London, 1834) page 373.<div></div></blockquote><p>Melville and his contemporary readers took the sculpted <i>Arrotino</i> for a "Roman slave," as Addison had called him. In England and also America the carved figure was called "The Listening Slave." Considered together with "Roman slave," this formerly popular but now forgotten name for the Knife-Grinder perfectly explains Melville's choice of words in the Life-Buoy chapter, when Ishmael depicts startled sailors as "transfixedly listening" and then compares them in that regard to the statue of a Roman slave known as </p><blockquote><blockquote><div><span>THE LISTENING SLAVE.</span></div></blockquote></blockquote><p>Shown below, the figure of "The Listening Slave" as illustrated on the front page of the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=IlcFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA81&dq#v=onepage&q&f=true" style="text-align: center;" target="_blank">Saturday Magazine</a><span style="text-align: center;"> Supplement in February 1842:</span></p><blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiukWysoHf5rpYNivFRsGJuOhwNGpSfDGIRYahykkvFk06fDuaGe70FfGr79IOniRAZW3Fb8aHlt2Au0RddxcmWubqW50S10MNmOb7IX6Sf9B4FTnWW8BrX1badeoiH2gHdamxOtvtPBReWOsTKyUx-SscLSu1whKgElSsJSKFKJN8HL8ug06IwXrlaqVVy/s1821/Listening-Slave.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1457" data-original-width="1821" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiukWysoHf5rpYNivFRsGJuOhwNGpSfDGIRYahykkvFk06fDuaGe70FfGr79IOniRAZW3Fb8aHlt2Au0RddxcmWubqW50S10MNmOb7IX6Sf9B4FTnWW8BrX1badeoiH2gHdamxOtvtPBReWOsTKyUx-SscLSu1whKgElSsJSKFKJN8HL8ug06IwXrlaqVVy/w400-h320/Listening-Slave.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Listening Slave</i> <br />(<i>From the Antique Statue in the Royal Gallery of Florence.</i>)</td></tr></tbody></table></blockquote><p>Architect James Hakewill noted the popularity of the "Listening Slave" title in England: </p><blockquote>... the <i>Arrotino</i>, or the Grinder, commonly known in England under the name of <i>the Listening Slave</i>, has been supposed by some to have been raised in honour of a slave who detected the secret machinations of the Catilinarian conspiracy. Nothing however is really known relative to the original design of the artist, but its taste and execution are such as seem worthy of the best sculptors of Greece. -- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=EB1JAAAAcAAJ&pg=PP311&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">A Picturesque Tour of Italy</a> </blockquote><p>In New York City, the National Academy of Design owned a reproduction they called "The Listening Slave," listed as #166 in the 1846 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aGEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&d#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Catalogue of Statues, Busts, Studies, Etc.</a> <i>Forming the Collection of the Antique School</i>.</p><blockquote><div><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=aGEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&ci=127%2C911%2C790%2C261&source=bookclip"><img src="https://books.google.com/books/content?id=aGEVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA13&img=1&zoom=3&hl=en&sig=ACfU3U13kupr5FKhPVmfPTi7nkStA24mzA&ci=127%2C911%2C790%2C261&edge=0" /></a></div></blockquote><p>If he never saw a copy of "The Listening Slave" in Manhattan, or London, Melville eventually got to view the original in Florence. At the Uffizi on March 26, 1857 Melville was "not pleased with the Venus de Medici" but "very much astonished at the Wrestlers" he would have seen in the Tribune gallery. He must have examined the <i>Arrotino</i> there, too, one of numerous other works of art he regarded as "Idle to enumerate" after repeated tours of the Uffizi Galleries. Documented in Melville's <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.187055/page/n231/mode/2up" target="_blank">Journal of a Visit to Europe and the Levant</a>, edited by Howard C. Horsford (Princeton University Press, 1955) page 218; also the 1989 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=C5ZsI8UIxNMC&pg=PA115&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Northwestern-Newberry edition</a> of Melville's <i>Journals</i>, edited by Horsford with Lynn Horth, page 115.</p><blockquote><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tribuna_uffizi.jpg" title="Marta De Bortoli1991, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Tribuna uffizi" height="267" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d1/Tribuna_uffizi.jpg/1024px-Tribuna_uffizi.jpg" width="400" /></a></blockquote><div>Whether or not Melville ever read John Thomas James on Italian sculpture, the effect of Ishmael's freezing sailors in a momentary state of "transfixedly listening" like the Listening Slave accords well with the aesthetic of "picturesqueness" as the Rev. James developed it in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=0k5VAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Italian Schools of Painting; with Observations on the present State of the Art</a> (London, 1820): <br /><blockquote>"As to picturesqueness of character, or that quality which is best suited to a picture, there has been so much already written, and though not very conclusively, yet so well, on the subject, that it is a fearful matter to touch upon it again. One point, however, may be adverted to, as being that, which will be found in a great degree conducive to this end. If we investigate with attention the works of the ancient sculptors, we shall discover a peculiarity in their practice, which has not been generally noticed, and this regards the time of action selected by them as fittest for their purpose. <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">It is never the middle of an action that is represented, but in every example a momentary pause, or suspension of motion: and this, it will be seen, may be so chosen, as to give the fullest perception of all that has immediately preceded, or, in other words, to <i>tell the story</i>.</span> Thus the Apollo Belvedere is not exhibited as if in the act of shooting; but the arrow is already gone, and he rests for a moment, following its flight with his eye: even the figure of the Laocoon is not represented actually in motion, but the moment given is the end of one of the paroxysms of his agony, when he is for a while fixed: the same may be observed in the fighting gladiator, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">in the listening slave, and all the greatest works of <br />antiquity. </span>This principle may be applied most strictly also to painting, and we shall observe the same momentary pause of action to have been purposely selected by all the great masters of design. A figure of Raffael, or M. Angelo, &c. is never drawn as if actually moving; but the point taken is during a momentary stagnation of action, or <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">while they are for an instant rapt</span>, if the phrase may be allowed."</blockquote><blockquote><a href="https://archive.org/details/gri_33125009319647/page/n47/mode/2up" target="_blank">https://archive.org/details/gri_33125009319647/page/n47/mode/2up</a></blockquote><p>In the manner of Raffael, Michelangelo, or the unknown sculptor who made the carved Roman slave variously called the Arrotino, Knife-Grinder, or Listening Slave, Melville drew his whalemen during a pause when, hearing the crying of young seals nearby, probably, they were (to apply the formulation of ideal picturesqueness offered in 1820 by J. T. James) "for an instant rapt."</p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QzZT4yt8Jlk?si=nSKVvN-QvOdy-YBW&start=61" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-53932022030845911702024-01-24T06:35:00.009-06:002024-01-24T08:37:53.596-06:00Melville's "Athenian admirer" quoted in Cincinnati<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3kFnFr6UZoejGYj2gthBOam-Ispfr5F27ofLMy5xzt3tIvE7rzpJv_nNQgKDa7E2cL-OhanLaE-dIuHebH-UWnclyXEhL8BvOjkDXDiXixDMDQ7QvQWlWWZ7hyMU0h4Ifa6YwReRRUvRcIcklYyWX6sOJLW3ZBLuJ0HHUcjxwpvLlrjykf4oMQUEzNzv/s1000/Ohio-University-Athens.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1000" height="369" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga3kFnFr6UZoejGYj2gthBOam-Ispfr5F27ofLMy5xzt3tIvE7rzpJv_nNQgKDa7E2cL-OhanLaE-dIuHebH-UWnclyXEhL8BvOjkDXDiXixDMDQ7QvQWlWWZ7hyMU0h4Ifa6YwReRRUvRcIcklYyWX6sOJLW3ZBLuJ0HHUcjxwpvLlrjykf4oMQUEzNzv/w640-h369/Ohio-University-Athens.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>On the day of Herman Melville's lecture on "Statues in Rome" (Tuesday, February 2, 1858) the Cincinnati <i>Daily Commercial</i> promoted it with a column mostly devoted to effusive praise for Melville's books, including <i>Moby-Dick</i>, by an unidentified "Athenian admirer." By "Athenian" I take the Cincinnati editor to mean a fellow newspaper editor, journalist, or correspondent from Athens, Ohio. The article was excerpted by Jay Leyda in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XXcGAQAAIAAJ&q" target="_blank">The Melville Log, Volume 2</a>, leaving out some good parts about Fayaway, <i>Omoo,</i> and <i>Mardi</i>. Found on <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/cincinnati-daily-commercial-feb-02-1858-p-2/" target="_blank">NewspaperArchive</a> and transcribed in full below, the original event teaser as it appeared in the Cincinnati <i>Daily Commercial</i> on February 2, 1858: </div><div><br /></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIMqKN_sXKhdegNhp76LKfXRhJHvw6TlgzjaKfx6BFeCmcaiIz_A4rqd2BnjrtgaUCGpIgd0lDOOw6PDa-0RE5M1pdS7UJCjlLrDVaHfnu-1yuVLUwIyCWAhXEO6vtTvUgEAPMH-QfF8xu6NtmujsnCgo8akJS-XqhokZHa-DJSd_0YrqZWJBOpHzWfCD/s2528/Cincinnati-Daily-Commercial-February,2-1858-p-2.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2528" data-original-width="1306" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYIMqKN_sXKhdegNhp76LKfXRhJHvw6TlgzjaKfx6BFeCmcaiIz_A4rqd2BnjrtgaUCGpIgd0lDOOw6PDa-0RE5M1pdS7UJCjlLrDVaHfnu-1yuVLUwIyCWAhXEO6vtTvUgEAPMH-QfF8xu6NtmujsnCgo8akJS-XqhokZHa-DJSd_0YrqZWJBOpHzWfCD/w331-h640/Cincinnati-Daily-Commercial-February,2-1858-p-2.jpeg" width="331" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati <i>Daily Commercial</i><br />February 2, 1858</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><blockquote>"STATUES IN ROME." -- Herman Melville, "who," said an enthusiastic Athenian admirer of his beautiful writings-- "entranced the American public by the freshness and mellow style of his South Sea adventures in the coral islanded world; who made the name of Fayaway a synonyme for native grace; who roamed and sailed and laughed with Doctor Long Ghost of <i>Omoo</i> memory; who drew his moonlit, mystic picture of <i>Mardi</i>, through which as through a mist-like atmosphere float the forms of Yillah, the shadowy maiden, Yoomy the equally shadowy poet, Babbalanja the dreaming philosopher with his flexible cloud-wreath pipe, 'and others more'--very <i>nomines umbra</i>--shadows of a shade; who <i>dazed</i> us still more with the white gleam of <i>Moby Dick</i>, through whose five hundred weird pages 'all thoughts, all passions, feelings and delights,' chase each other 'like shadows o'er the plain'--and in whom we have the wildest and strangest mysticism, mingled with the frankest and freshest common sense and practical knowledge of the world and its ways, and the truest, most genuine American Democratic feeling"--will appear to-night before a Cincinnati audience to discourse in the lectorium (Smith & Nixon's Hall,) of the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association upon the Statuary of Rome. Mr. Melville's lectures are said to be admirably written, but none of our exchanges discourse upon the style of his delivery. If he would avoid the objection usually urged against our lecturers, he will speak <i>distinctly</i>, and with animation, that all may hear. The public is extremely desirous to see and hear Mr. Melville, and anticipate a rich literary repast this evening. </blockquote><p></p><blockquote><p><a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/cincinnati-daily-commercial-feb-02-1858-p-2/">https://newspaperarchive.com/cincinnati-daily-commercial-feb-02-1858-p-2/</a></p></blockquote><p>In commending <i>Moby-Dick</i> the Athenian quotes from the opening stanza of <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43993/love-56d222e917181" target="_blank">Love by Samuel Taylor Coleridge</a>, alternatively titled <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=iytYAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA207&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Love; or, Genevieve</a></p><blockquote><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">All thoughts, all passions, all delights,</span><br />Whatever stirs this mortal frame,<br />All are but ministers of Love,<br />And feed his sacred flame.</blockquote><p>and <a href="https://hymnary.org/hymn/PHW/Ps.91" target="_blank">Psalm 39 Part 2</a> as given in a popular hymn by Isaac Watts: </p><blockquote>See the vain race of mortals move <br /><span style="background-color: #fce5cd;"> Like shadows o'er the plain, </span><br /> They rage and strive, desire and love, <br /> But all their noise is vain. -- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=8YQ4AAAAYAAJ&pg=PA429&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Psalms and Hymns of Dr. Watts</a></blockquote></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-10432543384958514852024-01-23T12:51:00.006-06:002024-01-23T12:52:19.859-06:00Melvilliana: Clement C. Moore's published letter on his authors...Seven years ago today in the microfilm reading room at NYPL I found the published letter from Clement C. Moore affirming his authorship of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" ("'Twas the night before Christmas"). Writing on Feb. 27, 1844 to the editor of the New York <i>American</i>, Moore explained that he wrote the Christmas poem "not for publication, but to amuse my children." <div><br /></div><div><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/clement-c-moores-published-letter-on.html?spref=bl">Melvilliana: Clement C. Moore's published letter on his authorship...</a>: Good news at The New York Public Library ! Yesterday on microfilm (*ZY 86-140 Reel 17 Mar 1-Dec 28, 1844) of the New York American...</div><div><br /></div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/clement-c-moores-published-letter-on.html">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/01/clement-c-moores-published-letter-on.html</a></li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-69546365064586287672024-01-20T13:26:00.044-06:002024-02-01T08:51:34.886-06:00Found! Cincinnati DAILY TIMES review of Melville's 1858 "Statues in Rome" lectureIn <a href="https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.4159/harvard.9780674420298/html" target="_blank">Melville as Lecturer</a> (Harvard University Press, 1957) Merton M. Sealts, Jr. presented reading texts of Herman Melville's three lectures from 1857 to 1860 on "Statues in Rome," "The South Seas," and "Traveling," reconstructed from accounts in 19th century newspapers. On February 2, 1858 between gigs in Clarksville, Tennessee and Chillicothe, Ohio, Melville spoke for almost two hours at Smith and Nixon's Hall in Cincinnati, Ohio on "Statues in Rome." The Queen City treated Melville well. Three different Cincinnati newspapers reviewed Melville's talk on Roman statuary the day after he gave it, as documented by Sealts in a footnote (#29 on page 41) to his chapter on "The First Lecture Season": <div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>Cincinnati <i>Daily Commercial</i></li><li>Cincinnati <i>Daily Gazette</i></li><li>Cincinnati <i>Enquirer</i></li></ol>Sealts named a 4th newspaper that "may likewise have carried a review of the lecture," the Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i>. Lost, apparently, since the one known file of the <i>Daily Times</i> did not contain the February 3, 1858 issue, according to his consultant at the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. </div><div><br /></div><div>Despite minor criticism, for instance of the speaker's occasionally "monotonous" delivery, the three known reviews of Melville's "Statues in Rome" lecture were unusually substantial and positive. Indeed, Melville's reception was so favorable that Sealts regarded the "Cincinnati engagement" as perhaps "his most successful performance" during his first tour (1857-8) of the lecture circuit. </div><div><br /></div><div>For the Cincinnati performance, only the three reviews located by Sealts thirty years before are listed in editorial notes for "Statues in Rome" in the 1987 Northwestern-Newberry edition of <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810105515/the-piazza-tales-and-other-prose-pieces-1839-1860/" target="_blank">The Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860</a>, edited by Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, G. Thomas Tanselle <i>and others,</i> page 724. But Sealts had guessed right about a possible 4th in the Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i>. As demonstrated herein, the long lost issue of February 3, 1858 does have a substantial review of "Herman Melville's Lecture" of the previous evening on "Statues in Rome." </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJsB4mdmZ0jgB4jEkpgzZxrfC4pP4yNH6B8RNOfwnEo64unQiIgxcao8gyH82M9sanHZHP8jGwpBMkKVwS6pErNzxLg-PMRRfsFjFHM7vDYRSi4aOtlrySQeRgRahb9uQSHmtU1GnXhNW4WzTPNDTOY1eO7NyR1HfpbViaTlRmc51JTQChCbAYSb600-Y/s1284/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(4).jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1284" data-original-width="892" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwJsB4mdmZ0jgB4jEkpgzZxrfC4pP4yNH6B8RNOfwnEo64unQiIgxcao8gyH82M9sanHZHP8jGwpBMkKVwS6pErNzxLg-PMRRfsFjFHM7vDYRSi4aOtlrySQeRgRahb9uQSHmtU1GnXhNW4WzTPNDTOY1eO7NyR1HfpbViaTlRmc51JTQChCbAYSb600-Y/w444-h640/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(4).jpeg" width="444" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i> - February 3, 1858<br />Found on <a href="http://Newspaperarchive.com" target="_blank">Newspaperarchive.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div>As in the <i>Daily Commercial</i>, some of the content borrows from the earlier account in the Boston <i>Daily Courier</i> on December 3, 1857; and others, perhaps. Highlights include a physical description of "The Lecturer" in the opening section and several unique observations and phrases attributed to Melville, including one teasing reference to the lecturer's famous sojourn "in a far off land" where he glimpsed "the figure of a naked girl" who "was in surprise on beholding me." About that "naked girl," the <i>Daily Times</i> reporter possibly misheard, or mis-wrote. No doubt she was unclothed, mostly, but Melville instead may have described the young lady as "native" and was so quoted in the Boston <i>Journal</i> review of December 3, 1857. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnHVpe9Iluz1Cw7MI2WYEgAf4lx_U5YW4jSO86nSHpuyT0vwa0KsILfje17M7R3afbhAQ3LVbnkO7RigHIVldCPUzS05dwjr-AD-r0autRyLFQwCs10BZDrmuaqOlb3R4OocFWUddZF_fHqGcbleizkIsfAUEaVnTFWf5H_p7hfoRna1cMz3mCgQ3DIY3/s5589/Tiberius.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5589" data-original-width="3753" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnHVpe9Iluz1Cw7MI2WYEgAf4lx_U5YW4jSO86nSHpuyT0vwa0KsILfje17M7R3afbhAQ3LVbnkO7RigHIVldCPUzS05dwjr-AD-r0autRyLFQwCs10BZDrmuaqOlb3R4OocFWUddZF_fHqGcbleizkIsfAUEaVnTFWf5H_p7hfoRna1cMz3mCgQ3DIY3/w430-h640/Tiberius.jpg" width="430" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bust of Tiberius - Rome, Italy Capitoline Museum <br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>Also worthy of closer examination and further study are some bits on Tiberius that closely correspond to the wording in Melville's 1856-7 <a href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.187055/page/n203/mode/2up" target="_blank">Journal of a Visit to Europe and the Levant</a>, more exactly in places than either 19th century newspapers or 20th century reconstructions of Melville's 1857-8 lecture on "Statues in Rome" have ever indicated. One year before, Melville had seen the marble head of Tiberius at the Capitoline Museum in Rome. In his journal entry dated February 26, 1857, Melville wrote: </div><div><blockquote><span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">"That Tiberius? He don't look so bad</span> at all." -- It was he. A look of sickly evil, -- <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">intellect without manliness,</span> & sadness without goodness.</blockquote><blockquote><p><i>Journal of a Visit</i>, edited by Howard C. Horsford (Princeton University Press, 1955) page 191; and the 1989 <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810108233/journals/" target="_blank">Northwestern-Newberry Edition</a> of Melville's <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=C5ZsI8UIxNMC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Journals</a>, edited by Howard C. Horsford with Lynn Horth, page 106. </p></blockquote><p>Except in Montreal, Melville was usually heard to quote the female bystander <i>he</i> had overheard as saying, "He does not look so bad"; thus avoiding the contracted and colloquial <i>don't</i>. Here, however, Tiberius "don't look so bad." This report omits <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=WdSJKd3weBcC&pg=PA402&dq=#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Melville's unspoken reply</a>, as given in other printed accounts of the lecture on Roman statues: "Madam, thought I, if he had <i>looked</i> bad, he could not have been Tiberius." Most impressively, however, only the Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i> review finds Melville drawing directly from his journal, word-for-word, in the descriptive phrase "intellect without manliness." Words copied from Melville's journal in the Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i> report are highlighted in the excerpt below:</p></div><blockquote>"<span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">That Tyberias!</span>" I heard a lady exclaim in the Vatican: "Why <span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">he don't look so bad.</span>" Sad and almost pathetic in his pensiveness--he seems to be musing upon the gallantries and miseries of the world--the greatness and littleness of man. The head conveys the idea of a man overpowered by great affections, but more narrowly scanned, it exhibits <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">intellect without manliness</span>--melancholy without pity. Tyberias, was, perhaps, the wickedest man that ever lived.</blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"></p><p>As readers, our sense of these really being Melville's exact words is encouraged and to some degree heightened by the reporter's giving them in the first person, as in "I heard a lady exclaim...."</p><p>One more point of interest that I can't resist noting: Melville's recorded take on the "indomitable will and undying hate" of Satan that he perceived in <a href="https://artslife.com/2015/12/16/la-caduta-degli-angeli-ribelli-di-agostino-fasolato-60-figurine-in-2-metri-di-marmo/" target="_blank">La caduta degli angeli ribelli</a> or "Fall of the Rebel Angels" by Agostino Fasolato, then at the Palazzo Pappafava in Padua.</p><p></p><blockquote>Lucifer and his companions cast down from Heaven may be seen in a palace in Padua, while Michael and his hosts bend over them. The face of Satan expresses indomitable will and undying hate. </blockquote><p>Here the expressions "indomitable will" and "undying hate" attributed to Melville effectively paraphrase the "unconquerable Will" and "immortal hate" ascribed to Satan by Milton in the <a href="https://milton.host.dartmouth.edu/reading_room/pl/book_1/text.shtml" target="_blank">first book of Paradise Lost</a>, lines 106-108:</p><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 25px;"></span><blockquote><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 25px;">All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 25px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 25px;">And study of revenge, immortal hate,</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 25px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Lora, serif; font-size: 25px;">And courage never to submit or yield....</span> </blockquote><p>Another Cincinnati listener, as pointed out in <i>Melville as Lecturer</i> (page 138, footnote #18), caught different echoes from the same passage ("revenge" and "never to submit or yield") which Sealts incorporated into his reconstructed text of "Statues in Rome." As Melville reportedly verbalized it in his lecture, the dexterously carved figure of Satan remains "unbroken and defiant, his whole body breathing revenge and his attitude one never to submit or yield." In <a href="https://archive.org/details/miltonmelville0000unse/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Milton and Melville</a> (Cooper Square Publishers, 1970) at page 138, Henry F. Pommer had already observed with respect to Fasolato's work of sculpture that Melville "probably confused one of the angels with Satan, who is really at the bottom, in the form of an infernal monster." No matter, it's wonderful to find that between them, the <i>Daily Gazette</i> and <i>Daily Times</i> reviewers captured most of Melville's borrowings from three lines in <a href="https://melvillesmarginalia.org/Share.aspx?DocumentID=107&PageID=36070" target="_blank">Book I of Paradise Lost</a>.</p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5iipaW0aJI0?si=PtZ59X-0TjSWyxcx" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /></p><p></p><p>As related on page 266 in the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=a1QMAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA266&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County</a> (1894) the Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i></p><div><blockquote>was founded in 1821 [error for 1841] by Calvin W. Starbuck, as a weekly, when he was but nineteen years of age. He was the fastest type-setter in the West at that time, and being desirous to economise his funds until his enterprise proved self-supporting, he for years set up a great portion of the paper himself, and also assisted in its delivery to subscribers. He was eminently successful as a publisher and business man, and, to use the words of a modern writer, "was great in goodness."</blockquote><a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/17855739/calvin-washburn-starbuck" target="_blank">Calvin Washburn Starbuck</a> (1821-1870) still owned the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn88077414/" target="_blank">Cincinnati Daily Times</a> when the review of Melville's lecture appeared on February 3, 1858; and he continued to publish the newspaper until his lamentably early death in 1870, not yet 50 years old. Calvin's father John Starbuck </div><div><blockquote>was an old Nantucket whaler, who, after following the sea for many years, removed to Cincinnati and purchased a residence on the west side of Vine Street, just above Front, where Calvin was born. -- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cc9CAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA743&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">The Biographical Cyclopædia and Portrait Gallery</a> Volume 3 (Cincinnati, 1884) page 743.</blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnUBhs91AxpozsF2jeZxwWBcmWkJbbiu5zVeJHBXswiyf26o4N7eW9TtrJaqrOjJ41MQ2m8BdNitLs-elEMg84RrwkXkV_AcjH1c9-HOUibhfAnElN2Lt1Ju5ppLFKvyp24f-Omu1oKQCd3K3qUFtxEJ5-9zKS6JZxWp1Y-08CjLjC5rGyezNB7M6s0nI/s790/Cincinnati_Commercial_Tribune_1858-01-29_2.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="605" data-original-width="790" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXnUBhs91AxpozsF2jeZxwWBcmWkJbbiu5zVeJHBXswiyf26o4N7eW9TtrJaqrOjJ41MQ2m8BdNitLs-elEMg84RrwkXkV_AcjH1c9-HOUibhfAnElN2Lt1Ju5ppLFKvyp24f-Omu1oKQCd3K3qUFtxEJ5-9zKS6JZxWp1Y-08CjLjC5rGyezNB7M6s0nI/w400-h306/Cincinnati_Commercial_Tribune_1858-01-29_2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati <i>Daily Commercial</i> - January 29, 1858<br />via <a href="http://genealogybank.com" target="_blank">genealogybank.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p>As in the <i>Daily Commercial </i>and other Cincinnati periodicals including Isaac M. Wise's <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/03/ad-for-melvilles-statues-in-rome.html" target="_blank">weekly newspaper The Israelite</a>, advertisements appeared in the <i>Daily Times</i> (on January 30, 1858 and February 2, 1858, for example) ahead of Melville's </p><p></p><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">"... Lecture before the Young Men's Mercantile Library Association, </h3></blockquote><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: left;">Tuesday Evening, February 2d"</h3></blockquote></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxT8IPql0pRyvWOVyY_cXoaZLiukQMUVs3ojhaxKvydM4iUgEQk8HUzVlNyBt93oUnbIxsfNUke2Wsc-ik68VnsqZjzJrR4swOVRe1Zcx1Z_h6FcwADiVYV9kt58HF9Go1Jo3hQDFkgoeSk0I3peDVfy-wQzJ2xXMwb_TsS171rYc_Y1P4RT9YP-E4AbfJ/s1034/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%202,%201858-p-3.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1034" data-original-width="879" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxT8IPql0pRyvWOVyY_cXoaZLiukQMUVs3ojhaxKvydM4iUgEQk8HUzVlNyBt93oUnbIxsfNUke2Wsc-ik68VnsqZjzJrR4swOVRe1Zcx1Z_h6FcwADiVYV9kt58HF9Go1Jo3hQDFkgoeSk0I3peDVfy-wQzJ2xXMwb_TsS171rYc_Y1P4RT9YP-E4AbfJ/w544-h640/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%202,%201858-p-3.jpeg" width="544" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i> - February 2, 1858<br />Found on <a href="http://Newspaperarchive.com" target="_blank">Newspaperarchive.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote><div>HERMAN MELVILLE, Esq.-- This gentleman will lecture before the Y. M. M. L. Association this evening at Smith & Nixon's Hall. His subject is "The Statues of Rome." --Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i>, February 2, 1858</div></blockquote><div>The full report of Melville's lecture on February 2nd is transcribed below from the Cincinnati <i>Daily Times </i>of February 3, 1858; found on <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/cincinnati-daily-times-feb-03-1858-p-3/" target="_blank">Newspaperarchive.com</a></div><div><blockquote><h1 style="text-align: center;">Herman Melville's Lecture.</h1><h1 style="text-align: center;">STATUES IN ROME. </h1></blockquote><blockquote>The audience last night, at Smith & Nixon's Hall, taking into consideration the inclemency of the weather, was large--considerably larger than we had anticipated during the day. The seats in the body of the hall were nearly all filled while in the gallery were numbers seated. This "large and respectable audience" to Mr. Melville is highly complimentary, and exhibits the fact that he is known through his works--such as Typee, Omoo, &c.<br /><h3 style="text-align: center;">THE LECTURER.</h3>Herman Melville we should judge to be a man between thirty-eight and forty years of age--rather above the medium size--stoutly and compactly built. His hair is black, short, and inclined to be wiry. His eyes appear to be dark, and are deep-set, giving him the appearance of a thinker. His forehead is neither broad or expansive, but rather low and narrow. He has cultivated whiskers and moustacheos quite extensively, nearly the entire lower portion of his face being covered by those hirsute appendages. Mr. Melville's style is rather agreeable, yet hardly sufficiently animated. His voice is musical and full of feeling, yet sometimes too monotonous. He appears perfectly at home on the rostrum, impressing one with the idea that it is not <i>his</i> "first appearance on any stage."</blockquote><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhophOm-0Z57fzhTQo3UQZheKv7rQny-cj40RFbzqBkBFfCBOfXRFKyUBY4aV2QrTrl5I1Z5POzAC6KPM_r0iBPsDQjMG1DOF4riw7tku9sd5yKlitfDkRLHBaCTfahsKZEUYa_xnFspD9MpFgjuMvyIMwFI-kV20N0aguZjpXiuUmHlvlHncvfCqSvKk/s2013/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(5).jpeg"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZhophOm-0Z57fzhTQo3UQZheKv7rQny-cj40RFbzqBkBFfCBOfXRFKyUBY4aV2QrTrl5I1Z5POzAC6KPM_r0iBPsDQjMG1DOF4riw7tku9sd5yKlitfDkRLHBaCTfahsKZEUYa_xnFspD9MpFgjuMvyIMwFI-kV20N0aguZjpXiuUmHlvlHncvfCqSvKk/w287-h640/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(5).jpeg" /></a></div><div><p></p><blockquote><h3 style="text-align: center;">THE LECTURE.</h3>Mr. Melville commenced his lecture by denying that there was any exclusiveness in art, or rather in its appreciation. Professional artists might employ their technical terms to express their ideas of the beautiful in art, which might be expressed, perhaps, quite as sensibly by others in more homely phrases, who had quite as good appreciation thereof. Flowers could be appreciated by those who were not able to name them, as well as those versed in botanical knowledge. And so creations of Art might be enjoyed by those who are not professional artists. Many refrained from expressing their views in relation to Art, lest they might display their ignorance; but may not the opinions of such, sometimes be set above those of the professed sculptor or artist.<p>Being neither a critic nor a connoisseur, I have seen fit to introduce my subject, the Sculptures of Rome, with these remarks--a subject which some might suppose belonged exclusively to artists. The approach to Rome by Naples is by the gate of St. John, the first object of attention being the group of colossal figures in stone, surmounting the lofty pediment of St. John Lateran. Standing in every grand or animated attitude, they seem not only to attest that this is the Eternal City, but likewise at its portal, to offer greeting in the name of that great company of statues which, amid the fluctuations of the human census, abides the true and undying population of Rome. It is, indeed, among these mute citizens, and mostly in the Vatican Museum, that the stranger forms his most pleasing and cherished associations. In that grand hall he will not only make new acquaintances, but will likewise revive many long before introduced by the historian. And he will find many deficiencies of the historian supplied by the sculptor, who has effected in part, for the celebrities of old, what the memoir writer of the present day does for modern ones. In viewing the statues and bases of Demosthenes, Titus, Socrates, Caesar, Seneca, Nero, and others, we feel a sense of reality not to be given by history; and although we are at first startled by some of them from our preconceived opinions, yet we seldom, on reflection, fail to concede the general likeness to that which the historian has furnished us. The analysis of the marble coincides with the historian's analysis of the man.</p></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_nsrGfMHUQFGEs1-fONRN0y3UbxNczdFi8m_TP8_ecqFLfnEg28AxQfLicA2U8H4WSZ1iQZMxeG3J0bNbym5W1za__37bivGjkkEEF7ntNxI4ulDafygwQGjZAqMls9KIbGcrAzSbyKtJngW6AEsK134IATCFQGtuUfq-NhJXkxra5AMCD97_Di5CVl7B/s2828/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(3).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2828" data-original-width="913" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_nsrGfMHUQFGEs1-fONRN0y3UbxNczdFi8m_TP8_ecqFLfnEg28AxQfLicA2U8H4WSZ1iQZMxeG3J0bNbym5W1za__37bivGjkkEEF7ntNxI4ulDafygwQGjZAqMls9KIbGcrAzSbyKtJngW6AEsK134IATCFQGtuUfq-NhJXkxra5AMCD97_Di5CVl7B/w207-h640/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(3).jpeg" width="207" /></a></div><blockquote>The statue of Demosthenes may be deemed a kind of substitute for his confessions. Titus, who flits across the page of Tacitus, shows forth the character of the man as if the statue were indeed the man.<br /><br />In the bust of Socrates we might look for wisdom personified, but it has more the appearance of a carnival masque, and might be taken for the head of an Irish tragedian with morals none of the purest, and yet the statue is correct. Socrates, in his earlier days, used to be reproached for his homely aspect. The head of Julius Caesar might be mistaken for that of a President of the Erie railroad. But was not Caesar, after all, as a utilitarian might say, a business man, who took upon himself the business of ruling the world? Seneca looks like a pawn-broker, and he was a userer in his life.<br /><br />Nero had the appearance of a genteel, dissipated youth--a fast young man, such as may be seen upon the race-track any day. Plato looks as if he had been to the pains of smoothing and parting his hair like a lady. The character of these statues--their faces are familiarly like our own--the features of man have undergone but little change--the vices and the virtues of the ancients were like our own--on just as a gigantic scale, and it is to be hoped that the Heroic tone, like Tyrean dye has not been lost to the world. Nature is similar in all ages.<br /><br />"That Tyberias!" I heard a lady exclaim in the Vatican: "Why he don't look so bad." Sad and almost pathetic in his pensiveness--he seems to be musing upon the gallantries and miseries of the world--the greatness and littleness of man. The head conveys the idea of a man overpowered by great affections, but more narrowly scanned, it exhibits <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">intellect without manliness</span>--melancholy without pity. Tyberias, was, perhaps, the wickedest man that ever lived.<br /><br />The statue which most of all in the Vatican excites the admiration of all visitors, is the Apollo. Few speak, or even whisper, when they enter the cabinet where it stands. If one were to try to convey some adequate notion, other than artistic, of a statue which so signally lifts the imaginations of men, he might hint that it gives a kind of visible response to that class of human aspirations, which according to Faith, cannot be truly gratified, except in another world. It is infinitely grander than the Venus di Medici, in Florence, for while she is lovely, he is divine.<br /><br />The thought of many of these beautiful figures having been pleasing to the Romans, at least persuades us that their violence, as a conquering race, did not engross them, and the flame kindled in most men by nature was at no time in Roman breasts wholly stamped out. When I stood in the Colliseum, its mountain-chains of ruins waving with foliage, girding me round, as in some great green hollow in the Appenine range, the solitude was like that of savage nature; but restoring the shattered arches and terraces, I repeopled them with all the statues from the Vatican, and in the turfy glen of the arena below I placed the fighting Gladiator, from the Louvre, confronting him with the dying-one from the Capitol. And as in my fancy I heard the ruffian huzzas for the first, rebound from the pitiless hiss for the last, I felt that more than one in that host I had evoked shared not in its passions; that some hearts were there that felt the horror keenly as any of us would have felt it.</blockquote></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikY9OKbP-JoeBuI8txn6sNxQWeYTN9ESjNJBeoJQTx43OQsWOWqYjTlBMxeMKnb3HSDh4bKp7joz_9ScuidzvwawysNfm7aVxe6WTVPzqA64eEoNNgoZgHKaknRSawEf9VEe00epRwH9oyV6LkrmvJWkrcQwZoQtuwHFrHJkTvDGCCqbHaDmQA6MrYk69h/s2641/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(2).jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2641" data-original-width="881" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikY9OKbP-JoeBuI8txn6sNxQWeYTN9ESjNJBeoJQTx43OQsWOWqYjTlBMxeMKnb3HSDh4bKp7joz_9ScuidzvwawysNfm7aVxe6WTVPzqA64eEoNNgoZgHKaknRSawEf9VEe00epRwH9oyV6LkrmvJWkrcQwZoQtuwHFrHJkTvDGCCqbHaDmQA6MrYk69h/w214-h640/Cincinnati-Daily-Times-Feb%203,%201858-p-3%20(2).jpeg" width="214" /></a></div><blockquote>The Lecturer here alluded to Milton's verse--the polish of which reflected the polish of the marble. Milton's poem was a sort of Vatican done into verse. He passed a portion of his years in Italy and a year subsequent to the finding of the Apollo he resided in Rome. Who can say how much influence these statues had upon the poet?<br /><br />Lucifer and his companions cast down from Heaven may be seen in a palace in Padua, while Michael and his hosts bend over them. <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">The face of Satan expresses indomitable will and undying hate.</span><br /><br />The statue of Venus, in Florence, is not of as pure marble as the Apollo; she is lovely; but he divine. She is no Roman lady--no Caesar's wife--no coquette--no prude--but a child of nature, modest, true, but only as nature dictates. <span style="background-color: #fce5cd;">When a captive once, in a far off land, I saw the figure of a naked girl; she was in surprise on beholding me.</span> She assumed the same attitude as the Venus, and nearly the same expression was upon her features. I mention this, to show how truthful to nature were the Grecian Sculptors.<br /><br />The Laocoon was alluded to, but not at that length we could have wished. An allusion was made to the pastoral gentleness of the sculptors. It showed that violence did not entirely engross the Romans--but even under the Caesars, were not this people ignorant of the letter of Christianity, although they were of its spirit?<br /><br />The Vatican was described by moonlight in beautiful word-painting, in which the lecturer pre-eminently excels. A fine description was given of the marble steeds, which seemed not made to be bestridden, but as if soaring to the skies like the horses of Elijah. Other statues were alluded to, but the lecturer could not crowd a description of all within an hour.-- Beautiful pictures were given of the villas of Rome, and a description of Pompeii and the luxuriant Diomedes indulged in, the lecturer closing by a general review.<br /><br />Not the least, perhaps, among these causes which make the Roman museums so impressive is their tranquil air. In chambers stand the images of gods, while in the statues of men, even the vilest, what was corruptible in their originals, here in pure marble, puts on incorruption. In the Roman Vatican, and the Washington Patent Office, the respective characteristics of the ancients and moderns stand contrasted. But is the Locomotive as grand an object as the Laocoon? Does it attest his hurried intelligence? We moderns did invent the printing press, but from the ancients have we not the best thoughts which it circulates? As the Roman arch enters into and sustains our best architecture, does not her spirit still animate and support whatever is soundest in societies and States? Or shall the scheme of Fourier supplant the code of Justinian, only when the novels of Dickens silence the satires of Juvenal? If the Collisseum expresses the durability of Roman ideas, what does the Crystal Palace express? Will the glass of the one bide the hail storms of eighteen centuries as well as the travertine of the other?</blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">"When falls the Colisseum, Rome shall fall,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: medium; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">And when Rome falls, the world."</blockquote></blockquote><div><blockquote><div>-- Cincinnati <i>Daily Times</i>, February 3, 1858 </div></blockquote><blockquote><p><a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/cincinnati-daily-times-feb-03-1858-p-3/" target="_blank">https://newspaperarchive.com/cincinnati-daily-times-feb-03-1858-p-3/</a></p></blockquote><p>Related posts:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/02/can-art-not-life-make-ideal-herman.html" target="_blank">Can Art not Life make the Ideal?</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2015/02/can-art-not-life-make-ideal-herman.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/10/statues-in-rome-lecture-boston-bee.html" target="_blank">Statuary of Rome, Melville's 1857 lecture in Boston</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/10/statues-in-rome-lecture-boston-bee.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2021/08/melville-on-justinian-and-juvenal.html" target="_blank">Melville on Justinian and Juvenal, remembered in Minnesota</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2021/08/melville-on-justinian-and-juvenal.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/03/ad-for-melvilles-statues-in-rome.html" target="_blank">Ad for Melville's Cincinnati lecture in The Israelite</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/03/ad-for-melvilles-statues-in-rome.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2021/08/melville-on-justinian-and-juvenal.html" target="_blank">Melville's anti-communist math</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2021/08/2-2-4-melvilles-anti-communist-math.html</li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-31972181688846177952024-01-19T06:59:00.010-06:002024-02-29T21:28:18.405-06:00More on Thorndike Rice and his 1885 newspaper syndicate<p>As shown on Melvilliana, the formerly mysterious appearance of Herman Melville's sea-poem "The Admiral of the White" (revised and re-titled <a href="https://poets.org/poem/haglets" target="_blank">The Haglets</a> in his 1888 collection <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=DPYkAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA51&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">John Marr and Other Sailors</a>) in multiple newspapers on the same day in May 1885 was enabled by Allen Thorndike Rice (1851-1889) and his pioneering though short-lived newspaper syndicate. </p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/public-weekly-opinion/140998478/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=140998478&width=700&height=1103&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 24 May 1889, Fri <em>Public Weekly Opinion (Chambersburg, Pennsylvania)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a></p><p>Early in 1885 the Springfield Massachusetts <i>Daily Republican</i> gave interesting and highly relevant details of Thorndike Rice's ambitious scheme for the "simultaneous publication" of non-fiction articles, short stories ("or novelets") and poems "in the Sunday editions" of involved newspapers, "or where a paper has no Sunday edition, in the weekly." Melville's poem "The Admiral of the White" appeared in the Sunday editions of the Boston <i>Herald</i> and New York <i>Tribune </i>on May 17, 1885; and the weekly edition of the Cincinnati <i>Star-Times</i> on May 21st. </p><p>Found on <a href="http://genealogybank.com" target="_blank">genealogybank.com</a> and transcribed below.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPo26cJqT_cpbi2wzmYk8fcr7aBi36HXHGxmADCExo5qrLqrZFzpLzlhGqS0wRkkX5lwYxk1AJMxlX7vseG6Os7W-kkvQVsvYNch9darGMCz9MSDECB_xVL3vNw2XpGnFkVfAQE4bJedc9FxhZ4hpcjTrTJ8qmTg2DIgZaHV1As6pLpJ5pWpRTut9pO2L/s2858/Springfield_Republican_1885-01-05_4.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2858" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAPo26cJqT_cpbi2wzmYk8fcr7aBi36HXHGxmADCExo5qrLqrZFzpLzlhGqS0wRkkX5lwYxk1AJMxlX7vseG6Os7W-kkvQVsvYNch9darGMCz9MSDECB_xVL3vNw2XpGnFkVfAQE4bJedc9FxhZ4hpcjTrTJ8qmTg2DIgZaHV1As6pLpJ5pWpRTut9pO2L/w358-h640/Springfield_Republican_1885-01-05_4.png" width="358" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Springfield <i>Daily Republican</i> 1 of 2<br />January 5, 1885</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQqjSFi08WtARJM2U2AEdBu_FA1HYDrzIX9PG-toPmab_58WECrFmckv0SMhyu92xovR3WO-R7IXApNkHWtl0DA2DDSL4S4XweUOVLelaWprJrNNr7SF7b16ERIu6-6I988C8BS_u44Ku1uEzYXY0nYwjS5v39du1o-uT2Bqt1E4iZ-sDwjXPqoT8QHyO/s2696/Springfield_Republican_1885-01-05_4%20(1).png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2696" data-original-width="1600" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTQqjSFi08WtARJM2U2AEdBu_FA1HYDrzIX9PG-toPmab_58WECrFmckv0SMhyu92xovR3WO-R7IXApNkHWtl0DA2DDSL4S4XweUOVLelaWprJrNNr7SF7b16ERIu6-6I988C8BS_u44Ku1uEzYXY0nYwjS5v39du1o-uT2Bqt1E4iZ-sDwjXPqoT8QHyO/w380-h640/Springfield_Republican_1885-01-05_4%20(1).png" width="380" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Springfield <i>Daily Republican</i> 2 of 2<br />January 5, 1885</td></tr></tbody></table><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p style="text-align: left;">ALLEN THORNDIKE RICE, editor of the North American Review, has taken a very remarkable step in the way of coöperative journalism, as it may be termed. Heretofore its only development beyond "patent outsides"--or insides, as the case might be--has been in the formation of "syndicates" for the simultaneous publication of stories, short and long, in various newspapers throughout the country. Mr. Rice has conceived a scheme of great importance on the same principle, which his possession of a considerable fortune enables him to launch with an assurance of success. This is to enlist in the service of the American newspapers the pens of the most distinguished men of Europe and America, in every department of human interest,--statesmen, publicists, generals, scientists, philosophers, churchmen, jurists, financiers, merchants, manufacturers, poets, novelists. When any event of moment occurs, or any great question springs into immediate importance, Mr Rice will procure from the man best qualified to explain and discuss its significance and its bearings an article upon the subject. When the occasion demands it, the procurement will be made by cable, and the article sent to him at New York by cable, and thence distributed by mail or telegraph, as may be necessary, to the various newspapers that have entered into the arrangement. These newspapers, in several parts of the Union, have each the exclusive copyright of each article for a certain extent of territory, extending over 10 days after publication. The articles will appear in the Sunday editions of the papers, or where a paper has no Sunday edition, in the weekly. The publishing of poems or novelets is, of coursed, governed by the same conditions, but that is of less consequence than the articles. Mr Rice spent a year in Europe principally to secure the eminent contributors to this remarkable scheme, and his list numbers over 300 names. For a single article he will sometimes pay thousands of dollars, and the total expense will therefore be very large, while the expense to each paper will be such as to require a large circulation and advertising patronage to justify. It is another emphatic evidence of the great and constantly increasing domain of the newspaper, which as the universal and continuous medium of information, if in no other character, is becoming the great force of human life in civilized countries. Prince Bismarck does not approve of or trust in the press in his Germany, but when Mr Rice wants his opinion on a great event or a domestic complexity, he will not hesitate to confide it to the press of America.</p>-- Springfield <i>Daily Republican</i>, January 5, 1885</blockquote><p>Related posts:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/1885-check-endorsed-by-herman-melville.html" target="_blank">1885 check endorsed by Herman Melville for deposit</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/1885-check-endorsed-by-herman-melville.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html" target="_blank">Syndicated in Cincinnati and beyond</a> https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/syndicated-in-cincinnati-and-beyond.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html" target="_blank">Melville Resuscitated</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html" target="_blank">Abridged Admiral of the White in St Paul Pioneer Press</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html</li></ul><p></p>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-5752305904954405502024-01-18T09:55:00.024-06:002024-02-29T21:25:55.557-06:00Syndicated in Cincinnati, and beyond: Melville's 1885 poem "The Admiral of the White"<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9h1Ay_o5Ey9Sw2ZDyBZRbLwUIw2Ns0ZRC7dmg3ei5f_0zpmZ6mtioldPODbtkym3PWRZuCr85TH1cMbmZEjCEfsnzmIem3TgAe-Xie0vMsXraJAVd-cvWXyYx-gyguoSSuI1E3iRblOeoDFkXTNuHI8Wu9z5K8LQC8VbsBvSJ4LSAzcuL0tQpCjPKc6fq/s1166/Cincinnati-Weekly-Times-May%2021,%201885-p-3.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1166" data-original-width="971" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh9h1Ay_o5Ey9Sw2ZDyBZRbLwUIw2Ns0ZRC7dmg3ei5f_0zpmZ6mtioldPODbtkym3PWRZuCr85TH1cMbmZEjCEfsnzmIem3TgAe-Xie0vMsXraJAVd-cvWXyYx-gyguoSSuI1E3iRblOeoDFkXTNuHI8Wu9z5K8LQC8VbsBvSJ4LSAzcuL0tQpCjPKc6fq/w532-h640/Cincinnati-Weekly-Times-May%2021,%201885-p-3.jpeg" width="532" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati Weekly <i>Times-Star</i> - May 21, 1885<br />Found on <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/ohio-cincinnati-weekly-times-may-21-1885-p-3/" target="_blank">newspaperarchive.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>So MACSWELL spilled the beans in Buffalo.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the latter half of May 1885, as previously revealed here on Melvilliana, a New York City correspondent of the Buffalo <i>Courier</i> named Walter Langdon Russ (1852-1930) aka "Macswell" informed readers of a scheme to get the justly forgotten author <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html" target="_blank">Herman Melville Resuscitated</a> by mass-marketing "The Admiral of the White," a mysterious and thrilling sea-tale in verse that Melville would slightly revise and re-title "The Haglets" for private publication in <a href="https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/zeaamericanstudies/1/" target="_blank">John Marr and Other Sailors</a> (1888). </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html" target="_blank">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html</a></li></ul></div><div>Writing from Manhattan on May 21, 1885 Macswell reported having seen Melville's new poem "printed in one of our morning papers last Sunday." As the New York correspondent of the Buffalo <i>Courier</i> understood things, the same poem "was printed at the same time, I believe, in other papers, east and west." Macswell blamed a young, wealthy, and ambitious media mogul for the irritating attempt to rescue Melville from oblivion:</div><blockquote>Mr. Thorndyke Rice, the ingenious editor of the <i>North American Review</i>, is, I am told, responsible for his resuscitation.</blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:C._Allen_Thorndike_Rice_March_1883.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" title="Mora (b. 1849)
(Life time: died prior to 1930), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="C. Allen Thorndike Rice March 1883" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/C._Allen_Thorndike_Rice_March_1883.jpg" width="256" /></a></div><p></p><p>Turns out, Macswell was right. <a href="https://centuryarchives.org/caba/bio.php?PersonID=2435" target="_blank">Charles Allen Thorndike Rice</a> (1851-1889), a pioneer of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/newspaper-syndicate" target="_blank">press syndicate</a>, evidently had enlisted Melville with other talented writers in a new cultural project to entertain more high-minded readers of popular American periodicals with excellent literary works by the best authors. The innovative manner of mass publication appealed to publishers and authors, too, as mutually beneficial. Ellery Sedgwick explains:</p><p></p><blockquote>S. S. McClure, Charles Dana, <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">and Thorndike Rice</span> had also begun their syndicates that brought fiction from authors and sold publication rights to newspapers across the country...both the illustrated magazines and the syndicates very significantly increased the dollar value of literature and the potential for making a living by writing it.</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote>Sedgwick, Ellery. “Magazines and the Profession of Authorship in the United States, 1840–1900.” <i>The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America</i>, vol. 94, no. 3, 2000, pp. 399–425. <i>JSTOR</i>, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/24304071" target="_blank">http://www.jstor.org/stable/24304071</a>. Accessed 18 Jan. 2024.</blockquote><p>Samuel Sidney McClure acknowledged Thorndike Rice as a former and at one time formidable rival in the syndicate business:</p><p></p><blockquote>Of course, as soon as my syndicate began to pay, other syndicates were started. The most powerful of these was started by <span style="background-color: #fff2cc;">Allan Thorndyke Rice, editor of the <i>North American Review</i>.</span> My friends and many of the editors I served thought such a competitor would be too much for me. I remember that at this time Miss Sarah Orne Jewett, who wrote for the syndicate and took a friendly interest in my business, wrote me to ask whether I could not form some combination with Mr. Rice to avoid being wiped out. Mr. Rice's syndicate was very strong for a time, but eventually it died out without seriously cutting into my business.</blockquote><blockquote>-- <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jNAlAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA182&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">My Autobiography</a> (New York, 1914) pages 182-183.</blockquote><p>The "morning paper" in which Macswell had seen "The Admiral of the White" must have been the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1885-05-17/ed-1/seq-9/" target="_blank">New York Tribune</a>. Melville fans have long known about the <i>Tribune</i> printing of Melville's poem on May 17, 1885, and another, more complete version on the same date in the Boston <i>Herald</i>. The text of Herman Melville's "The Haglets" in <i>John Marr</i> closely follows that of "The Admiral of the White" as previously published in the Boston <i>Herald </i>and, incompletely, in the New York <i>Tribune</i>. Before now only those two newspaper versions of Herman Melville's 1885 poem have been recorded in Melville scholarship. The New York and Boston printings of "The Admiral of the White" are discussed in editorial notes on "The Haglets" for the 2009 Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810126053/published-poems/" target="_blank">Published Poems</a>, edited by Robert C. Ryan, Harrison Hayford, Alma MacDougall Reising and G. Thomas Tanselle, at pages 725-726. Both newspaper printings, the Boston <i>Herald</i> version and the "abridged" New York <i>Tribune</i> version, are referenced also in notes on the manuscript version of "The Admiral of the White" (a different poem with the same title) in the back of the Northwestern-Newberry Edition of <a href="https://nupress.northwestern.edu/9780810111141/billy-budd-sailor-and-other-uncompleted-writings/" target="_blank">Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Uncompleted Writings</a>, edited by G. Thomas Tanselle, Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, Robert Sandberg and Alma MacDougall Reising, at page 888. </p><p>Only the "complete" Boston <i>Herald</i> and "abridged" New York <i>Tribune</i> versions of "The Admiral of the White" are referenced in Robert Sandberg's "Note on the Texts" for <a href="https://www.loa.org/books/610-complete-poems/" target="_blank">Herman Melville: Complete Poems</a> (Library of America No. 320, 2019) page 930. Edited by Hershel Parker, the LOA edition of <i>Complete Poems</i> has "The Haglets" on pages 677-683 and the uncollected manuscript poem "The Admiral of the White" (which is not the 1885 poem with the same title) on pages 865-866.</p><div><div>A good reading text of Melville's poem "The Haglets" is conveniently accessible online courtesy of <a href="http://poets.org">poets.org</a></div><div><p style="text-align: left;"></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://poets.org/poem/haglets" target="_blank">https://poets.org/poem/haglets</a> </li></ul><div>For explication you can find "The Haglets" helpfully discussed by William H. Shurr in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=3ukeBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA131&lpg=PA131&dq" target="_blank">The Mystery of Iniquity</a> (University Press of Kentucky, 1972) at pages 130-134; </div><div><br /></div><div>and, more recently, by Peter Riley in <i>"The Fair Poet's Name": Late Poems</i>, Chapter 14 in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TTSAEAAAQBAJ&pg=PA177&lpg=PA177&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">A New Companion to Herman Melville</a>, edited by Wyn Kelley and Christopher Ohge (Wiley Blackwell, 2022) pages 171-183 at 177.</div><div><br /></div><div>Long unacknowledged in Melville studies, Allen Thorndike Rice's role in the newspaper syndication of "The Admiral of the White" seems confirmed by the publication of his name as copyright holder in the heading of a previously unknown printing of Melville's poem in the <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-may-21-1885-4249581/" target="_blank">Cincinnati Weekly Times-Star</a><i>. </i>Headings in both the New York <i>Tribune</i> and Boston <i>Herald</i> versions merely stated "Copyright, 1885," below the title and (in the NY <i>Tribune</i> version) author credit. </div><div><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYIZBIdcOIIhC_UZ_iZnjiX2V3G-qf9Ek6oKTZEWlUw31YyJh5uYsd4ODoSo5K-pVy9HMOIXEmYaqZYnl0PDgp9fAn4ilHV0x-w2piml5x5aD3KyvSOUNNq8njA8c7KFEIj4m5jyu9agBvJdONCiIxgSj16o02xX56oIRk0XGuzzCXE_nWWJTmlXYoVksB/s748/Boston_Herald_1885-05-17_5.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="369" data-original-width="748" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYIZBIdcOIIhC_UZ_iZnjiX2V3G-qf9Ek6oKTZEWlUw31YyJh5uYsd4ODoSo5K-pVy9HMOIXEmYaqZYnl0PDgp9fAn4ilHV0x-w2piml5x5aD3KyvSOUNNq8njA8c7KFEIj4m5jyu9agBvJdONCiIxgSj16o02xX56oIRk0XGuzzCXE_nWWJTmlXYoVksB/w400-h198/Boston_Herald_1885-05-17_5.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Boston <i>Sunday</i> <i>Herald</i> - May 17, 1885<br />via <a href="http://genealogybank.com" target="_blank">genealogybank.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><div><br /></div><div>The Cincinnati version places the copyright statement within brackets, above the title:</div><blockquote><div><span style="font-size: medium;">[Copyrighted by Allen Thorndike Rice.]</span></div></blockquote><blockquote><h1 style="text-align: left;">Admiral of the White. </h1></blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5XxRzjO49q_de4XIgW97u87hzotexRisbSogonEchW6TqQ72xKJ34vdHj0kZz3OCj_40vVE2c3Pfswy_TvMxLIBATM5UA9Eqf_L40oZsRgoJbFMyn0MfliKsrDodw2mN9JcL7WoLlHKM-gEREChPgSSFwX7YCjAdb8gGtmk7gCLPTCDtU_p6oBlzt4C9/s497/Cincinnati-Weekly-Times-May%2021,%201885-detail.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="497" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy5XxRzjO49q_de4XIgW97u87hzotexRisbSogonEchW6TqQ72xKJ34vdHj0kZz3OCj_40vVE2c3Pfswy_TvMxLIBATM5UA9Eqf_L40oZsRgoJbFMyn0MfliKsrDodw2mN9JcL7WoLlHKM-gEREChPgSSFwX7YCjAdb8gGtmk7gCLPTCDtU_p6oBlzt4C9/s16000/Cincinnati-Weekly-Times-May%2021,%201885-detail.jpeg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati <i>Weekly Times-Star</i> - May 21, 1885<br />via <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/ohio-cincinnati-weekly-times-may-21-1885-p-3/" target="_blank">newspaperarchive.com</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></div><div>As published on May 21, 1885 in the Weekly <i>Times-Star</i>, the byline further asserts that the original poem was "Written for the Times." Presumably the weekly edition of the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i> copied "Admiral of the White" from the Sunday <i>Times</i> where it had appeared according to schedule on Sunday, May 17, 1885, the same day it definitely debuted in New York and Boston. Unfortunately, the Sunday edition is not currently included in the files of the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i> at <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/" target="_blank">NewspaperArchive</a>. After renewing my subscription there I did find "The Admiral of the White" reprinted on May 21, 1885 in the weekly edition of the Cincinnati <i>Times Star</i>. In terms of length, the Cincinnati text of <a href="https://newspaperarchive.com/other-articles-clipping-may-21-1885-4249581/" target="_blank">Admiral of the White</a> matches the complete Boston <i>Herald</i> version, rather than the <i>Tribune</i> abridgment. Some words and expressions (Admiral, Plate Fleet, and Milky Way) in the Cincinnati version are treated as proper nouns with the first letter of each word capitalized, where the Boston <i>Herald</i> version uses all lower case letters, at least early on. Among other minor differences, the Cincinnati version </div><div><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>reads "Laced Sleeves" (as in the New York <i>Tribune</i> version) where the Boston <i>Herald</i> gives "Lace Sleeves"; </li><li>does not italicize "A tomb or a trophy" (italicized in the New York and Boston texts); </li><li>punctuates "sculptured Fate!" with an exclamation mark; </li><li>has "hatted" as in the NY <i>Tribune</i> where Boston Herald reads "hated"; and</li><li>reads "No less content" where the Boston <i>Herald</i> and New York <i>Tribune</i> both have "Nor less content."</li></ul><p>As I found in files of the daily edition (excluding Sunday, as noted above), also via Newspaper Archive, the plan for simultaneous publication in multiple U. S. cities (including the western towns of Chicago, IL and St. Paul, MN) had been explicitly and repeatedly advertised by the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star. </i>On May 14, 1885, for example, the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i> announced that "'Admiral of the White,' by Herman Melville" would appear with other "SPECIAL PAPERS" in the Sunday edition of May 17th.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBK_fYVkz07YwAXVS9Sfaa27z5eDHhAlGRZh7ZY0WnAiZtQk_-P_jXLIKGXvoRHMh-f-b0D3BZxB6r4TuPwFuGYv5C83_lvvHUNEHTRxT3xx4TbfsMa8-uuEYCam7OppDazoMGDF8yB3xYnaJzO70PV41jm0HI5wvc0Qi70MPJ_2DRvmCFaRcnXGh6xoYu/s4035/Cincinnati-Times-Star-May%2014,%201885-p-5.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4035" data-original-width="1500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBK_fYVkz07YwAXVS9Sfaa27z5eDHhAlGRZh7ZY0WnAiZtQk_-P_jXLIKGXvoRHMh-f-b0D3BZxB6r4TuPwFuGYv5C83_lvvHUNEHTRxT3xx4TbfsMa8-uuEYCam7OppDazoMGDF8yB3xYnaJzO70PV41jm0HI5wvc0Qi70MPJ_2DRvmCFaRcnXGh6xoYu/w238-h640/Cincinnati-Times-Star-May%2014,%201885-p-5.jpeg" width="238" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i><br />May 14, 1885</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><blockquote><h1 style="text-align: center;">SPECIAL PAPERS</h1>In the SUNDAY TIMES-STAR of next Sunday, May 17, will be:<br /><br />"Admiral of the White," by Herman Melville, author of "Typee, or Life in the Marquesas," "Moby Dick," etc.<br /><br />"Charles Kingsley," by Canon Farrar.<br /><br />"A Letter of Marque," by Gail Hamilton.<br /><br />"The Doctrines of the Flag," by Hon. James H. Gerard.<br /><br />These papers will be found of especial interest to the better class of newspaper readers. They appear simultaneously in the New York Tribune, Boston Herald, Philadelphia Press, Detroit Post, St. Paul Pioneer-Press, and Chicago Times.<br /><br />In addition to the special papers, the SUNDAY TIMES-STAR contains all local and telegraphic news and as much general matter as one has time to read. Everything is presented in an attractive and convenient manner, so that the reader who devotes a reasonable time to his paper can be sure that he has not missed any news of great importance.<br /><br />Price Three Cents.</blockquote><p>The advertisement transcribed above lists six newspapers in addition to the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i> that were then engaged in Thorndike Rice's newspaper syndicate, apparently, and thus committed to simultaneous publication on Sunday, May 17, 1885 of Melville's "Admiral of the White" and other works "of especial interest to the better class of newspaper readers." The Cincinnati <i>Times</i> or <i>Times-Star</i> would make a seventh, thus:</p><p></p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>New York Tribune ✅</li><li>Boston Herald ✅</li><li>Philadelphia Press</li><li>Detroit Post</li><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html" target="_blank">St. Paul Pioneer-Press</a> ✅ verified 02/29/2024</li><li>Chicago Times</li><li>Cincinnati Times-Star</li></ol><p></p><p>Versions of Melville's poem in two of the six newspapers we already knew about, the New York <i>Tribune</i> and Boston <i>Herald</i>, as explained already. That leaves four more to investigate. Well, five if you count the Sunday edition of the Cincinnati <i>Times-Star</i> that I have not yet located. Being in Minnesota, of course I feel duty-bound to begin with the <i>Pioneer Press</i> down in St. Paul. Alas, for the specific date of Sunday, May 17, 1885 our <a href="https://www.mnhs.org/newspapers/hub" target="_blank">Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub</a> only gives images from the St. Paul <i>Daily Globe</i> and Minneapolis <i>Daily Tribune. </i></p><p>Yikes! this could be harder than I thought. Clearly there's plenty more to look for, besides more printings than we knew about of Melville's 1885 poem. For instance, does any correspondence survive between Melville and Allen Thorndike Rice? Did Melville ever formally transfer the copyright for "The Admiral of the White"? Or sign a contract?</p><p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QV9B12BGTOc?si=0krGsL7sMTygNMhE" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></p><p>Related posts:</p><div><ul><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html" target="_blank">Melville Resuscitated</a> <br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2022/02/melville-resuscitated-1885.html</li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html" target="_blank">More on Thorndike Rice and his 1885 newspaper syndicate</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/01/more-on-thorndike-rice-and-his-1885.html</li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/1885-check-endorsed-by-herman-melville.html" target="_blank">1885 check endorsed by Herman Melville for deposit</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/1885-check-endorsed-by-herman-melville.html</li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html" target="_blank">Abridged Admiral of the White in St Paul Pioneer Press</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2024/02/abridged-admiral-of-white-in-st-paul.html</li></ul></div></div></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-30899631712595523642024-01-16T10:16:00.051-06:002024-01-17T13:52:29.286-06:00BATTLE-PIECES hated in Hamilton, Canada West<p>Herman Melville's book of Civil War poems <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=UOEIAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War</a> was twice despised in the same Canadian newspaper, the Hamilton <i>Spectator</i>, in two caustic 1866 notices published on August 28 ("trash") and August 30 ("without sense or rhythm" and "incomprehensible"). Unheralded (never recorded?) in previous Melville scholarship, both items are transcribed herein. Neither is collected or listed in <a href="https://archive.org/details/hermanmelvilleco0000unse/page/n9/mode/2up" target="_blank">Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews</a>, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995). The appearance of these reviews in August 1866 came remarkably early in the critical reception of <i>Battle-Pieces</i>, first published in New York on August 23rd. Of items collected in <i>Contemporary Reviews</i>, only the New York <i>Times</i> review on August 27th predates "Arms and the Man I Sing," as the first take on <i>Battle-Pieces</i> in the Hamilton <i>Spectator</i> was allusively and humorously titled.*</p><p><a href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hamilton.County_Wentworth.1859.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;" title="Drawn. by C. S. Rice. Published by Rice & Duncan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons"><img alt="Hamilton.County Wentworth.1859" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c5/Hamilton.County_Wentworth.1859.jpg/512px-Hamilton.County_Wentworth.1859.jpg" /></a></p><p>"C. W." on the masthead of the Hamilton <i>Spectator </i>stands for <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Canada-West" target="_blank">Canada West</a>, a designation for Ontario province before <a href="https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/confederation" target="_blank">Confederation</a> in 1867 when </p><p></p><blockquote>"Canada East became the province of Quebec and Canada West became the province of Ontario." -- <a href="https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canada-west" target="_blank">Canada West -The Canadian Encyclopedia</a></blockquote><p></p><p>Described in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Gl4DAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA174&lpg=PA174&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">A History of Canadian Journalism</a> (Toronto, 1908) as "Conservative, but independent and progressive," <a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/the-hamilton-spectator/article_627b7643-6ff0-5574-9c83-141e878e3ea9.html" target="_blank">The Hamilton Spectator</a> was then conducted by the White brothers, Thomas and Richard. <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/white_thomas_1830_88_11E.html" target="_blank">Journalist-politician Thomas White</a> (1830-1888) had recently purchased the newspaper from <a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/hamilton-region/flashbacks-hamilton/pre-confederation-spectator-is-a-time-capsule-from-the-past/article_5b9d26a5-12cb-5528-b5e3-b038ab5dad79.html" target="_blank">William Gillespy</a> (1824-1886), two years before the reviews of <i>Battle-Pieces </i>were published.</p><p></p><blockquote>"Hon. Thomas White bought out William Gillespy in 1864 and was present to represent <i>The Spectator</i> at the festivities on July 1, 1867. In 1870 he turned his holdings over to his editor David McCulloch and left for Montreal and <i>The Gazette</i>."</blockquote><p></p><blockquote><div></div></blockquote><p><a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/the-hamilton-spectator/article_627b7643-6ff0-5574-9c83-141e878e3ea9.html" target="_blank"></a></p><blockquote><a href="https://www.thespec.com/news/the-hamilton-spectator/article_627b7643-6ff0-5574-9c83-141e878e3ea9.html" target="_blank">https://www.thespec.com/news/the-hamilton-spectator/article_627b7643-6ff0-5574-9c83-141e878e3ea9.html</a></blockquote><p></p><p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bzCC-aKnrLWyc0TkV6WNT9XbXA6LKNU3XdbS_mv2ukkZfCDkkC0yDJYDf2iUBi6pTJUWhgFF_WERcwEh96HhMAseP02oagEYd0eyGDnKG_Ejdt3vm4ispMGr0dS1xoSG6dR09P7kcLghIz1XY_jBKAhFYb_jBZCIIzXdlMvDOSU_oaW2gYHsy2IUjyAw/s580/Thomas-White.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-bzCC-aKnrLWyc0TkV6WNT9XbXA6LKNU3XdbS_mv2ukkZfCDkkC0yDJYDf2iUBi6pTJUWhgFF_WERcwEh96HhMAseP02oagEYd0eyGDnKG_Ejdt3vm4ispMGr0dS1xoSG6dR09P7kcLghIz1XY_jBKAhFYb_jBZCIIzXdlMvDOSU_oaW2gYHsy2IUjyAw/s16000/Thomas-White.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thomas White (1830-1888)</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><blockquote>"White was an able journalist. He was unusually well informed, and blessed with a cool, transparent style devoid of affectation but lively and humorous. On the issue of confederation the <i>Spectator</i> was as close to Macdonald’s sentiments as any Conservative paper. It reflected his view that the principle of federation was a necessary but nevertheless dangerous American import...." </blockquote><blockquote>-- P. B. Waite, <a href="http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio.php?id=white_thomas_1830_88_11E.html" target="_blank">Dictionary of Canadian Biography</a></blockquote>Somebody who knows more about Thomas White and his writings may be able to tell if the "lively and humorous" style ascribed to him by Canadian historian P. B. Waite characteristically packs the sarcastic punch delivered in these delightfully negative notices of Melville's Civil War poems. After White's death, a column in the Liberal-leaning Toronto <i>Globe</i> duly memorialized that newspaper's former political rival as "essentially a party man and often a hard hitter," albeit one who "was seldom charged with exhibiting rancor or malice" ("The 'Globe's' Sympathy," reprinted in the Montreal <i>Gazette</i> on April 23, 1888). <p>S<i>eldom</i> was Tom White accused of being a great hater, but not <i>never</i>.</p><p>Whoever he was, the critic who tagged Melville as "the American Homer" (even worse, "the New York Homer") in the Hamilton <i>Spectator</i> understood better than many friendlier commentators the classical background and epic scope of <i>Battle-Pieces</i>, features also evident a decade later in <a href="https://archive.org/details/clarelpoempilgri0013melv/page/n5/mode/2up" target="_blank">Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land</a> (1876).</p><div><p><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-hamilton-spectator/138846213/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=138846213&width=700&height=1630&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 28 Aug 1866, Tue <em>The Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a></p><p></p><div style="text-align: left;">Transcribed below from the Hamilton <i>Spectator, </i>August 28, 1866, page 2:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><h1 style="text-align: center;">"ARMS AND THE MAN I SING." </h1><blockquote><p>Not the least among the many trials which the people of the United States have had to endure, not the least among the hideous calamities which war brought in its train was the swarm of halting, lame, and simply idiotic poets, who at the sound of the first cannon, poured forth from their hiding places, deluging every newspaper and magazine with their patriotic but puerile productions. Since the war ended the majority of these gentry have lapsed into silence, but some of them are evidently very hard to get rid of. For instance, one of them, ambitious of becoming the American Homer of the late contest, has been doing up the events of the war in rhyme. Homer was never appreciated until after his death, but we much question whether the New York Homer (for there can be no doubt, we believe, that that city has the honor of being his birthplace) will ever attain to immortal fame. Grant is the Agamemnon, the "King of men" whom his verse delights to honor, while Sherman occupies about the same position as that of Achilles in the Grecian poet's verse. Grant's campaign in the Cumberland Valley is thus beautifully introduced:</p></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">"We learn that General Grant,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Marching from Henry overland,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">And joined by a force up the Cumberland sent,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Some thirty thousand the command." etc.</blockquote></blockquote><div><blockquote><p>* * * * * * * * *</p><p>When Grant has invested Fort Donaldson [Donelson], the "poet" sings,</p></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Grant's investment's complete,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">A semi-circular one,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Both wings of the Cumberland's margins meet, etc.</blockquote></blockquote><div><blockquote><p>* * * * * * * * *</p><p>Whenever a victory is won he comes out in small capitals, and thus in the following patriotic but slightly ambiguous lines, he commemorates the capture of the fort:</p></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> Glorious victory of the fleet!</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Friday's great event!</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> The enemy's water batteries beat ! ! </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">We silenced every gun !</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"> The old commander's [Commodore's] compliments sent</blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;">Plump into Donaldson !</blockquote></blockquote><div><blockquote><p>This is a fair specimen of the rest of the trash which we are told is elegantly bound in blue and gold by Harper & Brothers, and sold at a high figure in New York. </p></blockquote></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-hamilton-spectator/138843810/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=138843810&width=700&height=2262&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 30 Aug 1866, Thu <em>The Hamilton Spectator (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a></div></blockquote><p>Transcribed below from the Hamilton <i>Spectator</i>, August 30, 1866, page 1: </p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div>BATTLE PIECES, by Herman Melville. Hamilton: George Barnes & Co; New York: Harper Brothers. -- We made some allusion to this work in yesterday's <i>Spectator</i>, [August 28, "Arms and the Man I Sing"] and have since received a copy of it from Messrs. Barnes & Co. We refrain from criticism, but give a few specimens of Mr. Melville's Battle Pieces. Possibly they may find some admirers. With reference to the surrender of Mason and Slidell, the American Homer says--</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>"The bitter cup</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>Of that hard countermand</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>Which gave the Envoys up</div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>Still is wormwood in the mouth." </div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><p>It is certain that Mr. Melville's "poetical honey" will not be sufficient to sweeten the nauseating draught.</p><div style="text-align: left;">Speaking of the "Stone Fleet" sunk before Charleston, this sweet songster says of one of them which had been a whaler--</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>"Her bones were sold (escheat),<br />Ah, Stone Fleet."<br /></blockquote></div></blockquote><p></p><blockquote>This is decidedly touching, and sufficient to bring tears to the eyes of old Farragut himself. The "Wreck of the Royal George" cannot certainly be compared with it. Still further he says, referring to the names of four of the scuttled vessels--</blockquote><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><blockquote>"Four were erst patrician keels,<br />(Names attest what families be)<br />The Kensington and Richmond too;<br />Leonidas and Lee:<br /> But now they have their seat<br /> With the old Stone Fleet." </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">The poet fails to recognize the retributive justice here displayed. What business had the Republican marine with vessels rejoicing in such patrician names? But it is in the account of the Donelson Fight that Mr. Melville chiefly displays his peculiar talent for writing verses without sense or rythm [rhythm]. We are told among other extraordinary things, that the sole uniform worn by the Southern defenders of Donelson was</div><blockquote>"A sort of patch or white badge (as you choose)<br /> Upon the arm." </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">This is an even more abbreviated costume than that worn by the Arkansas gentleman, whose full dress consisted of a shirt collar with a pair of spurs. A soldier uniformed in a white patch on his arm would have a startling effect. Mr. Melville is evidently fond of bitter bowls, for here again, in this same poem of Donelson, we read that</div><div style="text-align: left;"><blockquote>"Next day brought a bitterer bowl."</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: left;">The following is the commencement of what is called "a canticle expressive of national exaltation." The writer evidently thinks that the more incomprehensible he can be the better. The first stanza is certainly beyond our comprehension--</div><br /></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">"Oh! the precipice Titanic</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"> Of the congregated Fall,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">And the angle oceanic,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"> Where the deepening thunders call,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">And the gorge so grim,</blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;">And the firmamental rim." </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"> </blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">A long effusion entitled "The Scout Towards Aldie" is principally descriptive of the doings of Mosby. The following verse is a fair specimen. A U. S. officer frantically exclaims:</div><blockquote>"Where's the advance? Cut off, by Heaven!<br /> Come, Surgeon, how with your wounded there?<br />The ambulance will carry all;<br /> We'll get them in, we go to camp;<br /> We'll get them in, we go to camp;<br />Seven prisoners gone, for the rest have care; </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">Then to himself--</div><blockquote>"This grief is gall;<br />That Mosby! I'll cast a silver ball!" </blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">He did cast a silver ball, but does not appear to have done much execution with it. </div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"> </div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">It is unnecessary to make any more extracts: the above may be taken as a fair specimen of these "Battle Pieces."</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/battlepiecesanda00melvrich" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe><br /><p>* Early critical responses to <i>Battle-Pieces</i> discovered after the 1995 publication of <i>Herman Melville: The Contemporary Reviews </i>include </p><p></p><ul><li>"Books Received," New York Daily <i>Tribune</i>, August 23, 1866.</li></ul><ul><li>Boston <i>Daily Advertiser</i>, August 24, 1866. Brief notice with mention of Melville's prose Supplement as "a political essay"; cited by Hershel Parker in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=5bI50n5WImkC&pg=PA616&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Herman Melville: A Biography</a> Volume 2, 1851-1891 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002) page 616. Now accessible on <a href="http://genealogybank.com" target="_blank">genealogybank.com</a>.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Washington, D. C. <i>Sunday Morning Chronicle</i>, August 26, 1866. Discovered and transcribed by Richard E. Winslow III in "New Melville Reviews Surface," <a href="https://sites.hofstra.edu/melville-society-extracts/" target="_blank">Melville Society Extracts</a> 113 (June 1998) at page 11.</li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Philadelphia <i>Press</i>, August 27, 1866. First presented by Gary Scharnhorst in "More Uncollected Melville Reviews and Notices," <a href="https://sites.hofstra.edu/melville-society-extracts/" target="_blank">Melville Society Extracts</a> 106 (September 1996) pages 13-14. Digital image of the original notice is now accessible online via <a href="http://genealogybank.com">genealogybank.com</a>. </li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Philadelphia <i>Daily Evening Telegraph</i>, August 29, 1866. Accessible via <a href="http://newspaperarchive.com" target="_blank">newspaperarchive.com</a></li></ul><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><i>American Presbyterian</i> (Philadelphia, PA) August 30, 1866. Found at <a href="http://newspaperarchive.com" target="_blank">newspaperarchive.com</a> in December 2019 and transcribed on Melvilliana:</li></ul></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/american-presbyterian-notice-of-battle.html" target="_blank">American Presbyterian Notice of Battle-Pieces</a> </div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2019/12/american-presbyterian-notice-of-battle.html</div></blockquote><div><ul><li>Boston <i>Post</i>, August 30, 1866. First inventoried and partly transcribed by Richard E. Winslow III in "Contemporary Notice of Melville at Home and Abroad," <a href="https://sites.hofstra.edu/melville-society-extracts/" target="_blank">Melville Society Extracts</a> 106 (September 1996) at page 10. Digital image is now accessible online via <a href="http://newspaperarchive.com" target="_blank">newspaperarchive.com</a>.</li></ul><ul><li>Portland <i>Daily Press</i> (Portland, Maine) August 30, 1866. Discovered and transcribed by Richard E. Winslow III in "New Melville Reviews Surface," <a href="https://sites.hofstra.edu/melville-society-extracts/" target="_blank">Melville Society Extracts</a> 113 (June 1998) at page 11. Now accessible online via <a href="http://newspapers.com">newspapers.com</a>.</li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-2492121682283837902024-01-15T12:03:00.009-06:002024-01-15T12:58:49.860-06:00BENITO CERENO praised in Oquawka, maybe by Edwin H. N. Patterson<div style="text-align: left;">Established in February 1848 by <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/62557024/john-b-patterson" target="_blank">John Barton Patterson</a> (1805-1890), the <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84038579/" target="_blank">Oquawka Spectator</a><i> </i>was a weekly newspaper published in the <a href="https://mississippivalleytraveler.com/oquawka/" target="_blank">busy Mississippi River port</a> of Oquawka, Illinois. As announced on the masthead, the <i>Spectator</i> aimed to be family friendly and "neutral in politics and religion." Founder <a href="https://digital.lib.niu.edu/islandora/object/niu-lincoln:31210" target="_blank">J. B. Patterson</a>, formerly of Winchester, Virginia, had served as a private with the Illinois Militia during the <a href="https://digital.lib.niu.edu/illinois/lincoln/topics/blackhawk/phases" target="_blank">Black Hawk War</a> and <a href="https://www.wvik.org/2022-09-29/black-hawks-autobiography" target="_blank">famously edited and published</a> the 1834 <a href="https://archive.org/details/GR_314/page/n9/mode/2up" target="_blank">Life of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak or Black Hawk</a>. Patterson's son <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/people/patteehn.htm" target="_blank">Edwin Howard Norton Patterson</a> (1828-1880) became the assistant editor and in 1849 took over "the management of the Spectator and its job-printing office" according to Mary Elizabeth Phillips in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dzNbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1401&lpg=PA1401&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Edgar Allan Poe, the Man</a> Volume 2 (John C. Winston Co., 1926). </div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRQlcrsRMYNm9GmT_tdxDkmQtrGeR0xPo5Qe-aOKI5Sw0KH4sxL0QSUcavlbKXjbG-u50JdeTnJJloS1smRim7i7QbuQrNvO8GxsnZZ4tN-EugSdN28rXy8FBqqArPqrYDCDqjje8JIgbMYg9zUyTV-0H81Po0nkAJ6wddrs-mrm_uNvj5p9X4dQJbXhDP/s450/EHN-Patterson.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="321" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRQlcrsRMYNm9GmT_tdxDkmQtrGeR0xPo5Qe-aOKI5Sw0KH4sxL0QSUcavlbKXjbG-u50JdeTnJJloS1smRim7i7QbuQrNvO8GxsnZZ4tN-EugSdN28rXy8FBqqArPqrYDCDqjje8JIgbMYg9zUyTV-0H81Po0nkAJ6wddrs-mrm_uNvj5p9X4dQJbXhDP/s16000/EHN-Patterson.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">E. H. N. Patterson<br />via <a href="https://www.eapoe.org/people/patteehn.htm" target="_blank">Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div>Edwin (called "Edward" in some sources, apparently in error) journeyed further west in 1850 looking for better health and California gold, but he was back in Illinois before the end of 1851. During his absence from Oquawka, the younger Patterson contributed <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~bbunce77/genealogy/1849GoldRush.html" target="_blank">first-hand sketches</a> of the "Overland Route" to California and evidently retained his connection to the <i>Spectator</i> as Junior Editor. E. H. N. Patterson married the former Miss Laura Phelps in Oquawka on New Year's Day 1852, as reported in the Oquawka <i>Spectator</i> for January 7, 1852. </div><div><br /></div><div>Both E. H. N. Patterson and his father J. B. Patterson were named on the masthead as co-editors of the Oquawka <i>Spectator</i> when Melville's short fiction "Benito Cereno" (just concluded in the December issue of <i>Putnam's Monthly</i>) was praised on December 7, 1855 as "the best tale we have read for a long time." "Benito Cereno" originally appeared in three installments, published in the October, November, and December 1855 issues of <i>Putnam's</i> magazine. Before the December review, the Oquawka <i>Spectator</i> of November 9, 1855 already had remarked "a continuation of that unique story of 'Benito Cereno'" in the November issue of <i>Putnam's. </i>Either editor might have contributed unsigned literary notices of <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/msu.31293020757120?urlappend=%3Bseq=3%3Bownerid=13510798902728031-7" target="_blank">Putnam's Monthly Magazine</a><i>, </i>including the one transcribed below. Tentative assignment to E. H. N. Patterson seems most appealing in view of the younger Patterson's known affinity for the writings of Edgar Allan Poe, with whom he had corresponded in high hopes of establishing a new literary magazine in western Illinois with his hero at the helm. </div><div><br /><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/oquawka-spectator/138741677/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=138741677&width=700&height=519&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 07 Dec 1855, Fri <em>Oquawka Spectator (Oquawka, Illinois)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a></div><div><blockquote>PUTNAM"S MONTHLY:— Dix & Edwards, N. Y. Terms: $3 per annum; the Monthly & Household Words $5; the Monthly or Household Words, with the School fellow $3.50; all three $5.50.</blockquote></div><div><blockquote>The December number of this leading Magazine is before us. The contents embrace nineteen choice articles, and copious Editorial Notes. As articles especially pleasing we may enumerate "How I came to be married," "The Virginia Springs," "Low Life in the Sahara," "The Green Lakes of Onondaga," <span style="background-color: #d9ead3;">and "Benito Cereno." The latter is concluded in this number; and is the best tale we have read for a long time—the style and manner of the lamented POE are closely imitated.</span> The literature of Putnam is of the highest order, and has gained it a lofty position. For the coming year, the publishers promise an increasing excellence in every department, but we can assure the public that it is good enough now.</blockquote><blockquote><p>-- <a href="https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84038579/" target="_blank">Oquawka Spectator & Keithsburg Observer</a>, December 7, 1855.</p></blockquote><p>Later, the influence of Poe on the book version of "Benito Cereno" was suggested in a review of <a href="https://archive.org/details/piazztales00melvrich/page/108/mode/2up" target="_blank">The Piazza Tales</a> that appeared in the New York <i>Dispatch </i>on June 8, 1856. For the New York reviewer, "Benito Cereno"</p><blockquote><p>"opens with a mysticism which reminds us of Edgar Poe's prose tales, and this mysticism is admirably preserved, even deepening in every character to the end, when all appears as clear as the sun at noon-day."</p></blockquote><p>Accessible online via <a href="http://genealogybank.com" target="_blank">genealogybank.com</a>, the New York <i>Dispatch</i> review of <i>The Piazza Tales</i> is helpfully transcribed in <a href="https://archive.org/details/hermanmelvilleco0000unse/page/n9/mode/2up" target="_blank">Herman Melville: the Contemporary Reviews</a>, edited by Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker (Cambridge University Press, 1995) at page 477.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYw9U7YgcZMuSAo4jdWi9D5oserfxuCw2uBGqHwBKlBfWSag0j9mvAL_SLa_JwlPJDFLXrkZWCaAXPkHrXeKhsXJfezBzLxHee2Iu0JdNk0qPGsaRuMqKHqViiH71Ww9kdK1jcCKnuEDOh2XAW3h8tW8U1KaOt99uSecJDntCR4x6mT2ebGHU3M1t0rDYG/s1033/New-York_dispatch_1856-06-08_5.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1033" data-original-width="750" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYw9U7YgcZMuSAo4jdWi9D5oserfxuCw2uBGqHwBKlBfWSag0j9mvAL_SLa_JwlPJDFLXrkZWCaAXPkHrXeKhsXJfezBzLxHee2Iu0JdNk0qPGsaRuMqKHqViiH71Ww9kdK1jcCKnuEDOh2XAW3h8tW8U1KaOt99uSecJDntCR4x6mT2ebGHU3M1t0rDYG/w465-h640/New-York_dispatch_1856-06-08_5.png" width="465" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New York <i>Dispatch</i> - June 8, 1856</td></tr></tbody></table><p>E. H. N. Patterson's "youthful" and "ardent" fascination with Poe is discussed by Mary E. Phillips in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=dzNbAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1401&lpg=PA1401&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Edgar Allan Poe, the Man</a> Volume 2 (John C. Winston Co., 1926) at page 1401:</p></div><div><blockquote>September, 1835, J. B. Patterson, of Winchester, Va., settled at Oquawka, Ill. A year later, joined by his wife and son—Edward H. N. Patterson, a young man of literary taste and ability—the elder Patterson founded the weekly <i>Oquawka</i> <i>Spectator</i>. Prudently reared in all ways, and in constant touch with the best books and magazine literature, Edward H. N. Patterson came of age January, 1849. Then his father turned over to him the management of the <i>Spectator</i> and its job-printing office. Full of youthful confidence, he cherished the ambition of making a name in the world of letters. Among those who stood for conspicuous eminence in American literature of that time was Edgar Allan Poe, who, as a journalist, young Patterson had followed from Editor Poe's <i>Southern Literary Messenger</i> days to the passing on of his <i>Broadway Journal</i>, with fascinated admiration for the poet's genius. For Poe's endless and varied adversities, Patterson felt and expressed an ardent sympathy. Thereby and then, he was moved, December, 1848, to make to Poe a letter appeal to come West and join him in a new periodical venture.</blockquote>For more on the younger Patterson's unrealized scheme to engage Edgar Allan Poe as editor of a new literary journal in Oquawka, check out<p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>M. D. McElroy, “Poe's Last Partner: E. H. N. Patterson of Oquawka, Illinois.” <i>Papers on Language & Literature</i> 7 (Summer 1971): 252-71.<br /><a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/d6bb3b3fb0956e49e02496436f34e2a7/" target="_blank">https://www.proquest.com/openview/d6bb3b3fb0956e49e02496436f34e2a7/</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://www.thezephyr.com/poequawka.htm" target="_blank">https://www.thezephyr.com/poequawka.htm</a></li></ul><ul><li><a href="https://jeffrankin.medium.com/might-edgar-allan-poe-have-made-oquawka-a-literary-hub-6ea6e8c31091">https://jeffrankin.medium.com/might-edgar-allan-poe-have-made-oquawka-a-literary-hub-6ea6e8c31091</a></li></ul><p><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-rock-island-argus/138749581/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=138749581&width=700&height=2453&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 05 May 1880, Wed <em>The Rock Island Argus (Rock Island, Illinois)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a></p><p>Related post:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li>Benito Cereno in Louisville<br /><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/11/benito-cereno-in-louisville.html" target="_blank">https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/11/benito-cereno-in-louisville.html</a></li></ul></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-91188531249289473802024-01-15T09:59:00.001-06:002024-01-15T09:59:12.304-06:001960 HITS ARCHIVE: Ooh Poo Pah Doo - Jessie Hill<iframe style="background-image:url(https://i.ytimg.com/vi/UFnKWUjvdk8/hqdefault.jpg)" width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/UFnKWUjvdk8?si=Pj8a71oyCCOWhD2a" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-37486613211940580972024-01-14T07:36:00.006-06:002024-01-14T09:00:29.402-06:00Project MUSE - Anatomy of an Interpretive Controversy: The Case of Benito Cereno<div><div><a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/756881">Project MUSE - Anatomy of an Interpretive Controversy: The Case of <i>Benito Cereno</i></a></div></div><div><br /></div>Reading the first page of this 2020 article by Daniel Avitzour in <i>Partial Answers</i>, I was impressed by the clear, jargon-free intro. Subscribed online to get the rest of it.<br /><br />I'm very sorry to learn of the writer's "untimely death" shortly after the acceptance of his excellent article. David Fishelov at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem remembers him as <blockquote>"a rare individual who combined a keen analytical mind – Avitzour held a PhD in mathematics and enjoyed a successful career as an engineer – with the sensitivity of a perceptive literary critic, attentive to the complexities of literary texts..."</blockquote><blockquote><p><a href="https://partialanswers.huji.ac.il/publications/anatomy-interpretive-controversy-case-benito-cereno" target="_blank">https://partialanswers.huji.ac.il/publications/anatomy-interpretive-controversy-case-benito-cereno</a></p></blockquote><p>Had I known of it then, I would have cited Avitzour's 2020 article in my 2021 post on <a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2021/04/memory-holes-in-broadview-benito-cereno.html" target="_blank">Memory Holes in the Broadview Benito Cereno</a>. Without trying to do more than state a known, easily verifiable fact, Avitzour in the first sentence provides a succinct correction to the myth-making attempted by editor Brian Yothers in his introduction to the Broadview student edition of <i>Benito Cereno.</i></p><div><blockquote><p>"Herman Melville's novella <i>Benito Cereno</i> has been held in high esteem ever since the 'Melville revival' of the 1920's."</p></blockquote><blockquote><p><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 14px;">Avitzour, Daniel. "Anatomy of an Interpretive Controversy: The Case of </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit;">Benito Cereno</i><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 14px;">." </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit;">Partial Answers: Journal of Literature and the History of Ideas</i><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 14px;">, vol. 18 no. 2, 2020, p. 191-212. </span><i style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #0a0a0a; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit;">Project MUSE</i><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 14px;">, </span><a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/pan.2020.0020" style="background-color: white; box-sizing: inherit; color: #315fa0; cursor: pointer; font-family: "Source Sans Pro", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: inherit; overflow-wrap: break-word; text-decoration-line: none;">https://doi.org/10.1353/pan.2020.0020</a><span face=""Source Sans Pro", sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #0a0a0a; font-size: 14px;">.</span></p></blockquote></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-12144702095180467762024-01-10T11:34:00.003-06:002024-01-10T11:34:55.304-06:001996 Taratata - Joe Cocker & Tony Joe White <iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/cZ-_KKFUQq8?si=4fvpz21w6GyoVJA7" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-24697831173045086622024-01-06T05:48:00.003-06:002024-01-06T05:48:46.919-06:002024 Moby-Dick Marathon<iframe width="480" height="360" src="https://youtube.com/embed/1yotqlSznpg?si=4f_bj2OClBQP_vE4" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-72069387557138810182024-01-05T09:04:00.007-06:002024-01-05T10:23:54.570-06:00Spadework<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/recognitionofher00park" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />Edward R. Hagemann, Marine Corps officer and veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II, reviewing Hershel Parker's compilation <i>The Recognition of Herman Melville</i> (University of Michigan Press, 1967) in the Louisville <i>Courier-Journal</i> on September 17, 1967:<p></p><blockquote><p>THERE IS present today in American literature, as taught in American colleges, an unrivaled quadrumvirate of writers, Hawthorne, Melville, Twain and James, who have written (according to the writ of teachers) a tetrad of novels, "The Scarlet Letter," "Moby-Dick," "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," and 'The Ambassadors," that demands nothing short of tetratheism from the novice and the adept. That this was not always the case with one member of the quadrumvirate is demonstrable in Prof. Hershel Parker's "The Recognition of Herman Melville," a selection of criticism of most of his work since 1846, divided into four parts, "Reviews and Early Appraisals," "Academic Neglect," "The Melville Revival," and "Academic Recognition." ...</p></blockquote><blockquote>... Prof. Parker has performed a specially valuable task in bringing together for the most part little-known criticism from the 19th century. A few essays from the 20th century are not known either, but too many, particularly from 1938 onward, are easily available elsewhere. Therefore, Prof. Milton R. Stern's "Discussions of Moby-Dick" (Heath, 1960) is still valuable.</blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote>The spadework for "Recognition" was done by Prof. Hugh W. Hetherington in his "Melville's Reviewers" (1961) and Parker should have said so. Therefore, there is nothing new about the five reviews of "Moby-Dick" with the fine exception of William T. Porter's newly discovered piece in the "Spirit of the Times."</blockquote><a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-courier-journal/76325506/" style="display: block; text-decoration: none;" target="_parent"><img alt="" src="https://img.newspapers.com/img/img?clippingId=76325506&width=700&height=608&ts=1607535806" style="max-width: 100%;" /><span style="color: #747474; display: block; font: 13px helvetica, sans-serif; max-width: 700px; padding: 4px 0px;"><strong></strong> 17 Sep 1967, Sun <em>The Courier-Journal (Louisville, Kentucky)</em> Newspapers.com</span></a>
<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/melvillesreviewe2387heth" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe><br />Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-54507686911993227802024-01-03T13:01:00.002-06:002024-01-03T13:02:39.696-06:00Melville's Reviewers, British and American, 1846-1891<p> by Hugh W. Hetherington. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961.</p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="384" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://archive.org/embed/melvillesreviewe2387heth" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="560"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-87962482373716500712023-12-22T08:23:00.002-06:002023-12-22T08:40:50.902-06:00Evert Duyckinck on Christmastime festivities in Manhattan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyl_j3WQ45hnrEMRIJkGBt7bgyyC7YXNHMeVXhXOW5T3ZTPnmPPIga1Rj7jkPaZwtReHCuepMLOrqd1hyphenhyphenT3E1BWoaDvhOi5JVKxueaD_K0R_j2VknlvI-d1LAWD4S1gbSNQI-9jS3GRbOEm7_c-XZ9zfeoU5qolyh4wSSrId_4kLdoU_CC62ofqqnFI9Id/s1640/1884-Santa.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1640" data-original-width="1227" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyl_j3WQ45hnrEMRIJkGBt7bgyyC7YXNHMeVXhXOW5T3ZTPnmPPIga1Rj7jkPaZwtReHCuepMLOrqd1hyphenhyphenT3E1BWoaDvhOi5JVKxueaD_K0R_j2VknlvI-d1LAWD4S1gbSNQI-9jS3GRbOEm7_c-XZ9zfeoU5qolyh4wSSrId_4kLdoU_CC62ofqqnFI9Id/w479-h640/1884-Santa.png" width="479" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>Excerpted below from <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31175029450734?urlappend=%3Bseq=709%3Bownerid=117897655-715" target="_blank">Life in New York City in its Later Colonial Days</a> by Evert A. Duyckinck, as posthumously published in <a href="https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006062044" target="_blank">Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly</a> Volume 17, June 1884 page 691. This installment was part of <br /><blockquote><p></p>"<i>a series of articles which present in a style full of attraction and charm the early annals of the City of New York. They were the literary work of one who was acknowledged for many years the finest literary scholar and critic of the city, and a work, too, for which he devoted the best gifts of his intellect, for he claimed descent from one of the earliest settlers of the city</i>."</blockquote><blockquote><p></p></blockquote>The series began in the January 1884 issue and was there represented as Duyckinck's<i> "last work and one of which he felt a just pride</i>." The Christmas matter would be reprinted two years later in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=7Fs2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA203&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false" target="_blank">Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine</a> for March 1886, on pages 203-6 of the article titled "The Origin of the New York Churches."<div><br /></div><div>By <i>Manhattoes</i> Duyckinck means "New Yorkers":<br /><blockquote>There were several national or religious festivals kept by the Dutch in New Amsterdam: Christmas, New Year's Day, Paas or Easter, Pinxter at Whitsuntide, and Santa Claus or St. Nicholas Day. Some of the peculiar Dutch honors of the last have been transferred to Christmas ; particularly the visit of St. Nicholas, who, to the wondering children of Manhattan, on the eve of the sacred day, still, as of yore, a burly, benevolent figure, clad in his ancient furry habiliments, a pipe in his mouth, a capacious, well-filled hamper of toys on his back, rides in his airy sleigh, swiftly borne by his reindeer-team, over the roofs of the houses, descending, spite of narrow flues and modern contracted chimneys, to fill the stockings suspended, in expectation of his gifts, at the mantel corner.<br /><br />The faith in the old legend of St. Nicholas, patron of the Manhattoes, would, with other superstitions of the past, doubtless have died out long ago were it not invigorated by these perennial gifts and bounties. There is practically no discrediting a belief which is backed by such unfailing beneficence. We,"children of a larger growth," hoodwink our perceptions and act upon it every day in our intercourse with society and estimate of character, feigning to believe in more doubtful virtues than those of the boy-saint. Besides, has not Weir painted the scene? and has it not been described by one of the best of men in most exquisite rhymes ?—</blockquote><blockquote>"The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow <br />Gave the lustre of midday to objects below, <br />When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, <br />But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer, <br />With a little old driver, so lively and quick,<br />I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick. </blockquote><blockquote><p>* * * * </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof </div><div>The prancing and pawing of each little hoof— </div><div>As I drew in my head, and was turning around, </div><div>Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound,</div><div>He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,</div><div>And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot; </div><div>A bundle of toys he had flung on his back, </div><div>And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack. </div><div>His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!</div><div>His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! </div><div>His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, </div><div>And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow: </div><div>The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, </div><div>And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath, </div><div>He had a broad face and a little round belly, </div><div>That shook when he laughed, like a bowlfull of jelly." *</div></blockquote></div><div><blockquote>* Poems by Clement C. Moore, LL.D.: 1844, pp. 125-6.</blockquote><blockquote>This is the children's saint of the Manhattoes, fixed in his great lineaments for all time.<br /><br />Saint Nicholas Day, if lost to the juveniles, is not forgotten by the elders, the representative men of the race of the older dynasty, the members of the venerable St. Nicholas Society of the city, who annually meet on the Saint's day—the 6th of December—to feast on the old dainties, and continue the old festive observances of the fatherland. The Society, as we learn from an oration delivered at one of its anniversaries by that worthy descendant from the old stock, Mr. James W. Beekman, had its public observance of the day in New York immediately preceding the Revolution, when the impending war, as in the season of struggle in Holland, taught men the virtue of joining hands in friendly association and of uniting their sympathies in cheerful enjoyment.<br /><br />The old Dutch observance of New Year's Day also happily survives in the modern metropolis. It was, as it is now, a day peculiarly dedicated to family congratulations and the renewal of friendships in expressions of sympathy and goodwill, which, following so closely upon the sacred festival of Christmas, may well be inspired with a peculiar significance. On that day, in old New York, the citizens thronged to the Fort to pay their respects to the Governor, with their "compliments of the season"<span face=""LFT Etica", arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #252528; font-size: 18px;">—</span>a familiar and convenient phrase in use on these occasions time out of mind.* The clergy, too, were similarly honored, and with something more substantial in various hospitable gifts. The English," says Chaplain Wolley, in his narrative already cited, "observed one anniversary custom, and that without superstition. I mean the <i>strenarum commercium</i>, as Suetonius calls them, a neighborly commerce of presents every New Year's Day. Some would send me a sugar-loaf, some a pair of gloves, some a bottle or two of wine. In a word, the English merchants and factors were very unanimous and obliging." In the olden time, with the compact, neighborly arrangement of the town, hemmed in by its two rivers and clustering round the Fort, when an easy stroll of the pedestrian carried him in a few minutes from one end to the other of its fashionable streets, the friendly calls of the day were easily maintained.</blockquote><blockquote>New York, as Washington Irving has said, was then "a handy city," and "any one who did not live over the way was to be found round the corner." The good people of Manhattan were, in fact, almost as near to one another as the occupants of a modern mammoth hotel, and a regard for one another's feelings was essential to home comfort. The city has outgrown many old usages, and, it must be confessed, has in its "magnificent distances" rendered the observance of New Year's Day in the old style rather onerous, but still it is maintained in perhaps the most thoroughly kept holiday of the year. Nor, as a genuine record of these antique observances, should we forget the New Year cake handed down in its primitive shapes from our forefathers. </blockquote><blockquote>* See a notice of the usage in a letter of Governor Colden to the Earl of Hillsborough, January 6th, 1770. Col. Doc. VIII., 200.</blockquote>The Google-digitized volume 17 of <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31175029450734?urlappend=%3Bseq=709%3Bownerid=117897655-715" target="_blank">Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly</a> with Duyckinck's "Life in New York City in its Later Colonial Days" is accessible online courtesy of <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.31175029450734?urlappend=%3Bseq=709%3Bownerid=117897655-715" target="_blank">HathiTrust Digital Library</a><br /><blockquote><a href="https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000000492084?urlappend=%3Bseq=710%3Bownerid=13510798895696212-722" target="_blank">https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.32000000492084?urlappend=%3Bseq=710%3Bownerid=13510798895696212-722</a></blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2SoqQmoEWNMYLcXfNggsdj6o43iSi_PWm0GVIIMWU7VPY4sOPv44iAzb3WfZMDN8vS7X7nyg1c49z5UWdiAlJiXkcUQV5VDwX2EtB2r9ll0HbpUB392TJDyYIc1_XDXMHbAVG1uF4b339K-LH4iAQ5FYqLhS75wuahhUcJECN0XkoZ5riA8RwFI3uGe9/s760/Evert-A-Duyckinck.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="760" data-original-width="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjj2SoqQmoEWNMYLcXfNggsdj6o43iSi_PWm0GVIIMWU7VPY4sOPv44iAzb3WfZMDN8vS7X7nyg1c49z5UWdiAlJiXkcUQV5VDwX2EtB2r9ll0HbpUB392TJDyYIc1_XDXMHbAVG1uF4b339K-LH4iAQ5FYqLhS75wuahhUcJECN0XkoZ5riA8RwFI3uGe9/s16000/Evert-A-Duyckinck.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evert A. Duyckinck<br />via <a href="https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47df-8e01-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99" target="_blank">NYPL Digital Collections</a></td></tr></tbody></table><p>Related post:</p><p></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><a href="https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/02/evert-duyckinck-on-clement-c-moore-one.html" target="_blank">Evert Duyckinck on Clement C. Moore: "one of the best of men"</a><br />https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2017/02/evert-duyckinck-on-clement-c-moore-one.html </li></ul><p></p></div>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8570718375010661810.post-15943810961295272532023-12-16T05:36:00.002-06:002023-12-16T05:36:14.070-06:00Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns - 'Twas The Night Before Christmas<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/NrdES4xW2W4?si=rAFnk8pBARD-Xh_H" frameborder="0"></iframe>Scott Norsworthyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00458190971293597545noreply@blogger.com1