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That eminent N. P. Willis! Eminently the poet of good society, says Griswold, who loves (ornare) to adorn him. Eminently amusing, whatever he may write about, says Thackeray, who loves (subridere) to genteelly flout him. Eminent in pencillings and poetisings, as fuilletoniste and as attaché in romantic inklings of adventure and in the conventionalisms of salon life. Eminently the Representative Man of American cockneyism; for, in the lines of his compatriot, Mr. Lowell,
He's so innate a cockney, that had he been born
Where plain bare-skin's the only full dress that is worn,
He'd have given his own such an air that you'd say
'T had been made by a tailor to lounge in Broadway.
This jaunty, pert, quasi-distingué air appertains, more or less, to all the eminent man's writings. Not that it is substituted for good sense, or sagacious reflection at times, or dashing cleverness of description. No; Mr. Willis is a clever writer, and can produce really smart sayings, and even tasteful fancies, almost à discretion. But in reading him you never lose sight, for a couple of pages together, of the writer's intense self-consciousness—of his precautions against being merged in his subject—of his resolve to haunt you with the scent of his perfumed kerchiefs, and the glitter of his jewelled attire, and the creak of his japanned boots: never do you escape, as it were, the jingle of rings on his fingers and rings on his toes, wherewith he makes music wherever he goes—be it to Banbury Cross or the Boulevards, Niagara or Chamouny, Auld Reekie or the literal Modern Athens. While yet in statû pupillari at Yale College, Mr. Willis appeared in print as a "religious" poet, and made something of a sensation it is said. Thus encouraged, volume followed volume—a good sprinkling of "religious" verses in each. There are some excellent things, too, among these miscellanies; nor let it be supposed for a moment that we speak scoffingly of poetry often distinguished by touching beauty and simple purity of tone. Most readers of verse are familiar with that fine scriptural study, the "Healing of the Daughter of Jairus,"—though even that somehow reminds one, with a saving difference, of the scriptural studies of certain Parisian conteurs. "Melanie" is a melodiously accented and feelingly rendered tale of brotherly devotion—for an acquaintance with which many English lovers of poetry felt grateful to its English editor, Barry Cornwall—though Bon Gaultier and other critics express their gratitude somewhat ironically, and, while accusing the poet of perpetually quoting and harping on his poem, love to cap his die-away verses,
The moon shone cold on the castle court,
Oh, Melanie! oh, Melanie!
with some such uncomplimentary complement as this,
And the baron he called for something short,
Oh, villany! oh, villany!
