the highest
idea of purity, the frowning cliffs that palisade the shore, and the
rich masses of foliage that overhang them, tinged a thousand dyes by the
early autumn frost--no one who has observed all this, can doubt the
poetic capabilities of the land.

A seeming solution, indeed, presents itself in the business, utilitarian
character of the people; and this solution would probably be immediately
accepted by very many of our readers. Brother Jonathan thinks and talks
of cotton, and flour, and dollars, and the ups and downs of stocks.
Poetry _doesn't pay_: he can not appreciate, and does not care for it.
"Let me get something for myself," he says, like the churl in
Theocritus. "Let the gods whom he invokes reward the poet. What do we
want with more verse? We have Milton and Shakspeare (whether we read
them or not). He is the poet for me who asks me for nothing;" and so the
poor Muses wither (or as Jonathan himself might say, _wilt_) away, and
perish from inanition and lack of sympathy. Very plausible; but now for
the paradox. So far from disliking, or underrating, or being indifferent
to poetry, the American public is the most eager devourer of it, in any
quantity, and of any quality; nor is there any country in which a
limited capital of inspiration will go farther. Let us suppose two
persons, both equally unknown, putting forth a volume of poems on each
side of the Atlantic; decidedly the chances are, that the American
candidate for poetic fame will find more readers, and more encouragement
in his country, than the British in his. Very copious editions of the
standard English poets are sold every year, generally in a form adapted
to the purses of the million; to further which end they are frequently
bound two or three in a volume (Coleridge, Shelley, and Keats, for
instance, is a favorite combination). Even bardlings like Pollok enjoy a
large number of readers and editions. Nor is there--notwithstanding the
much-complained-of absence of an international copyright law--any
deficiency of home supply for the market. Writing English verses,
indeed, is as much a part of an American's education, as writing Latin
verses is of an Englishman's; recited "poems" always holding a prominent
place among their public collegiate exercises; about every third man,
and every other woman of the liberally-educated classes, writes
occasional rhymes, either for the edification of their private circle,
or the poets'-corner of some of the i