nds in its truth: constituting
it true. To these I present the composition as an Art-Product
alone:---let us say as a Romance; or, if it be not urging too lofty a
claim, as a Poem. What I here propound is true: therefore it cannot die:
or it by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will rise
again to the life everlasting."

When I read "Eureka" I could not help but think it immeasurably superior
as an illustration of genius to the "Vestiges of Creation;" and as I
admired the poem, (except the miserable attempt at humor in what purports
to be a letter found in a bottle floating on the _Mare tenebrarum_,) so I
regretted its pantheism, which is not necessary to its main design. To
some of the objections to his work be made this answer in a letter to Mr.
C.F. Hoffman, then editor of the _Literary World_:

"_Dear Sir_:--In your paper of July 29, I find some comments on 'Eureka,'
a late book of my own; and I know you too well to suppose for a moment,
that you will refuse me the privilege of a few words in reply. I feel,
even, that I might safely claim, from Mr. Hoffman, the right, which every
author has, of replying to his critic _tone for tone_--that is to say, of
answering your correspondent, flippancy by flippancy and sneer by
sneer--but in the first place, I do not wish to disgrace the _World_;
and, in the second, I feel that I never should be done sneering, in the
present instance, were I once to begin. Lamartine blames Voltaire for the
use which he made of (_ruse_) misrepresentation, in his attacks on the
priesthood; but our young students of Theology do not seem to be aware
that in defense or what they fancy to be defense, of Christianity, there
is anything wrong in such gentlemanly peccadillos as the deliberate
perversion of an author's text--to say nothing of the minor _indecora_ of
reviewing a book without reading it and without having the faintest
suspicion of what it is about.

"You will understand that it is merely the _misrepresentations_ of the
_critique_ in question to which I claim the privilege of reply:--the mere
_opinions_ of the writer can be of no consequence to me--and I should
imagine of very little to himself--that is to say if he knows himself,
personally, as well as _I_ have the honor of knowing him. The first
misrepresentation is contained in this sentence:--'This letter is a keen
burlesque on the Aristotelian or Baconian methods of ascertaining Truth,
both of which the writer ridic