DISCOURTEOUS CRITICISM.

THERE appeared in the last number of the Advocate a criticism of Mr. Emerson's "Letters and Social Aims," recently published, in which the writer casts reflections on our author's age, insinuating that he detects signs of weakness and loss of pristine vigor; and after finding fault with the titles and subject-matter of these essays, he proceeds to detail to us some gratuitous information about Omar Khayyam, alias Chiam, whom he thinks Mr. Emerson has failed to treat with proper deference and appreciation. In spite of his specious remarks on Khayyam, appearances tend to prove that either our reviewer had a very slight acquaintance with Persian poets, or, happening to stumble on Mr. Fitzgerald's translation of Khayyam, tried to show an acquaintance and familiarity with Persian literature which he did not possess, or had thought he had caught Mr. Emerson napping, - a thing, by the way, which is not often done.

It is a novel and painful spectacle to see a young, unknown, inexperienced undergraduate attempting to censure a litterateur of seventy-three, of matchless erudition and genius, who has assimilated the wisdom of centuries, and who has rightly won the title his countrymen have given him, - the Concord Sage. If by age we mean weakness in body, Mr. Emerson may be old, but in intellect not. Age only adds wisdom to his boundless store of learning. AEsop's fable of the aged Lion and the Ass is just as pertinent to-day as ever. The old Lion is not helpless quite yet. It would have been prudent for the Ass to defer his insult a little longer. He has been too precipitous.

In vain do we search in our relentless critic's article for hearty, unbegrudged praise. Of some of the finest essays not a word. Were he disposed to be fair even, he could hardly fail to acknowledge the merits of "Quotation and Originality," of the "Progress of Culture." His complaint that he finds nothing practical in such a particularly unpractical, un-bread-and-butter subject as "Poetry and Imagination," and his surprise at hearing nothing new or startling on "Immortality," are fair specimens of his captious criticism.

He forgets that truth loses no strength by age, that "Repetition is the mother of Memory," and that some truths cannot be too constantly borne in mind.

It would have been better for our Advocate reviewer to have confined his unchivalrous and uncharitable attacks to Mr. Emerson's advancing age, to grandiloquent remarks on Immortality, and to hunting out obscure passages in these essays, instead of criticising the best Persian scholar in America; for therein he shows a censurable lack of respect for an acknowledged authority and a lamentable amount of ignorance and unfamiliarity with the subject. The writer is surprised that Mr. Emerson did not devote more attention to Omar Khayyam. Why should he? The fact that Omar Khayyam, previously almost unknown from the rarity of his manuscripts, has been recently exhumed, as it were, and dressed up in English, does not prove that he was a great poet, or deserves to be classed with Hafiz, Firdansi, or Nizami. On the contrary, Mr. Emerson, it would seem, shows commendable tact and judgment in not citing more of this astrologer who dabbled in poetry. However, being unable myself to read Persian, it is impossible to judge the accuracy of Mr. Fitzgerald's translation; but certainly in its English garb it approaches, with some notable exceptions, about as near to the boundary of stuff and nonsense as any poetry ever written. I have attentively read Mr. Fitzgerald's translation of Khayyam and Mr. Herman Bickwell's translation of Hafiz, published in 1875 by Trubner Bros., London, and either my judgment is at fault, or the name of Khayyam ought scarcely to be mentioned in the same breath as Hafiz. All those who are interested in Persian literature are recommended to read all of Hafiz's odes and his Sakinamah and Menghanninamah, and to compare them with the best pieces of Rome and Greece. They are probably the best specimens of all Oriental literature, and are as far above Omar Khayyam as heaven is above earth.

Rather than why he did not cite more of Khayyam, the question arises why he did not cite more of poets greatly his superiors. Firdansi, for instance, a remarkably learned and talented poet, made out of the Persian Chronicle a most perfect poem which well repays perusal in a translation ca va sans dire. He has been translated in German, I believe, by Friedrich von Schack, probably with German thoroughness and accuracy. Why did he not say more of Nizami, who celebrated the exploits of Alexander in a long epic called "Sekander-Kamed," and who, besides writing "Khosau and Shirin," wrote a most exquisite and touching love-episode, "Larli and Magnun," which takes about the same place in Persian literature as do "Abelard and Eloisa," "Petrarch and Laura," in the literature of France and Italy? "Larli and Magnun" has been translated into English by Mr. James Atkinson, who has also translated Firdansi's "Shah-Nameh," the history of the ancient kings of Persia. Or why did Mr. Emerson not speak of the "Adventures and Improvisations of Kourroglou," the bandit minstrel of North Persia, whose heroes remind one of those of "Cervantes and Ariosto"? Kourroglou's lament at the death of his steed Ayrat is one of the most beautiful and pathetic elegies in Oriental literature. Why did not Mr. Emerson expatiate on those three bright stars of the literary firmament, and why did he pass over with so little notice Omar Khayyam? Simply because, instead of dwelling on the lesser luminaries, he chose the sun, the brightest of them all, Hafiz. It was not his purpose in this simple essay to give us a complete compendium of Persian literature, embracing all the poets of any note, as Mr. Ticknor has done for Spanish literature. Had Mr. Ticknor, in an essay of this limit, omitted an obscure poet, say Queredo, no one, I dare say, would have been shocked.

Our writer's views on Persian poetry force us to the painful conclusion that his acquaintance with the subject is limited, or that he is gifted with superhuman vision, which enables him to see beauties in an obscure poet invisible to Mr. Emerson's and other mortal eyes. In either case, a careful perusal of Firdansi, Kourroglou, Nizami, Saadi, or Dschami would dissipate his objections to Mr. Emerson's fancied slight.

But it is not the writer's obfuscation on the subject of Persian poetry that is so inexcusable and reprehensible; but rather the presumptuous and discourteous tone of the whole article, especially the opening sentences.

Were we able to detect any signs of failing strength - but we do not - in him who has all his life guided us so well and taught us so many never-to-be-forgotten lessons in true wisdom, it would be unmanly and ungenerous to turn, as our critic does, and upbraid him for those weaknesses to which all mortal flesh is subject. Such ingratitude is unfilial, inhuman. Charles Sumner used to regretfully say, "The age of chivalry is gone." Were such dispositions and sentiments as our truculent critic's article shows common in our Senator's time, he might well have added, "The age of humanity, of courtesy, of urbanity, is gone." One of the worst and most common of American faults is lack of respect and reverence for what is old, venerable, and well deserving. At the risk of being old-fashioned and out of date, I believe in treating age with the utmost respect and kindness. To my eyes there is no more noble and venerable sight than an honest, earnest lover and benefactor of his race, the last years of whose earthly career are soothed and sustained by the hearty love and veneration of his fellow-beings. A man who has grown gray in literature, not for selfish gratification, but for the welfare and happiness of the whole human family, is a hero whose name deserves to live unsullied and untarnished forever. Such a man, in the opinion of his countrymen, is Ralph Waldo Emerson.

E. L. M.