Judge Cooley’s Denial.
Reading edition
In a speech at one of the collegiate suppers, Judge Cooley has taken occasion to deny that he ever wrote the poems so ably criticised in the foregoing paper. It is rather late for the judge to 17come lumbering to the front with his disclaimer, yet it is possible that he required a good deal of time to hunt up and examine the back files of his poetical works. The judge is now about sixty years of age; and his friends assure us that he has been writing poetry all his life,—not for publication, but simply for the pleasure he finds in weaving into rhyme the beautiful fancies of his active imagination. It is estimated by a friend, who has known him intimately for forty years, that if Judge Cooley’s poems were collected and printed, they would fill sixteen royal octavo volumes. These poems, we are told, treat of every theme imaginable, from “To Niagara Falls by an August Moonlight” to “The Dimple in my Thisbe’s Arm.” It seems a great pity that the several thousand epics, ballads, sonnets, roundels, triolets, odes, jigs, etc., which Judge Cooley has composed and will confess to—it seems a pity, we say, that these masterpieces are not to be had in collected form for the edification and instruction of our public. Since we have referred to his Niagara ode, we will ask what sentiment could be finer than this:—
“See how that Luna pauses in her nocturnal soaring,
To view thee tumbling in thy bed with fierce Gargantuan snoring.”
And what a startling contrast to this sublime treatment do Judge Cooley’s playful, amorous lines present:—
18“Cloanthus sings his Chloe’s tresses,
For Cynthia’s lips Demetus sighs,
And Tityrus in verse addresses
The love that lurks in Julia’s eyes;
Each, on Icarian pinions soaring,
Applauds some ostentatious charm:
But I’m contented with adoring
The dimple in my Thisbe’s arm.”
Yet we find Judge Cooley advising his young friends not to indulge in poetizing! A man who has made a success in the highest of literary arts ought to encourage others to follow in his footsteps—ought he not? Or does the judge want all the glory himself?