Thomas Wentworth Higginson, The new world and the new book

[156] that of Aeschylus or Catullus, one cannot help wondering that there should have been as many books written—so far as this catalogue indicates—about the recluse scholar as about the martyr-president. The prominence of Washington and Franklin was to be expected, but that Longfellow should come so near Webster, and that both he and Hawthorne should distinctly precede Jefferson and Grant, affords surely some sensations of surprise. Again, there is something curious in the fact that Poe should stand ‘bracketed,’ as they say of examination papers, with the Margaret Fuller whom he detested; that the classic Everett should fall so far below the radical Parker; and that Dr. Channing and John Brown, the antipodes of each other as to temperament, should rank together on the returns. But all must agree that these figures reflect, to a greater degree than one would have expected, the actual prominence of these various personages in the public mind; and could the table include a number of printed catalogues instead of one, it really would afford as fair an approximation as we are likely to obtain to a National gallery of eminent persons.