by nature of equal capacity and altogether ocean from an interest in the movements alike; that every man has within him the and destinies of Europe, and by the revoseeds of all genius, speculative or active, lution from an interest in her own past and and only needs the ripening beam of cir- that of the mother country, modern hiscumstance to be a Shakspeare, a Newton, tory, that portion which most nearly conor a Cromwell. In this doctrine there is cerns and interests ourselves, has, to Ameno doubt a considerable intermixture of rica, become almost a matter of indifference. truth. He is a very superficial student of Her own gigantic form of civilization is altohumanity who dwells entirely on the pecu-gether so unlike any that has yet come to liarities and differences of men, without maturity, that its ultimate development penetrating to those properties which all can only be guessed at, and our conjectures share in common. Men's diversity is in can scarcely be assisted by any precedents great measure the result of mere extraneous which history furnishes. The study of hiscauses; of difference of laws and institu- tory must naturally flourish most where it tions, of climate and mode of living, of is most useful; in states surrounded by physical structure and temperament, and powerful neighbors, whose policy has to be the like. Men differ most in those things watched; in times when revolutions appear which are of least concernment, in those imminent, when dynastic changes, and the which are regulated by custom, in which grand movements that history chronicles, caprice and humor have free play, over fill the minds and agitate the passions of which the bodily necessities tyrannize. men; in England, under the Stuarts; in Their peculiarities are most visible in the France at present. Americans may readrawing-room or the market-place; when sonably wish the time to be far distant they are idle, or busied in the common when history shall be studied with avidity journey-work of life. In things that touch by themselves. However, when this is tathem to the quick, all men are alike. Let ken into the account, it must be acknowpassion come into play-let them be touch-ledged that the historical literature of ed by pity, struck down by a great sorrow, America is very creditable. The names of or animated with a lofty enthusiasm-their Prescott and Bancroft redeem their country diversity vanishes; all wear one will, and from the reproach of barrenness in this use one common language. The most ex- field. Mr. Prescott has been so recently alted poetry speaks in most familiar and before the public, that it would be superhousehold phrase to the soul of the meanest fluous here to do more than simply to exman. As tragedy, which bids us make the press onr sense of his merit, as a spirited sorrows of great hearts our own, is superior and dramatic narrator, a perspicuous and in worth and dignity to comedy, which bids elegant writer, who has enriched the scanus mark the follies of beings unlike our- tily-furnished shelf of histories in the Engselves, so is the study of man's common na-lish tongue with two or three volumes that ture better worth our following than the posterity will not willingly let die. With study of men's peculiarities. Still, when Mr. Bancroft's "History of the United all this is allowed for, we cannot but be- States " we are little familiar, and can lieve that the order of the creation, as re- neither verify nor gainsay the judgment gards the soul and intellect of man, is an which Mr. Griswold passes upon it, as aristocratic order: that, as all the inferior follows::creatures, from the reptile to the elephant, occupy a regular ascending scale, so do the "Mr. Bancroft's History of the United States' natures of men; and we suspect that Mr. is one of the great works of the present age, Emerson's faith in man's natural equality than any other of a similar sort that has been stamped more plainly with its essential character is in some measure the insensible product written. The subject of the birth and early expeof his doctrine of political equality; a doc-riences of a radically new and thoroughly indetrine, however, which rests upon a very pendent nation has a deep philosophical interest, different basis, for inferiority of intellect is which, to the historian, is instead of that dramatic not a reason for permitting the strong to oppress the weak, but a reason for securing to the weak the protection of the law.

From philosophy we turn to history. In this department of letters, it was hardly to be expected that America should have displayed great proficiency. Cut off by the

on

attraction, of which the few incidents in the progress of small communities, scattered over a continent, independent of each other, and all dependent This Mr. Bancroft perceives; and entering deeply a foreign power, are necessarily destitute. into the spirit of the times, he becomes insensibly the advocate of the cause of freedom, which invalidates his testimony. He suffers too much

⚫his passion to instruct his reason.' He is more | may reasonably conclude that oratory must mastered by his subject than himself master of it. be as important a branch of letters (if we Liberty with him is not the result of an analytical process, but the basis of his work, and he builds may call it so) among the Americans as it ever was with the Athenians. It would be upon it synthetically. too much to expect that it should be cultivated with the same success.

"When Mr. Bancroft commenced his labors, the very valuable but incomplete history of Judge Marshall, was the only work on the subject, by a native author, that was deserving of much praise. Grahame's faithful history of the colonization, and the brilliant account of the revolution by Botta, were acknowledged to be the best histories of the country for their respective periods. This fact alone was sufficient to guide an American historian in the choice of his theme, had he been less deeply imbued than Mr. Bancroft with the principles which our history illustrates.

pa

To estimate the merits of Transatlantic oratory, abundant materials have within the last year or two been placed within our reach. Besides all that Mr. Griswold has written and quoted on the subject, there is a collection of choice passages and beauties of American rhetoric, selected with taste in' Mrs. Maury's "Statesmen of America,”—a work whose merits have had the misfortune "Whatever may be the merit of some of Mr. to be buried under the unpopularity of Bancroft's opinions, there are, in the volumes he certain tenets, very prominently put forhas published, no signs of a superficial study of ward, and energetically maintained by the events. His narrative is based on contemporary authoress, on the subject of slavery and documents, and he has shown remarkable tience in collecting, and in assorting, comparing, catholicism. That the "Statesmen of Ameand arranging them. In this respect his work is rica" should have been severely criticized singularly faithful. In regard to the character at the time of its appearing, does not surand adventures of many of the early discoverers, prise us; though there were one or two the principles and policies of the founders of several of the States, and the peculiarity and influences did no credit to the writers: for it requires coarse and ungenerous attacks upon it, that of the various classes of colonists, the details are full, and the reflections eminently philosophical. a rare mental integrity, at once strongly to The languages, religions, and rural and warlike dissent from an author's doctrines, to hold customs of the Indians, are also treated in a manner them pernicious and desire to check their that evinces much research and ingenuity. Mr diffusion, and at the same time, not merely Bancroft's style is elaborate, scholarly, and for- to abstain from unfair weapons and methods cible, though sometimes not without a visible effort of attack, but also frankly to acknowledge at eloquence; and there is occasionally a dignity and do justice to the ability with which of phrase that is not in keeping with the subject those doctrines have been supported. We matter. It lacks the delightful ease and uniform proportion which mark the diction of Prescott.”— regret, however, that Mrs. Maury's Puseyite Prose Writers of America, p. 405. and pro-slavery opinions should have been If historical literature, in so young a na- the usefulness of a book which is written with the means of materially detracting from tion as the United States, cannot reason- much spirit, in a style of remarkable puably be expected greatly to flourish; on the other hand, this same youthfulness, coupled refined and highly cultivated mind, and rity and elegance, bearing the stamp of a with democratic institutions, imparts a great prominence to that portion of letters which has at least this merit, the only one which has reference to "history in the perhaps that is strictly germane to the making," i. e. politics. "Oratory, or pub-present occasion,-that it furnishes mate"Oratory, or pub-rials, lic speaking," says Mrs. Maury, in her rials, not previously to be found in this recent work,* “ may be considered at the country, for appreciating American orapresent moment as constituting, not only the best and most exalted, but the vital toric we rise with feelings, on the whole, of From the perusal of these flowers of rheand essential portion of American literature." And certainly, if we consider how marked superiority over parallel passages disappointment. We expected to find a much more important a part oratory plays from speeches in our own House of Comacross the Atlantic than at home; how keen an interest, almost amounting to a mental superiority of men freely chosen mons; such as should correspond to the disease and frenzy, almost every American from, and by the great body of the people, takes in politics; and how the excitement and who, for the most part, owe their pois kept alive by clections, public meetings, anniversary festivals, and occasions of speech-making almost unintermittent; we * "An English woman in America."

tory.

sition to their own talents and exertions, dents of birth, or fortune, or connexion. In over men placed in their seats by the accithis country, political eloquence is confess

edly at a low ebb. The general indifference devoid of the mental temperance that with to party politics, which men begin to look an Athenian was an instinct, and with an upon as a mere scramble for place; the Englishman is the result of breeding,-with practical and somewhat cold temperament such an audience eloquence must needs grow of the English people, and the aristocratic meretricious, and sink into rant and fustian. prejudices which narrow the field of politi- This, we fear, seems the Charybdis of Americal competition, are unfavorable circum- can rhetoric. stances. The best speeches of our greatest Eloquence, we are persuaded, will never orators are with difficulty read, and make flourish in America or at home, so long as but a feeble impression, even while the sub- the public taste is infantile enough to meaject-matter of them retains its freshness sure the value of a speech by the hours it None of our statesmen can expect that, occupies, and to exalt copiousness and ferlike Burke or Chatham, his words will live tility, to the absolute disregard of conciseafter him, and be studied, when the occa- ness. The efficacy and value of compression that drew them forth shall be forgot- sion can scarcely be overrated. The comten, for their wisdom or their eloquence. mon air we beat aside with our breath, The interest of the subjects is not more compressed, has the force of gunpowder, short-lived and transient than is the ora- and will reud the solid rock; and so it is tory itself it is not amber that encrusts with language. A gentle stream of persua these straws. But we are disappointed to sives may flow through the mind, and leave find that the same thing is true with regard no sediment; let it come at a blow, as a to America. Webster, indeed, is masculine cataract, and it sweeps all before it. and impressive; Clay, persuasive, winning, by this magnificent compression that Cicero and pathetic; Calhoun, philosophic: all confounds Cataline, and Demosthenes overthree speak like men of talent and infor- whelms Eschines; by this that Mark Anmation, but an air of common-place is upon tony, as Shakspeare makes him speak, careven these, the princes of American rheto- ries the heart away with a bad cause; by ric. As foreigners, we can pronounce with this that Lady Macbeth makes us, for the the impartiality of posterity. Divested of moment, sympathize with murder. The interest in the subjects, we should be able language of strong passion is always terse to judge whether the manner in which these and compressed; genuine conviction uses speakers handle them is such as will bear few words; there is something of artifice the touch of time; and the insupportable and dishonesty in a long speech. No arweariness with which we read, proves, we gument is worth using, because none can think, that it will not. make a deep impression, that does not bear The fact is, public speaking, far more to be stated in a single sentence. Our marthan any branch of closet literature, re- shalling of speeches, essays, and books, acquires for its development a correspondence cording to their length-deeming that a between the taste and temperament of the great work which covers a great space; speaker and of the auditory. An author, this "inordinate appetite for printed pa in his library, can despise and forget the per," which devours so much, and SO indistastes of the day, and imagine himself the criminately, that it has no leisure for fairly contemporary of Plato, or Cicero, or Bacon, tasting anything, is pernicious to all kinds and tune his mind to their pitch, and write of literature, but fatal to oratory. The with weight and gravity, as addressing him- writer who aims at perfection, is forced to self to hearers "fit though few." In the dread popularity, and steer wide of it; the court house or the senate, the powerful in-orator, who must court popularity, is forced fluence of man's presence puts such thoughts to renounce the pursuit of genuine and lastto flight the speaker is forced to bring his ing excellence. mind into contact with those that he ad- From the troubled waters of politics, we dresses; he is at the mercy of his audience, move onward to more tranquil regions. In and, if he cannot raise their tempers to the jurisprudence, America undoubtedly has loftiness of his own, his must sink to theirs. done much that is admirable. No Eng Erskine, it is well known, could not speak lish law-book, we have understood, can be with effect, if any one of his jurymen re- placed in the same rank with Judge Story's mained stolid and unmoved. And, if elo- Commentaries-works which even in this quence is cold and tame with a phlegmatic country are much studied, and often referaudience, with an uncultivated audience, red to as authorities. The philosophical greedy of coarse food and strong excitement, spirit in which these books are

written, the

The same thing may be said of natural philosophy, which Mr. Griswold likewise descants upon. We shal content ourselves with extracting what appears to us a judicious observation on the subject.

tural science has been carried much too far in this

perpetual recurrence to first principles, the entertaining method, while graver minds absence of a petty technicality, contrast will be for the more direct, complete, and very favorably with some of the most ad- systematic; but the nature of the instrucmired productions of English lawyers. tion is the same for both. The essential American law would seem to be less the part of poetry, again, is certainly not the slave of precedent than the English; a cir- versification; that-except so far as the. cumstance no doubt owing, in a great mea- dwelling upon the thoughts which it resure, to the diversity of laws in the several quires, or the delight which it inspires, may states of the Union, which, necessarily react upon the mind of the poet, and stimubringing an American lawyer acquainted late it to loftier flights-is but a form and with several systems of legislation, alike in accident of poetry. The essence of poetheir first principles, yet diverging in par- try, whatever it be for it is a thing hard ticulars of practice, forces upon him a per- to define-inay, and often does, exist in petual attention to the distinction, so often conjunction with the form of prose narralost sight of by English lawyers, between tion. It would be unreasonable to deny fundamentals and details. Jurisprudence, that some of Mr Dickens's works, for inhowever, is a subject that hardly claims our stance, contain much poetry. Considering, notice, since it seems improper to treat it then, that a novel may be a philosophy, as a branch of literature. that it may be an epic, it seems hard to treat this as the lowest species of composition. But, on the other hand, it may be said with justice, that in assigning rank to any large and miscellaneous class of things, we must be guided, not by its possibilities, but by its ordinary and average products; and, viewing the matter in this light, novel writing, a field that lies open to all, and whose fruits may be gathered with less of labor and previous tillage than any other kind, is so overrun with the poorer sort of laborers, that it seems impossible to set much store by it. The first and obvious business of the novelist is, to tell an amusing or interesting story; this alone is his peculiar province; and if certain gifted minds have embellished and dignified this task with jewels borrowed from the wardrobe of poetry or philosophy, it may perhaps be said that in so doing they have wandered out of their sphere, and ceased to be mere novelists. Now, without being ungrateful to those who tell us interesting stories, nay, while acknowledging that to be thus carried out of ourselves may sometimes be useful and improving, we must still maintain that the story-teller is not our best and most honorable preceptor. We value one original reflection above twenty original tales, as well for its intrinsic usefulness as for the power of mind which it evinces. Novel writing, then, whether we consider its ordinary fruits, or its distinctive end and purpose, must, as compared with other departments of letters, rank low.

"The cultivation of purely mechanical and nacountry, or rather has been made too exclusive and absorbing. It is not the highest science, for it concerns only that which is around us-which is altogether outward. Man is greater than the world of nature in which he lives, and just as clearly must the science of man, the philosophy of his moral and intellectual being, rank far above that of the soulless creation which was made to minister to his wants. When, therefore, this lower science so draws to itself the life of any age as to disparage and shut out the higher, it works to the well-being of that age an injury."-p. 26.

Passing over the small wares of literature, as pamphlets, review articles, essays on manners, and fugitive pieces, serious or humorous, in which matters it may be that America neither can or cares to compete with the mother country, there only remains for our notice the region of fiction Considering how highly it is the fashion to prize this branch of letters, it may seem improper to place it at the bottom of the list. Undoubtedly, one or two great works in this department seem to prove that novel writing may be used as the medium for conveying almost all the lessons that formerly were only to be learnt from the philosopher or the poet. The essential part of philosophy is its teaching us new truths co cerning our own nature; and whether Of American laborers in this field, two this be done by a didactic treatise or in the only can be said to have an European repuform of a narrative, matters little: the tation,-Washington Irving and Cooper. young and indolent may prefer the more The author of the "Sketch Book," whom

Hazlitt contemptuously calls " a mere fila- ment, possess more of enthusiasm than regree man," frequently pleases by touches fined taste. An Eschylus must always preof quaint humor and a natural sentiment cede an Euripides. And, though it is true at times bordering on the pathetic. Of that America is open to all the influences Cooper's earlier works we have a grateful of Europe, and has the means of imbibing remembrance, which a maturer judgment the most modern fashions as they spring strives against in vain. Mr. Cooper has in up, in literature, as in other things, it is a high degree, we think, two of the chief not the less necessary that her native liteexcellences of Sir Walter Scott; his writ- rature should go through the process of a ings affect the imagination like pictures, growth from the first bud. The literature and he has the rare art of carrying the of every independent nation, it would seem, reader's attention forward with a lively and is so bound up with all its national pecu vigorous movement; while, on the other liarities, that it must have hand, his judgment is the slave of preju- own; and though it may emulate the fulldice, his moralizing very common-place, grown plants around it, and spring up the and we read without growing the better or faster for their shelter, and be enriched by wiser. As for the illustrious obscure whose the drippings from their sprays, yet must it names have not crossed the Atlantic, it derive its sustenance from its native soil. must suffice to notice their existence in In England, the necessity for such an inthe following extract from Mr. Griswold's ternal development, gradually proceeding

book :

"The field of romantic fiction has for a quarter of a century been thronged with laborers. I do

than those who have not read them are aware."p. 28.

root of its

from a crude and feeble infancy, has not been obviated by the continual presence classic models, though made the chief study of our youth. In America, the masterpieces not know how large the national stock may be, of modern English letters can scarcely be but I have in my own library more than seven hundred volumes of novels, tales, and romances, expected to produce a more powerful influ by American writers. Comparatively few of them ence over the literature of the land, than are of so poor a sort as to be undeserving of a have the writings of Cicero or Xenophon place in any general collection of our literature. over ours. Though the language be the Altogether they are not below the average of Eng- same, the tone of mind is equally foreign. lish novels for this present century; and the pro- The literature of the United States, then, portion which is marked by a genuine originality must grow up with the national character of manner, purpose, and feeling, is much larger of the United States, and its nature must be the counterpart of that. And as we are not disposed here to enter upon the wide, Having thus glanced through the several and perhaps insoluble question-What is to departments of American literature, we be the destiny of the United States, and have but a few words to say on its aspect, what the national character we must be considered as a whole. We find in it two content to leave the prospects of her litera conflicting tendencies. The one, setting ture in obscurity. At present we discern up foreign standards of excellence, imitat- nothing, whether in the public acts of the ing, with exaggeration, the prominent fea- Union, or its literature, but the petulance, tures of English literature, careful, above the crude energies, the inharmonious blendall things, to shun extravagance, leads wri- ing of strength and weakness, which charac ters, in their admiration of precision and terize an immature age; together with s elegance, to the verge of tameness. The certain gigantic expansiveness, that seems other, which seems the natural expression to promise, one day, to outgrow everything of the American character, is a tendency to European, and leave us far behind. It admire all that is high-flown and energetic, would be unreasonable, then, to deduce an and hence to run occasionally into an Er- unfavorable omen for American literature cles' vein," more amusing than edifying in times to come, from the comparative poThis latter tendency, with all its dangers, verty and scantiness of its products as exappears to us the more native, spontaneous, hibited in the volume before us. and likely to thrive; and we must look to this as the germ of a true American litera

ture.

We are to recollect that America has some predominance of Irish blood in its veins; and even were it not so, every people, in the earlier stages of their develop