the death of the victorious and the vanquished Generals under the walls of Quebec--The constant increase of luxury and refinement to the era of the Revolution-In revealing that Revolution, he would describe the contagious enthusiasm of hope which would intoxicate all nations at its dawn; the crimes, the horrours and wonderful events that would accompany its progress; and the foul, gloomy despotism that would attend its close.-The King, his family, and his nobles perishing on the scaffold, or withering in exile; religion prohibited, its altars profaned, its ministers proscribed.-France covered with the dust of her ruined palaces and drenched with the blood of her citizens. He would foretell the rapid rise, energetick progress, and portentous grandeur of the great usurper; his ambition, wars, and victories; the ravages committed, the remote regions invaded, the kingdoms overthrown, while

at his heels

Lash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire,

Crouch for employment,

he would predict at the hour of deepest gloom, the reaction of publick feeling, the overwhelming wave of retributive conquest, pursuing him back from every country of Europe to his own capital, his abdication, the return of the -but no, plain prose and sober reason are confounded by these events, they must be left to the madness of verse, and the inspiration of the poet.

This is a cursory sketch of some of the scenes, and events that would be fruitful in poetry. When we recollect what delightful performances have been composed by one modern poet out of the obscure quarrels of Border Banditti, in barbarous ages, how another, in thoughts that breathe and words that burn, has immortalized the pirates of the Archipelago, much may surely be expected from this region when it shall be explored with the torch of imagination. The materials are rude, yet talent only is wanting to mould and animate them. The same block of marble, which in the hands of an artisan, might only have formed a step for the meanest feet to trample on, under the touch of genius, unfolded the Belvidere Apollo, glowing with divine beauty and immortal youth, the destroyer of the Python, the companion of the Muses, the majestick God of Eloquence and Poetry.

FOR THE NORTH-AMERICAN JOURNAL.

Reflections on the literary delinquency of America.

The title of this paper contains a serious charge. It charges Americans with delinquency in that, to which every other civilized nation chiefly owes its character. It implies that this country wants literary distinction. That we have not entered the service of literature. That we want the results of intellectual labour. 'That were we to cease from a distinct national existence, the great events of our history would stand alone on the blank of our national character, unsupported by their causes, unsanctioned by their effects. That the whole elements of our literature, were they collected into one mass, would amount, merely to accidental efforts of a very few adventurous individuals; our history would be found little more than state topography; our politicks ephemeral effusions of party zeal, and our poetry without a character. An appeal might be made from this melancholy record to our philosophy and science, and the labours of Franklin and Rittenhouse claimed as the heralds of our literary character. But it is hardly to be expected that the phenomena of the age should confer national character. They are accidents of intellect. They are claimed for science and literature in general, not yielded to one nation, to give it a character. These extraordinary men very rarely appear in any country, and their having once appeared, is not an assurance that their like will be looked upon again.

Neither is the gift they make us in their works, often like the Prophet's mantle. So careless are the beings among whom they appear, about the fate of their venerable intellectual remains, that at times the only perfect collections of their works are made by foreigners; as if the country in which they may chance to have been born, were fearful of the imputation of vanity and selfishness, by making itself the herald of their fame. Thus England boasts the first and best editions of the works of our own Franklin. But Franklin's address was the world.'

Yielding therefore the reputation which may be challenged on account of the remarkable individuals who may have Vol. II. No. 4.

5

appeared among us, to the claims of the literary world at large; let us examine our pretensions to that reputation, which rests on the broader basis of common occurrence; or to that character for letters which a majority of our publications gives rise to; and if it be a reputation with which we cannot be very much delighted, let us search for the causes of our literary deficiencies.

If it be with states as with individuals, we should look for our reputation from others, rather than from ourselves: and who of us is ignorant of our reputation abroad? The information we have gained on this subject, and which may be acquired from an hour's reading of any foreign works of criticism in which our books are noticed has indeed but little to flatter our national pride. Our larger works, if reprinted in Europe, are soon lost in the ocean into which they are thrown. A more disastrous fate, however, commonly awaits them. They are submitted to the common test of literary tyranny, criticism, the very bed of Procrustes, and I have scarcely heard of a volume's being of the standard dimensions.

It is not worth while to inquire for the fate of our smaller, lighter works. We do not feel jealous of the reputation their authors flattered themselves they might be instru mental in producing. Knowing then what is thought of us abroad, and perhaps still willing to act as individuals in like cases, whose self-complacency is generally in a direct ratio to the bad opinions of others, we may seek for some consolation in what we think of ourselves. But how little is there Who is there among

to delight us even from this source? us who has dared to write a book, that has received from our literary republick one smile to reward his literary labours? How few works have survived the question of our own criticism? How little has our literature gained from the success of this fortunate number ! Who now, we may ask here, in this winter and famine of reputation at home and abroad, will venture to give his days and his nights, to the labours of the mind, that he may do something towards the literature of his country? Who that has talent among us, is wanting in that honest pride and dignified selfishness, which must deter a man from trusting his intellectual labours to criticks destitute of independence, and to a publick too liberal and patriotick to allow of the excellence of domes

tick manufacture? The individual who is bold enough to make the attempt, and feels for our literary interests, what every body among us does for our commercial reputationthe man, who strives to rouse the pride of the nation into action, will encounter hardly less difficulty, or perform a smaller task, than he who gave us a new political existence. -He will not have merely to reform, but to create. He will encounter that most fatal principle to all individual exertion, a deep rooted jealousy of each other. He will meet the sarcastick regards of men who have burdened their minds with the good and bad of literature of Europe, and be confounded with the astonishment of others, who before his declaration to the contrary, had really thought us the most learned, as well as the greatest' people under heaven.

From the common-place of opinion among us it is easily discovered, that we enjoy but a feeble literary character any where. The candidates for literary distinction among us, or those that may be, are therefore destined to a high distinction. But let us inquire, who are to award it? Men, who have themselves done much, and are zealous that more may be done? Men, who are weary of the weight of literary responsibility, and are willing and desirous, to find not only successors, but assistants in their labours? No-it is rather to come from men, who have done nothing; but have gained a real susceptibility of successful mental exertion, in laborious study; or a fancied one, in a fastidious taste. Men, who can understand more than they can achieve; men too,, who are more successful in detecting deformity, than in perceiving beauty. From men, in short, who are too indolent to be great, and who will not be very anxious to yield, what they have wanted resolution to make their own. If what has been now said be true, let us inquire why we have done so little for literature; and ask, whether our prospects are more promising, than our retrospections are melancholy.

Our literary delinquency may principally be resolved into our dependence on English literature. We have been so perfectly satisfied with it, that we have not yet made an attempt towards a literature of our own. In the pre-eminent excellence of this foreign literature we have lost sight of, or neglected our own susceptibility of intellectual labour. So easy is it for us to read English books, that we have

hardly thought it worth while to write any for ourselves. Perhaps if it had been as difficult to command these inexhaustible literary resources, as we should find it to command those of the Germans, we might have gone seriously to work, and entered vigorously on the noble, dignified employment of our minds. Apologists for our literary delinquency, however, reply, that we were colonies of Great Britain, and virtually as much Englishmen as the inhabitants of any county in England. That place signifies nothing; at least, that the pious Antonine said so; that the mind is the same every where; that it lends its own influences to the circumstances in which it is placed, and admits those of things and beings around it, just as far as it pleases, and no farther. That a peculiarity of language is of no consequence to a literature; that the language of the mind is its own vigorous, overpowering operations; that these last only require language to be clothed with, not to be known by. We are told, that the different modes of using language, viz. its various styles, are distinctive of those who invent or adopt them. That Milton will never be confounded with Shakespeare, because they used a common language, and that when Americans write books, their works will at once be distinguished from those of England. In fine, we are told, that we are destined to the highest literary reputation.

Now, all this may be very true in theory, but what is the fact? Did our venerable fathers, when they deserted their own country, bring with them a thread of that literary tissue, so varied, so rich, and so beautiful, which had been the result of the dignified and delightful labour of England through so many ages of its history? Have we, their descendants, united our industry to theirs? And can we now look back, and find that our labours have been continuous in their extent, and as respectable in character as those of Great Britain? If we cannot, it ill becomes us to seek an apology in our colonial dependence, as some have done, for we were descended from a literary nation. We cannot trace our delinquency to our new form of government, and lose our mental imbecility in the necessary entails of a republican form, for we were once known by the name and condition of subjects. Colonies, however, we confess may not be the favourites of the muses. Rome became