literary when she ceased to be republican. But we have not always wanted a crown, nor have we always been colonies. It is said that the mind acknowledges no distinction of place. Why have we made it appear so dependant ?

We have not wanted books.

new.

We have not been left alone to erect a fabrick of letters. We have been absolutely beset with circumstances infinitely diversified, and infinitely Foreigners, however, have almost invariably discovered their novelty and literary character. In natural science, how much might we not have done? Distinguished naturalists of France and Sweden, however, were among the first who traversed our forests, and gathered the sweetest and rarest flowers that blossom there; and we owe to Scotland an American Ornithology. It is admitted, that when we write, our books may be distinguished from those of English writers. Not, however, that difference of style alone will ever designate the literature of a nation; but because our writers can never keep entirely clear of one species of literary treason, viz. the coinage of new terms. These therefore may distinguish our writers. No one however will contend that these will ever challenge a genuine literary reputation.

The truth is, we have wanted literary enterprise, and been sadly deficient in genuine intellectual courage. Circumstances beyond a doubt existed, to prevent our fathers from leaving us a literature. It was hard for them to print, even if they wrote. They were perhaps too dependant on the rough and toilsome circumstances in which they were cast, to lay the foundation of a literature. Perhaps they did enough in founding an empire. They also came here well versed in the learning of their own country, for such was England, though no longer their home; and if they depended on what their brethren in England did for literature, they had claims which an American can never have. In founding colleges for us, perhaps they dreamt they were laying the corner stone of literature.

The literary dependence to which we have been long reconciled, has become so much a part of our character, that the individual who ventures to talk about surmounting it, is thought the wildest of schemers. He is assailed on every hand with the cui bono? that most fatal of questions to any plan which is not cast in the mould of domestick economicks, or which would tend to allure a society from

the dull contemplation of its physical wants, and the cheapest means of supplying them. Literary reputation! what is its worth? what need have we of a literature?

"Oh reason not the need :

Allow not nature more than nature needs,

Man's life is cheap as beasts' :"

Again, we are told the literary market is full. Our importations cannot be consumed. There is no demand for American literature. There is not a stall for its literary wares, in the whole market of letters. Shall then the natural productions of our soil find a kind reception every where? Shall their luxuriance not only satisfy ourselves, but go to supply the wants of distant nations, and by their exchange give us the varied products of every climate; and are we willing in literary commerce, the noblest traffick, to depend on the productions of all other nations, without dreaming even of labouring for them ourselves? We seem to relish the literary productions of other countries, and descant with freedom and taste on the results of their literary labours.-We have books of criticism occasionally among us, and in these Gazette' our authors at home when they appear among us, and through them get a sort of introduction into the bureaus of foreign literature. It might be well to dwell for a moment on these works, which make up so much of our literature. But it is melancholy to dwell long even on this subject. Our recollections carry us into a sad region of ephemeral ruins, whose vestiges are so faint, that we hardly believe the tales of their having ever been. To trace their various authors, would be a task unprofitable and fruitless indeed. Almost every number, or new year, of our longest lived journals has boasted a new author. The best written of them all, have soon found repose either in the reputation they have gained their former authors, or have dragged out a miserable existence in the hands of their successors. Their labours of criticism, however, it must be confessed, have had all the effect they were intended to have. Our literature has faded before their smiles, as surely as before their censures. As certainly perhaps would it have died without either. Many of the best works we have written slumber with the worst. Each successive generation of individuals among us, or most of

them, smile at the failure of their cotemporaries; shrink from the task of tracing our literary history by examining what has already been done; despair of doing better, and willingly yield the energies of their own minds, to the mere perusal of the dignified effects which have followed from the intellectual activity of others. So listless have we been, that we have not done enough to supply the waste of time, much less to yield a superflux to preserve our literary character.

Some men have traced our deficiencies in letters to our want of the profession or trade of authorship, and of that degree of wealth which would afford it patronage and support. Our predecessors, or those who lived in the earliest periods of our history might have been excused for resorting to such a subterfuge. For theirs were the times when the physique stood in greater jeopardy than the morale. We live in times however which put this argu ment to perfect silence. Authorship is no longer a trade. At least the literary reputation of a country, no longer depends on the fitful, and uncertain exertions of genius in rags; nor the still more hazardous condition of patronal charity. The Muses, in our days, have flown the garret, at least in England, and now figure in the parlours of the nobility; and even a banker of Liverpool, has amassed for us the literary wealth of Italy.

It must be confessed, however, we are destitute of many of the elements of literature. Thus we want a remote antiquity. In tracing our history, therefore, we are not tracing the developement of human society, the most interesting pursuit which is offered the mind, for it is intrinsically the developement of the mind itself. In the want of a history of the kind just indicated, we want a vast variety of topicks of the very first interest in literature. We are des

titute, for instance, of the materials for exercising the highest range of dramatick talent, viz. the historical. To be sure we have not always slumbered in national peace, and we have had many distinguished heroes among us, and one we are ever proud to name, stands at their head. But with all our respect and love for this hero, we fear we could hardly brook to have his name among the Dramatis perIn the most elevated walk of the muses, the Epick, we cannot hope much distinction, and this for the same

sona.

reason which appears so fatal to the American theatre. We live in the same age; we are too well acquainted with what has been, and is, among us, to trust them to the imagination. It would be an old story' to our criticks, for the events transpired yesterday, and some of our oldest heroes are not yet dead. Another fact is, we are all acquainted with them, or feel so. We have therefore no

curiosity to excite, for we have no information to give.

Notwithstanding the kind of apology thus furnished for much of our literary delinquency, we cannot but lament, that we have been so deficient, when we reflect how much has been done in the same time, and under perhaps as unfavourable circumstances, in England. What if the historians of an earlier period, have exhausted the materials of historical originality and interest? What if Milton has inimitably written, and Shakespeare exhausted the passions? What if Newton, and Bacon, and Boyle were the best scholars in the academy of nature? What if neighbouring and rival nations, have entered with pride, and talent, and antiquity, and wealth, the lists against her? Has England ceased from her dignified labours of intellect? Has England done less than other nations? No. Every year has yielded something to the literary character of England. The mind never seems at rest there. It is now active for science, and we can hardly keep pace with the scientifick discoveries that are made. Notwithstanding the inexhaustible treasures of poetry in England, almost every year adds something which is destined to live. The mind of the nation seems to have suffered no exhaustion by all that has been done. Where new topicks have seemed wanting, from the immense intellectual labour already bestowed, and an individual has appeared possessing extraordinary mental vigour, we find him venturing on fields long trodden before, and returning with a harvest we could never have anticipated.

Is there not something besides our youthfulness on which we may charge our literary delinquency? Is it because so much has been done by others, that we withhold our assistance from the commonwealth of letters? Is it because we are a commercial people, and the mind of the nation thus necessarily diverted from the pursuits of literature? Is it because we are poor, and feel that our utmost charity will hardly sup

port the paupers of the state, much less supply the poverty of literature? Let an affirmative answer be given to each of these questions, and is there one of them which will not apply as truly to England, as to America? Nay, is it not matter of greater wonder, that considering all things we have not done more for literature than England, viz. in science, have been more original?

Notwithstanding the literary delinquency of America, still we have done something. Perhaps it would not be fair, to place the period of our national existence among the dark ages of letters. But our best writers have been unfortunate in the vehicles they have chosen as depositories of their intellectual productions. These depositories have been chiefly newspapers and pamphlets of various kinds. Now there is something ephemeral and temporary, in the very nature of these publications. Hence their contents are not safe. A man who writes in them does not think of writing for immortality. His mental labours, of course soon is over, and almost of course, badly done. If it turn out that his communication pleases, it excites but a momentary emotion of pleasure, and his successor into the columns fills his place as perfectly and almost as successfully, as the types which were devoted to their several compositions. The literature, farther, of newspapers and pamphlets, is almost always controversial literature; and in controversy we are always more interested for the champions of party, than for their writings. Controversy, it must be confessed however, among us has done as much for literature, as controversy has among other nations. It has gratified the passions, the prejudices, the whims of the parties concerned, and when the flame is extinguished, the pamphlets which did so much to support it, repose in their own ashes.

Another and very powerful objection might be offered to the vehicles chosen for our literature. They are very short. Their limits allow but a very narrow view of any subject. The writers in them, are confined almost to a single topick of their subject, and when they begin to write, they must reduce their minds, as well as their thoughts within the limits prescribed either by themselves, their partizans, their printer, or their bookseller. Now, there is a great deal in all this which has a bad tendency Vol. II. No. 4. 6