are occupied by querulous poetasters, literary exquisites, and second-rate sonneteers. Our magazines and journals, with a few honorable exceptions, present but a beggarly array of poverty and pretension. Even the "vast array of respectability"* which one of our critics spake of three years ago, has latterly seemed one of the pleasantest of jokes. It is true, indeed, that amidst the pitiless shower of rhyme which has fallen and is still falling around us, we have had the exquisite ballads of Professor Longfellow, the Athanasion of Mr. A. C. Coxe, and some rare fragments of Mr. Bryant. But these, at the best, are fitful and fragmentary; sybilline leaves, full of inspiration, and not entirely unprophetic of the future, but leaves only. In the utterances which such men as these have given, there are tones of that music which alone can reach the heart of a great people, but the tones die away almost before the ear can accustom itself to the strain. The few among our writers who are not aliens in their country by what our author justly denominates "that vassalage of opinion and style which is produced by a constant study of the literature of the nation whose language we speak, and whose manners we adopt," either seem discouraged by the poverty of the rewards which attend literary pursuits, or have found the active avocations of life more enticing than the haunts of the muses and the "quiet and still air of delightful studies."

Doubtless, both of these causes have had their influence, but it is not difficult to say which has most contributed to retard the advancement of letters among us. So long as adequate encouragement and protection are not awarded to our literary men, we ought not to wonder or complain that we are yet without a national literature. This great want must continue until the public mind shall awake to the importance of securing to our writers a fair and liberal compensation for their labors. "It is said," remarks Mr. Griswold, "that the principles of our fathers are beginning to be regarded with indifference, that love of country is decaying, and that the affections of the people are in a transitive state, from the simplicity of democracy to the gilded shows of aristocratical govern

*Arcturus, No. 1., December 1840.

The national

ment. If it be so, here is the cause. tastes and feelings are fashioned by the subjects of kings, and they will continue so to be, until by an honest and politic system of reciprocal copyright, such protection is given to the native mind, as will enable men of the first order of genius to devote themselves to authorship. Literature not less than wealth adds to a nations' happiness and greatness; the man of letters should receive as much from the fostering care of the government, as is afforded to the agriculturist and the manufacturer."

On the much agitated question of copyright, we intend to speak more definitely hereafter. Whatever present indications may be, we are not without hope that this great question will be fairly met and decided, notwithstanding the outcry-half cant and half bravado, which a mercenary press has raised, in some quarters, to silence temperate discussion of its merits. We are confident of the ultimate decision of the people through their representatives; for the voice of sound patriotism will, by and bye, make itself to be heard, although justice and common sense now seem to plead in vain. Not that we are disposed to echo all that has been said on what we hold to be the true side of the question, nor would we endorse many of the querulous prefaces to "original American works!" wherein it is the fashion to utter "great swelling words of vanity," and to charge all failure, prospective and retrospective, on the fault of circumstance and position. Of such ingenious specialpleading we have had quite enough, and we cannot frown very decidedly upon the guffaws of John Bull, the faint echoes of which, now and then, reach us across the Atlantic. We trust the fact is, without this, clear enough to every disinterested student of our literary historythat the great and manifold discouragements to authorship in this country have arisen chiefly from the want of protection against the overwhelming influence of the foreign press. English literature, from the abundance and facility of its reproduction, has not only constituted our main supply, and satisfied our wants, but it has been influential upon our own to such a degree as to prevent it from assuming a national character, or breathing a national spirit. By far the greater portion of works which owe their origin to the efforts of native mind, are cast in

the European mould. The spirit of the old world is preserved. The ideas-the modes of expression, the very tone of feeling, has been translated among us, and English literature grows upon our own soil. Our writers, with very few exceptions, and these in late years, are almost aliens in their country. Like birds of melodious note, whose strains echo the music of other climes, they delight our ear without touching our hearts. One simple, earnest burst of song, from our own green woods, were worth them all.

Our obligations to the literature of England are indeed great and lasting. In the treasures of her learning, in the rich productions of her art, we have shared largely and freely. From her deep and pure wells of thought and feeling we have been accustomed to drink from our earliest years. The profound and generous spirit of her civilization has instructed and animated our youth, as we trust it will ennoble our manhood and cheer and adorn our age. The voice of her historians, statesmen and orators, has roused us to emulation, and incited us to action. The strains of her poets have become to us as familiar music; the magic wand of her dramatists has peopled our every-day world of thought with wondrous and beautiful creations. The conceptions and language of her great artists of every name glide into our common musings, and mingle with our dreams, as household images and household words. In these respects we have gratefully received, when we could give nothing in return. Had our circumstances been different, or had we possessed opportunities and motives adequate to the work, the case might even now have been otherwise. Great as is our indebtedness, we take no shame to ourselves for the past it is for the present and the future that we would provide. With the arduous and pressing work before us, of rearing in these western wilds an empire combining whatever is admirable, permanent and glorious in the old dominions, with the youthful energy of a nation endowed, almost from its very cradle, with political strength rivalling that of the proudest of them all, we need not fear the reproach of mental inactivity. In winning for ourselves a place and a name among the nations, we have been compelled to contend with difficulties requiring the concentration of the highest spiritual

and physical energies of man. From the long-cherished habit of depending upon the treasures of foreign literature, and from the influence of the purely practical objects which have ever engrossed the public mind among us, there resulted an inattention to the first fruits of our own intellectual development, which discouraged our authors, and in many cases sent them abroad to win a reputation which might afterwards be ratified at home. Thus thrown upon a foreign public, was it strange that they should speak in foreign accents?

Such has been the case; but why should it continue to be so? Now that we have begun to enjoy something of the luxury and dignity of that repose which has succeeded to our honorable toil, it surely becomes us to inquire what heart we have for successful enterprise in a nobler field, and what the promise of such enterprise may be. Our first and great vocation worthily discharged, the high results of our labors will afford us encouragement and aid in our efforts to establish another empire, as the ornament and support of the angust fabric of our liberty. The pride and enthusiasm of literary atchievement will deepen the attachment with which we cling to the altars of our freedom. The feeling of brotherhood, thus engendered, will add a new element of strength to a self-sacrificing and generous love for the common weal. Combining with higher and stronger influences, it will at once dignify, nourish and expand them.

There is much in cherishing the hope that a brighter

day is dawning upon us. The eagerness with which every new publication of our best poets is hailed, shows that we have learned, in some degree, to listen to them, and value them as we ought. Were the bright dreams of the imagination substantial meat and drink, or could he who is gifted with "the vision and the faculty divine" escape starvation on the daily allowance of praise-sincere and enthusiastic enough-we should have no fears of a present issue as noble as our hearts could wish. alas! even the sons of song must have some regard to the "almighty dollar." An entire edition of Longfellow's "Voices of the Night" will scarcely replenish his wardrobe. "Athanasion" might go far to supply stationery for the table of its gifted author, but we are sure that Mr. Bryant has never kept up his library for a twelve

But

month independent of the exchequer of the Evening Post.

Still the productions of our gifted men are eagerly hailed, and purchased, and read, spite of all the demoralizing trash scattered, for a song, everywhere throughout the land, under the imposing title of "books for the people." Here is ground for encouragement for the future. We must have poets, because this nation is fitted to become and already is in some sense a nation of readers of poets. "We have laid a broad foundation for our physical support in the cultivation of the earth, the establishment of trade and manufactures, and we are naturally looking for some of the ornaments of life to adorn leisure and reward our toils. And we find little in externals to furnish the imagination. Architecture, painting, sculpture, are in their infancy. We have

scarcely a monument to look at. It would be well for us if we had them; but wanting these the great world of our daily wants, for which every one sighs, is the world of poetry and literature."*

Among a democratic people, says De Tocqueville, poetry will not be fed with legendary lays or the memorials of old traditions. The poet will not attempt to people the universe with supernatural beings, in whom his readers and his own fancy have ceased to believe; nor will he present virtues and vices in the mask of frigid personification which are better received under their own features. All these resources fail him; but Man remains, and the poet needs no more. The destinies of mankindman himself, standing in the presence of nature and of God with his passions, his doubts, his rare prosperities and inconceivable wretchedness-will become the chief, if not the only theme of poetry among these nations.†

And this, we think, is the characteristic of that part of our literature which we are disposed to hail as truly national, in distinction from the old forms of the eastern world. Of such enlarged and catholic spirit, it has already given evident promise, when it was scarcely possible that any thing more than the promise should be given. More auspicious circumstances, and times more remote from

See a well written article in the critical department of Arcturus, No. XV, for February, 1812, on the poems of Tennyson.

+ Democracy in America, Vol. II., page 80. Am. Ed.