Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

ogy than speculation. Dr. Frederick A. | nomination-have since left. Brownson has Rauch, a favorite pupil of Daub, of Heidel- become a Roman Catholic, and the rest have berg, was President of a college at Mercers- taken, we presume, to more congenial purburg, Pennsylvania, where he died a few suits. The writings of Emerson are too well years ago, soon after publishing his "Psy- known in England to require characterizachology, or View of the Human Soul, in- tion; his brilliant sentences, if they somecluding Anthropology." He was a transcen- times fail of illustration by the processes of dentalist of the school of Hegel, and a man logic, have always a ready and facile interof genius. Laurens P. Hickok, D.D., of preter in the spirit, and the extent to which Auburn, published about a year and a half they are read places him, in position as well ago the most important systematic treatise as by right of genius, among the foremost that has yet appeared from the American priests of the new age. Theodore Parker in press in this department, under the title of many respects agrees with him, but he will "Rational Psychology." The style is inele- never attain to his repose or power. Dr. gant and difficult, but the work displays a Walker, Professor of Philosophy in Harvard thorough mastery of the subject, and of its College, though classed among transcendenrecent literature, especially in Germany, talists, is rather a party by himself. A new where the author received his education, and man, having many affinities with the Boston his characteristic principles. His strongest school, is Henry James, of New York, author position is, that the mind is capable of con- of a volume printed last year under the title structing, à priori, pure forms in pure space; of "Moralism and Christianity." In what that is, that after perception, we can form he has given to the world he has displayed in space general images, not having the qual- so independent a spirit, so pure a method, ities of particular bodies-a position of such expansive humanity, and such ample Brown against Berkeley and Stewart, but resources of learning, as constitute him a never so powerfully presented as in this trea- teacher of the highest rank, and justify the tise by Dr. Hickok. No American writer in most confident expectations of his distinction this field has enjoyed so great a popularity hereafter. We understand he intends soon as Dr. Wayland, President of Brown Univer- to publish a new volume, in which he will sity. Of his "Elements of Moral Science" discuss the "Symbolism of Property, Denearly 50,000 copies have been sold, and his mocracy and its issues, the Harmony of Nabook on the "Limitations of Human Respon- ture and Revelation, the Past and Future sibility" has had much influence on opinions. Churches," and perhaps include his original The chief feature of his system is an attempt and powerful articles from the Tribune, on to harmonize the intellectual with the moral; the "Institution of Marriage." he has perhaps suggested no new principles, disclosed no new motives, but he has clearly defined the limits and positions of subjects in which indistinctness is equivalent to uncertainty. Mr. George Ripley, who now conducts the literary department of the New York Tribune, contributed largely to the spread of French eclecticism, by his translation of the "Philosopical Miscellanies of Cousin, Jouffroy, and Constant ;" and by a book addressed to Andrews Norton in vindication of the transcendentalists, as well as by various profound discussions in the "Boston Christian Examiner," he displayed capacities which entitle him to a high rank in that party. He has since devoted much attention to the propagation of the doctrines of philosophical Socialism.

The school of Boston transcendentalists began to attract attention about twenty years ago. Its apostles, Ripley, Emerson, Parker, and Brownson, were then in the Unitarian ministry, which all-except Parker, who receives but a doubtful recognition in the de

Opposed to all these writers we have last mentioned is Mr. Bowen, editor of the North American Review, who appears, from his "Critical Essays on Speculative Philosophy," to be a general receiver of the principles of Locke, as modified by the progress of philosophical discovery. Professor Tayler Lewis, of Union College, who has edited Plato Contra Atheos, is now engaged on a translation of all the works of Plato.

Philosophers and Theologians.-There are some writers distinguished alike in philosophy and in religion, or occupying a middle ground which has no name. Edwards was a type of the first class, and perhaps Emmons also, the most invincible theological gladiator of the last generation, who extended Berkeley's principle of an immediate divine agency in all the phenomena of the material world, to the same comprehensive and absolute efficiency in intelligence. In the latter class the most conspicuous American is Channing, nor let it be deemed an absurd fancy that leads us for a moment to consider Edwards

and Channing together. Edwards conformed his life to the loftiest conceptions of his genius, and as much as Channing dissented from, nay abhorred, some parts of his theology, he readily apprehended the truth of his theory of beauty, which has been the germ of so much of the fine speculation of more modern times, and saw how harmonious were his walk and conversation with his philosophy. They were alike in person, of the same stature, the same spiritual presence, graceful manners, and fragile constitution; they shrank with the same sensitive delicacy from the turbulence and grossness of the world; they were both men of the closet, both earnest in their search after truth, both sincere in their worship of God and love of men. But one accepted for doctrine only results of the closest induction, while the other followed the law of consciousness. How happy for the world if the law were interpreted alike by all men, and in all bore such fruits! With the venerable heresy that God is honored by dishonoring the greatest of his creations which we can even in a degree comprehend, Dr. Channing had no sympathy. He felt that every good attribute of man was a substantial glory of God, and so found better employment than in diligently making himself sad about the depravity of his race. De Tocqueville has a chapter on the leaning to pantheism in democratic nations, and the thought may have been suggested by the Unitarian writer on the dignity of human nature. If Channing held views on this subject tending to the decay of adoration, he never apprehended such a consequence. His warmest friends and eulogists admit that he was wanting in capacity for metaphysical analysis and in logical acuteness. In the whirl and tumult of this busy and distracted age the Americans would remember the sun itself only while arranging gas lights by which to continue their occupations, and a great man is rarely spoken of among them after the installation of his successor. There was about Channing, however, such real greatness, he commanded so much sympathy as an impersonation of the loftiest spirit of his age, and he is so connected with the present as a prophet, that he may be regarded as more than any one else an exception to this humiliating truth. Still, ever since his death his fame has been decaying, and it will soon cease in any degree to obstruct the retrospective glances of his countrymen. Similar to Channing, in some respects, is Dr. Orville Dewey; and here we must mention Dr.

Bushnell, who is remarkable for his powerful instincts and strange incapacity to reason.

[ocr errors]

Theologians. In no other department is American literature so rich as in that of theology and religion. It would be curious. to pass a month in the perusal of those three hundred and eighty works by Cotton Mather, of which not half-a-dozen have been reprinted since the Declaration of Independence, though they abound almost as much as old Burton's Anatomy in curious learning, and are frequently eloquent or ingenious. We have looked through many of his discourses and letters, as well as his immense folio on the "Ecclesiastical History of New England," his "Essays to Do Good," Student and Preacher," &c., and cannot help thinking that with all his weaknesses, vanities, and absurdities, he is underrated, and deserving of at least a partial exhumation. The New Englanders are directing attention to their Puritan "Fathers;" and we see in the latest journals from Boston advertisements of an edition, in six volumes, of the writings of the "learned and renowned Thomas Shepherd," one of Mather's contemporaries. We hope it will be followed by a selection of the most rare, practical, and curious compositions of Mather himself, who must always stand out more distinctly and largely than any other American of his times. The teachers of religion, whether metaphysical theologians, Biblical critics, or sermonizers, to whom the present generation is wont to listen, are Edwards, the elder and the younger, Bellamy, Hopkins, Dwight, (a grandson of the great necessitarian,) Emmons, (a Boanerges more grim and hardly less powerful than his master of Geneva,) Samuel Davies, Ashbel Green, John M. Mason, Daniel A. Clarke, Edward Payson, the Wares, Dr. Miller, Dr. Alexander, all of whom are dead-the last, at a great age, within a few weeks-and the living lights of the churches, Leonard Woods, (who, after having been half a century professor of theology at Andover, has just published a collection of his works in five large volumes,) Lyman Beecher, (who is now printing a complete edition of his writings,) Moses Stuart, Charles Hodge, Addison Alexander, Albert Barnes, George Bush, Andrews Norton, William R. Williams, Professor Park, Professor Hacket, Professor Sears, Professor Ripley, Professor M'Clintock, Professor Schaf, &c.; all but two or three of whom are voluminous as well as very learned and able writers.

In this list it will be observed that we have mentioned no member of the Episcopal

1852.]

though they have been favorably reviewed.
in Blackwood, the Athenæum, and other
journals; but in France they furnished the
late M. Bastiat with his leading ideas, and
translations have made them familiar in other
parts of the Continent. His theory of rents.
is regarded as a complete demonstration that
the popular views derived from Ricardo are
erroneous, and on the subject of Protection
he is generally confessed to be the master
The Rev. Calvin
thinker of his country.
Colton, who formerly resided some time in
London, has within a few months published
an able work defending a high tariff, under
the title of "Public Economy for the United
States;" and Dr. Wayland, the late Condy
Raguet, and the ex-Secretary of the Trea-
sury, Mr. Walker, have been prominent ad-

Church; and it is remarkable that the Ame-
rican branch of the English Establishment
has never furnished a man of first-rate abili-
ties, or one whose writings have in them the
elements of enduring life. Bishop White
did not lack much of being an exception; he
certainly was in all respects a most respecta-
ble person; but his distinction was rather in
affairs than in authorship. The late Dr.
Jarvis was learned in ecclesiastical history;
the two Bishops Onderdonk (one of whom
was deposed and the other suspended a few
years ago for licentiousness) are clever men.
Dr. Seabury is a sharp but not a strong
dialectician; Bishops M'Ilvaine, Potter, and
Hopkins, are industrious and sensible divines;
Bishop Doane, Bishop Burgess, Dr. Hawks,
(one of the most impressively brilliant and
graceful of modern pulpit orators,) Dr. Hook-vocates of Free-Trade.
er, and some others, are men of decided
talents; but we do not find among them all
any one to be compared with a dozen in the
Presbyterian Church-to Dr. Williams in the
Baptist, or Andrews Norton in the Unitarian
denomination. The dearth of eminent capa-
cities is still more noticeable among the Ro-
man Catholics. Archbishop Hughes (an
Irishman by birth) is a noisy, impudent, and
superficial, but tolerably shrewd demagogue;
Dr. Ryder's claims to distinction rest on a
few discourses in which he denies that Lord
Bacon was "in any sense a great man," sneers
at the inductive method as ridiculous, and
asserts that "the Church" was never un-
friendly to the march of science or the free-
dom of thought; and Bishop Kendrick,
though he has filled several cumbrous octa-
vos with decent Latin, has done nothing to
preserve his name, except in the lists of the
Roman Catholic Bishops of Philadelphia and
Baltimore. Brownson, whom we have men-
tioned elsewhere, is but a splendid specimen
of the theological Swiss guard.

Sociologists.-In vindication of that philosophy of society of which Charles Fourier was the founder, there are several American writers of decided talent. We can here but refer to Parke Godwin, (the son-in-law of Mr. Bryant,) Horace Greeley, (editor in chief of the Tribune, and author of "Hints towards Reforms," a "Sketch of his last Summer's Residence in Europe," and some other works,) Charles A. Dana, Albert Brisbane, and John L. Dwight.

Political Economists.-In Political Economy, America is represented by one of the strongest and most original writers of the age, Henry C. Carey, of Philadelphia. His works are not yet much known in England,

[graphic]

Historians-Among the historians who have attained a high and deserved reputation in the United States within the last few years, we are inclined to yield the first place to George Bancroft. His great work on the "History of the United States" has been brought down from the commencement of American colonization to the opening of the Revolutionary War, to which subject it is understood that he intends devoting the three succeeding volumes. His researches in the public offices of England, while he was Minister of the United States at the Court of St. James, have brought to light a great mass of documentary evidence on the antecedents and course of the Revolution, which have not yet been made public. With his critical sagacity in sifting evidence, his hound-like instinct in scenting every particle of testimony that can lead him on the right track, and his plastic skill in moulding the most confused and discordant materials into a compact, symmetrical, and truthful narrative, he cannot fail to present the story of that great historical drama with a freshness, accuracy, and artistic beauty, worthy of the immortal events which it commemorates. Mr. Bancroft is now exclusively occupied in the completion of this work. He pursues it with the drudging fidelity of a mechanical laborer, combined with the enthusiasm of a poet, and the comprehensive wisdom of a statesman. With strong social tastes, he gives little time to society. His favorite post is in his library, where he labors the live-long day in the spirit of the ancient artist, Nulla dies sine linea.

His experience in political and diplomatic life, no less than his rare and generous culture, and his singular union of the highest mental faculties, enable us to predict with

confidence that this work will be reckoned | his fifteenth year. Soon after he sailed for among the genuine master-pieces of historical Europe, and continued his studies at the Gergenius. The volumes of the "History of man Universities, returning to his own counthe United States" already published are try just before the attainment of his majority. well known to intelligent readers both in Devoting himself for several years to literary Great Britain and America. They are dis- and educational pursuits, he acquired a briltinguished for their compact brevity of state- liant reputation as a poet, critic, and essayist; ment, their terse and vigorous diction, their and at a subsequent period, entering the brilliant panoramic views, and the boldness career of politics, he has signalized himself and grace of their sketches of personal char- by his attachment to democratic ideas, and acter. A still higher praise may be awarded the eloqnence and force with which on all to this history for the tenacity with which it occasions he has sustained the principles with clings to the dominant and inspiring idea of the prevalence of which he identifies the which it records the development. Whoever progress of humanity. reads it, without comprehending the standpoint of the author, is liable to disappointment. For it must be confessed that, as a mere narrative of events, the preference may be given to the productions of far inferior authors. But it is to be regarded as an epic in prose of the triumph of freedom. This noble principle is considered by Mr. Bancroft as an essential attribute of the soul, necessarily asserting itself in proportion to the spiritual supremacy which has been achieved. The history, then, is devoted to the illustration of the progress of freedom, as an outbirth of the spontaneous action of the soul. It is in this point of view that the remarkable chapters on the Massachusetts Pilgrims, the Pennsylvania Quakers, and the North American Indians, were written; and their full purport, their profound significance, can only be appreciated by readers whose minds possess at least the seeds of sympathy with this sublime philosophy. The chapter on the Quakers is a pregnant psychological treatise. Sparkling all over with the electric lights of a rich humanitarian philosophy, it invests the theologic visions of Fox and Barclay with a radiance and beauty which have been ill preserved in the formal and lifeless organic systems of their successors. The parallel run by the historian between William Penn and John Locke is one of the most characteristic productions of his peculiar genius. Original, subtle, suggestive, crowded with matter and frugal of words, it brings out the distinctive features of the spiritual and mechanical schools in the persons of two of their "representative men," with a breadth and reality which is seldom found in philosophical portraitures. Mr. Bancroft was the son of an eminent Unitarian clergyman in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was born about the beginning of the present century, and is consequently a little more than fifty years of age. He graduated at Harvard University, with distinguished honors, before he had completed

[ocr errors]

The reputation of William H. Prescott as an elegant historian is well known to British scholars. His works have been translated into several of the continental languages, and have received a cordial tribute of admiration from eminent critics in various departments, including men of no less dissimilar pursuits and tastes than Humboldt and Hallam. Mr. Prescott is an indefatigable student. Laboring under the disadvantage of a partial loss of sight, while engaged in the composition of his elaborate histories he has shown an iron perseverance rarely equalled in the records of literary labor, and an almost incredible extent of research, reminding us of the astonishing diligence of Gibbon or Niebuhr. He is not a profound thinker; he seldom descends below the surface; he has no love for the investigation of first principles. Destitute of all tendency to theory or to general views, he is never lost in the region of speculative ideas. His mind is singularly free from the transcendental element. Nor is his imagination either plastic or suggestive. His sympathies are languid, and not cold, but lukewarm. He is never fired into a generous enthusiasm in the contemplation of a noble act. He looks at the whole field of history with a certain scholastic and gentlemanly indifference, without permitting the serenity of his good breeding to be disturbed by any thrill of passion. Hence, he is after all a mere collector of facts-a polished and charming story-teller-a graceful showman of the scenes of grand historic achievements -a lively and courteous cicerone, whose knowledge of details is rivalled only by the smooth facility of his descriptions. His style is doubtless admirable, in its kind-finished with dainty elaboration-clear and limpid as the gentlest rivulet which winds gracefully through a quiet New England valley-redolent of the choicest literary culture, and betraying an almost affected air of good society. But without any intellectual muscularity,

temperate to tameness, uniformly elegant, | such tampering with the productions of the and as uniformly timid-free from anything illustrious American. Nor do we always that could violently impinge on the most wish to see the father of his country in full fastidious tastes, and equally free from any- dress. No doubt Washington had the heart thing that can touch the higher sentiments of a man beneath the gravity of a statesof our nature and convert the field of history man, and the suppression of the little escainto a sublime arena where great thoughts pades of humor or petulance, which someand divine principles struggle for the mastery times occur in his letters, is a wretched -it soon palls on the sense of the reader with tribute to his memory. its o'erhoneyed sweets, producing a profound impression of monotony, and a gasping feeling of suffocation, like that of breathing the air of a close greenhouse, in its most profuse luxuriance of winter blossoms. We long for one free native blast from the rocky hills in the midst of such costly artificial beauty. Mr. Prescott has taken the public, especially the British public, by surprise. The latter was by no means prepared for the advent of such a writer from the Boeotian, commercial, well-to-do New World; and his sudden appearance in the midst of the most refined circles was nearly as astounding as would be the discovery of a medieval Gothic temple in the backwoods of America.

Jared Sparks can claim no higher merit than that of a diligent and careful compiler. He is familiar with the sources of American history. Devoted for many years almost to the exclusive study of the subject-possess ing a plain, tough, sturdy common sense, and without the slightest particle of imagination -he has written several historical biographies, as those of Washington, Franklin, and Gouverneur Morris, which are of some value as works of reference, but as models of historical composition are entirely beneath criticism. Their style is heavy, lumbering, awkward, and has not even the negative merit of simplicity. Often attempting an ambitious flight, he makes dire havoc of all rhetorical figures, producing admiration for his intrepidity at the expense of our confidence in his taste. In his selections from the papers of Washington, he has been guilty of what we can call by no milder name than a flagrant literary misdemeanor. We allude to the frequent substitution of his own language for that of Washington, under the pretence of preparing the writings of the latter for the public eye. By this process, the most familiar letters of Washington, written in the freedom of private friendship, are made to assume a grave and stately bearing, and eliminated of all the touches of nature, which, to a reader of the present day, are of more interest than the whole of the sententious wisdom which has been preserved with such scrupulous precision. We protest against

A work of considerable learning and research has been written by Samuel Eliot, entitled "The History of Roman Liberty." As a specimen of historical investigation, on a difficult and complicated subject, it is highly creditable to the diligence and accuracy of the author. His style is formed on classical models, but it lacks the ease and freedom of the practised writer. Nor does the work exhibit any remarkable traces of either profound or original thought. Mr. Eliot is evidently a man of high cultivation, but can lay no claim to genius. He is only safe when he follows his masters. Whenever he attempts to speculate on his own account, a signal failure is the consequence. His book is at once an illustration of the elegant culture which is given at Harvard College, the pride of Boston, and of the timid, conventional superficiality of thought, which distinguishes so large a portion of the scholars of that literary metroplis.

Richard Hildreth is a more recent historian. He has written the "History of the United States down to the Administration of Thomas Jefferson," and is now engaged in its completion to a later period. His work deserves more attention than it has received. It is a keen, ice-cold, anatomical analysis of American history, written with a bloodless freedom from passion, dissecting the motives and measures which have been usually surrounded with a brilliant halo of admiration, and persistently eschewing every appeal to sentiment, imagination, or emotion. The language is clear, terse, vigorous, and, for the most part, pure idiomatic English. It constantly reminds you of greater power than is exhibited. You leave the perusal of the work with the assurance that you have been following a guide, who, though severe, sombre, taciturn, knows well his road, and could exercise lusty sinews and muscles in case of need.

Francis Parkman is a young author of singular promise. His recent" History of Pontiac" is an admirable production. Combining thoroughness of research with a picturesque beauty of expression, it presents a fascinating narrative of one of the most

« VorigeDoorgaan »