Handbook of Universal Literature, From the Best and Latest Authorities Part 43

S. G. Goodrich (1793-1860), who, under the name of Peter Parley, has acquired an extensive popularity in England and the United States, was the pioneer in the important reform of rendering historical school-books attractive, and his numerous works occupy a prominent place in the literature designed for the young. Two other able writers in this department are John S.C. and Jacob Abbott.

Among the numerous local and special histories, valuable for their correctness and literary merit, are Brodhead's "History of New York,"

Palfrey's and Elliott's Histories of New England, Trumbull's "History of Connecticut," Hawks's "History of North Carolina," and Dr. Francis's "Historical Sketches."

To the department of Biography, Jared Sparks has made many valuable contributions. Washington Irving's "Life and Voyages of Columbus" and "Life of Washington" have gained a popularity as extensive as the fame of this charming writer. Mrs. Kirkland, also, has written a popular "Life of Washington." The biographies and histories of J.T. Headley are remarkable for a vivacity and energy, which have given them great popularity. The "Biographical and Historical Studies" of G.W. Greene, Randall's "Life of Jefferson," Parton's Biographies of Aaron Burr and other celebrated men, Mrs. Ellet's "Women of the Revolution" and "Women Artists in all Ages,"

and Mrs. Hale's "Sketches of Distinguished Women in all Ages," are among the numerous works belonging to this department.

The restlessness of the American character finds a mode of expression in the love of travel and adventure, and within the last thirty years no nation has contributed to literature more interesting books of travel than the United States. Flint's "Wanderings in the Valley of the Mississippi,"

Schoolcraft's "Discoveries and Adventures in the Northwest," Irving's "Astoria," and Fremont's Reports are instructive and entertaining accounts of the West. The "Incidents of Travel" of John L. Stephens (1805-1857) has had remarkable success in Europe as well as in this country. The adventurous Arctic explorations of E.K. Kane (1822-1857) have elicited universal admiration for the interest of their descriptions and for the heroism and indomitable energy of the writer. These narratives have been followed by those of Hayes in the same field of adventure. The scientific explorations of E.G. Squier have thrown new light on the antiquities and ethnology of the aboriginal tribes of America. Wilkes's "Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition" and Perry's "Narrative of an Expedition to j.a.pan" are full of scientific and general information.

Lynch's "Exploration of the Dead Sea" and Herndon's "Valley of the Amazon"

belong to the same cla.s.s. Bartlett's "Explorations in Texas and New Mexico" is interesting from the accuracy of its descriptions and the novelty of the scenes it describes. Among the numerous other entertaining books of travel in foreign countries are those of Bayard Taylor, who has left few parts of the world unvisited; Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast;"

Curtis's "Nile Notes;" Norman's "Cities of Yucatan;" Dix's "Winter in Madeira;" Brace's "Hungary," "Home Life in Germany," and "Norse Folk;"

Olmsted's "Travels in the Seaboard Slave States," and other works; Ross Browne's "Notes," Prime's "Boat" and "Tent Life," and "Letters of Irenaeus;" Slidell's "Year in Spain;" Willis's "Pencillings by the Way;"

Hillard's "Six Months in Italy" and "Letters;" "Memories" and "Souvenirs,"

by Catherine M. Sedgwick, Sarah Haight, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Grace Greenwood, and Octavia Walton Le Vert.

2. ORATORY.--The public speeches of a nation's chief legislators are shining landmarks of its policy and lucid developments of the character and genius of its inst.i.tutions. Of the statesmen of the present century, the most eminent are Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. Daniel Webster (1782- 1852) is acknowledged to be one of the greatest men America has produced.

His speeches and forensic arguments const.i.tute a characteristic as well as an intrinsically valuable and interesting portion of our native literature, and some of his orations on particular occasions are everywhere recognized as among the greatest instances of genius in this branch of letters to be met with in modern times. The style of Webster is remarkable for its clearness and impressiveness, and rises occasionally to absolute grandeur. His dignity of expression, breadth and force of thought realize the ideal of a republican statesman; his writings, independent of their literary merit, are invaluable for the nationality of their tone and spirit.

The speeches of Henry Clay (1777-1852) are distinguished by a sincerity and warmth which were characteristic of the man, who united the gentlest affections with the pride of the haughtiest manhood. His style of oratory, full, flowing, and sensuous, was modulated by a voice of sustained power and sweetness and a heart of chivalrous courtesy, and his eloquence reached the heart of the whole nation.

The style of John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) was terse and condensed, and his eloquence, though sometimes impa.s.sioned, was always severe. He had great skill as a dialectician and remarkable power of a.n.a.lysis, and his works will have a permanent place in American literature. The writings and speeches of John Quincy Adams (1769-1848) are distinguished by universality of knowledge and independence of judgment, and they are repositories of rich materials for the historian and political philosopher. Benton's (1783-1858) "Thirty Years' View" of the working of the American government is a succession of historical pictures which will increase in value as the scenes they portray become more distant. Edward Everett (1794-1865), as an orator, has few living equals, and his occasional addresses and orations have become permanent memorials of many important occasions of public interest. Of the numerous other orators, eminent as rhetoricians or debaters, a few only can be named; among them are Legare, Randolph, Choate, Sumner, Phillips, Preston, and Prentiss.

3. FICTION.--Romantic fiction found its first national development in the writings of James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), and through his works American literature first became widely known in Europe. His nautical and Indian tales; his delineations of the American mind in its adventurous character, and his vivid pictures of the aborigines, and of forest and frontier life, from their freshness, power, and novelty, attracted universal attention, and were translated into the princ.i.p.al European languages as soon as they appeared. "The Spy," "The Pioneers," "The Last of the Mohicans," and numerous other productions of Cooper, must hold a lasting place in English literature.

The genial and refined humor of Washington Irving (1783-1859), his lively fancy and poetic imagination, have made his name a favorite wherever the English language is known. He depicts a great variety of scenes and character with singular skill and felicity, and his style has all the ease and grace, the purity and charm, that distinguish that of Goldsmith, with whom he may justly be compared. "The Sketch-Book" and "Knickerbocker's History of New York" are among the most admired of his earlier writings, and his later works have more than sustained his early fame.

The tales and prose sketches of N.P. Willis are characterized by genial wit, and a delicate rather than a powerful imagination, while beneath his brilliant audacities of phrase there is a current of original thought and genuine feeling. Commanding all the resources of pa.s.sion, while he is at the same time master of all the effects of manner, in the power of ingenious and subtle comment on pa.s.sing events, of sketching the lights and shadows which flit over the surface of society, of playful and felicitous portraiture of individual traits, and of investing his descriptions with the glow of vitality, this writer is unsurpa.s.sed.

Hawthorne is remarkable for the delicacy of his psychological insight, his power of intense characterization, and for his mastery of the spiritual and the supernatural. His genius is most at home when delineating the darker pa.s.sages of life and the enactions of guilt and pain. He does not feel the necessity of time or s.p.a.ce to realize his spells, and the early history of New England and its stern people have found no more vivid ill.u.s.tration than his pages afford. The style of Hawthorne is the pure colorless medium of his thought; the plain current of his language is always equable, full and unvarying, whether in the company of playful children, among the ancestral a.s.sociations of family or history, or in grappling with the mysteries and terrors of the supernatural world. "The Scarlet Letter" is a psychological romance, a study of character in which the human heart is anatomized with striking poetic and dramatic power.

"The House of the Seven Gables" is a tale of retribution and expiation, dating from the time of the Salem witchcraft. "The Marble Faun" is the most elaborate and powerfully drawn of his later works.

Edgar A. Poe (1811-1849) acquired much reputation as a writer of tales and many of his productions exhibit extraordinary metaphysical acuteness, and an imagination that delights to dwell in the shadowy confines of human experience, among the abodes of crime and horror. A subtle power of a.n.a.lysis, a minuteness of detail, a refinement of reasoning in the anatomy of mystery, give to his most improbable inventions a wonderful reality.

Of the numerous writings of William Gilmore Simms, historical or imaginative romances form no inconsiderable part. As a novelist he is vigorous in delineation, dramatic in action, poetic in description, and skilled in the art of story-telling. His pictures of Southern border scenery and life are vivid and natural.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was well known as a writer before the appearance of the work which has given her a world-wide reputation. No work of fiction of any age ever attained so immediate and extensive a popularity as "Uncle Tom's Cabin;" before the close of the first year after its publication it had been translated into all the languages of Europe; many millions of copies had been sold, and it had been dramatized in twenty different forms, and performed in every capital of Europe.

Besides the authors already named, there is a crowd of others of various and high degrees of merit and reputation, but whose traits are chiefly a.n.a.logous to those already described. Paulding, in "Westward Ho" and "The Dutchman's Fireside," has drawn admirable pictures of colonial life; Dana, in "The Idle Man," has two or three remarkable tales; Flint, Hall, and Webber have written graphic and spirited tales of Western life. Kennedy has described Virginia life in olden times in "Swallow Barn;" and Fay has described "Life in New York;" Hoffman has embodied the early history of New York in a romantic form, and Dr. Bird, that of Mexico. William Ware's "Probus" and "Letters from Palmyra" are cla.s.sical romances, and Judd's "Margaret" is a tragic story of New England life. Cornelius Mathews has chosen new subjects, and treated them in an original way; John Neal has written many novels full of power and incident. The "Hyperion" and "Kavanagh" of Longfellow establish his success as a writer of fiction; and in adventurous description, the "Omoo" and "Typee" of Melville, and the "Kaloolah" and "Berber" of Mayo have gained an extensive popularity.

This department of literature has been ably represented by the women of the United States, and their contributions form an important part of our national literature. Catharine M. Sedgwick has written the most pleasing and graphic tales of New England life. Lydia M. Child is the author of several fictions, as well as other prose works, which evince great vigor, beauty, and grace. Maria J. McIntosh has written many charming tales; the "New Home" of Mrs. Kirkland, an admirable picture of frontier life, was brilliantly successful, and will be permanently valuable as representing scenes most familiar to the early settlers of the Western States. The works of the Misses Warner are equally popular in England and the United States. Among numerous other names are those of Eliza Leslie, Lydia H.

Sigourney, Caroline Gilman, E. Oakes Smith, Alice and Phoebe Cary, Elizabeth F. Ellet, Sarah J. Hale, Emma Willard, Caroline Lee Hentz, Alice B. Neal, Caroline Chesebro, Emma Southworth, Ann S. Stephens, Maria c.u.mmings, Anna Mowatt Ritchie, Rose Terry Cooke, Harriet Prescott Spofford, Augusta J. Evans, Catharine A. Warfield, and the writers under the a.s.sumed names of f.a.n.n.y Forrester, Grace Greenwood, f.a.n.n.y Fern, Marion Harland, and Mary Forrest, besides many anonymous writers.

4. POETRY.--America has as yet produced no great epic poet, although the existence of a high degree of poetical talent cannot be denied. Carrying the same enthusiasm into the world of fancy that he does into the world of fact, the American finds in the cultivation of the poetic faculty a pleasant relief from the absorbing pursuits of daily life; hence, while poetry is sometimes cultivated as an art, it is oftener resorted to as a pastime; the number of writers is more numerous here than in any other country, and the facility of poetical expression more universal. William C. Bryant (1794-1878) is recognized as the best representative of American poetry. He is extremely felicitous in the use of native materials, and he has a profound love of nature and of freedom united with great artistic skill. He is eminently a contemplative poet; in his writings there is a remarkable absence of those bursts of tenderness and pa.s.sion which const.i.tute the essence of a large portion of modern verse. His strength lies in his descriptive power, in his serene and elevated philosophy, and in his n.o.ble simplicity of language. Richard H. Dana (1787-1879) is the most psychological of the American poets; the tragic and remorseful elements of humanity exert a powerful influence over his imagination, while the mysteries and aspirations of the human soul fill and elevate his mind. His verse is sometimes abrupt, but never feeble, The poems of Fitz- Greene Halleck are spirited and warm with emotion, or sparkling with genuine wit. His humorous poems are marked by an uncommon ease of versification, a natural flow of language, and a playful felicity of jest; his serious poems are distinguished for manly vigor of thought and language, and a beauty of imagery. The poems of Henry W. Longfellow (1807- 1882) are chiefly meditative, and often embody and ill.u.s.trate significant truths. They give little evidence of the power of overmastering pa.s.sion, but they are pervaded with an earnestness and beauty of sentiment, expressed in a finished and artistic form, which at once wins the ear and impresses the memory and heart. In "Evangeline" and "Hiawatha," the most popular of his later productions, he has skillfully succeeded in the use of metres unusual in English. The poems of N. P. Willis (1807-1867) are characterized by a vivid imagination and a brilliant wit, combined with grace of utterance and artistic finish. His picturesque elaborations of some of the incidents recorded in the Bible are the best of his poetical compositions. His dramas are delicate creations of sentiment and pa.s.sion with a relish of the Elizabethan age. J. R. Lowell (b. 1819) unites in his most effective poems a philosophic simplicity with a transcendental suggestiveness. Imagination and philanthropy are the dominant elements in his writings, which are marked by a graceful flow and an earnest tone. His satires contain many sharply-drawn portraits, and his humorous poems are replete with wit.

Washington Allston (1779-1843) owed his chief celebrity to his paintings, but his literary works alone would have given him high rank among men of genius. His poems are delicate, subtle, and philosophical, and though few in number, they are exquisite in finish and in the thoughts which they embody.

James A. Hillhouse (1789-1841) excelled in what may be called the written drama, which, though unsuited to representation, is characterized by n.o.ble sentiment and imagery. His dramatic and other poems are the first instances in this country of artistic skill in the higher and more elaborate spheres of poetic writing, and have gained for him a permanent place among the American poets. The "Culprit Fay" of Joseph Rodman Drake (1795-1820) is a poem exhibiting a most delicate fancy and much artistic skill. It was a sudden and brilliant flash of a highly poetical mind which was extinguished before its powers were fully expanded. The poetry of John G. Whittier (b. 1809) is characterized by boldness, energy, and simplicity, often united with tenderness and grace; that of Oliver Wendell Holmes, by humor and genial sentiment. In poetry, as in prose, Edgar A.

Poe was most successful in the metaphysical treatment of the pa.s.sions. His poems, which are constructed with great ingenuity, ill.u.s.trate a morbid sensitiveness and a shadowy and gloomy imagination. The poems of Henry T.

Tuckerman (1813-1871) are expressions of graceful and romantic sentiment or the fruits of reflection, ill.u.s.trated with a scholar's taste.

Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884) is the author of many admired convivial and amatory poems, and George P. Morris is a recognized song-writer of America.

Of numerous other poets, whose names are familiar to all readers of American literature, a few only can he named; among them are John G.C.

Brainerd, James G. Percival, Richard H. Wilde, James G. Brooks, Charles Sprague, Alfred B. Street, T. Buchanan Read, T.B. Aldrich, William Allen Butler, Albert G. Greene, George D. Prentice, William J. Pabodie, Park Benjamin, William Gilmore Simms, John R. Thompson, William Ross Wallace, Charles G. Leland, Thomas Dunn English, William D. Gallagher, Albert Pike, John G, Saxe, James T. Fields, Arthur Cleveland c.o.xe, Cornelius Mathews, John Neal, and Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Among the literary women of the United States are many graceful writers who possess true poetical genius, and enjoy a high local reputation. The "Zophiel" of Maria Brooks (1795-1845) evinces an uncommon degree of power in one of the most refined and difficult provinces of creative art.

Frances S. Osgood (1812-1850) was endowed with great playfulness of fancy, and a facility of expression which rendered her almost an improvisatrice.

Her later poems are marked by great intensity of feeling and power of expression. The "Sinless Child" of Elizabeth Oakes Smith is a melodious and imaginative poem, with many pa.s.sages of deep significance. Amelia B.

Welby's poems are distinguished for sentiment and melody. The "Pa.s.sion Flowers" and other poems of Julia Ward Howe are full of ardor and earnestness. Mrs. Sigourney's metrical writings are cherished by a large cla.s.s of readers. Hannah F. Gould has written many pretty and fanciful poems, and Grace Greenwood's "Ariadne" is a fine burst of womanly pride and indignation. Among many other equally well known and honored names, there are those of Elizabeth F. Ellet, Emma C. Embury, Sarah J. Hale, Anna Mowatt Ritchie, Ann S. Stephens, Sarah H. Whitman, Catharine A. Warfield, and Eleanor Lee, ("Two Sisters of the West") Alice and Phoebe Cary, "Edith May," Caroline C. Marsh, Elizabeth C. Kinney, and Maria Lowell.

Nothing of very decided mark has been contributed to dramatic literature by American writers, though this branch of letters has been cultivated with some success. John Howard Payne wrote several successful plays; George H. Boker is the author of many dramatic works which establish his claim to an honorable rank among the dramatic writers of the age. Single dramas by Bird, Sargent, Conrad, and other writers still keep their place upon the stage; with many faults, they abound in beauties, and they are valuable as indications of awakening genius.

5. THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND.--The Transcendental Philosophy, so-called, had its distinct origin in the "Critique of Pure Reason," the work of Immanuel Kant, which appeared in Germany in 1781, although, under various forms, the questions it discussed are as old as Plato and Aristotle, The first principle of this philosophy is that ideas exist in the soul which transcend the senses, while that of the school of Locke, or the School of Sensation, is that there is nothing in the intellect that was not first in the senses. The Transcendentalist claimed an intuitive knowledge of G.o.d, belief in immortality, and in man's ability to apprehend absolute ideas of truth, justice, and rect.i.tude. The one regarded expediency, prudence, caution, and practical wisdom as the highest of the virtues, and distrusted alike the seer, the prophet, and the reformer. The other was by nature a reformer and dissatisfied with men as they are, but with pa.s.sionate aspirations for a pure social state, he recognized, above all, the dignity of the individual man.

These two schools of philosophy aimed at the same results, but by different methods. The one worked up from beneath by material processes, the other worked down from above by intellectual ones. There had been in other countries a transcendental philosophy, but, in New England alone, where the sense of individual freedom was active, and where there were no fixed and unalterable social conditions, was this philosophy applied to actual life. Of late the scientific method, so triumphant in the natural world, has been applied to the spiritual, and the principles of the sensational philosophy have been, re-stated by Bain, Mill, Spencer, and other leaders of speculative opinion, who present it under the name of the "Philosophy of Experience," and resolve the intuitions of the Ideal into the results of experience and the processes of organic, life. Mill was the first to organize the psychological side, while Lewes, Spencer, and Tyndall have approached the same problem from the side of organization.

Should these a.n.a.lyses be accepted, Idealism as a philosophy must disappear. There is, however, no cause to apprehend a return to the demoralization which the sensualist doctrines of the last century were accused of encouraging. The att.i.tude of the human mind towards the great problems of destiny has so far altered, and the problems themselves have so far changed their face, that no shock will be felt in the pa.s.sage from the philosophy of intuition to that of experience.

Early in the second quarter of our century the doctrines of Kant and of his German followers, Jacobi, Fichte, and Sch.e.l.ling, found their way into New England, and their influence on thought and life was immediate and powerful, affecting religion, literature, laws, and inst.i.tutions. As an episode or special phase of thought, it was of necessity transient, but had it bequeathed nothing more than the literature that sprang from it and the lives of the men and women who had their intellectual roots in it, it would have conferred a lasting benefit on America.

Among the first to plant the seeds of the Transcendental Philosophy in New England was George Ripley (1802-1880), a philanthropist on ideal principles, whose faith blossomed into works, and whose well known attempt to create a new earth in preparation for a new heaven, although it ended in failure, commanded sympathy and respect. Later, as a critic, he aided the development of literature in America by erecting a high standard of judgment and by his just estimation of the rights and duties of literary men.

Theodore Parker (d. 1860) owed his great power as a preacher to his faith in the Transcendental philosophy. The Absolute G.o.d, the Moral Law, and the Immortal Life he held to be the three cardinal attestations of the universal consciousness. The authority of the "higher law," the absolute necessity of religion for safely conducting the life of the individual and the life of the state, he a.s.severated with all the earnestness of an enthusiastic believer.

A. Bronson Alcott (b. 1799) is a philosopher of the Mystic school. Seeking wisdom, not through books, but by intellectual processes, he appeals at once to consciousness, claims immediate insight, and contemplates ultimate laws in his own soul. His "Orphic Sayings" amused and perplexed the critics, who made them an excuse for a.s.sailing the entire Transcendental school.

Margaret Fuller (1810-1850) adopted the spiritual philosophy, and had the subtlest perception of its bearings. Her vigorous and original writings possess a lasting value, although they imperfectly represent her remarkable powers.

Among the representatives of the Spiritual Philosophy the first place belongs to Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), who lighted up its doctrines with the rays of ethical and poetical imagination. Without the formality of dogma, he was a teacher of vigorous morality in line with the ruling tendencies of the age, and bringing all the aid of abstract teaching towards the solution of the moral problems of society.

The first article of his faith is the primacy of Mind; that Mind is supreme, eternal, absolute, one, manifold, subtle, living, immanent in all things, permanent, flowing, self-manifesting; that the universe is the result of mind; that nature is the symbol of mind; that finite minds live and act through concurrence with infinite mind. His second is the connection of the individual intellect with the primal mind and its ability to draw thence wisdom, will, virtue, prudence, heroism, all active and pa.s.sive qualities.

In his essays, which are prose poems, he lays incessant emphasis on the cardinal virtues of humility, sincerity, obedience, aspiration, and acquiescence to the will of the Supreme Power, and he sustains the mind at an elevation that makes the heights of accepted morality disappear in the level of the plain. With many inconsistencies to be allowed for, Emerson still remains the highest mind that the world of letters has produced in America, inspiring men by word and example, rebuking their despondency, awakening them from the slumber of conformity and convention, and lifting them from low thoughts and sullen moods of helplessness and impiety.

Among other writers identified with the Transcendental movement in New England are O. B. Frothingham, Orestes A. Brownson, James Freeman Clarke, William H. Channing, Henry Th.o.r.eau, John S. Dwight, C. P. Cranch, W. E.

Channing, T. W. Higginson, C. A. Bartol, D. A. Wa.s.son, John Weiss, and Samuel Longfellow.

6. MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS.--Of the essayists, critics, and miscellaneous writers of the United States, a few only may be here characterized.

Parke G.o.dwin is a brilliant political essayist. E. P. Whipple is an able critic and an essayist of great acuteness, insight, and logical power. H.

T. Tuckerman is a genial and appreciative writer, combining extensive scholarship with elevated sentiment and feeling. Richard Grant White's "Commentaries on Shakspeare" have met with a cordial reception from all Shakspearean scholars.

Oliver Wendell Holmes conceals under the garb of wit and humor an earnest sympathy and a deep knowledge of human nature; George W. Curtis combines fine powers of observation and satire with delicacy of taste and refinement of feeling; and Donald G. Mitch.e.l.l gives to the world his "Reveries" in a pleasing and attractive manner. The writings of A. J.

Downing, on subjects relating to rural life and architecture, have exercised a wide and salutary influence on the taste of the country.

Willis g.a.y.l.o.r.d Clark (1810-1841) is best remembered by his "Ollapodiana"

and his occasional poems, in which humor and pathos alternately prevail.

The "Charcoal Sketches" of Joseph C. Neal (1807-1847) exhibit a genial humor, and will be remembered for the curious specimens of character they embody.

Seba Smith has been most successful in adapting the Yankee dialect to the purposes of humorous writing in his "Jack Downing's Letters" and other productions. The writings of Henry D. Th.o.r.eau, combining essay and description, are quaint and humorous, while those of "Timothy t.i.tcomb"