Noah Webster Part 2

Webster, without money, and almost without friends, but with the kind of faith which works miracles with other people's faith, succeeded at length in persuading Hudson & Goodwin, printers in Hartford, to issue an edition of five thousand copies of the spelling-book. John Trumbull and Joel Barlow were his chief supporters, the latter backing him with a little money. The printer was the publisher then; and an author, in making his arrangements, was accustomed to sell the right to print and publish to various printers in various parts of the country,--a custom which continued through the first quarter of the century. The isolation of the several settled communities rendered collision between the several dealers unlikely; and, in the absence of quick communication, no place had any advantage except as a depot for the neighboring district.

Rights to print were granted for fourteen years. Such a contract was made in 1818 by Webster with Mr. Hudson, who was to pay $3,000 a year during the term. The reader will recall similar arrangements in Irving's ventures. The popularity of the speller rendered it liable to piracy, especially in the ruder parts of the country, and as late as 1835 Mr.

Webster writes to his son, established as a bookseller in Louisville: "I would suggest whether it would not be advisable to publish in Kentucky, or at least in Tennessee, a short note like this: 'The Public are cautioned against buying "Webster's American Spelling-Book;" the editions now in the market are pirated, badly printed, and incorrect.

The author expressly disclaims them.'"

The final success of the little book has been quite beyond definite computation, but a few figures will show something of the course it has run. In 1814, 1815, the sales averaged 286,000 copies a year; in 1828 the sales were estimated to be 350,000 copies. In 1847 the statement was made that about twenty-four million copies of the book had been published up to that time, and that the sale was then averaging a million of copies a year. It was also then said, that during the twenty years in which he was employed in compiling his "American Dictionary,"

the entire support of his family was derived from the profits of this work, at a premium for copyright of five mills a copy. The sales for eight years following the Civil War, namely, 1866-1873, aggregated 8,196,028; and the fact that the average yearly sale was scarcely greater than in 1847 may be referred in part to the great enterprise in the publication of school-books, which has marked the last twenty years, by which his speller has been one only of a great many, in part, also, to the impoverishment of the South where Webster's book had been more generally accepted than at the North.

The great demand that there was for elementary school-books, the real advance of Webster's over any then existing, the promptness with which he met the first call, all these causes combined to give a great impetus to the little book. At first sight there seems something amusing in the importance which not only Webster but other men of the time attached to the spelling-book. Timothy Pickering, in camp at Newburgh, waiting for the final word of disbanding, sat up into the night to read it! "By the eastern post yesterday," he writes to his wife, "I was lucky enough to receive the new spelling-book [Webster's] I mentioned in my last, and instead of sleeping (for I had a waking fit which prevented me), I read it through last night, except that I only examined a part of the different tables. I am much pleased with it. The author is ingenious, and writes from his own experience as a school-master, as well as the best authorities; and the time will come when no authority, as an English grammarian, will be superior to his own. It is the very thing I have so long wished for, being much dissatisfied with any spelling-book I had seen before. I now send you the book, and request you to let John take it to his master, with the enclosed letter; for I am determined to have him instructed upon this new, ingenious, and, at the same time, easy plan. There are, you will see by the Introduction, two more parts to come to complete the plan. I am a stranger to Mr. Webster, but I intend, when I can find leisure, to write him on the subject, using the liberty (which he requests) to suggest some little matters which may be altered and improved in his next edition, for I think the work will do honor to his country, and I wish it may be perfect. Many men of literature might think it too trifling a subject; but I am of a different opinion, and am happy that a gentleman of Mr. Webster's genius and learning has taken it up. All men are pleased with an elegant p.r.o.nunciation, and this new Spelling-Book shows children how to acquire it with ease and certainty."[6]

Pickering's letter helps us to get behind "Webster's Spelling-Book" in 1783, instead of looking at it from this later vantage-ground of an acc.u.mulated American literature. There runs through the correspondence of that day a tone which we easily call provincial, but is nevertheless a distinct expression of the consciousness of the young nation. The instinct of literature is toward self-centring, and the sense of national being was very strong in men who had been giving their days and nights to the birth of a new nation. To understand the state of things in 1783 we should look at the literary ventures, inclusive of educational, within the boundaries of the Southern States during the War of 1861-1865. There the interruption of commerce with the North compelled a resort to home production in school-book literature, and intensity of feeling upon sectional questions found frequent expression in spelling-books and arithmetics. "Webster's Elementary" was reprinted at Macon, without ill.u.s.trations and some of the diacritical marks, _mutatis mutandis_ The reader finds the morals of the book and the earlier patriotism unchanged, but remembers its lat.i.tude when he reads: "The Senate of the Confederate States is sailed the Upper House of Congress: The President of the Confederate States is elective once every six years: The Confederate States have a large extent of sea-coast, and many parts of the Confederate States are noted for the fertility of the soil." But these are innocent adaptations; one must look to the arithmetics for sectional feeling.

In Webster's time, men whose lives had been spent in the struggle for independence and autonomy looked upon everything relating to their country with a concentration of interest which not only attested the sincerity of their convictions, but made them indifferent to the larger, more universal standards. They were seeing things with American, not European eyes. When Dr. Belknap and his friend Mr. Hazard were carefully arranging for the publication of the "History of New Hampshire," they made proposals to the Longmans, in London, to take an edition, without any apparent suspicion that such a book might lack readers in England.

The publishers' polite reply intimates the "apprehension that the history of one particular province of New England would not be of sufficient importance to engage the attention of this country, and particularly as it is at present brought down no lower than the year 1714." Belknap's History is an admirable piece of work, the first scholarly work of its kind on this side of the water, and Dr. Belknap respected his book. To him, as to many of that generation, a book was a serious undertaking, and each new one that came was carefully weighed and its character measured; a history of New Hampshire was not a mere piece of local self-complacency, but a dignified adventure into a portion of American history hitherto unexplored. The work expended upon it was as careful and grave as if the subject had been the Peloponnesian War. Indeed, one of the substantial evidences of the historic justification of the war for independence is to be found in the alacrity with which the scholarly element in the country busied itself about themes which were close at hand and connected with the land of their life.

Literature in its finer forms had but slender encouragement. The absence of easy communication, the poverty of the people, the dispersion of the population, gave little chance for bookstores and circulating libraries and private acc.u.mulation. It must not be forgotten, either, that the era of cheap books had not yet come in England, and that the periodical form was still in embryo. To look back on one of the rather juiceless periodicals which sprang up so frequently at the beginning of our literature because they had no depth of earth, and withered away rootless and sunstruck, is to be over-taken half with scorn for their pretense, and half with pity for conductors and readers, who had to make believe very hard to find them quite nice. "They would bear a little more seasoning certainly," like the marchioness's orange-peel and water; yet how strong must have been the pa.s.sion for literature when money was expended and pains taken with these hopeless ventures. The change in popular taste, moreover, must not mislead us into supposing that writings which are arid to us now were necessarily devoid of interest to contemporary readers. We take down from the shelf the solitary volume which contains the "American Magazine," and its reading-matter looks as faded to our eyes as the leather upon the covers, but it was once the latest publication of the day. We can with little difficulty imagine that the monthly report of Warren Hastings' trial, with its plan of the High Court at Westminster, would have an interest at the time quite as reasonable in its way as that which held readers of journals, not so long extinct, over the details of the Tichborne case. It is in the field of polite literature that our later taste refuses to discover anything in common with the readers of the "American Magazine." What impresses one most in such a periodical is the value which the conductors set upon American historical material. This was offered to the public with all the a.s.surance which now attends the promise of a great serial story. The explanation may most reasonably be found in the fact, that the subscribers to any such magazine at the time must have been sought among the well educated, and this cla.s.s had been used chiefly to a serious view of literature.

The "American Magazine" was Webster's venture, and in the Belknap and Hazard correspondence one may find some curious incidents in the struggle for existence which the magazine had. It should be premised that neither of these gentlemen--and they represented the most cultivated cla.s.s of the day--had much confidence in Webster. They nicknamed him the "Monarch," possibly from some a.s.sumption and arrogance in his tone, and he is rarely mentioned by them except in a slighting manner. "_I_ think the _Monarch_ a literary puppy, from what little I have seen of him," writes Hazard to Belknap. "He certainly does not want understanding, and yet there is a mixture of self-sufficiency, all-sufficiency, and at the same time a degree of insufficiency about him, which is (to me) intolerable. I do _not_ believe that _he_ is fit for a superintendent; that the persons mentioned will be his coadjutors, or that either the _demand_ or the _profits_ will be any way near equal to his expectations. His specimens already published [three numbers of the 'American Magazine'] are below mediocrity, and even in them _he_ is too much the hero of the tale. His plan of a _Federal_ publication, if sensible, judicious men could be engaged to execute it, and an editor of the same stamp could be procured, I think would do well. _Considering circ.u.mstances_, I would not advise you to engage with, him, but I think you may avail yourself of his application with the Columbians; only take care to do it in such a way that you may not, between two stools, fall to the ground."

The "Columbian" was a magazine of a little older standing to which Dr.

Belknap had been contributing (his "Foresters" appeared there), and the incident of the worldly-wise Hazard, gently encouraging the clergyman to play the rivals against each other, has at least an approach to modern literary history. Webster, with his restlessness, had no sooner launched the "American Magazine" than he began to form other projects, as intimated in Hazard's letter, and wished to secure not only Belknap's pen, but his more active partnership. Hazard writes again to his friend, after being asked for further advice: "I am really at a loss how to advise you, but think, upon the whole, I would let the Columbians know that 'my necessities also compelled the making a close bargain;' that I had been applied to in behalf of the New York magazine, but felt myself so much interested in their success (having been so long connected with them) that I did not like to leave them, provided they would stipulate to allow me, _certainly_, what I deemed a reasonable compensation for my a.s.sistance, which they acknowledge they do not now allow; and that, upon their doing this, I would continue to aid them. If you can contribute the stipulated a.s.sistance to them in case you accept N. W.'s proposal, I see no reason why you should not do the latter too; for, if you fulfill your engagements, you do them no injustice. You may, in this case, as well have two strings to your bow as not, and I think I would advise to it, especially as the 'Columbian's' continuance is uncertain.[7] I would inform N. W. that some consideration was necessary respecting his plan; but that I was, upon the whole, inclined to think I would join him, if he could get the other gentlemen he mentioned to me to be concerned. I think no _cash_ is to be advanced by you, upon his plan. It will be some months before he can begin, and I would not exclude myself from a chance."

Dr. Belknap's letters to Webster unfortunately do not appear, but his friend, through whom he wrote, commends him for his prudence. "I find,"

he writes, "you have not a more exalted idea of the Monarch than I have.

I should not be fond of a connection with him, unless I saw it clearly to my interest." He praises him also for his exertions in behalf of the feeble "Columbian," which owed its life to him, in his opinion. Oddly enough, after all of Hazard's cautions and advice to Belknap, he seems himself to have been involved in negotiations with Webster, and from this point the correspondence has more interest as throwing light upon the estimation in which literary material was held at the time. Mr.

Hazard had for a long time been making a collection of papers bearing upon American colonial history, and had not seen his way clear to a profitable publication of them. Noah Webster suddenly appears as the agent for a new magazine in which he has a slight interest, and makes proposals to Mr. Hazard. It is amusing to see how shy Hazard is of any close connection with Webster, and yet how continually Webster appears in the foreground in the affair.

"What would you think," writes Hazard to Belknap, "of my collection of papers coming to light after lying in obscurity so long? It is likely to be the case. The 'American Magazine' is to appear in a new form,[8] and on an extensive plan, and to be the property of _a society_ of gentlemen, among whom N. W. holds but one share; and I am told he is going to remove from hence [New York] to Connecticut, so that he will not be the editor. Their plan is to publish one hundred and four pages monthly, fifty-six of them are to be in the usual magazine style, twenty-four are to contain State Papers, and twenty-four either historical _MSS._, such as 'Winthrop's Journal,' or a republication of ancient, valuable, and scarce American histories, such as Smith's of Virginia, etc., etc. N. W. called, to know if I would dispose of my collection for this purpose, informing me that they intended to print in such a way that the State Papers and histories might be detached from the magazine and bound by themselves. After considering of the matter, I concluded to let them have the collection for 500, which they agreed to give. I don't altogether like this way of publishing the papers; but when I reflected on the great uncertainty of my being able to publish them at all, the risque I run by their remaining _in statu quo_, and the little probability that I should clear 500 by them if I should publish, I thought it best to say yes. The money is to be paid by installments.

All this is _inter nos_."

Dr. Belknap now had an opportunity to repay his friend's favors in kind, and in acknowledging the letter just quoted he writes: "I could wish that you would take off the restriction of secrecy, so far as it relates to the intended publication of the magazine and its appendage, because I apprehend it may be in my power to set on foot a similar publication here; and the knowledge that such a design is on foot elsewhere may prove a stimulus to the undertaking." He prudently remarks that the sale made by his friend is good, "provided the purchasers do not fail in the payment." Hazard returns to the matter in his next letter: "With respect to the _MSS._ I made a pretty _safe_ bargain, and yet much will depend on the success of the publication as to the _quickness_ of the pay....

By agreement I am to hand my papers out in monthly portions, and in chronological order. The January magazine, or rather _Register_, is to contain twenty-four pages of them, and as many of 'Winthrop's Journal.'

The design of the intended publication is no secret now, having been advertised in the newspapers; but I write you not to say anything about what I am to have for my papers.... N. W. had printed six sheets of Winthrop, but, upon the new plan's striking him, he thought it best to publish in the new mode; and I am told he will lose his expense so far, for his paper is not so fine as the new work is to be done upon, _inter nos_."

Suddenly Hazard writes to Belknap that Webster is likely to call upon him, and that if he offers him a partnership in the new magazine, he is not at once to decline. It is not worth while to follow the ins and outs of the correspondence upon a scheme which finally fell through, but a full letter from Hazard to Belknap may fairly be drawn from, since it puts one into tolerably complete possession of the whole story.

"You must know that N. W. has been for some time trying to get my State Papers published, and he has generally proposed it in such a way as to have a share in them himself. Several plans were proposed, and at last the idea of the Register was started. He called on me and told me that he had been speaking with some other gentlemen about being concerned in the 'American Magazine,' and that they were to be concerned with him. He informed me of their plan, and wished me to join them, and that my papers might be published in the Register. He intimated that he had five hundred subscribers [to the 'American Magazine'] who would continue to take the new work, and that the improvement proposed would greatly increase the number of subscribers. I objected against being a partner, but had no objection against letting them have my papers for 500. After a variety of negotiations, I consented to become a partner,--and they agreed to allow me 500 for my papers, to be paid out of the profits of the publication,--if they would yield me 50 per annum, at least, clear of my share of all expenses; if not, the other proprietors were to make up that sum to me annually; and, should the work be discontinued before I was paid, they were then to pay me as much as with my profits (all expenses first deducted) would make 500. Regular written articles were drawn, and executed by all but one partner, who has not yet signed them, nor will, 'til he sees such a number of subscribers in this city [New York] and its vicinity as will defray the actual expense of the work.

The _profits_ he is willing to risque. He is a discreet, sensible man, and will be what the sailors call our _main stay_. After the articles were executed, some of the proprietors observed that they had given their bond to me for 500, which must be paid at all events, and that I was to run no risque, and, in fact, to pay no expense,--which was not putting matters on a fair footing with respect to them (before the time the proposals were published). They came and stated the case to me. I immediately saw the propriety of their remarks, and without hesitation agreed to a new article, that their bond for the price of my papers should not be in force immediately _upon their publishing_ (which was the case before), but that they might publish for three months; if they then discontinued the publication, the bond was to be of no effect; if they continued it after that period, it was to be in full force; and I agreed to furnish my proportion of the State Papers, _i. e._, that, as there were four proprietors, the others should pay me but 375,--the remaining 125 being my proportion of the cost of the papers. Thus relief was given on equitable principles.

"In the course of our conversations, at different times, _writers_ were talked of; N. W. mentioned you. I agreed that you would be a very suitable person, if you could be got to engage in it, but was apprehensive your situation would not admit of it. N. W. had no doubt you could be engaged, for he was very confident (or well persuaded, or something of that kind) that you wrote for the 'Columbian,' and were paid for it; and he ascribed the biographical pieces, in particular, to you. Upon my asking the reasons of his opinion, he replied that he did not know (or believe) that anybody else possessed suitable materials; but I suspect he has had more particular information in Philadelphia.

It was suggested among the proprietors that Thomas's magazine[9] would interfere with us in Ma.s.sachusetts, where we hope for a number of subscribers; and N. W. afterwards hinted to me the idea of a coalition, which I was pleased with. He told me he was going to the eastward, and would talk with Thomas about it. I _supposed_ that he would talk with _you_ too, and gave you the hint that you might be prepared. It seems he has done so; and by last post I received proposals for an union, which I have laid before the proprietors here, and they are disapproved of. Upon this plan, the _Register_ was to be printed here, and the _Magazine_ in Boston. One of the proprietors here was to furnish half the matter for the magazine monthly, and forward it to Boston, where N. W. was to act as editor, or engage Mr. Belknap, or some person of equal ability, to act for him; and this editor was to furnish the other half of the matter. As a compensation for my papers, I was to be a proprietor of a seventh of both publications, for they were to be separate. All expenses, bad debts, and other losses were to be divided equally among the partners. These proposals were signed by Noah Webster and Isaiah Thomas & Co. In a letter to me, N. W. sent a calculation, by which he attempted to prove that the value of a share would be near 200 per annum. Such an hint might have done for a person unacquainted with the nature of the business, but old birds want a more substantial temptation than chaff. A princ.i.p.al objection against the plan of union was the risque and expense of sending materials and publications backwards and forwards through so great a distance: one failure would be fatal to one month's magazine, and a repet.i.tion of such a disaster would discourage subscribers. The subscribers here would probably not be satisfied with a magazine printed elsewhere, and could not be furnished with one so early in the month; and, for my part, I am not willing to give up my papers on so precarious a chance of a recompense.

"N. W. (notwithstanding his obligation under hand and seal) confesses himself unwilling to continue the Magazine and Register on our first plan; and I am much mistaken if the other proprietors do not disappoint him by taking him at his word and releasing him from his obligations; for his being known to be concerned makes the subscription go on heavily (this _inter nos_). _His_ magazine was a paltry performance, and people fear a continuation of it. We cannot find his five hundred subscribers yet. We have but about two hundred in this city, most of whom have been tempted by my papers, as is said. We agreed among ourselves not to let the proprietors be known, but N. W. has let the cat quite out of the bag. I am clear for going on without him, which I think may be done better than with him; and my plan would be that a sufficient number of literary characters should be united to make the most, if not the whole, of the magazine _original_. The profits upon each share (especially at first) would be but small; but so, on the other hand, would be the risque. Suppose there should be _no_ profit for a year or two, and that the work should but barely defray the expense for that time, yet it may be presumed that, if it was conducted with spirit, the public would patronize it, being sure of original entertainment, and that at length the property would become very valuable. What do you think of this idea?"

Dr. Belknap's reply to this letter is the last reference to the project which has any interest: "The Monarch called upon me last Monday evening, when I was abroad, and left word that he should come again next day at noon, _upon business_. The _real_ business was to fish out what I had heard from you. I had then received only your short letter, and told him that I had heard nothing. He talked about the magazine, and about my being a partner, and about the business of an editor, and about his being a lawyer (which, by the way, was new to me), and about the value of a share, which, as he then estimated it, would be from 50 to 100 per annum, etc., etc., but expected to hear from you and the proprietors more particularly by the next post, and then we were to have a farther conference. The next post brought me your long letter, and he has not made his appearance since. I suppose, by what you say in _confidence_ to me, that he finds he cannot be director general, and possibly suspects that he may have very little to do. I find myself under some embarra.s.sment with regard to this _personage_. However, as he is going to marry into a family with some branches of which I have long had a very agreeable connection, I must suffer myself to be in a degree of acquaintance with him, especially if (as he _threatens_) he should make this place [Boston] his future residence. If I cannot esteem him as a friend, I do not wish to make him an enemy, and I am very awkward in the art of Chesterfield. Hence arises my embarra.s.sment. What he has told Thomas I know not, but I must do him the justice to say that he did not tell me the names of any of the proprietors, excepting yourself and himself; nor do I know who the others are."

Hazard's papers were finally published by themselves, and the Magazine and Register never got beyond the proposals point. Before the collection was published, however, another magazine loomed up, for the regular failure of each venture never seemed to dampen the ardor of magazine projectors. The story of the enterprise sketched in these letters may be taken as the story of all,--sanguine literary men and inert subscribers; a cla.s.s of material is reckoned upon which always seems abundant, vastly interesting to the persons who hold it, but insufficient to beguile subscribers. Mr. Hazard, with his collection of papers, expects five hundred pounds, and his a.s.sociates think him not unreasonable, especially after he agrees to pay one fourth himself; and with all his prudence and shrewdness he begins to count on the profits of the magazine with something of Webster's facile hope.

Webster himself, in spite of the dislike with which Hazard and Belknap agreed to regard him, appears in an honorable light. No doubt he was consequential and eager to have a hand in what was going on, but he had the confidence and courage which seem to have been lacking in his a.s.sociates. His impulsive dashes at literature and capricious excursions into the realms of language were offensive to highly conservative and orderly scholars like these correspondents, and they sniffed at him rather contemptuously; but Webster could disregard the criticism of others when he had such unbounded self-reliance and zeal. He did not count the cost carefully of what he undertook, but allowed himself the luxury of seizing at once upon what engaged his interest. The publication of "Winthrop's Journal," referred to in the correspondence, was an undertaking which a more scholarly man might have set about with greater care and deliberation. Webster never read the original. He saw a copy from it in the possession of Governor Trumbull, and, perceiving the value of the material, made haste to get it published. He employed a secretary of the governor, who made a copy of the copy, comparing it with the original, which Webster had never seen. Mr. Savage, the learned editor of the Journal in its complete form, sarcastically says: "The celebrated philologist, _who in his English Dictionary triumphed over the difficulties_ of derivation in our etymology from Danish, Russian, Irish, Welsh, German, high or low, Sanscrit, Persian, or Chaldee fountains, might, after exhausting his patience, have reputably shrunk from encounter with the ma.n.u.script of Winthrop." But it was something for Webster to have succeeded in securing a publication of the book in 1790, and the credit due him is not lessened by the fact that he risked his whole property in the enterprise, and lost money.

He was at this time far from being settled in life. For half a dozen years he had been scrambling along as well as he could, teaching, lecturing, practicing a little law, working his books, writing for the newspapers, securing the pa.s.sage of copyright laws, trying this city and that with new ventures, none of which gave him a subsistence. Meanwhile, he had met in Philadelphia a Boston lady, whom his diary shows him to have followed with the zeal of his ardent nature; and it is not to be wondered at that he carried his point here, as so often elsewhere, and settled, as he thought at the time, in Hartford, in 1789, with his wife, Rebecca, daughter of Mr. William Greenleaf, of Boston. His brief account of himself at this date was in the summary: "I had an enterprising turn of mind, was bold, vain, and inexperienced." John Trumbull, writing to Oliver Wolcott, announces that "Webster has returned, and brought with him a pretty wife. I wish him success, but I doubt, in the present decay of business in our profession [the law], whether his profits will enable him to keep up the style he sets out with. I fear he will breakfast upon Inst.i.tutes, dine upon Dissertations, and go to bed supperless." The breakfast was indeed likely to prove the only substantial meal; how substantial it proved we have already noticed. No doubt Webster appeared to his friends, as half to himself, a restless, uneasy man, incapable of steady application to law, and making hazardous ventures in literature in that combined character of author and publisher which the circ.u.mstances of the time rendered almost necessary to any one who undertook to make a profession of letters.

It is a little significant of Webster's relation to literature that he moved outside of the knot of men known in our literary history as the Hartford wits. So many recent claimants for the position of democratic jester have engaged the public attention that the Hartford wits who amused our grandfathers rest their fame now rather upon tradition than upon any perennial liveliness. By their solitude in the pages of American literature their very t.i.tle has acquired a certain gravity, and we are apt to regard them with respect rather than to read them for amus.e.m.e.nt. Fossil wits seem properly to be cla.s.sed with the formation from which they are dug, and not with living types of the same order.

Yet no picture of the times in which Webster lived would be complete without a slight reminiscence of this coterie, and the fact that Webster was the neighbor of these men and himself living by letters suggests a fresh ill.u.s.tration of the truth that kinship in literature is something finer and closer than mere circ.u.mstantial neighborliness. Trumbull, Hopkins, Alsop, Dwight, and the minor stars in this twinkling galaxy, were staunch Federalists, and the occasion of their joint efforts was chiefly political, but Webster's Federalism did not give him a place in the set.

The "Echo" was the t.i.tle which the wits gave to a series of satires that mocked the prose of the day. If an editor published a piece of bloated writing, the bubble was p.r.i.c.ked by the poetical version; if a politician disclosed his weakness, his words were caught up and made to turn him into ridicule. The wits were on the lookout for humbug in any quarter, but they had their pet aversions, Sam Adams and the Jacobins being oftenest pilloried. A bombastic account of a thunder-storm in Boston appears to have given occasion for the first skit, and it was scarcely necessary to do more than parody the grandiloquent newspaper language. "The clouds soon dissipated, and the appearance of the azure vault left trivial hopes of further needful supplies from the uncorked bottles of heaven. In a few moments the horizon was again overshadowed, and an almost impenetrable gloom mantled the face of the skies.... The majestic roar of disploded thunders, now bursting with a sudden crash, and now wasting the rumbling ECHO of their sounds in other lands, added indescribable grandeur to the sublime scene." The suggestion of the "Echo" came from this phrase, and the success of the first venture easily directed the writers into the use of their instrument for lashing political enemies. Two numbers were given to matters of trivial or temporary interest, and then there was a shot at a piece of fustian in the "Boston Argus" on Liberty, followed shortly after by a gibe at some correspondent of the "Argus," who frantically exclaimed, on the occasion of a town meeting refusing to hear Sam Adams: "Shall Europe hear, shall our Southern brethren be told, that Samuel Adams rose to speak in the midst of his fellow-citizens, and was silenced!" A few lines from this satire will best ill.u.s.trate the vigorous treatment which the wits employed, and the gusto with which they jostled the great Democrat:--

"Shall Europe hear, shall Gallia's king be told, That Prince so spirited, so wise and bold, Whose duteous subjects, anxious to improve On common forms of loyalty and love, Took from their sovereign's hands the reins of state, For fear his royal nerves could not support the weight?

And shall our worthy brethren of the South Be told Sam Adams could not ope his mouth?

That mouth whence streams of elocution flowed, Like tail of saw-mill, rapid, rough, and loud, Sweet as the honey-dews that Maia pours O'er her green forests and her tufts of flowers,-- That potent mouth, whence issued words of force To stun an ox, or terrify a horse.

Be told that while those brats whose feeble sight But just had oped on Freedom's dawning light, Born in the nick of time that bliss to know Which to his great and mighty toils we owe, Received applause from Sages, Fools, and Boys, The mighty Samuel could not make a noise?

Be told that, silenced by their clam'rous din, He vainly tried one word to dove-tail in; That though he strove to speak with might and main His voice and strivings equally were vain?

Hard has he toiled and richly earned his gains, Ruined his fingers and spun out his brains To acquire the right to ope his ponderous jaws, As the great champion of Sedition's cause.

Once his soft words like streams of melted tar Stuck in our cars and led us on to war; But now we hear the self-same accents flow Unmoved as quails when buried up in snow.

Is his voice weak? That dreadful voice, we're told, Once made King George the Third through fear turn cold, Europa's kingdoms to their centre shake, When mighty Samuel bawl'd at Freedom's stake.

Does his hand shake? When Sam cried out for war His potent hand spread many a coat of tar, That sinewy hand the feathers scattered o'er Till Tories' jackets made their bellies sore.

Say, for whose sake has Time, that Barber gruff, O'er his wise noddle shook his powder puff?

Was the task hard to hear the sage's noise?

Perhaps the awful sound had frightened boys; But we, the sons of wisdom, fond to hear, With joy had held the breath and oped the ear.

Did we e'en doubt that Solomon had spoke?

If so, has memory vanished into smoke."

The most of the succeeding numbers had reference to politics, but room was found for excursions in other fields: "Monier's Advertis.e.m.e.nt for a School," and "Newtonian Philosophy," served as pegs from which to hang rhymed jests, and the writers would very likely have taken a wider range if there had been a wider range in public interests. But politics dominated thought, and the wits were as bitter partisans as they were clever rhymesters. The poetry of the anti-Jacobin supplied them with the suggestion of form; but there was not the lightness of touch or deft mimicry which characterized those remarkable political skits. As one reads the "Echo," and the "Green-house," and Trumbull's "McFingal," he is constantly reminded of the heaviness of the education which formed the substance of the writers' preparation for their task. The rudeness of the satire is the rudeness of a homespun society.

The authors of the "Echo," when the series came to be reissued in a volume, provided a somewhat solemn preface, in which they say: "The princ.i.p.al poems in this volume, under the t.i.tle of the 'Echo,' owed their origin to the accidental suggestion of a moment of literary sportiveness, at a time when pedantry, affectation, and bombast pervaded most of the pieces published in the gazettes, which were then the princ.i.p.al vehicles of literary information. Willing to lend their aid to check the progress of false taste in American literature, the authors conceived that ridicule would prove a powerful corrective, and that the mode employed in the 'Echo' was the best suited to this purpose.... But the ridicule of a vitiated mode of writing was not long the sole object of the 'Echo.' The important political changes which soon after occurred, not only in Europe, but in America, produced a corresponding change in the republic of letters; and some of the princ.i.p.al gazettes of this country exhibited a disgusting display, not only of a perversion of taste in composition, but a still greater perversion of principle, in that hideous morality of revolutionary madness, which, priding itself in an emanc.i.p.ation from moral obligation, leveled the boundaries of virtue and vice, while it contemptuously derided the most amiable and sacred feelings of our nature. Disgusted with the cruelties exhibited by the French Revolution at a very early stage of its progress, and viewing it as a consuming fire, which, in the course of its conflagration, threatened to destroy whatever was most valuable in society, the authors wished to contribute their efforts in stemming the torrents of Jacobinism in America, and resolved to render the 'Echo' subservient to that purpose. They therefore proceeded to attack, as proper objects of satire, those tenets, as absurd in politics as pernicious in morals, the visionary scheme of equality, and the baleful doctrine that sanctions the pursuit of a good end by the most flagitious means."

Webster's judgment of the condition of literature in the country at a time when he was seeking to live by it is contained in a frank statement which he makes in one of his letters to Dr. Priestley. That philosopher had addressed certain letters to the inhabitants of Northumberland, in which he undertook to lecture them as a philosophical and wise Englishman might properly lecture the citizens of a young and inexperienced republic. Webster replied in ten letters and a postscript, which were collected into a pamphlet and published at New Haven, in 1800. He contends throughout that Dr. Priestley did not know his countrymen, and especially that he was ignorant of New England; he corrects his political judgments, but admits the force in general of his social and literary criticisms. The picture which Webster draws of the condition of America at the beginning of the century is instructive, and explains, indeed, much of his own career:--

"I agree with you fully that our colleges are disgracefully dest.i.tute of books and philosophical apparatus, and that a duty on books without discrimination is highly impolitic. Very many of the best authors cannot be printed in the United States for half a century or more; and I am ashamed to own that scarcely a branch of science can be fully investigated in America for want of books, especially original works.

This defect of our libraries I have experienced myself in searching for materials for the history of Epidemic Diseases.

"In regard to the state of learning in general, your remarks are not sufficiently discriminating. You say there is 'less knowledge in America than in most of the countries of Europe.' The truth seems to be that in the Eastern States knowledge is more diffused among the laboring people than in any country on the globe. The learning of the people extends to a knowledge of their own tongue, of writing and arithmetic sufficient to keep their own simple accounts; they read not only the Bible and newspapers, but almost all read the best English authors, as the 'Spectator,' 'Rambler,' and the works of Watts, Doddridge, and many others. If you can find any country in Europe where this is done to the same extent as in New England, I am very ill informed.

"But in the higher branches of literature our learning is superficial to a shameful degree. Perhaps I ought to except the science of law, which, being the road to political life, is probably as well understood as in Great Britain; and ethics and political science have been greatly cultivated since the American Revolution. On political subjects I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the learning of our eminent statesmen to be superior to that of most European writers, and their opinions more correct. They have all the authors on these subjects, united with much experience, which no European country can have had.

This has enabled our statesmen to correct many of the theories which lead astray European writers.

"But as to cla.s.sical learning, history, civil and ecclesiastical, mathematics, astronomy, chymistry, botany, and natural history, excepting here and there a rare instance of a man who is eminent in some one of these branches, we may be said to have no learning at all, or a mere smattering. And what is more distressing to me, I see everywhere a disposition to decry the ancient and original authors, which I deem far superior to the modern, and from which the best modern writers have drawn the finest parts of their productions.

"There is another circ.u.mstance still more afflictive to a man who is attached, as I am, to a republican government, and one that I perceive has not occurred to you. This is that the equal distribution of estates and the small property of our citizens, both of which seem connected with our form of government, if not essential to it, actually tend to depress the sciences. Science demands leisure and money. Our citizens have property only to give their sons a four years' education, a time scarcely sufficient to give them a relish for learning, and far inadequate to wide and profound researches. As soon as a young man has closed this period of study, and while he is at the beginning of the alphabet of science, he must betake himself to a profession, he must hurry through a few books,--which, by the way, are rarely original works, but compilations and abridgments,--and then must enter upon practice, and get his living as well as he can. And as to libraries, we have no such things. There are not more than three or four tolerable libraries in America, and these are extremely imperfect. Great numbers of the most valuable authors have not found their way across the Atlantic.

"But if our young men had more time to read, their estates will not enable them to purchase the books requisite to make a learned man. And this inconvenience, resulting from our government and the state of society, I know not how to remedy. As this, however, is the government to which you are attached, you will certainly do us a great service if you can devise a plan for avoiding its disadvantages. And I can further inform you that any application to legislatures for money will be unsuccessful. The utmost we can do is to squeeze a little money occasionally from the public treasuries to furnish buildings and a professor or two. But as to libraries, public or private, men who do not understand their value will be the last to furnish the means of procuring them. Besides, our rage for gain absorbs all other considerations; science is a secondary object, and a man who has grown suddenly from a dunghill, by a fortunate throw of the die, avoids a man of learning as you would a tiger. There are exceptions to this remark, and some men of taste, here and there scattered over our country, adorn the sciences and the moral virtues....

"If the Americans are yet in their leading-strings as to some parts of literature, there is the more room for improvement; and I am confident that the genius of my fellow-citizens will not be slack in the important work. You will please to recollect, sir, that during one hundred and sixty years of our childhood we were in our nonage; respecting our parent and looking up to her for books, science, and improvements. From her we borrowed much learning and some prejudices, which time alone can remove. And be a.s.sured, Dr. Priestley, that the parent is yet to derive some scientific improvements from the child.

Some false theories, some errors in science, which the British nation has imbibed from ill.u.s.trious men, and nourished from an implicit reliance on their authority, are to be prostrated by the penetrating genius of America."