PREFACE.

MUCH is said about the development of a purely national literature, but we confess that we have little expectation of realizing its speedy accomplishment. So long as England and America speak the same language, and so long as the human mind is progressive in each, so long will they possess a literature in common, and whether willing to admit the truth or not, so long will they derive mutual advantage from the labors of either. And why should it not be thus? The gentle strains of Wordsworth fall as sweetly upon the ear from the quiet banks of the Delaware, as amid the mountains and lakes of his own Westmoreland, and Longfellow's Voices of the Night breathe as melodious and plaintive a tone, when echoed along the cliffs of Devon, as from the rock bound shores of New England.

Literature is the reflex of society. It does not fashion, but is fashioned by it,-it is the consequence and not the cause. Its materials are developed, its forms moulded, and its authors supplied from its ample resources, to which it gives a coloring in return. Occasionally some transcendant genius bursts upon the world in advance of his time, and lives neglected by his own, to be worshipped by succeeding ages; but this is an exception, not an example. The literature of a country is usually the fairest criterion of its tastes, opinions, character and refinement, and judged by this standard, the hasty observer might question the advances of American society, because he sees nothing in its literature materially differing from that of the English. Now this only proves the intimate relations subsisting between them, which neither time nor distance, nor circumstance can entirely obliterate.

They are both the offspring of a common ancestry, speak a common language, and boast a COMMON LITERATURE. The American feels, and justly too, as much conscious pride in the dazzling genius of Shakspeare and Milton, or the gigantic reasoning powers of Bacon and Locke, as the native of England. They are among the brilliant gems that sparkle in the coronet of their common literature, and cannot be circumscribed either in their influence or associations, within the narrow limits of the sea girt island which gave them birth.

The beneficial results of the labors of Addison in re-modelling the English prose from the stiff and pedantic style of the previous age, into that which at the present moment is admired on account of its classical purity and elegance, or those of Pope, the witty successor of Dryden, in chastening its poetry by means of his flowing and graceful, yet sarcastic versification, are not confined to England, but are equally appreciated and enjoyed by the

younger member of the same family, upon the American side of the Atlantic. They are substantial contributions to English literature, which is as much the property of America as of the British islands, and should be arrogated exclusively by neither.

It is true, that thus far England has had the advantage of this state of things. A colonial dependence, a primeval and unfashioned state of society, a want of means to extend, or of leisure to cultivate it, were certainly not the most favorable circumstances under which to develop literary pursuits; but much of this is already changing, and if the current of society remains undisturbed, it is easy to foresee that at no distant day, the English language and the English literature will seek America and not England, for the field of its future development, because it will address itself in the former to the greatest numbers, and spread its influence over the most extensive surface. This is but the regular transmission of inheritance from parent to child, and cannot dissever the reciprocal literary relations which always have and always will exist betwixt them; reciprocal relations which the legislators of both countries have strangely and inconsiderately overlooked. Why should he who administers to the loftiest wants of mankind be the only one whose labors are considered as unworthy of legislative protection? When every species of industrial pursuit meets with a sufficient indemnification from usurpation, by law, why should the intellectual labor of the English author in America, or of the American author in England, be considered as common property and unworthy of legislative interference?

That the human mind has suffered no deterioration in its transit across the Atlantic, and that while Newton and Barrow were making rapid advances in physical science, and Lord Kames and Reid, in the department of intellectual philosophy, America was not deficient in contributing her quota to the development of science and the elevation of English literature, the perusal of the lives of eminent men of America, feebly portrayed though they may be, will fully demonstrate.

BALTIMORE, JULY, 1850.