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CYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.*

MERICAN literature has found a complete and felicitous chronicle in these volumes. The editors have brought to its preparation an enlightened love of letters, rare personal accomplishments, a genial antiquarian enthusiasm, and untiring fidelity and patience of research. The plan of their work would seem to have been suggested by Chambers's "Cyclopædia of English Literature," to which, however, it is unquestionably superior in the character of its execution, if not in the interest of its contents. It is remarkable for the compactness with which it crowds the different epochs of our literature into a comprehensive space, without falling into a meagre and unfruitful brevity. In turning over its leaves, we are often tempted to stop and admire the ingenuity of the editors, who have been able to impart such a rich variety of incidental literary information, besides the leading notices which appropriately introduce the selections from various authors.

Tracing the progress of intellectual culture in this country from the first dawn of literature among the Puritan exiles to the latest productions of the present day, it exhibits a complete map, or rather a finished miniature sketch of the development and performances of American talent in the field of letters. The Pilgrims brought the love of learning, with their household treasures, to the promised land of religion and freedom. Many of the early pioneers had received the choicest education of the

English universities. They blended generous studies with the cultivation of the field, and the practice of arms. They handled the pen with no less facility than the axe and the musket. Several curious specimens of their literary tastes are preserved in these volumes. For the most part they are quaint, rugged, erratic compositions, more remarkable for their earnestness of thought than their graces of style, and showing that strong sense of personality which prompted their writers to leave the sweet and delicate refinements of their English homes, for the sake of elbow-room in the free wilder

Among the primitive worthies, from whose remains we have more or less numerous fragments, are the famous New England divines, and Cotton, Norton, Hooker, Roger Williams, the two Mathers, the excellent John Winthrop, first Governor of Massachusetts, Governor Bradford, John Eliot, the devoted apostle to the Indians, and Peter Folger, the maternal grandfather of Dr. Franklin.

One of the most interesting sketches in this portion of the work is devoted to Roger Williams-a man who, in many respects, may be regarded as a type of the best elements in the Puritan character. Without a certain spice of fanaticism, he could scarcely have been deemed a true Pilgrim. Earnest religious convictions imply an exclusiveness and zeal which must always appear fanatical to those by whom they are not fully shared. But Roger Williams had no sourness or austerity in his religious composition. In this sense, he could not justly be called a fanatic. Rather was it true, that his nature was softened by a lambent enthusiasm. Hating error much, he loved truth more. His mind expanded in visions of Gospel freedom. He cherished a pervading sense of the infinite and unutterable sweetness of divine things. To his soul, God was not the echo of a tradition, nor the logical product of a syllogism; but a living and present reality. He thus dwelt in the sphere of universal ideas. His convictions were absolute and allembracing; not relative and limited. Hence, by a natural and invincible necessity, he became the champion of religious freedom, for which he is justly, and not too warmly eulogized by the editors of this work. As they justly remark, with him, "the right divine of conscience was not simply having his own way, while he checked other people's. He did not fly from persecution to persecute." He founded the rights of conscience, not on prescription or privilege, but on the autocracy of the human soul, subject to no authority but the law of God, as written in its own nature. This must ever be the glorious distinction of Roger Wil

* Cyclopædia of American Literature. By EVERT A. DUYCKINCK and GEORGE L. DUYCKINCK. 2 vols. Charles Scribner.

liams. On this proud eminence, he stands alone, among the Pilgrims. Nor was his attachment to principle tainted by the pride of opinion. Everywhere, he manifests a free, and gentle, and loving soul. Some little snatches of his poetry, which we find in this work, illustrate the tenderness and pious simplicity of his character. What touching naïveté in the lines which compare the material deprivation of the Pilgrims with the luxurious softness which they had forsaken:

"Coarse bread and water's most their fare, O England's diet's fine;

Thy cup runs o'er with plenteous store
Of wholesome beer and wine.

"Sometimes God gives them fish or flesh,
Yet they're content without:
And what comes in they part to friends,
And strangers round about.

"God's providence is rich to His,
Let none distrustful be,
In wilderness, in great distress,
There ravens have fed me."

Another of these little poems alludes to his sufferings in exile; and beautifully expresses the faith in the divine Power, which formed the vital essence of his soul:

"God makes a path, provides a guide, And feeds in wilderness!

His glorious name, while breath remains, O that I may confess.

"Lost many a time, I have had no guide,
No house, but hollow tree!
In stormy winter night no fire,
No food, no company:

"In Him I have found a house, a bed,
A table, company:

No cup's so bitter, but's made sweet
When God shall sweetning be."

In 1683, in a ripe and kindly old age, Roger Williams died at Providence, on the spot which his genius and labors had consecrated," leaving a fame which the lapse of years has not dimmed, as the friend of peace and the assertor of liberty.

Coming down to later times prior to the Revolution, we have Benjamin Franklin, "whose very name, since it was consecrated by the poet Chaucer, is freshly suggestive of freedom;" Mather Byles, the unrepentant punster and bigoted tory; Jonathan Mayhew, the noble defender of popular rights, in defiance of British power, who uttered his eloquent appeals in behalf of human freedom in the West Church of Boston, where his

words have not yet ceased to find a powerful echo; Berkeley, the philosophic enthusiast, who watched, "in solemn vision," the course of empire on its western way; and Jonathan Edwards, the first metaphysician of his day, and endowed with the acutest intellect that ever drew its nutriment and inspiration from New England training.

The Revolutionary period was also fertile in literary productions, in spite of the troubled character of the times. Among the writers of that day, there was the patriotic Livingston of New Jersey; James Otis, under whose impassioned eloquence "American Independence was born;" the fiery-hearted John Adams; the masters of humor, Francis Hopkinson, and John Trumbull; the two Bartrams, father and son, each a devotee of natural science; Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay, the leading political philosophers of their day, whose profound reasonings aided to embody freedom in constitutional forms; the sage Witherspoon; the genial satirist, Hugh Breckenridge; and to name no others, the trio of Connecticut bards, Timothy Dwight, David Humphreys, and Joel Barlow.

Of the Revolutionary writers, none receives a more elaborate notice than Philip Freneau, whose memory the editors labor, with pious assiduity, to redeem from certain prevalent misapprehensions. Although sometimes careless in their execution, his verses, they maintain, are not destitute of genuine poetic fire, and, both on account of their intrinsic merit and their historical relations, are worthy of more attention than they have generally received. Freneau was born in New York, in 1752. His ancestors were among the French emigrants, who were driven to this country by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Having graduated at the college of New Jersey, where he had Madison for a class-mate and intimate friend, he soon took an active part in political affairs. While the British troops were in possession of New York, he was arrested as a rebel, and thrown into the infamous prison-ship, which at that time was the receptacle of the Revolutionary victims. He did not fail to celebrate the torments of this place in a pungent poem. The first edition of his political writings was published in 1786 in a single duodecimo volume. This was followed, in a year or two, by an

other volume, containing further specimens of his poetry, and several prose compositions of a miscellaneous character. A more complete collection of his writings was published in 1795, containing some three hundred poetical pieces, including specimens of descriptive composition, with a due proportion of song, story, satire, and epigram. Freneau's prose writings are marked by the same general characteristics as his poetry. Playful and humorous in their tone, bold and original in thought, and of a polished style, they may be regarded as the first fruits of that kind of literature, which, in the hands of Paulding, Irving, and others, has gained such popular eclat among all classes of readers. Freneau was an active politician, during his whole life; and for a large portion of it was connected with the newspaper press. At that time journalism had not assumed the rank which it now holds, as a vehicle of intelligence. Still it presented sufficient scope for the exercise of talent. With a far less systematic organization than at the present day, it perhaps afforded a more congenial field for original fancies and personal humor. Freneau was a bitter partisan. He stamped his own mind on whatever he wrote. He had an evident genius for newspapers, although he continued to indulge in the composition of poetry. Upon retiring from public life, he passed the remainder of his days in New Jersey, but continuing his habits of intimate social intercourse with a large circle of prominent New-, Yorkers. According to Dr. Francis, whose personal reminiscences of Freneau are embodied in the sketch by the Messrs. Duyckinck, he was a man of kindly disposition, courteous manners, and highly agreeable conversation. Upon his visits to the metropolis, he was sure of a cordial welcome from many eminent citizens. Governor George Clinton was one of his warmest friends. He found a genial associate in the learned Provoost, the first Episcopal Bishop in this country, who had himself shouldered a musket in the war of Independence. With Gates, Freneau was on intimate terms; and they often compared together the achievements of Monmouth with those of Saratoga. With Colonel Fish he reviewed the capture of Yorktown; discussed the sufferings of the prison-ship, the charms

of Italian poetry, and the piscatory eclogues of Sannazarius, with the omnivorous Dr. Mitchell; supplied Dr. Dewitt with materials for his eulogy on the American martyrs; criticized Horace and Paul Jones with Pintard; descanted on the chivalrous virtues of Baron Steuben with Major Fairlie; reveled in the day-dream of an ideal democracy with Thomas Paine; and debated the projects of internal improvement and artificial navigation with Dewitt Clinton and Cadwallader D. Colden.

When Dr. Francis first made the acquintance of Frencau, he was about seventy-six years old. Rather below the middle height, with a thin, but muscular figure, slightly stooping from age, though with firm step, his careworn countenance was lighted up with intelligence, and he spoke with a clear and impressive enunciation. He had an elevated forehead, dark gray eyes, and an expression of habitual pensiveness. His iron-gray hair retained the traces of its early beauty. He had no love of display. His simple dress might have been taken for that of a farmer. His favorite theme in conversation was New York-the city of his birth; and next in interest was his collegiate career with Madison. In spite of the neglect of many years, he preserved the attainments of his classical studies to a remarkable degree. His death took place in 1832.

Dipping at random into these tempting pages, we often light upon passages worthy of note for some merit of expression or thought, independent of their connection with the general course of the narrative. Thus, apropos of Chief Justice Marshall's early tuition by a Scotch clergyman, we have some interesting statements in regard to the influence of the clergy in educating the youth of this country. "This is one of many instances in which the great minds of America received their first discipline at the hands of the clergy. At a somewhat later day, in Virginia, William Wirt, another legal eminence, received his first culture and generous love of learning at the hands of a clergyman-the Rev. James Hunt from Princeton. James Madison was educated by a clergyman, and also Legaré. Hamilton, in the West Indies, was taught, and sent to New York by a clergyman, Dr. Knox, at Santa Cruz;

1856.]

Cyclopædia of American Literature.

and two clergymen of that city, Drs. Rodgers and Mason, received him on his arrival. In New England, it was the general rule. The clergyman was the sun of the intellectual system, in John village, township, and city.

Adams in his early life-we may take him as a fair type of self-culture, seizing upon all neighboring advantages -was almost as much a clerical growth as a pupil of St. Omer's or the Propaganda. Throughout the South the clergyman was the pioneer of civilization. This is a missionary influence, which does not suggest itself so prominently as it should to the American of the present day. We are apt to think of the clergyman only in his relation to the pulpit; and confirm our notions of his influence to the family and the parish, in those concerns of eternal welfare, which are locked up in the privacies of the home and the heart. These spiritual relations, indeed, have the grandest and widest scope; but there are others which should not be separated from them. The clergyman not only sanctified and cemented the parish, but he founded the state. It was his instruction which moulded the soldier and the statesman. Living among agriculturists remote from towns, where language and literature would naturally be neglected and corrupted, in advance of the schoolmaster and the school, he was the future college in embryo. When we see men like Marshall graduating at his right hand, with no other courses than the simple man of God, who had left the refinements of civilization for the wilderness, taught, and with no other diploma than his benediction, we may, indeed, stop to honor their labors. Let the name of the American missionary of the colonial and revolutionary age suggest something more to the student of our history than the limited notion of a combatant with heathenism and vice. He was also the companion and guide to genius and virtue. When the memorials of those days are written, let his name be recorded, in no insignificant or feeble letters, on the page with the great men of the state, whom his talents and presence inspired."

A considerable portion of this work is devoted to the literature of the South, which is here more fully displayed than it has ever been before. The record

173

presents an imposing array of names,
especially among the

more

recent

writers of the southern states. Kennedy,
Legaré, Cooper, Pinkney, Calvert,
Gayarré, Simms, Charlton, Meyer, the
Cookes, Thompson, Hayne, and several
others are made the subjects of honor-
able notice; and full justice is done to
their various accomplishments in the
different departments of literature.

The period, extending from the com-
mencement of this century to the pre-
sent time, includes the great writers in
prose and poetry, who are everywhere
recognized as the chief illustrations of
American letters, and whose names are
too well known to require even a pass-
ing allusion. Of the latest contempo-
rary authors, whose brilliant reputation
affords the promise of permanent fame,
we have many interesting details that
have not before appeared in print.
Among these, the editors have given
sketches that furnish a gratifying proof
of the freshness and vitality of our
literature, of Thomas W. Parsons, whose
recent volume of sinewy poetry at
once raised him to an eminence which
was no surprise to the connoisseur who
was acquainted with his previous trans-
lations from Dante; of John Milton
Mackie, whose Cosas de España and
other contributions to periodical litera-
ture exhibit the sparkling effervescence
of an intellect ripened in the gravest
studies; of Donald Mitchell, who has
opened a new vein of sentiment and
pathos in the effusions of Ik. Marvel;
and of Curtis, the versatile Howadji,
whose pen luxuriates alike in pictures
of sunny lands abroad, and in polished
satire of social follies at home. In the
critical judgments, which the editors or
these volumes express, we find no trace
of bitterness or of favoritism, but the
usually in accordance with the verdict
manly utterance of opinions, which are
of public taste. The work is finished
with an elaborate nicety that betrays
the spirit of true scholarship-the love
of excellence and completeness, without
Minute inaccuracies
regard to toil.

are, of course, discoverable amid such a multiplicity of details; but, we think, none can be found which will impeach the general fidelity. A large collection of portraits, autographs, and cuts of authors' residences, forms an appropriate embellishment to the work, and adds much to its interest and value.

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