THE RULERS OF ENGLAND. THE SAXON LINE. THE DANISH LINE. THE SAXON LINE THE NORMAN LINE. THE PLANTAGENETS. THE TUDORS. THE STUARTS. Egbert, (King of the West Saxons, commonly called the first king of England), A. D. 827— 836. Ethelwolf, 836-857. Ethelred, 857-871. Alfred the Great, 871-901. Edward, 901-925. Athelstan, 925-941. Edmund, 941-948. Edred, 948-955. Edgar the Peaceable, 959-975. Ethelred the Unready, 979-1016. Edmund Ironsides, 1016-1017. Canute the Great, 1017-1035. Hardicanute, 1039-1041. Edward the Confessor, 1041-1066. William the Conqueror, 1066-1087. Henry I., 1100-1135. Stephen of Blois, 1135-1154. Henry II., 1154-1189. Richard I., 1189-1199. Richard III., 1483-1485. (Henry VII., 1485-1509. James I., 1603-1625. The Commonwealth, 1649-1660. THE STUARTS AFTER THE Charles II., 1660-1685. RESTORATION. THE HOUSE OF NASSAU James II., 1685-1688. William III., 1688-1702. THE LAST OF THE STUARTS. Anne, 1702-1714. THE HOUSE OF BRUNSWICK. George I.. 1714-1727. George II., 1727-1760. *Though Dryden did not receive his letters-patent until the year 1670, he never theless was paid the salary for the two preceding years. + For Eusden see 'Dunciad,' Book I., line 63; and for Colley Cibber, see same work passim. "Better to err with Pope than shine with Pye," says Lord Byron, in his 'Hints from Horace.' And again in the 'Vision of Judgment,' the same poet represents the ghost of King George as exclaiming, on hearing Southey's recitation of his 'Vision ' 66 What, what! Pye come again? no more-no more of that!" It is by these notices alone that poor Pye still hangs on the human memory. A SKETCH OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. LITE CHAPTER I. ITERATURE is a positive element of civilized life; but in different countries and epochs it exists sometimes as a passive taste or means of culture, and at others as a development of productive tendencies. The first is the usual form in colonial societies, where the habit of looking to the fatherland for intellectual nutriment as well as political authority is the natural result even of patriotic feeling. In academic culture, habitual reading, moral and domestic tastes, and cast of mind, the Americans were identified with the mother country, and, in all essential particulars, would naturally follow the style thus inherent in their natures and confirmed by habit and study. At first, therefore, the literary development of the United States was imitative; but with the progress of the country, and her increased leisure and means of education, the writings of the people became more and more characteristic; theological and political occasions gradually ceased to be the exclusive moulds of thought; and didactic, romantic, and picturesque compositions appeared from time to time. Irving peopled "Sleepy Hollow" with fanciful creations; Bryant described not only with truth and grace, but with devotional sentiment, the characteristic scenes of his native land; Cooper introduced Europeans to the wonders of her forest and sea-coast; Bancroft made her story eloquent; and Webster proved that the race of orators who once roused her children to freedom was not extinct. The names of Edwards and Franklin were echoed abroad; the bonds of mental dependence were gradually loosened; the inherited tastes remained, but they were freshened with a more native zest; and although Brockden Brown is still compared to Godwin, Irving to Addison, Cooper to Scott, Hoffman to Moore, Emerson to Carlyle, and Holmes to Pope, a characteristic vein, an individuality of thought, and a local significance are now generally recognized in the emanations of the American mind; and the best of them rank favorably and harmoniously with similar exemplars in British literature; while, in a few instances, the nationality is so marked, and so sanctioned by true genius, as to challenge the recognition of all impartial and able critics. The intellect of the country first developed in a theological form. This was a natural consequence of emigration, induced by difference of religious opinion, the free scope which the new colonies afforded for discussion, and the variety of creeds represented by the different races who thus met on a common soil, including every diversity of sentiment, from Puritanism to Episcopacy, each extreme modified by shades of doctrine and individual speculation. The clergy, also, were the best educated and most influential class : in political and social as well as religious affairs, their voice had a controlling power; and for a considerable period, they alone enjoyed that frequent immunity from physical labor which is requisite to mental productiveness. The colonial era, therefore, boasted only a theological literature, for the most part fugitive and controversial, yet sometimes taking a more permanent shape, as in the Biblical Concordance of Newman, and some of the writings of Roger Williams, Increase and Cotton Mather, Mayhew, Cooper, Stiles, Dwight, Elliot, Johnson, Chauncey, Witherspoon, and Hopkins. There is no want of learning or reasoning power in many of the tracts of those once formidable disputants; and such reading accorded with the stern tastes of our ancestors; but, as a general rule, the specimens which yet remain in print, are now only referred to by the curious student of divinity or the antiquarian. The celebrated Treatise on the Will, by Dr. Edwards, an enduring relic of this epoch, survives, and, in its sagacious hardihood of thought, forms a characteristic introduction to the literary history of New England. Jonathan Edwards (Specimens of American Literature 3) was the only son of a Connecticut minister of good acquirements and sincere piety. He was born in 1703, in the town of Windsor; he entered Yale College at the age of thirteen, and at nineteen be came a settled preacher in New York. In 1723 he was elected a tutor in the college at New Haven; and after discharging its duties with eminent success for two years, he became the colleague of his grandfather, in the ministry, at the beautiful village of Northampton, in Massachusetts. Relieved from all material cares by the affection of his wife, his time was entirely given to professional occupations and study. An ancient elm is yet designated in the town where he passed so many years, in the crotch of which was his favorite seat, where he was accustomed to read and think for hours together. His sermons began to attract attention, and several were republished in England. As a writer, he first gained celebrity by a treatise on Original Sin. He was inaugurated President of Princeton College, N. J., on the 16th of February, 1757; and on the 22d of the ensuing March died of small-pox, which then ravaged the vicinity. "This remarkable man," says Sir James Mackintosh, "the metaphysician of America, was formed among the Calvinists of New England, when their stern doctrine retained its vigorous authority. His power of subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, as in some of the ancient mystics, with a character which raised his piety to fervor. He embraced their doctrine, probably without knowing it to be theirs. Had he suffered this noble principle to take the right road to all its fair consequences, he would have entirely concurred with Plato, with Shaftesbury and Malebranche, in devotion to 'the first good, first perfect, and first fair.' But he thought it necessary afterwards to limit his doctrine to his own persuasion, by denying that such moral excellence could be discovered in divine things by those Christians who did not take the same view with him of their religion." Although so meagre a result, as far as regards permanent literature, sprang from the early theological writings in America, they had a certain strength and earnestness which tended to invigorate and exercise the minds of the people; sometimes, indeed, conducive to bigotry, but often inciting reflective habits. The mental life of the colonists seemed, for a long time, identical with religious discussion; and the names of Anne Hutchinson, Roger Williams * Progress of Ethical Philosophy. |