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LESSON 56.

AMERICAN LITERATURE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.— Before the opening of the eighteenth century, English colonies dotted the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia. These have been grouped into (1) the Northern, or New England, cluster; (2) the Middle, including New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and (3) the Southern, composed of Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. The literature of the seventeenth century was almost entirely produced by those born in England; that of these groups, during the eighteenth century, by their sons, born here. There is lacking in this eighteenth century literature what we should expect to miss-the filial and submissive tone of the seventeenth. It was obvious, even before the century opened, and it became more and more patent as it progressed, that the colonies were outgrowing their pupilage and becoming selfreliant. We catch this note early and distinctly. This spirit is revealed and developed by the French and Indian war of 1755-63. This war was the school, too, in which many of the best soldiers of the Revolutionary struggle graduated; and it may be questioned whether, without the training received. in it, this great struggle, opening with the last third of the century, would have been successful, even if attempted.

THE NEW ENGLAND GROUP.-If, as may be questioned, the ascendancy of the clergy here was not as complete during the eighteenth century as during the seventeenth, it was not from any decline in ministerial scholarship and ability. The people had grown. Pines do not tower when standing among spruce and hemlocks as when among lowlier cedars. In SAMUEL HOPKINS, the hero of Mrs. Stowe's Minister's Wooing, in NATHANIEL EMMONS (living well into the next century), and in JONATHAN EDWARDS, we find men of even broader culture and keener discrimination. If not the peers of their prede

cessors, or of some of their contemporaries, in pulpit eloquence, it cannot be denied that they discussed more profoundly than these the great problems of divine government and human responsibility. EDWARDS was a clergyman at Northampton, Mass., from 1727 to 1750, afterwards for some years a missionary among the Housatonic Indians, and died in 1758 while President of Princeton College. His Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will is a work without superior for subtility of reasoning.

WM.

Many other clergymen eminent in the pulpit deserve mention. Some of these became known as historians. HUBBARD wrote his General History of New England, down to 1680, and his more celebrated Narrative of the Troubles with the Indians in New England, down to 1677. THOMAS PRINCE'S Chronological History of New England appeared in 1736.

The laity pressed toward the front during this century, and shared with the clergy in literary labor and honors.

THE MIDDLE GROUP.-WM. LIVINGSTON of New York, afterwards celebrated as a statesman, published, in 1747, a poem called Philosophic Solitude. WM. SMITH of New York, in 1757, published his History of New York from the First Discovery to the Year 1732. JONATHAN DICKINSON, of Elizabethtown, New Jersey, was a noted clergyman, a physician, and a voluminous author. Philadelphia, during this period, was second only to Boston in literature. Before the Revolution, 425 original books and pamphlets were printed there. Of the host of writers there the greatest was BENJAMIN FRANK LIN, editor, scientist, diplomat, and statesman, as well as author. He was born in Boston in 1706, and died in Philadelphia, whither he early moved, in 1790. The most celebrated of his writings is his Autobiography, begun in 1771, and continued in 1784 and 1788. It is charming for the simplicity and purity of its style, and is one of the most popular books ever issued.

THE SOUTHERN GROUP.-The pioneer of literary activity in Virginia, during this period, was JAMES BLAIR, the founder of the College of William and Mary, and president of it for fifty years. ROBERT BEVERLY published, in 1705, a history of Virginia, and in 1724 HUGH JONES appeared with another history of this colony. Jones was a professor in William and Mary College, and wrote text-books also.

(Professor Tyler says, "In general, the characteristic note of American literature in the colonial time is, for New England, scholarly, logical, speculative, unworldly, rugged, sombre; and, as one passes southward along the coast, this literary note changes rapidly toward lightness and brightness, until it reaches the sensuous mirth, the frank and jovial worldliness, the satire, the persiflage, the gentlemanly grace, the amenity, the jocular coarseness of literature in Maryland, Virginia, and farther south."

A growing tendency is observable, as the century progresses, towards a union of the colonies in closer fellowship. This tendency is strikingly apparent as we near the last third of the century, and takes distinct form as the oppressions of the mother country arouse first the spirit of resentment and then that of resistance. From this time on, political questions swallow up all others. The mere literary man, if he can be said to exist in this country during this century, gives place to the political orator and the statesman. And mighty is the race of these that now appear all along the line, called into existence by the terrible crisis; since of them, at the beginning of the struggle, assembled in the Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774, even Chatham could say, "I must declare and avow that, in the master states of the world, I know not the people nor the senate who, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, can stand in preference to the delegates of America assembled in General Congress at Philadelphia. For genuine sagacity, for singular moderation, for solid wisdom, manly spirit, sublime sentiments, and sim

plicity of language-for everything respectable and honorable they stand unrivalled." Of these men during the Revolutionary struggle we cannot here speak further, nor of them during the years immediately succeeding, when the Herculean labors of recuperation and reorganization were upon them. A new Constitution was framed. The masterly papers of ALEXANDER HAMILTON, JAMES MADISON, and JOHN JAY, essays now gathered together and composing The Federalist, were written to urge the adoption of this Constitution; the colonies were transformed into States, and the Union was created.

With an added word or two we pass to quote briefly from some of the works of this century. The first newspaper in America was printed in Boston in 1690, and called Public Occurrences; the first that lived was The Boston News-Letter, started in 1704. Before the close of 1765, forty-three newspapers had been established in the American colonies-twenty in New England, thirteen in the Middle group, and ten in the Southern. Before the close of this year, seven colleges also were established-Harvard in 1636; William and Mary in 1693; Yale in 1700; New Jersey (Princeton) in 1746; King's (Columbia) in 1754; Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania) in 1755; Rhode Island (Brown University) in 1764. Their work in cementing together the colonies was great, and their influence upon our literature can scarcely be over-estimated.

From Edwards's Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will.

With respect to the degree of the idea of the future pleasure. With regard to things which are the subject of our thoughts, either past, present, or future, we have much more of an idea or apprehension of some things than others; that is, our idea is much more clear, lively, and strong. Thus, the ideas we have of sensible things by immediate sensation are usually much more lively than those we have by mere imagination, or by contemplation of them when absent. My idea of the sun, when I look upon it, is more vivid than when I only think of it. Our idea of the sweet relish of a delicious fruit is usually stronger when we taste it than when we only imagine it. And sometimes the ideas we have

of things by contemplation are much stronger and clearer than at other times. Thus, a man at one time has a much stronger idea of the pleasure which is to be enjoyed in eating some sort of food that he loves than at another. Now the degree, or strength, of the idea, or sense, that men have of future good or evil is one thing that has great influence on their minds to excite choice, or volition. When, of two kinds of future pleasure which the mind considers of and are presented for choice, both are supposed exactly equal by the judgment, and both equally certain, and all other things are equal, but only one of them is what the mind has a far more lively sense of than of the other, this has the greatest advantage by far to affect and attract the mind, and move the will. It is now more agreeable to the mind to take the pleasure it has a strong and lively sense of than that which it has only a faint idea of. The view of the former is attended with the strongest appetite, and the greatest uneasiness attends the want of it; and it is agreeable to the mind to have uneasiness removed, and its appetite gratified. And, if several future enjoyments are presented together as competitors for the choice of the mind, some of them judged to be greater and others less, the mind also having a greater sense and more lively idea of the good of some of them and of others a less, and some are viewed as of greater certainty or probability than others, and those enjoyments that appear most agreeable in one of these respects, appear least so in others, —in this case, all other things being equal, the agreeableness of a proposed object of choice will be in a degree some way compounded of the degree of good supposed by the judgment, the degree of apparent probability, or certainty, of that good, and the degree of the view, or sense, or liveliness of the idea the mind has of that good; because all together concur to constitute the degree in which the object appears at present agreeable; and accordingly volition will be determined.

I might further observe, the state of mind that views a proposed object of choice is another thing that contributes to the agreeableness or disagreeableness of that object; the particular temper which the mind has by nature, or that has been introduced and established by education, example, custom, or some other means; or the frame, or state, that the mind is in on a particular occasion. That object which appears agreeable to one does not so to another. And the same object does not always appear alike agreeable to the same person at different times. It is most agreeable to some men to follow their reason; and to others, to follow their appetite; to some men it is more agreeable to deny a vicious inclination than to gratify it; others it suits best to gratify the vilest appetites. It is more disagreeable to some men than to others to counteract a former

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