delphia presses. On that list, before 1790, are "Epictetus, his Morals," "Pamela," "Rasselas," "Robinson Crusoe," "The Sentimental Journey," "The Deserted Village,” “The Vicar of Wakefield," "Paradise Lost," Blackstone's "Commentaries," Robertson's "Scotland," Leland's "Ireland," Chesterfield's "Letters," Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's "Letters and Pastimes," Adam Smith's " Wealth of Nations," and an abridgment of "The Lives of the British Poets."

Between 1790 and 1800 Adam Smith's "Wealth of Na

was completed, and early in 1781 Congress was asked to "approve the pious and laudable undertaking," which it did in the manner following:

The Committee, consisting of Mr. Duane, Mr. McKean, and Mr. Witherspoon, to whom was referred a Memorial of Robert Aitken, Printer, dated 21st January, 1781, respecting an edition of the Holy Scriptures, report: That Mr. Aitken has, at a great expense, now finished an American edition of the Holy Scriptures in English; that the Committee have from time to time attended to his progress in the work; that they also recommended it to the two chaplains of Congress to examine and give their opinion of the execution, who have accordingly reported thereon; the recommendation and report being as follows:

PHILADELPHIA, 1st September, 1782. REVEREND GENTLEMEN.-Our knowledge of your piety and public spirit leads us without apology to recommend to your particular attention the edition of the Holy Scriptures publishing by Mr. Aitken. He undertook this expensive work at a time when from the circumstances of the war, an English edition of the Bible could not be imported, nor any opinion formed how long the obstruction might continue. On this account particularly he deserves applause and encouragement. We therefore wish you, Reverend Gentlemen, to examine the execution of the work, and if approved, to give it the sanction of your judgment, and the weight of your recommendation. We are, with very great respect,

Chairman in behalf of a Committee of Congress on Mr. Aitken's Memorial.
Reverend Doctor WHITE and Rev. Mr. DUFFIELD,

Chaplains of the United States in Congress assembled.

GENTLEMEN.-Agreeably to your desire we have paid attention to Mr. Aitken's impression of the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. Having selected and examined a variety of passages throughout the work, we are of opinion that it is executed with great accuracy as to the sense, and with as few grammatical and typographical errors as could have been expected in an undertaking of such magnitude. Being ourselves witnesses of the demand for this invaluable work, we rejoice in the present prospect of a supply; hoping that it will prove as advantageous as it is honorable to the gentleman who has exerted himself to fur

1790-1800.

POPULAR FICTION.

283

tions," Paley's" Moral Philosophy," "The Letters of Junius," Robertson's "Histories," Russell's "Modern Europe," Aristotle's "Ethics and Politics," Johnson's "Dictionary," the plays of Shakespeare, the "British Classics," in thirty-eight volumes, and a shelf full of other works quite as solid reading were reprinted by Philadelphia publishers.

Reading of a lighter sort was confined to a class of novels which was fast driving the old favorites to the wall. "Tom Jones" and "Tristram Shandy," "Sir Charles Grandison" and "Camilla" were, indeed, widely read, but a new school of fiction of a distinctly different type was already in high favor. The very names of these novels is indicative of the change. "The Mysteries of Udolpho," "Trials of the Human Heart," "Solitary Castle," "Castle of Inchvalley," "Mysteries of the Castle," "Spirit of the Castle," "Castle Zitwar," "Belgrave Castle, or the Horrid Spectre," "Aurora, or the Mysterious Beauty "-these and a score of others, in two, three, and even four volumes, made the popular prose fiction of the day. Castles, dungeons, mystery, ghosts, women led astray, seducers, uncanny incidents, were the essential ingredients of them all.

To this school our country contributed one writer of note -Charles Brockden Brown, who has a double claim to re

nish it, at the evident risque of private fortune. We are, gentlemen, your very respectful and humble servants,

(Signed)

PHILADELPHIA, September 10th, 1782.

WILLIAM WHITE,
GEORGE DUFFIELD.

Honorable JAMES DUANE, Esq., Chairman, and the other Honorable Gentlemen of the Committee of Congress on Mr. Aitken's Memorial. Whereupon, RESOLVED,

That the United States in Congress assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion, as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country; and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this edition of the Bible, to the inhabitants of the United States, and hereby authorize him to publish this recommendation in the manner he shall think proper. CHA. THOMSON, Secretary.

Scarcely had Mr. Aitken issued his Bible when peace was declared, when the ports were opened, when commerce was resumed, and Bibles were imported from Great Britain so cheaply that the American copy was driven from the market, and a loss "of more than three thousand pounds in specie" entailed on the printer.

membrance, for he was the first man in the New World who made letters a profession, as he was the first whose writings entitle him to be called a novelist. Brown was born at Philadelphia in 1771, and while still a very young man began the study of law. But the natural bent of his mind was toward literature, and, after encountering the usual vicissitudes of youthful authors, he began, when twenty-six years of age, to write romances which were hailed as works of genius by his countrymen and won him fame abroad.* That they should have been so regarded is but another sign of the unwholesome literary taste of the time, for no such men and women, no such scenery, no such supernatural machinery, no such horrible adventures, are permissible even in romantic fiction. Yet the story is always well told, and many of the scenes, as those in Philadelphia during the plague of 1793, are described with great skill. But the truly American novel of that day was "Modern Chivalry," a prose satire on democracy, by a man who was himself an extreme democrat.

Humble as the efforts of our countrymen may seem, there was scarcely a branch of literature in which some of them, judged by the standards of the time, had not risen to note. The poetry of Philip Freneau, the "McFingal" of John Trumbull, the epics and pastorals of Timothy Dwight, and "The Vision of Columbus," by Joel Barlow, were hailed as indisputable evidence that the spirit of democracy was not hostile to the Muses. Ramsey's "History of the Revolution in South Carolina," Gordon's "Rise, Progress, and Establishment of the Independence of the United States," Thomas's "History of Printing," Brackenridge's "Incidents of the Western Insurrection," have lived down to our day, and are still authorities; while Murray's "English Grammar" and Noah Webster's "Speller," both published before 1800, have had a national reputation for three generations.

All this was encouraging. There were those, indeed, who utterly despaired of the existence of literature in a democracy, and missed no chance to abuse their countrymen for a neglect

*The writings on which rests the fame of Brown are Alcuin: A Dialogue on the Rights of Women; Wieland; Ormond; Arthur Mervyn; Edgar Huntly; Clara Howard, and Jane Talbot.

1800-10. LOW STATE OF AMERICAN LITERATURE.

285

too well deserved. "To study with a view to becoming an author by profession in America," exclaimed one, "is a prospect of no less flattering promise than to publish among the Eskimos an essay on delicacy of taste, or to found an academy of sciences in Lapland." "We know," said another, "that in this land, where the spirit of democracy is everywhere diffused, we are exposed, as it were, to a poisonous atmosphere which blasts everything beautiful in Nature and corrodes everything elegant in art; we know that the rose leaves fall ungathered.'" A third describes his country as "these cold shades," "these shifting skies—

Where Fancy sickens and where Genius dies,
Where few and feeble are the Muses' strains,
And no fine frenzy riots in the veins."

The

But there were others with more hopeful views. prospect before us, said one of this class, is brightening. America, despite the aspersions of English reviewers, has reached an eminence in literature which, to say the least, is respectable. Like Hercules in his cradle, she has manifested a gigantic grasp, and discovered that she will be great. The wisdom, penetration, and eloquence of her statesmen are undoubted. Her judges and lawyers are distinguished for powers of reason and plausibility of address. Her writers of history are not many, yet they raise our expectations and claim our praise. Her poetry, it is to be hoped, has not yet assumed its most elevated form. Yet it is not true that beneath her skies "Fancy sickens and Genius dies." The exhibitions of American talent already made justify the warmest expectation. Miltons, Newtons, and Robertsons will surely arise in the New World, and in time to come "the sun of genius" will pour "his meridian beams" on our land. The editor of a projected magazine, in commenting on the state of literature, declared that it soothed the observant mind to contemplate the gradual and general cultivation of letters which had marked the progress of the United States since the adoption of the Constitution. Our men of learning, said he, were then rare; our booksellers were few and poor; our students were content with the scanty sale of literature which chance and

charity threw in their way. Books imported from Europe were found only in the houses of the rich, and but one or two native periodicals spread the gleams of literature among the middle classes. Now it is rare to find a village without a circulating library.

The charge, said another, of neglect of native genius is not well founded. He who knows the wide circulation of the Port Folio and of the Analectic Magazine of Philadelphia, and of the Polyanthus of Boston, cannot maintain such a proposition for a moment. On the contrary, there is not on earth a people more indulgent to their home productions or more prompt to foster the offsprings of native genius than the people of the United States. The ready sale of certain works of merit-such works, for example, as "Salmagundi," "John Bull and Brother Jonathan," and "Knickerbocker's History of New York "-is proof positive that an English origin is not necessary to the success in this country of works of sterling merit. If it be a good book, no American will think the worse of it for being American. If bad, none will like it the better for being English. But so long as Great Britain is richer than the United States, so long will London be the mart of literature. So long as her population shall afford a greater number of persons who can live by their pens, so long will her men of letters outrank our own.*

Now and then some writer, encouraged by what had been done, would protest against the subserviency of the literary class in America to that in England; would "resent the British scoff that when separated from England the colonies would become mere illiterate orang-outangs "; would denounce "the unjust manner in which our native authors were "treated by reviewers of England"; and would lament that in the eyes even of American critics "if an individual has the temerity to jingle a couplet and to avow himself descended from America, the offence is absolutely unpardonable." No one not familiar with the periodical literature of the first fifty years of our political independence can form any conception of the universality and persistence of the charge

*The Port Folio, 1815, p. 193.