universal claims, they add that of native scenes and subjects. Imagine such an anatomiser of the human heart as Balzac, transported to a provincial town of New England, and giving to its houses, streets, ind history, the analytical power of his genius, and we realize the riumph of Hawthorne. Bravely adopting familiar materials, he has chrown over them the light and shadow of his thoughtful mind, eliciting a deep significance and a prolific beauty; if we may use the expression, he is ideally true to the real. His invention is felicitous; his tone magnetic; his sphere borders on the supernatural, and yet a chaste expression and a refined sentiment underlies his most earnest utterance; he is more suggestive than dramatic. The early history of New England has found no such genial and vivid illustration as his pages afford. At all points his genius touches the interests of human life, now overflowing with a love of external nature as gentle as that of Thomson, now intent upon the quaint or characteristic in life with a humor as zestful as that of Lamb, now developing the horrible or pathetic with something of John Webster's dramatic terror, and again buoyant with a fantasy as aerial as Shelley's conceptions. And, in each instance, the staple of charming invention is adorned with the purest graces of style. Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, educated at Bowdoin College, and after having filled an office in the Boston custom-house, and the post-office of his native town, and lived a year on a community farm, is now settled in a pleasant country town and become an author by profession; and one who has already proved his ability to create standard exemplars of American romantic fiction. "What we admire in this writer's genius is his felicity in the use of common materials. It is very difficult to give an imaginative scope to a scene or a topic which familiarity has robbed of illusion. It is by the association of ideas, by the halo of remembrance and the magic of love, that an object usually presents itself to the mind under fanciful relations. From a foreign country our native spot becomes picturesque; and from the hill of manhood the valley of youth appears romantic; but that is a peculiar and rare mental alchemy which can transmute the dross of the common and the immediate into gold. Yet so doth Hawthorne. His 'Old Apple Dealer' yet sits by the old South Church, and The Willey House' is inscribed every summer-day by the penknives of ambitious cits. He is able to illustrate, by his rich invention, places and themes that are before our very eyes and in our daily speech. His fancy is as free of wing at the north end of Boston, or on Salem turnpike, as that of other poets in the Vale of Cashmere or amid the Isles of Greece. He does not seem to feel the necessity of distance either of time or space to realize his enchantments. He has succeeded in attaching an ethereal interest to home subjects, which is no small triumph. Somewhat of that poetic charm which Wilson has thrown over Scottish life in his 'Lights and Shadows,' and Irving over English, in his 'Sketch Book,' and Lamb over metropolitan in his 'Elia,' has Hawthorne cast around New England, and his tales here and there blend, as it were, the traits which endear these authors. His best efforts are those in which the human predominates. Ingenuity and moral significancy are finely displayed, it is true, in his allegories; but sometimes they are coldly fanciful, and do not win the sympathies as in those instances where the play of the heart relieves the dim workings of the abstract and supernatural. Hawthorne, like all individualities, must be read in the appropriate mood. This secret of appreciation is now understood as regards Wordsworth. It is due to all genuine authors. To many whose mental aliment has been exciting and coarse, the delicacy, meek beauties and calm spirit of these writings will but gradually unfold themselves; but those capable of placing themselves in relation with Hawthorne, will discover a native genius for which to be grateful and proud, and a brother whom to know is to love. He certainly has done much to obviate the reproach which a philosophical writer, not without reason has cast upon our authors, when he asserts their object to be to astonish rather than please."”* There is a host of intermediate authors between the three already described in this sphere of literature, of various and high degrees, both of merit and reputation, but whose traits are chiefly analogous to those of the prominent writers we have surveyed. Some of them have ably illustrated local themes, others excelled in scenic limning, and a few evinced genius for characterization. Paulding, for instance, in Westward Ho,' and 'The Dutchman's Fireside,' has given admirable pictures of colonial life: Richard H. Dana, in the Idle Man,' has two or three remarkable psychological tales; Timothy Flint, James Hall, Thomas, and more recently M'Connell of Illinois, have written very graphic and spirited novels of Western Life; John P. Kennedy of Baltimore, has embalmed Virginia life in the olden time in 'Swallow Barn,' and Fay that of modern New York; Gilmore Simms, a prolific and vigorous novelist, in a similar form has embodied the traits of Southern Character and Scenery; Hoffman the early history of his native State; Dr. Robert Bird of Philadelphia, those of Mexico; William Ware has rivalled Lockhart's classical romance in his 'Letters from Palmyra' and 'Probus;' Allston's artist-genius is luminous in 'Monaldi;' Judd in Margaret' has related a tragic story arrayed in the very best hues and outlines of New England life; and Edgar A. Poe, in his 'Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque,' evinces a genius in which a love of the marvellous and an intensity of conception are united with the wildest sympathies, as if the endowments of Mrs. Radcliffe and Coleridge were partially united in one mind. In adventurous and descriptive narration we have Melville and Mayo. John Neal struck *Leaves from the Diary of a Dreamer. off at a heat some half-score of novels that, at least, illustrate a facility quite remarkable; and, indeed, from the days of the 'Algerine Captive' and 'The Foresters' the first attempts at such writing in this country, to the present day, there has been no lack of native fictions. The minor specimens which possess the highest literary excellence are by Irving, Willis, and Longfellow; but their claims rest entirely on style and sentiment; they are brief and polished, but more graceful than impressive. CHAPTER III. POETRY. Its essential Conditions-Freneau and the early Metrical Writers-Mumford Street 'IT has been well observed by an English critic, that poetry is not a branch of authorship. The vain endeavor to pervert its divine and spontaneous agency into a literary craft, is the great secret of its decline. Poetry is the overflowing of the soul. It is the record of what is best in the world. No product of the human mind is more disinterested. Hence comparatively few keep the poetic element alive beyond the period of youth. All that is genuine in the art springs from vivid experience, and life seldom retains any novel aspect to those who have long mingled in its scenes, and staked upon its chances. A celebrated artist of our day, when asked the process by which his delineations were rendered so effective, replied that he drew them altogether from memory. Natural objects were portrayed, not as they impressed him at the moment, but according to the lively and feeling phases in which they struck his senses in boyhood. For this reason it has been truly observed, that remembrance makes the poet; and, according to Wordsworth, "emotions recollected in tranquillity," form the true source of inspiration. A species of literature depending upon conditions so delicate, is obviously not to be successfully cultivated by those who hold it in no reverence. The great distinction between verse-writers and poets is, that the former seek and the latter receive; the one attempt to command, the other meekly obey the higher impulses of their being.'* *Thoughts on the Poets. The first metrical compositions in this country, recognised by popular sympathy, were the effusions of Philip Freneau, a political writer befriended by Jefferson. He wrote many songs and ballads in a patriotic and historical vein, which attracted and somewhat reflected the feelings of his contemporaries, and were not destitute of merit. Their success was owing, in part, to the immediate interest of the subjects; and in part to musical versification and pathetic sentiment. One of his Indian ballads has survived the general neglect to which more artistic skill and deeper significance in poetry, has banished the mass of his verses; to the curious in metrical writings, however, they yet afford a characteristic illustration of the taste and spirit of the times. Freneau was born in 1752, and died in 1832. The antecedent specimens of verse in America, were, for the most part, the occasional work of the clergy, and are remarkable chiefly for a quaint and monotonous strain, grotesque rhymed versions of the Psalms, and tolerable attempts at descriptive poems. The writings of Mrs. Bradstreet, Governor Bradford, Roger Williams, Cotton Mather, and the witty Dr. Byles, in this department, are now only familiar to the antiquarian. Franklin's friend Ralph, and Thomas Godfrey of Philadelphia, indicate the dawn of a more liberal era, illustrated by Trumbull, Dwight, Humphreys, Alsop, and Honeywood; passages from whose poems show a marked improvement in diction, a more refined scholarship, and genuine sympathy with nature; but, although in a literary point of view they are respectable performances, and for the period and locality of their composition, suggestive of a rare degree of taste, there are too few salient points, and too little of an original spirit, to justify any claim to high poetical genius. One of the most remarkable efforts in this branch of letters, at the epoch in question, was doubtless William Mumford's translation of the Iliad a work that, when published, elicited some authentic critical praise. He was a native of Virginia, and his great undertaking was only finished a short period before his death, which occurred in 1825. The verses which have the earliest touch of true sensibility and that melody of rhythm which seems intuitive, are the few bequeathed by William Cliffton of Philadelphia, born in 1772. After him we trace the American muse in the patriotic songs of R. T. Paine, and the scenic descriptions of Paulding, until she began a loftier though brief flight in the fanciful poems of Allston. "In the moral economy of life, sensibility to the beautiful must have a great purpose. If the Platonic doctrine of pre-existence be true, perhaps ideality is the surviving element of our primal life. Some individuals seem born to minister to this influence, which, under the name of beauty, sentiment, or poetry, is the source of what is most exalting in our inmost experience and redeeming in our outward life. Does not a benign Providence watch over these priests of nature? They are not necessarily renowned. Their agency may be wholly social and private, yet none the less efficient. We confess that, to us, few arguments for the benevolent and infinite design of existence are more impressive than the fact that such beings actually live, and wholly unfitted as they are to excel in or even conform to the Practical, bear evidence, not to be disputed, of the sanctity, the tranquil progress and the serene faith that dwell in the Ideal. Washington Allston was such a man. He was born in South Carolina in 1779, and died at Cambridge, Mass., in 1843. By profession he was a painter, and his works overflow with genius; still it would be difficult to say whether his pen, his pencil, or his tongue chiefly made known that he was a prophet of the true and beautiful. He believed not in any exclusive development. It was the spirit of a man, and not his dexterity or success, by which he tested character. In painting, reading, or writing, his mornings were occupied, and at night he was at the service of his friends. Beneath his humble roof, in his latter years, there was often a flow. of wit, a community of mind, and a generous exercise of sympathy which kings might envy. To the eye of the multitude his life glided away in secluded contentment, yet a prevailing idea was the star of his being-the idea of beauty. For the high, the lovely, the perfect, he strove all his days. He sought them in the scenes of nature, in the master-pieces of literature and art, in habits of life, in social relations, and in love. Without pretence, without elation, in all meekness, his youthful enthusiasm chastened by suffering, he lived above the world. Gentleness he deemed true wisdom, renunciation of all the trappings of life, a duty. He was calm, patient, occasionally sad, but for the most part happy in the free exercise and guardianship of his varied powers. His sonnets are interesting as records of personal feeling. They eloquently breathe sentiments of intelligent admiration or sincere friendship; while the 'Styles of the Season' and other longer poems show a great command of language and an exuberant fancy. On his return to America, the life of our illustrious painter was one of comparative seclusion. The state of his health, devotion to his art, and a distaste for promiscuous society and the bustle of the world, rendered this course the most judicious he could have pursued. His humble retirement was occasionally invaded by foreigners of distinction, to whom his name had become precious; and sometimes a votary of letters or art entered his dwelling, to gratify admiration or seek counsel and encouragement. To such, an unaffected and sincere welcome was always given, and they left his presence refreshed and happy. The instances of timely sympathy which he afforded young and baffled aspirants, are innumerable. Allston's appearance and manners accorded perfectly with his character. His form was slight and his movements quietly active. |