536 ENGLISH LITERATURE IN AMERICA. intimidate or to corrupt him failed, and he returned to America in 1776 with the character of a stainless patriot. He was one of the committee that prepared the Declaration of Independence, and one of those who signed it. In the same year he returned to Europe, and secured the alliance of France, Spain, and Holland with the new republic. He afterwards helped to bring about the conclusion of peace. On his entry into Philadelphia in 1785, he was received with tremendous enthusiasm. In 1787, he presided over the Convention of Philadelphia which revised the Federal Constitution. During all these years his literary and scientific pursuits had been continued. He proved the identity of lightning with the electric fluid in 1752. He wrote numerous essays, historical, political, and commercial. His Autobiography is a work of great value, and his letters, which were collected and published, threw much light on the history of his times and the character of the man. 1826. Supplementary List. JOHN WINTHROP.-(1587-1649)--one of the Pilgrim Fathers-Governor of Massachusetts-Diary of Events (1630-1644), not fully published till NATHANIEL WARD.-Minister at Ipswich--The Simple Cobbler of Aggerwam, a satire on English social life (1647). WILLIAM BRADFORD.--(1588-1657)-one of the Pilgrim Fathers-Governor of New Plymouth-Journal, or History of the Plymouth Plantation (1602-46)-MS. not found till 1855, first published in 1856. ANNE BRADSTREET.—(1612-1672)-wife of secretary of the colony-poetess -published first poetry in New England, 1647. PETER FOLGER.-Benjamin Franklin's grandfather-poet-A Looking-glass for the Times. MICHAEL WIGGLESWORTH.-(1631-1705)-Day of Doom, a poem on the last Judgment. WILLIAM STITH.-(1689–1755)-President of William and Mary College- JOHN WOOLMAN.-(1720-1772)-Quaker missionary-Abolitionist-Journal of Life and Travels in the Service of the Gospel (1774), and Journal of a Tour in England, in which Charles Lamb delighted. THOMAS PRINCE.-(1687-1758)-minister in Boston-Chronological History of New England (1603-1633). THE COLONIAL PERIOD. 537 SAMUEL SEWALL.-(1652–1730)-Chief Justice of Boston-Diary (1674-1729), first published in 1878. INCREASE MATHER.-(1639-1723)—theologian-father of Cotton Matherminister at Boston-President of Harvard, 1685 to 1701-History of the War with the Indians, and numerous sermons and pamphlets. JOHN ELIOT. (1604-1689)-born in England and educated at Cambridgewent to Boston in 1631-The Apostle of the Indians; Christian Commonwealth; Indian Bible (1661–63). ROGER WILLIAMS.—(1599–1683)-colonizer of Rhode Island-Baptist minister in Providence (1639)—opposed the Puritans-disputed publicly with George Fox-The Bloody Tenet of Persecution; The Bloody Tenet yet more Bloody, etc. JOHN BARTRAM.-(1701-1777)-traveller and botanist-description of East Florida-founded the first botanical garden in America. JONATHAN CARVER.-(1732-1780)-traveller--explored the interior of North America, and tried to reach the Pacific. ALEXANDER HAMILTON.-(1757-1804)--island of Nevis-a lawyer and statesman of the Revolution-The Federalist, to which Madison and Jay also contributed. JOHN LEDYARD.—(1751-1789)—traveller-visited Siberia; joined Captain Cook's third expedition; visited Africa. He died at Cairo. JOHN WITHERSPOON.--(1722-1794)—a Scotsman-theologian; President of Princeton College-Ecclesiastical Characteristics. TIMOTHY DWIGHT.-(1752-1817)-Northampton, Massachusetts-Congregational minister, army chaplain, President of Yale College (1795-1817) -History, Eloquence, and Poetry of the Bible; Theology Explained and Defended (chief work); Poems. 538 ENGLISH LITERATURE IN AMERICA. CHAPTER III. THE NATIONAL PERIOD. Since 1776. THE last quarter of the eighteenth century formed a period of transition. During the struggle for independence, very little in the shape of pure literature was produced. What writing there was had a direct bearing on the subject that filled all minds. The war gave rise to many popular ballads which were both an evidence of the national feeling and a means of fostering its growth. These were generally anonymous productions; but there was one author of occasional poetry of that kind whose reputation has survived his own day. That was Philip Freman, whose burlesques were very popular during the war, and who published four volumes of poetry. His lines on The Indian Burying-ground are still quoted. The most effective political writing, however, was in prose. The ordinary newspapers afforded the best channel through which to influence public opinion. During the war, journalism in America made a new start on a career of influence and prosperity. More than a passing reputation belongs to a series of papers entitled The Federalist, which appeared from time to time in the Independent Journal of New York. The object of the papers, which were in the form of letters signed "Publius" addressed to the people of New York State, was to defend the federal constitution of the United States; for though in the end adopted, it was at first sharply criticised. The essays began to appear in 1787, and were continued for several months. The number issued was eighty-five, and the authors were Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, afterwards President, and John Jay. The work has been frequently reprinted, and is regarded as a standard work on the principles of government. THE NATIONAL PERIOD. 539 A prominent figure in the literature of the Revolution was that of Thomas Paine, the notorious author of The Rights of Man and The Age of Reason. His Serious Thoughts on Slavery was one of the earliest appeals on behalf of Abolition. A greater and more immediate effect was produced by his political pamphlet entitled Common Sense, in which he advocated a declaration of independence and the formation of a republic. It had an enormous circulation, and exercised great influence on public opinion. His occasional periodical called The Crisis had also a very large number of readers. Other two of the leaders in the Revolution, and in the subsequent restoration of order, are worthy of mention here. The one was Thomas Jefferson, the chief author of the "Declaration of Independence," who in 1784 wrote a memorandum, entitled Notes on Federation, for the use of the French Government. The other was George Washington, the hero of the war, and the first President of the new republic. His literary remains, including Journals, Letters, Messages, and Addresses, fill twelve large volumes. One of his earliest productions was the Journal of his expedition to Ohio, written in 1754; but that which best entitles him to recognition as an author was his Farewell Address on retiring from the presidency in 1796. Very soon after the beginning of the present century, we find that the American people have settled down to the regular occupations of peace, and that the cultivation of letters is amongst these. Since that time there have been constant progress and extension in all the great departments of literature— in Poetry, History, Fiction, Essays and Criticism, Science and Travels, Philosophy and Theology. The slave question, and the political questions that emerged from it, produced a great amount of writing, both in prose and in verse, much of which has been crystallized as literature. Some of Longfellow's early poems were on the subject of slavery. Whittier exalted Abolition into a religion. Lowell drew inspiration from the same source. The controversy called 540 ENGLISH LITERATURE IN AMERICA. forth the eloquent orations of Daniel Webster and Edward Everett in denunciation of the unholy traffic, and the no less powerful speeches of John C. Calhoun and Henry Clay on the other side. Channing and Emerson were notable and earnest Abolitionists. Mrs. Beecher Stowe brought fiction to the aid of the same cause with remarkable success. When the controversy culminated in the Civil War, and when slavery and State rights were extinguished together in the blood of brothers, a new set of literary activities was called into play. Special histories of the war, or of sections of it, were written by men who had played foremost parts in it, either in a diplomatic or in a military capacity. Ulysses S. Grant and Jefferson Davis are among the writers as well as among the makers of history. The war produced Abraham Lincoln's commemorative Speech at Gettysburg, and Lowell's Commemoration Ode at Harvard-each of them a great utterance, worthy of the occasion. These are the direct and immediate outcome of the struggle; but it is not in such works only that the fruits of the quickening impulse derived from a great national upheaval are to be looked for. It cannot yet be said that the political crisis has marked the opening of a new era in the history of American literature. The most noteworthy features of the current literature of the States are its abundance—the number and variety of the writers; its ephemeral character-most of it being in the form of contributions to magazines and newspapers; and its trivial quality-works of fiction and professed humour engrossing the attention of the vast majority both of writers and of readers. |