American literature

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AMERICAN

LITERATURE

CHAPTER I. The Colonial Period

1607-1765.

The History of American Literature comprises the Hterature that has been produced in America in the Eng- Hsh language. It began with the first settlement on the Atlantic coast, and is actively going on at this moment. Although we have reason to be proud of the progress of our literature in the past and are hopeful of its future, we must not make the mistake of thinking it to be a new literature, different altogether from that of England. Our literature is a continuation of English literature : it is English literature in America. It should never be forgotten that our prose and poetry when at their best are true to the great traditions of English thought and English style.

The New Continent. — The great work of American civilization was begun in Virginia in 1607. James the First was on the throne of England, and English literature was at its height. Shakespeare was still living, and Bacon had just completed the first sketch of his greatest work, The Novum Organum, American literature was therefore fortunate in the time of its beginning. The language came over just when it was richest and most flexible.

The thought of a vast continent, rich and fertile, beyond the ocean, impressed the imagination of English writers. They waited impatiently to hear from the handful of colonists who, by royal permission, had gone to explore and to plant the wilderness. One English poet at this time called Virginia " Earth's only Paradise," and another, Michael Drayton, prophesied the birth of poetry in the new land. The wreck of one of the ships of the early explorers suggested to Shakespeare the plot of The Tempest

The first writings in the new continent were news-letters, hastily composed, and telling to friends at home the strange features and necessary labors of the new land.

Our First Century is the period of our literary dependence upon England. Our earliest poets did not change their style because they had changed their country, but rather clung with greater affection to the literary habits in which they had been educated. What Lowell wittily said of a much later time is especially true of our first writers :

" They stole Englishmen's books and thought Englishmen's thought, With English salt on her tail our wild eagle was caught."

American literature was a sprout from the great parenttrunk in England, and it was detached from a particularly vigorous portion of the trunk.

There was little time in our first century for the arts of literature. The energies of the settlers were required to cut down the forest, to cultivate the soil, and to prepare defences against the Indians. To obtain food, clothing, and shelter, to build the homestead, the school-house, and the church, engaged all the efforts and all the time of the colonists. They were on the edge of an unexplored wilderness full of mysterious perils.

Not only was the progress of literature impossible because of the severe and unceasing toil of the settlers, but it must be remembered that they were men without a country. There was nothing to inspire in them that spirit of national pride and devotion which always finds expression in popular literature.

It required a hundred years of unwritten heroism and industry to establish the people securely in their new home.

The Colonial Period, or first era of our literary history, may be said to extend from 160Y,the date of the first settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, to 1765. The latter date marks the time when a great change came over the fortunes of the English people in America — when those people, aroused to resistance to the foreign authority of Great Britain, and inspired by the passion for liberty, were approaching the struggle of the Revolution. The Revolution altered the current of men's thoughts and set new subjects before the minds of writers.

Beginning with the year 1607, it is important to remember the group of English colonies planted along the eastern edge of the continent during the seventeenth century. They were, in chronological order — Virginia, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, South Carolina, Pennsylvania.

There were remarkable differences between these colonies. They represented different elements of society and of culture. Their founders came hither for different purposes, and for a century the colonies held little intercourse with each other. The most important of the colonies were Virginia and Massachusetts. They are the sources of all that is best and strongest in American history. From the latter we gather almost everything that is valuable in our colonial literature.

The writings of the colonial times, or from 1607 to 1765, have for us only an historic interest. They are important so far as they illustrate the character of the founders of our nation. But they have not, in themselves, any literary interest or value. They were not written either to interest or amuse. Their authors were too seriously occupied with the actual conquest of the soil and the forest, with building homes and repelling the dangers of the wilderness, to give time to the arts and graces of literature.

The works of the first immigrant authors, therefore, whether they are rude descriptions of hardship in Virginia or collections of tedious New England sermons, are curious and interesting precisely as a broken plate that came over the sea in the Mayflower's cabin, or a battered sword worn by the side of some valiant Pilgrim in Plymouth, and which perchance knocked against the heels of Miles Standish himself, is curious and interesting.

The Colonists in Virginia were chiefly of the Royalist party and of the Church of England. They had crossed the ocean to repair their fortunes with the gold which they imagined must abound in the New World. Unlike the Puritans of Massachusetts, they had no quarrel with England, and no desire nor intention to found a new order of society here. No intensity of feeling nor high resolves determined them to seek an asylum in Virginia. They therefore did not identify themselves permanently with the interests of the country; and the writers among them, unlike those of New England, in most cases after a brief sojourn returned to Europe.

For several reasons the Virginian colony was not favorable to the growth of literature and culture.

1. The people of New England settled in groups of families forming centres of rapidly-growing towns and cities ; the " town-meetings " of citizens and the constant intercourse of neighbors resulted in improvements in industry and trade, the increase of schools and churches, and " facility in the interchange of books, letters, and the like." The people of Virginia did not found villages, but lived distant from each other on large estates. No clusters of houses were to be seen. In Jamestown, the capital, there were only eighteen private dwellings. The natural result was the absence of all co-operation and all progress in trade, education, and civil affairs. The planter, grown rich by the cultivation of tobacco, surrounded himself with his slaves and lived a careless, hospitable life, occupying his leisure with the English sports of fox-hunting, horse-racing, and cock-fighting.

2. Another serious consequence of the wide separation of the settlers in Virginia was the impediment it offered to common education. Schools were rare, and indeed until the year 1688 "no mention is anywhere made in the records of schools or of any provision for the instruction of youth."

3. Not only were schools discouraged, but even printing was forbidden. Sir William Berkeley, governor of the colony, said, " I thank God there are no free schools nor printing; and I hope we shall not have these hundred years ; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them and libels against the best government. God keep us from both !" No printing-press was set up permanently in Virginia until 1729.

Literature in Virginia. — The earliest writings of Virginia were descriptions of the new and strange things of the country, and of the prosperity or mishaps of the settlers, written to satisfy the curiosity of friends in England. These writings, or " news-letters," were, in every instance, printed in England. Mingled with them were certain other more scholarly works, such as the translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses^ by George Sandys, treasurer of the Virginian colony and son of the archbishop of York.

Among the narratives and descriptions of the country were Good News from Virginia^ by Alexander Whitaker, published in London in 1613 ; and Leah and Rachel (i, e.

Virginia and Maryland), by John Hammond, published in London in 1656.

Books of this character and time can hardly be claimed for our literature. Their authors were Englishmen who happened to be visitors to Virginia, but who printed their books in England, and who, in almost every case, returned thither.

Captain John Smith was the first writer to send home an account of the wilderness into which he had journeyed and in which so many adventures befell him. His first book was The True Relation^ of Virginia, published in London in 1608.

The Pounders of New England landed at Plymouth in December, 1620. Within twenty years the population of the fifty towns of New England numbered twenty-one thousand souls. These people sought a land in which they might be free to think and to worship according to their own conscience. While the Virginians were laying up treasure upon earth, the men of Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth were thinking of treasure in heaven.

There was among them a number of scholarly men. A considerable proportion of the Pilgrims were college-bred. In the small colony of Massachusetts Bay there were not less than seventy graduates of Cambridge and twenty graduates of Oxford.

Great importance was attached to education in the new colony. Before 1650 public instruction was compulsory throughout New England. The founders of New England, though stern in their piety, were book-lovers and filled with the enthusiasm for knowledge. The chief trait of our forefathers was earnestness. They were serious in all things. Whatever they did in politics, religion, education, or industry was done, with prayer and earnest effort. This earnestness made their lives grave and often cheerless. Gayety

* " Relation '' — that is, account or narrative.

and beauty were looked upon as things of evil. Their religion was solemn and their God wrathful. Their devotion to their creed and confidence in their faith made them intolerant of opposite opinions. They persecuted all who did not believe as they did. They drove Roger Williams out into the wilderness to find a home in Rhode Island. They tortured old women whom they believed to be witches, and inflicted the severest punishments for trifling ofi*ences. There was no charm nor beauty in their austere lives. The American Colleges. — In 1636 the Puritans of Massachusetts founded a college at Cambridge. It was called Harvard, after a young Charlestown clergyman who bequeathed to the "school " eight hundred pounds in money and a considerable library. Nothing could illustrate more powerfully the high value set upon learning by our Puritan ancestors than this establishment of a college so soon after the first landing on these shores. The intelligence and the public spirit of the founders of our nation and of our literature are alike justified by it.

1. Harvard College was intended to teach the classical languages and Hebrew, and to train learned men for the service of the Church. It soon made its reputation on both sides of the ocean. It has been the school of the largest number of American writers. Throughout Colonial and Revolutionary times, and in dark days of our history, it has impressed upon the youth of the country how excellent a thing knowledge is.

2. Before the Pilgrims landed, in 1619, and again in 1622, the Virginians submitted proposals to England for the establishment of a university. That it might be safe from the ravages of Indians, it was proposed to build the college on an island in the Susquehanna River. But no institution of learning was actually established in Virginia until the close of the century. Then, in 1693, the College of William and Mary was founded.

It is a significant fact that the first and last battle-fields of

16 AMERICAN LfTEEATUBE.

the Revolution were in the immediate neighborhood of these two colleges of Massachusetts and Virginia. There, where our patriots, soldiers, and statesmen had been educated, the war began and ended. It began on Bunker Hill, and Cornwallis surrendered in the vicinity of Williamsburg, the seat of the Virginian college.

Among the distinguished students of William and Mary were Thomas Jefferson, Peyton Randolph, President of the Continental Congress of 1774, President James Monroe, Judge Blair of the Supreme Court, and several of the governors of Virginia and Maryland.

3. In 1700, Yale College was founded at New Haven, Connecticut, and from it, in the eighteenth century, came the most eminent thinker of colonial times, Jonathan Edwards.

4. The College of New Jersey dates from 1746 ; Columbia College (New York), from 1754; the University OF Pennsylvania, from 1755; and Brown University (Rhode Island), from 1764.

The first Printing-Press was set up at Cambridge, Mass., in 1639. The first book printed on it was the Bay Psalmbooh (1640), a collection of versified psalms of the most wretched character. It was partly compiled by Bishop Eliot, the Apostle to the Indians and translator of the Bible into the Indian tongue.

The Literature of New England was, throughout the Colonial period, of a religious character. The only questions of general interest w^ere questions of theology. The writers of books and pamphlets were men who had fought for their religious opinions. They had exiled themselves that they might be free to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience. Naturally, the first publications were in defence of their creed. Their only literary object was to explain divine truth as they perceived it. Religious books and pamphlets therefore form the great bulk of the publications of the Colonial period of Literature.

THE COLONIAL PEETOD. 17

For instance^ between the years 1706 and 1718 " all the publications known to have been printed in America number at least five hundred and fifty. Of these all but eighty-four were on religious topics, and of the eighty-four, forty-nine were almanacs."

Besides sermons, religious discourses, pious tracts, etc., there were a few historical ivritings, or, more correctly, diaries of contemporary events.

William Bradford (1588-1657), an important writer of the latter class, was the second governor of Plymouth Colony. He held that office almost every year from 1621 until 1657, when he died. His principal book, and the chief historical writing of early New England, was the History of Plymouth Plantation, It was left unpublished. The manuscript passed through several hands, and was at last placed in the library of Old South Church, Boston. When the British occupied Boston the library was plundered, and Bradford's History disappeared. In 1855 it was found in the library of the bishop of London.

Other Historical Writers. — Of equal literary worth with Bradford's history, and of perhaps still more historical value, is the History of New England from 1630 to 1649, by John Winthrop (1588-1649), governor of Massachusetts Bay.

Thomas Morton (1575-1646), an adventurer, vexed the pious people of Massachusetts by establishing a boisterous crew of merry-makers at Mount Wollaston, now Braintree, Mass. This settlement, so off"ensive to the Puritans, he called " Merry Mount," and there he raised a May-pole and instituted the gay sports of Old England. Morton was charged with teaching Indians the use of fire-arms. He was arrested by Captain Miles Standish and sent to England. In 1637 he published The New England Canaan, fall of ridicule of the Puritan faith and manners. He returned to Massachusetts, and was imprisoned for his unpardonable literary "scandal."

Nathaniel Ward (1579-1652), a minister of culture and experience, published in 1647, in London, one of the most curious books written in the colonies. It was called The Simple Cobbler of Aggawam (Essex). It was a sharp satire on the new opinions that were then rife in both Old and New England — a truly vigorous polemic directed against long hair and female frivolity. All these books, however, are mere literary curiosities. They are not easily found by the general reader, and are hard enough reading when found. They are far more important in that they contain legends or facts that have been built up by more modern authors into romances, poems, and histories of enchanting interest. Thus, out of the dull materials of the books just mentioned Motley wrote his novel Merry Mount, and Hawthorne his ilfa7/-pofe of Merry Mount; Longfellow his New England Tragedies, and Whittier his John Underhill and the Familisfs Hymn.

-Roger AVilliams (1600 ?-1683).— The date and place of Roger Williams' birth are in doubt. He emigrated to Massachusetts in 1631. He preached for a time at Salem, but was summoned, in 1635, before the General Court at Boston to answer the charge of heresy. In 1636 he founded the city of Providence, where he obtained great influence over the Indians, with whose language he was familiar. He wrote a number of books, all of which are inspired by a spirit of toleration which places their author in the first rank of the liberal minds of the seventeenth century.

Among the more famous of his works are the Bloody Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience (1644) ; Hireling Ministry None of Chris fs (1652) ; George Fox Digged Out of His Burr owes (1676) ; and Key into the Language of America (1643).

Two Colonial Poets. — In the bleak atmosphere of Puritanism flourished two writers of what, in the seventeenth century, passed for verse among the people of New England. They were Anne Bradstreet (1612-72) and

Michael Wigglesworth (1631-1715). The former wrote a dull poem to which she gave the following portentous title : Several Poems compiled with great Variety of Wit and Learning, full of Delight, wherein especially is contained a Complete Discourse and Description of the Four Elements, Constitutions, Ages of Men, Seasons of the Year, together with an exact Epitome of the Three First Monarchies, viz., the Assyrian, Persian, and Grecian, and the beginning of the Roman Commonwealth to the end of their last King; with divers other Pleasant and serious Poems, by a Gentlewoman of New England {Boston, 1640). Wigglesworth wrote the Day of Doom, a pitiful and painful attempt at poetry. It is a rhymed version of the Puritan doctrine of future punishment.

Increase Mather 1639-1723), rendered valuable services to the Massachusetts Colony. He wrote more than a hundred different works, among which are A History of the War with the Indians (1676) and Remarkable Providences (1684).

Cotton Mather (1663-1728). — The greatest men of America during the colonial period were Cotton Mather (son of Increase Mather), Jonathan Edwards, and Benjamin Franklin. Mather was an industrious writer. He was the author of more than four hundred different works. He was one of a distinguished family of clergymen who for three generations had furnished the Puritan pulpit with men of learning. He was born in Boston, February 12, 1663, and entered Harvard College when only eleven years old. He gathered the largest collection of books in America, and became, without doubt, the most learned man in the colonies. " To preach seventy sermons in public, forty more in private, keep thirty vigils and sixty fasts, and still have time for persecuting witches, was nothing unusual for him to do in a year."

His most celebrated book was the Magnalia Christi Americana, or " great things done by Christ for the American people." It is the ecclesiastical history of New England from 1620.

20 AMERTCAN LITERATURE,

Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) was the greatest of all New England thinkers. More than that, he was perhaps the clearest reasoner America has yet produced. He was born in East Windsor, Conn., in 1703, was graduated at Yale College in 1720, was pastor of a church at Northampton, Mass., from 1726 until 1750, and died president of Princeton College in 1758. His principal book is entitled Inquiry into the Freedom of the Will (1754.) All his acute logic was employed in the service of that system of theology which has taken its name from John Calvin.

Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) was the first and the only man of letters in colonial times to achieve European renown. He brought America prominently before the minds of the Old World, and commanded respect for his country and admiration for himself. He was born in Boston January 17, 1706. His father was a tallow-chandler, and his mother a daughter of Peter Folger, who in his day had some reputation as a writer. Franklin was apprenticed to his brother, who was a printer, but ran away and went to Philadelphia in 1723. The description of his entry into Philadelphia, which was to be the scene of his busy labors for more than sixty years, forms the most amusing portion of his Autobiography.

Among all the great men in our history who have risen from humble origin to great fame none have achieved greatness in so many ways as Benjamin Franklin. He Svas a shrewd, practical man of the world, the very embodiment of the common sense of the country. His character and career are far enough away from the stern religious men we have been considering. Franklin's mind was attentive to trifles, his philosophy never got beyond the homely maxims of worldly prudence, and yet in the great crisis of the Revolution his discernment and sagacity proclaimed him a statesman of equal acumen with the leaders of European thought.

Franklin's enormous versatility is the feature of his life ;

he was fertile and successful in science, diplomacy, philanthropy, and literature.

His invention of the stove and the lightning-rod, his papers on electricity and the Gulf Stream, attest the service he rendered to the cause of science. The University of Oxford and the University of St. Andrews in Scotland recognized the value of his scientific work when they conferred upon him the degree of doctor of philosophy.

He signed the Declaration of Independence, the Treaty of Alliance, the Treaty of Peace, and the Constitution of the United States.

All manner of public reforms were suggested by him : he mended and cleaned streets, organized the police and fire departments, reconstructed the postal system, and founded hospitals. The Philadelphia Library is his, the University of Pennsylvania was started by him, and the American Philosophical Society owes to him its origin.

His Literary Career. — In spite of the multitude of his writings, Franklin is not an important literary character. American literature in his time had not yet begun. He had no ambition for literary fame. His language was terse and simple, his style often careless and in bad taste ; but there was no affectation, no display of learning nor posing for applause. The author carried the simplicity of his life into his writings. Practical sense and homely wit characterize all his subjects. The most prominent, and by very much the best- written of his works, are the Autobiography, Father Abraham^s Speech, and Poor Richard's Almanac, An almanac in those days was an indispensable book in every household. It hung by the fireplace ready for consultation or for memoranda. It became the account-book of the family ; the margins of its pages would often be crowded with labored calculations and mnemonic notes. We have already seen that in the first twelve years of Franklin's life forty-nine of the eighty-four non-religious books printed in the colonies were almanacs. Their information was upon the crops, the weather, and the roads. In 1732, Franklin pubUshed the masterpiece among almanacs. It was the Poor Richard Almanac just quoted. Its characteristic feature was its crisp proverbs full of kitchen wisdom, the duty of industry, and the making of money. For instance: " God helps them that help themselves;" " Keep thy shop, and thy shop will keep thee ;" " Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise ; " " Little strokes fell great oaks;'' "Three removes are as bad as a fire;" "Fools make feasts, and wise men eat them;" "It is hard for an empty bag to stand upright."

Franklin's Autobiography has always been a deservedly popular book. No more uniformly interesting and successful autobiography was ever written. Fifty editions of it in this country alone testify to the popular appreciation of it. It is a book whose fame is assured, and as a piece of literature it has been pronounced equal to the permanently interesting and popular Robinson Crusoe. The edition by John Bigelow is the only one which retains the old spelling and gives the story exactly as Franklin wrote it.

Franklin's practical sayings have become part of the wisdom of the people, and are everywhere familiar. His name, like that of Washington Irving, has been given to towns, boroughs, streets, societies, and corporations. General Washington alone among Americans is so intimately and universally known by all classes of people.

David Ramsay (1749-1815).— A physician in Philadelphia and Charleston, S. C. ; was an active participant in Revolutionary politics, and became an impartial and accomplished historian. He wrote A History of the South Carolina Revolution (1785) ; A History of the American Revolution (1789) ; A History of South Carolina (1809), and A History of the United States (1607-1808).

Newspapers. — The first newspaper published in America was Public Occurrences, in 1690. But it was intended to appear monthly — was therefore more of a pamphlet than a paper — and was quickly suppressed by the General Court.

The Boston News-Letter^ the second newspaper of the colonies, was first printed in Boston by John Campbell, postmaster of the town, on the 17th of April, 1704.

In 1719 the Boston Gazette was established by the new postmaster, and was printed by James Franklin. One day later the American Weekly Mercury appeared in Philadelphia. James Franklin himself founded the fifth newspaper, the New England Courant, in 1721, to which Benjamin Franklin contributed his earliest compositions. Before the close of the year 1765, which we have taken as the boundary of the colonial period, there had been established in all the American colonies at least forty-three newspapers, eleven of which belonged to Massachusetts, five to Pennsylvania, eight to New York, and one to Virginia.

The First Literary Journal was founded by Franklin in Philadelphia in 1741. It was called The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle for all the British Provinces in America. It lasted but six months, has but little literary value, but is interesting because, with Andrew Bradford's American Magazine^ published at the same time, it marks the earliest efibrt to establish the monthly magazine or literary journal in America.

Isolation of the Colonies. — The most important fact to be remembered in a study of the first period of our history is the tendency in each colony to isolation from its neighbors. There was very little communication between the colonies. Each had its own laws, money, and social customs. Naturally, therefore, the Cavaliers of Virginia continued to think and write in a diff*erent vein from the Roundheads of New England, and the Quakers of Pennsylvania had nothing in common with either.

CHAPTER 11.

The Revolutionary Period.

1765-1809.

The New Era.— About the middle of the eighteenth century certain changes were manifested in the character of the American people. New subjects were thought upon, and the old Puritan earnestness was directed from religion to politics. The colonies also drew closer together, and made common cause against foreign injustice. The Revolutionary War and the causes which led to it created a new interest in literature, as well as an excitement in politics. It is hard to say just when the new period began. The war-clouds had been gathering for years before the " embattled farmers" at Concord ^' fired the shot heard round the world." All great movements in history progress slowly, and are almost imperceptible in their earliest stages. It is not possible to say on what day spring begins, nor in what year a new epoch in history commences. But it is convenient to take the critical year 1765, in which Patrick Henry denounced the Stamp Act as subversive of British and American liberty, and in which the first Colonial Congress met in New York, as the starting-point of the second great period in the history of our American writings. It was not until the end of this period, and until well on in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, that literature began to be cultivated for its own sake, and that really important men of letters arose in this country. The writings of the Revolutionary times are chiefly important from their historical character and connections. Few of them have any considerable literary value.

The character of the colonial period was theological ; the character of the Revolutionary period was political. The productions of the colonial period weie theological controversies ; the productions of the Revolutionary period were political pamphlets. In the second period, therefore, politics replaced polemics, and passion took the place of argument. Literature gave voice to vigorous denunciation of tyranny, and cherished with enthusiasm the love of liberty. All the forcible public documents of the age of Revolution breathe a spirit of self-reliance.

New France or New England ? — That was the question upon the answer to which, in the eighteenth century, depended the destiny of America and the existence of our literature. Two great European powers, France and England, began to occupy the New World about the same time, and between them inevitably arose a struggle for the possession of this continent. In 1607, England successfully lodged a handful of colonists at Jamestown; in 1608, France made a successful settlement at Quebec. These two nations represented different historic ideas and crossed the ocean for different purposes. The English have always been a diligent and successful colonizing people. Their object in America was to colonize — to build cities, to establish communities, to advance trade and education. The French have never been an active colonizing people. Their object in America was to conquer — to build forts, to win converts to religion, and to establish an empire.