“I love thy kingdom, Lord!
The house of Thine abode;
The church our blest Redeemer saved
With His own precious blood.”
The other, Mr. Barlow, was a well-known man of letters and politician in his day, author of the “Columbiad,” the epic referred to by Mr. Smith, and minister plenipotentiary of the United States to the coast of France at a critical period of our history. As to the “Columbiad,” it has been pronounced by competent critics to be equal in merit to Addison’s “Campaign,” and surely it is no disgrace to have equalled Addison.
It was the fashion in those days for Englishmen to sneer at Americans; and so we find in another review, written by the same gentleman in 1820, this language: “During the thirty or forty years of their independence, they have done absolutely nothing for the sciences, for the arts, for literature, or even for the statesmanlike studies of politics or political economy.... In the four quarters of the globe who reads an American book? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones have they analyzed? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? What have they done in mathematics? Who drinks out of American glasses? or eats from American plates? or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets?” In the very same year that this array of rather insolent queries was propounded by Sydney Smith, the genial Washington Irving, in the advertisement to the first English edition of his Sketch Book, remarks: “The author is aware of the austerity with which the writings of his countrymen have been treated by British critics.” We have not a particle of doubt as to the “austerity” in question. The salvos of Old Ironsides and the roar of Jackson’s guns at New Orleans, were unpleasant facts not yet forgotten by Englishmen.
But Sydney Smith was not quite fair towards our countrymen. It was “during the thirty or forty years of their independence” referred to that Fulton’s steamboat revolutionized navigation, that Rittenhouse developed a mathematical skill second only to that of Newton; that West delighted even royalty itself with the creations of his pencil; while in “the statesmanlike studies of politics or political economy,” it was during this very period that Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and their coadjutors did more to develop the true principles of government and politics than had ever been done before in the history of the world. True, we had not much to boast of, but it would have been only just to give us credit for what we were worth. Moreover, in a small way, but to the extent it was possible under the circumstances, the English colonists in America had cultivated letters from the beginning. In 1685, Cotton Mather wrote his Memorable Providences; in 1732, Franklin began to issue his Poor Richard’s Almanac; in 1749, Jonathan Edwards published his Life of David Brainerd, and in 1754, his famous treatise on The Freedom of the Will and Moral Agency. Besides these, which perhaps stand out most conspicuously, there were many minor works of more or less excellence, over most of which the iniquity of oblivion, to use the fine phrase of Sir Thomas Browne, hath scattered her poppy.
The moment that the Edinburg Review was thus dealing our fathers these heavy blows seemed to be the real starting point in our career of literary greatness. William Cullen Bryant, Washington Irving, James K. Paulding, Richard H. Dana, James Fenimore Cooper, Mrs. Sigourney and a host of others were giving direction to that stream of literature that has since flowed broad and free over our land, imparting life and vigor and beauty to our society and institutions. It is, however, anterior to the year 1820, the thirty or forty years of our national independence, during which Mr. Smith says we have done “absolutely nothing” in literature, science or art, to which we must more particularly advert. The literary product of those years was scanty enough, it is true. The student of this period will not find much, and not all of that of the first order, to reward his labor—not much, at least, as compared with other nations at the same time. But may there not have been some sufficient reason for this, outside of any downright intellectual deficiencies on the part of our fathers? Let us for a moment consider the condition of things at that time in this country.
In the first place, at the time referred to, the citizens of the United States were in a daily struggle with the material difficulties of their situation. The country was new. The region west and north of the Ohio and Mississippi was yet an almost unbroken wilderness, while the country east and south of those rivers was but sparsely populated. At the same time the tide of immigration was sweeping into the country, and with it all the rush and turmoil incident to life in a new country was going on. Forests were to be cut down; farms were to be cleared up; houses were to be built; roads were to be made; bridges were to be thrown across the rivers; while a livelihood was to be compelled from the forests, the streams, and the fields. The conditions of a new country are not favorable to the cultivation of the arts, of sciences, or of literature. Why do not Englishmen twit the people of Australia because during the past forty or fifty years in which they have prospered so greatly in material things, they have not produced a Macaulay, a Tennyson, a Gladstone, a Tyndall, or a Huxley? It would be just as fair to do it.
Not only was there this hand to hand contest with their physical environment, but the political conditions were also unfavorable to any general dalliance with the Muses. Only in times of tranquility and ease is it possible.