HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY "A Well of English Undefiled." LITERATURE AND BELLES LETTRES. PROFESSOR CLEVELAND'S WORKS. A WHOLE LIBRARY IN FOUR VOLUMES. OF ENGLISH 19th CENT'Y COMPENDIUM LITERATURE. OF AMERICAN OF CLASSICAL CLEVELAND'S COMPLETE MILTON, WITH VERBAL INDEX. One Hundred and Twenty Thousand of these Volumes have been sold, and they are the acknowledged Standard wherever this refining study is pursued. PROF. JAMES R. BOYD'S WORKS. EMBRACING COMPOSITION, LOGIC, LITERATURE, RHETORIC, CRITICISM, BIOGRAPHY;—POETRY, AND PROSE. BOYD'S COMPOSITION AND RHETORIC. Remarkable for the space and attention given to grammatical principles, to afford a substantial groundwork; also for the admirable treatment of synonyms, figurative language, and the sources of argument and illustration, with notable exercises for preparing the way to poetic composition. BOYD'S ELEMENTS OF LOGIC explains, first, the conditions and processes by which the mind receives ideas, and then unfolds the art of reasoning, with clear directions for the establishment and confirmation of sound judgment. A thoroughly practical treatise, being a systematic and philosophical condensation of all that is known of the subject. BOYD'S KAMES' CRITICISM. This standard work, as is well known, treats of the faculty of perception, and the result of its exercise upon the tastes and emotions. It may therefore be termed a Compendium of Aesthetics and Natural Morals; and its use in refining the mind and heart has made it a standard text-book. BOYD'S ANNOTATED ENGLISH CLASSICS. In six cheap volumes. The service done to literature, by Prof. Boyd's Annota tions upon these standard writers, can with difficulty be estimated. Line by line their expressions and ideas are analyzed and discussed, until the best comprehension of the powerful use of language is obtained by the learner. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1859, by CHARLES DEXter Cleveland, In the Clerk's Office of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. O'S AM. LIT. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. SOON after the publication of my "English Literature of the Nineteenth Century,"-seven years ago, the publishers announced the present work; and in about a year after, nearly half of it was done. But I found that, with the arduous duties of my school, I was working too hard, and I therefore suspended my labors upon the book, and for four or five years (residing for a greater part of the time in the country) I wrote not a line for it. But as, in consequence of its early announcement, it was continually inquired for, I determined, a year ago, to complete the work as soon as I could, and as best I might be able. The result is now before the public. I have deemed it but simple justice to myself, as well as to my publishers, to state these facts, lest it might be supposed that I had been laboring upon my book for the whole seven years, thus raising expectations, as to the completeness and finish, which I fear the volume itself will not justify. Moreover, one who has an onerous scholastic charge might be supposed to have enough to employ his time, without engaging in such outside literary labors as seem more befitting the professed author. I say these things, not to deprecate criticism upon my work,- -on the contrary, I cordially invite it, but as a partial apology for its deficiencies. In the preparation of all works of this character, there are difficulties which those only who have been engaged in such labors can appreciate. But in this work the difficulties are peculiar : First, from the two questions that must, at the very outset, be answered:-What is American Literature? and, When does it begin? Second, from the vast amount of material to select from, at times absolutely overwhelming. And, third, from the impossibility of giving entire satisfaction either to living authors, or to the friends and kindred of those who are deceased. Respecting the question, what is American Literature, I would remark that, in my view, it would be absurd to apply this term to the occasional and transient literary effusions which appeared on this side of the Atlantic for a century after the settlement of the country. Colonies of Great Britain, speaking the same language, governed by the same laws, manufacturing but little for ourselves, but dependent on the mother country for a large portion of our material comforts, it was natural for us to look to her also for our intellectual aliment. And we did so. Scarcely forty years ago, the "Edinburgh Review" thus wrote:-" Literature, the Americans have none; no native literature, we mean. * * But why should the Americans write books, when a six weeks' passage brings them, in their own tongue, our sense, science, and genius, in bales and hogsheads?" At this very plain language, which had a good deal of truth in it, we were much and very foolishly offended. We might have answered the reviewer, amply, thus :-"True, we have had as yet but little literature of our own. We have had a greater, a higher, a nobler work to do than to write books. We have had to found a great nation. A vast continent was before us to be subdued. The means whereby to live' were first to be provided. Dwellings were to be built; school-houses and church edifices were to be erected; literary, scientific, and religious educational institutions were to be founded; and then, in the natural course of things, would come forth and be embodied the creations of the intellect, the fancy, and the imagination. In short, instead of writing any great work, we were acting a still greater one. We were creating those very subjects upon which the future historian, traveller, essayist, poet, might employ his pen for the delight and instruction of other generations.' Such might have been our answer; and who would not have acknowledged its conclusiveness? 6 But as soon as our "gristle was hardened into the bone of manhood," we began to think of setting up for ourselves; and then, indeed, we began to think for ourselves. And here we have an answer, as correct as I can give, to the question, what is American Literature; namely, that it is the product of those minds that have been nurtured, trained, developed, matured, on our own soil, by the manners, habits, scenery, circumstances, and institutions peculiar to ourselves. This answer, too, determines, with considerable precision, the date of American Literature,-that its native growth and development commenced with our Revolutionary period. Our first thoughts were, of course, directed to our own condition, to our relations to the mother country, to our forms of government, and to the great principles of political government, of public economy, and of civil liberty; and then came forth, Minerva-like, a literature of a political character, to which, for strength, clearness, and comprehensiveness of thought, for just and sound reasoning, and for effective and lofty eloquence, the world had never seen the parallel; showing that the high encomium passed by Edmund Burke upon our first colonial Congress was no less just than beautiful. This literature is cm 1 Vol. xxxi. p. 144, December, 1818. bodied in the speeches and letters of James Otis, the elder Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Jay, Madison, and other patriots of the Revolution. Thenceforward, by degrees, as our strength increased, as our views expanded, as our facilities for learning were multiplied, as our scholarship assumed a higher and a higher grade, we entered, successively, the various fields of literature, and reaped rich and still richer harvests from them all, so that our dear, good old mother is now proud to acknowledge us as her own, and to confess that in some of the walks of science we have, in our onward march, left even her behind. In History, she acknowledges that Irving, Prescott, Bancroft, Hildreth, and Motley, are equal to any on her side of the Atlantic. In Theology and Biblical Literature, Dwight and Barnes have, probably, as many readers in England as here; while no review in that department in Great Britain is superior, for varied and profound learning, to "The Bibliotheca Sacra." As a novelist, the English Reviews themselves being judges, Mrs. Stowe is without a rival in either hemisphere. As many copies, probably, of Bryant and Longfellow have been sold in England, as of Coleridge, or Wordsworth, or Tennyson; while many annotated and elucidated editions of classic authors by our own scholars are extensively studied in English schools. So that now "The Edinburgh Review" might ask with truth the reverse question-" Who does NOT read an American book?" Having fixed the date of the origin of our native literature at the latter half of the last century, the question arose with what author 1 should begin. Here there seemed little difficulty in deciding The great light of the last century was, undoubtedly, Jonathan Edwards, distinguished not more for his learning and picty, than for his originality of genius, and a mind unmistakably American in its habits of thought and action. But after him, the number that might, with some show of reason, put in their claim to come within the scope of such a work, increased more and more, until it has, within the past thirty years, become so great as to be really embarrassing. And here, doubtless, will be found the chief failing of my humble volume; here is a field ample enough for the most vituperative critic to exercise his skill in. Many will see that some favorite piece-or, it may be, some favorite author-has been left out; and may hastily ask why it is so. It is enough to reply that I could not put in every thing,-no, not a hundredth part of what "The London Quarterly Review," for December, 1841, (only twenty-three years after the extract from "The Edinburgh Review" just quoted was written,) in reviewing Dr. Robinson's Palestine, thus wri es:-"We are not altogether pleased that for the best and most copious work on the geography and antiquities of the Holy Land, though written in English, we should be indebted to an American divine." has been written. Even the TITLES of all the books written by American authors would fill a volume half as large as this. But, if it will be any gratification to these querists, I will candidly acknowledge that I myself see, after my book is now made up, many ways in which it might be improved, and that many authors are not noticed in it who should be. It will be a pleasure, however, to make amends for whatever sins of omission or of commission may be pointed out to me, should my book reach another edition and be put in the stereotyped, permanent form. In the mean time, I earnestly hope that any friend-or foe, if I have one-will candidly and freely communicate to me his views. Each one will look at the subject from a different stand-point; and I will sincerely thank all to do what they can to place me in their own position, that I may, as far as possible, see with their eyes. But, whatever want of judgment may be laid to my charge, either in deciding upon the authors to be admitted into my book, or of taste in selecting from their works, I trust that no one will be able with justice to impugn my honesty. I have at least endeavored, uninfluenced by fear or favor, to represent my authors fairly, and to let them speak out whatever sentiments were dearest to their hearts. To have done otherwise, would have been as dishonorable as unjust. One, for instance, has made Freedom the chief burden of his writings; another has been most interested in the cause of Temperance,-both subjects peculiarly American; and the warmest feelings of my heart, and my own lifelong principles, have here fully harmonized with my sense of justice, to represent the humanity and philanthropy, as well as the cultivated intellect, of my accomplished countrymen. In conclusion, I would only remark that I can desire no greater favor to be shown by the public to this, than has been extended to my two former volumes. My publishers-and no author could in this respect be more highly favored-have done their part, as before, in a style of great beauty; so that no series of books, I believe, have ever been offered to the public at so moderate a price, considering their amount of reading matter and their mechanical execution. And now, having prepared this book, as my others, neither to please any clique or sect, nor to favor any particular latitude or special market, nor to defer to any false sentiments, but to promote the cause of sound learning and education, in harmony with pure Christian morals, the best interests of humanity, and the cause of universal truth, I submit it to the judgment of an intelligent public. PHILADELPHIA, April 6, 1858. CHARLES D. CLEVELAND. |