Reviewers, was at one time a distinguished clergyman at Greenfield in Connecticut, and afterwards president of Yale College; as a pulpit orator, and a writer of sermons, he had a high reputation in his own country. For a long while he was at the head of the Calvinistic clergy of New England; and, from the infallibility claimed for him by his disciples, he received the name of Pope Dwight from his opposers. His two poems, the Conquest of Canaan and Greenfield Hill, were the productions of his early life, and were surely not the most favourable proofs he gave of talent. He died two years since, at the age of sixty or thereabouts. A better taste and a more genuine spirit of poetry has been discovered in some of the smaller and later productions. Alston's Sylph of the Seasons, Pierpont's Airs of Palestine, and the Bridal of Vaumond, are decidedly the finest transatlantic poetic compositions we have seen. It will no doubt be thought more difficult to account for American barrenness in creative literature, than in works of learned industry, allowing them to possess a common share of genius; but even here we do not look upon the attempt as desperate. Admitting that genius is too subtile to be confined by any covering in which ignorance may wrap it-that it comes into life at its own call from the brain in which it exists-it does not follow that it may not afterward suffer some deforming compression, like the flattening of the heads of the Indian children. Indeed precisely this effect is produced upon it in America; the instant it appears, it is forced into some professional refrigeratory, where it undergoes the process of condensation, and is then turned out for ordinary use, as a common preparation of the shops. There is nothing to awaken fancy in that land of dull realities; it contains no objects that carry back the mind to the contemplation of early antiquity; no mouldering ruins to excite curiosity in the history of past ages; no memorials, commemorative of glorious deeds, to call forth patriotic enthusiasm and reverence; it has no traditions and legends and fables to afford materials for romance and poetry; no peasantry of original and various costume and character for the sketches of the pencil and the subjects of song; it has gone through no period of inVOL. IV.

fancy; no pastoral state in which poetry grows out of the simplicity of language, and beautiful and picturesque descriptions of nature are produced by the constant contemplation of her. The whole course of life is a round of practical duties; for every day there is a task for every person; all are pressing forward in the hurry of business; no man stops to admire the heavens over his head, or the charms of creation around him; no time is allowed for the study of nature, and no taste for her beauties is ever acquired. It is astonishing how little there is of the ideal and poetic in life there-what neglect of every thing intellectual-what indifference to all that belongs to imagination-and what perfect concentration of the whole faculties in the pursuit of wealth, and the prosecution of the calling or profession, be it what it may. If this affords no solution of the difficulty, we know of nothing that will; the fact is undeniable, that hitherto they have given no proof whatever of genius in works of invention and fancy, and unless we allow that the failure is owing to the want of proper subjects to awaken it, and proper materials to nourish it, in the manner above shewn; or that it is displayed in a different sphere, we must agree with Buffon and Raynal, that the human mind has suffered a deterioration by being transported across the Atlantic. As Englishmen, we should not feel much pride in this belief of the degradation of American intellect; we would rather hope that they will one day reflect lustre upon their ancestors, and add to the glories of the common language.

To complete our view of this subject, we have now to add a few remarks on the state of science and the arts. We have a right to expect that America will do a great deal for science; for it is comparatively little affected by the obstacles, which retard her literary advancement, and, in many of its departments, it directly assists in perfecting that practical talent for which she is so eminently distinguished. They have not yet furnished many names to be entered upon this catalogue of fame. Franklin's is the only one whose right is undisputed; Rittenhouse can hardly be considered more than an ingenious mechanic; and Rumford's claim rests rather upon his successful application 4 N

of science to practical uses, than upon his own original discoveries in it. One more might be added, whose right must be allowed whenever it is sufficiently known; we allude to Dr Bowditch, the astronomer, to whose merits the Royal Societies of London and Edinburgh have lately borne testimony by receiving him as a member. For the proofs which this gentleman has given of his profound science, we refer to the Transactions of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, published at Boston, particularly to the fourth volume, which contains several articles by him. Natural history appears to be the subject, which now receives the most attention, and that is cultivated with great zeal. In this branch of science they have produced several valuable works, within a few years: Wilson's Ornithology is a splendid book, and we can conceive no reason but its high price (30 guineas) which has prevented it from finding its way into more of our libraries; Cleaveland's Mineralogy is gen erally known, and as generally esteemed; Maclure's little work on the Geology of the United States is a very interesting view of the great outlines of the formation of the country; Bigelow's Medical Botany, and Elliott's Carolina Flora, both now publishing in numbers, are executed with great abilities and correctness, and promise to be important additions to the science; and Nuttall's Genera of the North American plants is a useful catalogue, particularly as a supplement to the larger Flora of Pursh. Other works of the same kind are now preparing for publication: Professor Cleaveland's Geology of Maine, Bigelow and Boot's New England Flora, Hosack's Flora of North America, and Muhlenberg Flora Lancastriensis, edited by Collins, may shortly be expected. The scientific expedition up the Missouri, and its tributary streams, cannot fail to add a vast deal to our present knowledge of the kingdoms of nature; and the very undertaking of it is a proof of a good spirit in the cause. Another indication of the increasing attention to science is seen in the improved character of the learned societies: the papers now published in their transactions are far more respectable than formerly. The fourth volume of the Memoirs of the American Academy at Boston, recently

received here, would better stand the ordeal of the reviewers, than a volume of the Transactions of the Philosophical Society at Philadel phia did about sixteen years since. This last-named society seems hardly so active as some others in the country, which, probably, is owing to the establishment of a new society in the same city, the Academy of Natural Sciences, which has already published several very interesting papers on zoology, botany, and geology. It must be highly pleasing, to all the friends of natural history, to hear of this attention to it in a country, which lays open such a field for research. We hope that reparation for past unpardonable neglect may be made by future activity and zeal. Philadelphia, New York, Boston and Charleston, Carolina, are all making spirited exertions, through the instrumentality of societies, for its promotion. In this last city, by the influence of a single individual, a taste for botany has been created, and liberal patronage extended to the sciences; a garden has been established, which should, and, we hope, will be made a depository for all the plants of the tropics, for which it is so admirably fitted by the mildness of the climate. We know of no other scientific associations which have not been mentioned, except the Literary and Philosophical Society of New York. There are several for the promotion of agriculture and the useful arts, and two for aiding inquiries into their own history. The oldest of these two was established at Boston about thirty years since, and has published sixteen volumes of historical papers, which are for the most part important materials for history. It is called the Massachusetts Historical Society. The other, at New York, was formed in 1809, and has published two volumes of the same kind as that at Boston. Both of these societies have considerable libraries of books connected with the objects they are designed to promote.

As to the fine arts, America is just about where she was when first discovered by Columbus. She is evidently in no danger, from what De Pradt considers as a mark of decaying liberties, a taste for these luxuries. She might have painters if she would, for she has given birth to several of the most distinguished of the age. West, Copely,

Trumbull, Vanderlyn, Allston, and Leslie, are all her sons, and would probably now be her honours, if she had given proper encouragement to their talents. Sculpture is not likely to make much progress in a land, where there are no models, and in which the ideal has no existence; nor architecture, where utility is always preferred to beauty; nor music, where the common labours of life would hardly be stopt to listen even to the lyre of Orpheus. In these respects, however, they cannot be charged with having degenerated; they possess quite as much taste in either of them, as they inherited from their ancestors.

From the imperfect account, which we have now given of the state of intellectual cultivation inAmerica, we may draw the following general conclusions: First, that classical learning is there generally undervalued, and of course neglected; secondly, that knowledge of any kind is regarded only as a requisite preparation for the intended vocation in life, and not cultivated as a source of enjoyment, or a means of refining the character; and thirdly, that the demand for active talent is so great, and the reward it receives so sure and so tempting, as invariably to draw it away from retired study, and the cultivation of letters. It is not, therefore, to be expected, that she will

very soon produce any critical classical scholars, or great poets, or superior dramatic writers, or fine works of fiction; in a word, any extraordinary productions of learning or taste. But mind is not inactive there; it is continually wrought upon by the most powerful excitements, and it must display itself in a manner worthy of its field of action. In enterprise, personal intrepidity, force of individual character, adroitness in the management of business, quickness in execution, ingenuity of mechanical invention, and all the qualities which constitute physical talent, if the expression may be used, England never had a rival but America. These are the faculties first called forth, because first needed. If in these she has proved herself worthy of the stock from which she sprung, may it not be expected that she will exhibit a like equality in powers of a higher order, when a more improved and refined state of society shall bring them into action. We do not believe that America is the most enlightened nation on earth, although it has been so enacted by the authority of her legislative assembly; but we do believe, that she will disprove the charge of intellectual inferiority, whenever proper cultivation of the mind shall cause it fully to develop its faculties.

Books are loved by some merely as elegant combinations of thought; by others as a means of exercising the intellect. By some they are consider ed as the engines by which to propa gate opinions; and by others they are only deemed worthy of serious regard, when they constitute repositories of matters of fact. But perhaps the most important use of literature has been pointed out by those who consider it as a record of the respective modes of moral and intellectual existence that have prevailed in successive ages, and who value literary performances in proportion as they preserve a memorial of the spirit which was at work in real life, during the times when they were written. Considered in this point of view, books can no longer be slighted as fanciful tissues of thought, proceeding from

the solitary brains of insulated poets or metaphysicians. They are the shadows of what has formerly occupied the minds of mankind, and of what once determined the tenor of existence. The narrator who details political events, does no more than indicate a few of the external effects, or casual concomitants, of what was stirring during the times of which he professes to be the historian. As the generations change on the face of the globe, different energies are evolved with new strength, or sink into torpor; faculties are brightened into perfection, or lose themselves in gradual blindness and oblivion. No age concentrates within itself all advantages. The knowledge of what has been is necessary, in addition to the knowledge of the present, to enable us to conceive the full extent of humar

world of thought, that any farther development of the human mind can take place. Not that any important discoveries are likely to be made in the fluctuating world of intellectual speculation and opinion, whose barren deductions leave the mind as torpid as they find it. Warmth and vitality can only be expected from the sphere of poetry and the arts, whose object is to attain to an exhibition of the eternal relations of thought and sentiment. But the perceptions which are arrived at in this sphere will depend entirely upon what is taken for granted, or, to speak more correctly, upon what mankind have the strength of soul to feel and to believe; for here the suggestions of their own nature are the subject of investigation, and if their nature is silent, or is made so by voluntary obtuseness or levity, no process of logic will be able to discover any one of its secrets. Of course, poetry and the arts are here spoken of, not as merely imitative and graphical, but as the means of approximating to beauty, and of expressing the truly fine and perfect relations of thought and sentiment. When all romantic achievements, and other subjects of poetry, have vanished from external life, there still remains for man the most sublime, pathetic, and inexhaustible of all subjects, namely, the struggle of evil propensions with the divine affections in his own mind. The endless variety of outward forms, in which this fundamental idea may be clothed, affords room for the exercise of every species of talent, and for the expenditure of the brightest, as well as of the most sombre colours of imagination. The number of elementary conceptions that strongly interest us, is much smaller than is generally supposed. Their application to different circumstances suffices to produce a multiplicity of aspects, which is equally useful for exemplification and for gratifying the fancy. In treating the class of subjects above mentioned, the object of poetry, however, should not be to express in a literal, or what is called psycological manner, the relations of the different feelings, or to exhibit mechanically their stirrings as they actually take place. The nature of language is at variance with such an exhibition, and the imagination receives no impulse from it. Even sympathy ceases to regard with interest

what partakes so much of the dryness of mere observation. The object of poetry should be to express the characteristics and tendencies of the dif ferent mental elements, together with their contrasts and collisions, under shapes, and in events, presenting a graphical aspect to the imagination. No doubt verisimilitude would be destroyed, if separate characters were to be invented, and held up as the representatives and vehicles, each of a single mental propension. This would be to exchange nature for the insipidity of allegory. The very conception of an individual implies the presence of the whole component qualities of human nature, in whatever proportions they may exist. The way to avoid both allegorical improbability and psycological dryness, would be to render individuals symbolical of different feelings, not so much by the permanent qualities attributed to them, as by the circumstances in which they were placed, and the relations in which they stood to each other for the time. The studied exhibition of character (that is to say, the exhibition of the proportions in which qualities are possessed by individuals, and of the consequences resulting from their combination) has always a tendency to lead the mind out of the region of true poetry into that of intellectual scrutiny. The spectacle presented is of a mixed nature, which rather excites curiosity and reflection, than occasions within us any progressive enchantment, or climax of feeling. If we wish to be filled with the highest species of enjoyment which poetry can afford, we must not sit down to investigate philosophically the nature of individuals, as we would do that of machines, whose powers we wish to understand. On the contrary, we must think of nothing but the living feelings that are drawn out, for the time, by the situations in which characters are placed. It is not here meant to speak of situations that interest by the vulgar sensation of suspended curiosity, but of those which, being unattended with doubt, draw their interest from the nature of the feelings which acquire ascendancy in the persons placed in them. A situation that can inspire only one feeling may still be impressive; but, in contemplating it, we experience but a passive sympathy. The highest poetical charm