American Literature

The currunt British Quartorly lieoiew, in an article on " The American Ce ïtennial," has the following civil paragraph : But a few words eau be sai 1 bare on American literatura. No.ono will aak now, " Who reads an American book '" Rather may it be asked, " Who does not 't" America has given no supremely great genius to the world. Her people bas been engaged in taming the wild and shaggy continent, and so have had little time for the construction of a great literature. But America has nearly, if not quite, kept pace with England in literary production. In poetry there are the names of Bryant, Emerson, Lowell, Lougfellow, and other lesser celobrities ; in fiction, Hawthorne stands in the foremost rank of literary artists ; in history, Buncrolt, Prescott and Motley are a trio, of whom any nation might be proud ; in science, Asa Gray, Duna, Drapor, and others are men of deserved emineuce ; while in language and philosophy, Marsh and Whitney shed a lustro on Atnericau scholarship. Tlien we have the rich, native humor of the.'Bigelow Papers," the rara and snbtle thoughts of Émeison's " Essays," and the genial laughter and tender pal hos of the " Autocrat," America has had m any students of philosophy, especially of the transcendental school of Gerrn any, but she has as yet produced no phi losophers, excepting the great New England tLeologian, Jonathan Edwnrds. In art, Powers, Crawford and Story, are names of deserved eminence as sculitors, and the grand scenery of the West is beginning to inspire painters.