.

A

COMPENDIUM

OF

AMERICAN LITERATURE,

CHRONOLOGICALLY ARRANGED;

WITH

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE AUTHORS,

AND

Selections from their lorks.

ON THE PLAN OF THE AUTHOR'S

"COMPENDIUM OF ENGLISH LITERATURE," AND "ENGLISH LITERATURE OF

THE NINETEENTH CENTURY."

BY

CHARLES D. CLEVELAND.

ILLUSTRATED EDITION.

PHILADELPHIA:

PARRY & M°MILLAN.

NEW YORK: SCRIBNER & CO... BOSTON: TICKNOR & FIELDS.

1859.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by

CHARLES D. CLEVELAND,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of

Pennsylvania.

PRINTED BY HENRY B. ASHMEAD,

GEORGE ST. ABOVE ELEVENTH.

:

PS501
C5

1859

1

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

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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?

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 em