Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 1.djvu/778

Rh 734 AMERICAN LITERATURE Mr Lowell informs us that the Mexican war, which he regarded as a crime perpetrated in behalf of slavery, led to the publication, in 1846, of the first of his series of &quot; Big- low Papers.&quot; After an interval of thirteen years, the second began to appear in 1SG1, and closed with the war in 1865. In his preface to those remarkable productions the author makes a successful defence of the language in which they are written. The more homely standards of the present as compared with those of the last century give countenance to his mottoes &quot; Unser Sprach ist auch ein Sprach,&quot; and &quot; Vim rebus aliquaudo ipsa verborum humilitas affert. v The essential to the use of a patois is that it be natural to the writer. Mr Lowell has taken pains to show that the peculiarities of the Yankee dialect are not indigenous; that the pronunciation and meanings given to familiar words, and the employment of words now unknown in England, are authorised by the example of our elder classics. We are more concerned to know that he has been happy in his use of the words and phrases in question. The popularity of his work is in this respect a voucher for his success. The rural dialect seems to suit his genius better than the English of his university. The quasi-dramatic form he has adopted confines within limits a too discursive fancy. The letters of Mr Sawin are excel lent examples of the form of satire in which contemptible qualities are stripped of their varnish by the sheer effrontery of the wearer. The style of the book is more trenchant and better matured than that of Lowell s other works, and it is really humorous. The humour of the &quot; Biglow Papers&quot; is broad and obvious. They derive their force from the incisive expression given to the sentiments shared by the author with a large section of his countrymen; and the lines most frequently quoted owe everything to a startling directness, something bordering on irreverence. Mr Lowell s poetical powers are set on fire by political zeal, and his animosity sharpens the edge of his most effective verse. The satiric scorn of the lines put into the mouth of Calhoun, with the speeches of Garrison, Phillips, and Sumner, helped to hasten the irrepressible conflict of the contending forces in the Western Continent. The second series of the &quot; Biglow Papers&quot; are animated by the spirit of an uncompromising Unionist as well as that of an Abolitionist. In these the poet s patriotism glows with a deeper fervour, and his songs rise out of the battlefield &quot;like rockets druv by their own burnin .&quot; The graver poetry of this volume reaches a higher standard than the author has elsewhere attained. The short rural romance entitled &quot;The Courtin &quot; is one of the freshest bits of pas toral in the language. The stanzas beginning &quot; Under the yallar pines I house,&quot; and ending &quot; A nation saved, a race delivered,&quot; are his masterpieces. Mr John Greenleaf Whittier is the political lyrist par excellence of America; and the best of his lyrics have a verve, swing, and fire that impart to the reader a share of the writer s enthusiasm. His verse, rapid as a torrent, is perpetually overflowing its banks. No one stands more in need of the advice once given to Southey, &quot; squeeze out the whey;&quot; and to no works more than to his is the maxim TrAeoV vj/ucru TTCIVTOS more applicable. There are few more graceful tales in verse than those of his &quot; Tent on the Beach.&quot; They are remarkable for their smooth ness and quiet beauty, of sentiment. The music of &quot; River- mouth Rocks,&quot; &quot; Revisited,&quot; and the &quot; Grave by the Lake&quot; recalls that of Longfellow s best ballads. The most strik ing is the &quot; Brother of Mercy,&quot; Piero Luca, who, like Abu Ben Adhem, loves his fellow-men. The same trust in the divine love which is the sum of Whittier s ardent faith, appears in the beautiful verses entitled &quot; The Eternal Goodness&quot; and &quot; Our Master.&quot; The strongest lines in the book, addressed to &quot; Thomas Starr King,&quot; have the rare merit of condensation. Of Whittier s national lyrics, the most powerful is &quot; Laus Deo,&quot; the burst of acclamation suggested by the passing of Lincoln s constitutional amend ment. His narrative power is best illustrated in &quot; Maud Muller,&quot; an original and more innocent version of Brown ing s &quot; Statue and the Bust,&quot; springing up in an American meadow. V. SUHMAIIY. The critics of one nation must, to a certain extent, regard the works of another from an outside point of view. Few are able to divest themselves wholly of the influence of local standards; and this is pre-eminently the case when the early efforts of a young country are submitted to the judgment of an older country, strong in its prescriptive rights, and intolerant of changes the drift of which it is unable or unwilling to appreciate. English critics are apt to bear down on the writers and thinkers of the New World with a sort of aristocratic hauteur; they are perpetually reminding them of their immaturity and their disregard of the golden mean. Americans, on the other hand, are impossible to please. Ordinary men among them are as sensitive to foreign, and above all to British, censure, as the irritabile genus of other lands. Mr Emerson is permitted to impress home truths on his countrymen, as &quot;Your American eagle is very well; but beware of the American peacock&quot; Such remarks are not permitted to Englishmen: if they point to any flaws in transatlantic manners or ways of thinking with an effort after politeness, it is &quot; the good-natured cynicism of well- to-do age;&quot; if they commend transatlantic institutions or achievements, it is, according to Mr Lowell, &quot; with that pleasant European air of self-compliment in condescending to be pleased by American merit which we find so con ciliating.&quot; Now that the United States have reached their full majority, it is time that England should cease to assume the attitude of their guardian, and time that they should cease to be on the alert to resent the assump tion. Foremost among the more attractive features of transatlantic literature is its freshness. The authority which is the guide of old nations constantly threatens to become tyrannical : they wear their traditions like a chain ; and, in the canonisation of laws of taste, the creative powers are depressed. Even in England we write under fixed conditions; with the fear of critics before our eyes, we are all bound to cast our ideas into similar moulds, and the name of &quot;free-thinker&quot; has grown into a term of reproach. Bunyan s Pilgrim s Progress is perhaps the last English book written without a thought of being reviewed. There is a gain in the habit of self-restraint fostered by this state of things; but there is a loss in the consequent lack of spontaneity; and we may learn some thing from a literature which is ever ready for adventures. In America the love of uniformity gives place to im petuous impulses : the most extreme sentiments are made audible, the most noxious &quot; have their day, and cease to be;&quot; and truth being left to vindicate itself, the overthrow of error, though more gradual, may at last prove more complete. A New England poet can write with confi dence of his country as the land &quot; &quot;Yherc no one suffers loss or Heeds For thoughts that meu call heresies.&quot; Another feature of American literature is its comprcJten- siveness: what it has lost in depth it has gained in breadth. Addressing a vast audience, it appeals to universal sym pathies. In the Northern States, where comparatively few have leisure to write well, almost every man, woman, and child can read and does read. Books are to be found in every log-hut, and public questions are discussed by