Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/106

1801. the rest, and his "Lyrical Ballads" were reprinted in 1802, not in Boston or New York, but in Philadel­phia, where they were read and praised. In default of other amusements, men read what no one could have endured had a choice of amusements been open. Neither music, painting, science, the lecture­room, nor even magazines offered resources that could rival what was looked upon as classical literature. Men had not the alternative of listening to political discussions, for stump-speaking was a Southern prac­tice not yet introduced into New England, where such a political canvass would have terrified society with dreams of Jacobin license. The clergy and the bar took charge of politics; the tavern was the club and the forum of political discussion; but for those who sought other haunts, and especially for women, no intellectual amusement other than what was called "belles-lettres" existed to give a sense of occupation to an active mind. This keen and innovating people, hungry for the feast that was almost served, the Wal­ter Scotts and Byrons so near at hand, tried mean­while to nourish themselves with husks.

Afraid of Shakspeare and the drama, trained to the standards of Queen Anne's age, and ambitious be­yond reason to excel, the New Englanders attempted to supply their own wants. Massachusetts took no lead in the struggle to create a light literature, if such poetry and fiction could be called light. In Connecticut the Muses were most obstinately wooed; and there, after the Revolutionary War, a persistent