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192 of Canaan” and other poems exercised considerable influence upon contemporary writers. William Clifton (1772-'99) wrote a few songs equal to any poetry which had appeared in America; and Thomas Green Fessenden (1771-1837) produced in London a very successful satire entitled “The Terrible Tractoration.” Among the other poets of the period were David Humphreys (1752-1818), Joseph Hopkinson (1770-1842), author of “Hail Columbia,” and Robert Treat Paine, jr. (1773-1811), whose “Adams and Liberty” was once a rallying song of the federalists. The style adopted by these writers was essentially that prevalent in England during the latter half of the 18th century; nor was any innovation upon established models, whether in form or expression, attempted in American poetry until after the commencement of the third period of the national literature.—Charles Brockden Brown (1771-1810), the first American novelist, was also the first author who made a profession of literature; his best productions, “Wieland, or the Transformation,” “Arthur Mervyn,” and “Edgar Huntley,” have much graphic power and are good specimens of the Godwin school of fiction.—Of the miscellaneous writers of the period, whose productions appeared mostly in the newspapers and magazines, the chief were Francis Hopkinson (1737-'91), eminent as a humorous writer in prose and verse; Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748-1816), author of a vigorous satire entitled “Modern Chivalry;” Joseph Dennie (1768-1812), one of the earliest American magazine writers and editors, who published a well known series of essays under the title of “The Lay Preacher;” David Everett (1769-1813), Isaac Story (1774-1803), Paul Allen (1775-1826), and Royall Tyler (1757-1826). Tyler was a wit, a poet, and chief justice of Vermont. His play “The Contrast,” produced on the stage in New York in 1786, was the first in which the conventional Yankee dialect was used. He wrote also a successful novel called “The Algerine Captive.” III. 1820-1876. The last period in American literature presents a marked contrast to those which preceded, in the national character as well as in the variety and extent of its productions. It was in 1820 that the poverty of American literature was sneeringly commented upon by Sydney Smith in an article in the “Edinburgh Review;” and from that date the intellectual development of the country, the political crisis which attended the establishment of the government being past, has been commensurate with its social and material progress, until at the present day there is no department of human knowledge which has not been explored by American authors. In history, in jurisprudence, and in certain departments of natural science and imaginative literature, many of their productions during the last 50 years deserve to be ranked among the best in the universal literature of the age. Within this

period the style and tone of the national literature have begun to partake more decidedly of the national character, although in certain departments only, particularly in that of imaginative writing, has any decided originality been shown.—While in the periods already treated of, the labors of American historians were for the most part confined to the collection of materials or to the unadorned record of facts, their successors have taken a wider range of subjects, and infused a more philosophical spirit into their writings; and although, among the many hundred historical works already produced, few rise above the dignity of local narratives or compilations of materials, as storehouses of data they have been ably employed by those who can analyze the significance of events. Prominent among these is George Bancroft (born 1800), whose “History of the United States” has been pronounced “the most successful attempt yet made to reduce the chaotic but rich materials of American history to order, beauty, and moral significance.” It is characterized by an earnest sympathy with democratic institutions, by a generous enthusiasm for the martyrs of freedom and civilization, by patient research and discrimination in the choice of authorities, and by a style animated and genial, although in occasional passages perhaps somewhat too labored. The work brings the history down to the close of the revolution, and the author, it is understood, proposes to continue it to a much later period. He has revised the ten volumes already issued and republished them in a “centenary” edition in six volumes (1876). The same subject has been ably treated by Richard Hildreth (1807-'65), whose work, bringing the narrative down to 1821, though written with no special attempt at rhetorical grace or picturesque effect, is valuable for its general accuracy, and has become a standard book of reference. Among the most successful of the writers of American history is Francis Parkman (born 1828), who has devoted himself to narrating the rise and fall of the French dominion in America. His “Pioneers of France,” “Jesuits in North America,” “Discovery of the Great West,” “Old Regime in Canada,” and “Conspiracy of Pontiac,” form a series of the highest value, distinguished for accurate research, for brilliant style, and for profound knowledge of Indian character and manners, acquired by personal observation of the red-man among the wildest tribes. Many school histories of the United States have been written, of which those by Salina Hale, S. G. Goodrich (“Peter Parley,” 1793-1860), Samuel Eliot, Emma Willard, Benson J. Lossing, Marcius Willson, G. P. Quackenbos, J. J. Anderson, William Swinton, A. H. Stephens, G. F. Holmes, T. W. Higginson, Edward Abbott, and Abby S. Richardson may be cited. Intermediate between the school histories and the larger works are the compendious volume of J. H. Patton, which brings the narrative down