Although many will, and may justifiably, attempt to rise beyond his circumstances and birth, still there is order and regularity; each party knows the precise round in the ladder on which he stands, and the majority are content with their position.
It is lamentable to observe how many bad feelings, how many evil passions, are constantly in a state of activity from this unfortunate chaotical want of gradation and discipline, where all would be first, and every one considers himself as good as his neighbour.
The above-mentioned author observes—“The surface of American society is, if I may use the expression, covered with a layer of democracy, from beneath which the aristocratic colours sometimes peep.”
In a moral sense, this is also true, the nobler virtues which are chiefly produced in the fertile field of aristocracy do occasionally appear; but the whole surface is covered with a layer of democracy, which like the lava which the volcano continually belches forth, has gradually poured down, and reduced the country round it to barrenness and sterility.11
Volume One—Chapter Seven
The best specimens of American writing are to be found in their political articles, which are, generally speaking, clear, argumentative, and well arranged. The President’s annual message is always masterly in composition, although disgraced by its servile adulation of the majority. If we were to judge of the degrees of enlightenment of the two countries, America and England, by the President’s message and the King’s speech, we should be left immeasurably in the back-ground—the message, generally speaking, being a model of composition, while the speech is but too often a farrago of bad English. This is very strange, as those who concoct the speech are of usually much higher classical attainments than those who write the message. The only way to account for it, is, that in the attempt to condense the speech, they pare and pare away till the sense of it is almost gone; his Majesty’s ministers perfectly understanding what they mean themselves, but forgetting that it is necessary that others should do the same. But in almost all branches of literature the Americans have no cause to be displeased with the labours of their writers, considering that they have the disadvantage of America looking almost entirely to the teeming press of England for their regular supply, and nowhere in that country can be said at present to be men of leisure and able to devote themselves to the pursuit. An author by profession would gain but a sorry livelihood in the United States, unless he happened to be as deservedly successful as Washington Irving or Cooper. He not only has to compete against the best English authors, but as almost all the English works are published without any sum being paid for the copyright, it is evident that he must sell his work at a higher price if he is to obtain any profit. An English work of fiction, for instance, is sold at a dollar and a quarter, while an American one costs two dollars.
This circumstance would alone break down the American literature if it were not for the generosity of England in granting their authors a copyright in this country; indeed, the American public pay that tacit compliment to us that they will hardly look at a work by one of their own citizens, until it has first been published in England, and received the stamp of approbation. Those American authors who have obtained a reputation look, therefore chiefly to the English copyright for remuneration; and if it were not for this liberality on our part, the American literature would not receive sufficient support from its own country to make it worth the while of any one to engage in it. The number of English works republished in America is very great, but the number of each work sold is much smaller than people here imagined.
The periodical literature of the United States is highly creditable. The American Quarterly Review; the New York Mirror, by George P Morris; the Knickerbocker, by Clarke; and the Monthly Magazine; all published at New York, are very good; so, indeed, are the magazines published at Philadelphia, and many others. It may be said that, upon the whole, the periodical press of America is pretty well on a par with that of this country. Periodical literature suits the genius of the Americans, and it is better supported by them than any other description.
The Americans are jealous of our literature, as they are, indeed, of everything connected with this country; but they do themselves injustice in this respect, as I consider that they have a very fair proportion of good writers. In history, and the heavier branches of literature, they have the names of Sparks, Prescott, Bancroft, Schoolcraft, Butler, Carey, Pitkin, etcetera. In general literature, they have Washington Irving, Fay, Hall, Willis, Sanderson, Sedgwick, Leslie, Stephens, Child and Neal. In fiction, they have Cooper, Paulding, Bird, Kennedy, Thomas, Ingraham, and many others. They have, notwithstanding the mosquitoes, produced some very good poets: Bryant, Halleck, Sigourney, Drake, etcetera; and have they not, with a host of polemical writers, Dr Channing, one of their greatest men, and from his moral courage in pointing out their errors, the best friend to his country that America has ever produced! Indeed, to these names we might fairly add their legal writers—Chancellor Kent and Judge Story, as well as Webster, Clay, Everett, Cass, and others, who are better known from their great political reputations than from their writings. Considering that they have but half our population, and not a quarter of the time to spare that we have in this country, the Americans have no want of good writers, although there are few of them well known to the British public. It must be pointed out that the American writers are under another disadvantage which we are not subject to in this country, which is, that freedom of opinion is not permitted to them; the majority will not allow it, except on points of religion, and in them they may speculate as much as they please, and publish their opinions, whether Deistical, Atheistical, or worse, if they can find worse out. It is true than an author may, and some will, publish what they please, but if he does not wish to lose his popularity, and thereby lose his profits, he must not only not offend, but he must conciliate and flatter the nation: and such is the practice with the majority of American authors. Whether it be a work of fiction or one of history his countrymen must be praised, and, if it be possible to introduce it, there must be some abuse of England. This fact will account for the waning popularity of Mr Cooper; he has ventured to tell his countrymen the truth in more than (one) of his later works, and now the majority are against him. The work, which I have often quoted in these pages, called “The Democrat,” fell dead from the press. I think it fortunate for Mr Cooper that it did, as people have been lynched who have not said half so much as he did in that work. His “Naval History” will reinstate him, and I suspect it has been taken up with that view, for, although Mr Cooper has shown a good deal of moral courage, he has not remained consistent. At one moment he publishes “The Democrat,” and gives his countrymen a good whipping, and then he publishes his “Naval History,” and soft sawders them. But, with the exception of Dr Channing, he almost stands alone in this particular.
One of the best authors of America is Judge Hall; he proves himself by his writings to be a shrewd, intelligent man, and yet in his “Statistics of the West” I was surprised to find the following paragraph, the substance of which was more than once repeated in the work. Speaking of the Indian hostilities, he says:—
“The mother country (England) never ceased to indulge in the hope of reuniting the colonies (that is the United States) to her empire, until the war of eighteen hundred and twelve crushed the last vestige of her delusive anticipations.”
Such is his preposterous assertion, the absurdity of which will make an Englishman laugh; but the corollaries drawn from it are serious, as they are intended to feed the hostile feeling still existing against this country; for he attempts to prove that from the time the Independence was ratified by George the Third, that we have ever been trying to reduce America again to our sway; and that all the hostile attempts of the various Indian tribes, all the murders of women and children, and scalping, since that date, were wholly to be ascribed to the agency and bribes of England, who hoped by such means to drive the Americans back to the sea coast, where they could be assailed by her navy.
A little reflection might satisfy any reasonable American, that when they wrestled by main force, and without regard to justice, those lands from the Indians which they had hunted over for so many generations, and which were their own property, it was very natural