186 



THE CENTURY BOOK OF FACTS. 



many works remarkable for their accurate pic- 

 tures of English life and character. George 

 Macdonald and Wilkie Collins are novelists of 

 great merit, as are Mrs. Humphry Ward, 

 Rudyard Kipling, and Richard Blackmore. 

 Among others in popular favor are William 

 Black, Mrs. Oliphant, Conan Doyle, and J. 

 M. Barrie. Charles Darwin and Herbert 

 Spencer, have been the most distinguished 

 authors identified with the scientific and phil- 

 osophical aspects of evolution, and have had 

 a wide influence on contemporary thought. 

 Tyndall has done more than any other writer 

 to popularize great scientific truths. Huxley 

 stands foremost among physiologists and nat- 

 uralists. Among numerous other writers dis- 

 tinguished in various branches of science, a 

 few only can be here named. Walter Bagehot 

 writes of Political Society ; Alexander Bain 

 on Mind and Body ; Henry Maudsley on Brain 

 and Mind ; Norman Lockyer on Spectrum 

 Analysis ; and Sir John Lubbock on Natural 

 History. The most distinguished historian of 

 the times is James Anthony Froude, who 

 shows great vigor of thought and power of 

 description. The histories of John Richard 

 Green and E. A. Freeman are valuable for 

 their original research, and have wide celeb- 

 rity. Max Miiller has rendered important 

 service to the sciences of Philology and Eth- 

 nology. Lecky is eminent for his Rationalism 

 in Europe and History of Morals. Leslie 

 Stephen, John Morley, and John Addington 

 Symonds are distinguished in various depart- 

 ments of criticism and history. Thomas Hill 

 Green and James Martineau are masters of 

 Ethical Philosophy. John Stuart Mill holds 

 a high place as a writer on Political Economy. 

 All English works of any merit are now imme- 

 diately reprinted in this country, and the 

 English literature of the present century is as 

 familiar to most Americans as their own. 



AMERICAN LITERATURE. 



The literature of the United States belongs 

 almost exclusively to the present century. The 

 language being that of England, and all the 

 treasures of English literature the common in- 

 heritance of our countrymen, whatever Ameri- 

 can authors produce is necessarily measured by 

 the English standard. The language comes to us 

 finished and matured, while the means of intel- 

 lectual cultivation until a comparatively recent 

 period have been limited, and our abundant 

 stores of legend and history are still too fresh 

 to be available for the purpose of poetry and 

 fiction. The present generation, however, has 

 witnessed the growth of a national literature, 

 which, if not peculiarly American in language, 

 is at least so in style and the materials chosen. 



The seventeenth century boasted two or 

 three authors, but none we believe native to 

 the soil. Mrs. Anne Bradstreet, wife of a 



governor of Massachusetts, published in 1640, 

 a poem on the Four Elements, smoothly versi- 



| fied, but of little poetical merit. Cotton 

 Mather, born in 1663, is almost the only prose 

 writer worthy of note. His Magnolia contains 

 some valuable historical matter. The last 

 century produced some distinguished prose 

 writers and some accomplished versifiers, 

 though no poet in the true sense of the title. 

 Franklin, born in 1706, was master of a sin- 

 gularly clear, compact, and vigorous style. 

 Jonathan Edwards, who flourished during the 

 last century, wrote a celebrated treatise on the 

 Will, which is one of the first metaphysical 

 works in the language. The Revolutionary 

 struggle and the circumstances which pre- 

 ceded and succeeded it, produced a number of 

 bold and brilliant writers and speakers, among 

 whom were Jefferson, Hamilton, the Adamses, 

 Richard Henry Lee, and Patrick Henry. The 

 diplomatic correspondence of the Revolution 

 has rarely been surpassed. Philip Freneau, 

 who has been called the first American poet, 

 wrote many patriotic songs, which were sung 

 during the struggle, but none have retained 

 their original vitality. Trumbull was the 

 author of a Hudibrastic poem entitled Mc- 

 Fingal, in which the Tories were held up to 

 ridicule ; the first part was published in 177"). 

 Joel Barlow, who aspired to the rank of an 

 epic poet, published, in 1787, his Vision oj 

 Columbus, which, in 1808, was expanded into 

 the Columbiadj and printed in what was then 

 a style of unusual magnificence. 



Dana, Bryant, Washington Irving, Cooper, 

 Paulding, and Everett, were all born towards 

 the close of the last century. Dana may be 

 considered as the first genuine poet the United 

 States has produced. His Buccaneer is a 

 picturesque and striking poem, founded on a 

 legend of the pirates who formerly frequented 

 the American coast. Irving's Knickerbocker's 

 History of New York appeared in 1809, and 

 instantly gave him a position as a writer of 

 the purest style and of exquisite humor and 

 fancy. A Biography of Goldsmith,io whom he 

 has been compared, was published in 1849. 

 Many of his works among them The Sketch 

 Book, Bracebridge Hall, The Alhambra, and 

 the Life of Columbus were first published in 

 England, where he lived many years. Cooper's 

 first essay in literature was a novel of society 

 entitled Precaution, but he subsequently con- 

 fined himself to the two fields in which he has 

 earned his best fame the forest and the 

 ocean. His most successful novels are The 

 Spy, The Pioneers, The Decrslayer, The Pilot, 



