JAMES GATES PERCIVAL. 131 



literature of an entire generation, though habitans in sicco, 

 if ever genius did. But Percival seems to have satisfied 

 himself with a syllogism something like this : Men of 

 genius are neglected ; the more neglect, the more genius ; 

 I am altogether neglected ergo, wholly made up of that 

 priceless material. 



The truth was that he suffered rather from over-appre 

 ciation ; and &quot; when,&quot; says a nameless old Frenchman, &quot; I 

 see a man go up like a rocket, I expect before long to 

 see the stick come down.&quot; The times were singularly 

 propitious to mediocrity. As in Holland one had only to 



Invent a shovel and be a magistrate,&quot; 



so here to write a hundred blank verses was to be immortal, 

 till somebody else wrote a hundred and fifty blanker ones. 

 It had been resolved unanimously that we must and would 

 have a national literature. England, France, Spain, Italy, 

 each already had one, Germany was getting one made as 

 fast as possible, and Ireland vowed that she once had one 

 far surpassing them all. To be respectable, we must have 

 one also, and that speedily. That we were not yet, in any 

 true sense, a nation; that we wanted that literary and 

 social atmosphere which is the breath of life to all artistic 

 production ; that our scholarship, such as it was, was 

 mostly of that theological sort which acts like a prolonged 

 drought upon the brain ; that our poetic fathers were Joel 

 Barlow and Timothy D wight was nothing to the purpose; 

 a literature adapted to the size of the country was what we 

 must and would have. Given the number of square miles, 

 the length of the rivers, the size of the lakes, and you have 

 the greatness of the literature we were bound to produce 

 without further delay. If that little dribble of an Avon 

 had succeeded in engendering Shakespeare, what a giant 

 might we not look for from the mighty womb of Missis 

 sippi ! Physical geography for the first time took her 

 rightful place as the tenth and most inspiring Muse. A 

 glance at the map would satisfy the most incredulous that 

 she had done her best for us, and should we be wanting to 



