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UNITED STATES (LITERATURE). 



Hampshire, and was an imitation, and, in some 

 respects, a continuation, of Arbutlmot's John Bull, 

 Diving, with much humorous solemnity, an ac- 

 count of the first settlement of the country, the war 

 of the revolution, and, in part, of the French revo- ' 

 lution. The next work of fiction published in the 

 United States seems to have been the Algerine 

 Captive (1797), written by the late Royall Tyler, 

 then a lawyer in Walpole, and since chief justice , 

 of Vermont: the first volume contains sketches 

 of manners in the interior of New England, which 

 have much freshness, spirit and truth; but the 

 second, in which the hero becomes a captive in 

 Algiers, is dull and common-place. This was 

 the first genuine novel published in the United 

 States. The first author, however, who can 

 be considered a regular writer of novels in Ame- 

 rica, was Charles Brockden Brown. Between 

 1798 and 1801, he published six novels Wieland, 

 Ormond, Arthur Mervyn, Edgar Huntley, Clara 

 Howard, and Jane Talbot. He was a writer of 

 high gifts. His manner sometimes resembles that 

 of Godwin, who was then in great reputation ; and 

 his sketches of the sleep-walker, in Edgar Huntley, 

 are among the most vivid in the language. His 

 writings have often been published separately in 

 England and the United States, and, in 1827, an 

 edition of his novels was printed at Boston (7 vols.). 

 In some respects, he is still the principal novelist 

 whom the country has produced; but the more 

 dramatic form of romance writing, since become 

 common under the influence of Sir Walter Scott's 

 example, has changed the public taste ; and Brown's 

 novels are less interesting and less read than they 

 otherwise would be. In 1810, Washington Irving 

 published his Knickerbocker's History of New 

 York (2 vols.), an imitation, in many respects, of 

 Swift's Tale of a Tub, and containing, under a 

 similar allegory, though with a more strict adherence 

 to fact, a history of the Dutch government of the 

 province of New York. It is a work of much 

 genuine humour, and contains descriptions of na- 

 tural scenery of great beauty and power, so that, 

 though much of it is local, it has been often re- 

 printed both in England and America, and has been 

 translated into French and German. It is hardly 

 necessary to enumerate the other works of this ac- 

 complished writer. Jonathan Oldstyle's Letters, 

 first published in the New York Morning Chronicle 

 (1802); Salmagundi, or the Whim Whams of 

 Launcelot Langstaff and others (1807) ; and, at a 

 later period, the Sketch Book, Bracebridge Hall, 

 Tales of a Traveller, &c., have all been translated 

 into German. Under this head should also be 

 mentioned the Old Bachelor (1812), and the Bri- 

 tish Spy, of Mr Witt (late attorney-general of the 

 United States), of which the tenth edition, pub- 

 lished in 1832, contains a biographical sketch of 

 the author. A few other persons, in the period 

 just passed over, also wrote novels which had a 

 limited success. Mrs Foster wrote the Boarding 

 School, and the Coquette ; Mr Dennie wrote Fe- 

 male Quixotism ; and Mrs Rowson, Rebecca, Sarah, 

 and some other stories. In general, however, this 

 was not a popular form of writing, and very few 

 attempted it. This state of things continued until 

 Sir Walter Scott gave an impulse to the whole em- 

 pire of romantic fiction, which has been felt through 

 all the' borders of Christendom, and no where with 

 more force than in the United States. The person 

 who has shown the most power and disposition to 

 imitate this form of romance is Mr Cooper. He 



began, in 1820, with Precaution, a novel, the scene 

 of which was laid in England ; and its style is in 

 the manner of Miss Burney ; but the direction was 

 wrong, and his success was small : it wus only when 

 he touched his native earth, that he gathered 

 strength. In 1821, he published his Spy, the scene 

 of which is laid amidst the American revolution; 

 and from that time to the present, he has published 

 a variety of similar tales, with a degree of sn 

 to which no American author has before attained 

 in this department. Miss Sedgwick, the author ot 

 a New England Tale (1822), Redwood (1824) 

 Hope Leslie (1827), and Clarence (1830), all on 

 American subjects, should be distinguished among 

 the popular writers of the time : her works have 

 been reprinted with success in England. Miss 

 Francis (more known as Mrs Child), the author of 

 several successful works in other departments, 

 should be mentioned here on account of her Hobo- 

 mok (1824), and her Rebels (1825). Paul. 

 novels (Dutchman's Fireside, Westward Ho, &c.) 

 have found many readers on both sides of the 

 Atlantic ; and Flint's Francis Berrian shows much 

 freshness and vigour. Since 1820, the whole course 

 of things in relation to romantic fiction has been 

 changed. Before that time, an American novel or 

 romance was extremely rare : it is now the most 

 common of all the forms of American literature. 



9. Arts and Sciences. The progress of the 

 Americans has been greater in the useful arts than 

 in the sciences, though their advances in the latter 

 are respectable, considering the shortness of their 

 career. Inventions and discoveries in the former 

 have been promoted by means of the patent office, 

 which secures, to persons who apply for it, the ex- 

 clusive right to the fruits of their ingenuity. This 

 office is attached to the department of state. Mo- 

 dels and drawings of the machines of which the 

 right is obtained, are deposited with the director, 

 with a description of the invention, the name and 

 residence of the patentee, and date of the patent. 

 The whole number of patents issued, from the 

 establishment of the patent office in 1790 to the 

 first of January. 1832, was 6911. The Americans 

 have, indeed, shown a particular aptitude for mak- 

 ing discoveries and improvements in the mechanic 

 arts. A great number of remarkable inventions, 

 of which the cotton-gin, the practical working of 

 the steam-boat, the nail and card machines, and the 

 machine for spinning hemp, are only the most 

 prominent among a hundred others, with essential 

 improvements upon many processes of manufacture, 

 and upon many machines previously in use, have 

 been made in the United States. In ship-building, 

 the Americans are decidedly superior to any other 

 people, combining beauty of form, speed in sailing, 

 and capacity of carriage, in their vessels. (See 

 Ship.) In regard to the fine arts, though there is 

 no such thing as an American school, yet the 

 United States have produced several eminent paint- 

 ers ; and some works of sculpture of merit have 

 been executed in the country. The names of West, 

 Copley, Stewart (see the articles), Trumbull, Van- 

 derlyn (who, in 1808, gained the French prize- 

 medal for his Marius on the Ruins of Carthage), 

 Jarvis, Wood, Allston, Leslie, Peale, Sully, Morse, 

 Newton, Neagle, Doughty, Fisher, King, Inman, 

 Cole, and others, are, some of them, well known in 

 Europe, particularly West, Copley, Leslie, and 

 Newton. Academies for the cultivation of the 

 fine arts have been established at Philadelphia and 

 New York ; and a picture-gallery has been con- 



