Sect. III.] United States of America. 283 



Nor is it of less importance here to recollect, 

 that the nature of their connexion with Great 

 Britain has operated, and continues to operate, 

 unfavourably to the progress of American litera- 

 ture. Long accustomed to a state of colonial de- 

 pendence on this enlightened and cultivated na- 

 tion, they have also been accustomed to derive from 

 her the supplies for their literary wants. And 

 still connected with her by the ties of language, 

 manners, taste, and commercial intercourse, her 

 literature, science, and arts, may be considered 

 as theirs. Being able, therefore, with so much 

 ease, to reap the fruits of her fields, they have not 

 sufficient inducement to cultivate their own. And 

 even when an excellent production of the Ame- 

 rican soil is offered to the public, it is generally 

 undervalued and neglected. A large portio^n of 

 ^heir citizens seem to entertain the idea, that no* 

 thing worthy of patronage can be produced on 

 their side of the Atlantic. Instead of being 

 prompted to a more liberal encouragement of 

 genius because it is American, their prejudices, 

 on this account, are rather excited against it*. 



* The writer in the Monthly Magazine, whopc strictures on 

 American literature were before mentioned, i-epresents the inha- 

 bitants of the United States as having strong prejudices in favour 

 of their own productions, and ridicules them for preferring ^\me- 

 rtcan publications to all others. In this, as well as in most of 

 his assertions, he discovers profound ignorance of the subject. 

 The fact is directly the reverse. Americans are too apt to join 

 with ignorant or fastidious foreigners, in undervaluing and de- 

 crying their domestic literature ; and this circumstance is one of 

 the numerous obstacles which have operated to discourage lite- 

 rary exertions on that side of the Atlantic, and to impede theic 

 literary progress. 



