6 LlTERAfct. 



Lh idolatry, and the Quarterly Review is quo- 

 ad oracle. Blackwoood's Magazine is in 



; request — the novels attributed to Walter 

 Scott, rep >wned for a barbarous dialect, and a 

 dull monotony, are notwithstanding classed with 

 the productions of Fielding and Richardson, and 

 all the modern poets, including Byron, Scott, 

 MOore, Southey, Wordsworth, Coleridge. Grabbe, 

 &;c. are printed and reprinted, lauded and admi- 

 red from Maine to Missouri. 



If America will not stand on its own legs, and 

 rely on its own exertions, what can it expect but 

 supercilious arrogance and contumelious assump- 

 tion ? Is there any thing so wonderful and so ter- 

 rific in Scotch criticism — in the pen or the sneers 

 of little Jeifery — or of Southey, or of Scotch bar- 

 risters who set up for Quinctilians, or of English 

 poetasters, who claim the highest honors of ge- 

 nius f 



There is an American writer named Irving— ^ 

 an amiable man, of a fine pellucid mind, and who 

 has distinguished himself by some amusing peri- 

 odical works. He is greatly superior to any wri- 

 ter in Blackwood's Magazine, and yet the suffrage 

 of that Magazine in his favor, is quoted as the 

 highest reward which can be conferred upon him. 



Why the American people will not bestow more 

 encouragement on a vernacular literature, instead 



