Report of the Third Class in the Third Department ( Gene- 

 ral Literature) . By Leonard Kip, Esq. 



[Read before the Albany Institute, March. 21, 1871.] 



In speaking of literature and art, a noted French author 

 has stigmatized the year just past as altogether purposeless 

 and barren. The remark was unquestionably offered in a 

 narrow-minded spirit of national bigotry and intolerance; 

 the inference being broadly suggested that in all matters of 

 education and polish, France was the only light of the 

 world, and that her preoccupation with the stern realities 

 of war having turned her, for awhile, from the softer, gentler 

 paths of letters, the cultivation of the universe of intellect 

 was therefore necessarily retarded. Yet none the less does 

 it happen, that there is a basis of truth in Jule Janin's 

 shallow assertion; for while carnage has so grievously stayed 

 the onward progress of his own country, chance or some 

 deeper power, which as yet we cannot realize, has apparently 

 benumbed the brain of other lands ; so that, as a whole, the 

 year 1870 has added little in comparison with former years, 

 to the world's real wealth of literature. 



To be sure, the customary profusion of new volumes has 

 been steadily maintained, falling week after week from the 

 press in millions, and apparently choking every avenue of 

 learning or belle lettres. But, in weighing the results of 

 literature at their true value, much that is foisted upon the 

 world as profitable must be cast aside, either with special 

 condemnation, or, in more charitable mood, as merely un- 

 worthy of notice. The familiar saying that " a book's a 



\_Trans. vii.~\ 10 



