Report on General Literature. 



77 



next, we might not regard the matter with especial dis- 

 taste ; but, on the contrary, it seems to be merely the cul- 

 mination of a long course of literary degeneration or torpor. 

 Looking back for a few years in our own land, we can note 

 the simultaneous presence among us, of Prescott, Everett, 

 Cooper, Irving, Hawthorne and Poe, constellations of genius 

 shining side by side in the same plane, and with a lustre 

 which, at the time, we scarcely comprehended. These men 

 have all passed away and among our now living authors, 

 Longfellow, Holmes, Whittier, Lowell, Bryant and Street, 

 and others who rank as the most celebrated, had, in that 

 former day, so abundantly gained their laurels, as not to 

 be expected since to do more than maintain that early 

 fame. It needs only the most superficial glance, therefore, 

 to satisfy us, that the course of the last few years has done 

 little for the proper and continued development of our 

 literature. And in England, looking back in like manner 

 we recall Wilson and Sidney Smith, Brougham and 

 Macaulay, Dickens, Thackeray and the Brontes; and as 

 in America so now in England, such men as Carlyle, 

 Thirlwall, Grote, Bulwer and Charles Kingsley, who in the 

 company of those departed worthies gained their fame, * 

 have since been almost altogether silent. With one or 

 two rare exceptions, mediocrity has been the rule, and 

 in place of lofty genius, we find merely the insufficiency of 

 magazinists. 



Therefore it happens that the real work of the year in 

 the field of literary creation or culture has been of com- 

 paratively trivial value, and except that there has been 

 more activity in the scope of poetry, the whole record has 

 been one of discouragement. During the previous year, 

 Froude completed his great work, and since then, no his- 

 toric enterprise of kindred value has been commenced. 

 In the line of philosophy there has been little of startling 

 promise. In travel and exploration, we have the ordinary 



