Rec . May 17, 1850. Gift of Prof. Simon Greenleaf, LL. D. THE SOUTHERN AND WESTERN LITERARY MESSENGER AND REVIEW. NOVEMBER, 1847. THE EDITOR TO HIS PATRONS. The present number of the Messenger comes to you under the guidance of a new Editor. On the cover you will read a stranger's name, where you have been wont to see one endeared to you by a long and pleasant intercourse. In the Editor's corner, you will miss the familiar teachings of a pen, which has held excellent converse with you, during a period of four years. The person, on whom has fallen his Editorial mantle, now addresses you, and as the public ear is ever open to the cadences of an unaccustomed voice "As when a well-graced actor leaves the stage The eyes of men Are idly bent on him who enters next," he supposes you will grant a patient hearing while he ventures a few words by way of salutation. and thrones. Accordingly all history goes to es- In this place, however, he has something to say Humiliating to our pride as may be the confes. beyond a mere friendly greeting. It is proper that sion, it must be admitted that America has added the Messenger should be discussed in connection little as yet to the garners of intellect. In the with its history, its prospects and its aims. The physical sciences and the mechanic arts, we have occasion invites too some serious reflections on the accomplished great results. The finest merchantliterature of the country and the causes, which have hitherto operated to retard its progress. These are kindred topics and deserve at our hands an attentive consideration. navy in the world wafts to our shores the products of the Orient and carries back the fabrics of a thousand looms. The prophetic rhapsody of Darwin has been more than fulfilled in our facilities of We presume that none will dispute the proposi- locomotion and it has been reserved for an Amerition, that an exalted literature is the noblest trait in can, in the wondrous invention of the Telegraph, a national character. The Chinese have a proverb, to reduce to practical utility what an old writer that letters and husbandry are the two principal foreshadowed as a figment of fancy. But we are professions. Certainly there can be nothing better still dependent on our transatlantic brethren for the calculated to humanize a people, to raise them in more important and considerable portion of our the standard of true greatness, than an expansive literature. We can point as yet to no poem of intellectual development. It gives them an influence surpassing the prestige of military fame and a power that shall survive the wreck of dynasties VOL. XIII-81 See No. 241 of the Spectator. * American composition which is likely to become a result of equality. The argument is, therefore, classic. The sketches of Irving and the histories that the prevalence of free institutions over the of Prescott, have indeed reflected credit on our world would necessarily extinguish the rays of literary pretensions, and pleasant Sidney Smith, science and learning and cause the human family were he now among the living, could ask no longer, to fall back into the darkness and ignorance of the "Who reads an American book ?" But as a great past. To expose this fallacy would betray us into Continent, we cannot deny that we are still in lit-a discussion at once trite and unprofitable. It is erary leading-strings. worthy of the absolutism from whence it sprang. But we can say with truth that it is only when genius has been left free and untrammelled, that she has poured forth her loftiest inspirations. The poet, uttering the voice of song from his lonely cottage, with no other immunity than "the glorious privilege Of being independent," been a sickly flower and has diffused but a passing and partial fragrance. To exemplify these truths, we have only to look at a gifted poet of our own time and to contrast the beauty and grandeur of the Excursion, with an Ode recently pronounced by Wordsworth at the Installation of Prince Albert as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge. To account for this acknowledged inferiority, many causes have been assigned. It would be rank injustice to ourselves, in view of what we have done in other departments of science, to suppose that it springs from any lack of native talent. The cause which is most received does not obtain our assent. It is urged that speaking as we do, a common language with England, and sharing with her the priceless treasures of her literature, we will live longer in the remembrance of posterity, are not conscious of the want of a separate store-than all the laureates who have ever embalmed the house, and have thus neglected to supply it. Now follies of royalty in stipulated panegyric and comthe possession of this common literature must ne-pulsory fervor. The literature which has flourishcessarily act upon the intelligence of England in ed in the hot-bed of royal patronage, has always like manner as upon ourselves, and if it has inpeded our progress in letters, it must also have impeded hers. To admit this, would be to advance the absurd opinion, that the enjoyment of a copious and elegant literature, prevents all further contributions to it and that the Anglo-Saxon mind has reached already its point of culmination and is destined to rise no higher in its intellectual orbit. We reject at once an argument which assumes that advancement carries in itself a check to its onward course. We rejoice to believe, on the contrary, that under the ordinations of a wise Providence, the human mind is continually progressive and that each stride places it upon a vantage-ground, from which a farther point may be attained. Nulla vestigia retrorsum. In the middle of the sixteenth century, it was thought that the English drama had arrived at the highest point of excellence it was ever destined to reach. In the plays of that period there was indeed much power and originality. But a few years and there was born a man, whose genius peopled the stage with the images of a nobler creation, and uttered the lessons of a higher philosophy. And shall we say that another Shakspeare shall never appear to dignify humanity? It is no under-estimate of the exalted powers of the great dramatist to suppose that, in the lapse of ages, dramas may be composed more effective than Hamlet or Lear. It is rather to say, that the range of the mind is boundless, and that no limits can be assigned to the improvement of man's diviner faculties. While we cannot recognise the validity of the reasons, to which we have adverted, we are still at no loss to account for our literary inferiority upon other and more rational grounds. And among them, we regard as most important, our peculiar social conditions, growing out of our position as a new country. In all infant communities, the attention of the people is, first of all, directed to the exigencies of the State. To rear habitable settlements, to cultivate the soil, to establish commercial relations, to provide a system of national defence, these are the occupations, which demand their earliest concern. In a meagre population, no one can be spared from these urgent duties to foster letters, the want of which cannot yet be felt. From the very nature of things, there can be no literary class. The temples of justice must precede the lyceum and the university, and there must be laid an agricultural basis for all the branches of intellectual research. While the energies of our infant Republic have been directed to these necessary objects, letters and the arts have progressed in England and on the Continent, under the encouraging auspices of a class of men, whose whole time is devoted to literary pursuits. De Tocqueville, perhaps the most acute foreign observer who has ever visited America, says, that "at the very time, Another cause of our literary inferiority is brought forward in our form of government. The enemies of free government have referred, with an air of when the Americans were naturally inclined to retriumph to the United States, as an instance of the injurious effect of republican principles on let ters and the arts, and they contend that a low standard of excellence is the inevitable and legitimate quire nothing of science but its special application to the useful arts and the means of rendering life comfortable, learned and literary Europe was engaged in exploring the common sources of truth class of writers, who, gifted by nature with rare powers, have used them only for the basest of purposes and who, embroidering the dark tissue of Socialism with the flowers of an exuberant fancy, have woven a winding-sheet for all Law and Virtue and Religion. In the fascinating serials of Eugene Sue and Alexandre Dumas, we recognise and in improving at the same time all that can printing, have wonderfully multiplied the number minister to the pleasures or satisfy the wants of of books issued from the press. Every day brings man." We have been engaged, too, in a great forth some uncut volume, and we have works folpolitical experiment. The struggle for freedom in lowing each other in rapid succession on every conthis Western Hemisphere, an issue between the ceivable subject. The catalogues of publishers powers of light and the powers of darkness, broke now contain longer lists of authors than were to out just at that period of our history, when we be found some years ago in the largest libraries. were preparing to put forth some literary efforts, As the quantity increases, the quality is impaired, and those, who under other circumstances would and while there are many books to be "tasted," have added to the treasures of the language which there are few to be "swallowed," and still fewer, Chatham spoke, were absorbed in the shock and as my Lord Bacon hath it, "to be chewed and distir of passing events. The people of these colo- gested." Where so much more is to be read, nies turned from the peaceful avocations which reading becomes hasty and superficial, and as this had employed them and made an united opposition habit leads to a want of reflection as well among to the aggressions of the English Parliament and authors as readers, an ephemeral and frivolous litCrown. They appealed to the God of Battles to erature loads the tables of the bookseller. We decide a momentous question, and until that deci- have bad treatises and bad biographies, essays withsion was rendered, they abandoned all other pur- out thought, and verses fit only to line portmansuits. When Peace at last smiled on their victo-teaus. Nor is this all. We have been introduced rious eagles, a government was framed, which was latterly, through the medium of translation, to a to demonstrate a problem in political science, and from the day, which saw the signatures affixed to the immortal instrument which binds us together, to the present time, the first minds of the nation have never ceased to regard the operation of that government with zealous and anxious interest. We cannot regret this, even while we deduce from it our literary poverty, for if the price of liberty an insidious attempt to debase the understanding be eternal vigilance and the cause of free institu- and subvert the morals. In his hero, the author tions be threatened by open enemies from without becomes the advocate of every vice and the apoland treacherous friends within, the State cannot be ogist of every crime. He talks to us in the voguarded with too watchful a care. This untiring cabulary of a cold sensualism. He would at once devotion to politics, has not been without happy disorganize society, by removing every conservaeffects in exhibiting the most gratifying proofs of tive restraint, and, like Comus with his rabble the capacity of our people in the highest efforts of crew, would transform us, by the power of his enforensic eloquence, of statesmanship and diploma- chantments, into a brutish herd of satyrs and baccy. In the progressive changes of the country, then, chanals. If indeed we could discern the poison from a sparsely settled region to one swarming he administers, there would be little danger to be with an opulent and enlightened population, have apprehended. But it is commended to our lips in we not abundant reason to hope for a noble litera- a jewelled chalice and the fatal ingredients are ture, adapted to our sensibilities and adequate to mixed with the skill of a Cagliostro. "Save us," our wants? When some future Waverley shall said Mr. Burke, on a memorable occasion in the depict the domestic charities and home-bred vir- House of Commons, "from French daggers and tues of America in the pages of fiction, or some French principles." Save us, say we, from this unborn minstrel shall "wake to ecstasy the living modern school of French romance, as an evil more lyre," he will find millions to laugh and weep over to be dreaded than noyades or guillotines. It is his chapters, or to be roused by his strains from time to take a stand in this matter. We appeal to the chain of the Alleghanies to our brethren of the periodical press throughout the country-to all who would preserve unsullied the purity of the female character, who would defend the shrines of our jurisprudence, our religion and our domestic peace-to raise a determined remonstrance against these infamous publications. In vain shall we look for the pure streams of a perennial literature, till we seal up this fountain of bitter waters. "the continuous woods, Where rolls the Oregon. and hears no sound, But before the golden age of American letters can be ushered in, there is another depressing cause, which must cease to operate, or must, in a great measure, be removed. It arises out of the enormous increase of new books. The facilities af- In the cause of Southern letters, the Messenger forded by the recent improvements in the art of has labored earnestly, and we trust not without suc + Democracy in America, vol. 2, p. 36. cess, since the appearance of its first number in 1834. Month after month, it has reached you, freighted with rich and valuable stores of instruc-ing debt due the Messenger, which the Editof tion and amusement. It has not indeed sought to must respectfully ask his patrons to discharge. beguile an idle hour, without leaving some useful The expenses of publication are very consideraimpression on the mind of the reader. The con-ble and to meet them he must make collections. tributors, who have filled its pages, have not writ- Money is now-a-days and has ever been the priten thoughtlessly, nor have they endeavored by flip-mum mobile of every undertaking. The priestpant common-places to "catch, as she flies, the ess of Apollo would utter no Delphic revealings Cynthia of the minute." Content to stand upon until an offering of gold was laid upon her altar and its own merits in the estimate of an impartial pub- | from her time to the present, oracular wisdom has lic, it has left to others those adventitious aids and had its marketable value. The Editor cannot fur(so-called) embellishments by which the eye of nish gratuitous printing or paper free of cost. The the million is caught in this day of mezzotint en- laborer in literature, as in all other callings, is graving. It has put forth as original no bad copies worthy of his hire. But enough of this. A few of tawdry pictures in the English annuals, nor has remarks with reference to the conduct and materiel it circulated a monthly fashion-plate, to show how of the work, and we close this address, which we the extravagant demoiselles of the Faubourg St. fear has already transgressed the ordinary limits of Germain dress themselves for a morning-call. It editorial talk. has ever had a higher aim and exercised a nobler As far as possible, we shall adhere to the line of ministry. It has attempted to present some truths policy marked out by the former Editors of the in manifestations more lovely and imposing than work. As they have studiously avoided any inthey had before assumed and thus to fasten them upon the moral perception. It has enlisted in the prosecution of literary studies many minds, whose light might otherwise have been long obscured. In commending the lessons of History and by a salutary recurrence to the recorded experience of our own country, it has wiped the dust from the urns of the illustrious dead and held up their characters to the affectionate remembrance and imitation of the living. In an age of prosing realities and calculating utilitarianism, it has labored to gather up every fragment of intellect, to refine the taste. to soften the asperities of party warfare and to invest with poetic beauty the daily walks of life. Thus much has the Messenger accomplished. How far its well-earned fame will be sustained in the hands of a new and untried Editor, is an important question, which time alone can determine. He enters upon the responsible duties of his office with an unaffected sense of their grave and difficalt nature. He makes no fair promises to his patrons, but relies upon their generous support in the path which stretches before him, with an abiding confidence that if he proves worthy of his high vocation, he will not fail to receive the rich reward of their encouragement and approval. troduction of party politics into its pages, so shall truth. 66 16 con The Messenger shall continue to present its usual The criticisms that shall variety of contents. guide-the tales that shall interest-the essays that shall instruct—the poems that shall elevate— such articles we hope to lay before our readers, infusing, at the same time, a proper degree of the gay and lightsome, but following the Horatian precept, Dulce est desipere, and exhibiting the sportiveness of the comic muse only in its proper place. In this design, we invoke the assistance of the old contributors of the Messenger and exhort them to be not weary of well-doing. Their labors, while of essential service to us individually, will contribute to the stores of Southern It is proper, however, to remind the public, that although the Messenger has hitherto been fixed upon the sure basis of successful experiment, it is still entirely dependent on their patronage for its existence. If their liberal subscriptions are withdrawn, the magazine stops as surely as a taper is extinguished by being immersed in an exhausted science and learning and will be gratefully apprereceiver. The Editor appeals then to the old and ciated by a large circle of readers. We hope to tried friends of the work to stand by it under its hear from them. We intend, in addition to this new management, and he invites those who are fa-aid, to engage the best talent of the country, so vorably inclined to the cause of letters, but have far as the support of the public will enable us so never enrolled their names on the subscription list, to do. to come forward at this juncture and subscribe. A We cannot discern what lies enshrouded in the word too financially. There is a large outstand. mists of the future. What may be the destined |