TABLE XXXII.-RELIGIOUS STATISTICS OF THE United StatES, 1850.-Continued. Minor sects. Totals. Miscellaneous statistics of churches. TABLE XXXIV.-STATISTICS OF NEWSPAPERS AND PERIODICALS IN 1850 AND 1860.* Total 19 103,500 29 101,000 619 1,895,544-521 83 803,722 1,680'1,907,794 3,221 191 1,071,657 271 2.526 5,182,117 4,013 12.829,061 For convenience, the territories are omitted. The whole number of semi-weekly papers in 1850 was 31, and their circulation about 55,000; in 1860 their number was 79, and their circulation 175,165. Beside the above there were in 1560 16 annual periodicals reported, having an aggregate circulation of S07,750. 1818... 1819... 1820... 1821.. 1822... 1823... 26,253,348 1,991,226 5,559,017) 33,833,592 15,608,828 15,070,093 1806.. 75,723.270 5,572,018 485,216 2.883,752 69,218,398 4,183,890 509,098 1,614,700 65,196,317 7,701,288 600,688 1,956,440 688,928 1,914.784 844.674 2,815.996 654,802 5,384.540 627,051 2,724.463 806,740 8,852,79 81,487,846 1,712,897 216,885 5.970 811 8,343,263 793,366 8,492 293 4,527,779 699,780 19.643.508 5,442,503 844,019 19.66.01 85,104,875 1818.. 103,466,633 5,506,814 24,004,199 1819.. 95,529,648 7,855,167) 21,763,024 1820.. 91,015,566 5.465.995) 19,090,572 1821.. 89.987,427 5,623,821 20,232,427 17,676,592 1822.. 93,546,676 5,739,760 20,540,666 15,814.171 1823. 90,875,877 5,524,034 24.381,212 81,898,538 1824.. 90,269,777 5,801,104 26,840,858 23,585,804 1825... 83,788,432 25,260,484 24,103,398 1826... 81,054,059| 22,966,363 22.656,764 1827... 73,987.357 24,763,629 25,459,479 1828.. 24,827,627 25,044,358 1829.. 24,844,116 24,585,281 1830.. 28,526,820 80,038,446 1831.. 776,942 31.865,561 84,356,698 1832. 948,234 33,948,426 24,257,298 1833.. 719,377 21,791,935 24,601,982 1834.. 1,281,175 85,430,087 17,578,141 1835. 2,539,675 50.826.796 30,868,164 1836... 11,169,290 6,776,236 9,938.326 1838.. 16,158,800 8,081,939 19,778,642 1839... 23,137,924 7,076,447 5,125,653 13,499,502 8,292.255 8,240,405 14,487,216 1,365,627 14,666,633 81,797,530 1841. 6,787,898 84,778,744 $2,986,876 1842. 15,028,486 20,782,410 12.118,105 18431.. 27,203,450 1844.. 26,183,570 2,059,939 2,955,044 31,198,555 83,642,010 288,063 5.316.863 5,000 778,550 7,896.09 5,000 523,584 868.011 44,548 1,893,484 11,118570 899,534 10,715,158 2,000 174.695 8,909.977 2,261 26,081 1,040,958 7,509.99 29,699,967 22,649 843,225 $47.945 64,704.693 64.228,238 6,956 1.119.246 538.63 4,767 2,891,632 18,081.98 4,500 3,563,805 12,799,679 2,000 8,782,406 8,654.87 2,338 8,701,979 652,199 1,859 4,000,654 2,15076 8.665.551 6,412838 8,066,646 18,909.719 2,814,464 6,606,165 23 1,954,708 10,662.69 81,593,765 4.95488 1,652,055 7.54.28 14,718,572 2.08AM 8,144.620 189002 4,000,178 18,221.705 Total Total 1,575,152,579 175,817,961 558,240,987 2,270,929,166 2,235,677,161 1831,498,893 94,023,475 424,516,447 *Fractions omitted in the several years, but included in the totals. + From March 4, 1789, to Dec. 81, 1791. To June 30, on which day the fiscal year of the government has since closed. UNITED STATES, LITERATURE OF THE. The literary history of the United States may be treated under three distinctly marked periods, viz.: a colonial or ante-revolutionary period (from 1620 to 1775), during which the literature of the country was closely assimilated in form and character to that of England; a first American period (from 1775 to 1820), which witnessed the transition from a style for the most part imitative to one national or peculiar, as a consequence of the revolutionary struggle and of the ideas generated by it; and a second American (from 1820 to the present time), in which the literature of the country assumed a decided character of originality, not yet fully developed.-I. 1620 to 1775. The first literary production of any note emanating from the British American colonies was the version of Ovid's "Metamorphoses" made by George Sandys on the banks of the James river about 1620, and published in London in 1626. But notwithstanding that men of letters were found everywhere among the early colonists, in New England alone, where in 1638 the first printing press was established in Cambridge, was any considerable progress in literary culture made, and the literature of the first or colonial period was chiefly confined to that locality or was indirectly connected with it. The earliest development, owing to the religious character of the people, to the causes which led to their emigration, and to the fact that during the first century after the settlement of the country the clergy were the best informed and educated class, was theological. The "Bay Psalm Book" (Cambridge, 1640), the first book printed in the country, though not strictly original, became very popular both in America and Great Britain, and within a little more than a century passed through not fewer than 70 editions in both hemispheres. In the same year appeared a volume of poems by Mrs. Anne Bradstreet (1612-'72), which was the first original work published in New England. The colonial press however speedily became monopolized by religious writers, and among its most remarkable succeeding productions were the Indian Bible of John Eliot (1604-'90), the first edition of the Scriptures published in America, and an extraordinary monument of patience and industry, though now of interest only to the antiquary; the "Concordance of the Scriptures,' by John Newman, which was the earliest work of its kind, and the immediate precursor of Cruden's Concordance; and the prolific writings of Increase and Cotton Mather (16631728), the latter of whom was the author of no fewer than 383 works, of most of which not even the titles are remembered. The most celebrated are the "Wonders of the Invisible World" and the Magnalia Christi Americana, an ecclesiastical history of New England from 1620 to 1698, containing biographies of several colonial worthies. Cotton Mather creditably represented the colonies in respect to erudition, but his style is quaint and uncouth, and his name VOL. XV.-52 is inseparably connected with the gloomy history of witchcraft in New England. To the early colonial times also belong John Cotton (1585-1652), one of the first ministers of Boston; Thomas Hooker (1586-1647); Roger Williams (1606-'83), the founder of Rhode Island; John Davenport (1598-1670), Charles Chauncy (1592-1672), and John Norton (1606-'63), eminent in their day as theological writers, but whose works are now but little known. The establishment of Harvard college in 1636, and of William and Mary and Yale colleges in the last decade of the 17th century, together with the practice, which became common with many of the wealthier colonists, of sending their sons to England to be educated, meanwhile showed its effects in the gradual improvement of style and in the more discursive aims of writers. But theology was still the department of letters most generally cultivated, and among theologians Jonathan Edwards (1703-'58), whose power of subtle argument Sir James Mackintosh declares to be "perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men," was the first not only in America, but, according to Robert Hall, in “ any country or age." His celebrated treatise on the "Freedom of the Will," originally undertaken to furnish a philosophical basis for the theological system of Calvin, to which the author was firmly attached, ranks among the standard authorities in English metaphysics; and his "Dissertation on the Nature of True Virtue," his controversial work on "Original Sin," his "Treatise concerning Religious Affections," and other works, though now comparatively little read, on account of the prolixity of their style and the prevailing distaste for writings of a profoundly reflective character, exhibit a force of thought and keenness of argument only displayed by the greatest minds. Other theologians of the colonial period were a second Charles Chauncy (1705'87); John Witherspoon (1722-'94); James Blair (died in 1743), president of William and Mary college; Jonathan Mayhew (1720-'66), a vigorous opponent of episcopacy and a man of liberal political views; Samuel Johnson (1696-1772), the first president of Columbia college, and the father of the American Episcopal church; Samuel Cooper (1725-'83); Mather Byles (1706-'88), a loyalist during the revolution, now chiefly remembered for his humor; and Ezra Stiles (1727-'95), president of Yale college. John Woolman (1720-'72), a Quaker writer and preacher, whose nal" is highly commended by Charles Lamb, deserves mention as one of the first who wrote against slavery. The influence of the great English essayists and novelists of the 18th century had meanwhile begun to affect the literature of the new world; and in the essays, the collection of maxims published under the title of "Poor Richard or "The Way to Wealth," the scientific papers, and the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1706-'90), we have specimens of practical philosophy or of Jour simple narrative, expressed in a style eminently the mother country followed as a consequence clear, pleasing, and condensed, and not unfre- of their political independence, and as early as quently embellished by the wit and elegance the commencement of the revolutionary strugcharacteristic of the best writers of Queen gle the high literary ability as well as the prac Anne's time. His investigations in electricity tical wisdom evinced in the public documents and other scientific subjects are not less felici- of the principal American statesmen were rectously narrated, and, together with the works ognized by Lord Chatham, in whose opinion of James Logan (1674-1751), Paul Dudley these productions rivalled the masterpieces of (1675-1751), Cadwallader Colden (1688-1776), antiquity. Politics now gained a prominence and John Bartram (1701-'77), a naturalist and almost equal to that enjoyed by theology in the one of the earliest of American travellers, con- preceding period; and dry as such subjects usustitute the chief contributions to scientific lit- ally are to the mass of readers, the discussion erature during the colonial period. The his- of them in speeches and pamphlets during the torians and annalists are less prominent than last quarter of the 18th century accorded thor the theologians, and their writings if pos- oughly with the popular taste, and the influence sible less known at the present day. The of political writers and orators in giving a detracts and pamphlets relating to the discov- cided national type to American literature is ery and colonization of British America, ema- unmistakable. Conspicuous among the early nating from early settlers, are nevertheless pamphleteers were James Otis (1725-'83), Joexceedingly numerous; and the journals and siah Quincy, jr. (1744-75), John Dickinson annals of such men as Winthrop, Winslow, (1732-1808), Joseph Galloway (1730–1803), & Morton, and others, though not strictly belong- tory writer, Richard Henry Lee (1782-'94), ing to American literature, are worthy of note Arthur Lee (1740-'92), William Livingston as the sources from which modern historical (1723-'90), William Henry Drayton (1742-99), writers have derived much important informa- John Adams (1735-1826), Thomas Jefferson tion. William Hubbard (1621-1704) wrote the (1743-1826), and Timothy Pickering (1748history of New England, which however was not 1829), of whom Otis and Quincy were per published until more than a century after his haps most distinguished as orators, although death; and Thomas Prince (1687-1758), who little beyond the traditions of their eloquence devoted a great part of his life to collecting has come down to us. For fervid declamamaterials, commenced a more extensive work tion Patrick Henry (1736-'99) stands at the on the same subject, but which was never com- head of all the orators of this period; and in pleted. Among the earlier contributions to the reports of his speeches, meagre as they American local history may be mentioned the are, he has been more fortunate than others of history of Rhode Island by John Callender his contemporaries, as Samuel Adams (1722(1706-48), that of the discovery and settlement 1803), John Rutledge (1739-1800), Edward Rutof Virginia by William Stith (died in 1750), ledge (1749-1800), Charles Cotesworth Pinckand that of Massachusetts by Thomas Hutch- ney (1746-1825), Gouverneur Morris (1752inson, its last colonial governor, a man of 1816), and George Mason (1726-'92), whose considerable learning and culture, but "blind reputation as parliamentary debaters or public except to facts, and without a glimpse of the speakers was very high, and whose impassioned great truths which were the mighty causes of eloquence is described as having "moved the the revolutions he describes." Of works re- hearers from their seats." These men may be lating to the Indians, the most noteworthy considered the founders of the present school were the history of King Philip's war by the fa- of American oratory. The "Common Sense" mous Captain Benjamin Church (1639-1718), of Thomas Paine (1737-1809), though not the history of the Five Nations by Cadwalla- strictly the work of an American author, may der Colden, and the "Diary" of the missionary be classed among the early national literature, David Brainerd (1718-'47). The poetry of this from the fact that it was thoroughly American period has no pretension to literary merit, but in tone, and was inspired by the causes which the drama of "The Prince of Parthia," by produced the revolution. The great state paper Thomas Godfrey, a son of the inventor of the of this era, and perhaps the most remarkable mariner's quadrant, deserves mention as the ever produced, was the "Declaration of Inde first work of the class produced in America.pendence," by Thomas Jefferson, who desired II. 1775 to 1820. The earliest works produced during the first American period, commencing with the revolution, are naturally associated with the causes which led to that event; and the political pamphlets, speeches, letters, and other writings of the men who aided in securing the independence of the North American colonies afford the first indications of a desire to cast aside the conventionalisms of European literature, and to develop one characteristic of the country and its institutions. The severance of the intellectual reliance of the colonies upon that his title to the authorship might be engrav ed on his monument. For the concise and direct manner in which the grounds of complaint against the mother country are stated, for dig nity and eloquence, and for the influence which it has exerted and the reverence with which it is still regarded, it may be considered unrivalled among works of its class. Jefferson also pub lished a "Summary View of the Rights of British America," and a volume entitled "Notes on Virginia," which passed through many editions in Europe and America, and left a mass of cor |