Bayard Taylor, R. H. Stoddard, W. Allan Butler, P. Y. Hayne, C. G. Leland, R. T. S. Lowell, H. H. Caldwell, T. B. Aldrich, A. J. H. Duganne, and E. C. Stedman. The female poets of the period comprise Mrs. Sigourney, author of many beautiful pieces characterized by feminine delicacy and religious sentiment; Mrs. Maria Brooks (Maria del' Occidente, 17951845), whose principal poem, "Zophiel," evinces a high degree of imaginative power, and was praised by Southey; Lucretia Maria Davidson (1808-'25), and her sister Margaret Miller Davidson (1823-'38), who are instances of rare though melancholy precocity in the art; Mrs. Frances Sargent Osgood (1812-'50), remarkable for her playfulness of fancy and facility of expression; Miss H. F. Gould, a pleasing and natural writer; Mrs. Julia Ward Howe (born 1819), whose "Passion Flowers" and other poems are distinguished by a peculiar earnestness of feeling and expression; Mrs. Frances Anne Kemble (born 1811), who exhibits similar characteristics; Mrs. E. Oakes Smith, author of a melodious and imaginative poem entitled "The Sinless Child;" Mrs. Caroline Gilman, Mrs. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), Mrs. A. B. Welby, Mrs. E. C. Embury, Mrs. Louisa McCord, Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman, Mrs. A. C. (Lynch) Botta, Mrs. Estelle Anna Lewis, Mrs. Haven, Miss Alice Carey and her sister Phoebe Carey, Mrs. Ellet, Mrs. S. J. Hale, Miss Caroline May, Mrs. Maria Lowell, Miss Edna Dean Proctor, Mrs. E. P. Lee, Mrs. Rosa V. Johnson, Mrs. L. V. French, Mrs. M. E. Hewitt (Stebbings), Miss Rose Terry, Mrs. M. S. B. Dana (Shindler), and many others. Moral purity, love of nature, domestic affection, and graceful expression are the general characteristics of the writings of the above; and so far as their poetry has exercised any influence on practical life, it has had a tendency to refine taste and cultivate good sentiments. Dramatic literature has been cultivated by comparatively few writers, and, with occasional exceptions, nothing of very decided mark, either in style, sentiment, or plot, has yet been accomplished. J. A. Hillhouse (1789-1841), a man of ripe scholarship and fine taste, excelled in that species of poetic literature illustrated by the writings of Browning, Henry Taylor, and others in England, and which may be called the written drama. His "Hadad," founded upon Jewish tradition, "Percy's Masque," and other dramas, though unfitted for representation, are conceived with taste and carefully finished. G. H. Boker has produced "Calaynos," a tragedy founded on an incident in the history of the Spanish Moors, and other dramatic pieces of more than ordinary merit; and Mrs. J. W. Howe, a high-wrought drama entitled "The World's Own." Among other works of this class may be mentioned "Brutus," by J: H. Payne; "Metamora," by J. A. Stone; "Jack Cade," by R. J. Conrad; "Tortesa the Usurer" and "Bianca Visconti," by N. P. Willis; Velasco," by Epes Sargent ; "The Gladi

ator," by R. M. Bird; "Witchcraft," by Cornelius Mathews; and "Fashion," by Mrs. A. C. (Mowatt) Ritchie (born 1821); several of which have proved good acting plays, and still retain possession of the stage. In the department of poetry may also be classed several writers who have executed metrical translations of merit from the German, Italian, and other languages. The most eminent of these is Longfellow, whose versions of Bishop Tegnér's “Children of the Lord's Supper," and the Schwarze Ritter and other ballads by Uhland, are well known. C. T. Brooks has translated the Faust of Goethe and numerous other pieces from the German; C. G. Leland, some of the choicest songs of Heine; W. H. Furness, Schiller's "Song of the Bell;" and N. L. Frothingham and J. S. Dwight, many of the minor poems of this and other German authors. T. W. Parsons has made one of the best English translations of Dante's great epic; George Ticknor has versified choice extracts from the Spanish poets; and R. H. Wilde, Dr. Mitchell, and Mrs. Nichols have translated with taste from Tasso, Sannazaro, and Manzoni.-Under the head of criticism, essays, belles-lettres, lectures or discourses, and that species of miscellaneous works which owe their charm to a felicitous blending of fact and fancy, or of sentiment and thought, may be classed a numerous body of authors who were so inadequately represented in the two preceding periods that the department now under consideration may almost be said to have sprung into existence since 1820. The establishment of the "North American Review" in 1815, followed within a few years by that of the "American Quarterly Review," the "Southern Quarterly Review," the Christian Examiner," the "Knickerbocker Magazine," and other periodicals, gave the first considerable impulse to literary criticism and essay writing on a comprehensive and philosophic scale; and the production of the essays of William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) on "National Literature," "Milton," "Napoleon Bonaparte," "Fénélon," and "Self-Culture," and of the thoughtful and highly finished articles by R. H. Dana, published in his own "Idle Man" and the "North American Review," may be said to have formed an era in the literary history of the country. Contemporary with these were John Quincy Adams, William Tudor, Joseph Story, Edward and A. H. Everett, W. H. Prescott, F. C. Gray, George Ticknor, E. T. Channing, Robert Walsh, G. C. Verplanck, J. G. Palfrey, Jared Sparks, Samuel Gilman, William Ware, R. C. Sands, Orville Dewey, Dr. J. W. Francis, W. G. Simms, John Neal, Francis Wayland, Henry Reed, F. L. Hawks, C. S. Henry, J. T. Buckingham, and H. S. Legaré, most of whom have written with taste upon subjects connected with philosophy, morals, political and social economy, and general literature. Prominent among the later review writers and essayists is R. W. Emerson, an original and independent thinker, whose views of religion and

in some degree of society may be described as the opposite of all those founded upon tradition and authority. He has written in an abstract manner upon social, moral, and political questions; and his style, though sometimes obscure by reason of his attempts to condense a philosophic theory into a few brief terms, has a finished beauty and significance which have secured him a wide circle of admirers, particularly in New England, where, says Hawthorne, "his mind acted upon other minds of a certain constitution with wonderful magnetism, and drew many men upon long pilgrimages to speak with him face to face." His published works comprise several series of "Essays," "The Method of Nature, Representative Men," English Traits," and "The Conduct of Life," several of which have been expanded from lectures and addresses, a department of literature to which he has principally devoted himself. Of the school of Emerson was Margaret Fuller Ossoli (1810-'50), author of "Woman in the Nineteenth Century," an earnest protest against the commonly received views of the social position of women, and "Papers on Literature and Art," some of which originally appeared in the "Dial," a quarterly publication which was for several years the organ of Emerson and his friends. She wrote with point and brilliancy, and in general acquirements and conversational powers was probably the leading woman of her time in America. The most conspicuous names among the younger writers are those of E. P. Whipple, author of many papers, chiefly on literature, written in a lively and perspicuous style; H. T. Tuckerman, whose contributions to the critical literature of the country show a refined taste and a liberal cultivation of mind and heart; O. A. Brownson, a bold and powerful writer on religion, metaphysics, and politics; G. S. Hillard, C. C. Felton, F. H. Hedge, G. E. Ellis, W. H. Furness, W. B. O. and O. W. B. Peabody, G. H. Calvert, Henry Giles, Mrs. Mary Putnam, R. W. Griswold, J. F. Clarke, A. P. Peabody, C. H. Brigham, O. B. Frothingham, and Thomas Hill. Any thing like a complete enumeration of the writers who have gained distinction in the wide field of belles-lettres or magazine literature would be impossible within the limits of this article; and only those who are generally known or who may stand as representatives of their class can be mentioned. The most distinguished of all is Washington Irving, whose "Crayon Papers," published in England in 1822 under the title of "The Sketch Book," represents perhaps the author's most successful attempts in elegant literature. The (6 Inklings of Adventure," Pencillings by the Way," "Letters from under a Bridge," and other piquant sketches of peopie and manners, by N. P. Willis; the series of discursive essays by O. W. Holmes, entitled the "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" and the 'Professor at the Breakfast Table;" the "Reveries of a Bachelor," by D. G. Mitchell (Ik

Marvel); the "Potiphar Papers," by G. W. Curtis; "Meister Karl's Sketch Book," by C. G. Leland; and the "Fern Leaves" of Mrs. Parton, are popular examples of what has been accomplished by other authors. To these names may be added those of John Sanderson, G. W. Bethune, M. M. Noah, N. Biddle, Mrs. C. Gilman, James Lawson, T. S. Fay, R. M. Charlton, J. J. Jarves, A. K. Gardner, A. B. Alcott, C. F. Hoffman, E. S. Gould, É. Sanford, J. L. H. McCracken, G. H. Calvert, L. L. Noble, Park Benjamin, W. G. and L. G. Clark, E. A. Poe, Mrs. Kirkland, Theodore Sedgwick, H. W. Herbert, H. B. Wallace, C. W. Webber, G. W. Peck, W. E. Burton, Robert Turnbull, J. L. Motley, Miss Susan Fenimore Cooper, Mrs. Botta, Epes Sargent, Robert Tomes, C. C. Pise; and the following, which of late years have been more immediately before the public: H. D. Thoreau, E. H. Chapin, Samuel Osgood, H. W. Bellows, Parke Godwin, J. R. Lowell, C. A. Bristed (Carl Benson), J. G. Holland (Timothy Titcomb), R. G. White, J. Milton Mackie, T. W. Higginson, R. Strother, C. F. Briggs, E. E. Hale, G. D. Prentice, George Sumner, C. E. Norton, and Theodore Winthrop. Among the works illustrating English literature may be mentioned the lectures on Shakespeare by R. H. Dana and H. N. Hudson, and the editions of the poet by G. C. Verplanck, H. N. Hudson, and R. G. White; the edition of Spenser by G. S. Hillard; those of Wordsworth and Gray by Henry Reed; that of Milton by C. D. Cleveland; that of Coleridge by W. T. G. Shedd; the elaborate series of British poets by F. J. Child, assisted by J. R. Lowell and others; and various writings by R. H. Dana, A. H. Everett, J. R. Lowell, J. S. Hart, E. P. Whipple, and R. W. Emerson. Translations from the German metaphysicians and historians have been made by George Bancroft, S. M. Fuller, G. H. Calvert, W. H. Channing, F. H. Hedge, and Samuel Osgood; and from educational and scientific authors as well as writers of fiction in Germany and France, by a variety of hands.The department of oratory and political science, though relatively less prominent than in the preceding period, occupies an important place in contemporaneous American literature; and the speeches and writings of Daniel Webster (1782-1852), Henry Clay (1777-1852), and J. C. Calhoun (1782-1850), considered merely as literary productions, are among the intellectual triumphs of the country. For dignity of expression, breadth and force of thought, and a style strong, simple, and sometimes grand, the forensic arguments and public and political speeches of Webster may rank with the masterpieces of oratory in any language. The spontaneous, impassioned eloquence of Clay, on the other hand, depended so much for its effect upon the voice and manner of the speaker, that his reputation will be mostly traditional. His published speeches give little indication of the mnastery of the feelings for which he was almost unrivalled. Calhoun's eloquence was plain,

strong, concise, and only occasionally impassioned; and his power, as Webster has observed, "consisted in the plainness of his propositions, the closeness of his logic, and in the earnestness and energy of his manner." His literary remains exhibit unusual philosophical acumen and power of analysis. To the political orators and statesmen of this period belong also John Quincy Adams (1769-1848), remarkable for the universality of his knowledge and his independence of judgment; John Randolph of Roanoke (1793-1832), an eccentric but powerful and pointed speaker, and a master of invective; Albert Gallatin (1761-1849); R. Y. Hayne (1791-1839), the eloquent antagonist of Webster; De Witt Clinton (1769-1828), Tristam Burgess (1770-1853), George McDuffie (1788-1851), Silas Wright (1795-1847), H. S. Legaré (1797-1843); W. C. Preston (1794 1860), and S. S. Prentiss (1808-'50), whose productions represent the most ornate and florid school of American oratory; T. H. Benton (1782-1858), whose "Thirty Years' View" and Abridgment of the Debates in Congress" afford invaluable materials to the historian of national politics; A. H. Everett (1792-1847), J. R. Poinsett (1779-1851), Lewis Cass (born 1782), Levi Woodbury (1789-1851), Caleb Cushing (born 1800), John Sergeant (1779-1852), W. H. Seward (1801), J. J. Crittenden (1785), J. M. Hammond (1807), R. C. Winthrop (1809), H. A. Wise (1806), S. A. Douglas (1813-'61), and R. M. T. Hunter (1809). The most accomplished orator of the period with respect to rhetorical finish and elocution is Edward Everett (born 1794), whose productions, including his oration on Washington, which has been delivered before public assemblies in many parts of the country, are thoroughly American in tone, and possess a permanent and intrinsic merit. Rufus Choate (1799-1859), in his forensic arguments and occasional public addresses, exhibited not less rhetorical excellence and more fervor than Everett; and Charles Sumner (born 1811) excels in strength and clearness of statement, ripe scholarship, and nobility of diction. Among the anti-slavery orators, to which class Mr. Sumner properly belongs, may be enumerated Wendell Phillips (born 1811), a vigorous and impulsive speaker, frequently rising to a strain of impassioned eloquence; J. R. Giddings (1795), Cassius M. Clay (1810), Theodore Parker (1810-'60), Henry Ward Beecher (1813), R. W. Emerson, Frederic Douglass (1817), and G. B. Cheever (1807), whose oratory in general exhibits similar characteristics. The list of occasional orators, in addition to the names of most of the foregoing, includes those of Joseph Story (1779-1845), James Kent (1763-1847), G. C. Verplanck (1786), Horace Binney (1780), T. S. Grimke (1786-1834), Orville Dewey (1794), Horace Bushnell (1802), E. H. Chapin (1814), H. B. Bascom (1796), G. S. Hillard (1808), H. W. Bellows (1814), and many oth

ers.

The political writers comprise William

Sullivan, (1774-1839), Matthew Carey (17601830), J. T. Buckingham, Martin Van Buren (1782-1862), W. L. Marcy (1786-1857), Thomas Ritchie, Joseph Gales, Robert Walsh, Isaac Hill, William Leggett (1802-'39), Amos Kendall, Calvin Colton, J. H. Hammond, Nathan Hale, David Hale, Richard Hildreth, Joshua Leavitt, Morton McMichael, Hamilton Pleasants, T. R. R. Cobb, G. D. Prentice, W. C. Bryant, J. G. Palfrey, Robert Barnwell Rhett, Joseph Chandler, James Gordon Bennett, J. D. B. De Bow, John Fletcher, George Fitzhugh, J. L. O'Sullivan, Edwin Croswell, Thurlow Weed, J. W. Forney, Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, H. J. Raymond, N. Paschall, B. Gratz Brown, C. H. Ray, James Brooks, Erastus Brooks, and many others. Under this head also come the comprehensive "Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States," by Justice Story, the lectures on the same subject by W. A. Duer (1780– 1858), and the "Constitutional History of the United States," by G. T. Curtis. The most eminent writers on political economy are H. C. Carey (born 1793), whose "Principles of Political Economy," "Credit System in France, England, and the United States," "The Past, the Present, and the Future," and numerous other works, maintain protection doctrines in a clear, terse style; President Francis Wayland (born 1796) and Henry Vethake, the latter an advocate of free trade, who have published valuable text books on the subject; Francis Lieber, A. H. Everett, William Leggett, Beverly Tucker, Albert Gallatin, John Bristed, Calvin Colton, Condy Raguet, Stephen Colwell, Francis Bowen, Alonzo Potter, E. C. Seaman, E. Peshine Smith, George Opdyke, W. M. Gouge, and William Maclure. The writers on social science and ethics comprise Francis Lieber, author of treatises on "Liberty and Self-Government" and "Political Ethics;" G. H. Calvert, T. Sedgwick, A. Gurowski, Bishop J. H. Hopkins, who have discussed the subject generally. W. L. Garrison, Richard Hildreth, T. D. Weld, H. R. Helper, M. D. Conway, E. M. Stearns, T. Stringfellow, G. Fitzhugh, A. T. Bledsoe, and others have written on the institution of slavery; W. P. Foulke, L. Dwight, J. S. Gould, and Miss Dorothea L. Dix, on prison discipline and kindred topics; and Mrs. C. H. Dall on the rights of woman.-In no department has the intellectual development of the country been more conspicuous than in that of jurisprudence, and the treatises, digests, and reports emanating from American authors and jurists already fill several thousand volumes, and form a valuable addition to legal literature. The "Commentaries on American Law," by James Kent, published in 1826-'30, are written with great clearness and force of reasoning, and constitute the chief manual of general reference and elementary instruction. Of the numerous works of Justice Story, those on equity jurisprudence, partnership, bailments, and "The Conflict of Laws," are well known everywhere; the "Elements of International Law" and "History

of the Law of Nations," by Henry Wheaton, have become standard works of reference in Europe; and the treatises of Edward Livingston on penal law, of Simon Greenleaf on evidence, of Willard Phillips on insurance, of F. Wharton on criminal law, beside many by David Hoffman, St. George Tucker, J. K. Angell, John Bouvier, G. T. Curtis, L. S. Cushing, W. A. and John Duer, F. Hilliard, Murray Hoffman, Theophilus Parsons, Theodore Sedgwick, W. W. Story, and others, are creditable to the legal learning of the country. -The theological and religious writers of the period comprise a numerous and able body, whose works, devoted rather to practical illustration than to theoretical speculation, have in many instances become standard authorities on the subjects of which they treat, and, in view of the multiplicity of sects from which they emanate, express unusually broad and catholic views. In the department of biblical criticism American theologians are everywhere honorably distinguished. Of Presbyterian writers, the most eminent are Samuel Miller (1769-1850), author, among other works, of several treatises on the distinguishing features of Presbyterianism; Edward Robinson (born 1794), best known by his researches in biblical geography; Albert Barnes (1798), whose "Notes on the Gospels" and commentaries on other portions of Scripture are widely known in America and England; Nicholas Murray (Kirwan), author of several controversial publications; S. Davies, Ashbel Green (1762-1848), Gardiner Spring (1785), Charles Hodge (1797), James Richards (1793–1843), R. J. Breckinridge (1800), Archibald, J. W., and Joseph A. Alexander, T. H. Skinner, I. S. Spencer, William Adams, Thomas Smyth, Robert Baird, J. H. Thornwell, and J. B. Walker. The Trinitarian Congregationalists are represented by Moses Stuart (1780-1852), author of various scriptural commentaries, and distinguished as a philologist; Leonard Woods (1798-1854), Horace Bushnell (born 1802), Edwards A. Park (1808), Lyman Beecher (1775), Edward Beecher (1804), N. W. Taylor, Bennet Tyler, E. N. Kirk, Nehemiah Adams, Mark Hopkins, Nathan Lord, Joel Hawes, Leonard Bacon, G. B. Cheever, J. P. Thompson, T. C. Upham, J. Torrey, W. G. T. Shedd, Henry B. Smith, and George Punchard, author of a "History of Congregationalism," &c. At about the commencement of this period a memorable controversy took place in New England between Samuel Worcester, representing the conservative or orthodox Congregationalists, and W. E. Channing in behalf of the Unitarians, who thenceforth became an independent, and, in proportion to their numbers, an important sect. The writings of Channing had great influence in moulding the opinions now generally held by Unitarians in America, and contemporary with him were a body of divines and scholars of considerable literary culture, resident chiefly in Boston and its vicinity, and whose education was acquired at Harvard college, where a large

proportion of the Unitarian clergy have since been graduated. Prominent among these were Andrews Norton (1786-1853), author of a treatise on the "Genuineness of the Gospels;" Henry Ware, Henry Ware, jr., and William Ware, J. G. Palfrey, Jared Sparks, N. L. Frothingham, James Walker, Orville Dewey, F. W. P. Greenwood, W. H. Furness, and G. W. Burnap. Of somewhat later date are A. P. Peabody, Samuel Osgood, F. H. Hedge, G. E. Ellis, H. W. Bellows, A. A. Livermore, C. A. Bartol, A. B. Muzzey, and J. F. Clarke. Distinguished from these is a new rationalistic school of Unitarianism, chiefly represented by Theodore Parker (1810-'60), whose writings evince profound scholarship and logical method, and furnish frequent examples of rhetorical beauty and force. On political and social questions he also wrote and spoke with peculiar earnestness. The principal writers of the Protestant Episcopal denomination are Bishop C. P. McIlvaine, author of a treatise on the "Evidences of Christianity;" Bishop T. C. Brownell, author of commentaries on the "Book of Common Prayer;" Bishops Alonzo Potter, George Burgess, J. M. Wainwright, J. H. Hopkins, and W. I. Kip; S. F. Jarvis, S. H. Tyng, F. L. Hawks, J. S. Stone, A. C. Coxe, S. H. Turner, G. T. Bedell, R. A. Hallam, T. W. Coit, F. D. Huntingdon, Calvin Colton, G. C. Verplanck, A. H. Vinton, J. A. Spencer, and Samuel Seabury. Among the Baptists, the most noted are President Francis Wayland, William Hague, H. B. Hackett, H. J. Ripley, Baron Stow, Alvah Hovey, W. R. Williams, T. J. Conant, J. Belcher, R. Turnbull, Richard Fuller, and J. B. Jeter; and among the Methodists, Nathan Bangs, P. D. Gorrie, John and Robert Emory, Stephen Olin, H. B. Bascom, D. D. Whedon, J. McClintock, Abel Stevens, W. P. Strickland, D. Curry, James Floy, D. Wise, Osmyn Baker, Thomas Stockton, B. F. Tefft, and Alexander Green. The Roman Catholics are represented by Archbishops F. P. and P. R. Kenrick and John Hughes, the last two chiefly distinguished as controversial writers; Bishops J. England and H. Spaulding; I. T. Hecker and O. A. Brownson, who has written several of his most noticeable review articles on theological subjects. In other denominations the prominent names are George Bush, a follower of Swedenborg, and author of a treatise on the "Doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body" and numerous commentaries and miscellaneous writings; Philip Schaff, J. W. Nevin, and H. Harbaugh, of the German Reformed, and S. S. Schmucker, of the Lutheran church; Hosea Ballou, E. H. Chapin, and T. Whittemore, of the Universalist denomination; and T. Evans and S. M. Janney, members of the society of Friends. Many of the above, including Brownson, Parker, Walker, and Wayland, have written on moral philosophy and metaphysics. The school of Locke is represented by Francis Bowen, Frederic Beasley, and others; while Parker, Walker, James Marsh, and Emerson have borrowed more or less from the German