THERE are several noticeable characteristics of American letters at the present time. Many old things, we believe, are passing away under the influence of a general law by which the intellectual advancement of the country bears some proportion to its physical increase, and the development of refinement and civilization. Given a quick, active, ingenious people, speaking the language of one of the noblest literatures in the world, placed under circumstances favorable to the growth of individual character, free in government, candid and frank in manners, just beginning to feel the impulses and healthy rivalry of a concentrated society in large cities, a people not infidel in religion or alien to art, and the prediction is inevitable that noble thinking will be the evidence of noble living, that the poet and philosopher will come forth, that the sentiment and life of the nation will be written in books. By the operation of Time alone, with the servants Time in this country brings with him, the cause of literature will advance. Those who think most humbly of our letters must yet admit that, comparing our present school of writers with those of the days of the Dwights and Barlows, we have both in number and quality a far better representation of national authors at this day. While the rise of numerous original authors, at least in the minor departments of literature, is taken into consideration with the growing feeling of dissatisfaction with what is false and unworthy, every where expressed in conversation, if not always as yet asserted, as it should be, in print, we may argue with confidence of the future state of our letters. The first evidence of strength is humility. The vainglorious boaster and pretender having acquired that which he only assumed, can afford to throw away his burdensome cloak and leaden hood of hypocrisy. The ease and freedom of manhood and of candid speaking should be the especial qualities of those who tread this American soil.

If in this article we seem to speak with some levity of the false pretensions set up in the literature of the day, we trust it will not be regarded as irreverence towards the good, or want of faith in the true. We hold that there is a

time for worship and a time for laughter, loud as "the multitudinous laughter of the gods," and we have observed that they who laugh the most vigorously on fit occasions, pray the best on all others.

It is time that our reviews and journals should have the confidence to tell the public the truth in matters of taste. and criticism, and the morality of thinking and living which grows out of them. Is all English manliness and plain speaking to be reserved for the island of Great Britain that we must be taught and schooled for ever by foreign reviewers? Such has been too much the case; that it has been gradually becoming less for the last few years, cannot have escaped the most careless observer. The latest traveler among us, Von Raumer, exculpates us from the common charge of being a vain-glorious and boasting people, and says that he found us quite the reverse. Certainly a spirit of frankness and candor is on the increase. It is to be met with in all places in society, it will of course find its way into literature.

With much to pull down there will be found much to preserve. There are more than the ten righteous men to save the state. In professional literature of the pulpit, the bar, and medicine, in the literature of the sciences, we have honorable names; in philosophy, proceeding from our colleges, there are living voices going forth which will not soon die away into silence; in poetry and fiction there are names the country will stand by; in art we are beginning to hear of representative men who stand forth before the world in behalf of the nation. Honor be to them for ever. Let the critic be the guardian of their good fame; perpetually renewing the laurel, keeping it ever fresh But before the good can be honored, the vain and noisy evil ones must be removed. The rubbish must be cleared from the temple before we can see the beauty of its proportions. Remove the bulk of scaffolding which seems to add to the size of the structure, and instead of being diminished it actually appears larger.

One of the glaring tawdry weeds to be rooted out of this overgrown field, is that which blazons everywhere around in the passion for notoriety-the unseemly

but an impudent, pretentious, coarsely painted harlot rather, a woman of the streets, not of the sanctuary and the fireside; bare, naked, and brazen, in alliance with craft and deception; hating and hated by the good. A poor barren thing, this notoriety, sickening to the soul.

A newspaper reputation can be made in a day, and by pickling and ordinary care may be made to last like the gravedigger's tanner, "some eight year or nine year," or it may be caught like the mesmerized M. Valdemar in articulo mortis, by a special conjuror six months longer, till it falls to pieces, "a nearly liquid mass of loathsome, detestable putrescence." This is its fate at last, but who delights to witness the operation? An office for the sale of reputations might be opened, or a mutual insurance with a graduated set of prices. An American Hemans might be made cheap, and guarantied for a month, though not more than a dozen policies to be out on this head at a time; an American Tennyson is worth a higher premium; the price of a Dickens would vary in the market as a "Martin Chuzzlewit" or a "Christmas Carol" happened to be his last English production; an American Coleridge probably cheap as the demand is considerable. We have known several. An American Scott should be paid for by at least a dozen champagne suppers.

Seriously, this is a nuisance not always chargeable upon the authors whose names are handed round with their appendages. Mr. Cooper has rebelled lustily against the American Scott. Mr. Emerson stands alone without leaning on Carlyle, and Rufus Dawes is not guilty of taking the name of Coleridge in vain, though it has been rather too kindly and officiously done for him. This is an impertinence resorted to by weak authors

and poverty-stricken critics, who seem fond of the play of "High life below stairs" and a masquerading American literature. Perhaps, like poor Goldsmith, they mistake the footman for the lord.

This is, in truth, a grave matter, for falsehood confounded. Reputation is a nothing can be graver than truth and nice matter, a sacred thing to be held in reverence. It is the flower of virtue and of good deeds, and a delicate flower too, though born in a wintry climate and in rugged scenes, like the blue heather of the storm-swept mountains. It is not a gaudy plant, gay, rank, and unwholesome, but resembles the leaves (as of the oak) which are supported by a rough gnarled trunk and branches. There is much more showy foliage nearer the ground.

The facilities for puffing and detraction, twin companions, have reached a height where in the nature of things they must overleap themselves. Falsehood, unveracity—to translate it at once into downright English-lying may be carried to such an extent, as absolutely by force of intensity to trumpet forth the truth as cold, in Milton, "performs the effect of fire." The excess of dishonesty among thieves leads to the recognition, at least, of thieves' honor. To have very little said about a man has got to be almost the sole truth-telling indication of merit. The post of honor is a private station." If you would learn the true men, in the spirit which should characterize an American literature, or any honest literature whatever for that matter, you must seek them out in retirement. The Cordelias of our literature are, indeed, scarce, but they are to be found with a lanthorn.

Detraction is the twin brother of flattery-though unlike, yet of the same family. Of this our literature may boast enough. Part of it is special, mere interested malignity. Willis cleverly says, in one of his sketches, (the saying is worthy of Sheridan himself in his comedies,) that a literary reputation is to be built up at this day like the walls of Jerusalem, with a trowel in the one hand for plastering friends, and a sword in the other for smiting enemies. Of these Ben Jonsons of literature, brought up to the use of the trowel, there are rare specimens to be met with of different finish and execution. Some use mortar by the hod, others can ornament a cornice with a penknife. There are not wanting enough, who, like worthy Ben

himself at Hawthornden murdering reputations, can use the sword very effectively. Abuse has, in fact, been reduced to a science. Given a few newspapers, en rapport, a large stock of queries, a plentiful supply of italics, a thumb and finger of exclamations, and a dash of small caps., they are the only tools wanted, lies to work upon of course included, and the infernal machine is complete. It would be dangerous were it not farcical. A little laughter will spike the whole battery. There are adepts in the trade, and there are bunglers who work with various degrees of success, but for the most part the thing is pitiable and ridiculous enough.

When a matter has grown ludicrous reason may be wasted upon it, but there is a general spirit of misconception and distrust among the literateurs of the country which is worth accounting for by a simple suggestion. Letters are usually supposed to exist under the government of a republic. They would seem to be here in a state of anarchy-all is noise, babble and confusion, like the concert in Hogarth's enraged musician, where the soft flute of puffery is invaded by the knife-grinder, busy for "cutting up" a sweet milkmaid that good Izaak Walton might have kissed, and a wauling cat on a chimney. Whence this clamor? In Europe there is said to be a feeling of fraternity among literary men, they are distinguished by their courtesies, mutual interchange of compliments, learned societies; they do not like slaves take the names of their masters, or play in the Literary Masquerade; they are not all great authors, but they are respected and loved according to their merits and their virtues. They do not perpetually blackball each other. Their good name is safe in one another's keeping. No one, to be sure, believes that the good fellow who writes a song is thenceforth a Moore or a Berangér, but he has his chair, and his welcome, and his appropriate niche on Parnassus, and share of the bays though they may not

entirely, like those of Cæsar, conceal his baldness. Among American literary men, on the contrary, there is a great deal of very desperate, melodramatic scorching and damnation. An author "not in the present company" is a dish to be grilled and served up for something spicy. It even invades the press. A man who has the misfortune to write is in no danger of want of excitement if he reads the newspapers. He will soon find how scandalous and wicked a thing it is to have written a book, especially if it be a good one. Private malice is not enough to account for the general melée. There is a wheel wanting somewhere in the machinery; a sun in fact is wanting to the solar system! What the great central luminary is to the harmony of the planets, great authors would be to our flighty disorganized literature. A few accredited undoubtedly great authors would still the tumult. Under the shadow of their roof trees the little birds might pick, and flutter, and show their wings only with admiration. But while little birds are called eagles, while asses are passing for lions, microscopes must be expected to be used, and false skins to be plucked at, and ears to be measured. We need a monarch to control the subjects and give laws to the court, or at least a President for the Republic. We predict that there will continue to be a great deal of carping and backbiting till all pretensions are set

tled.

Much of the literature of the countrythe poems that should elevate, the essays that should interest, the biographical articles which should be true and candid, that they might as well warn by the exhibition of errors as encourage by good example, the criticism which should purify the taste-most of what is read by the people still continues to be furnished in magazines illustrated with plates of the fashions and engravings, bad copies from the bad tawdry originals of the English annuals.* The purest literature flowing through such a channel must take its

tone, in some degree, from the adjacent soil. Good literature by such a contact will either be corrupted or checked in its onward course of improvement. There can be no inspiration gained from the milliner's figures in the frontispiece or the milliner's literature inside. The contributions of good writers may be bought, if well paid for, and be made to sanction the imposition upon the public, but such writers will take good care to let the public see that though their pockets may be interested in the matter their hearts are not. They will sell their names and a loose unemployed sheet from their portfolios, but they have not "the virtue to be moved" in such company. Mr. Dana's name was thus for a while employed on the cover of one of the "lady's and gentleman's,” but a few trifling stanzas were all which proceeded from his pen. Mr. Cooper, too, published a series of historical biographical sketches, but they were in the magazine, not of itjust as one of his fastidious English gentlemen moves among a crowd of the unrefined in a packet ship. Mr. Emerson was also promised as a contributor, but this was a humiliation, not to him but to our literature, from which it was somehow happily preserved.

It is in vain to say that these are but ephemeral trifling affairs, and that they form no proper portion of the literature of the country. They must be judged by their unchecked pretences, by their number and circulation. What are called lady's magazines, with plates of the fashions, do not generally indeed enter into an estimate of a national literature. We do not find Hazlitt in his Spirit of the Age, or Horne in his continuation of the work, or Jules Janin in his sketches of French literature, or the graver historians of letters, Hallam, Sismondi, or Bonterwek, devoting a chapter to La Belle Assemblé, the World of Fashion, Le Follet; nor are the vivid embellish ments of these works included in the histories of art, but Mr. Griswold's national monuments are built of materials from these quarries, and even the fastidious Mr. Longfellow gathers his sheaf for a hot-pressed volume from this flaring poppy field. We are conveying no cen

sure upon the contributors to, or the conductors of, these works. It is to the honor of the publishers that they have paid considerable sums to good authors, and authors are right in selling their productions, as a merchant does his wares, where they will get most money for them. We are simply stating a fact, discreditable in itself to the country, a fact which should be felt to be so, and from which those concerned should extricate themselves in the best and speediest way possible. With all the apologies that can be made for conveying literature to the public through this medium, we think it has had its day. The old story of the erudite and philosophical caterers of those splendid dainties, that a magazine to be popular must be poor, will do no longer. There may be some truth in the proverb, "too good to live," and good books may be "caviare to the general." Newton's Principia is not a work to be read while a man runs, nor is Bishop Butler a companion for the centre table. But there are degrees of merit, steps on the intellectual ladder, quite out of sight of "Graham" and "Godey," which it is believed the public may reach in safety. In the name of a great continent, gentlemen, let us have a few higher rungs of the ladder, a little farther range of vision than the old poppy field.

A true respect for the American people will lead critics, not to apologize for what is an outrage to common sense and decency to sustain a bare-faced interested system of puffery, but to seek and demand that the nation shall be as great in thought and feeling as nature has intended her to be in action; that the people of a continent shall not dream and simper in the petty dialect of a province; that the men of every active virtue, of good right arm and sturdy will, shall not be exactly dependent for their intellectual cultivation and entertainment upon Ackerman's "English picture books for the American market," that humbug of various sorts, having been tried long enough and been reduced to a science, may be made content to die and have its history written, and give place for a while to Truth and Candor, never forgetting Love and Reverence. D.