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Leader (1850-1860), 2nd April 1859, Edition 2 of 2, Page 13, No. 471, April 2, 1859-1 THE LEADER 429

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      American Literature. Triibner's Biograph...

      have not only become our rivals , but our equals in literal composition , and in all the developments of K in ^ liich vigour of mind and car e ful training of the intellect are the great and essential qualifications , if we would form a just estimate of Anglo-American literature . " " We have never seen a work on the national literature of a people more carefully compiled than the present , and the bibliograp hical prolegomena deserve attentive perusal by all who would study either the political or the literary history of the OT-fin . t renublic of the west . These prolegomena

      famish . lists of all bibliographical books relating to America , and of all bibliographical books printed in America , including periodicals , catalogues , handbooks , and works devoted to special branches pf literature , accompanied by analytical and literary notes * abounding in curious and important information . Of the great work of Beristaiia de bouza , the Bibliotheca Hispano-Americana Septentrional , printed at Mexico , in 1816-19 , of which we believe not more than a dozen copies are known to exist , iind . which in America is valued at an almost fabulous price , the title pages and contents of all three volumes are set forth with minute accuracy , and a sjiecimen of the author ' s style given . ; There

      is no copy of the work in the British Museum , and of the only two that we know of in this country , one has been kindly placed in our hands for a few days , ¦ " which , enables us to state that without a constant reference to tlie pages of " Beristain " satisfactory history of . Kew Spain can ever make its appearance ; for the many revolution ? which have succeeded one another so rapidly in that unhappy country have caused the destruction of numerous nianuscripts and documents , which are only to be traced through the pages of this indefatigable compiler , whose work consists of 3 , 687 biographical and bibliographical notices , the latter particularly valuable to the future ' historian .-

      We started by saying that the literature of a colony may properly be said to belong to that of the parent state . A portion of the biblLograpliical introduction to Mr , Triibner ' s volume is occupied by an elaborate and valuable essay as a contribution towards a history of American literature , by Mr . Benjamin Moran , Assistant-Secretary to the American Legation , with whose views on the whole we coincide ; for though he divides American literature into two colonial and two national periods , he admits that as an independent literature ' it only takes its rise about the period of the revolution . The first of the former he calls " the first

      colonial period , " dating ijom 1639 to 1700 . At first the Pilgrim Fathers and their immediate successors , from 1620 to 1639 , were satisfied to circulate their sermons , prayers , moral essays , and polemical Avritings in manuscript , or to send them over to the another country to be printed ; and it was not till 1638 that Mr . G lover , a Nonconformist minister , ordered a small printing press and types from England , Its earliest production appeared in 1639 , entitled " The Freeman ' s Oath , " printed by Stephen Daye , a native of London , in Januai'y of that year . This American Canton , however , was not as clever as his old and honoured namesake , the first printer of music in England , who lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth , and whoso motto wusj " Arise for it is Daye . " Stephen Dayo

      Mary and Queen Anne , are the chief productions by the English colonists of the period ; for Benjamin Franklin properly belongs : to that which follows . " The first American , or national , period , " boasts of Jefferson ' s Eights of British America , as the transition literary structure of the time ; of the writings of Dwight , Bellamy , Hopkins , and Bishop White ; of'Franklin and Washington and one of the first professional writers , who followed literature as an exclusive , calling , was Charles Brockden Brown , the father of the American

      novel , who , we believe , still lives in the land which liis writings have so long adorned , and which are enumerated at page 425 of Mr . Triibner ' s volume . His first book dates back to some sixty-five years ago , so that he may fairly be looked upon as the oldest of American living authors . The force of example worked wonders , and gradually , ivp to the year 1820 , authors by profession increased in number and activity ; but it is fi-om that year that , properly speaking , the literature of the United States became a nationality . second American period " isof

      Mr , Moran's " , coiu-se , the most interesting , and we avail ourselves of the following curious statistics to call attention to the necessity of more strenuous exertions on the part of authors oh both sides of the Atlantic to bring about the establishment of an international copyright : : — " In the infancy of American publishing ,. 5 Q 0 copies were a good edition . Irom 1827 to 1837 , the ordinary sale of a successful book was from 1 , 000 to to 1 , 500 copies , whereas now 1 , 500 of any book can be disposed of ) and it is not uncommon to print 10 , 000 copied . The sale of Washington Irving ' s works is by hundreds of thousands . Small editions are , in fact , the exception , and immense editions of good English works are quite common . There have

      have appeared ; but wMch v b y the fatality which seems to attend the compilation of all catalogues of national libraries , does certainly not deserve much commendation for the care bestowed upon , its accuracy . The fact is , that in all vast catalogues it is necessary to employ a staff of cataloguers . It is , therefore , the more necessary that the final supervision should be intrusted to competent hands , if we would not verify the proverb of" too many cooks . "

      Mr . Triibner deserves all praise for having produced a work every way satisfactory . No one who takes an interest in the subject of which it treats can dispense with it ; and we have no doubt that booksellers in this country will learn to consider it necessary to them as a shop manual , and only second in importance for the i > urposes of their trade to the London Catalogue itself . That a foreigner and a London bookseller should have accomplished what Americans themselves have failed to do , is most creditable to the compiler .

      The volume contains 149 pages of introductory matter , containing by far the best record of American literary history yet published ; and 521 pages of classed lists of books , to which an alphabetical index of 33 pages is added . This alphabetical index alone may claim to be one of the most valuable aids for enabling the student of literary history to form a just and perfect estimate of the great and rising importance of Anglo-American literature , the youngest and most untrammelled of all which illustrate the gradual development of the human mind .

      been sold in the United States , in five years , 80 , 000 volumes of the octavo edition of the " Modern British Essayists . ; " 60 , 000 volumes of Maeaulay ' s " Miscellanies , " in three volumes ; 100 , 000 copies of Grace Aguillar ' s works , in two years ; more than 50 000 cogues of Murray ' s ' ¦ ' Encyclopedia of Geography ; " 10 , 000 copies of M'Culloch ' s " Commercial Dictionary j" and 10 , 000 coi > ies of Alexander Smith ' s Poems , in a few months . The American sale of Thackeray ' s works is quadruple that pf England ; Dickens ' s have sold by millions of volumes . " Bleak House " alone sold to tlie amount of 250 , 000 copies in complete volumes , magazines , and newspapers . A recent work of Bulwer ' s reached about two-thirds of that number- and more than 100 , 000 copies of " Jane Eyre " have been disposed of . "

      We have no means of calculating the sale of " Uncle Tom ' s Cabin , " " The Wide , Wide AVorld , " " Queechey , " and other books of this class , in England . All we know is , that everybody read those we have named , and that the authors on the other side of the Atlantic were not benefited a single cent , by such sale , any more than the English authors , mentioned in the paragraph we have quoted , received one ' farthing for permission to reprint their works in America . Without an international law of copyright , the great intellects of both hemispheres are plundered . with impunity ; yet surely , if for no longer duration , during a man ' s lifetime ho should , at least , be allowed to derive some beneficial result from the productions of his brain , whether merely reprin ted or translated in a foreign country .

      This essay of Mr . Moran ' s is followed by an account of u the Public Libraries of the United States , " by Mr . Edwards , formerly employed in the British Museum , and who is now established in business as a bookseller at Manchester . It is sufficiently interesting , no doubt , to the American reader , and though it contains accounts of some libraries which are no longer in . existence , it is valuable as a record of local and national exertions on the part of the United States to collect all that can conduce to the spread of knowledge , whenever an opportunity presents itself for adding to the literary resources of the country , by the dispersion of libraries and collections of' books in the various countries of the eastern hemisphere .

      The riso and- progress of the An tor Free Library , arising out of the bequest of a successful Gorman immigrant merchant , will be read with much intcx'ost ; but our limits will not allow us to do more than refer the roador to it . It ocoupios four pages , from 122 to 125 of the introductory portion ; yet , whilst talking of the Astor Library ' wo may take the opportunity of stating that a catalogue of it is now in the course of publication , under the oaro of Mr . Cogswell , the librarian , of which two volumes

      seems to have ignored that motto , and was not only ¦ a bad hand at case , but a slow one to boot ; . for the " Bay Psalm Book , " the first book ever printed in America , did not appear till a year Jater . Other publications of a religious nature . followed ,- amongst which a translation- of the Bible into the language of the aborigines is every way the . most important ,- This translation was inade by " the rovcrend and pious John Eliot , the indefatig able and faithful minister of Ripon , " as he is called by Lonsdeu , and was printed at Cambxidgo , in MassaohuBets , in 1661-3 , and reprinted in 1680-5 . Both editions ai * o of considerable rarity , and the latter . led to the estabb ' shmont of " twonty-fbur Rod Indian churches in Boston , over which twenty-four Rod Indian ministers" presided , to whom tho celebrated John Lensdon dedicated his llobrow and English Psalters , in 168 S .

      • Mr . Moran connnonoos " tho second colonial . period" with tho year 1700 , and carries it down to mo declaration of independence in 1776 . Tho phjlosophjcftl writings of Jonathan Edwards , > poldon B History of tho Five ( Indian ) Nations , Prince ' s History of New England , Church's His-* ory of King Philip ' s War , and Ralphs History of England during tho reigns of " William anil

      No. 471, April 2, 1859-1 The Leader 429

      No . 471 , April 2 , 1859-1 THE LEADER 429

      The New Quarterly. Bentfcy's Quarterly B...

      THE NEW QUARTERLY . Bentfcy ' s Quarterly Beview .-rr-No . I . March , 1859 . 11 . Bentley , London . A new Quarterly Review , in these days of weekly and daily criticism , when the world seems to have taken iiTcvocably to condensation , brevity , and the faith as it is in fresh-and-fiesh " in all that constitutes its moral and material fare , is a venturous and almost startling enterprise . Already we have lio less than half-a-dozen of these

      thirtysix pound mortars , fashioned on the old approved model , and worked by veteran hands ; and just as we were beginning to be persuaded that the whole science of literary warfare was changed , and that everything in future was . to be effected by the multiplication of lighter and Jhandier weapons , — lo , there appears to the confusion of all tirailleurs ^ shai'p-shooters , and adepts in riflepractice , an Armstrong gun of pretensions , threatening to , eclipse alUJiat has been , that is , or that shall be . tliis and

      Mr- Bentley is the founder of fiery formidable-looking implement of destruction tounreal reputations in the field of art and learning . Who its inve ntor may be does not ostensibly appear , though babbling rinnour whispers audibly an historic name , which . just now happens to be owned by one of our most promising and ambitious youths of quality . It is no part of our function , indeed , to look behind . the mask of anonyme , nor shall we ever be found forgetful of the courtesies ai \ d . amenities of literary lite . But when a |[ ncw journal undertakes to teach the world ^ a more" excellent way of thinking in matters of criticism than any it knew before , it is not unreasonable that people should ask , as the folks do in a Scot ' s kirk , whon an unexpected stranger 1

      ascends the pulpit , " Who expatiates to-day i us well as the other and more important question , " What does it go for ?" Judging from tho general tone and tenouv of the articles in the first number , we arc led to the belief that a ' certain dxfid and ' definite purpose 1 ms been set before them by the principal contributors . Though nowhere avowed in the formal manner of a confession of political and religious faith , the tendency of the more serious dissertations . 1 $ unambiguous , and their meaning anything but em / tunc The opening paper is upon the subject of I iu'Iiiimbntajy Reform , written bofbro tho world knew tho intentions of Lord Derby ' s Cabinet , and , m it now turns out , . before they Jcnuw UkhuijuIvoh what they wero actually to propo * u . § J ho nnnrehonpions of the writer have boon curiously luldiiioU by tho bill eventually produced , .

      Parliament has nuitbor boon aslcuil to amputate one of its honourable limbs , nor uvun the majority of its withered toos j and far fK > m a fwainning measure of sutimgo extension , ivoIuivo bad nothing more radical ollbrod than a proposal to enfranchise ten pound occupiers in counties , and twenty pound [ odgoi'ti in towns . The inability to prophesy , hotr *

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), April 2, 1859, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02041859/page/13/