Life hath its range eternally, Like water, changing forms; The dew and rain come down again, To fresh the drooping land; So doth this life exalt and wane, And, alter, and expand. J. O. B.ockwell PRESENT AMERICAN LITERATURE. He who writes Or makes a feast, more certainly invites His judges than his friends, and not a guest WHILE the events of the last fifty years have wrought so great a change in the moral and political condition of the civilized world, the state of its literature and its intellect has during the same period been subject to its own vicissitudes and undergone its own revolutions. The dark storm of anarchy which hung impending so long over Europe, has been dissolved by powers, which, while in some measure restoring the nations of the continent to their former state of kingly subjection and despotic calmness, did not altogether remove the purifying effects of the previous tempest. Civilized man now enjoys extended liberty, compared with his debasement during the days of feudal government, and Freedom, as she has carried her cheering influence to the door of the European peasant, has been attended by knowledge and virtue as her inseparable companions. The human family as a whole, has been elevated to a higher grade of existence, and the fountains of intelligence, instead of being confined to the use of the noble and the bigot-instead of being restrained in a few deep and almost inaccessible channels-have become the property of man, whatever his condition, and have been diverted to fertilize and make glad the whole surface of the earth. Happily the sources of literature are not diminished by the continual demands which are made upon them. Like the fire which communicates its heat and its power to all surrounding objects, but which still burns on with undiminished intensity, they have poured forth the deep streams of grave and scholastic philosophy, as they were wont of yore; but have at the same time increased the influences of practical instruction, and enlarged the sphere of elegant belles lettres accomplishments. The old channels may not now be as easily known as formerly, because of the improvements above and around them; but they still flow as deeply and as purely as ever, and will continue to reward those who sound them to their depths, with the increasing measure of their beauty and their wealth. During the dark ages, the walks of learning were through the dry, discouraging wilderness of monkish lore, with no amusements of the path to beguile the wayfarer of the monotony of his journey, and with nothing to cheer him but the bright sun of science in the distance, beaming strength and vigor upon his faculties, and beckoning him still onward. But now the way is beset with enticements to stray from it, a garden of flowers has sprung up where the desert mourned, and the mind is continually drawn from the great object in the distance, to revel amid the beauties of the present scene. But still the length of the path is not diminished, nor are its arduous steeps of more easy ascent. The striving for the goal must still be as great or greater than ever, as so many are tempted to enter for it, from the beauty of the way. But it is of the recent changes and improvements in literature that we are now more particularly to speak. There are several branches of belles lettres studies which are peculiar to the present age. Novelty in literature has always been as highly valued and as much sought after as in any of the other of the arts of life. The time has been, when the stately halls of England were kindled with joy or depressed with sorrow, as the caprice of the wandering minstrel dictated. But the bards degenerated into beggars, and their harps gave place to the metrical romances of chivalry, with their euphuistic extravagances of language, and their pictures as quaint as the devices of the brave knights whom they described, and their periods as stately and precise as the manners of the lovely dames and maidens of high degree,' whose beauty and whose constancy were the burden of the song. The time once was, when quaintness and singularity were the fashion of the day. Every department of life felt the influence of the general taste. Architecture has preserved models of it in the most durable form. The storied pictures of Westminster and of London Tower prove to what extent it was carried in matters of dress; while the Fairy Queen and Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy show its influence over the genius of poetry and the outpourings of humor. The very goblins of the forest partook of the mortal mania, and Oberon and Robin Good Fellow are the most whimsical and fantastic of moonlight elves. These things in their turn passed away, to make room for the Augustine age of English literature. Utility became the hobby of the age. To present it in the array of beauty and elegance was the aim of the popular writers. The essays of the Spectator became the text book for morals, and for style, and for taste. Their success encouraged numberless imitations, filled with tawdry sentiment and vulgar wit. But requiescant in pace,' they have passed into decay, while the original gem has preserved its beauty uninjured, unrivalled and alone. Our own age presents different views. Human invention has been turned in some measure from working on the solid materials, which were to secure to it the meed of immortality, and has directed part of its energies to the production of the elegant or the curious, to the exhibition of trifles to please for a few short moments, and the getting up of bright illusions to enlighten the hour, with the course of which they too must pass into forgetfulness. Change is before and around us, pleasure is the object of pursuit to the gay spirits of earth. Society is made one never ending gala, and the fashionable and the literary world is on the alert to answer the demand and stimulate the universal cry of 'vive la bagatelle.' Although amusement be the chief object of those who can afford to pay its price, improvement has kept even pace with it in its progress. There is a species of literature before the world at present, which unites in its own beautiful form the attractions of both. And much is the literary community indebted to the genius of one man for forming the path, and leading on in the untried way by which both could be united, and in the course of which their joint influences have elevated and refined the spirits of those to whom their divided power would have rendered the theme on which they were employed either uninteresting or uninstructive. We need not say that we refer to the Author of Waverley. Let no one accuse us of triteness or common place, for renewing the worn out subject of his praises. Were the effect or even the continuance of his labors to be numbered among things past, the charge might be made with the color of justice; but the attention of men cannot be too strongly or too often drawn to those events which are exerting a daily influence over society. The withered tree and the exhausted fountain may be deserted, but both will be watched with care and with gratitude, while the one yields its fruits, and the other pours forth its fertility for all of nature which is capable of being rendered happier or more useful by them. Such, then, is our defence, if any be needed, for renewing the remembrance of the things we venerate. The novels of the Author of Waverley, together, perhaps, with the historical plays of Shakspeare, have formed in very many minds a taste for the real beauties of English history, which without them they would never have acquried. He is indeed a potent enchanter.' His pen is the spell-wand of a wizard, in the hand of one who knows its mystic power. He has taken the facts of history, and woven from them the beautiful fabric of its poetry, and has given a more lasting and a deeper interest to its dry details, by connecting them in our minds. with all the beauties and fascinations of romance. The Waverley Novels have introduced a new kind of writing, and, aided perhaps by the beautiful style of our countryman Irving, it has pervaded the whole field of the light literature of the day. They have been the models on which young writers have formed themselves; and how well worthy they are of imitation, or, at least, of close study and attention, appears from the developement of intellect, the rapid increase in number, and in power, and in beauty of the volumes of belles lettres which are every year given to the public. A few years ago, an elegant taste, joined, perhaps, to a love of 'filthy lucre,' induced some English publishers to give to the world the first specimens of those Souvenirs and Forget Me Nots,' which are now so common through our country. How beautiful they were at their first appearance, the eagerness with which they were read will testify. How rapid was their increase, may be seen by referring to the counters of every bookstore. America, ready and willing as she ever is to acknowledge the excellence, and imitate the example of the parent country in every good thing, has imitated and improved upon the plan. We can now boast of a species of literature, which is conducted almost wholly by young men, and which has merited the affection, because it has developed the power of our native genius. Those who have made their first essays in literature, through the medium of the pages of a Souvenir, will gain confidence in proportion as they have tested their own strength. The American annuals do not profess to be the works of the most finished or most accomplished writers of this country. They should not be taken as specimens of what our literature is, but as indications of what it may one day be. They are not the matured fruits, but the bright promise and blossoming of genius; and thus far they have been an honor to the taste and talent of American writers, and monuments of the swift progress of our artists towards excellence in their profession. Whoever first started the idea in England, must have been a man of beautiful and enlightened mind. Souvenirs as they are at present edited, are intended for the type and memorial of affection. They are produced at that season of the year, which old Time himself has devoted to the service of mirth, good feeling and good fellowship. The time which ancient custom has dedicated to the meeting and enjoyment of long absent friends, the time which we all hail from the depths of winter, as the only bright period in the dreary year when true hearts and kind spirits can throw off the cares and heart burnings which have beset them during its lapse, and extend the hand of fellowship before they part again on their weary and opposing paths. As the pilgrims of the wilderness meet for a few short hours in friendship around the fount of the desert, each again to part, each to oppress his weaker neighbor, and fall in his turn under the power of the stronger. Christmas and New Year are the days when the chilling coldness of the season is to yield to the warming influences of the heart. They are the days when St. Nicholas deals out his rewards and punishments, according to the merits of his smiling protegés. They are in sad truth, the only remnant of the times when merrie England, was blessed with its guardian fays and brownies; they are the only days in this era of philosophy and unbelief, when the elves are permitted to escape from their frosty prison houses, to gladden the world, 'And make good sport They are indeed the days of romance, and in its spirit should they be welcomed. And thus, thanks to our native industry, they are and will be received. The pleasant ties of affection shall be rendered more dear by their connexion with refinement of taste, their bonds shall be more firmly sealed by the impress of literature. Belles lettres may now form part of education. The beau ideal of the imagination may be reduced to the reality of life. The present state of our annual literature is undoubtedly calculated to improve, and, as the necessary consequence, to elevate the moral character of the land. We cannot, on this side of the ocean, either see or appreciate the effects of the goodness and genius of past times on the human mind. To gaze on the living marble, or to converse with the speaking canvass, is not yet our fortune. We can hear of them but as the bright things of earth, the conception of which has done so much to raise human genius above the level of every day plodding and selfishness. But farther than this, they are to us a sealed book. Our time of perfection in the fine arts is yet to come. We have our place among the nations in dignity and in power, but we cannot expect to equal for centuries those realities of genius which shine so rarely and so brightly in the history of the world. We must not expect to attain, in the period of a single life, the honors which time has preserved as the labor and glory of the world from the earliest antiquity. We know not when, nor over what happy land the star of genius will next arise; but well may we hope that it will be our own. Other nations have slumbered ages away, before being awakened by its light. True it is, that the first gleams of civilization and taste, found Homer ready to follow as soon as they enlightened the way, and even to anticipate and marshall their progress by the burning light of his own intellect. But the muse of Virgil and of Horace revelled under their noon-tide splendor, and the genius of Shakspeare wild as it was, was fostered amid the refinements of society and learning. But our time will come. In the progress of improvement, we have already done what has cost other nations centuries of time. In the meanwhile, we must content our |