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ART. II. THOUGHTS ON MODERN LITERATURE.

By Hon. GEORGE LUNT, Newburyport, Mass.

THE different moral tone, which characterizes the writings of the present day, compared with those of the fathers of English literature, is such as cannot fail to strike the most casual reader. It is not so much, that there is any deficiency of books upon the great subjects connected with human improvement, or that the authors themselves seem at all wanting in just views of the real interests of mankind. On the contrary, all means available to human effort are forced into the service of morality. Society is actually overwhelmed with the praises of whatever is excellent. Science in her cold, hard way, has undertaken to demonstrate its value. Wisdom uplifts her modest voice; and she has her own hearers: and Folly, throwing over her shoulders the mantle of Philosophy, grows didactic and instructive, until our hearts become sick within us, and we are almost ready to despise those things which deserve our highest veneration and love, and which of themselves are attractive with a thousand beauties. One may now be convinced by mathematical demonstration of the superiority of virtue to vice; but is it not sometimes the case, that the very means which are victorious to convince, fail in power to convert to any good purpose? One may certainly be driven to assent to conclusions, of which he feels neither the force nor the truth; and may store his mind with innumerable maxims, without arriving at any higher eminence in wisdom or virtue. The reason may be overpowered, while the feelings are untouched. The intellect may be enlarged, and the heart remain unimproved. We bow down to an idol which we call Reason, and are too often careless or forgetful, whether this object of our worship be a true or a false divinity. The time has been when men were willing to trust to the ordinary impulses of human nature. They gave themselves up to admiration and pity, and all the more generous affections, without hesitation and without fear. They felt that they were right, and they needed no more convincing argument. But now-a

days, the world has grown much wiser; and where we were once satisfied with feeling, we must needs argue and dispute. We forget that all men are not capable of reasoning correctly. We forget that we cannot always be sure of the soundness of our conclusions, even when we have taken the most careful pains. We forget, in fine, that men have been and may be argued into the most absurd results; and that passion and prejudice will artfully interweave themselves with our nicest speculations. It is true that Reason is herself immutable. But we are apt to mistake the sacrifice for the altar,-disputation for logic,-reasoning for reason. We confound the mistaken processes of our own weak minds with the invariable principles of Truth, and thus sylogise ourselves into errours which are inextricable, because we are determined to convince ourselves that we are right. The world now deems itself interested only in realities, strangely and falsely so called: for the things which we so regard are indeed the unsubstantial and evanescent; and things distant and indistinct the future will show to be the only and truly real. The daily cares that press upon our thoughts are now made to constitute the daily food and nurture of the mind. And sanguine Hope with her buoyant wings, and Fancy brilliant with the hues of heaven, and Imagination that compasses the illimitable universe, must fold their pinions, and shrink away from a power, who without their ministry must become in a moment but a cold and lifeless abstraction. But is it not true, that all men aim to escape from the present? It is not to-day, that we are supremely blest; but yesterday, we say to ourselves, we were happy, and to-morrow shall be like it, and much more abundant. The slave of care will struggle to forget himself. He remembers a time when he was not so burdened, and anticipates a period when he shall be free from the perplexities which now oppress him; and the sick man turns upon his restless pillow, and recalls the elastic step of his early youth, or dreams of breezes, full of the sweet south, that shall yet breathe vigour into his frame and renew the energies of his exhausted heart. And what, may we ask, has reason to do with the thoughts that soothe, and the hopes that cheer their minds! We satisfy ourselves with the suggestions of imagination: we become happy upon the blessings which hope insinuates; and life derives its very spring and buoyancy from things, which reason can neither controul nor VOL. IV.

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supply. It is under these influences, that the tired hand raises itself, and the flagging spirits are encouraged to renewed and more vigorous exertion, and that we press forward again and again, to the vast pursuits of the world, with the incitements of hope throbbing and thrilling at our bosoms.

It is in vain, therefore, to tell us, that the operations of the imagination are inconsistent with the real requirements of life. It is vain to say, that it is not necessary to our very existence. It has the power to lift the burdens which weigh upon the present. It cheers and renovates us by recalling into more splendid being the lost glories which brightened the past. It has the magic art to clothe the future with more exquisite visions of magnificence and beauty than the present ever knows.

The theory which would confine us down to the mere objects of our senses humbles our nature, and deprives it of some of its most ennobling attributes. It is not surely the cultivation of the fancy, but its neglect and abuse, which is ever injurious to the true interests of society. But it is strange indeed that we should be always studying textbooks for the improvement of our other faculties, and should suffer that one to run wild and luxuriate at will, which needs the most constant and attentive direction, and upon which, more than any of them, our daily happiness depends.

It cannot be denied that, after the Scriptures themselves, the books which have exerted the most powerful influence upon human life, have been works of imagination. From childhood to old age, and through every variety of character, they have governed the mind by the same irresistible and intense interest. How many characters indeed have been moulded and fixed by the narrative of that entertaining voyager, upon whose story we have all of us hung delighted in our youth, until his solitary island seemed to us fairy-land, only that we believed its marvels to be truer than any history. How many human beings have caught their more exalted emotions from the pages of that mightiest master of thought and passion, whose wildest conceptions seem less like fiction than the daily occurrences of our own existence! For whoever mused with Hamlet, or acted with Othello, without realizing their life and presence like that of his most familiar and ordinary friends? Or, to turn to a graver, but no less imaginative specimen of ficti

tious composition, how many have wandered with delight over the wondrous story of good and honest Mr. Bunyan! How many "trembling minds and hearts afraid" have gone with valiant Christian upon his pious pilgrimage, and felt their own faith strengthened by his steadfastness, their own courage confirmed by his example! We presume, too, that, considered apart from its sacred character, no more entertaining and instructive reading can be found, than that which is contained in the allegorical portions of Scripture itself. What lofty and beautiful images are breathed by the fervent spirit of the divine Psalmist and his royal son! What terrible sublimity rolls upon the awful strains of the Arabian patriarch! What holy sweetness, what heavenly enthusiasm, what magnificent imagery interweave themselves with the thread of the Old Testament narration, like pearls mingling with gold! Who has ever contrived stories so true to nature, so touching in expression, so beautiful in their application, so interesting in their structure, as the parables of our Saviour himself! The Bible is full of the expression of the tenderest as well as the loftiest imagination, and disdains not to clothe its instructions, its threatenings and its consolations, with the flowers that were wreathed in Paradise.

But to confine our attention to compositions of merely human origin, certainly a vast proportion of the literature of the present day is deficient in the higher characteristics, which distinguished the writings of our predecessors. There is plenty of light literature, it is true, and much which is both entertaining and attractive, to a certain degree; but there seems to be an air of superficialness and shallowness about most even of its best productions, which effectually prevents it from entering very deeply into our sympathies, from dwelling and incorporating itself, if we may so speak, with the texture of our minds, and becoming, as it were, a part and portion of ourselves. There are undoubted and illustrious exceptions to so general a charge. It may also be observed, that we seldom regard the writings of our contemporaries and companions with the same impartiality as that with which we look upon the productions of the distant and the dead. For Time, which separates the man of genius from the envy and malice of the world; Time, which covers his failings, and spiritualizes and exalts his nature; Time, which transmits to us only the higher and more

etherial attributes of those glorious beings, breaks down also the earthly barriers which limited their renown to their own kindred and country; it sweeps away the prejudices, which veiled their fame. They are no longer Spaniards and Italians, Englishmen and Americans: they claim a communion with the human race, and we yield them our veneration and love, as the benefactors of mankind.

But there is something in the older writers intrinsically superiour to that which now claims our attention and praise. Take some of the standard classics of the English language, and how rarely will the most judicious critic have occasion for finding fault? But as to the mass of the current literature of the day, all men are competent to criticise the flippant pertness of its expressions, and its ill-considered and unsound speculations. The pen seems to have been taken up as if for the preparation of some unwelcome task, which, as might be anticipated, is executed with slovenly carelessness, and laid aside by both writer and reader without regret. But the eloquent simplicity of the older authors, their sound learning, the elegant variety of their careful diction, their fine thoughts and profound reflections, show that they came with minds prepared for the business which they had undertaken. And thus, " long choosing and beginning late," and writing with that cautious deliberation, they finally produced those noble works, which are worthy the devotion of a life; forever honourable to themselves, forever profitable to mankind. The popular works of the present day are many of them justly so named. They, indeed, gratify the popular fancy, which is but for an instant, and, as that changes, they die, and are forgotten. They are created amidst the bustle and excitement of momentary caprice, to suit a taste as trustless and inconstant as a summer cloud; they contain in themselves no elements of solid continuance; they amuse, it is possible, for a day; they live without renown, and perish without honour; and the places which knew them are filled again and again by others, as trifling and as idle as themselves.

Not so is it with the other class of productions to which we have alluded. They were the fruits of no instantaneous impulse of the fancy: they were written to gratify no popular appetite, and to minister to no depraved taste: and they suit not, it may be, the fashion of the times. But age soon frees them from the passing prejudice of the day, and then

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