STILES (1727-1795), president of Yale College, excelled chiefly in sacred literature, but was a general scholar, and wrote the Lives of the Three Judges of Charles I. The name of DAVID RITTENHOUSE (1732-1796), a great and self-educated genius, who enriched his country by his mechanical inventions, belongs rather to science than to literature. His writings consist of a few memoirs on mathematics and astronomy, and were printed in the first four volumes of Transactions of the Philosophical Society of Philadelphia. We must not forget here that an American, LINDLEY MURRAY, wrote the well-known English Grammar, first published in 1795.

The writings in Verse during the latter part of the colonial period, may be very briefly noticed in this place. Passing over several names of versifiers1 who wrote in the time 1690-1776, we may mention John Trumbull (1750-1831), who wrote during the Revolution. His chief work, M'Fingal, is a burlesque in verse of the Hudibrastic style, directed against the enemies of American liberty, British officers, and other Tories. The hero, M'Fingal, is a Scotchman, a violent Tory, and justice of the peace, who makes a virulent speech against liberty, and consequently is 'tarred and feathered.' This is almost the whole plot of the poem, which owed its popularity to its patriotic character.

Trumbull was the friend and literary associate of TIMOTHY DWIGHT (1752-1817), president of Yale College, already noticed as a theological author. He wrote several poems in a better style than had been previously cultivated. His longest poem, the Conquest of Canaan, is an epic, and was completed in his twenty-third year. The Prospect was written in imitation of Thomson, and The Flourishing Village on the model of Goldsmith's Deserted Village. These poems must be noticed as having exercised a considerable influence on the improvement of style; although smoothness of versification is their chief merit.

Another of Trumbull's friends was JOEL BARLOW (1755-1812), author of a dull epic, The Columbiad, which at one time was unfortunately regarded as a fair specimen of American poetry. Few persons could now be found, either in the Old World or the New, who would have patience to read many pages of this epic, though it was well received on its first appearance in America,

1 Mr Kettel, in his Specimens of American Poetry, preserves the names of Colman, Jane Turell, Adams, Ralph, Maylem, Godfrey, Evans, Osborn, Byles, Green, Livingston, Church, and Allen-all mere versifiers, who have no claims on our notice.

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and was republished in London and Paris. Barlow estimated his own abilities more correctly when, leaving the ambitious flights of The Columbiad, he condescended to sing in three cantos the praises of Hasty Pudding-the title of one of his poems. Here, to say the least, he treated his subject with gusto. The unmerited reputation of the epic may be ascribed to the rank of the author, who was engaged in diplomacy, and resided for some time in Europe. After leaving college, he studied law, served as a chaplain in the army during the war of the revolution, edited a paper in Newhaven, and prepared a revised edition of Watts's Version of the Psalms. Forsaking literature, he became the agent of a fraudulent land-selling association, called the Ohio Company; but it does not appear that he understood the real character of the transactions in which he was employed. In 1795, he was appointed consul for the United States at Algiers, and superintended the redemption of American captives in the States of Barbary. After his return to America, he was engaged in planning a general history of the United States, when he was appointed minister-plenipotentiary to negotiate a treaty of commerce with France. In 1812, being invited to a conference with Napoleon at Wilna, he travelled towards that place in very severe weather, which brought on a violent inflammation of the lungs, of which he died.

Of all the verse-writers who lived in the era of the Revolution, PHILIP FRENEAU, a descendant of French Protestants, was the most poetical. The dates of his birth and death are not found; but it is known that he graduated at Princeton College, in New Jersey, in 1771, and for some years conducted a newspaper in Philadelphia. Two stanzas from his lines on an Indian Burying-ground may be quoted :

In the department of Prose-fiction, we find only one considerable name-that of CHARLES BROCKDEN BROWN (1771-1810), the first American who chose literature as a profession. Brown was educated under the care of Robert Proud, the historian of

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Pennsylvania, and when sixteen years old, commenced the study of law. But he had made little progress before he conceived a violent dislike of his profession, and protested against the whole system of law as a 'tissue of shreds and remnants of a barbarous antiquity.'

In 1793, without a vocation or any definite intentions, he went to New York, where he wrote visionary papers on politics and society, including a dialogue on the Rights of Women, which seemed to anticipate the doctrines advocated by Margaret Fuller and other American ladies in our own times. An unfinished novel, Memoirs of Carwin, of which we cannot find the date, may be described as an introduction to the romance of Wieland, or the Transformation, published in 1798. This is a strange gloomy tale of seemingly supernatural agencies, which are ultimately explained by the art of ventriloquism. As we have read only a few pages of Wieland, we must refer to the opinions of American critics. Prescott has said that the character of the hero, Carwin, is demoniacal rather than human; and Dana, writing of Brown, says: 'The energies of his soul were melancholy powers, and their path lay along the dusky dwelling-places of superstition and fear, and death and wo. They manifest themselves in the most striking manner, when he imparts to the dead-level, rectangular streets, and plainly constructed houses of a freshly brick-built city, the gloom, awe, and mystery which hitherto had hung over the damp, dark, intricate passages and dread chambers of inquisitions.'

Brown's second novel, entitled Ormond, is described as an incongruous production; but it is said that the character of the heroine, Constantia Dudley, is natural and beautiful. A third novel, Arthur Mervyn, describes with a painful fidelity scenes in Philadelphia during the pestilence of yellow fever which prevailed there in 1793. This tale was followed by Edgar Huntley, the Memoirs of a Somnambulist. In this story, the interest depends partly on descriptions of scenery, but the adventures of the hero in following a sleep-walker lead to some striking situations.

Besides three other novels-Clara Howard, Memoirs of Stephen Calvert, and Jane Talbot-Brown furnished many articles for magazines, edited the American Register, and wrote many political papers. During his short life, he suffered from feeble health, and enjoyed only scanty intervals of recreation. The fact that he wrote with great rapidity, is mentioned apologetically by an editor, Mr Griswold. Of his novels, it is said that 'the author and the printer were engaged at the same time upon nearly every one of them; and he sometimes had three or four under-way at once. In all of them are indications that he grew weary before

they were finished. His style is not good; in a majority of his works, it lacks simplicity and directness, and has numerous verbal faults.'

In the department of Voyages and Travels, we may briefly notice the works of Bartram, Carver, and Ledyard, who wrote in the eighteenth century. JOHN BARTRAM (1701-1777), a native of Pennsylvania, travelled from Canada to Florida in pursuit of his favourite science, botany, and published in London (1751) his Observations on natural history, collected during his tour. This work was followed by his Description of East Florida (1774), which contains a pleasing account of the Seminole Indians.

JONATHAN CARVER (1732-1780), a native of Connecticut, travelled almost 7000 miles in his attempt to explore the interior of North America, and to penetrate to the Pacific Ocean, between 43° and 46° north latitude. He failed to surmount the difficulties of his undertaking, but gathered many notices of the population and natural history of the country. The account of his travels was published in London, 1778, and in Boston, 1797.

Another native of Connecticut, the enterprising traveller JOHN LEDYARD (1751-1789), sailed with Captain Cook in his second voyage, and afterwards travelled on foot more than 6000 miles east of St Petersburg. This resolute attempt to explore the north of Europe and Asia, was opposed by the Russian government. In his subsequent attempt to trace the source of the Niger, the traveller proceeded no further than Cairo, where he was seized with sickness, and died. Ledyard's journals of travel contain one passage that ought not to be forgotten. His fine eulogium on the kindness of woman, is a summary of his own experience, and therefore is more valuable than a thousand sentimental essays. It is as follows:

'I have always remarked that women in all countries are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action. Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious, they are full of courtesy, and fond of society; more liable in general to err than man, but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilised or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man, it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland,

unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tatar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so. And to add to this virtue, so worthy the appellation of benevolence, their actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweetest draught, and if hungry, I ate the coarsest morsel with a double relish.'

General Literature had made some progress, while theology was losing its exclusive sway, when the circumstances of the impending war gave a new impulse and direction to authors and readers. Politics now gained a prominence almost equal to that enjoyed by theology in the early times of the colonies. Among the writers who acquired reputations by their works published during the revolutionary crisis, we must name JAMES OTIS, author of A Vindication of the Conduct of the House of Representatives in Massachusetts; also JOHN DICKINSON, who wrote a series of letters entitled Fabius, advocating the adoption of the federal constitution; RICHARD HENRY LEE, who wrote The Farmer's Letter; and his brother ARTHUR, who wrote the political papers bearing the signature Junius Americanus.

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (1757-1804) was the greatest writer, and we might perhaps say statesman, of the revolutionary time. He was born in the island of Nevis. On his father's side, he was descended from a decayed Scotch family, and his mother belonged to the Huguenots of France. At seventeen years of age, Hamilton first appeared as a political speaker at a great meeting held in the open air, when he eloquently protested against the measures of the home government. He next engaged in a controversy with the clerical Tories of the episcopal church. In 1775, he joined a company of military volunteers, and took a part in the first act of armed opposition to the ministry. His services attracted the notice of General Washington, in whose family he resided during several years. After his retirement from the army, Hamilton studied law, came to the bar in 1782, and in the same year was elected member of the congress of the confederation. In this capacity, his services were highly important, and subsequently, in the New York assembly (1786), and in the convention for the formation of a federal constitution, 1787. There is not,' says Guizot, one element of order, strength, or durability in the constitution which he [Hamilton] did not powerfully contribute to introduce into the scheme.'

Assisted by his friends Madison and Jay, Hamilton commenced the celebrated series of essays known under the name of The