And this is even still more like—a strain under an 'open lattice' The bodiless airs, a wizard rout, Flit through thy chamber in and out, And wave the curtain-canopy So fitfully, so fearfully, Above the closed and fringed lid 'Neath which thy slumbering soul lies hid, Like ghosts, the shadows rise and fall. These passages have a spirituality in them, usually denied to imitators; who rarely possess the property recently discovered in the mocking-birds-a solitary note of their own. A Mr. Hill toils hopelessly after the bounding lyrics of Barry Cornwall: ex. gr. A glorious tree is the old gray oak: He has stood for a thousand Has stood and frowned years, Like a king among his peers, &c. Barry Cornwall is not very likely to be imitated with success; although the freedom and beauty of his style are peculiarly calculated to fascinate imitators. Picked words and a dancing measure are not enough; there must be a luxuriant imagination, earnestness, and high enthusiasm. With such qualifications, how ever, a man might set up for himself. A Mr. Fairfield has a song, or ode, the first stanza of which opens with Ave Maria! 'tis the midnight hour— The second with, The third, Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer— And thus to the close-the body of the verse being constructed on the same honest principle. Another writer has a song, I think of thee when morning springs, and I think of thee' in every verse, refrain, and all stolen, gipsy-fashion, and disguised. But these are venial offences. It is reserved for Charles Fenno Hoffman to distance all plagiarists of ancient and modern times in the enormity and openness of his General Summary. ، 323 thefts. "No American," says Mr. Griswold, " is comparable to him as a song-writer." We are not surprised at the fact, considering the magnitude of his obligations to Moore. Hoffman is Moore hocused for the American market. His songs are rifaciamentos. The turns of the melody, the flooding of the images, the scintillating conceits-are all Moore. Sometimes he steals his very words. One song begins, Blame not the bowl'-a hint taken from Blame not the bard:' another One bumper yet, gallants, at parting.' Hoffman is like a hand-organ-a single touch sets him off-he wants only the key note, and he plays away as long as his wind lasts. The resemblance, when it runs into whole lines and verses, is more like a parody than a simple plagiarism. One specimen will be ample. 6 'Tis in moments like this, when each bosom That her image around us should hover, He had Moore's measure ringing in his ear, and demanding a simile in the middle of the first quatrain-hence the music from the ocean. The third and fourth lines are an echo of a sound without the smallest particle of meaning or application in them. They constitute the means, nevertheless, by which Hoffman hocuses the Americans. Drop them out altogether, and, so far as the sense is concerned, the song would be materially improved. But enough, and more than enough, of these monkeyana. The result upon the whole examination may be thus briefly summed up-that American poetry is deficient in originality; that it is not even based upon the best examples; that it is wanting in strength of thought, in grace and refinement; and errs largely on the side of false taste and frothy exuberance. The classical acquirements of the American poets are loudly insisted upon by their critics; but no such influence is visible in their works-Longfellow and three or four more excepted. It might rather be predicated that they are utterly ignorant of the principles of art, or that they hold all principles in contempt. The qualifications of the poet are lowered in them to the meanest and scantiest elements. They are on a level with the versifiers who up the corners of our provincial journals, into which all sorts of platitudes are admitted by the indiscriminate courtesy of the printer. Their poetry is emphatically provincial, even to its fill VOL. XXXII. NO. LXIV. Ꮓ diction, which often stands in as much need of a glossary as one of our dialects. They not only employ words obsolete long ago in England, but use current words in new senses, frequently converting substantives into verbs, adjectives into adverbs, and shuffling and cutting all the parts of speech to suit their purposes. You ever and anon meet such phrases as unshadow,' tireless,' 'environment,' 'flushful,' 'fadeless,' 'unway,' 'unbrokenly,' 'medlied,' incessancy,' 'delightless.' Rapidity of execution is another peculiarity by which these writers are distinguished. Numerous anecdotes are related, even by themselves, of their velocity in composition. We can readily believe them. But they will find out in the long run, that the go-ahead system is as fallacious in literature as they have already, to their cost, found it to be in more substantial affairs. We repeat, however, that it is matter of regret, and not of censure, that America should be destitute of a national literature. The circumstances through which she has hitherto struggled, and to which she continues to be exposed, are fatal to its cultivation. With the literature of England pouring in upon her, relieved of the charges of copyright and taxation, it is impossible there can be any effectual encouragement for native talent. Literature is, consequently, the least tempting of all conceivable pursuits; and men must float with the stream, and live as they can with the society in which they have been educated. Even were the moral materials by which this vast deposit of human dregs is supplied, other than they are-purer, wiser, and more refined,-still America could not originate or support a literature of her own, so long as English productions can be imported free of cost, and circulated through the Union at a cheaper rate than the best productions of the country. The remedy for this is obvious, and its necessity has long been felt on both sides of the water, a law for the protection of international copyright. Such a law would be valuable to us, simply in a commercial point of view-but to America its advantages would be of incalculably greater importance. It would lay the foundation of a comprehensive intellectual movement which never can be accomplished without its help; and by which alone, she can ever hope to consolidate and dignify her institutions. We trust the day is not far distant when the unanimous demand of the enlightened of both countries will achieve a consummation so devoutly to be wished for. ART. II. Introduction à la Science de l'Histoire, ou Science du Developpement de l'Humanité. Par P. J. B. BUCHEZ. Second Edition. 2 vols. Paris. 1843. Cours d'Etudes Historiques. Par P. C. F. DAUNOU. 3 vols. Paris. 1842. THE endeavour to reduce the facts of history to a science is in England pretty generally regarded as chimerical; while in Germany and France there is scarcely a doubt of its possibility: the only difference there being as to how it is to be accomplished. Although we cannot altogether share the continental enthusiasm, neither can we regard the English scepticism as philosophic. The science of history seems to us more enlarged, complicated, and difficult than our neighbours generally believe; and more definite, positive, and possible, than our own countrymen generally admit. To the latter we may put a few brief questions. You doubt whether it be possible to create a science of history; and on what grounds do you doubt this? Its difficulty? That is no reason. You are bound to show that there is something inherent in the very nature of the subject which defies scientific appreciation. The difficulty of a science of history is a reason why it should be slow in being formed, not why it should not be formed at all. The impossibility of a science of Ontology lies not in its difficulty, but in the fact of the subject itself being beyond the means and limits of human appreciation. Does the subject of History lie beyond these limits? Clearly not. History is the record of human actions, and the evolution of humanity. These actions, these transformations were produced in conformity with certain laws: these laws are appreciable by human intelligence; and what is science but the co-ordination of various laws? We ask again upon what is scepticism on this matter founded? Surely no thinking man in this nineteenth century can believe that the events of history were fortuitous. The apple does not fall by chance; by chance no single phenomenon, no single act can be produced. Chance is but a word to express our ignorance; and it is less and less employed as we become more and more instructed. Chance is an unascertained law. If the smallest event is the consequence of some determinating cause, it requires no great logical force to see that great events must also have their causes. To detect these causes is difficult; but we have not heard that any of the sciences were formed with ease; and we have yet to learn on what grounds the detection of the causes of historical events is impossible. Let us be understood. We by no means aver with many French authors that the great evolutions of humanity are to be readily appreciated. Far from it. Yet once for all we contend that difficulty is no ground of scepticism. History must be a science before it becomes an art; it must be understood before it can be narrated. This is a truism; yet, like many truisms, overlooked by those who contend that the historian should be a mere narrator. Granted, he should be a narrator; but how can he truly narrate that which he does not understand? and how is he to understand the past, which differs so minutely from the present? Not by reading chronicles; not by reading former historians; this is only a quarter of his task. He must address himself to the philosopher, and from him receive solutions of the various problems presented by difference of race, state of ideas at the time, condition of humanity, connexion of the period with its predecessor and successor, with many other circumstances. All these problems belong to the science of history; and all of them are at present without complete solutions. To narrate without having solved them is to draw up a more or less instructive catalogue, fully justifying D'Alembert's idea of history being a conventional necessity, and one of the ordinary resources of conversation.'* The question which next presents itself is: how are the causes, the laws of history to be discovered? We answer: there is but one method by which science is possible: observation, classification, and induction. This Baconian method as it is called, is as necessary in history as in chemistry, and will lead to similar certitude. There have been various attempts to construct sciences, but this one alone has been found successful. It is one demanding great patience and great fortitude of mind; but its rewards are sure and lasting. Let historical students courageously accept it, and they may win immortal honour; without it they can win but transitory praise. It may not be at all clear at present how the laws of human evolution are to be discovered; but only conceive the labours of our predecessors in the physical sciences to have been fruitless, and then try to imagine how the laws of chemistry could have been discovered, and then imagine the difficulty of their discovery! To hope greatly, to believe slowly, and to labour patiently, are the qualities of the philosophic mind. The two works placed at the commencement of this paper may be regarded as the types of two opposing schools. M. Buchez is one of those to whom we alluded as believing the philosophy of history to be a very easy matter. We should call his book the metaphysics of history. M. Daunou on the other hand, believes 6 |