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Page 4
Mr. Brown's reputation rests upon six romances: "Wieland," "Ormond,"
"Arthur Mervyn," "Edgar Huntly," "Clara Howard," and "Jane Talbot." The
first five were published in the interval between the spring of 1798 and
the summer of 1801, in which he completed his thirtieth year. "Jane
Talbot" appeared somewhat later. In scenery and character, these
romances are entirely unreal. There is in them an affectation of
psychological purpose which is not very well sustained, and a somewhat
clumsy introduction of supernatural machinery. Yet they have a power of
engaging the attention in the rapid succession of startling and uncanny
incidents and in adventures in which the horrible is sometimes
dangerously near the ludicrous. Brown had not a particle of humor. Of
literary art there is little, of invention considerable; and while the
style is to a certain extent unformed and immature, it is neither feeble
nor obscure, and admirably serves the author's purpose of creating what
the children call a "crawly" impression. There is undeniable power in
many of his scenes, notably in the descriptions of the yellow fever in
Philadelphia, found in the romance of "Arthur Mervyn." There is,
however, over all of them a false and pallid light; his characters are
seen in a spectral atmosphere. If a romance is to be judged not by
literary rules, but by its power of making an impression upon the mind,
such power as a ghastly story has, told by the chimney-corner on a
tempestuous night, then Mr. Brown's romances cannot be dismissed without
a certain recognition. But they never represented anything
distinctively American, and their influence upon American literature is
scarcely discernible.
Subsequently Mr. Brown became interested in political subjects, and
wrote upon them with vigor and sagacity. He was the editor of two
short-lived literary periodicals which were nevertheless useful in their
day: "The Monthly Magazine and American Review," begun in New York in
the spring of 1798, and ending in the autumn of 1800; and "The Literary
Magazine and American Register," which was established in Philadelphia
in 1803. It was for this periodical that Mr. Brown, who visited Irving
in that year, sought in vain to enlist the service of the latter, who,
then a youth of nineteen, had a little reputation as the author of some
humorous essays in the "Morning Chronicle" newspaper.
Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim of a lingering consumption, in
1810, at the age of thirty-nine. In pausing for a moment upon his
incomplete and promising career, we should not forget to recall the
strong impression he made upon his contemporaries as a man of genius,
the testimony to the charm of his conversation and the goodness of his
heart, nor the pioneer service he rendered to letters before the
provincial fetters were at all loosened.
The advent of Cooper, Bryant, and Halleck, was some twenty years after
the recognition of Irving, but thereafter the stars thicken in our
literary sky, and when in 1832 Irving returned from his long sojourn in
Europe, he found an immense advance in fiction, poetry, and historical
composition. American literature was not only born,--it was able to go
alone. We are not likely to overestimate the stimulus to this movement
given by Irving's example, and by his success abroad. His leadership is
recognized in the respectful attitude towards him of all his
contemporaries in America. And the cordiality with which he gave help
whenever it was asked, and his eagerness to acknowledge merit in others,
secured him the affection of all the literary class, which is popularly
supposed to have a rare appreciation of the defects of fellow craftsmen.
The period from 1830 to 1860 was that of our greatest purely literary
achievement, and, indeed, most of the greater names of to-day were
familiar before 1850. Conspicuous exceptions are Motley and Parkman and
a few belles-lettres writers, whose novels and stories mark a distinct
literary transition since the War of the Rebellion. In the period from
1845 to 1860, there was a singular development of sentimentalism; it had
been growing before, it did not altogether disappear at the time named,
and it was so conspicuous that this may properly be called the
sentimental era in our literature. The causes of it, and its relation to
our changing national character, are worthy the study of the historian.
In politics, the discussion of constitutional questions, of tariffs and
finance, had given way to moral agitations. Every political movement was
determined by its relation to slavery. Eccentricities of all sorts were
developed. It was the era of "transcendentalism" in New England, of
"come-outers" there and elsewhere, of communistic experiments, of reform
notions about marriage, about woman's dress, about diet; through the
open door of abolitionism women appeared upon its platform, demanding a
various emancipation; the agitation for total abstinence from
intoxicating drinks got under full headway, urged on moral rather than
on the statistical and scientific grounds of to-day; reformed drunkards
went about from town to town depicting to applauding audiences the
horrors of delirium tremens,--one of these peripatetics led about with
him a goat, perhaps as a scapegoat and sin-offering; tobacco was as
odious as rum; and I remember that George Thompson, the eloquent apostle
of emancipation, during his tour in this country, when on one occasion
he was the cynosure of a protracted antislavery meeting at Peterboro,
the home of Gerrit Smith, deeply offended some of his co-workers, and
lost the admiration of many of his admirers, the maiden devotees of
green tea, by his use of snuff. To "lift up the voice" and wear longhair
were signs of devotion to a purpose.
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