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have not only become our rivals , but our equals an literary composition , and in all the developments , of science , in winch vigour Of mind and careful training of the intellect are the great and essential qualifications , if we would form a just estimate of Anglo-American literature . " We have never seen a work on the national literature of a people more carefully compiled than the present , and the bibliographical prolegomena deserve attentive perusal by ail who would study . either the political or the literary history of the oreat republic of the west . These , prolegomena fiirnisli lists of all bibliographical books relating to
America , and of all bibliographical books printed In America , including periodicals , catalogues , handbooks * and works devoted to special branches of literature , accompanied by analytical and literary notes , abounding in curious and important information- Of the great work of Beristain de Souza , the Bibliotlieca Ilispanio-Americana Septentrional , printed at Mexico , in 1816-19 , of which we believe not more than a dozen copies are known to exist , and which in America is valued at an almost fabulous •¦ price , the title pages and contents of all three volumes are set forth with minute accuracy , and a specimen of the author ' s style given . There
is no copy of the work in the British Museum , and of the only two that we know of in this country , one lias been kindly placed in our hands for a few days , ' which enables us to state that without a constant reference to the . pages of " Beristain . " satisfactory history of New Spain can ever make its appearance ; for the many revolutions which have succeeded one another so rapidly in that unhappy cotmtry have caused the destruction of numerous manuscripts and documents , which are only to be traced through the pages of this indefatigable compiler , whose work consists of 3 , 687 biographical and bibliographical notices , the latter particularly valuable to the futiire historian .
We started by saying that the literature of a colony may properly be said to belong to that of the parent state . A portion of the bibliographical introduction to Mr . Triibner ' s yoliiine is occupied by an elaborate , and valuable essay as a contribution towards a history of American literature , by Mr- Benjamin Mpi'an , Assistant-Secretary to the American Legation , with whose views oh the whole we coincide ; for though he divides American literature into two colonial and two national periods , he admits that as an independent literature it only takes its . rise about the period of the revolution . The first of the former he calls " the first
colonial period , " dating from 1639 to 1700 . At first : the Pilgrim Fathers and their immediate successors , from 1620 to J 639 , were satisfied to circulate their sermons , prayers , moral essays , and polemical writings in manuscript , or to send them over to the mother country to be printed ; and it was not till 1638 that Mi * . Glover , a Nonconformist minister , ordered a small printing press and types from England . Its earliest production appeared in 1639 , entitled " The Freeman ' Oath , " printed by Stephen Daye , a native of London , in January of that year . This American Caxton , however , was not as clever as his old and honoured namesake , tlio first printer of music in England , who lived in the reign of Queen Elizabeth , and whose
motto was , V Arise for it is Daye . " Stephen Dayb seems to have ignored that motto , and waa not only a . bad hand at case , but a slow one to boot 5 for the "Bay Psalm Book , " tlio first book ever printed in America , did hot appear ' fill a year later , Other publications of a religious nature followed , amongst which a translation of the Bible into the language of the aborigines is every way the most important . This translation was made by " the reverend' and pious John Eliot , the indofatigable and faithful minister of llipon , " as he is called y Lonsdon , and was printed at Cambridge , in Massaohusets , in 1661-3 , and reprinted in 1680-5 . Both editions are of considerable rarity , and the latter led to the establishment of "twenty-four Red Indian churohos in Boston , over which twenty-four Rod Indian ministers" presided , to whom the celebrated John Lcnsdon dedicated his Hebrew and English Psalters , in 1688 .
Mi . Moron commences " tlio second colonial period" with the year 1700 , and carries it down to the declaration of independence in X 770 . The philosophical writings of Jonathan Edwards , CpUWs History' of the Five ( Indian ) Nations , i ' rinoo ' 8 History of New England , Church ' s Ilia-, toryof King Philip ' s War , and Rajnh ' H History ( Of England during the reigns , of William nr * d ,
Mary and Queen Anne , are the chief productions by the English colonists of the period : ; for Benjamin Franklin properly belongs to that which follows . " The first American , or national , period , " boasts of Jefferson ' s Rights of British America , as the transition literary structure of the . time ; of the writings of . Dwight , Bellamy , Hopkins , and Bishop Wtiite ; of Franklin and Washington , and one of the first professional writers , who followed literature as an exclusive calling , was Charles Brockdeh Brown , the father of the American
novel , who , we believe , still lives in the land which his writings have so long adorned , and which are enumerated at page 425 of Mr . Trubner ' s volume . His first book dates back to some : sixty-five years ago * so that he may fairly be looked upon as the oldest of American living authors . The force of example worked wonders , and gradually , up to the year 1820 , authors by profession increased in number and activity ; but it is from that year that , properly speaking , the literature of the United States became a nationality .
Mr . Moran ' s " second American period " is , of course , the most interesting ^ , and we avail ourselves of the following curious statistics to call attention to the necessity of more strenuous exertions on the part of authors on both sides of the Atlantic to bring about the establishment of an international copyright : — "In the infancy of American publishing , 500 copies were a good edition . Prom 1827 to 1837 , the ordinary sale of a successful book was from 1 , 000 to to 1 , 500 copies , whereas now l , 5 po of any book can be disposed of , and it is not uncommon to print 10 , 000 copies . The sale of Washington Irving ' s works is by hundreds of thousands . Small editions are , in fact , the exception , and immense editions of good English works are quite common . ' There have
been sold in the United States , in five years , 80 , volumes of the octavo edition of the " Modern British Essayists ; " 60 , 000 volumes of Macaulay ' s " Miscellanies , " in three volumes ; 100 , 000 copies of Grace Aguillar ' s works , in two years ; more than 50 , 000 copies of Murray ' s " Encyclopaedia of Geography ; " 10 , 000 copies , of M'Culloch ' s " Commercial Dictionary ; " and 10 , 000 copies of Alexander Smith ' s Poems , in a few months ; The American sale of Thackeray ' s works is quadruple that of England ; Dickens ' s have sold by millions of volumes . " Bleak House " alone sold to the amount of 250 , 000 copies in complete volumes , magazines , and newspapers . A recent work of Buiwer ' s reached about two-thirds of that number ; and more than 100 , 000 conies of " Jane Eyre " have been disposed of . "
We have no means of calculating the sale of " Uncle Tom ' s Cabin , " " The AVide , Wide World , " " Quccchey , " and other books of this class , in England . All we know is , that everybody read those we have named , and that the atithors on the other side of the Atlantic were not benefited a single cent , by such sale , any more than the English authors ,, mentioned in the paragraph we have quoted , received one farthing for permission to reprint their works in America . Without an international law of copyri g , the great intellects of both hemispheres are plundered with impunity ; yet surely , if for no longer duration , during a man ' s lifetime he should , at least , be allowed to derive some beneficial result frpm the productions of his brain , whether merely reprinted or translated in a foreign country .
This essay of Mr . Moran ' s is followed by an account of " the Public Libraries of the United States , " by Mr . Edwards , formerly employed in the British Museum , and who is now established in business as a bookseller at Manchester . It is sufficiently interesting , no dou b t , to the American reader , and though it contains accounts of spine libraries which are no longer in existence , it is valuable as a record of local and national exertions on the part of the United States to collect all that can conduce to the spread of knowledge , whenever an opportunity presents itself for adding to the literary resources of the country , by tlio dispersion of libraries and collections of books in the various countries of the eastern hc ' inisphuro .
The rise and progress of the Astpr Free Library , arising out of the bequest of a successful Gorman immigrant merchant , will be read with much interest 5 but our limits will not allow us to do jnoro than refer the reader to it . It occupies four pages , frpm 182 to 125 of the introductory portion ; yet , whilst talking of the Astor Library wo inay-take tlio opportunity of stating that a catalogue of it is now in the course of publication , un < uor the oaro of Mr , Cogswell , the librarian , of which two volumes
have appeared ; but which , b y the fatality which , seems to attend the compilation of all catalogues of national libraries , does , certainly not deserve much commendation for the care bestowed upon its accuracy . The fact is , that in all vast catalogues it is necessary to employ a staff of cataloguers ; It is , therefore , the more necessary that the' final supervision should be intrusted to competent hands , if we would not verify the proverb of " too many cooks . "
Mr . Trubtier deserves all praise for having produced a work every way . satisfactory : No one who takes an interest in the subject of which it treats can dispense with it ; and we have no doubt that booksellers in this country will learn to consider it necessary to them as a shop manual , and only second in importance for the purposes of their trade to the London Catalogue itself . That a foreigner and a London . bookseller should have accomplished what Americans themselves have failed to do , is most creditable to the compiler . The volume contains 149 pages of introductory
matter , containing by far the best record of American literary history yet published ; and 521 pages of classed lists of books , to which an alphabetical index of 33 pages is added . This alphabetical index alone may claim to be one of the most valuable aids for enabling the student of literary history to form a just and perfect estimate of the great and rising importance of Anglo-American literature , the youngest and most untrammelled of all which illustrate the gradual , development of the human mind .
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THE NEW QUARTERLY . Bentley" s Quarterly Hevieiv . —No . I . March , IS 59 . It . Bentley , London . A new Quarterly Review , in ^ these days of weekly and daily criticism , when the world seems to have taken irrevocably to condensation , brevity , and the faith as it is in " fresh-and-fresh" in all that constitutes its moral and material fare , is a venturous and almost startling enterprise . Already we have no less than half-a-do 2 eii of these thirtysix pound mortars , fashioned on the old approved model , and worked by veteran hands ; and just as we were beginning to be pei-suaded that the whole ¦
science of literary warfare waschanged , and that every tiling in future was to be effected by the multiplication of lighter and handier weapons , — lo , there appears to the confusionof all tirailleurs , sharp-shooters , and adepts in rifle practice , an Armstrong gun of pretensions , threatening to eclipse all that has been , that is , or that shall be . Mr . Bentley is the founder of this fiery and formidable-looking implement of destruction to unreal reputations in the field of art and learning . be does hot ostensibl
Who its inventor may y appear , though babbling rumour whispers audibly an historic name , which just now happens to be owned by one of our most promising and ambitious youths of quality . It is no part of our . function , indeed , to look behind the mask of anonyme , nor shall we ever be found forgetful of the courtesies and amenities of literary life . But when a Jncw journal undertakes to teach the world a more '' excellent way of thinking in matters oi criticism than any it knew before , it is not unreasonable that people should ask , as the folks do
in a Scot ' s kirk , when an unexpected stranger ascends the pulpit , " Who expatiates to-day ?" as well as the other and wore important question , " What doea it go for ? " Judging from the general tone and tenonr of the articles in the first number , wo are led to the belief that a certain fixed and definite purpose hiw been sot "before them , by the principal contributor * . Though nowhere avowed in' the . formal ' manner oi a confession of political and religious fliith , the tendency of the more serious dissertations is unambiguous , ami their meaning anything but oHoLcric . The opening paper is upon the subject of 1 nrlmmentary Reform , written before the world know the intentions of Lord Doi-I' / h Cabinet , and , as it now turns out , before they knew thenwQlvoH what they were actually to propopo . J h& apprehensions of the writer have been eunouuly tnlsUioa uy the bill eventually produced .
Parliament hurt neither been asked to amputate one of its honourable limbs , nor even the majority of ita withered toes 5 and fiiv Drum a swamping measure of ouflVago extension , we have had nothing more radical oU ' ered than a proposal to enfranchise ton pound occupiers in counties , and twenty pound lodgers in towns . The inability to prophesy , how-
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No / 471 , Aprii , 2 , 1859 . 1 THE LEADER 429
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 2, 1859, page 429, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2288/page/13/
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