pounced upon these passages, and, quoting them out of their contexts, offered them as triumphant evidence that Americans conceded the weakness of their civilization. The Anti-Jacobin Review follows this plan, making much of a selection that laments the growth of infidelity and the influence of Godwin in America; and it further damns the book by some patronizing praise. The Eclectic Reviews also gives many quotations unfavorable to America, and is frankly hostile to the work. It condemns the management of the hoax as clumsy, complains of the bombast of the author, and considers that the favorable reception of the work in America "betrays a very juvenile state of mental cultivation in the readers of Virginia." The concluding paragraph contains an interesting exhibition of literary idiosyncracy, and shows how reviews of American writings were used to hit-more rarely to praise-British authors.

Various circumstances in the work, tend to shew how far they are behind the old country in what may be called the literary fashions. For instance, this writer talks of the person who called himself Yorick, and of his Tristram Shandy, in a way that seems to indicate they are in high vogue at Richmond in Virginia; while here, happily, the worthless man and his worthless books are nearly gone into oblivion.

70

The Quarterly Review" contains a forty-five page article that is nominally a review of Charles Jared Ingersoll's Inchiquin, the Jesuit's Letters, but which is really a compilation, from Cobbett and from various travellers, of the worst charges against American morals and manners, public and private. A partial explanation of the outrageous tone of the tirade might perhaps be found in the feelings aroused by the war.

With essays may be conveniently grouped books in which Americans recorded their impressions of European travel. One of the earliest of these is the anonymous "American

XLII: 386 (Aug., 1812).

N. S. I: 407 (1814).

X: 494 (Jan., 1814).

TO With its characteristic looseness in dealing with American titles the Quarterly spells it Inchiquen.

Wanderer through Various Parts of Europe, In a Series of Letters to a Lady. By a Virginian." The London Magazine" speaks of it as the account of a sentimental journey, and praises it as such, but complains that the author is not always delicate. The Monthly Review72 goes farther, speaking of "obscenity and prophaneness;" and quotes a passage which seems to justify the censure. In the absence of more definite information regarding the work one may conjecture that it was, like much American writing of the time, influenced by the less admirable characteristics of Sterne and Smollett.

The Letters on Silesia, by John Quincy Adams, though they must have been widely read, elicited rather colorless comment. The Edinburgh Review73 makes them a text for some general observations on American literature, which were quoted in Chapter IV, but has not much to say about their special merits, except that the author is deficient in keenness of observation and originality of thought. The Monthly Review, though adopting a different tone, repeats in substance the same objections. The Anti-Jacobin Review75 says, to much the same effect:

74

The production before us exhibits no great powers, either in describing external nature, or in delineating manners. It is not, however, deficient in amusement, and will suit the taste of those who are fond of what is called light summer reading.

Such an approach to unanimity in all these journals is unusual.

Col. Ninian Pinkney's Travels Through the South of France, which according to Leigh Hunt created a sensation in England, received but a moderate welcome from the Monthly Review and still more guarded praise from the Universal Magazine," which says "We have read Colonel

LII: 294 (June, 1783). "LXIX: 182 (Sept., 1783). TV: 180 (Oct., 1804).

74 Mo. Rev. Enigd., XLV: 350 (Dec., 1804).

T XIX: 263 (Nov., 1804).

Mo. Rev. Enigd., LXVI: 1 (Sept., 1811).

11 N. S. XII: 220 (Sept., 1809).

Pinkney's book without weariness." Neither of these articles could, however, be described as strongly unfavorable. The Anti-Jacobin Reviews grows enthusiastic.

It has never been our lot to meet with a more agreeable "companion in a post-chaise", or a more rational and entertaining fellowtraveller, than Colonel Pinckney [sic].

He is a sensible and amusing companion, from whose society we have received much pleasure. His style, as a writer, is generally good, though sometimes careless, and now and then disfigured by idiomatic expressions, which are grating to an English ear. This, however, is a fault easily remedied; and very little attention is necessary to render his manner as correct, as his matter is interesting. On the whole, we pronounce this to be the best written tour in France, and to convey the best information of the manners and character of the people that has appeared, since the publication of the late Mr. Redhead Yorke's letters from France.

It is evident, however, that this praise comes from a critic who loves France less, rather than Pinkney more. The extracts chosen for comment are all most unfavorable to France, and scandal and suggestive anecdotes which reflect on the virtue of French women are repeated with especial gusto.

The Quarterlyso disapproves of Colonel Pinkney as strongly as it disapproves of the French. It charges that the claims made on his title-page are false, both as to the duration of the journey and the nature of the courtesies that he received from the French government. It attacks him for his digressions and for the enumeration of trivial details, for his descriptions of salacious happenings, for his evident. enjoyment of a society in which such happenings are possible, and for lack of propriety in reporting incidents uncomplimentary to friends who showed him attentions.

It is in vain to search the volume before us for any information upon the various interesting questions which might have occurred to a more intelligent traveler.

TXLIV: 163 (1813).

7 The name of this writer seems to cause much trouble. The AntiJacobin and the Quarterly regularly spell it Pinckney; the Catalogue of the British Museum gives his first name as Nathan.

II: 181 (Aug. 1809).

In conclusion, the reviewer justifies the length of his article by saying:

We were, however, unwilling that such a publication should go forth with any opening for the Lieutenant-Colonel to advance a boast of the approbation of British critics. The facility with which he has arrogated to his travels the sanction of the French government, made us suspect, that our silence might be construed into approbation, and our lenity into applause.

FICTION

Relatively little fiction was written in America before 1815, and of this small amount a great part consisted of conventional and sentimental tales which British critics might well ignore. Royal Tyler's romantic narrative, The Algerine Captive, was reviewed at length in the Monthly Review,s1 which bestows considerable praise, but feels obliged to make disparaging comparisons with the work of English writers.

Of the style, it may be proper to observe that it is more easy than elegant, more expressive than correct, and abounds with transatlantic peculiarities. If the management of the story yield in comparison with the Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, the reader is nevertheless carried along by a train of probable and touching events; and if he discern few traces of the exquisite humour which pervades Gulliver's Travels, or of the delicate and refined irony which gives zest to the Persian Letters, he is yet pleased with natural and lively painting, distinctly figures each passing scene, and smiles or sighs as he contemplates the folly or wickedness of human kind.

The next year the Algerine Captive was reprinted serially in the Lady's Magazine, or Entertaining Companion.82 An editorial note explains that although the tale had been published in London a year earlier almost all the copies had been lost in a fire, and continues: "A series of highly finished engravings will be given, illustrative of the principal scenes and

1 Mo. Rev. Enlgd., XLII: 86 (Sept., 1803).

82 XXXV: first installment, p. 37 (Jan., 1804).

83 There are two interesting plates in the magazine which may very likely have been the frontispieces to the two volumes of the London edition referred to.

incidents. The narrative is almost entirely founded on facts; and it is the first genuine American production of the kind that has been published in this country."

The work of Charles Brockden Brown, the most important American novelist of his time, seems at first to have received no hearty welcome in England, though it was reprinted there as is evidenced by the fact that all the reviews mentioned below are based on London editions of his works. One historian of American literature has said, "There can be no doubt that English readers and reviewers showed more interest in Brown, for a century and a half after his death, [sic] than Americans have ever proclaimed.''84 This interest, however, did not begin until later, perhaps with the publication of a London edition of some of his works in 1822. Shelley's enthusiasm for Brown, as reported by Peacock, has been mentioned in Chapter II, but the early magazine reviews were almost all unfavorable. The Anti-Jacobin Review85 is characteristically severe in its treatment of Ormond:

From much disgusting and pernicious nonsense contained in the work before us, we extract the following palliation, or rather vindication, of the crime of suicide when compared with that of drunkenness. [Quotation]

Are these the deductions of a mind imbued with the powers of ratiocination? No! They are the effusions of a pragmatic enthusiast! a mad-headed metaphysician! Such, indeed, is the whole of the performance, excepting the space which is occupied by a dry and prolix detail of the progress of the yellow fever.

We shall only add that if a want of perspicuity, if a want of elegance in style, if a want of imagination, if a want of nature in the delineation of character, if a want of incident, if a want of plot and connection, and, finally, if a want of common sense, be excellencies in a novel, the author of Ormond, Wieland, Arthur Mervyn, &c, &c, has a fair claim to the laurel of pre-eminence in "the temple of Minerva."

Though the scene of the story, if nothing else, must have been an indication that the author was an American, this review makes no reference, directly or indirectly, to that fact.

"Marble. Heralds of American Literature, p. 316.

VI: 451 (Aug., 1800).