of the book. Ormond (1799) is a less gloomy tale of terror, most notable, perhaps, for its effective portrayal of the heroine. Arthur Mervyn (1799-1800), a rather carelessly constructed story, contains a vivid description of the yellowfever plague in Philadelphia. Edgar Huntley (1799), which is in some respects his best work, is a study of a somnambulist who commits murder in his sleep. There are colorful pictures of frontier life in Pennsylvania, an exciting encounter with a panther, and a description of an Indian massacre. In this tale Brown anticipated Cooper by many years in recognizing the value of Indian material for fiction.

Brown's novels are the hasty composition of a facile journalist who wielded so ready a pen that he produced Wieland in a month. His style is that of a penny thriller, with such a weakness for big effects that the intensity of his climaxes merely emphasizes the flatness of the intervening narrative. Having never known a half-hour of sound health throughout his life, he was naturally gloomy and morbid, and reflected that state of mind in his pages. Yet in spite of these shortcomings, Brown possessed originality and imagination, with curious anticipations of such excellent story-tellers as Poe and Hawthorne. His fame reached across the Atlantic, where he was read and praised by Godwin, Shelley, and Scott. No one can successfully dispute his title as our first professional man of letters and the founder of the American novel.

CHAPTER III

THE AWAKENING OF NEW YORK

Early Days of the Republic-Literary New York-Washington Irving— A Merry Historian-Fame in England-The Glamour of Spain-Two Poet Friends James Fenimore Cooper A Literary Pioneer-William Cullen Bryant-A Melancholy Masterpiece-A Moralist in Verse.

1. Early Days of the Republic.-When Washington, in his "Farewell Address," expressed the hope that his counsel might now and then serve to moderate the fury of party spirit or warn against the mischief of foreign intrigue, he spoke from bitter experience. The years during which he and his immediate successors presided over the destinies of the young republic were a period of uncertainty in national affairs; grave doubts were voiced by statesmen in Europe and America alike as to the success of the most important experiment in modern democracy. The larger States continued to be jealous and suspicious of each other; many of their citizens felt that too much had been sacrificed in renouncing certain sovereign rights under the Constitution. Everywhere men harangued and wrote against the extension of federal power. Fears were expressed that the national government would set up an autocracy far more dangerous than the overthrown authority of England. Abroad little respect was shown to the new republic. Its career might have been still more hazardous if the rapid spread of the French Revolution had not so completely engaged the attention of Great Britain. That great social upheaval plunged

both countries into the titanic Napoleonic struggle that lasted almost a generation, until the conclusive decision on the field of Waterloo.

During that generation New England suffered an economic and political decline. Many of her best people migrated to western New York and Pennsylvania, or were drawn still farther to the fertile lands of Ohio and Indiana. Thither they carried their fine social traditions and their love for education. Like their own ancestors, they became pioneers in a new country. By building prosperous towns and by establishing schools and colleges, they contributed in large measure to the westward march of American civilization. The more adventurous spirits made their way by pack-horse or canoe to the Mississippi valley. A nobler vision of the national glory to be came in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase, a foresighted transaction whereby for the sum of $15,000,000 President Jefferson more than doubled the area of our country. An exploring party under the intrepid leaders Lewis and Clark traversed over 8,000 miles of the new country to the mouth of the Columbia River. Somewhat later Zebulon Pike located the headwaters of the Mississippi, and on another expedition led his followers into the region of the Rocky Mountains, to the majestic peak that was named in his honor.

2. Literary New York.-Meanwhile New York City, with its ample harbor and its strategic position with relation to westward trade, was growing rapidly in population and wealth. The descendants of the thrifty Dutch settlers were accumulating large fortunes in commercial activities and were quick to grasp the significance of Robert Fulton's ex

periments with his steamboat, the Clermont, on the Hudson. Within a decade thereafter the State of New York was digging the Erie Canal. Up to that time, however, there had been little progress in the development of art, literature, and culture. The establishment of important newspapers and of successful publishing houses helped to bring about a literary prestige that centred in Washington Irving and his associates of the Knickerbocker school. The writers of that group were intensely loyal in spirit, conscious of the critical sneers and taunts that came from British visitors who, after a brief visit, frequently wrote books in which they commented, not without malice, on American institutions and the general lack of culture and gentility in the New World. Such was the state of American letters when our first great writer came upon the scene.

Washington Irving (1783-1859)

3. The Laureate of New York.-Just before the British troops evacuated New York City in 1783 Washington Irving was born, and was named in honor of the great military hero of the hour. Some years later, when Irving was still a youngster in the care of his Scotch nurse, she saw General Washington enter a shop. "Please, your Honor," she said, following him in, "here's a bairn that's named for you.' Washington smiled as he laid his hand on the child's head and gave him a blessing.

Irving was a delicate youth and did not follow his older brothers to college. He took long rambles along the Hudson, and became familiar with the old Dutch legends that

still lingered about that region. Although his father disapproved of the theatre, Irving occasionally managed to steal away for a performance, and made several boyish attempts at playwriting. During a trip to southern Europe in quest of health he was fortunate enough to see Nelson's fleet on its way to Trafalgar. On his return to America he entered the fashionable life of New York City, then a flourishing town of 80,000 inhabitants, living between the Battery and Wall Street. About this time he collaborated with his brother William and with James Kirk Paulding in publishing Salmagundi (1807), a series of occasional papers designed "to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age." These clever though superficial satires discussed in the manner of Addison and Goldsmith various phases of New York social life that Irving and his associates knew so well.

4. A Merry Historian.-In 1809 appeared A History of New York by Diedrich Knickerbocker, presumably a serious piece of historical writing, dedicated with due formality to the New York Historical Society. As a matter of fact, it was a rollicking burlesque on a theme that lent itself readily to such treatment, and Irving was the author. Readers at home and abroad were soon roaring with laughter over the amusing descriptions of the remarkable Dutch worthies. There was that illustrious old gentleman Wouter Van Twiller:

He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous dimensions, that dame Nature, with all her sex's ingenuity, would have been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; where