New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-06-25
DAWN OF A NEW LITERATURE.

is no part Of the laborious task we incur which
Yields us more pleasure. We delight to chron-
icIe the advances of man, to record the triumphs
Of his genius in the invention of mechanical
facilities which, by abridging his labor, multiply
and diffuse his comforts, or to pay passing
debt of gratitude to the noble spirits who, by
their science and art, lift the common con-
scion .ness of our race to higher dignity and
power and grace.
What must be our emotions then when il falls
10 our lot to announce the coming of an entire
by new and original literature If we are made
glad by the application of some new natural
agent to human use; if we take pride in the
success of some great experiment in commerce
or navigation; if we hail the appearance of a
gifted author or artst-how much more should
we glory in the development OF new litera-
ture, which is the same thing as the develop
ment of a new order of the human mind
1t has been the almost exclusive privilege OF
ga few favored and golden ages of the world
TO witness the out-growth of novel and pure
form of beauty, or TO conceive aud express the
wonderful facts of an existence in bewitching
and deathless shapes The age of Pericles in
Greece, the age Of Augustus in Rome, the age of
Leo the Xth under Christianity, and the ages of
Elizabeth and Louis XIV in England and
France, with the beginning of the Eighteenth
Century in Germany were reserved by benig-
nant Providence, for the displays of such gorl-
Gus phenomena. Those ages are accordingly
The bright, the llustrious ages in the history of
the world, TO which all cultivated minds repair
to renew their strength and to battle themselves,
as it were, in the very beams of the sun.
Such an age is about to dawn upon the in
tellectual twilight Of the United States. Little,
perhaps, does the reader suspect its approach;
little does he dream of the quarter in which the
dayspring is to appear; little does he think OF
the poor and despised race which is to furnish
both material and inspiration. Let us there
fore put him out of his suspense, and once
declare that this new era is to be inaugur-
ated By our brethren of the South and that the
new theme will be the happy, the peculiar, the
beautiful and the sublime relations between the
white and the negro man. In other words,
Slavery, in the now form which it assumes in
our "theocratic Republic" is about to initiate,
among other blessings, new forms of art, in
which "the wants, the feelings, the capacities
"and the interests of the negro will prove
what the republican aspirations of Greece were
to Grecian genius, or the chiyalric Christianity
of the middle ages to Italian and German Art.
We learn all this from The Charleston Courier,
which says as much in a long and elaborate re-
view of new Southern poem called the " Hire
cling and Slave" under the head of AN APP
"poal of the Southern Muse" Hitherto, argues
that print, Southern genius has been content to
take it's literature and art too entirely at second
hand, aud has failed to put forth its best powers.
1t has Of course kept pace with other repre-
sentatiyes of the Anglo-American mind, but it
las not taken its oftiest flights nor touched
upen its native and indigenous topics. "By the
fatality of generous confidence and reliant In
difference which attends or has attended the
"Southern character, the great and distinguish
ling institution, and the peculiar fact of South
"ern life and society, have been neglected in
"the selection of topics for the genial and i'm
"pulsye manifestations of Art"
This Indifference however is now to be RENE
died. Southern genius is going to wake up;
the peculiar institution is going to be celebrated;
the poets are putting on their singing robes, and
general Precipitation and invocation of the nine
Muses. is to begin. The gifted, the generous
the inspired and the immortal souls of the South
will rescue Literature frsm 'the lyrical impulses
"and fanatical inspiration of a WHITTIER"
from the "sophomoric syllogisns of SUMNER"
from the deliberate and insinuatipg sophistries
"of SEWARD" and from "the rabid vaporings
"of a GREELEY" and tune its hallelujahs and
seven fold choruses to the advocacy and defense
of the beautiful social life which is eDgendered
by the negro and his noble hearted protector.
Says The Courier:
1--WE have submitted indeed too long, and it is cheer
ing find in many forms the indications and promises
NJ a more manly sefassertion of Southern Genius.
The time us gone by when it deemed bold enough
to say that Slavery is evil, but.we cannot help
soufselves;" the time has also gone by, we trust,
wherein we could be satisfied and even exalted by vol
uutoer apologies ard half arted ceieIses rom lnose
who, however cordially disposed, from necessity
straI gers 10 peculiar position and lis mchoate de5-
tiuv The inLeriiors Of the Bible and Of Magma Char-
TO- al Of the glorious Constitution formed IN lIo9 Dy
the representative sages and patriots OF thirteen COLO
ues az white men can afford to suffer some obl0quy
end Misrepresentation, and can pardon some things 10
the blinded zeal Of snatoisIn that from pamptred IN
duce &c can only be kept alive by the stimulus oil I'M
ac ec grievances and of distant evils. 1hey cannot
however shirk the h trusts of their ancestry or po-
sitiop OF basly abandon The responsibilities of race
and destiny that have devoyed on them In the order
a Providence ar revealed In history. Compared As
10 emeun Of property and pecunlury interest Directly
nvelveO, few of tie great and csrdinai reVOiutos
that en- oble the ong line Of Anglo Saxon progress can
he ef.red to the issue that may be forced upon those
WHO are CHARGED at once with the asaer on OF their
own rece and y guardianship Of inferior and de-
PENDENT race. We cannot however limit The view to