New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1857-08-06

men and literature, the English have it not Their
great Dr. johnson says, iu the preface to his die
tionary, that literature is the chief glory OF ma
ton. As mere abstract enuncation, that is true;
but applied to the indispensable entities Of social
position and poticO. social rauk, they affect the
man of letters, and to recognition Of the personal
majesty inherent in genius, there was never
grea lie uttered than that literature is the glory
of the English nation, 80 far the nation is repre-
scented by the Government. 1t is lie as broad as
her earth. eirdling possessions; as hoary as her
Norman Conquest. But, in opposition to prov
erbs we assert that the intensity Of belief is always
in the ratio of the philosophical transparency OF
lie, and the worlds worship of "pagod things of
saber sway" and of all manner Of creeping things
Of fetishism, proves it. England, in regard to her
national or political respect for letters and literary
men, az such, is the incarnation of snobbery.
Take her two most illustriOus pOets-SakesPeare
aud Burns, representatives of widely diverse epochs
and how do we find them treated Of Shake
speare, personally and geographically, we know
next to nothing. All that the industry, enthu-
siasm and wealth of antiquarian societies have
been able to evoke respecting him, amounts to just
this nothing. We do not know, except BY one Of
bis sonnets that be felt the pangs of social degra-
dalton; but that he was socially degraded, can be
affirmed by scientific induction. That his genius,
the most wonderful which ever radated, did not
secure him the right to cit at the same table, as
equal with the veriest hanger. on of the Court, is
just much matter of history, by induction, as if
We bad the concurrent testimony Of his colaborers
in literature, superadded to his own, under his
band and seal. All lterature-all art-all the
divinties in England, except those which belong to
the cross carrying Bench of Bishops-are despised,
so far as the Government represents the people
and claims to reward genius. The man of
genius there is the man of sorrows if he have genu
inc pride. The law which made Shakespeare
vagabond, because he was connected with
play. house, is hardly reformed. We know
nothing of Shakespeare because literature was de-
spised in England-rank, rank being "the thing"
Had Shakespeare been noble, We should have had
his biography; had he been successful fllibuster.
be would have been "exalted to the peerage."
But he dealt with the eternties, and of course the
tempOrsltie' royalty and nobility, appreciated him
not. He is myth so much that Miss Della Ba-
con has produced One-twO-solid volumes to prove
that Shakespeare was as Joseph Miller, who never
made joke nor had IN idea, though all the jocular
ideas Of bis time were attributed to him postum
mously, and that Bacon, Raleigh, and other high
priests of reason living at time when free divine
utterance was capital Ofense wrote as an exoteric
utterance of an esOteric faith plays" the plays Of
al oh ha
How extensively and deliberately dead, pulverzed,
triturated must be the persOnalism Of the great
man, the poet of poets, when such theory could
be even ventured upon as that he was mere link
boy, cal.boy, propertyman loafer, literary clothes
horse Literature the chief glory Of nation
Faugh
Now take Burns. OF all the later poets, Burns
goes most directly to the heart, and inteus6es CON-
mon sense. He was an inspired clOdpOle; he was
q bucOlic monster; he was caught-liOnized in
Edinburgh, and he has recorded his ecstasies in be-
ing placed face to face with wOmenof grace polish
stylt-of how their ineffsble Willingness enranced
bis eoul. But what did the Government do for this
chief glory of her literature Oh, Bethlehem
Oh, Nazareth Turned the sweetest music Scot
land ever sang into the current Of the whisky cask
and let Robert Burns breathe his last sigh through
an exciseman's buDghOle
When natien surrenders its right to think;
when it does not believe in the Individual Man, but
in the State as the fountain Of honor; when it has
not reached the power to discriminate between
the real and the false, between the he
editary swindle and the actual fair play
when it leaves Government to make legislators
out of particular families and breeds; then it is
nation Of HindoOs in fact, and recognizes castles.
OF course, the fighting caste-the fii!ibuster aud
land -robber-will then be the highest. The man
of letters, the man Of genius, the reformer, will
be little else than the funny, the scuion, the boot
black and boOt-ck Of the noble flibuster and rob-
Der. Sometimes a fbuster in power may have
certain generous emotiOns, certain throbs in CON-
mon with human dignity, and may life genius out of
the gutter. Such was it with Addison and some of
his sypcronares. But exceptions prove rules. The
history of England, as whole, proves the inherent
contempt which hereditary flbusters and land.
robbers have for letters and science, by the con-
tempt in which men of letters and science are held
They neither marry nor give in marriage with the
nobility. They are lower caste. In making this affir-
nation we are quite ready to measure arguments
with any Old England or New-England auukey who
holds the opposing doctrine. The proof is easy.
The English House Of Lords-the peerage the
hereditary legislature-is considered the highest
bonor due to great service. But the peerage has
never been bestowed on any kind Of service except
hllibusts ring and land robbery Authe prdes, all the
Of tie lords, are those Of the fu5us,