Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1865-03-09
and American Litcrn,ure.

We have already alluded TO the Com
nercial lecture" delivered by Prof KEEL
logg OF Middlebury College, at the Town
Hall last Tuesday evening. We were
pleased and pronted by the lecture, and
wish we could hear more Of the same
sort. At the same time we must beg
leave to dissent from some of the views
which were presented. In contrasting
the two hteratures he compared the
English TO q stately and venerable elm,
whose concentrc rings or layers OF
growth represented the different periods
Of literature from the early Saxon down
10 the present time, and embraced a
length Of time equal to one-half the
Christian era.
g American literature was compared to
Jonahs gourd which came in night
and persisted in a night We have no
particular objection to the last part of
the comparison, inasmuch as it is not
necessary or desirable to make any com
parison go on all tours" and we are
at liberty to allow as few of the pedal
81 extremities to touch the ground as we
please. We believe however that the
sphemeral duration of the gourd is by
no means q fitting emblem of American
literature, some of the gems" of which
will, in all probability, be read and ad
mired as long as the language shall be
read and spoken.
The lecturer expressed the opinion
that our literature had no distinctive
and well settled character of its own.
Our productions are not American.
"Hiawatha, said he ais the first Amer
lean production we have had, and that
is not American, but Indian"
We suppose, of course, that by the
term American" the lecturer means
that the subject, the hero or heroine,
and the scenery should be such as be
longs to this county. Now we should
like to ask him if this affords any con-
trast" to English productions. How
many of the British Poets can he put
his finger on, that have laid the scene of
their best works in England Mrs.
Hemans, the sweetest and the greatest
female poet that ever wrete in the Eng
lish language, lays the scene of her
"Forest Sanctuary" Siege of Valen-
ola, " " The Vespers of Palermo" notin
England, certainly but in Spain, Italy,
and South America. OF her shorter
pieces, nothing is more beautiful than
g The grave of Koerner" "The South
ern Cross" "The Messenger Bird" and
"The Landing of thu Pilgrims" none of
which are english" in the sense now
under consideration Byron's Childe
Harold, Moore's- Lalla "Rookh, Gold
smiths Traveller, Dryden's Eneid,
Popes Iliad, which were the master
pieces Of the respective authors, were
all foreign in scenery and character.
In large proportion OF the plays of
shakespeare the scenery is laid in a for
eign land; and as for the great, heroic |
poem of the language, Paradise Lost, no
one knows better than the Professor,
that the characters, scenery, style, fig
1res, illusions, we had almost said the
language, are anything and everything
but English. So true is this that it is
simply impossible for the mere English
reader to appreciate this work.
Without pursuing this train of thought
further, we believe that much greater
proportion of all the standard literature,
both prose and poetry Of this country
will be found to be truly american"
than that of Great Britain is English
But the lecturer complains that we
lack the plain Saxton simplicity Of style
which is found in English authors Our
, style is windy, bombastic and full of
interminable words, words, words. To
illustrate this point he gave US capital
rendering Of short stump speech. He
says we abound in circumlocutious; we
are not satisfied with simple statements,
we say person " has reached the ter
mination of his earthly career" instead
of :" he is dead" True, every word
but we should like to know if anybody
in this country can multiply words
without knowledge" and alternate a
thought so as to spread over a larger
surface than Charles Dickens Esq. He
occupies more space in making known
the fact that "Old Marley is dead" for
instance, than we ought to occupy in a
daily leader. .. ...
a-r As to circumlocutions, the first that
occurs to our recollection is the well
known passage in Thompson's Seasons
"Yonder comes the powerful king Of
day, rejoicing in the east, instead of
"The sun is rising" The fact is,
skillful and refined use of circumlocu-
tions and euphemisms constitutes one
of the beauties of any language and is
an essential part of the language.
%. None ever paid more attention tothe
rounding of their periods and to ele-
gance In their turns Of expression than
did the English orators, Pitt, Burke and
Sheridan, or the historians Hume, Ali