Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-07-08

Chicago writer in the Riverside Press of
that city laments the decline of American liter
airy taste and the decay of American literature.
Which of these is the cause and which the con-
sequence, or whether both are the effects of some
insidious vice in our society or institutions he
does not venture to assert, but he is evidently
Of the opinion that "the present educational
systems of society" are at the bottom of the
trouble; for the decline, he says, has been coin
cident with the disappearance of the "former
standards Of education" whatever they NAV
have been, or however they differed from those
now in vogue, and in another place he declares
that "leyeling principles and institutions have
done their work, and every thing which truly
deserves the name of bellies lettrss is being swept
Dsorbing interest of business,
of fact" But the opinions
rite are of the least possible
shows a ludicrOus ignor-
anue tuv susJe.. &c undertakes to treat, being
equally ill-informed concerning what he calls
the "Augustan age" of American literature and
present literary matters.
His ideas of the literature OF this country fifty
years ago, which seems TO be about the time
when, according TO his view, it had reached its
highest development, were apparently derived
from some Of the responses which American
writers used to think it their duty to make TO
the taunt in Blackwood, "Who reads an Ameri-
can book y Perhaps they were proud of our
literature as it then was, or perhaps they
only tried to seem so; at any rate they no doubt
convinced many of their countrymen at the
irna and 4hot. -,
of the Chicago Riverside that American litera-
ture of that day was something TO exult in and
not merely to be regarded with patience as. on
the whole, all that could have been expected
under the circumstances. Among the brilliant
writers of the past he mentions Irving, Paulding
Nerplanck and Cooper, and Philadelphia's
gifted noyelists, Broken and Brown" Irving
and Cooper, of course, have and will retain
high place not only in American
Dut IN English literature; of the others no
American, who has formed his opinion OF them
from an actual acquaintance with their works
would think that they had contributed materi
ally to our national literature. The Chicago
critic, we venture to say, had no such acouaint-
anee with them, and we are sure he has never
read word written by either Of those gifted
novelists, Broken and Brown" We sus
pect that his admiration for the writers of the
past has led him to magnify their numbers as
wen as their quality, and to make of one rather
dull novelist, fnl Of Alterations and limitations
two oil such merit as is implied in his epithet
gifted" We have heard of Charles Brockden
Brown, though never Of Broken" Probably
the Chicago critics knowledge of him is con
fined TO dim memory of hearing bis name
mentioned among American writers, but so long
ago that IL is imperfectly retained
The same critic finds that newspapers are
every day growing more vulgar and abusive:
that we have no literary reviews of high or.
der; that the magazines have no real literary
merit, with the exception Of the Atlantic, whose
'oDliquities" are fatal TO its circulation and in
huence, and the Round Table, Old and New and
Every Saturday, which are yet candidates for
recognition. lie is evidently ignorant that
Every Saturday has no connection with Ameri.
can literature, as IL is wholly made nm of
extracts IRON foreign periodicals, and that ,he
Round Table is not in existence bovin,
ended its short but brilliant career .orao
years ago. To the question, "Can better li,er
airy spirit be evoked among us7 he responds
Perhaps not Of that elevated tone which once
marked the halcyon days of the republic" the
halcyon days, of course, being those when
"Brocken and Brown" and Pauding fourisbed
when Joel Barlow's Columbiad was admired as
our great national epic and Brackenridee's heavy
drollery was our best specimen Of humorous
writing. Does it sadden us TO think that those
days can never be recalled2 Perhaps not So
much as II ought and yet it would be hard d
convince most Of us that in society or Literature
there was more elevated tone" Or better de-
velopmeut then than now.
In the matter Of newspapers, the man is nj
terry ignorant Of the past, OF utterly stupid. who