The Portland daily press., 1883-02-20
-rEIE PRESS.
English and American Appreoia.
ton of Washington Irving.
[Harper's Magazine for March.


The London Daily News recently said
something which recalls something Sydney
Smith said more than sixty years ago. The
News asserts that Washington Irving was
much more relished and admired in Eng
land than in his own country, and that lit
is only recently that American critics on the
lookout for literature have elevated him to
his proper and almost more than his proper
place. This docility to English guidance in
the case of their best or almost their best
prose writer may perhaps be followed by a
similar docility in the case of their best CT
almost their best poet, Poe, whom also Eng
land has preceded the United States in rec
ognizng." This comically patronizing air
is all the droller because the patron is a
British worthy who gravely calls Poe almost
the American poet. The tone reminds us
Of Sydney Smiths amusing passage on
America in 1918: Literature the Ameri-
cans have none-no native literature, we
mean. 1t is all imported. They had a
Franklin, indeed, and may afford to live
to live half a century on his fame. There is,
or was, a Mr.. Dwight, who wrote some pc.
ems, and his baptismal name was Timothy.
There is also small account of Virginia by
Jefferson, and an epic poem by Joel Barlow,
aud some pieces of pleasantly by Mr.. Irving
But why should the Americans write books,
when six weeks passage brings them, in
their own tongue, our sense, science. and
l,0
steamboats,, grist-mills, are their natural OBJ
jects for centuries to come. Then, when
they have got to the Pacific Ocean, epic po-
ems, plays, pleasures Of memory, and all the
elegant qualifications of an ancient people
who have tanned the wild earth and sat
down to amuse themselves. This is the nat
ural march of human AFFAIRS
Sydney Smith was certainly correct in as
suming that there was hardly an American
literature when he wrote, and his remarks
are very like passage of Fisher Ames's, a
few years earlier, in which he groans at the
literary paucity and want of promise in his
country. But the News is sadly at fault in
supposing that lrving's countrymen did not
recognize him and honor him. If there
were no evidence disproving this assertion,
the only reasonable presumption of its posi-
BILE truth would be the fact that the country
men of Irving were descendants of the peo-
pie who showed little contemporaneous APP
probation of Shakespeare. 1t is certainly
creditable to the literary England which
was busily idolizing Scott and Byron that it
recognized also the charming genius of r.
wing, and that Leslie, the painter, could
truly write OF him, 'Geotfrey Crayon is the
most fashionable fellow OF the day." Doubt
less national pride had a part IN the feeling;
for irving had the same IMAGINATIVE enthusi-
asm for TRADITIONAL and poetlc England that
Burke had Tor political Ehgiano. NO Eng
lish writer has touched "old England with
such airy grace as Irving, as indeed no ma
tive English man was likely to feel its spell
so deeply. 70 change word in MarvelPs
noble lines.
'sHe nothing common saw, or mean.
Upon that memorable scene"
England's debt to Irving is peculiar, because
only an American could have seen England as
he described it. The English regaId for him
is very becoming and very natural, although
it was due rather to his theme than to his
treatment or to his genius. 1t would have
shown extreme stolldity in any people to be
dull to the work of an artist who painted
their own most familiar scenes as no native
had painted them, and gave them grace
which the mass of those people had hardly
suspected or perceived.
But while the English appreciation of Try.
ing is very creditable to England. Englisb
conceit must not 90 SO far as 10 snpnose that
it was that appreciation which Commended
him to his own countrymen. the time
when Sydney Smith wrote the article from
which we have quoted there was apparently
an almost absolute literary sterilitv in tb;s
country. The professional critics of the
critical journals were. as Professor T,opns-
berry states in his admirable Life of cooner
in the series of American Men of T,etters
undoubtedly greatly affected bv Enolisb
opinion. But there was an American read
ing public independent of the few literary
periodicals, as was shown when Cooper,s
Spy was published, at the very end of 1871
the year in which Bryant's first volume of
poems and Dana's Idle Man appeared.
Cooper had published his Precaution,
book which Professor Lounsbery is the only
man who was ever known to have read.
He was an unknown author. But the Spy
was instantly successful. Some of the timid
journals awaited the English opinion.
Murray declined, UPON Gifford's advice. to
publish it. But publisher was found, and
England and Europe followed America in
their approval. Cooper always truly said
that it was to his countrymen alone that he
owed his first success, and his biographer
comedies that the success was determined
before the opinion of Europe was known.
Nearly three years before, in Nav, 1919.
the first number of Irving's Sketch Book
was published. 1t contained The Wife
and Rip Van Wrinkle. The success was
immediate, and most gratifying to the au.
thor, who was then thirty-six years old. In
September, 1919, he wrote: "The manner
in which the work has been received. and
the eulogiums that have been passed upon
it in the American papers and periodical
works have quite overwhelmed me. N
feel almost appalled, by such success.''
The echo of the reclamation reached Eng
land. Murray at first declined to publish it.
as he had declined Cooper's Spy, and Irving
published it at his own risk When England
ascertained that the American Judgment
was correct, and that it was charming
work, Murray was willing to publish it.
The delightful genius which his country
had recognized with joy it never ceased
proudly and tenderly to honor. When in
1882 he returned to his native land, as his la
test biographer, Mr.. Warner. records Gamer
lea greeted her most famous literary man
with spontaneous outburst of love and
admiration" 1t was in his own country
that he had published his works. II was
his own countrymen whose applause had
apprised England of the charm Of
the new author; and it is extremely amusing
70 hear in 1882 from an English writer. who
thinks Poe to be almost the greatest of Amer
lean poets. that it was our nanny docilitv to
English guidance which enabled ma in recog.
niZe and honor ssalmost our hest, Yrosa