A smaller history of English and American literature for the use of schools

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1876 Excerpt: ... SKETCH OF AMERICAN LITERATURE. NOTE. A volume of Choice Specimens of American Literature ia Dow in preparation, and references to it will be inserted throughout this sketch as soon as the book is issucd. CHAPTER I. Literature in the Colonies imitative. Relation of American to English Literature. Gradual Advancement of the United States in Letters. Their first Development theological. Writers in this Department. Jonathan Edwards. Religions Controversy. William E. Channing. Writings of the Clergy. Newspapers and School Books. Domestic Literature. Female Writers. Oratory. Revolutionary Eloquence. American Orators. Alexander Hamilton. Daniel WebSter and others. Edward Everett. American History and Historians. Jared Sparks. David Ramsay. George Bancroft. Hildreth. Eliot. Lossing. William H. Prescott. Irving. Wheaton. Cooper. Parkman. 535. Literature is a positive element of civilized life; but in different countries and epochs it exists sometimes as a passive taste or means of culture, and at others as a development of productive tendencies. The first is the usual form in colonial societies, where the habit of looking to the fatherland for intellectual nutriment as well as political authority is the naiural result even of patriotic feeling. In academic culture, habitual reading, moral and domestic tastes, and cast of mind, the Americans were identified with the mother country, and, in all essential particulars, would naturally follow the style thus inherent in their natures and confirmed by habit and study. At first, therefore, the literary development of the United States was imitative; but with the progress of the country, and her increased leisure and means of education, the writings of the people became more and more characteristic; theological and political...