RETROSPECT OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. [written in the summer of 1800.] No. II. LITERATURE. THE eighteenth century is an era Augustan in lite ture and science. In the fields of literature a host of authors has appeared, contending for fame, usefulness, and bread. Works of fancy, fable, and romance, in numbers and in prose, have Jevied upon the public a tax incalculable; which however, with a generous and sometimes a guilty punctuality, has been paid at sight. This flood of fiction from authors, that intemperate appetite in readers, which has swallowed the whole, good and bad, are poor commendations of the taste of the age. But we may remark, that it is with the sun of letters, as with the sun of nature; which, rising in his glory to chear noble animals, and to light man to his rational labors, allures from their cells the more numerous insect tribes to bask in his radiance. With truth it is said, some of the finest productions of taste and genius adorn the century. Formed by the chaste models of Greece and Rome, they vie with their archetypes in the elegant simplicity of dress, while the sentiment has attained a spirit by the experience of ages, and the sweetness and elevation of scripture allusion, with which the Greek and Roman writings were not animated. If Virgil borrow ed from the inspired sublimities of the Jewish prophetic bard the finest touches in his best eclogue,* let modern literature pay homage to the Christian scriptures. The first poet of the last century owed his subject and best thoughts, and the first orator of the present and of any age owed much of his energy to the sacred writings. ? See his Pollio and Isaiah, To compare the literature of different times, and to dee cide the palm with justice demands not less candor, thari reading and judgment, There is a partiality to what is ancient, and a prejudice against what is modern. Under this conviction, if an opinion may be adventured, it shall be this, that style in the eighteenth century is more highly polished, periods are more harmonious, and diction more correct, than in preceding time; but that composition is less learned, and less abundant in sentiment. The artist bestows his care more on the formation, than on the selection of his materials. Often have appeared productions splendid and faultless in form, jejune in spirit. Several authors however, some born in the last century, but who have all flourished in this, have combined the vigorous sentiment of that age with the musical and elegant periods of this; and will deservedly stand as classics, when our language, like the Greek and Roman, may live only in authors, If, among the works of the last half of the century, there be few ranked with those of the first, let not a hasty opinion be adopted, that none bear the stamp of equal merit. Age is as necessary to the reputation of an author, as to the flavour of wine. The copy of Milton's immortal poem sold for fifteen pounds, and slept with little disturbance, it is said, for fifty years on the bookseller's shelf. So stars, which now hide their heads in the literary firmament, seen through the distance of a century, may attract the admiring gaze of the world. In the sciences progress has been gradual in almost ev ery department, consisting in improvements, with some important exceptions,* on the ground of the theories of the last century. The eighteenth however can boast the last days of the immortal Sir Isaac Newton, the father of astronomy; who, disdaining the erroneous path of his cotemporaries following the fanciful Des Cartes, " with unparal leled penetration, pursued nature up to her most secret a bodes, and was intent to demonstrate her residence to oth Electricity, Chemistry, Galvanism, &c. ers rather, than anxious to point out the way, by which he arrived at it himself.", Well might grateful and admiring survivers inscribe on his monument, some. "Naturæ, antiquitatis, Sacræ Scripture, Sedulus, sagax, fidus interpres ; Dei Opt. Max. majestatem philosophià asseruit, The science of metaphysics, while it has been derided by the many, has been cultivated to high perfection by The venerable Clarke, who, by classic elegance of diction, and logical accuracy and promptitude in the extemporaneous exercises of the Oxford Lyceum, once bore the palm amid shouts of learned applause, has enlisted this noble science in the defence of religion, and has so demonstrated its immutable principles, that he is weak or wicked, who denies them. * This science justly sustains redicule then only, when applied to untie Gordian knots, insolvable by human understanding. We indulge a smile at the scene, beholding matter and form vanishing from the universe before the magic wand of Dean Berkeley, and a host of phantoms conjured up and rushing forward to repeople the desart. But this novel exhibition is not permitted long to feast our love of marvellous. Priestley seizes the caduceus in turn, chases spirit in all its modifications from nature, and gives to matter exclusive empire and existence. Each with assumed power mimical of Omnipotence says, let there be spirit a lone, and there is spirit; and let there be matter alone, and there is matter. Between the metaphysical necromancers we seem threatened indeed to lose both our matter and our spirit. This new world has been a young garden of science. Yes, even in America, where European pride and prejudice have supposed and written, that the productions of nature were of degenerate growth; that animals were inferior in See British Plutarch, vol. VI. article Dr. S. Clarke size, and men in intellect; even in America have arisen great minds, which dispute the palm with the elder world. It were almost invidious to single names from the group of living and deceased worthies. It may be mentioned, that our Franklin pushed investigation with an original boldness into the subtile nature of the electric fluid. Glorious were it for his memory, if the political part of the epigrammatic encomium were as fairly merited, as the philosophic. "Ille Jovi telum eripuit, sceptrumque tyrannis." Politics is a science, to the knowledge and application of which are requisite talents of primary excellence. In this article of the circle of sciences, so interesting in the present day, neither Europe nor the other quarters of the globe, neither the present nor preceding ages can furnish models of excellence superior to the illustrious Presidents of the United States. The cotemporaneous and posthumous honors conferred on WASHINGTON, assign to him the first station among great and good men; while the invaluable volumes on the science of politics, already given to the world, together with the novel glory of presiding in the administration of government and in the Academy of Arts and Sciences, assign the second station to his worthy successor. Under the head of literature and science shall we forget our ALMA MATER? Through the century her chair and professorships have generally been filled with learning and piety. She has sent abroad from her nursery more than three thousand sons; and to many first statesmen and divines, orators and philosophers of the age she points and exclaims with maternal pride," Ecce meos filios!" Having poured her annual blessings into the world, generous individuals have requited her kindness into her own bosom. Many liberal souls have devised liberal things; but with what winning grace comes an endowment from a filial hand? Benevolent spirit of SHAPLEIGH!* be thy dear name enrolled * Mr. Samuel Shapleigh was Librarian for several years, and died in that office. He bequeathed to the University three thousand dollars; and directed, that the proceeds of this sum be annually expended in purchasing hooks for the Library, among those of the lovers and benefactors of science. Thy studious youth and shortlived manhood were affectionately spent in this hallowed retreat, and long here shall thy memory be cherished and honored. Many, because richer, may exceed thy bounty; but none thy love to grateful Harvard. of From this glance over the literature and science of the eighteenth century, the age may be pronounced a brilliant and glorious period. It remains for posterity to say whether, at the beginning or close of it, the human mind were at its greatest elevation. The American world, with her astonishing growth in population and wealth, has doubtless ascended, and I trust will yet ascend a noble altitude. Infant in years, she already vies, in some respects, with the manhood of Europe. "A world by herself," she is a world on the sublimest scale. Her lakes are seas; her rivers, un→ searchable in their sources, at their mouths mock the eye the sailor in the channel, stretching to ken the banks. mountains seem a colonnade to support the heavens. magnitude of nature in her material works suggests the ad+ monition, that man, the spiritual tenant, may attain a proportional superiority to the rest of his kind. Enlightened by divine truth, rich with freedom, and immense in resources, what can reverse this transporting hope of the country, but a participation in the dread convulsions of the Eastern Continent, with which we already feel an illboding sympathy, that, like the rumbling of distant thunder, foretells: the danger. May heaven avert it ! Her This |