In lyric and elegiac poems the eclectic tendency operated most strongly, and all kinds of treatment were attempted. The fugitive verse in the magazines show the infuence of Moore or of Byron, especially of such lighter work as the Hebrew Melodies. A common class of subjects was drawn from the idealized life of the Indians. The couplet of Pope was affected at first, but when an author escaped from it he rarely used it again.

Though Halleck and others may have been more generally read, Bryant probably had more influence than any other native poet. In Thanatopsis and the Forest Hymn he came nearer than any one else to the creation of a national style of blank verse.1 His influence united with that of Wordsworth in inspiring a love for nature in its more simple and quiet forms.

In the Buccaneer, Dana obviously takes a hint from Coleridge, and the music of the poem seems at times to echo Keats. Others of his poems at this time show traces of Wordsworth and Cowper. Dana was also a conscious artist in verse, though he began to write rather late in life.2 In the preface to the first edition of his poems (1827) he pleads for liberty of versification, and comments on the monotony of Scott.3

CLOSE OF THE PERIOD.

The close of the period under discussion is marked by no such definite date as is the beginning; yet between the years 1830 and 1835 a change came over the spirit of the country. In these years occurred the revolutions in France, Poland, and Belgium, and the dissemination of the spirit of which they were the outcome-a spirit which in England took a different shape, and resulted in the passage of the reform bill and the abolition of slavery. Closely connected with this political upheaval was the

1 Bryant was a close student of the technique of poetry. As early as 1815 he wrote an essay on Trisyllabic Feet in English Verse, which was later published in the North American Review. His criticisms of poetry always comment on versification.

His first poem, The Dying Crow, was written in 1825, when he was 38 years of age. At Bryant's suggestion the title was changed to The Dying Raven, as it now stands. The Buccaneer was completed in 1826 or 1827.

See also several of his letters to Bryant.

awakening of religious interest, which in England gave rise to the Tractarian movement, and in this country to emotional revivals in the west, and a little later to Transcendentalism in New England. Of English writers, Byron, Scott, and Coleridge were dead, and although Carlyle, Ruskin, Tennyson and Browning had begun their work, there was a pause in the course of English literature until the new men established their positions. At this time, too, German influence was becoming strongly felt.

At home the political and social influence of the rapidly-growing west came into prominence. The questions of finance and slavery, which had been getting more and more troublesome since the early twenties, took a serious form. At this time came forward most of that group of writers who were associated with the Atlantic in its early days, and whose names still hold the first place in American literature. All the more prominent of these, except Lowell, received their formative training in this early period, and put forth some writings before its close.

The year 1833 has been chosen to end the period of this study, because it stands midway between the old order of things and the new. No sacredness attaches to it, and any other between 1830 and 1835 might almost as well be chosen. Professor Beers in his recent work makes one period end with 1835, and in a continuous study of American literature this has its advantages.

CONCLUSION.

It was the mission of the writers in the period that has been considered to learn the lessons that the old world had to teach, to catch the spirit of a new national life, and so to transmit to their successors, in practical working form, what they had learned by unaided experience. It mattered little whether their own works endured or not, so long as they did this well.

No abrupt line of demarcation separates this period from the one that succeeds. Bryant lived, wrote, and exercised a strong influence, almost to the present generation; and Irving and Cooper did not cease writing until most members of the early

Atlantic group had made their reputations. On the other hand, Longfellow, Whittier, Emerson, and others were writing before 1833-publishing in the better magazines, and coming under the influence of editors and older contributors.

Longfellow tells us that the Sketch-Book was his one first book. In spite of the strong personalities of Hawthorne, Holmes, and Lowell, the student of their lives and works feels that they all owe something to Irving. Bryant's early devotion to nature may be traced in different forms in Whittier and Lowell. The indebtedness of Hawthorne and Poe to Dana in one particular has been noticed above.

To trace in detail the effects of these early labors would require a discussion of all that has been written in America to the present day. This study has done all that was intended, if it has shown that the writers from 1815 to 1833, having received little from their predecessors, bequeathed to those who followed, the beginnings of a continuous development in American literature. The question of how the next generation received this legacy, how it adapted to new conditions the tendencies and usages that have been discussed, how it profited by both successes and failures all this cannot be considered here.

It would be useless to speculate on what these pioneers, as individuals, might have done had they lived at a later time, or on what might have been the result had abler men occupied their places. Some things that they transmitted to their successors worked for evil; but these came largely from the tendencies of the times; and instead of complaining that their work might have been better done, we should rather congratulate our country that on the whole it was done so well.

Both authors and works have met their fate. The very names of some who were most active are now known only to the student. Even Irving and Cooper may be taking their places with the authors who, though much praised, are little read. It would

1 Lowell always spoke rather slightingly of this period. He was almost the only writer of the Atlantic group who was ungracious-or unconscious-enough to deny his obligations.

be absurd to deify these men, or to attempt to force them on the public of today; but it should not be forgotten that from their half-amusing, half-pathetic struggles came tendencies and influences that have lasted till the present time, and without which our best achievements in literature would have been possible only by a miracle.

APPENDIX A.

Periodicals, Indexed in Poole, Founded between 1815 and 1833. Boston-North American Review.

1815-1

1818-40 New York-(American) Methodist Magazine.

1819-23 1819

Boston-Christian Disciple.

New York-American Journal of Science. 1819-28 New Haven-Christian Monthly Spectator.

1820-21 Lexington, Ky.-Western Review.

1822-42 Philadelphia-Museum of Foreign Literature (Littell's).

1825-26

1826

1826

Boston-Boston Monthly Magazine.

Philadelphia-Journal of the Franklin Institute.❜
Worcester-Worcester Magazine.

1827-37 Philadelphia-American Quarterly Review.

1828-32 Charleston Southern Review.

1828-33 Boston-Spirit of the Pilgrims.

1828-30 Cincinnati-Western Monthly Review. 1829-43 Andover-American Quarterly Register.3 1829-38 New Haven-Christian Quarterly Spectator. 1829-71 Princeton-Princeton Review.

1 The two dates indicate the continuance of the magazine. All are now defunct except the North American Review, the American Journal of Science, and the Journal of the Franklin Institute. The Worcester Magazine lived but a single year.

This Journal underwent several slight changes of name. It is the direct descendant of the American Mechanic's Magazine, conducted by Associated Mechanics, New York, 1825. The latter is not in Poole. It was continued in Philadelphia as the Franklin Journal and American Mechanic's Magazine, in 1826. See Bolton, Catalogue of Scientific and Technical Periodicals, for subsequent changes.

This is the date given by Poole. The first number was for July, 1827. The paging is consecutive to and including the number for April, 1829, and the title-page bears date 1829. In tables in the text, the year 1827 is taken, as this was the real date of founding.