'Whose glory with a lingering trace, Shines through and deifies her race!'
Truth, every word truth--satire most justly bestowed; and before relinquishing this general theme, let us ask the reader to admire with us the cognate remarks of a writer in the last number of the 'North-American Review' upon the importance of a _Literature_ which shall be distinctive and national in its character, and not a _rifacamento_ of the varying literatures of various nations: 'The man whose heart is capable of any patriotic emotion, who feels his pulse quicken when the idea of his country is brought home to him, must desire that country to possess a voice more majestic than the roar of party, and more potent than the whine of sects; a voice which should breathe energy and awaken hope where-ever its kindling tones are heard. The life of our native land; the inner spirit which animates its institutions; the new ideas and principles, of which it is the representative; these every patriot must wish to behold reflected from the broad mirror of a comprehensive and soul-animating literature. The true vitality of a nation is not seen in the triumphs of its industry, the extent of its conquests, or the reach of its empire; but in its intellectual dominion. Posterity passes over statistical tables of trade and population, to search for the records of the mind and heart. It is of little moment how many millions of men were included at any time under the name of one people, if they have left no intellectual testimonials of their mode and manner of existence, no 'foot-prints on the sands of time.' The heart refuses to glow at the most astounding array of figures. A nation lives only through its literature, and its mental life is immortal. And if we have a literature, it should be a _national_ literature; no feeble or sonorous echo of Germany or England, but essentially American in its tone and object. No matter how meritorious a composition may be, as long as any foreign nation can say that it has done the same thing better, so long shall we be spoken of with contempt, or in a spirit of benevolent patronage. We begin to sicken of the custom, now so common, of presenting even our best poems to the attention of foreigners, with a deprecating, apologetic air; as if their acceptance of the offering, with a few soft and silky compliments, would be an act of kindness demanding our warmest acknowledgments. If the Quarterly Review or Blackwood's Magazine speaks well of an American production, we think that we can praise it ourselves, without incurring the reproach of bad taste. The folly we yearly practise, of flying into passion with some inferior English writer, who caricatures our faults, and tells dull jokes about his tour through the land, has only the effect to exalt an insignificant scribbler into notoriety, and give a nominal value to his recorded impertinence. If the mind and heart of the country had its due expression, if its life had taken form in a literature worthy of itself, we should pay little regard to the childish tattling of a pert coxcomb who was discontented with our taverns, or the execrations of some bluff sea-captain who was shocked with our manners. The uneasy sense we have of something in our national existence which has not yet been fitly expressed, gives poignancy to the least ridicule launched at faults and follies which lie on the superficies of our life. Every person feels, that a book which condemns the country for its peculiarities of manners and customs, does not pierce into the heart of the matter, and is essentially worthless. If Bishop BERKELEY, when he visited MALEBRANCHE, had paid exclusive attention to the habitation, raiment, and manners of the man, and neglected the conversation of the metaphysician, and, when he returned to England, had entertained POPE, SWIFT, GAY, and ARBUTHNOT with satirical descriptions of the 'compliment extern' of his eccentric host, he would have acted just as wisely as many an English tourist, with whose malicious pleasantry on our habits of chewing, spitting, and eating, we are silly enough to quarrel. To the United States in reference to the pop-gun shots of foreign tourists, might be addressed the warning which Peter Plymley thundered against BONAPARTE, in reference to the Anti-Jacobin jests of CANNING: Tremble, oh! thou land of many spitters and voters, 'for a _pleasant_ man has come out against thee, and thou shalt be laid low by a joker of jokes, and he shall talk his pleasant talk to thee, and thou shalt be no more!' In order that America may take its due rank in the commonwealth of nations, a literature is needed which shall be the exponent of its higher life. We live in times of turbulence and change.