Books of the Day [pp. 186-192]

APPLETONS' JO URNAL.
selection, and of proper self-restraint so that even
"the best novels shall make a moderate proportion
of our reading." The significance of the extract we
have quoted is in the recognition of the novel as
an intellectual force, as something more than mere
story-telling. Every person of alert and sympathetic intelligence will realize the truth of the assertions that Dr. Osgood makes. It is true that many
readers are almost wholly insensible to the deeper
purpose and psychological significance of the novels
that they read, and find in them little more than a
stimulus to emotional excitement, but do readers of
this intellectual caliber find any higher significance
in other forms of literature? Is biography to them
anything more than gossip, or history better than a
record of intrigues at courts or of exciting conflicts
on the battle-field? What does any person get from
books more than idle entertainment if his reading
is not penetrative and searching, if it is not pursued
with a studious spirit, if the imagination does not
go with the theme into its depths and its reaches?
To an attentive reader a novel may be full of earnest
thought and high philosophy; it may give insight
into character and into periods that is invaluable
while grave books in the hands of cold and inattentive readers will be sure to afford no illumination
and awaken no thought. In view of these facts,
it is time it came to be generally recognized that
"light reading," so called, is always simply that
which is lightly read.
oohs of fte am
MERICAN literature seems to acquire a new
dignity in being made the subject of such
a work as Professor Tyler's painstaking and elaborate History,* the scope of which is so comprehensive that two goodly-sized volumes are required
for the survey of the Colonial Period alone. The
work is something more than a literary history in
the ordinary sense-that is, a descriptive chronicle
of authors and writings with which the public at
large is apt to be tolerably familiar. Early American literature is, as the author says, a neglected literature; and it is certain that the great majority of
readers will be made aware for the first time, through
Professor Tyler's researches, of the variety, the copiousness, and the richness of the materials which
await the student of our literary annals. These materials, so far as they belong to the Colonial Period,
are reached only with great difficulty. Of many of
the most important works but very few copies are
extant, and these constitute the jealously guarded
treasures of a small number of libraries and private
collections. To the greater number of students
they are, of course, entirely inaccessible; but by
diligence, persistence, good fortune, and by availing
himself of that sympathy with his undertaking which
would naturally be felt by all who are interested in
American letters, Professor Tyler has been enabled
to survey them all; and the accumulated results of
his long years of laborious gleaning are brought together in his History. This history possesses at least
one charm which can never be possessed in quite
* A History of American Literature. Vols. I. and
II. The Colonial Period (I607-I765). By Moses Colt
Tyler, Professor of English Literature in the University
of Michigan. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 8vo,
pp. 292, 33o0.
equal degree by any similar work. American literature is the only literature which can be traced
through all the intermediate stages from its first infantile accents to the multitudinous chorus of contemporary utterance; and these initial volumes, in
particular, have that picturesque interest which attaches to the description of all beginnings.
The plan of Professor Tyler's work is quite different from that of the previous works in this field
with which it would naturally be compared-the
compilations of Kettell, Griswold, and Duyckinck.
He has not undertaken, as he explains in his preface,
"to give an indiscriminate dictionary of all Americans who ever wrote anything, or a complete bibliographical account of all American books that were
ever written": what he has aimed to furnish is a
"history of those writings, in the English language,
produced by Americans, which have some noteworthy value as literature, and some real significance in
the literary unfolding of the American mind." In
other words, he has aimed to be, not an annalist or a
cataloguer, but an historian; not to produce a mere
chronological record of the procession of books and
authors, but to discriminate between the significant
and the trivial, to fix the relative place of writers
and their writings, to trace and explain the influences from without and from within which shaped
thought and expression, to establish the point of
view from which we are to regard the various works
brought to our notice, and to reconstruct for each
period and author what Taine calls the milieu-the
surroundings, conditions, circumstances, and antecedents which must all be taken into account in forming an adequate and true judgment.
Such a work is not only one of great labor and
difficulty; it devolves a very grave and solemn responsibility upon the author-so much so that we
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