Books of the Day [pp. 186-192]

BOOKS OF THE DAY.
should be inclined to say that the qualities requisite
for the satisfactory performance of it are quite as
much moral as intellectual; that conscience is quite
as important a factor as industry, insight, or skill in
composition. Applying this test, we are glad to be
able to say that, after the capacity for patient indus try which it exhibits, the quality of all others for
which we should praise Professor Tyler's work is its
conscientiousness. The author has taken no hack neyed or second-hand opinions, nor passed judg ment upon books from casual examination or hearsay
testimony. He has consulted the originals for him self, formed his own estimates, and records his own
conclusions, for which he is always able to give a
good reason and a citation of evidence. Moreover,
through his reference in the foot-notes to the sources
of his information, and his constant and copious reproduction of illustrative passages, he has rendered
it easy to check and test his conclusions at every
point, and to decide how far they conform to or diverge from the evidence on which they profess to be
based. At the same time, while sparing no pains to
make them correspond to the facts, there is no lack
of clearness and precision in his verdicts. Readers
may either approve or dissent from Professor Tyler's
conclusions, but they can not complain of them as
being hazy, or indistinct, or incoherent. They are
the judgments of a man who has mastered his materials, and who is conscious of having mastered them.
It should be said in qualification of this high
praise that the most difficult portion of Professor
Tyler's task-the real test of his adequacy to it-is
yet to come. So far his work is descriptive and
biographical rather than critical, and whether he
will be able to weigh and measure and establish the
relative place of the authors who have really made
American literature remains to be seen. Had he applied very rigidly to these earlier writings the standard which he will have to use during the remainder
of his history, he would have left himself no materials to work upon; for it must be confessed that
the Colonial Period produced little or nothing that
possesses "noteworthy value as literature," and that
in dealing with this period on such a scale it has
been necessary to accept as literature almost everything that was the product of the pen or the printing-press. For this reason these earlier volumes of
Professor Tyler's work are more interesting as a picture of a people, and for their portraiture of personal
and local character, than as a history of literature pure
and simple; but they reveal enough of the method
and quality of the author's criticism to win the confidence of the reader, and to make it certain that
whatever Professor Tyler may have to say of our
later literary magnates will at least be worthy of attentive and respectful consideration.
As regards arrangement, method of treatment,
and style, the work is deserving of high praise. Professor Tyler writes always with vigor, clearness, and
simplicity; and, if his style can rise with the occasion to dignity, picturesqueness, and pathos, it can
also drop, if need be, into an epigrammatic piquancy
of phrase. His History, even in its present income
plete state, must be pronounced a highly important
and permanently valuable contribution to the litera ture whose origin and growth it narrates.
THIS is perhaps as favorable an opportunity as
we shall have for noticing Mr. Charles F. Richard son's "Primer of American Literature," * which has
lain for some time upon our table, and which anticipated by a month or two the appearance of Professor Tyler's History. It need not detain us long.
It is a very slight and perfunctory piece of work;
useful, perhaps, as a sort of catalogue raisonnt of the
leading American authors and their principal writings, but altogether too incomplete, inadequate, and
untrustworthy to serve as a guide to or risumi of the
literature with which it professes to deal. It would
possibly be an exaggeration to say that it requires
greater mastery of a subject to write an acceptable
primer of it than to prepare an exhaustive treatise
upon it; but it certainly requires a more perfect
command of the materials, a greater firmness and
clearness of conviction, a more easy familiarity with
all its details, and a more luminous power of summing up the results of a long train of analysis in an
epithet or a sentence. All these qualities, and others of a still rarer and higher kind, are displayed in
Mr. Stopford Brooke's incomparable "Primer of
English Literature," but Mr. Richardson's work
gives no indication of being the overflow of a mind
full to the brim with its subject, but seems rather the
product of hasty "cram" for a temporary purpose,
which was accomplished as soon as the book was
ready for the printer's hands. We intend to imply
no discredit to the independent researches which Mr.
Richardson may have prosecuted, but it is certainly
true that a much better chronicle of American literature could be abridged from Griswold's and Duyckinck's compilations; while, for the critical verdicts
passed, they are mere echoes of hackneyed opinions
when they are not too hazy and indefinite to mean
anything at all. More real insight into the subject
is shown in the opening sentence of Professor Beers's
little volume noticed below than in Mr. Richardson's
entire book. "The literature of the American
colonies," says Professor Beers, "contains much of
historical interest, little of purely artistic worth."
Whether true or false, this would be suggestive and
provocative of thought, but its truth and sagacity are
exemplified in nearly every page of Professor Tyler's
more elaborate work. Mr. Richardson rarely ventures upon such generalizations, or in fact upon generalizations of any kind; and when he does they are
more apt than not to be either incorrect, or inadequate, or inapplicable.
THE praise given above to one acute observation
in Professor Beers's "Century of American Litera * A Primer of American Literature. By Charles F.
Richardson. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. ISmo,
pp. I17.
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