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American Literature.
Literature multiplies the sources of enjoyment, and on larger the capescities [sp?] of intellectual enjoyment. It is regarded as the most infallible criterion of the process of inteligence and civilization. When the manners of men become refined, anelatask [sp?] for the hasten our recreations of the barbarian [sp?] ileilines, no amasment occupies so usefully and so delightfully the vacant hours of life - no pleasure so little exhausts the materials and faclilties [sp?] of enjoyment - and no taste by ineleyence [sp?] finds oleats [sp?] more num excess or emations more exquisite.
The legitmate object of literature is the improve ment of the mind, not by extending its acquisition, but by enlarging its faculties and resonce[sp?] It is the business of science to range in the field of discovery and invocation to investigate laws and establish principles; but it is the business of literature to render intellectual habits sound and vigorous, and to exist the natural exhaus
sion and development of the intellectual faculties
It gives the mind a cousciousness of its own [eboation?] charges its dominion over the objects of nature - and combines with the best feelings incident to every condition of life. It employs with advantage and pleasure the gloomy thoughts of the unfortunate and moderates the elation of the prosperous - direct the enthu siasm of the young and brighten the decaying prospects of the aged
Literature is the instrument by which the ethical sciences are diffused. It consequently has the most important effect up on the sentiment with which they are regarded the activity with which they are trusted and the made in which they are cultivated.
Polite letters allure the world into the region of the sicences and readers are gradually led on from poetry and [eloquenes?] to morals and philosopy. Literature led philosophy from the schools, enabled her to track and to serve mankind and recalled her to experience and utility from
thorny distinctions and splendid visions.
Does our hemisphere enjoy the salutory influences of this splendid luminary? Let us for a moment indulge in the interesting enquiries what are the causes, which have contributed either to impede or accelerate the march of genius and refinement in our own country? are her moral and intellecutal merging hastening to extinction or expanding into life and activity? What are the extents and merit of her attainments, and her rank and prospects in the refined lich of letters? our literature has ever been watched with an envious eye by the literati of Europe. They have been in [cefs?] out and cofrious in their effusing of matignity and calumny against our country its morals intittelect and institutions They have represented us to the world as an inferior race of intelligent beings incapable of intellectual exertion adn struggling with disease and poverty and all the forbidding influences of a hostile animals and an unfruitful soil. An answer need not be given to such groundlys accusations & such foul and [sourrclaces?] invictive
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