of the colonial period. If literature is a truer record of a people's life than the minutes of parliaments and town meetings, it cannot be neglected for historical Colonial reasons. Besides, literature has a history of its Writings. own, any part of which cannot be understood without some knowledge of what has gone before. A people may change its political status in a day, or declare that it has done so, but in the domain of letters, as in that of nature, there is a continuous growth which knows no sudden changes. There is no broad cleavage between its after development and its early struggles for life. These may be forgotten or derided, as a man laughs at his own youthful efforts, without which he would never have come to distinction. It is pleasant to look upon the strong trunk and branches of a tree with its wealth of foliage and fruit, and easy to forget the ungainly roots below ground, but the tree does not forget that through them comes its life from remote fountains, and its staying power. Accordingly, when we grow self-complacent over our recent attainments in letters, and are amused, as we cannot help being, at the exploits of our forbears, it is well to recall some sturdy qualities in their literature, as in their life. Above all, it will be needful to keep in mind a few circumstances and conditions which differed from those in which we are placed, and helped to make colonial literature unlike that of the present day.

First, it should be remembered that it was written by colonists of Great Britain. It is not easy to understand all that this meant to our forefathers. For a Represent century and a quarter the ruling ideas which British Ideas. were in a colonist's mind have been growing indistinct, since they were summarily dismissed after the

Declaration of Independence. A visit to Canada will not invariably make them clear to a citizen of the United States. They are a matter of inheritance and faithful cherishing by colonists who have never revolted.

For one hundred and twenty-five years we have been throwing to the winds a legacy for which we have no more use than for crowns and thrones. In this way we have forgotten how largely these once substantial realities entered into the thinking and writing of Americans. Not that royalty always obtruded itself into the kingdom of letters, but, like the weather, it had its inspiriting or depressing effect, according to its mood. How often and how much this varied can be clearly traced in the complexion of the colonial documents, public and private. It changed with different monarchs and with the same ruler on different occasions, sometimes on account of atmospheric changes in New England or Virginia. But in the main the colonist was sensible of his connection with the mother country and was affectionately proud of it. He was an Englishman abroad, cultivating and defending a part of the British empire. When he visited England he spoke of going home. His ships brought back other Englishmen, the wares, ideas, and fashions of London. When he could afford it he sent his sons to Oxford or Cambridge, and they brought back the law, medicine, and some of the theology they learned there.

Then there was what may be called the court literature, which was a factor in colonial production. What pleased king and courtiers was likely to find general favor and a publisher. The fashion once set, there were pens enough to follow it and to give a popular tone to literature in England, which would be imitated in America, provided it

did not clash with colonial tastes and principles. This, however, is an important proviso. Perhaps the first movement toward independence that can be discovered was the refusal to follow the literary leading of Charles the Second's dramatists and poets. Boston laid an embargo upon them long before it pitched taxed tea overboard. However, this was carried too far, and books were interdicted that would have been good for New Englanders.

While, then, the colonists were loyal to British ideas, they never forgot that they were Britons, with the national habit of thinking for themselves, often aloud And English and in black and white. This independence Liberty. was fostered here by their distance from home, their isolation, and devotion to a few principles which they came here to maintain. As a consequence, their writings. became intensely provincial. They could not well be otherwise. The new country was full of strange interest to Pilgrim and Puritan.

They were aware that they were committed to an enterprise with boundless prospects for the future, and that the eyes of Europe were upon them. Meantime, their own world was the little settlement between the wide ocean and the wilderness.

Influences.

Their vision gradually became limited to the neighborhood with its meeting-house, school, magistrate, and minister. The last of these was commonly what they Narrowing called him their teacher. He was expected to furnish ideas, to do most of the reading, to be leader and guide, critic and censor for the community. In return they asserted the right to discuss his propositions and criticise his manner. But the discussion and the criticism, the word spoken, and finally the word written, were

largely in theologic and polemic lines, and at length in political.

The remainder was personal and town talk. The diary and the journal, the narrative and the minutes of the assembly, had for them the importance of what is near, personal, and present. They could not distinguish the perishable from the permanent in their materials for history. Everything was in the foreground, like a Japanese landscape. The death of an elder's calf and the drowning of his neighbor are chronicled in the same. entry. The arrival of a belle from London and of a royal charter create equal commotions. Variations from the sermon, the journal, or the narrative for English readers consisted in poetic effusions which could not be wholly restrained, even when poetry was under a ban. The early colonist put a cork in the bottle of his fancy, wired it down, and when it began to fizz put it under his cloak or carried it into his cellar. Bound to escape or burst the bottle, the muse was released with the chokings and gurglings of a strangled culprit. She had a cracked, nasal, doleful voice and uncertain gait to the end. Her sober strains were mournful and agonizing; her merry moods. like the gambols of a hippopotamus; her eulogistic performances like the contortions of a juggler. Certainly the glory of colonial literature is not in its verse.

Much more can be said for its political writings in later years and the speeches which were preserved by the scanty reporting of the time. In these directions the colonist won distinction at home and abroad. Toward them the course of events carried him inevitably, and the strength of his mind and the impulses of his heart went with pen and tongue in high political discourse. The

liberties of a nation were largely won by its masterly achievements in this kind.

Readers of this brief and general survey may wonder what there can be in our colonial writings to enlist attention. The best answer is: Read them and see. As, however, they are not all easily accessible, the best that can be done here will be to mention representative writers and where their "literary remains" may be found, giving extracts when worth giving, and noting changes for the better through which the provincial advanced to the national.

Few always consider how long a period was occupied in this evolution, or the fact that the colonial years exceed those of our national life thus far by fifty-seven. one hundred and seventy-six against one hundred and nineteen. But the relative growth of the last period cannot be balanced by the greater length of the first, nor the improvement that has been made in letters as in every other art. Still, whether colonial or national, American literature should appeal to Americans. The love and the study of letters should begin at home, however widely they may broaden out in sympathy and attainment. Whether English or American in any particular stage of its growth here, our literature is the product of our race and of our soil, and is something of which in any age we need not be ashamed, when environment is considered.