Paulding's "Life of Washington" is certainly not a work of fiction, but it has all the charm of one, from the masculine energy and beauty of style with which it is written. The hoof of his Pegasus has here struck the native soil and opened a fountain, which shows what sources of interesting reading are still latent in revolutionary story. These when brought forward in a dignified and simple language, such as is natural to republicans, when they speak from their own minds, will charm youth, invigorate their imagination, and suffer them to inhale the healthy and manly spirit of their native liberty.

Among works of fiction we recommend all those of Dr. Johnson, as admirable, whether in the shape of essays, or that excellent production, his Rassellas. The pomp of Johnson's periods is agreeable to youth, and although much has been said about his defective literary taste, we are convinced that no writings in the English language have ever cast a more alluring charm around, the ordinary moralities of life, or teach a juster veneration for religion; or inspire a more noble sense of independence of character. •

The works of Mrs. Barbauld and her brother are good, and we recommend them. But "Tales of the Heart," written by women, and their male imitators are for the most part wretchedly bad; --we disapprove of them.

We cannot close without recommending to all youth, when capable of it, the works of this class among the ancients. And it is certainty, a remarkable fact, that they should, in most respects be much less exceptionable than kindred works in modern times. The circumstances also connected with them, which must often have corrupted the religious sense of their own age, are no longer injurious to us, who have an infaliible substitute for all their religions-pure and undefiled. The fancy, therefore, can be pleased and improved by the many beautiful displays of their mythology, without the heart suffering any taint. These personifications of natural objects and of many of the abstractions of philosophy, are certainly fine materials of fiction, and are intimately interwoven with all our language, poetry and the

arts.

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XVI. FICTITIOUS COMPOSITIONS.

REPORT OF THE MINORITY ON THE QUESTION, "TO WHAT EXTENT CAN THE READING OF FICTITIOUS WRITINGS BE RENDERED BENEFICIAL TO STUDENTS?"

BY E. SLACK, A. M., M. D.

In order to answer the question directly, it will be necessary to ascertain what is to be understood by "fictitious writings." Your Minority apprehends, that modern fictitious writings have it especially in view to please, rather than to instruct;-hence a large scope is given to the imagination, and pictures of unreal life are set forth as constituting the great features of the performance. In proportion as these pictures approach to the real scenes of nature, are they to be estimated as valuable. Under the head of fictitious writings, may be included Fables, Parables, Epic-poetry, (e. g. the Iliad, Odyssey, Æneid and Paradise Lost,) Tragedy, Comedy, Novels, Romances, etc. Fables, Parables and Epic-poetry have come down to us from the ancients, and have, from remote antiquity, been considered as embodying the fashionable methods of communicating instruction. They present the highest beauties in composition of which we have any ancient examples.

The reason why the ancients dealt so much in ideal existences, and introduced fiction into almost every kind of writing, is obvious. In those early times, most objects, from an ignorance of their real nature, put on a mysterious aspect; superstition, as among the ignorant of the present day, held almost universal sway over the ancient mind, and their language was slender and but poorly adapted to impress moral ideas, or any ideas relating to mental operations. Hence their early history is composed of little, but fiction or accounts of gods, demi-gods and heroes, thrown together in the most fanciful manner, and in which imagination is put to an undue stretch. Their mythology, or history of religion is an assemblage of impure and extravagant tales of fictions. The same methods of writing entered into every subject of which the authors ventured to treat. On this account, fable or fiction constituted the main spring of the noble Epic. Homer sang in mysterious

!

verse, and Virgil, less talented, yet more accurate in language, closely imitated his great masters. Hence, for the amusement of the popular eye and ear, tragedy and comedy, filled with fancy, poured forth their feigned stories of unreal life, to gratify a vitiated taste and to give impulse to that depravity of manners which, from authentic documents, so well mark the whole of Pagan antiquity.

The moderns too have not failed to drink at the impure fountains of ancient fiction. Milton caught his fire from the torch of the immortal bard of the Iliad, and mingled fiction throughout that otherwise noble poem, the Paradise Lost. There can not be a doubt that fiction was borrowed from ancient example, and enters not only into poetic measure, where, if at all, it may be tolerated; but into all the preparations for the stage, that boasted school of morals, to which civil and uncivil, virtuous though mostly vicious,-the rake and his associate resort, not to be improved in morals, but to whet their too frequently vitiated appetites, for greater excesses in vice.

The very way in which the stage is sustained by masks, false dresses and scenery, decorated by all the fascination of artificial light and shade, and by the subject matter of the play, shows that imagination, mostly an unchaste imagination and fictions of unreal scenes in life, are the grand objects of its votaries.

Are such amusements fit pastimes for American and republican youth, the stability of whose government depends upon the moral principle of its free citizens? It is not my purpose to dwell upon tragedy and comedy, as sources of folly and vice. I feel persuaded that enlightened posterity will pass upon them, and that ere long, an unerring sentence of condemnation but my principal duty, in the question assigned, is to examine the advantages and disadvantages of novels and romances as books of reading and study for the youth of this republic.

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The multiplicity of such writings arises from the fact, that it is almost infinitely easier to give scope to the imagination in some love tale, or fancied and unreal story of woe, than to write half a dozen chapters on a subject truly scientific. All the qualifications for becoming an author in such writing, are, a tolerably active imagination and a tact for description, and for the formation of a neat and well rounded period.

If novels and romances have any claims above others, to the attention of our youth, that claim is, as specimens of fine writing, though in this respect the common herd comes miserably short. The learned, at no time, have been disposed to estimate novels and romances as distinguished evidences of talent. Some little skill is occasionally displayed in the plot or thread of the story, which, in the ten thousand love tales and tragic scenes now breathed to the empty air, fall very

far short of the science and talent lately displayed in the late celebrated American moon-hoax.*

Why, it may be asked, has so much been saïd of late by reviewers in regard to the merits of novels? The answer is, every aspirant for fame may become a novel's critic-the reviewing effort is most easily made; little science is required, and while the press derives its chief emolument from the multiplied demand which giddy fashion is making for this sickly commodity, we need not be surprised that, as the money circulates freely, the tongue of the critic should become most eloquent in the praises of works that are almost daily ushered into the light. In regard to the subject matter of these productions, your Minority would ask; is it such as to lay the foundation for a regular education? Can such authors be advantageously placed in the hands of our youth, as text-books on history, theology, morals, or even as authentic sources of manners and customs? - Not an instance is to be found, in which novels have been placed by experienced teachers in the hands of pupils as productions of science. The very reverse is the truth; the better the instructor is qualified for his place, the more strenuously does he oppose the perusal of novels by the youth of his charge, and the more certainly is he persuaded of their visionary character and pernicious influence.

Your Minority would remark, that the exceptions to novels and novel reading are many, and, it is believed, of impressive importance to the youth of our beloved country: but time can be afforded to advert to only two or three.

1st. There appears to be a disposition, arising most certainly from our lapsed condition, to search with diligence after every thing romantic; and as love is an absorbing subject to the youth of both sexes, the love tales of an imaginary hero, if the story be well told and the incidents unusual and unreal, are devoured with avidity. -Whole days of precious time, yes, even nights, are consumed in the perusal; and when the time is squandered and the volumes exhausted, not one solitary lesson of instruction is derived from the whole. They leave the mind in a mawkish state, carried away by fancy and but little disposed to return to the important exercise of vigorous thought. Hence the student, whether male or female, who ventures to enter the list as a novel reader - with the immense host of fascinating novels around, becomes almost without exception, unfitted for the studies, necessary to a substantial education. The taste of the individual for any thing scientific is changed. Hence a neglect of study is the consequence. A disposition for fanciful scenes possess the soul. * An ingenious paper, written by a Mr. Scott, in which he represents the astronomer Herschel at the Cape of Good Hope, looking into the moon, so as to discover even the birds and chrystaline minerals of that sphere.