This bond of community of language, which is often invoked in continental Europe as naturally leading to a community of government, did not prevent the Americana from commencing a war, in which they aimed at rendering themselves as completely independent of England as they were of France. Their political independence was secured by the treaty of 1783. For about forty years after, however, some of their ultra patriotic writers were in the habit of complaining that their literary dependence was as great as ever, while at the same time, it was almost made a subject of national complaint, that a writer in one of the English reviews had inquired, " Who reads an American book ? " When American writers of remarkable merit really began to appear, their merit often found its warmest and sometimes earliest welcome in England, where the names of Irving and Cooper, Bryant and Long fellow, Prescott and Ticknor, Lucretia Davidson and Mrs. Stowe, are held in honour, not inferior to that which is paid to them in their own country. Irving and Bryant are the only two of these whose writings date back before 1820. and the reputation of Irving, as well as of Cooper, was powerfully aided by the voice of England. The truth is, that when the question was put " Who reads an American book ? " no one either in England or America could clearly foresee the rapid development that was to take place in American literature, a phenomenon as striking in the field of literature as its political development in that of politics. The 18th and 19th centuries bad been remarkable in Europe for tho number of old established Languages which bad, after a long period of barrenness, at length burst into literary fertility. Before 1750 it might have been inquired with some truth, " Who reads a German book ? " and the highest names in the latter half of the century were those of German authors.
After the signal success of German, five or six other languages had emerged into an importance altogether undreamed of a century Igo; but in every case of a fresh literature there had been a fresh anguage associated with it. As in North America the first example was given of one of the colonies of Europe rapidly emerging into new and powerful state, so in North America the first instance )ccurred of one of the old languages of Europe giving birth to a new and important literature. The Spanish and Portuguese colonies, long interior in date to the English, followed the Anglo-American example n one Case, as they will do apparently in the other.
The circumstance of two literatures flourishing together in the same anguage is in an eminent degree fortunate for both. National pre uclices are necessarily weakened, circumscribed ideas are necessarily widened, even by the mere enlargement of the literary horizon which a thus created. The sympathies of those who can read Dante and ;chiller are not likely to be cold towards Italy and Germany ; but how Milted a number of English readers can be expected to master German and Italian, how different is the effect of reading a poet in the trans ation or the original. The American can enjoy every word of ihrikspere and Byron ; the Englishman, of Bryant and Longfellow.
When America had scarcely a writer of its own, its readers had ceess to the rich treasures of English literature, and educated by that linessiedge, its authors, when they came forward to contest the palm, sassed en equal ground with those they dual to encounter. A hundred hod fifty mile, from Leaden there was in the meantime a Welsh population to whom Shakerere and Byron were idle mines.
The sudden rise and rapid progress of Anierisam literature made it nesseaeary for any library, intended to embrace the whole wealth of the English language, to extend Its plan and enlarge its sphere. Popular as tawny books of American origin became in. England. to such an extent in fact that many of them formed part of the ordinary stock of booksellers' shops in country towns, it was chiefly through reprint.% that they circu lated ; and there were hundreds of volumes in the United States of which probably not ono copy was sent for sale to England. Histories of American country towns; genealogies of American families, biographies of American local celebrities, reports of American legal decisions, and so on, are books for which few men can find apace in their libraries ; but it is may to see how to be able to commit a copy of such books, in particular cases, may be all-important to particular persons, and is always of value to those who compile or who cater for the public. An American genealogy will often throw light on the history of an English family ; an American law-case may involve the acquisition or loss of property to English residents; the historian of the contests between England and America, or of our religious sects, or of our arts and manufactures, may often find something in American topo graphy or biography bearing on his subject ; to say nothing of the general interest attaching for its own sake to a nation so con spicuous in the eyes of the present world, and so important in all epeculations of the future. This object has not been lost sight of by those who have had the selection of books for purchase for the British Museum ; and indeed it is the opinion of competent judges that a more complete collection of American literature has been amassed there in the course of the last twenty years, than exists in any library of the United States.
The marked success of America, in literature, of course encourages the hope, already by more one brilliant example, that other communities sprung from the English stock will, when the first cares of colonisation and settlement are over, give equal proofs of literary ambition and literary powers. In the meantime the pro ductions of British America and Australia have already a strong historical value of their own, and are certain to derive an additional interest as the communities to which they belong advance in prosperity and importance, The collection of their different productions in one vast library would present a spectacle of interest to the whole world, of surpassing interest and pride to all who belong to what has been called the Anglo-Saxon race, whose triumphs in the field of literature are at least as noble as in any other.