age who
invented the Franklin stove had no disdain of small utilities; and in
general the last word of his philosophy is well expressed in a passage
of his _Autobiography_: "Human felicity is produced not so much by
great pieces of good fortune, that seldom happen, as by little
advantages that occur every day; thus, if you teach a poor young man to
shave himself and keep his razor in order, you may contribute more to
the happiness of his life than in giving him a thousand guineas."

1. Captain John Smith. A True Relation of Virginia. Deane's edition.
Boston: 1866.

2. Cotton Mather. Magnalia Christi Americana. Hartford: 1820.

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3. Samuel Sewall. Diary. Massachusetts Historical Collections. Fifth
Series. Vols. v, vi, and vii. Boston: 1878.

4. Jonathan Edwards. Eight Sermons on Various Occasions. Vol. vii. of
Edwards's Words. Edited by Sereno Dwight. New York: 1829.

5. Benjamin Franklin. Autobiography. Edited by John Bigelow.
Philadelphia: 1869. [J. B. Lippincott & Co.]

6. Essays and Bagatelles. Vol. ii. of Franklin's Works. Edited by
David Sparks. Boston: 1836.

7. Moses Coit Tyler. A History of American Literature. 1607-1765.
New York: 1878. [G. P. Putnam's Sons.]

[1] _The Way to Wealth, Plan for Saving One Hundred Thousand Pounds,
Rules of Health, Advice to a Young Tradesman, The Way to Make Money
Plenty in Every Man's Pocket, etc_.

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CHAPTER II.

THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD.

1765-1815.

It will be convenient to treat the fifty years which elapsed between
the meeting at New York, in 1765, of a Congress of delegates from nine
colonies, to protest against the Stamp Act, and the close of the second
war with England, in 1815, as, for literary purposes, a single period.
This half century was the formative era of the American nation.
Historically it is divisible into the years of revolution and the years
of construction. But the men who led the movement for independence
were also, in great part, the same who guided in shaping the
Constitution of the new republic, and the intellectual impress of the
whole period is one and the same. The character of the age was as
distinctly political as that of the colonial era--in New England at
least--was theological; and literature must still continue to borrow
its interest from history. Pure literature, or what, for want of a
better term we call _belles lettres_, was not born in America until the
nineteenth century wa