her time nor
materials existed then for an independent literary life, which is the
growth of security and comfort and leisure if it embraces a whole
society, or of endowed college foundations and an aristocracy if it is
only of the few. Hence American society took its literary meals at the
common table of the English-speaking race, with little or no effort at a
separate establishment. There was much writing, but mostly polemic or
journalistic. When real literature was attempted, it consisted in
general of imitations of British essays, or fiction, or poetry; and in
the last two cases not even imitations of the best models in either. The
essays were modeled on Addison; the poetry on the heavy imitators of
Pope's heroics; the fiction either on the effusive sentimentalists who
followed Richardson, or on the pseudo-Orientalists like Walpole and
Lewis, or on the pseudo-mediaevalists like Mrs. Roche and Mrs. Radcliffe.
This sort of work filled the few literary periodicals of the day, but
was not read enough to make such publications profitable even then, and
is pretty much all unreadable now.

Charles Brockden Brown stands in marked contrast to these second-hand
weaklings, not only by his work but still more by his method and temper.
In actual achievement he did not quite fulfill the promise of his early
books, and cannot be set high among his craft. He was an inferior
artist; and though he achieved naturalism of matter, he clung to the
theatrical artificiality of style which was in vogue. But if he had
broken away from all traditions, he could have gained no hearing
whatever; he died young--twenty years more might have left him a much
greater figure; and he wrought in disheartening loneliness of spirit.
His accomplishment was that of a pioneer. He was the first American
author to see that the true field for his fellows was America and not
Europe. He realized, as the genius of Chateaubriand realized at almost
the same moment, the artistic richness of the material which lay to hand
in the silent forest vastnesses, with their unfamiliar life of man and
beast, and their possibilities of mystery enough to satisfy the most
craving. He was not the equal of the author of 'The Natchez' and
'Atala'; but he had a fresh and daring mind. He turned away from both
the emotional orgasms and the stage claptrap of his time, to break
ground for all future American novelists. He antedated Cooper in the
field of Indian life and character; and he