manufacturers of books, periodicals, and newspapers for the young keep
the rising generation fully occupied, with a result to its taste and
mental fibre which, to say the least of it, must be regarded with some
apprehension. The "plant," in the way of money and writing industry
invested in the production of juvenile literature, is so large and is so
permanent an interest, that it requires more discriminating
consideration than can be given to it in a passing paragraph.

Besides this, and with respect to Irving in particular, there has been
in America a criticism--sometimes called the destructive, sometimes the
Donnybrook Fair--that found "earnestness" the only thing in the world
amusing, that brought to literary art the test of utility, and
disparaged what is called the "Knickerbocker School" (assuming Irving to
be the head of it) as wanting in purpose and virility, a merely romantic
development of the post-Revolutionary period. And it has been to some
extent the fashion to damn with faint admiration the pioneer if not the
creator of American literature as the "genial" Irving.

Before I pass to an outline of the career of this representative
American author, it is necessary to refer for a moment to certain
periods, more or less marked, in our literature. I do not include in it
the works of writers either born in England or completely English in
training, method, and tradition, showing nothing distinctively American
in their writings except the incidental subject. The first authors whom
we may regard as characteristic of the new country--leaving out the
productions of speculative theology--devoted their genius to politics.
It is in the political writings immediately preceding and following the
Revolution--such as those of Hamilton, Madison, Jay, Franklin,
Jefferson--that the new birth of a nation of original force and ideas is
declared. It has been said, and I think the statement can be maintained,