_Quarterly Review_, 1843
CHAPTER VII
1825-1840
_American Writers and English Critics_
It is customary to refer to the early writings of Washington Irving as
works that marked the time when literature pure and simple developed in
America. Such writing as had hitherto attracted attention concerned
itself, not with matters of the imagination, but with facts and theories
of current and momentous interest. Religion and the affairs of the
separate commonwealths were uppermost in people's minds in colonial
days; political warfare and the defence of the policy of Congress
absorbed attention in Revolutionary times; and later the necessity of
expounding principles of government and of fostering a national feeling
produced a literature of fact rather than of fancy.
Gradually all this had changed. A new generation had grown up with more
leisure for writing and more time to devote to the general culture of
the public. The English periodical with its purpose of "improving the
taste, awakening the attention, and amending the heart," had once met
these requirements.
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