iodical he took in charge, he raised its standard of
quality and made it a success for the time.

He died in February, 1810. The work to which he had given the greater
part of his time and strength, especially toward the end of his life,
was in its nature not only transitory, but not of a sort to keep his
name alive. The magazines were children of a day, and the editor's
repute as such could hardly survive them long. The fame which belongs to
Charles Brockden Brown, grudgingly accorded by a country that can ill
afford to neglect one of its earliest, most devoted, and most original
workers, rests on his novels. Judged by standards of the present day,
these are far from faultless. The facts are not very coherent, the
diction is artificial in the fashion of the day. But when all is said,
Brown was a rare story-teller; he interested his readers by the novelty
of his material, and he was quite objective in its treatment, never
obtruding his own personality. 'Wieland,' 'Edgar Huntly,' and 'Arthur
Mervyn,' the trilogy of his best novels, are not to be contemned; and he
has the distinction of being in very truth the pioneer of
_American_ letters.

WIELAND'S STATEMENT

Theodore Wieland, the prisoner at the bar, was now called upon for his
defense. He looked around him for some time in silence, and with a mild
countenance. At length he spoke:--

It is strange: I am known to my judges and my auditors. Who is there
present a stranger to the character of Wieland? Who knows him not as a
husband, as a father, as a friend? Yet here am I arraigned as a
criminal. I am charged with diabolical malice; I am accused of the
murder of my wife and my children!

It is true, they were slain by me; they all perished by my hand. The
task of vindication is ignoble. What is it that I am called to
vindicate? and before whom?

You know that they are dead, and that they were killed by me. What more
would you have? Would you extort from me a statement of my motives? Have
you failed to discover them already? You charge me with malice: but your
eyes are not shut; your reason is still vigorous; your memory has not
forsaken you. You know whom it is that you thus charge. The habits of
his life are known to you; his treatment of his wife and his offspring
is known to you; the soundness of his integrity and the unchangeableness
of his principles are familiar to your apprehension: yet you persist in
this charge! You lead me hither manacled as a felon;