torians have not been numerous.
Some, however, who have unrolled our records of truth claim a
considerable portion of praise.... The prospect before us is now
brightening. Histories have been promised from pens which have
raised our expectations. The death of our great Washington has left
a subject for the American historian which has never been surpassed
in dignity.... From the poems and fictions of the Columbian Muse,
several works might be selected, which deserve high and
distinguishing praise. The poetry of our country has not yet, I
hope, assumed its most elevated and elegant form. Beneath our
skies, fancy neither sickens nor dies. The fire of poetry is
kindled by our storms. Amid our plains, on the banks of our waters,
and on our mountains, dwells the spirit of inventive enthusiasm.

"These regions are not formed only to echo the voice of Europe,
but from them shall yet sound a lyre which shall be the admiration
of the world.

"From the exhibition of American talent I indulge the warmest
expectations. I behold, in imagination, the Newtons, the Miltons
and the Robertsons of this new world, and I behold the sun of
genius pouring on our land his meridian beams.

"In order to concentrate the force of her literature, the genius of
America points to a National University, so warmly recommended, and
remembered in his will, by our deceased friend and father. Such an
establishment, far more than a pyramid that reached the clouds,
would honor the name of Washington" (p. 81).

The Philadelphia writers had their own little thrills, and their own
little ambitions, and amid the poverty of their intellectual
surroundings they refreshed themselves with visions of the giant things
to come at large. James Hall, in his "Letters from the West," wrote:
"The vicinity of Pittsburg may one day wake the lyre of the
Pennsylvanian bard to strains as martial and as sweet as Scott; ...
believe me, I should tread with as much reverence over the mausoleum of
a Shawanee chief, as among the catacombs of Egypt, and would speculate
with as much delight upon the site of an Indian village as in the
gardens of Tivoli, or the ruins of Herculaneum."

American critics soon caught the contagion of sneering censure, and
caused the _Port Folio_ to say, in 1811: "American critics seem, in
almost all cases, to have entered into a confed