52 per cent.; and that of 1870 over 1850 is more than three hundred per

cent.

The newspapers and periodicals published in the United States in 1870, classified by their periods of issue were-daily, 574; tri-weekly, 107; semi-weekly, 115; weekly, 4295; semi-monthly, 96; monthly, 622; bimonthly, 13; quarterly, 49. The average circulation was-daily, 4532 copies; tri-weekly, 1449; semi-weekly, 2149; weekly, 2466; semi-monthly, 14,060; monthly, 9084; bi-monthly, 2434; quarterly, 4302. When classified with reference to their nature there were-advertising newspapers and periodicals, 79; agricultural and horticultural, 93; commercial and financial, 142; illustrated, literary and miscellaneous, 503; political, 4333; religious, 407; sporting, 6; technical and professional, 207; newspapers and periodicals belonging to, or dealing especially with the affairs of, benevolent or secret societies, 81; those devoted to nationality, 20. By another division there were-religious newspapers and periodicals, 407, with an aggregate circulation of 4,764,358 copies, and an average circulation of 11,698; and 5464 secular newspapers and periodicals, with an aggregate circulation of 16,078,117 copies, and an average circulation of 2942. We shall conclude this array of figures with a few statistics of the daily and weekly press. In 1850 there were 1902 weekly newspapers, with an average circulation of 1548 copies; in 1860 there were 3173 weekly newspapers, with an average circulation of 2389 copies; and in 1870 there were 4295, with an average circulation of 2466 copies. 1850 there were 254 daily newspapers, with an average circulation of 2986 copies; in 1860 there were 387, with an average circulation of 3820 copies; and in 1870 there were 574, with an average circulation of 4532 copies.

In

We have given these figures, showing the numerical increase both in the number of newspapers published in the United States and in their circulation, to enable our readers to form some idea of the rapid advance made during the past century and a half by a power which has sprung into existence during that period. We feel how inadequate mere numbers are to serve as a measure for the magnificent development of the art and science of journalism during the period which has intervened since the first feeble. efforts of John Campbell, publisher of the Boston News Letter. With equal propriety could a merely numerical comparison be made between one Queen Anne's musket, or thirty-seven guns such as were used during the Revolutionary War, and five thousand rifles of the latest pattern. The products of thought can be neither weighed nor measured. Their length, breadth, height and depth cannot be taken and tried "upon an exact scale of Bossu's." Still, an approximation may be made, albeit the nearer it approaches the truth the more exaggerated it will seem to those who have not given the matter serious consideration. In the introduction to

Hudson's excellent History of Journalism can be found several estimates of the power of the press, made at different periods by very different people, yet showing a unanimity which gives evidence that there is a basis of truth upon which these various opinions rest. Napoleon I. says: "Four hostile newspapers are more to be dreaded than a hundred thousand bayonets." Carlyle says: "Great is journalism! Is not every able editor a ruler of the world, being a persuader of it?" Thiers says: "The real judge of the judge is public opinion;" and the special application of this remark to our subject is given by Jules Favre, who says: "The press has no power but that which results from public opinion." David Hume says: "Its liberties and the liberties of the people must stand or fall together.". The bishop of Western New York says: "After all, the press is king. It is the press that creates public opinion. It is the grand fact of the hour that popular sentiment has been educated by the press up to the point of spurning party-trammels and voting on principle."

All of these expressions of opinion apply with peculiar force to the press of the United States. No grander proof can be offered of the elevating and enlightening influence of freedom than the fact that no nation on the face of the globe possesses a press which can compare with that of this country, whether we consider the number of newspapers or their influence. With the same rate of increase in the next ten years as in the past, there will be more newspapers and periodicals published in the United States than in all the rest of the world combined. The number is now between 7000 and 8000. Who can estimate the influence upon our national life and growth of this ever-flowing and ever-increasing stream of information, sent forth in such a form and at such a price as places some portion of it at least within the reach of the poorest citizen in the land who is able to read? The invention of the electric telegraph, the perfecting of phonography, the recent wonderful improvements of the printing-press, have increased facilities for obtaining and imparting news; but the real secret of the marvellous influence of the press is to be found in the ability, the sagacity and the force (to use a word frequently employed to express this particular journalistic quality) of the modern editor. The editor is a creation of the present century. Occasionally among his predecessors was seen a spark of the genuine editorial fire, but the time had not yet come for the blazing forth of that galaxy of stars which now so brilliantly lights up the journalistic firmament. When the electric telegraph began to put in communication distant points, and made of our nation, in fact as well as in thought, one closely-connected household, each portion daily anxiously looking for information concerning the rest; when phonography made it possible to transcribe the spoken word, no matter how rapidly it is uttered; when the more general diffusion of education had caused a thirst for knowledge, and rapid progress in the arts and sciences had created a demand

for profound thinkers yet ready teachers, then it was that the editor first laid claim to his present high position. The Hebrew prophets were not only religious teachers, but also state moralists and guardians of the republic, uniting the functions of the Roman censors and the tribunes of the people. What the Hebrew prophet was in the olden time in his civil capacity, the editor is, or ought to be, at the present day; for to him the people look for counsel in times of danger and perplexity-for cheering words which shall light up the gloom in the day of adversity, and shall give greater zest to seasons of prosperity.

The teachings of the philosophers of antiquity were the almost peculiar property of the few favored disciples who frequented the garden or the porch where the instructor could be found, and the admonitions of statesmen were generally given in harangues; but the editor speaks at times to an assembly greater than any that ever filled the Roman Colosseum, composed not merely of men of leisure, but of all classes, rich and poor, learned and unlearned. A moral priesthood is therefore upon him-an obligation to teach what is positively right, as well as to rebuke what is wrong; for his influence for good or for evil is quickly and powerfully felt, and to him, if to any one, it may be said: "By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned." Great, therefore, as is his power, his responsibility is equally great. There are wrongs to right, and rights to be maintained. There is ignorance to be enlightened, error to be corrected, wickedness to be reproved. To note the signs of the Times; to Chronicle the Progress of events; to Express sentiments of truth and justice; with Argus eye to be like a Sentinel or Watchman at his Post, the first to Herald the News to all the World; to give in his Bulletin the latest intelligence by Telegraph from all parts of the Globe, taking care that not a single incorrect Item enters into the Graphic descriptions of his Reporter; to Press ever on to higher ground, never behind the Age, but brilliant as "the Sun that shines for all;" to keep the balance in Ledger, Journal and Day-Book on the right side; to Appeal to the best impulses of the good, but to fall upon evil-doers with the force of an Avalanche; Independent in thought, to strive to bring about a true Golden Age; to keep an unsullied Record as Patriot and Statesman, caring for the welfare of the whole Nation; to be a Tribune of the People, a Defender of the sanctities of Hearth and Home; a promoter of Christian Union; an Inquirer after truth; a keen Observer and a correct Recorder, these are the editor's duties; and if he fulfil them properly, be he Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Radical, Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopalian or Baptist, he will be a Standard-bearer in his Day and generation, a brilliant Star in the Galaxy of authors; and however meagre may be the supply of so-called "sensations," he will have no difficulty in supplying all reasonable demands of "the devil."

AMERICAN LITERATURE.

IT

T has been said that "half a century ago it was usual to sneer in England at the literary pretensions of America." The sneer had not yet gone out of fashion at the time (1852) when Mr. Tuckerman wrote these words; for more than ten years later than the date given, in a collection of essays written by several British aspirants for political honors, the literary pretensions of American statesmen were thoroughly sneered at. One of these writers (Leslie Stephens, M. A.) says: "Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison and Adams are surrounded by a halo of the most cherished national glory, and their character has been estimated accordingly. To any one who will study their works it will appear that the two first [meaning the first two] were the only men who can claim the praise of any original intellectual force. [Can intellectual force be acquired?] Jefferson was little more than a clever retailer of epigrams of the French revolutionary school [the Declaration of Independence is an example; when the English hate anything, their minds are relieved if they call it French], whose political career consisted in feebly drifting with his party. Hamilton was an energetic man of business, with a curious incapacity for seeing beyond the British Constitution. To accept them as in any sense great statesmen seems to me a mere concession to national vanity. I think any one who will study the career of General Jackson, or of any of the great trio, Clay, Calhoun and Webster, will come to the same conclusion as regards them. . . . It is useless, however, to complain of the inferiority of American statesmen, unless it appears that better material is passed over. Now, with all its excellences, American society has a characteristic defect: it has not hitherto produced poets, or philosophers, or artists any more than great statesmen up to the European level." The italics and the remarks in brackets in the above quotation are our own. The writer is sometimes sufficiently diffident to say "I think;" but of the assertion contained in the last sentence he is very positive, and the patronizing manner in which he makes that statement is highly edifying. He gives, of course, simply his individual opinion; but it requires no argument to prove that in essays written by office-seekers opinions known to be unpopular are seldom suffered to appear. An examination of British reviews of American works will furnish the reader with many similar assertions. Whatever is unde

niably good the British reviewer frequently attributes to close study of English authors, or even comes out with a direct charge of plagiarism, or of an imitation so close as to virtually constitute that crime. Imitation enough there has certainly been, and how could it be otherwise? The first colonists could not forget the mother-country, though to many of them she had been a stepmother. Their language was English, their education had been obtained in England, their literature was English. Their absence from their native land made them prize more highly than ever the rich heritage of literary wealth to which they possessed a claim based upon a community of language, of political sentiment and of historical association. They had, moreover, little time to spend in original literary production; the stern realities of life were upon them. To erect permanent dwellings; to bring under cultivation sufficient land to furnish necessary food; to repel the attacks of a wary and savage foe,—such were the tasks which demanded the time and attention, the physical and mental activity, of the majority of those who were pioneers in the settlement of the thirteen original colonies. It was also natural that this ascendency of the mothercountry should continue for several generations; and even at the present day it would be as reasonable to expect from British authors works in which the influence of standard English writers cannot be perceived as to demand such works from their "American cousins."

The first book written (some say that it was only finished) in America was a translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, executed by George Sandys, the treasurer of the London Company [see HISTORICAL SKETCH, page 93]. Bancroft speaks of Sandys as "an idle man, who had been a great traveller, and who did not remain in America-a poet whose verse was tolerated by Dryden and praised by Izaak Walton," etc. When the reader remembers that Sandys was one of the most zealous and influential promoters of emigration to America, having sent to Virginia 1200 emigrants during the year 1620 (including 90 young women, who became the wives of planters); that while travelling "he studied the genius, the tempers, the religions and the governing principles of the people he visited," and that after visiting the "Turkish Empire, Egypt, the Holy Land," etc., he composed "the best account of those parts written by any Englishman, and not inferior to the best of foreigners;" that he wrote some of the finest paraphrases of the Psalms, the book of Job and other scriptural poems that ever appeared in any language; and, finally, that the time in which to make the translation from Ovid above mentioned was (says Sandys) "snacht from the howers (sic) of night and repose, for the day was not mine"; when the reader remembers these facts, he will agree with us in the opinion that Sandys could not, with justice, be termed "an idle man." Dryden showed his toleration by calling Sandys "the ingenious and learned Sandys, the best versifier of the former age;" and his verse was praised by