No More Learning

It
is as large as Central and Western Europe, and nearly equal in extent
to all of the United States east of the Rocky Mountains; its climate
admits of the full development of man's physical and mental powers;
it has a vast extent of fertile soil; and its future prosperity depends
not on precarious mines of gold, silver, or diamonds, but on steady
labor and the orderly succession of seed-time and harvest.
Brazil is equal in area to the entire United States excluding
Alaska; but its tropical climate is an obstacle to advancement. Be-
fore the present century the settlements in that country had a feeble,
often disturbed existence; and until the discovery of diamonds in 1786,
the peculiar red dye-stuff called “Brazil wood” was about the sole
attraction to Europeans. When Napoleon was turning all European
affairs into chaos and dissolution, João VI, left Lisbon in 1807 and
set up his throne in Rio de Janeiro. That seemed to the Brazilians
a great event, as it was the first time in history that a colony had
become the head of a united kingdom. In time, however, they became


## p. 8918 (#546) ###########################################

8918
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
em-
discontented at seeing themselves as subordinate as ever, and that
the Portuguese court retained all the powers and honors. When the
King returned to Portugal in 1821, his son Dom Pedro was left as
regent of the kingdom of Brazil. He became so popular that in the
following year the Cortes at Lisbon ordered him to return home;
but the people of Brazil begged him not to go, and proclaimed him
emperor as Dom Pedro I. Thus Brazil's independence of European
control was attained without bloodshed or display of armed force;
and under the wise direction of a permanent ruler, she was spared
the internal dissensions that long proved a formidable obstacle to the
progress of some of her neighbors.
Politics and literature are much allied in Latin America. The
beginnings of revolution had little to do with theories of government
or abstract rights of man: they aimed at the immediate ends of free
trade and relief from foreign domination. Brazil accepted an
peror with enthusiasm; independent Mexico offered the crown to a
Spanish prince, and on his refusal made Iturbide emperor; and Vene-
zuela, Peru, Chile, Paraguay, and the Argentine admitted dictators.
There has always been a tendency to run into dictatorial govern-
ment. There is a permanent party — including the powerful influence
of the Church — in favor of a strong personal government and a large
amount of interference with individual interests. At the same time
there have been large numbers with the apparent ideal of “every
man his own lawgiver, judge, and executioner. ” The contest has
been between these parties, over the question of how much govern-
ment people require. The Church and the older men generally have
upheld rule and authority; literary men — the young, enthusiastic,
-
and poetic — have as generally striven for larger freedom. It is al-
most a stereotyped phrase in any account of a poet that he was “an
ardent advocate of liberty. ” It is encouraging to observe that the
distance between the two wings is diminishing; that the one party is
becoming less eager to govern, and the other a little more willing to
be governed.
WRITERS ON POLITICAL SCIENCE. — The necessities arising from the
acquisition of national independence caused such subjects as political
economy, international and constitutional law, and public education,
to occupy a prominent place in the minds of the founders of the new
republics. Early in the century, treatises on these topics began to
appear which won the encomiums of eminent European authorities.
The valuable labors of Andrés Bello have been already referred to.
Juan Bautista Alberdi, the Argentine jurist (born 1808), is entitled to
take rank in the class of publicists represented in Europe by Guizot,
De Tocqueville, and the Mills, and by Kent and Story in the United


## p. 8919 (#547) ###########################################

LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
8919
(
States. He was the author of the Argentine constitution, and of
eight substantial works, of which the most important are “Bases y
Puntos de Partida para la Organización de la República Argentina)
and (Sistema Económico y Rentístico de la Confederación Argentina. '
A slight, delicate man, he was when aroused a powerful writer and
speaker, his power being augmented by a vein of caustic irony. As
polemic articles, his pamphlets are as famous for their aggressive
virility as those of Paul Louis Courier. A celebrated work of more
recent date is La Reforma Política' of Dr. Rafael Núñez, recently
president of the republic of Colombia; Núñez is an ultra-conservative,
and his great treatise favors a "paternal despotism. ” Rafael Seijas
of Venezuela is a distinguished jurist who has written ably upon
international law; he is also a diligent student of English, French,
and Italian literatures, upon which he has given to the public some
interesting articles.
After Andrés Bello, few promoters of public education have better
earned the esteem of their countrymen than Domingo Faustino Sar-
miento, an Argentine born in 1811. He began his career as head of
a female college; and in 1842 he established the first normal school
of South America, at the same time that as an editor he was com-
bating with all his might the «separatist” dictatorship of Rosas and
advocating the union of the several States. While minister to the
United States (1865–67) he made a careful study of the school system;
and the results of his investigations were given to the world in an
essay entitled 'Las Escuelas: Base de la Prosperidad de los Estados
Unidos. ) He was favored by the personal friendship and assistance
of Horace Mann, who was perhaps the best-known educationalist
that the United States has ever produced. Sarmiento was president
of the Argentine Republic from 1868 to 1874. As a writer he was
gifted with great originality and vigor of expression, which make his
(Recuerdos de Provincia) one of the most entertaining books of its
kind. His masterpiece is entitled 'Facundo,' in which he presents in
a series of glowing pictures a comprehensive survey of the points of
difference between civilization and barbarism.
HISTORIANS. History has always been well represented in the lit-
erature of Latin America. Most of the States have comprehensive
histories, the fruit of much research, and written with careful regard
to facts and form. There are also numerous historical works of more
limited scope, devoted to certain districts or periods, or gathered
around the achievements of individuals.
The national or State histories often surprise the stranger by the
liberal scale upon which they are constructed. A profusion of material
handed down from the old days of viceregal and monastic supremacy,


## p. 8920 (#548) ###########################################

8920
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
combined with the greater leisure of the southern life, and a certain
tendency to wordiness on the part of writers, have resulted in mak-
ing these histories bulky, if not at times wearisome. We could wish
a broader treatment of essentials, and less space devoted to details.
The authors often lived too near the events they record, or were too
deeply interested in them, to be able to take an impartial, pano-
ramic view; or are weighted by religious, political, or social prepos-
sessions.
Father Suárez informs his readers that in collecting material for
his history of Ecuador, he examined ten thousand packages of papers
filed in the Archives of the Indies in Seville. León Fernández, find-
ing no history of his native State of Costa Rica, set about collecting
materials; and in 1881-86 he gave to the world 1,917 closely printed
pages of documents, not previously edited, bearing upon the history of
a country of less than a quarter of a million of inhabitants, and whose
first printing-press was set up in 1830. The history of Mexico from
the earliest times to the death of Maximilian, by Niceto de Zamacóis,
fills eighteen thick octavo volumes. Lorenzo Montúfar's 'Reseña His-
tórica de Centro-América' - a mere outline makes seven volumes
royal octavo; and the recent Historia General de Chile,' by Diego
Barros Arana, comprises thirteen octavo volumes. Another Chilean
historian, Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna, has written an account of a
single campaign, Historia de la Campaña de Tarapacá,' in two vol-
umes of a thousand pages each; his collective historical works fill
fifteen volumes. The government of Venezuela is now publishing the
historical essays of Arístides Rojas relative to that country, and they
are estimated to form thirteen or fourteen volumes. The third stout
volume of the Historia General de la República del Ecuador,' by
Suárez, reaches only to the year 1718. Then there are the exhaustive
works relating to Peru, of which we may mention the magnificent
treatise of Raimondi, cut short in its fourth volume by the author's
death in 1892. The tenth volume of the Historia de la República
Argentina' by Vicente Fidel López has just appeared, and its ven-
erable author is continuing the work with an industry unchecked by
the weight of his seventy-six years.
Among special historical works which even the briefest enumera-
tion would include, the most widely known are probably the twin
histories of General Bartolomé Mitre of Buenos Ayres (born 1821),
bearing the titles Historia de Belgrano y de la Independencia
Argentina,' and Historia de San Martín y de la Emancipación Sud-
Americana. ' Special mention should be given to the standard work
of . Rafael Maria Baralt of Maracaibo (1810-60), entitled (Resumen
de la Historia Antigua y Moderna de Venezuela,' which Aristides
Rojas has more recently supplemented by seven “studies” on various


## p. 8921 (#549) ###########################################

LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
8921
(
epochs and aspects of the national history. Two histories written by
Colombians rank very high; namely, the Historia de la Nueva
Granada' by José Antonio de Plaza, and the Historia de la Revo-
lución de Colombia' by José Manuel Restrepo. The historical works
of Mariano Paz Soldán are characterized by that patient accumulation
of facts which is supposed to distinguish German scholarship; his rep-
utation rests more especially upon his “Historia del Perú Independi-
ente de 1819 á 1827,' and his Diccionario Geográfico-Estadístico del
Perú. '
Manuel Orozco y Berra gave to the public in 1880 an elaborate
account of the ancient nations of Mexico in his Historia Antigua y
de la Conquista de México,' in which he goes over the whole subject
treated by Prescott, and adds a profusion of further details. Vicente
Fidel López, the author of the large History of the Argentine Re-
public previously mentioned, has written two historical works of great
interest to the ethnologist and antiquarian; they are entitled 'Las
Razas del Perú Anteriores á la Conquista' and 'Les Races Aryennes
au Pérou. '
Brazil has produced several historical writers of merit. The stand-
ard history is by Fr. Antonio de Varnhagen, and is entitled “Historia
Geral do Brazil. ) It extends to the last half of the present cen-
tury, but does not reach the abdication of Pedro II. Varnhagen's
style is lucid and dignified, as required by the subject, and free from
the rhetorical inflation too common among inferior writers in the
southern continent. His descriptive passages are often particularly
fine. He published in 1860 an interesting little book, A Caça no
Brazil,' — the first of the kind that has appeared in South America,-
describing the wild animals and the modes of pursuing them in the
great forests and on the plains of that country. Pereira da Silva's
Historia da Fundação do Imperio Brazileiro) is one of the standard
works of Brazilian history.
>
LITERARY Critics. – Opinions on authors and books occupy a larger
relative space in Latin-American literature than in that of Anglo-Saxon
nations. Criticism, among our southern neighbors, deals less with the
views and statements of an author than with his manner of present-
ing them; so by treating literature as a fine art, along with painting
and music, it becomes in itself a fine art, requiring artistic faculties
carefully cultivated. One of the highest authorities in the southern
continent has said : “That which above all other things exalts an
author and enables him to reach posterity, is style. ” The more staid
people of the north hold that substance is even more important than
form, and that the enduring masterpieces of the world's literature
combine both. It is a question of relative estimate.


## p. 8922 (#550) ###########################################

8922
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
Criticism, as a fine art, has been cultivated in Latin America with
surprising assiduity; and includes among its eminent masters such
men as Torres Caicedo, Miguel Luis Amunátegui, and Calixto Oyuela,
the author of Estudios y Artículos Literarios. A few words must
be spared for Rafael M. Merchán, the Cuban exile, of whom it has
been elegantly said that he writes with a gloved hand and a pen of
gold. ” He made his home in Bogotá, one of the foremost literary
centres of the southern continent, and became secretary to the Presi-
dent. His poetic temperament, wide reading, and fine discernment
furnish the qualifications that make him above all a critic, and which
shine conspicuously in his study on Juan Clemente Zenea and in his
(Estudios Críticos. )
Of all this wealth of critical discussion, no part affords more at-
tractive reading than the works of Martín García Mérou, the present
Argentine minister to the United States. They show a wide famili-
arity with the literatures of Europe and America, a delicate judg-
ment, and that kind of fairness that can appreciate the merits of one
with whom he does not agree.
In addition, his personal acquaint-
ance with the leading contemporary authors of South America imparts
to his writings a peculiar interest that is lacking in the works of less
favored critics. His essay on the poet Echeverría may be cited as
one of his most thorough studies; while in his two recent reminis-
cences, Recuerdos Literarios) and Confidencias Literarias,' he fits
from one author or book to another with all the vivacity and brill-
iancy of a tropical humming-bird.
Those most interested in the subject of Latin-American literature
are now eagerly awaiting the great work in preparation by Professor
García Velloso, of Buenos Ayres. It is to be a comprehensive history
of the literature of the entire southern continent.
a
NOVELISTS. — The novel, as means of interesting and influen-
cing the public mind, did not begin to assume prominence in Latin
America until the latter half of the present century; and the class of
writers whose specialty is prose fiction is still relatively small. Jorge
Isaaks, the Colombian poet, is widely known by his María,' a simple
and pathetic story of rural life, a translation of which has been ex-
tensively read in the United States. His compatriot Julio Arboleda
has given the public a bright contrast to this sombre picture, in his
sparkling romance (Casimiro el Montañés. '
The collection of stories known as “La Linterna Mágica,' writ-
ten by José T. del Cuellar, of Mexico, has been deservedly popular.
Ignacio M. Altamirano, a Mexican lawyer and orator of pure Indian
blood, has left a novel, Clemencia,' which for style and pathos has
seldom been surpassed. The Mexican historian Orozco y Berra wrote


## p. 8923 (#551) ###########################################

LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
8923
a beautiful novel, `Escenas de Treinta Años,' relating the experiences
of an unfortunate disappointed invalid. Dr. J. J. Fernández Lizardi,
generally known by the pseudonym of «El Pensador Mexicano,” has
revived the old Spanish picaresque type of romance in his 'Periquillo
Sarmiento. )
The Argentine historian Vicente Fidel Lopez is the author of a
thrilling historical novel entitled 'La Novia del Hereje,' the scene of
which is laid in Lima in the time of the Inquisition; but the favorite
romance of the region of the Plata is the Amalia' of José Mármol,
one of the most beautiful of modern novels. Chile has produced sev-
eral noted works of fiction, among which the Alberto el Jugador of
the poetess Rosario Orrego de Uribe, La Dote de una Joven,' by
Vicente Grez, and the historical novel Los Héroes del Pacífico,' by
Ramón Pacheco, are much admired. (Contra la Marea,' by the Chi-
lean Alberto del Solar, is one of the most powerful of recent American
novels.
Quite a number of romances have been founded upon Indian
legends, or tell of Indian life and customs, after the manner of
Fenimore Cooper. Two of the best of these are quite recent, -the
Painé) and Relmú' of the Argentine publicist Estanislao S. Zebal-
los, who, still young, combines every form of literary activity. The
(Huincahual, by Alberto del Solar, is one of the most able produc-
tions of this class, and gives evidence of a diligent study of Araucan
customs and character. The Brazilian novelist José Martinião Alencar
wrote two famous Indian romances, entitled 'Iracema' and 'Guarany. "
Iracema' develops the main feature of the story of John Smith and
Pocahontas. The other novel, like Helen Hunt Jackson's (Ramona,'
tells how a young Indian loves a Portuguese woman. Carlos Gomes
has transformed it into an opera which has become well known in
Europe, retaining the name of (Guarany. '
Besides Martinião Alencar, Brazil has produced during the present
century two highly successful writers of prose fiction, — Joaquim
Manoel de Macedo and Bernardo Guimarães. Macedo was a doctor of
medicine, a professor in the University of Rio, a member of Congress,
and a prolific writer in prose and verse.
His Moreninha' (Brunette),
published in 1840, undertook for the first time to portray Brazilian
society as it really was; it enjoyed extraordinary popularity, as did
also his (Senhora,' which some critics consider superior to Moreninha. '
Guimarães is one of the most powerful and original writers of Brazil.
'Ermitão de Muquem' is considered his best novel. It is written in
three versions or styles: one plain prose, one poetic prose, and one
peculiar to the author, like the styles of Bentham and Carlyle. His
(Seminarista' is a romance with a tragic outcome, and is directed
against the enforced celibacy of the clergy.


## p. 8924 (#552) ###########################################

8924
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
(
POETS AND DRAMATISTS. The Spanish and Portuguese languages
lend themselves so readily to versification that the amount of poetry
produced is enormous; indeed, it may almost be assumed that every
South-American writer not a scientific specialist is also a poet. Juan
León Mera published in 1868 a critical history of the poets of Ecua-
dor, at a time when many persons were not aware that that coun-
try had ever possessed any. Cortés, in his Parnaso Peruano, fills
eight hundred pages with choice extracts from forty-four of the lead-
ing poets of Peru; and the great anthology of Menéndez y Pelayo,
consisting of four thick volumes of poetical selections, purports to
give only the very best that Spanish-American writers have pro-
duced in verse. ”
Four names may represent the different styles of poetry cultivated
in Mexico. Manuel Carpio, a physician by profession, was well read
in Greek and Roman literatures, and a still more diligent student of
Jewish lore. His “Tierra Santa' is a work of great learning, not
inferior to Robinson's Biblical Researches. ' He is best known,
however, by his poems; one of which, La Cena de Baltasar,' shows
remarkable descriptive power. Fernando Calderón is distinguished
rather by the sweetness than the strength of his verse. The tender-
ness of his sentiments is well displayed in Hermán, ó la Vuelta del
Cruzado. He was the author of a comedy entitled "Á Ninguna de
las Tres,' intended as a satire on those who return from foreign
travel only to find fault with everything at home. José Joaquín
Pesado has at once tenderness, sublimity, and classic finish. In La
Revelación' he has essayed to wake anew the harp which Dante
swept; and he has given to his countrymen in their own tongue the
odes of Horace and the psalms of David, along with some minor
poems of rare beauty. Last of all, in Los Aztecas) he has sought
to restore and interpret the hymns, chants, and lost lore of the prim-
itive races of Anáhuac. Manuel Acuña, whose unhappy life extended
only from 1849 to 1873, holds the place among Mexican poets that
Edgar A. Poe does among those of the United States. In his nerv-
ous, delicate nature, poetry was a morbid secretion, like the pearl in
the oyster; and he became the self-appointed priest and prophet of
sorrow and disappointment. His most noted poems are El Pasado,'
"Á Rosario,' and a drama entitled (Gloria. '
One of the most enduring masterpieces of Spanish-American verse
is Gonzalo de Oyón,' a beautifully wrought tale based upon an epi.
sode in the early history of the country. Its author, Julio Arboleda
(1817-62), held the foremost rank among the Colombian writers of
the first half of this century. Another Colombian writer who reflects
the sentiments of the past is Silveria Espinosa de Rendón, who
laments the expulsion of the Jesuits in her (Lágrimas i Recuerdos. '


## p. 8925 (#553) ###########################################

LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
8925
Among the young and hopeful spirits that enliven the brilliant society
of Bogotá at the present time, Antonio José Restrepo is the poet lau-
reate. The most celebrated of his longer poems are Un Canto' and
El Dios Pan'; in which the author shows himself to be a liberalist
of the most pronounced type, who writes in utter fearlessness of all
absolute rulers for man's mind, body, or estate.
The extensive writings of Estebán Echeverría (1809-51) contain
many passages that are weak and commonplace; but he stands forth
as the national poet of the Argentine Republic, reflecting the life and
thought found on its vast plains and along its mighty rivers. The
productions to which his fame is chiefly due are Avellaneda,' 'La
Revolución del Sur,' and 'La Cautiva. ' The last-named poem, an
Indian story of the Pampas, deserves a place by the side of Hia-
watha,' which it resembles in the unaffected beauty of its descriptive
passages and the flowing simplicity of its versification. Martín Coro-
nado and Rafael Obligado, two of the leading poets of Buenos Ayres,
are disciples of Echeverría, though of different types. Coronado's
verse is impassioned and dazzling; while Obligado's muse loves the
contentment of the family hearth or the shady banks of the majestic
Paraná, where the stillness is broken only by the cry of a wild bird
or the lazy dip of an oar.
The poems of Arnaldo Márquez and Clemente Althaus of Peru
take a very high rank for their beauty and tenderness of sentiment
as well as purity of style. The Noche de Dolor en las Montañas)
and the Canto de la Vida' of the Peruvian Numa Pompilio Llona
are compositions which will be admired for centuries. The Romances
Americanos) of the Chilean poet Carlos Walker Martínez, and the
(Flores del Aire of Dr. Adán Quiroga of Argentina, are collections
of poems of great merit and originality. Compositions of remark-
able beauty will be found in the Brisas del Mar) of the Peruvian
Manuel Nicolás Corpancho, the Armonías' of Guillermo Blest Gana
of Chile, and the (Flores Silvestres) of Francisco Javier de Acha of
Uruguay.
José Batrés y Montúfar of Guatemala, a lyric poet of merit, is
one of the most noted satirists of America. Matías Córdoba and Gar-
cía Goyena of Guatemala have been justly compared, as fabulists, to
Æsop and La Fontaine,
Among Brazilian writers of the present century, two representative
poets may be selected: Antonio Gonçalves Dias and Domingos José
Gonçalves Magalhães. Dias was even more esteemed as a patriot
than as a poet; and was much employed by the late emperor in
carrying out educational and other reforms, in which that estimable
sovereign was deeply interested. The successive issues of miscella-
neous poems by Dias are now known collectively as his Canteiros,'
(


## p. 8926 (#554) ###########################################

8926
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
and won the enthusiastic commendation of the Portuguese critic Her-
culão. He also left some Indian epics, and the two dramas Leonor
de Mendonça) and (Sextilhas de Frei Antão. He was so far honored
in his own country that his fellow-townsmen erected a statue to his
memory, with an inscription declaring him the foremost poet of
Brazil. The best productions of Magalhães are a tragedy entitled
Antonio José ou o Poeta e a Inquisição,' and A Confederação dos
Tamayos,' the latter an epic founded on an outbreak of the Tamayo
and other Indians.
SUMMARY
On looking across the Rio Grande at authors and books beyond,
one is struck by some points that contrast with our northern life.
There, public men are writers. Whether it be that political life
stimulates literary activity, or that the latter is a passport to the
former, presidents, senators, cabinet officers, judges, and ministers
plenipotentiary all write. Many of them read, write, and speak a
number of languages, -an accomplishment so rare in Saxon America
that an envoy is sometimes sent on an important mission without
being able to speak the language of the country to which he is
accredited.
Again, the literary men of the far South, with scarce an exception,
write poetry as readily as prose. Nothing could be more incongruous
than the idea of the average public man in the United States writing
poetry. Something is due to the character of the language, that a
stranger does not readily appreciate. In Spanish and Portuguese
verse the words roll and swell, liquid and lengthy, like the waves of
the sea, and tempt one to prolong the billowy movement. An excel-
lent critic has said on this point, “The seeming ease of the versifica-
tion is constantly enticing the poet on. The result is that we get
not only good measure in the length of words, but liberal count in
their number. Furthermore, we of the north are actively looking
around, watching the chances; the man of the south is reflective,
introspective, and he commits his soliloquies to paper. He is often
more intent on photographing his own mind than on reaching the
minds of others. Latin-American verse is glowingly descriptive, or
plaintive and tender, with an occasional tinge of melancholy; but it
all possesses a healthy and natural tone, and has not yet been in-
fected by the morbid unrest and hopeless cynicisin that characterizes
much of the recent poetry of older nations.
> *
* Martín García Mérou, Ensayo sobre Echeverría, page 174.


## p. 8927 (#555) ###########################################

LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
8927
In most Latin-American countries the persons of unmixed European
descent are still in a minority. This alone would lead to a marked
distinction of classes. Actually the difference between the highest
and the lowest is still extreme. On the one hand there are learn-
ing and careful education --somewhat different from ours in kind, but
by no means inferior in degree; on the other, the densest ignorance
and superstition. The great bulk of the people from Texas to Cape
Horn cannot read and write. Great efforts are put forth to remedy
this state of things by general education, and much has already been
accomplished; but the task is immense and will occupy several gen-
erations. In the United States, books are intended for a reading class
numbering many millions, and are made as cheap as possible, so as
to come within their reach. This is still more conspicuously the case
in Germany. In Latin America there are no millions to read, and
the best books are addressed to a relatively small class. As sales are
limited, large works of general interest or permanent value are pub-
lished or aided by the governments, or by wealthy and public-spirited
individuals. Lesser works are often put forth in small editions at the
cost of the author. No pains or expense is spared to make some of
these masterpieces of their kind; and combinations of paper, typogra-
phy, and binding are produced whose elegance is nowhere surpassed.
Of the lighter literature of the southern republics, a large part first
appears in the various revistas and other literary periodicals main-
tained in all the principal cities. It consists principally of odes, son-
nets, short stories, and essays. These essays embrace every variety
of subject: the authors traverse – often literally — the Old World and
the New, view them geographically, ethnologically, sociologically, and
write under such captions as (A Winter in Russia,' (The Bedouins of
the City,' (The Literature of Slang,' or (The History of an Umbrella. '
The subjects are generally treated in a light, sketchy style, so as
to be pleasant reading, and afford at least as much entertainment as
information.
Novelists and dramatists are under a great disadvantage, having no
protective tariff to save them from European, and especially French,
competition. Editors and managers find translations cheaper and
easier to obtain than native productions.
There is happily a growing
reaction in favor of native writers who represent American subjects
as seen by American eyes. When the cultivated public becomes fully
aware of the greater genuineness of these domestic productions, native
talent will have an ampler field; and there is every reason to believe
that it will be prepared to satisfy the fullest demand.
AUTHORITIES. –J. M. Pereira da Silva, Os Varões Illustres do
Brazil durante os Tempos Coloniaes,' Paris, 1858. Ferdinand Wolff,


## p. 8928 (#556) ###########################################

8928
LATIN-AMERICAN LITERATURE
(
(
Histoire de la Littérature Brésilienne,' Berlin, 1863. (Lira Americana,'
by R. Palma, Paris, 1865. Domingo Cortés, América Poética,' Paris,
1875; and Diccionario Biográfico Americano, Paris, 1875. Juan León
Mera, Ojeada histórico-crítica sobre la Poesía Ecuatoriana,' Quito,
1868. Francisco Largomaggiore, América Literaria, Buenos Ayres,
1883.
Francisco Pimentel, Historia Crítica de la Literatura y de las
Ciencias en México. J. M. Torres Caicedo, Ensayos Biográficos i de
Crítica Literaria sobre los Principales Publicistas i Literatos de la
América Latina. ' Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Antologia de Poetas
Hispano-Americanos,' 4 vols. , Madrid, 1893-95.
Der Ramsey


## p. 8929 (#557) ###########################################

8929
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
(1838-)
BY JOHN WHITE CHADWICK
ECKY, whose rank among English historians is so well assured
by what he has done already as to be quite independent
of anything he may do hereafter, was born in the neigh-
borhood of Dublin, Ireland, March 26th, 1838. Trinity College, Dub-
lin, which gave him his first degree in 1859, has since united with
Oxford and other universities in crowning him with the highest
honors. His inclination to historical literature was pronounced while
he was still in college; and found its first public expression in 1861,
when he published anonymously "The Lead-
ers of Public Opinion in Ireland, four elab-
orate studies of Swift, Flood, Grattan, and
O'Connell. The secret of his authorship
was not well kept; and the book attracted
so much attention, read in the light of cur-
rent Irish politics, that it was republished
in 1871 under Mr. Lecky's name, with an
important introduction from his hand. This
maiden book had much of the promise of
his later writing in its face. Without read-
ing into it what is not there, it is easy to
divine that the writer's predilection was for
history rather than for biography, for causes W. E. H. LECKY
and relations rather than for mere events,
and for history as literature, not as a catalogue or grouping of things
exactly verified. Moreover, in this early book we have that warm
humanity which has been the dominant note of Mr. Lecky's literary
work, and which has proved quite as attractive as his streaming and
pellucid style.
The years from 1861 to 1865 must have been exceedingly labori-
ous, including as they did the preparation for the History of the
Rise and Influence of the Spirit of Rationalism in Europe,' two large
volumes full of such matter as must have required a vast amount
of careful study and research for its separation from the innumerable
documents in which it was imbedded. Without a sign of Buckle's

XV-559


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8930
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
(
wanton display of his authorities, both text and notes revealed a mar-
velous patience and persistency in the search for even the smallest
farthing candle that might shed a ray of light upon his theme. The
only deduction from this aspect of the work was the comparatively
limited extent of the demand made on German sources, which were
no doubt incomparably rich. No historical work since Buckle's His-
tory of Civilization in Europe' (1857) had attracted so much attention,
nor has any from its publication in 1865 until now. It was like
Buckle's book in the clarity though not in the quality of its style;
and also like it in a more important sense, in that it was a history
after the manner of Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws) and Voltaire's
Essay on Manners. ) It was a philosophic history, not an annalist's.
It was moreover the work of a historical essayist rather than a his-
torian. The subjects treated made this a necessity; but either the
writing of this book made the historical essay the habit of Mr. Lecky's
mind, or his instinctive tendency to it was not to be escaped. We
have first an essay on Magic and Witchcraft,' next one on "Church
Miracles,' then a more extended one on Æsthetic, Scientific, and
Moral Developments of Rationalism,' a still more extended one on
(Persecution,' one on the "Secularization of Politics,' and one on the
Industrial History of Rationalism. ' All of these subjects are treated
with a fascinating directness and simplicity, which is the more remark-
able because the essays take up into themselves such a multitude of
facts and observations. The text is not impoverished to enrich the
notes, but a sure instinct seems to decide what can be assimilated
and what had better be left in the rough.
The object of the work, as declared in the introduction, was to
trace the
of the Spirit of Rationalism, not as a class of defi-
nite doctrines,
but rather as a certain cast of thought, or bias of reasoning, which has
during the last three centuries gained a marked ascendency in Europe );
which «leads men on all occasions to subordinate dogmatic theology to the
dictates of reason and conscience, and as a necessary consequence, greatly to
restrict its influence upon life. It predisposes men, in history, to attribute all
kinds of phenomena to natural rather than miraculous causes; in theology, to
esteem succeeding systems the expressions of the wants and aspirations of
that religious sentiment which is planted in all men; and in ethics, to regard
as duties only those which conscience reveals to be such. ”
Mr. Lecky traced this history with a fairness that went far to disarm
the prejudices of those least disposed to go along with him. He ex-
hibited a remarkable power of entering sympathetically into states
of mind entirely foreign to his own, and of disengaging in particular
characters — that of Voltaire, for example – the better elements from
the worse. But he could not be content to trace a process, however


## p. 8931 (#559) ###########################################

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
8931
(
>
congenial to his sympathies. He had a doctrine to maintain, as defi-
nite as Buckle's doctrines of the determinism of natural conditions and
the unprogressive character of morality. It was, that the progress of
rationalism was
was mainly silent, unargumentative, and insensible”;
that it appeared first of all in those least subject to theological in-
fluences, soon spread through the educated laity, and last of all took
possession of the clergy. ” Indeed, the rationalistic spirit seemed to
have for him the realistic character which ideas had for the school-
men before the Nominalists won their victory. If his doctrine had
been as true as he imagined it, much of his book would have been
superfluous. His great thinkers would have been merely marking
time, not leading the advance. The truth which it contained was,
that the effect of argument is not immediate; that it falls into the
ground and dies, and afterward bears fruit. Fortunately the value
of his work was quite as independent of his pet theory as was that
of Buckle's of his. It contains many tributes to the influence of one
thinker or another which are widely at variance with the doctrine of
their practical inefficiency; the tribute to Voltaire for “having done
more to destroy the greatest of human curses (persecution) than any
other of the sons of men ” being one of the most eloquent.
Mr. Lecky's History of European Rationalism is the work which
has done more than any other for his immediate reputation and to
perpetuate his fame; but hardly less significant was his History of
European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,' which appeared in
1869. Had not his previous studies put him on the track of many
things which here are hunted down, four years would have been all
too short for the making of a book which covers so much ground.
Surely something of Mr. Lecky's praise of Gibbon's diligence may
be credited to his own account, when what he did in four years is
compared with what Gibbon did in twenty-four; especially when
we remember that what he has remarked as true of Gibbon must
have been true of his own methods of investigation. " Some of his
most valuable materials will be found in literatures that have no art-
istic merit; in writers who without theory, and almost without criti-
cism, simply relate the facts which they have seen, and express in
unsophisticated language the beliefs and impressions of their time. ”
Such literatures and writers must have been the main region of Mr.
Lecky's studies for his European Morals. ' In this book, as in the
Rationalism,' he had a thesis to maintain. Here it was the intuitive
character of morality; and it was maintained at great length, its dis-
cussion consuming more than one-third of his first volume. It was an
essay which was not intimately related to the matters following; and
while many of its criticisms of utilitarian ethics were well conceived
as against its earlier and grosser forms, they lose their point when


## p. 8932 (#560) ###########################################

8932
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
(
turned against such writers as Sidgwick and Stephen and others of
the present generation. In this preliminary discussion the formal
character of the whole work was foreshadowed. Again we have a
series of historical essays and not a continuous history. But these
essays are remarkable for their scope, and for their intelligent appre-
ciation of different systems of morality, pagan and Christian. One
of them, on the Pagan Empire, had for an essay within an essay a
thoroughly sympathetic study of Stoicism. The bias of Mr. Lecky's
intuitive morality was shown in his less adequate appreciation of what
was best in the Epicureans. Subsequent studies have done something
to modify the conclusions which he draws concerning the corruption
of the Empire.
Another essay in this book is on the Conversion of Rome. ) This
was the essay which did more than any other to make the book
a subject of wide popular interest, and much scholarly and theo-
logical debate. It coincided with the famous chapters of Gibbon on
the same subject; and while finding operative and important all
the causes which Gibbon named, found them inadequate to account
for the conversion of the Empire as it was actually accomplished.
At the same time Mr. Lecky finds this great event, or series of
events, “easily explicable » by purely natural causes.
«The apparent
anomalies of history are not inconsiderable, but they must be sought
in other quarters.
Never before was a religious transforma-
tion so manifestly inevitable. No other religion ever combined so
many forms of attraction as Christianity, both from its intrinsic excel-
lence and from its manifest adaptation to the special wants of the
time. ”
The stress of the second volume, excepting a concluding chapter
on the Position of Women, was upon the growth of asceticism and
the monastic orders. With a full appreciation of the distinctive ex-
cellences of the ascetic period, and the contributions that it made to
European civilization, Mr. Lecky has been thought by certain critics
to fail in comprehension of the “saints of the desert”; and it must
be admitted that where a saint had not washed himself for thirty
years, he found it difficult to identify his body as the temple of God
or to see the light of heaven shining in his face: but in general he
is remarkable for his sympathetic realization of the most various
manifestations of the religious spirit. He sees with equal clearness
what was most beautiful and noble in the pagan ethics, and what
was more tender and compassionate in the ethics of Christianity in
its earlier course. In the chapter on the Position of Women,' a
tentative argument for the public control of sexual vice excited much
contemporary discussion.
The argument was strangely utilitarian
n intuitive moralist, and many averred that it was not soundly
t;a
for an
***


## p. 8933 (#561) ###########################################

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
8933
utilitarian. For once at least Mr. Lecky waxed sentimental when he
said of the prostitute, «Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ulti-
mately the most efficient guardian of virtue.
She remains,
while creeds and civilizations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of
humanity, blasted for the sins of the people. ”
Nine years elapsed after the publication of European Morals)
before Mr. Lecky again challenged the attention of the reading world.
In 1878 he published the first two volumes of his History of Eng-
land in the Eighteenth Century. ' Six more volumes, completing the
work, appeared in the course of the next ten years. It was now
more evident than ever before that Mr. Lecky's habit as a historical
essayist rather than a historian was inherent in the constitution of
his mind, and not in the particular subjects to which he might hap-
pen to apply himself. His object was, as he states it, “to disengage
from the great mass of facts those which relate to the permanent
forces of the nation, or which indicate some of the more enduring
features of national life. ” To this object in the earlier volumes he
was earnestly devoted; with distinct and admirable success discussing
in separate chapters, which were virtually separate essays, such
questions as the nature and power of the monarchy, the aristocracy,
the growth of democracy, the history of political ideas, the increas-
ing power of Parliament and the press, amusements, manners, and
beliefs. One of the best of these monographs was on religious
liberty; another on the causes of the French Revolution, which he
declared was not inevitable; another on the rise of Methodism, so
sympathetic as to be more flattering than such a Methodist history
as that of Tyerman. In the early volumes certain chapters were
devoted to Ireland; but midway of the sixth he returned to this sub-
ject and did not again leave it. In all we have about three volumes
devoted to Ireland, which were afterwards printed separately in five
smaller volumes as a history of Ireland. In these volumes Mr. Lecky
appears more distinctly as a historian than anywhere else. The
period covered, barring a brief introduction, is only five years long:
from 1795 to 1800, the period of the Rebellion and the Union. Even
here he cares much less for dramatic personalities and the regular suc-
cession of events than for the analysis of the policies and motives
that were at work in that unhappy time. Here his work stands in as
vivid contrast with that of Froude, treating the same subjects, as his
severe impartiality with Froude's blind and brutal partisanship. But
Froude is nothing if not picturesque, while Lecky hardly sees the
circumstances, so bent is he on the ideas they involve. His fairness
is the more remarkable because before his history was finished he
had left the Liberals and joined the Unionists, at the time of the
schism in 1886. Yet only a few passages bear any trace of party


## p. 8934 (#562) ###########################################

8934
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
spirit. The failure of England to govern Ireland wisely and success-
fully is not in the least disguised; and it is compared with her suc-
cess in governing India, with a population of 200,000,000 over against
Ireland's 5,000,000. The key of the enigma is found in the fact that
«Irish affairs have been in the very vortex of English party politics,
while India has hitherto lain outside their sphere. ”
In 1891 Lecky published a volume of poems which added noth-
ing to his reputation; and in 1896 a two-volume work, Democracy
and Liberty. A seat in Parliament had proved for him “the seat
of the scorner» so far as democracy is concerned. The work pro-
vokes comparison with Sir Henry Sumner Maine's Popular Govern-
ment. ' Like that, it is more of a political pamphlet than a dis-
passionate study of the great subjects with which it is concerned;
and it is related to Lecky's History of Rationalism and Euro-
pean Morals) very much as Maine's Popular Government is related
to his (Ancient Law. ' It contains much wholesome and important
criticism on democratic institutions and tendencies; but it has a
much keener eye for their defects than for their advantages, and it
measures them rather by the standard of an ideal Utopia than by
that of any political success which has been as yet accomplished.
But it would be unjust to compare a book which is so manifestly
the outcome of the author's immediate political irritation, with the
more serious performances of his unbiased scholarship, when he was
« beholding the bright countenance of Truth in the quiet and still air
of delightful studies. ”
Waiving for the present the claims of this passionate arraignment
of democracy, we find in Mr. Lecky a historical writer whose works
are among the most interesting and significant literary products of
his time. His place is neither with the annalists nor with the polit-
ical historians, but with those for whom the philosophy of history
has had a perennial fascination. And while it is pre-eminently with
such literary historians as Macaulay and Froude and Green,- in so
far as he has written to the end of being read, in a style which
has merits of its own comparing favorably with theirs,— he is widely
separated from these respectively: with less continuity than Macaulay,
far less dramatic energy than Froude, and nothing of Green's archi-
tectonic faculty. But few historians have excelled his diligence or
carefulness, or chosen greater themes, or handled them with a more
evident desire to bring the truth of history to bear upon our personal
and social life.
Item Cruze hadical


## p. 8935 (#563) ###########################################

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
8935
The following extracts are taken from History of European Morals from
Augustus to Charlemagne, with the approval of D. Appleton & Co. ,
publishers.
THE MORAL INFLUENCE OF GLADIATORIAL SHOWS ON THE"
ROMAN PEOPLE
T"
E gladiatorial games form, indeed, the one feature of Roman
society which to a modern mind is almost inconceivable in
its atrocity. That not only men, but women, in an advanced
period of civilization, - men and women who not only professed
but very frequently acted upon a high code of morals, - should
have made the carnage of men their habitual amusement, that all
this should have continued for centuries with scarcely a protest,
is one of the most startling facts in moral history. It is how-
ever perfectly normal, and in no degree inconsistent with the
doctrine of natural moral perceptions; while it opens out fields
of ethical inquiry of a very deep though painful interest.
These games, which long eclipsed, both in interest and in
influence, every other form of public amusement at Rome, were
originally religious ceremonies celebrated at the tombs of the
great, and intended as human sacrifices to appease the manes of
the dead. They were afterwards defended as a means of sustain-
ing the military spirit by the constant spectacle of courageous
death; and with this object it was customary to give a gladiatorial
show to soldiers before their departure to a war. In addition to
these functions they had a considerable political importance; for
at a time when all the regular organs of liberty were paralyzed
or abolished, the ruler was accustomed in the arena to meet tens
of thousands of his subjects, who availed themselves of the oppor-
tunity to present their petitions, to declare their grievances, and
to censure freely the sovereign or his ministers. The games are
said to have been of Etruscan origin; they were first introduced
into Rome B. C. 264, when the two sons of a man named Brutus
compelled three pair of gladiators to fight at the funeral of their
father; and before the close of the Republic they were common
on great public occasions, and, what appears even more horrible,
at the banquets of the nobles. The rivalry of Cæsar and Pompey
greatly multiplied them, for each sought by this means to ingra-
tiate himself with the people. Pompey introduced a new form
of combat between men and animals. Cæsar abolished the old
custom of restricting the mortuary games to the funerals of men;


## p. 8936 (#564) ###########################################

8936
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
on
and his daughter was the first Roman lady whose tomb was dese-
crated by human blood. Besides this innovation, Cæsar replaced
the temporary edifices in which the games had hitherto been
held by a permanent wooden amphitheatre, shaded the spectators
by an awning of precious silk, compelled the condemned persons
one occasion to fight with silver lances, and drew so many
gladiators into the city that the Senate was obliged to issue
an enactment restricting their number. In the earliest years of
the Empire, Statilius Taurus erected the first amphitheatre of
stone. Augustus ordered that not more than one hundred and
twenty men should fight on a single occasion, and that no prætor
should give more than two spectacles in a single year; and Tibe-
rius again fixed the maximum of combatants: but notwithstanding
these attempts to limit them, the games soon acquired the most
gigantic proportions. They were celebrated habitually by great
men in honor of their dead relatives, by officials on coming into
office, by conquerors to secure popularity, and on every occasion
of public rejoicing, and by rich tradesmen who were desirous
of acquiring a social position. They were also among the attrac-
tions of the public baths. Schools of gladiators- often the private
property of rich citizens— existed in every leading city of Italy;
and besides slaves and criminals, they were thronged with free-
men who voluntarily hired themselves for a term of years.
the eyes of multitudes, the large sums that were paid to the
victor, the patronage of nobles and often of emperors, and still
more the delirium of popular enthusiasm that centred upon the
successful gladiator, outweighed all the dangers of the profession.
A complete recklessness of life was soon engendered both in the
spectators and the combatants. The 'lanistæ,' or purveyors of
gladiators, became an important profession. Wandering bands
of gladiators traversed Italy, hiring themselves for the provincial
amphitheatres. The influence of the games gradually pervaded
the whole texture of Roman life. They became the common.
place of conversation. The children imitated them in their play.
The philosophers drew from them their metaphors and illustra-
tions. The artists portrayed them in every variety of ornament.
The Vestal Virgins had a seat of honor in the arena. The Colos-
seum, which is said to have been capable of containing more than
eighty thousand spectators, eclipsed every other monument of
Imperial splendor, and is even now at once the most imposing
and the most characteristic relic of pagan Rome.
In


## p. 8937 (#565) ###########################################

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
8937
In the provinces the same passion was displayed. From Gaul
to Syria, wherever the Roman influence extended, the spectacles
of blood were introduced; and the gigantic remains of amphi-
theatres in many lands still attest by their ruined grandeur the
scale on which they were pursued. In the reign of Tiberius,
more than twenty thousand persons are said to have perished by
the fall of the amphitheatre at the suburban town of Fidenæ.
Under Nero, the Syracusans obtained as a special favor an
exemption from the law which limited the number of gladiators.
Of the vast train of prisoners brought by Titus from Judea, a
large proportion were destined by the conqueror for the provin-
cial games. In Syria, where they were introduced by Antiochus
Epiphanes, they at first produced rather terror than pleasure; but
the effeminate Syrians soon learned to contemplate them with a
passionate enjoyment, and on a single occasion Agrippa caused
,
a
fourteen hundred men to fight in the amphitheatre at Berytus.
Greece alone was in some degree an exception. When an attempt
was made to introduce the spectacle into Athens, the cynic phi-
losopher Demonax appealed successfully to the better feelings of
the people by exclaiming:-'You must first overthrow the altar
of Pity. The games are said to have afterwards penetrated to
Athens, and to have been suppressed by Apollonius of Tyana;
but with the exception of Corinth, where a very large foreign
population existed, Greece never appears to have shared the
general enthusiasm.
One of the first consequences of this taste was to render the
people absolutely unfit for those tranquil and refined amusements
which usually accompany civilization. To men who were accus-
tomed to witness the fierce vicissitudes of deadly combat, any
spectacle that did not elicit the strongest excitement was insipid.
The only amusements that at all rivaled the spectacles of the
amphitheatre and the circus were those which appealed strongly
to the sensual passions; such as the games of Flora, the pos-
tures of the pantomimes, and the ballet. Roman comedy, indeed,
flourished for a short period; but only by throwing itself into
the same career. The pander and the courtesan are the lead-
ing characters of Plautus, and the more modest Terence never
attained an equal popularity. The different forms of vice have a
continual tendency to act and react upon one another; and the
intense craving after excitement which the amphitheatre must
necessarily have produced, had probably no small influence in


## p. 8938 (#566) ###########################################

8938
WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
stimulating the orgies of sensuality which Tacitus and Suetonius
describe.
But if comedy could to a certain extent flourish with the
gladiatorial games, it was not so with tragedy. It is indeed true
that the tragic actor can exhibit displays of more intense agony
and of a grander heroism than were ever witnessed in the arena.
His mission is not to paint nature as it exists in the light of
day, but nature as it exists in the heart of man.
His gestures,
his tones, his looks, are such as would never have been exhibited
by the person he represents; but they display to the audience the
full intensity of the emotions which that person would have felt,
but which he would have been unable adequately to reveal. But
to those who were habituated to the intense realism of the amphi-
theatre, the idealized suffering of the stage was unimpressive.
All the genius of a Siddons or a Ristori would fail to move an
audience who had continually seen living men fall bleeding and
mangled at their feet. One of the first functions of the stage is
to raise to the highest point the susceptibility to disgust. When
Horace said that Medea should not kill her children upon the
stage, he enunciated not a mere arbitrary rule, but one which
grows necessarily out of the development of the drama. It is
an essential characteristic of a refined and cultivated taste to
be shocked and offended at the spectacle of bloodshed; and the
theatre, which somewhat dangerously dissociates sentiment from
action, and causes men to waste their compassion on ideal suffer-
ings, is at least a barrier against the extreme forms of cruelty by
developing this susceptibility to the highest degree. The gladia-
torial games, on the other hand, destroyed all sense of disgust,
and therefore all refinement of taste; and they rendered the per-
manent triumph of the drama impossible.
It is abundantly evident, both from history and from present
experience, that the instinctive shock or natural feeling of disgust
caused by the sight of the sufferings of men is not generically
different from that which is caused by the sight of the sufferings
of animals. The latter, to those who are not accustomed to it,
is intensely painful. The former continually becomes by use a
matter of absolute indifference. If the repugnance which is felt
in the one case appears greater than in the other, it is not on
account of any innate sentiment which commands us to reverence
our species, but simply because our imagination finds less diffi-
culty in realizing human than animal suffering, and also because


## p. 8939 (#567) ###########################################

WILLIAM EDWARD HARTPOLE LECKY
8939
education has strengthened our feelings in the one case much
more than in the other. There is, however, no fact more clearly
established than that when men have regarded it as not a crime
to kill some class of their fellow-men, they have soon learnt to
do so with no more natural compunction or hesitation than they
would exhibit in killing a wild animal. This is the normal con-
dition of savage men.
Colonists and Red Indians even now often
shoot each other with precisely the same indifference as they
shoot beasts of prey; and the whole history of warfare -- especially
when warfare was conducted on more savage principles than at
present - is an illustration of the fact. Startling, therefore, as
it may now appear, it is in no degree unnatural that Roman
spectators should have contemplated with perfect equanimity the
slaughter of men, The Spaniard, who is brought in infancy to
the bull-ring, soon learns to gaze with indifference or with pleasure
upon sights before which the unpracticed eye of the stranger
quails with horror; and the same process would be equally effica-
cious had the spectacle been the sufferings of men.