was editor, critic, and author as well as a playwright, yet there began to creep into their work some connection with American scenes and traditions. "Red Rover" was never far from the three-mile limit. Samuel Woodworth's "Lafayette; or, The Castle of Olmuntz" (1824), John N. Barker's "The Indian Princes" (1808), founded on Smith's "Virginia," Simms' "Benedict Arnold" (1863), G. W. Parke Curtis's "Pocahontas; or, The Settlers of Virginia" (1830), nor for that matter Robert Dale Owen's unacted "Pocahontas" (1837) could scarcely be said to deal with matters far remote from American thought.

These years just at the turn of the half century begin to mark a great change in all American literature. It is commencing to be American. Cooper had written of Indians and of Revolutionists in the spirit of Scott. Hawthorne in "The Scarlet Letter" (1850) and in the "Mosses from the Old Manse" (1846), Mrs. Stowe in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (1852), R. T. S. Lowell in "The New Priest of Conception Bay" (1858), Theodore Winthrop in “John Brent” (1861) and "Cecil Dreeme" (1861), these developed what has come to be known as the "novel of locality" and paved the way for Mark Twain and Bret Harte and O. Henry, and we cannot count how many more. The United States was in a fair way to develop a literature of its own.

Following Irving's pioneer efforts came John Kerr with "Rip Van Winkle; or, The Demons of the Catskill Mountains" (1830); came Simms with the unacted and unactable "Norman Maurice; or, The Man of the People" (1851); came George Jones with "Tecumseh and the Prophet of the West" (1844); came A. C. O. M. Ritchie with "Fashion; or, Life in New York" (1850); came James Pilgrim with "The Female Highwayman" (1852) and "The Buccaneer of the Gulf" (1852); came H. S. Conway with “Dred, a Tale of Dismal Swamp" (1856); came Thomas Dunn English with "The Mormons; or, Life at Salt Lake City" (1858); came Halleck's "Mr. Mead" with "Wall Street; or, Ten Minutes Before Three" (1840) a farce preferable to Athenian dramas, as Halleck said; came finally the most definite dramatic localization of all-American urban and rural life at the hands of J. B. Howe in "The Woman of the World" (1858). We have at the last a definitely American dramatist in Joseph Stevens Jones who dramatized “Captain Kyd” (1858?), "Moll Pitcher; or, The Fortune Teller of Lynn" (1855), "Solon Shingle; or, The People's Lawyer" (1850), and "The Usurper; or, Americans in Tripoli" (1842).

Just as the long period of commercial and national unification was about to be broken abruptly by the guns of the Civil War, two gentlemen who were not distinctly American in the entirety of their lives contributed some of

the most distinctly American dramas that are to be found in all our period. John Brougham, while in the States, did a large variety of things. He put "David Copperfield" and "Dombey and Son" on the stage. He produced three rather London-like comedies, "The Game of Life," "The Game of Love," and "Flies in the Web." He constructed two traditional melodramas, "The Gunmaker of Moscow" (1856) and "The Red Mask; or, The Wolf of Lithuania" (1856). But, in spite of these tendencies, we cannot forget that he dramatized “Dred; or, The Dismal Swamp" (1856), nor—and this is much more important that he wrote a thoroughly typical local comedy "The Lottery of Life, a Story of New York" (1860). And Dion Boucicault is another similar example. Mr. Chesterton has remarked that the most important thing about Rossetti has been said when we have written his name, an Italian in England. But the same cannot with justice be said of Boucicault. "The Phantom" (1856), "The Poor of New York" (1857), and "The Octoroon; or, Life in Louisiana" (1861), are as thoroughly American as the most vigorous local feeling could require.

In conclusion, therefore, we have seen how the American comedy commenced life tied to the apron strings of a tiresome type of English drama, how during the Revolution there was violent and somewhat petulant attack upon the dominating nursemaid, and how close relations were once more established, not to be broken until a slow adolescence gave place to an awakening maturity. American comedy, for want of mature experience and sensible intuition, followed English comedy into the Kotzebue fracas, obediently adopted the enormities of the mélodrame and the romantic melodrama, and grew to advanced age with little strength or individuality. Copyright relations and personal affection for English dramatists, as well as the usual deterrent circumstances, combined to effect a state of affairs where one scarcely now reads American comedies of this period. To do it requires courage, patience, and a sense of humor. In many cases it might be well to follow Dr. Johnson's advice and refrain from reading before writing a review of these comedies, in order to avoid the unpleasant effects of prejudice resulting from personal dislike.

Yet, eventually, there did emerge a localized American comedy. Under the influence of historical pride, abolitionist agitation, of westward progress, of growing commercial strength, and of the success of the new "novel of locality," there finally emerged, in the decade preceding the Civil War, a distinct tendency towards a comedy with scenes, characters, and manners distinctly American, as opposed to the scenes, characters, and manners distinctly British in origin which had formerly been paraded before the footlights of New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.

IT

WAR MEMORIALS

T is occasionally suggested that librarians should be ahead of the game, and anticipate demands. Perhaps there are cases in which that is not exactly easy. Where little or no material has been manufactured the merchant cannot make a display to stimulate purchase. When little has been published on a subject of coming importance the librarian cannot offer much to guide public intentions. That was in a measure the condition about two years ago, when there were some calls for information on war memorials. There was not much to offer in answer, except Lawrence Weaver's book "Memorials and Monuments." That was issued in London as early as 1915 with the expressed hope that it "may be useful to people who are considering memorials and that it may lead them to the artist rather than to the trader." That such a move was necessary was shown by designs appearing in certain architectural periodicals within the following year. This Library's collection of pictures of soldiers' and sailors' monuments was not of great help, since much of it illustrated what to avoid, but without written comment to point out that fact.

In the past year or so there have been published articles, lectures, resolutions, and interviews, in increasing number, urging discretion in memorialmaking. Various suggestions have been made: community houses, flag-pole bases, shrines, library buildings, arches, fountains, trees, bridges, and various other forms have been dilated on in the endeavor to "warn against stock patterns of metal founders" and to "save nation from war horrors," as two newspaper headlines put it. This material the Art Division of the Library has indexed and collected. The result is not overwhelming as yet a dozen or so titles in the catalogue, and a folder of mounted cuttings - but it is a beginning. And it is a guide post. The material points the way, while it does not furnish specific patterns. The latter hardly exist; and if they did, the cut-and-dried, so easily adopted, would again have to be avoided. It is precisely such a vicious circle out of which we are aiming to keep, without going to the other extreme of a tangential excursion into the odd. And for such purpose this beginning of a collection is offered to those interested.

-F. W.

NEWS OF THE MONTH

ADDITIONS AND USE OF THE LIBRARY IN JUNE, 1919

URING the month of June, 1919, there were received at the Library 11,374 volumes and 6,530 pamphlets. (These include the additions to both Reference and Circulation Departments.) The total number of readers recorded in the Central Building was 62,199. They consulted 156,440 volumes. Visitors to the building numbered 171,456.