But no nation was ever hurt, as far as we have heard, by the light of genius shining on it from another. And as to this national literature--though it will not obey the conjurations of Mr Sims, we may be quite sure that, in due time, it will make its appearance. America can no more _begin_ a literature, no more start fresh from its woods and its prairies, than we here in England could commence a literature, neither can it any more abstract itself from the influence of its own institutions, the temper of its people, its history, its natural scenery, than we here in England can manumit ourselves from the influence of the age in which we live. These things determine themselves by their own laws. You may as well call out to the tides of the ocean to flow this way or that, as think to control these great tidal movements of the human mind. America cannot _begin_ a literature, for it must look up to the same wellhead, or rather to the same mountain streams as ourselves; neither do we suppose that it is seriously anxious to disclaim all connexion with Bacon and Shakspeare, Milton and Locke; but it can, and will, continue and carry on a literature of its own in a separate stream, branching from what we must be permitted to call, for some time at least, the main current; and which, now diverging from that, and now approaching to it, will at length wear for itself a deep and independent channel. But such slow and gradual progress of things by no means suits the impetuous patriotism of Mr Sims. He is possessed evidently with the idea that some great explosion of national genius would suddenly take place, if the people would but resolve upon it. It is an affair of public opinion, like any other measure of policy; if but the universal suffrage could be brought to bear upon it, the thing were done; it is from the electoral urn that the whole scroll of poets and philosophers is to be drawn. "Let the nation," he solemnly proclaims, "_but yield a day's faith to its own genius, and that day will suffice for triumph!_... Our development," he continues, "depends upon our faith in what we are, and in our independence of foreign judgment." One would think Mr Sims was fighting over again the war of independence. Or has some old speech of Mr O'Connell's on the repeal of the union got shuffled amongst his papers? One expects the sentence to close with the reiterated quotation,-- "Who would be _free_, themselves must strike the blow!"