The Permanent Literature of America is poor and meagre; it does not bear the mark of manly hands, of original, creative minds. Most of it is rather milk for babes than meat for men, though much of it is neither fresh meat nor new milk, but the old dish often served up before. In respect to its form, this portion of our literature is an imitation. That is natural enough, considering the youth of the country. Every nation, like every man, even one born to genius, begins by imitation. Raphael, with servile pencil, followed his masters in his youth, but at length his artistic eye attracted new-born angels from the calm stillness of their upper heaven, and with liberal, free hand, with masterly and original touch, the painter of the newness amazed the world. The early Christian literature is an imitation of the Hebrew or the classic type: even after centuries had passed by, Sidonius, though a bishop of the church, and destined to become a saint, uses the old heathen imagery, referring to Triptolemus as a model for Christian work, and talks about Triton and Galatea, to the Christian Queen of the Goths. Saint Ambrose is a notorious imitator of pagan Cicero. The Christians were all anointed with Jewish nard; and the sour grapes they ate in sacrament have set on edge their children's teeth till now. The modern nations of Europe began their literature by the driest copies of Livy and Virgil. The Germans have the most original literature of the last hundred years. But till the middle of the past century their permanent literature was chiefly in Latin and French, with as little originality as our own. The real poetic life of the nation found vent in other forms. It is natural therefore, and according to the course of history, that we should begin in this way. The best political institutions of England are cherished here, so her best literature, and it is not surprising that we are content with this rich inheritance of artistic toil. In many things we are independent, but in much that relates to the higher works of man, we are still colonies of England. This appears not only in the vulgar fondness for English fashions, manners and the like, which is chiefly an affectation, but in the servile style with which we copy the great or little models of English literature. Sometimes this is done consciously, oftener without knowing it.