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The writings of this determined genius could not but be successful. Seeking no friends, but having many, preferring the single companionship of Dr. Smith, with whom he lived, Charles Brockden Brown wrote his novel, Wieland, and followed it in the next three years with Ormond, Edgar Huntley, Arthur Mervyn, Jane Talbot, and Clara Howard.
And there was a traveled Frenchman, Chateaubriand, surely an expert in the art of eloquent prose, who had transferred to the pages of his American Indian stories, "Atala" and "Rene," the mystery and enchantment of our dark forests and endless rivers. But Chateaubriand, like Brockden Brown, is feverish.
It was one of Charles Brockden Brown's. "I read it some years ago," he said; "and I remember it made a great impression upon me at the time. It appears to me to be written with wonderful power of enchaining the attention. I could not lay it down until it was finished." "Exactly as I was affected," said Anne.
Brown, who visited Irving in that year, sought in vain to enlist the service of the latter, who, then a youth of nineteen, had a little reputation as the author of some humorous essays in the "Morning Chronicle" newspaper. Charles Brockden Brown died, the victim of a lingering consumption, in 1810, at the age of thirty-nine.
Charles Brockden Brown, a writer whose merits have not yet been sufficiently acknowledged, has given a powerful and philosophical analysis of this morbid state of mind this diseased conscientiousness, obeying the mad suggestions of a disordered brain as the injunctions of Divinity in his remarkable story of Wieland.
Their literary tendencies attracted Benjamin, though their characters were not deficient in high aims and integrity. Their names were Charles Osborne, Joseph Matson, and James Ralph. The first two were clerks of Charles Brockden, an eminent conveyancer of the town, and the other was a merchant's clerk.
At the close of the eighteenth century, Charles Brockden Brown began the career of the first American novelist with "Wieland." His pecuniary necessities and the slight encouragement offered at that time to American authors made it impossible for him to afford the time and care essential to artistic finish.
This sort of work filled the few literary periodicals of the day, but was not read enough to make such publications profitable even then, and is pretty much all unreadable now. Charles Brockden Brown stands in marked contrast to these second-hand weaklings, not only by his work but still more by his method and temper.
Smith's parlor, joining in these discussions, sat William Dunlap, Charles Brockden Brown, James Kent, Joseph Dennie, and all the writers of the circle. It was Dr. Smith who wrote the prologue for the Park Theatre upon its opening, and not a member of the Friendly Club but attended the first performance. It is small wonder that Charles Brockden Brown was the foremost member of the club.
The fact that they were greatly praised and gained some vogue through copying in other journals, is rather an indication of the unfruitfulness of the period than of their merit. One of their greatest admirers was Charles Brockden Browne, the only American before Irving to make a profession of writing. In 1804 the young amateur came of age.
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