Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Henry Walcott Boynton, Reader's History of American Literature

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[123] hewing down the Frenchmen with their broadswords, and slaying many in the very ditch of the fortifications. Never was victory more quick or more decisive.

The Conspiracy of Pontiac, chap. IV.

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Pure literature.

In pure literature the genius of New England.was now very soon to find its highest expression. During the third quarter of the century the two noted groups of literary men which had their respective centres in Cambridge and in Concord were to produce a literature which, even if not, so far as we can now see, of the very highest type, possessed genuine depth and power. Before actually engaging with this important subject, however, it may be as well to clear the decks by considering some of the minor figures which belong to that period.

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Minor writers.

There are plenty of them; indeed, one who moved in the active literary society of the Boston of that day might well say, as the Duke of Wellington did when the Honorable Mrs. Norton, the poet, wished to be presented to him, that he had been “very much exposed to authors.” Nothing is more striking in history than the rapid concentration of fame upon a few leaders