with prologues and epilogues), songs, ballads and satires, all swelled the total. No one can fully understand the Revolution or the period after it who does no

d while Crèvec?ur was an American farmer, one, Philip Freneau, may be considered as chief re

n, was well characterized in a much-quoted lett

and is a painter and a poet.... He is one of your pretty little, curious, ingenious men.... He is genteel and well-bred and is very social. I wish I had lei

for Hopkinson is one of the earliest examples of talented versatility in American life. He had virtues to complement the accomplishm

important a trio as any written by one man in the Revolutionary days. The other sixth-his verse-belonged no less to the polite literature of the period. There are Miltonic imitations, songs, sentiments, hymns, a fable, and a piece of advice to a young lady. There are occasional poems,

ous hear

e of lov

is servil

st my l

nt, one of which, "The Battle of the Kegs," with its mocking jollity, put good cheer in all colonial hearts in the times that tried men's souls. It was his jaunty self-control, the

l subjects, but, unlike him, the bulk of his verse was contained in two long satirical essays: "The Progress of Dulness" (17

ys with loft

ature's themes

ope, with Thomps

Swift and Addi

onors equall

Shakspeare charm

ic chains the l

shall strike th

ses other ba

s through college (Trumbull was a graduate of Yale), making one a dull preacher and the other a rake. Harriet, the American counterpart of Biddy Tipkin in Steele's "Tender Husband" or Arabella in Mrs. Lennox's "The Female Quixote," is fed on flattery, social ambition, and the romant

ader must bring to it a good deal of student interest if he expects to complete the reading and understand it, even with the aid of Trumbull's copious footnotes. For the moment it was a skillful piece of journalistic writing. Trumbull knew how to appeal to the prejudices of his sympathizers (for controversial war writing confirms rather than convinces); he knew how to draw on their limited store of general knowledge; and he knew how to lead them on with a due empl

tic coast trade. From 1784 to 1807 he went the circle in five stages as editor, seaman, editor, farmer, and seaman again. Everything he did he seems to have done hard, and nothing held him long. It is a kind of life which does not seem surprising in a man who has often been called "Poet of the Revolution," for he wrote as vigorously as he sailed or farmed or edited, and he plowed his political satires quite as deep and straight as he plowed the seas and the furrows of his fields. After his bitter experience of

resent chapter it can therefore serve the double purpose of illustrating the verse of the Revolution and of representing a less important aspect of his whole work. In this respect it is comparable to the Civil-War an

ds!-nay, three lo

I have touched,

ce dishes to m

e and champ t

. .

isles uncounte

d swine, an il

victims for my

oldiers act as

k should glad yo

will sup-on r

have it, and in such a product as "The Political Balance" he wrote with nothing more offensive than the mockery of a rather ungenerous victor. This poem, characterized by well-maintained humor, is one of the best of its kind. It represents Jove as one day looking over the book of Fate and of coming to an incomplete account of Britain, for the Fates had neglected to reveal the outcome of the war.

confounded and str

d hardly believ

he purpose and

minions dimini

peared, to Bri

ssions were chang

c'd them, said J

l never be rul

darkness aroun

nceal her a whi

Egypt their squ

sfigure the fa

her full, has a

n the ocean d

endeavors, ye v

rision, their is

o seek what you

iting what nat

ay flutter awhil

r venom, and bra

as black, and as

selves, and a b

the prophecies they indulged in. As we read over the records of their lofty hopes we are reminded of commencement oratory; and the likeness is not unreal, for these post-Revolution poets were in fact very like eager college graduate

all republics, both of antiquity and of our own time. But when the orator came to speak of the American character, and particularly of the intelligence of the nation, he was most felicitous, and made the largest investments in popularity. According to his account of the matter, no other people possessed a

s prefixed an outline which, in the language of the day, was called "the argument." H

. Penal Administrations improved by Benevolence. Policy enlarges its scope. Knowledge promoted. Improvements in Astronomical and other Instruments of Science. Improvements of the Americans, in Natural Philosophy-Poetry-Music-an

w's "Columbiad," in which he demonstrates that the present

Hanseatic League, Copernicus, Kepler, Newton, Galileo, Herschel, Descartes, Bacon,

war, partly in an actual commencement poem on "The Rising Glory of America" and partl

e, I

gdoms rais'd,

sand upon th

shall glide

where the Mis

haded now ru

row, and States

Rome of old; w

s, Pompeys, h

omb of time y

yful hour of l

of prophecy, which must have seemed to his contemporaries to be a piece of the airiest fancy, has been amazingly verified mo

se gallopers scar

to convey you ten

balloons shall

ow whether you'r

Boston sets o

ld be fair, may

Ferry drink w

at Edentown,

ll be order'd, w

darkness as w

ten he for slee

next day be the

. .

ould ever dis

to do in the nex

ill play us a s

ll from their fi

. .

these from ballo

of old that ass

on Pelion, sha

attempted was

en his lines "To Sir Toby," a slaveholding sugar-planter in Jamaica, spirited as they are, are in effec

ell as in content. As a young man Freneau had set out on his career by writing after the style of Milton and Dryden and Pope and their lesser imitators. This was absolutely natural. Until after the Revolution, America was England; and it was more nearly like England in speech and in thought than much of Scotland and Ireland are to-day. All the refinements of Ameri

d spirit to hu

or science in

courage a pla

llege b

ll at

we send at a s

okworm to teach

thought to have

ought from that

reigns with he

s and pr

faith-

n hostile to

ld that shall c

o fret at the

was said by a

eir Bishops, they'l

at wil

ch peop

the learned to r

ey think in a h

ea in mind. Most of it was more conscientious than interesting, for literature, to be genuinely effective, must be produced not to demonstrate a theory but to express what is honestly in the author's mind. The first step toward achieving nationality in American writing was, therefore, to achieve new and independent habits of national thinking. The Irish mind, for exa

ess much of his verse-or at least the inspiration for it-came to him on shipboard or in the field rather than in the library. In the midst of the crowd he was an easy man to stir up to fighting pitch. All his war verse shows this. Yet when he was alone and undisturbed he inclined to placid meditati

I could

rom dome

rden, wall'

with ivy

d fount

substantial

al blis

wealth that

d worlds, or w

kers of

on of Milton in its form, but genuinely Freneau's in its sentiment. The best of his later work is really a compound of these

when from li

eated with

again the j

uckle," and "On a Honey Bee," little lyrics of nature and natural life, which were almost the first verse

e of his early almana

A

ge abates, now

, and Spring awa

uds salute th

nting, feels t

low, the Birds

accomplish'd

ied. The six lines amount to a general formula for spring and would apply equally well to Patagonia, Italy, New Engl

pring, here the

Root a silver

ts see there the

eaves still shin

que-foil, with

llow, wounds

os'd the grass

ing Sight with

d he is led by them into weaving the extravagant fancy of an eye made to ache by flaming and dazzling colors, and healed by the cheerful green o

nch of w

evening

lofty loc

on a dro

it of gre

inging in

Caty-did

it be compared with the fixed formalities that belonged to almost all t

claim enough for him. The other title is defective for the opposite reason, that it claims too much. This is the "Father of American Poetry." Such a sweeping phrase ought to be avoided resolutely. It is doubly false, in suggesting that there was no American poetry before he wrote and that everything since has been derived from him. The facts are that he had a native poetic gift which would have led to his writing poetry had there never been a war between the colonies and England, but that when the war came on he was one of the most effective penm

he most interesting writers of the seventeenth century reveal the spread of disturbing influences. The first three chosen as examples are Thomas Morton, the frank and unscrupulous enemy of the Puritans; Nathaniel Ward, a sturdy Puritan who was alarmed at the growth of anti-Puritan influences; and Roger Williams, a deeply religious preacher, who rebelled against the control of the Church in New England just as he and others had formerly rebelled in the mother country. (3) Even in the first half century a good deal of verse was written: sometimes, as in the case of "The Day of Doom," as a mere rimed statement of Puritan theology; but sometimes, as in the case of Anne Bradstreet and her followers, as an expression of real poetic feeling. (4) With the passage to the eighteenth century the community was clearly slipping from the grasp of the Puritans. Evidence is ample from three types of colonists: the Mathers, who were fighting a desperate but losing battle to retain control; Samuel Sewal

K L

l Refe

fferson and the Univer

al Period of American H

ley. American Vers

rican Revolution as Revealed in the Poetry of

rican Literature. Cha

Cambridge History of Americ

American Revolution, chaps. ix, xix, xx,

oyalists in the Ameri

ry History of America, c

ad Familiar Letters of Joh

l Bibl

American Literature

dual A

3 vols. The latter half of the third volume contains in separate paging

able

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hy and

graphical Sketch of Fr

n, Man of Affairs and Letters. New

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Cyclopedia of American Lite

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I, The Life and Character of Dick Hairbrain of Finical Memory, 1773; Part III, The Adventures of Miss Harriet Simper, 1773. M'Fingal:

able

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e Princeton Historical Association. F

able

ng to the American Revolution.

iogr

ed by Victor H.

hy and

p Freneau, the Poet o

ot Patriot-Poet, etc. Proceedings of the H

es of Philip Freneau. Johns Hopkins Univ

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American Poetry, p

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hy and

Memoir prefixed to Dwi

hy Dwight, in Vol. XIV of Sparks

als of the America

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hy and

and Letters of

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reatment o

r

merican Dramatists (edited b

Farce, by Mrs

ker's Hill, by H.

ranny; or, American Li

n Outwitted,

t, by Royal

William

ct

Winston. Ri

el Lincoln; or, Th

J. F. Th

J. F.

L. Janice

t. Thankfu

ah Orne. Th

P. Horse S

S. Weir. H

Gilmore. T

Gilmore.

et

ory (edited by B. E. S

Poets (edited by M. V. Wall

AND P

ist for this chapter. The only reprint available of Lewis's interesting "Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis" is in "American Poetry" (

. Malaprop, in Sheridan's "The Rivals," and with Fitz-Greene Halleck's comments on the educ

Villagers," "Greenfield Hill," Pt. VI, wi

ith that in Timrod's "Ethnogenesis" and that in Moody's "Ode in Time of Hesitation." Do the date

with Jonathan Odell's "Congratulation" and "The Ameri

Episcopal Church" ("American Poetry," p. 255); John R. Thompson's "On to Richmond" ("American Poetry," p. 325);

" ("American Poetry," p. 382); Lanier's "Sonnets on Columbus" ("American Po

from a whole series of preceding "progress" p

Lewis in the text, read Wordsworth's essay on "Poetic Diction" prefatory to the lyrical b