"Each various scene, or day or night, LORD! points to thee our nourish'd soul; So the touch'd needle courts the pole. JOSEPH GREEN, a merchant of Boston, who had been a classmate of BYLES at Cambridge, was little less celebrated than the doctor for humour; and some of his poetical compositions were as popular a hundred years ago as more recently have been those of "CROAKER & Co.," which they resemble in spirit and playful ease of versification. The abduction of the Hollis street minister was the cause of not a little merriment in Boston; and GREEN, between whom and BYLES there was some rivalry, as the leaders of opposing social factions, soon after wrote a burlesque account of it: "In DAVID'S Psalms an oversight BYLES found one morning at his tea, A proper psalm to sing at sea. "Thus ruminating on his seat, Ambitious thoughts at length prevail'd The part wherein the prophet fail'd. To hear it read and sung on board. "Most serious Christians do aver, (Their credit sure we may rely on,) In former times that after prayer, They used to sing a song of Zion. "Our modern parson having pray'd, Unless loud fame our faith beguiles, Sat down, took out his book and said, "Let's sing a psalm of MATHER BYLES." "At first, when he began to rend, Their heads the assembly downward hung, But he with boldness did proceed, And thus he read, and thus they sung. "With vast amazement we survey The wonders of the deep, "Fish of all kinds inhabit here, And throng the dark abode. Here haddock, hake, and flounders are, "But when the winds and tempests rise, Giddy as new-dropp'd calves, and reel Thus far have safely got, And tribe of Penobscot. *BYLES's favorite cat, so named by his friends. In 1750 GREEN published "An Entertain ment for a Winter Evening," in which he ridicules the freemasons; and afterward The Sand Bank," "A True Account of the Celebration of St. JOHN the Baptist," and several shorter pieces, all of which I believe were satirical. His epigrams are the best written in this country before the revolution; and many anecdotes are told to show the readiness of his wit and his skill as an improvisator. On one occasion, a country gentleman, knowing his reputation as a poet, procured an introduction to him, and solicited a first-rate epitaph," for a favorite servant, who had lately died. GREEN asked what were the man's chief qualities, and was told that " COLE excelled in all things, but was particularly good at raking hay, which he could do faster than any. body, the present company, of course, excepted." GREEN wrote immediately: "Here lies the body of JOHN COLE, His master loved him like his soul; He could rake hay, none could rake faster In his old age he left Boston for England. rather from the infirmities of age, than indifference to the cause of liberty. The most remarkable book of poems printed in this country during the eighteenth century is the Pietas et Gratulatio Collegii Cantabrigiensis apud Novanglos," (1761,) in which the president and fellows of Harvard College celebrated the death of GEORGE II. and the accession of his grandson. It was handsomely printed in a quarto of one hundred and six pages, and the copy in my possession, one of two that were sent to the king, is very richly bound, in red morocco, profusely gilt. Dr. HOLYOKE, who was then president of the college, and whose contribution, “Adhortatio Præsidis," which the "Monthly Review" for 1763 praises as truly Horatian, is the first piece in the collection, describes it in a letter to THOMAS HOL LIS as "an attempt of several young gentlemen here with us, and educated in this college, to show their pious sorrow on account of the death of our late glorious king, their attachment to his royal house, the joy they have in the accession of his present majesty to the British throne, and in the prospect they have of the happiness of Britain from the royal progeny which they hope for from his alliance with the illustrious house of Mechlenburg." The "Critical Review" for October, 1763, expresses an opinion that "the verses from Harvard College already seem to bid fair for a rivalship with the productions of Cam and Isis." The prose introduction has been ascribed both to Governor HUTCHINSON and to Governor FRANCIS BERNARD, but was probably from the pen of the latter, who was a very accomplished scholar. Numbers ii. in Latin and xxv. in English were by JOHN LOVELL; iii. xii. xiv. and xxiii. in Latin, xv. and xvi. in Greek, and v. in English, by STEPHEN SEWELL; vii. in English by JOHN LOWELL; x. in English by SAMUEL Deane ; xi. by Doctor BENJAMIN CHURCH; xiii. by Doctor SAMUEL COOPER; xviii. in Greek, xix. a Latin translation of it, xx. the same in Eng lish, and xxi. in Latin, by Governor Bernard; xxvi. in Latin, and xxii., an English Version of it, by Doctor JOHN WINTHROP; and xxix. by THOMAS OLIVER, afterwards lieutenant-governor. A writer in the Monthly Anthology" for 1809 gives the authorship of these pieces from Ms. notes in a copy which had been owned by Mr. SEWELL, and believes, from internal evidence, that xxviii., an English lyric, was by Doctor CoOPER. Mr. KETTLE says Governor JAMES BOWDOIN was a contributor to the work. The best English poem in the Pietas et Gratulatio is that of the celebrated Doctor BENJAMIN CHURCH. He was born in Boston in 1739, and graduated at Cambridge when in the sixteenth year of his age. After finishing his professional education, he established himself as a physician in his native city, and soon became eminent by his literary and political writings. At the commencement of the revolutionary troubles he was chosen a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and after the battle of Lexington was appointed surgeon-general of the army. In the autumn of 1775 he was suspected of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, arrested by order of the commander-in-chief, tried by the general court, and found guilty. By direction of the Congress, to whom the subject of his punishment was referred, he was confined in a prison in Connecticut; but after a few months, on account of the condition of his health, was set at liberty; and in the summer of 1776 embarked at Newport for the West Indies, in a ship which was never heard of after the day on which it sailed. The concluding lines of his address to GEORGE III., to which allusion has been made, are as follows: "May one clear calm attend thee to thy close, One lengthen'd sunshine of complete repose: WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, a member of the first Congress, and the first republican governor of New Jersey, was born in New York in 1723, and graduated at Yale College in 1741. His "Philosophic Solitude, or the Choice of a Rural Life," written while he was a student, was first printed in 1747. It is in smoothly flowing verse, evinces a careful study of good models, and may be regarded as the most chaste and agreeable poem of considerable length produced in America before the close of the first half of the last century. Its prevailing tone is indicated in the opening lines: "Let ardent heroes seek renown in arms, And dunces cringe to be esteem'd at court: Far from the painted belle, and white-gloved beau, Mr. LIVINGSTON was an able and manly writer on public affairs before the revolution and during the war; and continued in old age occasionally to indulge his early predilection for poetical composition. When more than sixty he addressed a poem, marked by generous feeling and good sense, to WASHINGTON, with whom he had maintained the most friendly relations. He died in 1790. ROBERT BOLLING, of Buckingham county, Virginia, born in 1738, wrote with facility in Latin, Italian, and French, and some of his poetical pieces in these languages and in English have been printed. He left in manuscript two volumes of verses, which a writer in the "Columbian Magazine" for 1787 describes as " Horatian." His poems which have been submitted to the public hardly justify this praise. Another southern poet of the same period was ROWLAND RUGELY. In June, 1782, while MATTHEW CAREY Contemplated the publication of an extensive American Anthology, TRUMBULL, the author of "MacFingal," wrote to him: " RUGELY, of South Carolina, is a poet certainly better than EVANS. He published a volume of poems in London near twenty years ago, chiefly in the manner of PRIOR, many of which are well worth preserving; and since that a travestie of the fourth book of Virgil, which for delicacy and true humor is superior to COTTON'S." I have examined RUGELY's volume, published at Oxford, in 1763, and cannot quite concur in Judge TRUMBULL'S estimate of its merits. GULIAN VERPLANCK, of New York, after completing his education, travelled abroad, and while in England, in 1773, wrote the following prophetic lines on the destiny of this country: "Hail, happy Britain, Freedom's blest retreat! And when that time arrives-the lot of all-- Vice, a Dr. PRIME, also of New York, finished his professional education in Europe, and on returning applied for a commission in the army, but did not succeed in obtaining one. He alludes to his disappointment in an elegy on the death of a friend, Doctor SCUDDER, who was slain in the skirmish at Shrewsbury in New Jersey: "So bright, bless'd shade! thy deeds of virtue shine: "With great applause hast thou perform'd thy part, Or in the labors of the healing art, Or in fair Liberty's important strife..... "But I, alas! like some unfruitful tree, That useless stands, a cumberer of the plain, And five long years have lived almost in vain. "I see my time inglorious glide away. Obscure and useless, like an idle drone: And unconducive each revolving day Or to my country's interest or my own." A manuscript satire of the Welsh, in Latin and English, entitled "Muscipula sive Cambromyomachia," was found among Doctor PRIME'S papers after his death, and published with a collection of his poetical writings: but it has been discovered that he was not the author of it. On the passage of the stamp act he composed "A Song for the Sons of Liberty," which is superior to any patriotic lyric up to that time written here. JAMES ALLEN, a native of Boston, born in 1739, published in 1782 "Lines on the Massacre," which are in a fluent style, and display an ardent devotion to the popular cause. He afterward wrote many other pieces, but his indolent habits prevented their appearance in print. BRISSOT de Warville, in his Travels in the United States," after remarking that poets must be more rare among us than other writers,- an opinion in which he seems to have been mistaken-says, "they speak however in Boston of an original but lazy poet named ALLEN; his verses are said to be full of fire and force; they mention particularly a manuscript poem of his on the famous battle of Bunker Hill; but he will not print it; he has for his reputation and his money the carelessness of LAFONTAINE." MACPHERSON'S "Ossian" was reprinted in Philadelphia soon after its first publication, and had for many years a decided influence upon poetical taste in this country. Among those who attempt ed to paraphrase it was JONATHAN MITCHELL SEWELL, of New Hampshire, who began the task of turning it into heroic verse in 1770, and afterward submitted to the public specimens of his com war was JOHN LOWE, a native of Scotland, born in 1752, who arrived in Virginia in 1773, and be came a successful teacher at Fredericksburg. He wrote there the celebrated song entitled "Mary's Dream." He died in 1798. The year following that in which Lowe came to America, THOMAS PAINE followed, and settled in Philadelphia, where he was employed by RoBERT AITKIN, in 1775, to edit The Pennsylva nia Magazine," in which he published several poetical pieces, one of which is "On the Death of General WOLFE," and another is a song entitled "The Liberty Tree."* The ballads and songs relating to "tragedies in the wilderness," to the Indian wars, the "old French war," and the revolution-of which I have succeeded in collecting more than a thousandthough many of them are extremely rude, are upon the whole far more fresh, vigorous and poetical than might be supposed. Enough for a vo lume refer to the single event of the taking of Louisburg, in 1747. On the approach of the period in which the colonies separated from Great Britain the newspapers and magazines were filled with lyrical appeals to the patriotism of the people, some of which were by the most dignified public characters. JOHN DICKINSON, author of "The Farmer's Letters," inclosing to JAMES OTIS, in 1774, a copy of the famous song commencing "Come, join hand in hand, brave Americans all, And rouse your bold hearts at Liberty's call," informs him that it was his own production, except eight lines, which were by his friend ARTHUR LEE, of Virginia. General WARREN's song of "Free America," is well known. A much better piece, "American Taxation," is supposed to have been written by a Connecticut schoolmaster named ST. JOHN. In a paper on The Minstrelsy of the Revolution," in "Graham's Magazine," for 1842, I have given a considerable number of the compositions which illustrate this subject, and it is my intention hereafter to present the public a large collection of our historical verses, with suitable introductions and notes. Of the American women known as poets dur pleted work, but their reception did not encourage ing our colonial era, notices may be found in SEW him to a further expenditure in that way. "No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, JOSEPH BROWN LADD, M. D., of Rhode Island, author of "The Poems of Arouet," began to write during the early days of the revolution. His productions have very little merit. He lost his life in a duel, at Charleston, in 1785. Among the emigrants from the mother country within a few years of the commencement of the "The Female Poets of America." The leading poets of the revolution - FRENEAU, BARLOW, DWIGHT, TRUMBULL, and HUMPHRIES, -are subjects of separate articles in the following pages. * Of British and other foreign poets who have written in this country since the revolution I have given no speci mens in the following pages, though, perhaps, I should have quoted from ALEXANDER WILSON his spirited poem on "The Blue Bird," and other pieces from Mr. DA PONTE, Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER, Mr. HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, and a few others who have made their homes in the United States. But "Mary's Dream" and the lyric. of THOMAS PAINE, are as little entitled to be called American poems as the verses of MYLES COOPER, Sir JOHN BURGOYNE, or Major ANDRE, OF those in which THOMAS MOORE celebrated his visits to the Dismal Swamp and the Schuylkill. " PHILIP FRENEAU. [Born 1752. Died 1832.] THE first attempts to establish in America a refuge for French Protestants were made under the direction of the Admiral Coligny in 1652. It was not, however, until Louis the Fourteenth revoked the edict of Nantz, in 1685, that there was any considerable emigration of the Reformers to this country. From that period, for many years, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, received some of the best elements of their subsequent civilization in the polite, industrious and variously skilful exiles whom the intolerance of the Roman Catholics compelled to abandon the soil of France. Those who settled in New York founded the old church of Saint Esprit, which was long the centre of the Huguenot influence on this continent. Among the principal families connected with it were the DE LANCEYS, JAYS, PINTARDS, ALLAIRES, and FRESNEAUS. In 1712 we find the latter name written without the s, and four years later ANDRE FRENEAU is referred to in the Journal of JEAN FONTAINE, as a leading citizen, and a frequenter of the French club. This ANDRE FRENEAU was the grandfather of PHILIP, who was born in New York on the thirteenth of January, (the second, old style,) 1752. His mother was a native of New Jersey, and his elder brother, PETER, was born in that colony, to which the family appears to have returned after the death of the poet's father, in 1754. Young FRENEAU entered Nassau Hall, then known as the New Jersey "Log College," in 1767, so far advanced in classical studies that the acting president made his proficiency the subject of a congratulatory letter to one of his relations. His room-mate here was JAMES MADISON, and HUGH H. BRECKENRIDGE, who afterwards wrote Modern Chivalry," was also in the same class. MADISON, BRECKENRIDGE, and FRENEAU, were intimate friends; and being all gifted with unusual satirical powers, which they were fond of displaying as frequently as there were fair occasions, they joined in lampooning, not only the leaders of adverse parties in the college, but also those prominent public characters who opposed the growing enthusiasm of the people for liberty. I have before me a considerable manuscript volume of personal and political satires, written by them in about equal proportions, and in which they exhibit nearly equal abilities, though MADISON's have the least coarseness, and the least spir *PETER FRENEAU Occasionally wrote verses, though I believe nothing of more pretension than a song or an epigram. He was a man of wit and education; was one of Mr. JEFFER SON's warmest adherents; and when the democratic party came into power in South Carolina, was made Secretary of State there. THOMAS, in his "Reminiscences," says that "his style of writing combined the beauty and smoothness of ADDISON with the simplicity of COBBETT." He died in 1814. it. Several theological students, particularly two or three whose family connections were very humble, were objects of their continual ridicule. In the class below were AARON BURR, and the refined and elegant WILLIAM BRADFORD, whose occasional verses show that he might have equaled any of his American contemporaries as a poet. if such had been the aim of his ambition. FRE NEAU graduated on the nineteenth of September, 1771, being then a few months over twenty years of age. The earliest of his printed poems is "The Poetical History of the Prophet Jonah," in four cantos, dated in 1768, the year after he went to Princeton. While in college he also formed the plan of an epic on the discovery of this continent, of which an "Address to Ferdinand," and a series of sixteen "Pictures of Columbus," are probably fragments. His valedictory exercise was a dialogue, in blank verse, on "The Rising Glory of America," in the composition and recitation of which he was associated with BRECKENRIDGE. It was printed in 1772, in an octavo pamphlet, at Philadelphia, where FRENEAU went to reside, with an intention of studying the law. It has been stated that he was on terms of familiar intimacy, while here, with Judge HOPKINSON, author of "The Battle of the Kegs," but the late venerable Dr. MEASE, who had been well acquainted with FRENEAU, remarks in a letter to me that "the humourist knew him only as a young scapegrace.” For some cause he appears to have abandoned the design of becoming a lawyer, and an irregular and aimless life of two or three years ended in his going to sea, but in what capacity, at first, I cannot ascertain. In 1774 and 1775 he was living in New York, where, during this period, he began to publish those pieces of political burlesque and invective which made his name familiar and popular throughout the country during the revolutionary war. His style was pointed, and he was successful in representing the exploits of the enemy in a ludicrous light, and in ridiculing the characters and conduct of the neutrals, loyalists, and others who were obnoxious to the prejudices of the Whigs. The speeches of the king and his ministers, and the proclamations of the royal governors and generals, he parodied and travestied in an amusing manner, and every memorable event, on land or sea, was celebrated by him in verses easily understood, and none the less admired, perhaps, for a dash of coarseness by which most of them were distinguished. In 1776 he passed several months in the Danish West Indies, and wrote there two of his longest poems, "The House of Night," and "The Beauties of Santa Cruz." In 1778 he was in Bermuda, and during the following year we find him in Phila delphia, editing for FRANCIS BAILEY "The United States Magazine." This periodical was not successful, and on its discontinuance he again turned his attention to the sea. He sailed for St. Eustatia in May, 1780, in the ship Aurora, which soon after leaving the Delaware was captured by a British cruiser. FRENEAU with his companions was taken to New York, and in the hot weather of June and July confined seven weeks on board the Scorpion and the Hunter, those floating hells in which so many of our country men experienced the extremest horrors of the war. On being released he returned to Philadelphia, and in the family of his friend BAILEY gradually regained the health lost during his confinement. He now published "The British Prison Ship," in four cantos, in which he described, with indignant energy, the brutalities to which he had been subjected, and urged the people to new efforts against the cruel and remorseless enemy. On the twenty-fifth of April, 1781, appeared the first number of "The Freeman's Journal," printed and published by BAILEY, and edited or in a large degree written by FRENEAU. For three or four years his hand is apparent in its most pungent paragraphs of prose, as well as in numerous pieces of verse, on public characters and passing events, and particularly in a succession of satires on the New York printers, HUGH GAINE and JAMES RIVINGTON, whom he delighted in assailing with all the resources of his abusive wit. Of GAINE, a sort of Vicar of Bray, "who lied at the sign of the Bible and Crown," he wrote a "Biography," and of RIVINGTON, who edited "The Royal Gazette," in which the Whigs were treated with every species of absurd and malicious vituperation, he gave the" Reflections," the "Confessions," the Last Will and Testament," &c. The following lines are characteristic of these productions: Occasioned by the title of Mr. Rivington's Royal Gazette being scarcely legible. Says Satan to Jemmy, "I hold you a bet, A remonstrance against the worn-out vignette the king's arms-is too gross for quotation, but when the appearance of the "Gazette" was sufficiently improved "From the regions of night, with his head in a sack, who looks over the paper, and the printing-room, In 1783, a few months after its appearance in Paris, FRENEAU translated and published in Philadelphia, the Nouveau Voyage dans l'Ameriqa Septentrionale en l'année 1781, by the Abbe Ro BIN, a chaplain in the army of the Count de ROCHAMBEAU, and he was much occupied during this and the two following years in various literary services for Mr. BAILEY, who was his warm friend as well as liberal employer. In 1784 he left Philadelphia, and after a few months spent in travel, and in visiting his old friends, become master of a vessel which sailed between New York and the West Indies, and New York and Charleston. In a letter to BAILEY he gives a striking account of a disastrous shipwreck which he suffered in one of his voyages, in the summer of 1788. Writing from Norfolk in Virginia, he says: the had the misfortune to have my vessel dismasted, thrown "After leaving New York, on the twenty-first of July, I on her beam ends, the bulk of her cargo shifted and ruined, and every sail, mast, spar, boat, and almost every article upon deck, lost, on the Wednesday afternoon following, in one of the hardest gales that ever blew on this coast. Captain William Cannon, whom I think you know, and who was going passenger with me to Charleston, and Josiah Stil well, a lad of a reputable family in the state of New Jersey, were both washed overboard and drowned, notwithstanding every effort to save them. All my people besides, except an old man who stuck fast in one of the scuttles, were seve ral times overboard, but had the luck to regain the wreck, and, with considerable difficulty, save their lives. As to myself, when I found the vessel no longer under my guid ance, I took refuge in the main weather shrouds, where, indeed, I saved myself from being washed into the sea, but was almost staved to picces in a violent fall I had upon main deck-the main mast having given way six feet above, and gone overboard. I was afterwards knocked in the head by a violent stroke of the tiller, which entirely de prived me of sensation, for, I was told, near a quarter of an hour. Our pumps were now so choked with corn that they would no longer work. Upwards of four feet of water was in the hold. Fortunately our bucket was saved, and with this we went to bailing, which alone prevented us from foundering, in one of the most dismal nights that ever man witnessed. The next morning the weather had cleared, and the wind come round to the north-east-during the gale having been east-north-east. The land was now in sight, about five miles distant, latitude at noon 36° 17′. I soon rigged out a broken boom, and set the fore topsail-the only sail remaining-and steered for Cape Henry, making however but little way, the vessel being very much on one side, and ready to sink with her heavy cargo of iron and other weighty articles. We were towed in next day, Friday, by the friendly aid of Captain Archibald Bell, of the ship Betsy, from London. I have since arrived at this port, by the assistance of a Potomac pilot. Nothing could exceed our distress: no fire, no candle, our beds soaked with seawater, the cabin torn to pieces, a vast quantity of corn da maged and poisoning us to death, &c. &c. As we entered Norfolk, on the twenty-ninth of July, the very dogs look ed at us with an eye of commiseration, the negroes pitied us, and almost every one showed a disposition to relieve us. In the midst of all our vexation the crew endeavored to keep up their spirits with a little grog, while I had recourse to my old expedient of philosophy and reflection. I have unloaded my cargo, partly damaged, partly otherwise. This day I shall also begin to refit my vessel, and mean to proceed back to New York as soon as refitted. It is possible, however, that I may be ordered to sell the vessel here. If so, I shall take a passage to Baltimore, and go to New York by way of Philadelphia, to look out for another and a more fortunate barque than that which I now command. P. FRENEAU." Yours, &c. |