evidence that the Puritan parson as a genus was incapable of writing poetry of any kind, or even passable verse. What could be expected of a mind which could evolve such stuff as this?

Make out for help in time

Lest by some subtile will,

Or hidden craft to thee unknown,
The Serpent thee beguile.
Temptations are like poyson,
Provide an Antidote:

'Tis easier mischief to prevent,
Than cure it when 'tis got.1

Yet, in the never quoted lines immediately following "The Day of Doom"'—a poem, without a title, on the vanity of human wishes-Michael Wigglesworth gives proofs of human kindliness and of poetic power. In these earnest lines, Wigglesworth shows a mastery of fluent verse, a control of poetic imagery, and a gentle yearning for the souls' welfare of his parishioners, which is the utterance of the pastor rather than of the ⚫ theologian. For a moment, God ceases to be angry, Christ stands pleading without the gate, and the good pastor utters a poem upon the neglected theme, "The Kingdom of God is within you":

Fear your great Maker with a child-like awe,
Believe his Grace, love and obey his Law.
This is the total work of man, and this

Will crown you here with Peace and there with Bliss.

This poem is much the best of all that Wigglesworth wrote, although, like all his others, it cannot be read and understood without thought of the New England generation for which it was written. Yet it proves beyond peradventure that "The Day of Doom" was a concession to popular taste in both form and content, and that the man who wrote it was capable of finer things. He was not a great poet, but he was in truth a man of poetic feeling who was hardened and repressed by the temper of his age.

R. LEWIS (Dates Unknown)

Of the author of the "Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis" almost nothing is certainly known. We may be fairly certain, however, that he was born about the beginning of the century, was educated at Eton, and, possibly, had some training at Oxford. He was a friend of Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert, and came to Annapolis, probably about 1727, perhaps through the Governor's inducements, to become there a teacher of Latin and Greek. Among his works, we may list the following:

Muscipula: The Mouse Trap, or the Battle of the Cambrians & the Mice; a poem by Edward Holdsworth, translated into English by R. Lewis. Annapolis, 1728. (Reprinted in the Maryland Historical Society Fund Publication, No. 36, in 1899.)

A Journey from Patapsco in Maryland to Annapolis, April 4, 1730.

1 Wigglesworth, "Light in Darkness," Song VIII, Stanza 7.

(Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1732, Vol. II, pp. 669-671. Reprinted in Eustace Budgell's Bee for April 7 to 14, 1733, Vol. I, pp. 393-404; again in Carey's American Museum for 1791, Vol. IX, Appendix I, pp. 9-16; and also in Edward D. Neill's "Terra Maria" (1867), pp. 239-252—see also p. 214. The text here reprinted is that of the Gentleman's Magazine.)

Carmen Seculare. (Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for April and May, 1733, Vol. III, pp. 209-210 and 264.)

A Rhapsody. (Printed in the Gentleman's Magazine for July, 1734, Vol. IV, p. 385. This poem is almost certainly by Lewis.)

For other poems possibly by Lewis, though probably not his, see the Gentleman's Magazine, VII, 760; XI, 603; XII, 653-654, and XIII, 46.

There is an interesting preface on Lewis in the reprint of the "Muscipula," and brief but enthusiastic appreciations of the "Journey" in Budgell's Bee (I, 393), and in Neill's "Terra Mariæ," p. 214. Dr. Bernard C. Steiner has published in the Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. III, pp. 191-227, 283-342, an article on Governor Benedict Leonard Calvert, which throws incidental light on Lewis and his environment. Aside from the brief discussion of the "Muscipula" in Otis's "American Verse, 16251807" (pp. 258-260), Lewis's work seems to be unmentioned by recent writers on American literature.

Such neglect, especially of the poem here reprinted, is unwarranted. The "Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis" is one of the best poems of its day in America. It is, of course, a frank and remarkably prompt imitation of Thomson's "Seasons." The "Seasons" came out during the years 1726-1730, and this poem, though published in 1732, bears the date of 1730 in its title. The one of the "Seasons" which the poem most resembles is "Summer" (1727), though "Spring" (1728), has possibly left a few traces of influence. In structure the poem follows the pattern of "L'Allegro," "Il Penseroso," and especially of "Summer," in presenting the pleasures of a day and a night. It begins with a picture of dawn and ends with the reflections of late evening. It has a certain advantage over its models in that it follows an easy, natural narrative order, instead of mixing narrative with reflection, as Thomson and Milton do. In selection and arrangement, the episodes of the poem are consciously, though not abjectly, parallel to those used in "Summer."

In form, the poem sticks to the couplet, instead of attempting the more unusual and more difficult blank verse of Thomson. The couplet, however, is not used in Pope's fashion; it is frequently varied by triplets, by run-on lines, and by shifting the pause in the fashion popularized by "Paradise Lost." The diction is at times reminiscent of Shakespeare, Milton, Pope, and, among others, Thomson especially; and yet the phrases are usually the honest, sincere registering of Lewis's own sense-impressions. Much of the conventional Latinization, many of the epithets that are interpretative rather than sensuous, are due to Milton and Thomson. Such are the "ambient air," the "languid tides," the hawk that "predestinates his prey," and many other phrases. More notable, however, are

the details that, to use the romantic catchword, bring back the eye to the object. Lewis is one of the earliest American poets to be predominantly sensuous in his appeal: the "floating foliage" of the pines struck by the rising sun, the iridescence of the humming bird, the pattering noise of the hail (Thomson's hail was "sonorous"), the fragrance of the sassafras buds -these are but a few of the exquisite sensations that Lewis records for us with convincing and unpretentious honesty.

In such a poem, these pictures-or better, these "images," as they would have been called in Lewis's day-are of supreme importance. The notable thing about the images here is that they are consistently and typically local. The English critics who were surprised to find Bryant's nature passages so easily transferable to English scenery, would have found Lewis satisfactorily American. He carefully turns his back on the flowers and trees of Thomson's "Spring" (lines 530 and following), and substitutes the pacone, the crowfoot, the cinque-foil, the red-bud and the sassafras; he delights in the restful green of wheat. His praise of the mocking bird and of the humming bird is sufficient evidence of his desire to celebrate the beauties of Maryland. Indeed, it is likely that these two birds, as well as many other bits of American nature, make their first appearance in poetry here. Lewis seeks not so much to report the look of these things as to express his keen enjoyment of them.

The poem is, then, aside from its thoroughly American details, significant in the history of American poetry. Before 1730, the Rev. Mather Byles, of Boston, had sworn allegiance to the poetry of Alexander Pope; here arise, probably, the first signs of the Thomson influence-which was, of course, to be more permanent and valuable than the Pope tradition. The promptness with which the provinces were imitating the popular poets of the mother country is interesting. It augurs an attention to things poetic not always ascribed to our ancestors. In fact, the whole career of Lewis, brief though it may have been, suggests that there may have been much more poetry written, in America in the 18th century than has been commonly supposed, and that the poetry written may have been much better than has been thought. It was mostly published in obscure nooks, or in England, and has not as yet been thoroughly reclaimed.

S.

THE ALMANACS OF NATHANIEL AMES

"The Essays, Humor and Poems of Nathaniel Ames, Father and Son, of Dedham, Massachusetts, from their Almanacks, 1726-1774. With notes and Comments, by Sam. Briggs. Cleveland, 1891."

The first half of the 18th century was relatively barren in poetry, even in America, where there had been little enough before. No volumes of verse seem to have been produced. Some work, such as that of Mr. Lewis, got into print through the columns of the English periodicals, and some through the American almanacs.

The almanac, "the most despised, most prolific, most indispensable of books . . the very quack, clown, pack-horse, and pariah of modern

literature," had enjoyed a growing vogue from the beginnings of the Colonial period. After "The Freeman's Oath," the first piece of printing in this country was a Mr. Pierce's almanac, printed by Stephen Daye in Cambridge in 1639. Boston entered the field in 1676, Philadelphia in 1686, New York in 1697. The first one appeared in Rhode Island in 1728, and in Virginia in 1731. "Poor. Richard" made his début in 1732. Among the almanac editors who prospered through long careers, three are most famous, Robert B. Thomas, publisher of "The Old Farmer's Almanac," from 1793 to 1847; Benjamin Franklin, founder in 1732 and author until 1748 of the "Poor Richard," who continued to prosper on his poverty until 1796, and earliest of the three, Nathaniel Ames, of Dedham, Mass., an author, editor, and publisher of his own series from 1726 to 1764, who was succeeded by a son of the same name until 1774.

1

In the almanacs of Nathaniel Ames,2 father and son, the literary element -to use the term very charitably-was a striking feature. This included the conventional introduction of "interlined wit and humor," the less common employment of didactic essays on astronomy, theology, black-art, prosaic discussions on personal hygiene, and Addisonian pages for the ladies and for the gentlemen, and, finally, the use of a considerable amount of quoted and original verse. The verse appears from the first number in every issue, and bulks up to much more than the other two features combined. Among the English poets quoted are Pope, Dryden, Addison, Thomson, Milton, and Sir Richard Blackmore, but more often the verse is by Ames himself or one of his countrymen.

The most common method of weaving it into the almanacs, is by printing it as a series of inscriptions above the successive months. Sometimes the verses so introduced are appropriate to the changing seasons, but not infrequently they are simply twelve sections of one consecutive piece of poetical moralization upon life, and sometimes for the same year these two appeals are rudely combined. In several of the issues are forewords, such as those herein reprinted for 1738, which show a journalistic inclination to supply what the public wanted, by placating the grave with a serious address, and the gay with a frivolous one. From time to time, in addition to forewords and monthly captions, there are appended whole selections, which, for want of a better word, we must call poems. In the earlier years, these are more often related to the wars of the Lord, and in the later ones to fighting with the French and Indians; but in almost all cases they are pertinent, as almanac verse should be, to contemporary events or interests. Thus, in 1741, the period of "The Great Awakening," there is a challenge "To the Scoffers at Whitefield's Preaching," but in 1760 an outburst of triumph "On the Reduction of Quebec by Wolfe." The rhymed chronologies of 1745 and 1763 are fascinating records of the 18th century orthodox attitude toward history and the mountain-peaks of human achievement. The naïve near-sightedness of the times was humanly frank rather than humanly unusual, like the vanity of a débutante who will dally before the mirror, with Pike's Peak waiting outside the window.

1 For information on Thomas and a great deal of interesting data about almanacs in general, see "The Old Farmer and his Almanac," by G. L. Kittredge, Boston, 1904, "The Almanacs of Nathaniel Ames, 1726-1774,"

In form, the verses of Ames and his contributors are not without claims to attention. They are uneven, and run all the lower half of the gamutfor none are more than fair; but in this mediocrity they partake of the period in which they were written. Dryden, Addison, and Thomson served as models of convention to the 18th century mind. What the 20th century applauds in them are the qualities which make them egregious rather than conventional. The diction and prosody of Ames and his models, therefore, are the things against which Wordsworth protested in his essay of 1798, and they are the point of departure for the poets of the 19th century. Thus, they are still interesting to the student, not as immortal poetry, but as the kind of poetry that a certain generation was content to read and write, and as a monumental evidence of the fact that the desire for poetry will survive almost any vicissitudes.

FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1737-1791)

Hopkinson was born in Philadelphia, October 2, 1737. He was first matriculant in the College of Philadelphia, receiving his bachelor's degree in 1757, and his master's in 1760. He was admitted to the bar in 1761, visited England in 1766-1767, and from 1772 to 1776 was holder of offices under the Crown. He was, nevertheless, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. With the approach of the war, he became an effective spokesman for the colonies. His most famous contributions were "A Pretty Story-The Old Farm and the New Farm: A Political Allegory by Peter Grievous, Esq.," 1774, and "The Battle of the Kegs," a ballad of 1778. He wrote, also, graceful verse and prose on the life and manners of his time, and was distinguished as one of the most versatile men of his day. He was statesman, jurist, scientist, musician, poet, and painter. He died on May 9, 1791.

1. Texts.

The Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson, 3 vols. Philadelphia, 1792. The latter half of the third volume contains in separate paging, 1-204, his Poems on Several Subjects.

The Old Farm and the New Farm: A Political Allegory. With an introduction and historical notes by B. J. Lossing. New York, 1864.

II. Biography.

A Biographical Sketch of Francis Hopkinson, by C. R. Hildeburn, Philadelphia, 1878.

III. Criticism.

The Literary History of the American Revolution, by M. C. Tyler, Vol. I, Chap. VIII, pp. 163-171; Chap. XII, pp. 279-292; Chap. XXII, pp. 487-490, and Vol. II, Chap. XXX, pp. 130-157.

Francis Hopkinson, Man of Affairs and Letters, Mrs. A. R. Marble, New Eng. Mag., Vol. XXVII, p. 289.