LETTER XXII

MR. EDITOR,

Having heard that there was a tavern at about the distance of a mile or so from my favourite country spot, where now and then a few neighbours meet to spit, smoke segars, drink apple whiskey, cider or cider-royal, and read the news--a few evenings ago, I put on my best coat, combed out my wig, put my spectacles in my pocket, and a quarter dollar--This I thought was right; for although Mrs. Slender told me eleven-pence was enough, says I, I'll e'en take the quarter dollar, for a man always feels himself of more consequence when he has got good money in his pocket--so out I walks with a good stout stick in my hand, which I always make a point to carry with me, lest the dogs should make rather freer with my legs than I could wish. But I had not gone more than half the way, when, by making a false step, I splash'd my stocking from knee to the ancle. Odds my heart, said I, see what a hand I have made of my stocking; I'll be bail, added I, I'll hear of this in both sides of my head--but it can't now be helped--this, and a thousand worse accidents, which daily happen, are all occasioned by public neglect, and the misapplication of the public's money--Had I, said I, (talking to myself all the while) the disposal of but half the income of the United States, I could at least so order matters, that a man might walk to his next neighbour's without splashing his stockings or being in danger of breaking his legs in ruts, holes, gutts, and gullies. I do not know, says I to myself, as I moralized on my splash'd stocking, but money might with more profit be laid out in repairing the roads, than in marine establishments, supporting a standing army, useless embassies, exorbitant salaries, given to many flashy fellows that are no honour to us, or to themselves, and chartering whole ships to carry a single man to another nation--Odds my life, continued I, what a number of difficulties a man labours under, who has never read further than Lilly's grammar, and has but a poor brain--had I been favoured with a good education, I could no doubt readily see the _great usefulness_ of all these measures of government, that now appear to me so unaccountable--I could then, said I, still talking to myself, see the reason why the old patriots, whose blood flowed so freely in purchasing our independence, are cast aside, like a broken pitcher, (as the scripture says) and why the old tories and active refugees are advanced to places of power, honour and trust--I could then be able to explain why Robbins, an American citizen, for killing an Englishman who held him a slave, and so gaining his liberty, was delivered to the English to be hanged--and Sterret, who killed a veteran sailor, who had formerly fought and bled in the cause of his country, and then was bravely doing his duty, yet, remains unpunished.... As I said this, by accident I looked up, and perceived to my surprise, that if I had gone but one step further, I would have actually knocked my nose against the sign-post--I declare, said I, here I am, this is a tavern indeed. I then felt in my pocket, if I had my quarter dollar, which to my joy I found--I then unbuttoned my coat, to shew my silk waistcoat, pulled my watch chain a good piece longer out of my pocket, fixed my hat a little better on my head--and then advanced boldly into the tavern--But I see I am got to the end of my page, and therefore must defer the remainder of my adventure to another opportunity."

In the advertisement of the book, the author made the half promise of more letters in the same vein:

"Should these letters meet with a favourable reception in their present form, a second volume will shortly be published, containing besides those that have since appeared separately a variety of original ones upon such interesting subjects as may hereafter claim the public attention."

The volume was never published. The little family at Mount Pleasant could not subsist alone on letters and poems, however brilliant. The outlook was not a bright one, as the following letter[17] to his brother Peter, in Charleston, dated March 1, 1801, would indicate:

"Having been here [New York] a day or two and finding the brig Echo, Capt. Webb, to sail for Charleston, I take the opportunity of dropping you a line by him.

"I left all well at home last Thursday, and the place, etc., as well as could be expected after my poor mother's absence. I have been and shall be for some time busy in repairing old fences and making new ones, and some other small improvements, as far as I personally can with the money you let me have. Helen goes to school here, the other two girls are at home, but Agnes is to come here next month for the same purpose for awhile. There are more cares and vexations coming on, but still they must be got through with at some rate. Probably I shall have to embark on some new expedition or plan before long wherever or to whatever the devil, etc., shall see fit to drive me. But I shall attempt nothing if I can before I see you here, in April or May, as you promised.

"I return this morning to Jersey. Mr. Hunn, Peggy, Mamma and Polly all desire their love to you. My love and respects to Mrs. Freneau and Miss Dora with her mother and family. Remembrances, love, etc., to Mr. Davis, and may I expect to have a line from you by Capt. Peter."

Freneau was at best a half-hearted farmer. A little anecdote told by the family is eloquent. One day the poet and his wife, who had walked together into the field to inspect the work, found a slave asleep in the young corn. Mrs. Freneau seizing his hoe declared that she would show him how to work. At the very first attempt, however, she cut down a hill of corn, whereupon the slave remarked gleefully: "Ho, ho, Missie Freneau, if that's the way you hoe, the corn'll never grow." She threw down the hoe in disgust, declaring that "No wonder the farm doesn't pay when even the slaves talk in rhymes."

The affairs of the poet were soon such as to give real concern to his friends. In a letter dated September 13, 1801, a part of which we have already quoted, Aedanus Burke wrote Madison:

"I am sorry to have it to say that Freneau, with his wife and two children, is still in embarrassed circumstances. He is a virtuous, honest man, and an undeviating Republican; yet utterly incapable of soliciting anything for himself. The best apology I can offer for mentioning it, is that I know you have great regard for him. You were at College together, as I heard you often say."

However this letter may have been received, Freneau obtained no appointment either from Madison or Jefferson, though there is a persistent tradition among his descendants that he was offered a good position under President Jefferson but refused it on the ground that the latter had deserted him in the _National Gazette_ affair. On October 23, 1803, his old-time friend, Francis Bailey, addressed Madison:

"My dear sir: The death of Col. Bauman of New York has left the Post Office without a Master. I know of no man in the United States who would fill the office with more ability, or greater integrity, than Philip Freneau."

As far as we know, there was no response, though the family declare that Madison sent for him and that the poet proudly said, "James Madison knows where I live, let him come to see me."

The "expedition" to mend his fortunes, which he had mentioned to his brother as a disagreeable possibility, became at length inevitable. On Saturday, November 27th, he embarked at New York as Master of the schooner _John_, bound for Fredericksburg, Virginia, with a cargo of salt. A minute log book of this voyage is still to be seen.[18] After an exceedingly hard experience he returned to New York, January 12, 1803, and the last entry in the log reads "Finished discharging the wheat--1264 bushels at 17 cents a bushel freight--214 dollars and 88 cents."

This was the opening voyage of his last period at sea. His brother Peter had fitted out at Charleston a new brig for the Madeira trade, and until 1807 Freneau was busy plying between Charleston and the Azores. In one of his books of navigation is inscribed the following:

"Sailed from Charleston for Maderia with brig Washington, May 12, 1803. Got there June 23. Arrived back at Charleston Aug. 16.

"Sailed in ditto from Charleston Jan. 25, 1804. Arrived in Maderia March 7th following. A hurricane of wind the whole way. April 12, sailed from Funchal Road for Teneriff. Arrived at Santa Cruz the 15th; at Arasava, 22nd. Sailed May 11th. Arrived in Charleston, June 10."

On June 30, 1806, he was in Savannah, Georgia, as Master of the sloop _Industry_. He made his last voyage to the Azores in the _Washington_ in 1807. During this last period of sea life we find evidences everywhere that this old enthusiasm for nautical adventure had greatly waned. He was a sailor now from sheer necessity; he was approaching old age and he longed for the quiet of his home and his family. In one of his books of navigation of this period is penned a verse made in mid Atlantic:

"In dreams condemned to roam He left his native home O'er land and ocean vast and wide With oar and sail, with wind and tide, Proceeding an imaginary way."

In 1809, Freneau now in retirement at Mount Pleasant, began a new edition of his poems. On April 8, he wrote Madison:[19]

"SIR,--I do myself the pleasure to enclose to you a copy of Proposals for the publication of a couple of Volumes of Poems shortly to be put to the Press in this city. Perhaps some of your particular friends in Virginia may be induced from a view of the Proposals in your hands to subscribe their names. If so, please to have them forwarded to this place by Post, addressed to the Publisher at No. 10 North Alley, Philadelphia. "Accept my congratulations on your late Election to the Presidency of the United States, and my hopes that your weight of State Affairs may receive every alleviation in the gratitude and esteem of the Public whom you serve in your truly honourable and exalted Station."

Madison's reply has been lost, but on May 12th, Freneau answered from Philadelphia:[20]

"SIR,--After a month's ramble through the States of New Jersey and New York, I returned to this place on Saturday last, and found your friendly Letter on Mr. Bailey's table, with the contents. There was no occasion of enclosing any Money, as your name was all I wanted to have placed at the head of the Subscription list.--I hope you will credit me when I say that the republication of these Poems, such as they are, was not a business of my own seeking or forwarding. I found last Winter an Edition would soon be going on at all events, and in contradiction to my wishes, as I had left these old scribblings, to float quietly down the stream of oblivion to their destined element the ocean of forgetfulness. However, I have concluded to remain here this Summer, and have them published in a respectable manner, and free as possible from the blemishes imputable to the two former Editions, over which I had no controul, having given my manuscripts away, and left them to the mercy of chance.--I am endeavouring to make the whole work as worthy of the public eye as circumstances will allow. 1500 copies are to be printed, only; but I have a certainty, from the present popular frenzy, that three times that number might soon be disposed of.--I will attend to what you direct on the subject, and will forward the ten you mention by the middle of July or sooner.--I will consider of what you say relative to the insertion of a piece or two in prose, but suspect that anything I have written in that way is so inferior to the Poetry, that the contrast will be injurious to the credit of the Publication.--I feel much in the humour of remaining here about two years, to amuse myself, as well as the Public, with such matter as that of the fat man you refer to, and if the public are in the same humour they shall be gratified.--But I am intruding on your time and will add no more at present.--I had almost said--

"'Cum tot sustineas et tanta negotia solus Res Italas armis tuteris, moribus ornes Legibus emendes, in publica commoda peccem Si longo sermone mores[21] tua tempora, Caesar--'

"My best wishes, Sir, will ever await you, and in particular that your Presidential Career may be equally honourable though less stormy than that of your predecessor."

It is evident that Freneau wrote also to Jefferson, for on May 22, 1809, the latter wrote from Monticello.[22]

"SIR,--I subscribe with pleasure to the publication of your volumes of poems. I anticipate the same pleasure from them which the perusal of those heretofore published has given me. I have not been able to circulate the paper because I have not been from home above once or twice since my return, and because in a country situation like mine, little can be done in that way. The inhabitants of the country are mostly industrious farmers employed in active life and reading little. They rarely buy a book of whose merit they can judge by having it in their hand, and are less disposed to engage for those yet unknown to them. I am becoming like them myself in a preference of the healthy and cheerful employment without doors, to the being immured within four brick walls. But under the shade of a tree one of your volumes will be a pleasant pocket companion.

"Wishing you all possible success and happiness, I salute you with constant esteem and respect."

The reply to Freneau's second letter to Jefferson has also been lost, but Freneau's letter dated Philadelphia, May 27th, has escaped destruction:[23]

"SIR,--Yesterday your Letter, dated May 22d came to hand.--Perhaps you a little misunderstood me, when I wrote to you from this place in April last, inclosing the Proposal Paper, respecting the Poems.--I only wished your name to be placed at the head of the list, and did not wish you to be at the pains of collecting Subscriptions, further than as any of your neighbours might choose to put down their names--Indeed, the whole Subscription plan was Set a going without my knowledge or approbation, last Winter. But as I found the matter had gone too far to be recalled, I thought it best to submit, in the present Edition, to the course and order of things as they are and must be.--Sir, if there be anything like happiness in this our State of existence, it will be such to me, when these two little Volumes reach you in August ensuing, if the sentiments in them under the poetical Veil, amuse you but for a single hour.--This is the first Edition that I have in reality attended to, the other two having been published, in a strange way, while I was wandering over gloomy Seas, until _embargoed_ by the necessity of the times, and now again, I fear, I am reverting to the folly of scribbling Verses.

"That your shades of Monticello may afford you complete happiness is the wish and hope of all the worthy part of Mankind, and my own in particular. In such the philosophers of antiquity preferred to pass life, or if that was not allowed, their declining days.

"Will you be so good as to read the inclosed Verses? They were published early in March last in the Trenton True American Newspaper, and in the Public Advertiser, of New York."

On August 7, 1809, Freneau wrote finally to Madison:[24]

"SIR,--The two Volumes of Poems that in April last I engaged to have published, are finished, and will be ready for delivery in two or three days. The ten Setts you subscribed for I am rather at a loss how to have safely transmitted to you at your residence in Virginia, where I find by the Newspapers, you mean to Continue until the end of September. Will you on receipt of this, send me a line or two, informing me whether you would prefer having the Books put into the hands of some Confidential person here, to be sent or; that they be sent to the Post Office at Washington; or that they be forwarded directly to yourself in Orange County. The precise direction is not in my power."

The 1809 collection is the most elaborate of all the earlier editions of Freneau's works. His statement that it was the only one which received his personal supervision is certainly wrong, for he had carefully supervised the 1795 edition. On the title page he announced that the poems were "now republished from the original manuscripts," and that he had added several "translations from the ancients and other pieces not heretofore in print," but the new poems that had not previously appeared in the _Time Piece_ were very few. On the title page also he placed the stanza:

"Justly to record the deeds of fame, A muse from heaven should touch the soul with flame; Some powerful spirit in superior lays Should tell the conflicts of the stormy days."

The poet's advertisement is as follows:

"The Poems, included in these two volumes, were originally written between the years 1768 and 1793; and were partly published in the transient prints of the times, and afterwards collected into two editions of 1786 and 1795. The present is a revision of the whole, and now published agreeable to the terms of the subscription issued in this city, in April last. Such, perhaps, as are not attracted by mere novelty or amusement, will attend more particularly to the Poems originating from the temporary events of the American war. These Poems were intended, in part to expose to vice and treason, their own hideous deformity; to depict virtue, honour and patriotism in their native beauty. Such (says a most distinguished foreign author) was the intention of poetry from the beginning, and here her purpose should end. Whether the following verses have any real claim to the attention of the citizens of the American United States, who may honour them with a reading, is left for the Public to decide.

"To his Countrymen, the real _Patriotic Americans_, the _Revolutionary Republicans_, and the rising generation who are attached to their sentiments and principles, the writer hopes this collection will not prove unacceptable. A more complete edition might have been published, so as to include a great number of miscellaneous Poems and animadversions on public events down to the present year, 1809; but it has been judged most proper, to restrict what is now printed to the date of 1793; with the exception of only a very few pieces of later composition which have been retained, and inserted in the body of the work, but not so as to materially interrupt the general tenor of the Poems that arose from the incidents of the American revolutionary contest.

"The Author will only add, that to this Edition are prefixed two copper-plate engravings: the one representing ST. TAMMANY, observing a hostile fleet approaching his shores; the other a nocturnal view of Captain Jones's engagement with the Seraphis.--These, it is hoped will be considered not inelegant embellishments of the edition now presented to the public.

"_Philadelphia, August 2d, 1809._"

The work is divided into four parts:

"Book I. Containing translations from the ancients; and other pieces on various subjects, written in America.

"Book II. Containing original pieces, with some relative to the more early events of the American Revolutionary War.

"Book III. Containing original poems, written and published at different periods, during the Revolutionary War.

"Book IV. Consisting of Miscellaneous pieces, on the events of the times, interspersed with others on moral, satirical, and political subjects."

The author made almost no attempt to arrange the material chronologically as to the dates of composition. He resurrected none of the material dropped from the 1795 collection, but cut from the edition some fifty-five other poems, among them nearly all of the material relating to the French Revolution, the greater number of the New Year Odes, and such fine pieces as "Neversink," "The Country Printer," "Slender's Journey," and "The Wintry Prospect."

The text was taken largely from the 1795 version, and a few minor amendments and changes made, but in no case were they so frequent or so careful as those made for the second edition. The poet's editorial work consisted mainly in elaborated titles with Latin quotations, in foot-notes, and in division of the material into books.

The next few years of Freneau's life were spent quietly at Mount Pleasant. He passed his time, as his daughter describes, "in writing poetry, and in answering and receiving letters." Her picture of the man at this period is full of interest. "Although no farmer, he loved to see the work going on. He was very fond of feeding poultry and all the dumb animals, and when the season came for slaughtering the porkers, he generally managed it so as to have some business in New York, and he was usually absent when poultry was wanted for dinner. Mrs. Freneau had to give orders to the blacks to do it privately. He confessed it a weakness and tried to conceal it."

His interest in politics was still keen. He watched carefully all the premonitory signs of the approaching storm of 1812, and when war was found to be inevitable, his harp was in full tune to satirize the foe, which he had never ceased to hate, and to celebrate the heroes and the victories of his country.

On January 12, 1815, we find him again in correspondence with his old friend Madison:[25]

"SIR,--Since my last return from the Canary Islands in 1807 to Charleston and from thence to New York; with my Brigantine Washington, quitting the bustle and distraction of active life, my walks have been confined, with now and then a short excursion, to the neighbourhood of the Never Sink hills, and under some old hereditary trees, and on some fields, which I well recollect for sixty years. During the last Seven Years my pen could not be entirely idle, and for amusement only now and then I had recourse to my old habit of scribbling verses. A Bookseller in New York, Mr. Longworth, by some means discovered this, and has prevailed on me to put my papers into his hands for publication. With some reluctance I consented to gratify his wish, altho' I think after the age of fifty, or thereabouts, the vanity of authorship ought to cease, at least it has been the case with myself. Mr. Longworth informs me the work will be published early in February in two duodecimo volumes. I have directed him, when done, to forward a copy to yourself, of which I beg your acceptance. I do not know that the Verses are of any superior or very unusual merit; but he tells me the Town will have them: and of course, have them they will, and must, it seems. The Work cannot be very tedious, for in two small Volumes there will be upwards of one hundred and thirty Poems on different subjects, moral, political, or merely amusing, and not a few upon the events of the times since May 1812. However, you know a short production may sometimes be tedious, and a long one very lively and captivating. None of my effusions in these Volumes much exceed two hundred lines, and several do not reach more than the fourth part of that number of lines.

"When I left Philadelphia, about the middle of September 1809, the ten copies of the Revolutionary Poems, which you subscribed for, were put into a box well secured, and forwarded according to your direction, under the care of General Steele, then Collector of the Port of Philadelphia: I have not since heard whether they reached you or not.

"That Edition was published by _Subscription_ merely for the benefit of, and to assist Mrs. Bailey, an unfortunate but deserving widowed female, niece to General Steele, and this consideration alone induced me to pay some attention to that third Edition.

"But, in mentioning these matters I fear I am intruding both on your time and patience, constantly, or always perpetually engaged, as you undoubtedly are, in the duties of your station at a stormy period, a tempestuous Presidency indeed: May you weather all the conflicts of these mighty times, and return safe at the proper period to your Virginian Groves, fields and streams: sure I am, different very different indeed from your long intercourse with political Life and the affairs of a 'grumbling Hive.' My best wishes attend Yourself, and Mrs. Madison, to whom, tho' I never had the pleasure of her acquaintance, I beg you to present my best compliments and regards."

On March 3d following, he writes again to Madison:[26]

"SIR,--When I mentioned in my few lines to you, dated from my residence in New Jersey on the 22d of January last, the two Volumes of Poems publishing in this city by Mr. Longworth, I did really think to have had a small box of them at Washington by the middle of February at farthest, with a particular direction of a couple of copies to Yourself bound in an elegant manner. Finding, however, that the business went on slowly here, and a little vexed to be under the necessity of leaving my Solitude and the wild Scenes of nature in New Jersey for the ever execrated streets and company of this Capital, I embarked near Sandy Hook in a snow storm, about the last of January, and shortly after arrived here, fortunately unnoticed and almost unknown--At my time of life, 63!!! abounding however in all the powers of health and vigour, though I consider my poetry and poems as mere trifles, I was seriously out of humour on my arrival here to see my work delayed, as well from the severity of the cold, which has been unremitting for more than a month past, and perhaps to some other causes it would not be prudent _here_ to explain. By my incessant exertions in spurring on the indolence of typography, the work, such as it is, is now finished, in two small Volumes of about 180 pages each.--The moment they are out of the bookbinder's hands, Mr. Longworth will forward you a Copy, and by the first Vessel to Alexandria, Georgetown, or Washington a Box of them to his correspondents in these places. A Copy or two of the Revolutionary poems will be forwarded to your direction--I am sorry the Copies you had were doomed to the flames, but the author had nearly suffered the same fate in the year 1780.--Yesterday I received from New Jersey a Copy of your friendly Letter of the 1st February: a Copy, I say, for my wife, or some one of my four Girls, daughters, would not forward me the original, but keep it until my return for fear of accidents.

"To-morrow morning I embark again for Monmouth, and among other cares, when I arrive at my magical grove, I shall hasten to exert all the poetical energy I possess, on the grand Subject of the Repulse of the British Army from New Orleans. There is a subject indeed! far above my power, I fear. If there be anything in inspiration, it will be needful on such a theme. Eight hundred lines in Heroic Measure I mean to devote to this animating subject.--In due time you shall hear more from me on this business, if I am not anticipated by some one more muse beloved than myself.--Hoping that all health and happiness may attend you, and that your libraries in future may escape the ravages and flames of Goths and Barbarians--I remain, etc."

Madison's reply has been lost. On May 10, 1815, Freneau wrote his last letter, as far as we know, to Madison:[27]

"SIR,--Mrs. Anna Smyth, the Lady of Charles Smyth Esquire, a respectable Citizen of this place, being to set out in a few days on a tour to Virginia, and expecting to be in your neighbourhood, either at Washington, or at Montpelier, does me the favour to take under her particular care, to put, or transmit into your hands, the two little Volumes I mentioned to you in my letter last Winter, and to which I received your friendly and obliging Answer.

"Be pleased to accept them as a mark of my attention, respect, and esteem, in regard to your private as well as public character.

"I have written to Mr. Carey, in Philadelphia, Book-seller there, to forward on to you, if he has them, the two Volumes of the Revolutionary Poems, published in Philadelphia in the Summer of 1809, and which you wished to regain, since the loss of your Copies in the conflagration at Washington last year. I flatter myself, the arrangement I have made with him will replace them in your hands.--I will only add, that any attention paid by you to Mrs. Smyth, I will consider as conferred on myself."

The 1815 edition contains no poems previously published in the poet's earlier collections. The work shows no falling off in vigor from the earlier martial standard set by the poet in his more vigorous years. Some critics have declared that the poet's best work is in this collection. Certain it is that a few of the lyrics of battle have a spirit and swing that make them notable productions.

Freneau placed upon the title-page the ringing challenge:

"Then England come!--a sense of wrong requires To meet with thirteen stars your thousand fires: Through these stern times the conflict to maintain, Or drown them, with your commerce, in the main."

He introduced the work as follows:

"The poetical pieces contained in these volumes were composed at different periods, and on a variety of occasions, between the years 1797 and 1815, and are now presented to the public, printed from the author's original and corrected manuscripts, and, it is hoped, in such a style of typography, as will not be unacceptable to the reader.--Several of the performances, comprised in this collection, and chiefly those on political subjects, and other events of the times, have heretofore appeared in several periodical publications of _this_ and other STATES of the union. It is presumed, however, that the poems of this description will not be the less acceptable to the friends of the muses, now they are collected in these volumes; with the advantage of having at one view what were before scattered in those bulky vehicles of information, whose principal object can be little more than to record the common events and business of the day, and soon descend into comparative oblivion.--Whatever may be the fate of the work, they are respectfully offered to the world, in hopes it may obtain a share of their attention, and particularly, from the friends of poetical composition; and in a country where it may be expected, the fine arts in general will, with the return of peace, find that share of encouragement, which they seem entitled to demand, in every nation that makes any pretensions to refinement and civilization.--It is only necessary to add, that care has been taken to execute the typographical part as _correctly_ as possible."

The poems were reviewed for the _Analectic Magazine_ by Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck, who said in part:

"He depicts land battles and naval fights with much animation and gay coloring; and being himself a son of old Neptune, he is never at a loss ... when the scene lies at sea. His martial and political ballads are free from bombast and affectation, and often have an arch simplicity in their manner that renders them very poignant and striking. If the ballads and songs of Dibdin have cheered the spirits and incited the valor of the British tars, the strains of Freneau, in like manner, are calculated to impart patriotic impulses to the hearts of his countrymen, and their effect in this way should be taken as the test of their merit, without entering into a very nice examination of the rhyme or the reason. For our own part, we have no inclination to dwell on his defects; we had much rather--

"'With full applause, in honor to his age, Dismiss the veteran poet from the stage, Crown his last exit with distinguished praise, And kindly hide his baldness with the bays.'"

The last lines used by Verplanck are from "American Bards," a poem published in Philadelphia in 1820. The reference to Freneau is not without interest:

"Let Freneau live, though Flattery's baleful tongue, Too early tuned his youthful lyre to song, And ripe old age, in ill directed zeal, Has made an enervated last appeal; His song could fire the sailor on the wave, Raise up the coward,--animate the brave, While wit and satire cast their darts around, And fools and cowards tremble at the sound. Although ambition never soared to claim The meed of polished verse, or classic fame, And caustic critics honor but condemn, A strain of feeling, but a style too tame. Let the old bard whose patient voice has fanned The fire of freedom that redeemed our land, Live on the scroll with kindred names that swell The page of history, where their honors dwell; With full applause, in honor to his age, Dismiss the veteran poet from the stage, Crown his last exit with distinguished praise, And kindly hide his baldness with the bays."

The last years of Freneau's life were eventless, passed quietly at Mount Pleasant, and varied only with frequent visits to New York. Shortly after the issue of the 1815 edition of his poems, the ancestral home was completely destroyed by fire, together with most of the poet's papers, manuscript poems, valuable letters and books--the collection of a lifetime. During his last years he contemplated a complete and final edition of his poetical works. He wrote Dr. Mease of Philadelphia whether there was "enough of the old spirit of patriotism abroad to insure the safety of such an adventure;" and it was the testimony of Alexander Anderson, the once celebrated engraver on wood, that Freneau once consulted with him as to the cost of an illustrated volume of his poems, and departed sadly remarking that his purse was not equal to the venture.

The best picture of the poet in his old age is from the pen of the genial Dr. John W. Francis of New York, who knew him well during his last years:[28]

"I had, when very young, read the poetry of Freneau, and as we instinctively become attached to the writers who first captivate our imaginations, it was with much zest that I formed a personal acquaintance with the revolutionary bard. He was at that time about seventy-six years old, when he first introduced himself to me in my library. I gave him an earnest welcome. He was somewhat below the ordinary height; in person thin yet muscular, with a firm step, though a little inclined to stoop; his countenance wore traces of care, yet lightened with intelligence as he spoke; he was mild in enunciation, neither rapid nor slow, but clear, distinct, and emphatic. His forehead was rather beyond the medium elevation, his eyes a dark grey, occupying a socket deeper than common; his hair must have once been beautiful, it was now thinned and of an iron grey. He was free of all ambitious displays; his habitual expression was pensive. His dress might have passed for that of a farmer. New York, the city of his birth, was his most interesting theme; his collegiate career with Madison, next. His story of many of his occasional poems was quite romantic. As he had at command types and a printing press, when an incident of moment in the Revolution occurred, he would retire for composition, or find shelter under the shade of some tree, indite his lyrics, repair to the press, set up his types, and issue his productions. There was no difficulty in versification with him. I told him what I had heard Jeffrey, the Scotch Reviewer, say of his writings, that the time would arrive when his poetry, like that of Hudibras, would command a commentator like Gray. On some of the occasions when Freneau honored me with a visit, we had within our circle one of my earliest friends, that rare Knickerbocker, Gulian C. Verplanck. I need not add that the charm of my interview with the bard was heightened by the rich funds of antiquarian lore possessed by the latter.

"It is remarkable how tenaciously Freneau preserved the acquisitions of his early classical studies, notwithstanding he had for many years, in the after portion of his life, been occupied in pursuits so entirely alien to books. There is no portrait of the patriot Freneau; he always firmly declined the painter's art, and would brook no 'counterfeit presentiment.'"

Freneau's frequent visits to New York were the chief solace of his last years. Says Dr. Francis:

"Freneau was widely known to a large circle of our most prominent and patriotic New Yorkers. His native city, with all his wanderings, was ever uppermost in his mind and in his affections. While in the employment of Jefferson, as a translator in the department of state, upon the organization of Congress, with Washington at its head, he had the gratification of witnessing the progress of improvement, and might have enjoyed increased facilities had he not enlisted with an indiscreet zeal as an advocate of the radical doctrines of the day. Freneau was, nevertheless, esteemed a true patriot; and his private worth, his courteous manner, and his general bearing won admiration with all parties. His pen was more acrimonious than his heart. He was tolerant, frank in expression, and not deficient in geniality. He was highly cultivated in classical knowledge, abounding in anecdotes of the revolutionary crisis, and extensively acquainted with prominent characters.

"It were easy to record a long list of eminent citizens who ever gave him a cordial welcome. He was received with the warmest greetings by the old soldier, Governor George Clinton. He, also, in the intimacy of kindred feeling, found an agreeable pastime with the learned Provoost, the first regularly consecrated Bishop of the American Protestant Episcopate, who himself had shouldered a musket in the Revolution, and hence was sometimes called the fighting bishop. They were allied by classical tastes, a love of natural science, and ardor in the cause of liberty. With Gates he compared the achievements of Monmouth with those at Saratoga. With Col. Fish he reviewed the capture of Yorktown; with Dr. Mitchell he rehearsed, from his own sad experience, the physical sufferings and various diseases of the incarcerated patriots of the Jersey prison-ship; and descanted on Italian poetry and the piscatory eclogues of Sannazarius. He, doubtless, furnished Dr. Benjamin Dewitt with data for his funeral discourse on the remains of the 11,500 American martyrs. With Pintard he could laud Horace and talk largely of Paul Jones. With Major Fairlie he discussed the tactics and chivalry of Baron Steuben. With Sylvanus Miller he compared notes on the political clubs of 1795-1810. With Dewitt Clinton and Cadwallader D. Colden he debated the projects of internal improvement and artificial navigation, based on the famous precedent of the Languedoc canal."

The death of Freneau was a sad one. On the evening of the 18th of December, 1832, he had gone on an errand to Freehold, some two miles distant. When he set out to return, late in the evening, a fierce and blinding storm was in progress. His friends sought to dissuade him, but he insisted on returning. Instead of taking the long way round by the road, he took the usual short way through the fields, and was soon lost in the roaring "blizzard." He circled into a swamp, and doubtless, after hours of wandering, sank down benumbed and hopeless, to be found by his friends a few hours later, still breathing but nearly lifeless. For the whispered tradition that he was intoxicated when he left the town, there is no foundation.

The next issue of the _Monmouth Press_ contained a notice of his death:

"Mr. Freneau was in the village and started, towards evening, to go home, about two miles. In attempting to go across he appears to have got lost and mired in a bog where his lifeless corpse was discovered yesterday morning. Captain Freneau was a stanch Whig in the time of the Revolution, a good soldier, and a warm patriot. The productions of his pen animated his countrymen in the darkest days of '76 and the effusions of his muse cheered the desponding soldier as he fought the battles of freedom."

His old friend, John Pintard, wrote a biographical notice of the poet in the _New York Mirror_ for January 12, 1833, in which he dwelt largely upon his mental endowments and accomplishments:

"He was a man of great reading and extensive acquirements; few were more thoroughly versed in classical literature, and fewer still who knew as much about the early history of our country, the organization of the government, and the use and progress of parties."

The house which Freneau occupied during his last years is still standing. His remains rest in the little cemetery at Mount Pleasant, which recently, in honor of the poet, has been rechristened Freneau.

VII.

The personality of Philip Freneau, if we judge from contemporary testimony and the effect which his personal presence invariably exerted, was a singularly winning one. The bluff, hearty old sailor breathed out good-will and honesty with every breath. He was the soul of honor, and, despite his caustic pen, the kindest hearted creature in the world. All that one of his grand-daughters can remember of him is that once he took her upon his knee and chided her for having killed a fly. "Surely," he said, "it was not made without some wise end, and its little life was as dear to him as is yours to you." It reminds one of "My Uncle Toby." There is a cheery optimism in many of his poems. A stanza like this might have been written by Browning:

"All nature must decay, 'tis true, But nature shall her face renew, Her travels in a circle make, Freeze but to thaw, sleep but to wake, Die but to live and live to die."

His temperament was Celtic. He inherited with his French blood a passionate love for beauty, a sensuous, dreamy delight in the merely poetic, in the weird and romantic. He had not the Teutonic stability; he was easily exalted, easily depressed; he went often to extremes; he was sensitive to a degree that made criticism a torture, and he was proud beyond all reason. He had been deeply touched by the principles of the Revolution; he had suffered personally at the hands of the enemy; he had followed Paine in his democratic doctrines even to the extremes, and he tried to live consistently with these exalted ideals. His honesty and his ignorance of the world prevented him from seeing how greatly these principles must be modified to become of really practical value.

His kindly heart made him a fierce foe to all kinds of tyranny and oppression. He saw sights in the West Indies that made him a bitter opponent of human slavery. Again and again in his poems and prose sketches does he condemn the evil. His message is almost as intense as Whittier's:

"O come the time and haste the day When man shall man no longer crush, When reason shall enforce her sway, Nor these fair regions raise the blush Where still the African complains And mourns his yet unbroken chains."

Not only slavery, but every other form of oppression and wrong received his condemnation. He wrote boldly against intemperance in a day when the use of intoxicating liquors was well-nigh universal and wholly uncriticised; he spoke eloquently on cruelty to animals; and he was one of the earliest to demand equal rights for man and woman.

Freneau's religious inclinations have been sometimes harshly criticised by those of puritanic creed. The school of Dr. Dwight could speak of him only in contempt, yet it is true that the poet was a deeply religious man. His love of freedom and his perfect sincerity affected his creed. He had an intense dislike for hollow formalism. In his "Jamaica Funeral" he has pictured a hypocritical priest in colors as vivid almost as Chaucer's. He detested

"The holy man by Bishops holy made."

He loved sincerity, and the creed that came not from dry formalism, but from reason and from an honest heart.

It has often been overlooked by his critics that Freneau was a widely read and thoroughly cultured man; that he was a linguist of more than ordinary powers; and that he knew intimately the chief writings in Latin, Italian, French, and English. He was no ignorant, careless scribbler, tossing into the ephemeral columns of the press hasty rhymes of which he never thought again. He revised and corrected with patient care, and he took a deep interest in the children of his pen, rescuing at one time or another almost every one of them from the oblivion of the newspaper.

VIII.

As to the absolute literary value of Freneau's literary remains, there is room for honest difference of opinion. He is certainly not, if we judge him from what he actually produced, a great poet. But he must in fairness be viewed against the background of his age and his environment. Nature had equipped him as she has equipped few other men. He had the poet's creative imagination; he had an exquisite sense of the beautiful; and he had a realization of his own poetic endowments that kept him during a long life constantly true to the muse. Scarcely a month went by in all his life, from his early boyhood, that was not marked by poetic composition. Few poets, even in later and more auspicious days, have devoted their lives more assiduously to song.

Freneau was the first to catch what may be called the new poetic impulse in America--the new epic note. Previous to the Revolutionary era, America was destitute even of the germs of an original literature. Before she could produce anything really strong and individual, there was necessary some great primal impulse that should stir mightily the whole people; that should strike from their hands the old books and the old models; that should arouse them to a true realization of themselves; and that should clear the atmosphere for a new and broader view of human life. Such new forces are always needed by society, but they stalk with long strides over the centuries.

In pre-Revolutionary America such an upheaval was near at hand. It came with appalling suddenness. The colonists had had no gradual preparation for the idea of separation from England. As late as 1775, Franklin declared before the House of Commons that in all of his journeyings up and down the colonies he had not heard expressed one single wish for complete independence. Even after Concord and Bunker Hill, Freneau, the radical, could write:

"Long may Britannia rule our hearts again, Rule as she ruled in George the Second's reign."

The idea of independence came all in a moment; but once it had come, it went with leaps and bounds to its extreme. Never in all history has a whole people been lifted by such rapid stages into a region of such vast outlook. We can trace the growth of the new spirit, not decade by decade, but month by month: Justice, Freedom, Independence, and then the radiant vision of perfect Liberty and the Rights of Man, and then like a torrent the sense of boundless possibilities and glorious destiny:

"No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, But the whole boundless continent is ours."

The soul of man stirred by such ideals, and successful in realizing them beyond all dreams, struggled for utterance. It is such upheavals in human society that make poets and bring outbursts of song and periods in the history of literature. But there was no burst of song in America; instead there followed one of the most pathetic spectacles in all literary history--a people with a vision that transported them into the clouds, yet powerless through environment and early education to transmute that vision into song. The South, thrilled by the new spirit, turned it at once into action, and took the leadership in war and statesmanship. New England lifted up her voice, but she could speak only through the medium of old spiritual conceptions and worn-out poetic forms. A young Connecticut parson, thrilled through and through, pours his enthusiasm into an epic of the wars of Joshua done in the heroics of Pope; a brilliant Boston lad would sing of "War and Washington," but he must set it to the tune of Dryden; and a gifted Connecticut satirist, overflowing with the true poetic spirit, is content simply to add new American stanzas to "Hudibras." With all her rhymers and all her inspiration, New England gave forth not a single original note. It was the repeating of the old spectacle of a heavenly anthem sung unto shepherds,--unto those utterly unable to give it utterance.

We see them, however, struggling heroically with the burden. From 1774, when Dwight completed his "Conquest of Canaan," "the first piece of this kind ever attempted in this country," as he observed in his preface, until 1808, which ends the period with Barlow's "Columbiad"--the "Polyolbion" of American poetry--the years are strewn thick with the wrecks of epics. Every poet of the era felt his soul burn with the epic fire. Charles Brockden Brown, when only sixteen, had started no less than three of these Homeric efforts: one on the discovery of America, and one each on the conquests of Mexico and Peru. It was our heroic era, but it yielded almost nothing of value. Mere exaltation availeth little unless it be grounded either upon genius or long-continued culture.

America, however, was not without her genius. Before Dwight and Barlow and Trumbull had written a line, Freneau at Princeton was planning epics American in scene and spirit. He had dreamed, over his Virgil, of a greater Aeneas who had sailed into the pathless West to discover a new world, and to plant there the seeds of a greater than Rome; he had translated with beating heart the words of Seneca:

"The time shall come, when numerous years are past, When ocean shall unloose the bands of things, And an extended region rise at last;

"And Typhis shall disclose the mighty land Far, far away, where none have rov'd before; Nor shall the world's remotest region be Gibraltar's rock, or Thule's savage shore."

"Fired at the theme," he had mapped out the epic of a new world; but his work of this era, like all schoolboy epics, had resulted only in fragments which were to strew his earlier volumes. How strong and original was this youthful dream one can judge from the ringing lines of "Columbus to Ferdinand," "Discovery," and the "Pictures of Columbus," which are mere epic fragments. There is an originality and a fire in them utterly new in American poetry. There is poetry of a high order in such a climax as that recording the soliloquy of the dying Columbus, beginning:

"The winds blow high; one other world remains, Once more without a guide I find the way."

But Commencement was at hand. Here was a chance, indeed; here was a theme commensurate with the occasion. The two young dreamers would outline an epic poem; they would essay "Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme":

"Now shall the adventurous Muse attempt a theme More new, more noble, and more flush of fame Than all that went before."

Never was graduating exercise based on broader foundations. The young graduates bewail at every step their limitations of space. The plan they suggest is the plan of a "Columbiad." They would begin with all the tale of Columbus; they would rehearse the story of Cortez and Pizarro; they would discuss at learned length the origin and the characteristics of the Indians; they would tell the story of the early colonies; and would trace the course of settlement and review the progress and the promise of agriculture and commerce; they would peer into the future and mark the time

"When we shall spread Dominion from the North and South and West, Far from the Atlantic to Pacific shores, And shackle half the convex of the main."

But, alas, the time! An epic cannot be condensed into a graduation exercise. Suddenly the poet bursts into true prophetic rapture:

"I see, I see A thousand kingdoms rais'd, cities, and men Num'rous as sand upon the ocean shore; Th' Ohio then shall glide by many a town Of note: and where the Mississippi stream, By forests shaded now runs weeping on, Nations shall grow and States not less in fame Than Greece and Rome of old: we too shall boast Our Alexanders, Pompeys, heroes, kings That in the womb of time yet dormant lye Waiting the joyful hour of life and light. O snatch us hence, ye muses! to those days When, through the veil of dark antiquity, Our sons shall hear of us as things remote, That blossom'd in the morn of days, alas! How could I weep that we were born so soon, In the beginning of more happy times!

It is not a great poem when we measure it by absolute standards, but "The Rising Glory of America" is a very great poem if we view it in connection with the conditions and the environment that produced it. Full as it is of Latin influence and Commencement day zeal, it is the first real poem that America ever made--the first poem that was impelled hot from a man's soul. It is more than this, it is the first real fruit of a new influence in the world of letters--the first literary product of that mighty force that was to set in motion the American and French Revolutions, with all that they mean in human history.

America should have recognized this new and original voice, and should have encouraged it to sing the new message which it had to proclaim to the world, but she was not yet ready.

How the young dreamer, who had seen life from his earliest years only through the medium of his books, was gradually disillusioned, we have endeavored to show. His first book, put forth in the enthusiasm of inexperience, with his name on the title-page, was "damned by all good and judicious judges." So was Wordsworth's; so have been the earliest ventures of every innovator in the field of song. Gradually the young poet awoke to a realization of his position: America was unprepared for her prophet; she would not listen. The discovery disheartened him; his Celtic temperament would not patiently wait for recognition, as did Wordsworth; he was too proud to force his poetry upon an unwilling public. He would leave the scene, for three years to dwell in the dreamy seclusion of the tropic islands.

This was his period of pure invention, where he showed the possibilities of his genius. With the "House of Night" he became one of the earliest pioneers in that dimly-lighted region which was soon to be exploited by Coleridge and Poe. The poem is the first distinctly romantic note heard in America. Moreover, one may search in vain in the English poetry of the early romantic movement for anything that can equal it in strength of conception, in mastery of weird epithet, and in sustained command over the vaguely terrible. The page that recounts the poet's departure from the house of night, quaking with fear,--

"Beneath my feet substantial darkness lay, And screams were heard from the distempered ground,"

his timid look behind him to find the windows of the infernal dome a "flaming hell-red," the fearful shrieks of the dying monster within the walls, the "hell-red wandering light" that led him to the graves, the sudden peal of the iron bell above him in the darkness, and then the troop of spectres galloping fiercely on Death's horses, while "their busy eyes shot terror to my soul,"--all this is worthy of Poe. As a product of pure imagination, the poem is most remarkable, especially when we view it in connection with the English literature of its day. In its weird supernaturalism it anticipated Scott, and in its unearthly atmosphere it clearly anticipated Coleridge.

In the "Jamaica Funeral" the poet outlined his early philosophy of life. He was fast breaking from the influence of Gray, his early master. It is a Gallic philosophy that he outlines; he is becoming infected with Deism; he is a true bacchanalian. Is there not a ring of the "Rubaiyat" in a stanza like this:

"Count all the trees that crown Jamaica's hills, Count all the stars that through the heavens you see, Count every drop that the wide ocean fills, Then count the pleasures Bacchus yields to me?"

Freneau's early dream of a purely poetic career was rudely broken by the sudden clash of war and by the sternly practical nature of the American people. Circumstances decided for him his career. There was needed a poetic voice to arouse the common people to action. There was no demand for an imaginative creator, for a sensuous singer of love and wine,--America needed a popular voice, one that could be understood by the unlettered, one that with satire and patriotic appeal could arouse and fire the land. Freneau laid aside for a time the harp and the lyre and took up the trumpet and the bagpipes, and of his influence on the stormy period of the Revolution there can be no two opinions. His ballads and satires were scattered far and wide; they were sold in broadsides in every port and city and camp. Even in the war of 1812 his poems flew like leaves everywhere that men were gathered together. To be the lyrist of a righteous revolution, and above all to be the people's poet, is in itself no small distinction.

His poems of the war are in themselves a running history of the struggle, especially of its last years. His heart was in his work; the prison ship had blotted for a time all memories of the old criticisms of his early work, all his early dreams, everything save "the insulting foe" who was making desolate his dear mother land. He lampooned without mercy Clinton, Cornwallis, Carleton, and the royalist printers, Rivington and Gaine. He sang tender lyrics of the patriot dead at Eutaw Springs, who

"Saw their injured Country's woe; The flaming town, the wasted field; Then rushed to meet the insulting foe; They took the spear,--but left the shield."

He sang peans of victory over the downfall at Yorktown; he exalted the fame of Washington; he called down maledictions on the ship that bore the "worthless Arnold" from American shores. These are more than the fleeting voices of a newspaper muse; they are true poems, and they are American to the core. Scott declared that "Eutaw Springs [was] as fine a thing as there is of the kind in the language."

With a few fiery songs he placed himself at the head of the small group of naval lyrists, a position which even to-day he has not wholly lost. In dash and fire, in ability to catch and reproduce the odors and the atmosphere of the ocean, in enthusiasm and excitement that is contagious and that plunges the reader at once into the heart of the action, and in glowing patriotism that makes the poems national hymns, no American poet has excelled this earliest singer of the American ocean. No true patriot can read without a thrill of pride such songs as "Captain Jones's Invitation" and "The Death of Captain Biddle," a song of the intrepid seaman who from the _Randolph_ poured death into the British ship:

"Tremendous flash! and hark, the ball Drives through old Yarmouth, flames and all,"

and then in a fatal moment was blown up by his own magazine, and "Stanzas on the New Frigate Alliance," the gallant ship "who walks the ocean like its queen," and "Barney's Victory over the General Monk," that rollicking song of battle and of triumph, and best of all, perhaps, "The Sailor's Invitation," which is full of the very salt and vigor of the western seas. "The Memorable Victory of Paul Jones," written when America was ringing with the first news of the battle, is one of the glories of American literature. Longfellow or Whittier never wrote a more stirring ballad. It moves with leaps and bounds; it is full of the very spirit of battle.

"She felt the fury of her ball, Down, prostrate down, the Britons fall; The decks are strew'd with slain: Jones to the foe his vessel lash'd; And while the black artillery flash'd Loud thunders shook the main."

It is not impertinent to observe that Thomas Campbell was but four years of age when this appeared. It was not Scott or Cooper who added the domain of the ocean to literature; it was Freneau. His books are full of the roar and the sweep of the open sea, which he knew as the farmer knows his ancestral acres. There is no more true and vigorous picture of an ocean voyage and a naval combat than that contained in Canto I of "The British Prison Ship." The episode of the boatswain's fiery prayer, just before the conflict, is unique in literature.

The war over, Freneau would return to his dream; he would pour forth the poetic message that was in him; but his countrymen, delighting in his hard blows and biting sarcasm, refused to listen to the merely poetic. They demanded jingles and clever hits. The poet turned fiercely upon them. "For men I keep a pen," he cried, "for dogs a cane." The time for using the cane was past; he would use it no more. But who would listen to anything that was not rant and bombast? Fate had thrown him into a "bard-baiting clime." A wave of the old bitterness swept over him:

"Expect not in these times of rude renown That verse like yours will have the chance to please: No taste for plaintive elegy is known, Nor lyric ode,--none care for things like these."

How he at length deliberately turned from the muse of his choice, and how after a long experience with the world of actual affairs he exchanged his old poetic ideals for those of mere reason and common sense, we have attempted to show.

Here was a man equipped by nature for a true poet, a man with a message, yet dwarfed and transformed by his environment. America was not ready for her singer. It took half a century more to make way in the wilderness for the new message that had been whispered to Freneau in his young manhood. Had he been a great world-poet, he would have been heard despite all difficulties; he would have trampled down the barriers about him and have compelled his age to listen, but the task was beyond him. America, to this day, has produced no poet who single-handed and alone could have performed such a labor of Hercules. Sadly Freneau turned to other things.

He has never been adequately recognized. Had the first edition of his poems, published the same year as the Kilmarnock edition of Burns, been an English book, it long ago would have figured largely in the histories of the romantic and naturalistic movement which made possible the great outburst of the nineteenth century. That Freneau was the most conspicuous pioneer in the dim romantic world that was to be explored by Coleridge and Poe, we have already shown; that he was a pioneer in the movement that succeeded in throwing off the chain forged by Pope is evident to any one who will examine his early work. "The Wild Honey Suckle," for instance, which was written in 1786, twelve years before the "Lyrical Ballads," is as spontaneous and as free from Pope as anything written by Wordsworth. It is a nature lyric written with the eye upon the object, without recollection of other poetry, and it draws from the humble flower a lesson for humanity in the true Wordsworthian manner. Before Freneau, American poetry had been full of the eglantine, the yew, the Babylonian willow, the lark--the flora and fauna of the Hebrew and British bards. In our poet we find, for the first time, the actual life of the American forest and field--the wild pink, the elm, the wild honeysuckle, the pumpkin, the blackbird, the squirrel, the partridge, "the loquacious whip-poor-will," and in addition to this the varied life of the American tropic islands. We find for the first time examples of that true poetic spirit that can find inspiration in humble and even vulgar things; that, furthermore, can draw from lowly nature and her commonplaces deep lessons for human life. Freneau sees the reflection of the stars in the bosom of the river,

"But when the tide had ebbed away The scene fantastic with it fled, A bank of mud around me lay And sea-weed on the river's bed,"

and from this he draws the obvious moral for human life. Consider what Pope would have said of mud. Indeed, to appreciate Freneau, one must come to him after a careful reading of the classic poets who preceded him. What a shock to this school would have been the vividly realistic poem on "Logtown." Just how much Freneau influenced the school of poets who in England broke away from the trammels of the eighteenth century, we can never know; yet no one can read long in the American poet and not be convinced that his influence was considerable. His poems were known and read freely in England at the very dawn of the critical period in British poetry, and their echoes can be detected more than once.

In his use of his native land and his familiar surroundings as a background for art, Freneau discovered the poetical side of the Indian, and thus became the literary father of Brockden Brown, Cooper, and the little school of poets which in the early years of the century fondly believed that the aboriginal American was to be the central figure in the poetry of the new world. To the little real poetry that there is in the Indian, Freneau did full justice, but he went to no such absurd lengths as did Eastburn and Whittier. The "Indian Death Song," if it indeed be his, is full of the wild, stoical heroism of the brave who is dying beneath the torture of his enemies. In "The Indian Student" he has covered fully the Indian's love for the pathless forest, and to the untamable wildness of his nature. "The Dying Indian" and "The Indian Burying-Ground" sum up what is essentially poetic in Indian legend and all that is pathetic in the fate of the vanishing race. Poetry, if it is to confine itself to the truth, can do little more for the Indian.

Such was Philip Freneau, a man in every respect worthy to bear the title of "the father of American poetry." He was the first true poet born upon our continent; he realized in his early youth his vocation; he gave himself with vigor and enthusiasm to his calling; he fitted himself by wide reading and classic culture; he received the full inspiration of a great movement in human society; he lifted up his voice to sing, but he was smothered and silenced by his contemporaries. He was all alone; he had about him no circle of "Pleiades" to encourage and assist; he had no traditions, religious or otherwise, that would compel silence. He was out of step with the theology of his generation; he was out of tune with the music of his day; he was beating time a half century ahead of the chorus about him. The people have to be educated to revolution, and America had not yet learned to take the initiative in things intellectual and æsthetic. She must follow the literary fashions beyond the sea. Freneau was for breaking violently away from England and for setting up a new standard of culture and literary art on this side the water.

"Can we never be thought To have learning or grace Unless it be brought From that damnable place?"

he cried. But he reckoned without his countrymen. Not until Emerson's day did it dawn upon America that it was possible for her to think for herself and make poetry that did not echo the English bards. Thus did America reject her earliest prophet; thus did she stop her ears and compel him to lay aside his seven-stringed lyre for the horn and the bagpipes.

Freneau lived to see his discarded harp in full tune in other hands, first in England and then in his own land. There is something truly pathetic in the figure of the old minstrel, who had realized almost nothing of his early dreams, and yet who had been told by the great Jeffries that the time would surely come when his poems would command a commentator like Gray, who had been extravagantly praised by such masters as Scott and Campbell, who had written to Madison as late as 1815, "my publisher tells me the town will have them [his verses] and of course have them they will," it is pathetic to see this poet, in his hoary old age, for he lived until 1832, realizing that he had been utterly forgotten, witnessing the triumph of the very songs that had haunted his youth, and seeing those who had not half his native ability crowned by those who had rejected and forgotten him. Such ever is the penalty of being born out of due time.

The present age has also been unjust to Freneau. It has left his poems in their first editions, which are now extremely rare and costly; it has scattered his letters and papers to the winds; it has garbled and distorted his life in every book of reference; it has left untold the true story of his career; it has judged him from generalizations that have floated from no one knows where. But time works slowly with her verdicts; true merit in the end is sure to receive its deserts; and Freneau may even yet be given the place that is his.

[1] Ann Maury's _Memoirs of a Huguenot_.

[2] In the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[3] Madison Papers, Vol. XIII. p. 9.

[4] Introduction to the 1846 edition of "Modern Chivalry."

[5] The _United States Magazine_, February number.

[6] A perfectly preserved copy is in the possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

[7] In the possession of Miss Adele M. Sweeney, Jersey City.

[8] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_, August 20, 1788.

[9] Published in the _Freeman's Journal_, July 8, 1789.

[10] _American Historical Review_, January, 1898.

[11] Randall's _Life of Jefferson_, vol. ii, 78.

[12] Randall's _Life of Thomas Jefferson_, ii, 81.

[13] _Writings of Jefferson_, i, 231.

[14] _Writings of Jefferson_, i, 251.

[15] Wallace Papers, vol. i. Pa. Hist. Soc.

[16] Madison Papers, vol. xxi, p. 70.

[17] In the possession of Adele M. Sweeney.

[18] In the possession of Mrs. Helen K. Vreeland.

[19] Madison Papers, xxxiv, p. 77.

[20] Madison Papers, vol. xxxv, p. 17.

[21] Morer. Horace, _Epistles_, Lib. ii, lines 1-4.

[22] Jefferson Papers, series 2, vol. 34, p. 135.

[23] Jefferson Papers, series 2, vol. 34, p. 134.

[24] Madison Papers, vol. liv, p. 49.

[25] Madison Papers, vol. liv, p. 49.

[26] Madison Papers, vol. lv, p. 5.

[27] Madison Papers, vol. lv, p. 77.

[28] Contributed to Duyckinck's _Cyclopædia of American Literature_.

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