History of American Literature Part 9

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOEL BARLOW]

Hawthorne ironically suggested that the _Columbiad_ should be dramatized and set to the accompaniment of cannon and thunder and lightning. Barlow, like many others, certainly did not understand that bigness is not necessarily greatness. He is best known by some lines from his less ambitious _Hasty Pudding_:--

"E'en in thy native regions, how I blush To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee _Mus.h.!.+_"

JOHN TRUMBULL (1750-1831).--The greatest of the Hartford wits was John Trumbull. His father, a Congregational clergyman living at Waterbury, Connecticut, prepared boys for college. In 1757 he sent two candidates to Yale to be examined, one pupil of nineteen, the other of seven. Commenting on this, the _Connecticut Gazette_ of September 24, 1757, says, "the Son of Rev'd. Mr. Trumble of Waterbury ... pa.s.sed a good Examination, altho but little more than seven years of age; but on account of his Youth his father does not intend he shall at present continue at College." This boy waited until he was thirteen to enter Yale, where he graduated in due course.

After teaching for two years in that college, he became a lawyer by profession. Although he did not die until 1831, the literary work by which he is known was finished early.

Trumbull occupied the front rank of the satiric writers of that age. Early in his twenties he satirized in cla.s.sical couplets the education of the day, telling how the students:--

"Read ancient authors o'er in vain, Nor taste one beauty they contain, And plodding on in one dull tone, Gain ancient tongues and lose their own."

[Ill.u.s.tration: JOHN TRUMBULL]

His masterpiece was a satire on British sympathizers. He called this poem _M'Fingal_, after a Scotch Tory. The first part was published in 1775 and it gave a powerful impetus to the Continental cause. It has been said that the poem "is to be considered as one of the forces of the Revolution, because as a satire on the Tories it penetrated into every farmhouse, and sent the rustic volunteers laughing into the ranks of Was.h.i.+ngton and Greene."

One cannot help thinking of Butler's _Hudibras_ (1663), when reading _M'Fingal_. Of course the satiric aim is different in the two poems. Butler ridiculed the Puritans and upheld the Royalists, while Trumbull discharged his venomed shafts at the adherents of the king. In _M'Fingal_, a Tory bent on destroying a liberty pole drew his sword on a Whig, who had no arms except a spade. The Whig, however, employed his weapon with such good effect on the Tory that:--

"His bent knee fail'd, and void of strength, Stretch'd on the ground his manly length.

Like ancient oak, o'erturn'd, he lay, Or tower to tempests fall'n a prey, Or mountain sunk with all his pines, Or flow'r the plough to dust consigns, And more things else--but all men know 'em, If slightly versed in epic poem."

Some of the incisive lines from _M'Fingal_ have been wrongly ascribed to Butler's _Hudibras_. The following are instances:--

"No man e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law."

"For any man with half an eye What stands before him may espy; But optics sharp it needs, I ween, To see what is not to be seen."

Trumbull's _M'Fingal_ is a worthy predecessor of Lowell's _Biglow Papers_.

Trumbull wrote his poem as a "weapon of warfare." The first part of _M'Fingal_ pa.s.sed through some forty editions, many of them printed without the author's consent. This fact is said to have led Connecticut to pa.s.s a copyright law in 1783, and to have thus const.i.tuted a landmark in American literary history.

PHILIP FRENEAU, 1752-1832

[Ill.u.s.tration: PHILIP FRENEAU]

New York City was the birthplace of Freneau, the greatest poet born in America before the Revolutionary War. He graduated at Princeton in 1771, and became a school teacher, sea captain, poet, and editor.

The Revolution broke out when he was a young man, and he was moved to write satiric poetry against the British. Tyler says that "a running commentary on his Revolutionary satires would be an almost complete commentary on the whole Revolutionary struggle; nearly every important emergency and phase of which are photographed in his keen, merciless, and often brilliant lines."

In one of these satires Freneau represents Jove investigating the records of Fate:--

"And first on the top of a column he read-- Of a king with a mighty soft place in his head, Who should join in his temper the a.s.s and the mule, The Third of his name and by far the worst fool."

We can imagine the patriotic colonists singing as a refrain:--

"... said Jove with a smile, Columbia shall never be ruled by an isle,"

or this:--

"The face of the Lion shall then become pale, He shall yield fifteen teeth and be sheared of his tail,"

but Freneau's satiric verse is not his best, however important it may be to historians.

His best poems are a few short lyrics, remarkable for their simplicity, sincerity, and love of nature. His lines:--

"A hermit's house beside a stream With forests planted round,"

are suggestive of the romantic school of Wordsworth and Coleridge, as is also _The Wild Honeysuckle_, which begins as follows:--

"Fair flower, that dost so comely grow, Hid in this silent, dull retreat, Untouched thy honied blossoms blow, Unseen thy little branches greet.

"By Nature's self in white arrayed, She bade thee shun the vulgar eye, And planted here the guardian shade, And sent soft waters murmuring by."

Although Freneau's best poems are few and short, no preceding American poet had equaled them. The following will repay careful reading: _The Wild Honeysuckle_, _The Indian Burying Ground_, and _To a Honey Bee_.

He died in 1832, and was buried near his home at Mount Pleasant, Monmouth County, New Jersey.

ENGLISH LITERATURE OF THE PERIOD

The great prose representatives of the first half of the eighteenth century, Swift, Addison, Steele, and Defoe, had pa.s.sed away before the middle of the century. The creators of the novel, Samuel Richardson and Henry Fielding, had done their best work by 1750.

The prose writers of the last half of the century were OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1728-1774), who published the _Vicar of Wakefield_ in 1766; EDWARD GIBBON (1737-1794), who wrote _The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire_; EDMUND BURKE (1729-1797), best known to-day for his _Speech on Conciliation with America_; and SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784), whose _Lives of the Poets_ is the best specimen of eighteenth-century cla.s.sical criticism.

The most noteworthy achievement of the century was the victory of romanticism (p. 88) over cla.s.sicism. Pope's polished satiric and didactic verse, neglecting the primrose by the river's brim, lacking deep feeling, high ideals, and heaven-climbing imagination, had long been the model that inspired cold intellectual poetry. In the latter part of the century, romantic feeling and imagination won their battle and came into their own heritage in literature. ROBERT BURNS (1759-1796) wrote poetry that touched the heart. A cla.s.sicist like Dr. Johnson preferred the town to the most beautiful country scenes, but WILLIAM COWPER (1731-1800) says:--

"G.o.d made the country, and man made the town."

Romantic poetry culminated in the work of WILLIAM WORDSWORTH and SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, whose _Lyrical Ballads_ (1798) included the wonderful romantic poem of _The Ancient Mariner_, and poems by Wordsworth, which brought to thousands of human souls a new sense of companions.h.i.+p with nature, a new feeling

"... that every flower Enjoys the air it breathes,"

and that all nature is anxious to share its joy with man and to introduce him to a new world. The American poets of this age, save Freneau in a few short lyrics, felt but little of this great impulse; but in the next period we shall see that William Cullen Bryant heard the call and sang:--

"Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy Existence than the winged plunderer That sucks its sweets."

The romantic prose was not of as high an order as the poetry. Writers of romances like WALPOLE'S _Castle of Otranto_ and G.o.dWIN'S _Caleb Williams_ did not allow their imaginations to be fettered by either the probable or the possible. In America the romances of Charles Brockden Brown show the direct influence of this school.

LEADING HISTORICAL FACTS

The French and Indian War accomplished two great results. In the first place, it made the Anglo-Saxon race dominant in North America. Had the French won, this book would have been chiefly a history of French literature. In the second place, the isolated colonies learned to know one another and their combined strength.

Soon after the conclusion of this war, the English began active interference with colonial imports and exports, laid taxes on certain commodities, pa.s.sed the Stamp Act, and endeavored to make the colonists feel that they were henceforth to be governed in fact as well as in name by England. The most independent men that the world has ever produced came to America to escape tyranny at home. The descendants of these men started the American Revolution, signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and, led by George Was.h.i.+ngton (1732-1799), one of the greatest heroes of the ages, won their independence. They had the a.s.sistance of the French, and it was natural that the treaty of peace with England should be signed at Paris in 1783.

Then followed a period nearly as trying as that of the Revolution, an era called by John Fiske "The Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789."

Because of the jealousy of the separate states and the fear that tyranny at home might threaten liberty, there was no central government vested with adequate power. Sometimes there was a condition closely bordering on anarchy. The wisest men feared that the independence so dearly bought would be lost. Finally, the separate states adopted a Const.i.tution which united them, and in 1789 they chose Was.h.i.+ngton as the president of this Union. His _Farewell Address_, issued to the American people toward the end of his administration, breathes the prayer "that your union and brotherly affection may be perpetual; that the free const.i.tution which is the work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its administration in every part may be stamped with wisdom and virtue." A leading thought from this great _Address_ shows that the Virginian agreed with the New Englander in regard to the chief cornerstone of this Republic:--

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and Morality are indispensable supports."