THE PSALM. With vast amazement we survey The wonders of the deep, Where mackerel swim, and porpoise play, And crabs and lobsters creep. Fish of all kinds inhabit here, And throng the dark abode. Here haddock, hake, and flounders are, And eels, and perch, and cod. From raging winds and tempests free, So smoothly as we pass, The shining surface seems to be A piece of Bristol glass. But when the winds and tempests rise, The vessel mounts above the skies Our heads the tottering motion feel, Giddy as new-dropp'd calves, and reel And tribe of Penobscot. In 1750 GREEN published "An Entertainment for a Winter Evening," in which he ridicules the freemasons; and afterward, "The Sand Bank," "A True Account of the Celebration of St. JOHN the Baptist," and several shorter pieces, all of which I believe were satirical. His epigrams are the best written in this country before the Revolution; and many anecdotes are told to show the readiness of his wit and his skill as an improvisator. On one occasion, a country gentleman, knowing his reputation as a poet, procured an intro duction to him, and solicited a "first rate epitaph" for a favourite servant who had lately died. GREEN asked what were the man's chief qualities, and was told that "COLE excelled in all things, but was particularly good at raking hay, which he could do faster than anybody, the present company, of course, excepted." GREEN wrote immediately Here lies the body of JOHN Cole, In his old age GREEN left Boston for England, rather from the infirmities of age, than from indifference to the cause of liberty. Contemporary with BYLES and GREEN was the celebrated Doctor BENJAMIN CHURCH. He was born in Boston in 1739, and graduated at Cambridge when in the sixteenth year of his age. After finishing his professional education, he established himself as a physician in his native city, and soon became eminent by his literary and political writings. At the commencement of the revolutionary troubles, he was chosen a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and after the battle of Lexington was appointed surgeon-general of the army. In the autumn of 1775 he was suspected of treasonable correspondence with the enemy, arrested by order of the commander-in-chief, tried by the general court, and found guilty. By direction of the Congress, to whom the subject of his punishment was referred, he was confined in a prison in Connecticut; but after a few months, on account of the condition of his health, was set at liberty; and in the summer of 1776 he embarked at Newport for the West Indies, in a ship which was never heard of after the day on which it sailed. CHURCH Wrote several of the best poems in Pietas et Gratulatio Collegii Cantabrigiensis apud Novanglos, published on the accession of George the Third to the throne; and "The Times," a satire, "The Choice," "Elegies on GEORGE WHITEFIELD and Doctor MAYHEW," and several other pieces, all of which were manly in their style, and smoothly versified. The following are the concluding lines of his address to the king: May one clear calm attend thee to thy close, JAMES ALLEN, the author of an "epic poem" entitled "Bunker Hill," of which but a few fragments have been published, lived in the same period. The world lost nothing by "his neglect of fame.” WILLIAM LIVINGSTON, a member of the first Congress, and the first republican governor of New Jersey, was born in New York in 1723, and was graduated at Yale College in 1741. His poem entitled "Philosophic Solitude," which has been frequently reprinted, is a specimen of elegant mediocrity-superior to most of the compositions which I have already alluded to-but contains nothing worthy of especial praise. The opening verses are not deficient in melody: Let ardent heroes seek renown in arms, Among the poets who wrote just before the Revolution, and whom I have not before mentioned, was Mrs. ELIZA BLEECKER, the author of several pieces relating to the domestic suf ferings which followed in the train of frontier warfare. Some" Lines on Reading Virgil," written in 1778, show her manner Now cease those tears, lay gentle VIRGIL by, See York on fire-while, borne by winds, each flame Far from these scenes of horror, in the shade I saw my aged parent safe conveyed; During the war several volumes of patriotic and miscellaneous verses were published in New England and New York. The poems of Doctor J. M. SEWELL, contain the well Employ'd in constant usefulness thy time, And thy fine talents in exertion strong; But I, alas! like some unfruitful tree, That useless stands, a cumberer of the plain, And five long years have lived almost in vain. I see my time inglorious glide away, Or to my country's int'rest or my own. Great hast thou lived and glorious hast thou died; Though trait'rous villains have cut short thy days; Virtue must shine, whatever fate betide, Be theirs the scandal, and be thine the praise. Then, to my soul thy memory shall be, From glory bright, as from affection, dear; And while I live to pour my grief for thee, Glad joy shall sparkle in each trickling tear. Thy great example, too, shall fire my breast; If Heaven permit, with thee, again I'll vie; And all thy conduct well in mine express'd, Like thee I'll live, though I like thee should die. PRIME wrote a satire on the Welsh, in Latin and English, entitled "Muscipula sive Cambromyomachia ;" and on the passage of the stamp act composed "A Song for the Sons of known epilogue to ADDISON'S "Cato," begin- Liberty in New York," which is superior to ning "We see mankind the same in every age:" and those of Doctor PRIME and GULIAN VERPLANCK are written with unusual taste and care. PRIME finished his professional education in Europe, and on his return applied for a commission in the army, but did not succeed in obtaining one. He alludes to his disappointment in an elegy on the death of his friend Doctor SCUDDER, who was slain in a skirmish at Shrewsbury in New Jersey So bright, bless'd shade! thy deeds of virtue shine; Or in the labours of the healing art, Or in fair Liberty's important strife. In med'cine skilful, and in warfare brave, To no small rank in each of these to rise. any patriotic lyric up to that time written in this country. VERPLANCK was a man of taste and erudition, and his "Vice, a Satire," published soon after his return from his travels, in 1774, is an elegant and spirited poem. Among his shorter pieces is the following "Prophecy," written while he was in England, in 1773 Hail, happy Britain, Freedom's blest retreat; And when that time arrives, the lot of all, From this account of the "poets and poetry" of our ante-revolutionary period, it will be seen that until the spirit of freedom began to influence the national character, very little verse worthy of preservation was produced in America. The POETRY OF THE COLONIES was without originality, energy, feeling, or correctness of diction. PHILIP FRENEAU. [Born, 1752. Died, 1832.] PHILIP FRENEAU was the most distinguished poet of our revolutionary time. He was a voluminous writer, and many of his compositions are intrinsically worthless, or, relating to persons and events now forgotten, are no longer interesting; but enough remain to show that he had more genius and more enthusiasm than any other bard whose powers were called into action during the great struggle for liberty. He was of French extraction. His grandfather a pious and intelligent Huguenot, came to America immediately after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, in company with a number of Protestant gentlemen, who on their arrival founded the old church of Saint Esprit, in New York, and afterward, I believe, the pleasant village of New Rochelle, near that city. The poet was born on the fifteenth of January, in the year 1752. His father died while he was yet a child, but his mother attended carefully to his education, and he entered Nassau Hall at Princeton, in 1767, so far advanced in classical studies, that the president of the college made his proficiency the subject of a congratulatory letter to one of his relatives. His roommate and most devoted friend here was JAMES MADISON, and among his classmates were many others who in after time became eminent as legislators or scholars. He was graduated when nineteen years of age, and soon after removed to Philadelphia, where he was for several years on terms of familiar intimacy with the well-known FRANCIS HOPKINSON, with whom he was associated as a political writer. He began to compose verses at an early period, and, before leaving Princeton, had formed the plan of an epic poem on the life and discoveries of CoLUMBUS, of which the "Address to Ferdinand," in this volume, is probably a fragment. After his removal to Philadelphia his attention was devoted to politics, and his poetical writings related principally to public characters and events. His satires on HUGH GAINE, and other prominent tories, were remarkably popular in their time, though deserving of little praise for their chasteness or elegance of diction; and his patriotic songs and *The name of the poet is sometimes confounded with that of his brother, PETER FRENEAU, a celebrated partisan editor, of South Carolina, who occasionally wrote verses, though I believe nothing of more pretension than a song or an epigram. PETER FRENEAU was a man of wit and education; he was one of Mr. JEFFERSON's most ardent and influential adherents, and when the republican party came into power in South Carolina, he was made Secretary of State. THOMAS, in his “Reminiscences," remarks that "his style of writing combined the beauty and smoothness of ADDISON with the simplicity of COBBETT." He died in 1814. + The "King's Printer," in New York. ballads, which are superior to any metrical compositions then written in this country, were every. where sung with enthusiasm. FRENEAU enjoyed the friendship of ADAMS, FRANKLIN, JEFFERSON, MADISON, and MONROE, and the last three were his constant correspondents while they lived. I have before me two letters, one written by JEFFERSON and the other by MADISON, in which he is commended to certain citizens of New York, for his extensive information, sound discretion, and general high character, as a candidate for the editorship of a journal which it was intended to establish in that city. His application appears to have been unsuccessful: probably because the project was abandoned. As a reward for the ability and patriotism he had displayed during the war, Mr. JEFFERSON gave him a place in the Department of State; but his public employment being of too sedentary a description for a man of his ardent temperament, he soon relinquished it to conduct in Philadelphia a paper entitled "The Freeman's Journal." He was the only editor who remained at his post, during the prevalence of the yellow fever in that city, in the summer of 1793. The "Journal" was unprofitable, and he gave it up, in 1793, to take the command of a merchant-ship, in which he made several voyages to Madeira, the West Indies, and other places. His naval ballads and other poems relating to the sea, written in this period, are among the most spirited and carefully finished of his productions. Of the remainder of his history I have been able to learn but little. In 1810 he resided in Philadel phia, and he subsequently removed to Mount Pleasant, in New Jersey. He died, very suddenly, near Freehold, in that state, on the eighteenth day of December, 1832, in the eightieth year of his age. The first collection of FRENEAU's poems was published in 1786; a second edition appeared in a closely printed octavo volume at Monmouth, in New Jersey, in 1795; and a third, in two duodecimo volumes, in Philadelphia, in 1809. The last is entitled "Poems written and published during the American Revolutionary War, and now republished from the original Manuscripts, interspersed with Translations from the Ancients, and other Pieces not heretofore in Print." In 1788 he published in Philadelphia his "Miscellaneous Works, containing Essays and additional Poems," and, in 1814, "A Collection of Poems on American Affairs, and a Variety of other Subjects, chiefly Moral and Political, written between 1797 and 1815." His house at Mount Pleasant was destroyed by fire, in 1815 or 1816, and in some of his letters he laments the loss, by that misfortune, of some of his best poems, which had never been printed. |
