Poems relating to the American Revolution / Philip Freneau ; with an introductory memoir and notes by Evert A. Duyckinck [electronic text]

PHILIP FRENEAU.

PHILIP FRENEAU, the popular poet of the days of the Revolution, who cheered the hearts of the citizens by his ready rhymes in behalf of the good cause, and opposition to its foes, while patriots were struggling for independence, was born in Frankfort Street, in the City of New York, January 2, 1752. The family was of French Huguenot descent, his first ancestors in America having taken refuge in this country, with many other most estimable emigrants to our shores, from the religious and civil persecutions consequent upon that unhappy policy, so injurious to the true wealth of France, the Revocation, by Louis XIV., of the Edict of Nantes. These refugees came in considerable numbers, a peaceful, intelligent, industrious population, and their simple virtues are to this day the pride of their descendants. The Freneaus were of this wholesome stock; they were good citizens of New York,

and their names are cherished in the records of the St. Esprit Church, the "Old French Church," the quaint place of worship in Pine Street, still remembered by our citizens, though the impulse of trade has, since its removal from that spot, a second time driven the wandering house of worship to a new locality.

Andrew Freneau, the grandfather of Philip Freneau, was a shipping-merchant in the City of New York, of high repute among the inhabitants. Some interesting notices of his standing and liberal hospitality are recorded in that interesting volume, the "Memoirs of the Huguenot Family of the Fontaines." John Fontaine, a traveller from France, visited New York in 1716, on purposes of business and observation. Immediately upon his arrival he called upon Andrew Freneau, at his home, where he met with a cordial reception, and was much with him during his stay in the city, at the Coffee House, at the French Club, and at Church.* 1.1 Andrew Freneau resided, at the time of his death, in Pearl Street, near Hanover Square. He left two sons, born in New York, Pierre and Andrew, who pursued the business of wine-merchants in the city, and were engaged in the Bordeaux and Madeira trade. Pierre was the father

of Philip, the poet of the Revolution, and of Peter Freneau, who became hardly less distinguished in South Carolina. Andrew Freneau, the uncle of Philip, married a daughter of Bishop Provoost. Pierre, the father of the poet, bought an estate of a thousand acres at Mount Pleasant, New Jersey, a family inheritance which his son afterwards occupied, and where he wrote many of his poems. Both the father and grandfather of Philip Freneau are buried in a vault in Trinity Churchyard, New York, by the side of their family relations.

Of the boyhood of Philip Freneau we know little, but we may infer from the position of his family, and his subsequent attainments, that he was well instructed at the schools of the city, for we find him in 1767 a student at the College of New Jersey, at Princeton, where he graduated with credit, after the usual four years' course, in 1771. He began early the practice of versification, for, in his sophomore year, at the age of seventeen, he composed a rhymed poem of decided promise, entitled "The Poetical History of the Prophet Jonah," which appears at the head of the first general collection of his "Poems." Other compositions, in various metres, on classical and historical themes, preserved in the same volume, were written during his collegiate course. It was a creditable year for the institution when he

graduated; for in his class were James Madison, the future President; Hugh Henry Brackenridge, the celebrated Judge, and author of " Modern Chivalry;" besides others of note in the annals of America, among whom we may mention the father of the venerable Rev. Dr. Gardiner Spring, Samuel Spring, who became a chaplain of the Revolutionary army, was with Arnold at the attack of Quebec, in 1775, and in that disastrous affair carried in his arms the wounded Aaron Burr from the field. The commencement exercises at Nassau Hall that year, 1771, were of unusual interest. It was in the Presidency of that eminent patriot, John Witherspoon, who, though born in Scotland, was proving himself, by his enlightened sagacity and devotion to freedom, an "American of the Americans." The political independence of the country, though not yet formally proclaimed, was ripening, in Massachusetts and elsewhere, to its great declaration and invincible resolve. The young patriots of Princeton, on a spot destined to become memorable in the struggle, were already animated by the kindling promise of the future. Brackenridge and Freneau had already developed a taste for poetry, and they united, for their commencement exercise, in the composition of a dialogue, A Poem on the Rising Glory of America, which they pronounced together, sounding, in animated blank verse, the achievements of colonization in

the past and the visionary grandeur of empire hereafter. This joint poem was published in Philadelphia in 1772, with the well-known motto from Seneca, the Roman tragic writer, afterwards adopted by Irving on the title-page of the "Life of Columbus." The portion written by Freneau opens the present collection —the prelude to his poems of the Revolution.

The next information we have of Freneau is gathered from the dates of the poems which he contributed to the journals published by Hugh Gaine and Anderson, in New York, in 1775. They exhibit his interest in the important military affairs of the year at Boston, and will be found reproduced in the present volume. In a poem of this year, "Mac Sniggen," a satire on some hostile poetaster, he expresses a desire to cross the Atlantic: —

"Long have I sat on this disast'rous shoreAnd, sighing, sought to gain a passage o'erTo Europe's towns, where, as our travellers say,Poets may flourish, or perhaps they may;" —

an inclination for foreign travel which was gratified, in 1776, by a voyage to the West Indies, where he appears to have remained some time, in a mercantile capacity, visiting Jamaica and the Danish island, Santa Cruz. Several of his

most striking poems, as the "House of Night," and the "Beauties of Santa Cruz," were written on these visits.

In 1779, Freneau was engaged as a leading contributor to The United States Magazine: A Repository of History, Politics, and Literature, edited by his college friend and fellow-patriot, Hugh Henry Brackenridge, and published by Francis Bailey, in Philadelphia. It was issued monthly from January to December, when its discontinuance was announced "until an established peace and a fixed value of the money shall render it convenient or possible to take it up again." The volume forms a most interesting memorial, in its literary as well as historical matter, of this important year of the war. Freneau wrote much for it, in prose and verse, and with equal spirit in both.* 1.2 Here at first appeared the two poems written in the West Indies, already alluded to, and two of the poems, "King George III.'s Soliloquy," and the spirited "Dialogue between his Britannic Majesty and Mr. Fox," reprinted in this volume. In comparing

these with the poems as they appear in the later editions, we find numerous important additions and changes, showing the care and skill which the poet bestowed upon his productions. The "House of Night" in the Magazine, is comprised in seventy-three stanzas; in the subsequent collection or the author's poems it was extended to one hundred and thirty-six, and the fifty-two stanzas of the poem on "Santa Cruz," to one hundred and nine; and various alterations occur. The last-mentioned poem in the Magazine is prefaced by an interesting prose description of the island. In it occurs this noticeable testimony of the author on the subject of negro slavery: —

"The only disagreeable circumstance attending this island says he," which it has in common with the rest, is the cruel and detestable slavery of the negroes. 'If you have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now.' A description of the slavery they endure would be too irksome and unpleasant to me; and, to those who have not beheld it, would be incredible. Sufficient be it to say, that no class of mankind in the known world undergo so complete a servitude as the common negroes in the West Indies. It casts a shade over the native charms of the country; it blots out the beauties of the eternal spring which Providence has there ordained to reign; and amidst all the profusion of bounties

which nature has scattered—the brightness of the heaven, the mildness of the air, and the luxuriancy of the vegetable kingdom—it leaves me melancholy and disconsolate, convinced that there is no pleasure in this world without its share of pain. And thus the earth, which, were it not for the lust of pride and dominion, might be an earthly paradise, is, by the ambition and overbearing nature of mankind, rendered an eternal scene of desolation, woe, and horror; the weak goes to the wall, while the strong prevails; and after our ambitious frenzy has turned the world upside down, we are contented with a narrow spot, and leave our follies and cruelties to be acted over again, by every succeeding generation.

Freneau has also recorded his detestation of the cruelties of West India slavery in verse, in the poem, a terrific picture of slave life, addressed "To Sir Toby, a Sugar-Planter in the interior parts of Jamaica: " —

"If there exists a HELL—the case is clear—Sir Toby's slaves enjoy that portion here."

In another poem, "On the Emigration to America, and Peopling the Western Country," published in his volume of 1795, Freneau comes nearer home in the declaration of his opinions on this subject, when he writes:—

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

In after life, when the poet himself, under the mild system of Northern servitude, became the owner of slaves in New Jersey, he uniformly treated them with kindness, manumitted them in advance of the Emancipation Act in the State, and supported on the farm those of them who were not able to take care of themselves. One of these, a veteran mammy, proud of having opened the door in her day to General Washington, and been addressed by him in a word or two on that important occasion, long survived the poet.

In the year following the publication of the Magazine, Freneau, having embarked as passenger in a merchant vessel from Philadelphia, on another voyage to the West Indies, was captured with the crew by a British cruiser off the Capes of the Delaware, and carried with the prize to New York. There he was confined on his arrival in the Scorpion, one of the hulks lying in the harbour used as prisonships. The cruel treatment which he experienced on board,

with the aggravated horrors of foul air and other privations, speedily threw him into a fever, when he was transferred to the hospital-ship Hunter, which proved simply an exchange of one species of suffering for another more aggravated. How long Freneau was confined in this hideous prison we are not informed, nor by what influences he gained his discharge. He carried with him, however, on his escape, a burning memory of the severities and indignities he had endured, which he gave expression to in one of the most characteristic of his poetical productions, "The British Prison-Ship," which was published by Francis Bailey, in Philadelphia, in 1771. This poem, originally divided into four cantos, was subsequently recast by the author in the form in which it appears in the present volume, with the title, "Cantos from a Prison-Ship." The picturesque incidents of the voyage, which is described; the animated action of the capture; the melancholy circumstances of the prisonship contrasted with the happy scenery of the shore; the stern terrors of the hospital, with the satirical humour expended upon the description of the Hessian Doctor, are all in Freneau's best manner.

Freneau now became a frequent contributor of patriotic odes and occasional poems, celebrating the incidents of the war, to The Freeman's Journal of Philadelphia. Here

many of the poems in the present volume, including the humorous verses on Rivington and his "Royal Gazette," were first published. Literature, however, was not then a profitable occupation; and Government, which had exhausted its resources in keeping an army in the field, had scant opportunity of rewarding its champions. The poet, looking to other means of subsistence, returned to his seafaring and mercantile habits, and became known by his voyages to the West Indies as Captain Freneau. He still, however, kept up the use of the pen. In 1783, besides his poetical contributions to the newspapers, including several New Years' Addresses, written for the carriers of the Philadelphia journals, a species of rhyming for which he had great fa cility, we find him publishing in that city a translation of the travels of M. Abbé Robin, the chaplain of Count Rochambeau, giving an account of the progress of the French army from Newport to Yorktown. In 1784, Freneau is at the Island of Jamaica, writing a poetical description of Port Royal.

The first collection of his poetical writings which he made, entitled "The Poems of Philip Freneau, written chiefly during the late War," was published by Francis Bailey, "at Yorick's Head in Market street," Philadelphia, in 1786. It is prefaced by a brief "Advertisement," signed by the

publisher, in which he states that the pieces now collected had been left in his hands by the author more than a year previously, with permission to publish them whenever he thought proper. "A considerable number of the performances," he adds, "as many will recollect, have appeared at different times in newspapers (particularly The Freeman's Journal), and other periodical publications in the different States of America, during the late war, and since; and, from the avidity and pleasure with which they generally appear to have been read by persons of the best taste, the Printer now the more readily gives them to the world in their present form (without troubling the reader with any affected apologies for their supposed or real imperfections), in hopes they will afford a high degree of satisfaction to the lovers of poetical wit and elegance of expression."

The success of this volume led to the publication, by Mr. Bailey, of another collection of Freneau's writings in 1788. It is entitled, "The Miscellaneous Works of Mr. Philip Freneau, containing his Essays and Additional Poems." A number of the poems were printed from manuscript. "Some few of the pieces," the publisher announced, "have heretofore appeared in American newspapers; but, through a fatality not unusually attending publications of that kind, are now, perhaps, forgotten; and, at any time, may possi-

bly never have been seen, or attended to, but by very few." The volume, as not uncommon even with works of very limited extent, in that early period of the nation, was published by subscription. The Honorable David Rittenhouse, Mathew Carey, and John Parke, A. M., of Horatian celebrity, were among the subscribers in Philadelphia; New York furnished, among others of note, De Witt Clinton, Edward Livingston, Colonel Marinus Willet, and John Pintard, who took two copies; Maryland sent some thirty; but the largest number was contributed by South Carolina, that State supplying two hundred and fifty, or more than half the entire list. Captain Freneau was well known and highly appreciated at Charleston, which he frequently visited in the course of his mercantile adventures to the West Indies, and where his younger brother Peter, who subsequently edited a political journal in that city, and was in intimate correspondence with President Jefferson, was already established as an influential citizen.

The "Essays" and "Tales," in this collection, display the author's taste and ingenuity. They cover a wide range of subjects, moral, humorous, and satirical; and, like the kindred productions of Franklin and Francis Hopkinson, these sketches of manners and society are remarkably neat in execution. The formal parts of literature were, in the

days of our author, more attended to than at present, at least in these occasional compositions. The writer who appeared in print before the public, in that age of ceremonial costume, felt it incumbent upon himself to pay some regard to the dress in which he clothed his thoughts. Freneau had, beside, a true author's instinct in regard to the small proprieties of expression. He would polish and refine at every opportunity, as the studied improvement of particular passages in the successive editions of his writings bears witness. The "Tracts and Essays," by Mr. Robert Slender, the name under which Freneau frequently wrote, are, in fact, quite pleasant reading at this day; they are enlivened with various happy inventions, and reflect, in a genial vein of humour, the habits and opinions of our forefathers at a period which will always be peculiarly interesting to the genuine American.

After several years spent in voyaging, we find Freneau again in active literary employment in 1791, as editor of the Daily Advertiser, a journal printed in New York, the superintendence of which he presently exchanged for that of the National Gazette at Philadelphia, the first number of which appeared under his direction in October of the year just mentioned. He was employed at the same time by Jefferson, the Secretary of State, —the seat of government being now removed to Philadelphia, —as translating clerk in the

State Department, with a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars a year. It was a time of fierce political excitement, when the newly framed Constitution, not yet fully established in its working, was exposed to the fierce criticism of its adversaries; while popular opinion was greatly excited by the rising tumult of ideas generated in the French Revolution. In this strife of parties Freneau was an active partisan of the new French ideas, was a supporter of Genet, the minister who sought to entangle the country in the great European struggle, and as might be expected, was an unsparing assailant of the policy of Washington, whose character he had heretofore eulogized. Washington was annoyed, and Hamilton attacked Jefferson for his official support of the troublesome editor. Jefferson replied that he had befriended Freneau, as a man of genius; but that he had never written for his paper. It is unquestionably true, however, that Freneau's political writings, at this time, had Jefferson's warmest sympathy.

The Gazette came to an end with its second volume and second year, in 1793, after which Freneau became, as he had been before, a resident of New Jersey. He had still, however, an inclination to editorial life, and we accordingly find him, in the spring of 1795, publishing at Mount Pleasant, near Middletown Point, a new journal, entitled The

Jersey Chronicle. A copy of this journal is preserved in the library of the New York Historical Society. The first number was dated May 2; it was issued weekly and continued for a year, when it was arrested by that frequent malady of such undertakings, want of support. This Chronicle is quite a curious affair. It was printed by the author himself, who had mustered a medley of types for the purpose. The first number was of the humble dimensions of eight small quarto pages, of seven inches by eight. But it bore a brave motto, from the editor's favourite Horace: —

"Inter sylvas Academi quærere verum "

and loftily proposed to review the foreign and domestic politics of the times, and "mark the general character of the age and country." The spirited little journal was presently somewhat enlarged, but typographically, at least, it always appeared of a somewhat sickly constitution.

The office types, however, were well employed in printing, this year, 1795, a new and comprehensive edition of the author's poems, in an octavo volume of four hundred and fifty-six pages, of the title-page of which we present a close imitation: —

The explanation of the stars in the title will be found in the concluding poem of the present volume, entitled "The Pyramid of the Fifteen American States." In this collection Freneau revived his poem on the Prison-Ship, and reprinted at length his humorous animadversions on Rivington and Gaine; all of which, with the other Revolutionary poems, have been transferred to the present volume.

One more newspaper venture concludes the list of Freneau's undertakings of this description. In 1797 he edited, at New York, a miscellaneous periodical, entitled The Time-Piece and Literary Companion. It was printed in quarto form, appeared three times a week; and, besides his editorship, Freneau was associated with a partner in its printing and publication. As usual, his part was well done, the journal being well arranged, judiciously filled with a variety of matter, spirited and entertaining; in fact, what its title promised, an agreeable companion to an intelligent reader. This, at least, was its character while in charge of Freneau. He appears to have left it during the year, after which it languished and died.

In 1799, Freneau published at Philadelphia, "printed for the author," a thin octavo volume, entitled, "Letters on Various Interesting and Important Subjects; many of which have appeared in the Aurora. Corrected and much

enlarged. By Robert Slender, O. S. M.," with the motto from Pope: —

"Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow; The rest is all but leather or prunella."

Freneau, of whose occupations we have now no particular account, appears to have resided in New Jersey, doubtless often visiting New York, and certainly keeping alive his poetical faculty, by his habit of penning occasional verses on topics suggested by the day. In 1809 he published a new collection, the fourth, of his writings, which he 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 heretfore in print." The title-page also bore the motto—

"——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 translations "from the ancients," are the third Elegy of the first book of Ovid's "Tristia," and the passage of Lucretius, in the sixth book of his poem, in which he describes the great plague at Athens. The selection shows

that Freneau had not altogether lost the early instruction in the classics which he had received at Nassau Hall. The collection in which these poems appeared was published in two duodecimo volumes, at Philadelphia, "from the press of Lydia R. Bailey."

Freneau lived to commemorate the incidents of the second war with Great Britain, in 1812. He wrote various poems celebrating the naval actions of Hull, Macdonough, Porter, and others, which stirred the soul of the old Revolutionary warrior. His traditionary hatred of England survives in these and other compositions which he published in New York, in 1815, in two small volumes, from the press of David Longworth, entitled, "A Collection of Poems on American Affairs and a Variety of other Subjects, written between the years 1797 and the present time."

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

These volumes received a genial notice in the Analectic Magazine, from the pen of Mr. Gulian C. Verplanck. Deprecating the severity of criticism towards poems of an occasional character, the writer remarks: "He depicts land

battles and naval fights with much animation and gay colouring; and being himself a son of old Neptune, he is never at a loss for appropriate circumstance and expressive diction, 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 valour 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 honour 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.'"* 1.3

After witnessing and chronicling in his verse the conflicts of two wars, Freneau had yet many years of life before him. They were mostly passed in rural retirement, at the home

where he had been long settled, near Monmouth, New Jersey. He occasionally visited New York, keeping up his acquaintance with the Democratic leaders, with whom he had been associated in the political struggles of the past, and honoured by the friends of literature in the city, who never failed to appreciate the merits of the veteran singer of the Revolution. His appearance and conversation at this time have been graphically described by the late Dr. John W. Francis, in whom the genius and history of Freneau excited the warmest interest. " I had," says he, " 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 gray, occupying a socket deeper than common; his hair must have once been beautiful; it

was now thinned and of an iron gray. 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 Grey.

"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 presentment.'"* 1.4

John Pintard, in a biographical notice of Freneau, also celebrates his mental accomplishments: " He was," says he, "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 rise and progress of parties."* 1.5

The aversion of the poet to sitting for his portrait, noticed by Dr. Francis, was one of his peculiarities, for which it is not easy to suggest a sufficient explanation. As an author he was careful of the preservation of his fame. Certainly the cause was not to be found in any unfavourable impression his likeness might create, for he was, as accurately described by Dr. Francis, of an interesting appearance in age. In youth he was regarded as handsome. His brother Peter was renowned, in South Carolina, for his personal beauty. But, whatever the motive, Freneau resolutely declined to have his portrait painted. He was once waited upon by the artist, Rembrandt Peale, with a request for this purpose, by a body of gentlemen in Philadelphia; but he was inexorable on the subject. On another occasion, the elder Jarvis, with a view of securing his likeness, was smuggled into a

corner of the room at a dinner-party, at Dr. Hosack's, to which the poet had been invited; but the latter detected the design and arrested its accomplishment. At this late day, the neglect has been, in a measure, repaired. The portrait prefixed to this volume has been sketched by an artist, at the suggestion and dictates of several members of the poet's family, who retain the most vivid recollection of his personal appearance. It is pronounced by them, a fair representation of the man in the maturity of his physical powers, previous to the inroads of old age. His daughter, Mrs. Leadbeater, and his grandson and adopted son, Mr. Philip L. Freneau, of this city, to whom we are indebted, in this Memoir, for several interesting personal particulars, pronounce it a satisfactory likeness. Though wanting the authenticity which might have been conferred by a Trumbull or Stuart, the sketch is of undoubted interest as an embodiment of the recollections and impressions of his family, who are not likely to be deceived in a matter so closely touching the affections. It is, at any rate, all that now can be rescued from the past. The attempt, under the circumstances, was well worthy of being made, and must be regarded, with the evidence before us, as reasonably successful.

Freneau survived nearly to the completion of his eightieth

year. He died December 18, 1832.* 1.6 The Monmouth (N.J.) Inquirer thus announced 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 meadow, 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."

The eulogy of the Monmouth journal will remain Freneau's highest distinction. He was the popular poet of the Revolution. We have made this service the ground of selection of the poems which compose the present volume. For the first time, all that he himself thought worthy of republication of this nature, is here brought together in a single volume. The poems have been carefully gathered from the several editions, and the author's latest revised text has in all cases been followed. Where changes of any interest were made by him, the variations have been pointed out in a note.

It is not to be forgotten, however, that Freneau had other claims to attention as a poet, than his literary association with the events of the Revolution. He was essentially of a poetic mood, and had many traits of rare excellence in the divine art. His sympathies were with nature and his fellow-men. His mind was warmed into admiration at the beauties of landscape; his conceptions were imaginative; visionary scenes swarmed before his imagination; and the same susceptibility of mind which led him to invest with interest the fading fortunes of the Indian, and Nature's prodigality in the luxurious scenery of the tropics, made him

keenly appreciative of the humble ways and manners of his race. The practical Captain Freneau combined humour with fancy, and his Muse, laying aside what Milton termed "her singing robes," could wear with ease the garments of every-day life. The common, once familiar incidents and manners of his time, will be found pleasantly reflected in many a quaint picture in his poems.

"The poems of Philip Freneau, "if we may be allowed here to repeat our estimate of his powers, from a sketch written some years ago, "represent his times, the war of wit and verse no less than of sword and stratagem of the Revolution; and he superadds to this material a humorous, homely simplicity peculiarly his own, in which he paints the life of village rustics, with their local manners fresh about them; of days when tavern delights were to be freely spoken of, before temperance societies and Maine laws were thought of, when men went to prison at the summons of inexorable creditors, and when Connecticut deacons rushed out of meeting to arrest and waylay the passing Sunday traveller. When these humours of the day were exhausted, and the impulses of patriotism were gratified in song; when he had paid his respects to Rivington and Hugh Gaine, he solaced himself with remoter themes: in the version of an ode of Horace, a visionary meditation on the antiquities of America, or

a sentimental effusion on the loves of Sappho. These show the fine tact and delicate handling of Freneau, who deserves much more consideration in this respect from critics than he has received. A writer from whom the fastidious Campbell, in his best day, thought it worth while to borrow an entire line, is worth looking into. It is from Freneau's Indian Burying-Ground, the last image of that fine visionary stanza: —

'By midnight moons, o'er moistening dews,In vestments for the chase array'd,The hunter still the deer pursues,The hunter and the deer —a shade.'

Campbell has given the line a rich setting in the 'lovelorn fantasy' of O'Conor's Child: —

'Bright as the bow that spans the storm,In Erin's yellow vesture clad,A son of light —a lovely form,He comes and makes her glad;Now on the grass-green turf he sits,His tassell'd horn beside him laid;Now o'er the hills in chase he flits,The hunter and the deer a shade.

"There is also a line of Sir Walter Scott which has its

prototype in Freneau. In the introduction to the third canto of Marmion, in the apostrophe to the Duke of Brunswick, we read—

'Lamented chief! —not thine the powerTo save in that presumptuous hour,When Prussia hurried to the field,And snatch'd the spear but left the shield.'

"In Freneau's poem on the heroes of Eutaw, we have this stanza: —

'They saw their injur'd country's woe;The flaming town, the wasted field;Then rush'd to meet the insulting foe;They took the spear—but left the shield.'

"An anecdote which the late Henry Brevoort was accustomed to relate of his visit to Scott, affords assurance that the poet was really indebted to Freneau, and that he would not, on a proper occasion, have hesitated to acknowledge the obligation. Mr. Brevoort was asked by Scott respecting the authorship of certain verses on the battle of Eutaw, which he had seen in a magazine, and had by heart, and which he knew were American. He was told that they were by Freneau, when he remarked,'The poem is as fine a thing as there is of the kind in the language.' Scott also praised one of the Indian poems.

"We might add to these instances, that in 1790, Freneau, in his poetical correspondence between Nanny, the Philadelphia House-keeper, and Nabby, her friend in New York, upon the subject of the removal of Congress to the former city, hit upon some of the peculiar pleasantry of Moore's Epistles in verse, of the present century.

"Freneau surprises us often by his neatness of execution and skill in versification. He handles a triple-rhymed stanza in the octosyllabic measure particularly well. His appreciation of nature is tender and sympathetic, —one of the pure springs which fed the more boisterous current of his humour when he came out among men, to deal with quackery, pretence, and injustice. But what is, perhaps, most worthy of notice in Freneau is his originality, the instinct with which his genius marked out a path for itself, in those days when most writers were languidly leaning upon the old foreign school of Pope and Darwin. He was not afraid of home things and incidents. Dealing with facts and realities, and the life around him, wherever he was, his writings have still an interest where the vague expressions of other poets are forgotten. * * * It is not to be denied, however, that Freneau was somotimes careless. He thought and wrote with improvidence. His jests are sometimes misdirected; and his verses are unequal in execution. Yet it is not too

much to predict, that, through the genuine nature of some of his productions, and the historic incidents of others, all that he wrote will yet be called for, and find favour in numerous editions."* 1.7

This prediction was ventured ten years ago. It is now in a measure fulfilled, in the demand for the present imprint —the only publication in America of any collection of Freneau's writings since the year 1815, and the first of his Revolutionary Poems since 1809.

Notes

• * 1.1

  "Memoirs of a Huguenot Family," by Ann Maury, 296-310.
• * 1.2

  It is stated in Allibone's Dictionary, that Freneau edited this magazine. That his relation to the work was that of a contributor, appears from a note to a poetical imitation of the 137th Psalm, in the September number. The poem is signed by Freneau, and dated at Monmouth, N. J. The note is to the author's name :—"A young gentleman to whom, in the course of this work, we are greatly indebted,"—an acknowledgment which would hardly be made in such terms if Freneau had been the editor. Besides, it is distinctly stated in the Biography of Brackenridge, by his son, that the magazine was edited by the author of "Modern Chivalry."
• * 1.3

  "Analectic Magazine," v.518.
• * 1.4

  A sketch contributed by Dr. Francis to the "Cyclopædia of American Literature," i. 333, 334.
• * 1.5

  New York Mirror, Jan. 12, 1833.
• * 1.6

  Philip Freneau left a family of four daughters, all of whom, at this present time (1865), are living. The mother of Governor Seymour, of New York (Mary, the daughter of General Jonathan Forman), was a niece of Mrs. Philip Freneau, the wife of the poet. The Freneaus, through the second marriage of the poet's mother, are connected with the Kearney family, of New Jersey. Philip Freneau married early in life, at about the age of thirty, Miss Eleanor Forman, daughter of Samuel Forman, a wealthy citizen of New Jersey. General Jonathan Forman and Denise Forman, who were much engaged in military affairs in the State during the Revolution, were her brothers. David Forman, also in military life, was her cousin. This lady, who shared her husband's talent for poetry, corresponding with him, for several years before their marriage, in verse, was of marked character and intelligence. She was devotedly attached to the Episcopal Church, which the family attended, having left the French Church in the lifetime of the poet's father. Mrs. Freneau survived her husband many years, retaining, in her latter days, much of the personal activity of her youth, and a fund in conversation of the most interesting memories of the days of the Revolution. The remains of Mrs. Freneau repose, with those of her husband, in the family burial-ground at Mount Pleasant, New Jersey. A monument to the poet's memory, within a few years, has been erected on the spot.
• * 1.7

  "Cyclopædia of American Literature," i. 327-348.