Literature in New England

Mitchell expirлd in his prime;

Was four years short of forty-seven,

Was found full ripe and plucked for heaven." WATKINS, RONALD. Moonlight at the Globe. London: Michael Joseph, 1946.

If poetry be rare among our forefathers, it is nevertheless true that the first English book printed in America passed for poetry with them, and for poetry of an edifying and noble type. The Whole Booke of Psalmes, commonly known as the Bay Psalm Book, was printed on the new press at Cambridge in 1640. 2 This work, designed to provide a metrical version of the Psalms of David, to be used in the churches, contains the joint efforts of three New England ministers -- "the chief divines in the country," -- Richard Mather of Dorchester, Thomas Welde, and John Eliot, of Roxbury. The preface, written by Mather, declares that

"It hath been one part of our religious care and faithful endeavor to keep close to the original text. . . . If, therefore, the verses are not always so smooth and elegant as some may desire or expect, let them consider that God's altar needs not our polishings, for we have respected rather a plain translation than to smooth our verses with the sweetness of any paraphrase; and so have attended Conscience rather than Elegance, fidelity rather than poetry."

In illustration of the art displayed by these divines in their paraphrase, historians have invariably cited some of the most atrocious of the compositions. This seems hardly fair. The following examples are sufficient to show the average result of "the sad, mechanic exercise" of these godly men:--

"I in the Lord do trust; how then

to my soul do ye say,

As doth a little bird, unto

your mountain fly away?

"For lo the wicked bend their bow,

their arrows they prepare

On string; to shoot in dark at them

in heart that upright are."

From paraphrase of Psalm xi.

"Praise ye the Lord, praise God

in's place of holiness;

O praise

In the study of literature, there is nothing more gratifying than the discovery of an author who has unconsciously put himself visibly into his book. Two or three American writers wrote thus amiably at this period of our colonial history, and their works form an interesting and welcome group.

The most prominent of these was Judge Samuel Sewall, who arrived in America in 1661 and settled at Newbury. He was a conspicuous man in the Massachusetts colony and became the Chief-justice of Massachusetts. Like his friend, Cotton Mather, he was involved in the witchcraft delusion and was one of the judges who condemned the victims to death. His repentance, his dramatic confession of error and his annual fast are familiar tradition. It should be remembered, also, that in a little book, The Selling of Joseph (1700), Judge Sewall wrote the first published argument against slavery. From 1673 to 1729, Samuel Sewall kept a diary -- and thereby left for generations of readers to come one of the most frank and unconventional records of the time. The publication of this journal 1 shows that it is worthy of a place with that of Samuel Pepys (pronounced Peps), of London, whose celebrated Diary covers the decade of 1659-69. The social life of colonial New England is most happily illustrated in Sewall's memoranda; and the stiff stateliness of the stern old Puritan type loses at least its solemnity when we read the Judge's record of his unavailing suit for the hand of Madam Winthrop.

[Oct. 6, 1720.] "A little after 6 P.M. I went to Madam Winthrop's. She was not within. I gave Sarah Chickering the Maid 2s., Juno, who brought in wood 1s. Afterward the Nurse came in, I gave her 18d having no other small Bill. After a while Dr. Noyes came in with his Mother [Mrs. Winthrop]; and after his wife came in: They sat talking, I think, till eight a'clock. I said I fear'd I might be some interruption to their Business; Dr. Noyes reply'd pleasantly: He fear'd they might be an Interruption to me, and went away. Madam seemed to harp upon the same string [she had previously declared that she could not break up her present home]. Must take care of her children; could not leave that House and Neighborhood where she had dwelt so long. I told her she might doe her children as much or more good by bestowing what she laid out in House-keeping, upon them. Said her son would be of Age the 7th of August. I said it might be inconvenient for her to dwell with her Daughter-in-Law, who must be Mistress of the House. I gave her a piece of Mr. Belcher's Cake and Ginger-Bread wrapped up in a clean sheet of Paper; told her of her Father's kindness to me when Treasurer, and I Constable. My daughter Judith was gone from me and I was more lonesome -- might help to forward one another in our journey to Canaan. -- Mr. Eyre came within the door; I saluted him, ask'd how Mr. Clark did, and he went away. I took leave about 9 a'clock."

The Judge's suit did not prosper.

"8r, 21 [October 21.] Friday, My Son, the Minister, came to me p.m. by appointment and we pray one for another in the Old Chamber; more especially respecting my Courtship. About 6 a-clock I go to Madam Winthrop's. Sarah told me her Mistress was gone out, but did not tell me whither she went. She presently ordered me a Fire; so I went in, having Dr. Sibb's Bowells History of the American Literature M. High School 1987 pp.223-224with me to read. I read the first two Sermons, still no body came in: at last about 9 a-clock Mr. Jn.o Eyre came in; I took the opportunity to say to him as I had done to Mrs. Noyes before, that I hoped my visiting his Mother would not be disagreeable to him; he answered me with much Respect. When it was after 9 a clock He of himself said he would go & call her, she was but at one of his Brothers: A while after I heard Madam Winthrop's voice enquiring something about John. After a good while and Clapping the Garden door twice or thrice, she came in. I mentioned something of the lateness; she bantered me, and said I was later. She received me Courteously.

In the second half of the eighteenth century, our literature presents the vivid reflection of that momentous struggle for independence upon which the American colonies had entered. Fiery speeches, able arguments set forth in newspapers and in pamphlets, sharp and bitter satire served to give utterance to the thought and passion of men's minds. One feature of this activity must be emphasized: geographical lines were now forgotten; the literature of this period is no longer local; essayists, versifiers, orators were inspired by a common purpose and by a devotion to the interests of the country at large.

Greatest of the Massachusetts orators and conspicuous at the beginning of the struggle was James Otis. He was a graduate of Harvard, and a prominent lawyer in Boston. In 1761, following the accession of George III, in the previous year, there arose in Massachusetts a debate over granting the new Writs of Assistance to officers of the customs in that colony. In February of that year, Otis, in the council chamber at Boston, delivered an argument against the legality of these writs which is sometimes described as the prologue of the Revolution. Of this passionate address, no complete record exists, but John Adams, who reported it, declares that American independence was then and there born. "Otis was a flame of fire," Adams declares. "Such a profusion of learning, such convincing argument, and such a torrent of sublime and pathetic eloquence -- that a great crowd of spectators and auditors went away absolutely electrified." Three years later, Otis published a pamphlet, The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved -- one of the most acute and powerful among the many political papers of these years.

The historic events of the period came in quick succession. The Stamp Act, passed in 1765, was repealed in the following year; but taxes on tea, paper, glass, paints, and other articles were levied in 1767. Petitions, appeals, and resolutions were numerous. Pamphlets and essays appeared in great numbers. To these years belong the political papers of Franklin, who contributed vigorously to these discussions. Samuel Adams (1722-1803), tax collector of the town of Boston, was a voluminous essayist -- of whom a tory governor declared "every dip of his pen stings like a horned snake."

Both sides participated in this fierce debate, for there were not a few in the colonies who remained loyal to England throughout the struggle. Following the assemblage of the first Continental Congress, in 1774, there appeared in New York a series of four pamphlets dealing with the great questions of the time from the tory standpoint. These were signed "Westchester Farmer"; they were incisive, picturesque, witty, and readable. "If I must be devoured, let me be devoured by the jaws of a lion, and not gnawed to death by rats and vermin," declared the audacious pamphleteer. These papers aroused a storm of patriotic protest in the midst of which it is interesting to find a pamphlet entitled The Farmer Refuted, the essay of a youth of eighteen, young Alexander Hamilton, then a student in King's College. The "Farmer" was identified with the Rev. Samuel Seabury, and Episcopal clergyman of Westchester, New York, and was made to pay dearly for his bold utterances by some of the excitable patriots in his vicinity. He suffered many indignities, but after the close of the conflict resumed his position and ended his life in peace, honored by many of his former foes.

Chief among the orators of the South was Patrick Henry (1736-99), of whom Jefferson said: "He appeared to me to speak as Homer wrote." It was he who in the opening speech of the first Congress uttered the ringing declaration, "I am not a Virginian but an American"; and he who in the Virginia Assembly, March 23, 1775, delivered the address which ranks as one of the classics of American eloquence. Along with Otis, in the North, stands the familiar figure of John Hancock (1737-93). In the speech which he delivered in 1774, on the anniversary of the Boston Massacre, he expressed in characteristic phrases the fervor of the time: "Burn Boston and make John Hancock a beggar, if the public good requires." Joseph Warren

The Revolutionary period was not without its poets. From the beginning of the conflict, in 1775, to the end, there was a copious flow of verse which sprang naturally enough from the turbulence of popular excitement and emotion. Here and there among the crude productions of these unschooled rhymers, one comes upon compositions which show an unexpected strength of feeling expressed with considerable literary art. This is especially true of the political satires and the ballads which are conspicuous in Revolutionary literature.

Foremost among the tory versifiers -- for both parties in the contest had their literary champions in metre as in prose -- was Jonathan Odell, who invoked the muse thus: --

"Grant me for a time

Some deleterious powers of acrid rhyme,

Some ars'nic verse, to poison with the pen

These rats who nestle in the lion's den."

Odell came of pioneer Puritan stock and was himself a native of New Jersey. he was a graduate of Princeton, and became a surgeon in the British army. He later went to England, where he took orders for the Church.

Returning to New Jersey, he became rector of the parish in Burlington. With the outbreak of hostilities, and the development of violence against all suspected of royalist sympathies, the clergyman was forced to take flight; and as a refugee, he remained in New York until the evacuation of the British troops.

Odell's literary talent was soon engaged in the composition of satiric poems; modeled on the satires of Dryden and Pope, they show considerable merit. Odell wrote with a trenchant pen. There is no humor in his satire -- it is wit, caustic, biting; the tone of his verse is the tone of bitter, implacable invective. Four satires, all written in 1779, furnish the best examples of his verse: The Word of Congress, The Congratulation, The Feu de Joie, and The American Times. The following lines from the last of his satires are sufficient to exhibit his skill in satire and in verse:--

"What cannot ceaseless impudence produce?

Old Franklin knows its value and its use:

He caught at Paine, relieved his wretched plight,

And gave him notes, and set him down to write.

Fire from the Doctor's hints the miscreant took,

Discarded truth, and soon produced a book, --

A pamphlet which, without the least pretence

To reason, bore the name of Common Sense.

...............

The work like wildfire, through the country ran,

And Folly bowed the knee to Franklin's plan.

Sense, reason, judgment were abashed and fled,

And Congress reigned triumphant in their stead." A.Paine Literature and works Washington 2002 pp.160-161.

Persistent in his attitude, irreconcilable and belligerent still, Jonathan Odell forsook the colonies at the close of the contest and migrated to Nova Scotia, where he lived to old age, unconvinced and unrelenting to the last.

Three Revolutionary poets of large and serious purpose, and widely famed in their generation, may be grouped together, not only because of some similarity in their verse, but also because they were all Connecticut men; two were conspicuous members of a coterie noted as "the Hartford Wits." That Connecticut town, indeed, enjoyed a reputation as a literary centre through the exploits of this group. The two Hartford poets were John Trumbull and Joel Barlow; the third of this group was Timothy Dwight.

Among the satirists of the Revolutionary epoch, there was none whose pen was readier or sharper in its thrusts than Philip Freneau; and among the poems of the war itself, none holds a firmer place in our literature than Freneau's brief elegy on the valiant who died at Eutaw Springs. One line of this poem was thought worthy of adaptation by the author of Marmion. But Freneau's strongest claim for remembrance lies in a few compositions which mark the beginning of nature poetry in America.

Philip Freneau owed his foreign name to Huguenot ancestry, but he was born in New York and was graduated, in 1771, at Princeton, where he had been a classmate and room-mate with James Madison. In the early part of his career Freneau engaged in commercial ventures in the West Indies and made frequent voyages, commanding his own vessel. Once (in 1780) he was captured by the British and was for several weeks confined in an English prison ship in New York harbor. The hardships of this experience are rehearsed in a poem entitled The British Prison Ship, filled to the brim with the horror and rancor of his suffering. Many another fierce broadside did he hurl at the nation's foe, until hostilities ceased. After the war, Freneau entered journalism, but his later years were comparatively inactive. Near the close of his eightieth year, on a December night, returning to his home from a gathering with friends, he lost his way in the snow and fell by the road-side; the next morning he was found dead.

The compositions which have done most for Freneau's fame as a poet belong to his earlier years. In these productions, we find the beginning of genuine nature poetry in America. Here we have Freneau's opening lines on The Wild Honeysuckle:--

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