V. THE CLOSE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. TRANSITION: POETRY, DRAMA, FICTION, PERIODICAL LITERATURE.

Coincidentally with the satires, the epics, the songs and ballads, which owed their measure of inspiration immediately to the spirit of that strenuous time, we note also the appearance of a different school of verse which meant infinitely more in the development of our literary art.

Philip Freneau, 1752-1832.

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 Nature Poems.

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:--

"Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
   Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouched thy honied blossoms blow,
   Unseen thy little branches greet;
No roving foot shall crush thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear."

To a Honeybee, addressed to a wandering rover from the hive resting luxuriously on the rim of the poet's glass, is written with the same charming simplicity of style and with a dainty touch of humor befitting the theme.

"Welcome! -- I hail you to my glass:
   All welcome, here, you find;
Here, let the cloud of trouble pass,
   Here, be all care resigned.
This fluid never fails to please,
And drown the griefs of men or bees.
... .........................
"Yet take not, oh! too deep a drink,
   And in this ocean die;
Here bigger bees than you might sink,
   Even bees full six feet high.
Like Pharaoh, then, you would be said
To perish in a sea of red.

"Do as you please, your will is mine;
   Enjoy it without fear,
And your grave will be this glass of wine,
   Your epitaph -- a tear --
Go, take your seat in Charon's boat;
We'll tell the hive, you died afloat."

Of a different tenor are two poems in pensive key: The Indian Student and The Indian Burying-ground. In all these compositions, we feel the spirit of a true poet who loves Nature and responds to her appeals spontaneously and without artifice. There had been a few previous attempts at this form of treatment in American verse, but they had been isolated instances and had failed of the excellence attained by Freneau. These poems are therefore the more worthy of note. The volume which contains these productions appeared in 1786 -- the same year in which the first volume of the poems of Robert Burns was published; and twelve years before the Lyrical Ballads introduced William Wordsworth as the first recognized champion of simplicity and naturalness in English verse.

The Parting Glass is in the lighter mood of the old Cavalier Poets. On the Ruins of a Country Inn shows the influence of Thomas Gray. In one long poem, The House of Night, Freneau enters the weird domain afterward so skillfully worked by Edgar Allan Poe.

A "Curiosity of Literature."

A singular example of precocious literary development is found in the work of a negro girl, Phillis Wheatley. Brought from Africa at the age of seven or eight, she became a slave in the household of a family in Boston. She learned rapidly under the guidance of her mistress and began to write verse in the conventional style of the English classical poets -- verse as good as that produced by any of their American imitators. A volume of Phillis Wheatley's poems was published at London in 1773, the genuineness of the work being vouched for by prominent people in Boston. At the appearance of this volume, Phillis could have been scarcely twenty years of age, her precocity marking her development phenomenal.

The Drama in America.

The beginnings of dramatic literature in America belong to this same period. Quite early in the century English plays had been acted by amateurs in New York, but it was not until 1752 that a professional company had been seen in the colonies presenting standard plays. In that year, an English troop of London players began a series of presentations at Williamsburg, Virginia, afterward playing in New York and Philadelphia. The Merchant of Venice, Richard III, and Hamlet were included in their repertory. Two or three plays had been written by Americans previous to the Revolution -- for the most part so-called reading-plays. Hugh H. Brackenridge (1748-1816), a classmate and associate with Philip Freneau, afterward Judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, wrote, in 1776, a drama called The Battle of Bunker Hill. Brackenridge was then a school-teacher, and the play was presented by his pupils. Theaters had been built in Philadelphia, New York, Annapolis, and Charleston previous to the war. Boston's earliest play-house dates from 1794.

Early American Plays.

The first American play to be performed by a professional company was The Contrast, written by Royall Tyler (1757-1826). It was produced in New York, April 16, 1787. The theme of this comedy was patriotic; a contrast is drawn between those who ape foreign fashions and those who hold to the plain but wholesome manners of home. In this play the Yankee, Jonathan, is introduced effectively as a typical character. Tyler was himself a Vermonter of versatile talent. He produced other plays, a novel and several poems. In 1789, another American comedy was produced, -- The Father, or American Shandyism. This was the work of William Dunlap (1766-1839) of New Jersey. This play, one of some sixty written by Dunlap, and the most worthy of them, contains two characters modeled after the famous Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim of Lawrence Sterne's whimsical novel, Tristram Shandy. Dunlap became a theatrical manager, and later wrote a History of the American Theatre (1832). He was also the biographer of the first American novelist of note, Charles Brockden Brown.

The American Novel.

Contemporaneous with the appearance of the drama in our literature, we have to record also the entrance of the novel. The first native experiment in this form of fiction, modeled -- very distantly -- after Richardson's Pamela, was entitled The Power of Sympathy. This work has a curious history. Madam Sarah Wentworth Morton, its author, a member of one of New England's most aristocratic families, had won provincial fame as a "poetess," under the sentimental name of "Philenia"; she had, indeed, been described by one distinguished admirer as "The American Sappho." For her plot, Mrs. Morton utilized a miserable scandal which had blighted her own family life, and made the identity of her principal characters so obvious that the persons most interested bought the entire edition from the publisher -- and The Power of Sympathy, thus incontinently suppressed (1789), was never published in that generation.

Two other New England women appeared thus early in print with narratives of somewhat similar sort "founded on fact." Susanna H. Rowson, an English lady who had established a school for girls in Boston, was the author of a very popular novel, Charlotte Temple, a Tale of Truth (1790), and of other novels, including a sequel, Lucy Temple, which was published in 1828.

Hannah W. Foster wrote, in 1797, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton, a Novel Founded on Fact. Mrs. Foster was the wife of a clergyman and wrote, as did Mrs. Rowson, with a moral purpose. In both these novels, the theme of indiscretion and desertion is treated in the sentimental, didactic style which characterized many of the English novelists of the same period. The popularity of these two stories outlasted their own generation. Pilgrimages were made by sentimental readers to the graves of both these heroines; and the old slate headstone in the ancient graveyard in Salem, where the real "Eliza Wharton" is buried, has been all but chipped away by relic-hunters.

Hugh H. Brackenridge, already mentioned as the author of an early American play, wrote a satirical romance called Modern Chivalry; or, The Adventures of Captain Farrago and Teague O' Regan, his Servant, the first part of which appeared in 1792, the second, in 1806; and the playwright Royall Tyler also entered the lists with a two-volume narrative entitled The Algerine Captive, in 1799. Neither of these works, however, can be regarded as possessing the interest or importance of Mrs. Rowson's and Mrs. Foster's "tales of truth" in the annals of American fiction. It is with Charlotte Temple and The Coquette, that the novel of manners appears.

Charles Brockden Brown, 1771-1810.

While these earliest examples of the American novel are of interest historically, -- and interesting mainly on that ground alone, -- there appeared before the close of the century one or two essays in prose fiction which possess decided merit on the ground of technical construction and on that of genuine narrative power. These were the early romances of Charles Brockden Brown.

Brown was a native of Philadelphia, where he received his education. He chose the profession of the law and prepared himself for practice; but the duties of the legal calling were wholly uncongenial, and the effect of this trying situation was soon apparent in depression of spirits and impaired health. At last, he forsook the law for the profession of literature, and is deserving of some distinction as the first American to make deliberately so dangerous an experiment. He removed to New York and formed associations with a few men of literary tastes comprising the members of the "Friendly Club," among whom was William Dunlap, the future biographer of the novelist. It was a period of considerable mental excitement in both Europe and America. Revolutionary forces were vigorously alive. New theories affecting political and social relations were promulgated daily. As an essayist on moral as well as literary themes, Brown had written copiously before his abandonment of the law; he had been a diligent student; his mind was even abnormally active, and he wrote with a style noticeably strong and vivid. In 1797, Charles Brockden Brown published his first volume, Alçuin: a Dialogue on the Rights of Women. It did not meet with success. But following this, Brown produced in rapid succession a series of remarkable novels which won for their author contemporary distinction, and, historically regarded, hold a very notable place in American literature. The titles of these novels are: Wieland; or, the Transformation; Ormond; or, the Secret Witness; Arthur Mervyn; Edgar Huntley; Clara Howard; and Jane Talbot. The first of these was published in 1798; the remainder, before the end of 1801. Besides writing his novels, Brown was also conducting a magazine, The Monthly Magazine and American Review, which consisted almost entirely of his own contributions. Near the close of 1800, the novelist returned to Philadelphia, where he founded The Literary Magazine and American Register, and where he continued to write miscellaneous articles on political, biographical, and historical subjects until his death at the age of thirty-nine. He suffered from the attacks of consumption due presumably to the early undermining of his health, and aggravated by the intensity and laboriousness of his life.

The novels of Charles Brockden Brown are seldom read to-day; but they attracted general attention at the time of their appearance, and won the approbation of some European writers, including Scott and Shelley, who gave them a high rank. Both Poe and Hawthorne were undoubtedly influenced by them. They reflected strongly the characteristics of the romantic school of fiction that arose in Germany and England near the close of the eighteenth century. The plots of these stories are psychological and are based on mystery; the incomprehensible and the horrible are invoked to stimulate interest. There is a marked solemnity of diction which reinforces the peculiar style of the narrative, and the emotions are played upon in the sentimental manner of the romance then in vogue abroad. The general tone of the narratives may be properly described as morbid, -- a tone which pervades the series as a whole.

In Wieland, the principal characters are introduced under the spell of a mysterious catastrophe suggesting the attack of some malignant force which may be the product of electricity, or of spontaneous combustion. Mysterious voices are heard which are finally accounted for by the confession of an ill-disposed ventriloquist. A dreadful crime is committed by a person insane with religious mania; and disaster overwhelms an entire family through the operation of these mysterious agencies which, at the last, are but unsatisfactorily explained. In Arthur Mervyn, the scene is laid in Philadelphia during an epidemic of yellow fever (1793), and the ghastly details of that visitation are faithfully reproduced. In Edgar Huntley, there is an attempt at murder committed during temporary madness; the madman afterwards commits suicide while the intended victim escapes. The principal personage in the story is a somnambulist.

These novels of Charles Brockden Brown are not unimpressive in their realistic portrayal of horrible and loathsome scenes, and in their appeal to the sentiments of curiosity and terror; they fail in characterization and in life-likeness. Yet they compare not unfavorably with contemporary English narratives like William Godwin'sCaleb Williams (1794) and Mrs. Radcliffe's Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) or Matthew Lewis's The Monk (1795). A significant feature of Brown's work is the fact that he always made use of American scenes; in Edgar Huntley, he employed the incidents of Indian warfare to good purpose. Periodicals.

In connection with this account of our literary beginnings in the eighteenth century, we must not fail to note the earliest appearance of periodical literature in America -- a very important phase of intellectual life. Newspapers came first, and were established in the following order: --

1704. The Boston News Letter (continued to 1776).

1719. The Boston Gazette (first issue, Dec. 21).

1719. The American Weekly Mercury (Phila., Dec. 22).

1721. The New England Courant (Boston).

1725. The New York Gazette.

1728. The Pennsylvania Gazette (Franklin's).

Before the end of 1765, there were in the colonies forty-three newspapers, nearly all weeklies, and in comparison with the modern journal very diminutive affairs. News was not abundant and not often up to date. Prominence was given to correspondence from England. Letters from local politicians, anecdotes, essays, poems, lampoons, etc., were introduced. In the latter part of the century, some literary value was claimed by the newspapers. It was not until 1784 that the daily newspaper began to appear -- with the founding of The Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser, at Philadelphia.

Two or three literary magazines were established in the colonies previous to the Revolution. Such were The General Magazine, started in Philadelphia, in 1741, and The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle, established in Boston in 1743. The Royal American Magazine, started in Boston in 1774, was one of the most elaborate of these publications; few of them survived more than a few months. One interesting periodical of the Revolutionary period was The Pennsylvania Magazine, edited by Thomas Paine. Its career began in January, 1775, and ended gloriously with the printing of the Declaration of Independence, in July, 1776. Hugh H. Brackenridge edited The United States Magazine at Philadelphia in 1779. The Boston Magazine appeared -- and disappeared -- in 1785. But it was not until the beginning of the new century that anything like a substantial existence was enjoyed by any periodical of this class.

Suggestions for Reading.

Tyler's History of American Literature during Colonial Times and his Literary History of the American Revolution (2 vols.) will serve as authoritative background for this chapter. Stedman and Hutchinson's Library of American Literature, vols. 2,3, and 4, supplies selections from all the writers enumerated here. The period of the eighteenth century is admirably covered in American Literature (Literatures of the World) by W.P. Trent. For more personal reference, see The Samuel Sewall Papers -- Mass.Hist.Soc. Col. -- 1879; also N.H. Chamberlain's Samuel Sewall and the World he lived in (Boston, 1897), the life of Jonathan Edwards (American Religious Leaders) by Alexander Allen, and Austin's Philip Freneau. Brief authoritative biographies of Franklin, Patrick Henry, Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Quincy Adams, Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Jay, and Madison are included in the American Statesmen Series. Selections from the Revolutionary orators will be found in the third volume of The Library of Oratory, and in volume eight of The World's Famous Orations. Illustrations of the Revolutionary verse are accessible in Stevenson's Poems of American History; Moore's Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution and in American War Ballads, edited by George Cary Eggleston. The best poems of Freneau are to be found in Stedman's American Anthology (Houghton Mifflin Co.). The Familiar Letters of John Adams and his Wife Abigail Adams, edited by Charles Francis Adams, are an especially interesting record of the period, also Scudder's Men and Manners in America One Hundred Years Ago. There are numerous biographies of Franklin: Morse's Life in the American Statesmen Series has been cited; that by McMaster in the American Men of Letters Series is excellent. A larger biography in two volumes is the Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, by James Parton. Of course Franklin's own Autobiography is indispensable. The most recent authoritative edition of the complete writings of Franklin is that edited by Albert H. Smyth in ten volumes, now published in most convenient form, for $15.00 (the Eversley Edition, Macmillan). Besides Cooper's The Spy and The Pilot, there are several recent novels which may well be read as illustrating the life of the colonies in the eighteenth century; among these are Lewis Rand, by Mary Johnston, Hugh Wynne, by Dr. Weir Mitchell, Janice Meredith, by Paul Leicester Ford, and Richard Carvel, by Winston Churchill. The student should include in his reading at least one of the novels of Charles Brockden Brown (reprinted in Philadelphia, by David McKay, 1889).

Chapter 1 of McMaster's History of the People of the United States will be found most interesting in its discussion of social conditions in America during the century and at the close of the Revolution. Read especially the sections upon the minister and the schoolmaster.

Recent and important is Heralds of American Literature, -- Annie Russell Marble (University of Chicago Press, 1907). It contains chapters on Francis Hopkinson, Freneau, Trumbull, The Hartford Wits, William Dunlap, and Charles Brockden Brown; also Life and Poems of Philip Freneau, by F.L. Pattee (Princeton Historical Association).

Cairns' Early American Writers, 1607-1800 (Macmillan), is an admirable volume of selections illustrating the work of all the writers mentioned in these two chapters. The Poems of Philip Freneau are now accessible in three volumes, edited by F.L. Pattee (Princeton Historical Association).