REVOLUTIONARY SONGS AND BALLADS Such poems as those here reprinted have a greater collective value than might appear at first blush. No one of them, taken alone, would deserve much praise; indeed, the purely literary merit is hard to find, even in the best. But as specimens of a popular type of verse, written, read, or sung, by "the man in the street," hawked about as broadsides, or published and republished in contemporary newspapers, they possess a very real historical significance. For one thing, they link one phase of American literature closely to the great English ballad tradition. Such songs as these, the English had known for centuries; particularly during the long struggle between Parliament and the Stuarts the output of street songs and ballads had been enormous. It was but natural, then, that Englishmen living in America in 1776, and finding another civil war in progress, should adopt the customs of their forefathers and write songs such as these-songs intended to enhearten their friends and cast derision on their foes. But even if the Revolutionary songs and ballads did not possess this historical significance, they would still be of value to any student of American civilization. For many of them were in a very real sense popular; they were to the struggle of 17751781 what Tipperary and Over There were to the Great War: songs which, though devoid of poetical merit, and often of unknown authorship, were actually popular with the men who did the fighting. Such songs as these, more certainly than the literary productions of Trumbull and Freneau, give an indication of the poetical taste of the common man, the man in whose interests the war was being fought, and who was himself fighting the war. Incidentally, even so small a collection of songs as the present one, makes it quite clear that American sentiment during the war was by no means unanimous. The Tories had their versifiers as well as the Patriots. BIBLIOGRAPHY The student who finds himself interested in reading more of these ballads will consult Frank Moore's Songs and Ballads of the American Revolution, N. Y. 1856, or the same author's more pretentious but incomplete Illustrated Ballad History of the American Revolution, N. Y. 1876. Winthrop Sargent's Loyalist Poetry of the Revolution, Philadelphia, 1857, is the best source for material on the Tory side of the question. NOTES A PARODY OF "THE LIBERTY SONG" 165. See the original by John Dickinson, p. 142, above. THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW Jonathan Odell (1737-1818), who was probably the author of this song, was the ablest of the loyalist satirists. An Episcopal clergyman in Burlington, N. J., he fled to New York early in the war, and began the output of a large amount of unrelenting, vitriolic, antiAmerican verse. When peace was declared he went, with many other irreconcilables, to Nova Scotia, where he died. The American Times was his most severe indictment of the American cause and its leaders. SONG: "I'VE HEARD IN OLD TIMES" 173. Joseph Stansbury (1750-1809) wrote as much loyalist verse as did Odell; his most characteristic productions, however, were not satiric but lyric. TIMOTHY DWIGHT (1752-1817) The Reverend Timothy Dwight, Yale 1769, chaplain in the Revolutionary army, founder and headmaster of a famous school at Greenfield, Connecticut, and President of Yale from 1795 till his death in 1817, was also a voluminous writer who probably expected his long poems The Conquest of Canaan (1785) and Greenfield Hill (1794) to keep his memory fresh in the hearts of Americans. These works, however, have been allowed to slip into the waste-basket of oblivion. The sturdy warrior-preacher-poet is remembered today for Columbia, a patriotic song written during the Revolution, for a few hymns, the best of which is here reprinted, and-above all-for his very considerable contribution to the cause of American education. In this last field he was as distinguished as he vainly aspired to be in poetry; he was one of the pioneers to whom American secondary schools and colleges are still under a heavy debt. BIBLIOGRAPHY There is no modern edition of Dwight's works. The best biographical and critical discussion is that by Moses Coit Tyler, in his Three American Men of Letters, N. Y. 1895. PHILIP FRENEAU (1752-1832) As Joseph Odell was the most bitter of the loyalist poets, so Freneau exceeded everyone else on the American side of the struggle in producing powerful and mordant satire. Nature, to be sure, had not limited him to this particular field. He could write graceful verse in which the note of satire never appears, and-long before the Lyrical Ballads-he published not a few lines in the spirit of that new poetry which literary history calls "romantic." But as the conflict between Britain and the colonies grew intense, Freneau deliberately abandoned the pleasant career of a writer of pleasant verse, and-like Whittier seventy years later-gave himself and all his energies to the battle, fighting with his pen as persistently, as unrelentingly, and as successfully, as any warrior in the armed forces. He was born in New York, in 1752, of Huguenot ancestry. After securing his preliminary education at home, he entered the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University), where he graduated in 1771. He was a facile versifier at the time he received his degree, and had already learned the trick of writing satire. His career after leaving college was that of a man by nature a rover, unwilling to fetter himself to any profession. By turns a teacher, a lawyer, a journalist, and a mariner, Freneau finally grati fied his love of adventure and hatred of England by fitting out a privateer, only to be captured in 1780, and imprisoned in the hulks in New York harbor. The experience of this captivity provoked his most bitter poem, The British Prison Ship, which he published in 1782. When the war ended, the temper of Freneau's verse became less caustic, and occasionally, as in The Indian Burying Ground, he showed how genuine was his talent for non-satiric poetry. Indeed, had he written no political verse at all, Freneau's other work would have entitled him to grateful remembrance. It shows him to have been a keen observer of nature, and an interested student of American tradition. This later verse, moreover, establishes the fact that both in his thinking and in his poetic technique Freneau was sturdily independent. He was the first American poet of whom it can be surely said that his work is significant in the history of American national literature, and at the same time of some genuine merit as art. With Freneau, American poetry begins. During the last forty years of his life Freneau was less active, poetically, than he had been during the earlier years. The War of 1812 brought from him a few verses that were in the strain of those of 1776, but that added little to his fame. He died in December, 1832, at Monmouth, New Jersey. BIBLIOGRAPHY Bibliographical entries concerning Freneau might well be limited to one entry: The Poems of Philip Freneau, edited by Fred L. Pattee, Princeton, 1902-1907, 3 vols. Here one has all of Freneau's work that deserves reprinting_admirably edited, together with Professor Pattee's life of the author, and an adequate bibliography. Mary S. Austin's Philip Freneau, the Poet of the Revolution, N. Y. 1901, is a sympathetic biographical study. NOTES LIBERA NOS, DOMINE 175. First published in 1775. The mocklitany had long been a favorite form with English satirists. 5. St. James's. The Palace of St. James, 21. Tryon the mighty. William Tryon of 1776. In 1779 he commanded a force which ravaged a part of Connecticut. TO THE MEMORY OF THE BRAVE AMERICANS Written shortly after the battle. 176. 20. They took the spear-but left the shield. It has been often pointed out that Sir Walter Scott appropriated the line for the Introduction to Canto iii of Marmion: When Prussia hurried to the field, And snatch'd the spear, but left the shield. THE BRITISH PRISON SHIP This poem, which records Freneau's actual experiences, is good evidence concerning conditions about which Washington more than once protested in the name of humanity. 24. My Orestes. A legendary Greek character, son of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra, who was pursued by the Furies. 178. 128. David Sproat. "Commissary of prisoners in New York." (Freneau's note.) 141. St. Kilda. An island of the Outer Hebrides group, off the north-western coast of Scotland. 179. 177. That juice destructive. Rum. ODE 182. An echo of the French Revolution. The poem is of uncertain date, but was certainly written by June of 1793, and possibly by November of 1791. It was sung at a dinner given in honor of the French Minister Genet, in Philadelphia, June 1, 1793. JOHN TRUMBULL (1750-1831) Born in Waterbury, Connecticut,_ in 1750, the son of the local clergyman, Trumbull developed into one of the most precocious of youths. He learned the classical languages at an age when the average youngster is still puzzled by his A-B-C's, and passed the entrance examinations to Yale College when he was but seven years old. He did not enter college for six years, however, but employed the intervening time in further reading, of those classics for which he had developed so astonishing an aptitude. Graduating A.B. in 1767, he took his master's degree in 1770, began his career as essayist and poet, studied law in John Adams's office in Boston, was admitted to the Bar in 1773, and for the rest of his long life was intimately connected with the legal profession either as attorney or judge. He died in Detroit, where he had gone when an old man, in the year 1831. As a man of letters, Trumbull is chiefly remembered for his poetic satires, though his essays, patterned after 18th century English models, were popular in his own day. First of the satires to win any considerable amount of applause was The Progress of Dulness (1772), the work of a clever young man just out of college, who turned the shafts of his ridicule against those portions of society's armor which were most vulnerable to his attacks. M'Fingal, which came out in its first form in January, 1776, and in the complete four-canto version in 1782, is political rather than social satire, and because of its cleverness, humor, vigor, and timeliness, became at once one of the most popular of American poems. Though Trumbull wrote much after this, and was for a long time a member of the group of literary men known as "The Hartford wits," he never published anything which added materially to the fame these first two works had brought him. BIBLIOGRAPHY The only edition of Trumbull's work approaching completeness is that published at Hartford in 1820, in two volumes. M'Fingal has been reprinted a dozen times or more since the 1782 edition, most recently with editorial matter by B. J. Lossing, N. Y. 1881. For a pleasant discussion of Trumbull and his associates see H. A. Beers's The Connecticut Wits and Other Essays, N. Y. 1920. NOTES M'FINGAL 3. Trumbull's most popular poem appeared first (one canto only) in January of 1776. The complete poem in four cantos was not published till 1782. The scene of the poem is laid in a small Massachusetts village where, shortly after the events of April, 1775, the Tory squire M'Fingal finds himself in conflict with the patriotic sentiment of the village. He is a blustering, oratorical champion of Great Britain, and urges submission in every particular. Opposed to him is Honorius, whom Trumbull seems to have patterned after John Adams. In the canto here reprinted M'Fingal argues matters with his neighbors, and ends by being tarred and feathered. 81. Like Aaron's calves. See Exodus xxxii :20. 133. See Arnold quits. During the early part of the war Benedict Arnold was a general in the colonial forces, and an able commander. 147. Like Hudibras. Hero of Samuel Butler's poem of the same name, which was published in 1663, and which gave Trumbull a general model for M'Fingal. 158. No soul is bound to notice. M'Fingal's point, that Congress was helpless to enforce its own acts, was well taken. See the comments in the Federalist papers, above, p. 212. 170. Shakespeare's Trinc'lo. Trinculo, the jester in The Tempest. 226. Drown'd the tea. An obvious reference to the Boston Tea Party. 274. Ventur'd to give battle. The battle of Concord, and subsequent withdrawal of the British from Boston. 404. Satan, struggling on through Chaos. See Paradise Lost II, 927 ff. 147. As Socrates of old. Aristophanes, n The Clouds, pictured Socrates as dangling thus in a basket. 72. Hatchel-teeth. A hatchel, or hetchel, used for cleaning hemp or flax, was a ool which had many iron teeth set in board. 45. So Claudian sings. Claudius Claudianus, a Latin poet of the fourth entury B. C. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CRÉVECŒUR (1731-1813) Like Tom Paine, Crèvecœur was a foreigner who came to America, found it congenial, and became one of the most popular writers of the Revolutionary period. Born in Normandy in 1731, he went to England when he was sixteen years old, and seven years later, after he had learned English, landed in America. Here he married, and settled on a farm in New York. During the Revolution he was suspected by the British of being a spy, and was finally arrested, imprisoned for some months in New York, and in 1780 sent as a prisoner to England. Not long afterwards he was exchanged, and allowed to return to France. The Letters from an American Farmer, which had been in large part written before the war, were published in London in 1782, and found a most favorable reception. In 1783 he once more came to the United States, this time as French consul at New York. Here he remained till 1793, when he returned to France to remain till his death in 1813. The Letters, on which his literary fame depends, were for the most part descriptive of the physical and economic condition of the colonies. The latter part of the book inIcluded four letters of a more miscellaneous nature. From one of these is taken the selection printed in this volume. The work as a whole, published as by "Hector St. John," attained an immediate and widespread popularity, both in Europe and America. The grace of his style, the charm of his description, the plaintive and at times sentimental note running through much of the book, the idealization of simple American lifethese caught the fancy of European readers, as they pleased the Americans who enjoyed seeing themselves so attractively pictured. The volume was at once translated into French, German, and Dutch, and did much to stimulate interest in the romantic phases of life in the new republic. It is some indication of Crèvecœur's reputation that the town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, was named for him by its founder. BIBLIOGRAPHY The best reprint of the Letters is that edited by Ludwig Lewisohn, N. Y. 1904. They may also be procured in the Everyman Library. The only extensive critical treatment of Crèvecœur is Julia P. Mitchell's St. Jean de Crèvecœur, N. Y. 1916. GEORGE WASHINGTON (1732-1799) Washington occupies a place in American civilization so uniquely significant, and touches the chronicle of our history at so many points, that in a work of the present nature it would be impossible if not undesirable to do more than outline the main events of his many-sided career, and point out one or two reasons for thinking him entitled to a position in American literature as well as history. Any attempt to state the real importance of his contribution to the life of the nation would involve a consideration of the political, military, and economic history of the country during the entire half century that closed with his death in 1799. Consequently the student who finds himself wishing to learn more of the actual accomplishments of the man must seek for information in one of the works listed in the bibliography, any of which will serve as points of departure for a study that may be made as extensive as the time at one's disposal will permit. The main facts of his life are known to everybody. Born in Virginia on February 22, 1732, he never had the advantage of a college education, but grew up as a member of a family that enjoyed plantation life on the banks of the Potomac river, and showed little inclination to intellectual pursuits. His formal schooling was over by the time he was fifteen; a year later he had taken up the business of surveyor, and soon was serving in that capacity, most of the time near the western frontier of the colony. In 1755, after some military experience gained against the French and Indians, he accompanied General Braddock in his disastrous campaign, and after the rout at Fort Duquesne, succeeded in saving a fraction of the army from annihilation. On his return he was made commander of all the Virginia forces, and for two years was engaged in repelling attacks along the western boundary of the colony. When the war was ended he resigned his commission, and in 1759, after marrying Mrs. Martha Custis, he began fifteen years of quiet and happy life on his estate at Mount Vernon. By this time he was one of the wealthiest men in America, greatly interested, as his Diary shows, in all the problems of his large estate, and not actively concerned with political affairs. By 1765, however, when the Stamp Act agitation was at its height, Washington was one of the group that most strenuously opposed the bullying tactics of the British Governor, Lord Dunmore. For nine years he had a share in every attempt to bring about a more tolerable condition of affairs in Virginia, and when at last it appeared that the colonies must act together if they wished to preserve any semblance of their rights, it was inevitable that Washington should be one of Virginia's delegates to the first Continental Congress. Again in 1775 he was a member of the second Congress, where in June he was unanimously chosen commander of the army that was already in conflict with the British around Boston. His first cam paign ended in March, 1776, with the evacuation of Boston by the British. Following this important initial success, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to prevent the British occupation of New York. When he was driven from Manhattan Island he crossed the Hudson into New Jersey, there to conduct what Frederick the Great called the most brilliant campaign of the century, albeit he was most of the time in retreat or on the defensive. The year 1777 saw Washington enduring the hardships of Valley Forge, while at the same time discontented elements in Congress and in the army were plotting to have him removed in favor of Gates. The arrival of French aid in 1778 made his position more secure, and when in the early autumn of 1781 Cornwallis went into camp at Yorktown, to rest after his victorious southern campaign, it was Washington who marched the combined French and American army from West Point to Virginia, surrounded his opponent, and forced the surrender which practically ended the war. Two years later he resigned his commission as General, and once more retired to Mount Vernon. In 1787 the Federal Convention assembled in Philadelphia to draw up a new Constitution. Washington, one of the delegates from Virginia, was at once chosen President of the Convention, and when the first election was held under the new plan of government, he was unanimously elected the first President of the United States. Four years later he again received the vote of every elector, and though his second term was embittered by broils and disputes, he would have been re-elected again for a third term had he not refused to be a candidate. On March 4, 1797, he relinquished the Presidency to John Adams, and withdrew to Mount Vernon, where he died on December 14, 1799. It is hardly possible to think of Washington as a man of letters, even in the sense in which the term may be applied to men like Franklin and Hamilton. His written work consists largely of official correspondence and private letters, and though it is never without interest, it is lacking in the stylistic merit which other similar documents of the time possessed. His most famous single utterance, the Farewell Address, was written for him by Hamilton. At the same time the breadth of Washington's interests was So great, and the significance of much of his work so clear, that the matter warrants his inclusion in a volume of American literature, albeit the manner is sometimes open to criticism. And even in this last respect Washington's prose is entitled to more praise than is sometimes given it. The letters possess a solid and substantial dignity which comports well with the character of their author, and are of obvious value to the person who would understand either Washington the |