TOPOGRAPHICAL poemv 1N AMERICA,
’ 1783-1812

Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D.
MlCHiGAN STATE UNSVERSETY

Eugene L. Huddieston
1965'

  

THESIS

LIBRARY

Michigan State
University

 
   
   

i
1

This is to certify that the

thesis entitled
TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY IN AMERICA,
1783-1812

presented by

Eugene L. Huddleston

has been accepted towards fulfillment
of the requirements for

Pho Do degree in 1131311811.

W371”.

Major professor

 

Date 9““ “1 I’IJ‘

0-169

 

ABSTRACT

TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY IN AMERICA, 1783-1812

9’.

by Eugene L. Huddleston

Based on a compilation of 187 topographical poems
from early American books and magazines, this study surveys
the genre during a period when Americans were attempting
to create a nafional literature in the absence of a long-
standing native tradition. Claims of literary nationality
generally led American poets to seek originality in external
nature, which easily found a place within contemporary
British critical theory widely accepted as universally
valid. Looking abroad for motifs and forms and to their
own country for material, they produced an imitative
poetry displaying an incongruity between convention and
experience, between form and content, that led to its
subsequent neglect as belles lettres. Of the many modes of
English nature poetry that Americans imitated, the topo-
graphical genre--by definition demanding indigenous subject
matter-~well reveals how they achieved originality within
the limited meaning given the term. Although by the close
of the eighteenth century, a gradual increase in subjectivity
had broadened the definition of "local” poetry, most poets

in America as in England found their models in the tradition

Eugene L. Huddleston

2
established by Denham's Cooper's Hill, Pope's Windsor
Forest, and Dyer's Grongar Elll'

For subjects, American poets, like their English
counterparts, surveyed prospects from their favorite hill,
flattered the owners of picturesque estates, memorialized
towns and regions, recounted their travels, and advertised
the beauties of rivers and waterfalls. Although some of
the poems suggest the poet using the external world as a
mirror for his thoughts and feelings, the majority rest on
neoclassic premises that art imitate universal Nature and
that it please and instruct an audience. Common motifs
and conventions from early and mid-eighteenth century
English poetry occur with overwhelming frequency--namely
prospect-pieces, the rural retirement motif, historical
matter, overt moralizing, ruin-pieces, prophecies of future
glory, praise of commerce,and descriptive catalogues.
Occurring less often are those associated with the English
Romantic period: the personal address, childhood reminis-
cences, Weltschmerz, and enthusiasm for sublime scenery.

Conclusions to this study concern effects of the
English tradition upon treatment of native materials. The
frontier west of the Appalachians exerted little influence
on the language, form, and content of poetry written about
the region. Instead of developing new voices to match the
new land, poets resorted to stereotyped responses that char-

acterized poetry of the seaboard, an area exhibiting a

 

i‘EugenetLTHEuddleston

3

balance between art and nature that accorded well with the
current vogue of the picturesque in English poetry. Though
unable to cast aside worn conventions in delineating American
nature, they achieved a degree of originality by freely using
American place names and by describing native flora and fauna;
contrary to an impression often imparted, Philip Freneau

was not alone in detailing nature distinctively American. The
prevalence of the rural retirement theme, by far the most
popular convention borrowed from English poetry, demonstrates
how much Americans were committed to ideals of cultural
primitivism; yet the desire for simplicity existed side by
side with prophecies of future national glory, an indication
that ideas of primitivism and progress had become inextricably
interwoven in early America. A gradual sentimentalizing of
the rural retirement motif and an increasingly lachrymose
response to natural scenery give evidence of the influence

of sensibility, a popular mode of eighteenth-century thought
and feeling. In England the cult of sensibility helped
prepare for the great Romantics; in America it led to the
sentimentality of the "Fireside" poets, whose inheritance

also included the genteel language, picturesque subject matter,
and superficial didacticism so typical of topographical poetry

of the early national period.

TOPOGRAPHICAL POETRY IN AMERICA,
1783-1812

By

by
Eugene L. Huddleston

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

Department of English

1965

.91 \\

PREFACE

And such in time (if right the Muse descries)

Shall this wide realm with tow'ry cities rise.

The spacious Delaware through future song,

Shall roll in deathless majesty along;

Each grove and meuntain shall be sacred made1

As new is Cooper 8 Hill and Windsor 8 shade.

After the Treaty of Paris, American poets increas-
ingly found that the depiction of native scenery offered
the best means of asserting cultural independence.
Paradoxically adopting motifs and styles from English
poetry, they described the grandeur as well as the quiet
beauty of nature distinctively American. Rude mountains,
the inspirers of sublime emotions, vied for attention with
peaceful streams and cultivated fields, the abode of
Contentment and similar gentle virtues. Following the
turmoil of the war of 1812, topographical poetry increased
astoundingly as the Western movement brought reports of
ever newer and grander scenery and as the English Romantic
movement gained status in America. ggegg‘gf Places, a
collection edited by Henry H. Longfellow, shows that by
1877 few prominent natural features--East, West, North,

and South--remained unsung.2 In the twentieth century many

 

1from Evans, "Progress of Science,“ New

Eggland anrterlz Magazine, I (1802), 286.

2Four of the thirty-one volumes (Boston, 1877) are

devoted to the four principal geographical regions of the
United States.

11

regional poets have continued to celebrate their native
countryside still clinging to poetic forms and attitudes
toward nature made popular in the nineteenth century. And
even those poets who have followed the main stream of
American poetry toward radically new imagery and attitudes
continue to write poems delineating specific places in
America.
By choosing Paterson, New Jersey, as the subject of
a long poem,3 William Carlos Williams showed that modern
poets, like their eighteenth-century predecessors, still
look for subject matter in familiar local settings possessing
scenic interest and rich historical associafions:
Paterson had a history, an important colonial history.
It had, besides, a river-~the Passaic, and the Falls. . . .
The Falls were spectacular; the river was a symbol
handed to me. I began to write the beginning, about the
stream above the Falls. I read everything I could
gather, finding fascinating documentary evidence in
a volume published by the Historical Society of Paterson,
Here were 1 the facts I could ask for, details exploited
by no one.
Dr. Williams' statement that no one had exploited details
of his subject is, in a sense, mistaken; for Passaic Falls
at Paterson had been the subject of more poems than any
other natural feature in America between the Revolution

and the War of 1812.5 The most ambitious of these, Samuel

 

3Paterson, 19116-1950.
“William Carlos Williams, I Wanted to Write a Poems

The Aptobioggaphz of the Works of a Poet, repor'ted and
e te y Edith Heal Boston, 19 , p. 72.
SSee the checklist of topographical poems appended

to this paper.
iii

Low's '0n the Falls of the Passaick” (1800), is radically
different, both in form and substance, from 22235523. Yet
the use of the same material by poets so separated ‘by time
illustrates that ”loco-descriptive” poetry will continue
to be written as long as artists, writing ”in the American
grain,” base their creations on places, people, and scenes
they know best.

Despite the importance of the subject, scholars
have paid scant heed to topographical poetry in the formative
years between the establishment of the Republic and the
war of 1812.6 The need for a study was apparent when I
began this work three years ago and became even more apparent
upon publication late in 1968 of Howard Mumford Jones's
Q m is; 3232;; and Leo Marx's The Machine L13 the Garden:
Technolog 939 the Pastoral £592; in America. The
distinguished authors of these studies of American culture
both stress the significance of the landscape as shaper
and symbol of American aspirations. Aside from its
contributions to the history of American ideas, topographical
poetry of the early national period reveals the artistic
failures and accomplishments of men seriously engaged in
creating, not historical documents, but living literature.

One of the chief problems in belles lettres was how to

 

6"Topographical" throughout includes didactic-
descriptive poems and nature lyrics with localized settings.

iv

achieve a national literature against the absence of native
tradition and in the face of strong English tradition. A
study of topographical poetry, a genre which by its very
nature demands originality in selection of materials, should
clarify somewhat the complex issues of imitation and
originality that plagued writers of this period.

The appended checklist of topographical poetry
published in America from 1783 through 1811 constitutes
the basis of my study. Although Robert A. Aubin included
American.poems in his checklist in Topoggaphical Poetry
‘ig XVIIIeéentury England (1936), he places them indiscriminately
among the multitude of English poems which are his primary
concern; and, more importantly, he does not exhaust the
possibilities within the period treated by this study.7
At the time he compiled his list, Aubin lacked access to
rare material on.microfilm, microcards, and microprints;
the availability of such material now infinitely simplified
my own compilation. Notwithstanding relatively easy access
to material, I was faced with some delicate decisions
regarding inclusions. I have eliminated newspapers and
almanacs altogether because the practical difficulty of
getting to all of them outweighed their probable value as

 

7Aubin's checklist, which embraces a span of some
200 years, includes many American poems not in.my list; but
of the 18? poems which I have found within the dates 1783-
1812,Aubin includes only 51.

sources for topographical poetry. I have also excluded
poems in the genre known to be written in this period yet
not published until after 1811 or not published at all.
The criterion for inclusion was publication of the poem
in an American book or magazine between 1783 and 1812.

I thus include some works first published before 1783 but
reprinted during the period, and I include poems written
by Englishmen if such poems concern American landscape
and if they were published in America during the period.

Within this scope I have tried to be thorough. The
most rewarding source of new material, the American
Periodical Series, involved practically a frame by frame
search through eighty rolls of microfilm. In seeking poems
from books, I checked numerous bibliographies, including
Oscar Hegelin's gag}; gerican Poetr , John C. Frank's

”Early American Poetry to 1820: A List of Works in the
New York Public Library," and Shaw and Shoemaker's American
Bibliom 1. 0f necessity, I examined firsthand a large
number of possible sources, only a relatively small number
of which actually contained topographical poems.

Besides standard publication data for both original
entries and republications, the checklist has features that
I hope will prove useful. All items are grouped by similar
subject matter into seven main sections; within each
section poems of known authorship are listed alphabetically

vi

and the remainder follow chronologically.8 There was good
reason for not alphabetizing all entries: of the 18?

poems in the list 83, are either anonymous, pseudonymous,

or initialed. Most of the pseudonymous poems were signed
with garish names suggesting influence of the Della Cruscan
fad (Carlos, Matilda), Neoclassic pastoral conventions
(Palemon, Damon), and possibly the sentimental novel (Maria,
Irene). For the reader's convenience in tracing poems of
known authorship, I have included with the checklist an
alphabetical author index.

Additional features with each entry include standard
abbreviation of the American state to identify the setting;
an asterisk, if the poem is also found in R. A. Aubin's
checklist; and a keyed symbol giving information on verse
forms. For poems that by their titles do not seem to
belong in the topographical genre, I provide a brief
annotation to justify their inclusion. The most complex
information derives from a series of alphabetical symbols
keyed to a list of themes and conventions at the head of the
checklist. Practically all major studies of eighteenth-
eentury descriptive poetry-~including those by R. A. Aubin,
Dwight L. Durling, and C. V. Deane--agree basically upon

 

8Under two of the main headings, I have used sub-
headings to show the particular natural features in America
that interested poets the most.

vii

characteristic features of the poetry they deal with,

and my own close study of poems in the checklist confirms

the aptness of their analyses. However, in adapting their
categories-~concerned primarily with English poetry-~I have
let my own judgment determine the ones which seem particularly
relevant to American topographical poetry.

The text of this study is built upon the plan and
features of the checklist. Basically, I try to place
topographical poetry in the wider perspective of American
nature verse of the late eighteenth century and then to
describe, analyze, and evaluate the American uses of the
genre against its English background. Specifically,

Chapter I examines reasons for the great quantity and low
quality of American nature verse of the period, and
Chapter II shows the relationship of the topographical
genre to the other kinds of nature verse then in vogue.
Chapter III surveys the seven divisions of topographical
,poetry in the same order that they appear in the checklist,
and Chapter IV, through the detailed analysis of a single
poem, deals with specific questions of literary value that
Chapter III, organized as a topical survey, could not do.
The motifs and conventions which were only briefly identified
111 the checklist receive detailed treatment in Chapters V
sand VI. Chapter V treats the ones generally associated
with neoclassic poetry and Chapter VI those in which elements
viii

of feeling, or sensibility, signal a shift to Romantic
theory. Chapter VII, in evaluating the chief trends in
American topographical poetry, examines the claims of
tradition against the originality called for by the newness
of the physical environment.

In bringing this work to completion, I am chiefly
indebted to Professor Nbrman S. Grabo. While chairman of
my guidance committee in the initial stages of research,
he gave encouragement when it was most needed, and his own
interest in the project stimulated.mine. After leaving
East Lansing for new duties at the University of California,
he continued to guide me with thoroughness and tact
through each chapter. An adviser in the best sense, he
let me find my own solutions to problems rather than
imposing his own, and I am forever grateful to him for so
freely giving of his time and energy. Hy debt also extends
to Professor Russel Nye,whose timely advice and kind
consideration of my needs proved of inestimable value in

the final stages of the idissentation.

ix

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE. O O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Chapter

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF NATURE IN EARLY AMERICAN

POETRY. O O O O O O O O O O 0

II. MAJOR INFLUENCES IN EARLY AMERICAN NATURE VERSE .

III. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL POEM: TYPES.

Hill. .
Estate.
Town. .
Region.
River .
Natural
Journey

h n mena

e (be a e e s
s Os 0 e s e
0

office...

IV. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL POEM: EVALUATION .

V. MOTIFS AND CONVENTIONS: TRADITIONAL.

The Prospect. . . . . . . .
Rural Retirement. . . . . .
The Descriptive Catalogue .
The Didactic Urge . . . . .
Graveyard and Ruin Sentiment
Praise of Commerce. . . . .
The Future Glory Prophecy .
Other Conventions . . . . .

0000)....

VI. MOTIFS AND CONVENTIONS: TRANSITIONAL

Childhood or Youthful Recollections

The Personal Address. . . . .
The Solace in Nature. . . .

Sentimental Introspection . . . . .

Sublime Scenery . . . . . .

XIII. CONCLUSION: TRADITION AND THE CLAIMS

LIST OF WORKS CITED. . . . . . . . . .

OF NEWNESS.

Page

.ii

.22
.ua

.50
.55
.60
.67
.73
.84
.89

.97
122

123
131
137
142
152
156
160
166

171
172

177
180

185
192
203

241

Page
APPENDICES

A. CHECKLIST OF AMERICAN TOPOGRAPHICAL POEMS,
1783-1812 a s s s e s s s s e a s s a a e e s .251

B. TEXT OF "THE VILLAGE CLIFF" . . . . . . . . . . .281

xi

I. THE IMPORTANCE OF NATURE IN EARLY
AMERICAN'POETRY

Except for the poems of Philip Freneau and a number
of the Connecticut wits, literary historians have largely
overlooked poetry from the end of the American Revolution
to the first efforts of Uilliam Cullen Bryant after the War
of 1812.1 In 193& Harry Hayden Clark observed that the
years from 1787 to 1800 had been "relatively neglected by
those who are reinterpreting American literary history,” and
Russel Nye, twenty-six years later, could still say that
literature of the early national period had been ”treated in
most literary histories as a sort of blank space.‘2 Yet
there was a~great amount of literary activity between
Freneau and Bryant, a large part of which was the production
of nature poetry. Only one who has searched out the columns
of original poetry in magazines such as the 2233 Eglgg or who
has paged through some of the decaying leather-bound volumes
of native verse can appreciate the great number of nature

poems which no one now reads.

 

1The only detailed study of the poetry of this
period to appear in recent years is Mary Dexter Bates,
"Columbia's Bards: A_Study of American Verse from 1783

through 1799' (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Brown
University, 1954).

2"Factors to be Investigated in American Literary
History from 1787 to 1800," English Journal, XXIII (June,

193“), #81; and The Cultural Lifeoof the New Nation (New
York, 1960), p. EST.

1

2

In accounting for this large body of verse, one must
look both to the cultural ties of the new country with its
parent and to circumstances of art, life, and culture in
America fostering an awareness of the external world as God
had created it. In Great Britain the increase in nature
poems was concomitant with a “return to nature" that became
recognizable as a decisive movement from about 1750 onwards.3
Its ideological basis was deism, which insisted upon the
beauty, harmony, and design of universal nature, and its
greatest impetus derived from the influence of the third Earl
of Shaftesbury, whose “moral sense” philosophy gave intel-
lectual respectability to the promptings of the heart and
thus prepared the way for the cult of sensibility, by which
men became increasingly aware of the power of nature to
minister to their spiritual needs.“ A new regard for the
out-of-doors was apparent not only in poetry but in land-
scape gardening, landscape painting, and travel literature.5
Tastes in America could not help being affected by these
trends, for what Englishmen read, Americans read:

3C. V. Deane Aspects of Eighteenth Centurz Nature
Poetry (Oxford, 1935;, p.

“See Cecil A. Moore, ”The Return to Nature in English
Poetry of the Eighteenth Century,” Studies in Philolo
xrv (1917). 243-291.

 

5Deane, As ects, p. 1.

3
Goldsmith's Deserted Villa e, first issued in Philadel-
phia in 1771, required twelve American editions and
many imports before 1800. Still more popular was

Tho-sent sweetly manquil depiction of the countryside
in The Seasons. . . . From Thomson to the pensive Elegy

in'E_Eouit?-"Ehurch ard and the more mournful ”Grave-
Ezra oets wEE'SEtzE—step, and a step easily taken by
many readers who bought the eight American editions of
Young's Ni t Thou hts and the twelve of Blair's 2%26
£2313, ong with many copies imported from Englan .
The appetite of American readers for poetry in which external
nature figured prominently could not be appeased simply by
the best English writers; they wanted scenes set closer to
home, and native bards began to supply this need in aston-
ishing quantity.

Besides the stimulus provided by the new poetry of
nature, a number of circumstances go beyond direct influences
of particular literary works or genres in accounting for the
American “return to nature.“ Some of these are simply conr
coaitants of, and others more precisely reasons for, the rel-
atively large body of nature verse to appear around the turn
of the century, but all in some way touch upon its develop-
ment. Foremost among them.was the predominantly rural economy
of early America. Agrarian idealism readily developed in a
new, rich country where land was virtually free for the taking.
The vogue for simplicityb-based on the assumption that God
made the country and man the towns-was so pronounced that

themes of cultural primitivism show up everywhere in the

 

6James D Hart Th

. , e Popular Book (New York, 1950),
p. 28. Other best selling English poets'in the period 1783-
1812 were William.Cowper, Robert Burns, Lord Byron, and
Walter Scott; see F. L. Mott, Golden Multitudes (New York,

19"?)a P0 3050'

 

u.

H'-

1--

a
literature of the period.7 An imported English poem, Robert
Bloomfield's The Farmer's Boy (1800), which laments the
disappearance of simple rural virtues, enjoyed phenomenal
popularity, and numerous native poems such as Freneau's “The
Bergen Planter” and Thomas James's “The Country Meeting"
developed the ever popular theme of rural contentment. Of
all the early literature of rural simplicity, Crévecoeur's
Letters from.gg American Farmer (1782) best presents the
vision of an agricultural society where life close to nature
fosters virtue, freedom, and contentment.
Primitive nature is to Crevecoeur a never-failing source
of wonder and beauty. . . . Like Shaftesbury, he marvels
at the perfect order-and symmetry of the world-machine,
Nature. In this unspoiled environment lives the typical
American farmer, fortunate in his economic independence,
in his snug, comfortable house, in his wholesome country
sports of husking beeg and sleighing, and in the affections
of his family hearth.

The urge to simplicity was but one aspect of agrarian
idealism; another was the belief that America's future glory
was guaranteed, in large part, by the richness, variety, and
grandeur of the virgin land. Ken's imaginations were so taken
with the potential of American nature that from the beginning
the vision of America as an earthly Paradise or "Garden of the
world“ became the chief image defining the promise of American

life, a promise so grand that the “sublime! rhetoric of the

 

7n. P. Heiser, "The Decline of Neoclassicism, 1801-
lBhB,” Transiti ha in erican Literar Histor , ed. Harry
Hayden EIarE (535535, ficrtfi Carolina, f§33), pp. 125-26.

8Halter Puller Taylor, A History of American Letters
(Boston, 1936), p. 27.

5
time hardly seemed to do it Justice.9 To many, America

offered the glory of the New Jerusalem of Revelation.

For here great nature with a bolder hand,

Roll'd the broad stream and heaved the lifted land;

And here, from finisht earth, triumphant trod

The last ascending steps of her creating God.10
The quest for the millenium in America motivated all manner
of’menp-from orthodox Puritans believing in the imminent
Second Coming to "pantisocrats' like Southey and Coleridge,
who in l79u, under the advice of an American realtor, chose
the Susquehanna valley as the site for their stillborn Utopian
experiment.11 Even as the dream of Edenic perfection motivated
men of diverse interests, so did it embrace diverse ideas--
from the urge for rural simplicity to the urge for commercial
wealth. So compounded, the dream often manifested itself in
peculiar combinations of primitivism and progress. Numerous

visionary poems, such as Freneau's “The Rising Glory of

America,“ sang of America's future in terms of the past:

 

9Por the source of the "Garden of the World“ as a
poetic idea see Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land (Cambridge,
Hass., 1950), pp. 123-32.

loProm Joel Barlow, The Columbiad (1809), I, 39.

11The American editor Joseph Dennie, opposed to

'Jacobism' in any form, referred to Pantisocracy as a “wild
scheme" that 'hair-brained young men” had formed "for migrat-
ing to the woods of Pennsylvania, where they proposed.§g fleet
the time carelessl as the ‘gig‘;g‘§hg gglden‘ggg.' See Port
mi—o, n.-—_(_Bls. II l 0671 ; quoted in H. Lloyd Flewelling,

erary Criticism in.American Magazines, 1783-1820” (unp
published Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1931),
p. 17.

 

6

A new Jerusalem sent down from heav'n

Shall grace our happy earth, perhaps this land,
whose virgin bosom shall then receive, tho' late,
Nyriads of saints with their almighty king,

To live and reign on earth a thousand years
Thence call'd Millennium. Paradise anew

Shall flourish, by no second Adam lost.

No dang'rous tree or deathful fruit shall grow,
No tempting serpent to allure the soul,

Prom native innocence; a Canaan here

Another Canaan shall excel the old,

0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O 0

Another Jordan‘s stream shall glide a ong

And Siloah's brook in circling eddies flow,

Groves shall adorn their verdant banks, on which

The happy people free from second death

Shall find secure repose. . . .12

Another circumstance of American life making for
nature poetry was a growing awareness during the early national
period of the wealth of natural resources and the geograph-
ical homogeneity of the virgin continent. The Louisiana
Purchase, coupled with President Jefferson's strong scientific
curiosity in the continent lying to the West, led to govern~
ment-sponsored expeditions that stimulated popular interest
in indigenous American nature. Lewis and Clark's exciting
Journey up the Missouri and over the mountains to the Pacific
was celebrated by Joel Barlow in a poem ”On the Discoveries
of Captain Lewis,” which he enclosed in a letter to President
Jefferson on January 12, 1807.13 In it the great American

rivers stretching in a belt from east to west--the Potomac,

 

12Philip Freneau and H. H. Breckenridge, “The Rising
Glory of America,“ first pub. 1772. Quoted frmm text in

Poems of Phili Freneau, ed. Fred Lewis Pattee (Princeton,
New Jersey, I982), I, 80-81.

13Leon Howard, The Connecticut Wits (Chicago, 1943):
p. 331.

{3

In:

.J

4'."

 

 

 

7
Ohio, Missouri, and Columbia-~symbolize the foreordained

unity of America:

These four brother floods, like a garland of flowers,
Shall entwine all our states in a band,

Conform and confederate their wide-spreading pfiwers,
And their wealth and their wisdom expand.

Nature and Nature's God had so pre-eminently blessed
the American continent that soon patriotic pride engendered
by the geographical blessings would take definite form in
the doctrine of Manifest Destiny. Meanwhile, the writers
of the Federalist Papers took advantage of the unity of

‘American nature in arguing for federalism:

It has often given me [Publius] pleasure to observe,

that independent America was not composed of detached
and distant territories, but that one connected, fertile,
wide-spreading country was the portion of our western
sons of liberty. Providence has in a particular manner
blessed it with a variety of soils and productions, and
watered it with innumerable streams, for the delight

and accommodation of its inhabitants. A succession of
navigable waters forms a kind of chain round its borders
. . . while the most noble rivers in the world, running
at convenient distances, present them with highways for
the easy communication of friendly aids, and the mutual
transportation and exchange of their various commodities.15

The power of grand.American scenery to inspire sublime
emotions had an important influence on the emerging national
literature, for the sheer bigness of America could awe even
the most sedate and unimaginative citizen. Across the wide

Missouri were oceanplike praries and beyond them mountains

 

1"’Joel Barlow, ”On the Discoveries of Captain Lewis,”
American Register, or General Repository, I (1807), 198-99.
The Federalist, Letter No. 2 (by John Jay), first
put» 1787. Quoted from Selections from the Federalist, ed.
William Bennett Munro (Cambridge, Mass., 19 , p. .

8
so vast the Alps suffered in comparison. But these were not
well known in theearly national period; for most peeple,
the East still typified American nature. Extensive virgin
forests, precipices, cataracts, and broad rivers--often
as in the Hudson Valley in conveniently close proximity--
presented unrivaled scenes of grandeur. The developing
penchant for bigness, a well known trait of the national
temperament, seemed Justified in light of European attacks on
the inferiority of American nature, and the characteristically
American tall tale, anticipated by Franklin‘s story of the
whale which leaped Niagara Falls, was an inevitable develop-
ment of the vogue for bigness. Not only could Americans
overcompensate for their feelings of cultural inferiority
by humorous exaggeration, but also, through the grandeur of
American nature, theycould produce a body of sublime poetry
second to none, for in literary theory of the time "sublime“
was a key critical desideratum.16 From Roger wolcott to
Walt Whitman many American writers felt that sublime subjects
alone would produce sublime literature, a critical assumption

that Professor Benjamin Spencer has labeled the ”topographical

 

16The great popularity in American Colleges of Hugh

Blair's Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783)
immeasurably contributed to the frequency with which this
term was bandied by American poets and critics. Blair
”thought of sublimity as a quality of things rather than of
expression,” and he found its basis in "vastness, awfulness,
or Iolemnity,' qualities which American nature abundantly
possessed. See William Charvat, The 0ri ins of American
Critical Thought, 1810-1833 (Philadelphia, 1933), p. 53. For

he pu arity of Bla r an other Scotch rhetoricians and

crit cs in America, see Merle Curti, The Growth of American
Thought (New York, l9u3). p. 236.

 

 

 

 

..« ra"fi-7V

9

fallacy.'17 Because the nation lacked a well-documented
historical tradition to serve as a literary stimulus, many
shared the belief of David Humphreys that sublime American
scenery would in itself sufficiently inspire the loftiest
song:

What tho' no Splendid spoils of other times

Invite the curious to these western climes:

No virtuoso, with fantastic aim,

Here hunts the shadow of departed fame:

No piles of rubbish his attention call,

Nor mystic obelisk, or storied wall:

No ruin'd statues claim the long research;

Yet here I rove untrodden scenes among,

Catch inspiration for my rising song;

See nature's grandeur awfully unfold;

And, wrapt in thought, her works sublime behold:

For here vast wilds which human foot ne'er trod,

Are marked with footsteps of a present God:

His forming hand, on nature's broadest scale,

a'er mountains mountains pil'd and scoop'd the vale;

Made sea-like streams in deeper channels run, 8
, And roll'd thro' brighter heav'ns his genial sun.1

Important strides in the natural sciences during the
eighteenth century made educated Americans desirous of
uncovering the secrets of nature within their own country.19
Many eminent Americans and Europeans held.membership in
the American Philosophical Society, and nearly all major

American cities had their own natural history associations.

17The est or nationalit : An American Literar
Campaigp (Syracuse, New York, I937), p. I3.

18David Humphreys, 9A Poem.on the Happiness of America,”
Americ n Museum, I (1787), 250.

 

19Russel Nye,in Cultural Life of the New Nation (p. 56).
notes that ”a faith in science. . .permeated the thinking of
all ranks and classes of Americans during the years 1776-1820.“

Fl
9

.57

{>4

1
m
' d

10
The American continent offered a fertile new field for
geographers, geologists, and especially botanists and
zoologists, who were busily occupied in naming and classifying
the bewildering variety of native flora and fauna. Compared
to other natural sciences, botany was in an advanced stage
of development, due largely to the brilliant work of the
Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus. Increased interest in the
Linnaean method of systematic classification had literary
significance, for the writings of American naturalists "created
new material and more original, particular, and rich imagery
for poetry."20 Two early naturalists were themselves
literary men: the botanist william Bartram in prose and
the ornithologist Alexander Wilson in poetry.

The kinship of the ”sister arts“ poetry and painting,
an accepted aesthetic premise of the eighteenth century,
suggests that trends and developments in American art had
a bearing on nature poetry. Although there was no important
landscape painter in America until well after the War of 1812,
engraved or lithographed 'views' of American buildings,

A bridges, and landscapes multiplied with the increase of

21 Besides

native printing soon after the Revolutionary War.
being sold separately and in portfolios, such prints appeared

in almost every issue of.most of the prominent magazines,

 

ZOE. P. Heiser, "The Decline of Neoclassicism,
Transitions, p. 157.

21011ver w. Larkin, £1: and Lire in gerica (New York,
1989): Pa 113.

 

~__F

_. -—a_. .

 

 

11
generally accompanied by detailed prose descriptions. The
‘gppp'gplip, somewhat tardily entering the field, featured
its first landscape engraving, a sketch of Buttermilk
Falls, in the issue of February, 1809. with it was an
invitation to ”the artist and amateur to furnish us with
Sketches and accompanying descriptions” and an assertion that
”our country affords an inexhaustible abundance [of scenery} . .
which, for picturesque effect, cannot be surpassed in any
part of the world.” The picturesque, with its companion
pleasures the sublime and beautiful, was all the rage.22
Nicolas Poussin, Claude Lorrain, and Salvator Rosa, as supreme
masters of this mode of painting, dominated landscape
style, both in Europe and America, until well into the nine-
teenth century.23 The vogue of the picturesque extended
even to 'do-it-yourself' magazine articles. A contrivance
described in the Columbian magazine in 1789, intended to
produce a ”varied landscape,” was basically a picture frame
with fixed foreground and background painted on different
surfaces. The middle ground was mounted at both ends of the

frame on rollers and, by means of a key, could be ”changed at

 

22By picturesgue eighteenth-century aestheticians
generally meant whatever is characterized by variety,
intricacy, and freedom from constraint. A Grecian temple
is beautiful, but a moss-grown Gothic ruin is picturesque.
This, in essence, is the definition supported by Uvedale
Price, whose 4p Essay on the Picturesgue was reviewed in

the.American Monthly Reviepg~or, Literary Journal, 11 (May-
August, 7 .

23Larkin, Apt and Life in Aperica, p. 135.

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12
pleasure, some objects disappearing at every turn, and
others coming into view.'2h

The most complex circumstance affecting American
nature poetry was the controversy over literary nationalism.
After the Revolutionary war most Americans wanted to be
as independent of England in literature as in politics, but
few agreed on how cultural independence could best be achieved.
How much of the English heritage should be rejected and how
much retained? Specifically, could traditional themes and
forms be adapted to American materials and was such adaptation
desirable? The complex issues of imitation and originality
that such questions raised provided the material for a con-
tinuing literary debate that dates from this period.

During the period 1783-1812 the critical positions on
originality were based largely on the Neoclassic postulate
that “good sense is the same in all ages, and that a 'new
thought' is merely a fresh and lively statement of this good
sense.'25 Through his skill in couplets, Alexander Pope had
molded the dictates of ”universal Nature“ into cliches of
Neoclassic'criticism: .

Those Rules of old discover'd, not devis'd,
Are Nature still, but Nature methodiz'd;

,0 O O 0‘ ‘0 O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

 

2“Jotheal, ”The varied Landscape,“ Columbian
Na zine e, III (July, 1789), #16.

25Spencer, Quest for Nationality, p. 35.

‘I‘

"I

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13

True Wit is Nature to advantage dress'd,

What oft was thought, but ne'er so well express'd;

Something, whose truth convinc'd at sight we;find,

That gives us back the image of our mind.
Many influential Americans, such as Colonel John Parke and
Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse, still held to the early eighteenth-
century position, which Pope so well represented, that since
"Nature” was everywhere the same (nature in the sense of the
universal and immutable in thought, feeling, and taste) there
was little reason even to raise the issue of "originality."26
An even greater number of Americans subscribed to the
theories of the Scotch rhetorician Lord Kames, whose postulate
of a standard of taste common to the species did little to
deter Neoclassic strictures against originality.27 Hugh
Blair, the other popular arbiter of the Scottish “Common
Sense” school, also believed taste had the same foundation
in all nations, but "in his dictum that a good poet will
eschew foreign scenes and exhibit the landscape peculiar
to his own country, he encouraged a kind of indigenous
reference which Kames scarcely seemed to sanction."28

Yet because most American writers shared the belief of Dr.

 

26For statements by Parke and Waterhouse against
“originality,” see Spencer, p. 35.

27Lord Kames's Elements of Criticism (1762) appeared
in at least nine American editions between 1796 and 1835.

See Charvat, The Origins of American Critical Thougpt, p. 30.
For evidence of Kames s influence before 179 , see Leon Howard,
“The Late Eighteenth Century,” Transitions in.§perican

~ Literapy History, p. 69.

Spencer, gpest for Nationality, p. 34.

 

 

lu

Elihu Smith that a universal taste reflected in belles lettres
united mankind, they would of necessity--even in treating
strictly American material--choose forms, themes, and
language which men of taste everywhere recognized as correct.29

Whatever tended to uphold the status app in belles
lettpes, whether literary theory or social and political
forces, worked against the establishment of a native literature.
Such a conservative force was the concept of a Republic of
Letters uniting all urbane men of letters in an invisible
state whose purpose was to maintain intellectual and
literary order.30 In the political sphere it was analogous
to Federalism, which also upheld the order implicit in the
laws of universal nature. These intellectual,”aristocrats”
believed that literary standards of elegance and correctness

depended on keeping “revolutionary frenzy“ from invading the

 

29Ibid., p. 37. M. F. Heiser (Transitions, p. 1#3)
states that 'romantic' criticism in America did not really
begin until 1816 in the pages of the North American Review,
and Spencer (p. 35) points out that although athe associat-
ionist psychology of Locke and Hartley left its mark on
Thomas 0diorne [an American poet of the late eighteenth
century,]. . . he did not trace its implications . . . so
explicitly as did Bryant and later authors who read the
associationist Alison. In fact, Alison's influence, like
that of A. W. Schlegel, Herder, and Madame de Staél, with
their espousal of the organically national as opposed to the
neoclassical universal in art, was scarcely to be felt
until after 1815.”

303» Lewis P. Simpson, "Federalism and the Crisis

of Literary Order,” American Literature, XXXII (November,
1960), 253-66.

 

 

 

15
Republic. Many held the attitude of the Anglican Rev.

Jacob Duche that democracy threatened a breakdown of literary

order. In 1772 he wrote:

The poorest labourer upon the shore of Delaware thinks
himself entitled to deliver his sentiments in.matters
of religion or politics with as much freedom as the
gentlemen or the scholar. Indeed, there is less dis-
tinction among the citizens of Philadelphia, than
among those of any civilized city in the world. Riches
give none. For every man expects one day or another

to be upon a footing withkds wealthiest neighbor. . . .
Such is the prevailing taste for books of every kind,
that almost every man is a reader; and by pronouncing
sentence, right or wrong, upon the various publications
that come in his way, puts himself upon a level3 in
point of knowledge, with their several authors. 1

Against the background of a conservative literary
temper, American writers sought the originality which the
quest for nationality demanded, not in new themes or forms
but in native American material. Some, like James Hillhouse,

believed that American scenery was a sufficient source of
this material:

Vast, solitary and sublime, pressing on the mind the
symbols of creative power, rather than mementoes of
departed human pride, our scenery carries the thoughts
more immediately up to those ultimate conceptions which
should be bound, like the holy gems of divination on

the breast of superior genius. It may stamp our poetry
with the image of its own virgin grandeur. 3

31Quoted in Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The
Colonipl Egperience (New Yerk, 1958), p. 31 .

32James A. Hillhouse, On Some of the Considerations
which should influence an ic or a Tra ic Writer in the
Choice of an Era (New Haven, I826), pp. 3I-32. Quoted in
William Ellery Sedgwick, ”The Materials for an American
Literature: A Critical Problem of the Early Nineteenth

Century,“ Harvard S udies and Notes in Philolo and
literature XVII (1935), 158. This view had been expressed

as earIy as 1803 in American periodicals. See H. Lloyd
Flcwelling, ”Literary Criticism in American Magazines," p. 137.

"v.

 

 

16
Others, like John Bristed, thought that nature alone was
inadequate:
The aspect of nature in the United States presents
magnificence and beauty in all profusion; but hill
and dale, and wood and stream are not alone sufficient
to breathe the inspiration of poetry, unless seconded

by the habits and manners, the feelings, taste and
character of the inhabitants.33

let those who looked to American society for material gener-
ally found too much uniformity in American life for a liter-
ature of manners. James Fennimore Cooper and James Hillhouse
saw the United States as a classless society with little of
the social conflict that made British or European society
literarily useful.3n Neither did native history supply

the shortcomings; America lacked a legendary past, ”about
which associations of heroism or terror or fantasy had
clustered to form a common fund of allusion.'35 Lacking a
past, Americans tried to create it. A contributor to the
Aperican.Museum suggested that the Garden of Eden had existed
at ”the juncture of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence Rivers,"
and he reasserted the claim that the North American Indians
were descended from the Jews.36 Although the Indian, aided

by his reputation as the Noble Savage, finally became the

—
v—r

33John Bristed, America and her Resources (London,
1818), p. 355. Quoted in Sedgwick, aThe Materials for an
American Literature,” p. 1&2.

3"Nye, Cultural Life, p. 245.

35Spencer, gpest, p. 69.

36Anon., "Seme'Conjectures Respecting the First
Peopling of America," Aperican Museum, X (1791), 261-6b.

. :"
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3‘."

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17
chief resource in the search for antiquarian material, he was
not accorded this honor in the early national period, probably
because he was still too much a symbol of opposition to
American progress.37 Despite such efforts to create a
'usable past, the American experiencewas still too new and
unique to be related to traditional literary themes. American
scenery, however, easily found a place within the tradition
and critical dicta of eighteenth-century English poetry, and
most writersfinally turned to its unsurpassed grandeur as
giving the most promise of originality within the limited
meaning assigned the term.

Of the circumstances hitherto discussed as affecting
American nature poetry, the controversy over literary nation-
alism best helps to account for the relatively large number
of poems celebrating American nature and to explain.why
they have not been studied in the continuing revaluation of
American literature. Critics and historians have ignored this
poetry largely because of its “excessive yet narrow and
modish adulation of current English literary fashions which
could have little relevance to the temper of American life."38

Even Philip Freneau, the most highly regarded writer of the
period,

 

A 37Spencer, est, pp. 51-52. John Bristed in.Aperica
and her Resoppces ( dismissed Indians as ”miserable

‘Nufimmians.’ See Sedgwick, ”The Materials for an American
literature," p. luz.

38Spencer, gpest,p. 18.

 

 

 

18

. . undervalued his own artistic originality and
failed to follow its guidance. Other poets, to a lesser
degree, failed in the same way; and American verse of
the late eighteenth century is full of anticipations of
something new which somehow did not quite come off.

An unusually acute analysis of the debilitating effect of
imitation on American poetry was made by a writer who

was himself a part of the times. Samuel Cooper Thacher
wrote in 1805:

The common charge against us of poverty of genius is
least easily eluded when we are told that America has
never yet produced a poet of more than second rate ex-
cellence. We can account pretty well for not having
any rivals to the philosophers and scholars of Europe;
but poetry has no necessary alliance with opulence and
refinement. Its fullest and richest tones have often
been heard where science never raised her voice, and
refinement never imprinted her footsteps. The birth-
place of the original poet has often been where, as in
our country, nature appears in all her rudeness, where
the mountains rise in their unsubdued and gigantick
elevations, the cataracts fall without mechanical
precipitation, and the rivers roll without artificial
meanders. The only reason that I can think of, without
admitting the justice of the charge, is that our writers
import the style and imagery ofthe poets of England, as
much as our merchants do its wares. The new appearances
of nature in our country, one would think, ought to have
extended the limits of an art confessedly imitative.
But our posts have been contented with attempting to
revive the lilies and roses of Europe, all whose leaves
are withered, and all whose fragrance is exhausted by
having been so long plucked. . . . When we are farther
advanced in refinement, we shall have poetry of as much
beauty as any that has recently appeared in Europe; but
whilst we continue to receive our riches by inheritance,
and not to produce them by our vigour, we shall not be

A able to boast of any imperishable name. . . . ‘

 

39Howard, "The Late Eighteenth Century: An Age of
Contradictions,” in Transitions, p. 86.

uoSamuel Cooper Thacher, ”An Original American

Poetry," Monthl Antholo and Boston Review, II (September,
1805), %0-61; quoted in Lewis P. Sim son, (ed.). The

Federal st Literar Mind (ii. p., 1962 , p. 151,.

 

 

19
The ”confessedly imitative” state of American poetry

of the early national period resulted in a discrepancy between
form and content, intention and effect, that has been the
bane of modern critics attempting to place this poetry within
the context of an American literature. Professor Henry Nash
Smith has observed that the incongruity between convention
and experience

. . . is evident at every level of artistic endeavor:

not only in Daniel Bryan's Miltonic epic about Daniel

Boone, which introduces councils in heaven and hell to

prepare for the hero's struggle against the Cherokees

in Kentucky, but in William Cullen Bryant's search for

historical associations on the Illinois premise and

Washington Irving's discovegy of rocks in Oklahoma

resembling Moorish castles.
One cannot easily explain away the contradictions of American
poetry of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,
poetry which was ”original in intent yet imitative in effect,
romantic in substance yet neoclassic in form.“2

Although slavish imitation has generally been advanced

as the chief reason for the insipid poetry of the period, other
forces were also at work. For one, belletristic writing
'faltered because it lacked the motivating power of social
approval.”3 The ”mercenary spirit” of Americans early con-

cerned with getting and spending led most American writers to

 

“1'0rigins of a Native American Literary Tradition.“
in.The American Writer and the Euro can Tradition, ed.
Margaret Denny and William H. Gilman (Minneapolis, 1950) p. 65.
:gHoward, “The Late Eighteenth Century,” p. 53.
Spencer, gpest, p. 68.

f..'

 

20
blame the retarded national literature on an unfavorable
social milieu.4u Professor Leon Howard has evaluated the pre-
vailing utilitarianism in accounting for the superficiality

of the literary productions of David Humphreys and his con-

temporaries:

Their country was already beginning to hurtle toward
its place in the world, and they had to keep up with it,
for their United States contained no cultural eddies
into which an educated, well-informed, and energetic
man might retire while his literary talent settled at
its proper balance. . . . The times and circumstances
encouraged belletristic activity that was seven-eighths,
if not wholly, superficial in its results. For a poet.
to suspend the motion of his human blood in an uncertain
effort to attain Wordsworthian harmony 39d depth was
uneconomical, unpatriotic, unthinkable.

The raw stage of development of American culture
also served to retard the growth of an American literature.
In the jargon of twentieth-century social scientists the
United States was an “underdeveloped nation” and its people
‘were in general ”culturally deprived.” Joseph Dennie, in
the Farmer's Museum of February 18, 1799, defended reprinting
articles from British periodicals on the grounds that Amer-

ican society was uncouth:

Every man . . . must be sensible from the newness of
our country, from the deficienty of our seminaries,
from the comparative paucity of books, and from the
almost total want of patronage, that many literar
articles can bgéfurnished in perfection, onIy from
moeeeeee

 

auIbid., p. 6“. A reviewer in the Port Folio (1804)
observed that "the man of trade frowns on the efforts of imag-

ination.” See Flewelling, ”Literary Criticism in American
Magazines,“ p. 136.

5The Connecticut Wits, p. 269.

Quoted in Harold Milton Ellis, Joseph Donnie and
His Circle (“Bulletin of the University of Texas, Studies

in Eng ish no. 3, July 15, 195), pp. 100-101.

 

21
Other reasons advanced for the hck of vitality in American
letters include party factionalism, which diverted the
energies of men such as Freneau, and the absence of copy-
right protection.u7
Whatever were the causes that kept a great national

literature from developing, there was certainly no lack of
determination on the part of American writers. Many must
,have felt the frustration that Hugh Henry Breckenridge gave
expression to as he read Sir Walter Scott's ”The Lady of the
Lake” on the banks of the Ohio. ”Cut off from romantick
base," he cannot find the inspiration to honor his homeland
as Scott had done:

It can't be said that such a dale

Where deeds were done, is where I dwell;

Or that I vegetate among

The hills which once were hills of song.

Here neighbouring to the savage tread

Inglorious I must bend my head,

And think of something else than fame;

Though in my bosom burns the flame

That in a happier age and clime
Might have attempted lofty rhyme.“8

 

“7Spencer, Qpest, p. 66.
“3g @iptle to Walter Scott. written at Pitts-
burgp. . . Sept. 2th, 1 1, on reading The Ladycf the Lake."

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II. MAJOR INFLUENCES IN EARL! AMERICAN
NATURE VERSE

The influence of English poetry worked so strongly
upon American verse that a modern reader, handed a miscellany
of late eighteenth-century verse, often cannot determine the
national origin of its poems from either their form or their
subject. Although as early as 1789 Timothy Dwight and John
Fenno had attacked the literary servility of their country,
the critical climate of American periodicals before 1815 was
so conservative that only the standard Augustan and a few
“pro-Romantic“ authors were held up as worthy of emulation.1
Critics generally denounced Wordsworth's "simplicity“ as
”infantile" or ”silly," for in 1800 it was not the bard of
Graemere who had become their idol but the recluse of Olney,
William Cowper.2 Because the common reader used the standard
English poets as touchstones for judging the efforts of un-
known American writers, editors usually selected for publica-
tion poems which came closest to mirroring the style and per-
formance of such greats as Milton, Dryden, Pope, Thomson,

Goldsmith, Burns, and Cowper, as well as lesser luminaries

 

1Flewelling, "Literary Criticism in American Magazines,“

2The Port Folio, the Monthly Apthology and Boston

Review, and the Literary Magazine, and American Register, which
0 ten disagreed over the relative merits of contemporary
British writers, were in complete accord on the excellence of
Cowper. See Flewelling, p. 103.

22

 

23

from Cowley to Collins to Erasmus Darwin.3

In diction and versification American practice adhered
closely to British. With the popularity of Lord Kames in
America, it was natural for poets to embrace his theory that
the imagination has its own distinctive vocabulary and that
the lofty is the only true poetic style.“ Besides believing
that periphrasis “hath a happy effect in preventing the
familiarity of proper names," he upheld the naturalness of
personification and the apostrophe; he supported elevated
diction over common, such as ”imperious ocean” over ”stormy
ocean”; and he defended inversion as contributing to the

5

force and elevation of poetic language. He did, however,
acknowledge that abstract and general terms ”are not well

adapted to poetry, because they suggest not any image."6 His
views on prosody were dictated by the principle that subject

should determine form: by his standard both rhyme and blank

 

3Lyon N. Richardson, A History of Early American
Magpzines (New York, 1931), p. 7.

“For an evaluation and summary of Lord Kames's
theory of poetic diction, see Ernest Lee Tuveson, The

Inn nation as a Means of Grace (Berkeley, 1960), 337 156-
57. An interesting sidelight of Kames's influence on
‘American critics is provided by a letter to the editor of
the Monthl Ma zine (1800, III, 185): ”It vexes me, Sir,
every month to find your critic measuring our American
productions by rules precisely such as Tooke, Harris,

Kaimes [sic], Blair, or Lowth would have applied to British
efforts of genius.” See Flewelling, p. 178.

5Henry Home, Lord Kames, Elements of Criticism
(Philadelphia, n. d.), pp. 157-96 pass a.

Ibid., p. 186.

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verse were suitable for “elevated" subjects, although for
“any severe or serious passion" rhyme produces a ”dissonance
between the subject and the melody.'7 Kames had little to
say about metrics; but Thomas Jefferson, who,it seems,
could hold forth on any subject, recognized only three kinds
of meter--iambic, trochaic, and anapestic--and he dogmatically
disallowed any variation from the letter of the law: "The
English poet . . . must so arrange his words that their
established accents shall fall regularly in one of these

.8

three orders. In practice, of course, one finds American

poets using the verse forms and meters of their favorite
British authors, with whatever variation their practice
allowed. The heroic couplet, the octosyllabic couplet (varied
frequently by batches of seven-stress lines), the ballad
stanza and other arrangements of the quatrain, blank verse,
odes, and occasional sonnets--all were used in poetry pub-
lished in America between 1783 and 1812.

For subject matter American.poets looked most often

to external nature as best meeting their needs, and eighteenth-

 

 

7Ibid., pp. 158-59.

31a a letter of 1789, which turned into a virtual pro-
sodic essay, Jefferson explained the principles of English
versification to his French acquaintance, M. de Chastellux.
According to Paul Fussell, Jr., Jefferson's conservative and
restrictiveviews represent those of the common reader of the
time. The English poet Shenstone and, to a lesser extent,
Collins and Gray, supply the bulk of the manyquotations used

in the letter. See Theor of Prosod in Ei teenth-Centur
Eflfiéeafl (New London, CEnnectIcut, I555), pp. 2§J§6T"""z

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25
century English verse gave them numerous guides to follow.
They could imitate individual poems, such as well known pro-
ductions of Thomson, Pope, or Shenstone, or they could use
the conventions or motifs associated with particular schools
or genres. If one reads enough American nature poetry of
this period, patterns emerge in which the influence of cer-
tain poets and types of poems can be detected more frequently
than others. Standing out as pervasive influences are
Pomfret's ”The Choice” and poems with similar themes; Mac-
pherson's Ossianic poems; Thomson's The Seasons; Neoclassic
pastoral poetry; the Graveyard School; and topographical
poetry.

In light of the vogue for simplicity so characteristic
of eighteenth-century America, the pervasiveness of verse
praising rural contentment is hardly surprising. As a Neo-
classic literary theme, the retirement urge can be traced to
Pomfret's ”The Choice” (1700), a poem whose popularity elicited
from Dr. Samuel Johnson the remark that ”perhaps no composi-
tion in our language has been oftener perused. . . .“9 Its
widespread acceptance in.America resulted in many imitations,
the first--William Livingston's 'Philosophic Solitude'--pub-
lished in 17h? and reprinted at least twice later in the

 

9Samuel Johnson, "Life of Pomfret,‘ Lives of the
English Poets (London, 1955), I, 211.

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26
century.10 Benjamin Church's "The Choice" (1757), the other
important imitation, closely follows Pomfret in setting forth
the pleasures open to a country gentleman of taste and means.
It represents the Horatian ideal of nothing to excess--
neither too much time alone nor too many friends, neither too
much studying nor too much quaffing.

No needless Show my modest Dome should claim,
Meat and genteel without, within the same;
Decently furnish'd to content and please,
Sufficient for Necessity, and Ease. . . .

0f the many imitations of Pomfret's poem, undoubtedly one
of the worst is "A Poor Buck's Wish”: '

A snug retreat, few miles from town,

That friends on Sunday nights come down;--
A library of books well chose,

0f sentimental verse or prose,

A hardy, steady useful steed,

Which might upon the common feed.11

Despite the prevalence of rural-retirement poems in
EnGland, their popularity in America was little short of

Phenomenal.12 Besides numerous verses on solitude, beginning

¥

10Edwin T. Bowden, ”Benjamin Church's Choice and
American Colonial Poetry,‘ New England Quarte‘I—i- y, XXXII
(June, 1959), 171. The incongruity of the retreat urge in
‘ar1¥.America has often been noted. Typical is the remark in
SEAL. I, 162: ”Though dwelling in a small American town, he
Udfiingston] sighs for solitude as longingly as he might have
d°ne in a world capital.“

11Anon., “A Poor Buck's Wish," Effusions of Female

Em; (New York, 1790), p. #3.

0f 2Prominent among eighteenth-century English poems

. rural retirement that.Americans could draw from are Pope's
Agde to Solitude,’ Lady Winchilsea's "Petition for an

P aOlute Retreat," Matthew Green's ”The Spleen,” and Thomas
‘rnell's ”Health” and ”A Hymn to Contentment.” Far from

91R. confined to th ei teenth ce t he theme a ears
In cgarles Cotton's eThegiRaetiremente (I676), Sidney'spp

h

I':

 

27
like Pope's "Happy the man . . .," one finds in periodicals
of the period such constantly recurring titles as "The
Choice,” ”On Retirement," or "To Content." Although the
place of retirement was usually a country estate, poets more
democratically inclined chose a humble "cottage of content"
or a still humbler woodland cell to whiCh a stoical hermit,
poor in worldly possessions, has fled to escape "fierce
Ambition" or ”pale Discontent."13 As late as 1812 the well-
vmrn retirement urge was given expression by a writer who,
as the discriminating editor of the Eppp‘gpllp, should have
known better. Joseph Dennie's eulogy to his father contains

one stanza in which the distinguished editor pleaded:

Arcadia, and Spencer's Sixth book of The Fairie Queen, among
a host of others. As an aspect of cultural primitivism,
the theme reflects a fundamental tendency of man to seek
Security in an ever simpler mode of life. Professor

As O. Lovejoy states, "Civilized man has been almost con-
tinuously subject to moods of revolt against civilization,
which in some sense is, indeed, profoundly contrary to his
nature; and in the Serious preachers of primitivism this
revolt has been chronic and intense. But the belief in the
suPeriority of the simple life of 'nature' has been the
manifestation sometimes of a hedonistic, sometimes of a
r1Soristic and even ascetic, conception of the nature of

he good, and sometimes of a mixture of both." See preface
to Lois Whitney, Primitivism and the Idea of Progress
(Baltimore, 1934), p. xiv.

13For the retirement theme in estate poems, see
Chapter III; for examples of less ostentatious places of
retreat, see Anon., ”The Cottage of Content, American
~Bésgg, XI (1792), app. 1, 21, and Anon., "Beautiful Lines

10mposed in a Hermitage," Massachusetts Magazipp, I (May,
789), 116.

f—V— ~_

 

 

 

28

Teach me, thou venerable bower,
Cool Meditation's quiet seat,

The enerous scorn pg mushroom ower,
The 31 ent grandeur of retreat.

The vogue of Ossian in America, which had important
ramifications for American nature poetry, reflected the enor-
mous popularity abroad of James Macpherson's ”translation”
of the poems of the Celtic bard. Although introduced to
America in 1766, the prose poems received relatively meager
attention until after the Revolutionary War, when versifi-
cations and imitations began to appear in American periodicals;15
in 1790 the first American edition of the poems was published,

after which for several years they "became the subject of

.16

continuous discussion and imitation. Thomas Jefferson was

one of those who early reacted warmly to the Ossianic blend
of remoteness, melancholy, and grandeur:

These pieces have been, and will, I think, during my
lifetime, continue to be to me the sources of daily
pleasures. The tender and sublime emotions of the mind
were never before so wrought up by human hand. I am
not ashamed to own that I think this rude bard of the
north the greatest poet that has ever existed.17

1“Jose h Dennie, [no title], P rt Folio, VII
(January, 1812 9 970

15Richardson, History of Early American Magazines,

161". I. Carpenter, ”The Vogue of Ossian in America,"
glorican Literature, II (January, 1931), #09. Among poets of
Bhe 1790's who versified Macpherson's translations were John
Blur Linn, William Mumford, Josias Lyndon Arnold, Joseph

rovm Ladd, and Jonathan Mitchell Sewall.

or 17From a letter by Jefferson to Charles Macpherson
C Edinburgh, Scotland, February 25, 1773. Quoted in
aI'Penter, p. #07.

p° ‘92.

 

29
No other literary work of the mid or late eighteenth
century offers better evidence of the growth of the cult of
sensibility and the developing taste for the sublime in nature.
In harmony with these trends was the backdrop in the poems
of mountains, crags, caves, and tombs in mist, as well as
the sad songs of separated kindred and laments over the dead:
Arise winds of autumn, arise; blow along the heath!
streams of the mountains roar! roar, tempests, in the
groves of my oaks! walk through broken clouds, O moon!
show thy pale face, at intervals! bring to my mind the
night, when all my children fell; wggn Arindal the mighty
fell; when Daura the lovely failed!
Such ‘sublime' poetry found a ready audience in America where
the search for material for a national literature had made
tmth poet and critic aware of the possibilities of sublime
nature in their own country. Possessing even wilder and more
sombre scenery than Scotland, America would produce an even
Sunder poetry, for it was commonly believed that the pro-
duction of sublime poetry required only sublime subject matter.
Ivikewise, Ossian and his imitators and versifiers were popular
bBoause Americans wanted to put their own past to literary
"50. and Macpherson, in successfully resurrecting the past
Of his own country, offered theminspiration.19
Through.gpp Seasons, James Thomson left an indelible

1mDression upon American nature poetry of the late eighteenth

°°ntury. Yet the many poems bearing his stamp generally have

‘

lazipgel (1762).
19Howard, ”The Late Eighteenth Century,” p. 82.

 

 

 

30
been judged failures: "To read one is to know all, with

their. . . conventional and generalized descriptions of

.20

scenery that might as well be English as American. Even

though this evaluation cannot be disputed, Egg Seasons made
important contributions to descriptive poetry, mainly in
revealing how the everchanging moods of nature often could
be delineated more effectively in words than in actual land-
scape painting:

Now, by the cool declining Year condens'd,
Descend the copious Exhalations, check'd

As up the middle Sky unseen they stole,

And roll the doubling Fogs around the Hill.

No more the Mountain, horrid, vast, sublime,
Who pours a Sweep of Rivers from his Sides,
And high between contending Kingdoms rears
The rocky long Division, fills the View

With great Variety; but in a Night

Of gathering Vapour, from the baffled Sense,
Sinks dark and dreary. Thence expanding far,
The huge Dusk, gradual, swallows up the Plain.
Vanish the Woods. The dim-seen River seems
Sullen, and slow, to rowl the misty Wave.

Even in the Height of Noon opprest, the Sun
Sheds weak, and blunt, his wide-refracted Ray;
Whence glaring oft, with many a broaden'd Orb,
He frights the Nations. Indistinct on Earth,
Seen thro' the turbid Air, beyond the Life,
Objects appear; and, wilder'd, o'er the Waste
The Shepherd stalks gigantic. Till at last
Wreath'd dun around, in deeper Circles still
Successive closing, sits the general Fog
Unbounded o'er the World; and, mingligg thick,
A formless grey Confusion covers all.

Thomson's pictorial technique has been the subject
16 20Samuel Marion Tucker, ”The Beginnings of Verse,
1 10-1808,“ Cambrid e Histor of American Literature (new
Ork, 1917): I: 1

21'Autumn' (1730) lines 715-739.

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31
of critical dispute. Some have compared his method to spe-
cific painters or paintings; others believe that "it is a
misunderstanding to argue . . . that verbal and visual organ-
ization are interchangeable."22 The very fact that critics
dispute his debt to landscape painting is some indication of
how far he had carried objective description toward stronger
and richer imagery than had ever been known in descriptive
poetry. But because his “pictures“ serve as "ideal representa-
tions“ good ”for any year or for all years” and because he
describes the ‘genus rather than the individual,"23 poets
who slavishly followed him could.add nothing to his technique
that he had not already perfected. Furthermore, in attempting
to instruct as well as to please his readers, Thomson encour-
aSed his followers to fill their poems with excessive
uoralizing and tiresome didactic episodes.

The adulation expressed by the young Joseph Dennie in
ins 'Panegyrick on Thomson“ (1789) illustrates the qualities
1'1 2'32 Seasons that followers of Thomson admired, and it
further suggests their perversions of his technique that
reBulted in superficiality and sterility. After summoning
kufl ”youthful muse” to "hail the master of the rural song,”

the fledgling poet reviews how Thomson had renewed man's

¥

22Ralph Cohen, The t of Discrimination: Thomson's
$29 Seasons and the Langpage of Criticism (Berkeley, 1965),

23Dwight L. Durling, Geor ic Tradition in En lish
~22££y (New York, 1935), p. 5,

32
interest in nature. Man had long been ”foe to Nature's
simple charms,” and "with eye averted scarcely deign'd to
view/ The scenes enchanting, which her pencil form'd.‘ Then
the goddess Nature
. . . call'd her favourite son,
To him her pencil, and her landscape gave,
And bade him paint anew the sylvan scene.
The bard obey'd; with softened tints retouch'd,
Great Nature's work. . . .
When Nature viewed what he had accomplished, she "own'd her-
self outdone.” The panegyric is concluded with characteris-
tiijraise of the power of Thomson's ”moral page” to "improve
the heart.'2“
Following the publication of the first American edition
of 2gp Seasons in 1777, numerous imitations began to appear
2
in.periodicals. 5 One of the better of these, the anonymous
'A.Winter—Piece' (1789), begins:
New winter rules the year, and wing'd with frost,
The piercing northwest flies--Upon the plain,
And on the neighb'ring hills, the leafless trees
stand rueful. . . .26
One of the worst, ”Winter” (1788), closes as does Thomson's
”Winter,” heralding the approach of spring, but here all
81Milarity ends: ”Hail, fairest season! hail, thouiharming

_h

M ZhEJoseph Dennis], 'Panegyrick on Thomson,"
asBachusetts Ma azine, I (February, 1789), 361.

S 25There were at least ten other editions before 1815.
as G. H. Orians in Transitions, p. 222, and CHAL, I, 163.

VI 26D. F. [snout], ”A Winter-Piece," American Museum,
(December. 1789), 484. -------—

 

 

 

 

 

33

spring,/ Come, lovely virgin, to our longing arms... . ."27
During the last decade of the century American poets were
busy recasting Thomson into countless verses on the seasons,
months, and days, as well as other phases of nature such as
thunderstorms. Among the most ambitious imitations in
length were Samuel Low's Winter DiSplayed (1784 and 1800),
John.Hayes' “A Description of the Seasons” (1807), and John
D. McKinnon's four seasonal poems descriptive of scenery in
New York state and of winter life in the city.28

If Thomson's :23 Seasons was the greatest single influ-
ence on American nature poetry, the greatest collective influ-
ence was the pastoral genre. Although pastoral poetry admits
of varying definitions, the theories of the pastoral expounded
by neoclassic English critics guided most Americans in their
practice of the genre. In Theories of Pastoral Poetry_lp
En land, J. E. Congleton calls John.Newbery's The Art of
Poetry Made Easy (1746) “the nadir of neoclassic pastoral
theory.”29 but this bit of doggerel, which sums up the prin-
(hples of the pastoral in its most restrictive fonm, illus-

trates the formula many American poets followed:

—~

27Aspasio [pseudo], ”Winter,” American Magazine, I
(November, 1788) , 872.

28Being among the relatively few poems strongly in-
fluenced by Thomson to describe specifically named localities,
McKinnon's poems (the titles of which are contained in the

appended checklist) rank as important specimens of Anerican
topographical poetry.

29(Caineeville, Florida, 1952), p. 111.

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The Pastoral, which sings of happy Swains

And harmless Nypphs that haunt the Woods and Plains,
Should through the Whole discover eery where
Their old Simplicity and Pious Air;

And in the Characters of Maids and Youth,
Unpractis'd Plainness, Innocence, and Truth.
Each Pastoral a little Plot must own,

Which, as it must be simple, must be one:

Its Style must still be natural and clear,

And Elegance in ev'ry Part appear:

Its humble Method nothing has of Fierce,

But hates the Battling of a lofty Verse;

With native Beauty pleases and excites,

And never with harsh sounds the Ear affrights.30

One scholar has aptly termed the majority of
eighteenth-century pastoral poems “pretty conventions,
pleasant but unimportant.’32L And from Richard Steele's
appreciation in the Guardian, one can readily infer their
intellectual emptiness as declarations of eighteenth-century
primitivism. According to Steele, the pastoral

. . . transports us to a kind of fairy-land, where

our ears are soothed with the melody of birds, bleating
flocks, and purling streams; our eyes enchanted with
flowery meadows and springing greens, we are laid under
cool shades, and entertained with all the sweets and
freshness of nature.32

To begin to cite the pastoral dialogues, pastoral
elegies, pastoral odes, and pastoral ballads which were pub-
lished in the United States around the close of the century

¥

112 3oQuoted in Congleton, Theories of Pastoral Poetr ,
P. .

31Margaret Mary Fitzgerdld, First Follow Nature:
Privitivism in English Poetry, 122§:l§5§ (New York, I947),
p0 0

”Richard Steele, "On a Country Life--Pastoral
Poetry.“ Guardian no. 22, April 6, 1713.

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35 ,
would be at best repetitious and unrewarding. Golden Age
shepherds and their mates frisked with complete abandon
through the poetry columns of the periodicals. Delia,
Colin, Corydon, Phyllis, Hebe, Rosalinda, Chloe, Damon, and
Strephon are among the practitioners of a pseudo-Arcadian
innocence and ease. As late as 1805 Joseph Dennie, as editor
of the gppp‘gp;;p, was forced to warn his contributors: “It
is rare to find a song, which has a Chloris, a Phillis, a
Delia, or Amarillis in it, possessed of sufficient merit, to
entitle it to the rank of mediocrity. . . .'33

Not all American pastoral poems, however, followed
the neoclassic dictum that the pastoral should present an
image of the Golden Age exemplified in Virgil's eclogues.34
Many of them reflected the views of those eighteenth-century
critics who believed the pastoral could.more freely deal
‘with country life than extreme neoclassic authoritarianism
Ipermitted. As the century passed, poems like Shenstone's
’A Pastoral Ballad“ (1755), which was often imitated in
America, began to contain closer observation of nature and

more genuine expressions of romantic love.35 With lovers'

___

33Joseph Dennie, “Miscellaneous Paragraphs,“ Port
£01io, V (May 18, 1805), 148.

3”Congleton, Theories of Pastoral Poetr , p. 305.

35Cong1eton (p. 126) maintains that Shenstone's
jpeeas contain “touches of Romanticism.“

 

 

 

 

 

36
complaints taking place in more realistic surroundings, land-
scape description assumed more importance; even poets who
otherwise stuck doggedly to Golden Age conventions started
using indigenous American settings.36 As cultural primitiv-
ism replaced chronological primitivism in depicting the good
life, the inhabitants of classical Arcadia assumed local
characteristics; shepherds became simple farm hands, as in
Thomas James's "The Country Meeting,”37 or even Indians, whom
cultural primitivists--most of them British-~had turned to
as perfect illustrations of "their theories of sensibility,
benevolence, and the sacredness of the natural instincts."38
The Indian appears in several pastoral narratives of the
1790's and early 1800's, notably Freneau's "The Indian Stu-
dent: or the Force of Nature” (1788) and Mrs. Sarah wentworth
inorton's Ouabi: orI The Virtues of Nature (1790). Freneau
draws no moral in telling of the Indian who left Harvard
college to return to his native woods; Mrs. Morton more
typically takes sides by contrasting the corrupting luxury
of civilized life with the wholesome simplicity of a life

close to nature.

¥

36Joseph Dannie saw the incongruity of Arcadian
shepherds carrying on their dull business along American
trivers. To a would-be contributor to the Port Folio he wrote:
”The pastoral dialogue between two shepherds of Schuylkill,
we are obliged to reject, with some degree of loathing.
See Port Folio, I (September 19, 1801), 303.

37American Museum, IV (1788), “78-79.

38Vhitney, Primitivism and the Idea of Pro ess,

D. 11“.

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37
Ancillary to the influence of pastoral poetry, the
imported Della Cruscan fad took extraordinary hold in Amer-
ica and led to a flood of sentimental poems in which pastoral
conventions figured prominently. In England this debased
manifestation of the cult of sensibility had been made pop-
ular by Robert Merry, a British emigre in Italy, who, sign-
ing his effusions ”Della Crusca," engaged in an epistolary
flirtation with Mrs. Hannah Cowley (”Anna Matilda“). First
published in the London.!g£ld in 1787, the poems attracted
:much attention, and in 1790 the craze took hold in America
with 'Philenia's' (Mrs. Sarah Nentworth Morton's) ”Lines
.Addressed to the Inimitable Author of the Poems under the
signature of Della Crusca':
Across the vast Atlantic tide
Down.Apalachia's grassy side,
What echo ng Sounds the Soul beguile,
fihlsfififi-Q-S-Bt-éfifié Eiiééfiy‘téizf

That f cats the western shores along.39
Over the next decade newspapers, magazines, and
Iniscellanies readily succumbed to popular demand for verse
fron.American Della Cruscans, whose affectations and eccen»
tricities are well revealed by such poetical signatures as
Carlos, Orlando, Adelaide, Arouet, Philomela, Euphelia,
Constantia, Philenia, and, of course, Anna Natilda. ‘Royall

¥

39This poem, first published as an addendum to Mrs.
3. V. Morton's Ouabi: or, The Virtues of Nature, was subse-
Quently reprinted in the American Museum and in E. H.
Smith's American Poems (1791). See Fred Lewis Pattee,
'The First Centur of American Literature 1 0-18 0 (New
York. 19 5 . pp. 07-10 .

 

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Tyler's satirical ”Address to Della Crusca . . .,” the
first influential reaction to the craze, well illustrates
the extent to which these posts had enlisted the American
landscape in support of the rhetorical sublime:

Let loose thy epithets. . .

Draw forth thy gorgeous sword of damask'd rhyme,
And ride triumphant through Columbia's clime,
Till sober lettered sense shall dying smile,
Before the mighty magic of thy style . . .

What sonorous streams meander through thy lays;
what lakes shall bless thy rich bequest of praise . . .
How will Ohio roll his lordly stream,

What blue mists dance upon the liquid stream!
Gods! how sublime shall Della Crusca rage,

When all Niagara cataracts thy page . . .
Rise,-5311a Crusca, prince of bards sublime,

And pour on us whole cataracts of rhyme . . .

Be the grand standard of thy style unfurled,
Proclain thy sounding page from shore to shore,
And swear that sense in verse shall be no more.“

Poets of the Graveyard School, read with avidity in
America, inspired numerous admirers to use ruin paraphernalia
in creating melancholy landscapes as backgrounds for thoughts
on life, death, and immortality. Although the ”black“ relig-
ious melancholy of Young's Night Thoughts (l7h2) and Blair's
The Grave (17h3) found acceptance among American readers, it
‘was the milder melancholy associated with pensiveness and
retirement--the mood, in short, of Gray's ”Elegy in a Country
Church-yard" (1751)--that prevailed in the last half of the

~

“oRoyall Tyler's “Address to Della Crusca, Humbly
.Atteapted in the Sublime Style of that Fashionable Author'
(signed ”Della Yankee") was published in Joseph Dennie's
iParmer's Museum, Kay 16, 1797. See h. Ray Adams, "Della
r———_—rusoanisn in An‘ erica,” Lung, anx (June, 1964), 259-65.

 

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eighteenth century.41 The elegaic mood for which Gray's

poem served as the norm was
. . .pensive rather than deeply mournful, penetrated
with a love of quiet and solitude and philosophic
musing. Its favorite themes are death and mutability.
Its favorite haunts are ivied ruins and yew-shaded
churchyards. It loves twilight and silence and the notes
of the sweet bird that shuns the noise of folly. Its
basis is an intellectual contemplation of the in-

stability of life and fame, and its emotion is vague and
diffuse. . . .“2

The revelations of sympathy, humanitarianism, and self-pity
in the “Elegy" accorded well with the vogue of sensibility
‘which was beginning to exert its influence on American
literature, and Gray's mortuary landscape capitalized upon
the fad for the ruins of manpmade structures which the
eighteenth-century Englishman's interest in the past and in
“picturesque” scenes had generated.“3 In American poetry,
however, the muted notes of sentimental gloom were heard
oftener in dark forests or besides lonely streams than amid
ivied ruins, for finding their country lacking in Gothic
churches and.mou1dering castles, Americans looked more fre-
quently than their English cousins to the wild and irregular
”ruins” of the natural world for ”Graveyard” paraphernalia.
Poems of the early national period influenced by
ElIn the last quarter of the eighteenth century

appeared eight.American editions of Young's Night Thoughts
and twelve of Blair's The Grave. (See James D. Hart, The

lPo ular Book, p. 28.) Between 1790 and 1810 Gray's “Elegy“
reached a peak of fame in England and America unmatched in
‘the history of poetry. See Eleanor M. Sickels, The Gloohy

iEgoist: Hoods and Themes of Melancholy from Gray to Keats
“9' York, 193 , pe 93o
“Zaiekeie, The Gloom E let, p. 11.

“3Pitzgerald, zirst Follow Nature, p. 137.

~

- 4—,... _

 

 

 

 

 

40
Graveyard conventions range from Freneau's well known “House

of Night” and ”The Indian Burying Ground,“ both in many ways
highly original poems, to insipid imitations of Gray by anony-
mous and pseudonymous poetasters who indulge their melancholy
at evening in rural graveyards which, despite their lack of
yew trees and 'ivy-mantled towers,” are even in worse state
of neglect than the famous one at Stoke-Pages. One in par-
ticular needs a sexton's care:
In this neglected spot, where grazing kine
O'er many a mould'ring grave, unconscious tread,

And withering weeds and creeping brambles twine
Their gloomy foliage o'er promiscuous dead--

Nell pleas'd, I rove. . . .4»
By the late eighteenth century, topographical poetry

in England had become a well established poetic genre. The
Gentleman's Magazine in 1788 complained that readers ”have
‘been.used to see the Muses labouring up . . . many hills
since Cooper's and Grongar, and some gentle Bard reclining
on.almost every mole-hill.'“5 English ”hill” poems and sim-
ilar poems describing specific localitiesrad numerous counp
terparts in America, the best known being Greenfield Hill by
Timothy Dwight. Relative to the total amount of nature verse
‘Iritten and published in Federalist America, topographical'

Ipoetry holds a minor position, but it is of major significance

g

uuAnon., 'An Elegy written in the Burial Ground at
.._______,"American Museum, XI (1792), app. 1, 9.

h5Gentleman's Magazine, LVIII (1788), 151. Quoted
infaaymond‘Dexter Havens, The Inf uence of Milton on lish
?Poetrz (Cambridge, 1922), p. .

#1
in revealing how poets used the American landscape to meet
the needs of a national literature.

Topographical poetryb-also labeled ”local" or ”loco-
descriptive'--had emerged as a distinctive type in the seven-
teenth century with Sir John Denham's Cogper's Hill (1642).“6
Over a century after its appearance, Dr. Samuel Johnson, with
his usual perspicuity, defined the type that had emerged.

Of Denham he wrote, "He seems to have been . . . the author
or a species of composition that may be denominated 1329‘;
Boetrl, of which the fundamental subject is some particular
landscape, to be poetically described, with the addition

or such embellishments as may be supplied by historical
retrospection, or incidental meditation. ”“7 Although Dr.
Johnson's definition suffices for the conventional product,
the development of Romantic subjectivity inevitably resulted
in less formalized “local” poetry. ‘

Following Coo er's Hill, three poems that marked
important stages in the development of the genre as Johnson
defined it were Pope's Windsor-Forest (1713), John Dyer's
Erogar Hill (1726), and Thomson's The Seasons (1730).“8

\

uéJohn Dyer, Gro Hill, ed. Richard C. Boys (Bal-
timore, 1941), p. 26.

“7 Lives of the English Poets (London, 1955) I, 58.

“BAlthough The Seasons contains a few topographical
Passages, neither by intention or design are the four poems
tOpogr'aphical; nevertheless, the influence of Thomson on
the genre was far-reaching. See Durling, Georgie Tradition

.111 ggiish Poetry, p. 196.

#2
lhiwindsor-Forest Pope refined many of the motifs which Den-
hsm had introduced, but the vague ”here . . .there" descrip-
tuye technique did little to advance landscape description
toward more accuracy and vividness of detail:

Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day:

Q C O Q C O O O O O O Q

There, interspers'd in lawns and op'ning glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.
Here in full light the russet plains extend: h
There wrapt in clouds the blueish plains ascend. 9
Although John Dyer seems to have had less influence on the
genre than either Denham or Pope, his handling of description
did.mmoh to improve the quality of topographical poetry.50
In Cooper's Hill and Windsor-Forest the didactic urge had
Overwhelmed the descriptive, but Dyer's poem nicely balances
the two essentials of topographical poetry, “the loved
Physical substance and the happy thought."53L His most famous
reflection accompanies a ruin-piece, complete with crumbling,
1vymcovered towers: once this "pile” was complete,
But transient is the smile of fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sun beam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.
In describing the landscape from the hilltop (”Now I gain
the mountain's brow,/ What a landskip lies below"), Dyer

"8 among the first to contrive an effect analogous to landscape
\_

”9Vindsor-Porest, lines 17-24.

5°Durling, Qeorgic Tradition, p. 196.

p 190 51Geoffrey Tillotson, Aughstan Studies (London, 1961),

win?
luav’

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painting, for as his ”wandiring eye” ranges the pros-
pect, he pauses to describe each scene in sufficient detail
and vividness ”to enable the reader to visualize a picture

after the manner of the landscape painters Salvator Rosa

and Claude :l'..orrain."52
Even though Dyer brought to the type a genuine feeling

for>nature, The Seasons, with its greater popularity, exerted
a more lasting influence on topographical poetry by extending
the knowledge and popularity of the picturesque and by
revealing the possibilities of Miltonic blank verse.53 The
description of a waterfall in "Summer” demonstrates Thom-

son's skill with graphic detail, as well as his mastery of

Hank verse:

. . . swift-shrinking back,
I check my steps and view the broken scene.
Smooth to the shelving brink a copious flood
Rolls fair and placid: where, collected all
In one impetuous torrent, down the steep
It thundering shoots, and shakes the country round.
At first, an azure sheet, it rushes broad:
Then, whitening by degrees as prone it falls,
And from the loud-resounding rocks below
Dashed in a cloud of foam, it sends aloft
A hoary mist and forms a ceaseless shower.

USuallythe scenes described in detail in The Seasons are not

80 "rough'35l" more often, as in the prospect from Hagley

SZChristopher Hussey, The Pictures ue: Studies in a
£321nt of View (New York, 1927), p. l3.

Robert A. Aubin, To 0 rs hical Poetr in XVIII-
Eenturz England (New York, I956), p. 86.

n lines excised from the final version of ”Summer"
tthereon labeled the waterfall view a ”rough prospect.“ See

Klan Dugald HeKillop, The Back ound of Thomson's Seasons
(Hinneapolis, 19%), p. 73'.

 

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Park, they reflect Addisonian concepts of "greatness,”
“novelty,” and "beauty":55
Meantime you gain the height, from whose fair brow
The bursting prospect spreads immense around:
And snatch'd o'er hill and dale, and wood and lawn,
And verdant field, and darkening heath between,
And villages embosomed soft in trees,
And spiry towns by surging columns marked
0f household smoke, your eye excursive roams--
Wide-stretching from the Hall in whose kind haunt
The hospitable Genius lingers still,
To where the broken landscape, by degrees
Ascending, roughens into rigid hills

0'er which the Cambrian mountains, like fgr clouds,
That skirt the blue horizon, dusky rise.5

William Cowper's The Task (1785), while it stimulated
an already widespread interest in descriptive poetry, did
little to influence the direction of the topographical
genre.57 The two prospect-pieces in Book I represent conp
ventionally picturesque scenes described for their own sake
and not for what they reveal of the poet's own state of

mind. In his description of the scenery along the River
Ouse, Cowper presents with sharpness and accuracy what he
sees, but with emphasis on land in cultivation and on nature

adorned by art, he shows himself firmly allied with

 

33For a discussion of Addison's aesthetic theories
as they relate to the ”picturesque” tradition, see
Chapter V under the heading "The Prospect.”

From ”Spring.” 0n the basis of such passages McKillop
(p. 73) says it is evident that Thomson ”prefers varied pros-
pects and large-scale light effects to the rugged, the sublime.“

57Along with Cowper's other poems, The Task enjoyed
considerable popularity in America. Between 1787 and 1800
it appeared in at least four American editions, and it even
Penetrated to the frontier: portions were printed in 1h__e_
Palladium of Frankfort, Kentucky, on August 9, 1798. See
Ralph Leslie Rusk, The Literature of the Middle Western
Imnntier (New York, 1926), II, 11.

 

 

 

 

 

#5
isnlassic tradition:

Row oft upon you eminence our pace

‘ Has slacken'd to a pause, and we have born
The ruffling wind, scarce conscious that it blew,
While admiration, feeding at the eye,
And still unsated, dwelt upon the scene.
Thence with what pleasure have we just discern'd
The distant plough slow moving, and beside
His lab'ring team, that swerv'd not from the track,
The sturdy swain dimhmhfld to a boy!
Here Ouse, slow winding through a level plain
0f spacious meads with cattle sprinkled o'er,
Conducts the eye along its sinuous course
Delighted. There, fast rooted in their bank,
Stand, never overlook'd, our fav'rite elms,
That screen the herdsman's solitary hut:
While far beyond, and overthwart the stream
That, as with molten glass, inlays the vale,
The sloping land recedes into the clouds;
Displaying on its varied side the grace
0f hedge-row beauties numberless, square towfir,
Tall spire, from which the sound of cheerful bells
Just undulates upon the list'ning ear,
Groves, heaths, and smoking villages, remote.

As this prospect-piece indicates, techniques in land-
scape description had changed little between Thomson and
Cowper. Romantic subjectivity could hardly be deemed an
important force until early in the nineteenth century, and
in the meantime, topographical poets painted their prospects,
expounded local history, and offered moral precepts gg
cathedra. Thomas Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton
Collegg (17h?) was the first important poem in the genre to
interpret, if ever so briefly, the effect of the prospect
on the author's own temperament. Analysis of subjective
«States became more common, however, with the realization
that grand, wild, and somber works of nature could inspire

reverential awe rather than terror or mystification. George

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Keats's The Alps (1763) was the first of a long line of
poems that led to the triumph of mountain glory over
mountain gloom.58 But notwithstanding such excellent
topographical poems as Tintern Abbey (1798) and Shelley's
Lines Written among the Eughnean Hills (1819), the old
didactic-descriptive poem, in which the poet is a spectator
rather than an interpreter of nature, persisted well into
the nineteenth century.

The Romantic revolt of 1798 had little immediate
influence in either England or America, and at the turn of
the century the state of topographical poetry in the two
countries was the same. Denham, Pope, Dyer, and Thomson
were the chief models, and subjectivity--when it did appear--
seldom rose above sentimentalism. The review of Richard Jago's
Ed e-Hill, published in the Port Folio in 180#, contained
criteria for evaluating topographical poetry that critics
in both countries could accept: ”the poem of Edge-Hill is
local; and though it is embellished with strong painting,
apt allusions, historical incidents, and moral reflections
yet its descriptions are not always adapted exclusively to

the place it professes to celebrate."59 By adhering to

T—

588ee Marjorie Hope Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and
Mountain Glor : The Develo ment of the Aesthetics of the
Infinite Ithaca, New York, 1959 , pp. 21-27: also R. A.

.Aubin, Topogphphical Poetry, p. 90.
Anon., ”Biography. Life of Richard Jago,‘ Port

Folio, IV (February 25, 180#), 62.

          

 

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#7
these criteria, American poets practiced an unsuccessful
double allegiance, for in looking to England for forms and
techniques common to tapographical poetry and to their own
country for the substance, they wrote poetry that, for all
its professed faithfulness to the American scene, might as
well be English as American. Believing that people of
refined taste the world over ”see" a landscape identically,
they failed to realize that a scene in nature achieves its
individuality through the poet's own vision, not through its
national origin. Earnestly wanting a national literature,
they merely succeeded in showing that the Hudson by any

other name would still be picturesque.

 

.
'1-4

 

‘4

I .

III. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL POEM: TYPES

The divided allegiance of American poets--to eighteenth-
century English poetry on one hand and to the realities of
American nature on the other--complicates an attempt to
analyze American topographical poetry. For useful categories
one looks both to the tradition and to the native environment;
but, in either case,there still remains the difficulty of defin-
ing' the genre itself. Although literary histories often
limit "topographical" poetry to conventional "hill" poems,
such a restriction fails to account for other kinds of
descriptive poems with localized settings, both those with
traditionally picturesque descriptions interspersed,in Dr.
Johnson's words, with "embellishments" and those that as time
passed exhibited more and more the influence of "sensibility"
and the freedom of expression associated with Romantic sub-
jectivity. Defying rigid definition, "topographical" accounts
for poems as different in mood and form as Byron's "Lochin
y Gair” and Denham's'booper's Hill."

A classification using the categories Neoclassic,
pre-Romantic, and Romantic lacks value if only for the
'vagueness of the terms as indices to poetic content; and
eaven if one accepts the terms as convenient labels for
liistorical periods, they have little relevance to American
INDetry, which until the Revolution lacked even a national
1clentity and which displays no important mileposts, such as

#8

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I;-

#9
make Warton's ”The Enthusiast” and hyphphl_§h;;hg§ turning
points of sorts in English poetry. A more workable classifi-
cation.might involve a twofold differentiation between poems
having motifs and conventions associated with Neoclassic
standards of restraint, correctness, order, and decorum
and those associated with "sensibility" and "enthusiasm”
in Romantic poetry, but seldom does a poem exhibit ex-
clusively the characteristics of a single school.

Another classification, based on the type of topo-
graphy described,would have the advantage of being unmis-
takably adapted to the American environment, for at the
end of the eighteenth century two general kinds of scenery
vied for poetic attentions-the hill and dale, field and
stream landscape, east of the Appalachians where nature's
rudeness had been tamed to man's control, and the rugged
western frontier where nature was a strange and vital force
and not merely ”picturesque.” Presumably the wilderness
would call forth responses different from those of the
cultivated East. But with rare exception such was not the
case, for the frontier elicited responses as conventional as
the seaboard. One is finally forced to reject these
possibilities in favor of categories based primarily on the
type and physical extent of the features described, a system
which Robert Aubin uses in his study of topographical poetry.1

——iIn To 0 rs hical Poetr in XVIII-Centur En land
Aubin uses .EEESWW—t—msmm

and cave, estate, town, building, region, river, and journey.

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Notwithstanding its shortcomings, such as a tendency of the
categories to overlap with each other and in some cases
to merge with other genres, it provides a workable way of
studying both English and American topographical poetry, and
the analysis which follows, in the main, adheres to his
method.

HILL POEMS

Hill poems provided an ideal framework for the
eighteenth-century poet to combine description and didacticism,
for his position on an eminence permitted relative freedom of
organization since he could describe the scenes or ”pictures”
within his vision in almost any order by simple expedients
such as "Turn thy eyes. . ."(6), "Behold yon vales. . ."(1),
or "Next to the sight. . .“(ll).2 Jumping from view to
view, he could digress at will upon whatever each suggested
in the way of moral truths, the events of local history,
and the men who made that history. This, the conventional
pattern in the tradition of Denham, Pope, and Dyer, was
followed in most American topographical poems between 1783
and 1812.

21h all references to topographical poems in this
and subsequent chapters, the number in parentheses is the
number of the entry in the appended checklist, where data
of publication for each poem will be found.

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51

The description, history, and abundant moralizing
of Timothy Dwight's Greenfield Hill, the longest and best
known American hill poem, provide excellent illustration of
this conservatism. Through the well known historical and
instructional sections of the poem--e. ., "The Destruction of
the Pequods' and "The Farmer's Advice to the Villagers”--
the poet sought to improve the minds and soul of his
readers, a desire quite in harmony with neoclassic canons
of the purpose of poetry.3 Even the description, rightly

,#

admired for its ”accuracy of observation, conservatively

emphasizes the regularity and harmony of a landscape subjected
to man's control, and the arrangement of details conforms

to neoclassic requirements of the picturesque. The general
prospect in Part I suggests a landscape painting in which
man's hand is evident and in which the diverse elements
contribute to a pleasing harmony of design:

Far inland, blended groves, and azure hills,
Skirting the broad horizon, lift their pride,
Beyond, a little chasm to view unfolds

Cerulean mountains, verging high on Heaven,

In misty grandeur. Stretch'd in nearer view,
Unnumber'd farmssalute the cheerful eye;
Contracted there to little gardens; here outSpread
Spacious, with pastures, fields, and meadows rich;
Where the young wheat its glowing green displays,
Or the dark soil bespeaks the recent plough,
Orflocks and herds along the lawn disport.(3)

3Dwight stated in the introduction to Greenfield Hill
that he wished "to contribute to the innocent amusement of
his countrymen, and to their improvement in manners, and in
economical, political, and moral sentiments.”

l‘Howard, Connecticut Wits, p. 221.

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52

With description, instruction, and history as the
staples of hill poetry, the most suitable spot for hill
poets was obviously Boston, which combined a varied land-
scape of hill, sea, river, town, and country with rich
historical associations of the Liberty Tree, the burning of
Charlestown and Battle of Bunker Hill and the heroic death
of General Warren in that Battle. Using personification,
panegyric, and the "Here . . . there" technique of Pope,
Mrs. Sarah W. Morton typically selected the brow of Beacon
Hill for her ‘prospect north across the Charles River to
Charlestown:5

See varied charms adorn the circling main,

The peopled isthmus, and the velvet plain;

Here ruddy Health the grateful soil divides;

There gen'rous Commerce cleaves the yielding tides;

From cultur'd vales, see tow'ring mounts arise,

Their piny summits curtain'd by the skies:

Like a new planet mid the vast serene,

Lo, rising Harvard swells th' extended scene,

O'er distant regions spreads a ray divine,

Bids other Bowdoins, other Winthrops shine.(8)
If not from Beacon Hill, the poet might hold forth from a
similar elevation in the vicinity of Boston, such as Milton
Bill or Dorchester Heights. Wherever he stood, he would
likely make obeisance to commerce, local pride, and rural
contentment:

Then turning view with other eye

The place where gallant ships pass by,

The widely spread indented shore,
And bay with islandsspotted o'er,

 

5This eminence was leveled in 1811 to make way for
new construction.

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53

And light-house near the fatal graves,
Whose warning many a vessel saves.
North, see the chief town of the State,
Boston the opulent and great,

Where to the gladden'd eye arise

The stores of busy merchandize.--

Then leave the city, view the plain
Where innocence and virtue reign. (10)

Few hill poems published between 1783 and 1812
contain prospects very far removed from what were then urban
centers of population. Pitchwood Hill, in far-off Gorham,
Maine, received conventional treatment by Samuel Deane, who
contributes to the river prospect in the poem an incongruous
mixture of realistic place names and classical allusions, a
not uncommon practice:

Down the eastern slope below,

See the grand Presumpscot flow!

Noble river, broad and deep,

Majestic, slow his waters creep!

Winding his serpentine way,

From Sebacook to the sea.

Fancy, on the verdant banks,

Views the fairies' midnight pranks.

Naiads, Tritons, here may seem

To wanton o'er the limpid stream.(2)

For the most part, the scenery described in.§;tchwood Hill
is properly picturesque, in that the landscape is neither
too tame nor too rude, but the forest extending beyond the
cultivated fields and streams within the poet's view is too
wild to be treated as anything other than nature in ruins.
Evidently the growing appreciation of grand scenery had not

extended to Gorham, Maine.6 For this ”dark and dismal

 

6Pitohwood Hill was written in 1780, at about the
time that the taste for wild and majestic scenery was develop-
ing in America. See Mary E. Woolley, ”The Development of the

Love of Romantic Scenery in America,“ The Aherican Historical
Review, III (October 1897), 56-66.

5#

wood” is

Hideous as in days of yore,

When fell Indians walk'd the shore:

Still the haunt of Wolf and Bear,

Foxes, Ravens sheltered there:

For beasts of prey a safe retreat,

Seldom trod by human feet..

The emphasis on horror in the description of the

”dismal wood" in Pitchwood_h;;; indicates how completely it
belongs to the neoclassic tradition. In other hill poems
uncultivated nature is approached less sensationally and
more soberly, but even these lack a genuinely romantic view
of nature. In the best romantic poetry the poet endows
the natural world "with spiritual content and values” which
he interprets through his imagination.7 The first step
leading to this insight is a subjective point of view in
which the poet relates the natural world to his own experience.
In the few really subjective American hill poems, the poets
never seem to get beyond the first stage. To them nature
is a vaguely defined place of retreat, not a means of in-
sight into “the life of things.” Philip Freneau's "Never-
sink” is a case in point. In few other hill poems has the
retirement theme been given more felicitous expression, but
one discovers little else as the poet, looking out on the
Atlantic from the hills of Neversink in New Jersey, bids

farewell to the ocean:

7

Samuel H. Mbnk, The Sublime: A Stugy of Critical
Theories inoXVIII-Qentury England Ann.Arbor, Michigan,
9P0 -

 

55

Proud heights! with pain so often seen
(With joy beheld once more),

On your firm base I take my stand,
Tenacious of the shore:

Let those who pant for wealth or fame
Pursue the watery road;

Soft sleep and ease, blest days and nights,
And health, attend these favorite heights,
Retirement's blest abode! (#)

ESTATE POEMS

Numerous poems in the early national period were
aimed chiefly at describing country seats and honoring their
owners. Despite the absence of a landed aristocracy,
America had its share of elegant country homes, for ”the
banks of such rivers as the James, the Schuylkill, and the
Hudson were embellished with manors and country houses, the
summer retreats of wealthy townsmen."8 Estate poems, as
the most conservative of the topographical genres,9 follow
a fairly predictable guidebook pattern, including description
plus panegyric plus homage to the ideal of rural retirement.
Requisite to the conventional estate poem were a locale pro-
viding a picturesque prospect of the surrounding countryside,
landscaping in which Art and Nature complemented each other,

and an owner whose dignity, refinement, and benevolence made

him eligible for praise.

 

8Hans P. Huth, Nature and the American (Berkeley,
195?): P0 57-

9Aubin, Topographical Poetpy, p. l#3.

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56
Mount Vernon, the famous villa overlooking the
Potomac, best exemplified these requirements. Col. David
Humphreys, who served on General Washington's staff in the
Revolution, celebrated his chief'sestate in a poem which,
subordinating description to panegyric, gives only passing
attention to the setting through a few stereotyped epithets:
To thee, my friend, these;lays belong,
Thy happy seat inspires my song,
With gay,perennial blooms,
With fruitage fair, and cool retreats,
Whose bow'ry wilderness of sweets
The ambient air perfumes. (19)
In this frequently reprinted poem, the retirement theme
figures prominently, for the great Patriot had ”retir'd from
fields of war” and had not yet been called back from his

beloved home to become President.

Here la p'd in philosophic ease,
With n thy walks, beneath thy trees,
Amidst thine ample farms,
No vulgar converse heroes hold,
But past or future scenes unfold,
Or dwell on nature's charms.

In a poem considerably longer and more detailed than
Humphreys', John Searson ineptly tried to delineate the
charms of Mount Vernon. Clearly meriting Robert Aubin's
tag as ”possibly the worst of all . . . topographical
versifiers,'1° Searson wrote bad verse not so much out of

blind adherence to convention as out of simple-mindedness:

 

10Topogpaphical Poetry, p. l##.

57

Pleased to the last, I view this pleasant seat,
And found its views so elegant and neat;

The prospect from it must e'er please the mind,
When elegant Potowmack here we find.

From right to left, from left to right we see,
Th' beauteous Potowmack, that arm of the sea.
See ships and vessels passing by the door,
Almost ev'ry day and every hour.

Indeed, the prospect is so very fine,

Such rural scenes must o'er the thoughts refine.
The house itself is elegant and neat,

And is two stories high, neat and complete. (21)

If Searson's rambling inanbies express any philosophy of
nature, it is the deistical belief that ”Nature is God,”
asserted as the poet viewed the gardens at Mount Vernon.

In many estate poems the mention of formal gardens occasioned
elaborate catalogues of the flora, but Searson, either
through modesty or lack of botanical knowledge, Spares the
reader:

But, should I range from herb to herb and flow'r,

'T would be voluminous, and pass my pow'r;

But, from Mount-Vernon's gardens I will go,

Other prospects to view. . . .

Compared to other American estates, Mount Vernon
exemplified restraint in the art of landscaping, for several
were quite flamboyant. Grange, seven miles from Philadelphia
on the Schuylkill, featured 'cresent—seats," 'embroider'd walks,"
'pansied bowers," ”moss-clad grotto's, founts, and cool

alcoves'(28). The walk skirting the hilltop seemed par-

ticularly contrived to evoke the picturesque:

But chief my warm'd, my grateful muse would hail!
Yon mazy walk which overlooks the vale,

Which skirts, in graceful curves, the rural steep,
Where jasmines twine and sadden'd willows weep,
Where flowers adorn, where shrubs perfume the way
And nodding poplars check the blaze of day.

'58

At "The Woodlands,” another estate on the Schuylkill,
”classic pleasures reign" even more prominently than at
Grange. Not only do ”little Naiads mourn,/ With ceaseless
sighs, around their Shenstone's urn,” but inside the mansion
hang paintings which indicate the owner's ”Taste":

What charms, what beauties strike my raptur'd eyes!

On every side, the living canvas speaks;

A gpg pursues, the flying maiden shrieks;

Or Night, with starry robe and silver bow,

Sheds her mild lustre on the calm below. (35)

At still another Schuylkill estate ”the cultur'd hand of
art” combines with the “plastic power” of nature to produce
a grounds and mansion which also reflect the owner's taste:

Rich without ostentation, simply grand,

See on an eminence the mansion stand,

No gaudy ornaments, no glitter there,

No empty show to catch the vulgar stare;

It speaks a transcript of the owner's mind,

Conceptions just, and sentiments refin'd! (32)

A similar comparison in ”The Excursion” flatters the owner

by praising his taste in architecture. The estate, "White-
hill," the "residence of Quietude,” is "majestic in simplicity,/
Plain, artless, as the owner's mind,/ Tb every generous act
inclined. . ."(30).

A few estate poems depart from the neoclassic ten-
dency to balance carefully the rival claimants art and nature
and to tip the scale in favor of nature. In these poems
formal gardens and landscaping give way to arrangements
both less artificial and more practical. Ascending the

gradual hill to the mansion, the poet of ”Poplar-Grove"

hears a trickling rill,” which has its source near a large

59

oak nearby (31). As the Mansion itself comes in view, he
notes a large garden on his left. Besides sunflowers,
roses, hyacinths, tulips, and ”Pinks and Pioneys," he
discovers more edible plants, including "the clambering pea
and bean,/ The cabbage and colwart,” plus lettuce and
"blushing radishes.” As one might expect, the two estate
poems of the naturalist Alexander Wilson catalogue flora
and fauna, and the domiciles described are not country
estates but Wilson's own ”cot" in ”The Invitation” and
William Bartram's farm in ”A Rural Walk," In the former
poem are catalogued ”the flow'r-fed hummingbbird,” the
”orange Baltimore,” the ”tyrant kingbird," as well as owls,
crickets, tree-frogs, "kitty-dida,“ ”flashing fireflies,”
and a woodpecker attacking a black snake(25). In the latter
poem, ”at Bartram's hospitable dome,” the catalogue in-
cludes sights and sounds along a woodland path, such as the
song of a Bob White and the spectacle of a tortoise eating
mushrooms(26). At the farm itself, a botanical garden,
the first in Nerth America,11 contained 'unnumber'd plants
and shrubb'ry sweet,/ Adorning still the circling year,/
Whose names the muse can ne'er repeat. . . .”

Only one estate poem shows the influence of the
frontier. When Mrs. Ann Eliza Bleecker published her "Return
to Tomanick” in 1793, this community in upstate New York

 

11Huth, Nature and the American, p. l#.

6O

(Renssalaer County) was a clearing in the wilderness, and
her flower garden was subject to depredations not known to
most “estate" owners:

My little garden, Flora, hast thou kept,

And watch'd my pinks and lilies while I wept?

Or has the grubbing swine by furies led,

The enclosure broke, and on my flowrets fed? (17)
In the description of the weeding of her garden, Mrs. Bleecker
follows the neoclassic critical dictum that "low” and ”mean”
words should be abjured, for as she toils in the hot sun
around her ”lovely plants," it is not weeds but ”obnoxious
herbage” that she draws from the soil. She does, however,
achieve a degree of directness and simplicity in a genre
sketch of summertime farm activity:

The village children, rambling o'er yon hill,

With berries all their painted baskets fill.

They rob the squirrel's little walnut store

Or else to fields of maize nocturnal hie,

Where hid, the elusivewater-melons lie;
Sportive, they make incisions in the rind,

The riper from the immature to find;

Then load their tender shoulders with the prey,
And laughing bear the bulky fruit sway.

TOWN POEMS

Town poetry conveniently designates descriptive poems
whose subject is a specific city, town, village, hamlet,
spa, or park. The category excludes poems which, like Johns
son's London, are satirical rather than descriptive in
purpose. Lacking much homogeneity, town poems ”at least

display a fairly common interest in architecture, social

61
customs, ruin-sentiment, and love of home."12 Oliver Gold-
smith's “The Deserted Village,“ the chief influence on
American town poetry, swept through late eighteenth-century
America ”as the outstanding example of strictly contemporary
verse.'13 His unfavorable picture of Americaéé"Those matted
woods where birds forget to sing”--probably prompted patriotic
reaction among American readers; likewise his appeal against
social injustice in his own country had little meaning for
Americans.17 Nevertheless, his delineation of rural villages
as 'bowers of innocence and ease" held obvious appeal to
American readers, who seized avidly upon any poetry which
developed the theme of rural contentment.

Few American poems which imitate VThe Deserted
Village” are restricted to a particular locality and hence
are not topographical, but the anonymous "Lines Written at
Hempstead, L. 1.” directly imitates Goldsmith's idealized
conception of village life. The picture of the town after
the day's work is over and thesun is setting echoes the first
thirty-four lines of the famous English poem:

Thus in thy peaceful seats, lov'd village! free'd

From healthful labour, healthful sports succeed.

Profusion smiling at the festive scene,

Opes her full bosom glad'ning all the green;

wigAubin,

 

Topographical Poetry, p. 187.

13Howard, Connecticut Wits, p. 25. Twelve American
editions of ”The Deserted Village“ were published between

1771 and £800. See James D. Hart, The Po ular Book, p. 28.
1

See Philip Freneau's The American Village for an
American's reaction to Goldsmith s poem.

62

Friendship her genial influence sheds around,
And Freedom waves her banners, ivy-crown'd;

No captious sceptic here his doubts disbands,
Religion guides the bark which Reason mans.

The stranger's welcome to the friendly board,
Which comfort, ease, and rustic fare afford;

The ruddy looks of innocence and health

The neat built church where of with pious haste,
All meet, the sweets of holiness to taste;

These are thy native charms, lov'd village! these
Adorn thy seats of innocence and ease. (86)

Far from being confined to poems imitating Goldsmith,
the theme of rural retirement permeates all varieties of
town poetry. The opening couplets of ”Lines Written at
Bethlehem” represent the vague and vapid escapism so char-
acteristic of topographical poetry of this period:

Oh! Beth'lem, dear romantic, rural shade!

By pious hands for contemplation.made:

I joy, once more, to share thy fragrant breeze,
To take my walk beneath thy lofty trees;

To wind along the margin of thy stream,

And there invoke the muse's fancied dream:

Or, stray along thy groves, where heav'n bestows
Health unimpair'dp-and undisturb'd repose. (61)

Paradoxically, poems with actual city names in
their titles generally do not deal with city life; the
reference to a city provides an opening for a city-country
contrast. In "Written After a Visit to Philadelphia” the
poet finds it a pleasure to be home once again in the
country:

Escap'd from fashion's gaudy haunts,
Where dissipation frolics round,

Where mirth her bright allurement chaunts,
And pleasure thrills her joyous sound:

Escap'd from these--how dear the scene

Where oft I've passed the thoughtful hours!
Where blest retirement, mild, serene,

Awakes reflection's noblest powers. (80)

63
Use of a city name to point up the city-country contrast
also occurs in “Rural Retirement. Written upon Leaving
Boston“ and “The Landscape. Written in View of New Yerk.“
In the former poem the poet reminisces on the follies of city
life from the safety of his “snug cottage in a verdant field.“
With disdain he recalls the “hackneyed life“ of “the sons of
riot.“ Sharpers, fops, coxcombs, and rakes-~all are part
of the “madding multitude“(7l). In the latter poem, the
anonymous observer, at a safe distance from the wicked city,
looks out across the Hudson from the Jersey shore. Before
him is a “varied landscape“ of “murmuring waters,“ summer
breezes, and sailing vessels. Beyond
. . . domes on domes arise;
Dwells not wild Ambition there?
Pride and state, in courtly guise?
Gentle friend, ah! here repair.
hgpg no envious cares molest:
Nature only is our guide;
Calm and peaceful is the breast,
Where contentment doth reside. (70)

So pervasive was the belief that “happiness below“
flowed only from the “retreat where innocence is found“(56)
that only a few town poems actually acclaim “city“ life.

In “Lines on the City of New-York“ the poet predicts New
York will “be the Athens of mankind,“ and he praises such
disparate elements as the city's “well pav'd streets“ and her
“lovely daughters“(73). John Searson's bungling lines on

the new federal city describe the White House as “magnificent,
superb, and grand“(58), and at Alexandria he notes, “The

6#
buildings here are generally neati The streets well pav'd,
which makes walking complete“(59). In Georgetown the
buildings are also “very neat;/ But paving of the streets
not yet complete“(60). Such inanities are foreign to the
longest and best poem describing urban life; John D.
McKinnon's “Description of the City and its Amusements in
the Winter“ sketches the “ever-loved variety" of city life
in New York. On the streets are seen ’
. . . the merchant cool,

With calculating brow--the merry tars,

That, fiddling, cleave the wind, and strive in song

With AEolus--the beau, in shagg'd surtout,

Curbing, with mien erect, his fretful steeds--

And lily faces peeping from their muffs. . . .(52)
Despite such scenes of gay activity in which “social sym-
pathy“ encircles all “with benign embrace,“ the central pur-
pose of the poem is to show that only by fleeing to the
country can one escape “the childish vanities,/ The hate,
the toil, and vacancy of life.“ Men of the calibre of
George Washington naturally live in the country, McKinnon

claims,

For minds of such a stamp, tho' cloudless, still}

If steep'd in the polluting breath of throngs

And smoking cities, ever seek the pure

And still sublimity of Nature's scenes. . . .

The wateringbplace poem, a sub-species of town
poetry, inevitably accompanied the rise of spas as commer-
cial ventures, and they performed the function of modern
advertising through extravagant claims and appeals to local

pride. Although America had no resorts with the reputation

65

of Bath (which was the subject of several “distinguished“
topographical poems),15 at least two poems published between
1783 and 1812 celebrated American spas. Thomas Law found
that Ballston Springs, near Saratoga, New York, “refined“
his blood, “revived his mind,“and “made all things joy
impart,“ including his Emma's smile (50). William Prichard's
“The Beauties of Harrowgate“ served to advertise the resort
through slogans such as,'Tet England, Bath or Buxton's charms
relate,/ We Philadelphians praise sweet Harrowgate“; and
“Hither the gen'rous and the gay repair,--/ Sip the clear
wave, and breathe salubrious air“(55).16

Other variations of the town category were the park
poem and townsruin poemp-the former typified by “The Beauties
of the Mall,“ which describes evening beauties, both natural
andhnman, along the elmslined Mall at Boston(65); the latter
by David Humphreys' “An Elegy on the Burning of Fairfield“(#6),
which Robert Aubin calls a “manly“ example of this type.17

 

 

igAubin, Topographical Poetry, pp. 162-63.
1 In the reprinting of this poem in the American

Museum (1787) some textual revisions were made, evidently in
an attempt to improve the diction. The second couplet quoted
above was changed to “Hither the beauteous and the free
repair,/ Sip the clear stream, and breathe a purer air.“ Such
changes in diction were not uncommon in the reprinting of
topographical poems within this period. For example, John
Swanwick's “Lines Written at Bethlehem,“ first published in
the Columbian Magazine for June, 1787, was reprinted ten
years later in the author's own Poems on Several Occasions.
What was originally verdant became grassy; oraison was
changed to glad homa e; muse to friend; groves to charms; and
scenes to vallies.

17To 0 a hical Poetr , p. 179.

 

66

Closely resembling graveyard elegies in mood, the town-ruin
poem had developed as part of a growing interest in ruins
and the sentiments they inspired. At Crown Point, New
York, an abandoned fort presents a scene of Gothic terror:

And now high shadowingcier the turbid flood,

Ticonderoga's fatal heights we gain;
Where ravenous crows, lur'd by the scent of blood,

With sable plumage darken all the plain.

Ahd soon, th fatal, thr ateni g ramparts past,
Where Crowinoint's rocky base repels the wave,
I see its ruin'd bulwarks gloom the waste. (76)
The dominant impression that emerges from an examination
of the whole body of town poetry is a general “falsehood of
description,“ a vice that Wordsworth sought to avoid by
looking “steadily“ at his subject. This falsehood is partic-
ularly noticeable in the only town poem set in the frontier
region then lying west of the Appalachian barrier. One of
the first poems to come out of the West, it was composed
for a Fourth of July oration at Marietta, Ohio, in 1789, one
year after Marietta had been established as the first
planned permanent settlement in the Old Northwest Territory.
Its inflated rhetoric gives no true indication of either
the topography, geography, or economy of the town. One
could hardly surmise from reading it that Marietta, situated
in the river bottoms at the confluence of the Muskingum and
Ohio, was surrounded by the high forested hills of the Appa-

lachian Plateau, which stretched forth in every direction

from the little settlement. Evidently the author, the cultured

'67
and refined Return J. Meigs,18 wanted the literature which
came out of Marietta to reflect the highest tastes of the
East, so that it could not be gainsaid that the new
territory lagged in proper cultivation of the arts. The
poem so heavily depends on neoclassic conventions that one
could substitute other place names for those used and the
description would not be any less applicable:

Here late the Savage hid in ambush lay,

Or roam'd the uncultur'd vallies for his prey;
Here frown'd the forest with terrific shade,

No cultur'd fields expos'd the Opening glade;
How chang'd the scene! See nature cloth'd in smiles
With joy repays the lab'ror for his toils

Her hardy gifts, rough industry extends,

The groves bow down, the lofty forest bends;

On every side, the cleaving axes sound,

The oak, and tall beech thunder to the ground,
And see the spires of Marietta rise,

And domes, and temples swell into the skies;
Here Justice reign, and foul dissention cease,
Her walks be pleasant--and her paths be peace.
Here swift Muskingum rolls his rapid waves;
There furmenous [sic] vallies, fair Ohio laves,
On its smooth surface, gentle zephyrs play,

The sun beams tremble with a placid ray;

What future harvests on his bosom glide,

And loads of Commerce swell the "downward tide,"
Where Mississippi joins in length'ning sweep,
And rolls majestic to the Atlantic deep. (53)

REGION POEMS

As the least well-defined of all topographical types,
the region or district poem describes areas as extensive as

entire countries and as limited as counties or river

 

18Return J. Meigs, a graduate of Yale, was success-
ively Senator from Ohio, governor of that state, and Post-
master General of the United States.

68
valleys.19 Those of broad scope tend to overlap with long
didactic-descriptive poems developing the “rising glory of
America“ theme; as the extent of the area described narrows,
the type becomes confused with other topographical genres,
especially town and river poetry. In general, the broader
the scope of these poems, the more conventional and stereo-
typed their features. The travelogue technique, which
marks the longer poems, produces a melange of features, most
of which appear in Freneau's The Rising Empipg, a series of
eight poems which satirize and describe states of the eastern
seaboard. “Pennsylvania“ illustrates how Freneau made use
of conventional features of eighteenth-century descriptive
poetry, including praise of commerce and agriculture, river
apostrophe, river catalogue, and tributes to famous men:

Spread with stupendous hills, far from the main,
Fair Pennsylvania holds her golden rein,
In fertile fields her wheaten harvest grows,
Charged with its freights her favorite Delaware flows;
From Erie's Lake her soil with plenty teems
To where the Schuylkill rolls his limpid streams--
Sweet stream! what pencil can thy beauties tell--
Here Juniata, too, allures the swain,
And gay Cadorus roves along the plain;
Sweetara, tumbling from the distant hills,
Steals through the waste,to turn the industrious mill--
Where'er those floods through groves or mountains stray,
That God of Nature still directs the way,
With fondest care has traced each river's bed,
And mighty streams thro' mighty forests led,
Bade agriculture thus export her freight,
The strength and glory of this favoured State.
She, famed for science, arts, and polished men,
Admires her Franklin, but adoresher Penn. . . .(90)

 

19Anbin, Topographical Ppetry, p. 214.

69

The only region poem of any length of avoid most
of the neoclassic stereotypes was one by John D. McKinnon
describing autumn scenery in rural New York. A contemporary
reviewer of Qescriptive Poems (1802), which contained this
poem, regretted that McKinnon's poems had not been “inter-
spersed with more flowers of sentiment, or enlivened by a
few historical episodes.“20 The fact that McKinnon violated
conservative critical canons does not make him an American
Wordsworth; yet at times he wasable to see nature as something
more than a scene arranged for its picturesque effect or as
a melodramatic sounding board for the rhetorical sublime.
The trouble is that he could not sustain the imaginative
insight of some of his better passages:

. . Thro' every nerve,

Inspir'd with animation, in the pathless field

I stroll delighted; and, above the vale,

Pause on the rising hill, whose hoary rocks,

With creeping briar and crested sumach spread,

And scented with the cedar's spicy breath,

O'erlook the scene. 'Tis here, while Nature smiles

In her autumnal charms, and placid skies

Reflect their mild complacence on my soul--

While, teeming with increase, the fragrant earth

Her rich profusion yields, that I would tempt

The poet's imitative song. (94)

Other region poems can be called romantic because of
the poet's subjective response to his experience in nature,
but most of them are vitiated by sentimentality in the form

of love complaints so common to neoclassic pastoral poetry.

 

70

Were it not for their localized settings, these poems would
more properly be called pastoral than topographical. The
conclusion to “The Fair of Berkshire,“ in which the poet
laments his lost love, illustrates how romanticism was
getting off to the wrong start in America:

Or mounted on Ascutneyfs towering height,

Where the long prospect pains the aching sight,

O'er the wide space, imagination points,

To the cool shades which lovely Mira haunts.

Now mid the follies of a city life,

Where sense with fashion holds continual strife,

In the full crowd I mix with vacant stare,

Alike all faces-~Mira is not there. (100)

More ambitious than innocuous lyrics like “The
Fair of Berkshire“ were the longer pastoral romances, a type
of narrative poem “falsely simple and simply sentimental“
that flourished in England from about 1720 onwards.21 A
few of them fall into the topographical category by virtue
of localized settings. The scene might be the banks of
the Ohio or the wilderness of Kentucky, but were not Specific
names used the setting might easily be mistaken for Arcadia.
The hero typically combines the traits of noble savage,
stoical hermit, and innocent lover. In “An Indian Eclogue,“
set on “the Banks of the Ohio,“ the Indian Mingo soliloquizes
on his love for the “nimble Lawrah,“ whose yellow neck is
“as soft as bear grease, and as beaver sleek.“ His love

21Bonamy Dobrée, En lish Literature in the Early
Eighteenth Century, IZOO-lZEO (Oxford, 1959), p. 565.
Among the best known American examples of this form are
Mrs. Morton's Ouabi and Freneau's The Indian Student,

but the settings of these poems are not sufficiently
localized for them to be considered topographical.

 

 

71
for the fickle maiden is in vain, however, so he will
become a solitary wanderer:
. . . I'll take my spear,

And thro' the forest chace the shaggy bear;

The bounding buck shall own my oft-try'd art,

And feel this arrow rankling in his heart. (96)

The best known pastoral romance having a Specific
American setting is the Englishman Thomas Campbell's
Gertrude of Wyoming (1809), which went through several
editions in the early nineteenth century, both in England
and America. Many Americans believed with Washington
Irving that Campbell had succeeded in this poem in showing
“that our native scenes are capable of poetic inspiration and
that our country may be as capable of poetic fiction as
anything in Europe.“22_ Joseph Dennie, however, thought “it
was a somewhat perilous undertaking to lay the scene in a
country to which the writer was a stranger. . . .“23 Dennie's
concern with the accuracy of description was well founded,
for although the setting is supposed to be Wyoming County,
Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Susquehanna, the source
for most of Campbell's information about America came from
travel books, one of which was William Bartram's Travels,

from which were derived the flamingoes, crocodiles, palm

trees, and nagnolias that made Campbell's Pennsylvania look

 

22Quoted in Edward Wagenknecht, Washin on Irvin :
Moderation Displayed (New York, 1962 , p.'IUB.

23[Joseph Donnie], “Review of Gertrude of Wyoming,“
Port Folio, II (August, 1809), 155.

72

“more like Bartram's southern region than its own reality."24

The pastoral romance is an easily recognizable
accompaniment of the interest in cultunfl primitivism that
arose in the eighteenth century; not so easily placedvdthin
a cultural context is the “anti-nature“ poem. Joseph Brown
Ladd's “Prospect of Carolina, For July“ pictures the climate
of South Carolina as unbearably bad. The hot sun, “with
fierce, effulgent ray,/ Darts from his orb intolerable day“
and “thick vapours,“ rising from stagnant pools and marshes,
spread “abhorr'd disease" so that “no living wight can bear/
The deadly influence of empoison'd air"(92). In an anti-
nature poem also set in the South--specifically the “Pine
Barrens of North-Carolina“--Philip Freneau describes with
depressing realism an inn maintained by an early-day im-
poverished white Southerner and his family. The poet eats
his evening meal amid “slumbering swine“ as the landlord
“drains his bottle to the dregs,“ Even his horse seems
discontented at this abode of “fleas and filthiness,“ and
he warns strangers to stay away from “this dejected p1ace“(42).

One might assume that these anti-nature poems were
exclusively an American product, the result of firsthand
encounters with the wilderness frontier. Yet “anti-nature“
originated in a study of eighteenth-century English litera-

ture as a convenient label for descriptive poems showing

23
N. Bryllicn Fagin, William Bartram: I ter reter of
American Landscape (Baltimore, 1933), p. 153.

 

73
disgust with nature.25 William Diaper, in gyggt (1727),
one of the better of these poems, amusingly condemns the
country he is in. Besides encountering wet, soggy marshes
and vapoury fens, he discovers that the speech of the
peasants is hardly superior to animals, that birds refuse to
sing, and that “Serpents innumerous“ roam the mountainside.26
Such poems represent inevitable reactions to formal praise
of the countryside at this time almost obligatory, and are
in the same spirit as Dr. Johnson's rationalistic attack on
the pastoral conventions in Lycida . When encountering first-
hand the crudities and inconveniences of nature or when, as
a result of their reading, realizing the excesses to which
pastoral conventions could carry praise of nature, even men
otherwise disposed to appreciate the beauties of natural
scenery might be tempted to react with something of Dr.
Johnson's skepticism: Whatever images the pastoral can
supply, he stated, “are long ago exhausted: and its inherent

improbability always forces dissatisfaction on the mind.“27
RIVER POEMS

"Rivers have been so widely associated with man's

 

258cc Bonamy Dobrée, English Literature in the Early
Eighteenth Century, p. 1&9.

26Qnoted in Dobrée, p. 149.

27“Life of Hilton“ in Lives of the English Poets.

74.

deepest and often conflicting feelings toward time, destiny,
action, and quiescence-~what collectively might be called the
“life spirit“--that they readily suggest the concept of the
archetype, a term used by C. G. Jung to designate primordial
images existing in the collective unconscious of mankind,
their appearance in poetry eliciting profound emotional
responses in the reader.28 If one finds Jung's hypothesis
too tenuous, he can account for the magic of such images
by the less Speculative explanation that once the connection
has been.made between a “universal inner experience and an
omnipresent outer analogue“ the association may become a
commonplace of oral and written tradition.29 Whatever view
one accepts, he cannot deny the significance of river
imagery in topographical poetry of the early national period.
Practically every poem alludes to or describes a particular
stream; in fact, rivers appear as subjects of complete
poems more frequently than any other feature of the American
landscape.

The Schuylkill, by far the most popular American
stream, as early as 1758 was the subject of an innocuous

pastoral advertising it as a place of retreat for Philadelphia's

28For an elaboration of archetypes as pro-existent
forms in the psyche, see C. G. Jung, “0n the Relation of
Analytical Psychology to Poetic Art“ in Contributions to
Anal tical Ps cholo (1928), pp. zus-uo, and The Collected
Wor s o . G. ung 1959), vol. 9, part 1, 1&2-53. For a
limited discussion of flowing water as an archetypal pattern,

see Hand Bodkin, Archetypal Patterns in Poetry (London, 1930).

298cc M. H. Abrams, “The Correspondent Breeze: A
Romantic Metaphor,“ in English Romantic Poets (1960), p. 49.

75
nymphs and swains.30 The Hudson, easily the second in

popularity, had more than any other American river numerous
historical associations to be exploited. Margaretta V.
Faugeres and John D. McKinnon, in their long poems on the
Hudson, take the reader on guided tours in which they make
use of the travelogue technique-~a series of sketches of
local activity, history, and scenery tied together by the
poet's progress down (or up) the river. In citing Mrs.
Faugeres' “The Hudson“ as typical of the “hopeless mediocrity"
of English and American river poems from 1790 to 1798,
Robert Aubin undoubtedly had in mind its stereotyped
descriptive passages. Neither wilderness scenery, nor
cultivated fields, nor city bustle elicited any originality
of treatment. Near Lake George the river is

Cool'd by projecting rocks, eternal shade.

Amid those airy clifts (stupendous height!)
The howling natives of the desert dwell:

There, fearful Echo all the live long night
Repeats the panther's petrefying yell.

Farther down the river,

Unnumber'd herds of cattle graze the plain,
And in the valley waves the yellow grain;

The green maize rustles on the mountain's brow,
And the thick orchard's blossoms blush below:
For the luxuriance of the cultur'd soil

Amply rewards the hardy rustic's toil.

3°Anon., “Schuylkill Side,“ New American Ma azine, I
(June, 1758), l#3—44. Probably the po§Eion of Philadelphia
as a leading literary center accounted for the popularity of
the Schuylkill, as well as some appeal in the name itself

that led to its use even when no particular river was in-

tended. Nothing in Philip Freneau's “Hermit's Valley“ in-
dicates a Speci ic locale, yet the title “Hermit 8 Valley“
in the 1795 edition became Hermit's Valley, a Rural Scene

on the Schuylkill“ in the table of contents of the 1809
edition. '

 

76
And at New York
. . . a hardy throng
Spread various works the loaded shores along;

Sound the harsh grating saw, or hammer loud,

Or blow the roaring furnace, sable brow'd,

Or guid the groaning wheels, and straining steed,

To where the sons of trade their wealth unlade. (105)

Marked by more felicity of expression than Mrs. Fau-
geres' poem, John D. McKinnon's “Description of the Hudson
River“ takes the reader up the river from New York to Albany.
As a follower of Thomson, McKinnon strives for picturesque
effect. In describing a sunset along the Highlands near
Croton, the poet “paints“ his prospect by making the reader
aware of color and of the diverse yet pleasing combination of
elements composing the scene. Ahead of him are the Highlands,
“In grand perspective hung across the bay,/ And steept in
hazy distance.“ As the sun sinks below the summit of the
hills, the breeze dies and the surface of the river becomes
a mirror,

. . . where the vermillion sky
Sees all its newbborn twinkling stars, and round
The peaceful shores the woods in darkness wrapt,
And mansions whitening on the strand. (108)

A similar passage in “Description of the Mohawk,“

a companion to the Hudson poem, further illustrates McKinnon's
technique. Upstream from Cohoes Falls is a prospect so
picturesque that the French landscape painter Claude Lorrain

would claim it as his own. In this passage, one of the

best in all of McKinnon's poems, the evocative power of the

77
imagery rises above the limitations imposed by the personi-

fications and occasional lapses into turgid diction:

. . . Here the dusty road
Forsaking for the verdant turf, we scent
The fragrance of the evening, and survey
The shore, enamor'd of its pensive scenes,
Harmonious, tranquil, which thy genius, Claude,
Taught by the sober Fancies, had confess'd her own.
Amidst the Shade suspended o'er the vale,
The mirror of the Mohawk's tide reflects
A varied tapestry: the vivid green
Of willows interwove—-the plane tree's hoar
And dappled waist-~the pensive, sombre elm,
Queen of the Flats, her hanging robes diffuse
And graceful. Fronting in perspective dim,
A range of mountains from the Kaatskill's loins
Projected, in a promontory falls
Sublime in distant grandeur on the Shore;
While through its horizontal fire, the west,
Still beaming with efful ence, dyes the stream
With ardent yellow. (139%

To one accustomed to the stereotyped content of most
river poetry, McKinnon's poems read exceptionally well.31
Less marked by a Spirit of localization than any other topo—
graphical category, most river poems serve as vehicles for
sentimental melancholy, the vicissitudes of love, or the
blessings of rural retirement--the last an all-pervading
motif of topographical poetry which in nocther category

is so tiresomely reiterated. The wish for contentment remains

 

31A startling illustration of the stereotyped cone
tent of many river poems is the ease by which a poet could
alter the position of stanzas within the same poem in sub-
sequent reprints or interchange stanzas between different
poems or even alter titles without modifying the texts.
John Davis resorts to all three kinds of manipulation. In
“Morning at Occoquan“ and “Evening at Occoquan“ stanzas are
rearranged or exchanged in subsequent reprints; his “Ode to
the River Rariton“ was reprinted as “Ode to the River Occoquan“
with no significant changes in the text of the poem.

78
the same, whether uttered beside the Schuylkill:
O! that the destinies had fix'd my lot,~
Upon this limpid stream's enamel'd bank--

Here, calm content should gild my humble cot,

And not a sigh escape for wealth or rank; (120)
the Connecticut:

0n thy lov'd banks, sweet river, free

From worldly care and vanity,

I could my every hour confine,

And think true happiness was mine; (122)
or the Souhegan:

But hark! thy guardian sylph is sent--

Soft music breaks from yonder tree--

Delicious sounds! Here reign content,

And nature's child, Simplicity. (157)

As early as the 1750's, in poems such as John Lang-
horne's “Ode to the River Eden“ (1759), English poets tended
to associate riversrwith their deepest and saddest longings,
and henceforth streams proliferated as “recognized confidante
of poets who rivaled them in aquosity.“32 In American river
poetry the sentimental attachment of poets to a favorite
stream produced countless expressions of woe. William Moore
Smith, disappointed in love, tells his troubles to the Lehigh:

If by thy flow'ry banks I rove,

Or wander thro' the silent grove,

That shades thy waters as they flow;

The tear still bulges in my eye,

Still recollection calls the sigh,

And points the venom'd sting of woe. (1h2)

Other streams produced variations on the theme. Along the

 

32Aubin, To 0 ra hical Poetr , pp. 225 and 232.

79

Schuylkill “John Smith“ recalled happier days: “But now,
alas! those blissful days are o'er,/ Each pleasing sport,
each dear delight no more“(ll3). By the Sampit William
Martin Johnson extracted a “melancholy Joy“ from “staid
Eve“ amid various Graveyard paraphernalia(l36). “Jaques”
compared the placid course of the Lehigh with his own tur-
bulent life:

How pleas'd to wander on the Leheigh's bank,

As rippling gently o'er its pebbled bed,

It wafts a mournful music to mine ear.

How pleas'd, if he, who stamp'd my early fate

With many a sad, and many a dreary change,

Had so ordain'd, that like this quiet stream,

Mine hours might onward glide, serenely calm! (134)

In several river poems the influence of pastoral
conventions produced loverdcomplaints as artificial and
conceited as those in the worst dialogues between Strephon
and Chloe. In “An Ode to the River Leheigh“ the poet laments
how scenes along the river no longer give him Joy, but “would
Louisa bless her swain,/ Thy banks,mild stream, would please
again“(142). Josias Lyndon Arnold delights in the Connecticut
River because “Fanny“ lives nearby(122). “Frankly“ apostro-
phizes the Raritan for the same reason: at “Sidney's hos-
pitable dome“ lives Maria, a girl of “unwarped simplicity,
a guileless heart,/ Pure and unsullied as the virgin snow“(155).
And “Palemon“ relates how the presence of Delia wuuld lend
“new life to the prospect“ along the Hudson(1ll).

The tone of affectation and insincerity in these

80

sentimental poems seldom appears in river poems with settings
along the western frontier. In general, the poets of the
wilderness (or “desert“ as it was often called) held no
illusions about the discomforts and loneliness of frontier
life; yet they resorted to literary posing in picturing the
idyllic fields and streams which they had left behind or to
which they were returning. The latter situation marks “The
Traveller Returned,“ a pseudonymous poem written on the
return of the poet to the Hudson Valley from travels in the
Great Lakes territory. By “wayward fate“ he was too long
detained

0n distant wild and cheerless shores,

Where thund'ring Niagara roars;

Where Erie's ever-restless waves,

A dark uncultur'd border laves,

And savage yells, and haggard fright

Float on the sable wings of night:

Where forests vast involved in fire,

In wreaths of flame to heaven aspire,

Or rooted firm in solid rock,

Repel th' impetuous torrents' shock;

Where mountains mock at floods and time,

And all reveals the dread sublime:-- (109).
Not only did Indians, forest fires, and uncongenial scenery
plague him, but equally repulsive were the “Ignorance“ and
“cheerless Superstition“ which reigned “on rude St. Lawrence's
dreary coast.“ Now, however, he is back along the “soft-
flowing Hudson,“ where he can find a “sweet recess“ to soothe
“the calm of life's decline“ and

Where unrestricted Commerce wide

Pours in her wealth with every tide;

Where Science boasts instructive power,
And Friendship cheers the languid hour.

 

 

 

81
In a companion poem, the same weary traveler, not
having yet returned home, laments his isolation on the
“unfriendly shores“ of the St. Lawrence. As in the previous
poem, he makes light of ignorance on the frontier; preparing
to return to his “native plain,“ he addresses the stream:
For, ah! whatever charms thy varied coast
Sublime or beauteous yield th' admiring Sight,
Few are the mental stores its tenants boast,
Lock'd in the gloom of intellectual night. (148)
A poem by James Elliot further develops the theme
that nature on the frontier has few Joys foreven those most
appreciative of her bounties. As he lies alone and ill at
Fort Hamilton on the Miami River in the Ohio Territory, he
knows only anguish:
In these long walls where gloomy Silence reigns,
While whistling winds through every opening creep,
Worn with disease, and rack'd by tort'ring pains,
In vain I court the soothing smiles of sleep. (131)
Blaming his misfortunes on overweening ambition, which has
“kindled flames“ that “consume“ his heart, he sees rural
contentment as the only path to happiness, but it is a way
of life that has not been his to enjoy:
Happy the man who tills his fruitful fields
In sweet retreat, and tastes each rural charm;
Blest with the generous bounty nature yields,
He reignS--the peerless monarch of his farm.
Happy the hardy and unletter'd swain,
Who never from his native circle strays;

Who roams at ease the hill, or flowery plain,
And spends in Joy and love his cloudless days.

82

Elliot sustains his soul-searching intrOSpection and
obeisance to rural retirement in “Lines, Written at the
City of Marietta. . . .“ His career as a soldier at an
end, he has managed to find some peace of mind in retirement
on the banks of the Ohio. His lot has been hard, for following
the innocent contentment of his “infantile years“ afflictions
came heavily, including penury and loss of health. But at
Marietta

. . . Health returns-~again Contentment reigns--

I feel their influence, their charms divine;

Releas'd at length from military chains,

Sweet nggg 2; Mind, again I hail thee mine! (132)
His description of the Marietta countryside is as stereotyped
as that in the tribute to the pioneer community by Return J.
Meigs. Despite the opportunity for firsthand description,
Elliot uses the “eye of fancy“ to paint such features as
“Allegheny Mountain,“ which he acknowledges in a footnote
is not actually visible at Marietta. And the opening lines
apostrophizing the Ohio expose the emptiness of bombastic
rhetoric:

Hail, Queen 2: Rivers! Hail, Columbian Nile!
Along thy beauteous banks I fondly roam,
And view yon cloudcapt mountain, which awhile
Will yet seclude me from my native home.

Stupendous monument of power divine!
The muse explores thy solitary height,
By fancy led thy craggy cliffs to climb--
And then to orient realms extend her flight.

Less literary posturing characterizes Susannah
‘Wright's “A Copy of Verses, Written . . . on Removing from

83
Chester to the Banks of Susquehanna." The poet's new life on
the frontier leaves no time for enjoyment of nature, which
would compensate for the social pleasures she has left behind:
From all the social world estrang'd,
In desert wilds and woods,
Books and engaging friends exchang'd
For pendant rocks and floods.
Nature's uncultivated face
A varying aspect wears;
But every charm and every grace
Are sunk in stronger cares. (143)
Her labor is unending. From dawn “through noontide's sultry
sun“ to the ”dew of ev'ning“ tasks that sap her energy leave
her no time to read poetry. Each morning renews the day
of care and thus passes the “unvarying year.“ But in an
effort to become resigned to her lot, she will attempt to
“regulate“ her passions and subdue her will, and meantime
she will try to appreciate the “pristine glories“ of “scenes
that never pall“:
Behold the trees their leaves resume,
The shrubs and herbage rise,
Unbidden flowers the grove perfume,
And all serene the skies.

The Rev. William Duke used his experience in crossing
the Alleghenies to supply images for a hymn with the conven-
tional theme of a pilgrim toiling through and overcoming
difficulties. “Hymn XXXIX. Written on the Banks of the
Monongahala“ relates how God's “sufficient grace“ sustained
him on his Journey “up the steep/ And rugged mountain's side“

and over “trackless passages through deep,/ Dark forests.“

God reveals His presence in an “hour of need“ when a ‘

84
tmunuoodsman in the Alleghenies supplies unexpected help:
Refreshment, unexpected, flow'd
From rude humanity,
And indigence herself bestow'd
The needful charity. (130)

Another song set along a frontier river was the
ballad “Banks of Kentucke,“ which,with its conventional
themes of local pride and rural contentment, offers scant
evidence that in 1788 the banks of the Kentucky River were
still part of a virgin wilderness. One detects only attitudin-
izing as the poet forsakes “the populous city" for the “gay
fertile soil on the banks of Kentucke.“ The Spectacular
palisades of the Kentucky River in the vicinity of Frankfort,
Danville, and Lexington get only passing mention in a
stereotyped river apostrophe: “Hail, stranger to song! hail,

deep-channel'd river,/ Thy prominent cliffs shall be famous
forever“(l44).

POEMS OF NATURAL PHENOMENA

Asher B. Durand's painting “Kindred Spirits“ shows
the poet William Cullen Bryant and the painter Thomas Cole
standing on a precipice looking out on a prospect of rude
grandeur. Such a combination of poet, painter, and sublime
landscape was appropriate, for by 1849, when this painting
appeared, both man had shown a predilection for sublime

scenery-~Cole in his Hudson River landscapes and Bryant in

such poems as “The Prairies.“ This exploitation of the

85

sublime dominated, much nineteenth century nature poetry,
and early in the century American poets were writing about
those features of the landscape which possessed the grandeur
necessary to delight and astonish the souls of their readers.

Waterfalls, the most plentiful and most awe-inspiring
natural phenomena in America, were early subjected to poetic
rhapsodizing. Long an outstanding scenic curiosity, Niagara
Falls had appeared in English poetry at least as early as
James Ralph's EASEE (1728), and after the Revolutionary War
an effort began to transmute Niagara into “the grand American
poem“.33 Between 1783 and 1850 at least forty different
poems on the Falls were published in America and England,34
but few of these appeared before 1815, probably because
Niagara still lacked ready accessibility totnurists and
travelers. The few that were published feebly reiterate the
ever popular motifs of river poetry. Thomas Law compares
the alternately calm and tempestuous waters with the vicis-
situdes of human 1ife(173). John Shaw, in “Imitation of
Petrarch. . .,“ develops the 22$ £322 theme(l78), and Robert H.
Rose reverses the “0 could I flow like thee“ formula of
Cooper'sgill:

And though with sensations I ne'er know before,
I bend me enraptur'd to list to thy roar,

And, as thy blue streams irresistibly roll,
Feel the awe most sublime which possesses my soul;

 

33Spencer, Qges , p. 48.

3"Charles Mason Low Antholo and Biblio a h of
Niagara Falls (Albany, 192155177, 55%;"? 9."" "

86

Yet I would not for worlds that my life were like thee!
0 far be each thought of such tumult from me! (177)

In attempting to communicate the sublimity of the
scene, these poets unleash the full power of their rhetoric.
Thomas Law, in “Niagara,“ finds “strange emotions“ agitating
his soul as he looks into the “abyss profound“(173). Robert H.
Ross, “lost in the trance“ which the view occasions, feels
himself an “atom“ while viewing the “stupendous“ scene(l77).
The anonymous poet of “The Falls of Niagara“ in Medley leaves
the impression he is on a reckless emotional binge:
With steps uncertain to a jutting rock
To gaze upon th' immense abyss, I hie.

And all my senses feel a horrid shock,
As down the steep I turn my dizzy eye.

0n cloudy steams I take a flight sublime,
Leaving the world and nature's works behind;

And as the pure empyreal height I climb,

Reflect with rapture on th' immortal mind. (179)

Poetically the most popular of all natural phenomena
from 1783 to 1812,35 Passaic Falls in New Jersey wasteld to
be “scarcely less sublime] Than fam'd Niagara's tremendous
flood“(l63). Accordingly, it received the same excessive
praise, such as that from an anonymous poet who finds the
view sufficiently grand to convert an atheist:

The awe-struck atheist the scene surveys,

In silence wrapt, and lifts his thoughts on high.

“Tis God who made the whole,“ abash'd he cries,
Him prostrate owns before the mighty deep. (164)

 

35Between 1783 and 1812, not counting reprints in
magazines, at least eleven different poems on Passaic Falls
were published in America; for their titles, consult the
appended checklist.

87

One of these poems, however, has intellectual substance
unmatched by few topographical poems of this period. Samuel
Low's “On the Falls of Pasaick“ contains long descriptive
passages showing strongly the influence of Thomson, plus
an account of the creation of man and the natural world from
Chaos, sentimental reminiscence involving “once lov'd Amanda,“
and didactic passages on the value of nature to a man of
sensibility. These elements add up to an interesting
philosophical nature poem quite within the neoclassic tra-
dition. The descriptions, marked as they are by Latinate
diction, nevertheless reveal a poet with his eye on the
object. Awareness of detail distinguishes a passage describing
the mist rising from the Falls, which in wetting nearby vege-

tation intensifies its colors:

Well pleas'd I turn:--on yonder humid cloud,
Which ceaseless rises from those depths profound,
My eye delighted dwells; innum'rous drops,

Like early dew pellucid, than the dew

More subtle and minute, its fabric form;

The solar beams, refracted in their course,

With heav'ns own tinctures paint the lucid spray,
Reflecting smiles around;--the glitt'ring shower
Gives to the landscape, picturesque and rude,
And wildly beautiful, a richer tinge,

Irriguous gleaming on the grass-grown rocks,
Imbruing vegetation, making earth

More fertile,and the neighb'ring scenery

Look still more lovely, more enchanting still. (163)

Like most eighteenth-century nature poets, Low did
not admire exclusively natural scenery; somewhere the hand
of man should be evident. One prospect in the poem explicitly

shows “Art and Nature sweetly harmoniz'd,“ art in this case

88
being “fair Newark's rising village“ and nature “Jersey's
lofty woods and oak-crown'd hills.“ Low follows this
attempt to balance the rival claims of natural and man-made
scenery by a passage which shows his interest in the relation-
ship between poetry and painting, another common concern of
eighteenth-century descriptive poets:

The variegated scene . . .

Grew indistinct and dark, to vision lost,
Inspiring holy awe and thoughts serene!
Enchanting landscape! which the graphic art

In vain attempts to rival; which makes faint
The glowing tints a Titian's canvass shows;
Which not Lorrain's nice pencil could pourtray
In colours vivid as the living scene!

The didactic passages of the poem formally expound
deistical ideas current in the eighteenth century. Like
Thomson in.The Seasons, Low sees God revealed through natural
revelation rather than supernatural. Pervading nature is
a universal mind revealed to the mind of man through the
grandeur of nature, a view outlined in a passage which
begins as an apostrophe to “Prolific Nature“ and ends as a
pantheistic sermon. The “secret workings“ of nature produce

. . . in astonish'd Intellect,
Conceptions of sublimity and grandeur,
Which make description languid, which defy
The power of elocution, and for which
The tongue of man hath never found a name.
But if the wild magnificence of Nature
Can thus engage the rapt enthusiast's mind,
How passing wonderful is Mind itself!
And, oh! how infinitely greater still
Is that eternal, independent Mind,
That Soul of physical and moral worlds,
Essence of Intellect and breath of Life!
That vivifying Spirit, who pervades
The Universe immense!

89

Although “sensibility' does not appear in the poem,
ideas underlying the word receive relatively detailed formu-
lation. Like Thomson, Low believed that the harmony in nature
is proof of benevolent design and that this harmony extends
to man's moral life. To Low, nature is “Parent of Good.“
Virtue comes from contemplating nature. Even viewed in the
sad retrospect of loss, nature holds more joy than sensual
pleasures, which destroy the “moral sense“ and “vitiate the
taste.“ Those who lack “feeling minds“ cannot escape “mere
corporeal Nature's brutal taste,“ but

Net so the child of sentiment and taste,

Contemplative, enlighten'd and refin'd,

Who knows to see, to study and enjoy

The pure, the temp'rate, tranquillizing scenes
0f unperverted Nature. . . .

JOURNEY POEMS

In England and on the Continent the rise in tourism
during the eighteenth century, brought on by safer and easier
conditions of land travel, aided the “return to nature“ by
bringing city dwellers into close contact with natural
scenery. In letters, diaries, journals, and books travelers
recorded observaflbns that ranged from disinterested curiosity
to self-conscious enthusiasm for the variety, beauty, and
grandeur of landscape. In the latter mold were William

Gilpin's popular tours made with the object of “examining

90
the face of a country by the rules of picturesque beauty.“36
Even though problems of length and organization made poetry
a less suitable medium for travel accounts than prose, many
poets nevertheless cast their observations into rhyme or
blank verse, a tendency which culminated in Lord Byron's
highly popular Childe Harold's Pilgpimage. Despite notice-
able freedom of structure, journey poems fall into two
general groups, the travel narrative and the travel guide.
In the first group belongs Anne Ritson's long versified
narrative A Poetical Picture of America, Beipg Observations
Made, during a Residence of Several Years at Alexandria, and
Norfolk, in Virginia; Illustrative of the Manners and Customs
of the Inhabitants: and_;nter§persed with Anecdotes,_Arising
from a General Intercourse with Society in that Country. . .
(1809). As the title suggests, Mrs. Ritson is concerned
primarily with events, not description. Only the second
group, whose purpose is chiefly descriptive, can be called
topographical. Relatively few poems of either type
were published in America between 1783 and 1812, perhaps
because travel was still so difficult in the young, undevel-
oped country.

The difficulties of travel failed to discourage the

 

36Quoted in.H. V. D. Dyson and John Butt, Augpstans
and Romantics (London, 1940), p. 286. The first of Gilpin s
“picturesque tours“ was Observations on the River W e
relative chiefly to picturesque beauty 7 2 ; by 9
Gilpin had written four other guides to the scenery of
Britain.

91
American poet and naturalist Alexander Wilson from taking a
walking trip that resulted in the most opulently detailed
of all American journey poems. In 2,200 lines of open couplets,
“The Foresters“ records with the completeness of a diary
each day's progress of the poet and his two companions from
the “green banks of Schuylkill“ near Philadelphia to Niagara
Falls. Copious use of place names and other landmark
identifications makes possible actual mapping of the route.
Although this wealth of detail gives strength to the imagery,
it proves the poem's greatest weakness Since it is reSponsible
for several embarrassingly prosaic incidents, such as that
which occurs as the young travelers take refuge from a
storm in a log cabin in the Pocono Mountains. When the
mountaineer admires their gun powder, the poet replies with
a testimonial for his favorite brand:

Dupont's best Eagle, matchless for its power,

Strong, swift, and fatal as the bird it bore.

Like Jove's dread thunderbolts it with us went,

To pour destruction wheresoever sent. (185)

Such a passage shows Wilson at his worst, and the
general unevenness in overall quality of performance makes
evaluation difficult. Occasionally his accuracy and close-
ness of observation serve him in good stead, for some sections
of the poem, like the description of Lake Cayuga, are genuinely
poetic:

Beneath mild sunshine as we onward glide,
Flat moss-clad forests rise on either side;

High midst the leafless multitude is seen
The dark majestic pine in deepest green;

92

The snow white sycamores, that love to drink

The passing stream, and skirt the river's brink,
Wide o'er the flood their arms, capacious throw,
To meet their soften'd forms that lie below.
Still files of ducks in screaming thousands pour,
Till, near Musquito point their flocks decrease
Where night o'ertook uS and we moor'd in peace.

Although the comparatively straightforward style
and attention to detail make the poem atypical of topo-
graphical poems in this period, The Foresters nevertheless
exists well within the tradition of neoclassic descriptive
poetry. There are four extended prospect-pieces in the poem,
one from Blue Mountain, another from “the brink of an abyss“
at the summit of the Alleghenies, a third from the edge of
the Niagara Escarpment, and the climactic one at first
viewing of the Falls. There is the usual compliment paid to
the cottage of content, set amid “green fields and meadows.“
Accompanying this sketch of rural contentment there are the
favorite personifications “Peace,“ “Health,“ “Plenty,“ and
“Innocence.“ There is a long digression on Indians, the
chief part of which is a sentimental monologue by an Indian
“wanderer.“ There is an extended apostrophe to the Sus-
quehanna River (“Hail, charming river. . . .“), as well as
shorter ones to personified “Hospitality“ and “Rural
Industry.“ And there is the stock diction: “airy arches,“
“domes of Science,“ “spots . . . embrown'd with culture,“

“the levelled tube,“ and “the ravish'd eye.“

Wilson's close observation is responsible for some

93

remarkable sketches of frontier life as the poet and his
companions traverse the wilderness of north-central Pennsyl-
vania and western New York. By and large, the frontiersmen
that they encounter are as ignorant, uncouth, and dirty as
popular twentieth-century stereotypes of the southern
Appalachian mountaineer as “hillbilly“ or “cracker.“ The
sixth day of the trip, for example, finds the travelers passing
the huts of settlers along the upper reaches of the Sus-
quehanna, These people, who have as constant companions a
“dog and gun,“ are dressed “in fluttering rags, with scarce
a hat or shoe.“ Seemingly beyond all hope, they pass
“Filth, want, and ignorance from sire to son.“ Throughout
the journey, the poet finds the lodgings to be less than
desirable. On the second night of the trip he and his
companions stop at Easton, Pennsylvania,a¢ an inn diStinguished
by

The wretched fare its scurvy walls afford;

The black wet bread, with rancid butter Spread,

The beastly drunkards who beside us fed;

The beds with fleas and bugs accursed stored,

Where every seam its tens of thousands poured:

The host's grim sulkiness, his eager look,

When from our purse the glittering gold we took.
Three dayslater the young adventurers stay at a poor inn,
“Of all things destitute save fire and wood“ and at which
they pass the time by jesting with their ignorant host. The

seventh evening finds them in the Alleghenies of Pennsylvania

where they start to put up for the night at “Pat Dougherty's

94
Hotel and Drygood Store.“ They renege, however,when they
observe in Pat a “foul mass of misery“ and when they discover
that “all that Filth can boast of riots here.“ Finally, over
the New Yerk state line on the twelfth night they lodge in
a trapper's “log hovel“--“small, cheerless, rude.“ Although
depressing surroundings were the rule for the fourteen over-
night lodgings, occasionally they encountered hospitality
and cheer, as when, on the eleventh night, they passed the
evening in a humble cottage amid a family gathering remind-
ful of Burns' “The Cotter's Saturday Night“:

To Johnny's joke succeeded William's tale,

Sweet Mary serv'd with many a witching smile,

And thou, Devotion, wert a kindred guest,

Of all our joys the noblest and the best;

Around, conven'd with David's holy lays,

In solemn strains awoke our evening praise;

The kneeling father's fervent prayers ascend,

“0 be the strangers' comfort, guide and friend.“

No other journey poem of the early national period
matches “The Foresters“in length, interest, and detail.
Wilson's other journey poem, “The Pilgrim,“ was left un-,
completed and hence offers little basis for comparison with
his maggum opu . Purporting to be the account of a river
journey from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, the poem ends after
two days on the 0hio(186). Like “The Foresters,“ “The
Pilgrim“ pictures the frontiersman disparagingly. Beaching
his little skiff, the poet spends the first night out of

Pittsburgh at a “squatter's wretched shed,“ whose Hillbilly

95

owner “scratch'd, and chew'd his quid.“ Michael Forrest's
Travels through America is long enough to offer a basis of
comparison with “The Foresters,“ but the thirty-six pages
of heroic couplets, which cover the seaboard from Boston to
Charleston, preponderate in such inane passages as the
one describing the trip north from Annapolis:

The rural proSpects thence along the shore,

Are highly pleasing up to Baltimore,

Which town improves like Rome in days of yore,

Early next day, I did a seat engage

To Philadelphia in the flying stage;

My muse was mute till we reach'd Brandiwine,

Whose bloody plain did rouse the sacred nine! (181)

Although filled with the usual neoclassic mannerisms,
Richard Lewis's “A Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis,“ first
published abroad in 1732 and reprinted in America during the
Federalist period, is a remarkably early instance of close
observation of nature combined with sentimental intro-
spection(184). In a study of the Amepican Museum, in which
the poem was reprinted, Howard L. Sylvester has explained an
interesting but quite accidental similarity between Lewis's
poem and Beethoven's Symphony No. 6, the “Pastoral“: “Both
begin with cheerful impressions of nature and country life,
move toward dramatic climax in the thunder and violence of a

sudden storm, portray the peace and freshness of the country-

side after the storm, and end in thanksgiving to God.“37

 

37“The American Museum: A Study of Prevailing
Ideas in Late Eighteenth Century America“ (unpublished
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1954), p. 315.

96

For the poem, at least, Thomson's The Seasons is the
probable source for these structural elements, especially
of the thunderstorm and the concluding hymn of thanksgiving.

In “To Mr. Bleecker, on His Passage to New York,“
Ann Eliza Bleecker explores the Hudson Valley with the same
regard for neoclassic niceties that her daughter, Mrs.
Faugeres, observed in her longer river-poem “The Hudson“(qpy.).
As she vicariously shares her husband's trip down the Hudson
from Albany to New York, Mrs. Bleecker ranges from “rough
mountains“ to the commerce along “Eboracia's plain“ and
typically observes of the “rural seats“ downriver that
“Nature's work, the hand of Art completes“(180). The neo-
classic proprieties are just as elegantly preserved in “A
Trip to Burlington,“ in which the poetess chats with
unnamed friends or reads “the moral page of Steele“ while
relaxing on the deck of a boat bound for Burlington, a

typical rural retreat(187).

IV. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL POEM: EVALUATION

Difficulties in finding categories for American topo-
graphical poetry within conventional literary periods stem
from its inconsistencies, particularly from the contra-
diction implicit in a body of poetry “romantic in substance
yet neoclassic in form."1 Although a form-content dichotomy
itself may not best explain the inconsistencies, certainly
the same poem often exemplifies theories underlying two
different types of poetry, one a poetry of statement and
the other a poetry of implication. If one associates the
former type with the Neoclassic period and the latter with
the Romantic, then topographical poetry in late eighteenth-
century America is best labeled “pre-Romantic,“ but recent
critics have so roundly attacked the label that its use is
immediately suspect. From such problems in terminology,
already suggested at the beginning of Chapter III, arises
the difficulty of studying topographical poetry pp mgggp.

One method of elucidation, followed in succeeding chap-
ters, isolates motifs and conventions which constantly

recur throughout the mass of poems.2 While this procedure

1Leon Howard in Transitions (p. 53) sees this contra-
diction in almost all American poetry of the late eighteenth
century.

 

Chapters V and VI treat in detail common motifs
and conventions of American topographical poetry.

97

98
has the advantage of revealing overall trends, it ignores
the organic form of individual poems and hence discloses
little of use in pinpointing supposed contradictions between
Neoclassic form and Romantic content. If one is to under-
stand these contradictions and the failure of artistic
endeavor which they presuppose, then his only recourse is
to the individual poem.

Since it is impossible to examine closely every
poem in this study, an alternative is to analyze a typical
transitional poem; that is, a poem in which elements of
feeling, or “sensibility,“ modify or otherwise affect the
basic didactic-descriptive objectivity. One can rule out
poems like Timothy Dwight's Greenfield Hill that reflect
in both conception and execution “mimetic“ and “pragmatic“
creative theories; iggp, art as the imitation of universal
Nature and art aimed at instructing and pleasing an audience.
Although no poems of this period unequivocally reflect
“expressive,“ or Romantic, theories, a few manage to suggest
that they were created partially in the belief that the
“sources and subject matter“of poetry

are the attributes and actions of the poet's own mind;
or if aspects of the external world, then these only
as they are converted from fact to poetry by thg

feelings and operations of the poet's own mind.

One of these transitional poems is John Miller

3M. H. Abrams, The Mirror and the Lam : Romantic
Theory and the Critical Tradition (New York, 1953), p. 22.

 

 

99
Russell's “The Village Cliff“ (1799),“ a “hill“ poem con-
taining motifs and conventions associated with both Neo-
classic and Romantic theory.5 Although no other literary
historian makes reference to this poem, Mary Dexter Bates
treats it prominently in an unpublished dissertation that sur-
veys in detail American poetry between 1783 and 1800.
According to Miss Bates, “The Village Cliff,“ along with
three other descriptive poems by Russell, gives “the first
clear indication that romanticism had come to flower in
America.“6 Such an enthusiastic judgment is surprising in
light of other contemporary “Romantic“ poems, such as
Freneau's “The House of Night“ (1779) or Thomas Odiorne's
The Progress of Refinement (1792). Nevertheless, the poem is
well suited to analysis, not onlytecause it is transitional
but also because, in common with other “hill“ poems, it

best exhibits characteristics, notably the “prospect“

 

“A graduate of Harvard (1785), John Miller Russell
was the son of Thomas Russell, a successful and respected
merchant of Charlestown and Boston. In analysis of the
poem.gpg poem, the sole relevance of the author's identity
is to demonstrate that it was the work of an educated man
and not of an untutored child of nature gifted with
“original genius.“

5The prospect, the rural retirement theme, “ruin“
sentiments, history, and moralizing are collectively found
in practically every conventional “hill“ poem. The youthful
recollections and personal address conventions most often
occur in poems in which expressions of the poet's subjective

states predominate. See the appended Checklist and Chapters
V and VI.

6Bates, “Columbia's Bards,“ p. 308.

100
description and “incidental meditation,” that define the
topographical genre.

Incommon with other late eighteenth-century hill
poems, simple chronological and Spatial progression governs
the structure of “The Village Cliff.“ One of the early
refinements in topographical poetry, observable in Dyer's
Gron ar Hill, was a structure which took into account the
observer as well as the scene observed. In Dyer's and sub-
sequent hill poems, the reader can usually follow the action
of the poem easily because he is oriented within a temporal
and spatial framework established by the poet's relation to
the scene. Conventionally the poet moves from the base to
the summit of the hill, marks the time of day embraced by
the action, describes the “picturesque“ scenes before him
in a fairly logical sequence, and supplies whatever instructive
commentary the views suggest. “The Village Cliff“ adheres
to this basic structure, but its action is complicated by the
introduction of subjective memory passages in addition
to the usual historical reminiscences. AS the poet's
point of view shifts from present time to past experience and
back again, the reader, already oriented temporally and
spatially, experiences some confusion until he accepts the
“spots of time“ technique as expressionistic rather than as
a logically ordered mirroring of present experience. Because
it emphasizes the workings of the poet's own mind, this free

association of ideas is an atypical technique in eighteenth-

101
century descriptive poetry.

Although the representation of scenes and experiences
colored by the poet's own memory and imagination represents
an “expressive“ theory of art, the poem nevertheless is
grounded firmly in the Neoclassic tradition in which ob-
jective description of external nature is interSpersed with
historical and moralistic embellishment. A close examination
of what actually happens in the poem reveals a work of art
at once simple and complex, chaotic and unified, imitative
and original--a reflection perhaps of the poet's ambivalent
wavering between tradition and innovation.7

In an opening passage that sets the time of the
action as morning, the season as autumn, and the mood as
carefree, the poet invites his friend to accompany him to
the top of an unnamed hill in the vicinity of Boston.
Following this Six-line invocation, the real action of the
poem begins. Together they proceed over “lawns and heaths
and woodlands“ to the top of the “mount“ where, upon approach-
ing the edge of a “tow'ring cliff,“ they view a “shudd'ring“
gulf below. From this Spot, as the ensuing action indicates,
the poet has an open prospect of the surrounding country‘
side; and, as customary in “hill“ poems, he remains in this

location for the rest of the poem. With a mechanical

 

7For convenience of reference in the analysis which

gallows, the full text of the poem is included in Appendix

102
transition (“From such a height as this . . ."), the poet
launches a Six-lineencomium on the exploits of an American
balloonist and his French partner, who in 1784 had made the
first flight from the Cliffs of Dover over the English
Channel to France. Passing abruptly from historical digression
to memory passage, he recalls the view of distant mountains
in Springtime. Then, as now, he and his companion could see
the “snow-clad“ peaks, which at that time marked the last
traces of winter but which now presage its advent. The
mention of winter is the clue for a short Thomsonian winter-
storm piece, which introduces “tempests' and “dire chilling
blasts“ to contrast with the clear skies and "temp'rate
airs“ of the present autumn day.

From distant northern mountains, the poet shifts his
view to the “bluey ridge“ (the Blue Hills?) bounding the
southern horizon, thence immediately east to “the spires of
Boston“ and “Charlestown's lofty steeple,“ which lie beyond
hills and valleys spotted with “frequent“ farms, the abode
of “plenty.“ The scene of rural contentment merges into a
genre sketch of a “ruddy lass“ cheerfully singing while
engaged in “rural toil“ on the “plain“ below. In an apos-
trophe to the happy maid, the poet contrasts the joys of
rural life with the pleasures of sophisticated city life,
to the benefit of the former. After her work is completed,
the young lady will be squired by her “fav'rite lad“ to a

103

village social, held at a spot where, in times past, local
“peasants“ gathered to observe scenes of war in distant
Boston. The ensuing “ruin“ piece, which briefly paints
the “sublime“ terrors of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the
burning of Charlestown, is followed by an apostrophe to Joel
Barlow, whose “genius“ in describing such scenes entitles
him to be called the “American Homer.“

With the opening of a new verse paragraph, the
scene of wartime devastation gives way to happy memories of
youthful blackberry picking expeditions that, one must assume,
took place in nearby fields and hills. A genre Sketch of a
girl squirting her “swain” with blackberry juice is concluded
with an aphorism announcing that such “artless rural Sports“
are emblems of “youthful innocence and ease.“ The next para-
graph signals a return to the present through reference to
“yonder little snug and neat abode,“ a structure evidently
on the nearby slope of the hill. But memory again takes over
as the poet recalls how, alone in this retreat, he has
spent many pleasing hours “Giv'n up to calm reflection's
soothing pow'r“ while listening to the “sweet strains“ of an
Eolian harp. Often he has been diverted from this mood
of revery by some “honest Swain“ who, attracted by the
mysterious music, expects to see a musician and, finding
none, peers everywhere until he discovers the source of the

“sweet melody.“ The poet's retreat has also furnished

104
pleasures of the “fancy,“ for seated at an open window, he
has sometimes imagined a resemblance of the “smooth and
round“ hillside to the surface of the ocean, so that when-
ever he has seen his friend or a “peasant“ walking along
the edge of the hill, the poet has fancied him mounted “on
clouds“ or “on the ocean's brim.“

Resuming his prospect description, the poet looks
in an unspecified direction--presumably in the general area
of the retreat--and sees a pond in the middle of which is
an island where fishermen find rest from the summer sun amid
its “shady arbors.“ The movement to the next verse para-
graph brings another view from the hill within focus. Sighting
the village immediately below the cliff, the poet catalogues
its various structures, among which is the “village tavern,“
a center for rural gossip and politics. Through allusions
to famous comic characters in literature, he manages a thir-
teensline caricature of amusing activities and personalities
that he and his “jocund friend“ have observed while seated
in the inn.

An apostrophe to the village itself follows this
genre Sketch. Imitating Goldsmith's “Sweet Auburn . . .,“
the poet extolls simple village life; here, amid scenes of
rural contentment, he first felt the urge to give “the soft
emotion free acceSS.“ Now he must leave his native vinage,

and he bids both it and his friend farewell. “Prudence“

105
demands that they depart to play their roles in the “great
theatre of life.“ The poem concludes on a moralistic note
with the hope that their parting will not end their friend-
ship but that it will “grow yet stronger with increasing
years,/ And be a spring of comfort“ in their souls.

Because poetry is a consciously contrived rendering
of emotional experience, the mood, or tone, which prevails
in a poem is central to its understanding. In “The Village
Cliff“ the pervading mood is gay and carefree. Unlike many
contemporary poems with openings that reveal a solitary intro-
vert looking to nature for solace, “The Village Cliff“
exposes a buoyant and spirited lover of nature who urges
his friend to “haste“ so that they may “in social mood to-
gether rove“ through the fresh morning air. Like Wordsworth
in “The Tables Turned,“ the poet sets up a contrast between
studies,associated with “the cares of life,“ and the enjoy-
ment of nature, to the benefit of the latter. Despite
fluctuations, mainly from quiet revery to boisterous frivolity,
‘the “social mood“ established in the opening maintains an
ascendancy throughout the poem.

Frivolity dominates in three episodes connected with
memory passages. The first, forthrightly comic in its effect,
involves the girl who, on a blackberry picking expedition,
surprises her boyfriend by squirting juice in his face.

Another, in the Eolian harp sequence, concerns the “honest

106
swain“ who acts the part of a bumpkin in trying to determine
the cause of the mysterious music. The third is the tavern
scene in which the poet and his “jocund friend“ share “sym-
pathetic laughter“ over the fancied resemblance of many a
“phiz” to such characters in literature as Tony Lumpkin,
Falstaff, and Don Quixote.

Other detail in the poem, less gross in its effect,
supports the carefree “social mood.“ In the digression on
the balloon flight from Dover to France, the two pioneers
launch their flight in a “gay bark,“ and in the genre sketch
of the singing girl, the “ruddy lass“ is in “jocund mood of
heart.“ “Laughter loud,“ “wanton freaks of merriment,“
“careless innocence,“ and “jocund damsels“ are phrases that
mark the mood of gaiety in the account of the blackberry
expedition, an outing climaxed by the almost slapstick
squirting incident.

In at least two passages the gaiety is toned down
to quiet revery. In one the poet expressly states his mood,
and in the other the mood is induced by the effect of the
imagery. The poet is outwardly pensive as he recalls times
spent at his summer retreat:

In yonder little snug and neat abode,

Full many pleasing moments have I pass'd.

Alone, and seated in an elbow chair,

Giv'n up to calm reflection's soothing pow'r,
The blazing hours have pass'd away unheeded;
While the sweet strains of the AEolian harp,
Now softly sighing to the passing breeze,
And now in fullest concert swelling out,

With magic pow'r, as by the fairy touch,

They gently soothe the wearied soul to rest.

107
The choice of detail in the description of a nearby pond
captures the mood of rural peace and contentment:
How finely shows that calm and lucid pond;

Its high romantic bank thick set with trees

That overarch the flood. And in the midst

A beauteous island rising from the wave,

With shady arbors crown'd, that yield retreat

To those, who in the blazing summer's sun

Have patient toil'd, to catch the finny race,

There underneath those thick embow'ring shades

They rest their weary limbs; and, pronely stretch'd,

Inhale the cooling breeze that floats along

The wide encircling surface of the deep.

A minor variation from the pervading “social mood“
occurs in two passages aimed at arousing “sublime“ emotions.
Like many of his contemporaries, the author of “The Village
Cliff“ strives for sublimity through descriptions evoking
awe and terror. The first instance, near the opening,
describes the “shudd'ring“ reaction of the poet and his compan-
ion as they view the “gulf“ below them from the edge of the
cliff. The second, a conventional ruin-piece on Boston at war,
makes use of images of noise, blood, and fire in order to
evoke “that scene so awfully sublime.“

These minor variations leave little impress on the
prevailing mood of gaiety, and even the major excursions
into quiet revery and boisterous levity are compatible with
the basic tone. One jarring discord, however, is the cone
clusion, in which the poet reviews his past and looks forward

to the future. One would expect the preceding memory

passages to prepare for a meaningful synthesis of thought

108
and emotion, but the poet's pious utterances on “sober
manhood“ not only lack emotional significance but also have
little bearing on the gay “social mood“ that, up to the
conclusion, so dominates the action.

The total emotional experience that comprises poetic
enjoyment depends not only on moods discoverable in the overt
action of a poem but also upon more complex emotional states,
induced by poetic imagery.8 In “The Village Cliff“ land-
scape description figures as the primary source of imagery,
for as a “hill“ poem in the picturesque tradition, it aims
at accuracy of visual effect. From his position at the edge
of the cliff, the poet first looks to the northwest, then
to the south, then east (Bostnn), then to the area comprised
by the hill itself, and finally to the unnamed village
below him.9 In two transitions marking Shifts in view,
the poet is at pains to emphasize the visual character of
his experience:

Now change the scene where other prospects rise,

And see what pleasing objects glad the Sight.

The eye with level glance at distance kens

The bluey ridge that bounds the southern view:

But et the eye that loves, when unconfin'd,

Quick as the light, to stretch its pow'r as far

As human optics reach, draw nearer home,
And mark the pleasing images in view.

8Imagery here means not only formal figures of speech

but, more inclusively, all verbal reproductions of sen,
sational and perceptual experience.

9Because the poet only approximates his location
relative to Boston, one cannot determine these directions
with total accuracy.

 

109

The influence of the picturesque tradition lies in
the selection and emphasis of detail rather than in any
attempt to fill the scene with enough detail to enable the
reader to compose a picture. In the views to the northwest
and south, the emphasis is on horizontal vastness--the “great-
ness“ residing in landscapes that, according to Joseph
Addison, enlarges the soul.10 The drop from the cliff itself
to the gulf below is so described as to elicit awe, a feeling
that ever since Edmund Burkehad been associated with the
natural sublime.11 The selection of detail in the prospect
opening on the view eastward suggests harmony in variety,
a quality of the strictly “picturesque“ as opposed to the
“sublime“ or “beautiful.“ Through images of both city and
country, art and nature, the poet maintains a delicate
balance between rudeness and tameness innature:

The spires of Boston o'er the eastern hills,

And Charlestown's lofty steeple meet the eye;

Around sweet interchange of hill and dale,

The yellow fields of corn and fading woods;

The curling smoke that marks the frequent farm,

Where plenty dwells in this th[r]ice happy land.

Elsewhere in the poem the same balance is achieved by the

juxtaposition of two contrasting passages (both forming

 

1°Spectator No. 412 (June 23, 1712). For an analySis
of the influence of Addison's “The Pleasures of the Imagin-
ation“ on an American hill poem, see Chapter V, under “The
Prospect.“

11In A Philoso hical En uir into the Ori in of our
Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1737), Edmund Burke had
classified depth as the most powerful source of the sublime.
See Monk, The Sublime, p. 93.

110
verse paragraphs) rather than by a combination of city-
country imagesinto a Single passage. The first of these
passages describes in considerable detail a “calm and lucid
pond“ surrounding a “beauteous island.“ The paragraph follow-
ing catalogues objectsin the nearby village, including the
“sacred dome“ around which “alternate rise/ The goodly mansion
and the humble cot.“

In these formal landscape descriptions, the poet
attempts to mirror accurately the external world, for the
picturesque tradition demanded an eye that remained fixed on
the object. Yet in this adherence to fact lies the weakness
of most of the imagery in the poem. Particularized imagery
in itself does not make poetry, as the great Romantic poet-
critics recognized. Wordsworth, in 1816, wrote that “objects
. . . derive their influence not from what they are actually
in themselves, but from such as are bestowed upon them by
the minds of those conversant with or affected by those

“12 And Thomas DeQuincy, in the same vein, wrote:

objects.
“The fact is that no mere description, however visual or
picturesque, is in any instance poetic er se, or except in
and through the passion which presides.“13

12Letters of William and Doroth Wordsworth: The
Middle Years, ed. E. de Selincourt (Oxford, 1937), II, 705.

Quoted in Abrams, The Mirror and the Lamp, p. 54.

 

 

, 13Notes to a partial translation of Lessing's
Laocoon, in Collected Writin 8, ed. David Masson (Edinburgh,
1339-90). XI, 206. Quoted in Abrams, p. 54.

111

Those landscape descriptions in “The Village Cliff“
which owe least to picturesque conventions are the most
genuinely poetic. The account of the remembered blackberry
picking expeditions is conceived not as a static picture
but as a sequence of movements and sounds:

How often with a rural virgin troop

I rov'd the woodland path, or upland heath,

In careless innocence still passing on,

While laughter loud re-echo'd through the grove,

And wanton freaks of merriment were shown.

At length the place of blackberries is found,

When o'er the fields the jocund damsels stray,

And each one gathers up the sav'ry fruit. . . .

In its effect this passage is so seemingly simple, Spon-
taneous, and natural that it could almost pass as one

of the scenes of everyday rural life that Wordsworth delighted
to depict, but nothing is done with the little sketch (which
concludes with the girl-squirtingbboy diversion), and it
remains as just another vignette among the series of nature
sketches.

The same sparseness of development spoils another
otherwise excellent bit of description, the memory-piece
beginning, “As at my open sash I frequent Sit. . . .“ Visual,
tactile, and auditory images, combined with an apt simile,
vivify a scene that makes for one of the most original
passages in topographical poetry. Seated at the open window
“when summer heats prevail,“ the poet looks out on a landscape

so barren of detail that few poets nurtured in the picturesque

tradition would attempt to describe it. The view is simply
that of the curved brow of the hill, barren of foliage,

112
forming the horizon. The poet amplifies the effect of this
stark meeting of earth and Sky through a simile comparing
the gentle swell of the hill with the huge yet gentle
swells of the ocean. Into this scene the poet puts in relief
against the horizon a single figure-~either his friend or a
“peasant“--who to the observer's “fancy“ appears to be
walking on clouds “or on the ocean's brim.“ For its time, such
description seems almost surrealistic, and the dreamlike
quality of the imagery supports the dreamlike mood of the
poet as he sits musing for long periods at his favorite rural
haunt. But here again the scene is flashed before the
reader and just as abruptly dismissed from view.

If “The Village Cliff“ occasionally transcends poetic
convention, it sometimes retrogresses into stereotyped imita-
tion. The Thomsonian reference to the seasons near the
opening of the poem features nouns, verbs, and adjectives
that could have come directly from “Autumn“ or “Winter,“ or
one of their many imitations:

What time the waning autumn comes around,

In pure cerulean skies and temp'rate airs,

Those snow-clad heights again salute the eye.

The van of winter, (shiv'ring to behold!)

Presaging tempests and dire chilling blasts;

And soon (ah! how unlike this beauteous morn!)

The ruthless forces of the North arrive,

Howl through the groves, and darken all the air.

Its evocative power similarly deadened, the imagery in the

description of Boston at war draws upon the machinery of

the melodramatic sublime, including a “loud tumultuous roar,“

113
“continual thunder,“ “burning domes,“ and a “pyramid of fire.“
Topping off this ruin-piece is an apostrophe to Joel Barlow,
a rhetorical flourish that includes an antithesis of sorts
between the primitive grandeur of Homer and the polished
ease of Virgil. For the moment the poet has forgotten he
is writing poetry and has assumed the mannerisms of a Fourth
of July orator.

With formal apostrophe and personified abstraction
the most widely used rhetorical figures in the early national
period,1“ their appearance in “The Village Cliff“ is not sur-
prising, but except for the address to Barlow, the apostrophes
are unobtrusive, and the personifications seem natural enough.
It is true that the poet conventionally links “plenty,“ who
dwells in this “happy land,“ with a rural landscape; that
elsewhere “sober reason“ stands “fix'd in silence“ while
listening to the village boors: and that in the conclusion the
“voice of prudence“ commands the poet to forego his youthful
pleasures. But these are hardly what Hugh Blair, a spokesman
for the rhetoricians, would call “strong“ figures.15 The
other instances of personification are commonplace pathetic

fallacies that seem metaphorically appropriate to the

 

l“Gordon E. Bigelow, Rhetoric and American Poetr
of the Earl National Period (“University of Florida Monographs:
Humanities,g No. 4; Gainesville, Florida, 1960), p. 70.

15In Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783),
XVI, Blair defined “strong“personification as that “in which
inanimate objects are introduced not only as feeling and acting,
but also as speaking to us, or hearing and listening when we

address ourselves to them.“ Quoted in Bigelow, Rhetoric and
American Poetr , p. 70.

114
descriptive passages in which they appear.16

Relative to the length of the poem, one finds few
instances of simile, metaphor, metonymy, and synecdoche.
This scarcity of metaphoric imagery is consistent with the
didactic-descriptive form, for overt statements rather than
symbolic associations carry the weight of communicated mean-
ing. One of the few similes with any originality--the
comparison of the hill with the sea--has already been dis-
cussed in conjunction with its appropriateness to the memory
passage in which it appears. Another significant simile,
found in the episode of the Eolian harp, likens the “magic
pow'r“ of its music to the “fairy touch“:

Alone, and seated in an elbow chair,

Giv'n up to calm reflection's soothing pow'r,

The blazing hours have pass'd away unneeded;

While the sweet strains of the AEolian harp,

Now softly sighing to the passing breeze,

And now in fullest concert swelling out,

With magic pow'r, as by the fairy touch,

They gently soothe the wearied soul to rest.

Although “The Eolian Harp“ (1796), by Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, also uses the fairy music comparison, the two
similes are only superficially similar. In Coleridge's poem
the figure receives considerably more expansion and elabor-

ation, and the wind-harp itself is presented as a symbol of

“animated nature.“ In “The Village Cliff“ neither the

 

16Zephyrs that “breathe,“ mountains that “lift their
hoary heads, and groves that appear “in vernal dress.“

115

figure nor the matter-of-fact passage that contains it lends
itself profitably to symbolic interpretation.17

Other figures in the poem are the kind that “observa-
tion will always supply,“ and for that reason suffer from
their obviousness.l8 Of all the images, the “theatre of
life“ metaphor at the close of the poem receives the greatest
elaboration yet is the weakest in imaginative effect, possibly
because Shakespeare, in the “All the world's a stage“ Speech
in.As You Like It, had robbed an already commonplace analogy
of its effectiveness. The reader is hardly surprised to
learn that the poet and his companion must forego the
pleasures of youth to “enter the great theatre of life“ and
that they will have to perform their “several parts“ as
they move in “different scenes“ on “the world's broad stage.“

Synecdoche and metonymy serve to illustrate how the

poet, in the spirit of Neoclassic orthodoxy, often selected

 

17One is tempted nevertheless to make something of

the image, for Professor Myer Abrams sees the wind-harp as
one of the most significant symbols in Romantic poetry:
“The wind-harp has become a persistent Romantic analogue of
poetic mind, the figurative mediator between outer motion and
inner emotion. It is possible to speculate that, without
this plaything of the eighteenth century, the Romantic poets
would have lacked a conceptual model for the way the mind
and imagination respond to the wind [loosely, a symbol of poetic
inspiration], so that some of their most characteristic
passages might have been, in a literal sense, inconceivable.“
See “The Correspondent Breeze: A Romantic Metaphor,“ in
English Romantic Poets: Modern ggsaysyin Criticism, ed. M. H.
Abrams, (New York; 1960), p. 38.

Some examples are “quick as the light,“ “bombs. . .

Like meteors gleaming,“ “the spring [water source] of com-
fort,“ “the spring [the season] of youth,“ and “blazing hours.“

116
his figures from a common store representing propriety and
elegance in language. The “calm and lucid pond“ in turn
becomes “the flood,“ “the wave,“ and “the deep.“ A mid-
night feast is called “the midnight board,“ and the village
church, never named as such, appears alternately as “the
spire“ and “the sacred dome,“ Similarly, the city of Boston
is represented by its “Spires“ and Charlestown by its “lofty
steeple“ or, in the ruin-piece, by its “burning domes.“

The diction itself, considered apart from its imagistic

significance, maintains a precarious balance between the
language which Neoclassicists thought peculiar to poetry and
that “really used by men.“ In the category of “poetic diction“
are archaisms such as “art,“ “yon,“ “hast,“ and “swain”; the
periphrasis “finny race“; the Latinism “cerulean skies“; and
epithets such as “sounding waves,“ “embow'ring shades,“
“goodly mansion,“ and "humble cots.“ Language with a Words-
worthian naturalness includes “this mild and clear autumnal
sun,“ “the freshness of the morning air,“ “the far off moun-
tains tipp'd with snow,“ and

The yellow fields of corn and fading woods;
The curling smoke that marks the frequent farm.

The only place names with the appeal of local color are those
of mountains (“0n grand Monadnock and Wachusett heights“),

and the only noticeable Americanism is “blackberries.“19

19Boston, Charlestown, and Breed's Hill were too
current and too closely associated with British place names
to have a distinctively American quality.

 

117
Offsetting these indigenous substantives are words--notably
“lawns,“ “heaths,“ “groves,“ and “peasants“--that seem more
appropriate to English poetry than to American. If the poet
has a favorite word, it is “jocund“; and its recurrence in
three places is not surprising in view of the episodes of
levity.

If in imagery and diction the poem vacillates between
tradition and innovation, in form it leans Slightly toward
innovation, for although blank verse was far from new, most
poets contemporary with Russell preferred orthodox couplets
for their descriptive verse.20 Thomson in The Seasons,
Cowper in The Task, and Wordsworth in “Tintern Abbey“ were
in a minority among eighteenth-century nature poets, and to
this company Russell allied himself. Throughout the 180 lines
of the poem, the author sustains a verse form which, through
its power to capture delicate vocal inflections, was proving
itself eminently adapted to reflective nature poetry.21 His
use of the medium is not without flaw, however. Without too

much syllabic distortion the poem can be scanned perfectly

2°Consu1t the appended Checklist for the prevalence
of octosyllabic and decasyllabic couplets in American topo-
graphical poetry.

210ne interesting exception to the continuity of blank
verse in the poem is a closed couplet used to emphasize the
epigrammatic character of a didactic aside: “These artless
rural sports are form'd to please,/ Emblems of youthful
innocence and ease.“ Except for alliterationr-e. ., “the
tOil of tedious study throw aside“--no other rhyme appears
in.the poem.

118

as iambic pentameter;22 and this metrical regularity, combined
with an excessive use of end-stopped lines, is reSponSible
for a monotonous rhythmic uniformity. The strength of the
verse lies in its idiomatic directness; a notable avoidance
of syntactical inversion and grammatical license gives the
verse a clarity and rapidity in keeping with the general
mood of gaiety. To one accustomed to the heavy “sublime“
style of most of the ambitious didactic-descriptive poems
of the period, Russell's simplicity and directness are re-
freshing. The relatively high incidence of predicative
statement as opposed to a preponderance of substantives,
adjectives, and phrasal modifiers is aptly suited to a poem in
which the meaning is dependent chiefly on overt statement and
representational accuracy rather than upon imagistic richness.

The foregoing analysis, in toto, suggests a poem that
stands roughly between the poetry of statement of Denham and
Pope and the poetry of imagination of Wordsworth, Coleridge,
and later Romantics. It “pleases“ by mirroring the delights
of nature and “instructs“ by historical example and moral
precept; but it also throws attention upon the poet's own
particular vision of the external world. Inthe sense, then,
that the poem combines the objectivity of Neoclassic nature

poetry with the subjectivity of Romantic, it is “pre-Romantic,“

 

22The author achieves this regularity partly by using
single-syllable adjectives joined by and, by present parti-
cipal modifiers, and by dropping the 1y ending on adverbs.

119
but this label does not disclose the value of the poem.qp§
poem.

In determining this value, one reasonably asks if
there is a “rich ground of meaning beyond what is overtly
stated.“23 What is stated is clear enough: from the hilltop
the poet reviews his happy, youthful experiences in nature,
bids them farewell, and avows the responsibilities of adult-
hood. If there is meaning beyond the overt meaning, it is dif-
ficult to find, mainly because of a lack of thematic unity.
In the sense that most of the episodes and descriptive
passages are centered upon the pleasures of young innocence
and that they lead up to arejection of the past and an
acceptance of manhood, the poem achieves a semblance of
unity. But tacking on a trite moral to a poem already
loosely constructed hardly constitutes the kind of enrich-
ment of the “youthful memories“ motif that characterizes any
one of Wordsworth's great poems of growing up.

Despite the failure of the poet to do anything with
the youthful memories motif, there exists the possibility
for larger meanings in a unity achieved by implication rather
than by outward ordering of experience. Some of the memory

passages, or “recollections in tranquillity,“ might be

23W. K. Wimsatt, Jr., uses this criterion in demon!
strating the superiority of a nature sonnet by Coleridge to
a similar one by William Lisle Bowles. See “The Structure
of Romantic Nature Imagery“ in Wimsatt's The Verbal Icon:

Studies in the Meaning of Poetry (Lexingt‘S'n, Kentuch"y"',"l"954).
p. 109.

 

120

Gmstrued as having imaginative Significance beyond the merely
pleasurable visual or emotional response that eighteenth-
century poets of the picturesque aimed at; hence larger
meanings might be induced from them expressive of inner
states of the poet's mind. But even if such readings are
allowed, no possibility existsofdiscerning the design which
is latent in the multiform sensuous picture.“2u Other than
their common grounding in pleasant youthful memories, the
“Spots of time“ are too disparate and too sketchy for the
reader to discover in them an organic unity from which a
significant richness of meaning might be derived.

If the poem has value, it rests on a superiority
relative to the mass of topographical poetry published in
America between 1783 and 1812; for in style, imagery, and
tone, “The Village Cliff“ stands above moSt other contem-
porary productions. In a period when most poetasters aimed
for eloquence and achieved grandiloquence, Russell writes
with directness and simplicity; and if he occasionally
lapses into turgidity, as in the ruin-piece on Boston at war,
he is not so much to be censured as praised for not yielding
any more often than he does to contemporary stylistic fashions.
Moreover, if for most of the poem he abides by the contem-

porary idea that figurative language is ornament--devices

 

2“Ibid., p. 110. Wimsatt maintains that the rich—
ness of Romantic nature poems depends on discovering such
design in their structures.

121
for rhetorical heighteningb-he occasionally constructs images
which suggest a unity of tenor and vehicle. Likewise, if
in most of the descriptive passages he seems to value visual
detail only for its efficacy in rendering picturesque scenes,
there are a few--such as the blackberry picking outingb-in
which he transcends convention. Finally, in an era when
the introduction of subjective feeling into a nature poem was
so often the Signal for cloying Self-pity, he shows that
sensibility does not always imply sentimentality. Slight
though these achievements may be, they are enough to set
apart “The Vfllage Cliff“ from the mass of insipid topographical

poetry of the early national period.

V. MOTIFS AND CONVENTIONS: TRADITIONAL

Because the eighteenth century was notoriously
convention-bound, a study of topographical poetry cannot
overlook the extent to which literary precedent determined
its form and content. Cooper's Hill is generally accepted
as the prototype of the genre even though, of course,
antecedents for the conventions in local poetry go far
back into classical Greek and Roman literature. From its
appearance in 1642 to the early nineteenth century when the
old patterns were significantly modified by the Romantic
sensibility, Cooper's Hill and the major poems directly
influenced by it determined the content of local poetry.
Invocation of the muse, the prospect-piece, the retirement
theme, historical matter, moral reflections, mention of an
estate and honor to its owner, praise of commerce, address
to a river, the appearance of rural deities and of rural
sports-othese are the motifs that became the staples of
traditional topographical poetry.1 Besides making use of
all these features in Windsor Forest, Pope contributed
several of his own, including the ruin-piece, the catalogue
of flora and fauna, and the prophecy of future national
prosperity. Thomson's The Seasons, unrivalled in scope

and popularity as a neoclassic nature poem, further enhanced

 

1Cooper's Hill is discussed for its influence on topo-
graphical poetry in R. A. Aubin, Topographical Poetry, p. 35;
C. V. Deane, Aspects, p. ll6;Dwight L. Durling, Georgigp
Traditions, pp. 195-96. .

 

122

123
the status of these features as literary conventions, and in

Grongar Hill John Dyer, although contributing no new features,

 

perfected those he inherited and thus enhanced the appeal of
the genre.2

In England what was occurring in the development of
topographical poetry very naturally carried over to America,
and the themes and conventions discussed in this chapter are
the same as those made popular by Denham and his English
followers. It is obviously the framework and intended effect
of these features that are identical. The American continent--
big and untamed-~and the American way of life--new and undisci-
plined--produced specific applications of these motifs
quite different from those of English poets; but the general
attitude toward nature-~what men looked for and what they

enjoyed when they wrote about external nature-~remained the same.
THE PROSPECT

In Spectator No. 412, one of the series on the
Pleasures of the Imagination, Joseph Addison explains how
"greatness," "novelty,“ and "beauty" in objects of sight give
Satisfaction to the beholder. Since most of his illustrations
involve "1andskips" or “prospects,“ one discovers what the

term prospect meant to an influential early eighteenth-century

—A

2Among the more prominent conventions in Grongar Hill
are invocation, prospect, catalogue, ruin-piece, moralizing,
and praise of retirement.

124
critic.3 PrOSpects fulfill the requirements of “greatness“
if they provide “Largeness of a whole View.“ For the vast-
ness of such “unbounded Views" fills the beholder with a
“pleasing Astonishment“ and causes him to feel “a delightful
Stilness and Amazement in the Soul.“ In short, “wide and
undetermined Prospects are as pleasing to the Fancy, as
the Speculations of Eternity or Infinitude are to the
Understanding.“ Prospects fulfill the requirements of
“novelty“ if they fill "the Soul with an agreeable Surprise,“
gratify- its curiosity, and give it “an Idea of which it
was not before possest.“ Toward this end, nothing “more
enlivens a Prospect than Rivers, Jetteaus, or Falls of
Water, where the Scene is perpetually shifting, and enter—
taining the Sight every Moment with something that is new.“
A prospect is “beautiful“ if it contains “Gaiety or Variety
of Colours,“ “Symmetry and Proportion of Parts,“ “the
Arrangement and Disposition of Bodies,“ or “a just Mixture
and Concurrence of all together,“ Anyone who has studied
eighteenth-century nature poetry knows how these aesthetic
principles laid down by Addison guided neoclassic poets in
their descriptions of landscape. In almost every topographical

poem featuring an extensive prospect the effect aimed at

 

3The terms landscape and prospect were often used
interchangeably in the eighteenth century, the latter term
generally carrying a connotation of greater extensiveness
of view than the former. See C. V. Deane, As ects, p. 100.

125

was vastness, variety, and beauty as defined by Addison.“
One advantage of the poet over the painter was that

the former could survey a more extensive scene than could

the artist, restricted as he was to a canvas of one dimension.5

Obviously a hill presented the best vantage point for this

grand survey of all that the eye could behold. The American

hill poem with the most extensive prospect description is

Greenfield Hill, in which Timothy Dwight views the country-

side surrounding his residence near Fairfield. Surveying

the diversified landscape between his own Hill and Long

Island Sound, some three miles away, Dwight consciously or

unconsciously emphasized elements in the scene that con-

tributed to Addison's triad of aesthetic pleasures. The

novelty that arises from “variety“ is suggested in the

opening lines of the prospect-piece:

 

“In general, in eighteenth-century aesthetic theory,
sublime, p%cturesque, and beautiful can be equated with
Addison's greatness,“ novelty,“ and “beauty.“ However,
down through the century these terms became significantly
modified in usage so that Addison's definitions are more
suggestive than complete. It is especially important to
remember that his concept of the sublime was rather tame. He
“preferred open prOSpects to mountain passes“ and “horizontal
extent as against elevation.“ See Walter J. Hipple, The
Beautiful, The Sublime, and The Picturesque (1957), p. 18.

5Painters eventually tried to overcome this dis-
advantage by unusual means. In Art and Life in America
Oliver Larkin (p. 112) reports that Charles Peale made
drawings from the eight Sides of a cupola at Annapolis to
be combined in a continuous print. New York saw such
panoramas displayed as early as 1795.

126

Heavens, what a matchless group of beauties rare
Southward expands! where, crown'd with yon tall oak,
Round-hill the circling land and sea o'erlooks;

Or, smoothly sloping, Grover's beauteous rise,
Spreads its green Sides, and lifts its single tree,
Glad mark for seamen; or, with ruder face,
Orchards,and fields, and groves, and houses rare,
And scatter'd cedars, Mill-hill meets the eye;

Or where, beyond, with every beauty clad,

More distant heights in vernal pride ascend.

Here, sky-encircled, Stratfor 'S churches beam;

And Stratfield's turrents greet the roving eye.

In clear, full view, with every varied charm,

That forms the finish'd landscape, blending soft

In matchless union, Fairfield and Green's Farms,
Give lustre to the day. (3)

Stretching south far beyond the slight hills and cultivated
fields was Long Island Sound, the view of which provided the

kind of horizontal Spaciousness that Addison associated with

“greatness“:

Here crown'd with pines
And Skirting groves, with creeks and havens fair
Embellish'd, fed with many a beauteous stream,
Prince of the waves, and ocean's favorite child,
Far westward fading in confusion blue,
And eastward stretch'd beyond the human ken,
And mingled with the sky, there Longa's Sound
Glorious expands.

Sunsets and sunrises, according to Addison, are especailly
productive of “beauty,“ for the eye naturally delights in
“those different Stains of Light that shew themselves in
Clouds.“ Over Long Island Sound,

What varied beauties, changing with the sun,

Or night's more lovely queen, here Splendid glow.
0ft, on thy eastern wave, the orb of light
Refulgent rising, kindles wide a field

Of mimic day, slow sailing to the west,

And fading with the eve; and oft, through clouds,

127

Painting their dark Skirts on the glossy plain,
The strong, pervading lustre marks th' expanse,
With streaks of glowing Silver, or with Spots
Of burnish'd gold; while clouds, of every hue,
Their purple shed, their amber, yellow, grey,
Along the faithful mirror.

Such prospect-pieces, indispensable to the hill
poem, appeared as well in other varkties of topographical
poetry. The hilltop location of most of the famous estates
of early America commanded views that enabled the owner to
satisfy his taste for the picturesque just by stepping
out on his veranda:6

Where'er my wond'ring eyes I bend,
New beauties still I find;

Here cooling vistas far extend,
The gardens bloom behind.

To distant plains I stretch mine eye,
And view th' enlarged scene;

Above a vast extended sky,
Below a boundless green. (18)

Prospects do not always require elevations; any
extensive view would suffice. The description might originate
from a body of water, such as a river or lake,7 or it might
be in retrospect(85). It could be in blank verse, heroic

couplets, or evengn1sonnet form. The fourteen lines of

Samuel Low's “On the Prospect from New-Utrecht Bath“ combine

 

6According to canons of eighteenth-century aesthetics,
Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, that nonpareil of Republican
estates, presented a prospect that would qualify as more sub-
lime than picturesque. The immensity of the vistas from
this “little mountain“ in the Virginia Piedmont is quite
in contrast with the more restrained “greatness“ of views
from minor elevations such as Greenfield Hill.

7See, among others, “The Excursion“(30), “A Trip to
Burlington (187), and McKinnon's “The Hudson“ (108) for
prospect-pieces from bodies of water.

128
objective description with self-indulgent sentimentality:

What time the sun th' Atlantic flood ascends,

With beams of glory circling 'round his brow,

How lovely is this view, where beauty blends

With grandeur!--how th' horizon glowS!--and now
On distant vision how the light-house gleams!

Lo! Jersey's heights, and now her length'ning shore,
Yen moving sails, and sounding surges hoar,

Catch the first radiance of the solar beams!

Blest is the child of sentiment, to whom

A scene oft opens picturesque like this;

Who, while he sees the rising sun illume

This charming scene, feels conscious of his bliss;
For me, sad victim of an adverse fate,

He sets, alas! too soon, and mounts too late! (51)

A few prospect descriptions, representing the
“mountain madness“ that entered English and American poetry
late in the century, were inspired by breath-taking vertical
heights that in their awesomeness far exceeded the “rude
kind of Magnificence“ which Addison defined as “Greatness“
in nature. The awful gulfs that opened forth from the
summits of the forested Appalachians were enthusiastically
acclaimed by Alexander Wilson, who described several such
scenes in “The Foresters.” One especially “ravishing“ view
was encountered in the “solitary, Silent, vast“ Alleghenies:

One vast pre-eminent ascent we scal'd,

And high at last its level summit hail'd,
There, as we trod along fatigued and slow,
Through parting woods the clouds appear'd below,
And lo! at once before our ravish'd view,

A scene appear'd astonishing and new.

Close on the brink of an abyss we stood,
Conceal'd till now by the impending wood,
Below, at dreadful depth, the river lay,
Shrunk to a brook 'midst little fields of hay;
From right to left, where'er the prospect led,
The reddening forest like a carpet spread,
Beyond, immense, to the horizon's close,

Huge amphitheatres of mountains rose. (185)

129

In whatever form they recorded their impressions of
nature, sensitive Americans of the early national period
seemed particularly prone to discover prospects and to find
in them elements of the sublime, beautiful, or picturesque.
While visiting Boston in 1809, Elias Boudinot had occasion
to journey down to Quincy to visit John Adams, an event he
recorded in his diary. The resulting prospect-piece, with
its emphasis on a balance of art and nature, indicates how
gentlemen to the manner born had trained themselves to look

for picturesque scenes.

July 26 Wednesday. Went to Quincy to dine with Mr. Adams,
by the road that leads over Milton Hill. The road is
fine--The Villas on the way are really superb & magnificent;
but when we passed the Bridge & gained the Summit of
Milton Hill, we were surprised & gratified with a prOSpect
surpassing any thing we had yet seen. A beautifull River,
called Neponset, meandering thro' a 1arge,extensive Meadow,
with here & there a grand Mound of tall timber Trees--

a number of beautiful Islands in the Bay--a distant view
of Cape Ann bounding the Bay to the North East--the open
Ocean at about 20 Miles distance, but full in view from
our high situation--The numerous Churches & Steeples on
every side, and a multitude of handsome Country Seats

upon the surrounding Hills inewery direction but one--a
distant light House, with about 20 Vessels under Sail,
formed one of the most enchanting prospects, that could
engage the human Eye.8

This distinguished statesman, who instinctively

reacted to a picturesque seene, is in contrast with the

 

8Milton Halsey Thomas (ed.), Elias Boudinot's "Journey
to Boston“ in 1809 (Princeton, 1955), pp. 45-46. This passage
can be profitably compared with a description of the same scene
in H. M. Lisle's Milton Hill (6), written Six years earlier.
Although the poetic diction and burdensome embellishments in
Lisle's couplets are in sharp contrast to Boudinot's terse
diary style, the similarity of details in the prospects dis-
closes that the two men had similar tastes in natural scenery.

130
anonymous writer for the Port Folio who premeditated an
attempt to capture the meaning of “beauty“ in the florid

opening to his topographical sketch of Boston:

Boston is encircled on the West by a beautiful bason
[810], into which a small stream, known by the name of
Charles-River, discharges itself after creeping through
some of the neighboring villages. On a clear summer
morning, the view from a rising ground on the 'Common,'
over this bason to the opposite shore, is extremely
picturesque and enchanting. Indeed, the landscape has
been often admired by strangers: and while such views
as the falls of Niagara in America or the mountains of
Switzerland in Europe, may create nobler ideas of pp;
Sublime, this scene is surpassed by none in communicating
to the mind whatever is understood by the Beautiful. . . .9

A description in prose by Sarah Hastings of a
prospect near Strasburg, Pennsylvania, illustrates both the
pervasiveness of the prospect-piece as a convention of
eighteenth-century literature and the tendency of writers
of this period to analyze their aesthetic reSponseS. Mrs.
Hastings becomes so enthusiastic over the sublimities of the
scene that her effusion could be very easily mistaken as
a precis of a typical hill poem:

I have seated myself . . . on the highest pinnacle of
the first Mountain. Never before did I breathe the

pure salubrious Air, in so exalted a situation. Below,
lies an extensive Country, embellished with all the

Arts of civilized Life; whose Towns and Villages are now
finely decorated by the mellow tints of an Autumnal Sun;
which sheds a grand Sublimity over the scene with which

I am surrounded, and wakes every faculty of the Soul
into a glow of enthusiastic Ardor.1O

 

9Anon., “Sketches From Nature: A Landscape,“ Port
Folio, IV [nsfi)(November 28, 1807), 239-40.

0

Sarah Hastings, Poems on Different Subjects. To
Which Is Added a Descri tive Account of aIFamily Tour to the
West; in the Year 1 00 . . . (Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 1808),

p. 184.

131
RURAL RETIREMENT

It is axiomatic that eighteenth-century nature poets
believed with Cowper that “God made the country and man
the town.“ Even those who seldom set foot in the country
wrote poetry extolling the superiority of rural living. The
love of retirement was a sure sign of sensibility, and to
poets of this time sensibility had become “a badge of moral
and aesthetic distinction.“11 The Man of Feeling indulged
his sensibility in a soft primitivism which flourished largely
as a rather impracticable ideal. There were, of course,
poems in which the expressed love of rural life was dictated
by honest conviction rather than literary convention, and
in America, particularly, agrarian idealism became the basis
of an actual way of life that fulfilled the ever present
American dream of innocence and simple felicity.

In poetry of the early national period agrarian
idealism manifested itself mostly as vapid escapism. There
is considerable substance to Wordsworth's expression of his
desire to escape the “fretful stir/ Unprofitable and fever
of the world,“ but Wordsworth had the ability to transcend
the limitations of his theme, an ability that most other

poets lacked. For these rhymesters, toil, envy, and want

 

11Hoxie N. Fairchild, Religdous Trends in English
Poetry (New York, 1942), II, 137.

132

marked the course of human life, and the only remedy for
this predicament was a retreat to a country seat, a rural
grove, a purling stream, or a cottage of content--in short,
to places unrealistically conceived and vaguely defined. In
topographical poetry the escape motif appears with over-
whelming frequency. Its prevalance in town and river
poems has already been discussed, but it also pervades
other types, including hill poems.12 Samuel Deane con-
cludes his discursive observations from the brow of Pitch-
wood Hill with a mildly religious expression of the retreat
urge:

Hither I'll turn my frequent feet,

Indulging contemplation sweet;

Seeking quiet, sought in vain

In courts and crowds of busy men,

Subduing av'rice, pride and will,

To fit me for a happier Hill. (2)
The anonymous author of “Verses Written at Mount Radnor“
retires to “still scenes remote from care and noise“ in
order to'Torget the world and all its toys“(15). “Peaceful
breast“ rhymes with “rest“ and “serene“ with “scene“ as
the poet redundantly demonstrates that “Contemplation“ loves
“sequester'd glades and high embow'ring groves.“

Similar vacuities punctuate estate and journey poems.

Since the life of a country gentleman embodied the Horatian

ideal of rural contentment, one rightfully expects the theme

 

12See especially the discussion of townepoems and

river poems in Chapter III.

133

to be prominent in estate poetry, where typically the manor
is described as “luxuriant in fair rural scenes“ and as lying

Remote from walks where noise and revels reign,

And fierce ambition fires the tortur'd brain;

Remote from Town with all its clamorous train. (28)
One might suppose that in journey poems, which describe the
pleasures of travel, the theme would not be much in evidence,
but such is not the case. William Forrest, on a tour of
America, observes a scene of contentment as he rides in a
“stage-boat“ up the Delaware:

.The verdant shores afford a pleasing sight,

.Tlall who do in rural scenes delight.

On the green margin of this silver stream,

The rural swains and rural nymphs are seen,

Frisking about, void of affectation;

Rul'd by nature, more than education.

Thrice happy they who thus can Spend their days,

In scenes of pleasure, not in search of praise;

Contented with what Providence has giv'n

They fill their happy circle mark'd by heav'n;

Strangers to all the busy scenes of life,

To liberal arts and domestic strife;

And more contented in their narrow Sphere,

Than the rich monarch is in his, or peer. (181)

Wherever rural contentment occurs in topographical

poetry, one discovers the distressing uniformity with which
adherents of the cult of simplicity rejected the “city! That
this rejection is largely posturing is seen in the fact that
in 1800 only five American cities had a population of more
than 10,000. Yet, if one believes the poets, city life was
unbearably dirty, crowded, competitive, and immoral; the
condemnation was universal. In “The Invitation“ Alexander

Wilson admonishes his friend, “Come then, dear sir, the

134
noisy town forsake,/ With me awhile these rural joys partake“(25).
“R. W.“ wants to erect his cottage away from the “noisy
croud“(1l4). “Sixteen“ likewise wants to escape “madd'ning
crowds“(115). “Poplar Grove“ is a “rural seat“ that “to
the town-sick soul affords a calm retreat“(31). “O. D."
bids farewell to the city with its “sons of care“(1l9).
Nathaniel Evans rejects “the city's noise,/ Its tumults and
fantastic toys“(133). An anonymous poet describing Passaic
Falls wants to “cultivate the ground . . . far from the
crowd with vice imbued“(l69). And to those wishing “to
banish every care,“ Josias Arnold urged desertion of the town,
“a filthy cage“(16).

In a minority of poems the depiction of the country
reached beyond the limitations of the rural retirement theme
to include realistic sketches of country living. Known as
“genre sketches,“ a term derived from painting, these actual
pictures of country labor and pastimes had their origin in
the Georgic tradition in English poetry, and from the

beginning they appeared in topographical poems. Cooper's Hill

 

and Windsor Forest both contain well-known Sketches of rural
sports, but surprisingly few American poets Show interest

in hunting or fishing. The sketch of a hunter stalking game
in “A Summer's Day,“ reminiscent of Pope's famous description

in Windsor Forest, is so ineptly done as to constitute almost

a parody of the rural sports theme:

135

In yonder wood, where lofty pines and oaks,

Attract the passing eye, the feathered race

On every branch sit twittering Sportive songs.

Here the sly sportsman hunts the plumy tribe,

And withrds polished gun stalks cruel round.

0ft on the bough the songful rovers sit,

While sly beneath the hedge the hunter creeps;

Levels his tube.--Sudden the thunder breaks

And echoes thro' the grove! From her high seat

Falls the sweet bird and shuts her eyes in death.(12)

Most American topographical poets sketched less
sophisticated pastimes more in keeping with simple rural
tastes and manners. Two sketches in John Miller Russell's
“The Village Cliff“ echo portions of Goldsmith's “The
Deserted Village.“ In one, the “village tavern near at
hand is seen,/ Where news and rural politics are heard,/
Discuss'd by twenty mouths, all op'd at once“(9). In the
other, the village “lads and lasses“ are pictured at a
social, engaged “in pawns, (sweet rural sport!) or lively
dance.“ Few aspects of rural life escaped attention. The
scene sketched might be as conventional as a cornfield in
harvest(94) or as unusual as that of a “patient wight“ using
a divining rod to determine the location of a well(lOl).
“Verses Written at Mount Radnor“ paints the beginning of
a typical day on a frontier farm. As the morning mist hovering
over the fields dissipates, a cock crows; hearing the
familiar sound, the farmer and his Sons head for the fields,

the father leading and smoking his pipe. Next to arise is
the “blithe milkmaid,“ who starts for the “cow pen“

136

. . . to fill her copious pail,
And as she trips th' accustom'd path along
Her voice she tunes to some love pleasing song.

The impatient mothers think her coming Slow,
And call their calves with many an echoing low. (15)

A Similar sketch of frontier farm activity in McKinnon's
“Description of the Mohawk River“ imparts a mood of innocence
and simplicity without sentimentality. AS the poet passes
through “solemn woods“ of vast extent in the upper Mohawk
Valley, he occasionally encounters a log cabin in a clearing.
At one of these an “impaled“ garden
. . . flourishes with roseate flowers;
And at the door the children gambol near;
Their lily-featured mother still intent
On busy cares domestic; while the sire
Along the echoing causeway drives his kine,
IOr plies his axe far sounding. (139)
Alexander Wilson's “The Pilgrim“ captures the unaffected
pleasures of a frontier social. ~On the second day of a
trip down the Ohio out of Pittsburgh, the poet stops at
“Sugar Camp“ to observe mountaineers gathering maple syrup.
Evening at the camp is a time of gay life and love:
The lasses from the kettles neat
Their vigorous sweethearts oft regale,
With pliant lumps of sugar sweet,
Dropp'd in the cool congealing pail.
And while the blazing fire burns high,
Within the hut the leaves are prest,

Where snug as squirrels close they lie,'
And Love and Laughter know the rest. (186)

137

THE DESCRIPTIVE CATALOGUE

In recording what they saw in nature, eighteenth-
century poets tended to enumerate rather than to describe,13
and they listed not particulars but Species, in keeping with
the neoclassic dictum that “just representations of general
nature“ are more pleasing and instructive than individual
variants. Although lackingin vividness, these catalogues
are impressive in variety, for eighteenth-century poets
were fond of discovering the multifariousness of nature.
American poets found that the flora and fauna of American
fields and forests were suited to impressive listings that
would further the cause of literary nationalism, and they
were quick to record Species unknown in England. It was
for his discovery of fresh materials indigenous to American
nature that Joseph Dennie had praised Alexander Wilson for
his “A Rural Walk“:

He delights in pictures of American scenery and land-
scape and wisely, therefore, leaves to European poets
their Nightingales and Skylarks, and their dingles and
dells. He makes no mention of yews and myrtles, nor
echoes a Single note of either Bullfinch or Chaffinch,
but faithfully describes American objects, though not
entirely in the American idiom.14

Probably because as a naturalist he had trained

himself to observe nature closely, Alexander Wilson faithfully

 

13C. V. Deane, AS ects, p. 106.

l“Eheadnote to “A Rural Walk“], Port Folio, V
(April 27, 1805), 126.

138

recorded “American objects“ with a completeness that few
other poets could match. If the tendency to “describe the
different Shades in the verduneof the forest“ is character-
istic of the Romantic poet, then Wilson is a Romantic, for
his close observation results in catalogues that astound
the average reader. “Cedars,“ “spice-wood,"“hiccories,“
“walnuts,“ “dogbwood,“ “chinkopin,“ “sloes,“ “catalpas,”
“magnolias,“ “peach,“ “pears“--the trees alone in “A Rural
Walk“ make an impressive list.15 Wilson's longest poem,
“The Foresters,“ contains catalogues of every variety--
from the “rural dainties“ enjoyed at a country feast to
birds, including plovers and snipes, shot in an expedition
on Seneca Lake.

So indiscriminately did American poets catalogue
nature that it is difficult to discover patterns in their
observations. Among flora and fauna birds probably pre-

dominated.16

Many poets besides Wilson were captivated
by the great variety of American song birds and were intent
on proving that this country had birds to rival European

songsters. Accordingly the author of “A Rural Poem“

 

15Eor additional catalogues in “A Rural Walk“ and
“The Invitation,“ consult the discussion under “Estate Poems“
in Chapter III.

16Birds catalogued in American topographical poetry
of this period include quail, bluebirds, magpies, jays,
doves, larks, robins, sparrows, bitterns, hummingbirds,
finches, redbirds, yellowbirds, and orioles.

139

asserts that the mockingbird, “pride of Columbia's woods,“
rivals “sad Philomela“(ll3), and the anonymous author of
“Verses Written at Mount Radnor“ goes a step farther in
declaring the superiority of the mockingbird:

But hark! I hear the unenvious choir rejoice,
While Music's fav'rite Bird attunes her voice;
Perch'd on the top of yonder verdant tree,

She seems to breathe the soul of harmony;

To her alone all pleasing pow'rs belong,

Such varying melody adorns her song;

With alt'ring strains, at ease, she mimics still
The chirping valley and the warbling hill;

Thro' ev'ry note her modulations rove,

Blithe with the Lark, or plaintive with the Dove;
Now she repeats the Redbird's echoing lays,

Now sinking soft She earns the Robin's praise;

I see her Spread her Silver—streaked wing

High in the air, yet hear her sweetly sing;
Descending, still she pours th' harmonious strain,
Till on the spray she gently lights again.
Ear-rapturing bird! no more let Poets tell,

Of Morning Lark, or ev'ning Philomel,

Since all their various notes in thee combine,
And ev'ry sound of melody is thine. (15)

Trees had been subjects of catalogues ever since John
Dyer, on Grongar Hill, had seen “the gloomy pine,“ “the yellow
beech,“ “the slender fir,“ and “the sturdy oak.“ The thick
forests of the Appalachian region contained not only these
prosaic varieties but some that were unknown in Europe. The
view from the top of Mount Radnor in western Maryland
embraced trees

Whose dewy foliage blushes 1n the dawn,

Where golden sassafras and red-buds bloom,

Diffusing all around their sweet perfume,

Where stately oaks their heads majestic rear,

And conic poplars honey'd blossoms bear,

Where Spreading beeches their long branches twine,
And o'er their summits climbs the native vine. (15)

140
Samuel Deane, antipathetic to nature's sublimities, found
frontier forests to be “dreary,“ and the tame grove he des-
cribed contained no varieties that would distinguish it as
American:

Range the border, there are seen
Trees of ever-during green:

Fir trees, rich with balsam drops,
Pointing high their tap'ring tops,
Pine and Spruce, and Hemlock there
Raise their summits high in air,
Other trees are interwove,

Adding beauty to the grove.

Maple, sugar-bearing tree,

Shady Beech, you there may see:
Tow'ring Elm and Spreading Oak,
Oxen loosed from the yoke,1

Kine, and sheep, and horses rove,
Grazing in the shady grove. (2)

In the virgin wilderness along the Mohawk John D. McKinnon
observed elms, elders, plane trees, bass, oaks, hemlocks,
birch, and maple, all of which thrive while their “comrades“
are being hewn to provide clearings for settlers.17 “Towering
trees on new-born fields recline“ while
. . . a sturdy few

Yet standing, girdled by the fatal knife,

In slow destruction waste, upon their Sprays

And airy summits quench'd the vital lymph;

In wintry desolation group'd, they pine

'Midst summer's genial solstice. (139)

In Pope's Windsor Forest “the bright-ey'd perch. . .,

the silver eel. . ., the yellow carp. . ., swift trouts, and

 

17An even more profuse variety is catalogued by the
Schuylkill: the “monarch-tree,“ pOplar, willow, beech,
aspin, pine, magnolia,walnut, chestnut, hazel, plum, and elm.
See John Smith, “A Rural Poem,“(1l3).

141

pykes. . .“ were the “scaly breed“ inhabiting the “plenteous
streams“ of England. American streams, no less than English,
exhibited the variety of teeming nature. In the Schuylkill
John Smith discovers "pikes rapacious,“ “sun fish,“ and “sport-
ive trout,“ plus the “speckled Tortoise“ and “dusky craw-
fish“(113). Josias Arnold, addressing the Connecticut
River, introduces some new Species:

Sweet river, in thy gentle stream

Myriads of finny beings swim;

The watchful trout, with Speckled pride;

The perch, the dace in Silvered pride;

The princely salmon, sturgeon brave,

And lamprey, emblem of the knave. (122)

American poets dutifully catalogued the offspring

of Flora, Pomona, and Ceres, each of whom had so abundantly
blessed the American landscape. Mrs. Eliza Bleecker, the
pioneer poetess of upstate New York, was notably fond of
flowers. Her garden at Tomhanick contained “yellow cowslips,"
“early blue-bells,“ “Sleepy poppies,“ “the humble violet,“
the “dulcet rose,“ and "the stately lily,“ which grew along-
side tulips, 1upines, and honeysuckles(17). Her daughter
catalogued both flowers and fruit growing along the Hudson,
including water lilies, crocuses, scarlet larkSpur, columbines,

and wild roses, plus melons, plums, grapes, mandrakes, and

strawberries(105).18 Besides fruit, American farms displayed

 

18Other fruits found in catalogues of this period
are quinces, peaches, cherries, bilberries, whortleberries,
May-apples, blackberries, and dewberries.

142
the “waving pride“ of grain crops such as wheat, corn, flax,

oats, barley, and rye.19
THE DIDACTIC URGE

Imaging nature could please the eighteenth-century
reader but not instruct him, and since neoclassic critics
widely held that moral utility was the chief aim of liter-
ature, one finds few nature poems wholly descriptive. Inter-
Spersed with the descriptive passages are didactic elements,
which generally have no organic function in the poem. The
Romantic notion that SXpreSSions of “feeling“ could yield
insights into moral truth not possible in a poetry of statement
was hardly anticipated, for the “incidental meditations“ or
“historical retrospections“ clearly stand apart as “embel-

lishments.“ So great was the neoclassic propensity for
didacticism that even the great moralist Dr. Samuel Johnson
had to say of Cooper's Hill that “the digressions are too
long“ and “the morality too frequent.“ In topographical poetry
the didactic urge received considerable impetus not only
from Denham and Pope but also from James Thomson, whose 222
Seasons encouraged digressions on country life associated

with the Georgic tradition. Although by 1746 Joseph Warton

 

19See Samuel Deane, Pitchwood Hill (2), and Timothy
Dwight, Greenfield Hill (3).

143
was convinced that “the fashion of moralizing in verse had
been carried too far,“ the “Invention“ and “Imagination“
which he urged as the chief faculties of a poet did not
soon replace the belief that the function of the poet was
to mirror pleasingly the truths of universal nature.20

American topographical poets, quite complacent about
following neoclassic fashions, digressed on such practical
subjects as temperance, the education of girls, the duty
of children toward parents, and the necessity of controlling
the passions.21 Other poets preached on topics of more
universal Significance, such as the brevity of life and
the development of virtue. The attempts to inculcate
morality often existed side by side with digressionson
local history, most of itcnnnected with the Revolution and
often taking the form of patriotic panegyric or the con-
demnation of historical misdeeds enacted locally.

Hill poems, as the best exemplars of the conservative
influence at work, contained proportionally the greatest
amount of embellishment. In “The Agreeable Prospect... .“
each stanza begins with a new scene fixed in the poets

Sight, followed by loosely related commentary on men, manners,

 

20From Warton' 8 Advertisement to his Odes on

Various Subjects (1746); cited in Dyson and Butts, Augustans
and Romantics, p. 43.

21See Samuel Low, “On a Spring of Water in King's
County . Long Island“(138); Nathaniel Topliff, “Mount Potosi“
(10); H. M. Lisle, Milton.Hi11 (6); and Il Ritirado [pseud J ,
“Lines Written near the Schuylkill“(ll6). .

144
and morals, Observing the activity of a ship docking leads
the poet to comment on sailors' behavior on Sabbaths. Next
in his sight are “noble domes,“ which inspire reflections
on freedom's power to promote the arts, industry, and
agriculture. The Sight of a church on a hill leads him to
praise those who contributed to the building of the meeting
house and to condemn “mad'ning zealots.“ Additional in-
struction is directed to the “sons of Sloth“ who should be
rising at dawn “to see gay nature's universal bloom“ instead
of devoting their nights to Venus and “the cup.“ Following
condemnation of the burning of Charlestown, the poet con-
cludes with the wish that Britain's “follies“ will henceforth
“sleep“ and that the two nations will become “the best of
friends“(1l).

Other hill poems describing the Boston area make
even greater use of the Revolution. James Allen's “An
Intended Inscription. . .“ praises the Americans who rose
to revenge the cutting of the “Liberty Tree“ and reviews
the accomplishments of the “patriotic race“ at the Battle
of Bunker Hill(l). After prefacing her lengthy Beacon Hill
with an apology for its dearth of description, Sarah W.
Morton pursues in great detail the history of the War. Five
pages of notes encumber this unusually dull poem, whose
only interesting feature is a description of each state

that sent men to the strugg1e(7). As it provided opportunity

145

for a ruin-piece, a description of the burning of Charlestown
was almost mandatory in these hill poems. John Miller Russell,
however, resists describing in detail the “burning domes“
of the town because, he points out, Joel Barlow, with
“genius, equal to the task,“ had already painted, “that
scene so awfully sublime“(9). Of all events of the
Revolution in the Boston area, it was General Warren's death
in battle that most often inspired the historical muse:

To whatsoever Side my view I turn,

I feel my breast with glowing ardor burn:--

The mount, where Warren's galant [sic] Spirit fled,

And meaner hosts unnumber'd with him bled--

Tow'ring first meets my wandering eye,

Its lofty summit pointing to the Sky.

The lesson, our fathers taught at Bunker Hill,

“Our sons“ shall in “their children's“ mind instill.(13)

Timothy Dwight's Greenfield Hill, the most ambitious
of American hill poems, contains much instruction aimed at
showing “the admirable quality of Connecticut institutions,
and the romance of local history.“22 All seven parts of
the poem present variations on the theme of how the “golden
mean“ is regarded in Connecticut, not as a utopian vision
but as a practicalend attainable through the application of
“common~sense.“ Contributing to the balance between extremes

is a rural economy of “competence“ rather than wealth or

poverty, a landscape which is “rough“ but which contains

 

22Howard, Connecticut Wits, p. 222.

146
“scenes of sweet simplicity“; a climate whose variety is
conducive to an active life; and a people made virtuous by
useful religion and practical political institutions, quite
in contrast with European extremes.

Of Silly pomp, and meanness train'd t' adore;

Of wealth enormous, and enormous want;

or lazy sinecures, and suffering toil;

Of grey-beard systems, and meteorous dreams;

0f lordly churches, and dissention fierce,

Rites farsical, and phrenzied unbelief. (3)

The didactic elements appear most strongly in the
georgics, or advice on farm management, in Part VI, “The
Farmer's Advice to the Villagers.“ This commonssense
advice on industry and thrift, designed to promote competence
among the “happy swains,“ is a series of Franklin-like pro-
verbs used as texts for brief versified lay sermons. Prudence
is the key principle in all these maxims. Some concerned
farm maintenance: “Yearly the house, the barn, the fence,/
Demand.pppp £332, and pppg expense.“ Others, business
management: “When first the market offers well,/ A5 pppp
yppp yearly produce ppii.“ And others, parental behavior:
‘é;l disci line, as facts attest,/ lp private minister'd
ig pgpp.“ Part V of the poem, “The Clergyman's Advice to
the Villagers,“ avoids theology and stresses the importance
of both faith and works in everyday life. The two “great
commandments“ in Dwight's gospel were to be guided by the

Bible and to be good to one's fellow man.23

 

23Howard, Connecticut Wits, p. 225.

147

Local history was the theme of two long episodes in
Greenfield Hill. Part IV, “The Destruction of the Pequods,“
relates how the aggressive Pequot nation was annihilated by
the British in 1637. The crucial battle, which Dwight des-
cribes, was fought three miles west of Fairfield, near
Greenfield Hill. “The Burning of Fairfield,“ a ruins
piece, recounts how the British, in 1779 under Governor Tyron,
“a foe to human feelings born,“ plundered New Haven and
burned Fairfield. A night-time thunderstorm conjoined with
the conflagration to produce such a tumult as would accompany
the Day of Judgment:

It seem'd, the final day was come,

The day of earth's protracted doom;

The Archangel's voice began to call

The nations of this guilty ball;

The hills to cleave; the skies to rend;

Tumultuous elements to blend;

And Heaven, in pomp tremendous, came

To light the last, funereal flame.

Because America lacked a long and storied past, its
poets of necessity looked to the Revolution, or to the
Indian, for most of their material. The treachery of
Benedict Arnold, the victory of General Gates at Saratoga,
the heroism of Mad Anthony Wayne, the Battle of the Kegs,
Washington's surprise attack at Trenton, Ethan Allen of

Vermont--all receive passing notice or expansive treatment

in several poems.2“ The Indian, despite his prominence in

 

zuSee especially Margaretta V. Faugeres, “The Hudson“
(105), and Michael Forrest, Travels through America (181),
both of which contain numerous historical embellishments.

148

American history,inSpired relatively little historical
reflection. Often, if he is mentioned, it is not with any
sense of loss that his passing is described. Josias Arnold
used the Indian to point up the contrast between the savage
past and civilized present: the river valley where he now
sees “yellow wheat and waving corn“ was once the abode of
“the sachem and his tawney train,“ who led captives to be
burned at the stake(123). A less melodramatic contrast
appears in McKinnon's “Description of the Mohawk River,“ at
the conclusion of an eight-page account of Indian wars in
the Mohawk country:

'Twas here their [the Mohawks'] spirited and

martial sons

First sung the war-song--here on frequent Spots

Which now the dwarfish oak and pine o'erspread,

And where the sumac scatters on the lap

Of autumn azure-check'd, its pinnated

And scarlet leaves, once stood their huts. (139)

Although digressions on scientific facts and
theories were prominent in the poetry of Thomson and his
English followers, American topographical poets evinced only
a Slight interest in science.25 Aside from a catalogue of
planets and constellations in Forrest's Travels through

America, the only serious scientific excursions are made

by John D. McKinnon, whose river poems Show that he had

 

vésln The Seasons Thomson discusses “the rainbow and
Newton's Spectrum, the force of gravitation. . ., the supposed
effects of the sun's force under the earth, the wonders of
microscopic life, theories of the origins of rivers, the
courses of meteors, and the nature of ice and frost.“ See
Durling, Geogic Tradition, p. 53.

149
knowledge of contemporary geologic speculation concerning
the origin of land forms. His interest in geology is often
reflected in his description of scenery,as when he views the
high cliffs along the Hudson near Philipsburg:
Hence onward as we sail

The towering strata of embattled rocks

O'er wooded steeps, in precipices hang,

As if some shock of elemental war

Had rent their indurated mass of stone

To give old Hudson passage. . . . (108)
Similar Speculations on causality occupy “Description of the
Mohawk River“ as the poet approaches Cohoes Falls:

Let Science tell the mighty cause that erst

The mountain fabric's horizontal base

Upturning, gave the roaring waters vent

Along their lacerated bed, Slate-paved,

And branching to the Hudson; while the muse,

With humbler views, the cataract admires. . . .(139)
The same poem has a lengthy account of the formation of the
world by volcanic cataclysm. In introducing this digression,
McKinnon lets his readers understand that it is not necessarily
factual, for in going back to the beginning cf time, he
must be “led by conjecture,“ with only “the ambiguous lamp/
Of knowledge“ to guide him. Yet his account should not be
dismissed too lightly because, as he explains in a footnote,
“the learned have lately indulged themselves in many
plausible speculations respecting the formation of the earth“

and “fortunately the present age is wise enough to reject

all systems for the pursuit of facts.“

150

More often than not, overt moral instrucfion in
topographical poetry was insipid and insignificant; a few
poets, however, addressed themselves seriously to the remedy
of social ills. One poem went beyond the facile rejection
of wealth that usually accompanied the rural retirement
theme to deal Specifically with the issue of inequality in
the distribution of wealth. "Reflections on Viewing the Seat
of Jos. Barrell, Esq.“ panegyrizes a man who stands apart from
the idle rich. Nowadays, the poet says,

The rich support the rich, but grind the poor;

But thou [Barrell , whose stately castl overlooks
The briny wave to Boston's crowded shores,

And where yon bridge superb extends its length,

Be thou excepted from the common herd

Of selfish, full blown opulence and pride. (2?)

A belief in temperance motivated Samuel Low to condemn the
“fallacious joys“ of “liquid fire“ and to advocate Spring
water, “Nature's wholesome bev'rage"(l38). The evils of slavery
were quite Strongly condemned in Sarah Wentworth Morton's
Beacon Hill. “Carolina“ received the brunt of her disapproval:

Canst thou contend for freedom, while yon vale

Pours its deep sorrows on the sultry gale!

Thus rise with patriot heart supremely brave,

Nor heed the scourge, that breaks thy shackled slave!--

What boots the fleecy field, and ricy mead,

If mid their bloom the culturing captive bleed! (7)
The anonymous author of “Reflections on the Banks of the

Schuylkill“ believes it is Columbia's duty “to unlock the

151

chain/ Which binds the wretched negro, and to snatch/ From
petty tyrants the uplifted lash,/ Against their brethren rais'd“
(115). The lengthiest condemnation of Slavery occurs in
Greenfield Hill. Dwight contrasts the Negro of Connecticut
who “slides on, thro' life, with more than common glee“
with the slave, who is “condition'd as a brute, tho'
form'd a man.“ Refraining from attacking slavery in the
Southern states, he concentrates instead on the West Indies,
where he sets scenes of horror filled with cracking whips,
groans, screams, dashed brains, and bursting gore. “Why,“ the
poet rhetorically demands, “streams the life-blood from
that female's throat?/ She sprinkled gravy on a guest's
new coat!“(3)

Moral instruction inevitably accompanied graveyard
musings on the themes of death and mutability. “Sylvia,“
in the graveyard of the church of Wicacoe, summons Truth and
Religion (who abide in the church) to preach to her on the
vanities of pride and ambition. Even if, they tell her,
success Should attend her “wildest wish,“ She will yet find
herself in the grave. No one escapes, for to the “lone
grave“ are now confined the hands “which held deSpotic
sway o'er half mankind.“ Moreover, the power gained
through ambition never matches the “real fame“ of the “un-

tutor'd savage of the wild,“ who, faithful to the dictates

152
of heaven,

Pursues the chace within the gloomy wood,

To bless his little family with food;

And bids his board with homely plenty smile,

To cheer the stranger fainting from the toil. (68)

This Speech setting forth the noble savage as an exemplar of
virtue is not the only device “Sylvia“ uses to delineate the
good life. A ghostly voice issuing from “heaven's own
choir“ speaks pg cathedra on the virtues of sensibility

and benevolence. “Once,“ the voice claims,

I trod this vale of life,
Engag'd in all its active cares and strife;
Condem'd, for sixty years to go
A painful journey thro' this vale of woe;
Till heaven, in mercy, sign'd thevdsh'd release,
Yet think not heaven shal e'er its joys bestow
On those who meanly thus their toils forego,
Let not such dreams delude your youthful hearts;
You in the world must take allotted parts;
Must tread, with dignity, the varied scene,
And keep your souls unstained, your minds serene.
Go chace each selfish passion from your breaSts,
Extend yo social love, ill it shall bind,
In its delightful chain, all human kind;
Go, and exert your softest, sweetest powers,
To gladden with delight a parent's hours:
By every tender office, go improve
The binding ties of fond paternal love.
Go watch the sick-bed of some parting friend.
Go wipe from mi ery's eye the falling tear;
The wandering stranger with thy bounty cheer.

GRAVEYARD AND RUIN SENTIMENTS

The taste for the irregular and rude in nature was

part of the growing trend toward more emotional fleedom in

153

poetry that eventually led to the enthronement of the sublime
as the most exulted of aesthetic responses to nature. By the
1750's English poets were delighting in irregularity, both as
manifested in man-made ruins and the “ruins“ of nature,
such as mountains, precipices, and wilderness tracts. Trim
gardens and sculptured hedgerows gave way to nature unimproved
and unrestrained, and there developed a fad for buildings in
the Gothic style and in the remains of English monuments and
buildings of an earlier age.26 Ruins-~man-made and natural--
became the appropriate settings for utterances of “graveyard“
melancholy and similar disquisifions on the theme of mutability.

American poets found pleasure in every variety of
ruin, from wasted battlefields and devastating fires to
deathly pestilence. Philip Freneau and Joseph Brown Ladd
both composed “graveyard“ elegies set at the Eutaw Springs
battleground (41 and 49), and Timothy Dwight's account
of the burning of Fairfield stresses the horrifics of the
aftermath of the fire, as “peaceful Slumber'd Ruin wild,/ And
Horror rear'd his head, and smiled“(3). The terror of an
“epidemic Sickness“ in New York city was the subject of
another ruin-piece:

And the survivors, hurrying from the scene

Of death, in consternation seek the fields.
In dull deploring idleness remain

 

26Fitzgelzild, First Follow Nature, p. 137.

154
Their hush'd abodes, and stores, and vacant shops.

Throughout the city's void alone is heard
The sudden shriek of agonizing pain,

While in th vacant market-place Despair

Sits musing on the solemnscene of woe.

AS Night succeeds, the leaden-footed Day

No pompous mourning obsequies performs

At the untimely grave. (94)

The ivied ruins of venerable churches-~the most
patently obvious setting for graveyard sentimentS--were
given short shrift by American poets. The “gothick-pile“
that found a place in “Sylvia's“ graveyard musings (68)
was no more prominent in American topographical poetry
than “Guiandot's“ tombstones:

The night in a garb full of horror appears
And the earth seems some rude shock of nature
to dread,
I look round with an awe which confesses my fears,
Whilst, reclin'd on a tomb, I converse with the dead.(83)

To most American poets the ruins of nature were mani-
festly more interesting than man-made ruins. America was de-
ficient in “Gothic piles“ but not in terrifying “ruins“ of
the world. The “dark and dismal wood" in Pitchwood Hill is
the haunt of such denizens as wolves, bears, foxes, and
ravens(2). And along the Hudson in “the deep forest's melan-
choly shade“ wolves and panthers “roam,/ And boding owls usurp
the tottering tow'rs“(76). A great battle among forest
beasts develops in the New Hampshire wilderness:

Here growling wolves in doleful kennels howl;

The alarm is heightened by the screaming owl.
The hooping owl with a more sad'ning air

155

The victim bids for instant death prepare.

Wild cat and catamount and the bears retreat

Their rendezvous, where they for slaughter meet.
With hideous yell for battle they prepare,

Menace their foe and prompt the furious war,

Till prone in death lies now each dreadful form,
Like some cast vessel wreck'd in a storm.

The eagle, hawk, vulture, and raven breed,

Here suck their hbod and on the carcase feed. (88)27

The American wilderness provided a great store of
such images for the expression of ruin sentiments. Even
a swamp could acquire the characteristics of a Gothic cloister.
In “The Foresters“ Alexander Wilson and his companions enter

Great Catherine's Swamps, that deepening round
extend,

Down whose dun glooms we awfully descend;

Around us thick the crowding pillars soar

So st aight, so tall, 3 tow'ring, Side by Side,

Each, in itself, appears the forest's pride,

Here melancholy monks might moping dwell,

Nor ray of sunshine ever reach their cell

Through the dead twilight, reigning horrid here,

In holy groans their relics sad revere.

Great solitary shades! so still and deep,

Even passing sighs in hollow murmurs creep! (185)

The reportedly ferocious wildlife of the swamps in the
deep South led Mrs. Sarah Wentworth Morton to an appropriately
horrific description of Georgia, a place

Where the mail'd reptile of Egyptian Nile
From shore to shore directs his floating file.
While, from the cavern of his clashing jaw,
The hands of death an hundred arrows draw,

He crops the verdure of the growing grain,

 

270ther poets described the owl as “lonely“ and
“screaming“; the wolf as “prowling“ and “howling“; and the
panther as “screaming.“ See Alexander Wilson, “The

Foresters“(185), and Jaques [Samuel Ewing], “Reflections in
Solitude“(l34).

156

Or drags the wailing baby from the plain;

E'en while the watchful fisher reads the skies,

He feels his leaningbark unconscious rise,

Then whirl impetuous to the plunging wave,

Drink the salt surge, and dash the billowy grave. (7)
To add to the terror of his ruin-piece in “Grongar Hill,“
John Dyer had introduced a “pois'nous adder,“ American poets,
not to be outdone, brought to their descriptions a fearsome
serpent unlike any known to the Old World:

There glistening lay, extended o'er the path,

With steadfast, piercing eye, and gathering wrath,

A large grim rattle—snake, of monstrous Size,

Three times three feet his length enormous lies;

His pointed scales in regular rows engraved;

His yellow sides with wreathes of dusky waved. (185)
Less large, perhaps, but just as frightful was the rattler
that supplemented the list of wilderness horrors in “An
Essay on Great Ossipee's Northern Prospect“:

The baleful serpent wakening from his den

Rolls down the steep (eternal foe to man!)

His rattling tail threats you with sudden death 28
And his fang'd jaws glow with invenom'd breath. (88)

PRAISE OF COMMERCE

Patriotism has been defined as the sense of a
people having accomplished great things together and intent

on doing more. Whether or not thisdefinition is valid, itis

 

28The rattlesnake was not the only poisonous reptile
appearing in topographical poetry of this period. The English
pat Thomas Moore's “The Lake of the Dismal Swamp“ (174),
a pastoral romance, contributed the copperhead; its use,
along with other indigenous images in the poem, was brought
to the attention of American readers by Joseph Dennie, who
published the poem in the Port Folio in 1806.

157

certain that in eighteenth-century England this optimistic
spirit prevailed. The belief in the certainty of progress,
combined with a developing historical sense, produced feelings
of national pride that no poet could ignore.29 Patriotic
poems occupied over half of Dodsley's first Miscellany, and
patriotic themes were particularly evident in the longer
didactic-descriptive poems so popular in this period.30 Of
all patriotic themes, the most prevalent is the glorying
in England on account of her commerce--a theme which reached
its climax in 1757 in Dyer's The Fleece.3l

Although Americans of the late eighteenth century
forcefully rejected loyalty to England, they did not reject
English modes of expressing app; patriae, so that in American
patriotic poetry as in English the chief theme is praise
of the nation's commerce. The theme lacks substance in
topographical poetry, however, for generally commerce gets
brief mention as a sterile personified abstraction, with
qualities that are seldom defined or described in detail.
Frequently “Commerce“ points up the typical contrast between
“natural“ nature and nature’modified by man's control. Thus

does an anonymous poet treat Passaic Falls, which for ages

 

29Dobrée, English Literature in the Early Eighteenth
Centur , p. 517.

OVirgil's Georgics provided ample literary precedent
for patriotic themes in such poems.

31Dobree, English Literature, p. 518.

158
remained “unseen by aught but Indian eye . . .
But Commerce now distends the sail,
And plenty heaves her flowing horn;
While notes of gladness woo the gale,
And brighter tints bedeck the morn. (168)
Since commerce was associated more with foreign trade

than internal traffic, its praises were usually addressed
to cities with great harbors; hence in hill poems on Bostnn
the sight of the harbor inspired numerous rhetorical flourishes
on the commercial wealth of the city. From Beacon Hill
the poet might see the “sea-like haven“ of the “tradeful
port“ from which “hardy commerce swells the lofty sails/
O'er arcticseas“ and to which “tides of wealth the wafting
breezes bring“(l). More than likely, he would use the
occasion for a city-country contrast: “Here ruddy Health
the grateful soil divides;/ There gen'rous Commerce cleaves
the yielding tides“(8). Or he might find the “fair scene. . .
enrich'd by Commerce, and by Science loved“(7). The author
of Milton Hill directs his gaze to “that spot . . . where
“yon tall vessels float/ And cluster'd masts commercial
wealth denote“(6). The most particularized reference
occurs in “The Agreeable Prospect. . ..“ In the harbor
where “commerce opes her stores“ are seen flags denoting
French, Russian, Dutch, and Swedish vessels, as well as

“Britain's colours,“ which now “harmless wave in air“(1l).

New York likewise is monotonously lauded forits busy

159

scenes of trade. In the harbor “tall vessels safe at
anchor ride,/ And Europe's wealth flows in with every tide“
(73). In Mrs. Faugeres' “The Hudson“ the “snowy sail“ swells
in the harbor as “busy bands of Commerce“ crowd the port(105).
In another poem, “commerce calls the Ships across the main“
to exchange America's “superfluous grain“ for foreign gold
(180) and Thomas Law, addressing the Hudson, contrasts the
busy harbor scene with one of long ago:

I see your houses, towns, and cities rise;

And hear, from building Ships, the axe's stroke,

'Midst song and laughter, revelry and joke,

Where on your noble stream the trunk canoe

Was paddl'd close in shore, I wondering view

A thousand vessels, sailing to and fro,.

With all the gifts which various climes bestow. (106)

Because rivers and streams were conventionally
associated with scenes of picturesque beauty, they did not
lend themselves well to the Commerce motif. In addressing
the Raritan, “Frankly“ defines the conflict between beauty
and utility:

Flow murmuring on--too soon to quit the Shades,

And sylvan honors that adorned thy wave;

The Prow too soon thy tranquil breast invades,

And busy commerce claims thee as its slave. (155)
A few poets, however, accepted streams in both roles. A
pallid description of the Brandywine mentions its use as
a canal (145), and Return Meigs sees the “fair“ Ohio as

a potentially great carrier of commercial wealth (53). In

tracing the course of the Connecticut River from “northern

160
mounts“ to the sea, “Juvenis” rhetorically informs the
stream of both its usefulness and beauty:
Descending then thy waters lave
The fertile shores with milder wave,
Where richer prospects rise;
Springfield and Hartford owe their trade,
Their commerce, to thy powerful aid,
And know thy worth to prize. (1&6)
In the relatively few poems that associate rivers with
commerce, a typical attitude is a wish for the extension of
trade so that the country will grow and prosper. “The
Ruins of Crown-Point: An Elegy,“ otherwise filled to over-
flowing with graveyard gloom and terror, incongruously
concludes with the wish that this “sad region“ will become
'a wealthy mart“ and that from this “dreary scene“ by the
Hudson may rise renewed “the Splendid dome,/ While busy

Commerce treads the crowded plain“(76).
THE FUTURE GLORY PROPHECY

George Berkeley's residence in America from 1729
to 1731 produced the first poem to develop the “future glory
of America“ prophecy, which was to become the most over-
worked theme in eighteenth-century American poetry.32 In
“Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in

America“ (1752), BishOp Berkeley foresaw “another golden

 

32Leon Howard gives this evaluation in Connecticut
Wits, p. 100.

161

age“ of the “rise of empire and of arts“ resulting from
the westward movement of civilization. Later poets, in
long didactic-descriptive pieces such as Joel Barlow's
Vision of Columbus (1787) or Francis Hopkinson's "Science"
(1792), predicted a future for America “in which the spirit
of partisanship was unknown and men were united in a happy
fellowship of commerce and prosperity.“33 The belief in
inevitable progress toward a millenium was not restricted
to America; the theme appeared frequently in eighteenth-
century English verse as another manifestation of patriotic
panegyric so prevalent in the period. Windsor Forest, the
first topographical poem to develop the theme, ends with
a vision of a golden age brought about by Britain's
superiority on the seas.

In general, the future glory theme was restricted
to the longer and more conservative topographical poems.
In order to give their millenarian visions concrete form,
poets marshalled their most “sublime“ rhetoric, but these
attempts at heightened style usually resulted in artificiality
and pomposity. Most future glory passages in topographical
poems are a potpourri of panegyric, personifications, and

apostrophes. From them, however, one learns something of

 

33Howard, Transitions, p. 51.

162
the aspirations of American poets toward achievements in
Industry, Agriculture, and the Arts--that great triad of
eighteenth-century “science.“

Although the manifest destiny of the United States
to conquer the West had not yet been formulated as political
doctrine, poets could envision such expansion as inevitable,
as Timothy Dwight does at the conclusion of Part II of
Greenfield Hill:

All hail, thou western world! by heaven design'd
Th' example bright, to renovate mankind.

Soon shall thy sons across the mainland roam;

And claim, on far Pacific shores, their home;
Their rule, religion, manners, arts, convey,

And spread their freedom to the Asian sea.

Where erst six thousand suns have roll'd the year
O'er plains of slaughter, and o'er wilds of fear,
Towns, cities, fanes, shall lift their towery pride,
The village bloom, on every streamlet's side;
Proud Commerce' mole the western surges lave;

The long, white spire lie imag'd on the waves;
O'er morn's pellucid main eXpand their sails,

And the starr'd ensign court Korean gales. (3)

Alexander Wilson in “The Foresters“ also foresees the wilder-
ness disappearing before advancing pioneers. In a formal
apostrophe to the Susquehanna River he declaims:

Thy pine-brown'd cliffs, thy deep romantic vales,
Where wolves now wander, and the panther wails,
Where, at long intervals, the hut forlorn

Peeps from the verdure of embowering corn,

In future times (nor distant far the day)

Shall glow with crowded towns and villas gay;
Unnumber'd keels thy deepen'd course divide;

And airy arches pompously bestride;

The domes of Science and Religion rise,

And millions swarm where now a forest lies. (165)

163
According to a commencement day speaker in 1795, the
destiny of the United States to “socialize the world“
through extension of commerce demanded expansion to the
west coast. To the end of insuring that neither ocean
“shall confine Columbia's genius,“ he hinted that

The muse prophetic views the coming day,

When federal laws beyond the line shall sway

Where Spanish indolence inactive lies. (98)

The citizens of the United States were a chosen people;
their "Liberty“ and “Freedom“ guaranteed their future
greatness, not only territorially but culturally. Eulogies
of intellectual heroes were combined with predictions of
future achievements in all fields of knowledge:

Another Rittenhouse again shall rise;

An Humphreys, whose undaunted arm shall wield

The sword of freedom, or with daring flight,

Ascend Parnassus«-other Dwight's be born;

A West whose magic art shall animate

The canvas, which in vivid tints unfolds

The page of history; Barlow, bard sublime,

In his posterity shall live again.

Poets and statesmen shall adorn thy lands,

Myriads unborn shall grace Columbia's name. (115)
The sight of Harvard College from Beacon Hill inspired
Mrs. Sarah Morton to predict that its “ray divine“ would
illuminate the'extended scene“ by contributing “other
Bowdoins“ and “other Winthrops“(8). Mercy Warren saw
similar eminence for sons of Harvard:

Here other Boyles or Newtons yet may rise,

And trace the wonders of the western skies,
More than one W p may adorn the seat,

164

Of bright Apollo's favorite retreat;

When Harvard's sons may spread the arts refin'd,

Diffusing knowledge o'er the human mind. (62)

Idealistic faith in the progress of “Industry“
resulted in visions of eternally radiant American cities,
a dream that persisted throughout the century from Mrs.
Faugeres' “stately towers, which catch the Morning's splendid
beam“ to Katherine Lee Bates' “alabaster cities/ Undimmed

34

by human tears.“ The author of a hill poem, condemning
the burning of Charlestown by the British, sees the city
as “a new born Phoenix, springing from the flame,“ with
“cloud capt towers“ which shall last “till Angels fire the
skies“(ll). John Searson acknowledged that the Washington
City he describes is in its “infant state“ but that “hereafter“
it will “shine both grand and great:/ Yea, like Jerusalem,
it will yet shine/ Because so great's the plan and the
design“(58). Mrs. Faugeres' “The Hudsofi'closes with typical
encomium for the citizens of New York, combined with the
author's modest assessment of her talents:

And may the Great Supreme, when showering down,

In rich profusion, all the Joys of Peace,

Thine [New York's] offspring for his favourite people
own,

And hearts bestow the donor's hand to bless:

Then shall thy 'habitants indeed be blest:

Regions far distant shall revere thy name,

And thOu,Q River! whose majestic streem [sic]

 

34Margaretta V. Faugeres, “The Hudson“ (105), and
Katherine Lee Bates, “America the Beautiful,“ 1896.

165

Hath rous'd a feeble hand to sweep the lyre,

Thy charms some loftier poet shall inspire,

And Clio's self shall patronize the theme:

To hail thee shall admiring realms agree,

Sing to thy praise and bless our happy lot;

And Danube's roaring flood shall be forgot,

And Nile and Tiber, when they speak of Thee! (105)

In the final section of Greenfield Hill, devoted to
a formal exposition of the “rising glory“ theme, Timothy
Dwight prophesies material progress that would be as
miraculously certain of fulfillment as that so aptly envisioned
by Lord Tennyson in “Lockesley Hall.“ This "public bliss“
will arise from the enterprise of the citizens, the gifts
of lavish nature, the virtues of rural simplicity, and
isolation from the influence of contentious European nations.
American nature, in particular, is on a scale grand enough
to inspire grand achievement:

Profusely scatter'd o'er these regions, lo!

What scenes of grandeur, and of beauty, glow.

It's [sic] noblest wonders here Creation spreads;

Hills, where skies rest, and Danubes pour cascades;

Forests, that stretch from Cancer, to the Pole;

Lakes, where seas lie, and rivers, where they roll. (3)
Rural competence allied with democracy produces a social
climate in which all men can work for the common good. In-
stead of “domes of pomp“ the countryside abounds with “fair
seats“ surrounded by “the neat inclosure, and the happy
shade.“ This “glad world“ will thrive because it is remote

From Europe's mischiefs, and from Europe's woe!

Th' Atlantic's guardian tide repelling far
The Jealous terror, and the vengeful war.‘

166

Most significant, perhaps, this progress is to be achieved
through the perfection of existing institutions, not through
their radical alteration. Dwight believed that future
achievements in philosophy would reaffirm all that the
enlightened eighteenth century already knew about man's
comfortable place in the universe. “Moral Science“ of the
future will trace

Man's nature, duties, dignity, and place;

How, in each class, the nice relation springs,

To God, to man, to subjects, and to kings;

How taste, mysterious, in the Heavenly plan,

Improves, adorns, and elevates, the man;

How balanc'd powers, in just gradation, prove

The means of order, freedom, peace, and love,

Of bliss, at home, of homage fair, abroad,
Justice to man, and piety to God.

OTHER CONVENTIONS

In renouncing pagan literary divinities, pious
seventeenth-century American poets, such as Michael Wiggles-
worth and Cotton Mather, had refused to invoke the muses,35
but by the mid-eighteenth century veneration of the classics
and a regard for elegance--exemplified in the poetry of
Milton, Dryden, and Pope--had overcome any religious
scruples that might have existed, with the result that the

more conservative topographical poems often apostrophize

 

35Spencer,3uest for Nationality, p. 6.

167
the Sacred Nine or allude to rural deities,principally naiads
and dryads.

Wherever invocation of the muse occurred, it was
generally quite elaborate. In Beacon Hill, a poem with more
history than description, Mrs. Morton quite appropriately
brought to her aid the “historic muse“ and nymphs of the
woods and streams:

Then come, ye Nymphs, by museful poet seen,

With eyes of azure, and with robes of green,

Ye tuneful Naiades of Pieria's tide,

Come, and o'er Charles's nobler waves preside!
While his smooth banks reflect Apollo's beam,
Bathe your bright ringlets in his silver stream,
The graceful swell ofvell-turn'd limbs display,
And cleave with snowy arms the watery way,

And thou, gay Goddess of yon clustering trees,
Whose loose locks flutter in the wavering breeze,
Assist my verse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Full as the wave o'er Charles' s bosom flows, ,
Sweet as the breathings of your whispering boughs;
Deck the loved lay with all your blending views
Warm'd by the glances of the Historic Muse,

Whose magic wand restores the trophied plain,
And tunes to energy the lofty strain,

Bids the past scene of glorious deeds return,
And lure oblivion from the warrior's urn. (7)

The even more dazzling display of classical erudition in
Milton Hill has only the most tenuous connection with the
subject of the poem:

Euterpe come, thou Muse of heavenly song,

Leave Cytheran's mount, and bring thy pipes along,
Quit Pierus' clouded top, Aonia' s plains,
Castalia' s fountain, and Boeotian swains,

Idalia' s groves, the Heliconian Spring,

And airs seraphic on our mountains sing. (6)

168
Although poets generally used the invocation merely to show
off their knowledge of classical mythology,36 John D. McKinnon,
with more originality and a stronger sense of organic unity,
invited the muses to quit their traditional haunts and come
to America:

Mute are thy Doric Swains-~thy Tempe, Muse,

Enslav'd, and over-grown with weeds: Come scent

Th' Wild perfume of transatlantic pines,

The lilies of the misty Mohawk's vales,

And trace the Hudson's quarried course thro' woods

And shelving steeps romantic. . . .(108)

Unlike formal invocation of the muse, which is
largely restricted to conventional neoclassic poems, the
formal apostrophe to a river shows up in poems as otherwise
diverse as Cooper's Hill and “Tintern Abbey.“ In “Inscription
for Mr. Taylor's North-River Bath,“ Samuel Low used the
antithetical balance that made Denham's apostrophe to the
Thames so well known: “Immortal Hudson! fam'd in ev'ry
clime,/ Gentle, tho' vast-~tho' beautiful, sublime“(107).
Since Schuylkill had always been the most popular place name
in American poetry, this riverwas addressed more often than

any other; Philip Freneau's apostrophe in The Rising Empire

typifies these stereotyped conceits:

 

36Relative to its length, William Martin Johnson's
“An Ode, to the Beautiful River Sampit,“ 1806 (136),
contains more classical allusions than any other topographical
poem of this period. Besides an invocation to the “tuneful
sisters,“ the poet mentions Jove, Hebrus, Orpheus, Pluto,
Arethusa, Neptune, Diana, and Endymion; he also compares
his love to that of Petrarch for Laura and his retreat to
Vaucluse.

169

Sweet stream! what pencil can thy beauties tell--

Where, wandering downward through the woody vale,

Thy varying scenes to rural bliss invite,

To health and pleasure add a new delight. (90)
A more clever handling of the theme finds the stream told
that its fame is insured because of its attraction to poets.
The Schuylkill hears that it shall so “inspire the poet's
tongue“ that even the Ganges will not be able to boast “a
more diffus'd renown“(32). One poet, on the condition that
the Sampit help him win his girl, promises to rectify its
past neglect through having the muse hitherto engrave “an
annual verse“ upon its “urn“(136).

Of the many forms of panegyric in topographical
poetry, one of the most common was praise of the owners of
large estates. These attempts at flattery, generally found
in estate poems, often seem insincere and bombastic. One
instance of such fulsome praise resulted in a parody, one
of the very few on topographical poetry to appear in America.
The sonnet entitled “On a Country Seat near the City of
Philadelphia“ begins with a prospect of sorts:

Here the smooth lawn its verdant bosom spreads;
And white in aether storied walls ascend;
Majestic trees uplift their leafy heads,
And with wide arms the storied walls defend. (29)
A week following the appearance of this poem in the Weekly

Ma azine, an attempt was made to ridicule its insipidities:

Here the wild swamp its rugged bosom spreads,
And hoarse through ether bull-frog's cries ascend,

170

Briars and thorns erect their prickly heads, 37
And with sharp fangs the bellowing frogs defend.

The original sonnet closed with the usual tribute to the
owner of the elegant mansion:

And peace and plenty crown the beauteous scene.

For F*****t here delights to tread the plain,

And art and Nature mingle in his train.
The irreverence of the parody provides a welcome relief
from the pompous rhetoric that beclouds so many of the poems
of this period, but as a parody it fails because it too
closely mocks the original poem:

And discord marks the dark tumultuous scene.

For rudeness here delights to tread the plain,
Nor Art nor Culture mingles in his train.

 

37Anon., “Parody of the Sonnet, On a Country Seat
near Philadelphia,“ Weekly Magazine, I (April 7, 1798), 316.

VI. MOTIFS AND CONVENTIONS: TRANSITIONAL

In the course of the eighteenth century, as neo-
classic tradition lost the force of authority, nature poetry
became more subjective. Poets looked inward and found their
own particular responses to experience to be as valid as
those “just representations of general nature“ that rationalistic
critics like Dr. Johnson held to be the touchstones of great
literature. The appearance of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 marked
not so much a revolution as the culmination of a trend, for
the transition from the external light of reason to the inner
light of the imagination could not have been effected without
the poets of the Age of Sensibility. These “pre-Romantics“
believed that the natural world was a creation of beauty in-
tended for man's enjoyment and moral improvement, and
their shortcomings-~such as confusing fancy with imagination
and clinging to worn-out aesthetic principles—~should not
blind the latter-day reader to the significance of their con-
tributions.

As a result of the trend toward more freedom in
interpreting nature, one finds in topographical poetry of
the late eighteenth century certain recurring motifs that
had no precedent in the four poems that, beginning with

Cooper's Hill, most influenced the development of the genre.

171

172
Rather than being innovations, however, these themes had
evolved mostly from established conventions of neoclassic
poetry. By the late eighteenth century they were occurring
with enoughfrequency to assume their own status as con-
ventions and to form a stock from which the great and not-so-
great Romantic and Victorian poets would draw. The life-
review, the address of endearment, solace in nature,
sentimental introspection, and the love of wild scenery-~these
are themes which when handled well significantly enhanced
the value of Romantic poetry but when mishandled resulted
in bathos and sentimentality. In American topographical
poetry from 1783 to 1812 these motifs were much in evidence
despite any cultural lag that might have slowed their
adoption; yet the general failure of American poets in
handling them is apparent to one who remembers that this
period in England saw an unprecedented outpouring of great

nature poems.
CHILDHOOD OR YOUTHFUL RECOLLECTIONS

In using the youthful recollections motif to explore
the paradox of man's fall from innocence into experience,
Wordsworth and other Romantics had been anticipated by
religious poets of the seventeenth century, notably Henry
Vaughan and Thomas Traherne. The interest in the motif among
both Metaphysical and Romantic poets can be traced largely

to the foundation in the Gospels for reverencing childhood;

173
to the appeal of primitivism, manifested in a desire to
escape to a simpler and more harmonious mode of existence;
and to the realization that the “dizzy raptures“ of child-
hood are but a step removed from the experience of the
mystic--a step, however, that is never taken as the “prison
house“ of worldly eXperience closes in.

The first significant appearance of this motif in
the eighteenth century occurs in Thomas Gray's “Ode on a
Distant Prospect of Eton College“ in a passage which cap-
tures the feeling of innocence lost but which ignores the
philosophical implications of the child-adult contrast:

Ah, happy hills! ah, pleasing shade!
Ah, fields belov'd in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
The gentle Weltschmerz of these lines was thereafter to
be echoed many times, and the life-review theme found its
most memorable expression in works like Wordsworth's
immortality “Ode“ and “Tintern Abbey“ and Blake's Songs of
Innocence.

The intrusion of sentimentality into the youthful
memories theme is at best difficult to avoid, and few
American poets escape a surfeit of emotion. John Miller
RusseIL in “The Village Cliff,“ eschews sentimentality,
but in bidding farewell to the “sweet village“ of his youth,

he fails to get beyond cliches in exploring the paradoxes

174
of growth from innocence to knowledge.1 Other poets
handling this theme likewise escape mawkishness, only to
surrender to dullness. John Smith once “stray'd supremely
blest in rural joys“ beside the Schuylkill, but now that
“those blissful days are o'er“ patience is the only way
he can combat the cares of life(113). John Shaw, forced
to desert “native scenes“ for “far northern climes,“
looks back with longing as “Each object he once dearly lov'd/
Recurs incessant to his eyes“(l78). The most effective
handling of this theme is the brief “Written on the Banks
of Conestoga.“ Despite its galloping anapests, the poem
(here quoted in full) manages to suggest a Wordsworthian
confidence in the ministrations of nature:
O'er the green-spreading banks of this slow-winding
stream,
In life's playful morn, oft, I wander'd with glee;
When nature yet smil'd to my soul, through each scene,
And the path of life's way seem'd enchanting to me.
On yon moss-cover'd rock, where the stream soffiy laves.
At its marginal base, winding slow through the vale,
Oft musing I sat, as I gaz'd in the waves,
And silently thought,--or breath'd words to the gale.
There where the wild rose, in the breeze waves its head

And spreads sweetest fragrance around through
these scenes,

Serene, oft I lay, on the moss' verdent [Sic] bed,
And follow'd the phantoms of youth's fairy dreams.

 

lJohn Miller Russell, “The Village Cliff,“ 1799
(9). For a detailed discussion of the youthful memories
motif in this poem, see Chapter IV.

175
And there is the rock, over-bending the flood
That weltering heaves its small billows along,
Where often, as angling, I patiently stood,
And watch'd the gay Sports of the small finny throng.
'Twas here, 0! loved spot, that my bosom first knew
The rapture of feeling, unmix'd with alloy;
'Twas here, where my muse, first her gay fancies drew
And op'd on my soul a new heaven of joy. (160)
The mere fact that this poem avoids sentimentality
works considerably in its favor, for most poets handling
the childhood memories theme derive a melancholy and tearful
pleasure in looking back on the days that are no more. One
of the sickliest of these poets is “Headley,” who wrote about
a forced move from his home at the Hermitage to another
state:
Why, tranquil mansion, does the heaving sigh
Arise half smother'd, from its troubled seat:
Why stands the drop, big swelling in the eye,
When fate compels me from your lov'd retreat?
Imagination's eye, with rapid glance,
Surveys the hours on pleasure's pinions borne;
Recalls those scenes, which ev'ry joy enhance,
Scenes which are pass'd, and never shall return. (33)
The naiveté with which the theme is often explored is little
short of humorous. An epistolary poem, supposedly written
by a fourteen-year old student at William and Mary College,
is a pseudo-Byronic expression of regret for lost innocence.
He informs his sister that he would like to forsake Williams-
burg for his country home, “parent of his early years,“ but
duty demands that he remain in college. The picture of the
homesick teenager seeking philosophic calm in youthful mem-

ories presents a travesty on the theme:

176

How often does reflection trace

The youthful game, the active race!

The walk! the prospect everiair!

Here lies the garden, orchard there,

And there the hill, with haughty brow,

Looks down upon the field below;

Which, yellow with its various grain,

Flatters the eager wishing swain!

There flow the river's roaring floods,

'Midst rocks, and fields and hills and woods!

Such scenes as these can give delight,

Where cheerfulness and health unite. (85)
“Lothaire,” another schoolboy, attempts to describe his
feelings “when about to leave the place of his nativity, to
commence the study of a profession.“2 His emotions are mixed
as “he wistfully gaz'd on the scenes that he loved.“

'Twas here, in these scenes of my early delight,
That the muse first inspired mevdth raptures
unknown;
And nature since then wore an aspect more bright,
More wildly romantic my day-dreams have grown. (159)

He leaves these beloved scenes “in search after wealth.“
Yet, he asks, will “the pleasures which wealth can bestow“
repay him the loss of his “solace and pride“ or the raptures
he feels “alone by the Lehigh's green side“? He ends this
debate by deciding that he needs the wealth to aid those “in
misfortune and want“ and thus bids “adieu to the muse.“ James
Elliot's treatment of the theme seems more firmly grounded
in the human condition than “Headley's” or the two school-
boys'. As a soldier alone and ill at a frontier outpost, he

unsuccessfully tries to dissipate his fears by indulging

 

2Quoted from headnote to “An Adieu to the Muse“(159).

177
"a retrospect of happier days.“ Although he had been “happy
in infancy,“ soon his life became overcast "by gloomy
clouds“ until he has now reached the “summit" of his woes.
To make certain that his assertion of childhood happiness
is not misconstrued, he attaches a clarifying footnote:
“It is only meant herethat the author was contented, and
therefore 'happy in infancy.' He was happy, in a great

measure, because he was ignorant“(13l).
THE PERSONAL ADDRESS

The address of close familiarity or endearment used
to such good effect by Romantic poets had its immediate
antecedents in the formalized love plaints of the pastoral
tradition. Neoclassic poets begged favors from fickle
Delias and Miras, who, as flesh and blood females, were as
unreal as the well-worn figure of Freedom in her flowing
robes. Romantic poets, however, addressed believable
individuals with whom they shared highly personal eXperiences
on which the reader eavesdropped. Countless nature poems
by the great Romantics illustrate this convention. Words-
worth's tender confidences to his “dear, dear sister“
in “Tintern Abbey“; Coleridge's speculations, shared with
his “pensive Sara,“ in “The Eolian Harp“; and Matthew
Arnold's futile search for security with his unnamed companion

in "Dover Beach“--these poems all gain from the immediacy

178
and sinceritycf the personal address in much the same way
that they gain from having settings that are detaned and
particularized.

In their use of the convention, American topographical
poets generally failed to create the illusion that they were
addressing real persons. Banal sentiments of endearment
were uttered to numerous Miras, Delias,and Marias beside
convenient streams, near cottages of content, or in pleasing
rural “shades“ or groves. Often it is the quality of the
name that makes serious acceptance of the device impossible.
The modern reader can accept Tennyson's Maud or Keats's Fanny
because their intense reality to the poet rubs off on the
reader, but names like Rosalinda, Lilly, and Amanda--when
combined with trite sentiments-~prove more ludicrous than
quaint. Possibly the worst sample of personal address
combining an unfortunate name with sentimental claptrap
is the exclamation in “The Brandywine“: “O Lavinia! Why
wilt thou look into the bosom of the world for happiness?“(145)
Almost equally atrocious is the specimen furnished by the
anonymous poet who pleads with Magdaline, “Come, then,
deluding maid,/ To this enamell'd shade!“(154)

Although in a minority, some poets more successfully
manage the personal address. John Miller Russell, in “The

Village Cliff,“ creates the illusion of a real presence

179

through an address to an unnamed friend in the opening
verse paragraph:

Come, haste my friend, and leave the cares of life;

The toil of tedious study throw aside;

And in this mild and clear autumnal sun,

Let us in social mood together rove,

Where yon stupendous height invites us forth,

To take the freshness of the morning air. (9)
The poet fails, however, to establish rapport with his
friend because he too briefly maintains the direct-address
point of view. Only near the conclusbn.does he once again
make the contact explicit:

Farewell sweet village! and with thee, farewell

My pleasant friend! The spring of youth is past,

And sober manhood opens on our view.

In “Verses Written at Mount Radnor,“ another long
hill poem, a friend likewise accompanies the poet to the
summit of his favorite hill:

Come then, Eugenio, with the Muse ascend

Mount Radnor's height, and bid the view extend,

And as from light retiring darkness flies

With op'ning morn, behold the landscape rise. . ..(15)
Here, as in the preceding poem, the poet fails to use the
direct address to gain immediacy. The reader is hardly
ever aware of the presence of this “long tri'd“ friend,
who was the “fond companion“ of the poet's “earliest youth.“
Rather than learning anything significant about this relation-
ship, the reader is subjected to a long and hackneyed

digression on the virtues of friendship. A more particular-

ized relationship is examined in the Shallow and sentimental

180

“Lines Occasioned by the Author's Leaving the Hermitage.“ The
author, having parted from his friend after an enjoyable
period together, now sadly recalls “scenes which are pass'd,
and never shall return“(33). Often, until late at night
“in these lone walls,“ together they studied “the learned
dead“ as “Contemplation“ culled “the labour'd page.“
Sometimes young “Headley” grew weary of his studies and
relaxed with lighter reading:

Oft have I, when in science' mazes lost,

Forsook the sea in which I dark y t ss'd,

To ease the mind amid the fields of zest.

From Coke's stern quaintness, and the depth of Ferne,

From Bacon's dulness, and prolix Fonblanque,

The mind, with pleasure, seeks the wit of Sterne,

Or roves with Thomson on some flow'ry bank.
Thus passed the days until his companion was sent away,
ending this friendship of “kindred souls.“ Addressing
“dear G n,“ he wonders why fate so soon willed their
separation. But this is a futile question, and only youthful
memories now remain.

And you, old mansion, still shall be more dear,

Since your lone shades did first our hearts unite,

Whose crumbling walls now, like my friend, appear,
Removing fast forever from my sight.

THE SOLACE IN NATURE

In all ages those individuaksendowed with the
capacity for deep feeling have had an agonizing awareness

that suffering is the lot of man. Even the Age of Reason

181
was not exempt from doubting that this is the best of all
possible worlds; Dr. Johnson had rationally concluded
that “Human life is every where a state in which much is to
be endured, and little to be enjoyed.“ Poets of the>
Romantic period, not given to generalizing on the human
condition, preferred instead to bare unashamedly before
the world their inmost yearnings, doubts, and fears. Lord
Byron so blatantly displayed the pageant of his bleeding
heart that the Byronic hero became a prototype of romantic
rebelliousness against an unjust world. Fortunately the
Romantics had an anodyne; they found relief in the great
out-of—doors that the eighteenth century had discovered
for the first time in all its beauty, variety, and grandeur.
Wordsworth's “Tintern Abbey“ is an outstanding statement
of the function of nature as a balm for distressed minds.
As the poet finds himself once again in a picturesque land-
scape along the Wye after a long absence, he recalls how in
times of loneliness and weariness these “beauteous forms“ of
nature penetrated his whole being with “tranquil restoration.“
. . . how oft--

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart--

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye!
How often, indeed,would Byron, Shelley, Keats, and their

followers find that natural scenery had a mystical power of

182
restoration. Whether it manifested itself in the pathetic
fallacy or in Einffihlung—-loss of distinction between self
and scene--communion with nature became one of the traits for
which the Romantic period is chiefly remembered.

Most American poets could not wear their hearts on
theirsfleeves as successfully as Wordsworth or even Byron;
seldom did they sufficiently control their melancholy to
prevent their search for solace from degenerating into self-
pity. A meditative poem by “Ella“ entitled “Silence“
starts off well enough, with images that convey a mood of
restrained sadness:

Day slow retreats on showery wing,

And Evening climbs the eastern Skies,

The hovering vapours round the shores arise,

Or to the tall rock's frowzy' summit cling:

The hum of busy care is done,
A welcome respite twilight brings;

And in the ear of Labour's son,
The lulling song of Quiet sings.

All, all is still and peaceful as the grave

Save where the Delaware's distant billows roar,
When driven by rushing gales, the yielding wave
Throws its white waters on the echoing shore.
Hark!--the shrill ggail with deep swoln note
Breaks the dumb silence of the scene;

The waking breezes sullen round it float,

Fold their soft wings, and sink to rest again. (39)

Unfortunately the pensive mood leads only to some trite
bromides on the theme of solace in nature. The reader
soon learns that the poet's heart is “surcharg'd with grief“
and that she finds the silence and growing darkness furnish

a'balm“ and "sweet relief“ for her sad heart. Well she knows

183
the power of evening Silence

. . . while wandering here,

Far, very far from all my heart holds dear;
Where, while remembrance brings their image near,
Down my pale cheek tear follows tear;
And the big sigh, in vain supprest,
Urges a passage from a swelling breast:
Yet do I know thy soothing e'en here,
Though far--ah me, how far from all my heart

holds dear!

The sentimentalism of “Lines of the House at Alveston Changing
Its Possessors“ looks forward to such “old favorites“ of the
nineteenth century as “Home, Sweet Home“ and “My Old Kentucky
Home.“ More pensive than mawkishly emotional, the short
poem rather skillfully mingles the childhood memories theme
and the search for solace in nature into one of the expressions
of love of home that the nineteenth century so delighted in:
And must I quit these fields belov'd so long,
This lawn so fragrant with it's circling flowers,
Where oft' a train of youthful friends among,
Careless and gay I've passed the flying hours?
This social hearth, by memory held most dear,
Alas! no friendly circles now surround,
No dear familiar faces now appear,
But unknown voices through the roofs resound.
Ah, through these meads so dear, must strangers rove,
And stranger hands these cowslip garlands twine.
These flowers, that wont to bloom for those I love,
Must they to strangers now their sweets resign?
Ah, though no more for me the rolling year
Shall bid these landscapes with fresh beauty shine,
Thy shades, O Alveston! shall still be dear,
And still retrace the joys that have been mine- (34)
If both of the preceding poems are trite, at least

the imagery is concrete enough to convey a genuine love of

184

nature. Other poets seek solace amid scenes that vary con-
siderably in freshness and particularity, but none penetrate
very deeply into the power of nature to assuage suffering.
As the traveler in “A Journey from Patapsco to Annapolis“
resumes his journey after a thunderstorm, he takes pleasure
in the freshness of the air, the singing birds, the flowering
dogwood, the maple,and the sassafras along the road. “These
vernal joys,“ he reflects, “all restless thoughts controul,/
And gently soothing, calm the troubled soul“(184). No so
concretely depicted is the scenery in Camberwell Grove that
“T. G.“ looks to for consolation:

Ye peaceful shades that soothe the troubled breast,

Exert your power, let me your influence share;

Restore my bosom to its wonted rest,

And banish from my heart the fiend DeSpair. (102)
Graveyard scenery gives solace to “Cornelia,“ who finds
“pensive calm“ for her “troubled breast“ on a “deserted,
lonely spot of earth.“ Anticipating Lord Byron's agitated
search for peace of mind, she believes that “The songs of
gladness and the voice of mirth,/ Are but harsh discord to
the mind distrest“(76). Michael Forrest, in Travels through
America, allays the grief of losing his only brother by
walking in “lonely fields“ near Philadelphia, where he had
paused amid his travels. Like Cornelia, he finds the
desolate aspects of nature congenial to his melancholy mood:

0ft have I to the lonely fields retir'd,

To pay a tribute nature oft requir'd.
The gloomy rocks, and desolates unknown,

185

Have often heard my solitary moan.

Nor purling streams no more divert my mind,

Nor woodland music floating in the wind;

Pensive I pass the heavy hours away. (181)
Rather than the “peaceful shades“ or “gloomy rocks“
specified in the preceding poems, John Shaw would have a
scene of wild grandeur to assuage his sorrow. Yet the
“rushing floods“ at Niagara Falls cannot "wash away the
pain“ that plagues him, for youthful recollections keep

intruding. Far removed from “native scenes“ that he "dearly

loved,“ he finds it vain to seek relief in nature(l78).
SENTIMENTAL INTROSPECTION

The search for solace in nature is but a particular
manifestation of a broader theme of melancholy, difficult
to define but significant in the development of Romantic
poetry. “Sentimental introspection“ is intended as a term
of convenience to embrace all forms of poetic gloom that
grapple sincerely, if often ineptly, with what Matthew
Arnold called “the something that infects the world.“ In
its highest form the theme includes the Weltschmerz and
reminiscent pensiveness associated with the great Romantic
poets and in its crudest form the religious melancholy of

graveyard poets and ' the tearful complaints of men and

186

women obsessed with “sensibility.“ It applies just as well
to the exquisitely controlled self-pity of Cowper's “On
the Receipt of my Mother's Picture out of Norfolk“ as to
the transcendent exploration of mutability in Keats's
“Ode to a Nightingale“ or the brooding egotism of the
Byronic hero:

My whole life was a contest, since the day

That gave me being, gave me that which marr'd

The gift,--a fate, or will, that walk'd astray;

And I at times have found the struggle hard,

And thought of shaking off my bonds of clay:

But now I fain would for a time survive,

If but to see what next can well arrive.

Although few American poets could express their
discontent with such sincerity and felicity, most of them
exhibited the same emotional immaturity that marks these
lines from “Epistle to Augusta." With the possible
exception of William Cullen Bryant, who found in nature
lessons of stoical endurance, most American poets of the
early nineteenth century failed to avoid the baleful
influence of Byronic gloom. Writing in the shadow of
Byron's widespread popularity, they never got beyond the
dark sententiousness of a James Gates Percival:

. . . Life is made of gloom:
The fairest scenes are clad in ruin's pall,

The loveliest pathway leads but to the tomb;
Alas! destruction is man's only doom.3

 

3From “Prometheus,“ 1821.

187

This lugubrious response to natural scenery was anticipated
in many a “graveyard“ poem composed long before the influ-
ence of Byronism had made itself felt in America. In 1786
Joseph Brown Ladd composed his own epitaph for his Poems of
Arouet:

Stranger! whoe'er thou art, that from below

This grass-green hill, with steady steps dost press:

Shed sympathetic tears; for stranger know,

Here lies the son of Sorrow and Distress.

Topographical poets of this period were brought to
tears not only in graveyards but amid scenes usually
associated with beauty and pleasure. Alexander Wilson, in
“The Invitation,“ wants his friend Charles Orr to share in
the beauty of the countryside around Gray's Ferry and while
on walks together to think of suffering kindred abroadzu

Our thoughts may roam beyond the wat'ry waste

And see, with sadden'd hearts, in memory's eye,

Those native shores, where dear-lov'd kindred sigh.

Where War and ghastly Want in horror reign,

And dying babes to fainting sires complain.
While we, alas! these mournful scenes retrace,

Our tea 8 shall flow, our ardent pray'rs arise,
That Heaven would wipe all sorrow from their eyes. (25)
Addressing a Miss Mason at New Rochelle, Mrs. Faugeres

recalls the sweet memories of times spent together enjoying

nature along their “fav'rite paths.“ Now, however, she

”Wilson came to America from Scotland in 1794
at the age of twenty-eight.

188

often seeks “the couch of rest“ because of an undefined
depression which causes her to weep(40). An undefinable
sense of loss likewise brings "fast-flowing tears" to the
eyes of the anonymous author of “Written After a Visit to
Philadelphia“ as she again finds herself amid the fields
and streams that have the power to awaken “reflection's
noblest powers"(80).

Solitude, either voluntary or enforced by some
decree of fate, seemed the only ground on which sentimental
intrOSpection could be cultivated. The English poet Thomas
Moore, in "Farewell to Philadelphia,“ adopts a solitary
pose as he recalls the kind reception he received while
visiting the city and as he pictures himself a wanderer
by the Schuylkill gazing “with a Sigh“ at its “flowery
banks“(54). To set the tone for a description of his favorite
cataract, John Howard Payne poses as a misanthrope who
retreats to nature to escape “the noisy haunts of men"(l76).
Properly “pensive,“ a certain“Tbung Lady“describing
the Falls of Passaic prefers only those paths which are
“remote from human ken,“ and she wrings out a few tears in
comparing the eternal flow of the stream to her own transience:
unlike the “roaring waters,“ her own “purple tide,/ That
now with ardour swells the youthful vein,“ is doomed to a
short course(l65). For some unstated reason, Alexander

Wilson, as the author of “The Pilgrim,“ has been “condemn'd

189
through distant lands to roam,/ . . . Alone, unguided,
and unknown“(l86). But this fate does not prevent him
from enthusiastically bagging ducks and eagles as he
travels down the Ohio. "Lorenzo" is another solitary
wanderer, who because of his parents' illness, is now
returning home. Typically the setting is late evening and
the poet is appropriately equipped with a “palpitating
heart“ which both “throbs” and “sighs" at the thought of
'gglgg ggmgm(79). John D. MCKinnon, in one of his river
poems, also assumes the role of a solitary who is enamored
by the “happy scenes“ of nature even “though sunk/ At
heart, and anxious to forsake the world/ And all its vain,
deceitful blandishments“(139). Even John Searson saw him-
self as a homeless stranger who passes his time "in rural
walks below,/ 'Till we to our great Shepherd soon must
80"(21).

The formula for sentimental introspectbn was almost
certain to include evening solitude and a setting conducive
to pensiveness, such as a quiet stream, a peaceful grove, or
a graveyard. The latter is the setting for an elegy by
"Guiandot" that carries grief to pathological extremes.

His tortured mind resisting Sleep, he has retreated to the
silence of St. Paul's Churchyard, where he reflects that
neither love, wealth, fame, or pleasure offered any joy

that “was not soon clouded by sickness and pain." He now

190
vainly endeavors to flee from existence:

Ah! why am not I too permitted to rest,

From false joys and vain sorrows why am not I free?

In life there are few who have been more distrest,

There are few to whom death were more welcome than me. (83)
Although William Martin Johnson is not actually in a grave-
yard, he uses mannerisms of the Graveyard School to reinforce
the melancholy of “An Ode to the Beautiful River Sampit.“

As usual the time is evening and the poet is alone; the
setting includes such sad but “not all unlovely“ images

as “gloomy pines,“ “trembling deer,“ “the thick'ning cloud,
the screeching storm,/ The nimble lightning's lurid glare.".
Near the end of the poem one stanza looks back to Gray's
“Elegy“ and another forward to Childe Harold's existential

awareness of the necessity of suffering:

In pain itsel there is delight,
If love and pity bathe the wound.

Thus some pale flowers in deserts bloom,
Where never pierc'd the solar beams;
Thus some lone star, through midnight's gloom,
With tremulous radiance dimly gleams.
Curst be the passion's stoic sleep,
The marble heart, the nerve of steel!
Give me to suffer and to weep,
But let, ah! ever let me feel! (136)

In poetry flowing water has been used universally
as a representation of the course of human life. It needs
but little imagination to discover a number of analogues
between life and a river's course, and the “pathetic“

fallacy of assigning to a river the virtue of imperturbability

191

in the face of vicissitudes had an obvious appeal to poets

torn by pain and tortured by passion. Addressing the Malvon,

“Lysander“ wants to keep in view its "course serene“ as
“through the vale of life“ he traces his path(l53). The
tumult and ensuing calm of the waters at Passaic Falls
leads another poet to the conclusion that after “a life of
woes“ “wearied spirits“ will also find “repose“(166). The
author of “Sonnet to Schuylkill“ similarly sees first
despair and then hope in the river analogy:

Slow wind thy waters, Schuylkill, fav'rite stream!

And as I muse along thy lonely shore,

Thy light waves trembling to the noon-tide beam,

Still flow, ne'er ceasing, and return no more.

Thus silent, unperceiv'd, the stream steals on

Whith floats us down the tide of life's decay;

Sunk in the lapse of years forever gone,
Each gliding moment bears its part away.

Yet to thy source, fair stream[}]will nature's pow'r

From her vast reservoirs thy floods supply;

And nature's God, when life's dull flow is o'er
Will not extinguish'd let its essence lye.

To purer realms th' ethereal beam will raise,

Borne on th' eternal stream of being's deathless maze.

While visiting in America, Thomas Moore, the English poet so

admired by Joseph Dennie, found the alternately calm and tem-~

pestuous flow of the Mohawk symbolic of his own life. Like the

stream, he passes through “alternate shades of woe,/ And
flowers of joy. . .

While still pursuing, still unblest,

I wander on, nor dare to rest!

But, urgent as the doom that calls

Thy water to its destin'd falls,

I see the world's bewildering force
Hurry my heart's devoted course

From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the last current cease to run!

on may my fall be bright as thine!

192

May heaven's forgiving rainbow shine
Upon the mist that circles me,
As soft, as now it hangs o'er thee. (175)

The comparison is most fully developed in one of
a series of nature poems by “Jaques“ entitled “Reflections
in Solitude.“5 No other poet makes the analogy so explicitly
parallel. The Lehigh, from its source beneath some “moss-
clad clift,“ at first flows

By nothing ruffled, save a mossy rock,

Or trunk of some ag'd oak, that time has slain,
That offer scarce a momentary check,

But add fresh vigour to its silent stream;
Onward it speeds, its pure transparent wave,
Till, passing by the rustick's lowly shed,

It loses all its sweetness, all its calm,

And rolls a tainted and an angry tide:

Then, mingling in the many—fountain'd stream
Of Ocean, by Sol's torrid beam 'tis rais'd

To kiss the field with many a morning dew.
Thus, in the early dawn of life, the youth
Starts from the goal of sweet simplicity,

To run his race-~His playful untaught steps
Pursue the flow'ry path--till Syrens smile,
And soft seduction crosses o'er his path,

And turn his brain, and leads the orphan where
He sips of Dissipation's madd'ning draught.

O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O O

Till worn and wearied b his long career,

He Sinks, an helpless and a tainted mass,
Into th' unfathom'd bosom of eternity,

Where Mercy pardons, while the seraphs smile.

SUBLIME SCENERY

Although the apotheosis of the sublime in nature

 

5Some twelve meditative nature poems by Jaques
[Samuel Ewing] appeared in series in the Port Folio in 1801.

Only the one quoted here (134) describes a particular
locality.

1/_;

 

193

was achieved early in the nineteenth century, the love of
wild and irregular scenery was not confined to the Romantic
period. A long tradition, grounded in the cult of the
picturesque, was responsible for the enthusiasm for natural
sublimities that by the 1760's was threatening to engulf
neoclassic decorum. Throughout the eighteenth century
aesthetic treatises had explored why unbeautiful aspects of
nature managed to “delight and astonish,“ and travelers
making the Grand Tour found in the Alps a grandeur that
defied existing concepts of natural beauty. These new
interests were increasingly reflected by poets depicting
features of the landscape hitherto regarded as the “ruins
of the world.“ By 1825 the sublime was so taken for granted
that it was easy enough for the youthful Tennyson to garner
all the “familiar themes, settings, and adjectives“ associated
with the cult of sublimity into a melodramatic effort
appropriately titled “On Sublimity."6

Among the great Romantic poets descriptions of
sublime scenery often amounted to something more than
sensationalism. Several magnificent "spots of time“ in

Wordsworth's The Prelude owe their conception to the

 

6Nicolson, Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory, p. 372.
Tennyson acknowledges that he was between fifteen and seven-
teen when he wrote “On Sublimity,“ which appeared in Poems
by Two Brothers (1827). Two sublimities in the poem were
American:_“Kentucky's chamber of eternal gloom“ and
“Niagara's flood of matchless might.“

194

enthusiastic appreciation of wild scenery that developed
throughout the eighteenth century, but never before had

the mystique of “mountain madness" been so well set forth
as it was in this poem. The best known of these passages
occurs in the Sixth Book, in which the raw experience of
descending Simplon Pass is remolded under the shaping power
of the poet's imagination into an imposing statement of the
power of sublime scenery to inSpire mystical reverence.

. . .The immeasurable height

Of woods decaying, never to be decayed,

The stationary blasts of waterfalls,

The rocks that muttered close upon our ears,
Black drizzling crags that spake by the way-side
As if a voice were in them, the sick sight

And giddy prospect of the raving stream,

The unfettered clouds and regions of the Heavens,
Thmult and peace, the darkness and the light--
Were all like workings of one mind, the features
0f the same face, blossoms upon one tree;
Characters of the great Apocalypse,

The types and symbols of Eternity,

0f first and last, and midst, and without end.

Of all the “spots of time“ which objectify some aspect of

the poet's experience, the memory of the time when he climbed
Mt. Snowdon to view the sunrise (Book XIV) furnishes an
unsurpassed statement of the sublime in nature. The experience
on the mountain top, rooted in the world of the senses, is
transformed by the imagination into an apocalyptic vision

in which the poet perceives nature in all its forms--fearfu1

as well as joyous--as “types of a majestic intellect“:

195
There I beheld the emblem of a mind
That feeds upon infinity . . .;
. . . . . . . . a mind sustained
By recognitions of transcendent power,
In sense conducting to ideal form,
In soul of more than mortal privilege.

The grandeur of American scenery should have
inspired poetry equal to Wordsworth's in insight and
expression; yet any student of the early national period
knows it did not. Enthusiasm for the grand and terrible
outran American poets' powers of eXpression, and the result
is generally the forced emotionalism of Graveyard horrifics
or the bombast of Ossianic grandeur. “Stunn'd,“ “awe-
struck,“ and “astonish'd,“ Thomas Law finds that “the most
sublime expressions are too faint“ to describe Niagara(173).
In Rhode Island an ocean prospect leads a certain “young
miss“ to an ecstasy of appreciabon: “Wave ye woods, and
ocean roar:/ Ye shall give sublime enjoyments,/ When your
Emma is no more“(97). In Massachusetts a mountain prospect
commands from “Linus“ an attemptet graveyard terror:

Now turn and view yon lofty mountain, shagged,

With bristly pines and studded o'er with rocks:

A direful scene! around the mountain t0p

Perpetual horror reigns. . . .(12)

And on the Hudson “Cornelia“ directs grand aSpects of nature--
including lightning and thunder-~to her aid in describing the
ruins of Fort Lee, located atop “rugged cliffs,“ that “tower

sublime,/ Above the force of waves and tine“(77).

196
To storms and cliffs, one can add cataracts as
features of nature guaranteed to arouse sublime emotions.
All three are combined in a poem on the Schuylkill: sitting
under a “hanging craggy steep,“ the poet enjoys his “romantic
wild retreat“ amid the “sounds of falling streams“ until
the revery is broken by the sound of an approaching thunder-
storm(118). “Horrid” and “dreadful“ are two adjectives
that “Juvenis“ musters to describe a cataract on the
Connecticut River(l46). And an anonymous admirer of
Passaic Falls finds in its tumult a match for his anguish:
Tho' throbs my heart with plaintive woe,
It long shall love thy roaring tide,
Which makes it beat with fiercer glow,
And swell with more than mortal pride. (168)
More clever than poetic is Washington Irving's little exer-
cise on Passaic Falls, which relates how a “Spirit that
rul'd o'er the thick-tangled wood“ suddenly changed a
“tranquil vale“ to a scene of rude grandeur. For ages, the
“soft sylvan scene“ remaindd undisturbed: “No grandeur
of prospect astonish'd the Sight,/ No abruptness sublime
mingled awe with delight.“ Without warning, the “fierce
Spirit“produced a catacllsm:
He riv'd the green hills, the wild woods he laid low,
He turn'd the smooth stream in rough channels to flow;
He rent the rude rock, the steep precipice gave,
And hurl'd down the chasm the thundering wave.

A scene of strange ruin he scatter'd around,
Where cliffs pil'd on cliffs in rude majesty frown'd.

the long lapse of time,

Countless moons have now roll'd in

197

Cultivation has softened those features sublime;

Yet the stranger still gazes with wondering eye,

On rocks rudely torn, and groves mounted on high;

Still loves on the cliffs' dizzy borders to roam,

Where the torrent leaps headlong embosom'd in foam. (162)

By building suspense, Alexander Wilson achieves a
high degree of emotional impact with his description of
Niagara. Finding themselves only five miles from their long
awaited goal, the young travelers of “The Foresters,“
amazed that they are unable to hear the roar of the cataract,
decide that Niagara has been overrated: “Here, nameless
hardships, griefs and miseries past,/ We find some mill-dam
for our pains at last.“ But soon they hear the sound, and
as “expectation throbb'd in every breast,“ they hasten to
the prospect. What they find they were totally unprepared
for:

Above, below, where'er the astonish'd eye,

Turns to behold, new opening wonders lie,

Till to a steep's high brow unconscious brought,

Lost to all other care of sense or thought,

There the broad river, like a lake outspread,

The islands, rapids, falls, in grandeur dread,

The heaps of boiling foam, th' ascending Spray,

The gulf profound, where dazzling rainbows play,

This great, o'erwhelming work of awful Time,

In all its dread magnificence sublime,

Rose on our view,amid a crashing roar

That bade us kneel, and Time's great God adore. (185)

No other description of a waterfall in this period
matches the verbal fireworks of this passage, yet Wilson

could show almost equal enthusiasm for rugged mountain

198
scenery. Several exclamations punctuate his description of
the view from Blue Mountain, where as morning mists dissolve,
he sees before him the autumn foliage of the great hardwood
forests of the Appalachians, broken intermittently by
clearings:

But such a prOSpect!--such a glorious Show!

The world, in boundless landscape, lay below!

Vast colour'd forests, to our wandering eyes,
Seem'd soften'd gardens of a thousand dyes.

Long lakes appear'd; but at the increase of day
Assum'd new forms, and roll'd in mist away.

Scoop'd from the woods unnumber'd Spots were seen
Embrown'd with culture, or with pastures green;
Some cottage smoke mov'd slow, and dimly white;

But ev'ry hut had dwindled from the sight.

In long trail'd fogs, that all its windings show'd,
For many a league the distant Delaware flow'd;

And all beyond seem'd to the ravish'd eye,

One waste of woods, encircling earth and sky. (185)

The magnificent scenery along the lower Hudson
Valley--the wide, placid river contrasting with rugged
bluffs and mountains rising from either bank--inspired
the kind of mountain madness which was characteristic of some
of the noblest successes of the Romantic period and some
of its most obvious failures. One of the latter is Mrs.
Faugeres' description of the Hudson heights below West Point:

Soon as the ridgy mountains leave the eye,
Tall mural rocks shoot proud into the air;

In shapes fantastic lift their turrets high,
Fit for the shadowy forms who revel there.

The hardy pines that on their steep sides grow,

Appear like shrubs to the strain'd eyes below.
The wandering goat adventures to the brink

And peeps across the fretted edge with care;
Then from the awful precipices she shrinks,

As though relentless Ruin hover'd there.
Yet there, when Night hath bid the world be mute,

199

The sleepless sailor often clambers high
And from some shadowy nook his sonorous flute
Sends mournful accents to the neighbouring sky. (105)

Mrs. Faugeres' mother, Ann Eliza Bleecker, had also tried
her hand at describing sublime scenery along the Hudson.
Like her daughter she uses the samenachinery of Gothic
horror that Mrs. Ann Radcliffe would eXploit more skillfully
a year later in The Mysteries of Udolpho:7

Rough mountains now appear while pendant woods
Hang o'er the gloomy steep and shade the floods;
Slow moves the vessel, while each distant sound
The cavern'd echoes doubly loud rebound:

A placid stream meanders on the steep,

Till tumbling from the cliff, divides the frowning deep.
0 tempt not Fate on those stupendous rocks,
Where never shepherd led his timid flocks;

But shagged bears in those wild deserts stray,
And wolves, who howl against the lunar ray:
There builds the rav'nous hawk his lofty nest,
And there the soaring eagle takes her rest;

The solitary deer recoils to hear.

The torrent thundering in the mid-day air. (180)

John D. McKinnon's description of the same section
of the Hudson Highlands is distinguishable from the two
ladies' by its avoidance of melodrama, but because of its
awkward diction and tortured inversions it deserves no

particular commendation:

 

7The “ruin“ passages in both Mrs. Bleecker's and
Mrs. Faugeres' descriptions of the Hudson River region
(published in 1793) bear striking resemblance to prose
descriptions in Anne Radcliffe's novel (published 1794),
as well as to several verses of Mrs. Radcliffe's own composing
interspersed throughout the novel. According to Professor
8. H. Monk, flhe Sublime (p. 218), Mrs. Radcliffe held the

belief, common of her age, that intense terror can produce
sublime emotions.

200
Gigantic, vast,

O'ershadowing mountains soar, invested thick

Their Shaggy waists, and to their summits far

A wilderness unbounded to the eye,

Profuse and pathless, unsubdued by toil.

Diminutive beneath, the Hudson, deep

Coerc'd by rocks, and silent, penetrates

The solitudinous and woodland scene;

His former course disorder'd, winding through

Uncertain, struggling for a passage. (108)
McKinnon was capable enough of appreciating rude aspects of
nature provided that they were viewed in contrast with more

artfully contrived scenery:
What though

No finish'd culture has adorn'd the fields

With living hedge-rows, no laborious care

Drawn off the rancid waters, or reliev'd

The glebe from wrecks of lacerated rocks;

The ruder grace of Nature, unsubdued,

Prevailing oft amid the furrow'd scene--

Contrasted charms! (94)
He was, however, too much under the influence of the pictur-
esque tradition ever to value untamed nature for itsomn
sake, and if, unlike many of his contemporaries, he avoided
confusing sublimity with theatrics it was only because he
was insensitive to the power of grand scenery to animate
the soul. His inability to know what to do with such
scenery is revealed in the apology he offered his readers
for not writing more extensively about the Hudson region:
although he claimed that he had wanted to extend his poems
before their publication, “the very confined views which

the country in its uncleared state afforded beyond German-

Flats [on the Mohawk], rendered it but little susceptible

201
of poetical description, without a constant recurrence of
similar images.“8 Here was a poet suffering want in the
midst of plenty, for the forested wilderness of America was
an instrument waiting to be exploited in the interests of
literary nationalism, But to McKinnon and most of his
contemporariesfihere was nothing picturesque and thus nothing
poetic in mile after mile of lonely forest broken only by
an occasional settler's cabin.

If any river of the East besides the Hudson was to
inspire sublime poetry, it should have been the Potomac, ‘
which west of Tidewater cut its way through majestic ridges
of the Alleghenies and Blue Ridge.9 Yet the one passage
describing this region (found in an anonymous hill poem) is
disappointingly unoriginal:

But now Plantations and the Fields are past,
And my long view is o'er the Forests cast,
Whose verdant summits with thick leaves o'erspread,
Seem to the eye like one continued mead;
Till o'er the level the Blue Ridges rise,
Whose azure heights appear among the skies.
The lofty oaks, that on their steep-sides grow,
The lumb'ring pines that shade their awful brow,
In distance wrapt, we scarcely can descry,
And one blue landscape rushes on the eye.
Then, since the view no more from hence extends
For mortal sight, and the long prospect ends,
Let the mind's eye yet unrestricted rove
The houseless plain and unfrequented grove.
Let her, thro' these, her devious course pursue,

8Preface to John D. McKinnon, Descri tive Poems,
Containing Picturesque Views of the State of New-York (New
York: 1802).

9In Notes on the State of Virginia (1784) Thomas Jef-

ferson remarked, “The passage of the Potomac through the Blue
Ridge is, perhaps, one of the most stupendous scenes in nature.“

 

202

Till wide Patowmack rises to her view;

Where he in awful majesty sits crown'd,

The fearful hills and forests trembling round;

Where o'er rough rocks, his thund'ring cataracts roar,
And drive their boiling eddies to the shore;

Where first his stream in headlong course descends,
Beneath the waves a length of stones extends,

O'er which they dash and urge theirwdld career,

While the black billows streak'd with white appear.
But where his waters rush in steepest Fall,

Vast piles of rocks the gazer's mind appal,

Thro' whose wide clefts, by rapid billows torn,

The madd'ning stream in sweepy torrents borne,

Tumble, loud sounding down the steep Cascade,

Shines to the sight with sparkling foam o'erspread,
While these, o'er lofty craggs, with mighty force
From high are driv'n, in fierce resistless course. . . .(15)

Although this passage lacks some of the more awkward
embellishments of a Bleecker or Faugeres, it could have been
written just as easily by a McKinnon or a Wilson, who, even
if they were able to keep their eyes on the object, still
found in nature nothing that they could identify in terms

of their own eXperience. If American scenery was to pro-
vide the material for a genuinely American literature,
radically new ways of interpreting the relationship between

man and nature would have to be forthcoming.

VII. CONCLUSION: TRADITION AND THE
CLAIMS OF NEWNESS

It is paradoxical that a body of poetry whose main
characteristic is a spirit of localization should appear
within a literary tradition borrowed without mofification
from another country. Yet the preceding chapters reveal the
disturbing ease with which American topographical poetry can
be defined, typed, and classified within the context of Eng-
lish topographical poetry. Unoriginal in form, style, and
content, this poetry does nothing to upset previous evaluations
of the period. The general charge of imitation can be upheld
so easily that a conclusion to this study might seem super-
fluous; one simply could refer the reader to the history of
the “back to nature“ movement in English poetry. Such a pro-
cedure does, in fact, suffice for American nature poems which
possess no Spirit of localization--and there are many eclogues,
elegies, and imitations of Thomson and Ossian that are com-
pletely unlocalized--but the fact that topographical poets
attempted, even while failing, to create a national literature
demands a closer look at, first, the effect of the American
physical environment on the treatment of nature within the
established tradition and, secondly, the most frequently
recurring themes arising from this tradition.

In late eighteenth-century America the geography of
the Atlantic coastal region was markedly dissimilar from that

203

204

of the wilderness to the West. In the temperate latitudes
between the Appalachian chain and the Atlantic Ocean lay an
area easy of access and suitable for cultivation. Following
the Revolution, this section filled quickly. Cities arose
on the many natural harbors along the coast as well as farther
inland at the Fall Line. As there were no particular obstacles
to the spread of agriculture or the transportation of goods,
the countryside soon took on an appearance of prosperity.
Farms, estates, villages, groves, meadows, fields, and gentle
hills combined to form a landscape that poets could assimilate
easily into their ideas of the beautiful, sublime, and pictur-
esque. To the west, however, the rugged topography ofthe
Appalachian mountain system discouraged agriculture and
obstructed transportation. Nature had not been tamed;
great forests, rapid rivers, abundant wildlife, and vast
solitudes awaited the pioneers who were pushing the frontier
toward the fertile plains west of the mountains.

The physical environment of the East conformed so
well with that of cultivated areas of Europe that American
poets found it easy to write their local poems using the
language, form, and emphasis of the European picturesque
tradition. The “neat enclosure“ alternated with the “happy
shade“ to present countless scenes of idyllic beauty. On
the frontier, however, Art and Nature were out of balance,
and there was little that the eye could seek out as beautiful.

Until such country is put into a “state of complete cultivation,“

205
it would be, in Timothy Dwight's estimation, "imperfect.“l
This belief, by and large, determined American poets' attitudes
toward nature on the frontier, and it accounts for the re-
latively few poems written under its influence. It seems, in
fact, that poems actually concerned with the frontier often
exhibit a more entrenched conventionality than those
describing more settled areas. Lacking a tradition with
which to deal with the wilderness, American poets could react
to its strangeness only with tried and proven reSponses. Not
all reacted identically, of course, since not all were
affected identically, but the difference in response is one
of degree, not kind. Least affected were the hardy pioneers
who saw the frontier as just another obstacle to the advance
of Art, Industry, Agriculture, and similar personifications

of progress. Their attitude, probably the most prevalent,

 

1In describing the White Mountains in Travels in New-
England and New-York (1821, II, 128-29), Dwight sums up the
conservative attitude toward frontier nature: “The present
imperfect state of the settlements in this region will, I am
well aware, prevent many persons from forming just views con-
cerning the splendour of its scenery. In so vast an expansion
the eye perceives a prevalence of forest, which it regrets;
and instinctively demands a wider extent of smiling scenes,
and a more general establishment of the cheerful haunts of
man.“ This “temporary defect“ he can overlook, because soon
“the slough will be covered with a causey; and the marsh, by
draining, be converted into a meadow. In a word, whatever is
rude, broken, and unsightly . . . will, within a moderate
period, be levelled, smoothed, and beautified, by the hand
of man. Where nature . . . is now naked and deformed, she
will suddenly . . . be ornamented by culture with her
richest attire. The meadow will glow with verdure, and
sparkle with the enamel of flowers. Flocks and herds will
frolic over the pasture, and fields will wave with harvests
of gold.“

206
finds stereotyped repetition in prose as well as poetry;
its essential optimism is represented by a passage from
John Filson's The Discovery, Settlement and Present State of
Kentucke (1784):
Thus we behold Kentucke, lately an howling wilderness,
the habitation of savages and wild beasts, become a
fruitful field; this region, so favourably distinguished
by nature, now become the habitation of civilization,
at a period unparalleled in history. . . . Here, where
the hand of violence shed the blood of the innocent;
where the horrid yells of savages, and the groans of
the distressed, sounded in our ears, we now hear the
praises and adorations of our Creator; where wretched
wigwams stood, the miserable abodes ofsavages, we behold
the foundations of cities laid, that, in all probability,
will rival the glory of the greatest upon earth. And
we view Kentucke situated on the fertile banks of the
great Ohio, rising from obscurity to shine with splendor,
equal to any other of the stars of the American hemiSphere.
The conventionality of this response is indicated
by thepastiche of themes found not only in prose tributes
such as this one but in topographical poems as well: there
is the implied tribute to agriculture, the “ruin“ sentiments
of horror and destruction, the art-nature contrast, the
prophecy of future glory, and the praise of a river. Time
after time, in countless commencement addresses, Fourth of
July orations, and “future glory“ poems, this stock gospel of
progress was Spouted by these early-day civic boosters, who
were determined that the orderly way of life they had

inherited shodd not give way to the disintegrating forces

 

3Quoted in Thomas D. Clark, Frontier America: The
Storypf the Westward Movement (New York, 1959), p. 80.

207
of the frontier. In popular rhetorical theory of the day
they found the formula for their confident Egg; patriae.
What moved the reader, or listener, was “elevation of
thought, sublimity of sentiment, boldness of figure, grandeur
of description, or embellishment of imagination.“3 Because
rhetorical theory applied to any discourse where praise or
persuasion were uppermost, they made only the slightest
distinction between oratory, or "eloquence,“ and poetry;
many held that rhyme, meter, and poetic diction were enough
in themselves to render a discourse poetic.“ By letting
style take precedence over content, they wrote verse which,
if it inspired their contemporaries, bores the modern
reader. An arch example of florid rhetoric distorting
experience is the versified address delivered by Return
Meigs on the first anniversary of the founding of Marietta
in the Old Northwest Territory. Applying practically all
the common stylistic heightening devices, the author makes
the frontier community sound as staid and as prOSperous as

the most conventional of New England villages:5

 

3From an article on the similarities of prose and

poetry in The Lad 's Ma azine and Re ositor of Useful
Information, I (1792), 151-59. See Gordon E. Bigelow,
Rhetoric and American Poetry, p. 38.

—EBigelow, Rhetoric and American Poet ry, p. 38.

5According to Lord Kames (Elements of Criticism, Chap-
ter 4), the heightening devices were icircumlocution, in-
versiOn,, epithet, poetic diction, and figures--especially the
strong figures of hyperbole, personification, apostrophe,
and interrogation. See Bigelow, p. 67.

208

Along our banks, see distant villas spread--

Here waves the corn-~and there extends the mead--

Here sound the murmurs of the gurgling rills;

There bleat the flocks upon a thousand hills.

Fair opes the 1awn--the fertile fields extend,

The kindly shower from smiling Heaven descends. . . .6

For some Americans--principally those lacking involve-
ment in the frontier experience--the wilderness was a place
which civilized men avoided. As outsiders, they disdained
the possibilities of progress in such rude regions, and
they made light of the crudities of frontier life. In
topographical poetry the "anti-nature“ poem well represents
their skepticism, but the attitude is probably most apparent
in prose travel narratives of the period, both native and

foreign.

For the most part, travelers came looking for a mature
society, and were unable to evaluate what they actually
found because of their lack of eXperience in viewing

a virginal country coming under the control of a civil-
ization which was for the moment primitive. Essentially,
the great mass of travelers came to see how well American
democracy was working as it spread itself over the contin-
ent. Scores of them believed that . . . it had become
completely submerged under the inert layer of uncouth
informality and general rudeness which the traveler encoun-
tered. They disliked the frontiersman's food, his out-
spoken individuality, his lumpy beds, crowded tavern
common rooms, muddy roads, the pallidness of the natives,
the unattractive womenfolk, the frontiersman's loud
boasting, his pugnaciousness, political attitudes,

extreme nationalism, and narrow religious views.7

Like the writers of the prose narratives, most

topographical poets critical of the frontier found a

 

6Return J. Meigs,“ Extract from an Oration Pronounced
at Marietta, on the 4th of July, l789“(53). For further dis—
cussion of this poem, see Chapter III under “Town Poems.“

7Clark, Frontier Americg, p. 377.

209

focal point for the criticism in the frontiersman. Even
Alexander Wilson, who had eyes open to the beauties of
wilderness scenery, thought that frontiersmen were crude
and ignorant, an attitude quite at odds with the rising
romantic belief in the worth and potentialities of the
common man. Through their resourcefulness and initiafive
men like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett soon became symbols
of the advance of civilization westward or of the freedom
of self assertion over social restraint, but in early
American topographical poetry this idealization of the
frontiersman was notably absent.8

To a small group of topographical poets the frontier
was a real presence, and they avoided alike the skepticism
of the detached observer and the superficiality of the
prophets of progress. With their eyes open to the realities
of frontier life, it seems that they should have been the

least influenced by convention. Yet they were unable to

 

8Firsthand acquaintance with the frontiersman made
such idealization difficult. Far removed from the realities
of frontier life, Lord Byron (in Don Juan, Canto 8) made
Daniel Boone into a Noble Savage:

“Crime came not near him--she is not the child
Of Solitude; Health shrank not from him-~for
Her home is in the rarely trodden wild.“

The same duality existed in early attitudes toward the
American farmer. The “innocent swain“ in the literature

of rural simplicity was often accused by serious observers
of American agriculture of knowing little and caring less
about the potentialities of the land. See Richard Bridgman,
“Jefferson's Farmer before Jefferson,“ American Quarterly,
XIV (Winter, 1962), 567-77.

210
square what they found in the wilderness with their
inheritance of the eighteenth-century picturesque tradition,
in which the joys of nature were equated with the joys of
rural simplicity. Because they thought of the out-of-door
world as a place of retreat, they had no categories into
which to fit nature which did not conform to the patterns
of “soft“ primitivism. Hence they rejected the wilderness
in much the same way that William Cowper-~that great
apostle of rural contentment--pictured Alexander Selkirk as
rejecting his wild island domain:
Oh, solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.9
“Out of humanity's reach,“ he longs for “society, friendship,
and love.“ The religion of nature is not for him; alone on
his tropical island, he painfully reminds himself that “the
sound of the church-going bell/ These vallies and rocks
never heard.“ Nowhere in this poem are the beauties of
nature delineated. To poets nurtured by the picturesque
tradition, the “desert“ or wilderness could furnish images

only of terror, isolation, or monotony: hence the sketches

of a world in ruins, populated by ravens, owls, wolves, and

 

9William Cowper, “Verses Supposed to be Written by
Alexander Selkirk, During His Solitary Abode in the Island

of Juan Fernandez,“ 1782.

211

bears; hence the mournful intrOSpection of frontier elegies
by “Matilda“ and James Elliot; and hence John D. McKinnon's
rejection of the scenery of western New York as too uniform
for poetic representation.10

For the fraction of American poets who had discovered
the Romantic appeal of wild and sombre scenery, the frontier
offered material for what they conceived to be “sublime“
poetry. Unlike Cowper and other poets of rural contentment,
they could appreciate the “wild ecstacies“ of untamed nature.
Like Wordsworth, they felt free to “let the misty mountain-
winds“ blow against them, and with considerable enthusiasm
they described mountains, cataracts, and other awe inspiring
spectacles of the American wilderness. Unfortunately, however,
none of them had the perception or control to keep their
“mountain madness“ from degenerating into bombast. The
frontier was so unlike their preconceived ideas of the
sublime as gleaned from the whole picturesque tradition that

they fell back on responses that were secondhand and hackneyed.ll

 

10Although a poet of the picturesque tradition, Philip
Freneau does not consistently reject the wilderness, if the
term is construed to include the tropical scenery of the West
Indies that he so often wrote about. N. F. Adkins (Philip
Freneau and the Cosmic Enigma, 1949, p. 74) suggests that the
pagan sensualism inwflThe Beauties of Santa Cruz“ is indebted
to the naturalistic hedonism of Royallist poets such as
Herrick and Waller.

11Even William Cullen Bryant's “The Pnflries“ (1832),

one of the few good early poems on frontier nature, achieves
its distinction from uniqueness of subject matter, not
originality of treatment-

212
Neither the staid poets of rural retirement nor the

enthusiastic recorders of the sublime met the frontier on
its own terms. The victory of authority over experience in
fixing attitudes toward nature on the frontier was first
observed by Professor Leon Howard in his investigation of
the literary style of Mrs. Sally Hastings, a pioneer poetess
of the Pennsylvania wilderness.12 Although she was “capable
of observing nature and was interested in recording her
observatiOns,“ her formal literary expression was “frozen in
stiff artificial patterns“:

The Moss, the Ivy and the Vine

Increase the awful gloom profound;

Whilst Hills and lonely Wilds combine

To shed fantastic Terrors round.13
This failure to reconcile a Neoclassic literary background
with the “vulgar experiences of real life“ on the frontier
repeated itself time and again. As long as poets conceived
of nature in terms of eighteenth-century ideas of the
beautiful, sublime, and picturesque, they would continue to
compose picturesque prospects, to indulge in “ruin“ horrifics,
and to become emotionally wrought over sublime scenery. This
construction of nature singly resulted in a gaudy, artificial,
and sentimentalized poetry; it led not to Emerson, Thoreau,
and Whitman, but to the poets of the Gift Books and to Mrs.

12See Leon Howard, “Literature and the Frontier: The

Case of Sally Hastings,“ ELH: A Journal of English Literary
History, VII (March, 1940), 68-82.

13Sally Hastings, Poems on Different Subjects. To Which
is Added a Descriptive Account of a Family Tour to the West; in_

the Year 1800, 1808. Cited in HowandflLiterature and the
Frontier,whp. 70.

 

213
Lydia Sigourney, ingloriously known as the Felicia Hemans
of America.

The ease with which poets of this period found
goodness in nature contributed to the intellectual confusion
and rigidity of form that marked their efforts to depict the
frontier. The whole Enlightenment background sanctioned a
belief that the natural world, made according to God's plan,
exhibited “permanence, stability, balance, beneficence, law,
and order.“1’4 Although rationalistic trust in plenitude,
continuity, and gradation in nature had begun to weaken
in the late eighteenth century, the new emphasis on change,
growth, and diversity in no wise hindered the belief that
Nature is the “kindly mother of us all.“ The wilderness
facing the American settlers, however, provided a number of
disquieting hints that nature could be indifferent or even
opposed to man's welfare. In a famous essay Aldous Huxley
claimed that Wordsworth's pantheism could not have deve10ped
in the tropics or “even in the forests of Germany,“ places
where it is impossible for “a human being to feel himself
at ease within their enormous glooms.“15 Such nature, which
flourishes beyond the control of man, inspires not sublime
reaching for the Infinite but the “uneasy feeling that he
is an alien in the midst of an innumerable throng of hostile

14

 

Nye, Cultural Life of the New Nation; p. 12.

15Aldous Huxley, “Wordsworth in the Tropics,“
Collected Essays (New York, 1959), p. 2.

214
beings." Even though it can be argued that Wordsworth's
mysticism embraced the dichotomies of nature that Melville
was later to symbolize so well in Moby Dick, Huxley's thesis
goes far to suggest the absence of a meaningful treatment of
frontier nature by poets nourished, as Melville was not, by
the picturesque tradition. In short, for truthful delineations
of nature in the American wilderness, one looks not to poets
but to essayists, writers of travel narratives, and folk
artists.

If topographical poets were unable to cast aside
worn ideas and language in delineating indigenous American
nature, they achieved at least a degree of originality by
using American place names and by describing native flora
and fauna. Even as the idea of a Great Chain of Being was
being supplanted by an organic or growth concept of nature,
American poets were busy showing that the Great Architect
had created a universe in which is actualized every possible
form. In demonstrating the fullness and variety of nature,
American poets were also refuting a popular conception in
European science of the eighteenth century that American
nature was inferior to European. The Abbe Raynal wrote
that all things in America “shrink and diminish under a

niggardly sky and in an unprolific land, peopled with wandering

215

savages.”16

In the interests of literary nationalism, even
so conservative a poet as Timothy Dwight would resort to
superlatives in describing his native Connecticut.

The widespread currency of poems that delineated the
variety and grandeur of American nature lays open to doubt
claims that Philip Freneau was the “pioneer nature poet of
America“17 and that he “heralded our literary independence,
so far as themes are concerned, by bringing into poetry for
the first time truly Americannature.“18 After the Revolution
it became a cliche for critics to announce that Americans
wanted to see the scenery of their own country in verse before
any other, and as this study has disclosed, American poets
were quick to answer the call. Following the War of 1812
demands for a national literature became even more insistent.

A reviewer of Wordsworth's Poems in 1818 had “no doubt that

the Delaware, the Mississippi, or the Ohio would flow as

 

16Quoted in Nye, Cultural Life of the New Nation, p.
56. The theory of degeneracy in America was developed and
popularized by the Abbe de Pauw, the Count de Buffnn, and
the Abbe Raynal. Thomas Jefferson ably refuted their claims
in his Notes on the State of Virginia.

17F. L. Pattee in The First Century of American Lit-
erature (1935, p. 41) makes this claim on the basis that every-

where in Freneau's poems are used “the flora and fauna of his
native land.“

18Harry Hayden Clark (ed.), The Poems of Freneau (New
York, 1929), p. xlix. Clark also said that in 6'an age of
generality and abstraction Freneau was a pioneer . . . in
turning, as a poet, to the concrete and particular.“

216
harmoniously through American lyrics as the Tweed, the
Thames, or the Avon.“19
The use of rivers by this reviewer to represent the
totality of American nature suggests the regard in which they
were held.20 No other kind of place names appeared with
more frequency. The grandeur of American rivers was matched
by the grandeur and originality of their names, whether
Indian, Dutch, French, or English, and their associations
vdth regional legend and history considerably enriched their
connotative appeal. They appeared as symbols of progress
and, just as easily, symbols of primitivism, for their
currents directed the advance of civilization and their
shores hid the simple lover of nature from the distractions
of a contentious world. Declaimers of national glory
called them up in long catalogues, apostrophized them in
formal rhetoric, and made them representative of national
unity amid geographical diversity. For those poets who
increasingly saw nature reflecting inner states of mind,
rivers became symbols of the vicissitudes of life and the
confidants to whom they addressed their most secret longings.
The emphasis on rivers was quite within the picturesque

tradition. English poets, including Wordsworth, described

 

19Anonymous review in the Analectic Maggzine, XII
(1818), 69. Quoted in Sedgwick, “The Materials for an American
Literature,“ 161.

20In The Quest for Nationality (p. 49) Benjamin
Spencer states, “Decade by decade successive literary centers
proclaimed the quantitative and hence aesthetic superiority

217
the Wye, Cam, Severn, or Derwent in much the same manner as
American poets. In fact, nearly all attempts to describe
native American scenery and flora and fauna were influenced
by the picturesque interpretation of nature. The tendency
to see nature in terms of landscape painting came to
American poets through the influence of Thomson and Dyer
and a host of their English followers, many of whose poems
were verbal imitations of

Whate'er Lorrain light-touch'd with softening ng,
Or savage Rosa dash'd, or learned Poussin drew. 1

Joseph Addison, who lent his prestige to the picturesque
interpretation, classified the qualities in landscapes
that give pleasure. Greatness, Novelty, and Beauty are
Pleasures of the Imagination “which arise from the actual
View and Survey of outward Objects.“ His aesthetic demanded
that a distinction be made between Art and Nature, and in
Spectator No. 414 he explained that the most pleasure arises
when they are balanced:
If the Products of Nature rise in Value, according as
they more or less resemble those of Art, we may be sure
that artificial Works receive a greater Advantage from
their Resemblance of such as are natural; because here

the Similitude is not only pleasant, but the Pattern
more perfect.

 

Of their regional streams to those of Europe.“ Later
literary nationaliSts, notably Walt Whitman., Thomas Wolfe,
and Hart Crane, would give American streams ever greater
literary prominence.

21From James Thomson, “The Castle of Indolence“(1748).

218

The conventional hill poems of the period, with their
formal prospect-pieces, best exemplify the picturesque in
American topographical poetry, and they help explain why this
tradition impeded the poetic representation of truly American
nature. Because what poets should see in nature was so
authoritatively set forth, most of them saw the same things,
whether on a hill in Lancashire or in Connecticut. Timothy
Dwight, for instance, emphasized elements in the landscape
of his “much-lov'd native land“ that hardly distinguished
it as American. Except for place names, the prospect from
Greenfield Hill could be as easily English as American.

Even didactic elements, wherein the “romance of local
history“ was set forth, did little to individualize American
hill poems. Although the Indian and the American Revolution
supplied most of the history, the didactic portions were
simply embellishments, which, instead of being integrated
with the description, stood apart as things extraneous.

Most English prospect poems included a ruin-piece,
usually a description of a moss and ivy-covered Gothic
cathedral,castle, or similar ancient and decaying structure,
the representation of which symbolized the vanity of human
wishes and the emptiness of worldly pride and induced in
the reader a not unpleasant sensation of terror. American
poets likewise sought out ruins, but had little success in

finding great, solid-looking structures from the past which

219

showed the ravages of time. Fortifications built during
the French and Indian War and earlier, such as Crown Point
and Ticonderoga, sufficed as conventional ruin imagery, as
did towns in the process of being burned by the British in
the Revolutionary War. But these man made ruins were
relatively scarce; the ruins of nature, on the other hand,
were everywhere apparent. According to Bishop Burnet's
Sacred Theory of the Earth (1697), a book that enjoyed
considerable vogue in the eighteenth century, the world is
a damaged paradise; and the irregularity and chaos in nature
result from God's displeasure at man's sin. Evidence of the
fallen state is everywhere, for although the physical world
is

. . . handsome and regular enough to the eye in certain

parts of it, single tracts and single Regions; yet if we

consider the whole surface of it, or the whole Exteriour

Region, 'tis as a broken and confus'd heap of bodies,

plac'd in no order to one another, nor with any corres-

pondency or regularity of parts: And such a body as the

Moon appears to us, when 'tis look'd upon with a good

Glass, rude and ragged. . . . They are both in my judg-

ment the image or picture of a great Ruine, and have

the true aspect of a World lying in its rubbish.22

The wildness of much American topography mirrored

well the ruins of the world, and into these ruins poets

introduced natural terrors that matched the vogue for Gothic

or graveyard horrifics. All the conventional beasts--owls,

 

22Quoted in Basil Willey, The Eighteenth Century
Background (London, 1940), p. 29.

220
bats, ravens, wolves, plus rattlesnakes and bears--prow1
through ruins formed mostly of stone-strewn mountain slopes,
gloomy forests, and yawning precipices. Despite the
originality achieved through use of indigenous ruin material,
the total effect is that of a_gggp g3 theatre. None of these
precursors of the supernatural had the mastery of technique
needed to create Poe's “ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir“
nor the insight into the beauty and terror of the natural
world that Blake symbolized in his "Tyger! Tyger! burning
bright/ In the forests of the night. . . .“

For a few topographical poets wild and irregular
scenery offered more than material for ruin pieces; to them,
as to Byron, high mountains were a feeling, and they seriously
sought to depict the grandeur in American nature, an effort
which they believed would result in truly sublime poetry.

But the picturesque tradition, emphasizing as it did the
theatricality of nature, provided neither a language nor a
philosophy of nature adequate for achieving the sublime.
Whatever it was that enabled Wordsworth and Coleridge to
transcend tradition and to give substance to the depiction
of wild and hregular scenery was not to be found in American
poets, who depicted Niagara Falls, Passaic Falls, or the
Hudson Valley with the flamboyance and artificiality that

characterize modern calendar art.

221

Certainly the failure of these poets to exploit
sublime American nature arose not from a lack of material
but from an inability to cast askkathe language and con-
ventions of the late eighteenth-century didactic-descriptive
tradition and to confront nature with the imaginative insight
that would distinguish writers of the forthcoming American
Renaissance, such as Melville in prose and Whitman in poetry.23
In “Passage to India“ (1871), Walt Whitman fuses imagery
from an industrial America, represented by the new trans-
continental railroad, with imagery of the great American
West into a dynamic and richly suggestive expression of
progress. Such unorthodox use of topographical images must
have puzzled most of his contemporaries, who had willingly
inherited the old forms and themes of the picturesque
tradition:

Passage to India!

I see over my own continent the Pacific railroad sur-
mounting every barrier,

I see continual trains of cars winding along the Platte
carrying freight and passengers,

I hear the locomotives rushing and roaring, and the shrill
steam-whistle,

I hear the echoes reverberate through the grandest scenery
in the world,

I cross the Laramie plains, I note the rocks in grotesque
shapes,the buttes,

I see the plentiful larkspur and wild onions, the barren,

colorless,sage-deserts,

 

23Howard Mumford Jones in 0 Strange New World (New
York; 1964) reviews the failure of Americans of the early
national period to cast aside “genteel stylistic ideals“

of Neoclassicism. See Chapter X "American Landscape “
pp. 351-59. ’ '

222

see in glimpses afar or towering immediately above me the
great mountains, I see the Wind river and the Wahsatch

mountains,
see the Monument mountain and the Eagle's Nest, I pass
the Promontory, I ascend the Nevadas,
scan the noble Elk mountain and wind around its base,
see the Humboldt range, I thread the valley and cross
the river,
see the clear waters of lake Tahoe, I see forests of
majestic pines,
Or crossing the great desert, the alkalne plains, I behold
enchanting mirages of waters and meadows,
Marking through these and after all, in duplicate
slender lines,
Bridging the three or four thousand miles of land travel,
Tying the Eastern to the Western sea,
The road between Europe and Asia.

F! +4»: +4

Proof of the dominance of the picturesque tradition
in American topographical poetry comes most convincingly
from the prevalence of the rural retirement theme. As this
study has disclosed, the theme has ample precedent in English
poetry, Neoclassic, pre-Romantic, and Romantic. The type of
retirement advocated in Pomfret's “The Choice“ is Horatian--
a life of contentment and moderation on a modest country
estate. Subsequent poets, like Anne, Countess of Winchilsea,
combined the classical love of retirement with an eye for
the loveliness of hills and streams and meadows. In the
latter half of the century the poets of sensibility brought
into the theme a note of introspective melancholy, and their
penchant for cultural primitivism democratized the retreat
into a simple husbandman's dwelling or hermit's cave.

Literary precedent alone, however,cannot account
completely for the popularity of the theme in American poetry.

An urge for the simplicity of rural life stands out as a

223
prominent facet of late eighteenth-century American culture.
The new republican ethic called for a repudiation of luxury
and ostentation, for classical history gave ample evidence
that if luxury was the curse of nations, frugality and
simplicity were virtues that led to greatness.”+ Rural
living, coupled with active pursuit of agriculture, provided
the right condition for the development of these virtues and
for the acquisition of equanimity with which to counter the
complexities posed by a new form of government and by an
increasingly commercial and urban culture. Both the career
and aspirations of George Washington illustrate the faith
of Americans in the land and the kind of life available to
a farmer of competence, as Timothy Dwight used the term.
Washington was nurtured under the practical philosophy
that rural contentment should be a guide and limit to man's
ambition. As a boy of thirteen he had carefully copied
into his school exercise book an anonymous effusion
entitled “True Happiness,“ which in imitation of the theme
of Horatian retirement in Pomfret's “The Choice“ urged “a
good estate on healthy Soil,“ as well as “Prudent Simplicity,
constant Friends,“ and “a will to be but what thou art.“
These “things . . . once Possess'd/ Will make a life that's

truly b1essed.“25 Throughout his life there is evidence

 

2[’Jones, 0 Strange New World, pp. 248 and 327.

25Quoted in John C. Fitzpatrick, George Washington
Himself (Indianapolis, 1933), p. 30.

224

that Washington wanted a life patterned after "nature's
simple plan.“ Soon after settling down following his
service in the French and Indian War, he wrote to an
English kinsman who had invited him to visit London: "I
am now I believe fixed at this Seat with an agreeable
Consort for Life. And hope to find more happiness in
retirement than I ever experienced amidst a wide and
bustling World."26 For the remainder of his life, he
considered his public service as interruptions of his real
calling, that of a gentleman farmer, and he thought that
the end of the Revolutionary War meant an end of his public
life:

I am at length become a private citizen on the banks

of the Potomac, where under my own Vine and Fig-tree,

free from the bustle of a camp and the intrigues of a

court, I shall view the busy world with calm indifference,

and with serenity of mind, which the Soldier in pursuit

of glory, and the Statesman of a name, have not leisure

to enjoy.2

That the propensity for retirement should be so

strong in an active and robust man of affairs suggests the
extent to which Americans had assimilated the idea. Other
founding fathers, notably John Adams, Benjamin Franklin,

and Thomas Jefferson, cherished rural contentment.28

 

ZELetter to Richard Washington, 1759, in The Writ-
ings of George Washington frgm the Original Manuscript Sour-
ces,gl745-1799. ed. John C. Fitzpatrick (Washington, D. C.,
1931). II. 335.

27Letter to Marquis de Chastellux, 1784, in The
Writings of George Washington (Washington, D.C., 1938), XXVII,
31 .

28Jones, pp. 246-47.

225
’Jefferson, in fact, based his political theory on rural
simplicity, for which he found a rationale in “environmentalism:'
the Enlightenment doctrine that theratural and social environ-
ment profoundly influences human nature.29 Specifically he
believed that the American countryside nourished virtuous
characteristics in men andthat democracy would flourish
among a society of freeholders. In Notes on the State of
Virginia (1785) he called farmers “the chosen people of God
. . . whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for
substantial and genuine virtue.“3O The chief enemy to the
attainment of good government he believed to be great cities,
which are “pestilential to the morals, the health and the
liberties of man.“31

Before the industrial revolution had so thoroughly
complicated the individual's relationship to society, rural
Simplicity, as an ethical ideal became strongly etched in the
American grain. Civilized man has ever sought to escape
disquieting complexities induced by the pursuit of material

progress through retreat to a simpler node of existence.

 

29Merle Curti, The Growth of American Thought (New
York, 1943), pp. 165-660

30The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul Leicester
Ford, III, 2 - 9. Cited in Dumas Malone, Jefferson the
Virginian (Boston, 1948), p. 384.

 

 

31Letter to James Madison, Dec. 20, 1787, Quoted in
Charles Maurice Witse, The Jeffersonian Tradition in American
Democracy (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1935 , p. 102.

226
In late eighteenth-century America political and social
problems increased as the new country filled and as class
lines disappeared. The agitation over British colonial
policy, the War, andthe uncertainties attendant on establish-
ing a new government produced an atmosphere of crisis inimical
to social stability. The insecurity of the times seemed to
bode ill for a “return to normalcy.“ With their country a
virtual Garden of the World, Americans looked both forward
and backward--back to primitivistic rural simplicity and
forward to the promise of progress in the inevitable rise
of civilization in a virgin land.

The juxtaposition of progress and primitivism in
eighteenth-century literature gave rise to considerable
confusion of the two ideas.32 Paradoxically the rural
retirement theme in topographical poetry exists side by
side with the prophecy of future glory, a poetic convention

which holds the samerelation to the idea of progress that

 

32$ee Lois Whitney, Primitivism and the Idea of Pro-
gress (Baltimore, 1934) for an exposition of the currency
of the two ideas in English popular literature of the
eighteenth century. In a preface to this book, Professor
Arthur 0. Lovejoy gives a typical example of the coexistence
of the two ideas in the same author and the same poem (pp.
xviii-xix). Explaining that the "opposition between the two
tendencies was less often a conflict between different minds
than a fluctuation of moods within the same mind,“ he notes
that Thomson on one page yearns for “the blissful groves/
Where . . . innocence and joy forever dwelt'“ and on the next
celebrates “the glorious triumphs of Britain's commerce and
the blessings 'of wealth, of trade, of cheerful toiling
crowds.'“

227
rural retirement holds to primitivism.33 The "future glory"
prophecy, like the retirement theme, appears as a highly
stereotyped convention in both prose and poetry of the period.
Essentially the theme expresses confidence in the progress
of American civilization toward the greatest good for the
greatest number. The United States had vast material and
spiritual resources for these achievements, as many Fourth
of July orators proudly boasted:

He, who casts his eye over our happy land, must perceive
that we form a little political world in ourselves: that
our country seems, as was said of Laconia, to be but the
patrimony of a band of brothers: that we appear to be
another favored race, sent out by Heaven, from the storms
and miseries of Europe, to dwell in this land of promise
. . . . If we begin with our own State [South Carolina],
we shall behold our political and civil institutions con-
tinually improving; religion and knowledge more widely
diffused; civilization extending in the country, and
refinement in the city; discordant parts successively
assuming the uniformity of the whole, and confusion grad-
ually subsiding into order. Travel through each of our
sister States, and you may observe with pleasure and sur-
prise the operation of similar principles. . . . Then
conceive yourselves elevated to an eminence, whence the
eye may embrace the wide circuit of our happy land. Think
what it was when we first became a nation; consider its
present state, and mark the gradual advancement of pros-
perity and power. See the forest retiring, and the
village expanding into the populous town: see this in
turn swelling into the magnificence and greatness of the
city. . . . Behold the genius of enterprise collecting
his bands of adventurers, and leading them to the western
wilds. Behold! . . . the gloomy spirit of solitude retires
before them, and the grateful wanderer builds the verdant
altar to agriculture and peace.34

 

33The “future glory“ theme as used here also includes
the conventional praises of commerce discussed in Chapter V
of this study.

34From an oration delivered by Thomas Smith Grimke’ in
St. Philip's Church, Charleston, S.C., on July 4, 1809. Quoted
in Charles A. and Mary R. Beard, The American Spirit (New
York, 1942), pp. 151-52.

228
According to Professor Lois Whitney, the curious
mating of primitivism and progress resulted from the imperfect
comprehension of the ideas by those who expounded them in
popular literature.35 Whatever the reason, one finds this
paradox of compatible contrarieties not Just in topographical
poetry from 1783 to 1812 but in other forms of literature
which both antedate and postdate the period. In Bishop
George Berkeley's famous poem on the New World, the march
of civilization westward will be accompanied by a return
to simplicity. For, in America,
. . . the seat of innocence
Where nature guides and virtue rules,
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools:
There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.36
As Bishop Berkeley's prophecy fulfilled itself in
the Western movement of American settlers, the same inter-
play of progress and primitivism shaped attitudes toward
pioneers such as Daniel Boone. To apostles of progress like

John Filson, the Kentuckian was a hero fulfilling the

American destiny of taming the wilderness, but to a few,

 

35Whitney, Primitivism and the Idea of Progress,
pp. 331-3%.

From ”Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts
and Learning in America,” 1752.

229
notably those not actually involved in frontier life,
he was a fugitive from civilization seeking a simple life
in nature. Later in the century, the conflicting ideas
existed side by side in the same work, as in Timothy Flint's
The Life and Adventures of Daniel Boone (1833).37 Ideas
involving primal innocence and worldly experience extended
beyond regional literature to influence all artists seriously
engaged in defining the American dream. According to
Professor R. W. B. Lewis, the most representative image in
American literature between 1820 and 1860 was that of the
American Adam, "a figure of heroic innocence and vast
potentialities."38 Paradoxically the image involved "the
notion of progress toward perfection and the notion of
primitive Adamic perfection,” with both ideas overlapping
and intertwining.39 This Jangle of contrary tendencies,
Professor Lewis believes, arose from a dualism implicit
in human thinking, which was "demonstrated afresh in early
nineteenth-century America, when a denial of the past

generated, by compensation, a new nostalgia, a new veneration

 

37The attitudes toward Boone are treated at length
in H. N. Smith's Virgin Land (Chapter V: "Daniel Boone:
Empire Builder or Philosopher of Primitivism"), pp. 51-58.

383. W. B. Lewis, The American Adam: Innocence,
Tra ed , and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago,
1955;. Do 1-

39Ibid., p. 5.

230
for the past in its pastness.“+0 It would require but
little investigation to discover that even in thetwentieth
century, American idealism faces the dilemma of trying to
maintain the integrity of the past in areas of spiritual
and moral progress where the past seems of little use.

In its most obvious Neoclassic form the rural
retirement theme has little in common with that eighteenth-
century mode of thought and feeling known as sensibility.
Rural contentment, as conceived by Pomfret and his American
imitators, presupposes a rational attempt by a gentleman
of leisure, neither stoic nor hedonist, to achieve the
golden mean. As previous chapters of this study have
disclosed, however, the retirement theme is more often
sentimental than rational. The retreat becomes not the
pattern of a life of competence and moderation but a tempo--
rary escape from painful existence in a setting close to
"natural” nature. Solitude, evening, and other Graveyard
paraphernalia often complicate the simple setting of a
pleasant "seat," and melancholy intrudes in the form of
love plaints, philosophic world sorrow, and moralistic
musings on death and mutability.

Novelists, as well as poets, share the reSponsibility
for sentimentalizing the retirement theme. In most early

American novels, characters imbued with sensibility nourished

 

noIbid., p. 8.

231
the delicate susceptibilities of their hearts by isolating
themselves in retreats, such as summer houses on estates,
sylvan groves (often improved by art), or rocky glens.’+1 In
The Power of Sympathy (1789), the first American novel, one
finds an estate furnished with a statue of "Content," one
hand pointing in the direction of a summer house, called
the Temple of Apollo, and the other to some inscribed
verses welcoming those who "fly Ambition's guilty cares" to
the "calm retreat" where Innocence dwells.42 Although this
sort of nonsense represents the nadir of the retirement
theme, the same novel demonstrates that the vogue for con-
tentment could have more substance; for the cult of sen-
sibility, if it encouraged sentimentalism, also made men
more subtly aware of the Spiritual offices of nature:
A peaceful, recluse life is suited to my temper-~there
is something in the soft breath of Nature-~in the
delicacy of smiling meadows and cultivated fields-~in
the sublimity of an aged wood--of broken rocks--of
rivers pouring along their lucid waves, to which the
heart always gives a ready reception-~there is something
within us congenial to these scenes; they impress the
mind with ideas similar to wBat we feel in beholding
one whom we tenderly esteem. 3

By the late eighteenth century the tendency to equate

sensibility with sensitivity to natural beauty was leading to

 

“lHerbert Ross Brown, The Sentimental Novel in
America,l789-l860 (Durham, N. C., l9h07: pp. 135-39.

”ZLetter VII: Mrs. Holmes to Miss Harrington.
“3Letter XIII: Worthy to Myra.

232

the decline of the didactic-descriptive poem and the rise
of subjective lyrics. American topographical poetry,
particularly the river poems, became vehicles for the same
sentimental themes that Eleanor Sickels traces in English
poetry of melancholy between Gray and Keats. From her
classification of love elegies, for example, one discovers
that English and American poets followed the same primrose
paths of dalliance: there is the invitation motif (Damon
invites Sylvia to share in rural retirement); the absence
motif (fate has torn the lover from his beloved); and the
fickleness motif (Cynthia has moved to town and now scorns
her rustic swain).uu Moreover, she finds sensibility so
compatible with melancholy that the two themes often merge.
An invocation to sensibility, which she quotes entire,
shows a quite typical blend ofdelicate feeling, pathos, and
moody scenery. One cannot escape noticing the similarity
of the sentiments and the surroundings in which they are
uttered to those in a great many American topographical
poems contemporaneous with it:

SENSIBILITY45

Nymph of the glist'ning eye, I know thee well;
The jarring world is not thy favor'd sphere,

 

“”Eleanor M. Sickels, The Gloomy Egoist: Moods and
Themes of Melancholy_from Gray to Keats (New York, 1932),
p. 185.

uSFrom Gentleman's Magazine, April, 1795. Quoted in
Sickels, The Gloomy Egoist, p. 200.

233

Thy silent tears alone thy sorrows tell;

Thy sighs responsive to the gales I hear.
Thou liv'st to weep, the giddy world will say,

By moss-grown tow'rs, or by the lucid stream,
To melt and sigh thy pensive soul away,

While musing in the yellow moon—light beam.
The tearful eye, the mantled cheek are thine,

The pointed anguish throbbing at the heart,
The thrill of rapture, ecstasy divine,

Which Angels to their favor'd Saints impart.
Then fly to Solitude's deep-russet shade,

Where zephyrs gently wave the roseate bow'r;

With fancy trip the mountain's shaggy brow,
And view the silver ocean's briny wave:

Which dashes restless on the rocks below,
Or tends the sea-nymph to her coral cave.

The ascendancy of sensibility in the eighteenth
century was bound up with the increasing economic importance
of the middle class, the rise of women in social and literary
importance, the "moral sense" philosophy of the third Earl
of Shaftesbury, and primitivism as popularized by Jean-
Jacques Rousseau.”6 In its purest usage sensibility meant
"extreme delicacy and keenness of feeling and ultra-refinement
of sensitiveness to beauty both natural and moral.'47 Although
sensibility nourished humanitarian impulses which flowered
in scores of nineteenth-century reforms, indulgence of the
emotions too often became an end initself, and benevolence,

sympathy, and pity degenerated into morbidity. As reflected

in popular taste of late eighteenth—century America,

 

ӎsickels, The Gloomnygoist, p. 19h.

”7Whitney, Primitivism and the Idea of Progresai
p. 99.

234

sensibility meant emotionalism, either the sentimentalism
pervading poetry, drama, and the novel or the excessive
displays of piety that accompanied religious revivalism.
In the 1790's the "Second Great Awakening" of American
Protestantism produced the frontier camp meeting at which
evangelists

. . . preached a muscular, shirt-sleeves religion of

fear and hope that attracted roughhewn frontiersmen

and their women folk. Hankering for emotional release

. . ., they welcomed, sometimes hysterically. . ., the

huge get-togethers where tense nerves and repressed

feelings found satisfaction in emotional debauches in

the name of God.“8
Restraining themselves from such direct emotionalism, the
more sedate among the population, primarily middle-class
females, gained their thrills vicariously through the senti-
mental_novel, a popular new diversion which combined into a
highly successful formula "the seduction motif, sentimental
exploitation of irreSponsible emotion, and sententious moral—
ism."49 Pamela, by Samuel Richardson, was both the prototype
and the first in popularity, and Laurence Sterne's A Senti-
mental Journey, which received seven printings in America

between 1768 and 1795, further made intensity of feeling a

virtue.50 Despite cautions from moralists that such novels

 

IRSCurti, Growth of American Thought, p. 201.

”9Edwin H. Cady (ed.), Literature of the Early Repub-
lic (New York, 1960), p. 300.

50Hart, The Popular Book,pp. 55 and 60.

235
weakened character, practically all the thirty odd American
novels of the late eighteenth century contain strong elements
of sensibility.5l "Hail sensibility! Ye eloquent tears of

beauty!" exclaims one of the letter writers in The Power of

 

Sympathy, and subsequent novelists were sometimes hard
pressed to "discover unhackneyed phraseology to describe
the tears which drip in well nigh every volume."52

The vogue for sensibility affected not only suscep-
tible females but men of affairs as well. Frequently lauded
for his acute sensibility, General Washington "shed his
distinguished tears in public" at a New York production of
Isaac Bickerstaffe's The Maid of the Mill,53 and Thomas
Jefferson, although a foe of fiction, was moved to pronounce
"The writings of Sterne . . . the best course of morality
that ever was written."5” With the tides of taste so
clearly directed toward sensibility and sentimentalism it

is no wonder that American tOpographical poets between 1783

 

51Tremaine McDowell, "Sensibility in the Eighteenth-
Century American Novel," Studies in Philology, XXIV (July,
1927), 383-

SZIbid., p. 385.

53Brown, Sentimental Novel, p. 92.

5“Cited in Brown, Sentimental Novel, p. 77. Jefferson
and the editor Joseph Dennie, a staunch Federalist, were in

accord on at least one point: Sterne's sensibility,
Dennie wrote in 1796, was "worth a million cold homilies."

236
and 1812 could so easily afford the "sad luxury of woe.”

In England the cult of sensibility helped bring
about the triumph of Romanticism, heralded by the publication
in 1798 of Lyrical Ballads. No such dramatic metamorphosis
occurred in American poetry, however. The lag in the advent
of Romanticism in the two countries sometimes has been laid
to the slowness in transmission of ideas across the Atlantic.
This charge might be true were it not a fact that the pop-
ularity in America of Scott, Byron, Campbell, and Moore was
contemporaneous with their popularity in England. The early
sluggishness of Romanticism in America results from other
causes. American poets borrowed literary themes and conven-
tions that were not congenial to a raw, undeveloped land.
Refinement of feeling and picturesque-sublime subject matter
did not accord with conditions of American life. Bombast
and artificiality were the inevitable results of feelings
that could find no focus in actual experience. The harshness
of the frontier, the Philistinism of the rising middle class,
and the pragmatic and utilitarian temper of the times
delayed the American Renaissance.

American Romanticism would come of age some twenty
years or so later than English, but with significant differ-
ences. Whereas the great English Romantics were almost ex-
clusively poets, most of the important American Romantics--

Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Hawthorne--attained lasting

237
fame only in the essay and novel. The failure of Emerson
and Melville as formal poets and their success as "prose
poets" has been an often noted inconsistency of their careers.
Even the two major poets, Poe and Whitman, owed little to
the eighteenth-century English background. Whitman created
his own highly individualistic interpretation of American
nature, and Poe's aestheticism led him to a world of artifice
that had little relevance to either the English background
or the American scene. In short, the really significant
attitudes toward American nature developed independently
of British Romanticism. It was the "Fireside" or "School-
room" poets-~Bryant, Whittier, Holmes, Lowell, and Longe
fellow—-who directly inherited the literary forms and con-
ventions of sensibility and the picturesque. All the short-.
comings which modern critics find in these poets have their
origin in the poetic tradition exemplified by American
topographical poetry of the period 1783-1812. Professor
George Arms has identified these shortcomings as senti-
mentalism, superficial didacticism, "poetical-picturesque"
subject matter, and literary language in the "neoclassical
tradition of Dryden and Pope, with the modifications proposed

by Wordsworth for simplicity."55

 

6 55The Fields Were Green (Stanford, California, 1953),
pp. 3- .

238
Overall, this survey of topographical poetry makes it

clearer than ever that the United States, late in the eighteenth
century, had the makings of a Romantic revolution in poetry
which never did quite come off. American poets had become
increasingly responsive to feeling, and they were looking
ever more closely at the outdoor world they knew and loved.
But neither superfluity of feeling nor abundance of concrete
imagery by themselves makes great poetry. The Romantic inter-
pretation of reality involves a reciprocity between the poet
and the "life” which he projects into the world around him.

It is one of the common tenets of English romantic

criticism that the imagination is capable, through an

effort of sympathetic intuition, of identifying itself

with its object; and, by means of this identification,

the sympathetic imagination grasps, through a kind of

direct eXperience and feeling, the distinctive nature,

identity, or "truth" of the object of its contemplation.56
For the natural world to acquire spiritual significance
through the power of imagination requires a sureness of the
validity of individual insight that American poets lacked,
mainly because of the discrepancy between their environment
and the literary tradition in which they felt compelled to
work. The environment was all new, democratic, and undisci-
plined; the tradition was all aristocratic, moralistic, and

orderly. The resulting play of opposites is hardly sur-

prising in light of the continual tension in American

 

56walter Jackson Bate, From Classic to Romantic:
Premises of Taste in Eighteenth-Century England (Cambridge,
1936), p. 132.

239
intellectual life between the claims of freedom and authority
and between the past and the future.
That the opposing tendencies produced a dualism
in poetic practice of the nineteenth century is borne
out by the following critical evaluation of the state of
American poetry at the turn of the century:
Formal poetry in America in the year 1900 seemed
benighted in every sense: it was imitative, sentimental,
and ”genteel.” Its relationship to the vigorous ele-
ments in the culture which surrounded it . . . was
superficial. Its relationship to the vigorous poetic
talents which only recently had ceased functioning was
weak; both Whitman and Melville . . . had died in
obscurity, and the brief flurry of interest in the poems
and letters of Emily Dickinson . . . had already died
out. The weight of British Victorian tradition lay
heavily upon American poets in general; and the strong
native moralizing bent of the American poets of the
school readers--Bryant, Whittier, and Longfellow--still
operated.57
The ease with which this evaluation can be applied
to the state of American poetry in the year 1800 demon-
strates a century-long failure of American poets to cope
with the discrepancy between the demands of tradition and
the need for freedom in interpreting their environment. The
freedom provided by the intuitive-symbolic construction of
the external world sanctioned in Emerson's Nature had little
influence on the course of American poetry; poets of the

didactic-picturesque tradition held undisputed sway.

 

57Louise Bogan, Achievement in American Poetgy:
1900-1950 (Chicago, 1951). pp. 3-u.

240
Because the great English poets of the nineteenth century
generally maintained a balance between tradition and license,
their poetry divides itself into historical periods corres-
ponding to important trends in national life. The dichotomy
in American poetry, however, resulted in a static dualism
rather than stages of historical development. Perhaps
instead of labeling American topographical poets as Neo-
classic, pre-Romantic,or Romantic, one might better use
such terms as "Genteel Traditionalist" and "Transcendentalist,"
opposing categories which would better reflect the dualism.58
Whatever classification one uses, the fact remains that
this survey of American topographical poetry from 1783 to
1812 has discovered no genius "with tyrannous eye" who,
in Emerson's words, "knew the value of our incomparable

materials."

 

58Frederic I. Carpenter uses this terminology in
American Literature and the Dream (New York, 1955).

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Hussey, Christopher. The Picturesque: Studies in a Point
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APPENDICES

251

A. CLECXLIJT OE AKEH CAI TOPOGE-P£ICAL POEMS, 1783-1812

The list is composed of seven main sections--Hill,

L1}

state, Town, Region, River, Natural Phenomena, and Journey.

ems are assi ned to each section on the basis of the

"U
0

(H

type and physical extent of the features described. The
seven categories are treated in detail under appropriate
headings in Chapter III. Because the Schuylkill and Hudson
Rivers and Passaic Falls stand above all other specific
physical features in popularity, poems featuring these
subjects are grouped under appropriate sub-headings within
the sections River and Natural Phenomena.

Within each section (and the three sub-sections),
poems of known authorship are entered alphabetically. For
convenience of cross reference among the various sections,
an author index is included at the end of the checklist.
Poems of unknown authorship, which immediately follow
the alphabetical entries, are arranged chronologically on
the basis of their first appearance within the period
1783-1812. It was found impractical to alphabetize all
listings within each section. Of the 187 total entries,
20 are anonymous and 63 are either signed with outlandish
pseudonyms or are initialed. Little would be gained from

alphabetizing the pseudonyms and initials; only seven

appear more than once and only one more than twice: "Hatildfi'

252
signed three poems delineating nature on the Great Lakes
frontier.

Subsequent reprints and republications of individual
poems are noted under initial entries. Items are annotated
only (1) if the title of a poem does not clearly indicate
the reason for its inclusion within a particular section;
(2) if textual or other vagaries occur in republication; or
(3) if there seems to be some discrepancy in bibliographical
data between poems appearing both in this checklist and the

one accompanying R. A. Aubin's Topographical Poetry ih

 

XVIII-Century England (1936). For the few poems which

 

have not been examined firsthand, reference is made to the
bibliographical source which served as the authority in
making the entry.

In each entry certain symbols and abbreviations
impart four kinds of information:

1. Ap;earance ih Aubin's checklist

 

An asterisk (*) at the head of an entry denotes
that the poem was previously included in R. A. Aubin's
checklist of English and American topographical poetry.

The following notations appear within parentheses
at the end of each initial entry:

2. Locality

 

Standard abbreviations identify by state (if known)

the locality described in the poem.

253

3. Stanzaic and metrical forms

 

lO-ers --- decasyllabic couplets

8-ers --- octosyllabic couplets

herq --- decasyllabic quatrains (the form of
Gray's "Elegy")

ballad --- ballad stanzas (a4b3c4b3)

quat --- quatrains of any other sort (typically

octosyllabic meter rhyming abab)
b.v. --- blank verse
stz --- stanzas of any other sort

4. Some common themes and conventions 23
Eighteenth-Century Tooographical Poetry

(a) Conventions arising largely from the influence
of Thomson, Denham, Dyer, and Pope:

--- Prospect

--- Rural Retirement

--- Invocation to Muse

--- Catalogue

--- Praise of Commerce

--— History

Moralizing

--- Condemnation of Historical Misdeeds Enacted
Locally

—-- Honorable Mention of Estate

--- Nymphs and Other Sylvan Deities
--- Graveyard or Ruin Sentiments
--- Apostrophe to River

Prophecy of Future Glory

ENC—«H mommbowb
I
I
I

:3
l
I
l

Symbols A, g, D, E, g, M are treated in detail in
Chapter V under separate headings corresponding to the
labels above. Symbols E, g, g are collectively discussed
in Chapter V under the heading The Didactic Urge. Symbols
9, I, g, L are briefly described in Chapter V under the

heading other Conventions.

(b) Conventions first appearing in quantity in
late eighteenth-century descriptive poetry which became
common property of nineteenth-century Romantic poets:

--- Childhood or Early Recollections

--- Address to or Mention of Person Dear to Poet
Solace Sought in Nature over Personal Misfortune
--- Delineation of Wild, Rugged Scenery

--- Sentimental Introspection

><€<<Haw
I
I
I

254

All of these symbols are treated individually and

at lenpth in Chapter VI under headinjs closely correspondin?

to

the labels above.

SILL POEMS

*Allen, James, "An Intended Inscription, Written for
the Monument on Beacon-Hill, in Boston, and Addressed
to the Passenoer," American Poems, Selected and
Criminal. Edited by Elihu E. Smith. Litchfield:
Collier and Puel,1793, I, 199-201 (Mass., lO—ers,
A. E. F, i; 0

Reprinted with same title in The Columbian
Muse "ew Iorlc: J. Carey, 1'794, pp. lEo—L7, and
in Lew-3n land Quarterly? a~a7ine, I (1802),
283-3w. sprinted in shortened form as "Eeacon
-{ill," inn Emerald; or, Miscellany of Literature, I
(I' ovember 8, 1805),— 330- 31. R. A. Aubin lists
separately the poem in the Emerald.

 

 

 

 

 

*Deane, Samuel. Pitchwood Hill: A Poem, written in
the Year lZBO. Portland, Maine: 1803 ’TIe., 8-ers,
A, B, C, D, E, H, I, J, K).

 

*Dwight, Timothy. Greenfield: fIill: A Poem, in Seven
Parts. New York: Childs I Swains, 1794 Itonn.,
lO-ers, b.v., 8—ers, stz, A, B, D, E, F, G, M,

K, L, M).

*Freneau, Philip. "Neversink, " Poems Written between
the Years 1768 I 1794. Monmouth, New Jersey: At
the Press of the Au thor, 1795, p. 386 (N. J., stz,
A, B, F

A farewell to the sea from the heights near
Sandy Hook.

Eopkinson, Francis. "Extrempore Verses from the Top
of Mount Parnassus, a Lofty Hill in Lancaster
County, " Th e Miscellaneous Essays and Occasional
Iritincs of Francis Hoo :inson, E53. Philadelphia:
Dobson, 1792, III, 112-13 (Pa., oallad, A, E, T).

'4‘:

 

[Lisle, Eenry MauriceQ. I-Zilton Hill; Poem. Eoston:
E. Lincoln, 1803 “ass., lO-ers, A, C, E, F, G, J).

"r.” I I -I--- -.~

*Lhorton, Saran Wentworth]. neacon gill: a Local Poem,
historic and Descriptive. noston: Manning ~
Loring, 1797 (Various states, lO-ers, A, C, D,
s, F, G, H, I, J, M).

 

 

10.

ll.

12.

13.

14.

15.

255

*Philenia [Morton, Sarah Iv-trort"
At the Bequest of a Friend, on th

Hill, near Boston, Where a Sumptu

Lately Been Erected to Perpetuate
Events of the Late Revolution,"
or, Universal lazazine, IX (1791)
(Mass., lO-ers, A, E, F).

Revised and lengthened vers

"Lines written
e View from Beacon-
ous Monument Has
the Principal
American Museum;

 

, app. 19 3

ion reprinted

as "Descriptive Lines, Mritten at the Bequest of
a Friend, upon the Surrounding Prospect from Beacon-
Hill in Boston," in American Poems, Selected and

Oriainal. Edited by Elihu H. Smi
Collier and Buel, 1793, I, 176-79

th. Litchfield:
(A, E, F, H, PI).

Russell, John Miller. "The Village Cliff," The Pastoral
Songs of P. Virgil Marc. To Which Are Added, Poems

Sentimental and Descriptive. Bos

 

 

ton: 1799, pp. 31-3

(Mass., b.v., A, B, F, G, K, S, T).

Poet's favorite hill overlo

oking Boston and

Charlestown is the scene of recollections in

tranquillity.

*Topliff, Nathaniel. "Mount Potosi,"

Poems, Moral,

Descriptive, and Political. Boston: J. Belcher,

1809, pp.—43-4?—(Mass., 8:ers, A,

D, E, G).

*2. A. [anongj "The Agreeable Prospect; or, A View of

Charlestown, from the Adjacent Hi
Interspersed with Moral Reflectio
Maaazine, II (August,1785), 309-
A, D, E, G, H, M).

Linus [pseud{1. "A Summer's Day," Ma
Magazine, VII (July, 1795). 251-5
A, K, W).
Poet follows day's pro qress
Jauconick."

113 "of Boston;
ns," Boston
-12 (Mass., lO-ers,

ssachusetts
2 (Mass., b.v.,

atop "Mount

S. D. E. [anon.j] "Lines, Supposed to be Written on

Beacon-Hill, Boston, in the Year
(Lancaster, Pa.), I (November 16,
lO-erS, A, B, F, H, J).

[Anonaj. "Green Mountain," Port Folio

1799, " Hive
1803), 83 (Mass.,

II En. SJ

 

(October 4,1806), 203 (Vt., stz,

F, W).

This lyric pays tributetn the progress of

the seasons on Green Mountain.

[AnonQ]. "Verses Written at Mount Radnor, April, 1764, "

Extracts lg Prose and Verse, _%a
Annapolis: Frederick Green, 0?
(Dido, lO-eI‘S, A, B, C, D, G, T, "J

aLad of Maryland .

 

3 II, 172- 85

256

DJ

ESTA? POEMS

1...:
O \

. Arnold, Josias Lyndon. "Lines Written at the Rural
Retreat of Mr. J. Pa _e, Smithfield, Rhode-Island,"
Poems. Providence: Carter and Willcinson, 1797,
p. 125 (H. I., sonnet, E).

 

l7. Bleecker, Ann Eliza. "Return to Tomhanick," Posthumous
Works 2; Ann Eliza Bleecker. New York: Swords,
1793, pp. 260-34 (N. K., lO-ers, H, D).
Poetess, returning to her home in upstate
New York, catalogs the delights of nature around
her "peaceful mansion."

 

 

18. *Hopkinson, Francis. "Hermitage: a Poem, Inscribed
to Mr. Jacob Duche, Jun.," The Miscellaneous
Essays and Occasional Writings of Francis Hopkinson,
Es Philadelphia: Dobson, 1792, III, 11-17
N. Y., ballad, A, B, C, I, T).
Description of the estate of Josiah Martin
on Long Island.

 

 

l9. *Humphreys, David. "Mount Vernon: an Ode, Inscribed
to General Washington, Written at Mount Vernon,
Argust 1786," Worcester Magazine, II (November,
1786), 376 (Va., stz, B, F, G, I).

Reprinted: New-Haven Gazette and the
Connecticut Magazine, (bfovember 16‘ 1786), 314;
Columbian Magazine; or, Monthly Miscellany, I
(1787), zuésu7; American Diuseum, IIIJImay, 1788),
482; David Humphreys. Poems. 2nd ed. Philadelphia:
Mathew Carey, 1789, pp. 57-39; The Miscellaneous

Works of Colonel David Humphreys. n. p., Hod? 5e,
Allen, and Campbell, 1790, pp.*58-70; American
Poems, Selected and Original. Edited by Elihu H.
Smith. Litchfield: Collier and Buel, 1793,
pp. 123-126; The Columbian Muse. New York: J.
Carey, 179A, pp. 115-19.

 

 

20. Searson, John. "Thoughts on Mount Vernon, the Seat
of His Excellency George Washington," Poems on
Various Subjects. Philadelphia: Snowden 6 PI' Corkle,
1797, pp. 90-91 (Va., lO-ers, B, C, I).

 

21.

22.

23.

24.

27.

257

. "Mount Vernon; A Poem, Rural, Romantic and

Descriptive," Mount Vernon: A Poem, Being the

 

Seat Lf His Excellency George washington, in the
state of Vireinia. Philadelphia: Folwell, 1866,
pp. 9- 53 (Va., lO-ers, A, B, G, I, x). [Book
title is misleading; this'volume is a collection
of separate poems. Aubins listing assumes Mount
Vernon is a volume comprising a sin gle poem.]

"Thoughts in Mount- Vernon Garden, " Mount

Vernon: A Poem, Being the Seat Lf His Excellengy

George Washington, in the State Lf Virginia.
Philadelphia: Folwell, 1800, p. 28 (Va., S-ers,
B, x). '

 

"Acrostic on Mount-Vernon, the Seat of His

Excellency George iJashington," Mount Vernon: A

 

Poem, Being the Seat Lf His Excellency George
Washing ton, in the State of Virginia. Philadelphia:
Folwell, 1800, pp. 37- 38 (Va., E-ers, I).

Swanwick, John. ”Lines Written at a Country Seat

near This City, on Seeing Crouds {sicj Passing

to the so justly Celebrated‘Garden of Messrs

Grays," Poems Ln Several Occasions. Philadelphia:

F. and R. Bailey, 1797, pp. 102-105 (Pa., quat.).
Poet offers tribute to Gray's Garden on

the Schuylkill, where art and nature have been

successfully combined.

[Milson, Alexander]. "The Invitation. Addressed to

Mr. c[har1e]s OErJR, " Literary Magazine, and
American Register, II (July, 1804), 265:67 (Pa.,
lO-ers, B, D, T, X).

An invitation to Wilson's cottage at Gray's
Ferry.

. "A Rural Walk, the Scenery Drawn from
Nature." Literary Magazine and American Register,
II (August, 180#), 377-79 (Pa., quat, A, D, I).

A catalogue of the'plants and fruits, and
flowers” at William Bartram's farm.

Reprinted with same title in Port Folio, V
(April 27, 1805), 126-27.

 

Elandulus [pseud.]. ”Reflections on Viewing the Seat

of Jos. Barrell, Esq.," Massachusetts Magazine,
VI (November, 1794), 693-9h_(Mass., b. v., A, G,

H, I).

28.

32.

33-

3Q.

35-

1

1A

258

Carlos {pseud. J. "Grange, A Descriptive Rural Poem,"

Philadelphia PWinerv , I (March 21, 1795), 2 (Pa.,
lO-ers, A, R, D, J).

Grange, on the Schuylkill River, was the seat
of John Ross.

Reprinted with minor variations in Evenin~
Fire- Side; or Meelcly Intelligence, I(AprilE,1§05),
132.

nonmj. ”On a Country Seat near the City of Philadelphia,"

heekly Magazine, I (March 31, 1798), 285 (Pa.,
sonnet, I).

ranon.:] "The Excursion " Meekl Magazin II
L 3 8,
(June 30,1798), 287 (Pa., E-ers, A, E, G, I, T).
A trip by boat to Whitehill, a "rustic mansion"
which is ”the residence of Quietude. "

O. [anongj "Poplar Grove," Baltimore Weekly
Magazine, I (May 17, 1800), 32 (Md.[?j, lO—ers,
A, B, c, D).

Poet catalogs the flora at Poplar Grove, a
"rural seat."

 

[anon.:] "A Sketch of Lemon-Hill, the Summer Residence
of H P ," PLrt Folio, II (December 25,
1802), £08 (Pa., 10- -ers, A, G, I, L, w).

Headley [pseud.j. "Lines Occasioned by the Author's

Leaving the Hermitage," Port Folio, V (June 15,
1805), 184 (Pa. L7], herq, B, S, T, X).

 

[AnonJ]. ”Lines of the House at Alveston Changing

it's Possessors," Port Folio, V (July 20, 1805),
22k (Pa. L7], herq, S, V).

Laura [pseud. .J. 'The Woodlands," Port Folio, I

 

[n (3rd) s. 3 (1809), 180-81 (Pa., lO-ers,
B. I, J .
"Peace" and "taste" reside at woodlands,

William Hamilton's country home near Philadelphia.

Eugene {pseud. 1. "Mount Hope," Monthly Magazine, II

(October, 1809), 96 (Pa. [?], quat, B, J).
At this "towering mansion" taste and virtue
"meet with love."

259

TOWN POEMS

37. Lodinus [Elauvelt?, Abraham]. "Written on Elysium's
Vale, a Beautiful Seclusion, near Union Hill,
West-Chester," Port Folio, V (February 2, 1805),
30 (H. K., stz, E).

 

38. Brackenridge, Hugh Henry. "A Masque, Written at the
Warm-Springs, in Virginia, in the Year 1784,"
Gazette Publications. Carlisle, Pennsylvania:
Alexander a Phillips, 1806, pp. 35-MO (Va., stz).
Personified rivers of America band together
in praise of George Washington and the spa.

 

 

39. Ella [Faugeres, Margaretta v.3. "Silence," gey-
York Kagazine; 2;, Literary Repository, III
(July, 1792): 439-4DO (Pa., stz, A, R, J, V, X).
Evening reflections inspired by a prospect
near Philadelphia. '

11.0. . "To miss IviiaISEOJN, at New Rochelle,"
New-York Magazine; or, Literary Repository, IV

(July, 1793), hul-AZ (N. K., stz, S, T, w, X).
Reprinted: Posthumous Works 2: Ann Eliza
Eleecker. New York: Swords, 1793, pp. 355-57.

 

 

41. Freneau, Philip. "To the Memory of the Brave Americans,
under General Greene. . ., Who Fellin the Action
of September 8, 1781," Poems (1786), pp. 229-30;
(1795), pp. 192-93; (1809), II, 70-71. See Lewis
Leary, That Rascal Freneau, p. 425 (S. C., quat,
G, H, K).
Commemorates the dead at Eutaw Springs.

1. . "Log-Town Tavern," Poems Written Between
the Years 1768 g 129M. Monmouth, New Jersey:
At the Press of the Author, 1795, pp. 301-303
(N. C., quat).

Contempt for a "dejected place" presumably
in the pine barrens of North Carolina.

Reprinted: Philip Freneau. Poems Written
and Published during the American Revolutionary War.
Philadelphia: Lydia R. Bailey, 1809, II, 203-206?

 

43.

LL“.

45.

47.

260

. "Lysander's Retreat," Poems Written betwee;

the Years 1768 ; 1794. Monmouth, New Jersey: At

 

the Press of the Author, 1795, p. 320 (unknown,
stz, E, D).

Description of "Sylvania," a “dreary" town
where bears break into stores.

Reprinted as "The Pilgrim's Progress,"
Poems Written and Published during the American
Revolutionary Mar. Philadelphia: Lydia R. :ailey,

 

1809, II, 218-l9.

"Hatteras," Poems Written between the Years

1758 g 129M. Monmouth, Rew Jersey: At the Press

of the Author, 1795, pp. 308-310 (N. C., stz, E).
The pilot of Hatteras leaves his cottare of
content to gmde ships through dangerous shoals.

{George, Lucas]. "Elegy on the Grave of a Stranger

written at Obendaw, in South-Carolina," Monthly
Mavazine, (November, 1800), 397 (S. C., lO-ers, K).

Reprinted as "Elegy over the Grave of an
Unknown, in the Woods of Owendawfl in John Davis,
Travels 2: Four Years and a Half in the United States.
London and New York: 1803, pp. 120—22.

 

 

*Humphreys, David. "An Elegy on the Burning of Fairfield,

in Connecticut, Written on the Spot . . .," Egy-
Raven Gazette, and the Connecticut Magazine, I
(June 29, 1786), 159‘(Conn., herq, F, K)?

Reprinted: Worcester Magazine, II (July, 1786),
180; American Museum, I (March, 1787), 229; Colum-
bian Magazine; gr, Monthly Miscellany, I (1787),
93-94; David Humphreys. Poems. 2nd ed. Philadelphia:
Mathew Carey, 1789, pp. l-2; The Miscellaneous Works
3: Colonel David Humphreys. New York: Hodge,
Allen, and Campbell, 1790, pp. Ill-13; American Poems,
Selected and Original. Edited by Elihu R. Smith.
Litchfield: Collier and Buel, 1793, pp. 117-20;
The Columbian Muse. New York: J. Carey, 1794,
pp. 112-1h.

 

 

 

 

'Johnson, Jr., Thomas. "Danville," The Kentucky

Miscellany. Lexington: 1796 (Ky., lO-ers). See
Townsend, J, w. Kentucky in American Letters:
178Q-1912. Cedar Rapids, Iowa: Torch Press,
1913, I, 21.

Dispraise for Danville, a "detested spot."

 

48.

M9.

50.

51.

52.

53-

54.

261

*CKnapp, Francis?]. "Poems on Fresh Pond, in Cambridae,"

Kassachusetts Kaaazine; gr, Eonthly Museum, VI
(July, 179E), KAI—#3 (Mass., lO-ers, A, E, D).

Printed originally in New England Weekly
Journal, June 28, 1731.

 

 

Ladd, Joseph Brown. "The Journey," Poems g: Arouet.

Charleston: 1786, p. 87 (S, C., 8-ers, G, K).
Poet, sightseeing on Eutaw battlefield,
picks up bones of the unburied dead.

*[Law, Thomas.] "Address to the Springs," Ballston

S'rincs. New York: S. Gould, 1806, pp. 6-7
3. Y., 8-ers, G, T).

(Aubin's listing assumes Ballston Springg
comprises a single poem; the volume is a collection
of separate poems.]

Praise for the Spa at Ballston.

 
 

Low, Samuel. "On the Prospect from New-Utrecht Bath,"

Poems. New York: T. A F. Swords, 1800, II, 88

(X. Y., sonnet, A, V, X).

*KcKinnon, Daniel [Johnj]. "Description of the City

New York and Its Amusements in the Winter,"
Descriptive Poems, Containing Picturesgue Views 93
the State of New-York. New York: T. & J. Swords,

1802, pp. 37-79 liq. Yo, beVo‘B, D, G).

Meigs, Return F. [J.] "Extract from an Oration Pro-

nounced at Marietta, on the nth of July, 1789 . . .,"
(Ohio, lO-ers, A, C, E, G, H, I) Literary Tablet,
I (March 22, 180#), 68 (Ohio, lO-ers, A, C, E, G,
H, I .

Laudatory description of the Karietta country-
side.

rMoore Thomas] "Farewell to Philadel hi " Liter r
L 9 o p a, ____B2_¥

Magazine, and American Register, III (January, 1 O5 ,
27-28 (Pa., quat, s, T, X7.

Reprinted: Philadelphia Repository, V
(February 2, 1805), E0; Port Folio, V (August 31,
1805), 271; Huntingdon Literary Museum and Eonthly
Miscellany, I (August, 1810): 382.

262

* PLrichard], MLilliam]. "The Beauties of Harrowgate,"

LA

in LJohn Parke] Lyric Works of Horace, Translated
into Enwlish Verse; to Which— Are Added a \umber of
Origina.l Poems. Philadelphia: l78C, pp. M8
(Pa., 10-ers, B).

Harrowgate, a resort near Philadelphia,
excels European spas.

Reprinted with variations in Anaericanl [Euseum,
I (February, 1787), 168.

 

 

. "Written in the Hermitage, near Mount

Holly in the Year 1776, whilst the Hermit Was Gone

to the Adjacent Spring to Fetch a Drink of Water
for the Author," Columbian Magazine; or Monthly
riiscellany, I (April, 1787), 392- -93 (N. J., lO-ers,
L)

Scott, John N. "Stanzas, Addressed to a Poetical

Friend Leaving Philadelphia on his Return to his
Native Home, in the Western Part of the United
States," Poetical Recreations of John w. Scott.
Philadelphia: 1809, pp. 93- 96 (Pa., herq, a, s, T).

Searson, John. "City Washington," iount Vernon:

 

A Poem, Being the Seat of His Excellency George
Washington in the Statefl of Vircinia. Philadelphia:
Folwell, 1800, pp. 50-51_ (D. C., lO-ers, G. I, M).
Title Mount Vernon is misleading; the book contains
several poems on different subjects.

"Alexandria," Mount Vernon: A Poem, Bein3

 

the Seat of His Excellenpy George Washington, in

the State— of Virninia. Philadelphia: Folwell,
180 NO pp. 38-39 (Va., lO-ers, G).

. "George-town," Mount Vernon: A Poem,

Being the Seat of His Excellency George Washincton,

in the state of Vireinia. Philadelphia: Folwell,
I800, p. 39 (D. c., lO-ers, G. I).

*LSwanwick, John]. "Lines Written at Bethlehem, June,

(“J'\

1787," Columbian Piagazine; or Monthlv Miscellany, I

(June, 1787), 507- 508‘(Pa., lO-ers, B, E, G).
Reprinted with variations: John Swanwick.

Poems on Several Occasions. Philadelphia: F.

and R. Bailey, 1797, pp. 74-75.

Warren, Mercy [Otis]. "To Honoria, on Her Journey to

Dover, 1777," Poems, Dramatic and Miscellaneous.
Boston: Thomas a Andrews, 1790, pp. 216L18((Mass.,
lO-eI‘S, C, F, J, M).

 

ox
m
0

66.

{f
37.

68.

69.

70.

263

Selim LNoodworth, Samuel]. "Lines Written in a

Country Burial Place, in Scituate, Nassachusetts,"
Nonthly Anthology and Boston Review, IV (Aurust,

 

1807), 318-320, (September, 1807), 354—56 (Nass.,
herq, K).

. New-Haven, A Poem, Satirical and Sentimental,

 

 

with Critical, humorous, Descriptive, historical,

*T'

AX.

..—

 

 

 

 

B103raphica1, and Explanatorv Notes. Aew iork:
Printed for the Author, 1809 (Conn., lO-ers).

See Oscar Wegelin. Early American Poetry. New York:
Peter Smith, 1930, p. 216.

K.Lanon{] "The Beauties of the Mall, Inscribed to
the Patronage of the Ladies," Gentleman and Ladyfs
Town and Countgy Na3azine, I (1784), 263-66

(Nass., lO-ers, B, C, J).

 

LA non.,]. "Verses upon Gray's Ferry," Columbian

 

Pfa3azine; or, rionthly Miscellany, I (August, 1787),

 

Damon Lpseud;]. "The Complaint; Or the Lancaster

Aaiden in Philadelphia," Universal As lum and
Columbian Na3azine,V (October, 1790 26 (Pa., B).

 

*Sylvia Lpseud.]. "Lines Occasioned by the Writer's

W.

F
. . Hrfi, . ,3
LA:on.]. ine Landscai.

Walking One Summer's Eveningin the Graveyard of the
Church of Wicacoe, in the Southern Environs of the
City of Philadelphia, on the Banks of the Delaware, "
Universal Asylum, and Columbian Iiagazine, VII (Au3ust,
1791), 121-23 (Pa., lO-ers, B, G, K, T). Aubin
in error gives title as Columbian Na3azine; or,
Nonthly Di iscellany.

Reprinted as "Thoughts in Walking through the
Burial Ground at Wicacoa," Weekly Na3azine, III
(Au3ust 4, 1798), 27-28.

 

[anon.] "Description of a Winter Norning in Phila-
delphia," Universal Asylum and Columbian Na3azine,
VIII (February, 1792), 125-27 (Pa.).

A humorous ani satirical sketch.

e.Hrita1 in View of Nex-Iorka"
£23T10°9 TAKNHPA, ALI (17‘9?),°Dp. 14 ?a3- -3“ (I. X.
q-Lla’ t 9 A 3 f: g G o

 

71.

74.

264

Alcadour [pseud.]. "Rural Retirement. Written upon
Leavin3 Boston," lossochusetts 1om ine; Lr
root 1v PuseLm, VI (lay, 179- it): 312—13 (la ss., L, G).

 

 

Louisa [pseud.]. "Inscription, On a Nall at Cambrid3e,"
Iassachusetts Na3azine, VIII (June, 1796), 349-50
(Nass., herq, J).

Reprinted: A F63 ily Tablet: Containin3 a
Selection Lf Or13ina1 Poetry. Edited by Abiel
holmes. Boston: William Spotsvood 1796, pp. 30- 31.

 

 

Valentine fpseud.]. "Lines on the City of New-York,"
iev- ork 13e"l_y N: 33: inc; or, Iiiscella neous Repository
I)(3ebruary 10,1796), 264‘T;. Y., lO-ers, E).

 

 

{Anon,]. "An Ode to melancholy, Written on the Eve

of My Departure from Charleston," South-Carolina
Weekly Nuseum, I (January 21, 1797), 89 (S. C., N).

 

E. C. [anon{j. "Composed in August 1796, When at the
Seashore, in Shrewsbury, New-Jersey," Nethodist
Narazine, I (b ebruary, 1797), 95-96 (N. J., lO-ers,

2;,
iv 0

 

*Cornelia {pseud.3. “The Ruins of Crown-Point: an

31e3y,"»3ew-York ia3azine; or Literary Repositogy,
II, n. s.)(February, 1797), 101-103 (1. I., hero
E, K, S, V, w, K).

"On a Prospect of Fort Lee, " Nee1;ly

Visitor, Lr Ladies' Miscellany, II (August 18,1804),

308 ZR. Jo-T StZ, F, Ii, W).

C. C. [anon.] "Verses Written Nay 27th, 1798, on
Taking a Survey of Burlingtnn Church-Yard,"
Neekl Na3azine, II (June 2, 1798), 157-58

A. J. [73, K).

Lorenzo [pseud.]. "Lines Written on Leaving New-York,"
Port Polio, III (March 12, 1803), 88 (N. I.,
herq, A, S, X).

    
 

[Anoni]. "Written after a Visit to Philadelphia,"
Western Missionary Magazine and Repository Lf
Religious Intellirence, I (1805), 479- 80 (Pa.,
quat, B, G, V, X).

Reprinted: The Assembly's Missionary Na3azine;
or, Evangelical Intelngencer, I (February, 1805), 104.

265

 

81. {Anon{]. "Cole7roohd71e--A Son7," Port Folio, V
‘ (harcli 13, 1805), 80 (Pa., ballad, 3).
82. [Anon.]. ""ritten in e Loxer at Abbeville, near
CIOLUnel, 3venin: Fire- Side; or Litera_1 Iiscellon

 

 

 

 

II (July 12, 1803 ), 223 (S. C., ballad, 3, ”v, X).

83. Guiandot [pseuda]. "Elegy, Written in St. Paul's
Church-Ya , Au7usta, Geor7ia, Feb. 1808,"

Port Folio, II[n. 8.] (July 19, 1806), 32 (Ga.,

St:, 1;, 1;).

 

8h. [anon.]. "Inscription for a termita7e at Scituate,"
Port Folio, II[n. s.](Septem.ber 20,180c), 175
T113880, B-GI‘S, L, J).

 

 

 

85. [Anom ]. ".A. Letter Written by a Student of E-Jilliam
a ILary Colle7e, Aged 14 Years, to £13 Sister in
the Country, " American Cleaner and Vir7inia Na7azine,
I (Ju 1y 18, 1807), 205-207 TVa., B—ers, ., 3, S, i).

The student would like to foresake the town
for tlie country, but "learnin7" orders him to stay
in Milliamsburfi

[anon.] 'Lines, Written at Hempstead, L. 1.,"
Lady' 8 Weekll 1*.iscellan1, (May 30, 1807), 248
(K. 1., 10- ers, 3, G).

(13
0\
Pl

 

3e ion Poems

 

 

87. Campbell, Thomas. Gertrude 9; Wiomin7; Pennsglva7ian
Tale. New York: D. Lon7wortn, 1309 (Pa., stay.
A narrative of rural innocence and ease upset
by hostile Indians.

 

88. *LDore, John?]. "An Essay Upon Great Ossipee' 3 Northern
Prospect," ossachusetts Na7a7ine; or, quontl7ly
Nuseum, VII (Au7ust, 1795), 315_IN. H., 10- ers,

A, D, :i, W).

A catalogue of wilderness horrors.

89. Dwight, Timothy. "New-England Described," The Colurnbian
Nuse. New York: J. Carey, 1794, pp. 199- 204
(New England, b. v., D, E).
An excerpt from Part I of Greenfield Hill.
Reprinted: Rural Magazine, I (February 9,
1799), 4; New Enaland Quarterly Magazine, I
(April-June, 18027, 275-78.

 

 

266

90. * Freneau, Philip. The Rising Empire, ca. 1795.
See F. L. Pattee—(ed.). The Poems 9; Philip Freneau.
Princeton, New Jersey: The University Library, 1907,
III, 5-18 (B. I., Conn., Mass., N.Y., Pa., Md.,
Va., lO-ers, 3, L).

An eight-part poem, mainly satirical, which
Freneau never completed.
The eight parts appeared as separate poems

in the 1795 and 1809 editions of Freneau's poetry:
"0n American Antiquity," Poems (1795), pp. 17-18;
Poems (1809), I, 38-40. "A View of Rhode Island,"
published only in newspapers. "Terra Vulpina"
("Description of Connecticut"), Poems (1795),
pp. 307-08; Poems (1809), II, 210-11; printed earlier
in American Museum, VIII (1790), app. 1, b-5.
"Massachusetts," Poems (1795), pp. 383-84;
Poems (1809), II, 258-58. "A Batavian Picture"
("Sketch of the Long Island Dutch"), Poems (1795),
pp. 18-19; Poems (1809), I, 40-41. "Pennsylvania,"
Poems (1795), p. 376; Poems (1809), II, 237-38.
l'Ivlaryland," Poems (1795), pp. 355-56; Poems
(1809), III, 2&0-47; printed earlier as "A Descriptive
Sketch of Maryland," American Museum, VIII (1790),
app. 1, 16. "Old Virginia,§—Poems (1795), pp. 380-81;
Poems (1809), II, 253-5fl.

 

 

 

91. doneywood. St. John. "Lines Addressed to a Friend.
Written at Schenectady," Poems. New York: T. :
J. Swords, 1801, pp. 104-107 (N. Y., lO-ers, D, G, I).
Poet invites friend to scenic New York state.

92. Ladd, Joseph Brown. "Prospect of Carolina. For July,”
The Poems of Arouet. Charleston: Bowen 3 Markland.
1786, pp. 83-85 (S. C., lO-ers).
Carolina heat breeds "abhorred disease."
Reprinted: American Museum, II (November,
1787): 516-17-

93. *Mr. Lewis [Lewis, Richard?]. "A Description of
Maryland, Extracted from a Poem, Entitled, Carmen
Seculare, Addressed to Lord Baltimore," American
Museum,)VI (November, 1789), 413-14 (Md., IO-ers,

Originally printed in Gentleman's Ma7azine, III

I
4.4

(1733), 209-210. See a. A. Aubin, p. 35¢

267

94. *LcKinnon, Daniel [John]. "Description of the Scenery
in the Vicinity of hew-Iork in the Month of
October," Descriptive P ems, Containing Picturesq:
Views 9: the State of Mew—York. New York: T. a J.

Swords, 1802, pp. 3§35E (N. 1., b.v., A, D, F, K).

e

95. Parke, John. "Virginia: A Pastoral Drama . . .,"
Lyric Works 92 Horace, Translated into English
Verse; 39 Which Are Added a Humber 93 Original Poems.
Philadelphia: 1786, pp. 324-34.
A masque honoring Nashington's return to his
"blest retreat" on the Potomac.

 

 

\O
(\\

7. Smith, Joseph. "An Indian Eclogue. Scene, The banks
of the Ohio," Beauties 23 Poetry, British and
American. Philadelphia: Carey, 1791, p. 244
(Ohio?, lO-ers, V).

Chief Ringo, relating the sorrows of his
spurned love, vows to become a wanderer.

Reprinted: The Columbian Muse. New York: J.
Carey, 1794, pp. 160-61.

 

97. *[AnonQ]. "A Scene in Rhode Island," American Magazine,
I (July, 1788), 595 (R. I., quat, A, B, S, W, X).
Reprinted with minor variations as "Verses
Composed on Pettiquamscut, Point Judith, Rhode-Island,"
in American Museum, X (1791), app. 1, 7-8; and in
Evenin Fire-Side; or Weekly Intelligence, I

May 25, 18055, 1867'

98. [Anon.]. "General Description of America. Extract from
a Poem Spoken at Dartmouth College, on Commencement
Day, 1795," Columbian Orator. Edited by Caleb
Pingham. Bostnn: Manning 3 Loring, 1797, pp.
237-39 (eastern U.S., lO-ers, A, E, G, M).

 

99. [Anon.]. "The Back-Woods' Man; An American Eclogue,"
Lady's Magazine and Musical Rgpository, III
(February, 1802), 113-18 (Ky., lO-ers, A, w).
Vernon, a wanderer, rescues his wife and
children from Indians in "the Wilderness of Kentucky."

100. Alonzo [pseuda]. "The Fair of Berkshire," Philadelphia
Yepository, and Weekly Re ister, IV (February 18,
isofif, 5e (Mass., lO-ers, B, T, V, w).
A lover's lament over a lost girlfriend.

 

268

101. Lyricus [ps eud. ]. "Stanzas to the Mills on York-
Island, Bordering on the North River," 3venin7
Fire-Side; or Literarv Iiiscellany II (June 21,
1806), 190 (I. Y., quat, 3, I, w).

 

102. T. G. [anon.j] " Iritten in Camberwell Grove: Addressed
to Mary," Charleston Spectator, and Ladies'
Literary Port Folio, I_IMovember 8, 1803), 168
(s. c. 7, Merq, 3, V, T).

 

103. Dablerus [pseud. ]. "A Pennsylvania Pastoral." The
Gleaner; or Ionthly M 7azine, I (September, 1603),
30- 31 (Pa., lO-ers).
The story of love-lorn Susan and fickle Thomas.

104. Juvenis [pseud.]. ”0n the State of New-York," Ladv's
hiscellan ; 93, weekly Visitor, XI (June 30, 1610)
159-00 116. Y., lO‘erS, C, E, G).

Hudson River
105. *Faugeres, Margaretta V. "The Hudson," Pos thumous
works of Ann Eliza Pleecker. Mew York: Swords,

1793, pp. 358-75 (N. Y., various meters, D, 3, F,
G, H, J, ii, L, 1‘1, IVY).

 

106.[Law, Thomas]. "0n the Hudson," Ballston Springs. Mew
York: S. Gould, 1806, pp. 5-7 (M. Y., lO-ers,
s, G, I, L).

 

107. *Low, Samuel. "Inscription for Mr. Taylor's North-
River 3ath," Poems. New York: T. a F. Swords,

1800, I, 55- 56 In. Y., 10-ers, L).

Praise addressed to the Hudson.

108. *McKinnon, Daniel [John]. "Description of the Eudson
River," Descriptive Poems, Containing Picturesque
Views of the State 2: Mew York. New York: T. a
J. Swords, 1802, pp. 1'13 (N. Y., b.V.’ A, C, G,
F, H, I, W).

269

109. Matilda [pseud.]. "The Traveller Returned," Egg-
York Magazine; or, Literary Repository, VI (June,
1795). 375-76 TE. Y.. B-ers. 3. E. L. S. w, x).
After the "dread sublime" of the wilderness,
the poet is glad to retire to the banks of the
"soft-flowing" Hudson.

 

110. Alby [pseud.]. "Written on the Banks of the Hudson,"
Meekly Visitor, I (September 1, 1810), 271 (N. Y.,
quat, B, L; .

lll. Irene [pseud.j. "Banks of the nudson. Written by
a Gentleman on His Way from Mew-York to Albany,”
Weekly Visitor, II (April 27, 1811), 399-400
(N. Y., StZ, A, T).

Previously printed under pseudonym Palemon
as "Written in 1789, by a Gentleman on his May
from Fort Schuyler to Albany," Mew-York Magazine;
9;, Literary Repository, III (February, 1792), 118.

30th poems have identical texts except for
two alterations in proper nouns. Mohawk, in the
Opening line of the earlier poem, becomes Hudson
in the 1811 version; and the girl whose presence
both poets long for changes identity just as
easily: Delia in the one (1792) becomes Maria in
the other (1811).

 

Schgylkill River

112. Freneau, Philip. "Hermit's Valley, a Rural Scene
on the Schuylkill," Poems Written and Published
during the American Revolutionary War. Philadelphia:
Lydia R. Sailey, 1809, II, 233-3E. See F. L.
Pattee (ed.). The Poems 9; Philip Freneau.
Princeton, New Jersey: The University Library,
1907, III, 128 (Pa., stz, B, G).

Previously printed as "Hermit's Valley" in

Poems (1795), pp. 248-D9.

 

113. Smith, John [pseud.?]. "A Rural Poem," Evening
Fire-Side; or Weekly Intelligence, I (April 20,
1805), 1&7-EE (Pa., lO-ers, A, a, D, G, s, x).
A catalogue of rural "pleasures" found in
a "calm retreat" on the Schuylkill.

270

11h. R. w. Eanon.] "Meditations on the Banks of Schuylkill,
Written in September, 1799," Philadelphia heaositoiy,
and weekly Register, I (June 20, 1801), 256~(Pa.,
lO-ers, 3, G, I, L).

 

 

115. Sir teen Epseudfl]. "Reflections on the Banks of the
Schuyll {111, Written Some Time A70," Philadelphia
Repositori, and geekly Reqister, II (December 12,
l 01 40 (Pa.,b .V., E, F, G, M).

116. ll Ritirato Epseud.]. "Lines, Written near the
Schuylkill," Port Folio. IV (January lb, 180#), 16
(Pa.., b.V.’ G, T, X7.

 

117. P. Eanon.] "Sonnet to Schuylkill, " Assembly's
Iiissionary Ma 7a7ine; or 3van7elical Intelligencer,
I(September, 1805), H—6 (Pa., sonnet, L, G, K).

 

 

 

118. Z. [anoni] "Written on the 3anks of Schuylkill, on
the East Side near the Falls, " Port Folio, IIEn. 5.]
(October 18, 1806), 239 (Pa., quat, B, W).

119. O. D. Eanon.] "Verses Written on the Schuylkill,"
Eye Philadelphia), II (December 29, 1808),
309-310 (Pa., stz, A, B, D, H, M).

120. Lorenzo Epseudé]. "An Evening Ramble," Eye
(Philadelphia), II (September 22, 1808), 142
(Pa., herq, B, X).
Poet dreams of a cottame of content by the
Schuylkill, but the "magic" is broken by thoughts
of life's ills.

121. C. Eanon{] "Lines Written on the Banks of the Schuylkill,
Huntingdon Literary Museum, and Monthl Miscellani, I
(January, 1810), 96 (Pa., stzTLB).

 

Various Rivers

 

122. * EArnold, Josias Lyndon.3 "Ode to Connecticut River,"
worcester IIagazine, III (May, 1787), 95 (Vt., 1.5.,
Conn., 84ers, B, D, J, L, T).
Reprinted: Josias Lyndon Arnold. Poems.
Providence: Carter and Wilkinson, 1797, pp. 68—69.

123. * . "Ode, Written on the Banks of Passumsick
River (Vermont), "September, 1790," Massachusetts
Ia7azine, VII (October, 1795), 441 (Vt., stz,

a, D, G, H, L).
Reprinted: Josias Lyndon Arnold. Poems.
Providence: Carter and Wilkinson, 1797, pp. 61-64.

 

271

124. Davis, John. "Coosohatchie," Month;y Ian a7ine, and
American Review, II (January, 1800), 80 (S. C.,
lO-ers, D, K, T).
Reprinted: John Davis. Travels 9: Four
Years and a Half Lg the United States. London and
Lew York, 1803, p. 67.

125. . "Ode on Ashley River," Monthly Magazine,
and American Review, II (February, 1800), 160
(S. C., quat, B, G).
Reprinted: John Davis, Travels 2; Four
Years and 3 Half lg the United States. London and
new York, 1803, pp. 105-106.

 

126. . "I Iorning at Occoquan, " Port Folio, I
(hovemoer 7, 1801), 360 (Va., quat, A, G).
Reprinted with variations as "Morning at
Occoquan. An Ode," in John Davis. Travels 9i
Four Years and a Half in the United States. London,
and New York, I803, p. 245.

127. . "Evenin7 at Occoquan," Port Folio, I (November 7,
Cl) 300 (Va., quat, A, B).
Lengthened version reprinted as "Evening
at Occoguan. An Ode," in John Davis. Travels
of Four Years and a Half in the United States.
London and New York, 1803, pp. *23HZ35. Revised
version (which uses last stanza from "Mornin7 at
Occoquan" reprinted as "Evening at Occoquan")
in Port Folio, I En. (3rd) st] 1809, 267-68
(Va., quat, A, S, G).

128. * . "Ode to the River Raritan," Port Folio, V
(January 26 , 1805), 16 (M. Y., 8-ers, 3, L).
Revised and lengthened version reprinted
under the pseudonym P_ P in Port Folio, V
(December 21, 1805), 400. Reprinted anonymously
without change from Port Folio (December 21, 1805,
version) as "Ode to the River Occoquan," in George
Bourne (ed. ) The Spirit of the Public Journals;
or, Beauties of the American Newspapers, for 1805.
3a1timore: Geo. Dobbin a Murphy, 1800, pp. "291-92.
Substitution of word Occoguan for Raritan in last
line of the poem makes possible alteration in title.
R. A. Aubin's listing (p. 382) comprises
only the anonymous version entitled "Ode to the
River Rariton [810]," in European Magazine and London
Review, XLIX (May, 1806), 374.

 

129.

130.

131.

132.

133.

134.

135.

272

? . "Burk's Garden Grave," Gleaner; or,
monthly hagazine, I (June, 1809), 471 (Va., stz,
A, I).

Poet views the grave of John Daly Burk near
the Appomattox River.

Duke, Rev. William . "Hymn XXXIX. Written on the
Banks of the Monongahala, July 28, 1789," hymns
and Poems, 2n Various Occasions. _Baltimore:
Samuel and John Adams, 1790, pp. 62-63 (Pa., quat,
A, G, W).

Elliot, James. "Elegy, Written at Fort Hamilton,
on the Great hiami River, during an Indisposition--
February, 1795," The Poetical and Miscellaneous
Writings 9; James Elliot. Greenfield, massachusetts:
Thomas Dickman, 1798, pp. 67-69 (Ohio, herq, B,
G, S, X).

____ "Lines, Written at the City of Marietta, at
the Confluence of the Ohio and Muskingum Rivers,"
The Poetical and Miscellaneous Writings 2: James
hDiot. Greenfield, Massachusetts: Thomas Dickman,
179g, pp- 77-79 (Ohio, B: G: L: 3° V)-

Evans, Nfathaniel]. "The Morning Invitation,"
American Museum, IV (September, 1788), 297 (H. J.,
stz, b, J .

In this lyric ”nymphs and swains" retire
to the banks ofihe Delaware.

Jaques [Ewing, Samuel]. "Reflections in Solitude,"
Port Folio, I (January 31, 1801), 40 (Pa., b.v.,
G, K, K).

The course of the Lehigh is compared to the
vicissitudes of life.

Freneau, Philip. "The Bridge of Delaware," Poems Written

between.£h§ Years 1268 g 122 . Monmouth, New Jersey:
At the Press of the Author, 1795, p. 103 (H. J.,
lO-ers, D, E).

Description of skating on the ice ”bridge"
of the Delaware.

Reprinted: Philip Freneau. Poems Written and
Published during the American Revolutionary War.
Philadelphia: Lydia R. bailey, 1809, I, 158.

 

l33.

139.

140

141.

1Q2.

143.

144.

145.

273

Johnson, William hartin. "An Ode, To the ieautiful
River Sampit," Port Folio, II Ln. 3.] (July 23,
1305), 47 (s. C.,quat, c, J, K. L, V, X).

 

Ladd, Joseph brown. "Sonnet: Humbly Inscribed to the
Naiads of Ashley River. Tune--'haid of the Mill',”
American Kuseum, III (April, 1788), 383-84
(0. C., 4 quat, L, T, X).

Low, Samuel. ”On a Spring of Water in King's County,
Long-Island," Poems. New York: T. d F. Swords,
1800, II, 154-59 (A. Y., 8—ers, G, J).

 

 

*McKinnon, Daniel [John]. "Description of the thawk
River," Descriptive Poems, Containing Picturesque
Views of the State of New-York. New York: T.

 

J. Swords, 1802, ppT_15-37 (N. Y., b.v., A, B, D,
F, V, X).

[Sharp,] Isabella Oliver. "Composed on the banks of
Conodoguinet," Poems, 2n Various Subjects.
Carlisle, Pennsylvania: A. Loudon, 1805, p. 84
(Pa., herq, G).

 

Shaw, John, [no title], Poems. Philadelphia and
ialtimore: Edward Earle and Edward J. Coale, 1810,
p. 229 (Md., quat, S).

Childhood memories make the Severn diver
dear to the poet.

* (Smith, William Moore]. "An Ode to the River Leheigh,”
Poems on Several Occasions, Written in Pennsylvania.

PhiladEIphIa: Enoch Story, 1785, pp. 123-2c
(Pa., stz, L, D, T, V, x).

 

Wright, Susannah. "A Copy of Verses, Written by
3. Wright, on Removing from Chester to the banks
of Susquehannah, in the Year 1726 Where She After-
wards Lived near 60 Years," Literary kagazine, and
American Register, II (June, 180R), 191-92 (Pa.,
ballad, G, S, V):

 

 

[Anon.j. "The banks of Kentucke," American Iuseum,
III (Karch, 1788), 280 (Ky., stz, B, G, L).
Reprinted: The Columbian Songster. flew

 

York: 1797, pp. 28—29.

*[AnonQ]. "The Brandywine," American huseum, III
(February, 1788), 186-87 (Pa., herq, S, C, S, J).

146.

147.

148.

149.

150.

151.

152.

153.

154.

155.

274

*Juvenis [pseud.]. "Ode, to Connecticut River,"

Massachusetts Magazine; 2;, Monfiiy Museum, III
(October, 1791), 632 (Vt., N. H., Conn., stz, E, L).

 

Adeline [pseud.]. "To the Leheigh," New-York Magazine;
2;, Literary Repository, V(May, 179A), 315-15 (Pa.,
quat, B, L)?

Reprinted with same title under pseudonym
"Calista" in Monthly Magazine, and American Review,
III (November, 1800), 399-h00. Reprinted as "To
the River Leheigh" by "Miss M " in Companion and
Weekly Miscellany, II (July 19, 1806), 30E.

 

 

 

 

Matilda [pseud.]. "Elegy--Addressed to the River
St. Lawrence," New-York Magazine; 2;, Literary
Repository, VI (July, 1795), MRS (N. Y., herq,
G, L, s, T, v, w, x). , -

 

. "Elegy, Supposed to be Written on the Banks

of Detroit River," New-York Magazine; or, Literary

 

Repository, II[h. s.ITApril, 1797), 217:18
(Mich., herq, F, H. K).

Anna [pseud.]. "To Clara," Time-Piece and Literary
Companion, I (April 26, 1797), 78 (N. Y., stz, S, T).
In this "Della Cruscan" poem Anna and Clara
remember their haunts along the Rossack and Hudson.

Z. [anontj "Sketch of the Schoharie-Kill," Balance,
and Columbian Repository, I (October n, 1802),
315 (N. Y., lO-erS).

Damon [pseud.]. "Banks of Connestogoe," Hive (Lancaster,
Pa.), I (August 10, 1803), 32 (Pa., 8-ers, L, T, X).

 

Lysander [pseud.]. "Rural Sketches-—No. V: Malvon,"
Port Folio, III (August 13, 1803), 264 (Unknown,
quat, B, X).

Poet seeks contentment by the "placid stream."

[Anon.]. "Written on the Banks of the Delaware. To

Miss ," Port Folio, III (December 2h, 1803),
416 (Pa., N. J., stz, L, T).

*Frankly [pseud.]. "Address to the Rariton," Companion

 

and Weekly Miscellapy, I (April 27, 1805), 207-208
(N. J., herq, G, I, L, T).

156 o

157.

158.

159.

H
(b
O
o

275

Eugenio [pseud.j. "Io Mira. On a Visit from
Souhegan—Grove," Literary Tablet, III (January 1,
180:3), 32 (1:9. , quat, 4;, f) O

 

"Ode to Souhegan," Literary Tablet; 9;,

 

A General Recository of Useful Lntertainment,

 

 

III (May 7, 18057, 68_(he., quat, B, J, L).

Astolpho [pseud.7. [no title], Port Folio, V Ln. SJ
(April 9, 1808), 239 (Conn., 8—ers, B, r).
A kisS claimed near "Housatonick's winding
stream."

 

Lothaire [pseud{]. "An Adieu to the Muse," Gleaner;
or, Monthly Magazine, I (January, 1809), 226-27
(Pa., quat, G, s, X}.

Poet bids farewell to the Leheigh, scene of
his joyous youth.

 

Evander [pseudJ]. "Written on the Banks of Conestoga,"
Gleaner; 9;, Monthly Magazine, I (May, 1809), 414-15
(Pa., quat, S, X).

NATURAL PHENOMENA

Passaic Falls

 

161.

l63o

Freneau, Philip. "The Expedition of Timothy Taurus,
Astrologer to the Falls of Passaic River, in New
Jersey," Poems Written and Published during the
American Revolutionary War. Philadelphia: Lydia R.
Bailey, 1809, I, 167-78 (N. J., stz).

Poems contain humor, satire, and caricature,
but has little description of the "elegant scene."

[Irving, Washington.] ”From the Passaic Album,"
Weekly Visitor; 93, Ladies' Miscellapy, IV (September 27,
18067, 370 (N. J., stz, w).
Reprinted as "Passaic Falls--A Tradition"
in Pastime, II (May 28, 1808), 27-28; reprinted
under pseudonym "Tobinus" [no title] in Ordeal, I
(May 139 1809), 298-99-

 

Low, Samuel. "0n the Falls of Passaic," Poems. New
York: To & F0 swords, 1800, II, 160-68 (h. J., bOVO,
A, F. G, L. S, T, W)-

1'65.

170.

171.

Various

172.

276

*C. [anon.] "On the Falls of the Passaic," Weekli
Magazine g: Original Essayp, I (April 21, 1798
379‘TN. J., herq, G, a).

Reprinted as "From Godwin's Passaic Album"
in Lady's Weekly Miscellany, IX (July 1, 1809), 159.

 
 

9

>1:

r—a

i. [anon.] "Lines by a Young Lady, Written at the
Falls of Passaick, July, 1800," Monthly Magazine,
andAmerican Review, III (November, 1800), 399
(N. J., herq, G, L, w, X).

Reprinted with same title in Literary Magazine
and American Register, II (June, 1803), 190-91;
reprinted as "From Godwin's Passaic Album" in Lady's
Weekly Miscellany, IX (August 12, 1809), 255.

Lodinus [pseud.]. "Lines Written at the Falls of the
Passaic," Theppain Mirror, I (February 1, 1806),
52 (N. J., stz, G, W). '

Reprinted with same title in Polyanthos, I
(February, 1806), 203-204; reprinted as "On Passaic:
from Godwin's Passaic Album" in Lad '8 Weekly
Miscellany, IX (July 8, 1809), 17 .

 

Lyricus [pseud.]. "Stanzas, Written at the Falls of
Passaick," Evening Fire-Side; or Literary MiscellanI,
II (September 13, 1806), 289—90‘Tw. J., quat, L, w .

J. M'V. Jr. [anon.] "To the Passaic,"
Miscellapy, IX (May 20, 1809),u7

 

Lady's Weekly
(w. J., quat, s, X)

[Anon.J. "From the Album at Passaick Falls," Ordeal I
(June, 17, 1809), 378-79 (N. J., 8—ers, B, X).

J. D K. Canon. "Lines Addressed to the Rocks
Above the Falls," Lady's Weekly Miscellany, IX
(July 22, 1809), 208 (N. J., stz).
Poet asks the rocks why they turn the Passaic's
"calm to rage and noise."

H. P. [anon.j "0n Passaic," Lady's Weekl. Miscellany,
In (July 29, 1809), 223 (N. J., stz, W).
A few lines on "the dreadful grandeur" of
the Falls.

 

Natural Phenomena

Davis, John. "The Natural
Ln. (3rd) s.j (1809), 82
The Natural Bridge

Bridge," Port Folio, I
(Va., quat).

treated as a decorative arch-
way.

277

173. [Law, Thomas]. "Niagara," Ballston Springs. New
York: S. Gould, 1806, pp. 8-10 (N. Y., herq, A, G,
W, X).

174. Moore, Thomas. "The Lake of the Dismal Swamp." Port
Folio,II n. 8. (August 16, 1806), 90 (Va., stz).

The story of a distracted young man who wanders
into the Dismal Swamp in search of his girl friend.

175. . "Lines, Written at the Cohoez, or Falls
of the Mohawk River, Port Folio, V n. 3. (January 23,
1808), 61-62 (N. J., 8-ers, B, V, X).
Reprinted: Guardian, I (October 15, 1808), 291.

176. *[Payne, John Howard]. "Written at the Falls of Mount
Ida (near Troy,") Port Folio, IV (October 27, 1804),

344 (N. Y., b.v., W, X).
Reprinted: Pastime, I (June 6, 1807), 87-88.

 

177 *[Rose, Robert 11.] . "Lines Written at Niagara," Port
Folio, IV n. 8. (July 11, 1807), 31-32 (N. Y.,
stz, G, L, W).
Reprinted with variations as ”Stanzas,
Written at Niagara," in Robert H. Rose. Sketches
in Verse. Philadelphia: 1810, pp. 129-32.

178. Shaw, John. ”Imitation of Petrarch, Written at the
Falls of Niagara," Poems. Philadelphia and
Baltimore: Edward Earle and Edward J. Coale, 1810,
pp. 186-87 (N. Y., quat, S, V, X, X).

179. [Anon.J. "The Falls of Niagara," Medle ; 23 Monthly
Miscellany, I (1803), app., p. 251 (N.Y., herq, M, W).

TRAVEL POEMS

180. *Bleecker, Ann Eliza. "To Mr. Bleecker, on his Passage
to New York," The Posthumous Works 2; Ann Eliza
Bleecker. New York: Swords, 1793, pp. 232-35
(TN. Y., 10'erS, A, D, E, I, T, W).

A Description of a trip down the Hudson to
New York.

181. *Forrest, Michael. Travels through America: a Poem.
Philadelphia: Johnston & Justice, 1793 (Mass.,
N. J., Mdo, Pa., S. C., 10-8rs, B, C, D, F, G,
H, J, K, L, X).

182.

183.

184.

185.

278

Freneau, Philip. A Journey from Philadelphia to

 

NTew-York, by Way of Burlington and South-Amboy. By
Rooert Slender, Stocking Weaver, Philadelphia:
Francis Bailey, 17874(Pa., N. J,, N. Y., stz).

Poem caricatures such travelers as "Billy
O'Bluster," but contains no description.

Reprinted: The Miscellaneous Works of Mr.
Philip Freneau Containing his Essays and Additional
Poems. Philadelphia: Francis Bailey, 1788,
pp. 409- 429; reprinted as "Slender' s Journey, " in
Ppems Written between the Years 1268 g M79 Monmouth,
New Jersey: At the Press of the Author, 1795, pp.
338-50; as A Laughable Poem; 93 Robert Slender's
Journey from Philadelphia to New York, py Way 92
Burlington and South Amboy. Philadelphia: Printed
for Thomas Neversink, 1809.

 

 

 

 

 

*Eumphreys, David. "A Letter to a Young Lady in

Boston, Dated at New Haven, April, 1780," Poems.
2nd ed. Philadelphia: Carey, 1789, pp. 83-90
(Mass., Conn., stz).
A burlesque of conventional travel poems.
Reprinted: The Miscellaneous Works 2; Cpl.
David Humphreys. New York: Hodge, Allen, and
Campbell, 1790 p 90-97.

’ AA.

 

*[Lewis, Richardj. "A Journey from Patapsco to

*

Annapolis," American Museum, IX (1791), app. 1,
9-16 (Md., lO-ers, A, B, D, G, S, V).

Originally printed as "Description of the
Spring: A Journey from Patapsco in Maryland to
Annapolis, April 4, 1730, " in Gentleman's Manazine,
II (March, 1732), 669-71. See R. A. Aubin,
Topograppical Poetry in XVIII-Century England.

New York, 1936, pp. 245-46.

 

 

[Wilson, Alexander]. "The Foresters: a Poem,

Descriptive of a Pedestrian Journey to the Falls
of Niagara, In the Autumn of 1804," Port Folio, I
[n. (3rd)s.] (1809), 538-44. The poem appeared
serially in the following additional issues: II

 

(1809), 70-779 141-47, 273‘789 357“73’ 452’58a

561-65; III (1810), 159-68, 176-87 (Pa., N. Y.,
lO-ers, A, B, D, E, G, K, L, M, w).

A brief extract from "The Foresters" was
printed in Literary Magazine, and American Register,
IV (August, 1805), 155- 57.

 

279

"The Pilsrim, A Poem; Descriptive of a

Voyafie and Journev from Pittsburg to New-Orleans,

In the Sprin? 0f 1810." Port Folio, III Ln.(3rd)s3
(1810), 512-19 (Pa., qua-t, D, x).

 

Maria [pseud.]. "A Trip to Burlington; Written in
the Year 1781," Eveninp Fire-Side; gr Literar‘
Miscellany, II (July 5, 1806}, 210-211 N.J.,
lO-ers, A, B, J).

 
 

 

 

280
PAGE INDEX TO AUTHORS IN THE

Allen, James, 254

Arnold, Josias Lyndon, 256, 270
Blauvelt, Abraham, 259
Bleecker, Ann Eliza, 256, 277
Brackenridge, Hugh Henry, 259
Campbell, Thomas, 265

Davis, John, 271, 276

Deane, Samuel, 254

Dore, John, 265

Duke, William, 272

Dwight, Timothy, 254, 265
Elliot, James, 272

Evans, Nathaniel, 272

Ewing, Samuel, 272

Faugeres, Margaretta V., 259, 268
Forrest, Michael, 277

Freneau, Philip, 254, 259, 266, 269, 272,

George, Lucas, 260

Honeywood, St. John, 266
Hopkinson, Francis, 254, 256
Humphreys, David, 256, 260, 278
Irving, Washington, 275
Johnson, Jr., Thomas, 260
Johnson, William Martin, 273
Knapp, Francis, 261

Ladd, Joseph Brown, 261, 266, 273
Law, Thomas, 261, 268, 277
"Lewis, Richard, 266, 278

Lisle, Henry Maurice, 254

Low, Samuel, 261, 268, 273, 275

McKinnon, John Daniel, 261, 267, 268, 273

Meigs, Return Jonathan, 261
Moore, Thomas, 261, 277
Morton, Sarah Wentworth, 254, 255
Parke, John,267

Payne, John Howard, 277
Prichard, William, 262

Rose, Robert H., 277
Russell, John Miller, 255
Scott, John W.,262

Searson, John, 256, 257, 262
Sharp, Isabella Oliver, 273
Shaw, John, 273, 277

Smith, John, 269

Smith, Joseph, 267

Smith, William Moore, 273
Swanwick, John, 257, 262
Topliff, Nathaniel, 255
Warren, Mercy Otis, 262
Wilson, Alexander 257, 278

Woodworth, Samuel, 263
Wright, Susannah, 73

CHECKLIST

275. 278

281

B. TEXT OF "THE VILLAGE CLIFF"

Come, haste my friend, and leave the cares of life;
The toil of tedious study throw aside;
And in the mild and clear autumnal sun,
Let us in social mood together rove,
Where yon stupendous height invites us forth,
To take the freshness of the morning air.

O'er lawns and heaths and woodlands we proceed,
'Till having gain'd the summit of the mount,
With slow and cautious steps we now approach
The utmost verge of this high tow'ring Cliff;
Nor without shudd'ring view the gulf below.
From such a height as this, (fam'd Dover's Cliff)
Two bold, advent'rous heroes took their flight;
Blanchard and Jeffrie§,* who with silken sail,
Launcth their gay bark into the buoyant air,
And o'er the sounding waves that foam'd beneath,
Made good their passage to the Gallic shore.
From hence, when gentlest zephyrs breathe around,
And all the groves in vernal dress appear,
We've seen the far off mountains tipp'd with snow,
That lift their hoary heads in northern skies:
The rear of winter lagging still behind,
On grand Monadnock and Wachusett heights,
And where thesmill more distant ridges rise
What time the waning autumn comes around,
In pure cerulean skies and temp'rate airs,
Those snow-clad heights again salute the eye.
The van of winter, (shiv‘ring to behold!)
Presaging tempests and dire chilling blasts;
And soon (ah! how unlike this beauteous morn!)
The ruthless forces of the North arrive,
Howl through the groves, and darken all the air.

Now change the scene where other prospects rise,
And see what pleasing objects glad the sight.
The eye with level glance at distance kens
The bluey ridge that bounds the southern view:
But let the eye that loves, when unconfin'd,
Quick as the light, to stretch its pow'r as far
As human optics reach, draw nearer home,
And mark the pleasing images in view.

 

*Dr. John Jeffries, an American gentleman, now
a resident of Boston.

282

The spires of Boston o'er the eastern hills,
And Charlestown's lofty steeple meet the eye;
Around sweet interchange of hill and dale,

The yellow fields of corn and fading woods;

The curling smoke that marks the frequent farm,
Where plenty dwells in this th[r]ice happy land.
The ruddy lass engag'd in rural toil,

In jocund mood of heart, or want of thought,
Sings blithe along the plain. Her notes ascend;
And, wafted gently on the passing gale,

They reach my list'ning ear. Oh happy maid!

No care disturbs thy peace: The busy train

That seek for pleasure at the midnight board,
The crowded theatre, or the Splendid hall,

Taste not the pure delights that dwell with thee.
Finish'd thy daily round of wholesome toil,
Forth hies the fav'rite lad in neat array,

And Joyous leads thee to th' appointed place,
Where soon the lads of all the village meet,
"Each by the lass he loves;" to spend the eve
In pawns, (sweet rural sport!) or lively dance.
Oft here, when savage war assail'd our land,

And Britain's troops by gallant host besieg'd,
Were close shut up in Boston's narrow bounds,
The peasants did repair; and here secure,

At distance saw the flaming bombs ascend,

Like meteors gleaming through the nightly air.

A long suspense--deep silence reigns throughout
The solemn dusk; when strait the lengthen'd sound
Breaks dull and rumbling on the list'ning ear.
Here too they heard the loud tumultuous roar,
When Breed's green heights was chang'd to sanguine hue,
And one continual thunder rent the skies.

The burning domes of Charlestown here were seen;
The Temple's lofty turret wrapt in flames,
Looking o'er all, a pyramid of fire.

Barlow! whose genius, equal to the task,
Hastdrawn that scene so awfully sublime,
In vivid colours of immortal hue,

Thou art th' American Homer; yet in thee
We see the majesty of the Grecian bard
Combin'd with Virgil's elegance and ease.

How often with a rural virgin troop
I rov'd the woodland path, or upland heath,
In careless innocence still passing on,
While laughter loud re-echo'd through the grove,

283

And wanton freaks of merriment were shown.

At length the place of blackberries is found,
When o'er the fields the jocund damsels stray,
And each one gathers up the sav'ry fruit:

While oft with sly and Sportive female hand,

The Juice deep blushing from the finger's end
Is swift injected in the swain's broad face,
Heedless, nor thinking of his lass so near.
These artless rural Sports are form'd to please,
Emblems of youthful innocence and ease.

In yonder little snug and neat abode,
Full many pleasing moments have I pass'd.
Alone, and seated in an elbow chair,
Giv'n up to calm reflection's soothing pow'r,
The blazing hours have pass'd away unheeded;
While the sweet strains of the AEolian harp,
Now soffly sighing to the passing breeze,
And now in fullest concert swelling out,
With magic pow'r, as by the fairy touch,
They gently soothe the wearied soul to rest.
Full oft I've been diverted with the looks
And list'ning wonder of the honest swain,
Who, when this soft aerial music play'd,
Has chanc'd to come within my magic room;
Sweet sounds he hears, but no musician sees;
He thinks 'tis distant music; then again
The strain comes out in full; it must be near:
He looks now this way, that way, till at last
The cause of this sweet melody is found.

As at my open sash I frequent sit,
When summer heats prevail, to taste the breeze,
The smooth and round ascent just shooting forth,
Into the blue expanse, presents a scene
Not much unlike to that, when o'er the main
The concave's airy bound'ry meets the eye.

My musing friend or peasant oft I see
Patrol the brow of this romantic hill;
Who, to the fancy, whimsically seem
On clouds to walk, or on the ocean's brim.

How finely shows that calm and lucid pond;
Its high romantic bank thick set with trees
That overarch the flood. And in the midst
A beauteous island rising from the wave,

With shady arbors crown'd, that yield retreat

284

To those, who in the blazing summer's sun

Have patient toil'd, to catch the finny race.

There underneath those thick embow'ring shades

They rest their weary limbs; and, pronely stretch'd,
Inhale the cooling breeze that floats along

The wide encircling surface of the deep.

Now far below the village spire appears,
An ancient simple structure, unadorn'd
With curious painting or the carver's skill:
Around this sacred dome alternate rise
The goodly mansion and the humble cot.
The village tavern near at hand is seen,
Where news and rural politics are heard,
Discuss'd by twenty mouths, all op'd at once;
While sober reason, if perchance she's by,
Stands fix'd in silence, at a loss to say
On which side ignorance the most prevails.

My jocund friend, in this old inn would mark
The scene of Tony Lumpkin's wild exploits;
Could see the ancient landlord, and the gang
Composing Tony's train and fav'rite club.

Here, too, his lively fancy oft would trace

In many a phiz, a look observ'd before,

By the mind's eye alone, in comic page,

Romance, or poem, or true history.

Bardolph's red nose, and Falstaff's portly front,
The Knight of De la Mancha's tall lank form,

With Sancho's thick-set trunk and chubbed face,
Would often meet his idly roving eye,

And strait provoke the sympathetic laugh.

Sweet village! where pure simple pleasures dwell;
Among thy groves and on thy swelling hills,
The first faint dawnings of the gentle Muse
‘ Illum'd my youthful breast. And oh! may I,
A village bard, of simple nnes the chief,
Ne'er rue the day, when first with thoughtless mind
I gave the soft emotion free access.
Farewell sweet village! and with thee, farewell
My pleasant friend! The spring of youth is past,
And sober manhood opens on our view.

The gay delights of life we here enjoy'd,
Must we forego; and though the task is hard,
The voice of prudence summons us to part,

285

And enter the great theatre of life,

There to perform our several parts assign'd.
Yet, though we part in different scenes to move,
Still may our social union ne'er dissolve,

But grow yet stronger with increasing years,
And be a spring of comfort in our souls,

When far asunder on the world's broad stage.