Philip Freneau

“ André. My dearest love, I will conceal nothing from you. I know you are the girl of a thousand for keeping a secret. It must not take air. I have corrupted General Arnold. He is to sell West Point fort to me, and this evening I am to set out and consult with him upon the fittest means to blind the eyes of the Samson and deliver up the place to Sir Henry without danger of failure.
Lucinda. But could not some person be deputized for this purpose whose life is not of such value to Britain as yours? You are a proud soul to Sir Henry Clinton. ”

“ Freneau's early dream of a purely poetic career was rudely broken by the sudden clash of war and by the sternly practical nature of the American people. Circumstances decided for him his career. There was needed a poetic voice to arouse the common people to action. There was no demand for an imaginative creator, for a sensuous singer of love and wine,—America needed a popular voice, one that could be understood by the unlettered, one that with satire and patriotic appeal could arouse and fire the land. ”

“ The first half of Freneau's life, as we have seen, was one of disillusion. It took twenty-five years to kill the spark in his breast, but the process though slow was sure. After the fierce period of the National Gazette he thought of himself only as a worker in the tide of practical affairs, a champion of the rights of man, a protestor against tyranny and wrong, and his muse had become a mere drudge, aiding by satire and song what he now conceived to be his life work. ”

“ On October 23, 1803, his old-time friend, Francis Bailey, addressed Madison:
"My dear sir: The death of Col. Bauman of New York has left the Post Office without a Master. I know of no man in the United States who would fill the office with more ability, or greater integrity, than Philip Freneau."
As far as we know, there was no response, though the family declare that Madison sent for him and that the poet proudly said, "James Madison knows where I live, let him come to see me." ”

“ Of the college life of Philip Freneau we have only fragmentary records. He was in his sixteenth year when he entered, a somewhat dreamy youth who had read very widely, especially in the English poets and the Latin classics, and who already commanded a facile pen, especially in the field of heroic verse. During the year in which he entered Princeton he composed two long poems, "The History of the Prophet Jonah," and "The Village Merchant,"—surely notable work for the pen of a college sophomore. ”

“ The editor and ruling spirit, although his name during three years did not once appear in its columns, was Philip Freneau. The mark of the young poet is upon every page. Its opening editorial, which was from his pen, sounded a note that was not once lowered or weakened while he was in control.
"At no period of time, in no era of important events from the first establishment of social government, have the liberties of man, have the rights even of human nature, been more deeply interested than at the time in which we presume to address you. ”

“ That stoops, to seize his trembling prize,
He darted on the slaves of kings
At Camden heights and Eutaw Springs.
Ah! had our friends that led the fray
Surviv'd the ruins of that day,
We should not damp our joy with pain,
Nor, sympathizing, now complain.
Strange! that of those who nobly dare
Death always claims so large a share,
That those of virtue most refin'd
Are soonest to the grave consign'd!—
But fame is theirs—and future days
On pillar'd brass shall tell their praise;
Shall tell—when cold neglect is dead—
"These for their country fought and bled."
Philip Freneau. ”

“ Freneau laid aside for a time the harp and the lyre and took up the trumpet and the bagpipes, and of his influence on the stormy period of the Revolution there can be no two opinions. His ballads and satires were scattered far and wide; they were sold in broadsides in every port and city and camp. Even in the war of 1812 his poems flew like leaves everywhere that men were gathered together. To be the lyrist of a righteous revolution, and above all to be the people's poet, is in itself no small distinction. ”

“ Another man whose literary merits were not to be overlooked, had drifted to Philadelphia because of its varied attractions. If in the last century America could boast of a poet who shared some of the delicacy if not the grandeur of genius, it was Philip Freneau ”

“ E. A. Duyckinck did not hesitate to group him as one of "four of the most original writers whom the country has produced," and S. G. W. Benjamin could say in 1887: "In all the history of American letters, or of the United States press, there is no figure more interesting or remarkable, no career more versatile and varied than that of Philip Freneau." ”

“ Then the Armstrong haul'd in, close abreast of the beach,
So near, that a pistol the castle could reach;
And there she awaited the rest of their plan,
And there they determined to die, to a man,
Ere the lords of the waves
With their sorrowful slaves,
The tyrants, who claim the command of the main,
With strength, though superior, their purpose should gain.
And now the full moon had ascended the sky,
Reid saw by her light that the british were nigh:
The bell of Fayal told the hour—it was nine—
When the foe was observed to advance in a line ”

“ If ever there was a sensitive, beauty-loving, poetic soul, the young Freneau was one. In his early inexperience he even dreamed of a poetic career in which he might perhaps win a place beside the great masters of song. His early work like the "Ode to Fancy," and similar pieces, and the strong and original "House of Night" and "Santa Cruz" show what he might have done in another environment.
But Revolutionary America had little encouragement for an imaginative poet. There was something in the air that seemed to put into men the Franklin [Pg lxix] spirit. ”

“ I well know how far to venture, but if the worst come to the worst, I can tell them I have deserted from the British. Then I shall be caressed among them till such times as I can find an opportunity to escape and join my countrymen.
Lucinda. You venture all this, you say, at the request of Sir Henry?
Maj. André. Yes; but chiefly to serve my country. Had I a thousand lives, I would lay them all down for Britain and my king. But I must go. You deject my [Pg 54] spirits, my girl. A woman is destructive to the spirit of enterprise in a man. Poh! I am growing melancholy too. ”

“ In "The Indian Student" he has covered fully the Indian's love for [Pg cxi] the pathless forest, and to the untamable wildness of his nature. "The Dying Indian" and "The Indian Burying-Ground" sum up what is essentially poetic in Indian legend and all that is pathetic in the fate of the vanishing race. Poetry, if it is to confine itself to the truth, can do little more for the Indian.
Such was Philip Freneau, a man in every respect worthy to bear the title of "the father of American poetry." He was the first true poet born upon our continent ”

“ It has often been overlooked by his critics that Freneau was a widely read and thoroughly cultured man; that he was a linguist of more than ordinary powers; and that he knew intimately the chief writings in Latin, Italian, French, and English. He was no ignorant, careless scribbler, tossing into the ephemeral columns of the press hasty rhymes of which he never thought again. He revised and corrected with patient care, and he took a deep interest in the children of his pen, rescuing at one time or another almost every one of them from the oblivion of the newspaper. ”

“ The last years of Freneau's life were eventless, passed quietly at Mount Pleasant, and varied only with frequent visits to New York. Shortly after the issue of the 1815 edition of his poems, the ancestral home was completely destroyed by fire, together with most of the poet's papers, manuscript poems, valuable letters and books—the collection of a lifetime. During his last years he contemplated a complete and final edition of his poetical works. He wrote Dr. Mease of Philadelphia whether there was "enough of the old spirit of patriotism abroad to insure the safety of such an adventure;" ”

“ Philip Freneau, a noted American poet, was born in New York City, January 2, 1752, and died near Freehold, [Pg 5] N. J., December 18, 1832. He wrote: “Eutaw Springs,” “The College Examination,” “The Home of Night,” “The Indian Student,” and “Lines to a Wild Honeysuckle.”
Men of letters and great artists are the lights of a nation; they are what make it great; they are what give it a place in history.
“Advance of the English Novel,”—William Lyon Phelps.
William Lyon Phelps, a celebrated university professor and literary critic, was born at New Haven, Connecticut, January 2, 1865. ”

“ His poems of the war are in themselves a running history of the struggle, especially of its last years. His heart was in his work; the prison ship had blotted for a time all memories of the old criticisms of his early work, all his early dreams, everything save "the insulting foe" who was making desolate his dear mother land. He lampooned without mercy Clinton, Cornwallis, Carleton, and the royalist printers, Rivington and Gaine. He sang tender lyrics of the patriot dead at Eutaw Springs, who
"Saw their injured Country's woe ”

“ Philip Freneau, on his Volume of excellent Poems,
Printed by Mr. Bailey.
"Difficile est Satiram non Scribere."—Juv.
"Tho' I know not your person, I well know your merit,
Your satires admire—your muse of true spirit;
Who reads them must smile at poetical story
Except the k—g's printer, or some such like tory;
Sir William, sir Harry, and would-be sir John,
Cornwallis, the devil, those bucks of the ton;
Black Dunmore and Wallace with sun-setting nose, [Pg xlii]
Who steak hogs and sheep, secure—under the Rose. ”

“ Had Clinton hurried to my aid,
And Sammy Graves been not afraid.
Burgoyne
For head knocked off, or broken bones,
Or mangled corpse, no price atones;
Nor all that prattling rumour says,
Nor all the piles that art can raise,
The poet's or the parson's praise.
Cornwallis
Though I am brave, as well as you,
Yet still I think your notion true;
Dear brother Jack, our toils are o'er—
With foreign conquests plagued no more,
We'll stay and guard our native shore.
[149] Text from the edition of 1809. The poem first appeared in the Freeman's Journal, April 24, 1782. ”

“ And ere I had gone at Port Roseway to fix,
I had chose to sell drams on the margin of Styx.
I confess, that, with shame and contrition opprest,
I sign'd an agreement to go with the rest,
But ere they weigh'd anchor to sail their last trip,
I saw they were vermin, and gave them the slip.
Now, why you should call me the worst man alive,
On the word of a convert, I cannot contrive,
Though turn'd a plain honest republican, still
You own me no proslelyte, do what I will. ”

“ The age is grown mercantile, and Sejanus the mighty tradesman,—
"Sejanus has in house declared
'These States, as yet, can boast no bard,
And all the sing-song of our clime
Is merely nonsense fringed with rhyme.'"
A bard with more Teutonic blood, if he knew within himself that he was indeed a poet, and the only real poet of his time, would have staid at his post and made himself heard, despite narrow criticism and mean abuse, but Freneau was too proud to fight for recognition. ”

“ Where wizzard Faustus chews his brimstone rolls,
Nor have I been to wrangle with the men
Of that sad country, where, for want of rum,
Dead putrid water from the stagnant fen
Is drank, unmingled, by departed souls:
Nor from that dog-house do I bring you news,
Where Macedonian Philip [A] mends old shoes,
But from that dreadful place arrived,
Where men in debt at cribbage play,
And I most cunningly contrived
To fatten on two groats a day—
Full on my back now turned the key,
The 'squire himself is not so free. ”

“ Freneau was the first to catch what may be called the new poetic impulse in America—the new epic note. Previous to the Revolutionary era, America was destitute [Pg xcix] even of the germs of an original literature. Before she could produce anything really strong and individual, there was necessary some great primal impulse that should stir mightily the whole people; that should strike from their hands the old books and the old models; that should arouse them to a true realization of themselves; and that should clear the atmosphere for a new and broader view of human life. ”

“ On February 12th, 1790, Freneau arrived in New York, passenger from Middletown Point in the brig Betsy, Capt. Motley, to become editor of Child and Swaine's New York Daily Advertiser. For several months negotiations had been pending. Every appearance of the poet in New York for a year past had been marked by a small budget of poems in the Advertiser from the pen of "Capt. Freneau," but it was not until February, 1790, that he was induced to leave his beloved Columbia and settle down to a life upon shore. The poem "Neversink," written some months later, is his valedictory to the ocean. ”

“ How he at length deliberately turned from the muse of his choice, and how after a long experience with the world of actual affairs he exchanged his old poetic ideals for those of mere reason and common sense, we have attempted to show.
Here was a man equipped by nature for a true poet, a man with a message, yet dwarfed and transformed by his environment. America was not ready for her singer. It took half a century more to make way in the wilderness for the new message that had been whispered to Freneau in his young manhood. ”