Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLON IAL SOUTH '
(Maryland Gazette, January 16, 1751), a mock· lament for the illness of
President Cole "In imitation of Spencer, Author of The Fairy Queen." The
stanza has only eight lines instead of nine, but the conscious use of archaisms
such as "eke" and " flake' and fwail a Day/' U gives it a quasi­
Spenserian effect. This was the only one published of the almost three
dozen original poems in extant documents of the club. In the Dulany
Papers for 1753 in the Maryland Historical Society is another mock-elegy,
perhaps by Jonas Green or Hamilton or by the club writing together.
"Carmen Dolorosum Composed by the ancient and honourable Tuesday
Club at Sederunt 194, February 20th . .. ," is a poem which perhaps gives
some indication of why others were not printed. Spitefully or viciously
attacked are members of the club and other Annapolitan worthies, the
latter of whom would certainly have been offended. There Jonas is said
to have brought out a priapus of stone, because it like other portions of
the members' anatomies had so petrified in extreme anguish at Cole's gout.
The obscenity here suggests that such verse might amuse a convivial
gathering but not a public reading from cold type.
The South-Carolina Gazette, the southern colonies' second oldest newspaper,
was like its Maryland contemporary the vehicle for a number of
elegies and a few mock-elegies. Hennig Cohen discovered more than two
decades ago that elegiac poems comprised the largest single category of
the impressive body of verse published in that periodical. Though satiric
and other poems of good quality appeared during the first year of the
Gazette (1732), the first elegy of consequence was printed in June 17,
1745, "Verses, written extempore by a Native of this Place on the Death
of the great and celebrated Alexander Pope, Esq.," by "Philagathus."
Pope's prestige in eighteenth-century America, especially in the South,
was enormous, as analyses of library inventories and verses in praise or
imitation of his work indicate.121 "Philagathus" wrote at least two later
poems published in the Charleston newspaper. He may have been the
physician Dr. James Kirkpatrick (or Killpatrick) mentioned in Chapter
VII above and for other belletristic writing in the present chapter below,
who had earlier published two poems on Pope, according to his own statement,
and was to compose several more on his idolized mentor.122 Dr. Kirkpatrick
was not, however, a native.
Though there is no narrative or dialogue, the poem is in the classical
tradition, with more references to ffsacred Laurel" than to "Angelick
Bards." The introductory lines are conventional enough:
And is POPE gone?-Then mourn ye Britons! mourn­
Your Pride and Boast! Apollo}s darling Son.
The Muses weep for Thee, immortal Bard!
Thou'rt gone! and with Thee all their Glory's fled.
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