Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
anonymous "Lines on the Death of William N. Hill" was apparently an
adaptation of Sir Francis Fane's "On the Penitent Death of the Earl of
Rochester," though here is depicted an ideal young Christian. Here seraphs
and numphs and rocks and plains all echo the lament for the young
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In 1751 two versions of "To the Memory of my much lov'd Friend Mrs.
Hannah Dale, (Relict of Doctor Dale ), who died the 9th of April 175 1,
aged 29 years, by H-- a Lady of her Acquaintance" were
printed on May 6 and with corrections and revisions by the author again
on May 13. "H.S." apparently considered herself a serious poetess, and
what she produced is a conventional elegy from its first lines:
Apollo's Sons when e'er the Wealthy die,
In fawning Verse chant out their Obsequy;
Praise them for Virtues which they ne'er possess'd
Tho' greatly wicked, yet pronounce them bless'd
--- Shall I be mute when so much Merit calls?
Oassical in form and language throughout, this poem's nearest approach
to Christian terms is "Angel-like." On September 23 of that year there was
an anonymously composed "Pastoral Elegy on a Young Gentleman lately
deceased." Like some of the works of James Sterling in Maryland this is
a traditional lament in dialogue, with the shepherds Alexis and Strephon
meeting "To sing a solemn dirge at Damon's hearse." Despite the idyllic
landscape and situation depicted, this poem-like Sterling's-uses a local
American setting, "Port-Royal plains!" referring to the historic South
Carolina settlement, where "in your field's, entombed, does Damon lie."
Despite its classical trappings, this elegy seems peculiarly American, more
so than most New England funeral pieces.
On October 3 the Gazette carried an "Epitaph" on the same youth, in this
instance a definitely Christian poem. In its fourteen-line form, despite its
couplets, it much resembles the English sonnet. It picks up as an opening
phrase "Port Royal plains" and continues to use classical terms, such as
the silver urns of the Pleiads and "Sol's bright influence," but it concludes
with a didactic couplet.
Published in the South-Carolina Gazette of September 12, 1754, and
in the Pennsylvania Gazette of Otcober 31 is M.S:s "To the Memory of
Lieut. Peter Mercier, Esq. Who fell in the late Battle near Ohio River in
Virginia, July 3, 1754·" The thirty-seven-line heroic-couplet lament and
eulogy could be applied to almost any fallen military hero, though there
is here superior felicity of expression and perhaps depth of thought. Beginning
"Too fond of what the martial harvests yield," it is localized by
reference to "Ohio's sons," to Georgia's and Virginia's laments for Mercier's
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