Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
peared in the Virginia Gazette of 1752. Both may have been written by
Davies himself, though the first is in tone and language quite different
from anything surely attributed to the poet elsewhere. The "Epitaph on
William Waugh" appeared on May 22, prefaced by a note from publisher
William Hunter concerning this "Melancholy News of the joyful Transition
of William Waugh thro' the Valley of the Shadow of Death." The
verses, Hunter declares, were written by Waugh himself (well known as
a writer of Hudibrastics). It is definitely in the satiric tradition:
HERE lie I fix'd in Earth full low
Your late Itinerant Willy Waugh:
No more to rove and, as I pass you,
Observe your Tricks and hudibras you.
An "Elegy upon Walter Dymocke" was printed on August 14 and seems
more likely as a product of Davies' pen or that of his publisher-relative
Holt, who was associated with Hunter in printing the Virginia Gazette.
o Walter! Thou for great Atchievements born!
To [sneer?] at sacred Things with pious Scorn,
To laugh at Truths, the hardiest Ghost in Hell
In their dread Energy with Trembling feeL
Gifted with pious Zeal, with Grace endow'd
To hinder a Dissenter to do good :
(Whose Poems could not help offending thee,
While guilty of the Drime of Piety ).
This long poem continues with references to Pindar, Willy Waugh, and
Dymocke himself and concludes with a direct personal attack beginning
"So have I seen a Pole-Cat long prevail / O'er Men and Dogs with his allconquering
Tail."
Then one should turn to Davies' serious verse. His lyrics, occasional
poems, and hymns will be considered later. But he also composed mournful
verses varying from short epitaphs to elaborate neoclassical elegies,
some of which are included in his Miscellaneous Poems, Chiefly on Divine
Subjects published by Hunter in Williamsburg in 1752. One dated December
5, 1750, "A Clergyman's Reflections on hearing of the Death of one
of his pious Parishioners," is as much in the meditative as the elegiac tradition,
in six stanzas of six lines each. Stanza III is characteristic :
Thus while I'm dreaming life away,
Or Books and Study fill the Day,
My. Flock is dying one by one;
Convey'd beyond my warning Voice,
To endless Pains, or endless Joys,
For ever happy, or undone!