Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
time wisely, sloth, the wisdom of old age, vanity, good taste, and near the
end an allegorical account of a voyage on the "Ocean of Life." 202 All these
subjects are echoed in one form or another in locally written essays in all
three of these southern newspapers. From other British journals came essays
on melancholy, health in relation to climate, too great luxury, friends
and enemies, immoderate drinking, some scientific and biographical and
historical pieces, a few famous trials, the Freemasons, the wall paintings
discovered at Herculaneum, and a number of political pieces including the
French question in America (the last worth comparing with the "Centinel"
essays) .203
Original essays, except for the partially original "Plain-Dealer" series,
were slow in getting into the Maryland Gazette of William Parks, 1728-
1734. The "Plain-Dealer" pieces are present from the first extant issue of
December 10, 1728 (No. LXV). By February 4, 1729, there were local
economic-political essays such as Henry Darnall's "A Letter to the Inhabitants
of Maryland," the beginning of an exchange of opinion carried in
successive issues. However utilitarian in content these were, their authors
were highly conscious of rhetorical devices or form. On April 1, 1729,
Walter Hoxton asked his readers to "pass over any errors or incorrectness
in the Stile," as this was his first appearance in print, and he was a sailor
rather than a scholar anyway. The tobacco trade and tobacco law dispute
went on and on, interspersed with occasional essays on paper currency,
numbers of gubernatorial speeches from neighboring colonies, and a rather
superficial essay on the gods helping those who help themselves. The genuinely
familiar essay was thus conspicuous by its absence.
This is not at all true for Jonas Green's Maryland Gazette from January
17, 1745, to the end of the period, though the quality and variety and frequency
of the familiar essay varies from decade to decade. Like his predecessor,
Green printed a number of tobacco-inspection-law pieces, but he
began by soliciting contributions from his "Learned Correspondents,"
whose "ingenious Productions" he would like to publish. The earliest
belletristic essay appeared on June 7, 1745, on the usefulness of history,
by Phil-Eleutheros. In the same issue Green informed his public that he
could not publish indiscriminately. For several issues thereafter he reprinted
from the Gentleman's Magazine, the Craftsman, and the Dublin
Society. By 1746 his friends of the Tuesday Club were as individuals supplying
him with a variety of prose and verse. In 1746 and 1747 appeared
essays "On Taste" by Euphranor, "On Flattery," and "On Curiosity:' On
December 16, 1746, "Publius Agricola" had printed an essay on "Industry"
beginning with a quotation from Thomson's The Seasons and pleading
with his fellow provincials of all classes in this infant country to apply
themselves, for without industry "no state can maintain its liberty." The