Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

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· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH ' orate form, was familiar in baroque or belated Renaissance versions to literate southerners in the seventeenth century, and in the altered neoclassical shapes from Addison and Steele's time it was to be found in colonial southern libraries. A number of allegories, often of the dream-vision variety, were borrowed by provincial periodicals straight from British journals. As variants of the moral essay they attracted several sorts of readers. Dr. Hamilton used the form for his criticism of Maryland Gazette authors already noted and at about the same time, on November I5, I75 I, the North Carolina Gazette carried "The Temple of Hymen. A Vision," also previously referred to. The Virginia Gazette of April 28, I738, brought out the dream allegory probably by J.J. Huber of Annapolis on the selling of tobacco, and the issue of April 4, I75I, in "Religion and Infidelity. A Dream" treats allegorically such qualities as Prejudice, Ignorance, Discord, and Curiosity. The South-Carolina Gazette of December 30, I732, carried another popular sort of tale, beginning with a motto from Ovid, "Omnia Vincit Arnor." It tells of Florio, married to Candida, who meets Sylvia, and of the generosity of both wife and mistress. It reminds one somewhat of William Byrd's favorite story from Petronius of the Ephesian Matron, which Byrd translated freely into English with much relish. In the South-Carolina Gazette of February I2, I750, is a tale of "Generosity and Treachery display'd, said to be the real Story of a young Gentleman, with the fictitious name of Ardelio." Perhaps not original, it indicates the interest of the age in the erotic tale, which in separate and somewhat longer form was widely advertised. A renewed interest in the story of Alexander Selkirk, one of Defoe's major sources for Robinson Crusoe, had arisen at mid-century when a later voyager visited the island and allegedly found the goats still living. On February I4, I750/I75 I, the Virginia Gazette printed with recent additions the "Relation of one Mr. Alexander Selkirk, a Scotsman." It occupies part of page one and two columns of page two. Another erotic-moral tale was sent in by a subscriber to the Williamsburg newspaper and printed on August I6. On September 26 was published what another reader sent in, a criminal autobiography of the sort best known in the narratives of Defoe and Smollett. Though no eighteenth-century novel seems actually to have been written in the southern colonies, several were produced by persons who lived or had lived in the region, and in most instances the subject matter of the tales is directly related to a particular colony. The earliest of these fictionists was Arthur Blackamore, professor of the humanities and head of the grammar school at William and Mary, who in I7 I7 had to be dismissed
· Literature, Principally Belletristic . for alcoholism. Back in London seeking admittance to holy orders, Blacka· more composed at least two short novels, one of which has been considered significant enough in the development of that form to have been recently included with other narratives in a collection entitled Four before Richardson as an anticipation of the novel of character before Pamela. Luck at Last or the Happy Unfortunate (London, 1723) was dedicated to "Mr. David Bray, Merchant, of Virginia," and refers to Bray's father and mother and the fact that the latter is the model for the noble Lady Gratiana of the story. The character named is in several respects an anticipation of the lovely plantation mistress of the fiction of a century or more later, and the sentimental hero who marries her daughter Silvia fits quite well the recorded physical and moral character of David Bray (1699-1731) him· self. The modern editor of this piece insists on its "pervasive sense of realism" achieved through the detailed description of servants and coaches and billiard tables and bowling greens Blackamore may have seen in Williamsburg or when he visited William Byrd II at Westover. A little earlier, Blackamore had published a trilogy entitled The P erfidious Brethren, or, The Religious Triumvirate. Display'd in Three Ecclesiastical Novels . . . (London, 1720), dedicated in a long letter to the author's former protector and constant friend Governor Spotswood of Virginia. The wording reflects the Spotswood-Commissary Blair controversy, and in the third exemplum "The Cloven-Foot, or the Anabaptist Display'd," Blackamore sets his story in the renowned city of Augusta near a famous college. The villain of the piece, Whiskero, may possibly be a caricature of the author's old enemy James Blair. In his letters Blackamore hints that he returned to Britain with certain writings already partially completed which might cause a stir in Virginia. If it could be proved that any one of the little novels was written in Williamsburg, one would be able to move back the date of the so-called first American novel by half a century,211 for these two novels are closer to Virginia in authorship and perhaps in depiction of its society than are the Virginia settings and characters in DeFoe's Moll Flanders. A Georgian, Thomas Stephens, rebellious and to some extent scapegrace son of the Trustees' William Stephens who wrote so much officially of that colony, had by 1759 published in London a first and second edition of The Castle Builders, or, the History of William Stephens, of the Isle of Wight, Esq,. late deceased, A Political Novel . . . . The younger Stephens had sided with Tailfer and other dissident planters in their protests and accusations against the Trustees. The novel, dedicated to "Mrs. Susannah and Mrs. Ann Stephens," thanks them for giving him access to their late uncle's papers which have been the basis for their narrative. The Castle 1459
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Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

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