Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

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· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH ' and the dialectal figure or phrase or dialogue is fairly frequent. In rhymes there is little innovation. To get a general idea of the quantity and subjects of southern verse in this period one should begin by going through J.A. Leo Lemay's A Calendar of American Poetry in the Colonial Newspapers and Magazines and in the Major English Magazines through I763 (Worcester, Mass., 1972), where he cites hundreds of separate poems, nearly all of colonial composition. But there are in addition a number of southern pieces or collections of verses published separately in book or pamphlet or broadside form in this country or in Britain, and a considerable group recently printed for the first time or still remaining in manuscript. THE MARYLAND POETS By the time the first issues of Parks' Maryland Gazette appeared in 1727 the colony had already, in George Alsop and Ebenezer Cook, produced two poets who had been published in London, and in its first years both Cook and his contemporary Richard Lewis were composing good verse, some of it printed in other places than the newspaper. Lewis at least by 1731- 1733 was reprinted from the Gazette in Pennsylvania, New York, and London. As already noted, he and Cook were first known for their satires and elegies, but Lewis was to enlarge his interests and become in technique and subject matter the principal neoclassical poet of his colony and perhaps of all America in the period before 1764.22 1 Little more need be said of Ebenezer Cook, for he has been considered in his two major poetic roles, but Richard Lewis is far more significant for other kinds of poetry than his satire Muscipula or his elegies on the Calverts. Lewis (1700 ?-1734 ), schoolmaster in Annapolis, formerly instructor or student at Eton and perhaps student at Balliol College, Oxford, was in Maryland probably before 1719, working hard to promote a colonial system of education and sending to the Royal Society reports of his scientific observations. The Muscipula, his first known published poem (Annapolis, 1727 ), indicates that he was competent in his use of the heroic couplet and was already varying his prosody with triplets and alexandrines and other departures from the strict form. In 1729 there was published in the American Weekly Mercury an anonymous poem of forty-three lines developing the translatio mundi or studii idea of Bishop Berkeley made practically popular in his "Verses on the Prospect of Planting the Arts and Sciences in America," though the idea itself is as old as western settlement. Its motif and diction cause Lemay to assign it to Lewis' hand. Perhaps more certainly Lewis' is the anonymous undated poem on the launching of the Maryland-Merchant at Annapolis, verses published in the Maryland Ga- 1462
· Literature, Principally Belletristic . zette of December 30, 1729, and reprinted in the Pennsylvania Gazette of January 13 following. This is a rather impressive history of shipbuilding culminating, naturally, here in the New World. The ship itself is described, and the major Maryland river deities gather to hear Chesapeake, their monarch : "Fair Severn first appeared to grace his Court / Patuxent next did to his King resort," and so on with Chester, Patapsco, Sassafras, and "Susquehana." Then Chesapeake advises Maryland planters how to supervise the selling of their tobacco in England. What has been called with good reason the most effective neoclassical poem of colonial America is "A Journey from Patapseo to Annapolis, April 4, 1730, " which probably appeared first in a Maryland newspaper in 1730 and ceratinly in the Pennsylvania Gazette of May 21, 1731. This is a journey poem which is meditative and pastoral, and at times almost dazzling in its nature imagery. Lewis sent a copy to botanist Peter Collinson, and it soon found its way into English magazines in 1732 and 1733, appearing at least five times, including once in the Gentleman's Magazine and twice in the Weekly Register. Evidently it was as much appreciated in Britain as any other colonial poem of the period. The Pennsylvania Gazette prose introduction (probably taken from a lost issue of the Maryland Gazette ) calls the poem "an agreeable Description of Spring in these Parts of America," with the comment "The religious Turn given the whole, is suitable to the ancient Use and first Design of Verse." Then follows a Latin quotation from Virgil's Georgies. The first lines of the poem are conventional and British enough, though quite soon New World topography and flora become part of the narration. At length the wintry horrors disappear; And APRIL views with smiles the infant year; The grateful earth from frosty chains unbound Pours out its vernal treasures all around . . . . In this soft season, e'er the dawn of day, I mount my horse, and lonely take my way, From woody hills that shade Patapsco's head ... Down to Annapolis, on that smooth stream Which took from fair Anne-Arundel its name. This is not Chaucer's road to Canterbury the persona is following, but the poet produces a series of fine descriptive images of the natural world through which his traveler wanders, with sunlight filtered through the pines, mist rising from a salt marsh, the domestic animals rousing with the break of day. The sylvan beauties of the landscape kindle poetic flames in praise of the Creator. Then comes the first extensive description of American wildflowers in our poetry-Pacone, Crowfoot, "Cinque-foil, with
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Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

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