Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· Literature,
Principally Belletristic .
as well as conventional eighteenth-century English lyrics and other forms
were, one learns from his manuscripts, published in now-lost issues of the
Virginia Gazette of this period.243
In the London Magazine and Universal Magazine especially, Bolling
continued to print his lyrics to the fair sex. In the January I764 number of
the former, for example, he published once over his own name, once over
"Prometheus," and over "R.B." "Time's Address to the Ladies. This Imitation
of Tasso, is most humbly inscribed to Miss E. Randolph, of James
River, in Virginia" was in I790 reprinted in the Philadelphia American
Museum (VII, Appendix, 80). It is a classic example of the carpe diem
motif. "To My Wife" in the same issue is signed "R.B.," and "The Choice"
is written above "Prometheus." In the February issue of the London Magazine
"Prometheus" wrote for "Miss A. Miller of V.tt and for Stella a piece
on "The Flamers," besides a poem "To my Flute." In the same month in
the Universal Magazine appeared "A Canzonet of Chiabura imitated,"
dated from Virginia and signed Robert Bolling, jun., and verses "To Miss
Nancy Blair of Virginia, this imitation of Horace ... ," signed "Prome·
theus." The Italian-inspired verses continue in this journal and the Virginia
Gazette at least through I765. The last sure poetic glimpse in print of
"R.B." is his twelve-line "Madrigal. On the Death of an Infant," apparently
his own child E[lizabeth? J Bolling being his subject. This appeared
in the Williamsburg Purdie and Dixon Gazette, January I, I767. Political
verses almost surely his appeared in the next several numbers of the Virginia
Gazette.
The principal eighteenth-century recognition of Bolling's ability came
after his death in an essay in the Columbian Magazine (II, [April I788J,
2 I I-2 I 3) signed "Observator." The writer declares that America has already
produced a few real artists and that he wishes to consider them. First
he takes Bolling, lineal descendant of Pocahontas, "one of the greatest
poetical geniuses that ever existed," a fact that he has discovered by visiting
Bolling's widow and Colonel Theodorick Bland and reading in the manuscript
volumes his verse in Latin, French, Italian, and English, specifically
comparing him with Metastasio. "Observator's" other neglected poet is
from Boston, evidence that he is not a parochial critic. After his discussion
of Bolling he gives in Italian a twelve-line character of "Messer Roberto
Bolling" by the poet himself. Friend and Yorkshire schoolmate of Theodorick
Bland, Richard Henry Lee, and Robert Munford, Bolling was of
the gifted generation of Thomas Jefferson and J ames Madison. These three
British-educated young men did not, except for Lee, live so long or go so
far as the two future Presidents, but they made their contributions to the
southern mind at the same time that they were representative of it. Bolling's
poetic gift and facility was an unusual one which will, one repeats,
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