Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· Literature,
Principally Belletristic .
In the same issue, "On the New Year" in eight four-line stanzas contains
an allusion to "Mr. Hutchinson's Philosophy." Finally "Ode to the Morn­
ing" by "r' on February 7, 1761, is a dignified, entirely conventional re­
ligious lyric.
Though it contains much prose on religious controversy, the Gazette
published relatively few purely religious verses in the period. Concerned
with belief and the virtue of charity are the lines in the March 1 I, 1732,
number, which insist that "To Her the Pow'rs of Harmony belong." A
local poem signed "A.B." and dated April I, 1751, in the April 8, 1751,
issue, contains eighty-four lines of devotional verse. This is an Easter piece
describing the events of Passion Week.
Shine thou bright Sun, with a distinguish'd Ray
And help to celebrate this Solemn Day;
Put all thy Glory forth :- Behold thy GOD
As now descending from his blest Abode;
A CHRIST, a Saviour, on Mankind bestow'd.
Here one should recall that two volumes of hymns (note Chapters VI
and VIII above ) were published in South Carolina, those of J ohn Wesley
in 1737 and Jonathan Badger in 1752, and also that commendatory verses
by South Carolinians were published in book or pamphlet form in Britain.
Dr. Kirkpatrick brought out in London in 1737, for example, An Epistle
to Alexander Pope, Esq,. from South Carolina, eighteen pages of one of the
best of southern colonial poems and certainly one of the better tributes to
Pope while he was alive. Kirkpatrick begins with avowed consciousness
that he is a colonial :
From warmer Lands, ally'd to latest Fame,
In gracious CAROLINE'S immortal Name;
Part of that Sylvan World Columbus found,
Where GEORGE should be rever'd, and You renown'd;
Has Heav'n-taught Bard! and hearing, spare the Lyre,
Your real worth, your real Wrongs, inspire.
And he laments or explains later that "A prattling Girl and smiling Boys"
and his practice of another "Art of Phoebus" (medicine ) detain him in the
New World when he longs to be near the great bard. He also alludes to
Pope's great reputation through all the colonies and the world, proclaiming
him "the first of Poets, best of Men." 267 Later, according to Kirkpatrick
himself, he composed another poem on Pope before he left America, and
published in London in 1744, 1745, and 1749 Latin elegies on the de·
parted bard. He is probably not the author of the Gazette "Verses" on Pope's
death signed "Philagathus" in the issue of June 17, 1745, for as indicated
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