Literature, Principally Belletristic - University of Tennessee, Knoxville

· INTELLECTUAL LIFE IN THE COLONIAL SOUTH '
Damon" is Waller's, it is definite evidence that he was a better poet than
his friend Wood. 84
Perhaps the most significant of extant manuscripts (printed 1967 ) of
Virginia satiric verses of the period are the "Dinwiddianae" group, which
are accompanied by a series of dialect humorous and satiric letters. They
were written in the 1750S against Governor Robert Dinwiddie, especially
in relation to his unpopular "Pistole Fee" tax on land titles, his conduct
of affairs of the French and Indian War, and his alleged partiality for his
Scottish countrymen. The verses are in several styles and meters, often in
dialect, and may be the work of several men or of one man. Almost surely
they were written in northern Virginia or in Williamsburg by gentlemen
from the Northern Neck. An investigation of the probable authorship by
the present writer brought forth as possibilities outside the Northern Neck
group the names of George Wythe and Benjamin Waller and Richard
Bland and Peyton Randolph and William Stith, all eventually set aside,
and from the banks of the Potomac William Fitzhugh (of Hickory Hill ) ,
Hugh West, Jr., George William Fairfax, George Mason, William Waugh,
and some others suggested only by certain initials. The most probable candidate
for the authorship was gifted attorney and scholar John Mercer
(1704-1768 ) of Marlborough, known as a literary man among his contemporaries
but not identified with verses surely his. Elsewhere I have
spelled out the reasons for his nomination, and J .A. Leo Lemay has since
found further supporting evidence.85 Recently John R. Alden has pointed
out to me that in his correspondence (August 19, 1756) the governor
wrote to George Washington that he was going to sue Peter Hedgman
"who has treated my Character in a Villainous Manner and w'th great
Injustice." Alden would nominate Hedgman as the author of the group
of verses. But so far neither I nor the Virginia State Library has been able
to discover that Hedgman, a burgess from Lancaster County in the Northern
Neck, had any literary abilities or inclinations whatsoever. And it should
be noted that Dinwiddie and his government had been attacked privately
and publicly by a number of persons who could not have been in the
group to which the potential author(s) belonged.86 Furthermore, the date of
Dinwiddie's letter precedes that of some of the poems.
The first few pages of the manuscript are missing, a fact which may
account for the anonymity of authorship, and then follow several mutilated
and almost indecipherable pages. The now-printed text begins with
two items in dialect, pretended illiterate letters addressed by "Thomas
Brown Coat" and "Titus Q'Grewell" to Jonas Green of Annapolis and
Hugh West of Virginia respectively. The quasi-dialect would seem to be an
attempt by an educated man to reproduce Irish or possibly at times Scotch­
Irish or even Welsh country speech. These letters are followed in order by
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