ist. The comment that the unknown authorship of such poems is a blessing to the authors says merely that they count for little or nothing as poetry. They are, however, of. unquestionable importance as evidence of the hopes, aspirations, and ideals of the people, and as such form a valuable supplement to the prose literature of the period.

Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791). Of the chief poets of the day, the first in time is an occasional poet like those just named. This is Francis Hopkinson, lawyer, of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He was much occupied with public affairs, serving his country as a member of the Continental Congress, as a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and as Judge. He wrote extensively in prose and verse and on a variety of subjects. His best-known prose work, a political allegory called A Pretty Story, is far less interesting to-day than is his ballad, The Battle of the Kegs, and probably was so to his contemporaries.

This political-satirical ballad "was occasioned by a real incident," according to Hopkinson. "Certain machines, in the form of kegs, charg'd with gun-powder, were sent down the river to annoy the British shipping then at Philadelphia. The danger of these machines being discovered, the British manned the wharfs and shipping, and discharged their small arms and cannons at everything they saw floating in the river during the ebb tide." It is far from being a great poem - far from being even the best Hopkinsor wrote; but it is the one that brought him most fame in his day, and probably accomplished much in the way of inspiriting the colonists.

fame, though secure, rests on a small number of genuine poems.

He was born in New York City. At the age of nineteen he was graduated from Princeton, in the class with James Madison. He taught school for a time after leaving college, studied law, made numerous ventures in journalism, gratified a love of the sea by various voyages (including one as a pri

vateer), and served a short term as translator for the Department of State under Jefferson. He early began to write verses, and in 1775 wrote the first of his political satires. A large number of satirical and heroic pieces came from his pen at frequent intervals from this time till the end of the War of 1812.

Frenean's war poems show little superiority over those of his contemporaries, differing chiefly in the degree of bit

terness expressed toward everything English. He seems to have searched his dictionary for words of abuse and to have exhausted his stock in every two or three poems. In Emancipation from British Dependence (mentioned above), Lord North is a "caitiff," the king has a "toothful of brains," the British are successively "scoundrels," "ras

PHILIP FRENEAU.

cals," "pirates," "banditti," "butchers." One poem in the patri

otic group- that to the memory of the

Americans who fell at Eutaw Springs is free from this bitterness and coarseness, and is a dignified and noble tribute to a gallant band.

Even Eutaw Springs, however, would give Freneau little claim to a firm place as a poet. It is to a very different class of poems that he owes his distinction. These are the nature poems The

Wild Honey Suckle, On the Sleep of Plants, To a Catydid, On a Honey Bee-in which a new note is struck for poetry in English. As a satirist, Freneau, like Hopkinson and the rest, was but following the traditions of the mother country; but in this other field he was a pioneer. Not merely in choice of subjects, but in minuteness of observation and in sincerity and accuracy of expres

sion, Freneau deserves a high place among the score of preeminent nature poets in the language. His first collection appeared in 1786-the year of Burns's first volume, and twelve years before the epoch-marking Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge. In variety and fitness of rhythms, also, Freneau shows a pioneer spirit and an inde pendence of British models. He is the first genuine poet America produced.

The "Hartford Wits." Three poets who enjoyed great fame in their day may be grouped together because of their connection with Yale College and the city of Hartford. They were members of a larger group, known as the "Hartford Wits," who came nearer forming what is called a "school" of writers than any other body in America before or since, excepting possibly the "Transcendentalists" a half century later. Their work resembled much of their contemporaries' in tone; but the satires of Freneau, Hopkinson, and the host of lesser men were spontaneous and unpretentious, whereas those of this celebrated trio were elaborate performances, following English models. These men were John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, and Joel Barlow.

John Trumbull (1750-1831). —Trumbull was graduated from Yale at the age of seventeen, received his Master's degree three years later, and became a tutor in the College. The field in which he made his reputation he entered during his first year as tutor, when he wrote The Adventures of Tom Brainless. This poem is a satire on education as then carried on in colleges, where students are

"In the same round condemned each day
To study, read, recite, and pray;"

and are compelled by the curriculum to

"Gain ancient tongues and lose their own."

While connected with the College, Trumbull urged instruction in English literature and composition.

Trumbull's greatest work and the greatest satire of the Revolutionary period-is McFingal, a mock-heroic poem written shortly after Bunker Hill and published in January, 1776. The title character is a Scotch-American magistrate of Tory sympathies, who lives in a town near Boston. Set over against him is Honorius-champion of the people— the figure supposed to be drawn from John Adams. Squire McFingal stands for "divine right," and insists on the folly of attempting resistance to Great Britain. Honorius appeals to the people's sense of wrong, and urges them to a united opposition of the misgovernment they have so long endured. In 1781-1782, Trumbull enlarged the poem to twice its size, concluding it with the tarring and feathering of the Squire, and the utter discomfiture of his Tory followers.

Timothy Dwight (1752-1817). Dwight was associated with Trumbull as teacher and as author. Besides these occupations he was farmer and preacher, and for the last twenty years of his life President of Yale. Though he wrote much, both in prose and verse, including a long religious satire, The Triumph of Infidelity, his interest for us is due to one short poem, beginning

"Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the skies."

This song does not impress the reader of to-day as a very spirited production; but its mere preservation, when so many similar poems have disappeared, shows that it held a place in the people's hearts somewhat like that held by Paine's Crisis. In one respect Dwight's poem deserves a higher place than Paine's essay, inasmuch as it looks beyond its own day of strife to an illustrious future for America.