"But I, alas! like some unfruitful tree,

That useless stands, a cumberer of the plain,
My faculties unprofitable see.

And five long years have lived almost in vain.
While all around me, like the busy swarms
That ply the fervent labors of the hive.
Or guide the state, with ardor rush to arms,
Or some less great but needful business drive,

"I see my time inglorious glide away.

Obscure and useless, like an idle drone: And unconducive each revolving day

Or to my country's interest or my own."

A manuscript satire of the Welsh, in Latin and English, entitled " Muscipula sive Cambromyomachia," was found among Doctor PRIME'S papers after his death, and published with a collection of his poetical writings: but it has been discovered that he was not the author of it. On the passage of the stamp act he composed "A Song for the Sons of Liberty," which is superior to any patriotic lyric up to that time written here. JAMES ALLEN, a native of Boston, born in 1739, published in 1782 Lines on the Massacre," which are in a fluent style, and display an ardent devotion to the popular cause. He afterward wrote many other pieces, but his indolent habits prevented their appearance in print. BRISSOT de Warville, in his Travels in the United States," after remarking that poets must be more rare among us than other writers,- an opinion in which he seems to have been mistaken--says, "They speak however in Boston of an original but lazy poet named ALLEN; his verses are said to be full of fire and force; they mention particularly a manuscript poem of his on the famous battle of Bunker Hill; but he will not print it; he has for his reputation and his money the carelessness of LAFONTAINE.”

MACPHERSON'S "Ossian" was reprinted in Philadelphia soon after its first publication, and had for many years a decided influence upon poetical taste in this country. Among those who attempted to paraphrase it was JONATHAN MITCHELL SEWELL, of New Hampshire, who began the task of turning it into heroic verse in 1770, and afterward submitted to the public specimens of his completed work, but their reception did not encourage him to a further expenditure in that way. ELL was the author of an epilogue to ADDISON'S "Cato," containing the often quoted lines:

SEW

"No pent-up Utica contracts our powers, But the whole boundless continent is ours," and in the early part of the revolution wrote a patriotic song called "War and WASHINGTON,' which had for many years extraordinary popularity.

JOSEPH BROWN LADD, M.D., of Rhode Island, author of "The Poems of Arouet," began to write during the early days of the revolution. His productions have very little merit. He lost his life in a duel, at Charleston, in 1785.

Among the emigrants from the mother country within a few years of the commencement of the

war was JOHN LOWE, a native of Scotland, born in 1752, who arrived in Virginia in 1773, and became a successful teacher at Fredericksburg. He wrote there the celebrated song entitled " Mary's Dream." He died in 1798.

The year following that in which Lowe came to America, THOMAS PAINE followed, and settled in Philadelphia, where he was employed by RoBERT AITKIN, in 1775, to edit "The Pennsylvania Magazine," in which he published several poetical pieces, one of which is On the Death of General WOLFE," and another is a song entitled "The Liberty Tree."*

The ballads and songs relating to "tragedies in the wilderness," to the Indian wars, the "old French war," and the revolution-of which I have succeeded in collecting more than a thousandthough many of them are extremely rude, are upon the whole far more fresh, vigorous and poetical than might be supposed. Enough for a volume refer to the single event of the taking of Louisburg, in 1747. On the approach of the period in which the colonies separated from Great Britain the newspapers and magazines were filled with lyrical appeals to the patriotism of the people, some of which were by the most dignified public characters. JOHN DICKINSON, author of "The Farmer's Letters," inclosing to JAMES OTIs, in 17. 4, a copy of the famous song commencing

"Come, join hand in hand, brave Americans all,

And rouse your bold hearts at Liberty's call," informs him that it was his own production, except eight lines, which were by his friend ARTHUR LEE, of Virginia. General WARREN'S Song of "Free America," is well known. A much better piece," American Taxation," is supposed to have been written by a Connecticut schoolmaster named ST. JOHN. In a paper on The Minstrelsy of the Revolution," in "Graham's Magazine," for 1842, I have given a considerable number of the compositions which illustrate this subject, and it is my intention hereafter to present the public a large collection of our historical verses, with suitable introductions and notes.

Of the American women known as poets during our colonial era, notices may be found in The Female Poets of America." The leading poets of the revolution - FRENEAU, BARLOW, DWIGHT, TRUMBULL, and HUMPHRIES,—are subjects of separate articles in the following pages.

* Of British and other foreign poets who have written in this country since the revolution I have given no specimens in the following pages, though, perhaps, I should have quoted from ALEXANDER WILSON his spirited poem on The Blue Bird," and other pieces from Mr. DA PONTE, Dr. FRANCIS LIEBER, Mr. HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, and a few others who have made their homes in the United States. But Mary's Dream" and the lyrics of 1HOMAS PAINE are as little entitled to be called American poems as the verses of MYLES COOPER, Sir JOHN BURGOYNE, or Major ANDRE, or those in which THOMAS MOORE celebrated his visits to the Dismal Swamp and the Schuylkill.

THE first attempts to establish in America a refuge for French Protestants were made under the direction of the Admiral Coligny in 1652. It was not, however, until Louis the Fourteenth revoked the edict of Nantz, in 1685, that there was any considerable emigration of the Reformers to this country. From that period, for many years, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and the Carolinas, received some of the best elements of their subsequent civilization in the polite, industrious and variously skilful exiles whom the intolerance of the Roman Catholics compelled to abandon the soil of France. Those who settled in New York founded the old church of Saint Esprit, which was long the centre of the Huguenot influence on this continent. Among the principal families connected with it were the DE LANCEYS, JAYS, PINTARDS, ALLAIRES, and FRESNEAUS. In 1712 we find the latter name written without the s, and four years later ANDRE FRENEAU is referred to in the Journal of JEAN FONTAINE, as a leading citizen, and a frequenter of the French club. This ANDRE FRENEAU was the grandfather of PHILIP, who was born in New York on the thirteenth of January. (the second, old style,) 1752. His mother was a native of New Jersey, and his elder brother, PETER,* was born in that colony, to which the family appears to have returned after the death of the poet's father, in 1754.

Young FRENEAU entered Nassau Hall, then known as the New Jersey "Log College," in 1767, so far advanced in classical studies that the acting president made his proficiency the subject of a congratulatory letter to one of his relations. His room-mate here was JAMES MADISON, and HUGH H. BRECKENRIDGE, who afterwards wrote "Modern Chivalry," was also in the same class. MADISON, BRECKENRIDGE, and FRENEAU, were intimate friends; and being all gifted with unusual satirical powers, which they were fond of displaying as frequently as there were fair occasions, they joined in lampooning, not only the leaders of adverse parties in the college, but also those prominent public characters who opposed the growing enthusiasm of the people for liberty. I have before me a considerable manuscript volume of personal and political satires, written by them in about equal proportions, and in which they exhibit nearly equal abilities, though MADIBox's have the least coarseness, and the least spir

PETER FRENEAU Occasionally wrote verses, though I believe nothing of more pretension than a song or an epigram. He was a man of wit and education; was one of Mr. JEFFE sos's warmest adherents; and when the democratic party came into power in South Carolina, was made Secretary of State there. THOMAS, in his “Reminiscences," says that "his style of writing combined the beauty and smoothness of ADDSN with the simplicity of CORBETT." He died in 1814.

it.

Several theological students, particularly tw or three whose family connections were very humble, were objects of their continual ridicule. In the class below were AARON BURR, and the refined and elegant WILLIAM BRADFORD, whose occasional verses show that he might have equaled any of his American contemporaries as a poet. if such had been the aim of his ambition. FRE NEAU graduated on the nineteenth of September, 1771, being then a few months over twenty years of age. The earliest of his printed poems is “The Poetical History of the Prophet Jonah," in four cantos, dated in 1768, the year after he went to Princeton. While in college he also formed the plan of an epic on the discovery of this continent, of which an "Address to Ferdinand," and a series of sixteen "Pictures of Columbus," are probably fragments. His valedictory exercise was a dialogue, in blank verse, on "The Rising Glory of America," in the composition and recitation of which he was associated with BRECKENRIdge. It was printed in 1772, in an octavo pamphlet, at Philadelphia, where FRENEAU went to reside, with an intention of studying the law. It has been stated that he was on terms of familiar intimacy, while here, with Judge HOPKINSON, author of "The Battle of the Kegs," but the late venerable Dr. MEASE, who had been well acquainted with FRENEAU, remarks in a letter to me that "the humourist knew him only as a young scapegrace."

For some cause he appears to have abandoned the design of becoming a lawyer, and an irregular and aimless life of two or three years ended in his going to sea, but in what capacity, at first, I cannot ascertain. In 1774 and 1775 he was living in New York, where, during this period, he began to publish those pieces of political burlesque and invective which made his name familiar and popular throughout the country during the revolutionary war. His style was pointed, and he was successful in representing the exploits of the enemy in a ludicrous light, and in ridiculing the characters and conduct of the neutrals, loyalists, and others who were obnoxious to the prejudices of the Whigs. The speeches of the king and his ministers, and the proclamations of the royal governors and generals, he parodied and travestied in an amusing manner, and every memorable event, on land or sea, was celebrated by him in verses easily understood, and none the less admired, perhaps, for a dash of coarseness by which most of them were distinguished.

In 1776 he passed several months in the Danish West Indies, and wrote there two of his longest poems, "The House of Night," and "The Beauties of Santa Cruz." In 1778 he was in Bermuda, and during the following year we find him in Phila

After FRENEAU left Philadelphia BAILEY issued the first collection of his poems, in a volume of more than four hundred pages, entitled "The Poems of PHILIP FRENEAU, written chiefly during the late War." In his advertisement, dated the sixth of June, 1786, the publisher says:

The pieces now collected and printed in the following

sheets were left in my hands by the author, above a year ago, with permission to publish them whenever I thought proper. A considerable number of the performances contained in this volume, as many will recollect, have appeared at different times in newspapers, (particularly the Freeman's Journal) and other periodical publications in the dif ferent states of America, during the late war, and since; and from the avidity and pleasure with which they generally appear to have been read by persons of the best taste, the printer now the more readily gives them to the world in their present form, (without troubling the reader with any affected apologies for their supposed or real imperfections) in hopes they will afford a high degree of satisfaction to the lovers of poetical wit, and elegance of expression."

pursue. At a cabinet council, he says, WASHINGTON remarked that "That rascal, FRENEAU, sent him three copies of his papers every day, as if he thought he (WASHINGTON) Would become the distributor of them; that he could see in this nothing but an impudent design to insult him: he ended in a high tone." Again, speaking of the President, Mr. JEFFERSON says, "He adverted to a piece in FRENEAU'S paper of yesterday; he said he despised all their attacks on him personally, but that there had never been an act of the government, not meaning in the executive line only, but in any line, which that paper had not abused. He was evidently sore and warm, and I took his intention to be, that I should interpose in some way with FRENEAU, perhaps withdraw his appointment of translating clerk in my office. But I will not do it. His paper has saved our Constitution, which was galloping fast into mon

archy, and has been checked by no one means

has checked the career of the monocrats," &c.

On the twenty-fourth of April, 1789, General WASHINGTON arrived in New York from Mount Vernon, to enter upon his duties as President of the United States. As the procession of boats by which he was attended from Elizabethtown Point approached the city, it is mentioned in the journals of the day, that the schooner Columbia, Captain PHILIP FRENEAU, eight days from Charleston, came up the bay. This was the poet's last voyage for several years. He now engaged with the printers, CHILDS and SWAINE, to edit the New York "Daily Advertiser," and continued in this employment until the removal of the government to Philadelphia, when he became a translating clerk in the Department of State, under Mr. JEFFERSON, and editor of the "National Gazette," which gained an infamous reputation by its attacks on WASHINGTON's administration. FRENEAU made oath to a statement that Mr. JEFFERSON did not compose or suggest any of the contents of his paper, but in his old age he acknowledged to Dr. JOHN W. FRANCIS that the Secretary wrote or dictated the most offensive articles against WASHINGTON and his friends, and to Dr. JAMES MEASE he exhibited a file of the "Gazette," in which what were alleged to be his contributions were marked. This matter has been much and angrily debated, but it has not been denied that the conduct of the clerk was in the main, at least, approved by his employer. The President could not forbear speaking to Mr. JEFFERSON of FRENEAU's abuse, and requesting him, as a member of his cabinet, to administer him some rebuke. Mr. JEFFERSON tells us in his Anas" what course he chose to

During the prevalence of the yellow fever in Philadelphia, in 1793, the publication of the " National Gazette" was suspended; and Mr. JEF FERSON having retired from the cabinet, it was no resumed. FRENEAU was for a few months without any regular occupation. I have seen two letters, one written by JEFFERSON and the other by MADISON, in which he is commended to certain citizens of New York, for his "extensive information, sound discretion," and other qualities, as a candidate for the editorship of a journal which it was intended to establish in that city. The project was abandoned, or his application unsuccessful, and on the second of May, 1795, he commenced "The Jersey Chronicle," at Mount Pleasant, near Middletown Point, in New Jersey, which was continued every week for one year, the fiftysecond number having appeared on the thirtieth of April, 1796. In the Chronicle" he maintained his opposition to the administration of WASHINGTON, and the unpopularity of its politics with the reading classes doubtless prevented its success. He now again turned his attention to New York, and on the thirteenth of March, 1797, issued there the first number of "The TimePiece and Literary Companion," which was published tri-weekly, and devoted more largely than any other paper in the country to belles-lettres. while it embraced news and frequent discussions of public affairs. FRENEAU himself contributed to almost every number one or more copies of verses, and he had many poetical correspondents. After six months, MATTHEW L. DAVIS, then a very young man, became his partner, and at the end of the first year "The Time-Piece" was resigned entirely to his direction.*

"The Time-Piece" was afterwards edited by Jons D'OLEY BURKE, an Irishman, who, in 1798, was arrested un der the Alien and Sedition law. Burke was a noisy Democrat, and possessed of but moderate abilities. He wrote "Bunker Hill, or the Death of Warren," a play; "The Columbiad, an Epic Poem;" "The History of Virginia," &2. and was killed in a duel, in 1808

In 1798 FRENEAU went again to South Carolina, and, becoming master of a merchant ship, he made several voyages, of which we have some souvenirs in his subsequently published poems. In 1799 and in 1801 he visited St. Thomas; in 1803 he was in the island of Madeira; in 1804 he declines in a copy of verses an invitation to visit a nunnery in Teneriffe, and in 1806 he leaves New York, in command of the sloop Industry, for Savannah, Charleston, and the West Indies. From some lines "To Hezekiah Salem," a name by which he frequently describes himself, it may be inferred that he also made a voyage to Calcutta.

While conducting the "Jersey Chronicle," at Monmouth, in 1795, he had published a second edition of his collection of poems, in a closelyprinted octavo volume; and in 1809, after his final abandonment of the life of a sailor, he issued a third edition, in Philadelphia, in two duodecimo volumes, entiled "Poems written and published during the American Revolutionary War, and now republished from the original Manuscripts, interspersed with Translations from the Ancients, and other Pieces not heretofore in Print." In the last-mentioned year he addressed a short poem to his friend Mr. JEFFERSON, on his retirement from the Presidency of the United States, and celebrated in another the death of THOMAS PAINE, of whom he was an ardent admirer.

When the second war with Great Britain came on, he restrung his lyre, and commemorated in characteristic verses the triumphs of our arms, especially our naval victories; and his songs and ballads relating to these events are still reprinted in "broadsides," and sold in every port. They were for the most part included in two small volumes which he published in New York, after the peace, under the title of " A Collection of Poems on American Affairs, and a Variety of other Subjects, chiefly Moral and Political, written between 1797 and 1815." He afterwards contemplated a complete edition of his works, and in a letter to Dr. MEASE inquires whether there is "still enough of the old spirit of patriotism abroad to insure the safety of such an adventure." His house at Mount Pleasant was destroyed by fire in 1815 or 1816, and he laments to the same correspondent the loss, by that misfortune, of some of his best compositions, which had never been given to the public.

In his old age FRENEAU resided in New Jerney, but made occasional visits to Philadelphia, where he was always welcomed by Mrs. LYDIA R. BAILEY, who was the daughter-in-law of his early friend and publisher, FRANCIS BAILEY, and had herself been his publisher in 1809. More frequently he passed a few days in New York, where he found living many of the companions of his active and ambitious life. Here too he became intimate with Dr. JOHN W. FRANCIS, to whom he was wont to recount the incidents of his varied history, and to discourse of his ancient associations, with a careless enthusiasm, such as only the genial inquisition of a FRANCIS could awaken. Mrs. BAILEY, who still carries on the printing

house which her father-in-law established threequarters of a century ago, has described to me the poet as he appeared to her in his prime. "He was a small man," she says, "very gentlemanlike in his manners, very entertaining in his conversation, and withal a great favourite with the ladies;" the venerable ex-manager of the Philadelphia theatre, Mr. WILLIAM B. WOOD, now (in 1855) seventy-seven years old, also remembers him, and concurs in this description. Dr. FRANCIS'S recollections of the bard are of a later date; he describes him as having dressed, in his later years, like a farmer, and as having had "a fine expression of countenance for so old a man-mild, pensive, and intelligent."

FRENEAU perished in a snow-storm, in his eightieth year, during the night of the eighteenth of December, 1832, near Freehold. On the approach of evening he had left an inn of that village for his home, a mile and a half distant. He was unattended, and it is supposed he lost his way. The next morning, says Mr. WILLIAM LLOYD of Freehold, in a letter to Dr. MEASE, from which I derive these particulars, his body was found, partially covered by the snow, in a meadow, a little aside from his direct path.

FRRNEAU was unquestionably a man of considerable genius, and among his poems are illustrations of creative passion which will preserve his name long after authors of more refinement and elegance are forgotten. His best pieces were for the most part written in early life, when he was most ambitious of literary distinction. Of these, "The Dying Indian," 66 The Indian Student," and others copied into the following pages, are finely conceived and very carefully finished. It is worthy of notice that he was the first of our authors to treat the "ancients of these lands" with a just appreciation, and in a truly artistical spirit. His song of "Alknomock" had long the popularity of a national air. Mr. WASHINGTON IRVING informs me that when he was a youth it was familiar in every drawing-room, and among the earliest theatrical reminiscences of Mr. WILLIAM B. WOOD is its production, in character, upon the stage. The once well-known satire, entitled "A New England Sabbath-day Chase," was so much in vogue when Mr. IRVING was a school-boy, that he committed it to memory as an exercise in declamation. The political odes and pasquinades which he wrote during the revolution possess much historical interest, and, with his other works, they will some time undoubtedly be collected and edited with the care due to unique and curious souvenirs of so remarkable an age.

In an address "To the Americans of the United States," first published in November, 1797, FreNEAU himself evinces a sense of the proper distinc tion of his writings: "Catching our subjects," he says,

"from the varying scene,

Of human things, a mingled work we draw, Chequered with fancies odd and figures strange, Such as no courtly poet ever saw Who writ, beneath some great man's ceiling placed,-Traveled no lands, nor roved the watery waste."