Since the world, then, in earnest, is nothing but care,
(And the world will allow I have also my share)
Yet, toss'd as I am in the stormy expanse,
The best way, I find, is to leave it to chance.

Look round, if you please, and survey the wide ball,
And CHANCE, you will find, has direction of all:
Twas owing to chance that I first saw the light,
And chance may destroy me before it is night!

Twas a chance, a mere chance, that your arms gain'd the day,

I was a chance that the Britons so soon went away,

To chans by their leaders the nation is cast,
And chance to perdition will send them at last.

Now because I remain when the puppies are gone,

You would willingly see me hang'd, quarter'd, and drawn,
Though I think I have logic sufficient to prove
That the chance of my stay-is a proof of my love.

For deeds of destruction some hundreds are ripe,
But the worst of my foes are your lads of the type:
Because they have nothing to put on their shelves
They are striving to make me as poor as themselves.
There's LOUDON, and KOLLOCK, those strong bulls of Bashan,
Are striving to hook me away from my station,
And HOLT, all at once, is as wonderful great
As if none but himself was to print for the STATE.

Ye all are convinced I'd a right to expect
That a sinner returning you would not reject-
Quite sick of the scarlet and slaves of the throne,
"Tis now at your option to make me your own.
Suppose I had gone with the Tories and rabble,
To starve or be drown'd on the shoals of cape Sable,
I had suffer'd, 't is true-but I'll have you to know,
You nothing had gain'd by my trouble and wo.
You say that with grief and dejection of heart
I pack'd up my awls, with a view to depart,
That my shelves were dismantled, my cellars unstored,
My boxes afloat, and my hampers on board:
And hence you infer (I am sure without reason)
That a right you possess to entangle my weason-
Yet your barns I ne'er burnt, nor your blood have I spilt,
And my terror alone was no proof of my guilt.
The charge may be true-for I found it in vain
To lean on a staff that was broken in twain,
And ere I had gone at Port Roseway to fix,

I had chose to sell drams on the south side of Styx.

I confess, that with shame and contrition oppress'd,
I sign'd an agreement to go with the rest,
But ere they weigh'd anchor to sail her last trip,
I saw they were vermin, and gave them the slip:
Now why you should call me the worst man alive,
On the word of a convert, I cannot contrive,
Though turn'd a plain, honest republican, still
You own me no proselyte, do what I will.

My paper is alter'd-good people, don't fret;

I call it no longer the ROYAL Gazette,

To me a great monarch has lost all his charms,

I have pulled down his LION, and trampled his ARMS.

While fate was propitious, I thought they might stand,
(You know I was zealous for George's command)
But since he disgraced it, and left us behind,
If I thought him an angel—I've alter'd my mind.
On the very same day that his army went hence
I ceased to tell lies for the sake of his pence:
And what was the reason?-the true one is best-
I worship no suns when they hang to the west
In this I resemble a Turk or a Moor,
Bright Phœbus ascending, I prostrate adore:
And, therefore, excuse me for printing some lays,
An ode or a sonnet it Wash ngton's praise.

His prudence and caution has saved your dominions,
This chief of all chiefs, and the pride of Virginians
And when he is gone-I pronounce it with pain-
We scarcely shall meet with his equal again.
The gods for that hero did trouble prepare,
But gave him a mind that could feed upon care,
They gave him a spirit, serene but severe,
Above all disorder, confusion, and fear;

In him it was fortune where others would fail:
He was born for the tempest, and weather'd the gale.
Old Plato asserted that life is a dream,

And man but a shadow, a cloud or a stream;

By which it is plain he intended to say
That man, like a shadow, must vanish away:

If this be the fact, in relation to man,
And if each one is striving to get what he can,

I hope while I live, you will all think it best,
To allow me to bustle along with the rest.

A view of my life, though some parts might be solemn,
Would make, on the whole, a ridiculous volume:
In the life that's hereafter (to speak with submission)
I hope I shall publish a better edition:

Even swine you permit to subsis. the street ;-
You pity a dog that lies down to be beat--
Then forget what is past, for the year's at a close-
And men of my age have some need of repose.

But as to the Tories that yet may remain,
They scarcely need give you a moment of pain;
What dare they attempt when their masters have fled;
-When the soul is departed who wars with the dead?
On the waves of the Styx had they rode quarantine,
They could not have look'd more infernally lean
Than the day, when repenting, dismay'd and distress'd,
Like the doves to their windows, they flew to their nest.

Poor souls! for the love of the king and his nation
They have had their full quantun of mortification;
Wherever they fought, or whatever they won,
The dream's at an end-the delusion is done.

The TEMPLE you raised was so wonderful large
Not one of them thought you could answer the charge,
It seem'd a mere castle constructed of vapour,
Surrounded with gibbets, and founded on Paper.
On the basis of freedom you built it too strong!
And CARLETON confess'd, when you held it so long,
That if any thing human the fabric could shatter,
The ROYAL GAZETTE must accomplish the matter.
An engine like that, in such hands as my own
Had shaken king CUDJOE* himself from his throne,
In another rebellion had ruin'd the Scot,
While the Pope and Pretender had both gone to pot.
If you stood my attacks, I have nothing to say-
I fought, like the Swiss, for the sake of my pay;
But while I was proving your fabric unsound
Our vessel miss'd stay, and we all went aground.
Thus ended in ruin what madness begun,
And thus was our nation disgraced and undone,
Renown'd as we were, and the lords of the deep,
If our outset was folly, our exit was sleep.

A dominion like THIS, that some millions had cost!-
The king might have wept when he saw it was lost;-
This jewel-whose value I cannot describe:
This pearl-that was richer than all his Dutch tribe.

When the war came upon us, you very well knew
My income was small and my riches were few-
If your money was scarce, and your prospects were bad,
Why hinder me printing for people that had ?

*The negro king in Jamaica; whom the English declared Independent in 1739.

Yet I caution the knight, for fear he do wrong,
"Tis avant la viande, et apres le poisson*-

It will strengthen his stomach, prevent it from turning,
And digest the affront of his effigy-burning.
To Baron KNYPHAUSEN, his heirs and assigns,
I bequeath my old Hock, and my Burgundy wines,
To a true Hessian drunkard, no liquors are sweeter,
And I know the old man is no foe to the creature.
To a GENERAL, my namesake,† I give and dispose
Of a purse full of clipp'd, light, sweated half-joes;
I hereby desire him to take back his trash,
And return me my HANNAY's infallible WASH.
My chessmen and tables, and other such chattels,
I give to CORNWALLIS, tremendous in battles:
By moving of these (not tracing the map)
He'll explain to the king how he got in the TRAP.
To good DAVID MATTHEWS (among other slops)
I give my whole cargo of Maredant's drops,
If they cannot do all, they may cure him in part,
And scatter the poison that cankers his heart:

Provided, however, and nevertheless,

That what other estate I enjoy and possess

At the time of my death (if it be not then sold)
Shall remain to the Tories, To have and to HOLD.

As I thus have bequeathed them both carcass and fleece,
The least they can do is to wait my decease;
But to give them what substance I have, ere I die,
And be eat up with vermin, while living—not I—
In WITNESS whereof (though no ailment I feel)
Hereunto I set both my hand and my seal;
(As the law says) in presence of witnesses twain,
'Squire John Coghill Knap, and brother Hugh Gaine.

in 1786'; a second edition appeared in a closely printed octavo volume at Monmouth, in New Jersey, in 1795; and a third, in two duodecimo volumes, in Philadelphia, in 1809. The last is entitled "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 1788 he published in Philadelphia his "Miscellaneous Works, containing Essays and additional Poems," and, in 1814, "A Collection of Poems on American Affairs, and a Variety of other Subjects, chiefly Moral and Political, written between 1797 and 1815." His house at Mount Pleasant was destroyed by fire, in 1815 or 1816, and in some of his letters he laments the loss, by that misfortune, of some of his best poems, which had never been printed.

SATIRICAL DRAMATIC, AND OTHER POEMS ON PUBLIC AFFAIRS WRITTEN DURING THE REVO. LUTION.

DOUBTLESS the cleverest satire written during the Revolution was Trumbull's McFingal. The first part of it was written in the spring of 1774, immediately printed in Philadelphia, where the Congress was then in session, and soon after republished in numerous editions in different parts of this country and in England. It was not finished until 1782, when it was issued complete in three cantos at Hartford, to which place Trumbull had removed in the preceding year. "McFingal" is in the Hudibrastic vein, and much the best imitation of the great satire of Butler that has been written. The hero is a Scottish justice of the peace residing in the vicinity of Boston at the beginning of the Revo lution, and the first two cantos are principally occupied with a discussion between him and one Honorius on the course of the British government, in which McFingal, an unyielding loyalist, endeavours to make prose.

As a reward for the ability and patriotism he had displayed during the war, Mr. Jefferson gave him a place in the Department of State; but his public em. ployment being of too sedentary a description for a man of his ardent temperament, he soon relinquished it to conduct in Philadelphia a paper entitled "The Freeman's Journal." He was the only editor who remained at his post, during the prevalence of the yellow fever in that city, in the summer of 1791. The "Journal" was unprofitable, and he gave it up, in 1793, to take the command of a merchant-ship, in which he made several voyages to Madeira, the West Indies, and other places. His naval ballads and other poems relating to the sea, written in this period, are among the most spirited and carefully finished of his produc

tions.

Of the remainder of his history I have been able to learn but little. In 1810 he resided in Philadelphia, and he subsequently removed to Mount Pleasant, in New Jersey. He died, very suddenly, near Freehold, in that state, on the eighteenth day of December, 1832, in the eightieth year of his age.

The first collection of Freneau's poems was published

Before flesh and after fish. See R. Gaz. ↑ Gen James Robertson.

self. His zeal and his logic are together irresistibly ludicrous, but there is nothing in the character unnatu ral, as it is common for men who read more than they think, or attempt to discuss questions they do not understand, to use arguments which refute the positions they wish to defend. The meeting ends with a riot, in which McFingal is seized, tried by the mob, convicted of violent toryism, and tarred and feathered. On being set at liberty, he assembles his friends around him in his cellar, and harangues them until they are dispersed by the Whigs, when he escapes to Boston, and the poem closes. These are all the important incidents of the story, yet it is never tedious, and few commence reading it who do not follow it to the end and regret its termination. Throughout the three cantos the wit is never separated from the character of the hero.

"The Battle of Bunker Hill, a Dramatic Piece in Five Acts," was published by Robert Bell, in Philadelphia, in 1776. The author was a native of Maryland, educated at Nassau Hall College, Princeton, and for civilities received during his student-life from the Hor.. Richard Stockton, dedicated his play to that gentleman. The "Lieutenant Colonel of the Continental Army” who wrote the prologue was probably Humphries, of Connecticut. The piece, though much praised when first published, possesses little merit. Some of the cha racters-especially Gage and Burgoyne-are, however, well enough drawn, and the style, for the time, is chaste and harmonious. The fourth act opens with

the following soliloquy by the British Commander in Chicf

GAGE, solus.—Oh sweet tranquillity and peace of soul, That in the bosom of the cottager

Tak'st up thy residence, cannot the beams

Of royal sunshine call thee to my breast?
Fair honour waits on thee, renown abroad,
And high dominion o'er this continent,
Soon as the spirit of rebellious war

Is scourged into obedience. Why, then, ye gods,
Pais inward gnawing and remorse of thought
For perfidy and breach of promises?

Why should the spouse or weeping infant babe,
Or meek-eyed virgin with her sallow cheek-
The rose, by famine, wither'd out of it-
Or why the father or his youthful son
By me detain'd from all their relatives,

And in low dungeons and in jails chain'd down
Affect my spirit when the mighty cause
Of George and Britain is endanger'd?
For nobly struggling in the cause of kings,
We claim the high, the just prerogative
To rule mankind, and with an iron rod
Exact submission, due, though absolute.
What though they style me villain, murderer,
And imprecate from heaven dire thunderbolts
To crush my purposes?.....Was that a gun
Which thunders o'er the wave? Or is it guilt
That plays the coward with my trembling heart,
And cools the blood with frightful images?
Oh, guilt! thy blackness hovers on the mind,
Nor can the morning dissipate thy shades-
Yon ruddy morn which over Bunker Hill
Advancing slowly, blushes to the bay,

And tips with gold the spires of Charles's-town.

Burgoyne and Howe then enter with intelligence of the operations of Gardiner and his companions on Bunker Hill. "Sir Jack," as he is styled in some of the ballads of the time, uses the ambitious phrase of the sophomore, garnishing all his speeches with classical allusions and high sounding words. "You hear," he says

You hear the sound

Of spades and pickaxes upon the Hill-
Incessant pounding, like old Vulcan's forge,
Urged by the Cyclops.

Gage, left once more alone, exclaims

May heaven protect us from their rage, I say.
When but a boy, I dream'd of death, in bed,
And ever since that time I hated things
Which put him, like a pair of spectacles,
Before my eyes. The thought lies deep in fate,
Nor can a mortal see the bottom of it.
"Tis here-'tis there-I could philosophize-
Eternity is like a winding-sheet-

The seven commandments like-I think there's seven-
I scratch my head-but yet in vain I scratch-
Oh Bute and Dartmouth, knew ye what I fee!
You sure would pity an old drinking man,
That has more heartache than philosophy.

In the next scene Howe, addressing the soldiers, urges them by an exhibition of their ancient bravery to qut down the "foul rebellion"—

Which spurns that love

That fond maternal tenderness of soul
Which on this dreary coast first planted them;
Restrain'd the rage of murdering savages
Who, with fierce inroad on their settlements,
Made frequent war; struck down the arm of France,
Just raised to crush them in their infancy;
And since that time has bade their cities grow
To marts of trade; call'd fair-eyed commerce forth

To share dominion on the distant wave,
And visit every clime and foreign shore.
Yet this, brave soldiers, is the proud return
For the best blood of England, shed for them.

In the last scene but one, endeavouring to rally his forces after a second repulse from the Hill, he er claims

But that so many mouths can witness it,

I would deny myself an Englishman,
And swear this day that with such cowardice
No kindred or alliance has my birth.
Oh base, degenerate souls, whose ancestors
At Cressy, Poictiers, and at Agincourt,
With tenfold numbers combated, and pluck'd
The budding laurels from the brows of France-
Back to the charge once more! and rather die
Burn'd up or wither'd on this bloody hill,
Than live the blemish of your country's fame,
With everlasting infamy oppress'd.

The part acted by General Putnam in this battle has recently been a subject of some controversy, and Mr. Bancroft, among others, has endeavoured to deprive the veteran of the laurels he had worn so worthily for seventy years. Our author, writing but a few months after the battle, and, doubtless, familiar with all the published accounts of it, would not have been likely to make him one of the most prominent actors in the American camp, if he had not been present, as is now contended. While leading a last assault upon the British, Putnam says to his followers

Swift rising fame on early wing mounts up

To the convexity of bending Heaven,

And writes their names who fought with us this day
In fairest characters amidst the stars.

And Clinton, giving an account of the day to a brother officer, says—

Their left wing gave way,
And with their shatter'd infantry the whole,
Drawn off by Putnam, to the causeway fled.

We have room but for the titles of the principal works of this description. In 1774 were published in Philadelphia, besides "McFingal," "The Association, &c. of the Delegates of the Grand Congress, versified and adapted to music, calculated for grave and gay dispositions," etc; "A Dialogue between a Southern Delegate and his Spouse, on his return from the Grand Continential Congress: Inscribed to the Married Ladies of America;" "Dominion lost in America by the British: an Humble Imitation of the History of Happiness lost in Heaven by the Devils, as recorded by Milton;" "The Fall of British Tyranny, or American Liberty Triumphant, a tragi-comedy;" and several others. In Boston appeared "A Poem on the Enemy's Coming to Boston;""Nebuchadnezzar's Dream;" "The Group, a Farce, as lately acted and reacted to the Wonder of all Superior Intelligences," &c. At Danvers, near Boston, was published "America Invincible, a poem in Ten Books, by an Officer of Rank in the Continental Army," and in various places many other small vo lumes in the elegiac or satirical vein, few of which are remarkable for any other quality than their "patriotism." But the best of all, as we have elsewhere remarked, were the satires of Freneau. His "Life of Hugh Gaine," "British Prison Ship," "Gage s Soliloquy," The Midnight Consultations," and other pieces, were read every where and approved by people of all classes

66

MINSTRELSY OF THE INDIAN WARS AND THE REVOLUTION.

Permettez que je fasse les chansons d'un peuple, et il fera les lois qui le veut, remarked, in substance, some shrewd Frenchman; and that he rated not too high the power of song is shown by numerous instances in both ancient and modern history. It has been lamented that we have in America no martial lyrics comparable to those of the older nations. Holmes exclaims in one of his admirable poems

When Gallia's flag its triple fold displays,

Her marshaled legions peal the Marsellaise;
When round the German close the war-clouds dim,
Far through their shadows floats his battle hymn;
When, crown'd with joy the camps of England ring,
A thousand voices shout "God save the King !"
When victory follows with our eagle's glance,
Our nation's anthem is a country dance.*

But the martial song belongs to more warlike countries. France, Germany and England are vast fortified districts, echoing forever the din of conflict or the notes of military preparation; while America is the resting-place of peace, whence her influence is to irradiate the world. Or, if a different destiny awaits her, there is little danger but that—

When the roused nation bids her armies form,

And screams her eagle through the gathering storm,
When from our ports the bannered frigate rides,
Her black bows scowling to the crested tides,

Some proud muse

Will rend the silence of our tented plains,
And bid the nations tremble at her strains.

The puritan settlers of New England, while carrying on war against the Indian tribes, deemed it right to spend the hours their enemies devoted to profane dances and incantations, in singing verses, half military and nalf religious; and their actions in the field were celebrated in ballads which lacked none of the spirit and fidelity of the songs of the old bards, however deficient they may have been in metrical array and sentiment. "Lovewell's Fight," "The Gallant Church," "Smith's Affair at Sidelong Hill," and "The Godless French soldier," are among the best lyrical compositions of the early period in which they were written, and are not without value as historical records. Lovewell's Fight took place near the present town of Fryeburg, in Maine, on the margin of a small lake since called Lovewell's Pond, in 1725. The following ballad is said to have been written in the same year, and was for a long time well known throughout the country: LOVEWELL'S FIGHT.

Of worthy Captain Lovewell,

I purpose now to sing, How valiantly he served His country and his king; He and his valiant soldiers

Did range the woods full wide, And hardships they endured

To quell the Indian's pride. 'Twas nigh unto Pigwacket, Upon the eighth of May, They spied a rebel Indian Soon after break of day; He on a bank was walking, Upon a neck of land,

Which leads into a pond, as

We're made to understand.

The popular air of "Yankee Doodle," like the dagger of "udibras, serves a pacific as well as a martial purpose.

Our men resolved to have him,
And travel'd two miles round,
Until they met the Indian,

Who boldly stood his ground; Then speaks up Captain Lovewell, "Take you good heed," says he; "This rogue is to decoy us,

I very plainly see.

"The Indians lie in ambush,
In some place nigh at hand,
In order to surround us
Upon this neck of land;
Therefore we'll march in order,

And each man leave his pack,
That we may briskly fight them
When they shall us attack."
They came unto this Indian,

Who did them thus defy;

As soon as they were nigh him,
Two guns he did let fly,
Which wounded Captain Lovewell,
And likewise one man more;
But while this rogue was running,
They laid him in his gore.

Then having scalped the Indian,
They went back to the spot,
Where they had laid their packs down,
But there they found them not;
For the Indians having spied them,
When they them down did lay,
Did seize them for their plunder,
And carry them away.

These rebels lay in ambush,

This very place hard by,
So that an English soldier
Did one of them espy,
And cried out, "Here's an Indian!"
With which they started out,

As fiercely as old lions,

And hideously did shout.
With that our valiant English
All gave a loud huzza,
To shew the rebel Indians

They feared them not a straw;
And now the fight beginning,
As fiercely as could be,
The Indians ran up to them,

But soon were forced to flee.
Thus out spake Captain Lovewell,
When first the fight began,
"Fight on, my valiant heroes!
You see they fall like rain."
For, as we are informed,

The Indians were so thick,
A man could scarcely fire a gun,
And some of them not hit.

Then they all their best did try
Our soldiers to surround,
But they could not accomplish it,
Because there was a pond,
To which our men retreated,

And, cover'd all the rear,-
The rogues were forced to flee them,
Although they skulk'd for fear.

Two logs there were behind them,
That close together lay,
Without being discover'd,

They could not get away;
Therefore our valiant Englisha
They travel'd in a row,
And at a handsome distance,
As they were wont to go