The Poems of Philip Freneau, Poet of the American Revolution. Volume 1 (of 3)

"With the present number concludes the second volume and second year's publication of the National Gazette. Having just imported on his own account a considerable quantity of new and elegant printing types from Europe, it is the editor's intention to resume the publication of this paper in a short time and previous to the meeting of Congress in December next."

It is upon this episode that the reputation of Freneau among the generality of people chiefly rests. "That rascal Freneau" is the epithet that has clung to his name through all the intervening century. It is this one affair, more than anything else, that has kept him from the recognition he deserves, both as a patriot and a poet. The attitude of New England may be expressed in the words of President Dwight, written during the summer of 1793:

"Freneau, your printer, linguist, &c., is regarded here as a mere incendiary, or rather as a despicable tool of bigger incendiaries, and his paper as a public nuisance."

Letters might be multiplied in showing the same spirit in all of the Federalists.

It must not be forgotten, however, that Freneau acted from pure and honest motives; that the excitement and bitter partisanship of the period were extraordinary, and that the air was heavily charged with the subtle magnetism that in France had created a reign of terror. It cannot be denied that Freneau went to excess in his denunciations; but so did Hamilton, who in reality began the conflict; so did Jefferson; so did many others. As to the extent to which Jefferson went in subsidizing the Gazette for his own use, the reader may judge for himself. Neither side is free from blame; Freneau is certainly no more culpable than the others who held far higher positions than he. It is but justice to say of Freneau, in the words of Jefferson's biographer, Randall —

"He was always a warm, and after the period of which we write, became a violent partisan. It is but justice to his memory, however, to say that his honor and his veracity as a man were never questioned by those who knew him, and that his reputation in these particulars is now as free from all taint of suspicion as is that of any of the distinguished gentlemen whose names were associated with his in the controversy."

The following words of Madison, taken from Mr. Trist's memoranda of a conversation, May 25, 1827, and published in Tucker's Life of Jefferson, probably presents the affair in its true light:

"Mr. Madison said: 'Freneau's paper was another cause of soreness in General Washington. Among its different contributors, some were actuated by over-heated zeal, and some, perhaps, by malignity. Every effort was made in Fenno's paper, and by those immediately around him (Washington) to impress on his mind a belief that this paper had been got up by Mr. Jefferson to injure him and oppose the measures of his administration. Freneau himself was an old College mate of mine, a poet and man of literary and refined tastes, knowing nothing of the world. He was a French scholar, and employed at first as translator. Henry Lee, who was also his College mate, and had also a friendly feeling for him, was the more immediate cause of his establishing a paper. Our main object in encouraging it, was to provide an antidote against Fenno's paper, which was devoted to monarchy, and had begun to publish extracts from Mr. Adams's book. I used occasionally to throw in an article, all of which I have marked, and some of which I have shown you, with a view chiefly to counteract the monarchial spirit and partisanship of the British government which characterized Fenno's paper. I never engaged in the party criminations.'"

It deserves mention that Freneau stuck to his post during the yellow fever epidemic of 1793, and that for weeks he was the only active editor in the city. On October 1st he resigned his position as translator, and soon after removed to his old home at Mount Pleasant. For a time he was without employment. He contemplated several newspaper enterprises. He evidently took steps toward the publication of a paper in Monmouth County, New Jersey, as the following advertisement, published in the Jersey Chronicle, May 30, 1795, would show:

"A number of persons in Freehold and other parts of Monmouth subscribed last year to a paper the editor then proposed to set on foot. As various causes delayed him prosecuting his intended purpose until the present spring, and as he supposes, many of them might in the meantime have engaged with other printers, he hopes they will if possible transfer their subscription to the Chronicle."

On November 2, 1794, he writes Madison, recommending his old friend Bailey for the office of public printer, and on May 6th following, he received a reply:

"I delayed acknowledging your favour long ago received, until I could inform you of the prospects of Mr. Bailey in whose favor it was written. I have now the pleasure to tell you that although his wishes are not to be immediately fulfilled he is looking to obtain under the auspices of Mr. Beckley and Mr. Randolph a share of employment hereafter which may be very valuable to him. I congratulate you on the public intelligence just received from Holland which gives joy to all true Republicans, and wish you all the private happiness which an exchange of your former travelled scenes for the shade and tranquility of your present life can afford. Remember, however, as you have not chosen any longer to labor in the field of politics it will be expected by your friends that you cultivate with the more industry your inheritance on Parnassus."

On May the 20th following, Freneau continued the correspondence:

"My respected friend: By some accident your kind letter of April 6th was a long time in finding its way hither, having not come to hand till the 17th inst. I sincerely thank you for the interest you have taken in Mr. Bailey. He is a good Republican and a worthy honest man, which qualifications, I have thought, entitled him to some notice from the Government, in his line of business – I was heartily laughed at, however, a few weeks ago in N. York, by some Aristocrats, for having in my Letter to you or Mr. Beckley, I forget which, extolled his Military services in the late War – I am sensible he never cut off the heads of Giants or drove hosts before him, as some have done; at the same time it ought to be remembered that he was an officer in the Pennsylvania Militia in the season that tried men's souls (as Paine says) and I believe never acted otherwise than became the character in which he acted. —

I meet you at least half way in your congratulations on the public intelligence received from Holland. It is but another step toward the advancement and completion of that great and philanthropic System which I have been anticipating for many years, and which you as well as myself, I hope, will live to see realized – When I first went to reside in Philada. in 1791 I wished to be one of those who would have the honour and happiness of announcing these great events to the public through the medium of a newspaper: A variety of circumstances however, needless to trouble you with, urged my departure from that city after completing a two years publication – As I mean to pass the remainder of my days on a couple of hundred of acres of an old sandy patrimony, I have, by the way of filling up the vacuities of time set on foot a small weekly Newspaper calculated for the part of the country in which I am. Should you have any curiosity to see it I will forward it to you free of all expence except that of postage. I will not make high promises in regard to what it may contain. It will scarcely be expected that in a rude barbarous part of the country I could calculate it for the polite taste of Philadelphia. – Should your fixed residence be in Philada. I can transmit the papers to you once a week by the Public Post, who stops every Wednesday at my door. A Letter put into the Post Office at Philadelphia on Saturday morning, will be sure to reach me on Wednesday. – The public papers some time ago announced your Marriage. – I wish you all possible happiness with the lady whom you have chosen for your Companion through life – Mrs. Freneau joins me in the same, and desires me to present her best respects to your lady and yourself – and should you ever take an excursion to these parts of Jersey, we will endeavour to give Mrs. Madison and yourself – 'if not a costly welcome, yet a kind.'"

The Jersey Chronicle, an eight-paged paper of the size of a sheet of letter paper, issued its initial number from the editor's little office at Mount Pleasant, Saturday, May 2, 1795. It bore the motto, "Inter Sylvas Academi quaerere verum. – Hor.;" and its object, in the words of its editor, was "to present … a complete history of the foreign and domestic events of the Times, together with such essays, remarks, and observations as shall tend to illustrate the politics, or mark the general character of the age and country in which we live." The editor's salutatory is characteristic of its author:

"Never was there a more interesting period than the present, nor ever was there a time within the reach of history when mankind have been so generally united in attending to the cultivation of the mind, examining into the natural and political rights of nations, and emancipating themselves from those shackles of despotism which have so long impeded the happiness of the human species, and rendered the rights of the many subservient to the interests of the few.

"At this time, when new Republics are forming and new Empires bursting into birth; when the great family of mankind are evidently making their egress from the dark shadows of despotism which have so long enveloped them, & are assuming a character suitable to the dignity of their species, the Editor seizes the opportunity to renew his efforts for contributing, in some small degree, to the general information of his fellow citizens in the present history and politics of the world. No pains shall be spared, on his part, to procure the best, the most authentic, and earliest intelligence from every quarter, and circulating it by every method and means in his power; and to whatever parts his subscription will enable him to do it.

"When it is considered that few Advertisements are reasonably to be expected in these more eastern parts of New-Jersey, the terms of subscription will appear low, and, it may be added, are within the power of almost every man who has the will and inclination to encourage literature, promote the interests, or enlarge the ideas of the rising generation, and contribute to the general diffusion of knowledge among his fellow citizens.

"Should the publication of The Jersey Chronicle be suitably encouraged, the Editor will in due time enlarge the size of the sheet; but that now published on is, in his opinion, every way adequate to an experiment whether the attempt be practicable or not."

Freneau's essays contributed to the Chronicle are among the most notable prose productions from his pen. He began a series of studies "On Monarchial and Mixed Forms of Government;" he wrote "Observations on Monarchy," and discussed at length the leading arguments for and against Jay's Treaty with England. On May 23d he began to publish a series of papers entitled "Tomo Cheeki, the Creek Indian in Philadelphia," in which the manners and absurdities of the Americans are described from the standpoint of an observant savage. In nearly every issue of the paper there was an elaborate essay on some political subject. Of poetry there was very little. The National Gazette had contained little poetry from the editor's pen, save earlier verses reprinted, and a few political satires and republican lyrics. The influence of Peter Pindar was becoming more and more manifest in the poet's style. Politics and party strife had for a time displaced the muse. This is nowhere more evident than in the collected edition of his poems printed on his own press and issued in June, 1795.

In many respects this is the most interesting of Freneau's collections: it brings us into the very presence of the poet. The earlier editions had been published without his supervision, the material for this one passed all of it under the author's critical eye. Scarcely a poem escaped revision. After noting the scrupulous care with which he changed adjectives, improved rhymes, added new stanzas, or cut out old ones, repunctuated sentences, and rearranged material, one cannot join the somewhat large band of hasty and superficial critics who allude flippantly to the poet as a hasty and careless improviser of ephemeral trash. As a matter of fact, Freneau was a miser with his verses. When a newspaper poem suspected to be his, especially in the period previous to 1795, cannot be found in any of his collections, grave doubts at once arise as to whether the poem is his. He was never tired of revising, and cutting, and pruning. The poems so carefully edited in 1795 were again carefully revised in 1809. As an instance of his concern for the fate of his poems let me quote a letter, written August 29, 1781, to Matthew Carey:

"I see by this day's paper that my verses on General Washington's arrival, etc., are to appear in your next Museum. If it is not too late, I would request the favour of you to rectify an error (which was entirely of the press) in the fifth line of the thirteenth stanza, as it materially affects the sense. Instead of 'whom' please to read 'who.'"

The 1795 edition is interesting from another standpoint. The resources of the little country office were taxed to the utmost in the production of the book. At best it is a crude piece of printing. There is manifest everywhere an effort to keep the work within bounds, to economize space. Titles are abbreviated, mottoes dropped, foot notes cut out, and many earlier poems reduced, or omitted entirely. The list of omissions is very suggestive: scenes one and two were cut from the "Pictures of Columbus," the long song of Ismenius was dropped from "The Monument of Phaon," "The Jamaica Funeral," and "The House of Night" were reduced to mere fragments, "Female Frailty" was dropped save for the opening lyric, and there were other notable changes. In every case it will be found that the poet threw overboard the light and imaginative element, the purely poetic.

The reason for these omissions has been often sought. Prof. C. F. Richardson in particular has wondered at the dropping of the intensely original and weirdly strong poem "The House of Night," – in his opinion the best thing Freneau ever did. It is not difficult to answer the question after a careful study of the evolution of Freneau's poetic ideals. He began to write poetry after a thorough course of reading in the Latin and English classics. His early work is redolent of Virgil's "Eclogues," of Horace, of Shakespeare, of Milton's minor poems, of Gray's "Elegy." If ever there was a sensitive, beauty-loving, poetic soul, the young Freneau was one. In his early inexperience he even dreamed of a poetic career in which he might perhaps win a place beside the great masters of song. His early work like the "Ode to Fancy," and similar pieces, and the strong and original "House of Night" and "Santa Cruz" show what he might have done in another environment.

But Revolutionary America had little encouragement for an imaginative poet. There was something in the air that seemed to put into men the Franklin spirit. It was the era of common-sense, of stern reality, of practical affairs. Madison voiced the age when in 1774 he advised Bradford, the cultured and imaginative young lover of poetry and all art, to turn to sterner things:

"I was afraid you would not easily have loosened your affections from the Belles Lettres. A Delicate Taste and warm imagination like yours must find it hard to give up such refined & exquisite enjoyments for the coarse and dry study of the Law. It is like leaving a pleasant flourishing field for a barren desert; perhaps I should not say barren either because the Law does bear fruit but it is sour fruit that must be gathered and pressed and distilled before it can bring pleasure or profit… I myself use to have too great a hankering after those amusing studies. Poetry wit and Criticism Romances Plays &c. captivated me much: but I begin to discover that they deserve but a moderate portion of a mortal's Time and that something more substantial more durable more profitable befits our riper age. It would be exceeding improper for a labouring man to have nothing but flowers in his Garden or to determine to eat nothing but sweet-meats and confections. Equally absurd would it be for a Scholar and man of Business to make up his whole Library with Books of Fancy and feed his mind with nothing but such Luscious performances."15

The first half of Freneau's life, as we have seen, was one of disillusion. It took twenty-five years to kill the spark in his breast, but the process though slow was sure. After the fierce period of the National Gazette he thought of himself only as a worker in the tide of practical affairs, a champion of the rights of man, a protestor against tyranny and wrong, and his muse had become a mere drudge, aiding by satire and song what he now conceived to be his life work. He had taken a deliberate though sorrowful leave of his early muse in 1787, one year after the appearance of his first volume of poems:

"On these bleak climes by fortune thrownWhere rigid Reason reigns alone,Where flowery Fancy holds no swayNor golden forms around her play,Nor Nature takes her magic hue,Alas what has the muse to do!An age employed in painting steelCan no poetic raptures feel;No fabled Love's enchanting powerNo tale of Flora's shady bower.Nor wood-land haunt, or murmuring groveCan its prosaic bosom move.The muse of love in no request,I'll try my fortune with the rest;Which of the nine shall I engageTo suit the humor of the age?On one, alas, my choice must fall,The least engaging of them all!Her visage stern, severe her style,A clouded brow, a cruel smile,A mind on murdered victims placed,She, only she, can please the taste."

One cannot read long the columns of the Jersey Chronicle without realizing forcibly the change that had come over Freneau. The poet who emerged from the crucible of the National Gazette was not at all like the poet of "The House of Night" period. He could look upon this product of his early imagination much as Madison would have done, and he could in cold blood cut it down to a mere fragment which would voice his new French Deistic ideas, that he might have room for his Republican songs. The poem "To the Americans of the United States," written in 1797, gives us a true picture of this later Freneau. He would be no courtly singer "beneath some great man's ceiling placed," no solitary dreamer. He would be a man of action travelling over lands and seas, a poet who caught his subjects from the varying scene of human things.

"To seize some features from the faithless past;Be this our care – before the century close:The colours strong! for, if we deem aright,The coming age will be an age of prose:When sordid cares will break the muses' dream,And common sense be ranked in seat supreme."

With the fifty-second number of the Chronicle, published April 30, 1796, the paper came to an end. Freneau's final editorial stated that:

"In number one of the Jersey Chronicle the editor announced his intention of extending the publication beyond the first year, provided the attempt should in the meantime be suitably encouraged and found practicable. But the necessary number of subscribers having not yet appeared, scarcely to defray the expenses of the undertaking, notwithstanding the very low rate at which it has been offered, the editor with some regret declines a further prosecution of his plan at this time. He embraces the present opportunity to return his sincere thanks to such persons in this and the neighboring counties as have favored him with their subscriptions; and have also by their punctuality in complying with the terms originally proposed, thus far enabled him to issue a free, independent, and republican paper."

A letter16 written by Freneau from New York, to Madison, dated December 1, 1796, reveals what was in the poet's mind during the months following the abandonment of the Chronicle:

"Having three or four months since formed a resolution to bid adieu for a few years to some old Trees in Jersey under the shade of which I edited, amongst ditching and grubbing, a small weekly Paper entitled the Jersey Chronicle, I did not know how to employ that interval better than in striking out here with some printer, if such could be found, already engaged in supporting the good old Republican cause. After experiencing one or two disappointments in accomplishing this object, I am now through the kind aid of some friends here nearly completing the project of a copartnership with Thomas Greenleaf in his two Papers, The Argus, a daily publication, and the New York Journal, twice a week; both on a pretty respectable footing, and noted for a steady attachment to Republican principles, though open to all decent speculations from any party if they choose to transmit them. In short, I would wish to revive something in the spirit of the National Gazette, if time and circumstances allow, and with proper assistance hope to succeed – Thus,

A Raven once an acorn tookFrom Bashan's strongest stoutest tree;He hid it near a murmuring brook,And liv'd another oak to see.

As I consider the bargain the same as concluded, my next object is to make all the friends here that I decently can among men of eminence and ability. This I have in some small degree attempted and gained, but for want of certain insinuating qualities, natural enough I suppose to some men, I feel myself sadly at a loss to get acquainted with some characters here to whom I could wish to be known upon motives of public as well as private utility.

"Among these is the chancellor of this State, Robert R. Livingston, with whom, if I recollect right, you are upon terms of intimacy. If I am not mistaken in this point, and you can with propriety accede to my request, you would confer a favor upon me by mentioning me to him in your next Letter, in such manner as you may think best, so that this new connexion may attract some share of his attention, and thereby the countenance of the Livingston family in general, which would operate greatly, through this State at least, in advancing our Subscription and printing Interest in general."

The partnership with Greenleaf, mentioned to Madison, for some reason was never consummated. On March 13, 1797, however, Freneau issued in New York the first number of a new journal, The Time Piece and Literary Companion, to be devoted to "literary amusement and an abridgement of the most interesting intelligence foreign and domestic." He "associated himself," as he expressed it, "as a partner in the typographical line of business with Mr. Alexander Menut of that profession, sometime since from Canada," though, during the first year at least, Freneau had entire control of the editing of the paper. His address to the public is of considerable interest:

"Several months having elapsed since the publication of a periodical paper in this city was first contemplated by the subscriber, he now informs his friends and the public in general that he has at length so far matured his plan as to attempt a paper of this kind to be published three times a week and transmitted to city subscribers early on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings.

"The Time Piece and Literary Companion will on all occasions be open to political, moral, or other interesting discussion from any quarter whatever provided such communications are written with candor, decency, and liberality, their object such as to promote the general good of our great Confederate Commonwealth, or the common interest of man, and conceived in that disinterested spirit which while it carefully avoids as far as possible irritating the feelings of individuals, holds itself obligated under any circumstances whatever to consider truth, the moral and political happiness of our species, social harmony, and good order, the basis of all its exertions, the end of all its aims, views and endeavors."

The paper is a tastily arranged and neatly printed sheet, and its contents show constantly its editor's rare ability to cater to the public needs. Refinement and a fastidious taste are evidenced everywhere in its columns. Duyckinck comments on "the skill of the selection and the general elegance of the material," which were certainly unusual in those early days of American journalism. The paper had a large number of feminine contributors, who gave freely of their sentimental lyrics and sprightly letters. The poet himself contributed many poems, the most of them, as usual, concerned with contemporary affairs. He republished his translation from the Abbé Robin made in 1783 since, as he declared, only a small edition was then printed, and the work was in the hands of a very few. He republished also his "Tomo Cheeki" letters, introducing them thus: