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Xerox University Microfilms 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106 75-21,800 GASTON, James Clinton, 1941- AN ANTHOLOGY OF POEMS DEALING WITH THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TAKEN FROM PROMINENT LONDON MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS, 1763-1783. The University of Oklahoma, Ph.D., 1975 Language and Literature, general Xerox University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, Michigan48ioo 0 1975 JAMES CLINTON GASTON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED. THE UNIVERSITY OP OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE AN ANTHOLOGY OP POEMS DEALING WITH THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TAKEN FROM PROMINENT LONDON MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS, 1763-1783 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OP PHILOSOPHY BY JAMES CLINTON GASTON Norman, Oklahoma 1975 AN ANTHOLOGY OP POEMS DEALING WITH THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION TAKEN PROM PROMINENT LONDON MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS, 1763-1783 APPROVED BY DISSERTATION COMMITTEE il Table of Contents Preface iv Introduction 1 The Writer 3 People 3 Subjects 32 Genres 4? The Publisher 6l The Reader 83 I. Issues and Men (1763-1774) 99 Chronology 99 Poetry (Poems 1-54) 104 II. First Hostilities (1//5) 177 Chronology 177 Poetry (Poems 55-108) 179 III. Independence for America (1776) 253 Chronology 253 Poetry (Poems 109-144) 255 i l l IV. Burgoyne and the Turning Point (1777) 300 Chronology 300 Poetry (Poems 143-189) 302 V. Tha French Alliance (1778) 3^0 Chronology 360 Poetry (Poems 190-220) 361 VI. The Coming of Peace (1779-1783) 403 Chronology 403 Poetry (Poems 221-264) 406 List of Works Consulted 466 i v Preface Thomas Jefferson and his associates in the Second Continental Congress in 1776 realized that when men resort to such unusual measures as the ones they were contemplating, "a decent regard to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them." One can hardly produce an anthology of 26^ poems by minor or unknown 18th-century poets without incurring a similar obligation. Most of the causes which have impelled me to compile this anthology will be readily apparent to readers of the Introduction. Because my motives have obviously affected the process by which these poems have been selected, though, I should state at the outset my opinion that these poems probably offer more to the broadly humanistic reader than they do to either the literary historian or the "new critic." My own chief interest in these poems has been in seeing them as the expressions, the work, of man. I value them most for their revelation of the Londoner who witnessed and responded to the American Revolution, and my humanistic prejudice has guided the selection of the 264 poems in this anthology from an initial survey of more than 800 poems. If the poems were selected largely according to my own tastes and preferences, the periodicals for the survey were selected with much less subjectivity. I chose to search the London periodicals listed most often in major works by Walter Graham, Fox Bourne, and Fred Hlnkhouse. These periodicals, some of which were not published continuously through the period, 1763-1783, are as follows; Dailies : Gazetteer Morning Chronicle (1770-1783) Morning Post (1772-1783) Public Advertiser Public Ledger Tri-weeklies : General Evening Post Lloyd's Evening Post London Chronicle London Evening Post London Packet (1770-1783) Middlesex Joumal (1769-1783) St. James’s Chronicle Magazines (monthly): Gentleman’s Magazine London Magazine To\m and Country Magazine (1769-I783) Universal Magazine vl Materials for ray survey were obtained through the gracious assistance of librarians at Yale University and the Universities of Oklahoma, Missouri, Texas, California at Berkeley, Kansas, and Chicagot The London Chroniclo, Gentleman's Magazine, London Magazine, and Town and Country Magazine were searched exhaustively, and substantial samples from several years were searched for each of the other periodicals. Ideally one's search would be exhaustive in all periodicals in all years, but such an approach is not defensible practically. For the chronological distribution of these poems is by no means even, and a study in which one devoted as much time and energy to the periodicals of 1771i in which hardly any pertinent poems appeared, as he did to 1775» when interesting poems were printed almost every day, would make little sense. Thus I elected to conduct the survey as an iterative process, searching the four periodicals cited above exhaustively, searching the Universal Magazine, Public Advertiser, and Gazetteer with almost equal thoroughness, and, in my searches of the remaining periodicals, consciously emphasizing the periods I had learned were most likely to yield pertinent poetry. Thus although some poems surely escaped my attention, the poems in my sample and in this anthology can safely be taken as representative of the bulk of London's periodical poetry dealing with the American Revolution. Readers will soon notice that a number of these poems appeared in more than one periodical. Because I felt that both vil the earliest date of publication and the frequency of appearance were at least potentially significant, I elected to arrange the poems in the chronological order of their appearance in the London prers end to cite all other appearances of which I was aware. Although my survey was limited to London periodicals, I inevitably learned of the appearances of several of these poems in the Scots Magazine, published in Edinburgh, and in a number of American periodicals. These appearances are also cited in the text. The poems seldom changed as they moved from one periodical to another. Differences usually consisted of the addition or deletion of one or more stanzas from a song or ballad. These, too, are noted in the text. Spelling and punctuation in the 18th century were less standardized than they are today, and I have chosen to follow the originals in all but one or two cases of obvious typographical error. Thus the reader should not be surprised to find many minor inconsistencies in spelling, even in proper names. Typography, too, offered 18th-century printers more opportunities to express their individuality than their modem counterparts enjoy. The printers of these poems employed italics, capitalization, and varying type size freely, and again I have followed them as closely as possible. Another of the iSth century's most common devices, and for us one of the most troublesome, was the ellipsis (usually printed with dashes rather than with periods). As I shall explain in the vlll Introduction, both poets and printers had much to lose by condemning Ministers in public, which is just what they did in many of these poems. One protective device for the poets was the authorial pseudonym. But if the author of an objectionable poem could shield himself with anonymity, the printer of the periodical in which the poem appeared could hardly hope to escape identification. Thus the printer's protective device was the ellipsis. By omitting certain letters from the name of his Ministerial target, the printer retained the possibility of denying that the Minister had been attacked at all. Presumably most London readers had no difficulty in supplying the missing letters and identifying the subjects, but the job is not always so easy today. I have supplied the missing letters in brackets for all of those names which can be identified with certainty. Where there is room for doubt, I have retained the ellipses and have supplied the most probable names in footnotes. In a very few cases I have felt that information in the poem is too problematical to warrant a conjecture and have simply retained the ellipsis. As the reader will discover, the poets and printers represented in this anthology often footnoted their own poems. Since they invariably used asterisks, daggers, or other non-nuraerical symbols for their footnotes, I have used nothing but numbers for my own footnoting, both in the Introduction and in the body of the anthology.