Specimens of American Poetry ... Vol. I., 1829
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$:. / o S SPECIMENS or AMERICAN P OETRY, WITH CRITICALND A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES. IN T HREE VOLUMES. BY SAMUEL, KETTELI,, VOL.. I BOSTON, — S . G. GOODRICH AND CO. MDCCCXXIX. v DISTRICT O F MASSACHUSETTS, tO Wit : District C lerk's Office. tBe i remembered, that on the fourth day of April, A. d. 1829, in the fiftythird year of the Independence of the United States of America, S. 6. Goodrich If Co. of the said district, have deposited in this office the title of a book, the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit : " S pecimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices: In Three Volumes. By Samuel Kettell." In c onformity to the act of the Congress of the United States, entitled, " An act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies during the times therein mentioned ; " and also to an act, entitled, " An act supplementary to an act, entitled, an act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, charts, and books to the authors and proprietors of such copies dur ing the times therein mentioned ; and extending the benefits thereof to the arts of designing, engraving and etching historical and other prints." .JNO. W DAVIS, } Clerk of the District of > Massachusetts. P of ressBOSTON, Isaac R. Butts. Vio.l PREFACE. The f ollowing work is the result of an attempt to do something for the cause of American literature, by calling into notice and preserving a portion of what is valuable and characteristic in the writings of our native poets. As a pursuit of mere literary curiosity, there exist no ordinary inducements to the prose cution of such an enterprise, but when we take into view the influence which an endeavor like this, to rescue from oblivion the efforts of native genius must neces sarily have upon the state of letters among us, we shall have occasion to wonder that an undertaking of the kind has not sooner been entered upon. The truth is, that our neglect upon this point is in some degree a matter of reproach to us, The literary productions of our fathers have been held in unwar rantable disesteem by their descendants, who have rea son to pride themselves upon the monuments of genius and learning left them by preceding generations. J What though our early literature cannot boast of a J Dante or a Chaucer, it can furnish such testimonials i of talent and mental cultivation as are highly creditable 502082 iv P REFACE. to t he country, and of sufficient interest to call upon the attention of those who are desirous of tracing the general history of letters, and their connexion with the development of the moral and intellectual character of a people ; while to us, as Americans, they possess a double value, and deserve to be cherished as the inher itance of a race whose virtues have consecrated what ever they have left behind them. Again, everything published among us must have some value, if not on account of its intrinsic merits, at least as affording some insight into the spirit and temper of the times, and illustrating the degree of social and mental improvement in the community. Hitherto we have paid too little regard to our native literature in this last relation, and while the polite letters of foreign countries have been studied in such a philosophical view by the most accomplished scholars of our land, the same interesting field of observation at home has been overlooked. We have known men familiar with the details of Tiraboschi, Bouterwek and Sismondi, who had hardly bestowed a thought upon the most gifted spirits of the soil where they were born and bred : as if the poets of the western world could not bear some characteristic traits of their day and generation as well as the Minnesingers and Trouveres ; or as if a lay of the pilgrim fathers of New England could not illustrate a point of national or individual character as effectually as the Gongorism of the Castilian rhymesters of old. This is surely a preposterous state of things. What has been produced in the shape of literature among us merits regard. It must furnish something worthy of PREFACE. T nnote i respect to the intellectual character of our nation. If it exhibit no marks of originality, it must show something of imitation, and it cannot but interest us to know the fact, for even that must have its significance. The o bject, therefore, of the work which I here present to the public, is to answer, so far as my oppor tunities would enable me to do it, the demand which has already been manifested, to know in a general and comprehensive view, what has been done in the depart ment of poetry by American writers. Thus far we have seen no such thing as a collection of American poetry designed for such a purpose, nor a treatise designating with fulness and accuracy, the character of the various performances in verse of our native authors, nor even a tolerably complete list of their names. We are now becoming a literary people, and are already inquisitive upon all matters connected with our character and prospects in that relation. We begin to show a national spirit in letters, and deem it impor tant not only to exhibit to the world what manner of men we are, but to cast an eye upon those who preceded us in the career of literary improvement, and look seriously into the grounds of the insinuation thrown out some years ago by our neighbors across the ocean, that there was no such thing as an American book worthy of being read. Our countrymen have done sufficient since that period to free us from the appre hension that the charge will be repeated ; still it is a matter of interest to inquire whether nothing had been A* vi P REFACE. achieved b efore the days of Irving and Cooper and Pierpont and Percival, or whether, on the contrary, there were brave men living before Agamemnon. I h ave endeavored to perform the task of supplying what seemed a desideratum. Whatever may be the estimation set upon my labors, I have the pleasure of presenting my countrymen with a collection of matter which no one can deny to be highly honorable to the land of our birth. The American reader will learn with surprise and gratification that a body of literature so respectable under all circumstances, as that contained in the following pages, can be gathered from the writ ings of our native authors. If, as I flatter myself, they may succeed so far as to make us better acquainted with the master spirits of our literature, and of conse quence lead us to a more exalted appreciation of the intellectual capabilities of our countrymen, I shall reap a full reward for my exertions, in the reflec tion of having assisted in fostering a national spirit in a department, where, until such a spirit prevails, neither ourselves, nor the world will do full credit to the princi ples of our institutions, or the genius of our people. That I h ave done entire justice to my task, I will not pretend. Were it allowed an author to go into a de tail of the disadvantages under which he sets about his work, for the purpose of excusing its faults, I could furnish without difficulty in the present instance, a catalogue sufficient to account for the imperfec tions which I cannot help foreseeing, will be charged against these volumes. But with the greater part of a writer's disabilities or disadvantages, the world has no PREFACE. v ii concern, a nd very properly will not suffer them to be pleaded in excuse for the defects which mar his produc tions. I shall therefore speak only of the difficulties inseparable from the present undertaking. I allude chiefly to the collection of the materials for the work. When it is considered, that nothing similar to this enter prise has ever before been attempted, the reader must be aware of the laborious nature of the researches necessary to be made. The whole collection of Amer ican literature was to be explored minutely without guide or direction, and the difficulty of such a task can be estimated only by those who have attempted some thing similar. There was no where, as I before re marked, even* a tolerably accurate list of American authors. Their works were scattered as diversely as the leaves of the Sybil, and many of them were about as easily to be procured. We have no collections of them in public libraries,* and some had become so com pletely forgotten that I was indebted in many cases to accident for their discovery. The omissions there fore which may be discerned in these volumes the reader I trust will ascribe to the right cause. For inac curacies in the biographical department, should any be discovered, I must plead for a similar indulgence. The best authorities however have been applied to for this species of information, and I feel confident in assert- phia, *The and p rincipal Worcester, libraries have in been Boston examined and the in neighborhood, search of materials New York, for the Philadel* work. In neither of these does thero appear to have been any attempt made at such a collection. The most valuable one is in the possession of Professor Ticknor of this city, comprising about seventy volumes of the scarce old writers.