by the name of the Company of the Redwood Library, in honor of its leading benefactor. Henry Collins gave the lot of land on which the building now stands, and the wealthy citizens of the place subscribed five thousand pounds. The library building was commenced in 1748, and completed in 1750. The plan of the building, which was furnished by Joseph Harrison, who had been engaged at Blenheim, has been much admired for its simple Doric elegance; the wings on either side, which interfere with its proportions, not belonging to the original conception. The Redwood Library. Abraham Redwood had removed to Newport from Antigua. He possessed great wealth, liberally expending it for charitable objects. He was a member of the Society of Friends. He died at Newport in 1788, in the seventy-ninth year of his age. Callender, the author of the Centennial Historical Discourse of Rhode Island, was one of the members of the Society. Dr. Stiles, during his residence on the island, consulted its literary treasures, then rare in the country, and procured additional volumes for its shelves. Channing has recorded his debt of gratitude to its stores in the culture of his youthful powers. "I had," he says, "no professor or teacher to guide me, but I had two noble places of study. One was yonder beautiful edifice, now so frequented and so useful as a public library, then so deserted that I spent day after day, and sometimes week after week, amidst its dusty volumes, without interruption from a single visitor. The other place was yonder beach, the roar of which has so often mingled with the worship of this place, my daily resort, dear to me in the sunshine, still more attractive in the storm."* The library suffered somewhat in the Revolution, the British troops at their departure carrying off some of the finest works. There are now between six and seven thousand volumes. The late Judah Touro, a native of Newport, bequeathed three thousand dollars to the library company. It has received, from time to time, other valuable donations, including the folio collection of the English Historical Records, and gifts of land from Solomon Southwick, of Albany, in 1813, and from Discourse at Newport, Works, iv. 337. Abraham Redwood, of England, in 1834. The Baron Hottinguer, the Parisian banker, connected by marriage with the Redwood family, in 1837, gave a thousand francs for the restoration of the building.* JONATHAN MITCHEL SEWALL THE couplet, No pent-up Utica contracts your powers, is far better known than the poem of which it forms a part.† than the remaining writings, or than even the name of its author, Jonathan Mitchel Sewall. It is a name that should be better known and cherished, for it was borne by one whose lyrics warmed the patriotism and cheered the hearts of the soldiers of the Revolution in the perils of the battle and the privations of the camp. Sewall was born at the old town of Salem, Mass., in 1748. He was adopted at an early age, on the death of his parents, by his uncle, Stephen Sewall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts; and after passing through Harvard College, devoted himself to merchandise, a pursuit which he soon abandoned for the study and practice of the law. In 1774 he was Register of Probate for Grafton county, N. H. He afterwards removed to Portsmouth in the same state, where he resided until his death, March 29, 1808. He published a collection of his poems in a small volume, in 1801. They are for the most part the productions of his youth, and consist of paraphrases of Ossian, patriotic odes, epilogues, and a few epigrams. His War and Washington was composed at the beginning of the American Revolution, and sung by the army in all parts of the country. The couplet we have quoted is found in an epilogue to the tragedy of Cato, written in 1778. It is occupied by a parallel between the scenes and characters which have just passed before the spectators' eyes and those in which author and audience were alike participants. EPILOGUE TO CATO. Written in 1778. You see mankind the same in ev'ry age: Britannia's daring sins, and virtues both, Perhaps once mark'd the Vandal and the Goth. And what now gleams with dawning ray at home, Once blaz'd in full-orb'd majesty at ROME Did Cæsar, drunk with pow'r, and madly brave, Insatiate burn, his country to enslave? Did he for this lead forth a servile host, And spill the choicest blood that Rome could boast. Our British Caesar too has done the same, And damn'd this age to everlasting fame. Jewett's Public Libraries, pp. 48-53. Elton's Memoir of Callender. Mason's Newport Illustrated. + It was brought into vogue, with a slight change, as the motto of Park Benjamin's newspaper, the New World. Miscellaneous Poems, with several specimens from the Author's Manuscript version of the Poems of Ossian, by J. M. Sewall, Esq., Portsmouth. Printed by William Treadwell & Co. for the Author, 1801. Columbia's crimson'd fields still smoke with gore! Did Ro ne's brave senate nobly strive t' oppose Our se ate, too, the same bold deed has done, fame. See persevering ARNOLD proudly scale But all was false, and hollow, tho' his tongue By her own arm and heaven's Columbia must be freed. Rise then, my countrymen! for fight prepare, Rouse up, for shame! your brethren slain in war, Or groaning now in ignominious bondage, EULOGY ON LAUGHING. Delivered at an Exhibition by a Young Lady. Yet others, quite as sage, with warmth dispute Hail, rosy la gliter! thou deserv'st the bays! Let sentimentalists ring in our ears But, in the main, tho' laughing I approve, The honest laugh, unstudied, unacquir'd, I thought you all, e'er this, would die with laughing! Shook all the audience-but it was at him! But should my feeble efforts move your glee, WAR AND WASHINGTON. A Song, Composed at the beginning of the American Vain BRITONS, boast no longer with proud indignity, By land your conqu'ring legions, your matchless strength at sea, Since we, your braver sons incens'd, our swords have girded on, Huzza, huzza, huzza, huzza, for WAR and WASHINGTON. Urg'd on by NORTH and vengeance those valiant champions came, Loud bellowing Tea and Treason and George was all on flame, Yet sacrilegious as it seems, we rebels still live on, And laugh at all their empty puffs, huzza for WASHINGTON ! Still deaf to mild entreaties, still blind to England's good, You have for thirty pieces betray'd your country's blood. Like Esop's greedy cur you'll gain a shadow for your bone, Yet find us fearful shades indeed, inspir'd by WASHINGTON. Mysterious! unexampled! incomprehensible! The blund'ring schemes of Britain their folly, pride, and zeal, Like lions how ye growl and threat! mere asses have you shown, And shall share an ass's fate, and drudge for ye WASHINGTON ! Your dark, unfathom'd councils our weakest heads defeat, Cur children rout your armies, our boats destroy your fleet, And to complete the dire disgrace, coop'd up within a town, You live, the scorn of all our host, the slaves of WASHINGTON ! Fir'd with the great idea, our Fathers' shades would rise, To view the stern contention, the gods desert their skies. And WOLFE, 'midst hosts of heroes, superior bending down, Cry out with eager transport, GOD SAVE GREAT WASHINGTON! Should GEORGE, too choice of Britons, to foreign realms apply, And madly arm half Europe, yet still we would defy Turk, Hessian, Jew, and Infidel, or all those pow'rs in one, While ADAMS guides our senate, our camp great WASHINGTON! Should warlike weapons fail us, disdaining slavish fears, To swords we'll beat our ploughshares, our pruninghooks to spears, And rush, all desp'rate! on our foe, nor breathe 'till battle won, Then shout, and shout AMERICA! and conqu'ring WASHINGTON ! Proud FRANCE should view with terror, and haughty SPAIN revere, While ev'ry warlike nation would court alliance here. Aud GEORGE, his minions trembling round, dismounting from his throne Pay homage to AMERICA and glorious WASHING TON! HUGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE, THE democratic politician and judge, eminent for his social wit, and the author of one of the finest political satires which the country has produced, was born in the year 1748 near Campbelton, in Scotland. He was brought by his father, a poor farmer, to America, when he was five years old. The family settled down on a small lease farm, in York county, Pennsylvania, west of the Susquehannah, on the borders of Maryland. The difficulties of his position did partly from the country school, but mainly from not prevent the youth securing a good education, an intelligent and painstaking clergyman of the region, who gave him some lessons in Latin and Greek. The mother encouraged the bookish efforts of her son, who would travel during the Great Heav'n! is this the nation whose thund'ring Sunday's intermission from work, twenty or arms were hurl'd, thirty miles, to secure a volume or a newspaper. A copy of Horace, of which he came into pos session, he left one day in the field, when it was munched by a cow. Meeting with a young man possessed of some knowledge of mathematics, he exchanged with him his Latin and Greek for that acquisition. At the age of fifteen he applied for the situation of teacher at a free school in Maryland, and secured the position. His juvenile years exposed him to some opposition from his older pupils, one of whom resisted his authority by force. Brackenridge seized a brand from the fire, knocked the rebel down, and spread terror around him."* With the small means which he laid up in this employment, he made his way to the college at Princeton, then under the charge of President Witherspoon. Ile was adinitted, and supported himself in the higher classes by 66 We are indebted for this, as for the other anecdotes in this account, to the Biographical Notice by 11. M. Brackenridge, of Pittsburgh, appended to the edition of Modern Chivalry, of 1846. UGH HENRY BRACKENRIDGE. teaching the lower. His name appears on the list of graduates in 1771, with Gunning Bedford, Samuel Spring, James Madison, and Philip Freneau. In conjunction with the last, he delivered at the Cominencement a poem in dialogue between Acasto and Eugenio, on the Rising Glory of America, which was published the next year in Philadelphia.* The part which he wrote is easily separated, since Freneau afterwards published his portion separately in the The verse of edition of his poems in 1795. Brackenridge is smooth and glowing, and is tinctured with a grave religious tone. Brackenridge continued a tutor in the college after taking his first degree, and studied divinity. He was licensed to preach, though not ordained, and undertook, at a profitable remuneration, for several years, the charge of an academy in Maryland. His patriotic feeling on the breaking out of the Revolution induced him to prepare a dramatic production, entitled Bunker's Hill, which was recited by his pupils. It was published in 1776,† with a dedication "to Richard Stockton, Esq., Member of the Honorable the Continental Congress, for the state of New Jersey." It has a Prologue spoken "by a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Continental ariny," and an Epilogue, "written by a gentleman of the army, supposed to be spoken immediately after the battle, by Lieutenant-Col. Webb, aide-de-camp to General Putnam." dramatis persona are Warren, Putnam, and Gardiner, for the American officers; Gage, Howe, Burgoyne, Clinton, and Lord Pigot, for the BriWarren tish. There is no lady in the case. The opens with an address to Putnam, to which the This mighty paradox will soon dissolve. Can stop their rage. Grey-headed clergymen, Howe compliments the enemy further— Who never yet, of luxury, or soft Delights, effeminate and false, have tasted. Fierce mind, when late they fought with us, and drove The French, encroaching on their settlements, The assault is made, and Warren falls. This Appended to the Poem are the two following Lyrics: AN ODE ON THE BATTLE OF BUNKER'S-HILL. Sung and acted by a Soldier, in a Military Habit, with his Firelock, &c., in the same Measure with a Seapiece, entitled the Tempest. 66 'Cease, rude BOREAS, blustering railer." The curling volumes all behind them, Our cannon-balls, brave boys, shall find them, Once more, WARREN, 'midst this terror, Level well your charged pieces, In direction to the town; They shake, they shake, their lightning ceases; That shot brought six standards down." III. Maids in virgin beauty blooming, Youth and pleasure, which must die. Close there, serjeants, close that rank. The conflict now doth loudly call on Highest proof of martial skill; Heroes shall sing of them, who fall on The slipp'ry brow of BUNKER'S HILL." IV. Unkindest fortune, still thou changest, As the wind upon the wave; From this high ground, like Vest.v'us, V. Many a widow sore bewailing Tender husbands, shall remain, With tears and sorrows, unavailing, From this hour to mourn them slain. The rude scene striking all by-standers, Bids the little band retire; Who can live like salamanders, In such floods of liquid fire? Wheel inward, let these ranks be faced, VI. See the steely points, bright gleaming Now brave PUTNAM, aged soldier: The God of battles shall revisit On their heads each soul that dies; Take courage, boys, we yet shan't miss it, A MILITARY SONG, BY THE ARMY, ON GENERAL WASHINGTON'S VICTORIOUS ENTRY INTO THE TOWN OF BOSTON. Sons of valor, taste the glories Of celestial Liberty; Sing a triumph o'er the Tories, Bid her mountain summits ring. See yon navy swell the bosom Should they touch at fair RHODE-ISLAND, They shall quit the hostile shore. Let them rove to climes far distant, Boast of wild brigades from Russia, Shall discharge these hordes again. In New York state, rejoined by CLINTON, Wounds of death, received there. War, fierce war, shall break their forces, They shall quit this smiling world. On going to Philadelphia in 1776, Brackenridge supported himself by editing the United States Magazine, a periodical of which an anecdote of his editorship is given by his son. "At one time the magazine contained some severe strictures on the celebrated General Lee, and censured him for his conduct to Washington. Lee, in a rage, called at the office, in company with one or two of his |