Page images
PDF
EPUB

DAVID FRENCH.

JOHN PARKE, in a work to be hereafter noticed, has "inserted some poetical translations from the Greek and Latin, which were consigned to oblivion, through the obliterating medium of rats and moths, under the sequestered canopy of an antiquated trunk; written between the years of 1720 and 1730, by the learned and facetious David French, Esq., late of the Delaware counties (now State)."

Alas! poor Yorick! All that we know of the career of the "learned and facetious" French is the record of his death, and for that we are indebted to the postscript of a letter, dated August 25, 1742:-"David French was buried yesterday in Chester church by the side of his father, and Mr. Moxon succeeds him as prothonotary" (of the court at New Castle).* His father is stated, by Mr. Fisher, to have been Colonel John French, a prominent name in the local history of the lower counties.

The translations, printed by Parke, are six in number; four are from the first, fourth, eleventh, and twenty-sixth odes of Anacreon, and two from the elegies of Ovid. The smoothness and elegance of their versification testify to the accomplished scholarship of the writer, and make us regret some evidence of his "facetiousness," as well as learning, had not turned up in the "antiquated trunk."

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

On a bed of myrtles made,
Or on a greeny clover laid,
Willingly I'd pass away
In carousing all the day;
Cupid by my side should stand,
With a brimmer in his hand.
Like a never-standing wheel,
Fleeting time is running still;
We ourselves will dust become,
And shall moulder in the tomb.
On my grave why should you lay
Oil, or gifts that soon decay?
Rather now before I'm dead,
With rosy garlands crown my head;
All the odors of the spring,
With a gentle mistress bring,
Ere I go to shades of night,
I'll put all my cares to flight.

ΧΙ.

On His Age.

Oft by the maidens I am told,

Poor Anacreon, thou grow'st old!

Early Poets and Poetry of Pennsylvania, by J. F. Fisher. -Pa. Hist. Soc. Mems., vol. ii. part ii. 59.

Take the glass, and see how years
Have despoil'd thy head of hairs;
See, thy forehead bald appears!

But whether hair adorns my head, Or all my golden tresses fled,

I do not know, but from their lore, Resounding my approaching hour, This truth I know, infallibly,

"Tis time to live, if death be nigh.

XIL

To a Swallow.

Say now, thou twit'ring swallow, say,
How shall I punish thee? which way?
Say, shall I rather clip thy wing,

Or tongue, that thou no more mayst sing?
As cruel Tereus once is said

T have done, while yet thou wert a maid.
Why dost thou, ere the morn is nigh,
Prattling round my window fly?
Why snatch Bathylla from my arms,
While I in dreams possess her charms?

XXVI.

Of Himself.

When Bacchus revels in my breast,
All my cares are lull'd to rest;
Croesus' self I then despise,
He's not so happy in my eyes.
Then from my lips flow warbling sounds,
Sweetest music then abounds:

With laurel wreaths I bind my brow,
I look disdainfully below.

Let fools impetuous rush to arms,

Me the gen'rous Lyæus charms.
Quickly give me, youth, the bowl,

In one large draught I'll drown my soul;
Here, rather let me drunken lie,
Than sober, without wine to die.

MATHER BYLES.

THIS witty divine was born in Boston, 1706. He was the son of an Englishman, who died a year after his son's birth. On his mother's side he was descended from Richard, the founder of the Mather family, and John Cotton. Leaving Harvard in 1725, he was ordained in 1733 the first pastor of the Hollis Street Church. Here he remained until the outbreak of the American Revolution, when, in consequence of his adherence to the English government, this connexion was broken off. In 1777 he was denounced in town meeting, and afterwards tried before a special court on the charges of having remained in the town during the siege, prayed for the king, and received the visits of British officers. He was convicted, and sentenced to imprisonment with his family in a guard-ship and to be sent to England. The first part of the sentence was changed to confinement in his own house, and the second was never put in execution. During this imprisonment he amused the good people of Boston by on one occasion very composedly marching to and fro before his own door, mounting guard over himself, having persuaded his sentinel to go on an errand for him on condition of supplying his place during his absence. The guard was soon removed, again restored, and not long after dismissed changes which drew from the doctor the remark that he had been guarded, reguarded, and disregarded." Disregarded he remained, as he was henceforth suffered to live in retirement.

We have a last glimpse of Dr. Byles in the correspondence of Franklin:

SIR,

Mather Byles to B. Franklin.

Boston, 14th May, 1787.

It is long since I had the pleasure of writing to you by Mr. Edward Church, to thank you for your friendly mention of me in a letter that I find was transmitted to the University of Aberdeen. I doubt whether you ever received it, but, under great weakness by old age and a palsy, I seize this opportunity of employing my daughter to repeat the thanks, which I aimed to express in that letter. Your Excellency is now the man, that I early expected to see you. I congratulate my country upon her having produced a Franklin, and can only add, I wish to meet you where complete felicity and we shall be for ever united. I am, my dear and early friend, your most affectionate and humble servant, M. BYLES.

P.S. I refer you to the bearer, Mr. Pierpont, to inform you how my life, and that of my daughters, have been saved by your points.

Mather Byles

His death occurred some months after in 1788. He left two daughters, who remained unflinching loyalists, residing together in their father's house, on the corner of Nassau and Tremont streets, which no offer would induce them to part with, taking their tea off a table at which Franklin. had partaken of the same beverage, blowing their fire with a bellows two hundred years old, going to church on Sundays in dresses of the last century, until 1835, when one of them, as the story goes, died of grief, as it is supposed, at having part of the old family mansion pulled down for the improvement of the street. The survivor lived two years longer. Both were unmarried, and must have attained a good old age, as we find Dr. Byles's daughters spoken of as a couple of fine young ladies by the Rev. Jacob Bailey* in 1778.

Jacob Bailey was born at Rowley, Mass., in 1781. He was educated at Harvard College, and after visiting England to obtain deacon and priest's orders, became a missionary in Pownalborough, Maine. Adhering to the crown at the revolution, he retired to Nova Scotia, where the remainder of his life was

Dr. Byles's reputation as a wit has overshadowed his just claims to regard as a pulpit orator. His published sermons, of which several are extant, some of them having reached a second and third edition, show him to have possessed a fine imagination, great skill in amplification, and great command of language combined with terseness of expression. Passages in these discourses would not do discredit to the best old English divines. Several were preached on public occasions, but are, like all his other discourses, entirely free from the political allusions in which his brother clergymen so frequently indulged. On being asked why he avoided this topic, he replied, "I have thrown up four breast-works, behind which I have entrenched myself, neither of which can be forced. In the first place, I do not understand politics; in the second place, you all do, every man and mother's son of you; in the third place, you have politics all the week, pray let one day in seven be devoted to religion; in the fourth place, I am engaged in a work of infinitely greater importance: give me any subject to preach on of more consequence than the truths I bring you, and I will preach on it the next sabbath."

In the early part of his life, before and after his ordination, Dr. Byles wrote and published the following poems:

[graphic]

To his Excellency Governor Belcher, on the Death of his Lady, an Epistle. 1736, pp. 4. On the Death of the Queen, a Poem. 1738,

pp. 7.

An Elegy addressed to his Excellency Governor Belcher, on the Death of his Brother-in-law, the Hon. Daniel Oliver, Esq.; pp. 6.

The Comet, 1744, pp. 4.

The Conflagration, the God of Tempest, and Earthquake, pp. 8.

A portion of these were collected, with several others, in a small 18mo. volume of 118 pages,* in 1736, with the following brief

Preface. The Poems collected in these pages, were, for the most part, written as the amusements of looser hours, while the author belonged to the college, and was unbending his mind from severer studies in the entertainment of the classics. Most of them have been several times printed here, at London, and elsewhere, either separately or in miscellanies: and the author has now drawn them into a volume. Thus he gives up at once these lighter productions, and bids adieu to the airy Muse.

The poems are for the most part devotional or elegiac, including several hymns, verses written in Milton's Paradise Lost, To the Memory of a Young Commander slain in a battle with the Indians 1724, To an Ingenious Young Gentleman on his dedicating a poem to the author, To Pictorio on the sight of his pictures, and verses to Watts and others.

He also contributed a number of essays and occasional verses to the New England Weekly

[blocks in formation]

Journal. In 1744, A Collection of Poems by
It is a
Several Hands,* appeared in Boston.
capital miscellany of verses, which seem to have
been floating about in periodicals or manuscript
at the period. Byles no doubt contributed some
of its fifty-five pages, but none of his productions
are pointed out in a copy now in the possession
of Mr. George Ticknor, which bears on its title
the inscription, "Th. Byles, Given her by her
Father, Feb. 14, 1763," and contains several
annotations in the handwriting of the original
donor or owner. It is, however, easy to fix upon
him the courtly answer to the following compli-
mentary request, in which the blanks have been
carefully filled up with the name of Byles.

TO ********* DESIRING TO BORROW POPE'S HOMER.
From a Lady.

The Muse now waits from *** 's hands to press
Homer's high page, in Pope's illustrious dress:
How the pleas'd goddess triumphs to pronounce,
The names of ***, Pope, Homer, all at once!

The Answer.

Soon as your beauteous letter I
peruse,
Swift as an echo flies the answ'ring muse;
Joyful and eager at your soft commands,
To bring my Pope submissive to hands.
your

Go, my dear Pope, transport th' attentive fair,
And soothe, with winning harmony, her ear.
Twill add new graces to thy heav'nly song,
To be repeated by her gentle tongue;

Thy bright'ning page in unknown charms shall grow,
Fresh beauties bloom, and fire redoubled glow;
With sounds improv'd, thy artful numbers roll,
Soft as her love, and tuneful as her soul:
Old Homer's shade shall smile if she commend,
And Pope be proud to write, as **** to lend.

It also contains a long and pleasantly written poem on Commencement Day, and a few burlesque ballads probably written by Byles or Joseph Green. One of these is as follows.

A FULL AND TRUE ACCOUNT OF HOW THE LAMENTABLE WICKED
FRENCH AND INDIAN PIRATES WERE TAKEN BY THE VALIANT
ENGLISHMEN.

Good people all, pray understand
my doleful song of wo:

It tells a thing done lately, and

not very long ago.

How Frenchmen, Indians eke, a troop (who all had drunk their cogues) They went to take an English sloop: O'the sad pack of rogues!

The English made their party good, each was a jolly lad:

The Indians run away for blood, and strove to hide like mad.

Three of the fellows in a fright, (that is to say in fears) Leaping into the sea out-right, sows'd over head and ears.

They on the waves in woful wise, to swim did make a strife,

A Collection of Poems. By Several Hands. Boston: Printed and Sold by B. Green and Company, at their Printing House in Newbury-street; and D. Gookin, in Cornhill. 1744. 4to. pp. 56.

This, with other rarities of the kind, has been liberally placed at our disposal by Mr. Ticknor.

[So in a pond a kitten cries,
and dabbles for his life;
While boys about the border scud.
with brickbats and with stones;
Still dowse him deeper in the mud;
and break his little bones.]

What came of them we cannot tell,

though many things are said: But this, besure, we know full well.

if they were drown'd they're dead. Our men did neither cry nor squeek; but fought like any sprites: And this I to the honour speak of them, the valiant wights! O did I not the talent lack, of 'thaniel Whittemore; Up to the stars-i' th' almanack, I'd cause their fame to roar.

Or could I sing like father French, so clever and so high;

Their names should last like oaken bench, to perpetuity.

How many pris'ners in they drew, say, spirit of Tom Law!

Two Frenchmen, and papooses two, three sannops, and a squaw.

The squaw, and the papooses, they

are to be left alive:

Two French, three Indian men must die:
which makes exactly five.

[Thus cypher, Sirs, you see I can,
and eke make poetry;

In commonwealth, sure such a man.
how useful must he be!]

The men were all condemn'd, and try'd,
and one might almost say,
They'l or be hang'd, or be repriev'd,
or else they'l run away.

Fair maidens, now see-saw, and wail,
and sing in doleful dumps;
And cke, ye lusty lubys all,

arise and stir your stumps.

This precious po'm shall sure be real,
In ev'ry town, I tro:

In every chimney corner said,

to Portsmouth, Boston fro.

And little children when they cry,
this ditty shall beguile;
And tho' they pout, and sob, and sigh,
shall hear, and hush, and smile.

The pretty picture too likewise,
a-top looks well enough;
Tho' nothing to the purpose 'tis,
'twill serve to set it off.

The poet will be glad, no doubt,
when all his verse shall say,
Each boy, and girl, and lass, and lout,
for ever, and for aye.

The collection also contains a number of eulogies, which show that Byles was in high favor in Boston. His reputation was not, however, confined to his own town or country, as he corresponded with Lansdowne, Watts, and Pope, the latter of whom sent him his Odyssey.

The

The Doctor was an inveterate punster. Rev. Jacob Bailey, the Missionary at Pownalborough, before the Revolution, says of him, after a visit to his house, in 1778: "The perpetual

reach after puns renders his conversation rather distasteful to persons of ordinary elegance and refinement." And Mr. Kettell* quotes some contemporary verses to the same effect:

There's punning Byles provokes our smiles,
A man of stately parts.

He visits folks to crack his jokes,
Which never mend their hearts.

With strutting gait and wig so great,
He walks along the streets;

And throws out wit, or what's like it,
To every one he meets.

The latter part of his parody of Joseph Green's parody on his psalm, shows that he was occasionally coarse in his jesting; but we have never heard any indelicacy or irreverence alleged against him.

The anat which have been preserved, show that his reputation as a wit was well deserved. There was a slough opposite his house, in which, on a certain wet day, a chaise containing two of the town council stuck fast. Dr. Byles came to his door, and saluted the officials with the remark, "Gentleinen, I have often complained to you of this nuisance without any attention being paid to it, and I am very glad to see you stirring in this matter now."

In the year 1780, a very dark day occurred, which was long remembered as "the dark day." A lady neighbor sent her son to the Doctor to know if he could tell her the cause of the obscurity. "My dear," was the answer to the messenger, "give my compliments to your mother, and tell her that I am as much in the dark as she is."

One day a ship arrived at Boston with three hundred street lamps. The same day, the Doctor happened to receive a call from a lady whose conversational powers were not of the kind to render a long interview desirable. He availed himself of the newly arrived cargo to despatch his visitor. "Have you heard the news?" said he, with emphasis. 66 Oh, no! What news?"

"Why three hundred new lights have come over in the ship this morning from London, and the selectmen have wisely ordered them to be put in irons immediately.""

The visitor forthwith decamped in search of the particulars of this invasion of religious liberty.

When brought before his judges at the time of his trial they requestel him to sit down and warm himself. "Gentlemen," was the reply, "when I came among you, I expected persecution; but I could not think you would have offered me the fire so suddenly."

A mot of Byles's is related by the hospitable wits of Boston, to the visitor, as he passes by King's Chapel, in Tremont street. There are two courses of windows by which that building is lighted on its sides; the lower ones are nearly

square.

In allusion to this architectural peculiarity of the square embrasures of its solid walls, Byles said that he had often heard of ecclesiastical canons, but never saw the portholes before. Another, a revolutionary witticism, does justice

Specimens of American Poetry, i. 125.

+We are indebted for a few capital examples, to Tudor's Life of Otis.

to Byles's toryism. When the British troops, the lobsters, passed his door, after entering the town: "Ah," said he, " now our grievances will be reddressed."*

His system of practical joking is said to have been as felicitous as his verbal; though rather more expensive to the victims.

The Doctor, however, occasionally met his match. A lady whom he had long courted unsuccessfully, married a gentleman by the name of Quincy. "So, madam," said the unsuccessful suitor, on meeting her afterwards, "it appears you prefer a Quincy to Byles." "Yes, for if there had been anything worse than biles, God would have afflicted Job with them."

He was not, however, always unsuccessful with the fair sex, as he was twice married. His first wife was a niece of Governor Belcher, and her successor, the dignity apparently diminishing with the relationship, a daughter of LieutenantGovernor Tailer.

In person Dr. Byles was tall and well proportioned. His voice was powerful and melodious, and he was a graceful and impressive speaker.

FROM A SERMON ON THE PRESENT VILENESS OF THE BODY, AND ITS FUTURE GLORIOUS CHANGE BY CHRIST.

It is a dying body, and therefore a vile Body. Here our Bodies now stand, perhaps flourishing in all the Pride and Bloom of Youth: strong our Sinews; moist our Bones; active and supple our Joints; our Pulses beating with Vigor, and our Hearts leaping with a Profusion of Life and Energy. But oh! vain Appearance and gaudy Dream! Surely every man at his best Estate, is altogether Vanity. He walks in a vain show, he glitters with delusive Colors; he spends his years as an Idle Tale. What avails it, that he is now hardy and robust, who must quickly pant upon a Death-bed. What avails it, that his limbs are sprightly in their easy Motions, which must quickly stretch in their dying Agony. The Lips now flush'd with a Rosy Colour, will anon quiver and turn pale. The Eyes that rose with a sparkling Vivacity, will fix in a ghastly Horror. The most musical Voice will be stopp'd; and the tuneful Breath fly away. The Face where Beauty now triumphs, will appear cold, and wan, and dismal, rifled by the Hand of Death. A cold sweat will chill the Body; a hoarse Rattling will fill the Throat; the Heart will heave with Pain and Labour, and the Lungs catch for Breath, but gasp in vain. Our Friends stand in Tears about our Bed. They weep; but they cannot help us. The very water with which they would cool and moisten our parched Mouths, we receive with a hollow groan. Anon we give a Gasp, and they shriek out in Distress," Oh! He's Gone! He's Dead!" The Body in that Instant stretches on the sheets, an awful Corpse.

[blocks in formation]

rection make upon our dead Bodies. Perhaps the Worms have feasted themselves upon our Last Dust; but they shall refund it, and give back every Atom; all that really belongs to our numerical Body. The Fishes perhaps have eaten the Carcase, buried in the Waves, and Lost in the Depths of the Ocean. But the sea also shall return it back, and give up the Dead which are in it. These Bodies may dissolve, and scatter among the Elements. Our Fluids may forsake their Vessels; the solid contract, and fold up in its primitive Miniature. And even after that the little invisible Bones may moulder to finer Dust, the Dust may refine to Water, wander in a Cloud, float in a River, or be lost in the wide Sea, and undistinguished Drop among the Waves. They may be again sucked up by the Sun, and fall in a Shower upon the Earth; they may refresh the Fields with Dew, flourish in a Spire of Grass; look green in a Leaf, or gaudy in a Flower or a Blossom.

THE BUTTERFLY, A TYPE OF THE RESURRECTION; FROM THE MEDITATION OF CASSIM, THE SON OF AHMED. AN ESSAY.

What more entertaining specimen of the Resurrection is there, in the whole Circumference of Nature? Here are all the wonders of the Day in Miniature. It was once a despicable Worm, it is raised a kind of painted little Bird. Formerly it crawled along with a slow and leisurely Motion: now it flutters aloft upon its guilded Wings. How much improved is its speckled Covering, when all the Gaudiness of Colour is scattered about its Plumage. It is spangled with Gold and Silver, and has every Gem of the Orient sparkling among its Feathers. Here a brilliant spot, like a clear Diamond, twinkles with an unsullied Flame, and trembles with num'rous Lights, that glitter in a gay Confusion. There a Saphire casts a milder Gleam, and shews like the blue Expanse of Heaven in a fair Winter Evening. In this Place an Emerald, like the calm Ocean, displays its cheerful and vivid Green. And close by a Ruby-flames with the ripened Blush of the Morning. The Breast and Legs, like Ebony, shone with a glorious Darkness; while its expanded Wings are edged with the golden Magnificence of the Topaz. Thus the illustrious little creature is furnished with the divinest Art, and looks like an animated composition of Jewels, that blend their promiscuous Beams about him. Thus, O Cassim, shall the Bodies of Good Men be raised; thus shall they shine, and thus fly away.

FROM THE CONFLAGRATION.

But O! what sounds are able to convey The wild confusions of the dreadful day! Eternal mountains totter on their base, And strong convulsions work the valley's face; Fierce hurricanes on sounding pinions soar, Rush o'er the land, on the toss'd billows roar, And dreadful in resistless eddies driven, Shake all the crystal battlements of heaven. See the wild winds, big blustering in the air, Drive through the forests, down the mountains tear, Sweep o'er the valleys in their rapid course, And nature bends beneath the impetuous force. Storms rush at storms, at tempests tempests roar, Dash waves on waves, and thunder to the shore. Columns of smoke on heavy wings ascend, And dancing sparkles fly before the wind. Devouring flames, wide-waving, roar aloud, And melted mountains flow a fiery flood: Then, all at once, immense the fires arise, A bright destruction wraps the crackling skies; While all the elements to melt conspire, And the world blazes in the final fire.

Yet shall ye, flames, the wasting globe refine,

[ocr errors]

And bid the skies with purer splendour shine,
The earth, which the prolific fires consume,
To beauty burns, and withers into bloom ;
Improving in the fertile flame it lies,
Fades into form, and into vigour dies:
Fresh-dawning glories blush amidst the blaze,
And nature all renews her flowery face.
With endless charms the everlasting year
Rolls round the seasons in a full career;
Spring, ever-blooming, bids the fields rejoice,
And warbling birds try their melodious voice;
Where'er she treads, lilies unbidden blow,

Quick tulips rise, and sudden roses glow:
Her pencil paints a thousand beauteous scenes,
Where blossoms bud amid immortal greens;
Each stream, in mazes, murmurs as it flows,
And floating forests gently bend their boughs.
Thou, autumn, too, sitt'st in the fragrant shade,
While the ripe fruits blush all around thy head:
And lavish nature, with luxuriant hands,
All the soft months, in gay confusion blends.

NEW ENGLAND HYMN.

To Thee the tuneful Anthem soars,
To Thee, our Fathers' God, and our's;
This wilderness we chose our seat:
To rights secured by equal laws
From persecution's iron claws,

We here have sought our calm retreat.
See! how the Flocks of Jesus rise!
See! how the face of Paradise

Blooms through the thickets of the wild Here Liberty erects her throne; Here Plenty pours her treasures down; Peace smiles, as heavenly cherubs mild. Lord, guard thy Favors: Lord, extend Where farther Western Suns descend;

Nor Southern Seas the blessings bound; Till Freedom lift her cheerful head, Till pure Religion onward spread,

And beaming wrap the world around.

JOSEPH GREEN.

JOSEPH GREEN, who, during the greater part of a long lifetime, maintained the reputation of being the foremost wit of his day, was born in Boston, in 1706, and took his degree at Harvard, at the age of twenty. He next engaged in business as a distiller,* and continued in mercantile pursuits for many years, thereby amassing a large fortune. Without taking a prominent part in politics, his pen was always ready when any occasion for satire presented, to improve it for the columns of the contemporary press, or the separate venture

Jis Green

of a pamphlet. These effusions were in smoothly written verse, and are full of humor. One of the most prominent is, Entertainment for A Winter's Evening: being a full and true Account of a very strange and wonderful Sight seen in Boston, on the twenty-seventh of December, 1749, at noon day, the truth of which can be attested by a great number of people, who actually saw the same with their own eyes, by me, the Hon. B. B. Esq. This long title is a prelude to a poem of some dozen loosely printed octavo pages only, in which the celebration of a masonic festival in a church

"Ambition fired the 'stiller's pate."-Byl

« PreviousContinue »