around Mount Pleasant; she concludes: "It is very probable that these early scenes made a lasting impression upon his youthful mind." 4

While at Princeton we know that Freneau was prominent in the best literary circles, having for his friends such men as Hugh Henry Brackenridge and James Madison. Furthermore, we are fortunate in having a rather full account of the curriculum at Princeton in Freneau's time. The following relevant passage occurs in President Witherspoon's "Address to the Inhabitants of Jamaica," published in Philadelphia in 1772:

In the first year they read Latin and Greek, with the Roman and Grecian antiquities, and Rhetoric. In the second, continuing the study of the languages, they learn the first principles of Philosophy, and the elements of mathematical knowledge. The third, though the languages are not wholly omitted, is chiefly employed in Mathematics and Natural Philosophy and going through a course of Moral Philosophy. In addition to these, the President gives lectures to the juniors and seniors, which consequently every student hears twice over in his course, first, upon Chronology and History, and afterwards upon Composition and Criticism. He has also been taught the French language last winter, and it will continue to be taught to all who desire to learn it.

Thus we see that Freneau received a sound classical education and that he was widely read in the English poets.

For the purpose of discovering external literary influences it is unnecessary to review the remainder of his life in detail. He graduated from Princeton in 1771, after having written several noteworthy poems, and taught school for a while. But in 1775, school-teaching having become intolerable, he gained a sudden reputation as a political satirist. From late 1775 until 1779 he lived in Santa Cruz and Bermuda; this period of his life is of especial interest because it was here that he composed The House of Night and The Beauties of Santa Cruz. In 1779 he was engaged in a voyage to the Azores, and in 1780 his vessel was captured and he was detained over a month in the British prison ship,-an experience which called forth one of his most bitter poems. He was editor of the Freeman's Journal from 1781 to 1784, contributing a good deal of unsigned prose and verse. The next six years were occupied in the Atlantic coast trade. From 1790 to 1797 he

Mary S. Austin, Philip Freneau, N. Y., 1901, p. 70.

wrote for four successive papers,-The Charlestown Daily Advertiser, The National Gazette (Philadelphia), The Jersey Chronicle, and The Time-Piece and Literary Companion (N. Y.). He attempted farming from 1798 to 1803 without much success, and finally returned to the sea for the next five years. The rest of his life was spent in retirement at Mount Pleasant until his death in 1832. These are the bare facts of a life which for almost any other purpose than our present one would be well worth careful study. It is perhaps relevant to notice here that it was not without sadness and disillusionment.

Turning now to an attempt to trace his general reading, we are confronted with many difficulties. In the first place, "the poet's papers, manuscript poems, valuable letters, and books, the collection of a life-time "-were destroyed when his Mount Pleasant home burned in 1815; thus the usual instruments for a study such as ours were made forever unavailable. In the second place, an inquiry as to records at Princeton which would indicate Freneau's reading brings the reply that "There are no records in existence of early reading done at Princeton, so far as we know." The librarian goes on to say that the library was dissipated by the British soldiers during the Revolution, and that what few books had accumulated from then until 1802 were destroyed by fire in that year.

However, through the courtesy of Mr. Gerould, Librarian of Princeton, I have had access to "certain information regarding books which belonged to Freneau, chiefly notices of sales and offers to our University." This consists of a detailed description of "Unique books offered from the library of Philip Freneau by Wilfred C. Keeson, 66-70 Beaver Street, New York." Mr. Gerould states that this has been in the files of the library for approximately ten years; or in other words, it is information which was unavailable to Professor Pattee when he edited Freneau's poems, and it has remained unpublished. In all there were twelve volumes, and the fact that, according to the record of booksellers for the last thirty years none of the books owned by Freneau occur at auction, would imply that these mentioned-said to have been picked out

Mr. J. T. Gerould, Librarian at Princeton, personal letter dated Oct. 20, 1923.

of the ruins directly after the fire-are the only ones of his personal books in existence.

Passing over books on navigation and physics, the first book on the list of interest for our purpose is Ovidii Nasonia Operum (Vol. 3, Lugd. Bol. 1661). On the fly-leaves Freneau kept a diary of his life from 1770 to 1804, and at the end of the book he wrote a poetical translation of the third Elegy of the first book of Ovid's Tristia. This is significant-as we shall see later-in relation to his choice of melancholy themes; for this passage in Ovid is one long series of laments over his exile. The dates indicate that the owner referred to this book for thirty-four years.

The next books on the list are volumes I and VIII of the Spectator. The description mentions "very early writing of Freneau" on the title-page, and "many critical notes on the text " indicating that the poet was thoroughly familiar with it. Volume VIII bears the words: "On Board the Continental Ship Ranger,' Nov. 8, 1778." The fact that Freneau was evidently well acquainted with the Spectator is significant because in many respects he shows Addison's equably ironic view of life. Important, also, is the fact that volume I contains an article upon the Indian-— "The Four Indian Kings" from which Freneau derived some of his ideas on the "noble savage."

There are also the London Magazine (from January, 1732 to December, 1733), and the works of Alexander Pope (London, 1757). The latter is annotated, and bears his father's signature, 1761, showing that the poet must have been thoroughly familiar with Pope, as many of his satires suggest.

But perhaps the most significant of all is the volume of The Odes, Epodes, and Carmen Seculare of Horace, London, 1760. On the fly-leaf he has written, "1768 Philip Freneau and his book, Nassau Hall, Nova Ceasarea." The dedication leaf bears the words "Philip Freneau, 1770" and again " Philip Freneau, 1795," thus proving that he had used and studied the volume for over twentyfive years, as the "immense number of his notes" would indicate. On one of the blank leaves he has transcribed in English Ode 13, "When Lydia praises Damon's charms." This proof that he was so much influenced by Horace is significant, although it is evident in much of his work. The Pyramids of Egypt, one of his early poems, bears the motto-so significant, again, in relation to his

choice of melancholy themes-"Debemur morti, nos nostraque." The Rising Glory of America shows the influence of Horace's sixteenth epode, the best of all his political poems; it is full of mourning for a lost cause, written at a time when Horace saw no prospect for Rome but dissolution by civil strife. The ode on Arnold's Departure is an acknowledged imitation of Horace's tenth epode, and The Academy of Death is practically a translation of Ode 15, Book I of Horace, where he describes Nereus's prophecy of the destruction of Troy. The choice of subjects is interesting.

Significant also in the 1809 edition of his poems is the translation of the passage of Lucretius's De Natura Rerum in the sixth book where he describes the great plague of Athens. This is one of the most horrid and gruesome descriptions in all literature, and Freneau's choice indicates the taste which conceived The House of Night. Doubtless he was strongly influenced by this passage, and doubtless it was not uninfluential in the horror of certain stanzas of his poem. The first lines of The Hurricane (1784)—

Happy the man who, safe on shore,
Now trims, at home, his evening fire;
Unmoved, he hears the tempests roar,
That on the tufted groves expire.-

suggest the first lines of Lucretius's Book II which have precisely the same image of a man who enjoys looking out to sea and viewing in safety the havoc of the storm.

Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequore ventis,

E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
Non quia vexari quemquamst iucunda voluptas,

Sed quibus ipsa malis careas quia cernere suave est.

Another interesting source of Freneau's pensive melancholy is found in Edward Young. That he was familiar with Young is evident from the fact that his translation of the New Travels through North America in 1783 bore the following characteristic lines from Young as a motto on the title-page:

From such events, let boastful nations know,
Jove lays the pride of haughtiest monarchs low,
And they, who kindled with ambitious fire,
In arts, and arms, with most success aspire,
When turn'd to tyrants, but provoke their doom,
Grasp at their fate, and build themselves a tomb.

(Busiris)

This is deeply significant, for Young is everywhere ruminating on the transitory character of life, and his work forms an important transition to the later sentimentalism of his friend Richardson.

There are several quotations from Shakespeare, and several from Milton. From the Il Penseroso quality of Milton may be traced much of Freneau's sweet pensiveness. His poem on The Bermuda Islands, 1778, bears an apt quotation from Waller's Battle of the Summer Islands. We shall see later that he may have been influenced by Blair's Grave and by Sackville's The Induction. He translated Gray's Ode Written at Grande Chartreuse, and every critic has stressed his debt to Gray, and very justly; it may be of interest, however, to notice that he does not once mention or quote from this poet to whom he owed so much.

That Freneau knew his Virgil well, and selected several mottos from his work, has been pointed out many times. It is significant that he selects romantic qualities, qualities which suited his own peculiar temperament, and which he turned to an altogether unclassical use.

Another striking source of Freneau's conceptions is found in his knowledge of Seneca, whose Medea and Hercules Furens, from which he quoted respectively mottos for The Rising Glory of America and The Progress of Balloons, are among the most weird. and ghastly poems in any literature. Seneca was an important influence upon the sensational melodrama of early Elizabethan days. He must have furnished images, or at least prepared Freneau's mind, for The House of Night. He was attracted, too, by the romantic note of prophecy found in the "ultima Thule" of Seneca.

That he knew and admired the poet Darwin may be inferred from his statement in a letter to Dr. J. W. Francis of New York, dated May 15, 1819. He writes: "I feel a strong inclination to write four or five hundred flowing lines in the poetical style of Darwin, on the Elgin Garden, as soon as I can get the materials." Darwin, it will be recalled, was the author of The Botanic Garden (1789), and The Loves of the Plants, an allegory in which he attempted to enlist the imagination under the banner of science;

Found in Unpublished Freneauana, N. Y., 1918; one of twenty copies published by Mr. C. F. Heartman is to be found in the Yale University Library.