Then is illustrated the sudden wrench to which poets laureate are sometimes subjected:

"Enough, my muse, give all thy tears away;
Break, ye dull shades, and rise the rosy day,
Let Britain's sorrows cease, her joys enlarge,
The First revives the Second George.

Hail, mighty prince, O shining sovereign, hail!
Fain would the muse lisp her prophetic tale ;
In mystic lays the future years relate,

And sing the records of unripened state,"

which the loyal American then proceeds to do in
couplets that Pope, his master, might have approved
in a double sense. Still, the improvement in imitation
is great, and the copy is better than hitherto. Even in
lighter strain some contemporary hit off the majestic
divine in better form than that of the ancient elegy:
"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."

But there is hope for the American muse.

Its first

agony is over and its writhings begin to be graceful. At

least it is in the prevailing mode of London Town.

Separation and Association.

ΧΙ

REMONSTRANT WRITERS

ABOUT the year 1765 American writings took on a new form and spirit. For a century and a half the colonists had been carrying the separatist principle into their religious and political life. Massachusetts desired nothing of Rhode Island beyond keeping its own side of the line. Virginia had no favors to ask of Maryland, nor Pennsylvania of New York. Each settlement cultivated the traditional seclusion of the Briton in his country house, and kept itself removed from the highways of the world's life and literature. But from the parliament-house in London these scattered plantations easily narrowed into a single strip of farms and fishing stations from which revenue might be raised for the crown. Oppressive legislation to secure tribute forced upon these isolated and exclusive communities the idea of confederation, which events at length matured into that of union. This thought of association, now so familiar after more than one hundred years of the fact, was the idle dream of a few visionary radicals in 1765, and a nightmare to everybody else. Nevertheless the writings of the succeeding decade show that a strong diversion had taken place in colonial thought and in the manner of making it known.

All the energy which had hitherto gone into theological athletics now found a field for its exercise in discussion of the rights of the British subject. Polemics of Political the meeting-house began to yield the floor Discussion. to debates of the town meeting in the interest of crystallizing colonies. The same change is noticeable in printed matter, and Edwards' treatise on "Original Sin " was laid aside for Franklin's "Cool Thoughts on the Present Situation of Our Public Affairs." Prognostics of this change had been discerned by the weather-wise as far back as the mid-century.

In the very year that Franklin was explaining his theory of thunder gusts Jonathan Mahew discoursed concerning "Unlimited Submission and Non-resistance to Higher Powers." Later Franklin stirred up Richard Jackson to write about "The Interest of Great Britain with Regard to Her Colonies," to say nothing of appeals and remonstrances that were frequently sent to the home government.

It was not, however, until the threatened passing of the stamp act that our literature began to bristle with pens engaged in the controversy for constitutional rights. Hitherto American writings had made little stir abroad, and with good reason. Now they began to command attention through their relation to the British exchequer first, and then by their dignity, strength, and knowledge. They were a revelation to the English people of growth in wisdom and power unexpected in a child who had been living so far from home among savages. "Really, it was quite remarkable," and more remarkable twenty years later. There is such an abundance of this new literature of reasonable protest and argumentative remonstrance

that a complete enumeration and the slightest characterization of its writers would exceed the limits assigned to this topic. Mention must therefore be restricted to its leading contributors, and be brief at that.

Franklin has already been spoken of as the forerunner of a departure in miscellaneous writing from previous fashions. He is also a pioneer in political

James Otis

and Others.

pamphleteering, which itself gave way to the essay in newspapers. The record of what he did with his pen in the course of a long career in the service of his country may be seen in his published works; the actual results which he accomplished may never be fully known.

Next to him in the order of time and foremost in the North was James Otis. His pamphlet on "The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved," 1764, advertised the strained relations between England and America, pointed out the injustice of recent legislation, based an appeal for redress upon the rights of the governed as protected by the British constitution, and deplored alienation from the mother country and the king. It was the final word of a loyalty which could not and would not become a slavery. It was a restatement of the rights which the barons asserted at Runnymede. It rested upon the bedrock of Magna Charta. Thus it became itself a pyramid of constitutional logic from which other writers soon began to quarry the corner stones of their several edifices, built each after a style of its own. But the sublime original will always stand as a landmark at the dividing of the ways. It did much to divide them, notwithstanding its sincere protests of reverence and love for Great Britain. The colonies saw their cause stated as they had not been

able to formulate it themselves. The grievance had been defined; should it be borne submissively, or further protested against, or forcibly resisted? The answer to this threefold question was not uniform. The last two phases of it had each its advocates. Oxenbridge Thacher's "Sentiments of a British American" should be read to learn how conciliatory and moderate the best colonial temper tried to be, and was, under provocation, and loyal withal to the throne. The pamphlet debate which took place between governor Stephen Hopkins of Providence and lawyer Martin Howard of Newport, out of which the impulsive Otis could not keep himself, illustrates the divisions that had already begun to separate neighbors and families, and would by and by send many to Halifax. It also exemplifies the kind of literature which these stalwart statesmen were making. The thought-habit of it had been bred in the meeting-house and the court-house for generations, but the style of it was not the antique manner of either Dr. Mather or Judge Sewall. Samuel Johnson's orotund deliverances had reached New England, or, at least, his dictionary had arrived, and the rhythmic majesty of a ponderous diction suited well the dignity of such themes as were to be discussed by cultivated men in two hemispheres. It was as noble as the issues at stake; as stately as the manners of the time. Affected pedantry was driven out by the momentous questions impending; expletives of emotion restrained by an overshadowing storm cloud that was gathering. One cannot read these pamphlets and others like them without knowing that they dealt with one of the upheavals of history and that the men who wrote them had already been lifted to a higher level.