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SATIRICAL POETRY; PRODUCTION OF BOOKS.

(1767), which were originally printed in a newspaper, and then in pamphlet form went through thirty editions in six months. Josiah Quincy's Observations on the Boston Post Bill and many other essays and speeches; Circular Letter to Each Colonial Legislature (1768) by Samuel Adams and James Otis; the speeches of Patrick Henry, John Randolph, Thomas Jefferson and scores of other patriots; Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776) and his series of political essays published from time to time under the title The Crisis: these are merely indicative of the volume and the character of the admirable prose writing of the period. Nor was poetry entirely neglected. Francis Hopkinson of Philadelphia wrote much prose and one poem that attained to very distinct popularity -The Battle of the Kegs (1778), a satire upon the British Army. Jonathan Odell of New Jersey, a Loyalist, satirized the revolutionists in The Work of Congress, The Feu de Joie, and The American Times, all published in 1779-1780. John Trumbull in 1772 wrote the Progress of Dulness, a satire on clerical education, and between 1774 and 1782, a mock epic McFingal, satirizing the Tories of the day.

The output of the colonial presses of the Seventeenth century was 902 titles including three attempted newspapers, books, pamphlets, broadsides, almanacs, sermons and so on. In the

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Eighteenth century prior to 1765 there were 8,988 titles. Between 1765 and 1779 there were 15,275, emphasizing the tremendous productivity of the Revolutionary period. From 1779 to 1785, 3,271 titles were added making a grand total of 18,546.* In this enumeration each newspaper is entered once for each year.†

Charles Evans, American Bibliography (6 vols., Chicago, 1903-1905).

C. F. Richardson, American Literature (2 vols., New York, 1887); Moses Coit Tyler, A History of American Literature During the Colonial Time (2 vols., New York, 1897); Moses Coit Tyler, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763–1783 (2 vols., New York, 1897); S. L. Whitcomb, Chronological Outlines of American Literature (New York, 1894); Barrett Wendell, A Literary History of America (New York, 1901); Barrett Wendell and Chester N. Greenough, A History of Literature in America (New York, 1907); Edwin M. Bacon and Horace Lyman Weeks, An Historical Digest of the Provincial Press, 1692-1783, vol. i. (Boston, 1911); John Nichol, American Literature (Edinburgh, 1882); Isaiah Thomas, A History of Printing in America, with a Biography of Printers, and an Account of

Newspapers (Worcester, Mass., 1810), also in Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society, vols. v. and vi. (Worcester, Mass., 1874); Justin Winsor (ed.), The Memorial History of Suffolk, Mass., vols. i., ii., iii. (Boston, 1881); Andrew McFarland Davis, The Cambridge Press, in Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (Worcester, Mass., 1888); Charles Evans, A Chronological Dictionary of all Books, Pamphlets and Periodical Publications printed in the United States of America from the Genesis of Printing in 1639 down to and including the year 1820 (6 vols., Chicago, 1903– 1904); Robert F. Roden, The Cambridge Press, 1638-1692, A History of the First Printing Press Established in English America, Together with a Bibliographical List of the Issues of the Press (New York, 1905); W. P. Trent, A History of American Literature (New York, 1903); P. K. Foley, American Authors, a Bibliography of First and Notable Editions (Boston, 1897).

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EARLY ART PRODUCTIONS; OPPOSITION ENCOUNTERED.

Early American Art.

When the fact is considered that England herself produced no artist of the first rank before the middle of the Eighteenth century, it is not surprising that there should have been no noteworthy development of art in the Colonies prior to that date. That wonderful artistic florescence produced by the Renaissance seems to have spent its impulse on the continent of Europe, the spirit of the age finding its expression in England in the drama, poetry, and other literary forms. In the New World, the first drawings other than the crude hieroglyphs of the Indian were probably made by the French explorers, some of whom were possessed of considerable artistic talent and occupied their leisure hours in making sketches of the country traversed, and the vegetable and animal life found therein. The earliest of these was probably Jaques le Moyne de Morgues, who was one of the few survivors of a Huguenot colony established by France at the mouth of St. John's River, Florida, which was destroyed by the Spanish forces in 1565. Le Moyne reached France after experiencing dreadful perils and privations, and published an account of his adventures in 1591. This was illustrated by copper-plate engravings made from his own drawings. Champlain, the explorer of Canada, was also gifted with his pencil, his journal containing many sketches of places visited by him.

The stormy days that marked the winning of the New World for the English colonists were not auspicious for art. The times demanded workers and fighters, not painters and poetasters; there were already too many non-producers, particularly in Virginia, who did not even have the excuse of art to justify their sloth. During the later colonial period when the colonists had reclaimed the fertile lands from the forest and had built their spacious and comfortable manor houses, a demand for paintings arose; mainly family portraits. As there were few native artists of any skill, the majority of these were painted by English painters who were sought out by the colonists during visits to the Mother Country. Yet these in most cases were not from the hands of native-born Englishmen, for the most successful artists in London, from the Restoration to the middle of the Eighteenth century, were immigrants from France, Germany, or the Netherlands. Hence many of the old Virginia and Maryland portraits are found to bear the signatures of Lely, Kneller, Van der Gucht and Gravelot.

The New England Puritans, it seems, were constitutionally opposed to paintings, indeed, to art of any sort, banishing all music, even, from their lives save the intoning of psalms. Nevertheless the earliest reference to any endeavor toward the development of an indigenous art is found in the writings of one of the high-priests of Puritanism, Cotton Mather. Thus

BENJAMIN WEST.

we read in his Magnalia that there was a "limner " in Massachusetts as early as 1670. Examples of portrait engraving of Mather's time have also come down; one of them a crude plate of Richard Mather, engraved by John Foster of Boston in 1670. A mezzotint of Cotton Mather was made by Peter Pelham, the step-father of J. S. Copley, and a copper plate of Increase Mather was engraved by

Thomas Emmes in 1701.

The first painter to open a studio, so far as we know, of whom we have any record, was John Watson, a native of Scotland, who came to America in 1715, setting up a studio at Perth Amboy, and we have the names of John Greenwood, Jonathan Blackburn, Peter Cooper, Robert Feke, and Lawrence Kilburn, who are said to have painted pictures during the early part of the Eighteenth century. It is probable, however, that their work was of very mediocre quality, and that a good share of their profits came from painting tavern signs and carriage doors. John Smibert, who accompanied Bishop Berkeley, the famous philosopher and divine, on his memorable journey to New England, was therefore probably the first painter of decided talent to establish himself in the New World.

With the advent, however, of John Singleton Copley (1737-1815) and Benjamin West (1738-1820), the history of early American art ceases to be a matter of speculation and becomes a realized fact. With these

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men it may truthfully be said to have its beginning. Almost contemporaneous in point of time, with careers marked by many similarities, yet in important details their lives were quite dissimilar. Both were profoundly influenced by the isolation of the American artist, and by the crudeness of the life into which they were born. In the case of West this resulted in expatriation and establishment in London, where he attained a position of great influence and distinction. He is thus the first of the long list of American painters who have fled from their native land to find appreciation and a livelihood which they thought unattainable at home. In the case of West, however, it did not mean a change of citizenship, for the Colonies had not yet severed their relations with Great Britain; furthermore the change was made at such an early period in his life that it is doubtful whether he can be claimed as an American artist at all. He rapidly attained distinction. in his adopted home, was one of the founders of the Royal Academy, and succeeded Sir Joshua Reynolds as its president in 1792. West was an epical painter, composing vast canvases based on historical and sacred themes. These have somewhat lost their interest to the student of art, yet they are possessed of unusual power and evidence an imagination and a technical ability of first rank. Furthermore, his rise from poverty and obscurity to the crown of success proved a great

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COPLEY, PEALE, AND TRUMBULL.

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Copley also went to England, but unlike West did not leave his own country until he had established a reputation there as a painter of unusual ability. He was very precocious and, having received both encouragement and instruction from his step-father, Peter Pelham, the engraver, he had obtained recognition as a skilful painter at the early age of seventeen. The success of West in England tempted him to follow his example, but he resisted the desire until his thirty-seventh year, at which time (1774) he accepted the urgent invitation of the former to visit him in London. His intention was to remain there only a short time, but his reception was so cordial and his success so marked that his proposed stay of a few months lengthened into yearsindeed, until his death. It thus happened that he was absent from America during the thrilling events that marked the breaking of the ties between the Colonies and the Mother Country. Copley attempted many ambitious and elaborate compositions, but his portraits are of the greatest interest to us, as by them we are made acquainted with the men and women of the later Colonial era.

Charles Wilson Peale (1741-1829)

was a painter of considerable merit, but his versatility prevented him from developing his powers to the utmost in any particular line. It was thus left to John Trumbull (1756– 1843) and Gilbert Stuart (17551828) to carry on the tradition of Copley and West in America, and give in the truest sense pictorial expression to the spirit of '76. Trumbull was not an artist of the first rank, but he was in love with his work and was fired with a passionate ardor for the Revolutionary cause. This forms the theme of many of his pictures, among which "The Battle of Bunker Hill" is perhaps the most familiar. He also painted, late in life, four of the great historical canvases in the rotunda of the National Capitol.*

in

While Trumbull was thus engaged

depicting the stirring scenes of the Revolution, his greater contemporary, Gilbert Stuart, was making immortal with his brush the faces and forms of the heroic men who brought that great work to its successful conclusion. Stuart stands apart from the painters of his time. Although he takes his place a distinguished one, be it said among that remarkable group of portrait painters of the Eighteenth century, which comprehended Reynolds, Romney, Lawrence, Gainsborough and Hoppner, yet in some

*The Declaration of Independence, The Surrender of Burgoyne, The Surrender of Cornwallis, and The Resignation of Washington.

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STUART, ALLSTON, AND SULLY.

respects he was far in advance of them, and in the handling of color and his brush-work shows a kinship with the methods of the later Nineteenth century. At an early period in his career he came under the spell of the English school, and for a while was a pupil in the studio of Benjamin West, yet it was but a passing phase in his development. He saw that the sole endeavor of the English portraitists was the expression of mere sensuous beauty, so he flung himself out of it and set to work to teach himself the art of painting as he conceived it. Not that the creed of beauty did not enter into his conception, but to Stuart truth was an element equally desirable. The art that could create a fairy princess out of a light o' love possessed no interest to him, hence his portraits have a power and reality that one seeks in vain for in the canvases of Reynolds and Gainsborough. His wonderful intuitive powers enabled him to perceive the spiritual characteristics of his sitters, which he transferred with amazing skill to his canvas. For this reason he has been recognized as the sole artist of his time to give an adequate portrayal of the features of Washington, whose portraits painted by him constitute a noble memorial to America's greatest statesman.

The definite separation of the Colonies from the Mother Country had a repressive effect upon art, and with the exception of Stuart and Trumbull, only four men attained results worthy

VOL. IV-6

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of attention during the first half-century of the nation's life. These were Washington Allston (1779-1843), Thomas Sully (1783-1872), John Vanderlyn (1776 1852), and John Wesley Jarvis (1780-1834). Allston was a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a poet of considerable ability as well as a painter. He was somewhat of a dilletante, restlessly turning from one art to another, yet he had distinct genius as a painter; and, had his technique been on a plane with his conceptive powers, he would doubtless rank rank among America's greatest artists. As it is, his canvases are more interesting for what they aspire to, than what they realize. The mystical nature of his themes. has caused his pictures to appeal to many students of American art, and of late there has been marked tendency towards an Allston renais

sance.

Thomas Sully was the Gilbert Stuart of the early Nineteenth century. During his long life he painted thousands of portraits, which, though not marked by any extraordinary qualities, were of an even excellence. His extant pictures would fill a gallery with the faces of distinguished men and lovely women, among which the famous portrait of Queen Victoria, painted soon after her coronation, would take the first place.

Allston and Vanderlyn were the first artists of America to study in Italy, and both were profoundly influenced by the masters of the Italian

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