A second falchion touch'd his reaching hand,

...

When loveliest Youth! why did thy buckler's bound
Shield but thy breast? why not thy form surround? . .
From some base arm unseen, in covert flung,
Through his white side a coward javelin sung.
He fell a groan sad-murmur'd round the host,
Their joy, their glory, and their leader lost.

The Conquest of Canaan, VIII., 343–356, ed. 1785.

JOEL BARLOW.
Gory War.

Columbus turn'd; when rolling to the shore
Swells o'er the seas an undulating roar;

Slow, dark, portentous, as the meteors sweep,

And curtain black the illimitable deep,

High stalks, from surge to surge, a demon Form,

That howls thro heaven and breathes a billowing storm.
His head is hung with clouds; his giant hand
Flings a blue flame far flickering to the land;
His blood-stain'd limbs drip carnage as he strides,
And taint with gory grume the staggering tides;
Like two red suns his quivering eyeballs glare,
His mouth disgorges all the stores of war,
Pikes, muskets, mortars, guns and globes of fire,
And lighted bombs that fusing trails expire.
Percht on his helmet, two twin sisters rode,
The favorite offspring of the murderous god,
Famine and Pestilence; whom whilom bore
His wife, grim Discord, on Trinacria's shore;
When first their Cyclop sons, from Etna's forge,
Fill'd his foul magazine, his gaping gorge:

Then earth convulsive groan'd, high shriek'd the air,
And hell in gratulation call'd him War.

- The Columbiad, V., 471-492, ed. 1807.

The Hasty-Pudding.

Where the huge heap lies center'd in the hall,
The lamp suspended from the cheerful wall,

Brown corn-fed nymphs, and strong hard-handed beaux,
Alternate rang'd, extend in circling rows,

Assume their seats, the solid mass attack;

The dry husks rattle, and the corn-cobs crack;
The song, the laugh, alternate notes resound,
And the sweet cider trips in silence round.
The laws of Husking ev'ry wight can tell;

And sure no laws he ever keeps so well:
For each red ear a general kiss he gains,
With each smut ear she smuts the luckless swains;
But when to some sweet maid a prize is cast,
Red as her lips, and taper as her waist,

She walks the round, and culls one favor'd beau
Who leaps, the luscious tribute to bestow.

There is a choice in spoons. Tho' small appear
The nice distinction, yet to me 'tis clear.
The deep bowl'd Gallic spoon, contriv'd to scoop
In ample draughts the thin diluted soup,
Performs not well in those substantial things,
Whose mass adhesive to the metal clings;
Where the strong labial muscles must embrace
The gentle curve, and sweep the hollow space.
With ease to enter and discharge the freight,
A bowl less concave but still more dilate,
Becomes the pudding best.

Fear not to slaver; 'tis no deadly sin.

Like the free Frenchman, from your joyous chin
Suspend the ready napkin; or, like me,

Poise with one hand your bowl upon your knee;
Just in the zenith your wise head preject,
Your full spoon, rising in a line direct,

Bold as a bucket, heeds no drops that fall,

The wide mouth'd bowl will surely catch them all.

The Hasty-Pudding, Canto III., pp. 9-12, ed. 1796.

PHILIP FRENEAU.

The House of Night.1

O'er a dark field I held my dubious way

Where Jack-a-lanthorn walk'd his lonely round,

Beneath my feet substantial darkness lay,

And screams were heard from the distemper'd ground.

Nor looked I back, till to a far off wood
Trembling with fear, my weary feet had sped -
Dark was the night, but at the inchanted dome
I saw the infernal windows flaming red.

Dim burnt the lamp, and now the phantom Death
Gave his last groans in horror and despair-

1 In which Death is dying.

"All hell demands me hence" he said, and threw
The red lamp hissing through the midnight air.

-The House of Night, stanzas 109, 110, 117, in The Poems of Philip Freneau, ed. 1786.

The Wild Honey Suckle.1

Fair flower, that dost so comely grow,
Hid in this silent, dull retreat,
Untouch'd thy honey'd blossoms blow,
Unseen thy little branches greet:

No roving foot shall find thee here,
No busy hand provoke a tear.

By Nature's self in white array'd,
She bade thee shun the vulgar eye,
And planted here the guardian shade,
And sent soft waters murmuring by;
Thus quietly thy summer goes,
Thy days declining to repose.

Smit with those charms, that must decay,
I grieve to see your future doom;

They died. — nor were those flowers less gay,
The flowers that did in Eden bloom;

Unpitying frosts, and Autumn's power
Shall leave no vestige of this flower.

From morning suns and evening dews
At first thy little being came:

If nothing once, you nothing lose,
For when you die you are the same;
The space between, is but an hour,
The frail duration of a flower.

- Poems by Philip Freneau, ed. 1795. (The text in the 1788

edition is inferior.)

HENRY H. BRACKENRIDGE.

Warren's Speech at Bunker Hill.

To arms,

brave countrymen, for see the foe, Comes forth to battle, and would seem to try, Once more, their fortune in decisive war.

... Our noble ancestors, Out-brav'd the tempests, of the hoary deep,

Y

1 The entire poem is given.

And on these hills, uncultivate and wild,
Sought an asylum, from despotic sway;
A short asylum, for that envious power,
With persecution dire, still follows us.
Remember March, brave countrymen, that day,
When Boston's streets ran blood. Think on that day,
And let the memory, to revenge, stir up,

The temper of your souls. . . . Let every arm,
This day be active in fair freedom's cause,

And shower down, from the hill, like Heav'n in wrath,
Full store of lightning, and fierce iron hail,

To blast the adversary.

- The Battle of Bunker's-Hill, V., i., ed. 1776.

B.

NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES

COLLEGES

THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER.

NEWSPAPERS AND MAGAZINES.1

The first newspaper established in America was The Boston News-Letter, a weekly, which ran from 1704 to 1776.2 It was usually printed on a (printer's) half-sheet, and contained short pieces of foreign and domestic news. Its space was so scanty that in 1719 it had got thirteen months behindhand with the foreign news from regions beyond Great Britain; for some time, therefore, a whole sheet was printed every other week, until the publisher was able to announce proudly that that part of his news-record was "now less than five months" behindhand. The Boston Gazette was started in 1719; The New England Courant in 1721. Several other papers were started in Boston within the next fifteen years; but only one of them, The Boston Evening-Post, continued to the Revolution. In 1768 The Boston Chronicle began to appear twice a week. In 1770 The Massachusetts Spy was published thrice a week for a few months; in 1771 it became a weekly, but of larger size than any which had yet appeared in Boston, being printed on a whole sheet, four columns to a page. Pennsylvania was only a little behind Massachusetts, the third newspaper in America, The American Weekly Mercury, being started in Philadelphia, Dec. 22, 1719, one day later than The Boston Gazette. The second newspaper in the colony, The Pennsylvania Gazette, founded in 1728, was bought in 1729 by Franklin, who published it twice a week for a while and soon made it very profitable. Several other Pennsylvania newspapers (some of them in German) sprang up at various times before the Revolution. The first daily newspaper in

1 Most of the facts are taken from Thomas's History of Printing in America.

2 A newspaper, Publick Occurrences, was started in Boston in 1690, but the authorities suppressed it after the first issue.