The Broadview Anthology of LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1770 – 1830 The Broadview Anthology of LITERATURE OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 1770 – 1830 EDITED BY D.L. MACDONALD AND ANNE MCWHIR BROADVIEW PRESS © 2009 D.L. Macdonald and Anne McWhir All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system, without prior written consent of the publisher—or in the case of photocopying, a license from Access Copyright (Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency), One Yonge Street, Suite 1900, Toronto, Ontario M5E 1E5—is an infringement of the copyright law. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION The Broadview anthology of literature of the Revolutionary period, 1770-1830 / edited by D.L. Macdonald and Anne McWhir. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-55111-051-6 1. English literature—18th century. 2. English literature—19th century. I. Macdonald, D.L. (David Lorne), 1955- II. McWhir, Anne, 1947- PS533.B76 2009 820.8'006 C2009-903546-4 Broadview Press is an independent, international publishing house, incorporated in 1985. Broadview believes in shared ownership, both with its employees and with the general public; since the year 2000 Broadview shares have traded publicly on the Toronto Venture Exchange under the symbol BDP. We welcome comments and suggestions regarding any aspect of our publications—please feel free to contact us at the addresses below or at [email protected]. North America UK, Ireland, and continental Europe Australia and New Zealand PO Box 1243 NBN International NewSouth Books Peterborough, Ontario Estover Road c/o TL Distribution Canada K9J 7H5 Plymouth, UK PL6 7PY 15-23 Helles Avenue TEL: 44 (0) 1752 202300 Moorebank, NSW, 2170 2215 Kenmore Avenue FAX: 44 (0) 1752 202330 TEL: (02) 8778 9999 Buffalo, NY, USA 14207 [email protected] FAX: (02) 8778 9944 TEL: (705) 743-8990 [email protected] FAX: (705) 743-8353 [email protected] www. broadviewpress.com Broadview Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP) for our publishing activities. Cover design PRINTED IN CANADA Contents EDITORIAL PREFACE ................................................................ XXXII BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (1706 – 1790) ...................................................... 1 from Two Tracts: Information to Those Who Would Remove to America. And, Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America (1784) Remarks Concerning the Savages of North-America .................................... 1 RICHARD PRICE (1723 –1791) ........................................................... 5 from A Discourse on the Love of our Country, delivered on Nov. 4, 1789, at the Meeting-House in the Old Jewry, to the Society for Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain (1789) ................. 5 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS (1723 – 1792) .................................................... 11 from Seven Discourses Delivered in the Royal Academy by the President (1778) from A Discourse, Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of the Prizes, December 10, 1776, by the President [DISCOURSE 7] ............................. 11 CLARA REEVE (1729 – 1807) ........................................................... 16 from The Progress of Romance, through Times, Countries, and Manners; with Remarks on the Good and Bad Effects of It, on Them Respectively; in a Course of Evening Conversations (1785) from Evening 7 ............................................................... 16 EDMUND BURKE (1729? –1797) ......................................................... 22 from Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to That Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris (1790)......... 22 A Letter from the Right Honourable Edmund Burke to a Noble Lord, on the Attacks Made Upon Him and His Pension, in the House of Lords, by the Duke of Bedford and the Earl of Lauderdale, Early in the Present Sessions of Parliament (1796) .............................................. 33 IGNATIUS SANCHO (1729? – 1780) ...................................................... 43 from Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African. To Which are Prefixed Memoirs of his Life, by Joseph Jekyll, Esq. M.P. 5th ed. (1803) LETTER 36 .................................................................. 43 JOHN SCOTT (1730 – 1783) ............................................................ 45 from Poetical Works (1782) Ode 13 [“I hate that drum’s discordant sound”] ...................................... 45 OLIVER GOLDSMITH (1730? – 1774) ..................................................... 46 The Deserted Village, A Poem (1770) ................................................... 46 v CATHARINE MACAULAY (1731 – 1791) ................................................... 52 from Letters on Education, with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects (1790) PART 1, LETTER 24 ............................................................. 52 WILLIAM COWPER (1731 – 1800) ....................................................... 55 from The Task, A Poem, in Six Books (1785) from BOOK 2, The Time-Piece .................................................... 55 from The Works of William Cowper, Esq. comprising his Poems, Correspondence, and Translations, ed. Robert Southey (1837) The Negro’s Complaint......................................................... 56 Sweet Meat Has Sour Sauce: or, The Slave-Trader in the Dumps .......................... 57 from Life, and Posthumous Writings of William Cowper, ed. William Hayley (1803) Sonnet, to William Wilberforce, Esq. .............................................. 57 The Cast-Away ............................................................... 58 ERASMUS DARWIN (1731 – 1802) ....................................................... 59 from The Temple of Nature; or, The Origin of Society: A Poem. With Philosophical Notes (1803) from CANTO 4, Of Good and Evil ................................................. 59 JOHN ADAMS (1734 – 1826) and ABIGAIL ADAMS (1744 – 1818) ................................ 61 LETTERS Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1776 ....................................... 61 John Adams to Abigail Adams, 15 April 1776 ........................................ 62 J. HECTOR ST. JOHN DE CRÈVECOEUR (1735 – 1813) ........................................ 64 from Letters from an American Farmer (1782) from LETTER 12, Distresses of a Frontier Man ........................................ 64 THOMAS PAINE (1737 – 1809) .......................................................... 72 from The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology (1794)............... 72 CHARLOTTE BROOKE (1740 –1793) ..................................................... 77 from Reliques of Irish Poetry: Consisting of Heroic Poems, Odes, Elegies, and Songs, Translated into English Verse: with Notes Explanatory and Historical; and the Originals in the Irish Character. To Which is Subjoined an Irish Tale (1789) The Lamentation of Cucullin, over the Body of his Son Conloch ......................... 77 Song. For Mable Kelly. By Carolan ................................................ 79 ANNA SEWARD (1742 –1809) ........................................................... 82 from Llangollen Vale, with Other Poems (1796) Eyam ....................................................................... 82 To Time Past. Written Dec. 1772 ................................................. 83 from Original Sonnets on Various Subjects; and Odes Paraphrased from Horace (1799) Sonnet 10. To Honora Sneyd .................................................... 84 Sonnet 71. To the Poppy ........................................................ 84 vi HANNAH COWLEY (1743 –1809) ........................................................ 85 from the World, Fashionable Advertiser (10 July 1787) To Della Crusca. The Pen ....................................................... 85 from the World (22 December 1787) To Della Crusca .............................................................. 85 THOMAS JEFFERSON (1743 – 1826) ...................................................... 87 In Congress, July 4, 1776, A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress Assembled .............................................................. 87 ANNA LAETITIA BARBAULD ( 1743 – 1825) ................................................. 90 from Poems (1773) The Mouse’s Petition, Found in the Trap Where He Had Been Confin’d All Night............ 91 A Summer Evening’s Meditation .................................................. 91 An Address to the Opposers of the Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts (1790) ................... 92 Epistle to William Wilberforce, Esq. on the Rejection of the Bill for Abolishing the Slave Trade (1791) ... 101 from the Monthly Magazine 4 (July-December 1797) Washing-Day ............................................................... 103 from the Monthly Magazine 7 (January–June 1799) To Mr. C——ge ............................................................. 105 Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, A Poem. (1812)........................................... 105 from The Works of Anna Laetitia Barbauld. With A Memoir by Lucy Aikin (1825) The Rights of Woman ......................................................... 111 Inscription for an Ice-House .................................................... 112 To the Poor ................................................................. 113 To a Little Invisible Being Who is Expected Soon to Become Visible ..................... 113 The First Fire. October 1st, 1815 ................................................ 114 HANNAH MORE (1745 – 1833)......................................................... 115 Slavery, A Poem (1788) ............................................................ 116 Village Politics. Addressed to All the Mechanics, Journeymen, and Day Labourers, in Great Britain. By Will Chip, a Country Carpenter (1792) A Dialogue between Jack Anvil the Blacksmith, and Tom Hod the Mason.................. 120 from Cheap Repository Tracts (1795) Patient Joe; or, the Newcastle Collier .............................................. 125 from Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education. With a View of the Principles and Conduct Prevalent among Women of Rank and Fortune (1799) CHAPTER 4 ................................................................. 127 THOMAS BELLAMY (1745 – 1800) ....................................................... 130 The Benevolent Planters: A Dramatic Piece as performed at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket (1789) ..... 130 vii SAMUEL HEARNE ( 1745 – 1792) ....................................................... 135 from A Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean (1795) from CHAPTER 4 ............................................................. 135 from CHAPTER 5 ............................................................. 137 from CHAPTER 9 ............................................................. 138 OLAUDAH EQUIANO (1745? – 1797) ..................................................... 140 from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself (1789) CHAPTER 2 ................................................................. 140 ELIZABETH HANDS (1746? –1815) ...................................................... 149 from The Death of Amnon. A Poem. With an Appendix: Containing Pastorals, and Other Poetical Pieces (1789) A Poem, On the Supposition of an Advertisement Appearing in a Morning Paper, of the Publication of a Volume of Poems, by a Servant Maid ....................................... 149 A Poem, On the Supposition of the Book Having Been Published and Read ................ 150 Written, Originally Extempore, on Seeing a Mad Heifer Run through the Village Where the Author Lives .................................................................. 151 SUSANNA BLAMIRE (1747 – 1794)....................................................... 152 from The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire, “The Muse of Cumberland” (1842) from Stoklewath Or, The Cumbrian Village......................................... 152 CHARLOTTE SMITH (1749 – 1806) ...................................................... 161 from Elegiac Sonnets. Third Edition, with Twenty Additional Sonnets (1786) 1. [“The partial Muse, has from my earliest hours”] ................................. 162 3. To a nightingale .......................................................... 162 4. To the moon ............................................................ 162 7. On the departure of the nightingale ........................................... 162 17. From the thirteenth cantata of Metastasio ....................................... 163 21. Supposed to be written by Werter............................................. 163 24. By the same ............................................................. 163 25. By the same. Just before his death ............................................. 163 27 [“Sighing I see yon little troop at play”] ........................................ 164 32. To Melancholy. Written on the banks of the Arun, October, 1785 .................... 164 35. To fortitude ............................................................. 164 from Elegiac Sonnets, by Charlotte Smith. The Fifth Edition, with Additional Sonnets and Other Poems (1789) 44. Written in the Church Yard at Middleton in Sussex ................................ 165 from Elegiac Sonnets. The Sixth Edition, with Additional Sonnets and Other Poems (1792) Thirty-Eight. Address’d to Mrs. H——Y .......................................... 165 The Emigrants, A Poem, in Two Books (1793) ........................................... 166 BOOK 1 .................................................................... 167 BOOK 2 .................................................................... 173 viii PRISCILLA WAKEFIELD (1750 – 1832) .................................................... 180 from Excursions in North America, Described in Letters from a Gentleman and his Young Companion, to Their Friends in England (1806) LETTER 32, Mr. Henry Franklin to Edwin Middleton ................................. 180 LADY ANNE LINDSAY (1750 – 1825) ..................................................... 186 Auld Robin Gray; A Ballad, ed. Sir Walter Scott (1825) ................................... 187 CATHERINE ANN DORSET (1750 – 1817) ................................................. 190 from The Peacock at Home; and Other Poems (1809) The Spider ................................................................. 190 THOMAS CARY (1751 – 1823) .......................................................... 192 from Abram’s Plains: A Poem (1789) .................................................. 192 PHILIP FRENEAU (1752 – 1832) ........................................................ 198 from Poems Written between the Years 1768 & 1794 (1795) The Indian Burying-Ground .................................................... 198 The Wild Honey Suckle ....................................................... 199 George the Third’s Soliloquy ................................................... 199 To Sir Toby, a Sugar-Planter in the Interior Parts of Jamaica ............................ 200 FRANCES BURNEY (1752 – 1840) ....................................................... 202 from The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame d’Arblay), ed. Joyce Hemlow et al. (1975) from Letter to Esther Burney, 22 March – June 1812 .................................. 202 THOMAS CHATTERTON (1752 – 1770) ................................................... 208 from Poems, Supposed to Have Been Written at Bristol, by Thomas Rowley, and Others, in the Fifteenth Century; The Greatest Part Now First Published from the Most Authentic Copies, with an Engraved Specimen of One of the MSS. (1777) The Storie of William Canynge .................................................. 209 On Happienesse, by William Canynge ............................................ 212 from A Supplement to the Miscellanies of Thomas Chatterton (1784) Heccar and Gaira. An African Eclogue Jan 3. 1770 ................................... 212 from William Barrett, The History and Antiquities of the City of Bristol (1789) The Warre .................................................................. 214 ELIZABETH INCHBALD (1753 – 1821) .................................................... 215 from The British Theatre (1806–09) On De Monfort; a Tragedy, in Five Acts; by Joanna Baillie, as Performed at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane ............................................................. 215 On Lovers’ Vows; A Play in Five Acts; Altered from the German of Kotzebue, by Mrs. Inchbald. As Performed at the Theatre Royal, Covent-Garden. .............................. 216 ix PHILLIS WHEATLEY (c. 1753 – 1784) .................................................... 218 from Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. By Phillis Wheatley, Negro Servant to Mr. John Wheatley of Boston, in New England (1773) On Being Brought from Africa to America ......................................... 218 On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield. 1770 ............................... 218 To the Right Honourable William, Earl of Dartmouth, His Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for North America, &c. .................................................... 219 To S.M. a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works ................................ 220 ANN YEARSLEY (c. 1753 – 1806) ........................................................ 221 from Poems, on Several Occasions. By Ann Yearsley, a Milkwoman of Bristol (1785) To the Same [Stella]; on Her Accusing the Author of Flattery, and of Ascribing to the Creature That Praise Which Is Due Only to the Creator................................... 221 On Mrs. Montagu............................................................ 222 Reflections on the Death of Louis XVI (1793) ............................................ 223 from The Rural Lyre; A Volume of Poems: Dedicated to the Right Honourable the Earl of Bristol, Lord Bishop of Derry (1796) To Mira, on the Care of Her Infant ............................................... 224 JOEL BARLOW (1754 – 1812) .......................................................... 227 from The Hasty-Pudding: A Poem, in Three Cantos. Written at Chambery, in Savoy, Jan. 1793 (1793) CANTO 1 .................................................................. 227 from the Huntingdon Library Quarterly 2 (1938 –39) Advice to a Raven in Russia. December, 1812 ....................................... 229 GEORGE CRABBE (1754 – 1832) ........................................................ 231 from The Borough: A Poem in Twenty-four Letters (1810) LETTER 22, The Poor of the Borough. Peter Grimes .................................. 231 ANNE GRANT (1755 – 1838) .......................................................... 237 from The Highlanders, and Other Poems, 2nd ed. (1808) A Familiar Epistle to a Friend. Written in 1795 . ..................................... 237 ROBERT MERRY (1755 – 1798) ......................................................... 241 from the British Album (1790) The Adieu and Recall to Love ................................................... 241 To Anna Matilda ............................................................. 242 The Interview ............................................................... 243 WILLIAM GODWIN (1756 – 1836)....................................................... 245 from An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness (1793) from BOOK 2, Principles of Society, from CHAPTER 2, Of Justice .......................... 246 from BOOK 8, of Property, from CHAPTER 8, Of the Means of Introducing the Genuine System of Property ........................................................ 248 x