CALIFORNIA AMERICAN POEMS EARLY PERIOD PHILIP FRENEAU 1752-1832 FRENEAU was born of French Huguenot parentage in New York city, and died at "Mount Pleasant," Monmouth County, New Jersey. He was graduated from Princeton in 1771, where James Madison, afterward fourth President of the United States, was his classmate and roommate. Another fellow-student was Light Horse Harry Lee. These quick-witted youths breathed in together the air of burning patriotism which came from John Witherspoon, then president of Princeton, and each did a strong man's work in the great struggle which followed so soon after they were graduated. Freneau was the least brilliant figure of the three, but his labors in the cause of liberty were not less arduous or steadfast, or his courage and patriotism less high. Freneau's long life was one of great activity. He studied law, but afterward became a journalist and a practical navigator, and was interested besides in various business enterprises. During his lifetime he was known chiefly as a patriotic satirist in verse and as a partisan journalist. None of his satires are familiar to readers of to-day, but they were effective in their own day in quickening public sentiment and in keeping the torch of liberty aflame. His fame to-day rests rather upon a handful of lyrics which have simplicity, sincerity, and beauty. Not even his most enthusiastic admirers would maintain that these lyrics are to be placed by the side of the greatest literary masterpieces, but they do have qualities that will long keep the name of Freneau alive. That this patriot, partisan, and poet should have met a sudden death is only in keeping with his tempestuous life. At the age of eighty, when returning home late one stormy night from a gathering of friends, he tell and broke his hip; next morning he was found dead in the snow. 15 |