Ah, aid me, ye spirits! of water, of earth, and of sky, while I sing his praise." Leaving behind us the mound-builder and the Indian, we next consider true American literature, which is divided into three periods: Colonial, Revolutionary, and National. The Colonial began in America when in "Merrie England" the golden "Elizabethan Age" was at its height: when Shakespeare was unfolding his marvellous creations, and when Spenser sang of his "Fairie Queene," England disporting itself alike in drama and pageant. Colonial literature here forms striking contrast to the brilliant period abroad, and it must have small space in our scheme, compared to that we must give to Revolutionary and National; and yet there is revealed in it to-day an increasing interest. We hear much of Colonial Dames and houses and architecture and historic data. Truly these colonists "builded better than they knew," and our first duty must be to trace the earlier foot-prints which they made. III JAMESTOWN AND CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH COLONIAL literature has two divisions: one treats of "Jamestown and the Cavalier "-the other of "Plymouth, the Pilgrim, and the Puritan." We consider "Jamestown and the Cavalier" first, for this was the earlier. It was in the winter of 1606, that a party of romantic aristocrats, unruly gallants, mechanics and farmers, and beggars pushed thither by friends — adventurers all set out in a pigmy fleet of three ships from England for America. They were under a charter to a London Company to seek here gold mines and precious stones. Four months they sailed over three thousand miles of unknown sea, and finally in April, 1607, were driven by storm into a large river, its shores blooming with dogwood and redbud, and on a bright day, they landed on the bank at a perilous spot; and James River and Jamestown were later named in honour of their illustrious English King. This was the region which the chivalrous Sir Walter Raleigh - the dauntless sailor- had previously penetrated in one of his futile attempts to colonise North America; and though he had not conquered, he had succeeded in christening the land Virginia, in gratitude to his "Virgin Queen," and this name yet binds Virginia to the Mother Country. And as at Jamestown our forbears disembarked the dense wilderness behind, the wide ocean before-how little they realised the boundless future! With the exception of Gosnold and Captain John Smith, they knew nothing of leadership, but many of them were manly men who loved liberty and adventure. The struggle was bitterly waged against famine and the Indians; but out of all, the Virginia colony was established-the first permanent English settlement in North America. There may have been imaginative, resourceful spirits among these pioneers, but what wonder that they had scant leisure for literary pursuits - for drama or pageant or smooth narrative. No poet or novelist could assert himself. These were days of action not thought; and yet in compacts and journals and letters home, we may discover, even at this remote date, the beginnings of our story of American literature — for we at once descry the picturesque figure of the redoubtable John Smith-soldier, captain, governor, saviour and historian, of the colony. He stands at the gateway of American literature just as the old tramp-explorer, Sir John Mandeville, stood three hundred years before, at the gateway of English literature. |