Within the same decade as The Happy Savage appeared Gray's Progress of Poesy,62 in one stanza of which he attempts to show the 'extensive influences of poetic genius over the remotest and most uncivilized nations: its connection with liberty, and the virtues that naturally attend on it.'63 The Muse is represented as cheering not only the 'shivering native's dull abode' in the frozen north, but in the wild forests of South America as well:

And oft, beneath the od'rous shade

Of Chili's boundless forests laid,

She deigns to hear the savage youth repeat,

In loose numbers wildly sweet,

Their feather-cinctur'd chiefs, and dusky loves.

This passage is of interest largely for its connection with Gray's much-talked-of romantic sympathies, and the notion which he shared with many others of his age that poetic inspiration was associated with the wildness and freedom of primitive peoples.64

In the latter part of the century the virtue of the uncorrupted savage is, as we have seen, brought out in a great variety of ways,65 one of the most common being in the imaginary speeches of aged chieftains who dwell upon the

62 Finished in 1754. Printed together with The Bard, in 1757. 63 Annotation of the author.

64 This view of poetic genius he develops more fully in The Bard. For a discussion of this whole subject cf. C. B. Tinker's Nature's Simple Plan, chap. 3. Cf. also Gray's letter to Brown, Feb. 17, 1763, in which he writes: 'Imagination dwelt many hundred years ago in all her pomp on the cold and barren mountains of Scotland. The truth (I believe) is that without any respect of climates she reigns in all nascent societies of men, where the necessities of life force every one to think and act much for himself.'-The Letters of Thomas Gray, ed. Tovey 3. 9.

65 I am indebted to Professor F. E. Pierce for the reference to a German poem, Der Wilde, by J. G. Seume (Eng. tr. in Baskerville's Poetry of Germany, p. 145), in which the Indian's hospitality is painted in strong contrast to the incivility of the white man.

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simplicity and innocence of their people before the coming of the whites. The vices and artificialities of civilization are also attacked in a poem of Francis Hawling's, called A Discourse from King Tomo Chichy to his Nephew Prince Tonahohy. Besides giving his nephew a long discourse on his disapproval of the Europeans and their ways, Tomo Chichy urges him to shun learning and the arts, and be content to live according to the dictates of simple nature. Freneau also treats a somewhat similar theme, much more lightly and fancifully, however, in The Indian Student, or, Force of Nature. Shalum, the hero of this poem, is sent to Harvard College at the suggestion of a missionary; but books and lectures cannot take the place of his bow and arrows, nor the love of learning overcome his preference for hunting and fishing:

No mystic wonders fired his mind;
He sought to gain no learned degree,
But only sense enough to find
The squirrel in the hollow tree.

The shady bank, the purling stream,
The woody wild his heart possessed,
The dewy lawn, his morning dream
In fancy's gayest colours dressed.

Like some of the Indian converts we have encountered, this 'copper coloured boy' finds little to enjoy in his new surroundings neither the mysteries of religion nor the subtleties of philosophy or science can yield the same contentment as his native woods, whither he at length decides to return: Let seraphs gain the bright abode,

And heaven's sublimest manshions see

I only bow to Nature's God

The land of shades will do for me.

* Included in A Miscellany of Original Poems on Various Subjects, by Mr. Francis Hawling (London, 1752), pp. 68-107.

Where Nature's ancient forests grow,
And mingled laurel never fades,
My heart is fixed;-and I must go
To die among my native shades.

The most ambitious of these attempts to idealize the North American Indians occurs in Mrs. Morton's Ouabi; or, the Virtues of Nature, a poem in four cantos published at Boston in 1790.67 Despite its slender claim to remembrance for any outstanding literary merits, Mrs. Morton's verse tale is yet of considerable interest, partly for its attempt to secure native American atmosphere and picturesqueness, partly also for the dubious social moral implied in its conclusion, the changing about of husbands and wives, supposed to be one of the virtues of a people living by the dictates of uncorrupted nature. That the skeptical reader may not question her knowledge of the redskin and his ways, the conscientious Philenia seeks support for her statements by extended citations from the letters of William Penn, and other such sources of authority. The authoress also feels that some sort of explanation or apology is due for the seemingly incredible

67 Mrs. Morton acknowledges that she founded her poem on the prose tale, Azakia: A Canadian Story, which appeared in The American Museum 6 (1789). 193-9. The story as it appears here, however, was taken from The Universal Magazine 62 (1783). 59-63. A French version of the story appeared in the Spectateur du Nord (Hamburg, August, 1798); and in the Bibliothèque Britannique de Genève, May, 1798, under the title, Azakia and Celario. For a study of this story in relation to Chateaubriand, cf. a study by F. Baldensperger and J. M. Caree, Modern Language Review, 8 (1913). 15-26. L. D. Loshe, in The Early American Novel, pp. 67-68, enters upon a discussion of this work in relation to early American fiction. We have already mentioned, in the preceding chapter, James Bacon's play founded on a review of Mrs. Morton's poem. As the writer states in his preface, his only change in the story 'is that of leaving Ouâbi in the arms of his youthful bride, rather than consign him to the cold embraces of the ghastly tyrant; which, as it offers no violence to the moral tendency of the work, will not, I trust, be deemed a deviation of much materiality.'

incident on which the whole story is founded—a European's forsaking society in order to experience the 'truth and godlike justice's of the untutored Indians. 'I am aware,' she remarks in her introduction, 'it may be considered improbable, that an amiable and polished European should attach himself to the persons and manners of an uncivilized people; but there is now a living instance of a like propensity. A gentleman of fortune, born in America, and educated in all the refinements and luxuries of Great Britain, has lately attached himself to a female savage, in whom he finds every charm I have given my Azâkia; and in consequence of his inclination, has relinquished his own country and connections, incorporated himself into the society, and adopted the manners of the virtuous, though uncultivated Indian.'

At the opening of the story we find Celario, who had killed another youth in anger, an exile wandering through the forests of America. One day he hears the piercing cries of an Indian maiden, who, having become the captive of a Huron warrior, is begging her life of the remorseless savage. Celario rushes to the rescue of the unfortunate maiden, who proves to be Azâkia, wife of Ouâbi, the brave Illinois chieftain. Immediately he is struck with the lady's charms :69

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Her limbs were straighter than the mountain pine,
Her hair far blacker than the raven's wing;
Beauty had lent her form the waving line,

Her breath gave fragrance to the balmy spring.

Each bright perfection open'd on her face,
Her flowing garment wanton'd in the breeze,
Her slender feet the glitt'ring sandals grace,
Her look was dignity, her movement ease.

With splendid beads her braided tresses shone,
Her bending waist a modest girdle bound,
Her pearly teeth outvi'd the cygnet's down—
She spoke and music follow'd in the sound.

69 P. 15.

P. II.