The Monthly Anthology, avowedly Federalist, prints a solid review of the book, July 1805, by James Savage, the compiler of the Genealogical Dictionary of New England, then a young man just out of Harvard. The review begins with a prophecy of the fate of all political satires, speedy oblivion. It compliments the author on his attitude, and on his verse, though lamenting in part the personalities directed against the minor men; the charges against the President are dismissed briefly: Canto iv "contains 'high matter,' worthy to be examined by his friends and his foes.” The magazine's political bias is confessed in the last sentence:

Democracy Unveiled should be read by every person in the coun-
try, especially by the middling class of citizens, for whom it seems
chiefly intended.

Fessenden noted several Democratic strictures on the work, especially those by his old enemy of the Baltimore Evening Post. The work made him the target of much abuse, as was fitting in such a combat-which followed him as long as he remained in the public eye. It is typified by the quotations from Cheetham noted in the following chapter.

Hawthorne is the only witness who has taken the trouble to summarize the reception of Democracy Unveiled:

The book passed through three editions in the course of a few months. Its most pungent portions were copied into all the opposition prints; its strange, jogg-trot stanzas were familiar to every ear; and Mr. Fessenden may fairly be allowed the credit of having given expression to the feelings of the great Federal party."

33

Today Democracy Unveiled, tho forgotten by all save students of the period, remains the most substantial example of partisan satire that has come down to us between M'Fingal and the Biglow Papers. In fact, the only verse of equal significance during the first decade of the nineteenth century in America is Barlow's Columbiad, an 1807 revision of a much earlier poem, now almost equally forgotten.

Fessenden is hardly to be envied even this measure of fame, for this poem is usually taken as the representative of a not very admirable type of literature. The Cambridge History of Ameri

Hawthorne, 254.

34

can Literature says, "This surprising production, in which he reaches the nadir of indecent personalities, attacks Jacobinism, democracy, and Jefferson in particular, with a virulence that disregards both good sense and good taste." Professor Trent writes35 "Democracy Unveiled. . . illustrates excellently the partisanship of the times. It would be difficult to gain from any other writer a better idea of the prevailing lack of dignity, not to say decency, that characterized authors of the period, or of the vindictiveness with which Jefferson was hounded by persons who had been rudely jostled by the French Revolution. Democratic excesses did need correction, but hardly by a rhymester who was not above charging the President of the United States with systematically attempting to seduce a friend's wife."

As literature, the volume has merely a historical importance, tho its final evaluation awaits a detailed study of political writings between 1792 and 1815. However, without exaggerating its value, we can say that Democracy Unveiled has some permanent value for the recorder of history in that it preserves many minor details of the political warfare of the time of Jefferson as well as showing the nature of that warfare. It is interesting and to a small extent useful to the interpreter of history for the parallels suggested between, say, 1805 and the 1920's. Jacobin was then the equivalent of bolshevik, both words meaning really people less conservative than their users; the Federalist attitude toward France compares with that of the propertied class toward Russia; such minor details as the use of propaganda in the two periods, the perpetual popularity of the "new" this or that; even the partisan journalism reflected in the poem was very nearly equaled during the Wilson administration-tho luckily its like was rare. The flag-waving, the appeals to "the middling classes" of society to mind their places, are familiar to the post-war reader.

It seems strange that the man who is remembered as the pioneer in humorous description of New England country life and as the first man to succeed in the equally peaceable field of a New England agricultural editor should also be remembered as the most indecent satirist of a bitter political decade. There is

36

Vol. I, 175.

35 A History of American Literature 1607-1865 (New York 1903), 195. Cf., "Hunting Bolsheviks in 1798" by Harry Elmer Barnes, in The American Mercury, September 1924.

one obvious reason for this: His work was published in a more permanent form than the pamphlets and periodicals of the other versifiers, and so is better preserved and more conspicuous, if there is degree in oblivion. He was, besides, a more skilful writer of verse than the others in this field. But above all, he had always a great capacity for work and for application, so that when he found a certain type of writing prevalent in which he wished to participate, he did his work thoroly. His Federalism was sincere, and what we regard as scurrility he probably thought of merely as a conventional method of expression.

Hawthorne is the only acquaintance of Fessenden's who has ventured an explanation of this apparent paradox, which tho colored by affection, is worth preserving:

Everybody who has known Mr. Fessenden must have wondered how the kindest hearted man in all the world could have been the most noted satirist of his day. For my part, I have tried in vain to form a conception of my venerable and peaceful friend as a champion in the stormy strife of party, flinging mud full in the faces of his foes, and shouting forth the bitter laughter that rang from border to border of the land; and I can hardly believe, though well assured of it, that his antagonists should ever have meditated personal violence against the gentlest of human creatures. I am sure, at least, that Nature never meant him for a satirist. On careful examination of his works, I do not find in any of them the ferocity of the true blood-hound of literature, such as Swift, u Churchill, or Cobbett,-which fastens upon the throat of its victim, and would fain drink his life-blood. In my opinion, Mr. Fessenden never felt the slightest ill-will against the objects of his satire, except, indeed, they had endeavored to detract from his literary reputation,-an offence which he resented with a poet's sensibility, and seldom failed to punish. With such exceptions, his works are not properly satirical, but the offspring of a mind inexhaustibly fertile in ludicrous ideas, which it appended to any topic in hand. At times, doubtless, the all-pervading frenzy of the times inspired him with a bitterness not his own. But, in the least defensible of his writings, he was influenced by an honest zeal for the public good."

CHAPTER V

THE END OF ANTI-JACOBINISM. 1806-1809

Philadelphia: New editions of the London Poems
New York: The Weekly Inspector

Philadelphia:

Before beginning his chief New York venture, Fessenden paid a visit to Philadelphia. He seems to have been prospecting for a place to settle ever since his return to America, and now investigated the third, and at that time the chief, literary center of the country. Besides the general advantages of the city, Fessenden would undoubtedly be drawn there by his old friend and patron, Joseph Dennie, editor of the Port Folio and leader of the Tuesday Club.

Here he published, "at the Lorenzo Press of E. Bronson," new editions of his London successes, each with some slight additions. The copyright notice of the Original Poems is dated May 5, 1806. The volume is little altered from the London edition, except for the omission of two poems which he had already published in his American volumes and for the addition of the New York occasional poems.already noted. He did not even change the notes explaining in a somewhat condescending fashion the New England customs and words referred to in his lines, but they were quite in tone with the Federalist snobbishness of the last canto of Democracy Unveiled.

He spent more effort on the new edition of Terrible Tractoration, the second American printing, and so the fourth all-told. The poem has been enlarged somewhat, and is notable for the Preface already quoted, dated Philadelphia, June 18, 1806, Fessenden's only bit of autobiography except sundry brief notes refuting charges by his critics. Perhaps even this preface should

"The table of contents is given in Appendix A, with the differences from the first edition noted.

"The title page reads The Modern Philosopher; or Terrible Tractoration, etc., which Duyckinck miscalls Minute Philosopher, and others after him.

be grouped with these controversial notes, since its purpose is to correct certain mistaken notions of the origin and reception of his London works. He maintains that the unfavorable criticisms taken from British magazines originated in America:

I allude here to a critique written upon this poem and Democracy Unveiled, written by a pitiful American scribbler for Philip's Monthly Magazine, London, and republished with much ostentation as the opinion of British critics, by an editor of a very contemptible paper at New York. (p. xiii)

The Preface concludes with a compliment to his acquaintances in Philadelphia:

In preparing the additional matter I have had no assistance except such as libraries and conversation of men of science and literature have afforded. The urbanity of the gentlemen of those descriptions, in this metropolis, and the readiness with which they have afforded me access to the sources of intelligence in their possession, will live in my remembrance and be at all times acknowledged with gratitude. (p. xiv)

This shows that no change of residence or introduction of new interests could hinder his collecting of information to pour forth upon his reading public. The paragraph may indicate that he had gone to Philadelphia soon after the publication of Democracy Unveiled, at the beginning of the year.

This edition of Terrible Tractoration is further notable as Fessenden's only volume of poems to carry a dedication to Joseph Dennie, Esquire.

Either Fessenden's hopes were not realized in Philadelphia, or the trip was merely incident to a plan already conceived. The end of the summer finds him back in New York, and in spite of his evident sensitiveness to criticism, embarking upon the one project certain to involve him in controversy, the publication of a partisan newspaper.

The first issue of The Weekly Inspector, an octavo magazine of eight pages, appeared Saturday, August 30, 1806. There is no doubt of the policy of a paper running under the motto from Hamilton: "Of those men who have overturned the Liber

'Buckingham's "The Investigator-if my memory serves me" has misled the writers of some sketches of Fessenden.