Yet the sturdy
young New Yorker, of Huguenot descent, is a charming figure, and
his later malevolence was shown only to his political foes. After
leaving Princeton he tries teaching, the law, the newspaper, the
sea; he is aflame with patriotic zeal; he writes, like most
American poets, far too much for his own reputation. As the
editor of the "National Gazette" in Philadelphia, he becomes
involved in the bitter quarrel between his chief, Jefferson, and
Alexander Hamilton. His attachment to the cause of the French
Revolution makes him publish baseless attacks upon Washington. By
and by he retires to a New Jersey farm, still toying with
journalism, still composing verses. He turns patriotic poet once
more in the War of 1812; but the public has now forgotten him. He
lives on in poverty and seclusion, and in his eightieth year
loses his way in a snowstorm and perishes miserably--this in
1832, the year of the death of the great Sir Walter Scott, who
once had complimented Freneau by borrowing one of his best lines
of poetry.
It is in the orations and pamphlets and state papers inspired by
the Revolutionary agitation that we find the most satisfactory
expression of the thought and feeling of that generation.
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