Note 4 — POEMS OF PHILIP FRENEAU

In the Charleston City Gazette or Daily Advertiser of February 2, 1790, appeared "A Characteristic Sketch of the Long Island Dutch. From The Rising Empire: a Poem." Two days later the New York Daily Advertiser published "A View of Rhode Island. [Extracted from a new Poem, entitled The Rising Empire, not yet published.]" That Freneau for a time was actively engaged upon this projected volume is evident from the poems on the states which appeared in the Daily Advertiser, chiefly during the month of March, 1790. The last of these poems, "A Descriptive Sketch of Virginia," appeared June 11, 1790. On June 25 Freneau issued proposals for a new volume of poems, presumably to bear the title "The Rising Empire," but the volume was never published. Many of the pieces that undoubtedly would have gone to make up the book appeared in the Daily Advertiser. Of those that came directly under the title (and they are doubtless but a fragment of what the poet intended to write) all but "A View of Rhode Island" appeared in a greatly changed form in the poet's later volumes. I have followed in each case the edition of 1809.