184 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



" picturesque and balmy " with " fields that [are] a luxury to 

 roam," with " pastoral savannahs," and its hills are " with high 

 magnolia overgrown " as well as with the " palm-tree." 



Felicia Hemans: 



The poems of Felicia Hemans which deal with America are 

 directly based on her wide reading. Her interest in America was 

 keen. When her popularity invaded Boston and Cambridge she 

 corresponded with such men as Bancroft," Norton, and Chan- 

 ning,^^ who from time to time sent her American books. The 

 notes to her poems bristle with references to various travel 

 books, so that Miss Dumeril is right in her claim that " Ce sont 

 des recits de voyages qui ont inspire les Lays of Many Lands, 

 ou elle poetise des traditions de diverses contrees de I'Ancien ou 

 du Nouveau Monde." She is not entirely right when she adds, 

 " Elle s'est servie, en particulier, des Travels through North and 

 South Carolina, de Bartram, et des Recollections of the Valley 

 of the Mississippi, du missionaire americain Flint," ^* for in her 

 notes to this group of poems Mrs. Hemans refers to no less 

 than eighteen different sources, among them Bartram. 



Her specific indebtedness to Bartram is indicated by a long 

 quotation from the Travels, prefaced to her poem, " The Isle 

 of Founts. An Indian Tradition ": 



The river St. Mary has its source from a vast lake or marsh, which 

 lies between Flint and Oakmulge rivers, and occupies a space of near 

 three hundred miles in circuit. This vast accumulation of waters, in 

 the wet season, appears as a lake, and contains some large islands or 

 knolls of rich high land; one of which the present generation of the 

 Creek Indians represent to be a most blissful spot of earth; they say 

 it is inhabited by a peculiar race of Indians, whose women are incom- 

 parably beautiful. They also tell you that this terrestrial paradise has 

 been seen by some of their enterprising hunters, when in pursuit of 

 game; but that in their endeavors to approach it, they were involved in 



''^ See Memoir of Mrs. Hemans by her Sister. The Works of Mrs. Hemans. 

 Philadelphia, 1840, I, 113-114. 



^* See Memorials of Mrs. Hemans. By Henry F. Chorley. New York, 1836, 

 I, 108. 



^* Edith Dum&il. Une femme poete au declin du romantisme anglais: Felicia 

 Hemans. Doctoral dissertation. Toulouse, 1929, p. 155. 



