BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 189 



by Coleridge, or whether he acquired a Bartram coloring 

 through reading Coleridge, one other spot in The Revolt of 

 Islam deserves attention. It is the description of the conflict 

 between an eagle and a snake, in some respects reminiscent of 

 Bartram' s description of the fight between a hawk and a snake — 

 a passage which, we have seen, had its influence on Coleridge. 

 Shelley's description is detailed and vivid: 



Feather and scale inextricably blended. 



The Serpent's mailed and many-colored skin 



Shone through the plumes its coils were twined within 



By many a swollen and knotted fold, and high 



And far, the neck receding hthe and thin, 



Sustained a creasted head, which warily 



Shifted and glanced before the Eagle's steadfast eye (I, ix). 



Bartram's coach- whip snake, it may be well to repeat, " wreathed 

 himself several times round the hawk's body, who had but one 

 of his wings at liberty " (p. 218) ; the snake, he relates, " dex- 

 terously and luckily threw himself in coils round [the hawk's] 

 body" (p. 219). 



Other Romantic Writers 



Samuel Rogers and other English writers of the period may, 

 upon careful investigation, disclose a Bartram influence. Samuel 

 Rogers's Voyage of Columbus is saturated with American lore 

 and images derived from travel books. Among books cited in 

 the notes to this poem Bartram's Travels does not appear, but 

 it would not be surprising to discover that his book remained 

 among those not cited but nevertheless consulted. Thomas 

 Moore in his Poems Relating to America indicates a familiarity 

 with the American scene and with the literature on American 

 travel. His visit to America may account for his hostility to- 

 wards American institutions and manners but it does not account 

 for all the details of his landscape description. Byron was 

 acquainted with at least Imlay's Description of the Western 

 Territory.^* DeQuincey, Hazlitt, and " Christopher North" also 

 deserve attention in this connection. 



" See Don Juan, VIII. 



