BARTRAM'S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE 193 



legendary story. It is highly probable, however, that Chivers got 

 Bartram's legend not from Bartram's book directly but through 

 some English poet. Townsend's statement, " Really nothing but 

 echoes of his poetical masters — Moore, Coleridge, Blake, Keats, 

 Shelley, and the Bible — can be found in ' Nacoochee,' " ^ over- 

 looks one important " master " — Felicia Hemans. What Chivers 

 thought of Felicia Hemans can be gleaned from his eulogy of 

 her in his elegy " The Mighty Dead." ^ We have seen that Mrs. 

 Hemans used the same legend from Bartram in her " Isle of 

 Founts. An Indian Tradition," which she prefaced by a lengthy 

 quotation from Bartram. Chivers may have become acquainted 

 with this Indian tradition through Mrs. Hemans's quotation 

 and poem. 



If this supposition be true, it is likely that Chivers was stimu- 

 lated to read Bartram for himself, for in his Atlanta,^ pub- 

 lished twenty-six years after Nacoochee, he again makes use 

 of the same Indian tradition, and this time he elaborates the 

 locale with details which are in Bartram. Chiver's Lost Paradise 

 is " a disappearing and unapproachable isle in the great Okefi- 

 nokee swamps." ^ Bartram states that " The river St. Mary 

 has its source from a vast lake, or marsh, called Ouaquaphe- 

 nogaw " (p. 24) ; then he goes on to locate his " most blissful 

 spot " in that swamp. Chivers's hero dines on grapes, nectarines, 

 apples, pears, " delicious dates," etc.; Bartram's strayed warriors 

 dine on " fruit, oranges, dates, &c." (p. 25). These details are 

 not in Mrs. Hemans's quotation, but Mrs. Hemans does speak 

 of a '" mighty serpent king" (1. 7) and Bartram does not. The 

 conclusion to which these facts lead is that Chivers read both 

 Mrs. Hemans and Bartram and merged images from both into 

 a tale of his own. In any case, his imagination was fired by the 

 Creek legend which was first narrated by Bartram. 



* John Wilson Townsend, " Thomas Holley Chivers," Library of Southern 

 Literature. Atlanta, Ga., 1909, II, 846. 



" See S. Foster Damon, Thomas Holley Chivers, Friend of Poe. New York, 



1930, p. 189. 



' Atlanta: or The True Blessed Island of Poesy. A Paul Epic — in three Lustra. 

 By T. H. Chivers, M.D. Macon, Ga., 1853. 



« Damon, op. cit., p. 98. 



