200 WILLIAM BARTRAM 



Woolley has aptly characterized the work of Bartram's prede- 

 cessors: 



Travellers to the colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 

 were fond of recording their experiences in the new country, but most 

 of them confined their descriptions to the social, economic, political and 

 religious characteristics, with an occasional digression into the fields 

 of geography or natural history. If they spoke of the land, it was gen- 

 erally with reference to its productive capacity, the wheat or tobacco 

 which a given region yielded. There were chapters devoted to the 

 climate, the soil, rivers and navigation, but not scenery. Nor did many 

 of them penetrate into the interior, where the wild scenery was to be 

 found. But even those who braved the difficulties of inland discovery 

 seem little impressed by anything save the horror and desolation of 

 the region.^ 



Bartram's book even differed from those of Romantic writers, 

 to whom nature is most frequently a refuge and an escape. 

 Bartram visited strange, unknown regions not because he sought 

 to escape from civilization, to forget love's sorrows, to find 

 consolation, inspiration, or even God, but merely because he 

 wanted to see, to observe, and to paint. The picture that Bar- 

 tram offered to the world was accurate, clear, and new. Europe, 

 interested in America and in nature, appreciated its simplicity, 

 the unsophisticated vision it betrayed, and its exoticism. Scien- 

 tists studied it and poets found it a source of inspiration and 

 fresh imagery. 



But Bartram's contribution must not be confined to the his- 

 torical role it has played in the natural sciences and in the litera- 

 ture of the Romantics. It is in itself a genuine piece of litera- 

 ture. If his " expedition ... to the South is one of the important 

 events in botanical history, and his book among the classics in 

 that science," * the same expedition is one of the important 

 events in literary history, and his book among the classics of 

 nature description. Bartram's writing is the abiding expression — 

 vivid and colorful — of a gifted personality, and a major con- 

 tribution by an American to the literature of the world. 



* " The Development of the Love of Romantic Scenery in America." American 

 Historical Review, III (1897-98), 57. 



* Peter J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile, Boston, 1897, p. 243. 



