With a few fiery songs he placed himself at the head of the small group of naval lyrists, a position which even to-day he has not wholly lost. In dash and fire, in ability to catch and reproduce the odors and the atmosphere of the ocean, in enthusiasm and excitement that is contagious and that plunges the reader at once into the heart of the action, and in glowing patriotism that makes the poems national hymns, no American poet has excelled this earliest singer of the American ocean. No true patriot can read without a thrill of pride such songs as "Captain Jones's Invitation" and "The Death of Captain Biddle," a song of the intrepid seaman who from the _Randolph_ poured death into the British ship: "Tremendous flash! and hark, the ball Drives through old Yarmouth, flames and all," and then in a fatal moment was blown up by his own magazine, and "Stanzas on the New Frigate Alliance," the gallant ship "who walks the ocean like its queen," and "Barney's Victory over the General Monk," that rollicking song of battle and of triumph, and best of all, perhaps, "The Sailor's Invitation," which is full of the very salt and vigor of the western seas. "The Memorable Victory of Paul Jones," written when America was ringing with the first news of the battle, is one of the glories of American literature. Longfellow or Whittier never wrote a more stirring ballad. It moves with leaps and bounds; it is full of the very spirit of battle. "She felt the fury of her ball, Down, prostrate down, the Britons fall; The decks are strew'd with slain: Jones to the foe his vessel lash'd; And while the black artillery flash'd Loud thunders shook the main." It is not impertinent to observe that Thomas Campbell was but four years of age when this appeared. It was not Scott or Cooper who added the domain of the ocean to literature; it was Freneau. His books are full of the roar and the sweep of the open sea, which he knew as the farmer knows his ancestral acres. There is no more true and vigorous picture of an ocean voyage and a naval combat than that contained in Canto I of "The British Prison Ship." The episode of the boatswain's fiery prayer, just before the conflict, is unique in literature. The war over, Freneau would return to his dream; he would pour forth the poetic message that was in him; but his countrymen, delighting in his hard blows and biting sarcasm, refused to listen to the merely poetic. They demanded jingles and clever hits. The poet turned fiercely upon them. "For men I keep a pen," he cried, "for dogs a cane." The time for using the cane was past; he would use it no more. But who would listen to anything that was not rant and bombast? Fate had thrown him into a "bard-baiting clime." A wave of the old bitterness swept over him: "Expect not in these times of rude renown That verse like yours will have the chance to please: No taste for plaintive elegy is known, Nor lyric ode,--none care for things like these."