Jehu O' Cataract does not always hold his fancy with so steady a rein as this. He is prone to eccentric flights, to bathos and absurdities. His apostrophe to Lake Ontario, several hundred lines in length, has many fine fancies, but his luxuriant imagination continually wrecks itself on extravagancies which break down the effect. This I think the following lines illustrate:
... He had fought with savages, whose breath
He felt upon his cheek like mildew till his death.
. . . . . . .
So stood the battle. Bravely it was fought,
Lions and Eagles met. That hill was bought
And sold in desperate combat. Wrapped in flame,
Died these idolaters of bannered fame.
Three times that meteor hill was bravely lost—
Three times 'twas bravely won, while madly tost,
Encountering red plumes in the dusky air;
While Slaughter shouted in her bloody lair,
And spectres blew their horns and shook their whistling hair.
. . . . . . .
There are allusions to Niagara in some of the ballads of the War of 1812, one of the finest of which, "Sea and Land Victories," beginning
With half the western world at stake
See Perry on the midland lake,—
appeared in the Naval Songster of 1815, and was a great favorite half a century or more ago. So far, however, as the last War with Great Britain has added to our store of poetry by turning the attention of the poets to the Niagara region as a strikingly picturesque scene of war, there is little worthy of attention. One ambitious work is remembered, when remembered at all, as a curio of literature. This is "The Fredoniad, or Independence Preserved," an epic poem by Richard Emmons, a Kentuckian, afterwards a physician of Philadelphia. He worked on it for ten years, finally printed it in 1826, and in 1830 got it through a second edition, ostentatiously dedicated to Lafayette. "The Fredoniad" is a history in verse of the War of 1812; it was published in four volumes; it has forty cantos, filling 1,404 duodecimo pages, or a total length of about 42,000 lines. The first and second cantos are devoted to Hell, the third to Heaven, and the fourth to Detroit. About one-third of the whole work is occupied with military operations on the Niagara frontier. Nothing from Fort Erie to Fort Niagara escapes this meter-machine. The Doctor's poetic feet stretch out to miles and leagues, but not a single verse do I find that prompts to quotation; though, I am free to confess, I have not read them all, and much doubt if any one save the infatuated author, and perhaps his proof-reader, ever did read the whole of "The Fredoniad."
No sooner was the frontier at peace, and the pathways of travel multiplied and smoothed, than there set in the first great era of tourist travel to Niagara. From 1825, when the opening of the Erie Canal first made the falls easily accessible to the East, the tide of visitors steadily swelled. In that year came one other poetizing pilgrim, from York, now Toronto, who, returning home, published in his own city a duodecimo of forty-six pages, entitled "Wonders of the West, or a Day at the Falls of Niagara in 1825. A Poem. By a Canadian." The author was J. S. Alexander, said to have been a Toronto school-teacher. It is a great curio, though of not the least value as poetry; in fact, as verse it is ridiculously bad. The author does not narrate his own adventures at Niagara, but makes his descriptive and historical passages incidental to the story of a hero named St. Julian. Never was the name of this beloved patron saint of travelers more unhappily bestowed, for this St. Julian is a lugubrious, crack-brained individual who mourns the supposed death of a lady-love, Eleanor St. Fleur. Other characters are introduced; all French except a remarkable driver named Wogee, who tells legends and historic incidents in as good verse, apparently, as the author was able to produce. St. Julian is twice on the point of committing suicide; once on Queenston Heights, and again at the falls. Just as he is about to throw himself into the river he hears his Ellen's voice—the lady, it seems, had come from France by a different route—all the mysteries are cleared up, and the reunited lovers and their friends decide to "hasten hence,"
Again to our dear native France,
Where we shall talk of all we saw,
At thy dread falls, Niagara.[82]
From about this date the personal adventures of individuals bound for Niagara cease to be told in verse, and if they were they would cease to be of much historic interest. The relation of the poets to Niagara no longer concerns us because of its historic aspect.