CAMPBELL, Thomas.

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Gertrude of Wyoming; a Pennsylvanian Tale. First edition of this contemporarily popular long poem, composed in Spenserian stanzas and based on the Wyoming Massacre of 1778, when American Patriots were attacked by Loyalists and their Iroquois allies in the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania.The Scottish poet Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) made his name with the earlier long poem The Pleasures of Hope (1799), which commented on the French revolution, "denounced the destroyers of Polish liberty, and breathed vengeance on the oppressors of India and supporters of the slave trade" (ODNB). For Gertrude of Wyoming, Campbell turned his radical poetical vision towards the fight for freedom in America. Its portrayal of "pastoral innocence evoked only to be destroyed by the savagery of war (embodied in this case by Mohawk allies of the British) was in tune with an increasing taste for pathos... The poem retained its popularity for many years, particularly in the United States" (ibid.) Such was Campbell's wide appeal that the first President of the Institution of Civil Engineers Thomas Telford (1757-1834) showered him with praise, predicting he would "surpass everything, ancient or modern - your Pindars, your Drydens, and your Grays. I expect nothing short of a Scotch Milton, a Shakespeare, or something more than either!" (Life and Letters, I, p. 395).

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