William Parks, Public Printer ofMaryland and Virginia

School, Annapolis, was the first distinctly literary production of the Mary-
land press, and although it has this interest of priority in Maryland literary
bibliography, yet its subject matter is of small concern to modern readers.
It must have been indeed, even at the time of its translation, that its mag-
niloquence was related only distantly to the interests of the Maryland peo-
ple.¹ After its publication Lewis remained in Maryland for some years, during
which he continued, through the medium of the Parks press, to display his
respectable talent for poetical expression. One of his most praiseworthy
effusions was an ode, entitled "Carmen Seculare," in which, in well-turned
lines, packed with a description ofMaryland and an abstract of its history,²
he welcomed Charles Lord Baltimore on the occasion of that dignitary's
visit to the Province in the year 1732. A very minor poet indeed, Richard
Lewis isyetnot a figure to be despised as the founderof a literary tradition.

Of greater importance perhaps than the work of the elegant and conven-
tional Lewis was the satirical verse of Ebenezer Cooke, Gent., who pub-
lished in London in the year 1708 a poem entitled The Sot-Weed Factor; or
a Voyage to Maryland. A Satyr.... In Burlesque Verse.³ No details remain
by which may be identified this cruel satirist, who came out to Maryland,
he tells us, as a tobacco, or "Sot-Weed" factor, and who, as distaste for the
crude life of the country mingled with his grievances against its inhabi-
tants, wrote in atrabiliar fluid a poem in which the wit was almost obscured
by the bitterness and scurrility which appeared in every line. The picture
of men and manners which he presented in The Sot-Weed F actor was colored
by his mood, but so patently correct are its background and drawing that
the student of Maryland social history must always turn to the contem-
plation of it as an important element in his studies.

With the passing of the years, Cooke's spleen subsided. In the year 1730,
there was written by "E. C. Gent.," and printed by William Parks, a satire,
The Sotweed Redivivus, in which there was less wit than was apparent
in the earlier work, and less scurrility, and in which bitterness was sup-
planted by a spirit of constructive criticism of local politics and trade. That
at this time, however, Cooke was not in any sense repentant of his earlier
and more vindictive criticism of the Province, appears from the fact that
in 1731 he republished The Sot-Weed Factor in a volume entitled The Mary-

¹ In referring to it in his Diary, Hearn* noted under date of August 7, 1732, "'Twas printed at Annapolis that
year and is one of the first things ever printed in that Country." In The Remains of Thomas Hearne, Bliss ed.
London, 1869, 3: 90.

²A large portion of this ode was reprinted in American Museum for 1789, 6: 413, under title of "A Descrip-
tion of Maryland." For an account of the original edition, see bibliographical appendix of the present work.

³See Maryland Historical Society Fund Pub. No. 36, Early Maryland Poetry, edited by Bernard C. Steiner.

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