Heinowitz 1 “Thy World, Columbus, shall be free:” British Romantic Deviance and Spanish American Revolution Rebecca Cole Heinowitz In the early months of 1812, the eminent dissenting writer Anna Letitia Barbauld published her poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven, the work several scholars claim prematurely ended her career. 1 Published at the height of the Napoleonic campaigns, the poem opens on a scene of sadness and privation. The Spirit of Enlightenment removes to the New World and the poem, as one disapproving commentator put it, “looks forward to those days when England will become to America what Greece and Rome are now to England.” 2 Grounding this prophecy in the tradition of literature, exemplified by C.F. Volney’s Ruins: Or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Empire, which traces the passage of civilization from east to west, Eighteen Hundred and Eleven narrates the progress of liberty from Asia and Africa to Greece and Italy, then to northern Europe, and finally on to aid the cause of independence in Spanish America: But fairest flowers expand but to decay; The worm is in thy core, they glories pass away; Arts, arms, and wealth destroy the fruits they bring; Commerce, like beauty, knows no second spring... For see, —to other climes the Genius soars, He turns from Europe’s desolated shores And lo, even now, midst mountains wrapt in storm, On Andes’ heights he shrouds his awful form; On Chimborazo’s summits treads sublime, Measuring in lofty thoughts the march of Time; Sudden he calls: —“’Tis now the hour!” he cries, Spreads his broad hand, and bids the nations rise... Shouts to the mingled tribes from sea to sea, 1 Anne Mellor presents evidence to the contrary. See Mothers of the Nation, 78,148n3.2. 2 Ll. 85ff, The New British Lady’s Magazine, 320. Quoted in Barbauld, 164n. Penny Bradshaw uses the term “Spirit of Enlightenment” to gloss the alternately denominated “Spirit” and “Genius” that spreads commerce and civilization through the world in Eighteen Hundred and Eleven. See Bradshaw, par. 20.