[In the essay below, Marble surveys the major figures and literary output of the Connecticut Wits.]

Classification is a common substitute for literary criticism. Often a relative convenience, it has sometimes only obscured the distinct traits of an author. Occasionally an individual daunts the cataloguer and stands in comparative isolation—like Dante, Carlyle, Thoreau, or Tolstoy. Classification is often based upon the governing motif of the writers—as the "Transcendentalists," the "Pre-Raphaelites," and the "Decadents." The more common allotment is by eras and localities; the "Augustan age," the "Elizabeth dramatists," the "Victorian novelists," are phrases as familiar as the "Oxford Movement," the "Lake Poets," the "Knickerbocker Group," or the "Hartford Wits."

After the middle of the eighteenth century the center of literary activity in America was transferred from the vicinity of Boston, where it had been for many years inspired by Harvard College, to the environment of the younger colleges, Nassau Hall, or the College of New Jersey, which later became Princeton, and the College of Philadelphia, which formed the nucleus of the University of Pennsylvania. Graduates of these institutions became progressive leaders in political and literary zeal. At Yale College, also, victory for modern educational methods had been gained, at about the same time that the first notes were sounded against British tyranny and in behalf of independence. John Trumbull was the leader among the Connecticut reformers and satirists, but his life reflected his association with a few companions, often called the "Hartford Wits." While the burlesques and satires that gave fame to Trumbull were written during the early years of the war, many of his later efforts in satire and reform were in collaboration with some patriot-comrades who realized the dangers which imperiled the new nation.

Although independence had been won, anarchy was menacing; government, finance, and commerce were unstable. Such affairs formed subjects for grave discussion, varied by witty verse, at the gatherings of a "Friendly Club" in Hartford. Among the nine names mentioned of those who formed the original membership of this club, there is a major and a minor list: familiar to our ears are the names of John Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, Joel Barlow, and David Humphreys; seldom recalled are their associates, Theodore Dwight, Richard Alsop, and the three physicians, Elihu Smith, Mason Cogswell, and Lemuel Hopkins. Other men, possibly allied with this coterie, were Congressman Uriah Tracey, Judge Tappan Reeve, and Zephaniah Smith. The series of publications assigned to this first group of wits dated from 1785 to 1807.

Seventy-five years seems to us an incredibly long period to elapse between the appearance of some literary work in a journal and its first publication in book-form. On the title-page of The Anarchiad, dated 1861, is this editor's note, "Now first published in book form." Research shows that the twelve satiric papers constituting The Anarchiad were printed first in the New Haven Gazette, beginning October 26, 1786, and continuing, at intervals, until September 13, 1787. They were copied in Federalist journals throughout many of the states of the Union. In this first, belated edition of The Anarchiad, its editor, Luther G. Riggs, expresses an assurance "that he is in performance of a duty—that he becomes, as it were, an instrument of justice, a justice delayed for more than half a century, to the genius and loyalty of its authors, who were among the noblest and most talented sons of the Revolution." We would exchange his term "genius" for "wit," but we cannot question the quality of patriotism and the influence of these satires in subduing threatened anarchy, and in arousing higher ideals during the crucial years after the war, while feeling was strong regarding the Constitution and the basis of political and financial security.

The name, borrowed from Miltonic Anarch, suggested the purpose, which was further explained in the sub-title, A Poem on the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night. The wits wished to show, with forceful satire, the warfare waged against the stability of the new nation by the promoters of local rebellion, paper money, and selfish greed. Although the papers were sent unsigned to the newspaper, and the various portions have never been perfectly identified, the series was undoubtedly the work of four men who had shown earlier evidence of their patriotism either by service in the army or by their writings—John Trumbull, David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, and Dr. Lemuel Hopkins.

To Colonel Humphreys belonged the credit for suggesting this unique literary plan. While abroad, serving on the commission for treaties with foreign powers, he had shared in the popular curiosity over an anonymous English satire, The Rolliad. Returning to America, he saw with dismay the signs of insurrection in Shay's Rebellion and other dangers. He suggested the use of satire in verse, akin to the form of The Rolliad and Pope's The Dunciad, to arouse public curiosity and also to teach lessons of patriotism.

The prose "Introduction" to the first paper mystified the readers and entertained them. It is an interesting commentary upon the credulity and emotional ferment of the period. The supposed archaeologist thus addressed the publishers of the New Haven Gazette:

I have the felicity to belong to a society of critics and antiquarians, who have made it their business and delight for some years past, to investigate the ancient as well as natural history of America. The success of their researches in such an unlimited field, pregnant with such wonderful and inexhaustible materials, has been equal to their most sanguine expectations. One of our worthy associates has favored the public with a minute and accurate description of the monstrous, new-invented animal which had, till its elaborate lucubration, escaped the notice of every zoologist … Others have spared no pains to feast the public curiosity with an ample supply of great bones from the Wabash, and, at the same time, to quench the thirst for novelty from the burning spring on the Ohio.

It has happily fallen to my lot to communicate through the medium of your paper, a recent discovery still more valuable to the republic of letters. I need scarcely premise that the ruins of fortifications yet visible, and other vestiges of art, in the west country, had sufficiently demonstrated that this delightful region had once been occupied by a civilized people. Had not this hypothesis been previously established, the fact I am about to relate would have placed it beyond the possibility of doubt. For upon digging into the ruins of one of the most considerable of these fortifications, the labourers were surprised to find a casement, a magazine, and a cistern almost entire. Pursuing their subterranean progress, near the north-east corner of the bastion, they found a great number of utensils, more curious and elegant than those of Palmyra and Herculaneum. But what rendered their good fortune complete, was the discovery of a great number of papers, manuscripts, etc., whose preservation, through such a lapse of years, amid such marks of hostility and devastation, must be deemed marvellous indeed, perhaps little short of miraculous. This affords a reflection, that such extraordinary circumstances could scarcely have taken place to answer only vulgar purposes.

Happening myself to come upon the spot, immediately after this treasure had been discovered, I was permitted to take possession of it, in the name and for the use of our society. Amongst these relics of antiquity, I was rejoiced to find a folio manuscript which appeared to contain an epic poem, complete; and, as I am passionately fond of poetry, ancient as well modern, I set myself instantly to cleanse it from the extraneous concretions with which it was in some parts enveloped, defaced and rendered illegible. By means of a chemic preparation, which is made use of for restoring oil paintings, I soon accomplished the desirable object. It was then I found it was called The Anarchiad, A Poem on the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night, in twenty-four books.

While public curiosity was thus assailed, the second, and ulterior, motive of patriotism was emphasized by some interwoven verses. Choosing Shay's Rebellion as a pivotal example of anarchy, the vision of its "mob-compelling," destructive course was outlined by the supposed prophet:

Thy constitution, Chaos, is restor'd,
Law sinks before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand unbars th' unfathomed gulf of fate,
And deep in darkness whelms the new-born state.

In addition to the insurrections against martial laws and state organizations, there was another lurking evil, especially in New England—the futile paper money, and the consequent depreciation and instability of all industries. Rhode Island was suffering much from this cause, and seemed to be in the power of wary, selfish schemers. In the second and third numbers of "American Antiquities," as the Anarchiad series was called, mock-heroics in verse were mingled with serious advice, in prose, from Connecticut to her oppressed neighbor state. With direct truth it was asserted:

For it will scarcely be denied in any part of the United States, that paper money, in an unfunded and depreciating condition, is happily calculated to introduce the long-expected scenes of misrule, dishonesty, and perdition.

The fourth and fifth papers in the series appealed for a revival of national pride and progress. Hesper, the promise of Dawn, confronts Anarch, god of Night, and by the contention seeks to arouse loyalty among the people:

Teach ere too late, their blood-bought rights to prize,

Bid other Greenes and Washingtons arise!
Teach those who suffer'd for their country's good,
Who strove for freedom and who toil'd in blood,
Once more in arms to make the glorious stand;
And bravely die or save their natal land!

In the fifth article of the series was an ode, "Genius of America"—a favorite title of the day. In offering it, the authors expressed a hope that, "should the taste of their countrymen in general be uncorrupted, as they flatter themselves it is, they expect this song will be introduced into most of the polite circles of the United States." The author of this ode was Humphreys; for it was included later among his poems. He must have rejoiced—for he sought appreciation—when the song was "introduced" and reprinted. Sung to the tune of "The watery god, great Neptune, lay," it won much popularity; but in thought and meter it ranks among the most inferior portions of The Anarchiad. A single stanza will indicate both form and theme—the dangers which threatened to destroy America's glory:

Shall steed to steed, and man to man,
With discord thundering in the van,
Again destroy the bliss!
Enough my mystic words reveal;
The rest the shades of night conceal,
In fate's profound abyss!

The dialogue between Anarch and his pupil Wrongheads, in the sixth and seventh portions, extorted a confession from the demagogue that his aim was selfish greed, and the enemies whom he most feared were the friends of law, justice, and education.

One of the objects of special censure by the Democrats, who feared the tendencies toward monarchy and militarism, was the Society of the Cincinnat. In eastern Connecticut there lived William Williams, a prominent lawyer, who had ventured to question the wisdom of continuing the Cincinnati as a banded society. Williams was a fine scholar, and had proved himself a staunch patriot during the war, by giving lavishly of his money and service in town offices. Later he became judge of Windham County, and married the daughter of Governor Trumbull. His criticisms of the Cincinnati, however, had aroused Barlow and Humphreys, who were prominent among its members and orators, and they found an opportunity to retaliate. In April, denial that "America had produced a Man of Genius in one single Art or one single Science" seemed anathema to these versifiers, who considered each other men of genius. They poured forth their wrath also against fictitious narratives about America by foreign writers, especially the false and maligning stories of Washington's amours, as told by D'Auberteul. Perhaps it was Humphreys who hurled that last shaft of invective, to redeem the honor of his commander:

In wit's light robe shall gaudy fiction shine,
And all be lies, as in a work of thine.

The Anarchiad was essentially a literary curiosity, although it had immediate influence upon the policies of Connecticut and more distant states. It is uneven in merit, and often anticlimactic. Probably it was written without any perfected plan, or expectation of publication in sequential form; later numbers were intended by the authors, if circumstances should call them forth. The series corresponded to the more didactic and aggressive columns of arguments in behalf of federalism which were contributed at the same time to newspapers in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and other states where there was contest over the adoption of the new Constitution, in place of the old Articles of Confederation.

The Echo was, in a way, a continuation of these satiric papers, although the members of the Hartford coterie had changed somewhat, and the subjects chosen for ridicule or remonstrance were more varied. The Echo had less significance in the politico-literary history of the age, yet here were satires of strong feeling directed against political evils, and lampoons upon democratic publications. A secondary motive of the writers was to caricature the excesses of literary style found in many publications of the time. Of the group who had written The Anarchiad in collaboration, Humphreys and Barlow were abroad when The Echo series appeared, and Trumbull's part has been questioned. Dr. Lemuel Hopkins, alone of the earlier coterie, was assuredly a contributor to the later series. Associated with him were Theodore Dwight, Richard Alsop, Dr. Elihu Smith, and Dr. Mason Cogswell.

That Trumbull had a vital interest in these papers written by his friends, and was informed regarding many matters there suggested, is shown by a copy of The Echo which belonged to him and bears his name, to be found now at the Connecticut Historical Society. His notes, in ink, assist one in deciding the authorship of certain portions. In the preface to the collected papers the explanation was given that the idea of these word-cartoons came

of a moment of literary sportiveness at a time when pedantry, affectation and bombast pervaded most of the pieces published in the gazettes,… thus to check the progress of false taste in American literature, the authors conceived that ridicule would prove a powerful corrective, and that the mode employed in The Echo was the best suited to this purpose.

The political evils were also emphasized and the plan of the authors to scathe and correct

that hideous morality of revolutionary madness, which levelled the boundaries of virtue and vice,… that destructive torrent which threatened to overwhelm everything good and estimable in private life, everything venerable and excellent in political society.

The first "Echo" appeared August 8, 1791, in the American Mercury—a weekly newspaper started in 1784 by Joel Barlow and Elisha Babcock. It was a parody upon a florid report in a Boston newspaper. The latter, in recording a thunderstorm, had used such language as this: "uncorking the bottles of Heaven, revealing livid flame, disploding thunders, amid the brilliance of this irradiated arch!" The wits thus parodied the prose:

Even the last drop of hope, which dripping skies,
Gave for a moment to our straining eyes,

Like Boston Rum, from heaven's junk bottles broke,
Lost all the corks and vanished into smoke.…

The sons of Boston, the elect of Heaven,
Presented Mercy's Angel, smiling fair,
Irradiate splendors frizzled in his hair,
Uncorking demi-johns, and pouring down
Heaven's liquid blessings on the gaping town.

The ornate phrases of Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Governor John Hancock, John Adams, striving to please both aristocrats and democrats, certain demagogues of Jacobin type, a Philadelphia "Mirabeau" who ventured to attack the politics and literary abilities of the Hartford group—such were some of the individuals singled out for special ridicule by the authors of The Echo. Many of the numbers appeared first in the American Mercury, and were reprinted in other newspapers, from 1791 to 1800. In the years that intervened before they were collected and published in book-form, in 1807, some of them appeared as broadsides or pamphlets, generally soon after they were written. Often the papers were intended as New Year's verses.

One of the most representative of the satires, which won popular reading among the Federalists and was printed in pamphlet form, was by Dr. Hopkins, The Democratiad: A Poem in Retaliation, for the Philadelphia Jockey Club. By a Gentleman of Connecticut. 1795. This passed into at least two editions; it is No. XVIII in The Echo. The Philadelphia Jockey Club, the publication which had roused the wrath of the Wits, gave the example of the Hartford writers and William Cobbett, or "Peter Porcupine," whom they echoed, as an excuse for its attacks upon individuals of prominence among Federalists. Thus, the Philadelphia satirists declared their course of personal attack was "authorized by the precedent of the infamous PETER PORCUPINE and the literary out-law Snub, whose political squabbles have involved the characters of many respectables." In his answering satire, Hopkins attacked the Democrats and Jacobins, leveling his shafts of abuse especially against Benjamin Franklin Bache, the editor of the Aurora, and a grandson of Franklin:

Thou great descendant of that wondrous man,
Whose genius wild through all creation ran—
That man who walk'd the world of science o'er,
From ink and types to where the thunders roar,—
To thee, friend Bache, these lines I now address,
Prepar'd on purpose for thy hallow'd press,
I've pick'd thee out because I highly prize,
Thy grandsire's memory and thy knack at lies.

After further invective against the leaders of the Jacobinical faction, the author said in apostrophe to Washington:

ILLUSTRIOUS MAN! thy indignation shew,
And plunge them headlong where they ought to go,
Then turn thine eye, this mighty realm survey,
See Federal Virtue bless thy glorious sway.

The next year Dr. Hopkins was again chosen to write the New Year's verses in The Echo series,—"The Guillotina; or, A Democratic Dirge: A Poem. By the Author of Democratiad." They first appeared in the Connecticut Courant, January 1, 1796, and were afterward published as a pamphlet, possibly also as a broadside. The bald witticisms are recognized as those of Hopkins, as in the stanza:

Come sing again! since Ninety-Five,
Has left some Antis still alive,
Some Jacobins as pert as ever,
Tho' much was hoped from Yellow-fever.

"The Political Green-House for 1798" was another widely quoted composition by this group. According to the record by Trumbull, in his copy of The Echo, this was written by Lemuel Hopkins, Richard Alsop, and Theodore Dwight. With earnest patriotism and wit blended, the verses began:

Oft has the NEW YEAR'S Muse essay'd,
To quit the annual rhyming trade,
Oft has she hop'd the period nigh,
When fools would cease, and knaves would die,
But each succeeding year has tax'd her
With "more last words of Mr. Baxter."
And most of all has Ninety-Eight
Outstripp'd the years of former date,
And while a Jacobin remains,
While Frenchmen live and Faction reigns,
Her voice, array'd in awful rhyme,
Shall thunder down the steep of Time.

With unexpected details, the authors of this New Year's message gave specific directions how to avoid contagion from yellow fever, which was the scourge of that year in New York. There was a reason for these references, since one of the wits had fallen victim to the fever and died, Dr. Elihu Smith. He made the first large compilation of American poetry during the summer of 1793, while he was resting at his home in Litchfield, Connecticut. He thus preserved many scattered verses by his friends and other writers, which would otherwise have remained unknown. Although associated somewhat with the Hartford Wits, he was more closely linked with the early writers of fiction and drama in New York.… According to a note by Trumbull, Dr. Smith was the author of one paper in The Echo series, "Extracts from Democracy by Aquiline Nimblechops." He probably assisted in collaborating others.

Burlesque and satire characterize the pages of The Echo, but there are also lines of earnestness, as these in "The Guillotina":

Spread knowledge then; this only Hope
Can make each eye a telescope,
Frame it by microscopic art;
To scan the hypocritic heart.

One poem, assuredly assigned as the composition of Theodore Dwight, was a feigned rejoicing at the election of Jefferson. It was entitled "The Triumph of Democracy," and revealed the feeling of bitterness on the part of the Federalists against Jefferson, with scornful innuendo against Aaron Burr, in the closing lines:

Let every voice with triumph sing—
JEFFERSON is chosen king!
Ring every bell in every steeple,
T' announce the "Monarch of the People!"

Stop,—ere your civic feasts begin,
Wait till the votes are all come in;
Perchance, amid this mighty stir,
Your Monarch may be Col. BURR!
Who, if he mounts the sovereign seat,
Like BONAPARTE will make you sweat,
Your Idol then must quaking dwell,
Mid Mammoth's bones at Monticelle,
His country's barque from anchors free,
On "Liberty's tempestuous sea,"
While all the Democrats will sing—
THE DEVIL TAKE THE PEOPLE'S KING!

While we acknowledge only occasional literary merit in the work of the Hartford Wits—and a large part of it has political rather than literary interest—it must be confessed by one who examines their writings in detail that they reflect strong, unique personalities. They have received far less attention than their predecessors in political and social progress, yet they bore a part in the development of an upright and sane Americanism. If Trumbull was considered the leader, as we have said, he had companions in fame, among his contemporaries,—Timothy Dwight, Joel Barlow, and David Humphreys. These Connecticut men formed a mutual-admiration society seldom equaled in extravagant tribute, which reads like a farce today. Thus Alsop praised

Majestic Dwight, sublime in epic strain,
Paints the fierce horrors of the crimson plain,
And in Virgilian Barlow's tuneful lines
With added splendour great Columbus shines.

In the eighth book of The Columbiad, Joel Barlow became effusive over the poetic gifts of the Connecticut poets, especially Trumbull, Timothy Dwight, and Humphreys:

See TRUMBULL lead the train. His skilful hand
Hurls the keen darts of satire round the land.
Pride, knavery, dulness feel his mortal stings,
And listening virtue triumphs while he sings.
Britain's foil'd sons, victorious now no more,
In guilt retiring from the wasted shore,
Strive their curst cruelties to hide in vain,
The world resounds them in his deathless strain.…

See HUMPHREYS glorious from the field retire,
Sheathe the glad sword and string the soothing lyre;
His country's wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise,
Fire his full soul and animate his lays:
Wisdom and War with equal joy shall own
So fond a votary and so brave a son.…

For DWIGHT'S high harp the epic Muse sublime,
Hails her new empire in the western clime.

The lines just quoted will suffice to indicate the exuberance of phrases, and the triteness of thought, which seem to have been the chief characteristics of the once famous Joel Barlow. Of all the Hartford group he was the most prominent in the earlier years. He was a chaplain in the war, was agent in Paris of the Scioto Land Company of Ohio, and served abroad on commissions for treaties with the Barbary tribes and other peoples. In spite of the popular verdict of his own day upon his voluminous Vision of Columbus, "Conspiracy of Kings," and The Columbiad, he will be remembered, if at all, by the simple rhyme of Hasty-Pudding, written during an hour of loneliness on foreign soil.

Barlow's published writings of varied sorts—poetry, addresses, "Advice"—are found at many libraries, and his life has been more often studied than that of contemporary writers and friends. In the Pequot Library at Southport, Connecticut, is a rare collection of manuscript letters, written by Barlow, only a few of which have been printed. The letters to his wife, which form the large part, are interesting revelations of the personality of this man who promised so much and achieved so little, in diplomacy, business, and literature. In the letters to his wife from Paris, in 1789, he describes the Revolution as he has witnessed it, and feels that it is "no small satisfaction to have seen two complete revolutions in favor of Liberty." With frequent apologies for remaining abroad, he explains that his "affairs are still in a degree of uncertainty." The chief faults which his friends deplored were vacillation and a proneness to speculate with money, both his own and that of others. Manuscript poems in embryo, especially inspired by his acquaintance in Paris with Robert Fulton, are found among these letters.

After Barlow's return to America, and the publication of his long poems, he expected wide recognition among his countrymen; but he was embittered by indifference on some sides, and criticisms from other sources upon his political vacillation and seeming infidelity. Two of his letters, unpublished and here given by permission, indicate his sensitiveness, and they also show his foresight regarding national evils. The first was addressed to Gideon Granger, postmaster-general, and urged the appointment of a friend to office, emphasizing his scholarship and mental abilities:

It is really discouraging to all liberal pursuits, & proves that the government is accessory to the great national sin of the country, which I fear will overturn its liberties,—I mean the inordinate & universal pursuit of wealth as a means of distinction.

For example, if I find that writing the Columbiad, with all its moral qualities, literature, & science which that work supposes, will not place me on a footing with John Tayloe, who is rich, why then (God damn you) I'll be rich too. I'll dispise my literary labors (which tend to build up our system of free government) & I'll boast of my bank shares (which tend to pull it down) because these & not those, procure me the distinction which we all desire.

I will teach my nephews by precept & all the rising generation by example that merit consists in oppressing mankind & not in serving them.

Another significant letter was written by Barlow to Jonathan Law, a prominent citizen of Hartford, with political influence in answer to charges brought against the would-be poet "by the malicious hypocrisy of such men as Dwight, & Parke & Coleman":

I know as well as they do that all they say against me is false. All they mean or ever did mean by calling me an antichristian is that I am a republican. This latter appellation they don't like to quarrel with openly, & for that reason they disguise it under the other.… But I shall probably never condescend to give my calumniators any sort of answer. I ask nothing from them, not even to let me alone. Poor fellows, they must live. Parke says individuals & nations have a right to get their bread in any manner they can. And these men slander me to get their bread.

I remember to have seen a song in praise of the guillotine in one of Cobbett's pamphlets about a dozen years ago, which he said was written by me. It might have served the purpose of the faction at the time to lay it to me; whatever might be their motive it was a forgery.

Timothy Dwight was deeply interested in the publications of this band of Hartford wits, but he did not contribute directly to their writings. He was included in their effusive praises of each other, and his ambitious Conquest of Canaan and Greenfield Hill were considered works of lasting renown. These voluminous poems are seldom read today, but the reposeful, hymnal lines by Dr. Dwight, and his strong influence upon young men in behalf of better citizenship, have won for him a revered name in American history. He was an ardent patriot and a great admirer of Washington. A letter to Oliver Wolcott, Jr., written after Dwight's visit to Philadelphia, in 1793, denounced Freneau and his paper for its attacks upon Washington. It was evident that Dwight considered Freneau's Gazette as a Jeffersonian organ:

The late very impertinent and shameless attacks on the first Magistrate are viewed with a general and marked indignation. Freneau your printer, Linguist, &c., is regarded here as a mere incendiary, or rather as a despicable tool of bigger incendiaries; and his paper as a public nuisance.

A few miles from New Haven is the hill-town of Derby. Here is an active chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution—the Sarah Riggs Humphreys chapter—that has preserved many relics which pertain to the life-history of David Humphreys. As a young captain in the army under Colonel Meigs, and later as aide-de-camp to Generals Putnam, Greene, and Washington, Humphreys showed his alertness of mind, his courage, and his zeal for American progress. After the war he was with Jefferson, for a time, at Paris on the commission for treaties with foreign powers, and also served as diplomat at Lisbon and at Madrid. With these manlier traits he blended gallantry and cleverness, which made him a social favorite in foreign circles of society, but which called forth censure from some court-despising Americans. After he had returned to America, he was invited to visit at Mount Vernon, and Washington offered him aid in pursuing a literary plan which he had mentioned in his letters, namely, to write a history of the Revolution. At first thought, it may seem unfortunate that this plan was abandoned by Humphreys because of its magnitude. His tastes and effusive style, however, would not have produced a history of permanent value. His biographic essays on Israel Putnam were subjected to severe censure, but they gave the materials for later historians to utilize with better results.

In letters and poetic ventures, Humphreys left a vivid impression of Washington's life at Mount Vernon, in the years between the close of the war and his presidency. He pictured him as supervising his eight hundred acres of wheat and seven hundred acres of corn, and giving his personal attention to the task of navigating the Potomac, and extending the settlement of the western boundaries of the country. Humphreys was very proud of his friendship with Washington, and often referred to the latter with deep admiration, marred sometimes by such lines of egotism as in this stanza:

Let others sing his deeds in arms,
A nation saved and conquest's charms
Posterity shall hear.
'Twas mine, return'd from Europe's courts,
To share his thoughts, partake his sports,
And soothe his partial ear.

This soldier-versifier was vain and aspiring to literary fame, but he showed sturdier qualities when occasion called them forth. He took command of a band of men to guard the arsenal at Springfield, when it was threatened in Shay's Rebellion; he served in the state assembly during the years when he was collaborating with his friends in the series of papers of The Anarchiad. His "Poem Addressed to the Armies of the United States of America," first published in 1780, was reprinted in Paris six years later; this sign of appreciation gave him much delight. While abroad he lived in a style which attracted attention for its luxury, but which he seemed to defend in a manuscript letter to Timothy Pickering, which I am permitted to print here. It was written soon after his appointment as minister at Madrid; he explained the necessary expenses involved in moving his effects from Lisbon to Madrid:

I do not wish to make any unnecessary display, foreign to the dignified simplicity so becoming, in every character, but more particularly in that of a Republican Miniter; or to live in any respect in an ostentatious manner; but I desire to be able to live in a decent style (as other ministers are accustomed to do) without being under the necessity of incurring debts.… I hope & believe I shall never affect a style of hauteur; and whenever I cannot live abroad without embarrassment or meanness, I shall think it time to retire from public life—for sometimes the embarrassed conduct of a Diplomatic Agent extends beyond his individual Character and leaves an unfavorable impression of the Character of his Nation on the Minds of foreigners.… The transportation of my Carriages (of which I shall be obliged to carry four) Baggage, and necessaries will certainly, in the augmented price of forage, etc. cost me a good sum of money—for besides taking with me my own horses, I must order six or seven Mules to be sent from Madrid, and moreover employ a considerable number of common Carriers.

In spite of such indications of coxcombry in Humphreys, shown also in his delight to introduce foreign forms into the President's levees in New York, he was a true patriot in his impulses and aims. At forty-five, while abroad, he married the daughter of an English banker, but he was unwilling to live abroad, after his diplomatic missions were ended. As he had shared in gaining the liberty of America, so he wished to help in fostering her industries and arts. While at Lisbon he had written "A Poem on Industry," which ranked with his poem to the armies in its patriotism, as well as its verbosity; Humphreys could not write in simple English. The poem, however, and his practical success in manufacturing homespun cloths, entitle him to credit for noble motives. He brought with him from Spain, in 1802, one hundred and fifty merino sheep, as a nucleus for his enterprise. Near his Derby home he established a number of mills which made the settlement, at first called Chusetown and later Humphreysville, a flourishing village. The fulling-mill, cotton-mill, and paper-mill were opened in turn, and employment was given to scores of artisans. He brought several boys from the New York almshouses as apprentices. From England came master-workmen to superintend the manufacture of cloth, which was worn by Jefferson and other statesmen, and which encouraged the growth of American industries.

Humphreys was not alone a patriotic manufacturer, but he was also a pioneer social settler. In his village he sought to produce fine manhood as well as fine cloth. He furnished a library and recreation-room for his operatives, led his boys in military drills, took part with them in games; and coached them in rehearsals of various plays and "pieces" of his own composition. One of these, The Yankey in England, was acted in 1815, and printed. In studying the life of Humphreys, we always find many evidences of his besetting sin, literary vanity. He won respect as a soldier and a promoter of industry, but he sought for rank in letters. This he obtained among his friends, and often he was highly praised in journals of the day. He cultivated his inferior talents too ardently, forgetting the moral in "The Monkey Fable," probably finished by Trumbull:

Who cannot write, yet handle pens,
Are apt to hurt themselves and friends.

In contrast with the admiration which Humphreys craved, and often gained in America, was the frank disgust of Southey. He had met Humphreys at Lisbon, and wrote later to a friend:

Timothy Dwight, an American, published in 1785 an heroic poem on the Conquest of Canaan. I had heard of it, and long wished to read it, in vain; but now the American Minister (a good-natured man, whose poetry is worse than anything except his criticism) has lent me the book. There certainly is some merit in the poem: but when Col. Humphreys speaks of it, he will not allow me to put in a word in defense of John Milton.

His writings were prefaced by long notes of explanation and tribute.

The poems which are least effusive and offensive in form, among those included in his Miscellaneous Works, were the odes descriptive of the burning of Fairfield by the British, in 1779, and that on the "Happiness of America." The stanza in the latter which portrays the interior scene of a humble American home in winter may be fittingly recalled:

The cattle fed—the fuel pil'd within—
At setting day the blissful hours begin;
'Tis then, sole owner of his little cot;
The farmer feels his independent lot;
Hears with the crackling blaze that lights the wall,
The voice of gladness and of nature call;
Beholds his children play, their mother smile,
And tastes with them the fruit of summer's toil.

During the War of 1812, Humphreys was general of a company of war veterans for home protection, and he wrote, with rejoicing, of his country's victories on the sea. His monument, erected soon after his death in 1818, stands near the entrance to the old cemetery at New Haven, close to Yale University buildings. Its verbose Latin epitaph was written by his friend John Trumbull.

Associated with the men of greater renown in their own day—Timothy Dwight, Trumbull, Barlow, and Humphreys—were three collaborators of less familiar but influential lives—Theodore Dwight, Richard Alsop, and Dr. Lemuel Hopkins. Theodore Dwight, the elder, and brother of Timothy, was a lawyer, and was editor of the Connecticut Mirror from 1809 until 1815. For two years previously, 1806-7, he was a member of Congress. The latter part of his life was passed in New York, where he conducted the New York Daily Advertiser from 1817 to 1835. He wrote a partisan study of Jefferson's character, a fervent hymn on Washington, some strong orations and an etymological dictionary. To him we owe the preservation of the long poem by Richard Alsop, The Charms of Fancy, and many interesting revelations of the poet, who was not alone Dwight's friend, but also his brother-in-law.

Alsop was probably the editor of the papers known as The Echo, when they were first printed. A letter, in manuscript, from him to Dr. Mason Cogswell is in the copy of The Echo owned by John Trumbull, now at the Connecticut Historical Society. Alsop mentioned some errata and continued, regarding the tone of the papers:

I should be very sorry to have The Echo considered as a party production, as it must considerably lessen its reputation, & any alterations which will take off from that appearance without injury to the object in view, in my opinion will be best.

Born in Middletown, Connecticut, Alsop prepared for college, but continued his studies at home, becoming a fine translator of Runic poetry, Homer, Ossian, and Molina's History of Chili. For a time he had a bookstore in Hartford, where he lived with his sister. In an address, To the Freemen of Connecticut, (which is classified as his by an ink ascription in a copy at the Massachusetts Historical Society, dated Middletown, September 12, 1803,) he expressed confidence that God would protect "the Vine of this state" against "the rude shocks of democratic violence, nor will He suffer its ripened clusters to be trampled in the dust."

In William Dunlap's manuscript journal, 1797, he mentions a visit to Alsop at Middletown, "to shoot ducks;" later he accompanied Alsop "in a chaise to Hartford where lived, at that time, Miss Fanny Alsop."

In the "Memoir" of Alsop which prefaced his visionary poem, The Charms of Fancy, we learn of his scholarship and scientific interests which blended with his poetic tastes. His sister said: "He seemed to know every variety of birds, and I might almost say, every feather." In boxes of his own design he kept his natural-history specimens—a large collection. His long, ambitious poem on fancy, and its inspiration for poet, painter, and musician, has a few fine lines, and reveals his wide reading and patriotic zeal for America's progress in the arts. The poem by Alsop which seems to me the most worthy, however, was not printed in permanent form, except in collections of poetry, but it suggests, as a forerunner, Bryant's "To a Waterfowl." Alsop's poem was entitled "Verses to a Shearwater on the Morning after a Storm at Sea":

… On the fiery tossing wave,
Calmly cradled dost thou sleep,
When the midnight tempests rave,
Lonely wanderer of the deep! …

Far from earth's remotest trace,
What impels thee thus to roam?
What hast thou to mark the place,
When thou seek'st thy distant home?

Without star or magnet's aid,
Thou thy faithful course dost keep;
Sportive still, still undismay'd,
Lonely wanderer of the deep!

Alsop spent the last years of his life in the vicinity of New York. He died at Flatbush in 1815. In his lifetime he was generally known as author of one of the most widely quoted elegies on Washington, and was honored for his translations from the Eddas, and from Spanish and Italian.

The sharpest wit among the Hartford writers was Lemuel Hopkins. He used travesties and imagery which defied all poetic standards. As a physician he ranked among the progressive leaders of his day; in his memory the Hopkins Medical Society was formed in 1826. Born at Hopkins Hill, in Waterbury, in 1750, he served as a soldier for a time, but lost no opportunity to study for the profession of medicine, which he had chosen in youth as a goal. After gaining some experience with two noted men of his day and state—Dr. Seth Bird, of Litchfield, and Dr. Jared Potter, of Wallingford—he settled in Hartford, in 1784, where he remained until his death sixteen years later. By success in his profession, and by his courageous advocacy of inoculation for small-pox, use of anaesthetics, and radical remedies for yellow fever, he gained repute outside his state and was often called into consultation. Yale conferred an honorary degree upon him.

Many traditions and local stories cluster about his personality. He was nervous, brusque, with keen eyes, and a peculiar, awkward gait. One story illustrates his brusqueness combined with faithfulness. On a stormy night he rode four miles to assure himself that a certain remedy was accomplishing the desired results. Arriving at the house, he entered, made a silent examination, refused to speak to any of the inmates, and rode away. He was a dreaded enemy of impostors and quacks. Another anecdote indicates this trait. With Dr. Cogswell, he was attending a patient who was dying of tubercular disease. The sister of the sick girl unreasonably besought the doctors to use some "fever powders," which she had bought from a peripatetic quack. Dr. Hopkins asked her to bring the powders, announced that one and a half was recorded as the largest dose which it was safe to take, calmly mixed twelve of the powders in molasses, and swallowed them, remarking to his colleague: "Cogswell, I am going to Coventry today. If I die from this, you must write on my tombstone: 'Here lies Hopkins, killed by Grimes'." In indignation against a "cancer doctor" who had troubled the neighborhood, he wrote the rugged verse, "On a Patient Killed by a Cancer Quack":

Here lies a fool, flat on his back,
The victim of a cancer quack;
Who lost his money and his life,
By plaister, caustic and by knife.

More dignified were the ironical stanzas, "The Hypocrite's Hope":

He tones like Pharisee sublime,
Two lengthy prayers a day,
The same that he from early prime,
Has heard his father say.…

Good works he careth nought about,
But faith alone will seek,
While Sunday's pieties blot out,
The knaveries of the week.

A few letters from Dr. Lemuel Hopkins to his friend Oliver Wolcott, Jr., are in manuscript at the Connecticut Historical Society; I have been given the privilege of quoting from them. One written in October, 1783, reveals Hopkins' wit and his interest in political affairs:

I thank you for your inteligence & thoughts on politicks; but have not time to tell you my own. But I lament with you the ill aspect of our affairs, and am afraid to think much of the next scene for of late, when I have indulg'd such thoughts, the Ghost of a certain text has grinn'd horrible at me a ghastly smile,—'tis this—"Wo unto thee oh land when thy king is a fool."

In a letter from Hartford, after his removal there from Litchfield, he refers to the American Antiquities (The Anarchiad) as having "given a considerable check to a certain kind of popular intrigue in this state."

During the prevalence of small-pox in the summer of 1793, he wrote to Mr. Wolcott regarding inoculation, which he practiced freely:

This business is much like that of the Treasury Department in regard to existing jealousies, raising party spirit &c., yet, from certain causes, my particular mode of conducting it, in case of any suspicion of wrong measures, does not admit of so unanswerable a justification.

There are some philosophic sentences in the same letter regarding the influences of city and village life, which are interesting today:

The more a man is among all sorts of people, the more fully will he learn the unmeasured difference there is between the sentiments of newspapers, replete with local politics, and the opinions of an enlighten'd people in the peaceable and successful pursuit of wealth & happiness.—I find more & more that a busy set of wrongheads can at pleasure stir up, for a time, any sentiments they please in cities—and that there is a great aptitude in most men to consider cities as worlds, or at least as the manufactories of sentiments for whole countries—and much of this may be true in the old world; but in N. England the contrary is, and ever will be true, as long as our schools, presses & Town-corporations last.

With his shrewd insight into the diseases of individuals and of the nation, with his urgent desire for progress through education, Dr. Hopkins was a good type of his time, and especially of this group of Connecticut writers. They were earnest, as well as witty; they sought to use their talents for the advance of industry and political sanity. Their writings mirrored many of the aspirations and fears of the period which followed the war and was concerned with the establishment of stable government.