And other brave worthies ate butter and cheese, So said, and so acted: I put up a press, And drank like a German, and drove away care, Ah!don't you remember what a vigorous hand he put To drag off the great guns, and plague Captain VANDEPUT, That night when the hero (his patience worn out) Put fire to his cannon, and folks to the rout, And drew up his ship with a spring on his cable, And gave us a second confusion of Babel! .... For my part, I hid in a cellar, (as sages And Christians were wont, in the primitive ages.) Yet I hardly could boast of a moment of rest, The dogs were a howling, the town was distrest.. From this very day till the British came in, We lived, I may say, in the Desert of Sin; ... We townsmen, like women, of Britons in dread, Mistrusted their meaning, and foolishly fled; Like the rest of the dunces, I mounted my steed, And galloped away with incredible speed; To Newark I hastened-but trouble and care Got up on the crupper, and followed me there! ... So, after remaining one cold winter season, And stuffing my papers with something like treason, I, cursing my folly and idle pursuits, Returned to the city and hung up my boots!.... When he argued so often and proved it so plain, That SATAN must flourish till bishops should reign: Though he went to the wall With his project and all, Another bold SAMMY, in bishop's array, Has got something more for his pains than his pay. It seems we had spirit to humble a throne, Have genius for science inferior to none, But never encourage a plant of our own: If a college be planned, 'Tis all at a stand 'Till to Europe we send at a shameful expense, To bring us a pedant to teach us some sense. Can we never be thought to have learning or grace Unless it be brought from that horrible place Where tyranny reigns with her impudent face, And popes and pretenders, And sly faith-defenders, Have ever been hostile to reason and wit, Enslaving a world that shall conquer them yet? "T is a folly to fret at the picture I draw: And I say what was said by a Doctor MAGRAW; "If they give us their teachers, they'll give us their How that will agree With such people as we, [law." I leave to the learn'd to reflect on awhile. THE INDIAN STUDENT: OR, FORCE OF NATURE. FROM Susquehanna's farthest springs, Where savage tribes pursue their game, (His blanket tied with yellow strings,) A shepherd of the forest came. .... But those of more discerning eye, To wander with his dearer bow. The tedious hours of study spent, The heavy moulded lecture done, He to the woods a hunting wentThrough lonely wastes he walked, he run. No mystic wonders fired his mind He sought to gain no learned degree, The shady bank, the purling stream, "And why," he cried, "did I forsake For musty books and college halls? "A little could my wants supply Can wealth and honor give me more? Or, will the sylvan god deny The humble treat he gave before? "Let seraphs gain the bright abode, And heaven's sublimest mansions see; I only bow to Nature's god The land of shades will do for me. "These dreadful secrets of the sky Alarm my soul with thrilling fearDo planets in their orbits fly? And is the earth indeed a sphere? "Let planets still their course pursue, The image of my GoD-the sun. He spoke, and to the western springs, The shepherd of the forest went. A BACCHANALIAN DIALOGUE. WRITTEN IN 1803. ARRIVED at Madeira, the island of vines, As pensive I strayed, in her elegant shade, I met him with awe, but no symptom of fear, "Do you know that a prince and a regent renown'd "Haste away with your barque; on the foam of the "Dear BACCHUS," I answered, for BACCHUS it was That spoke in this menacing tone: I knew by the smirk, and the flush on his face, "Dear BACCHUS," I answered, "ah, why so severe ! "I left them in wrangles, disorder, and strife I was sick of their quarrels, and sick of my life, And almost requested to die." The deity smiling, replied, "I relent: For the sake of your coming so far, Here, taste of my choicest: go, tell them repent, And cease their political war. With the cargo I send, you may say I intend To hush them to peace and repose; With this present of mine, on the wings of the wind You shall travel, and tell them, 'Here goes "A health to old BACCHUS!' who sends them the best Of the nectar his island affords, The soul of the feast, and the joy of the guest, Too good for your monarchs and lords. "No rivals have I in this insular waste, Alone will I govern the isle, With a king at my feet, and a court to my taste, And all in the popular style. "But a spirit there is in the order of things, To me it is perfectly plain, That will strike at the sceptres of despots and kings, And only king BACCHUS remain." ST. GEORGE TUCKER. [Born about 1750. Died 1827.] ST. GEORGE TUCKER was born in Bermuda about the middle of the last century. His family had been in that island ever since it was settled, and one of his ancestors, DANIEL TUCKER, who had lived a while in Virginia, was its governor in 1616. His father came into Virginia while still a young man, but spent much of his time in England, where he was agent for the colony. He there met Dr. FRANKLIN, with whom he occasionally corresponded. He had four sons, two of whom adhered to England on the breaking out of the revolution, and two joined the Americans, and continued through life stanch republicans. These were THOMAS TUDOR TUCKER, many years representative of South Carolina in Congress, and ST. GEORGE, who lived and died in Virginia. The latter was graduated at the College of William and Mary, and afterwards studied the law, but, tired of the silence of the courts, on the approach of the war, resorted to arms. In the early part of the contest he is said to have planned a secret expedition to Bermuda, where he knew there was a large amount of military stores, in a fortification feebly garrisoned. The perilous enterprise proved entirely successful, and it appears from a recent biography of his nephew, HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, one of the directors of the East India Company, that he personally aided in it. He was with the army at Yorktown, holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and received during the siege a slight scratch in the face, from the explosion of a bomb; upon which General WASHINGTON, in a more jocular mood than was his wont, congratulated him on his honorable scar. He was soon afterwards appointed to a seat in the General Court; while a judge, was professor of law in the College of William and Mary; was next advanced to the Court of Appeals; and finally to the District Court of the United States. one of the commissioners of Virginia who met at Annapolis, in 1796, and recommended the convention which formed the present federal constitution. He was By his first wife, Mrs. RANDOLPH, mother of JOHN RANDOLPH, he has numerous descendants; by his second, he had none who survived him. Judge TUCKER had a ready talent for versification, which he exercised through life, and he was DAYS OF MY YOUTH. DAYS of my youth, ye have glided away: particularly successful in vers de societé, when that species of literary accomplishment was more prac tised and admired than it is at the present day. His rhymed epistles, epigrams, complimentary verses, and other bagatelles, would fill several volumes; but he gave only one small collection of them to the public in this form. When Dr. WOLCOTT's satires on GEORGE the Third, written under the name of Peter Pindar," obtained both in this country and in England a popularity far beyond their merits, Judge TUCKER, who admired them, was induced to publish in FRENEAU'S "National Gazette" a series of similar odes, under the signature of "Jonathan Pindar," by which he at once gratified his political zeal and his poetical propensity. His object was to assail JOHN ADAMS and other leading federalists, for their supposed monarchical predilections. His pieces might well be compared with WOLCOTT's for poetical qualities, but were less playful, and had far more acerbity, Collected into a volume, they continued to be read by politicians, and had the honour of a volunteer reprint from one of the earliest presses in Kentucky. 66 Judge TUCKER was capable of better things than these political trifles. He wrote a poem entitled Liberty," in which the leading characters and events of the revolution are introduced. Of his numerous minor pieces some are characterized by ease, sprightliness, and grace. One of them, entitled Days of My Youth," so affected JOHN ADAMS, in his old age, that he declared he would rather have written it than any lyric by MILTON OF SHAK SPEARE. He little dreamed it was by an author who in earlier years had made him the theme of his satirical wit. In prose also Judge TUCKER was a voluminous writer. His most elaborate performance was an edition of BLACKSTONE'S "Commentaries," with copious notes and illustrative dissertations. He lived to a great age, and through life had nume rous and warm friends. He was an active and often an intolerant politician, yet such was the predominance of his kindly affections and companionable qualities, that some of his most cherished friends were of the party which in the mass he most cordially hated. Eyes of my youth, you much evil have seen: JOHN TRUMBULL. [Born 1750. Died 1831.] JOHN TRUMBULL, LL.D., the author of "McFin- | quaintance with rhetoric and belles lettres, then gal," was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on the twenty-fourth day of April, 1750. His father was a Congregational clergyman, and for many years one of the trustees of Yale College. He early instructed his son in the elementary branches of education, and was induced by the extraordinary vigour of his intellect, and his unremitted devotion to study, to give him lessons in the Greek and Latin languages before he was six years old. At the age of seven, after a careful examination, young TRUMBULL was declared to be sufficiently advanced to merit admission into Yale College. On account of his extreme youth, however, at that time, and his subsequent ill health, he was not sent to reside at New Haven until 1763, when he was in his thirteenth year. His college life was a continued series of successes. His superior genius, attainments and industry enabled him in every trial to surpass his competitors for academic honours; and such of his collegiate exercises as have been printed evince a discipline of thought and style rarely discernible in more advanced years, and after greater opportunities of improvement. He was graduated in 1767, but remained in the college three years longer, devoting his attention principally to the study of polite letters. In this period he became acquainted with DWIGHT, then a member of one of the younger classes, who had attracted considerable attention by translating in a very creditable manner two of the finest odes of Horace, and contracted with him a lasting friendship. On the resignation of two of the tutors in the college in 1771, TRUMBULL and DWIGHT were elected to fill the vacancies, and exerted all their energies for several years to introduce an improved course of study and system of discipline into the seminary. At this period the ancient languages, scholastic theology, logic, and mathematics were dignified with the title of "solid learning," and the study of belles lettres was decried as useless and an unjustifiable waste of time. The two friends were exposed to a torrent of censure and ridicule, but they persevered, and in the end were successful. TRUMBULL wrote many humorous prose and poetical essays while he was a tutor, which were published in the gazettes of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and with DWIGHT produced a series in the manner of the " Spectator," which extended to more than forty numbers. The Progress of Dulness" was published in 1772. It is the most finished of TRUMBULL'S poems, and was hardly less serviceable to the cause of education than "MeFingal" was to that of liberty. The puerile absurdity of regarding a knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages as of more importance to a clergyman than the most perfect ac obtained more generally than now, and dunces had but to remain four years in the neighbourhood of a university to be admitted to the fellowship of scholars and the ministers of religion. In the satire, TOM BRAINLESS, a country clown, too indolent to follow the plough, is sent by his weakminded parents to college, where a degree is gained by residence, and soon after appears as a full-wigged parson, half-fanatic, half-fool, to do his share toward bringing Christianity into contempt. Another principal person is DICK HAIRBRAIN, an impudent fop, who is made a master of arts in the same way; and in the third part is introduced a character of the same description, belonging to the other sex. During the last years of his residence at College, TRUMBULL paid as much attention as his other avocations would permit to the study of the law, and in 1773 resigned his tutorship and was admitted to the bar of Connecticut. He did not seek business in the courts, however, but went immediately to Boston, and entered as a student the office of JOHN ADAMS, afterward President of the United States, and at that time an eminent advocate and counsellor. He was now in the focus of American politics. The controversy with Great Britain was rapidly approaching a crisis, and he entered with characteristic ardour into all the discussions of the time, employing his leisure hours in writing for the gazettes and in partisan correspondence. In 1774, he published anonymously his " Essay on the Times," and soon after returned to New Haven, and with the most flattering prospects commenced the practice of his profession. The first gun of the revolution echoed along the continent in the following year, and private pursuits were abandoned in the general devotion to the cause of liberty. TRUMBULL wrote the first part of McFingal," which was immediately printed in Philadelphia, where the Congress was then in session, and soon after republished in numerous editions in different parts of this country and in England. It was not finished until 1782, when it was issued complete in three cantos at Hartford, to which place TRUMBULL had removed in the preceding year. "McFingal" is in the Hudibrastic vein, and much the best imitation of the great satire of BUTLER that has been written. The hero is a Scotish justice of the peace residing in the vicinity of Boston at the beginning of the revolution, and the first two cantos are principally occupied with a discussion between him and one HONORIUS on the course of the British government, in which MCFINGAL, an unyielding loyalist, endeavours to make proselytes, while all his arguments are directed against himself. His zeal and his logic are together irresistibly ludicrous, but there is nothing in the character unnatural, as it is common for men who read more than they think, or attempt to discuss questions they do not understand, to use arguments which refute the positions they wish to defend. The meeting ends with a riot, in which MCFINGAL is seized, tried by the mob, convicted of violent toryism, and tarred and feathered. On being set at liberty, he assembles his friends around him in his cellar, and harangues them until they are dispersed by the whigs, when he escapes to Boston, and the poem closes. These are all the important incidents of the story, yet it is never tedious, and few commence reading it who do not follow it to the end and regret its termination. Throughout the three cantos the wit is never separated from the character of the hero. After the removal of TRUMBULL to Hartford a social club was established in that city, of which BARLOW, Colonel HUMPHRIES, Doctor LEMUEL HOPKINS, and our author, were members. They produced numerous essays on literary, moral, and political subjects, none of which attracted more applause than a series of papers in imitation of the Rolliad," (a popular English work, ascribed to Fox, SHERIDAN, and their associates,) entitled "American Antiquities" and "Extracts from the Anarchiad," originally printed in the New Haven Gazette for 1786 and 1787. These papers have never been collected, but they were republished from one end of the country to the other in the periodicals of the time, and were supposed to have had considerable influence on public taste and opinions, and by the boldness of their satire to have kept in abeyance the leaders of political disorganization and infidel philosophy. TRUMBULL also aided BARLOW in the preparation of his edition of WATTS's version of the Psalms, and wrote several of the paraphrases in that work which have been generally attributed to the author of "The Columbiad." TRUMBULL was a popular lawyer, and was appointed to various honourable offices by the people and the government. From 1795, in consequence of ill health, he declined all public employment, and was for several years an invalid. At length, recovering his customary vigour, in 1800 he was elected a member of the legislature, and in the year following a judge of the Superior Court. In 1808 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, and held the office until 1819, when he finally retired from public life. His poems were collected and published in 1820, and in 1825 he removed to Detroit, where his daughter, the wife of the Honourable WILLIAM WOODBRIDGE, recently a member of the United States Senate for Michigan, was residing, and died there in May, 1831, in the eighty-first year of his age. III. Descend, and, graceful, in thy hand, Or bowery maze, that shades the purple streams, In more than mortal charms array'd, [song, People the airy vales and revel in thy reign. IV. But drive afar the haggard crew, That haunt the guilt-encrimson'd bed, Or dim before the frenzied view Stalk with slow and sullen tread; While furies, with infernal glare, Wave their pale torches through the troubled air; And deep from Darkness' inmost womb, Sad groans dispart the icy tomb, And bid the sheeted spectre rise, Mid shrieks and fiery shapes and deadly fantasies * See a note on this subject appended to the Life of BARLOW in this volume. |