Timothy Dwight, 1752-1817. tetrameter. The famous couplet, lines 51-52, is perfect in form. A friend and fellow-student of Trumbull was Timothy Dwight, afterwards president of Yale, and the grandfather of the present President Dwight. He published an extended meditative poem, called "Greenfield Hill." But he is better remembered by the simple but strong hymn which has made its place in the hearts of many, "I Love thy Kingdom, Lord." Joel Barlow was also born in Connecticut, and 1754-1812. Columbus," 1787. graduated from Yale College. His life was one of Joel Barlow, great activity and usefulness. He was United States consul at Algiers, and minister to France, and died in Poland, having been summoned to meet Napoleon Bonaparte at the time of the French retreat from Moscow. In 1787 he published "The Vision of "Vision of Columbus," a stately, prosy production in nine cantos of iambic pentameter verse. The vision extends over America from the equator to the north pole, and includes its history, from the imaginary origin of the native tribes, by way of Peru, Mexico, and the discoveries of Columbus and others, through the Revolution, and on into the future. In later life the work was enlarged and extended, the fuller version being published in sumptuous style, and called "The Columbiad." A more popular publication was the semi-humorous poem on New England manners, called "Hasty Pudding." Barlow's movements are always on a grand scale, and his humor even is rather elephantine. Alexander Wilson is better remembered for his ser- Alexander Wilson, vices to science as the first distinguished American 1766-1813. ornithologist, than for his literary work. But it is a question whether he was not more a literary man than a scientist. He was born in Scotland in 1766, and before he came to this country in 1793 had published a volume of poems in the Scotch dialect. One of his poems was ascribed to Burns, and was not altogether unworthy of the compliment. He became an enthusiastic American in his feelings, and wrote much in prose and verse which shows loving and Lyric Verse. Francis Hopkinson, 1737-1791. close observation of nature in its characteristically American aspects. "The Foresters" is an extended descriptive poem, the subject of which is a pedestrian journey from Philadelphia to Niagara Falls. It is written in excellent rimed iambic pentameter lines, and has a number of passages of real poetic feeling. These lines from the beginning of the poem show the purpose of the writer, and illustrate the characteristic which makes Wilson's work so interesting and important in the history of American Literature. Yet Nature's charms that bloom so lovely here, While scarce one Muse returns the songs they gave, In general the songs of the Revolution have not much merit, but Hopkinson's "Battle of the Kegs was very popular, and E. P. Whipple says that it "laughed thousands of men into the patriot army." This was Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and a man of great |