SONG VI O'er the hills far away, at the birth of the morn Across the deep valley their course they pursue And rush thro' the thickets yet silver'd with dew; Nor hedges nor ditches their speed can delayStill sounds the sweet horn o'er hills far away. JOHN TRUMBULL John Trumbull, the eldest of the "Yale Poets" and one of the effective satirists of the Revolution, came of a family several times distinguished in the annals of Connecticut. He was born in 1750 in Waterbury, where his father was minister. He was an extreme example of the intellectual precocity common in early New England. The story that at the age of seven he passed with credit the examinations for admission to Yale is well authenticated. Not entering, however, until he was thirteen, he graduated in the class of 1767; and he remained six years longer in New Haven as graduate student and tutor. As he was in advance in his studies and as he had natural ability and a taste for letters, he read widely and enthusiastically in the classics and particularly in English; he is perhaps the first of our American writers to show wide acquaintance with polite literature. He fortunately found other students with similar interests,Dwight, Humphreys, and later, Barlow. These formed a group, almost a "school," having in common, for the first time in New England, purely literary aims and ambitions,which soon bore fruit in various ways. For the commencement of 1770, at which he got his master's degree, Trumbull furnished an "Essay on the Use and Advantages of the Fine Arts," notable as a protest against the puritan view of those "who finer arts despise, and scoff at verse as heathen lies," and also as perhaps the first piece of American literary criticism. He and his associates advocated a reform in the old rigid curriculum by the introduction of modern studiesEnglish literature and composition. With Dwight he wrote Addisonian essays "The Meddler" and "The Correspondent" for the Boston and New Haven papers; and also short poems in the styles then prevailing in London. In 1772-1773, while still a tutor at Yale, he published The Progress of Dulness in three parts, satirizing the prevalent errors in education. Part III pleads for the better education of women. In all these writings Trumbull shows liberality and good sense, but little true originality of expression; he is skillful in following the method and style of his English models,—in catching the tone of Pope in verse and Addison in prose. As he could hardly think of adopting literature as a profession he prepared himself for law, and in 1773 he was admitted to the bar. Going to Boston to read law in the office of John Adams, he found himself in "the centre of American politics." He lamented the commercial loss following the Port Bill in elegiac stanzas,-An Elegy for the Times, 1774. During the next year he wrote the first part of his most important work, M'Fingal. This is a satire on the loyalists, in imitation of Butler's Hudibras, with ingredients also from Macpherson's Ossian and Churchill's Ghost. The scene is laid in a Massachusetts town shortly after the battle of Lexington; and the story tells of a turbulent town meeting coming to blows over the Revolutionary issue, discussed by a patriot, Honorius (said to have been drawn from John Adams), and the tory M'Fingal. The latter and his constable (Hudibras and Ralpho adapted to New England) are tarred and feathered. In 1782 the poem was completed in four cantos, in the last of which, entitled "The Vision," M'Fingal-like Ossian, a seer-foresees the patriotic triumphs of the Revolution. Like Trumbull's other works, it may be described as new American wine in old English bottles. It shows greatest excellence in its epigrammatic phrasing; some of its couplets have passed for Butler's. It was an effective and frequently reprinted satire during the war; and in its final form was long regarded as a great ornament to American letters. As one of the "Hartford Wits" Trumbull again did effective service in contributing to The Anarchiad (17861787), a satire on the chaotic conditions preceding the adoption of the Constitution. He was successful as a lawyer, becoming judge of the highest court of Connecticut. died in Detroit in 1831. He THE FUTURE GLORY OF AMERICAN LITERATURE [FROM "PROSPECT OF THE FUTURE GLORY OF AMERICA: BEING THE CONCLUSION OF AN ORATION, DELIVERED AT THE PUBLIC COMMENCEMENT OF YALE COLLEGE, SEPTEMBER 12, 1770"] For pleasing Arts behold her matchless charms The fainting gleam of Europe's setting ray. Sublime the Muse shall lift her eagle wing; When earth's last fires shall mark their dreadful way, Or ope heaven's glories to th' astonish'd eye, And bid their lays with lofty Milton vie; Or wake from nature's themes the moral song, And shine with Pope, with Thomson and with Young. The former honors equall'd by the new; Here shall some Shakespeare charm the rising age, A second Watts shall string the heavenly lyre, DWIGHT'S HOMERIC FIRE [FROM "LINES ADDRESSED TO MESSRS. DWIGHT AND BARLOW, ON THE PROJECTED PUBLICATION OF THEIR POEMS IN LONDON, DECEMBER, 1775"] And see, where yon proud Isle1 her shores extends Yet heed not these, but join the sons of song, Your country's heroes claim the debt of praise; Barlow's strong flight, and Dwight's Homeric fire. 1 Great Britain.-See the British Reviewers for the fulfilment of this prediction. The English scribblers began their abuse, by asserting that all the Americans were cowards. Subsequent events have taught them a reverent silence on that topic. They now labor, with equal wit and eloquence, to prove our universal ignorance and stupidity. The present writers in the Quarterly Review have made it the vehicle of insult and slander upon our genius and manners. Whether they will be more successful with the_pen, than with the sword, in prostrating America at their feet, Time, the ancient arbiter, will determine in due season.-Author's note, 1820. |