"'d, talk'd politics, learn'd manners mild; pamper'd turkies din'd; good divine in Greenfield this rough outline, is highly malignant review of Inchiquin's Letcared in the (London) Quarterly for Jan. its bitterness and contempt were so unsparing and its falsehood so gross, that Dwight, though its abuse was partly directed against Jefferson and others whom he did not hold in particular favor, thought it necessary to reply. His work, an octavo of one hundred and seventy-six pages, was entitled, Remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Letters, published in the Quarterly Review; addressed to the Right Honorable George Canning, Esq., by an Inhabitant of New England; and was published in Boston in 1815. It carries the war into Africa, contrasting every defect urged against America with a corresponding iniquity in England, and exonerating his countrymen from many of the charges as utterly unfounded. It meets the reviler with language as loud and with facts severer than his own. It shows that under his polished exterior the fires of his youth still glowed in the college President. Greenfield Hill is an idyllic poem of rare merit. A little more nicety of execution and a better comprehension of the design at the outset, would doubtless have improved it; but the spirit is there. It is noticeable that it was undertaken as an imitation or adaptation of different English poets; but the author found the labor of pursuing this plan too great, and fell off, or rather rose to original invention. This has often happened in English literature, and some of the best successes are due to this effort, which the genius of the writer has soon transcended; as in the Castle of Indolence and the Splendid Shilling, to which may be added Trumbull's M'Fingal. Thus Dwight, commencing with Beattie and Goldsmith, soon runs into measures and incidents of his own; or turns the contrast of American manners to happy account, as in his picture of "the Flourishing Village" of Greenfield, where he finds in the allotment of estates and the absence of manorial privileges, the opposite of "the Deserted Village." The general plan of the poem is thus sketched by the author in his " Introduction:" In the Parish of Greenfield, in the town of Fairfield, in Connecticut, there is a pleasant and beautiful eminence, called Greenfield Hill; at the distance of three miles from Long Island Sound. On this eminence, there is a small but handsome village, a church, academy, &c., all of them alluded to in the fol *The Triumph of Infidelity was never acknowledged by the anthor, but never denied by him. It was well understood to be from his pen. lowing poem. From the highest part of the eminence, the eye is presented with an extensive and delightful prospect of the surrounding country, and of the Sound. On this height, the writer is supposed to stand. The first object, there offering itself to his view, is the landscape; which is accordingly made the governing subject of the first part of the Poem. The flourishing and happy condition of the inhabitants very naturally suggested itself next; and became of course the subject of the Second Part. The town of Fairfield, lying in full view, and, not long before the poem was begun and in a great measure written out, burnt by a party of British troops, under the command of Governor Tryon, furnished the theme of the Third Part. A field, called the Pe quod Swamp, in which most of the warriors of that nation who survived the invasion of their country by Capt. Mason, were destroyed, lying about three miles from the eminence above-mentioned, and on the margin of the Sound, suggested, not unnaturally, the subject of the Fourth Part. As the writer is the minister of Greenfield, he cannot be supposed to be uninterested in the welfare of his parishioners. To excite their attention to the truths and duties of religion (an object in such a sign of the Fifth Part; and to promote in them just situation instinctively rising to his view) is the desentiments and useful conduct, for the present life, (an object closely connected with the preceding one) of the Sixth. The landscape, the characters, and the ideas of the poem are American; the language in a few instances belongs to English poets; but the author has handsomely acknowledged the obligation in his notes. Of the more characteristic portions, the description of the school, the affectionate picture of the village clergyman, the Indian war, the Connecticut fariner's prudential maxims, with the whole scope of the political reflections, are purely American. Several members of the Dwight family have appeared as authors. The brother of the President, Theodore Dwight, occupied for a long time a distinguished part in the affairs of the country. He was born at Northampton in 1765, and studied law after the Revolution with his uncle Judge Pierpont Edwards. He had a hand in the poetical and political essays of the Echo, in the Hartford Mercury, in common with Hopkins and Alsop. He was an eminent Federalist, and was chosen the secretary of the Hartford Convention. In 1815, he commenced the Albany Daily Advertiser with the support of the leading politicians of his party in the state; and in 1817 engaged in the publication and editorship of the New York Daily Advertiser, which he continued till 1835, when he retired to Hartford. In 1833, his History of the Hartford Convention appeared at New York; and in 1839, his Character of Thomas Jefferson as exhibited in his own writings, at Boston-a book of a partisan political character. He died June 11, 1846. His son, Theodore Dwight, is the author of a History of Connecticut, in 1841, and of a volume on the Revolution of 1848. He is a resident of New York. In 1829, a son of the president, Henry E. Dwight, published a volume in New York of Travels in the North of Germany, in the years 1825 and 1826; presenting "a view of the religious, literary, and political institutions of north with prosperous course, shall stretch their Our sons, The birds crowning the jubilee of returning day after a storm are introduced with beauty in the following scene, which glitters with sunshine: Then gentler scenes his rapt attention gain'd, On cliffs cliffs burn; o'er mountains mountains roll: The gentle Cowper, who wrote a favorable critique on the poem in the Analytical Review,* notices this description of Night as "highly poetical." Now Night, in vestments rob'd, of cloudy dye, With sable grandeur cloth'd the orient sky, Impell'd the sun, obsequious to her reign, Down the far mountains to the western main; With magic hand, becalm'd the solemn even, And drew day's curtain from the spangled heaven. At once the planets sail'd around the throne: At once ten thousand worlds in splendor shone: Behind her car, the moon's expanded eye Rose from a cloud, and look'd around the sky: Far up th' immense her train sublimely roll, And dance, and triumph, round the lucid pole. Faint shine the fields, beneath the shadowy ray: Slow fades the glimmering of the west away; To sleep the tribes retire; and not a sound Flows through the air, or murmurs on the ground. There is a glowing picture of the millennium. Indeed, the reader is oppressed by the uniform *Southey's Works of Cowper, Ed. 1826, vii. 814. ! eloquence of the description. It is too florid. The natural powers of the writer appear in the poem, injured by the study of Pope's declamatory pieces. It is said to have been at the suggestion of the poet Trumbull, his fellow tutor at the time in the college, that Dwight wrote the animated description of the battle lighted by the burning city of Ai, in the seventh book. The author of M'Fingal had another hint in his own humorous way for the laborious young poet. In allusion to the number of thunder-storms described in the portion of the poem handed him to read, he requested that when he sent in the remainder, a lightning rod might be included. Dwight's literary compositions are represented by two leading ideas-his religion and his patriotism. The former is sustained in his Theology and in his Triumph of Infidelity, and in some fine passages in Greenfield Hill; the latter in his remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Letters, and in many pages of his travels. In the poem on Infidelity, and his passage with the Quarterly Review, he does not mince matters, but shows the hand of a bold vigorous pamphleteer. The Triumph of Infidelity; a Poem. Printed in the World, 1788: was sent forth with no other title. It is an octavo of forty pages, levelled at the unbelieving spirit of the century then drawing to its close. It is dedicated to Mons. de Voltaire: "Sir, your Creator endued you with shining talents, and cast your lot in a field of action, where they might be inost happily employed: In the progress of a long and industrious life, you devoted them to a single purpose, the elevation of your character above his. For the accomplishment of this purpose, with a diligence and uniformity which would have adorned the most virtuous pursuits, you opposed truth, religion, and their authors, with sophistry, contempt, and obloquy; and taught, as far as your example or sentiments extended their influence, that the chief end of man was, to slander his God, and abuse him for ever. To whom could such an effort as the following be dedicated, with more propriety than to you." The satire is full of indignation; with more polish, it could not fail to have become widely celebrated. Here are a few of its strong lines:— THE SMOOTH DIVINE There smil'd the smooth Divine, unus'd to wound Her pipe he lighted, and her baby held. Or plac'd in some great town, with lacquer'd shoes, Trim wig, and trimmer gown, and glistening hose, He bow'd, talk'd politics, learn'd manners mild; Most daintily on pamper'd turkies din'd; The picture of the good divine in Greenfield Hill, the opposite of this rough outline, is highly pleasing. When the malignant review of Inchiquin's Letters appeared in the (London) Quarterly for Jan. 1814, its bitterness and contempt were so unsparing and its falsehood so gross, that Dwight, though its abuse was partly directed against Jefferson and others whom he did not hold in particular favor, thought it necessary to reply. His work, an octavo of one hundred and seventy-six pages, was entitled, Remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Letters, published in the Quarterly Review; addressed to the Right Honorable George Canning, Esq., by an Inhabitant of New England; and was published in Boston in 1815. It carries the war into Africa, contrasting every defect urged against America with a corresponding iniquity in England, and exonerating his countrymen from many of the charges as utterly unfounded. It meets the reviler with language as loud and with facts severer than his own. It shows that under his polished exterior the fires of his youth still glowed in the college President. Greenfield Hill is an idyllic poem of rare merit. A little more nicety of execution and a better comprehension of the design at the outset, would doubtless have improved it; but the spirit is there. It is noticeable that it was undertaken as an imitation or adaptation of different English poets; but the author found the labor of pursuing this plan too great, and fell off, or rather rose to original invention. This has often happened in English literature, and some of the best successes are due to this effort, which the genius of the writer has soon transcended; as in the Castle of Indolence and the Splendid Shilling, to which may be added Trumbull's M'Fingal. Thus Dwight, commencing with Beattie and Goldsmith, soon runs into measures and incidents of his own; or turns the contrast of American manners to happy account, as in his picture of " the Flourishing Village" of Greenfield, where he finds in the allotment of estates and the absence of manorial privileges, the opposite of "the Deserted Village." The general plan of the poem is thus sketched by the author in his "Introduction :" In the Parish of Greenfield, in the town of Fairfield, in Connecticut, there is a pleasant and beautiful eminence, called Greenfield Hill; at the distance of three miles from Long Island Sound. On this eminence, there is a small but handsome village, a church, academy, &c., all of them alluded to in the fol * The Triumph of Infidelity was never acknowledged by the author, but never denied by him. It was well understood to be from his pen. lowing poem. From the highest part of the eminence, the eye is presented with an extensive and delightful prospect of the surrounding country, and of the Sound. On this height, the writer is supposed to stand. The first object, there offering itself to his view, is the landscape; which is accordingly made the governing subject of the first part of the Poem. The flourishing and happy condition of the inhabitants very naturally suggested itself next; and became of course the subject of the Second Part. The town of Fairfield, lying in full view, and, not long before the poem was begun and in a great measure written out, burnt by a party of British troops, under the command of Governor Tryon, furnished the theme of the Third Part. A field, called the Pequod Swamp, in which most of the warriors of that nation who survived the invasion of their country by Capt. Mason, were destroyed, lying about three miles from the eminence above-mentioned, and on the margin of the Sound, suggested, not unnaturally, the subject of the Fourth Part. As the writer is the minister of Greenfield, he cannot be supposed to be uninterested in the welfare of his parishioners. To excite their attention to the truths and duties of religion (an object in such a sign of the Fifth Part; and to promote in them just situation instinctively rising to his view) is the desentiments and useful conduct, for the present life, (an object closely connected with the preceding one) of the Sixth. The landscape, the characters, and the ideas of the poem are American; the language in a few instances belongs to English poets; but the author has handsomely acknowledged the obligation in his notes. Of the more characteristic portions, the description of the school, the affectionate picture of the village clergyman, the Indian war, the Connecticut farmer's prudential maxims, with the whole scope of the political reflections, are purely American. Several members of the Dwight family have appeared as authors. The brother of the President, Theodore Dwight, occupied for a long time a distinguished part in the affairs of the country. He was born at Northampton in 1765, and studied law after the Revolution with his uncle Judge Pierpont Edwards. He had a hand in the poetical and political essays of the Echo, in the Hartford Mercury, in common with Hopkins and Alsop. He was an eminent Federalist, and was chosen the secretary of the Hartford Convention. In 1815, he commenced the Albany Daily Advertiser with the support of the leading politicians of his party in the state; and in 1817 engaged in the publication and editorship of the New York Daily Advertiser, which he continued till 1835, when he retired to Hartford. In 1833, his History of the Hartford Convention appeared at New York; and in 1839, his Character of Thomas Jefferson as exhibited in his own writings, at Boston-a book of a partisan political character. He died June 11, 1846. His son, Theodore Dwight, is the author of a History of Connecticut, in 1841, and of a volume on the Revolution of 1848. He is a resident of New York. In 1829, a son of the president, Henry E. Dwight, published a volume in New York of Travels in the North of Germany, in the years 1825 and 1826; presenting a view of the religious, literary, and political institutions of north ern Germany, and their influence on society; the arts, the present state of religion, schools, and universities." Another son of the president, Sereno E. Dwight, was author of the Life of Jonathan Edwards. A volume of his sermons has been published with a Memoir, by the Rev. William Dwight, of Portland, Maine. COLUMBIA. Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise, The queen of the world, and child of the skies! Thy fleets to all regions thy pow'r shall display, As the day-spring unbounded, thy splendour shall flow, And earth's little kingdoms before thee shall bow; The queen of the world, and the child of the skies." THE TRAVELLED APE-FROM AN EPISTLE TO COL. HUMPHREYS, 1785. Oft has thine eye, with glance indignant seen Their land forget, their friends, their freedom, spurn; For splendour happiness, and truth for art; For these, the gain let Virtue blush to hear, What tho' his mind no thought has e'er perplex'd, Attack opinions, brought three thousand miles; The wire was silver'd, and the heads were roll'd! FALL OF EMPIRE-FROM GREENFIELD HILL. Ah me! while up the long, long vale of time, Reflection wanders towards th' eternal vast, How starts the eye, at many a change sublime, Unbosom'd dimly by the ages pass'd! What Mausoleums crowd the mournful waste! An awkward addition to a dwelling-house, very common in New England. Soon fleets the sunbright Form, by man ador'd. The Arms, the Trunk, his cankering tooth devour'd: Where o'er an hundred realms, the throne uprose, Soon fleets the sun-bright Form, by man ador'd; Now mud-wall'd cots sit sullen on the plain, And wandering, fierce, and wild, sequester'd Arabs reign. In thee, O Albion! queen of nations, live Whatever splendours earth's wide realms have known; In thee proud Persia sees her pomp revive; And Greece her arts; and Rome her lordly throne: And one rich Eden blooms around thy garden'd land. year, When few centurial suns have trac'd their way; ROUND OF AMERICAN LIFE-FROM GREENFIELD HILL In this New World, life's changing round, In three descents, is often found. The first, firm, busy, plodding, poor, Earns, saves, and daily swells, his store; By farthings first, and pence, it grows; In shillings next, and pounds, it flows; Then spread his widening farms, abroad; His forests wave; his harvests nod; Fattening, his numerous cattle play, And debtors dread his reckoning day. Ambitious then t'adorn with knowledge His son, he places him at college; And sends, in smart attire, and neat, To travel, thro' each neighbouring state; Builds him a handsome house, or buys, Sees him a gentleman, and dies. The second, born to wealth and ease, And taught to think, converse, and please. Ambitious, with his lady-wife, Aims at a higher walk of life. Yet, in those wholesome habits train'd, By which his wealth, and weight, were gain'J, |