[Joel Barlow, the third in the most illustrious trio of "Hartford Wits," seems to have had many of the characteristics of the traditional Yankee. He was born in Connecticut in 1754, and was graduated at Yale College in 1778. Like many other collegians he served in the army during vacations, and is said to have fought at White Plains. After his graduation he studied law, then turned his attention for six weeks to divinity, and at the end of that time became chaplain of a Massachusetts brigade. In the few years immediately after the close of the war he practised law, founded a newspaper, edited a Psalm book for the Congregational Church of Connecticut, and conducted a book-store. Meanwhile he had published, besides his version of the Psalms, "The Prospect of Peace," a poem delivered at the time of his graduation, and "The Vision of Columbus." Both these were afterward utilized in the construction of the "Columbiad." In 1788 Barlow went abroad as agent of a western land company. In England he wrote "Advice to the privileged Orders," in prose, and "The Conspiracy of Kings," in verse. The first-named of these works led to his expulsion from the country, and he went to France, where he took an active part in politics. It was while he was on a political mission in Savoy that he wrote "Hasty Pudding," his mock-heroic tribute to a favorite dish that was unexpectedly set before him. Later he engaged in business in Paris, and served as United States consul to Algiers. His fondness for French ideas in politics and reli. gion made him an object of suspicion in his native state, where Federalism and orthodoxy were dominant. It is said that the Congregational Church of Connecticut discarded his version of the Psalms as the work of an apostate. When in 1805 he returned to America, he took up his residence near Washington. Two years later he published the "Columbiad." In 1811 he was appointed minister to France, and the next year he died in Poland, where he had gone to meet Napoleon.

The "Vision of Columbus," which Barlow published in 1787, is a poem in nine books of heroic couplet. Columbus, despondent in prison, is taken by an angel to a height where he sees all the continent that he has discovered, and its future passes in vision before him. The "Columbiad," which appeared twenty years later, tells the same story at greater length in ten books. Barlow presented the unfortunate spectacle of an author becoming more bombastic and sophomoric as he grew older. By 1807 he had become a devotee of reformed spelling, and had grown fond of pedantic words, many of them of his own coinage. These peculiarities, together with the epic form and title of the new work, the unabashed references to Homer and Virgil in

the preface, and the fact that the first edition of the poem was very sumptuous in typography and binding, tended to expose Barlow to ridicule; and the "Columbiad" has ever since been the stock example of an over-ambitious American literary production.

The selections from "The Vision of Columbus" follow the first English edition of 1787. The passage from the "Columbiad" is from the second edition, 1809. The first and second selections show the treatment of the same subject in these two poems. The extract from "The Hasty Pudding" follows the reprint of the first edition (1796) in Duyckinck's "Cyclopædia of American Literature."]

INDEPENDENCE; AND THE COMING OF WAR [From the "Vision of Columbus"]

Adams, enraged, a broken charter bore,
And lawless acts of ministerial power;
Some injured right in each loose leaf appears,
A king in terrors and a land in tears;
From all the guileful plots the veil he drew,
With eye retortive look'd creation thro',
Oped the wide range of nature's boundless plan,
Traced all the steps of liberty and man;
Crowds rose to vengeance while his accents rung,
And Independence thunder'd from his tongue.

The Hero turn'd. And tow'rd the crowded coast
Rose on the wave a wide-extended host,

They shade the main and spread their sails abroad,
From the wide Laurence to the Georgian flood,
Point their black batteries to the approaching shore,
And bursting flames begin the hideous roar.

Where guardless Falmouth, looking o'er the bay,
Beheld, unmoved, the stormy thunders play,
The fire begins; the shells o'er-arching fly,
And shoot a thousand rainbows thro' the sky;
On Charlestown spires, on Bristol roofs, they light,
Groton and Fairfield kindle from the flight,
Fair Kingston burns, and York's delightful fanes,
And beauteous Norfolk lights the neighbouring plains;
From realm to realm the smoky volumes bend,
Reach round the bays and up the streams extend;

Deep o'er the concave heavy wreaths are roll'd,
And midland towns and distant groves infold.
Thro' the dark curls of smoke the winged fires
Climb in tall pyramids above the spires;
Cinders, high-sailing, kindle heaven around,
And falling structures shake the smouldering ground.
Now, where the sheeted flames thro' Charlestown roar,
And lashing waves hiss round the burning shore,
Thro' the deep folding fires, a neighbouring height
Thunders o'er all and seems a field of fight.
Like shadowy phantoms in an evening grove,
To the dark strife the closing squadrons move;
They join, they break, they thicken thro' the air,
And blazing batteries burst along the war;

Now, wrapp'd in reddening smoke, now dim in sight,
They sweep the hill or wing the downward flight;
Here, wheel'd and wedg'd, whole ranks together turn,
And the long lightnings from their pieces burn;
There scattering flashes light the scanty train,
And broken squadrons tread the moving plain.
Britons in fresh battalions rise the height,
And, with increasing vollies, give the fight.
Till, smear'd with clouds of dust, and bath'd in gore,
As growing foes their raised artillery pour,
Columbia's hosts move o'er the fields afar,
And save, by slow retreat, the sad remains of war.

INDEPENDENCE; AND THE COMING OF WAR [From the "Columbiad"]

Each generous Adams, freedom's favorite pair,
And Hancock rose the tyrant's rage to dare,
Groupt with firm Jefferson, her steadiest hope,
Of modest mien but vast unclouded scope.
Like four strong pillars of her state they stand,
They clear from doubt her brave but wavering band;
Colonial charters in their hands they bore

And lawless acts of ministerial power.

Some injured right in every page appears,
A king in terrors and a land in tears;
From all his guileful plots the veil they drew,
With eye retortive look'd creation thro,
Traced moral nature thro her total plan,
Markt all the steps of liberty and man;
Crowds rose to reason while their accents rung,
And INDEPENDENCE thunder'd from their tongue.
Columbus turn'd; when rolling to the shore
Swells o'er the seas an undulating roar;
Slow, dark, portentious, as the meteors sweep
And curtain black the illimitable deep,

High stalks, from surge to surge, a demon Form

That howls thro heaven and breathes a billowing storm.
His head is hung with clouds; his giant hand
Flings a blue flame far flickering to the land;
His blood-stain'd limbs drip carnage as he strides
And taint with gory grume the staggering tides;
Like two red suns his quivering eyeballs glare,
His mouth disgorges all the stores of war,
Pikes, muskets, mortars, guns and globes of fire
And lighted bombs that fusing trails expire.
Percht on his helmet, two twin sisters rode,
The favorite offspring of the murderous god,
Famine and Pestilence; whom whilom bore
His wife, grim Discord, on Trinacria's shore:
When first their cyclop sons, from Etna's forge,
Fill'd his foul magazine, his gaping gorge:

Then earth convulsive groan'd, high shriek'd the air,
And hell in gratulation call'd him War.

Behind the fiend, swift hovering for the coast,
Hangs o'er the wave Britannia's sail-wing'd host;
They crowd the main, they spread their sheets abroad
From the wide Laurence to the Georgian flood,
Point their black batteries to the peopled shore,
And spouting flames commence the hideous roar.
Where fortless Falmouth, looking o'er her bay,
In terror saw the approaching thunders play,

The fire begins; the shells o'er-arching fly
And shoot a thousand rainbows thro the sky;
On Charlestown spires, on Bedford roofs they light,
Groton and Fairfield kindle from the flight,
Norwalk expands the blaze; o'er Reading hills
High flaming Danbury the welkin fills;
Esopus burns, Newyork's delightful fanes

And sea-nursed Norfolk light the neighboring plains.
From realm to realm the smoky volumes bend,
Reach round the bays and up the streams extend;
Deep o'er the concave heavy wreaths are roll'd,
And midland towns and distant groves infold.
Thro solid curls of smoke the bursting fires
Climb in tall pyramids above the spires,
Concentring all the winds; whose forces, driven
With equal rage from every point of heaven,
Whirl into conflict, round the scantling pour
The twisting flames and thro the rafters roar,
Suck up the cinders, send them sailing far,
To warn the nations of the raging war,
Bend high the blazing vortex, swell'd and curl'd,
Careering, brightening o'er the lustred world,
Absorb the reddening clouds that round them run,
Lick the pale stars and mock their absent sun:
Seas catch the splendor, kindling skies resound,
And falling structures shake the smoldering ground.
Crowds of wild fugitives, with frantic tread,
Flit thro, the flames that pierce the midnight shade,
Back on the burning domes revert their eyes,
Where some lost friend, some perisht infant lies.
Their maim'd, their sick, their age-enfeebled sires
Have sunk sad victims to the sateless fires;
They greet with one last look their tottering walls,
See the blaze thicken as the ruin falls,
Then o'er the country train their dumb despair
And far behind them leave the dancing glare;
Their own crusht roofs still lend a trembling light,
Point their long shadows and direct their flight.