DAVID HUMPHREYS, LL. D., was the son of a Congregational clergyman, at Derby, in Connecticut, where he was born in 1753. He was educated at Yale College, with DWIGHT, TRUMBULL, and BARLOW, and soon after being gradu- | ated, in 1771, joined the revolutionary army, under General PARSONS, with the rank of captain. He was for several years attached to the staff of General PUTNAM, and in 1780 was appointed aid-de-camp to General WASHINGTON, with the rank of colonel. He continued in the military family of the commander-in-chief until the close of the war, enjoying his friendship and confidence, and afterward accompanied him to Mount Vernon, where he remained until 1784, when he went abroad with FRANKLIN, ADAMS, and JEFFERSON, who were appointed commissioners to negotiate treaties of commerce with foreign powers, as their secretary of legation.* Soon after his return to the United States, in 1786, he was elected by the citizens of his native town a member of the Legislature of Connecticut, and by that body was appointed to command a regiment to be raised by order of the national government. On receiving his commission, Colonel HUMPHREYS established his head-quarters and recruiting rendezvous at Hartford; and there renewed his intimacy with his old friends TRUMBULL and BARLOW, with whom, and Doctor LEMUEL HOPKINS, he engaged in writing the "Anarchiad," a political satire, in imitation of the “Rolliad," a work attributed to SHERIDAN and others, which he had seen in London. He retained his commission until the suppression of the insurrection in 1787, and in the following year accepted an invitation to visit Mount Vernon, where he continued to reside until he was appointed minister to Portugal, in 1790. He remained in Lisbon seven years, at the end of which period he was transferred to the court of Madrid, and in 1802, when Mr. PINCKNEY was made minister to Spain, returned to the United States. From 1802 to 1812, he devoted his attention to agricultural and manufacturing pursuits; and on the breaking out of the second war

In a letter to Doctor FRANKLIN, written soon after the appointment of HUMPHREYS to this office, General WASHINGTON, says: "His zeal in the cause of his country, his good sense, prudence, and attachment to me. have rendered him dear to me; and 1 persuade myself you will find no confidence which you may think power to repose in him, misplaced. He possesses an excellent heart, good natural and acquired abilities, and sterling integrity, as well as sobriety, and an obliging disposition. A full conviction of his possessing all these good qualities makes me less scrupulous of recommending him to your patronage and friendship."-SPARKS'S Life of Washington, vol. ix. p. 46.

with Great Britain, was appointed commander of the militia of Connecticut, with the rank of bri gadier-general. His public services terminated with the limitation of that appointment. He died at New Haven, on the twenty-first day of February, 1818, in the sixty-fifth year of his age.

The principal poems of Colonel HUMPHREYS are an "Address to the Armies of the United States," written in 1772, while he was in the army; "A Poem on the Happiness of America," written during his residence in London and Paris, as secretary of legation; "The Widow of Malabar, or The Tyranny of Custom, a Tragedy, imitated from the French of M. LE MIERRE," writ. ten at Mount Vernon; and a "Poem on Agriculture," written while he was minister at the court of Lisbon. The "Address to the Armies of the United States" passed through many editions in this country and in Europe, and was translated into the French language by the Marquis de CHASTELLUX, and favourably noticed in the Parisian gazettes. The "Poem on the Happiness of America" was reprinted nine times in three years; and the "Widow of Malabar" is said, in the dedication of it to the author of "McFingal," to have met with "extraordinary success" on the stage. The Miscellaneous Works of Colonel HUMPHREYS" were published in an octavo volume, in New York, in 1790, and again in 1804. The Works contain, besides the author's poems, an interesting biography of his early friend and commander, General PUTNAM, and several orations and other prose compositions. They are de 'icated to the Duke de RocHEFOUCAULT,W! had been his intimate friend in France. In the dedication he says: "In presenting for your amusement the trifles which have been composed during my leisure hours, I assume nothing beyond the negative merit of not having ever written any thing unfavourable to the interests of religion, humanity, and virtue." He seems to have aimed only at an elegant mediocrity, and his pieces are generally simple and correct, in thought and language. He was one of the "four bards with Scripture names,' satirized in some verses published in London, commencing

"David and Jonathan, Joel and Timothy,

Over the water, set up the hymn of the"-etc.,

and is generally classed among the "poets of the Revolution." The popularity he enjoyed while he lived, and his connection with TRUMBULL, BARLOW, and DWIGHT, justify the introductio of a sketch of his history and writings into this volume. The following extracts exhibit his style. The first alludes to the departure of the British fleet from New York.

ON THE PROSPECT OF PEACE.

E'EN now, froin half the threaten'd horrors freed,
See from our shores the lessening sails recede;
See the proud flags that, to the wind unfurl'd,
Waved in proud triumph round a vanquish'd world,
Inglorious fly; and see their haggard crew,
Despair, shame, rage, and infamy pursue.

Hail, heaven-born peace! thy grateful blessings pour
On this glad land, and round the peopled shore;
Thine are the joys that gild the happy scene,
Propitious days, and happy nights serene;
With thee gay Pleasure frolics o'er the plain,
And smiling Plenty leads the prosperous train.

Then, O blest land! with genius unconfined,
With polish'd manners, and the illumined mind,
Thy future race on daring wing shall soar,
Each science trace, and all the arts explore
Till bright religion, beckoning to the skies,
Shall bid thy sons to endless glory rise.

WESTERN EMIGRATION.

WITH all that's ours, together let us rise, Seek brighter plains, and more indulgent skies; Where fair Ohio rolls his amber tide, And nature blossoms in her virgin pride; Where all that Beauty's hand can form to please Shall crown the toils of war with rural ease. The shady coverts and the sunny hills, The gentle lapse of ever-murmuring rills, The soft repose amid the noontide bowers, The evening walk among the blushing flowers, The fragrant groves, that yield a sweet perfume, And vernal glories in perpetual bloom Await you there; and heaven shall bless the toil: Your own the produce, and your own the soil.

There, free from envy, cankering care and strife, Flow the calm pleasures of domestic life; There mutual friendship soothes each placid breast: Blest in themselves, and in each other blest. From house to house the social glee extends, For friends in war in peace are doubly friends. There cities rise, and spiry towns increase, With gilded domes and every art of peace. There Cultivation shall extend his power, Rear the green blade, and nurse the tender flower; Make the fair villa in full splendours smile, And robe with verdure all the genial soil. There shall rich Commerce court the favouring gales, And wondering wilds admire the passing sails, Where the bold ships the stormy Huron brave, Where wild Ontario rolls the whitening wave, Where fair Ohio his pure current pours, And Mississippi laves the extended shores. And thou Supreme! whose hand sustains this ball, Before whose nod the nations rise and fall, Propitious smile, and shed diviner charms On this blest land, the queen of arts and arms; Make the great empire rise on wisdom's plan, The seat of bliss, and last retreat of man.

AMERICAN WINTER.

THEN doubling clouds the wintry skies deform, And, wrapt in vapour, comes the roaring storm; With snows surcharged, from tops of mountains sails,

Loads leafless trees, and fills the whiten'd va.es.
Then Desolation strips the faded plains,
Then tyrant Death o'er vegetation reigns;
The birds of heaven to other climes repair,
And deepening glooms invade the turbid air.
Nor then, unjoyous, winter's rigours come,
But find them happy and content with home;
Their granaries fill'd-the task of culture past
Warm at their fire, they hear the howling blast,
While pattering rain and snow, or driving sleet.
Rave idly loud, and at their window beat:
Safe from its rage, regardless of its roar,
In vain the tempest rattles at the door.
'Tis then the time from hoarding cribs to feed
The ox laborious, and the noble steed;
"Tis then the time to tend the bleating fold,
To strew with litter, and to fence from cold.
The cattle fed, the fuel piled within
At setting day the blissful hours begin;
"Tis then, sole owner of his little cot,
The farmer feels his independent lot;
Hears, with the crackling blaze that lights the wall,
The voice of gladness and of nature call;
Beholds his children play, their mother smile,
And tastes with them the fruit of summer's toil.
From stormy heavens the mantling clouds unroll'd.
The sky is bright, the air serenely cold.

The keen north-west, that heaps the drifted shows,
For months entire o'er frozen regions blows;
Man braves his blast; his gelid breath inhales,
And feels more vigorous as the frost prevails.

REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS.

O, WHAT avails to trace the fate of war Through fields of blood, and paint each glorious scar!

Why should the strain your former woes recall,
The tears that wept a friend's or brother's fall,
When by your side, first in the adventurous strife,
He dauntless rush'd, too prodigal of life!
Enough of merit has each honour'd name,
To shine untarnish'd on the rolls of fame,
To stand the example of each distant age,
And add new lustre to the historic page;
For soon their deeds illustrious shall be shown
In breathing bronze or animated stone,
Or where the canvass, starting into life,
Revives the glories of the crimson strife.
And soon some bard shall tempt the untried themes,
Sing how we dared, in fortune's worst extremes,
What cruel wrongs the indignant patriot bore,
What various ills your feeling bosoms tore,
What boding terrors gloom'd the threatening hour
When British legions, arm'd with death-like power,
Bade desolation mark their crimson'd way.
And lured the savage to his destined prev.

THE author of the "Columbiad" was born in the village of Reading, in Connecticut, in 1755. He was the youngest in a family of ten, and his father died while he was yet a child, leaving to him property sufficient only to defray the costs of his education. On the completion of his preparatory studies he was placed by his guardians at Dartmouth College, but was soon induced to res move to New Haven, where he was graduated, in 1778. Among his friends here were DWIGHT, then a college tutor, Colonel HUMPHREYS, a revolutionary bard of some reputation. and TRUMBULL, the author of " McFingal." BARLOW recited an original poem, on taking his bachelor's degree, which is preserved in the "American Poems," printed at Litchfield in 1793. It was his first attempt of so ambitious a character, and possesses little merit. During the vacations of the college he had on several occasions joined the army, in which four of his brothers were serving; and he participated in the conflict at White Plains, and a number of minor engagements, in which he is said to have displayed much intrepidity.

For a short time after completing his academic course, BARLOw devoted his attention chiefly to the law; but being urged by his friends to qualify himself for the office of chaplain, he undertook the study of theology, and in six weeks became a licensed minister. He joined the army immediately, and remained with it until the establishment of peace, cultivating the while his taste for poetry, by writing patriotic songs and ballads, and composing, in part, his "Vision of Columbus," afterward expanded into the "Columbiad." When the army was disbanded, in 1783, he removed to Hartford, to resume his legal studies; and to add to his revenue established "The Mercury," a weekly gazette, to which his writings gave reputation and an immediate circulation. He had previously married at New Haven a daughter of the Honourable ABRAHAM BALDWIN, and had lost his early patron and friend, the Honourable TITUS HOSMER, on whom he wrote an elegant elegy. In 1785 he was admitted to the bar, and in the same year, in compliance with the request of an association of Congregational ministers, he prepared and published an enlarged and improved edition of WATTS'S version of the Psalms, to which were appended a

Of the psalms omitted by WATTS and included in this edition, only the eighty-eighth and one hundred and thirty-seventh were paraphrased by BARLOW. His version of the latter added much to his reputation, and has been considered the finest translation of the words of DAVID that has been written, though they have received a metrical dress from some of the best poets of England and America. Recently the origin of this paraphrase has been a subject of controversy, but a memorandum found among the papers of the late Judge TRUMBULL,

collection of hymns, several of which were written by himself.

The Vision of Columbus" was published in 1787. It was dedicated to Louis XVI., with strong expressions of admiration and gratitude, and in the poem were corresponding passages of applause; but BARLOW's feelings toward the amiable and unfortunate monarch appear to have changed in after time, for in the "Columbiad" he is coldly alluded to, and the adulatory lines are suppressed. The "Vision of Columbus" was reprinted in London and Paris, and was generally noticed favourably in the reviews. After its publication the author relinquished his newspaper and established a bookstore, principally to sell the poem and his edition of the Psalms, and as soon as this end was attained, resumed the practice of the law. In this he was, however, unfortunate, for his forensic abilities were not of the most popular description, and his mind was too much devoted to political and literary subjects to admit of the application to study and attention to business necessary to secure success. He was engaged with Colonel HUMPHREYS, JOHN TRUMBULL, and Dr. LEMUEL HOPKINS, a man of some wit,.of the coarser kind, in the "Anarchiad," a satirical poem published at Hartford, which had considerable political influence, and in some other works of a similar description; but, obtaining slight pecuniary advantage from his literary labours, he was induced to accept a foreign agency from the Sciota Land Company," and sailed for Europe, with his family, in 1788. In France he sold some of the lands held by this association, but deriving little or no personal benefit from the transactions, and becoming aware of the fraudulent character of the company, he relinquished his agency and determined to rely on his pen for support.

66

who aided in the preparation of the Connecticut edition of WATTS, settles the question in favour of BARLOW The following is the version to which we have alluded:

THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY.
Along the banks where Babel's current flows,
Our captive bands in deep despondence stray'd;
Where Zion's fall in sad remembrance rose,-
Her friends, her children, mingled with the dead.
The tuneful harp that once with joy we strung.
When praise employ'd and mirth inspired the lay,
In mournful silence on the willows hung,
And growing grief prolong'd the tedious day.
Our proud oppressors, to increase our wo,
With taunting smiles a song of Zion claim;
Bid sacred praise in strains melodious flow,
While they blaspheme the great Jehovah's name.
But how, in heathen chains, and lands unknown,
Shal! Israel's sons the siered anthem raise?
O hapless Slem! God's terrestrial throne,
Thou land of glory, sacred mount of praise!
If e'er my memory lose thy lovely name,
If my cold heart neglect my kindred race,
Let dire destruction seize this gulty frame!
My hands shall perish and my voice shall cease!
Yet shall the Lord who hears when 7 on calls,
C'ertake her foes with terror and dismay;
His arm avenge her desolated walls,
And raise her children to eternal day.

In 1791, BARLOW published in London " Advice to the Privileged Orders," a work directed against the distinguishing features of kingly and aristocratic governments; and in the early part of the succeeding year, "The Conspiracy of Kings," a poem of about four hundred lines, educed by the first coalition of the continental sovereigns against republican France. In the autumn of 1792, he wrote a letter to the French National Convention, recommending the abolition of the union between the church and the state, and other reforms; and was soon after chosen by the "London Constitutional Society," of which ne was a member, to present in person an address to that body. On his arrival in Paris he was complimented with the rights of citizenship, an honour" which had been previously conferred on WASHINGTON and HAMILTON. From this time he made France his home. In the summer of 1793, a deputation, of which his friend GREGORIE, who before the Revolution had been Bishop of Blois, was a member, was sent into Savoy, to organize it as a department of the republic. He accompanied it to Chamberry, the capital, where, at the request of its president, he wrote an address to the inhabitants of Piedmont, inciting them to throw off allegiance to "the man of Turin who called himself their king." Here too he wrote "Hasty Pudding," the most popular of his poems.

On his return to Paris, BARLOW's time was principally devoted to commercial pursuits, by which, in a few years, he obtained a considerable fortune. The atrocities which marked the progress of the Revolution prevented his active participation in political controversies, though he continued under all circumstances an ardent republican. Toward the close of 1795, he visited the North of Europe, on some private business, and on his return to Paris was appointed by WASHINGTON consul to Algiers, with power to negotiate a commercial treaty with the dey, and to ransom all the Americans held in slavery on the coast of Barbary. He accepted and fulfilled the mission to the satisfaction of the American Government, concluding treaties with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, and liberating more than one hundred Americans, who were in prisons or in slavery to the Mohammedans. He then returned to Paris, where he purchased the splendid hotel of the Count CLERMONT DE TONNERE, and lived several years in a fashionable and costly manner, pursuing still his fortunate mercantile speculations, revising his "great epic,” and writing occasionally for the political gazettes.

Finally, after an absence of nearly seventeen years, the poet, statesman, and philosopher returned to his native country. He was received with kindness by many old friends, who had corresponded with him while abroad or been remembered in all his wanderings; and after spending a few months in travel, marking, with patriotic pride, the rapid progress which the nation had made in greatness, he fixed his home on the banks of the Potomac, near the city of Washington, where he built the splendid mansion, known afterward as Kalorama," and expressed an intention to spend

there the remainder of his life. In 1806, he published a prospectus of a National Institution, at Washington, to combine a university with a naval and military school, academy of fine arts, and learned society. A bill to carry his plan into effect was introduced into Congress, but never became a law.

In the summer of 1808, appeared the "Columbiad," in a splendid quarto volume, surpassing in the beauty of its typography and embellishments any work before that time printed in America. From his earliest years BARLOW had been ambitious to raise the epic song of his nation. The "Vision of Columbus," in which the most brilliant events in American history had been described, occupied his leisure hours when in college, and afterward, when, as a chaplain, he followed the standard of the liberating army. That work was executed too hastily and imperfectly, and for twenty years after its appearance, through every variety of fortune, its enlargement and improvement engaged his attention.

The events of the Revolution were so recent and so universally known, as to be inflexible to the hand of fiction; and the poem could not therefore be modelled after the regular epic form, which would otherwise have been chosen. It is a series of visions, presented by HESPER, the genius of the western continent, to COLUMBUS, while in the prison at Valladolid, where he is introduced to the reader uttering a monologue on his ill-requited services to Spain. These visions embrace a vast variety of scenes, circumstances, and characters. Europe in the middle ages, with her political and religious reformers; Mexico and the South American nations, and their imagined history; the progress of discovery; the settlement of the states now composing the federation; the war of the Revolution, and establishment of republicanism; and the chief actors in the great dramas which he attempts to present.

The poem, having no unity of fable, no regular succession of incidents, no strong exhibition of varied character, lacks the most powerful charms of a narrative; and has, besides, many dull and spiritless passages, that would make unpopular a work of much more faultless general design. The versification is generally harmonious, but mechanical and passionless, the language sometimes incorrect, and the similes often inappropriate and inelegant. Yet there are in it many bursts of eloquence and patriotism, which should preserve it from oblivion. The descriptions of nature and of personal character are frequently condensed and forceful; and passages of invective, indignant and full of energy. In his narrative of the expedition against Quebec, under ARNOLD, the poet exclaims: Ab, gallant troop! deprived of half the praise That deeds like yours in ther times repays, Since your prime chief (the favourite erst of Fame,) Hath sunk so deep his hateful, hideous name, That every honest muse with horror flings It forth unsounded from her sacred strings, Else what high tones of rapture must have told The first great actions of a chief so bold: These lines are characteristic of his manner

The Columbiad" was reprinted in Paris and London, and noticed in the leading critical gazettes, but generally with little praise. The London Monthly Magazine" attempted in an elaborate article to prove its title to a place in the first class of epics, and expressed a belief that it was surpassed only by the "Illiad," the "Eneid" and "Paradise Lost." In America, however, it was regarded by the judicious as a failure, and reviewed with even more wit and severity than in England. Indeed, the poet did not in his own country receive the praise which he really merited; and faults were imputed to his work which it did not possess. Its sentiments were said to be hostile to Christianity," and the author was declared an infidel; but there is no line in the "Columbiad" unfavourable to the religion of New England, the Puritan faith which is the basis of the national greatness; and there is no good reason for believing that BARLow at the time of his death doubted the creed of which in his early manhood he had been a minister.

After the publication of the "Columbiad," BARLow made a collection of documents, with an intention to write a history of the United States; but, in 1811, he was unexpectedly appointed minister plenipotentiary to the French government, and immediately sailed for Europe. His attempts to negotiate a treaty of commerce and indemnifica tion for spoliations were unsuccessful at Paris;

and in the autumn of 1812 he was invited by the Duke of BASSANO to a conference with NAPOLEON at Wilna, in Poland. He started from Paris, and travelled without intermission until he reached Zarnowitch, an obscure village near Cracow, where he died, from an inflammation of the lungs, induced by fatigue and exposure in an inhospitable country, in an inclement season, on the twentysecond day of December, in the fifty-fourth year of his age. In Paris, honours were paid to his memory as an important public functionary and a man of letters; his eulogy was written by DUPONT DE NEMOURS, and an account of his life and writings was drawn up and published, accompanied by a canto of the « Columbiad," translated into French heroic verse. In America, too, his death was generally lamented, though without any public exhibition of mourning.

BARLOW was much respected in private life for his many excellent social qualities. His manners were usually grave and dignified, though when with his intimate friends he was easy and familiar. He was an honest and patient investigator, and would doubtless have been much more successful as a metaphysical or historical writer than as a poet. As an author he belonged to the first class of his time in America; and for his ardent patriotism, his public services, and the purity of his life, he deserves a distinguished rank among the men of our golden age.

THE HASTY PUDDING.

CANTO I.

Yr Alps audacious, through the heavens that rise, To cramp the day and hide me from the skies; Ye Gallic flags, that, o'er their heights unfurl'd, Bear death to kings and freedom to the world, I sing not you. A softer theme I choose, A virgin theme, unconscious of the.muse, But fruitful, rich, well suited to inspire The purest frenzy of poetic fire.

Despise it not, ye bards to terror steel'd, Who hurl your thunders round the epic field; Nor ye who strain your midnight throats to sing Joys that the vineyard and the stillhouse bring; Or on some distant fair your notes employ, And speak of raptures that you ne'er enjoy.

* It is now generally believed that BARLOW, while in France, ahjured the Christian religion. The Reverend THOMAS ROBBINS, a venerable clergyman of Rochester, Massachusetts, in a letter written in 1840, remarks that "BARLOW's deistical opinions were not suspected previons to the publication of his ' Vision of Columbus,' in 1787;" and further, that "when at a later period he lost kis character, and became an open and bitter reviler of Christianity, his psalm-book was laid aside; but for that cause only, as competent judges still maintained that no revision of WATTS possesses as much poetic merit as BARLOW's." I have seen two letters written by BARLOW during the last year of his life, in which he declares himself a sincere believer of Christianity, divested of its

I sing the sweets I know, the charms I feel,
My morning incense, and my evening meal,—
The sweets of Hasty Pudding. Come, dear bowl,
Glide o'er my palate, and inspire my soul.
The milk beside thee, smoking from the kine,
Its substance mingled, married in with thine,
Shall cool and temper thy superior heat,
And save the pains of blowing while I eat.

O! could the smooth, the emblematic song
Flow like thy genial juices o'er my tongue,
Could those mild morsels in my numbers chime,
And, as they roll in substance, roll in rhyme,
No more thy awkward, unpoetic name
Should shun the muse or prejudice thy fame;
But, rising grateful to the accustom'd ear,
All bards should catch it, and all realms revere!
Assist me first with pious toil to trace
Through wrecks of time thy lineage and thy race;

corruptions." In a letter to M. GREGUIRE, published in the second volume of DENNIE'S "Port Folio," pages 471 to 479, he says, "the sect of Puritans, in which I was born and educated, and to which I still adhere, for the same reason that you adhere to the Catholics, a conviction that they are right," etc. The idea that BARLOW disbelieved in his later years the religion of his youth, was probably first derived from an engraving in the "Vision of Colum bus," in which the cross, by which he intended to repre sent monkish superstition, is placed among the "symbols of prejudice." He never "lost his character" as a man of honourable sentiments and blameless life; and I could present numerous other evidences that he did not abandon his religion, were not the above apparently conclusive.