Connecticut, and fitted his son for Yale College, where he graduated in 1767, the first in his class for genius and attainments, though but seventeen years of age. He then remained three years at college as a resident graduate, devoting himself principally to the study of polite letters, and forming many valuable acquaintances, among whom was Timothy Dwight, afterwards President of the college. In 1771, Trumbull and Dwight were elected tutors of the college, and exerted all their energies to introduce an improved system of study and discipline in the institution.

In 1772, Trumbull published the first part of The Progress of Dulness,—8 satirical poem in Hudibrastic verse, exposing to ridicule the absurd methods of education that then prevailed. Tom Brainless, a dunce, is sent to college, and, with a little smattering of Latin and Greek, is transferred to a country minister to study theology, and in due time is "ground out" a preacher. In the second part a blow is aimed at the coxcombry of fashionable life in the person of Dick Hairorain, a conceited and idle fop. The third part describes the life and fortunes of Miss Harriet Simper, who in ignorance and folly, if not in hooped rotundity, is the counterpart of the said Hairbrain, by whose charms she is captivated. But, tailing in her efforts, she consoles herself in later years with the love of the proound Brainless, and their marriage concludes the poem.

THE FOP'S DECLINE.

How pale the palsied fop appears,
Low shivering in the vale of years;
The ghost of all his former days,
When folly lent the ear of praise,
And beaux with pleased attention hung
On accents of his chatt'ring tongue.
Now all those days of pleasure o'er,

That chatt'ring tongue must prate no more.
From every place that bless'd his hopes,

He's elbow'd out by younger fops.

Each pleasing thought unknown, that cheers
The sadness of declining years,

In lonely age he sinks forlorn,

Of all, and even himself, the scorn.

The coxcomb's course were gay and clever,
Would health and money last forever,
Did conscience never break the charm,

Nor fear of future worlds alarm.
But oh, since youth and years decay,
And life's vain follies fleet away,
Since age has no respect for beaux,

And death the gaudy scene must close,-
Happy the man, whose early bloom
Provides for endless years to come;
That learning seeks, whose useful gain
Repays the course of studious pain;
Whose fame the thankful age shall raise,
And future times repeat its praise;
Attains that heartfelt peace of mind,
To all the will of Heaven resign'd,

Which calms in youth, the blast of rage,
Adds sweetest hope to sinking age,
With valued use prolongs the breath,
And gives a placid smile to death.

THE BELLE.

Thus Harriet, rising on the stage,
Learns all the arts that please the age;
And studies well, as fits her station,
The trade of politics and fashion:
A judge of modes in silks and satins,
From tassels down to clogs and pattens;
A genius, that can calculate

When modes of dress are out of date;
Cast the nativity with ease

Of gowns, and sacks, and negligees;
And tell, exact to half a minute,
What's out of fashion and what's in it.
On Sunday, see the haughty maid
In all the glare of dress array'd,
Deck'd in her most fantastic gown,
Because a stranger's come to town
Heedless at church she spends the day,
For homelier folks may serve to pray,
And for devotion those may go,
Who can have nothing else to do.

Beauties at church may spend their care in
Far other work than pious hearing;
They've beaux to conquer, belles to rival;
To make them serious were uncivil.

For, like the preacher, they each Sunday
Must do their whole week's work in one day.
As though they meant to take by blows
Th' opposing galleries of beaux,'
To church the female squadron move,
All arm'd with weapons used in love.
Like color'd ensigns gay and fair,
High caps rise floating in the air;
Bright silk its varied radiance flings,
And streamers wave in kissing-strings;
Each bears th' artill'ry of her charms,
Like training bands at viewing arms.

While acting as tutor, Trumbull gave all his leisure time to the study of law, and in 1773 was admitted to the bar of Connecticut; and soon his professiona! prospects were very flattering. But his heart was always more in literature than in law. In 1775, he published the first part of McFingal, and when he removed with his family to Hartford, in 1781, he completed it. This poem, in four cantos,

'Young people of different sexes used then to sit in the opposite galleries.

In 1776, he was married to Miss Sarah Hubbard, daughter of Leverett Hubbard.

which had such great celebrity in its day, is in the Hudibrastic vein, and an admirable imitation of the great satire of Butler. Its hero is a Scottish justice of the peace, a high Tory, residing near Boston; and the first two cantos are chiefly occupied with a discussion at a "Town Meeting" between him and one Honorious, a stanch Whig, who takes the American side in politics. The meeting ends in a riot. In the third canto, McFingal is seized by the mob, tried at the foot of the "Liberty Pole," convicted of Toryism, and sentenced to "tar and feathers." In the fourth and last canto, McFingal assembles his Tory friends in a cellar, harangues them upon their disastrous prospects, and, by virtue of his second-sight, foretells the calamities that would befall the British arms, and the sure success of the cause of freedom. His speech is suddenly interrupted by an invasion of his old enemies, the company is dispersed, the hero escapes to Boston, and the poem closes.

CHARACTER OF MCFINGAL.

When Yankees,1 skill'd in martial rule
First put the British troops to school,
Instructed them in warlike trade,
And new manœuvres of parade,
The true war-dance of Yankee reels,
And manual exercise of heels;

Made them give up, like saints complete,
The arm of flesh, and trust the feet,
And work, like Christians undissembling,
Salvation out, by fear and trembling;
Taught Percy fashionable races,
And modern modes of Chevy-Chases: 2
From Boston, in his best array,
Great Squire McFingal took his way,
And graced with ensigns of renown,
Steer'd homeward to his native town.

His high descent our heralds trace
From Ossian's famed Fingalian race:
For though their name some part may lack,
Old Fingal spelt it with a Mac;

Which great McPherson, with submission,
We hope will add the next edition.

His fathers flourish'd in the Highlands

Of Scotia's fog-benighted islands;

Whence gain'd our 'squire two gifts by right,
Rebellion, and the second-sight.

Of these, the first, in ancient days,

Had gain'd the noblest palm of praise,

1 Yankees, a term formerly of derision, but now merely of distinction, given to he people of the four Eastern States.-Lon. Edit.

2 Lord Percy commanded the party that was first opposed to the Americans at Lexington. This allusion to the family renown of Chevy-Chase arose from the precipitate manner of his lordship's quitting the field of battle and returning to Boston.-Lon. Edit.

See Fingal, an ancient epic poem, published as the work of Ossian, a Caledonian bard of the third century, by Jaines McPherson. The complete name of Ossian, according to the Scottish nomenclature, will be Ossian McFingal.

'Gainst kings stood forth, and many a crown'd head
With terror of its might confounded. * * *

Nor less avail'd his optic sleight,

And Scottish gift of second-sight.1
No ancient sibyl, famed in rhyme,
Saw deeper in the womb of time;
No block in old Dodona's grove
Could ever more orac'lar prove.
Nor only saw he all that could be,

But much that never was, nor would be;
Whereby all prophets far outwent he,
Though former days produced a plenty:
For any man with half an eye
What stands before him can espy;
But optics sharp it needs, I ween,
To see what is not to be seen.

MCFINGAL'S VISION OF AMERICAN GREATNESS.

And see, (sight hateful and tormenting!)
This rebel Empire, proud and vaunting,
From anarchy shall change her orasis,
And fix her power on firmer basis;
To glory, wealth, and fame ascend,
Her commerce wake, her realms extend;
Where now the panther guards his den,
Her desert forests swarm with men ;
Gay cities, towers, and columns rise,
And dazzling temples meet the skies:
Her pines, descending to the main,
In triumph spread the wat'ry plain,
Ride inland seas with fav'ring gales,
And crowd her port with whitening sails:
Till to the skirts of western day,

The peopled regions own her sway.

These specimens will give the reader some idea of the merits of two poems that, in their day, had a wide celebrity, but which are now very little read.

After filling many honorable offices, in 1801 Trumbull was appointed a Judge of the Superior Court. In 1820, a collection of his poems was made, in two volumes octavo, to which he prefixed a memoir. In 1825, he removed to Detroit, to reside with his daughter, the wife of Hon. William Woodbridge, with whom he remained till the time of his death, which took place in May, 1831.

Judge Trumbull maintained through life an honorable and upright character. As a scholar, a wit, a gentleman, he was greatly admired by all who knew him, and he has left a name which must always sustain a conspicuous place in the early history of American letters.2

1 They who wish to understand the nature and modus operandi of the Highland vision by second-sight, may consult the profound Johnson, in his "Tour to the Hebrides," Lon. Edit.

2 President Dwight thus writes of Trumbull's poem:-"It may be observed, without any partiality, that McFingal is not inferior in wit and humor to Hudi.

JOHN LEDYARD, 1751-1788.

JOHN LEDYARD, the celebrated traveller, was born at Groton, Connecticut, in the year 1751. His father died when he was quite young, leaving his mother with four children, in very straitened circumstances. She is described as a woman of many excellencies of mind and character, well informed, resolute, generous, amiable, and, above all, eminent for piety. Such a mother is a priceless treasure; and Ledyard preserved to the end of his life a warm and most devoted affection for her. After a few years, he was taken to Hartford by his grandfather, and placed in a grammar-school. At the age of twenty-one, he went to Dartmouth College, with a view of qualifying himself to become a missionary among the Indians. But this project was soon abandoned, and Ledyard, after remaining at college about a year, returned to his father's house, sailing down the Connecticut to Hartford in a canoe which he made from the trunk of a tree. So early did his roving spirit manifest itself.

Soon after this adventure, he resolved to go to sea, and accordingly entered, as a common sailor, a vessel at New London, bound for Gibraltar. He returned home again after a year, but, having no means of support, concluded to go to England in search of some rich relations of his own name in London. He sailed from New York for Plymouth, and thence, without a penny in his pocket, walked to London, begging enough for subsistence on the road. When he arrived at the metropolis, he found one of the persons of whom he was in quest; but so coldly and distrustfully was he received, that the spirit of Ledyard would not allow him to sue for any favors.

Just at this time, Captain Cook was making preparations for his third and last voyage around the world. Ledyard offered his services to the renowned navigator, who was so much pleased with his manner and appearance, and with his enthusiasm for travel, that he immediately took him into his service, and appointed him corporal of marines. The expedition left England on the 12th of July, 1776, and returned after an absence of four years and three months. Ledyard kept a jourual of the voyage; and his account of the scene at the Sandwich Islands, which resulted in the death of Captain Cook, is particularly valuable, as he was near his person at the time of the skirmish with the natives. For two years after his return to England he continued in the British navy, though in what capacity it is not known; and in December, 1782, he came home to visit his mother and friends. His restless spirit, however, could not long be tranquil, and he projected a voyage to the Northwest coast for furs; but, after trying in vain a whole year to persuade some merchants in New York and Boston to embark in the enterprise, he sailed

bras, and in every other respect is superior. It has a regular plan, in which all the parts are well proportioned and connected. The subject is fairly proposed, and the story conducted correctly through a series of advancements and retardations to a catastrophe which is natural and complete. The versification is far better, the poetry is in several instances in a good degree elegant, and in some even sublime."

"Trumbull was undoubtedly the most conspicuous literary character of his day in this country. His society was much sought, and he was the nucleus of a band of brilliant geniuses, including Dwight, Hopkins, Alsop, Humphreys, &c."Goodrick's Recollections.