REESE LIBRARY

OF THF. •

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

THREE MEN OF LETTERS

BY

MOSES COIT TYLER

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

NEW YORK LONDON

27 WRST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND

1895

COPYRIGHT, 1895

BY
MOSES COIT TYLER

Entered at Stationers' Hall, London

Electrotyped, Printed and Bound by

Ubc Iknicfeerbochcr prcesf f^ew
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS

PREFACE.

Of the three chapters in literary biography
and criticism here brought together, the first
was an incidental J]>ix)duet' of the researches
which I made some years ago when working
upon my " History of American Literature dur
ing the Colonial Time ; " and while the subject
of this monograph could hardly fail to throw a
curious and a not unpleasing side-light upon
the conditions and moods of intellectual life in
America during the half-century just prior to
the Revolution, it could not properly be in
cluded in the book in connection with which it
was written. As it has never been in print,
except in a form well-nigh inaccessible to the
general reader, I hope I shall not offend him
by now revising it, amending it, and giving it
a place in this little book. I will not deny that
I shall be very glad if, by seeking a larger
publicity for my paper on Berkeley, I may
succeed in extending somewhat the memory

IV PREFACE.

and the appreciation of our great debt to
one of the wisest, friendliest, and helpfulest of
European visitors who ever touched on these
shores.

Tne last two monographs here given were
prepared for a work on which I have been for a
considerable time engaged, and which is soon to
be sent to the press, — " The Literary History
of the American Revolution ; " but as the chief
activity of the two writers thus dealt with be
longs to the period immediately after the Revo
lution, I have deemed it best to exclude them
from that work. Without question, however,
for our literary history during the first thirty
or forty years of the independent republic,
these two writers are representative men ; and
both for their own sakes, and for their obvious
use in the interpretation of American thought
and life in that period of national gestation, I
have hoped that the monographs devoted to
them might have some value even in this de
tached form.

M. C. T.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY,
2 November,

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. — GEORGE BERKELEY AND HIS AMERICAN

VISIT 3

II. — A GREAT COLLEGE PRESIDENT AND

WHAT HE WROTE . . . . 71

III. — THE LITERARY STRIVINGS OF MR. JOEL

BARLOW 131

LIST OF BOOKS CITED . . . . • . 181

INDEX 189

I.

GEORGE BERKELEY AND HIS AMERI
CAN VISIT.

^s\

UN/VERs/TY

OF

GEORGE BERKELEY AND HIS AMERI
CAN VISIT.

I — Berkeley's arrival at Newport in 1729 — Personal appear
ance and ways — His settlement at "Whitehall" — His
sojourn here a subject of mystery and suspicion at the
time — Its real import characteristic of an idealist and a
moral enthusiast.

II — His early life — Distinction as a student and fellow at
Trinity College, Dublin — His benevolent enthusiasm —
Great range of his talents and accomplishments — As a
preacher — His ideal theory of the universe — Its use in the
refutation of atheism.

Ill — Leaves college to study men and their ways — His bril
liant success in London society — His long sojourn upon
the continent.

IV — Convinced that the corruptions of the Old World are
incurable and portend some dire catastrophe — His " Essay
towards preventing the Ruin of Great Britain" — Turns
from the Old World to the New — His plan for saving the
latter from the follies and crimes that have brought the
former to the verge of ruin — His belief in America as the
predestined seat of the world's civilization — His celebrated
poem embodying this dream — Two things needful for
realizing it, learning and religion — Resolves to found a
great American university — His preparation therefor.

V — His return to Dublin, 1721 — His legacy from Dean Swift's
"Vanessa" — Becomes Dean of Derry in 1724 — Returns

4 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

to London to arrange for his great project — Dean Swift's
letter about it — Publishes his " Proposal" — His success
— Parliamentary grant — Walpole's promise of twenty
thousand pounds — Berkeley sails for America — Why he
first went to New England — Walpole's delay and final
refusal.

VI — Berkeley's disappointment — The reaction upon his mind
of his American visit — Seen in his sermons, in " Alci-
phron," in " Siris."

VII — Effects of his visit as regards American life and civiliza
tion — Especially upon intellectual activity in the colonies
— His influence on the cultivated society of Newport —
Visited by philosophical and other pilgrims — The stim
ulus he gave to higher education — His friendship for
existing American colleges — His generosity to Yale and
Harvard — The Berkeleyan scholars at Yale — His perma
nent interest in America after his return to Europe —
Suggests the plan of King's College — Later American
recognitions of his influence.

VIII — Berkeley's place in the long line of distinguished
European visitors to America — Failure of his dream of
preventing corruption in the New World — His remedy
for corruption.

I.

ON the 23d of January, 1729, a British ship
of about two hundred and fifty tons was
seen hovering off the coast of Rhode Island
and making signals for a pilot. In response to
these signals two pilots boarded the ship. It
proved to be the hired vessel of an eminent

GEORGE BERKELEY $

Anglican clergyman, the Very Reverend George
Berkeley, Dean of Derry, who had with him his
wife and a small party of friends, and was
desirous of landing somewhere in Rhode Island.
The pilots informed him that the harbor of New
port was near, and that in the town there was
an Episcopal church, the minister of which was
the Reverend James Honyman. At once the
Dean wrote a letter to Mr. Honyman, notifying
him of his approach. What followed is best told
in the picturesque narrative of a local historian
of the event. The pilots took the Dean's let
ter " on shore at Conanicut Island, and called
on Mr. Gardner and Mr. Martin, two members
of Mr. Honyman's church, informing them that
a great dignitary of the Church of England,
called Dean, was on board the ship, together
with other gentlemen passengers. They handed
them the letter from the Dean, which Gardner
and Martin brought to Newport with all possi
ble dispatch. On their arrival they found Mr.
Honyman was at church, it being a holiday on
which divine service was held there. They
then sent the letter by a servant, who delivered
it to Mr. Honyman in his pulpit. He opened

6 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

it, and read it to the congregation, from the con
tents of which it appeared the Dean might be ex
pected to land in Newport every moment. The
church was dismissed with the blessing, and Mr.
Honyman, with the wardens, vestry, and congre
gation, male and female, repaired immediately
to the wharf, where they arrived a little before
the Dean, his family, and friends." '

On the day after this notable event a New
port correspondent of " The New England
Weekly Courier " thus announced the news
to the people of Boston ; " Yesterday arrived
here Dean Berkeley, of Londonderry, in a
pretty large ship. He is a gentleman of middle
stature, of an agreeable, pleasant, and erect
aspect. He was ushered into the town with a
great number of gentlemen, to whom he
behaved himself after a very complaisant man
ner. 'T is said he proposes to tarry here with
his family about three months."

Instead of tarrying there only about three
months the Dean tarried there nearly three
years. He soon purchased a farm three or

1 W. Updike, " History of the Episcopal Church in Narra-
gansett," 395.

GEORGE BERKELEY 7

four miles from Newport, near the sea ; and he
built there a large house, which he named
"Whitehall." He had brought with him not
only ample wealth in money and in personal
and household goods, but a library of several
thousand volumes. During the whole time of
his sojourn in America he lived very quietly,
and in almost unbroken retirement. He was
kindly and familiar with people of all religious
faiths in Newport. Occasionally he preached
in the Newport church, or went with the faith
ful missionary, Mr. Honyman, among the Nar-
ragansett Indians. He was the highest officer
of the Anglican Church who had ever been in
America; and his coming hither, and his long
stay here were a mystery to the public, and to
some of them, likewise, a source of alarm. It
was said that he intended to found a college at
the Bermudas : but, if so, why did he not go
to the Bermudas, and set about it ? There
were some who suspected that he might be an
emissary of the English Church, and that he
had come to New England with the subtile
purpose of laying some kind of prelatical mine
for the blowing up and destruction of the ec-

8 THREE MEN- OF LETTERS

clesiastical system already established there.
Several years before Berkeley's arrival, Timo
thy Cutler, the president of Yale College, Daniel
Brown, its tutor, together with two prominent
Congregational pastors in Connecticut, Samuel
Johnson and James Wetmore, had gone over
in a body to the English Church. The event
had produced no little consternation. Was it
not likely that the astute and plausible Dean
of Deny had come out to America to entice
others of the New England ministry into a
similar defection ? At any rate the proceed
ings of the Dean would bear watching.

And on his part, there seemed to be not the
least objection to their being watched. He had
nothing to conceal. It did appear somewhat
strange that an ambitious and dangerous ecclesi
astical emissary, instead of pushing out into the
colonies, and making acquaintances among the
people, should have retired to the solitude of
an island on the coast, and should have spent
his time there after the manner of a philosophi
cal hermit. Certainly he was affable to all
whom by any accident he fell in with ; and he
courteously received all, whether distinguished

GEORGE BERKELEY g

or undistinguished, who chose to call upon him ;
but he solicited no man's company ; he inter
fered with no man's opinions. In the way of
charity he gave much, but himself had no fav
ors to ask. Excepting occasional missionary
tours among the Indians, and a single visit to
Boston for the purpose of taking ship for Eng
land, he made no journeys into the country
that he .was credited with the design of subju
gating ; and when at last he took his leave of
America, and returned to England, he left after
him only a beautiful and gracious memory, —
the memory of a blameless, wise, benignant,
and helpful presence upon these shores. Here
was born to him his eldest son, Henry; and
here also was born, and here died, his second
child, Lucia, whose body was laid tenderly in
Trinity churchyard at Newport ; here he wrote
his greatest and most famous literary work, the
philosophical dialogue called "Alciphron "; and
here, by the disinterested and catholic love
which he manifested for America, by the stimu
lus he gave to philosophical and classical studies
in this country, and especially by the magnani
mous and inspiring faith he uttered in the des-

IO THREE MEN OF LETTERS

tinies of civilization in America, he won for
himself a title to our perpetual remembrance
and gratitude.

As has been already mentioned, Berkeley's
visit to America, and his long and seemingly
purposeless residence here, were not understood
in his own time by the public on either side of
the Atlantic ; and it maybe added that, though
the materials for understanding the reasons
both for his coming and for his going have at
last been fully spread before the public,1 there
still lingers over the subject something of the
mystery which invested it a hundred and fifty
years ago. To persons who have not yet taken
the pains to study carefully the materials just
referred to, it may still seem strange, that a
devout and aggressive clergyman of the English
Church, holding the high office of Dean, in the

1 The chief depositaries of materials relating to Berkeley
are the following : " The Works of George Berkeley," edited
by A. C. Fraser, 3 vols., Oxford, 1871 ; " Life and Letters of
George Berkeley," by A. C. Fraser, 1871 ; " Berkeley," by A.
C. Fraser, Edinburgh and Philadelphia, 1881, containing bio
graphical facts brought to light since 1871 ; and the series of
admirable historical and biographical works produced by the
Reverend E. E. Beardsley, of New Haven, particularly his
" Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson, D.D.," New
York, 1874.

GEORGE BERKELEY it

prime of his life, in the full vigor of his health,
should have withdrawn himself from his duties
at home, and with his wife, his household
goods, his books, and a few friends, should
have settled down in a secluded spot on the
coast of America ; should have there sauntered
and loitered for nearly three years, and then,
apparently without achieving, or trying to
achieve, any visible result which he could not
have accomplished as well by staying at home,
should have gathered up his effects, and have
sailed back to England.

In reality, however, Berkeley's American
visit was, in its plan, its execution, and its
fruit, much more than it seemed to the public
eye, either at that time or since ; and while it
was a thing that could have been projected
only by an idealist and a moral enthusiast —
such as Berkeley was — it must be pronounced,
even on cool survey, a mission of chivalric
benevolence certainly, but also of profound and
even creative sagacity. In its boldness and its
generosity it was dictated by an apostolic dis
interestedness and courage to which, of course,
that age was unaccustomed, and which places

12 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

it in the light of an almost comic incongruity
with the spirit of the time in which it occurred.
In the history of our colonial period it forms a
romantic chapter. But, in order to understand
it, we need first to understand Berkeley him
self, as well as his attitude toward the period
he lived in.

II.

He was born in Ireland, County Kilkenny,
on the I2th of March, 1685, being descended
from Cavalier English ancestry, and particu
larly related to the family of Lord Berkeley,
of Stratton. He studied at the famous Kil
kenny school, which has been called " the
Eton of Ireland"; and in 1700 he entered
Trinity College, Dublin, where he continued
to reside as student and fellow for the next
thirteen years, and where he achieved the
highest distinction for scholarship, and espe
cially for original philosophical thought.

From childhood he had been an unusual
person. To his associates in particular he
had been an object of wonder or of mirth, by
the eccentricity of his enthusiasms, and by his

GEORGE BERKELEY 13

marvellous fertility in the dreaming of gor
geous and impossible dreams for the improve
ment of mankind in knowledge, virtue, and
happiness. As he ripened into manhood he
became a person of extraordinary attractions.
He was of singular beauty and geniality ;
his learning was great ; he had uncommon
genius for scientific and metaphysical specula
tion ; as a conversationist he was remarkable
even in an age in which conversation was cul
tivated as a fine art ; and all these brilliant
qualities in him were crowned by the mildness,
the tender and earnest chanty, of a devout
Christian. In 1709 he received his first ordi
nation ; and thenceforward to the end of his
days, though he never had regular service as
a parish priest, he was a frequent and a very
impressive preacher ; indeed, he was a great
and an eloqent philosopher in the pulpit, tak
ing his place in that illustrious line of mighty
thinkers in the Christian ministry in which
stand Butler, Cudworth, Barrow, Hooker,
Fenelon, Malebranche, Aquinas, Augustine,
Origen, and Saint Paul, — men to whom theo
logy was " the highest form of philosophy,

14 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

and the reverential spirit of religion its noblest
consecration."

" Even before his ordination, in 1709, Berke
ley had begun to produce those philosophical
writings in which he gradually unfolded his
celebrated ideal theory of the universe.1 This
theory begins with a negative proposition —
a denial of the existence of matter indepen
dent of spirit. But it at once proceeds to an
affirmative proposition, involving a " truth of
unsurpassed grandeur, simplicity, profundity,
and weight," namely, that the only true sub
stance is spirit ; that the only true cause is an
intelligent will ; therefore, that whatever exists,
or appears to exist, can be philosophically ex
plained only through the powers and quali
ties of spirit.

The special use which Berkeley made of his
theory was in refutation of the anti-religious

1 The writings particularly referred to are " Common
Place Book/' in "Life and Letters," 419-502 ; "An Essay
towards a New Theory of Vision," published in 1709; "A
Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,"
1710 ; '^Three Dialogues between Hylasand Philonus," 1713.
In these writings his theory is progressively stated and de
fended ; and the last of them is what Fraser calls it, " the
gem of British metaphysical literature."

GEORGE BERKELEY 15

philosophy of his time. He thought that a
belief in the absolute existence of matter leads
to atheism. Against this tendency he set his
own theory, — one of great subtlety and logical
power, — wherein the so-called material universe
is but a vast system of symbols " through which
the Deity makes His being and His attributes
known to man. . . . What seems, or is taken
to be, the material universe, is simply the mani
fested ideas of God." '

Since our sensible perceptions " must be
caused, and since they cannot be caused by
non-causative and hence non-existent, matter,
they must be ascribed to the agency of God,
the Supreme Spirit. Thejvvprld is God's voice,
His language a set of symbols or signs. Physi
cal science, neglecting the questions of essential
being and causation, has but to ascertain and
record these symbols in their observable order
of co-existence and sequence. Philosophy
shows that through them we are in commu
nion with, and gracious dependence on, an
omnipresent Deity." 2

1 F. Ueberweg, " A History of Philosophy," ii., 383-384.

2 George S. Morris, " British Thought and Thinkers," 221-

1 6 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

III.

Thus, down to the year 1713, when he had
reached his twenty-third year, the life of George
Berkeley had passed in studious retirement,
mainly in Trinity College, Dublin. He had
got well acquainted with books ; he knew little
of men, of cities, of the ways of society in the
great world outside the walls of his college.
Now began the epoch in his life, nearly eight
years long, in which he devoted himself to
travel, and to the direct study of human nature
and human society. He had already begun to
reap some portion of his great fame as a meta
physician. Moreover, he had won the especial
friendship of Jonathan Swift, who in the same
year became Dean of Saint Patrick's, and who
was destined directly and indirectly to have
a decisive influence on Berkeley's fortunes.
Early in January, 1713, young Berkeley went
over to London, in order, as he said at the time,
to print his " new book of Dialogues and to
make acquaintance with men of merit." J

222. A condensed exposition of Berkeley's theory is given by
Fraser in his edition of Berkeley's " Works," i., 118-121.
1 " Berkeley," 97.

GEORGE BERKELEY I/

From the first he was under the powerful
patronage of Swift, and by him was soon pre
sented at the court of Queen Anne, as well as
at the more illustrious court of the poets, wits,
and philosophers who were shedding lustre upon
that period. By his extraordinary conversa
tional powers and by the charm of his charac
ter he at once made his way there into universal
favor. Addison and Steele took him to their
hearts. At Steele's request he wrote several
papers for " The Guardian." By Pope and
his troop of literary friends he was welcomed
with affectionate admiration ; and Pope him
self formed for Berkeley that friendship which
prompted him, years afterward, when Berkeley
had risen to be Bishop of Cloyne, to pay to the
prelate a superb poetic tribute :

" Even in a bishop I can spy desert.
Seeker is decent ; Rundle has a heart ;
Manners with candor are to Benson given ;
To Berkeley — every virtue under heaven."

One of the great figures in London society,
at the time of Berkeley's entrance into it, was
Francis Atterbury, Bishop of Rochester. He
had been hearing, on all hands, praises of the

1 8 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

brilliant young Dublin philosopher and divine,
who had made a sudden and brilliant dash into
the elegant world of London, and he expressed
a desire to see him. Accordingly, one day, the
Earl of Berkeley introduced his kinsman to the
Bishop, and after the interview was over, the
Earl said, " Does my cousin answer your lord
ship's expectations?" The Bishop, lifting up
his hands, said fervently, " So much under
standing, so much knowledge, so much inno
cence, and such humility, I did not think had
been the portion of any but angels, till I saw
this gentleman."

After a few months spent by him in these
splendid scenes in London, Berkeley's mind
seemed eager to inspect still more of the life
and manners of men ; and accordingly, in
the autumn of 1713, he accepted the position
of chaplain and secretary to the Earl of
Peterborough, who was then setting out as
ambassador to the King of Sicily. Thus
began Berkeley's long sojourn upon the conti
nent, — first, for a single year, and afterward
for four years, a sojourn which gave him the

1 " Life and Letters of George Berkeley," 59.

GEORGE BERKELEY 19

opportunity of making profound and exten
sive studies into the condition of European
society.

IV.

Upon his final return to England from the
continent, in 1720, Berkeley found there nearly
everything that could shock and grieve him.
The famous South-Sea speculations had just
before reached their summit of madness and
corruption, and fallen to the ground with a
great crash, spreading almost inconceivable dis
tress over England. The appalling spectacle
of personal and social proflicacy which then met
the eye of Berkeley in his own country, came
to him as a dreadful sequel to all the revela
tions of folly and crime which his life upon
the continent had made to him ; and upon his
sensitive and meditative spirit this wrought
an impression that fixed the direction of his
thoughts for the next ten years of his life. It
was amid these mournful scenes of misery and
wrong in Europe that he conceived the mag
nificent project that henceforward for a long

20 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

time absorbed him, and that brought him at
last to America to attempt its realization.

By a pamphlet of Berkeley's, published anony
mously in London in 1721, and entitled "An
Essay towards preventing the Ruin of Great
Britain," we are enabled to ascertain that in
that year he had become well-nigh convinced
that the political and moral diseases of the
Old World, and especially of his own country,
had at last reached the vital organs of civili
zation, and were incurable. " I know it is
an old folly to make peevish complaints of
the times, and charge the common failures of
human nature on a particular age. One may
nevertheless venture to affirm that the pres
ent hath brought forth new and portentous
villanies, not to be paralleled in our own or
any other history. We have been long pre
paring for some great catastrophe. Vice and
villany have by degrees grown reputable among
us. ... We have made a jest of public
spirit, and cancelled all respect for whatever
our laws and religion repute sacred. The old
English modesty is quite worn off ; and, in
stead of blushing for our crimes, we are

GEORGE BERKELEY 21

ashamed only of piety and virtue. In short,
other nations have been wicked, but we are
the first who have been wicked upon principle.
The truth is, our symptoms are so bad that,
notwithstanding all the care and vigilance of
the legislature, it is to be feared the final period
of our state approaches."

These being his fears respecting the future
of civilization in the Old World, he seems to
have concluded that there was no hope for the
human race except in a gradual transfer of it
self from the Old World to the New, where,
freed from the clogs and goads of evil tradi
tion, freed from the palsy and blindness and
barrenness of society in its dotage, mankind
might, at any rate, begin its career over again ;
and, avoiding the follies and the crimes that
had brought Europe to the verge of destruc
tion, might build for itself a future higher,
broader, nobler, than its past. Whatever we
may now think of this brave scheme, it was the
scheme of no sordid or commonplace nature ;
it was the scheme of a profound thinker and of
a most benevolent enthusiast. As he brooded
1 Berkeley's " Works," iii., 210.

22 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

over this great thought, his mind had to utter
itself in some expression loftier than even such
noble prose as he could command. In those
years it was, probably, that he composed that
curious and now celebrated poem, on the
decay, the helplessness, the hopelessness, of
the Old World, and on the approach of a new
and a grander era for human nature in the
world beyond the sea, — a poem which will
last among us as long as civilization shall
hold out in this hemisphere, a poem that utters,
perhaps, the most generous and most inspiring
word about America ever spoken by any
European. In the light of our present narra
tive we may be glad to read once more these
familiar verses, as now having for us, possibly,
the force of a fresh and a richer meaning :

;' The muse, disgusted at an age and clime

Barren of every glorious theme,
In distant lands now waits a better time,

Producing subjects worthy fame.

" In happy climes, where, from the genial sun
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,

The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true.

GEORGE BERKELEY 2$

" In happy climes, the seat of innocence,
Where nature guides and virtue rules,

Where men shall not impose for truth and sense
The pedantry of courts and schools, —

" There shall be sung another Golden Age,

The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,

The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

" Not such as Europe breeds in her decay ;

Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heavenly flame did animate her clay,

By future poets shall be sung.

" Westward the course of empire takes its way ;

The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day ; —

Time's noblest offspring is the last." '

Such was George Berkeley's superb and
generous dream. To his spiritual and pro
phetic genius it seemed to be revealed, with
the distinctness of vision, that the next great
shifting in the central seat of the world's civi-

1 Berkeley's " Works," iii., 232. In "R.I. Hist. Soc. Coll.,"
iv., 36, Professor Romeo Elton states that these verses "were
written by Bishop Berkeley during his residence in Newport."
Elton gives no authority for his statement ; and it seems to
have been carelessly made. All internal and collateral evi
dence points to the place and period suggested in the text.

24 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

lization was to be from the eastern hemisphere
to the western, — from Europe to America.
But when that event should take place, what
was to prevent American civilization from
going over the steps, and finally reaching the
fatal end of civilization in Europe? In Berke
ley's opinion nothing could avert this result
but these two things : religion and learning,
— the two walking hand in hand. The Old
World was advancing to its doom, because the
people of the Old World had lost the old-
fashioned virtues of faith, reverence, and sim
plicity ; had, consequently, ceased to be a
" religious, brave, sincere people, of plain,
uncorrupt manners, respecting inbred worth
rather than titles and appearances ; " had ceased
to be " assertors of liberty, lovers of their
country, jealous of their own rights, and un
willing to infringe the rights of others " ; had
ceased to be " improvers of learning and use
ful arts, enemies to luxury, tender of other
men's lives, and prodigal of their own " ' ; and
had become idlers, gamblers, spendthrifts,
mockers, libertines, and atheists. Of course,
1 Berkeley's "Works," iii., 211.

GEORGE BERKELEY 2$

the only way to save the New World, when it
should finally become the seat of civilization,
from advancing to the same doom, was to save
it from falling into the same degeneracy ; and
this could be accomplished in no other way
than by the prompt, wise, and efficient organi
zation in America, first, of religious training,
second, of intellectual training, — in short, of the
Christian church, and of the Christian school.

Both of these needs had been already in some
measure provided for by the efforts of various
bodies of Christians. It was chiefly to the
second need of the New World — its intellectual
need — that Berkeley resolved to devote his
powers ; and to this end he wrought out his
scheme of a great American university. His
idea was to establish this university at some spot
that should be favorable to the health, industry,
and morals of the students, and at the same time
central and commodious for all the English pos
sessions in the Western hemisphere, both insular
and continental ; and with this view, he fixed
upon the islands of Bermuda. There he would
begin by the erection of a single college, to
be called " The College of St. Paul " ; to be

26 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

governed by a president and nine fellows, who
were to form the corporation. His own life he
would devote to the great work, by going out
personally as president ; and he hoped to take
with him as fellow-laborers the requisite num
ber of accomplished and earnest scholars, whom
he might be able to enlist for the task. The
Bishop of London was to be the official visitor
of the college ; and the secretary of state for the
American Colonies was to be its chancellor. In
the charter which he drew up, the college was
declared to be " for the instruction of students
in literature and theology, with a view to the
promotion of Christian civilization alike in the
English and in the heathen parts of America."1
In a letter to his friend Lord Percival, written
in March, 1723, he revealed his purpose of giv
ing his life to that object, mentioning, likewise,
the reasons for preferring the Bermuda Islands ;
at the same time presenting " the bright vision
of an academic home in those fair lands of the
West, whose idyllic bliss poets had sung, and
from which Christian civilization might now
be made to radiate over the vast continent of

1 " Life and Letters," 108.

GEORGE BERKELEY 2?

America, with its magnificent possibilities in
the future history of the race of man. Berke
ley seemed to see a better republic than Plato's,
and a grander Utopia than More's, as the issue
of his ideal university in those Summer Isles." l
Of course, the realization of this scheme
would require a large endowment. Berkeley
himself had not sufficient fortune for the
purpose ; but he had what was more than
equivalent to a fortune, — a wonderful power
of imparting to others his own ideas, and
even his own enthusiasms. Evidently his true
course was to take such promotion in the
Church at home as should come to him ; and
then, using all his opportunities for winning
over men of wealth and influence, to keep
steadily at work, and to bide his time. This
course he took.

V.

In the latter part of 1721 he had returned
to Dublin, as chaplain to the Lord-Lieutenant
of Ireland, and at once had resumed his old
relations in Trinity College — in which he was

1 Frazer in " Berkeley," 121-122.

28 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

soon made divinity lecturer, Hebrew lecturer,
senior proctor, and university preacher. Early
in the following year, he had been made Dean
of Dromore — a non-resident incumbency, the
value of which was probably about fourteen
hundred pounds. In 1723, Esther Vanhom-
righ — the " Vanessa " of Dean Swift's love
scandals — died, and in her will she surprised
Berkeley by leaving him a legacy of about four
thousand pounds. In 1724 good fortune still
pursued him ; for in that year he was given
the Deanery of Derry, which both he and Dean
Swift described as " the best preferment in
Ireland." Thus he was well advanced on the
glittering highway of promotion in the Church ;
but, instead of pursuing that path, he was still
swayed by his eager purpose of giving up all
and going out into the American wilderness to
spend his life in founding a university there.
He now thought that the time was fully ripe
for him to go over to London, and to press
for the accomplishment of his project. His
success there was promoted in no small
measure by Dean Swift, who, among other
friendly acts, wrote from Dublin on behalf of

GEORGE BERKELEY 29

Berkeley a letter to Lord Carteret, a statesman
whose influence Berkeley particularly wished to
secure. This letter of Dean Swift's is an amus
ing revelation, both of his own character and
of Berkeley's, — the one, worldly, ambitious,
and without enthusiasm, yet steady and hearty
in friendship ; the other, spiritual, self-forget-
ing, and lost in daring schemes of doing some
great service in the world for God and man.
After mentioning to Lord Carteret Berkeley's
personal history, and especially his recent pro
motion to be Dean of Derry, Swift continues :
" Your Excellency will be frightened when I
tell you all this is but an introduction ; for I
am now to mention his errand. He is an abso
lute philosopher with regard to money, titles,
and power ; and for three years past has been
struck with a notion of founding a university
at Bermudas, by a charter from the Crown.
He has seduced several of the hopefullest young
clergymen arid others here, many of them well
provided for, and all in the fairest way for prefer
ment ; but in England his conquests are greater,
and I doubt will spread very far this winter.
He showed me a little tract which he designs

30 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

to publish ; and there your Excellency will see
his whole scheme of a life academico-philo-
sophical, ... of a college founded for
Indian scholars and missionaries ; where he
most exorbitantly proposes a whole hundred
pounds a year for himself, fifty pounds for
a fellow, and ten for a student. His heart
will break if his Deanery be not taken from
him, and left to your Excellency's disposal. I
discouraged him by the coldness of courts and
ministers, who will interpret all this as impossi
ble, and a vision ; but nothing will do. And,
therefore, I humbly entreat your Excellency
either to use such persuasions as will keep one
of the first men in the kingdom, for learning
and virtue, quiet at home, or assist him by your
credit to compass his romantic design ; which,
however, is very noble and generous, and di
rectly proper for a person of your excellent
education to encourage."

On reaching London one of the first things
that Berkeley did was to publish the " little
tract " to which Swift had referred.2 In order

1 " Life and Letters of George Berkeley," 102-103.

2 " A Proposal for the Better Supplying of Churches in
our Foreign Plantations, and for Converting the Savage

GEORGE BERKELEY 31

to raise the endowment necessary for the col
lege therein described, his original purpose
probably was to depend on voluntary gifts
rather than on an appropriation from the gov
ernment. Had he steadily adhered to this plan,
it is likely that he would have succeeded, and
would have saved himself the bitter disappoint
ment that came in after years. No doubt the
intellectual indifference of London society at
that period, its frivolty, and its sordid spirit,
would have been barriers to his immediate suc
cess in an appeal for pecuniary aid in such a
project as his ; yet even those barriers could
not long have resisted the magic of his brilliant
and contagious earnestness. Several anecdotes
have come down to us illustrating the incom
parable powers of persuasion with which he
prosecuted his undertaking. For example, the
famous club of wits, " the Scriblerus Club,"
met one day for dinner at the house of Lord
Bathurst, and before Berkeley came in the mem
bers agreed among themselves that they would
rally him on his wild scheme of going out to

Americans to Christianity, by a College to be erected in the
Summer Islands, otherwise called the Isles of Bermuda." —
Berkeley's "Works," iii., 213-231.

32 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Bermuda. Lord Bathurst says that they fully
carried out their programme ; but that " Berke
ley having listened to all the lively things they
had to say, begged to be heard in his turn ; and
displayed his plan with such an astonishing and
animating force of eloquence and enthusiasm
that they were struck dumb, and, after some
pause, rose up all together with earnestness,
exclaiming, ' Let us all set out with him imme
diately.' "

He also captivated many other distinguished
persons ; and he raised by subscription more
than five thousand pounds, — a sum which
might have been greatly increased had he not
been tempted to seek a government appropri
ation. He even made his way to the ear and
the heart of King George the First ; and, more
difficult still, to the friendly forbearance of Sir
Robert Walpole, from whom he got, not only a
personal subscription of two hundred pounds,
but the promise of not opposing in the House
Berkeley's scheme of an appropriation. Be
sides a charter for his college Berkeley procured
the introduction of a bill wherein a suitable
portion of the proceeds arising from the sale

GEORGE BERKELEY 33

of certain lands in the West Indies was to be
bestowed upon the college. Evidently Wai-
pole consented to this bill, fully believing
that in the nature of things, and without any
effort on his part, it would fail of passing the
House of Commons. But he did not rightly
estimate the energy and the persuasiveness of
Berkeley. In May, 1726, the bill was carried
through the House, " none having the confi
dence to speak against it, and not above two
giving their negative, which was done in so low
a voice as if they themselves were ashamed of
it." '

Accordingly, Walpole gave to Berkeley a
promise of twenty thousand pounds. Thus
far all seemed prosperous ; but Berkeley had
still to learn that it was one thing to get from
a statesman like Walpole a promise of twenty
thousand pounds, and quite another thing to
get the twenty thousand pounds. He was,
however, full of hope. He spent the next two
years in completing his preparations for going,
and especially in waiting for the promised
grant. Berkeley's long delay in England began
1 " Life and Letters," 125.

34 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

to be the occasion of a new embarrassment.
" Had I continued there," he wrote, " the re
port would have obtained (which I had found
beginning to spread) that I had dropped the de
sign after it had cost me and my friends so much
trouble and expense. . . . This obliged me
to come away. . . . Nothing less could have
convinced the world that I was in earnest."1
Moreover, Walpole is said to have told him
that the grant could not be paid until he had
actually made some investment in America
for the college.2

In this lies the secret of all his subsequent
proceedings and of his final failure. He had
put his trust in Walpole, who had too much
use for money at home, in adapting to mem
bers of parliament his favorite methods of po
litical persuasion, for him to be willing to waste
twenty thousand pounds in a fantastic educa
tional project in the Bermudas.

Nothing was left for Berkeley but to start,
to get to the other side of the Atlantic, and to
buy there land enough to constitute an actual

1 "Berkeley," 133.

8 " Life and Letters," 153,

GEORGE BERKELEY 35

investment for the college. He thought it
best to go first to New England, and there to
await the further proceedings of the prime
minister ; and his purchase of the farm near
Newport and all his long delay there were due
to the necessity of deferring to the inclinations
of that great officer.

All this it was that gave to his movements
an air of mystery, of incertitude, of fickleness;
and all this could not at that time be publicly
explained. Month after month passed over
him in Rhode Island, as he waited for the ful
filment of Walpole's promise. Rewrote letters
of entreaty, of expostulation. Nothing was
done. A whole year passed by. He then
wrote to his friend Lord Percival : " I wait
here, with all the anxiety that attends suspense,
until I know what I can depend upon, and
what course I am to take. I must own the dis
appointments that I have met with have really
touched me, not without much affecting my
health and spirits. If the founding of a college
for the spread of religion and learning in
America had been a foolish project, it cannot
be supposed the court, the ministers, and the

36 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

parliament could have given such encourage
ment to it ; and if, after that encouragement,
they who engaged to endow and protect it let
it drop, the disappointment indeed may be to
me, but the censure I think will light else
where."1 At last came a message from Walpole,
which crushed out of him the last spark of hope
for the success of his plan. The Bishop of
London, who was a friend of Berkeley's, pressed
upon Walpole the direct question respecting
the payment of the money. " If," said Wal
pole, " you put this question to me as a minister,
I must and can assure you that the money
shall most undoubtedly be paid as soon as suits
with public convenience ; but if you ask me as a
friend whether Dean Berkeley should continue
in America, expecting the payment of twenty
thousand pounds, I advise him by all means to
return home to Europe, and to give up his
present expectations." 2

This cruel word drove a dagger into the

1 "Berkeley," 133. In the latter part of this sentence I
have deviated from the text from which I quote, by venturing
to correct two obvious typographical errors therein, which
make nonsense of the passage.

2 " Life and Letters of Berkeley," 186.

GEORGE BERKELEY 3?

heart of Berkeley's hopefulness. Even to him
it was now obvious that his beautiful project
was dead. There was but one thing left for
him to do, namely, to bury it, and then to turn
to other tasks. After lingering a few months
longer in the soothing quiet of his Rhode
Island hermitage, Berkeley went back to Lon
don. This was in the autumn of 1731. In
1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. In 1753
he died.

VI.

Such is the true secret of Berkeley's visit to
America, — an incident in his life which was
misunderstood and ridiculed at the time, and
was in some quarters the occasion of groundless
suspicion and of needless alarm. Its real mean
ing, with what it contained of saintly enthusi
asm, and of a wiser than worldly statemanship,
is made apparent by being simply and truth
fully narrated. The years during which Berke
ley was in personal presence upon these shores
will be forever ennobled in our annals by that
splendid and gracious memory.

Although Berkeley returned from his Ameri-

3 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

can visit, he never recovered from it. He was
a changed man ever afterwards. With the
shattering of that gorgeous and eager dream
of his against the rough touch of reality, some
thing of the bloom of being went from him, —
something, too, of his old elasticity in hope
and joy ; and in their place came the sadness
of a riper wisdom, and the sweetness of having
drunk of a bitter cup. And if in him and his
family and his best writings one can trace the
effects of his contact with America, so still, in
a hundred benignant ways, one can trace in
America the effects of its contact with him.

But few written memorials remain of Berke
ley's preaching anywhere ; but by far the
larger number of these memorials are the
rough notes made for sermons preached by
him in America.1 In looking over these jagged
memoranda, one cannot help reading between
the lines Berkeley's own criticism, always acute
and delicate, and sometimes almost satirical,
upon the tone of life and thought in New
England in the first half of the eighteenth

1 These are published in the volume of " Life and Letters
of Berkeley," 629 — 649.

GEORGE BERKELEY 39

century ; upon its prevailing dissent from the
Anglican Church ; upon the discordance and
the pettiness of its sectarian divisions ; upon
its Puritanic moroseness ; upon the incipient
stages of that reaction which took place some
what later in New England, from believing
too much to believing too little ; upon the
duties of Christian masters in a relation of
religious responsibility to their slaves ; and
especially upon the vices peculiar to a people
distinguished for sobriety. The population of
Newport, at the time of Berkeley's residence
there, was probably even more variegated in
religious opinions than were other towns in
America. It consisted, as Berkeley wrote,
" of many sorts and subdivisions of sects.
Here are four sorts of Anabaptists, besides
Presbyterians, Quakers, Independents, and
many of no profession at all," not to mention
Moravians, Jews, and several other religious
bodies which, doubtless, Berkeley had not then
heard of as being here. " They all agree," he
adds, " in one point, that the Church of Eng
land is the second-best." l

1 " Life and Letters," 160.

40 THREE MEtf OP LETTERS

And yet the manly, reasonable, and concil
iatory way in which Berkeley met all these
people, mottled as they were with their man
ifold badges of disagreement, won for him
among them great liking and respect. " All
sects'," we are told, " rushed to hear him ; even
the Quakers with their broad-brimmed hats
came and stood in the aisles." Evidently
Berkeley found as much interest in studying
them, as they found in studying him ; and, ob
serving the several topics discussed by him in
the sermons which he preached there, we can see
how wisely, how frankly, with how catholic and
gentle a fidelity, he adjusted his teaching to
their spiritual and intellectual needs :

" Divisions into essentials and circumstan
tials in religion. Circumstantials of less value
(i) from the nature of things; (2) from their
being left undefined ; (3) from the concession
of our Church, which is foully misrepresented."2

" Sad that religion, which requires us to
love, should become the cause of our hating
one another. But it is not religion, it is," etc.

1 " Life and Letters," 160.
* Ibid., 632.

GEORGE BERKELEY 4*

" Joy in the Holy Ghost, not sullen, sour,
morose, joyless, but rejoicing."

" Since we have so great things in view, let
us overlook petty differences ; let us look up to
God our common Father; let us bear one
another's infirmities ; instead of quarrelling
about those things wherein we differ, let us
practise those things wherein we agree."1

Two of the most notable of his American ser
mons are significant of his penetrating study
into the characteristic vices of a community
neither sensual nor frivolous, — vices born of the
ungenerous activity of a legion of unbridled
tongues.2 These sermons furnish us with ex
amples of his aptitude for social criticism,—
criticism so finely edged as to culminate into
something like satire. " Vices, like weeds, dif
ferent in different countries ; national vice
familiar ; intemperate lust in Italy ; drinking
in Germany ; tares wherever there is good seed ;
though not sensual, not less deadly ; e. g.,
detraction : would not steal sixpence, but rob a
man of his reputation ; they who have no rel-

1 " Life and Letters," 633.

2 Ibid., 645-648.

42 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

ish for wine have itching ears for scandal ; this
vice often observed in sober people ; praise and
blame natural justice ; where we know a man
lives in habitual sin unrepented, we may pre
vent hypocrites from doing evil ; but to judge
without inquiry, to show a facility in believing
and a readiness to report evil of one's neigh
bor; frequency, little horror, great guilt."1
Satan "tempts men to sensuality, but he is
in his own nature malicious and malignant ;
pride and ill-nature, two vices most severely
rebuked by our Saviour. All deviations sin
ful, but those upon dry purpose more so ;
malignity of spirit like an ulcer in the nobler
parts ; . . . age cures sensual vices, this grows
with age ; . . . more to be guarded against be
cause less scandalous ; imposing on others and
even on themselves as religion and a zeal for
God's service, when it really proceeds only from
illwill to man, and is no part of our duty to
God, but directly contrary to it."2

These passages from Berkeley's sermons are
probably enough to indicate for that branch of

1 " Life and Letters," 646.

2 Ibid., 647-648.

GEORGE SERKELEY 43

his writings the reaction upon his mind of his
American visit. But in his more elaborate com
positions, especially in "Alciphron" and in
" Siris," the tokens of this reaction are far more
distinct and impressive. Indeed, the former of
these works, as it was begun and ended in Amer
ica, so is it pervaded by allusions to his life in
America, — to his home there, to his seaside
study, to the beautiful scenery about him, to the
notable traits and customs of the people in the
neighborhood, to his own daily employments, to
the friends who visited him or whom he visited,
and especially to the great and bitter disappoint
ment which had overtaken him on these shores.
The writing of " Alciphron " was a wholesome
diversion of his mind from the grief caused by
that disappointment ; and its first sentences are
a tender and manly acknowledgment of the
grief from which his new literary task was to
enable him in some measure to work himself
free : " I flattered myself, Theages, that before
this time I might have been able to have sent
you an agreeable account of the success of the
affair which brought me into this remote corner
of the country. But instead of this, 1 should

44 THREE MEN OF

now give you the detail of its miscarriage, if I
did not rather choose to entertain you with
some amusing incidents, which have helped to
make me easy under a circumstance I could
neither obviate nor foresee. Events are not
in our power, but it always is to make a good
use even of the very worst. And, I must needs
own, the course and event of this affair gave
opportunity for reflections that make me some
amends for a great loss of time, pains, and ex
pense. A life of action, which takes its issue
from the counsels, passions, and views of other
men, if it doth not draw a man to imitate, will
at least teach him to observe. And a mind at
liberty to reflect on its own observations, if it
produce nothing useful to the world, seldom
fails of entertainment to itself. For several
months past I have enjoyed such liberty and
leisure in this distant retreat, far beyond the
verge of that great whirlpool of business,
faction, and pleasure, which is called the
world."1

In 1744, thirteen years after his return from
America, Berkeley published his wonderful lit-

1 Berkeley's " Works," ii., 23-24.

GEORGE BERKELEY 45

tie treatise, entitled " Siris : A Chain of Philo
sophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning
the Virtues of Tar-Water, and Divers other
Subjects Connected together and Arising one
from Another." ' " On the whole," says the
latest editor of Berkeley's writings, " the scanty
speculative literature of these islands in the last
century contains no other work nearly so re
markable. . . . There is the unexpectedness
of genius in its whole movement. It breathes
the spirit of Plato and the Neoplatonists, in
the least Platonic generation of English his
tory since the revival of letters ; and it draws
this Platonic spirit from a thing so common
place as Tar. It connects Tar with the highest
thoughts in metaphysics and theology, by links
which involve some of the most subtle, botani
cal, chemical, physiological, optical, and me
chanical speculations of its time. Its immediate
aim is to confirm rationally the benevolent
conjecture that Tar yields a ' water of health '
fitted to remove, or, at least, to mitigate, all
the diseases of our organism in this mortal
state, and to convey fresh supplies of the very

1 Berkeley's " Works," ii., 341-508.

46 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

vital essence itself into the animal creation.
Its successive links of physical science are
gradually connected, first, with the ancient and
modern literature of the philosophy of fire,
and, next, with the meditations of the greatest
of the ancients, about the substantial and
casual dependence of the universe upon con
scious mind."1

Berkeley's confidence in the medicinal effi
cacy of tar-water thus became the master en
thusiasm of the last twelve years of his life ;
and, as usual, the enthusiasm which he himself
felt upon the subject he succeeded in com
municating to the public. His book rose into
instant celebrity. It ran through several edi
tions in England. Translations of it into
French, Dutch, German, Portuguese, were pub
lished on the continent. Tar-water " became
the rage in England as well as in Ireland.
Manufactories of Tar-Water were established
in London, Dublin, and other places in the
course of the summer. The anger of the pro
fessional physicians was aroused against the
ecclesiastical intruder into their province.

1 Berkeley's " Works," ii., 343-344.

GEORGE BERKELEY 47

Pamphlets were written against the new medi
cine, and other pamphlets were written in re
ply. A Tar-Water controversy ensued. The
infection spread to other countries. Tar-Water
establishments were set agoing in various parts
of Europe and America."1 Now, all this was
another of the effects upon him and upon
his whole after-life produced by his American
visit ; for it was in America, and among the
Narragansett Indians, that he had first learned
of the invigorating and curative properties of
tar.

VII.

There can be little doubt that when, in 1731,
Dean Berkeley took ship in Boston harbor, and
sailed out into the sea for England, he felt that
his visit to America had been a failure, and
that he was returning home a baffled man, — the
golden hope of his life blighted. What glad
ness it would have brought to him could he
but have had a glimpse into the far future, and
could have seen how all along its unfolding

1 " Life and Letters," 294.

48 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

centuries that seemingly baffled visit of his was
to keep on bearing fruit in the innumerable
benign effects it was to have upon civilization
in the New World, — upon the establishment of
universities here ; upon the cultivation of all
liberal studies ; upon the improvement of soci
ety in morals and in manners ; upon the up
building of the institutions of religion. He had
not, indeed, accomplished the immediate object
of his expedition — the founding of an American
university in the Bermuda Islands ; but, by
methods different from those intended by him,
and in ways more manifold than even he could
have dreamed of, he has since accomplished,
and through all coming time, by a thousand
ineffaceable influences, he will continue to ac
complish, some portion at least of the results
—the beneficent, beautiful, superb results —
.vhich he had aimed at by the founding of his
university. It is the old story over again — the
tragedy of a Providence wiser than man's fore
sight, God giving the victory to His faithful
servant, even through the bitterness of over
ruling him and defeating him.

To trace with proper fulness of detail the

GEORGE BERKELEY 49

direct and indirect effects which Berkeley's
sojourn in America has wrought upon the in
tellectual life of this country, in philosophy, in
literature, in learning, in the spirit and method
of higher education, would require a more
extended presentation than can here be given
to it. A mere grouping of hints is all that
will now be attempted.

Of course, in those days of difficult and
dangerous ocean-travel, when the spectacle of
a distinguished European visitor in America
was, even more than is now the case, some
thing to awaken awe in the American mind,
it was an immediate and an immense intel
lectual stimulus to have as an actual visitor
among us for two or three years a ripe Euro
pean scholar, of great genius, of exquisite
accomplishments, of noble ideals, of fascinating
gifts in expression. Naturally the cultivated
society of Newport was the first to feel the
intellectual effect of his visit ; and from it
sprang the philosophical society of that town,
and ultimately the Redwood Library, — an in
stitution at once the parent and the model of
many others in America, and still prosperous

4

50 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

and useful now in the second century of its
existence.1

Then, too, there soon began to come to
Berkeley, in his new home, various American
pilgrims to seek his counsel, — men of letters,
like John Adams, the poet ; and men of science,
like Samuel Johnson, the metaphysician and
the founder of Columbia College ; all of whom
seem to have found inspiration and guidance
in the great man's brotherly and brilliant
words. Johnson, indeed, became Berkeley's
disciple in philosophy ; and for many years
afterward, in his books, in his sermons, in his
academical lectures, he kept alight and he held
aloft in this land, the torch of Berkeley's radi
ant and consoling idea.2 Moreover, during
those years of Berkeley's sojourn in Rhode
Island there was in a frontier western par
ish in Massachusetts a young theologian
trained only in a small colonial college, already
beginning to droop under the burdens of pov
erty, of public care, and of ill-health, but

1 W. Updike, " Memoirs of the R. I. Bar," 61-62 ; " Public
Libraries of the U. S.," Part I., 15-16.

2 E. E. Beardsley, "Life and Correspondence of Samuel
Johnson," 67, 70, 75, 77, 82, 131, 132, 169.

GEORGE BERKELEY 5 I

endowed with a philosophical genius not un
worthy to be matched with that of Berkeley
himself. We have no evidence that Jonathan
Edwards ever made the rugged journey from
Northampton to Newport to see George Berke
ley ; but the Northampton pastor had already,
several years before, worked his way, perhaps
by an independent process, to Berkeley's very
doctrine ; and it can hardly be doubted that
the celebrity of Berkeley's visit here, and the
keen attention to his philosophy which his
visit awakened among thoughtful New Eng-
landers, were felt as a boon of intellectual sym
pathy by that lonely student in the wilds of
Western Massachusetts, and may have helped
somewhat to strengthen him for his service as a
u defender of Berkeley's great philosophical con
ception in its application to the material world."1
Undoubtedly the great influence of Berkeley
on the intellectual life of this country is seen
most conspicuously in the stimulus which he
gave to higher education here. The mere fact

1 " Life and Correspondence of George Berkeley," 182 ;
George P. Fisher, " Discussions in History and Philosophy,"
229-234. See, also, the author's " History of American
Literature," ii., 182-183.

52 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

that such a man as Berkeley, with such induce
ments as he had to remain in his place at home,
had been willing to give up time, and wealth,
and chosen studies, and official advancement,
and the charms of an ancient society, and had
brought hither across the sea into the wilder
ness nearly all that was sacred and precious to
him in the world, and that he here stood ready,
year after year, to devote his life, his genius,
all his energies, to the promotion of higher
education in America, was itself a dramatic
demonstration at least of his own sense of the
vast importance to America of higher educa
tion. Though he did not succeed, in his own
person, in founding an American college, that
spectacle of his noble failure to found one
stands for all time in its pathos, bearing wit
ness to an imperishable and an unsurpassable
duty.

Moreover, almost as soon as Berkeley touched
land, he began to give out sympathy and coun
sel and help to the men who were already work
ing in American colleges, or who were working
for them. It did not hinder him that the col
leges nearest to him were under the control of

GEORGE BERKELEY 53

dissenters from his church ; and yet, even in his
purpose to befriend these colleges he found him
self the object of some ecclesiastical suspicion.
"Pray let me know," he wrote to Samuel John
son in March, 1730, "whether they would ad
mit the writings of Hooker and Chillingworth
into the library of the college in New Haven."1
Two years afterward, when Berkeley had re
turned to England, and had sent thence to
Yale College a munificent gift of books, a fa
mous Boston preacher, Benjamin Colman, wrote
to the president of the college urging that the
gift be not accepted, if it be " clogged with any
conditions that directly or indirectly tend to the
introduction of Episcopacy." 2

But tokens of suspicion like these — not un
natural under the circumstances— did not chill
the flow of Berkeley's kind feeling toward the
New England colleges, or his desire to help
them. When he was upon the point of em
barking for England he sent to Johnson some
Greek and Latin books, to be given, if it should
seem best, to Yale College ; and he accompa-

1 " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson," 75.

2 E. Turell, " Life of Benjamin Colman," 59-61.

54 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

nied the gift by the promise of still trying to
help, even after his return to the Old World,
the cause of education in America. " My en
deavors shall not be wanting, some way or
other, to be useful, and I should be very glad
to be so in particular to the college at New
Haven." This promise was not forgotten. In
less than a year after his departure he trans
mitted to the president of Yale College a deed2
conveying to that institution his farm in Rhode
Island ; " the yearly rents and profits " from
which were to be spent, not only for the pur
chase of books in Greek and Latin, as prizes
for proficiency in those languages, but also as
scholarships for the maintenance of three Bach
elors who should be selected for their excel
lence in Latin and Greek, and should reside in
the college in graduate studies for three years.
It would be hard to enumerate all the effects
of this gift in stimulating classical culture in
this country. This single fact may be men
tioned, however, that in the long roll kept by
Yale College, of Berkeleyan " scholars of the
house," from 1733 to the present, one finds

1 " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson," 78.

2 Given in full in " Life and Letters of Berkeley," 193-194,
note.

GEORGE BERKELEY 55

many names that have become distinguished
for classical learning, for literary talent, and
especially for service in the higher educational
work of the country : Eleazer Wheelock, the
founder and first President of Dartmouth Col
lege ; Aaron Burr, President of Princeton Col
lege ; William Samuel Johnson, President of
Columbia College ; Naphtali Daggett and Tim
othy Dwight, Presidents of Yale College ;
Abraham Baldwin, founder and President of
the University of Georgia ; Samuel Austin,
President of the University of Vermont;
Jeremiah Atwater, President of Middlebury
and Dickinson Colleges ; Sereno Edwards
Dwight, President of Hamilton College ; Joel
Jones, first President of Girard College ; Ed
ward Beecher, President of Illinois College ;
besides jurists, statesmen, scholars, and writ
ers, like Jared Ingersoll, James Abraham Hill-
house, Silas Deane, John Trumbull, Joseph
Buckminster, Abiel Holmes, James Murdock,
Norman Pinney, William Moseley Holland,
Charles Astor Bristed, and Eugene Schuyler.1

1 A full list of the Berkeleyan scholars at Yale from 1733 to
1851 is given in " The Yale Literary Magazine," for Feb.,
1852, 152-154; and to 1865, in " Papers of N. II. Coll. Hist.
Soc.," i., 157-160.

56 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

In 1733, the year following that of his gift of
land to Yale College, Berkeley proved his
undiminished remembrance of the struggling
young colleges in America by sending over
both to Yale and to Harvard valuable presents
of books. The collection which he thus gave
to Yale College was the larger one of the two.
It consisted of about a thousand volumes, and
included well-chosen works in Greek and Latin
literature, in the Fathers, in church histoiy,
in divinity, in philosophy, in mathematics, in
medicine and natural history, in English and
French literature — altogether, according to an
early historian of Yale, " the best collection of
books which had ever been brought at one
time to America." '

Perhaps it may be said, also, that his help
to higher education in America was quite as
effective in the form of sympathy and good
counsel as it was in that of good gifts. To the
very end of his life he kept up his correspon-

1 President Clap, cited in " Life and Letters of George Ber
keley," 194. A copy of the invoice of the books sent by Ber
keley to Yale College has been published by President Daniel
C. Oilman, in " Papers of New Haven Col. Historical So
ciety," i.( M7-I70.

GEORGE BERKELEY 57

dence with America, and even handed down
to his widow and to his children a legacy of
American friendships ; and in nearly all his
letters sent hither there breathes the same
glowing and affectionate zeal for the cause of
good letters in America, and, through that, of
noble thinking and of noble living, to be pro
moted by the young colleges of the New
World. So long as he lived, tidings were
regularly sent to him from Yale College re
specting the progress of learning there, par
ticularly under the impulse given by his en
dowment. In 1750 he writes : '"I find also
by a letter from Mr. Clap that learning con
tinues to make notable advances in Yale Col
lege. This gives me great satisfaction."1 In
1751 he writes: "I am glad to find by Mr.
Clap's letter, and the specimens of literature
enclosed in his packet, that learning continues
to make a progress in Yale College, and hope
that virtue and Christian charity may keep
pace with it."2 In the same year he writes to
President Clap himself : " The daily increase

1 " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson," 170.
8 Ibid., 171.

58 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

of religion and learning in your seminary of
Yale College gives me very sensible pleasure,
and an ample recompense for my poor endea
vors to further these good ends." ' And when,
but a few years before his death, his advice
was asked by Samuel Johnson, respecting plans
for a college at New York, he wrote back a
letter of wise and faithful counsel, which did
much to mould the organization both of King's
College2 and of the College of Philadelphia.3

Indeed, as respects King's College, we have
documentary evidence that it was formed by its
first trustees explicitly and consciously upon
the model thus conveyed to them, through
Samuel Johnson, from Bishop Berkeley.4 This
fact has not been sufficiently known. The
true spiritual founder of Columbia College
was George Berkeley. To one who loves the
memory of that wise and saintly prelate, and
who has been touched by the grief he suf
fered over the apparent discomfiture of his

1 " Life and Letters of George Berkeley," 327.

2 Now Columbia College.

3 Now the University of Pennsylvania.

4 " Life and Correspondence of Samuel Johnson," 154-155 ;
170.

GEORGE BERKELEY 59

hope of founding " a college for the spread of
religion and learning in America," it must give
pleasure to learn that before he passed away
from this earth he had the assurance that the
college at New York was to be founded
upon the model furnished by him. So that,
after all, a part of the beautiful dream of
Berkeley's life was granted to him, and in a
way wiser than he had thought. Not, indeed,
in the Bermuda Islands, — which would have
been too remote and too isolated a spot for a
great American university, — but in the very
heart of the future metropolis of the New
World ; not, indeed, by the labor of his own
hand, and yet according to the express
directions of his most mature judgment; not,
indeed, under his own presidency, and yet
under the presidency of his most beloved
American friend and of his most devoted
American disciple, was Berkeley finally per
mitted to establish a college for " the promo
tion of Christian civilization alike in the Eng
lish and in the heathen parts of America."
And there can be little doubt that from the
first the college should have been named for

60 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Berkeley rather than for the king. And,
without any doubt, when, just after the Rev
olutionary war, the original royalist name of
the college was necessarily dropped, and a
new name was sought for, nothing could have
been more appropriate than that 'the college
should then have received the beautiful and
significant name of Berkeley.

But though Berkeley's own college in Amer
ica has not been called by his name, Berkeley's
effort for " the spread of religion and learning
in America " has not been without many tokens
of commemoration among us. In the college
at New Haven, of which he was so generous a
benefactor, his name is woven into imperish
able association with the noblest and the most
stimulating studies ; while from a memorial
window in its chapel that name beams like a
benediction upon all who, like him, would unite
sincere piety with sincere love of truth. In
the oldest college-town in America a street has
been named in honor of Berkeley, by an
eminent writer1 who was devoted to the studies
which Berkeley loved, and to the higher inter-

1 Richard H. Dana, the second.-

GEORGE BERKELEY 6 1

ests of society of which Berkeley was the cham
pion. In the cities of New York and Providence,
in recent years, institutions for the best secon
dary education have been named in memory
of Berkeley, as " a missionary who crossed the
seas to bring to this land the torch of knowl
edge." ' And far away upon the western verge of
this continent — a continent which Berkeley be
lieved to be the predestined seat of the last and
most glorious act in the drama of Man's History
upon Earth, — over against the very gleam of the
Golden Gate of San Francisco, and almost
within sound of the surf crashing upon the
sands of the Pacific, a great state has founded
a great university ; and, while it has given its
own name to the university, it has bestowed
upon the university-town the name of Berkeley,
in remembrance of " one of the very best of
the early friends of college education in Amer
ica." At Trinity College, in Hartford, — a col
lege that was founded and has been faithfully
reared in the very spirit of Berkeley's ideas
upon education, — the president, at the annual

1 The name was given to the first of these schools by Presi
dent Oilman, of Johns Hopkins University, whose words I
quote above.

62 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

commencement, sits in the chair in which
Berkeley used to sit at Newport, in which
Berkeley is believed to have written his "Alci-
phron," and from which Berkeley must have
dreamed many a dream and prayed many a
prayer " for the spread of religion and learning
in America." Finally, at Middleton has been
planted " The Berkeley Divinity School," with
the purpose that it should be for many years
a monument — and something more productive
than a monument — to the sacred and dear
memory of that apostolic scholar, who, in an
age of sensualists and of self-seekers, gave up
all earthly pleasures and gains, and came forth
over the sea, that he might found in America
a college to train up young men worthily for
the service both of religion and of civil society
in this New World.

VIII.

Ever since the time when the English settle
ments in America became large enough to pro
vide for European visitors, and complex enough
to tempt them hither, we have had among us
an almost unbroken procession of such visitors,

GEORGE BERKELEY 63

—eminent, condescending, beneficent, and oth
erwise, — including personages so dissimilar as
Peter Kalm, Wesley, Whitefield, Lafayette,
Chastellux, Brissot de Warville, Talleyrand,
Volney, Louis Philippe, Thomas Moore, Francis
Jeffrey, Basil Hall, Mrs. Trollope, the Duke of
Wurtemberg, the Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisen-
ach, Tocqueville, Charles Lyell, George Combe,
George Thompson, Harriet Martineau, Fredrika
Bremer, Lakieren, Arfevedsen, Charles Dickens,
Friedrich von Raumer, Macready, Jenny Lind,
Kossuth, Thackeray, Kohl, the Prince of Wales,
Kingsley, Goldwin Smith, Matthew Arnold,
Froude, Irving, Bernhardt, James Bryce. The
visitors who have thus taken the trouble to
come this way, have done so, apparently, for
reasons too various to be here adequately de
scribed, — to find a temporary rest or refuge
among us, to fight for us, to preach to us, to in
vestigate us, to instruct us, to amuse themselves
with us, to sing to us, to play to us, to give us
needed advice, to write books about us, to hold
us up as frightful examples, and perchance, not
seldom, to relieve us of the burden of those re
dundant dollars with which our land flows as

64 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

with milk and honey. At the head of this vast
and variegated procession of European visitors
— at the head of it, certainly, in the order of
time, and not far from the head of it in the
order of unselfish and benign intention — walks,
and will forever walk, the form of George
Berkeley.

Moreover, who of European men was in ad
vance of this man in the avowal of a large and
gracious vision of the significance for all the
world of the new social structures which men
were then building in this part of the world, and
of the incalculable importance of their building
those structures aright ?

Can there be much doubt, also, that in his
conception of the place and part of the New
World in the development of human happiness
everywhere, he did at first overestimate its in
nocence — transferring, perhaps, to the infancy
of society here those moral conditions, that
purity and sweetness, which are characteristic
of infancy in the individual — almost identifying
a geographical transmigration with a moral and
a spiritual one — forgetting for a while some
choice and ancient testimony as to the persist-

GEORGE BERKELEY 65

ence of personal character even under a change
of skies ? For is -it not probable that at the
very time when George Berkeley, in his first con
tact with real life, was standing aghast at the
ineffable corruption of society in Europe and
was planning a scheme by which to avert such
corruption from society in America, already
society in America was, in proportion to its
materials and to its opportunities, just as
corrupt ?

At any rate, in view of Berkeley's most
generous thought of us, — above all, in view of
his supposition that the New World might be
saved from the profligacy — political, commer
cial, social, and individual, — with which the Old
World was then reeking, there should be for
us much food for meditation in the fact of the
existence among us, at the present moment,
of all such profligacy. What, then, was Ber- '
keley's scheme for the prevention or the
cure of the moral diseases of society ? And was
it, indeed, a scheme largely visionary and de
lusive ? On the contrary, was it not then, and
is it not still, the only true or possible scheme
for the prevention or the cure of such diseases

5

66 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

here or anywhere? In one word, it was edu
cation ! Yes, but what sort of education ? An
education of the whole man, or of only a part
of him ? For, if it be the latter — an education
of the intellect only, or of the intellect and the
body only — then, according to Berkeley, we
have no guarantee that education will result in
virtue, or will avert crime ; since, in his belief,
such education is but the training of a personal
power which may almost as likely be spent for
the moral injury of society, as for its moral
benefit.

Nevertheless, it is, upon the whole, just this
one sided and amorphous education — this cul
ture of the intellect and of the body, without
that of the conscience — that we in America
have been for a long time supporting and ador
ing, as the one sure and omnipotent means of
saving the commonwealth from rottenness —
political, commercial, social, individual. But,
lo ! the commonwealth has not been saved from
rottenness — nor will it ever be, in that fashion !
The scheme which Berkeley proposed a hun
dred and sixty years ago for preventing the
moral diseases of society here was, indeed,

GEORGE BERKELEY 6?

education, but it was complete education, —
education of all the faculties and forces of a
man, rather than of a part of them : his formula
was — " religion and learning." Our failure thus
far to prevent corruption from fastening upon
the vitals of American society does no dis
credit to Berkeley's plan, but to our use of it.
Such education as that attempted by the train
ing now so generally given in the schools of
America, can have but the result which Ber
keley foresaw, and which one ' of the wisest of
our living leaders has lately pointed out, — that
of producing a race of men and women " less
concerned about virtue than about knowledge,
not as good as they are sharp, not as pure,
truthful, and temperate as they are smart, rather
knowing than wise, and quickwitted than trust
worthy." u He who opens a school," said Victor
Hugo, " closes a prison." But does it so ? Much
depends on the sort of school one opens. Far
wiser, even if not so epigrammatic, was that
English statesman who, a few years ago, gave
public warning to his countrymen, that " if they
educated the intellect of the nation without the

1 F. D. Huntington,

68 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

conscience, they would only prepare accom
plished villains to pick the locks and break into
the treasure-houses of civil society." Let us
not then do Berkeley the injustice of forget
ting that his plan for averting corruption from
American society, namely, by the education of
the individuals who should compose American
society, clearly meant education of the moral
and spiritual natures of men as well as of their in
tellectual and their physical nature. If we, in
this bold young land which Berkeley loved, and
which he wanted to save from corruption, have
nevertheless advanced into forms of corruption
as gross and as appalling as those that have been
known in any country, in any age, the fault
has been not in his plan, but in our partial,
shallow, and most inadequate rendering of it.

II.

A GREAT COLLEGE PRESIDENT
AND WHAT HE WROTE.

6g

II.

A GREAT COLLEGE PRESIDENT
AND WHAT HE WROTE.

I — Outline of Timothy Dwight's life — His precocity in learn
ing and aspiration — His career as a student at Yale — His
excesses in self-discipline.

II — His great influence as a tutor at Yale — At nineteen begins
the writing of an epic poem — Chaplain in the army of the
Revolution — A writer of patriotic songs — His song of
" Columbia."

Ill — Retires from the army in 1778 — Farmer, legislator, pastor
— His "Conquest of Canaan," in 1785 — Contemporary
English criticism of it — William Cowper.

IV — His attempt at satire in " The Triumph of Infidelity,"
in 1788.

V — His best poem, " Greenfield Hill," 1794.

VI — His minor poems — The quality and power of his per
sonality as an explanation of his vast contemporary influ
ence — His varied and minute knowledge — His intellectual
interests and sympathies — His life the triumph of a sufferer
— His extraordinary command over his own mental pos
sessions — Composed by dictation — The defects of his
literary work.

VII — His career culminates in the presidency of Yale at the
age of forty-three — The range of his labors there — His
ascendancy.

VIII — His pre-eminence as a champion of Christianity — His

71

72 THREE MEN- OF LETTERS

brilliancy in conversation — His services as a preacher —

" Theology Explained and Defended " — His discourse on

Washington.
IX — His "Travels in New England and New York" — Its

merits and defects.
X — His intellectual activity during the last two years of his

life — " Remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Letters" —

Other writings then executed or planned.

I.

^TIMOTHY DWIGHT,' a grandson of Jona
than Edwards, and himself illustrious as
a theologian, teacher, writer, orator, man of
affairs, was born at Northampton, Massachu
setts, on the fourteenth of May, 1752. He was
graduated at Yale College in 1769. During
the subsequent two years, he taught in a
grammar school in New Haven. From 1771
to 1777, he was a tutor in Yale College. From

1 For the biographical facts about Timothy Dwight, the chief
sources are, " Memoir of the Life of President Dwight," pre
fixed to the four volumes of D wight's " Theology," and, though
anonymous, known to be the work of his two sons, William
T. and Sereno E. Dwight ; " The Life of Timothy Dwight,"
by William B. Sprague, forming a part of volume iv. of the
second series of " The Library of American Biography," con
ducted by Jared Sparks ; and the sketch of Dwight, with most
interesting letters of reminiscence by some of his eminent
pupils, in the second volume of Sprague's "Annals of the
American Pulpit."

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 73

the autumn of that year until the autumn of
the year following, he acted as chaplain in the
American army. From 1778 to 1783, he lived
at the paternal home in Northampton, work
ing upon the farm, preaching the gospel, and
for two terms serving as a member of the leg
islature of Massachusetts. From November,
1783, to September, 1795, he was pastor of the
Congregational Church at Greenfield, Connecti
cut. At the date last mentioned, he entered
upon the presidency of Yale College, in which
office he died on the eleventh of January, 1817.

These nude statistics give us the exterior
framework of a life, not uncommonly long, al
most never exempt from severe bodily pain,
but pervaded throughout by singular activity,
power, and productiveness, and challenging
the public admiration, then and since then, by
its breadth, versatility, and robust sense ; its
brilliance, its purity, its dignity of tone, its
moral aggressiveness, its many-sided and be
nign achievement.

Almost as soon as he was able to speak, he
had begun to receive regular instruction in
books. He had learned the alphabet at a single

?4 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

lesson. Before he was four years old, he had
learned to read the Bible easily and correctly.
While still a small boy and listening to the
talk which he often heard in his father's house,
concerning the famous men of the world, he
" formed a settled resolution ... to equal
those whose talents and character he had
heard so highly extolled."1 Thenceforward
to his last breath, the most persistent trait of
this person seems to be a note of aspiration, — a
tireless energy of purpose to be great. At six
years of age, he began to attend the grammar-
school ; and as his father thought him still too
young to study Latin, he used to forage among
the books of his school-mates while they were
at play, and thus feloniously he learned the
whole of Lily's " Grammar." When at last his
father's consent was obtained, he wrought at
Latin and Greek with so much fierceness that
he would have been quite ready, when only
eight years old, for the freshman class at Yale
College, had it not been for the sudden break-up
of the grammar-school, and his fortunate re
turn to his mother, who at once proceeded to

1 " Memoir," in Dwight's " Theology," i., 6.

T1MOTHV D WIGHT f$

appease his frenzy for knowledge, by a diver
sion into the fields of history and geography.
From that time, for several years, he was en
gaged in devouring Salmon's " Geographical and
Historical Grammar," also the historical parts of
the Bible, likewise such unfrivolous books as
Josephus, Prideaux, Rollin, Hooke, and the
principal histories of the modern world, espe
cially of England and the English Colonies.
When eleven years old, he resumed the study
of Latin and Greek; and in September, 1765,
he entered Yale College, being then thirteen
years old, and already familiar with the classic
authors read there during the freshman and
sophomore years.

By this redundance of erudition, he seems
to have been beguiled for a time into some
lapses toward juvenile light-mindedness. What
with card-playing, late suppers, an occasional
fever, an accidental poisoning, a broken arm,
and other academic amusements, our hero suc
ceeded in disposing all too rapidly of the first
two years of his career as an undergraduate.
At the beginning of his junior year, goaded
by remorse, he roused himself against every

? THREE MEN OF LETTERS

form of self-indulgence in the future; and he
kept to the high level of his purpose, with an
austerity of which one now reads with a feeling
something like humiliation and fatigue.

In those days, the ancient superstition touch
ing the peculiar virtue of early-rising was still
rampant at the college. The students were,
indeed, not required to be at their morning de
votions in the chapel earlier than half-past five
o'clock in winter, or than half-past four in sum
mer; but young Dwight, unable to sanction by
his example the sluggish habits thus engen
dered, proudly betook himself from bed every
morning in time to read and construe, before
chapel, a hundred lines of Homer. Moreover,
no day could at all justify itself in his eyes,
unless it had yielded to him fourteen hours for
close study. When he came to be a tutor at
the college, his demands upon himself grew
still more strict. Covetous of time, he deter
mined to avoid all waste of it through so base
a thing as bodily exercise, by extinguishing the
need of bodily exercise ; and this he expected
to accomplish by gradually lessening the quan
tity of his food. His success was very striking.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 77

He so far reduced his diet that he was able to
dine on just twelve mouthfuls. That, of course,
was his most luxurious meal ; but for breakfast
and supper he deemed it his duty to be less aban
doned to gluttony. Just how many mouthfuls
he permitted to himself at those minor repasts,
history does not record. However, having con
tinued for about six months this system of diet,
he was still unsatisfied with himself ; he felt
" less clearness of apprehension than was de
sirable " ; and suspecting that the effect com
plained of might be due to the animal food
which had thus far been a part of his daily
regimen, he resolved thenceforth to confine
himself to a vegetable diet, but without any
increase in the number of mouthfuls allotted
to each meal. By the summer of 17/4, he had
so far prospered in his hygienic experiments,
that he had nineteen hard attacks of bilous
colic in the course of two months. Being by
that time reduced nearly to a skeleton, and
having scarcely strength enough left to raise
his head from the pillow, his father was sum
moned, and with the greatest difficulty took
him home to Northampton, apparently to die.

7§ THREE MEN OF LETTERS

To die at that time, however, he was not.
In consequence of certain perspicuous remarks
addressed to him by his physician touching the
fatuity of his recent proceedings, the young
gentleman was induced to submit himself to
proper food, to rest, and finally to exercise in
the open air ; and after a time he was restored
to the posession of his vigorous constitution, —
though with a retributive legacy of weakness
in the eyes, and of excruciating pain in the
part of the head just back of the eyes, from
which he never afterward found relief.

II.

With the recovery of his lost health, he was
soon back again at his work in the college,
where his extraordinary success as a guide and
an inspirer of young men had already made a
sort of epoch in the history of the place. For
English literature he had an inextinguishable
passion, which he was able in some measure to
communicate to his pupils and to his associates,
— thereby doing much to give to the college and
even to the town that notable impulse toward
literary cultivation, and toward literary produc-

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 79

tiveness, which characterized both town and
college during the remainder of his life. Along
with his passion for English literature went,
as a matter of course, an invincible passion to
distinguish himself in it ; and it accords with
every trait of the man that, for the purpose of
winning such distinction, he should very early
have chosen for himself the most arduous and
the most majestic form of literary expression, —
that of the epic. In 1771, being then nineteen
years of age, he had celebrated his entrance
upon his tutorship at Yale by entering likewise
upon the composition of an heroic poem, in
eleven books, entitled " The Conquest of
Canaan ", which he virtually finished during
the subsequent three years.1

1 In his " Poets and Poetry of America" 14, Griswold attri
butes to Timothy Dwight " America, A Poem," as published in
1772 and as "in the style of Pope's * Windsor Forest.' " No
mention of such poem was made by Kettell in his account of
Dwight published thirteen years before this book of Griswold's.
("Specimens of American Poetry" i. 223-259.) Griswold's
statement, however, has since been followed, apparently upon
trust, by such compilers as Allibone, Sabin, and the author of
the sketch of Dwight in " Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American
Biography." In my own researches, I have never been able to
come across a poem exactly corresponding to the one mentioned
by Griswold, — the nearest approach to it being a very rare

SO THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Early in October, 1777, he threw himself
with great energy into the service of the coun
try as a chaplain in the army, his immediate
duty being with Parsons's Brigade, then posted
near Peekskill on the Hudson. Dropping the
shyness of an academic recluse, he quickly
caught the ways of the camp, and the spirit of
men who were set apart to a vocation not at all
contemplative. The hopes and the fears for
which those men then stood in arms, he well
knew, and could utter for them in prompt, ener
getic, and splendid speech. He seems not to have
been disconcerted by the lack of ecclesiastical
environment. Standing on the grass, with a
pile of regimental drums before him for a pul
pit, he harangued his embattled farmers in

small quarto of about a dozen pages, for the sight of which I
was indebted to my friend, Mr. James L. Whitney of the Public
Library of Boston. It is entitled "America, or, A Poem on the
Settlement of the British Colonies ; addressed to the Friends of
Freedom and their Country. By a Gentleman Educated at
Yale College." It was printed at New Haven, but without date;
and is not at all in the style of Pope's " Windsor Forest." From
the Library of Yale College — the very shrine of St. Timothy —
Mr. Addison Van Name writes: "We do not know the
author of 'America,' and have no copy of the poem." I suspect
that in attributing it to Timothy Dwight, Griswold was merely
putting a guess into an affirmation.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 8 1

words and tones which carried to their hearts
thrilling inspiration, and strengthened them for
such rough business as might happen to lie
before them. A somewhat uncertain tradition
declares that in the midst of the general excite
ment connected with Burgoyne's invasion, he
preached a sermon of wonderful power, on this
significant text from Joel ii. 20, — " But I will
remove far off from you the northern army,
and will drive him into a land barren and deso
late, with his face toward the east sea, and his
hinder part toward the utmost sea, and his
stink shall come up, and his ill savor shall come
up, because he hath done great things." This
sermon is said to have been printed, and to
have done duty afterward by many a camp
fire : in one case, being read to a garrison that
was closely beleaguered and in desperate dan
ger, it so quickened the men with its great
passion of patriotism, its faith, its courage, that
they " resolved to hold out to the last extrem
ity, and made the sally in which they routed
and drove off their besiegers." '

1 Johnston, "Yale and Her Honor-Roll in the American

Revolution," 258 ; Goodrich, "Recollections," etc., i. 351
6

82 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Not alone as a preacher, but as a song-writer
also, did the flame of his patriotism, in those
grim days, warm and set on fire the hearts of
many struggling men, bucolic warriors, they
were, — heroes half-equipped, tattered, hungry,
then and there in much stress and danger for
an idea on behalf of which the best of men
have been glad to live or die. His biogra
phers tell us that this indomitable chaplain
then " wrote several patriotic songs which were
universally popular," l and stirred the soldiers
to that sort of enthusiasm for an ideal good in
this life, — for an object above mere pelf and
self, — out of which alone really great deeds
come. Only one of these war-songs, his fam
ous " Columbia," seems to have lived beyond
the occasion from which it sprang; and very

note. The sermon above referred to, I have never found. The
details given by the unhesitant and ever-gushing Goodrich, as
from "the venerable Colonel Platt," may possibly be true in
substance, though certainly not true as to matters of place and
time. On the occasion of the news of Cornwallis's surrender,
Dwight preached a sermon at Northampton ; and this was
printed at Hartford. I found a copy of it at the Congrega
tional Library in Boston, in a bundle labelled " Patriotic Ser
mons Previous to 1800."

1 " Memoir" in " Theology," i., 13.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 83

likely, to those who now read it as a detached
text, and who do not re-create for themselves
the very scene, the atmosphere, the needs, the
moods, from the midst of which this song came
into life, it will be but ponderous and hum
drum verse. Of course winged words these
are not, and were not ; and yet so true was
this song to the very heart of its time that, up
and above the hail and smoke and curses of
the battle-field, it really lifted the hearts of
men who were just then overburdened by a
dreadful task, who were just then bewildered
in the dust and cries of the fighting, and
begrimed with its soilure and blood ; and it
actually gave to them, for some great moments,
a clear vision of the triumphant issue of all this
havoc and horror, — home, country, a new fath
erland in the world, " the last and the noblest
of time," which should erect its power and
renown not on the antique vulgarities of con
quest and slaughter, but on the happiness of
men, — on liberty, justice, opportunity, science,
beauty, genius:

" A world is thy realm : for a world be thy laws,
Enlarged as thine empire, and just as thy cause."

84 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Therefore, with this vision before him, the
singer, alone on the armed hill-sides of the
Hudson, there trying to find some lofty cheer
for others, finds it likewise for himself :

" Thus, as down a lone valley, with cedars o'er-
spread,

From war's dread confusion I pensively strayed —

The gloom from the face of fair heav'n retired ;

The winds ceased to murmur ; the thunders ex
pired ;

Perfumes, as of Eden, flowed sweetly along,

And a voice, as of angels, enchantingly sung, —

' Columbia, Columbia, to glory arise,

The queen of the world, and the child of the
skies.' " '

III.

For the detail of this man's life from the
time that he left the army in 1778 until, in
1795, he attained to his true and sovereign
place in the world — that of the presidency of
Yale College — we need not here concern our
selves. Those were for him years of noble
striving, in many capacities ; and they prepared
some portion of the public for that amazing
1 " American Poems," etc., 62 — 64.

TIMOTHY DWIGHT 85

and almost incomparable development of his
personal influence, which burst forth with the
beginning of his presidency, and went on for
the subsequent twenty-two years, gathering
volume and force to the very end. Into this
earlier period, however, fall three literary inci
dents which had at the time a large place in
his thoughts, but which, in this retrospect,
may be justly set forth in few words. These
incidents were the successive publication of
three carefully wrought and very ambitious
compositions, in the three different forms of
epic, satirical, and descriptive poetry.

The first was " The Conquest of Canaan," in
eleven books of rhymed pentameter verse, fin
ished in 1774, but on account of the Revolu
tionary War kept back from publication until
1785. The motto on the title-page, taken from
Pope-

" Fired, at first sight, with what the Muse imparts,
In fearless youth we tempt the height of arts " ;

is perhaps an intimation that the author was
troubled by a momentary suspicion of the au
daciousness of his poetic attempt, and is even

86 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

the proffer of an apology therefor in the im
probable case of its failure. Self-distrust, how
ever, was not a Timothean infirmity ; and by
the time our poet has travelled from his title-
page to his dedication, and thence to the pre
face, he has resumed his native composure, and
is able to speak quietly of " The Conquest of Ca
naan " as the first epic poem that had then ap
peared in America, and to adjust it to some sort
of friendly familiarity with its true predecessors,
the " JEneid " and the " Iliad." For example,
refering in the preface to himself and his poem,
he says : " It may be thought the result of inat
tention or ignorance, that he chose a subject in
which his countrymen had no national interest.
But he remarked that the Iliad and the ^Eneid
were as agreeable to modern nations, as to
the Greeks and Romans. ... If he is not mis
taken, the subject he has chosen possesses in
a degree the same advantages."

Surely, " The Conquest of Canaan," with its
eleven dreadful books of conventional rhymed
pentameters, — all tending more or less to dis
arrange and confuse the familiar facts of Bib
lical history, as well as to dilute, to render

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 8/

garrulous, and to cheapen, the noble reticence,
the graphic simplicity, of the antique chronicle,
— is such an epic as can be grappled with, in
these degenerate days, by no man who is not
himself as heroic as this verse assumes to be.
In trying, therefore, to record here some equit
able account of the poem, we may be permitted
to turn away from the altered literary moods
of our own age, and to offset the impatience
and the repugnance which this epic is likely to
beget within us, by the forbearing critical judg
ment pronounced upon it at the time of its
first publication in England, by the most cele
brated English poet then living. In 1788, an
edition of " The Conquest of Canaan " appeared
in London ; and a copy of it having come into
the hands of Cowper, received from him an
attentive reading. "Poetry," says he, in his
review of the American epic, " cannot be with
out fancy, and fancy can content herself with
no materials as she finds them. The poet be
fore us, availing himself of this privilege, has
modelled the sacred narrative to his mind, and
in such manner that he who would learn by
what steps the Israelites became possessed of

88 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

the promised land, must still seek his informa
tion in the Bible. He fights all his battles
under the walls of Ai, and opposes Jabin, King
of Hazor, to Joshua, throughout the poem.
The friendly disposition of the Gibeonites he
ascribes, not to its true cause, the terror with
which the miracles wrought in favor of Israel
had inspired them, but to their previous con
version by Mina, a virgin of Edom, herself in
structed in the camp of Israel. It is to be
regretted, perhaps, that for the sake of simpli
fying his plan he has excluded from it the story
of Rahab and the spies, and consequently of
the fall of Jericho, — incidents which had great
influence on all that followed, beautiful in
themselves, and susceptible of much poetical
embellishment.

" Such are some of the liberties which the au
thor had taken with the story. A more sparing
use of the ' potestes quidlibet audendi ' might
have been advisable on a scriptural subject.
Readers, influenced by a due respect for scrip
ture, do not well endure a violent disturbance
of its order. In that case something more than
criticism is offended. He makes, however, all

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 89

the atonement that can be expected from a
poet: in his fictions he discovers much warmth
of conception, and his numbers are very har
monious. His numbers, indeed, imitate pretty
closely those of Pope, and therefore cannot fail
to be musical ; but he is chiefly to be com
mended for the animation with which he writes,
and which rather increases as he proceeds, than
suffers any abatement. His seventh book, in
which he describes with great spirit the horrors
of a battle fought by the light of a city in
flames, affords one proof of it ; and his tenth
book, which is the last but one, another. Here
an angel reveals to Joshua, in vision, the future
destiny of his nation, and the poet takes his
course through all the great events of prophecy,
beginning with the settlement of the chosen
race in Canaan, and closing with the consum
mation of all things. A strain of fine enthu
siasm runs through the whole book ; and we
will venture to affirm, that no man who has
a soul impressible by a bright display of the
grandest subjects that revelation furnishes, will
read it without emotion.

" The composition, however, is not without

9O THREE MEN OF LETTERS

a fault ; and as we have candidly praised, we
will censure with fidelity. By the motto
which the author has chosen, we are led to
suspect that he is young, and the chief blemish
of his poem is one into which hardly anything
but youth could have betrayed him. A little
mature consideration would have taught him,
that a subject nearly four thousand years old
could not afford him a very fair opportunity
for the celebration of his contemporaries.
We found our attention to the wars of Joshua
not pleasantly interrupted by a tribute of
respect paid to the memory of a Mr. Wooster,
slain on Ridgefield Hills in America ; of a Mr.
Warren, who fell in battle at Charlestown ;
and of a Mr. Mercer, who shared a similar
fate at Princeton. He would plead, perhaps,
his patriotism for his apology ; but it is best to
admit nothing that needs one." Cowper's
neat discussion of the poem is then followed
by a few verbal criticisms, in which the Eng
lishman's knowledge of English seems not
always to be superior to that of the Ameri
can ; whereupon he selects some passages from
" The Conquest of Canaan," as illustrations of

TIMOTHY DWIGHT QI

its ordinary quality, — such as the " beautiful
description of a maiden going forth to meet
her victorious lover on his return from battle,"
and the description of Night, which Cowper
calls " highly poetical."1

IV.

In 1788, occurred the second of the three
literary events alluded to above : the publi
cation, without the author's name, of a satire
in verse, entitled " The Triumph of Infidelity."
In this work, Dwight enters upon a function in
which as poet, teacher, preacher, prose-writer,
or conversationist, he was ever afterward to
be conspicuous, — that of defender of the
Christian faith and even of Calvinistic ortho
doxy, against all unfriendly comers, particu
larly those of the eighteenth century, whether
French, English, Scotch, or American. From
title-page to colophon, the intended method
of the satire is irony, — a method calling, of
course, for delicacy of movement, for arch and

1 Cowper's review of " The Conquest of Canaan," first ap
peared in " The Analytical Review," and is reprinted in his
" Works," Southey's ed., iv. 355-358.

92 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

mocking sprightliness, for grace and levity of
stroke, and obviously beyond the quality of
one who being, in the first place, always dead-
in-earnest, emphatic, and even ponderous, and
secondly quite guiltless of humor, was above
all things an intellectual gladiator, and could
hardly think of any other *way of dealing with
an antagonist than by the good old-fashioned
one of felling him to the floor. Probably
there can now be left for us on this planet few
spectacles more provocative of the melancholy
and pallid form of mirth, than that presented
by these laborious efforts of the Reverend
Doctor Timothy Dwight to be facetious at the
expense of David Hume, or to slay the dread
ful Monsieur de Voltaire in a duel of irony.

V.

In 1794, Dwight published a poem, mostly
written seven years before that date, — his
" Greenfield Hill," l — that one of his larger
poems which almost attained to popular favor,
and fairly deserved to do so. The plan of
this poem was evidently taken from that of Sir
1 New York : 1794.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 93

John Denham's " Cooper's Hill," even as Den-
ham's poem followed the hint given by Ben
Jonson in his " Penshurst," and in its turn gave
the hint upon which Pope wrote his " Windsor
Forest." After all, however, the plan demands
no great effort of originality : it is the obvious
one of founding a series of narrative and de
scriptive verses on such views of nature and
of human nature as may be spread out before
the eyes of a poet who takes his stand on
some eminence, and looks off. In the present
case, the eminence was furnished by the poet's
own home at Greenfield. Standing upon that
height, he looks abroad over an outspreading
scene of great natural loveliness, and this gives
to him " The Prospect," the first of the seven
parts of which the poem is composed. After
paying homage to the charm of natural scenery
abounding there, he celebrates the social felic-
ity to be seen all about him, — equality of con
dition, fairness, freedom, peace, universal
thrift, manly dignity :

" How bless'd the sight of such a numerous train
In such small limits, tasting every good
Of competence, of independence, peace,

94 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

And liberty unmingled ; every house

On its own ground, and every happy swain

Beholding no superior but the laws,

And such as virtue, knowledge, useful life,

And zeal, exerted for the public good,

Have raised above the throng. For here, in

truth,

Not in pretence, man is esteem'd as man.
Not here how rich, of what peculiar blood,
Or office high, but of what genuine worth,
What talents bright and useful, what good deeds,
What piety to God, what love to man,
The question is. To this an answer fair
The general heart secures. Full many a rich,
Vile knave, full many a blockhead, proud
Of ancient blood, these eyes have seen float

down

Life's dirty kennel, trampled in the mud,
Stepp'd o'er unheeded, or push'd rudely on,
While Merit, rising from her humble skiff
To barks of nobler, and still nobler size,
Sail'd down the expanding stream, in triumph

gay,

By every ship saluted."1

Thinking of all this social happiness abound
ing in his native land, and remembering, too,
in those years that were even then ushering
in the French Revolution, the awful contrast
1 "Greenfield Hill," 12-13.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 95

presented by the condition of the Old World,
he counsels his fellow-countrymen to be self-
centred and content :

" Ah then, thou favor'd land, thyself revere !
Look not to Europe for examples just
Of order, manners, customs, doctrines, laws,
Of happiness, or virtue. Cast around
The eye of searching reason, and declare
What Europe proffers, but a patchwork sway,
The garment Gothic, worn to fritter'd shreds,

Of silly pomp, and meanness train'd t' adore ;
Of wealth enormous, and enormous want,
Of lazy sinecures, and suffering toil.

See thick and fell her lowering gibbets stand.

See the world

All set to sale ; truth, friendship, public trust,
A nation's weal, religion, scripture, oaths,
Struck off by inch of candle.
See war, from year to year, from age to age,
Unceasing, open on mankind the gates
Of devastation ; earth wet-deep with blood,
And pav'd with corpses ; cities whelm'd in

flames,
And fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, and

friends,
In millions hurried to the untimely tomb,

96 THREE MEN1 OF LETTERS

To gain a wigwam built on Nootka Sound,
Or Falkland's fruitful isles, or to secure
That rare soap-bubble, blown by children wise,
Floated in aif, and ting'd with colors fine,
Pursu'd by thousands, and with rapture nam'd
National honor. ....

Say then, ah say, would'st thou for these ex
change

Thy sacred institutions ? thy mild laws ?
Thy pure religion ? morals uncorrupt ?
Thy plain and honest manners, — order, peace,
And general weal ? " l

This being the subject and manner of the
first canto, each of the others has its own
theme, relating to the past, present, or future,
and suggested to the writer as he gazes off
from his rural hill-top over forest, plain, or dis
tant sea, — " The Flourishing Village," " The
Burning of Fairfield," " The Destruction of the
Pequods," " The Clergyman's Advice to the
Villagers," " The Farmer's Advice to the Vil
lagers," and " The Vision, or Prospect of the
Future Happiness of America."

As a whole, it may be said of " Greenfield
Hill " that the poem is even yet by no means
impossible to read ; and that there are in it
1 " Greenfield Hill," 18-19.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 97

occasional passages which may be recalled with
pleasure, such as the description of the country
pastor, in the first canto1 ; the picture of the
village, in the fifth canto2 ; the invective against
slavery, in the second3 ; the song of Death, in
the third.4 Undoubtedly the one fault of the
poem at which every reader will most quickly
take offence, is a fault of manner, — its imita-
tiveness. Even when the poem does not de
scend quite to the depth of parody,5 it does
reproduce too closely, and too often, the very
notes of Thomson, or Goldsmith, of Beattie,
Edward Moore, or Gay ; and for all this, the
author's own apology6 is rather an explanation
than a defence.

VI.

Of Dwight's minor poems and fragments of
poems, nearly all were written and published
before his accession to the presidency of Yale
College, such as " The Critics, A Fable," 7 and

1 Pp. 23-26. 2 P. no. 3 P. 38. 4 Pp. 85-87.

5 As in " The Flourishing Village."

" Fair Verna ! loveliest village of the west," etc,

6 Introduction, 8.

7 " American Poems," 70-75.

7

90 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

the " Epistle to Colonel Humphreys," ' both
in 1785; "The Trial of Faith,"2 in 1786;
" Address of the Genius of Columbia to the
Members of the Continental Convention," 3 in
1787 ; and " Message of Mordecai to Esther,"4
being the conclusion of the second book of
manuscript poem, in 1793.

Such is nearly the entire record of Timothy
Dwight as a poet, — the chief omitted portion
of the record being that which should celebrate
his service as a writer of hymns,6 and particu-

1 " Works of David Humphreys," ed. 1790, 102-110 ; also,
" American Poems," 75-84.

2 "American Poems," 33-54.

3 Ibid., 55-62. 4 Ibid., 299-304.

5 "The Psalms of David, Imitated in the language of the
New Testament, and applied to the Christian Use and Worship,
by I. Watts, D.D. A New Edition, in which the Psalms
omitted by Dr. Watts are versified, local passages are altered,
and a number of Psalms are versified anew, in proper Metres.
By Timothy Dwight, D. D. , President of Yale College. At the
Request of the General Association of Connecticut. To the
Psalms is added a Collection of Hymns. Hartford : Printed
by Hudson and Goodwin, 1801." This well-packed title-page is
the placid record of an ecclesiastical scandal and tragedy. In
1785, precisely the same revision of Dr. Watts's psalm-book
had been made by Joel Barlow, under the sanction of the same
high authority, and had been issued by the same publishing
house. The book had given universal satisfaction, until poor
Joel went over to France, and dabbled in the French Revolu-

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 99

larly of one hymn which has gone abroad over
English Christendom, —

" I love thy kingdom, Lord."

Plainly enough, therefore, it is not by his poetry
that we can account for the place which this
man held in the homage of his contemporaries,
or for the greatness and force of the stimulus
which he gave to the intellectual life of his
time. Moreover, when we look into his prose
writings, we do not find ourselves much nearer
to a solution of the problem. That solution is
to be found, not in anything he wrote, but in
everything he was, — in the man himself, in the
amazing energy, variety, and charm of his per
sonality. He was himself greater than any
thing he ever said or did ; and for those who
came near him, all that he did or said had an
added import and fascination as proceeding

tion, and fell, as was supposed, into all manner of French im
piety and abomination. Of course, the saints of Connecticut
could not be expected to enjoy any longer the psalms and
hymns of the great sinner of Paris ; and the task of President
Dwight, as recorded on the above title-page, was really to
demephitise and disinfect the book ; it was to cast out of it
all the writings of Joel, and to put into it, in their stead, as
many as possible of the writings of Timothy.

100 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

from one so overpoweringly competent and
impressive.

Whatever gifts of intellect or of spirit he
possessed, were housed in a bodily frame most
imposing by its kingly largeness, graciousness,
and majesty. One who knew him testifies that
" on account of his noble person — the perfec
tion of the visible man — he exercised a power
in his day and generation somewhat beyond
the natural scope of his mental endowments."
His eyes were black and piercing ; his voice had
extraordinary strength and richness, and a sym
pathetic quality whereby it entered " into the
soul like the middle notes of an organ "2; and
he moved and spoke like one who had come
into the world in order to command it. Indeed,
for all the ways by which men can be pro
foundly and honorably moved, he seems to
have had an extraordinary equipment, — the
highest social position, peculiar authority in his
stations of pastor and college-president, im
mense contemporary renown as scholar, poet,
prose-writer, thinker, and, finally, a faculty of

1 S. G. Goodrich, " Reminiscences," etc , i., 353-

2 Ibid., 349.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT ioi

oral speech, whether in public or private,
which enthralled and drew after him all who
heard.

So far as could be tested by his associates,
his knowledge was nearly boundless, and was
as wonderful with reference to small things as
to great. " I think," said one of the ablest of
his pupils, " I never knew the man who took so
deep an interest in everything, — the best mode
of cultivating a cabbage, as well as the phe
nomena of the heavens, or the employments
of angels." He was as pleased to talk with
lowly people as with lofty ones, — his kitchen
servant, the college janitor, blacksmiths, hos
tlers, boatmen, ploughmen : he drew from
them what they best knew, and he well paid
them in kind for what they gave. Experts and
specialists were surprised by what he could tell
them of their own crafts. One day, several
workmen were sinking a well for him. It was
their business, and not his ; but when they
encountered a certain difficulty which was too
much for them, it seemed to be quite in the
natural order of things, that he should instruct

1 N. W. Taylor, in Sprague's "Annals," ii., 161.

1O2 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

them how to proceed. Once, on horseback, he
saw men in the act of raising the frame of a
house. His quick eye discovered a defect
which had escaped the carpenters ; and, calling
out to them from the highroad, he " prevented
a crash of the frame, which would probably
have been fatal to the lives of several persons." l
On one of his journeys, he arrived at a little
village in New England, and was entertained
there by a kinsman, — the principal people of
the neighborhood, mostly farmers, being in
vited in to pass the evening with the great
man, and to hear him talk, probably, as they
supposed, on high themes of church, and state,
and college, on literature, on philosophy. " I
was disappointed," said one of the ladies after
ward, "that he spent at least half the evening
in talking to my husband and the other gentle
men about the cultivation of potatoes and the
raising of sheep." a So, too, as a young man,
when he went home after his father's death,
and for a time carried on for his mother their
two farms, the hired men in the field " used to

1 Sprague, in Sparks's " American Biography, "2nd series, iv.,
267.

* Ibid., 268.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 103

contest for the privilege of mowing next to
Timothy— ' that they might hear him talk.' '"

They who looked upon him from day to day
thought him in no respect more extraordinary
than in the power of his spirit to overstep and
conquer his bodily limitations. During the
last forty years of his life, he was seldom free
from great anguish in the region of the head
just back of the eyes, and was seldom able to
employ his own eyesight for more than a quar
ter of an hour in any one day. In spite of this,
he continued to be one of the men the best
informed of his time, with respect to the doings
of the world in letters, science, criticism, inven
tion, industry, politics, war. Being unable, for
the work of attention and memory, to trust to
mechanical assistance, it happened in his case
that every faculty which has to do with the
seizing and holding of knowledge, grew to
enormous strength. Whatsoever found admis
sion to his mind, was straightway bestowed in
its proper place, and there abode steadfast,
being ever afterward at command. " His
mind " — such is the testimony of two of his

1 S. G. Goodrich, " Reminiscences," etc., i. 350, note.

104 THREE MEN- OF LETTERS

sons — " resembled a well-arranged volume, in
which every subject forms a separate section,
and each view of that subject a separate page.
He perfectly knew the order of the subjects ;
could turn to any page at will ; and always
found each impression as distinct and perfect
as when first formed." So, during the most of
his life, all his writing of whatever sort, in prose
or verse, was done by the hand of another ; and
in this act of dictation, his utterance was so
ready and so sure, that no amanuensis could
ever keep pace with it, and no sentence thus
produced was in need of amendment thereafter.
While engaged in literary composition, he had
no objection to the presence of company, and
could " proceed with two trains of thought by
the hour together, conversing with the com
pany, and also dictating to the amanuensis."
" Not only did the conversation of those around
him not interrupt his course of thinking,
but while waiting for his amanuensis to finish
the sentence which he had last dictated, he
would spend the interval in conversing with
his family or his friends, without the least
embarrassment, delay, or confusion of thought.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT fO$

His mind took such firm hold of the sub
ject which principally occupied it, that no
ordinary force could separate it from its grasp.
He was always conscious of the exact pro
gress which he had made in every subject.
When company, or any other occurrence, com
pelled him to break off suddenly, it would
sometimes happen that he did not return to
his employment until after the expiration of
several days. On resuming his labors, all he
required of his amanuensis was, to read the
last word, or clause, that had been written ; and
he instantly would proceed to dictate as if no
interruption had occurred. In several instances
he was compelled to dictate a letter at the
same time that he was dictating a sermon. In
one, a pressing necessity obliged him to dictate
three letters at the same time. He did so.
Each amanuensis was fully occupied ; and the
letters needed no correction but pointing."
" To conceive, to invent, to reason, was in
such a sense instinctive, that neither employ
ment appeared to fatigue or exhaust him.
After severe and steady labor, his mind was as
prepared for any species of exertion, as if it

Io6 THREE MEN- OF LETTERS

had done nothing : for the activity and spright-
liness of conversation, for the closer confine
ment of investigation, or for the excursive
range of poetry." '

These extraordinary powers brought with
them their own literary defect : nearly all his
work has the fatal note of dictation. Every
where what he seems to write is mere oratory ;
composition by the tongue, rather than the
pen ; the style of an eloquent declaimer with
his audience in front of him ; clever improvisa
tion, — affluent, emphatic, sonorous, moving on
and on in balanced members, accented by im
posing gestures, stately, conventional, seldom
mitigated by the modesty of an understate
ment, by forbearance in epithets, by lightness
of touch, friendly ease, the charm of infor
mality, the grace of a broken rhythm. Every
where are the traces of his disastrous facility in
the emission of sentences that could go into
print without grammatical censure : most im
pressive, no doubt, as they rolled from his
musical tongue, but, when lying cold and stark
on the printed page, obviously marred by the

1 " Memoir" in " Theology," etc., i., 43 ; 27 ; 43-44.

TtMOTHV D WIGHT 1 6?

blemishes of nearly all extemporaneous and
unchastised speech, — excess of assertion, mo
notony of form, redundance, and a notable
aptitude for the commonplace whether in
thought or phrase.

VII.

It will not be easy for us to get the true im
pression of this man, even in the work he did
as an author, unless we see him actually en
gaged upon the great and manifold tasks at
which he wrought, with a sort of Briarean
versatility, during the culminating and most
splendid period of his life. At the age of forty-
three, he became president of Yale College.
The institution had been in a deplorable state.
Its true greatness begins with the day when he
took command of it. With the joy of a strong
man conscious that he had come to a task call
ing for all his powers, and worthy of them all,
he gave himself, for the remainder of his life,
and without reserve or stint, to the various
and the enormous labors which it pleased him
to regard as attaching to his office. The work
of five different academic functions, — each

to THREE ME ft OF LETTERS

enough for the energies of a single ordinary
man, — he seized and performed alone : the gen
eral superintendence of the college ; the entire
instruction of the senior class, mainly in logic,
ethics, and metaphysics ; the professorship of
literature and oratory ; the professorship of
theology ; finally, the college chaplaincy. His
commanding position before the whole country
and his great fame as an orator brought upon
him, also, many demands for public service
beyond the college walls. He was visited by
most strangers passing through the place ; his
counsel was sought by young and old, by
preachers, politicians, law-makers, magistrates ;
he became, as one of his pupils described him,
" a Father to New England, — her moral legis
lator." ] In the churches, his authority rose to
such predominance that envious and ungodly
persons were wont to avenge themselves by
alluding to him as " Old Pope Dwight " ; while
children grew up in the faith that he was " sec
ond only to St. Paul." 2 So vast, indeed, and so
benign was his general influence upon Ameri-

1 " Memoir" in "Theology," etc., i., 52.

2 S. G. Goodrich, " Reminiscences," etc., i., 348, 349.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 1 09

can society, as an educator, preacher, publicist,
a leader of men, a well-nigh resistless moral
and intellectual chieftain, that one eminent
judge who knew him, declared him to have
been next to Washington as a national bene
factor.1

VIII.

Of all the many forms of intellectual action
into which his overflowing energies poured
themselves, none so well fitted his talent as
that wherein he stood and fought as a cham
pion of the Christian religion, particularly
against those assaults which were begotten in
France in the eighteenth century, and which,
in consequence of our close relations with
France in the struggles of the American Revo
lution, had a prompt and a peculiarly favorable
introduction into this country. For a time,
the novelty, brilliance, and impetuosity of
these assaults seemed to sweep all resistance
before them, even in Puritan New England,
and even in the strongholds of New Eng
land's piety and faith. Among cultivated

1 Roger Minot Sherman, in Sprague's "Annals," ii., 165.

HO THREE MEN OF LETTERS

people everywhere, an impression had be
gun to obtain that Christianity could not
confront this new criticism ; that henceforth
Christianity must be deemed a mere supersti
tion — the pitiable cult of the ignorant ; and
that the perception of this was itself a badge
of mental and even social superiority.

Such, especially, was the state of things at
Yale College when, in 1795, Dwight entered
upon its presidency. One of the earliest duties
which met him there was that of presiding over
the forensic discussions of the senior class. An
amusing trait of the situation was that nearly
all the members of that class had jocularly
assumed the names of the leading infidels of
the eighteenth century, being known to one
another as Voltaire, Hume, Rousseau, Chubb,
Collins, Tindal, Tom Paine, and so forth. It
happened that, in submitting to their new
president the topics which they desired to dis
cuss before him, the first division of the class
thought it a fine jest to offer him a certain
question which they supposed he would in
stantly reject : " Are the Scriptures of the Old
and New Testaments the word of God ? " To

TIMO THY D IVIGH T III

their astonishment, he accepted this question
without the least demurral ; and in arranging
for its discussion, he requested all who chose
to do so, to take the negative side, and to be
entirely untrammelled in the production of
their facts and arguments, only remembering
that such a subject was to be handled without
irreverence or flippancy. Nearly all the mem
bers of the division came forward as assailants
of the Bible. Having listened attentively to
all they had to say, the new president began
very quietly to review the discussion. With
the utmost kindness, but clearly and conclu
sively, he pointed out the inaccuracies and fal
lacies into which they had fallen, " and to their
astonishment convinced them that their ac
quaintance with the subject was wholly super
ficial." Having thus cleared the field of
supposed objections, he then advanced to a
rapid presentation of the great positive proofs
of the divine character of Christianity. Here
his almost unrivalled gifts for dialectical state
ment were fully aroused ; and as he went for
ward, step by step, in the development of the
subject, his arguments seemed to fall upon his

112 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

hearers with an overwhelming and an ever-
increasing force. Gradually every man in the
room became convinced ; and before the
speaker had finished, his own deep emotion,
expressing itself in looks, in gestures, and in
the tones of a most thrilling and commanding
eloquence, produced an effect upon those young
men which no one could adequately describe.
In their new president, at any rate, they saw a
master whom they could admire and love ; and
with the swift and measureless generosity of
youth, their hearts sprang to his side, giving
him a fealty which never afterward failed him.
Of course, the report of that great scene in his
class-room sped fast through the college and
through the town. Once for all, during his
lifetime, that neighborhood was swept clear of
the fashionable doctrine that the acceptance
of Christianity was presumptive evidence either
of a feeble brain, or of a cowardly heart.1

Moreover, the open and chivalrous stand
which he thus took at the outset of his career
as president, on behalf of ideas which were

1 " Memoir" in " Theology," etc., i., 22-23 ; Sprague, in
Sparks's "American Biography," 2nd series, iv., 316-318.

TIMO THY D WIGHT I I 3

most dear to him, and in opposition to ideas
which he thought to be full of falsehood and
blight, was maintained by him to the very end.
In academic instruction, in the college pulpit,
in general society where his talk was nearly the
most brilliant then to be heard, on public occa
sions to which he was often solicited outside
the college grounds, he let slip no suitable op
portunity for striking down what he deemed
to be the false, and for building up what he
deemed to be the true. For example, in 1797,
in addressing the candiates for the baccalau
reate, he gave two masterly discourses on
" The Nature and Danger of Infidel Philoso
phy," which were soon afterward laid before
the public in print.1 Again, in 1801, in " A
Discourse on Some Events of the Last Cen
tury," a he reviewed, and arraigned with great
force, the efforts which were made during that
period, especially in Europe, to destroy the
confidence of mankind in Christianity, these
efforts being not " a candid and logical opposi-

1 New Haven, 1798 ; republished in "Sermons," Edinburgh,
1828, i., 320-393.

2 New Haven : i&oi.

114 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

tion to Christianity, consisting of facts fairly
stated and justly exhibited," but " an onset of
passion, pride, and wit ; a feint of conjectures
and falsified facts ; an incursion of sneers, and
jests, gross banter, and delicate ridicule ; a
parade of hints and insinuations ; a vigorous as
sault of fancy, passion, and appetite." " These,"
he adds," were never the weapons of sober con
viction ; this was never the conduct of honest
men." ' Furthermore, on each Sunday morn
ing during the academic year, he delivered in
the chapel an elaborate sermon on some dis
tinct doctrine of theology, natural or revealed,
each sermon having its own place in a care
fully wrought series which it required four
years for him to deliver. Soon after his
death, this vast collection of theological dis
courses was published, in five volumes, under
the title of " Theology Explained and De
fended."2 Since that time, these discourses have
been published again and again, in America and
in England ; in both countries, and for more than
two generations, they have found multitudes

1 " A Discourse," etc., 21.

8 First ed. Middletown, Connecticut : 1818-1819.

TIMO TH Y D WIGH T 115

of readers ; they have been praised by Robert
Hall1 as among " the most important contri
butions which have been made to the science
of theology in modern times " ; and they un
doubtedly form a more adequate embodiment
than any other in our possession, of the mental
resources, and particularly of the acumen and
the argumentative eloquence, of their author.

In addition to such discourses, devoted to the
exposition and defence of Christian theology,
he produced, of course, a multitude of sermons
of a more direct and practical kind, of which
a selection, filling two volumes, was published
in Edinburgh in i828.2 One of these sermons
on "The Dignity and Excellency of the
Gospel," had been read, while still in manu
script, by William Cowper, and had received
the somewhat facile meed of that gentle poet's
applause. " It pleased me/' said he, " almost
more than any that I have either seen or
heard." Two other sermons to be found in

1 In conversation with William B. Sprague. Sparks's " Am
erican Biography" ; 2nd series, iv., 358.

2 " Sermons by Timothy Dwight, D.D., LL.D."

8 Hayley, " Life and Letters of William Cowper," iii., 330 ;
with which compare " Sermons," i., Preface, viii-ix.

Il6 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

this collection, the one entitled " Life — a
Race," and the other, " The Harvest Past,"
may be profitably glanced at by any one de
sirous of inspecting the most brilliant and
impressive examples left to us, of that spe
cies of pulpit eloquence for which President
Dwight was in his life time so renowned.
Eloquent, no doubt, many of these sermons
are ; yet in them all is nothing intellectually
rare, or truly fine, no originality of insight, no
deep or subtle suggestiveness, no gleam of
spiritual genius, but ever and forever a master
ful and exuberant array of the hard common
places of the sort of Calvinism that was then
predominant in New England. Surely, it must
have been some greatness in the preacher who
once stood behind these sermons, which made
them seem so great.

Perhaps nothing in all the multitude of his
sermons is now so pleasant to read, because so
simple and so genuine, as certain things he
said, out of the fulness of personal knowledge
and affection, concerning his contemporary and
friend, George Washington. Thus, in giving
an account of the mental traits of our supreme

TIMO THY D WIGHT 1 1 7

American, Dwight says that he " was great, not
by means of that brilliancy of mind, often ap
propriately termed genius, and usually coveted
for ourselves and our children, and almost as
usually attended with qualities which preclude
wisdom, and depreciate or forbid worth ; but
by a constitutional character more happily
formed. His mind was indeed inventive and
full of resources ; but its energy appears to
have been originally directed to that which is
practical and useful, and not to that which is
shewy and specious. His judgment was clear
and intuitive beyond that of most who have
lived, and seemed instinctively to discern the
proper answer to the celebrated Roman ques
tion, — ' Cui bono erit ? ' . . . Although his
early education was in a degree confined, his
mind became possessed of extensive, various,
and exact information. Perhaps there never
was a mind on which theoretical speculations
had less influence, and the decisions of common
sense more."

Where can one find a fairer statement of

1 " A Discourse, delivered at New Haven, Feburuary 22
1800." New Haven : 1800. Pp. 23-24.

Il8 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

what constituted the military greatness of
Washington, than in these compact sentences?
— " As a warrior, his merit has, I believe, been
fully and readily acknowledged ; yet I have
doubted whether it has always been justly es
timated. His military greatness lay not prin
cipally in desperate sallies of courage, in the
daring and brilliant exploits of a partisan.
These would have ill suited his station, and
most probably have ruined his cause and coun
try. It consisted in the formation of extensive
and masterly plans ; effectual preparations ;
the cautious prevention of great evils, and the
watchful seizure of every advantage ; in com
bining heterogeneous materials into one mili
tary body, producing a system of military and
political measures, concentering universal con
fidence, and diffusing an influence next to
magical ; in comprehending a great scheme of
war, pursuing a regular system of acquiring
strength for his country, and wearing out the
strength of his enemies. To his conduct, both
military and political, may, with exact propri
ety, be applied the observation which has been
often made concerning his courage, that in the

TIMO TH Y D WIGH T 1 1 9

most hazardous situations, no man ever saw
his countenance change."

When the orator comes to speak of the qual
ity and largeness of the debt which the Ameri
can people owe to Washington, his thought
utters itself in an emotional passage, the evi
dent sincerity of which lifts it quite above the
level of a mere bravura of rhetoric : " The
things which he has done are too great, too in
teresting, ever to be forgotten. Every object
which we see, every employment in which we
are engaged, every comfort which we enjoy,
reminds us daily of his character. The general
peace, liberty, religion, safety, and prosperity
strongly impress, in every place, what he has
done, suffered, and achieved. When a legisla
ture assembles to enact laws, when courts meet
to distribute justice, when congregations gather
to worship God, they naturally, and almost
necessarily, say, — ' To Washington it is owing,
under God, that we are here.' The farmer
pursuing his plough in peace, the mechanic
following the business of his shop in safety,
ascribes the privilege to Washington. The

1 "A Discourse," etc., 28.

120 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

house which, uninvaded, shelters us from the
storm, the cheerful fireside surrounded by our
little ones, the table spread in quiet with the
bounties of Providence, the bed on which we
repose in undisturbed security, utters, in silent
but expressive language, the memory and the
praise of Washington. Every ship bears the
fruits of his labors on its wings, and exultingly
spreads its streamers to his honor. The stu
dent meets him in the still and peaceful walk ;
the traveller sees him in all the prosperous and
smiling scenes of his journey ; and our whole
country, in her thrift, order, safety, and morals
bears, inscribed in sunbeams, throughout her
hills and her plains, the name and the glory of
Washington."1

IX.

That book of Timothy Dwight's by which
he is likely to be remembered the longest, his
" Travels in New England and New York," 2 is
one which was begun by him probably with the
least literary ambition, was certainly but an in-

" A Discourse," etc., 29-30.
2 First ed., 4 vols., New Haven : 1821-1822.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 121

cidental product of his energies, and was not
published at all until four years after his death.
This huge work grew out of the fact that, during
his first year in the presidency of Yale College,
he formed the plan of indemnifying himself for
the sedentary confinements of the term-time,
by spending his vacations in a regular course of
travelling, either in his gig or on horseback,
through the Northern States, and that he perse
vered in this plan until near the close of his
life, by which time he had made a series of
journeys, with his own horse, long enough to
have carried him two thirds of the distance
round the globe. On his first journey, in the
autumn of 1796, he jotted down in a note-book
such bits of daily experience as seemed to him
likely to be of interest to his family when he
should return home. In the following year,
this plan broadened out into that of a system
atic journal, for the possible benefit of the
whole family of man, and elastic enough to
admit into itself everything, directly or indi
rectly suggested by his journeys, which could
give instruction or diversion to any mind, — in
cidents of travel, natural scenery, statistics of

122 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

population and of social progress ; talks by the
way ; local histories, legends, superstitions ;
sketches of towns, buildings, domestic life ;
notable persons ; comments on the past, pres
ent, or future of our country, on forms of gov
ernment, politics, religion, irreligion, climate,
soil, trees, rocks, mountains, rivers, beasts,
birds, storms, earthquakes, the public health,
longevity, schools, colleges, ministers, lawyers,
doctors, butchers, bakers, and candle-stick mak
ers, together with race-problems, the aboriginal
savages and their descendants, the inaccuracies
and scurrilities of foreign travellers in America,
international discourtesy, and so forth, and so
forth.

Thus, under the frail disguise of a mere book
of travels, the thing grew to be a vast literary
miscellany ; not a book, but a bibliotheca ; in
short, the private dumping ground of a philoso
pher, into which he could cast all the odds and
ends of knowledge or opinion for which he
happened to have no other convenient recepta
cle, and much of which might as well have oc
curred to him while sitting cross-legged by his
own fireside, as while abroad on horseback.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 123

Unluckily, in giving to us what he entitles his
u Travels," he has not chosen to lay before us the
original memoranda, — the rough jottings actu
ally made by him from day to day, in taverns,
under the shadow of a hill, by the road side,
or in the friendly covert of a hay-stack. In
their original form, doubtless, there would have
been much gain for us, especially in the direc
tion of reality, of off-hand friendliness, and
simplicity. We should have been glad to see
so august a being as President Dwight, for
once, without his presidential robes on ; nay,
possibly, even in his shirt-sleeves ; hungry,
thirsty, hot, clamoring for his dinner, the sweat
on his forehead, his trousers gray with dust or
bespattered with mud, his slouch hat far gone
in collapse, his rusty old saddle-bags lying on
the floor by the side of his dirty boots. We
should have been glad to find in his records
of travel some occasional marks of human
spontaneity, one symptom of haste, disappoint
ment, vexation ; here and there, possibly, a bro
ken sentence, something unfinished, a crudity,
an informality. Ah ! not so, not so. Surely,
President Dwight may not thus be seen of

124 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

mortal eyes. Therefore it is that every touch
of realism, of homeliness, of familiarity, — if
such there was in the original record, — is here
obliterated ; all things so natural as mere jot
tings are hammered out into formal and bal
anced sentences, are polished smooth 'and
placed in line, in stately paragraphs, on dress
parade, fit to go to court ; while the memo
randa meant for an itinerary are afterward, in
cold blood, elaborated into the meaningless
form of " Letters " — destitute of every sparkle
of an epistolary quality — and addressed to a
dummy called " an English Gentleman."

In spite, however, of such freezing officialism,
such wearisome stiffness, it cannot be overlooked
that some portions of the " Travels" are capa
ble of giving entertainment. Everywhere, too,
they are rich with the spoils of intellectual
vigilance. Finally, as testimony touching the
condition of the northern parts of the Ameri
can Republic at about the beginning of the
nineteenth century, they must grow in value as
the generations pass.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 125

X.

At no other period was his intellectual activ
ity greater than during the last two years of his
life. In 1815, he sent to the press, but without
his own name, his " Remarks on the Review of
Inchiquin's Letters, published in the Quarterly
Review," — a little book of outspoken and per
fectly fruitless expostulation with the English
journalists and other hack writers of that period,
on account of their habitual dishonesty and
incivility — their envy, hatred, and malice, and
all uncharitableness, — in commenting on the
people and affairs of this country. In Febru
ary, 1816, in the midst of his abounding labors
of every sort, and in the apparent freshness
and fulness of all his powers, he was smitten
with the torturing disease to which, after a
struggle of eleven months, he slowly and heroi
cally succumbed. Notwithstanding the anguish
of that long combat with Death, and in addi
tion to all his labors as president, professor,
and preacher, he wrote a considerable volume
of essays, chiefly on the Evidences of a Divine

126 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Revelation ' ; he also finished the last half of a
long poem on " A Contest between Genius and
Common-Sense " ; he likewise published in the
" Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts
and Sciences " two papers in the domains respec
tively of philology and physics, — the one being
entitled " Observations on Language," and the
other, " On Light " ; and having projected a
periodical, to be christened "The Friend,"2 to
be published in half-sheet once a week, and to
blend, somewhat after the manner of " The
Spectator," literary criticism with discussions of
individual and social duty, he wrote out several
numbers, " for the purpose of satisfying him
self, by the experiment, how many he could
compose in a given space of time, without
interfering with his other duties." Besides
all these writings, which with one exception
still remain unpublished, this tireless giant is

1 This manuscript is in the possession of Professor Egbert
C. Smyth of Andover, to whose courtesy I am indebted for a
careful description of its contents.

2 In the selection of this title, the President of Yale did not
illustrate his power of origination, — Coleridge's essays under
the same title having first appeared in 1809.

8 " Memoirs " in " Theology," i., 36.

TIMOTHY D WIGHT 12?

said to have left in manuscript a large work on
the life and writings of St. Paul.1

1 Sprague, in Sparks's " American Biography," 2nd series, iv.,
346. This statement I give on the testimony of a writer usually
well-informed and accurate ; but I suspect that the work thus
mentioned is the same as that above described as being " chiefly
on the Evidences of a Divine Revelation."

III.

THE LITERARY STRIVINGS OF MR.
JOEL BARLOW.

129

III.

THE LITERARY STRIVINGS OF MR.
JOEL BARLOW.

I — Barlow in New Haven in 1779 — His letters to Noah Web
ster on the difficulties of a literary career in America —
The need of bread a great inconvenience to a man of
letters — David Humphreys intercedes for him with Gen
eral Greene.

II — Becomes chaplain in the army — His experiences as de
picted in his own letters — Witnesses the execution of
Major Andre — Works on his poem, " The Vision of
Columbus."

Ill — His earliest plan for this poem — Fails to get it published
in 1782 — His miscellaneous employments until 1787, in
which year his "Vision of Columbus" is published — Its
final revision and publication in 1807 as " The Colum-
biad."

IV — Outline of the poem.

V — The idea of " The Columbiad " both poetic and noble. —
Barlow's mistake in abandoning the earlier and simpler
form of it — Its faults — Its true character that of a huge
philosophical and political essay in verse — Both in its
merits and in its defects a fair expression of American
national consciousness and character at that time.

VI — Minor writings — "The Conspiracy of Kings," 1792 — Bar
low is made a citizen of France by the National Conven
tion — Candidate for the Convention from the Department

132 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

of Mont Blanc — At Chambery writes his one popular
poem, " Hasty Pudding."

VII — Barlow's true literary work in prose, especially in his
tory and argumentative discussion — By Jefferson's advice
he plans a History of the American Revolution — His
chief work as a prose writer — " Advice to the Privileged
Orders " — ' A Letter to the National Convention of
France" — " A Letter to the People of Piedmont" — Later
writings addressed to his own countrymen — His " Let
ter to Henry Gregoire " in disavowal of anti-Christian
opinions or acts.

I.

DURING the earlier months of the year
1779, there was living at Yale College
an alert young man, Joel Barlow by name,
ostensibly devoting himself to graduate studies
there, but really absorbed in the not in
congruous employments of cultivating poetry,
the affections of a certain young lady in the
town, and his own fond hopes of a college-
tutorship. In the July of the previous year
he had taken at the college his first degree,
and on that occasion had won for himself a
quite exhilarating tea-pot reputation by a poem
which, from the midst of all the clouds and
clamors of that low-spirited war, celebrated
" The Prospects of Peace." He was already in

JOEL BARLOW I$$

his twenty-fifth year, his small patrimony spent,
his eyes anxiously turned for some scholarlike
employment which would permit him to take
speedily unto himself the wife of his choice,
and to set about the writing of a certain huge,
patriotic, and philosophic poem with which his
soul was even then uneasily swelling. So, on
the 3Oth of January, of this year 17793 he
poured out his heart by letter to his class-mate,
Noah Webster, then plodding as a school
master in a country-town in Connecticut :—
" You and I are not the first in the world who
have broken loose from college without friends
and without fortune to push us into public
notice. Let us show the world a few more
examples of men standing upon their own
merit and rising in spite of obstacles. ... I
am yet at a loss for an employment for life,
and unhappy in this state of suspense. The
American Republic is a fine theatre for the
display of merit of every kind. If ever virtue
is to be rewarded, it is in America. Literary
accomplishments will not be so much noticed
till sometime after the settlement of peace,
and the people become more refined. More

134 THKEE MEN OF LETTERS

blustering characters must bear sway at
present, and the hardy veterans must retire
from the field before the philosopher can
retire to the closet. I don't feel as if ever I
should enter upon either of the learned profes
sions for a livelihood."

As the months slipped away, his hope of
the tutorship slipped away likewise ; and to
the brotherly heart of Noah Webster he once
more spoke out his solicitude : " At present,
I must own, my prospects are clouded. Mr.
Perkins . . . advises me to go into business
for a living, and make poetry only an amuse
ment for leisure hours. . . . These leisure hours
will never come to me, after I am buried in
business for life." !

Then a whole year passed. The tutorship
never came ; but instead of it, there dawned

1 " Life and Letters of Joel Barlow," by Charles Burr Todd,
18-19. My study of the published writings of Barlow was
finished before the appearance of this capital book, in the
preparation of which its author had the use of the great col
lection of Barlow papers made with so much perseverence by
the late Lemuel G. Olmsted. The book has been of much
use to me for personal items concerning Barlow, and especi
ally for many passages from his private correspondence pre
viously existing only in manuscript.

2 " Life and Letters," etc., 20.

JOEL BARLOW 135

upon him the plan of finding a livelihood, to
gether with some literary leisure, by going into
the army as a chaplain. Of all this situation, a
contemporary glimpse is given in a letter writ
ten to General Greene from New Haven, on
the loth of April, 1780, by Barlow's brother-
poet, Captain David Humphreys : u There is
a hopeful genius ... in this town, who is
so far gone in poetry, that there is no hope of
reclaiming and making him attentive to any
thing else. To be more serious about the
matter, the person intended is a young gentle
man by the name of Barlow, who I could wish
was introduced to your notice. He is certainly
a very great genius, and has undertaken a work
which, I am persuaded, will do honor to him
self and his country — if he is enabled to prose
cute it in the manner he has proposed. It is
entitled the ' Vision of Columbus ' and in the
course of the poem will bring into view upon a
large scale all the great events that have or
will take place on the continent. From a sight
of the first book, which he has nearly finished,
I have conceived an exceeding high idea of
the performance. But the difficulty is, it will

136 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

be a labor of three years at least ; and his
patrimony, which consisted in continental bills,
is by no means sufficient to support him."

II.

As a result of all these conferences over his
affairs, it turned out that in the September
following, with much reluctance and even with
some desperation, he accepted a chaplaincy in
the army, — not as having any sort of voca
tion to the sacred ministry, but only as having
present need of bread, and the willingness to
earn it, in this capacity of extemporized and
amateur parson, by putting to pulpit uses his
capacity to compose sonorous sentences and
to declaim them. In a letter to his beloved,
written on the I ith of September from the camp
near Paramus in New Jersey, he sets forth, in
entirely secular language, his earliest experi
ence of the sacred office : " Did not arrive at
camp till Saturday night. I lodged in a tent
on a bed of bark that wet night. . . . Mon
day, the army marched ... a few miles . . .

1 " Humphreys Family in America," 155-156.

JOEL BARLOW

On Thursday evening I began to open my
mouth, which is none of the smallest and
out of it there went a noise which the bri
gade received as the duty of my office. On
Sunday ... I gave them a preachment,
and . . . was flattered afterward by some
of the most sensible hearers with the great
merit of the performance. I know you will
ask me how I made out : I really did well, far
beyond my expectations, and I find it all a
joke, as much as Cassius did, to be in awe of
such a thing as myself." :

Presently, compliments for his sermons were
succeeded by other agreeable things, — marked
civilities from great generals, the sight of im
posing military pageants, even the place of
honor at dinner with Washington himself, —
all tending to convince our large-mouthed
young evangelist, that his irruption into the
sacred office, as amateur parson, was turning
out no bad speculation after all. On the 23d
of September, 1780, writing as usual to his be
loved, he says : " This is Saturday afternoon.
I have fixed my magazine for to-morrow, and

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 31-32.

138 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

my thoughts are at liberty to dwell upon their
favorite object, the centre of all my happiness.
We have to-day made a move back from Hack-
ensack to an old encampment here near the
river, where I have taken lodgings in an old
Dutchman's bedroom. . . . The worst dif
ficulty is, the Sabbath days come rather too
thick." ' As this comfortable young chaplain,
snugly sitting there in the "old Dutchman's
bedroom," scribbled away merrily to his sweet
heart, little knew he of a great thing that had
been happening but a few hours before, and
not many miles off, just across the Hudson, — a
deed of hell baffled, a deed of sorrow begun,
through the arrest by three militiamen on the
high road near Tarrytown, of a handsome
young gentleman, journeying southward on
horseback, and found, after close investigation,
to be carrying precious documents in his boots,
—not the least precious document of them all
being the man himself who wore the boots, to
wit, Major John Andre, Adjutant-General of the
British army. Even on the subsequent Mon
day morning, the news of Arnold's treachery

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 33-34,

JOEL BARLOW

and of Andre's arrest seems not to have reached
Barlow's camp ; for the careless strain of his
love-letter still holds : " My dear, it is now
Monday morning. I have left that blank in
the line for Sunday, when I had no feelings
worth communicating, except a few anxious
thoughts about the preachment, which I made
in a great Dutch barn. This is the third ser
mon I have given them, and I feel pretty well
about it." '

The ink that formed those words could hardly
have been dry on the paper, when Rumor, blow
ing furiously upon all her winds the names of
Arnold and Andre, stormed into Barlow's quar
ters with her now prodigious babblement ; and,
just one week later, Barlow himself had some
thing very unusual to write about. On the
morning of that day, Monday, the 2d of Octo
ber, riding a few miles northward to Tappan,
he had seen a ghastly sight — a new-made gal
lows and the handsome young spy hanged
thereon. Coming back to his quarters, he
wrote to his confidante : " I have been since
to attend the execution of Major Andre, Adju-

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 34.

140 THREE MEN- OF LETTERS

tant-General of the British army, hanged as a
spy. A politer gentleman, or a greater charac
ter of his age, is not alive. He was twenty-
eight years old. He was dressed completely,
and suffered with calmness and cheerfulness.
With an appearance of philosophy and hero
ism, he observed that he was buoyed above the
fear of death by the consciousness that every
action of his life had been honorable, that in
a few minutes he should be out of all pleasure
or pain. Whether he has altered his mind, or
whether he has any mind, is now best known
to himself." '

After this rather pagan conclusion respect
ing poor Andre, thus ignobly impelled into that
state wherein he was to ascertain what truth
there might be in our dim earth-dream of a
disembodied mind, the young chaplain reverts,
by a natural and somewhat habitual transition,
to the greater and more attractive subject of
himself: "My situation in the army grows
more and more agreeable. I am as hearty and
as healthy as I can be in your absence. I gave
them a preachment yesterday for the fourth

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 35.

JOEL BARLOW 141

time — a flaming political sermon, occasioned
by the treachery of Arnold. I had a number
of gentlemen from the other brigades, and I
am told it did me great honor. ... I had a
billet last week from General Greene to dine
with him."

It is obvious that the temporarily Reverend
Joel Barlow was now getting on in the world ;
and one observes without displeasure how, all
along that period, his letters ripple with inti
mations of his own consciousness of the fact.
Above all things, in the expected military in
activity of the approaching winter, he was glad
to see his way to leisure for that huge patriotic
and philosophic poem, which was struggling to
break forth from within the brain of him, and
which was to blazon in deathless verse the tri
umph of human freedom and of human nature
then insupportably advancing toward its stately
consummation in America. On the i8th of
October, from Notaway, he writes : " My pros
pects for my poem are better now than ever.
I shall have more leisure than I expected, and
in winter shall have scarcely any interruption

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 35.

142 THREE MEN OF LEISTERS

if I choose to pursue the plan. I intend to
take winter quarters in the vicinity of camp,
wherever it may be, and set Quamminy * to
work like a sprite all winter. I will tell you
more about it when I see you. Yesterday, the
Reverend Mr. Claremont * had a billet from
General Washington to dine. How do you
think I felt when the greatest man on earth
placed me at his right hand, with Lord Sterling
at his left, at table? . . . Since the preach
ing of my sermon on the treason of Arnold and
the glory of America, several gentlemen who
did not hear it, and some who did, have been
to read it. They talk of printing it. Colonel
Humphreys has made me promise to loan him
the plan and the first book of my poem to read
at headquarters." :

III.

The poem, of which Barlow thus early in his
life began to dream, and which proved to be,
likewise, the one absorbing task and inspiration
of nearly all his remaining years on earth, was

1 A nickname for himself.

* Another of his jocose aliases.

3 "Life and Letters," etc., 36-37.

JOEL BARLOW 143

originally named by him The " Vision of Colum
bus/' It was to be " rather of the philosophic
than epic kind." Moreover, it was " on the
subject of America at large," and was " to ex
hibit the importance of this country in every
point of view as the noblest and most elevated
part of the earth, and reserved to be [the] last
and greatest theatre for the improvement of
mankind in every article in which they are
capable of improvement."

Whether this, our not over-bashful prophet
Joel, whilom of Connecticut, hath truly within
him, in any sufficient measure, the heaven-born
vision and the strength for so mighty an argu
ment of song, is doubtless a thing that may be
very easily called into question. Meantime,
no one can justly fail to note the sincerity of
his early enthusiasm for a most noble idea, and
the persistence of the same through all the toils,
and distractions, and disenchantments of a busy
and a conspicuous life. By the autumn of 1782,
using sturdily whatsoever leisure he could pluck
from his duties and diversions as military parson,
he had got the poem so far advanced as to be

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 15.

144 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

able, after the manner of those days, to invite
subscriptions for its immediate publication.
Luckily, the public eagerness for the poem
seems to have been expressed in a manner so
temperate as to indicate to the author that any
delay which he might choose to interpose in its
publication, would probably be borne by man
kind with becoming fortitude.

A delay of five years was, in fact, so inter
posed, — five years of extremely laborious and
miscellaneous occupation on the part of Joel
Barlow. He had been married in 1781 ; and
having in 1783 established his home in Hart
ford, and having ceased to maintain any longer
the tiresome farce of being a preacher, he went
into the business of keeping a printing-office
and of editing a weekly newspaper; he likewise
undertook and performed the job of revising,
for the Congregational churches of Connecti
cut, Watts's version of The Psalms, himself
adding new metrical paraphrases of fourteen1 ;

1 In the Mass. Hist. Society's Library is a small volume,
given by George Ticknor, and containing the contributions
made by Barlow to the book of Psalms and Hymns of which
he was editor. His translations of the Psalms are numbers
28, 43, 52, 53, 54, 59, 70, 79, 88, 113, 118, 137, 138, and 140.
His hymns are as follows : numbers 63, 65, 66, 67, 68.

JOEL BARLOW 145

he also studied law, and was admitted to the
bar; finally, according to his biographer, he
" wrote a great deal of poetry, annuals, New
Year's verses, bon mots, political squibs, and
satires," ' — of the latter, the most notable being
his contributions to " The Anarchiad."

Not until the spring of the year 1787, was
he able to give to the public the great poem
upon which he had been so long engaged, and
even then in a form which he afterward char
acterized as a mere " sketch." In a small oc
tavo volume, with a dedication to America's
gracious ally, " His Most Christian Majesty,
Louis the Sixteenth, King of France and
Navarre," and with an appendix containing
a list of nearly eight hundred subscribers in
Europe and in America, "The Vision of Colum
bus," a philosophical poem in nine books and in
nearly five thousand lines, made its entrance
into the world, receiving, it is said, a not un
friendly reception in America, in England, and
in France, and procuring for its author a lead
ing position as an American man of letters.2

1 Todd, in " Life and Letters" etc., 46.

2 " Life and Letters," etc., 54.

146 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Even then, however, the poem failed to re
lieve the author of his burden, — his still un
speakable conception of the magnificent part
which America was then playing, and was
destined to play, in the development of man
kind throughout all the world, and throughout
all time ; and the subsequent twenty years of
his life — years passed chiefly in France, and in
no obscure relation to some of the great men
and great events of that mighty time — were
given by him consciously or unconsciously, to
the reconstruction, recomposition, and enlarge
ment of this poem. In 1807, having then re
turned to America, and being possessed of
ample wealth as well as of a considerable name
in the world, he issued the work, in its final
form, under the title of "The Columbiad."

Probably no book, at once so ambitious in
design, so imposing in bulk, and so superb in
all the physical accessories of paper, type,
illustration, and binding, had ever before pro
ceeded from an American press. It contains
twelve full-paged steel engravings, from designs
painted expressly for the book by Fulton and
Smirke. In place of the original dedication to

JOEL BARLOW 147

King Louis the Sixteenth, whom the author
in the meantime had indirectly helped to de
throne and to decapitate, the work is inscribed
to the American inventor of steam navigation.
Then follows a preface in explanation of the
poetic form, as well as of the poetic and the
moral objects, of the work. This, again, is
followed by an elaborate introduction, rehears
ing in clear and stately prose the leading facts
in the career of Columbus, after which the im
petuous reader is no longer withheld from ac
cess to " The Columbiad " itself.

IV.

The poem opens with a night-scene in Valla-
dolid, — the palace of King Ferdinand dimly
discovered through " the drizzly fogs," and
beneath one of its towers a dungeon, in which
Columbus, old, sick, ruined, disheartened, lies
in chains. Here, starting feverishly from a
troubled sleep, the hapless old man moans to
his dungeon walls the story of his life, — a life
of vast, high-hearted endeavor and of world-
enriching achievement, all basely rewarded by

148 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

poverty, imprisonment, pain, and shame. At
the end of his sorrowful monologue,

" A thundering sound
Roll'd thro' the shuddering walls and shook the

ground ;

O'er all the dungeon, where black arches bend,
The roofs unfold, and streams of light descend ;
The growing splendor fills the astonish'd room,
And gales ethereal breathe a glad perfume.
Robed in the radiance, moved a form serene,
Of human structure, but of heavenly mien ;
Near to the prisoner's couch he takes his stand,
And waves, in sign of peace, his holy hand.
Tall rose his stature ; youth's endearing grace
Adorn'd his limbs and brighten'd in his face ;
Loose o'er his locks the star of evening hung,
And sounds melodious moved his cheerful

tongue." 1

This resplendent and gracious visitor, who
enters the dungeon in the midst of such super
natural demonstrations, is of the ancient race
of Titans, Hesper by name, the brother of At
las, himself the guardian genius of the western
regions of the earth, and especially of those
enormous twin-continents to which Columbus
had at last opened the way. To Columbus, in
1 Booki., 127-140.

JOEL BARLOW 149

this his uttermost misery, has Hesper come
with a message and a mission of comfort ; he
assures the broken-hearted old man that, al
though he is thus ignobly treated by an age
in which the rewards of life are dealt out by
" blinded faction," an age in which the millions
are " awed into slaves," while

•" blood-stained steps lead upward to a throne,"

yet the future has in store for him a boundless
recompense, and of this he promises to give
him an immediate vision. At the word of
Hesper,

— " Columbus raised his head ;
His chains dropt off ; the cave, the castle fled " ;

while together they walked forth from the
prison. Steep before them stretched "a
heaven-illumined road " leading up a moun
tain, of a height so enormous that it could
overlook all the earth, even its summit being
fragrant with the breath of flowers. This is
the mount from which, for his consolation, the
vision of distant lands, and of distant ages,
and of peoples and civilizations unborn, is to

ISO THREE MEN OF LETTERS

be enrolled before the eyes of the weary and
dying old man :

" Led by the Power, the hero gain'd the height ;
New strength and brilliance flush'd his mortal

sight ;

When calm before them flow'd the western main,
Far stretch'd, immense, a sky-encircled plain.
No sail, no isle, no cloud invests the bound,
Nor billowy surge disturbs the vast profound ;
Till, deep in distant heavens, the sun's blue ray
Topt unknown cliffs and call'd them up to day ;
Slow glimmering into sight wide regions drew,
And rose and brighten'd on the expanding view ;
Fair sweep the waves, the lessening ocean smiles,
In misty radiance loom a thousand isles ;
Near and more near the long drawn coasts arise,
Bays stretch their arms and mountains lift the

skies ;
The lakes, high mounded, point the streams their

way,

Slopes, ridges, plains their spreading skirts dis
play,
The vales branch forth, high walk approaching

groves,
And all the majesty of nature moves."1

From this miraculous altitude, therefore, and
by the aid of this miraculous conductor, does
Columbus now look abroad over all that portion
1 Book i., 197-214.

JOEL BARLOW \^\

of the world which " his daring sail descried," his
eyes being suddenly clothed, for that stupen
dous undertaking, with the gift of piercing
alike into distance and into futurity ; and what
he thus sees, as regards nature and man and
man's doing, is then reported, with eager and
unflagging energy, and likewise in the con
ventional rhymed pentameters of eighteenth
century English verse, through the generous
profusion of these ten books. Over all th£t
new-found hemisphere, do the anointed eyes
of Columbus travel, on their swift and heart-
thrilling quest, from land to land, from age to
age, taking inventory of what those far-off realms
contain : the lavish amplitude on which all things
there are builded, — mountains, rivers, cataracts,
forests, plains; the beauty and the benignity
and the costliness which dwell there in earth and
sky and sea ; and the myriad tokens that there
indeed were felt the last culminating, and most
bountiful, and most tender, touches of the
divine workmanship in the act of creation :

" For here great nature, with a bolder hand,

Roll'd the broad stream, and heaved the lifted
land ;

152 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

And here, from finish'd earth, triumphant trod
The last ascending steps of her creating God." '

After this colossal topographical survey of
the hemisphere he had discovered, Columbus is
enabled by the same resplendent and all-com
petent cicerone to look forth on the various
tribes and nations that dwell there, to learn the
story of their origin, and to inspect the cities
which they had founded, — especially lingering
over the romantic and pathetic history of Peru.
From the past, Hesper now turns to the future,
giving to Columbus, in the first place, a vision
of the maleficent, dire catastrophe brought
upon Peru in consequence of its invasion and
conquest by his own successors ; whereat recoil
ing in grief from so dreadful a result of the
great deed of his life, he begs to be permitted
to see no more. To assuage this burst of grief,
Hesper then causes all Europe to be displayed
before the eyes of Columbus, exhibiting to him
the manifold and magnificent effects which
mankind was to experience from the discovery
of America, — commerce quickened, letters re-

1 Book i., 357-360.

JOEL BARLOW 153

vived, religion reformed, government amelio
rated, and finally the enormous exodus of the
western nations from Europe to America begun,
particularly the establishment of England's
colonies in the northern continent. Thence
forward, through several books of the poem,
the vision is confined to that continent, and to
the unfolding of its colonial experience ; the
sharp and fatal antithesis there developed
between the colonies of England and those of
France ; the outbreak of war between them ;
Braddock's last battle, and the apparition of
Washington on that field of slaughter ; the
actions of Abercrombie, of Amherst, of Wolfe ;
finally, peace. Now, the English colonies,
freed from the appalling danger which had so
long menaced them from their French rivals,
seem about to enter on their golden age, when
lo, dark clouds gather over the eastern seas,
and roll westward, and bury the continent in
their black folds. Upon sight of this dismal
eclipse, Hesper explains to Columbus its mean
ing. " Here," he tells him, " march the trou
blous years," during which the colonies, in
order to save themselves from " lawless rule,"

154 THREE MEAT OF LETTERS

are forced to repudiate their allegiance to Eng
land, and to assert an untrammelled national
life. Then, as Columbus continues to gaze into
the darkness, the central cloud bursts and
moves away, giving to him a sudden view of
the continental congress in full session in the
"throng'd city" of Penn, of the several free-
minded and indomitable communities which
its members represent, and of " their endeavors
to arrest the violence of England." As these
endeavors prove futile, " the demon War " is
seen " stalking over the ocean," leading against
America the English forces :

" Slow, dark, portentous, 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 billow
ing 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 glume 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.
Perch'd on his helmet, two twin sisters rode,

JOEL BARLOW 155

The favorite offspring of the murderous god, —

Famine and Pestilence ; . . .

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 Lawrence to the Georgian flood,
Point their black batteries to the peopled shore,
And spouting flames commence the hideous

roar." l

As Columbus and his conductor continue
to gaze upon this far-off scene of havoc, of
gigantic destruction, of portentous cruelty,
they witness what proves to be a prophetic
rehearsal of all the great events of the Ameri
can Revolutionary War, — the conflagration of
towns along the coast from Falmouth to Nor
folk ; the Battle of Bunker Hill; the arrival
of Washington to take command of the
American forces before Boston ; the death of
Montgomery under the walls of Quebec ; the
loss of New York ; Washington's retreat across
the Delaware ; his brilliant and victorious
1 Book v., 471-498.

156 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

exploit in return ; the cruelties inflicted on
American prisoners by the British in their
prison ships ; Burgoyne's invasion, defeat, sur
render ; the interposition of France, and the
renewal of the struggle under her assistance ;
finally, the investiture of Yorktown, and the
surrender of Lord Cornwallis and his army.
At the end of all this military tumult, blend
ing " the groans of death and battle's bray,"
" the drum's rude clang, the war wolf's hideous
howl," — the description of which fills three
books, — the author, as a matter of course,
addresses a hymn to Peace, proclaiming his
own delight in the privilege, at last, of cele
brating her victories.

But not at once is the poet permitted to
yield his verse to the service of merely joyous
and unimperilled peace ; and addressing in his
own person his fellow-countrymen as they
emerge from the Revolutionary War, he says:

" Think not, my friends, the patriot's task is done,
Or Freedom safe, because the battle 's won." 1

Peace, he tells them, hath her responsibilities
and her dangers, no less than her delights; and

1 Book viii., 79-80.

JOEL BARLOW 157

the treasure of civic freedom which they have
now gained through so much suffering, they
may lose again through too much confidence
and through too little care. He solemnly
summons them to the exercise of the highest
virtues of men and of patriots ; and he im
plores them above all things to enquire
whether they, Americans, the loud-voiced
champions before all the world, of the prin
ciple of freedom for man, are not themselves,
even then, guilty of a most atrocious and a
most damning violation of that vaunted prin
ciple. At this reference to the ineffable crime
then perpetrated by Americans upon Africans,
there follows a passage of genuine poetic
sublimity : it is the tremendous expostula
tion of Atlas, the guardian-genius of Africa,
addressed to Hesper, the guardian-genius of
America :

" Hark ! a dread voice, with heaven-astounding

strain,
Swells like a thousand thunders o'er the main.

't is Atlas, throned sublime,

Great brother guardian of old Afric's clime ;
High o'er his coast he rears his frowning form,

158 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

O'erlooks and calms his sky-borne fields of storm,
Flings off the clouds that round his shoulders

hung,

And breaks from clogs of ice his trembling tongue ;
While far thro' space with rage and grief he

glares,
Heaves his hoar head and shakes the heaven he

bears :

-' Son of my sire ! Oh latest brightest birth
That sprang from his fair spouse, prolific Earth !
Great Hesper, say what sordid ceaseless hate
Impels thee thus to mar my elder state.
Our sire assign' d thee thy more glorious reign,
Secured and bounded by our laboring main, —
That main (tho' still my birthright name it bear)
Thy sails o'ershadow, thy brave children share.
I grant it thus ; while air surrounds the ball,
Let breezes blow, let oceans roll for all.
But thy proud sons, a strange ungenerous race,
Enslave my tribes, and each fair world disgrace,
Provoke wide vengeance in their lawless land,
The bolt ill placed in thy forbearing hand.' "

As he continues to describe and to denounce
the insolence and the inhumanity of the vast
institutional crime perpetrated, age after age,
upon the people of Africa by America's
" strange ungenerous race," the angry Titan
waxes every moment angrier and still more
angry, under the effects of his own eloquence ;

JOEL BARLOW 159

and his ever-accumulating wrath explodes in a
series of grim, huge taunts — such, indeed, as
any right-minded Titan would very naturally
give way to — over the contrast then to be seen,
between the lofty political pretensions of the
American patriots, and that most foul perform
ance of theirs in actual life :

" Enslave my tribes ! then boast their cantons free,
Preach faith and justice, bend the sainted knee,
Invite all men their liberty to share ?

Enslave my tribes ! what half mankind imban,
Then read, expound, enforce the rights of man ?
Prove plain and clear how nature's hand of old
Cast all men equal in her human mould ?

Write, speak, avenge, for ancient sufferings feel,
Impale each tyrant on their pens of steel,
Declare how freemen can a world create,
And slaves and masters ruin every state ?
Enslave my tribes ! and think with dumb disdain,
To 'scape this arm and prove my vengeance vain ?
But look ! methinks beneath my foot I ken
A few chain'd things that seem no longer men, —
Thy sons, perchance, whom Barbary's coast can tell
The sweets of that loved scourge they wield so
well."

1 Book viii., 214-240.

l6o THREE MEN OF LETTERS

The hint, lurking in those four lines, of some
bitter retaliation in kind to be inflicted by Af
rica upon America, leads up to a vivid prophecy
of the sufferings of American captives at the
hands of the Barbary pirates. If, however, this
retaliation be not sufficient, it shall prove, con
tinues the Titan, but the beginning of a penal
vengeance that will certainly be subject to no
imputation of incompleteness :

" Nor shall these pangs atone the nation's crime ;
Far heavier vengeance in the march of time,
Attends them still, if still they dare debase
And hold enthrall'd the millions of my race, —
A vengeance that shall shake the world's deep

frame,
That heaven abhors, and hell might shrink to

name." ]

The threat of final and all-sufficing vengeance,
which the guardian genius of Africa then hurls
across the ocean at his offending brother, the
guardian genius of America, has indeed a very
impressive energy and sublimity. Deep down
" in earth's mid caves," where the very bases of
the Alps and of the Andes meet together, and

1 Bookviii., 261-266.

JOEL BARLOW l6l

" lock their granite feet," are already " caul-
dron'd floods of fire," — which fire, says Atlas :

" Waits but the fissure that my wave shall find,
To force the foldings of the rocky rind,
Crash your curst continent, and wheel on high
The vast avulsion vaulting thro' the sky,
Fling far the bursting fragments, scattering wide
Rocks, mountains, nations o'er the burning tide."

So complete shall be this avenging cataclysm,
that the whole continental barrier hitherto in
terposed between the Atlantic and the Pacific
Oceans, shall be devoured, and nothing be left
visible save

" Two oceans dasht in one — that climbs and roars,
And seeks in vain the exterminated shores."

Nothing shall be left visible, indeed, of all
that proud, crime-enacting continent, except a
single, solitary crag jutting out above the deso
late fury of the waters :

" A dim lone island in the watery waste
Mourns all his minor mountains wreck'd and hurl'd,
Stands the sad relic of a ruin'd world,
Attests the wrath our Mother kept in store,
And rues her judgments on the race she bore,"

1 62 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

And in this void and desolation, henceforth,
no living thing shall stir, save only that imperial
Eagle which the people thus annihilated had
once dared to claim as their own :

" His own bald Eagle skims alone the sky,
Darts from all points of heaven her searching eye,
Kens thro' the gloom her ancient rock of rest,
And finds her cavern'd crag, her solitary nest." '

At the conclusion of this prodigious protest
against the crime of American slavery, — a pro
test, the conception of which is in a very high
degree majestic and poetic, — the author speaks
once more in his real character; and with a
noble intensity of passion, he implores his fel
low-countrymen, themselves just emerging in
triumph from a war for freedom, not to deny
to others that freedom which they had so well
won for themselves :

" Fathers and friends, I know the boding fears
Of angry genii and of rending spheres
Assail not souls like yours, whom Science bright
Thro' shadowy nature leads with surer light ;
For whom she strips the heavens of love and hate,
Strikes from Jove's hand the brandisht bolt of
fate,

l Book viii., 271-304,

JOEL BARLOW 163

Gives each effect its own indubious cause,
Divides her moral from her physic laws,
Shows where the virtues find their nurturing food,
And men their motives to be just and good.
You scorn the Titan's threat ; nor shall I strain
The powers of pathos in a task so vain
As Afric's wrongs to sing ; for what avails
To harp for you these known familiar tales ?
To tongue mute misery, and re-rack the soul
With crimes oft copied from that bloody scroll
Where Slavery pens her woes ? — tho' 't is but there
We learn the weight that moral pain can bear.
The tale might startle still the accustomed ear.

Melt every heart, and thro' the nation gain

Full many a voice to break the barbarous chain." '

But not alone to the compassion of his breth
ren will he appeal, but rather and especially to
their self-respect, and to their homage for that
ancient and unpitying law whereunder he who
takes freedom from another, takes it likewise
from himself :

" Tyrants are never free ; and, small and great,
All masters must be tyrants soon or late ;
So nature works ; and oft the lordling knave
Turns out at once a tyrant and a slave.

Ah ! would you not be slaves, with lords and kings,
1 Bookviii., 309-330.

164 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Then be not masters, — there the danger springs.

The whole crude system that torments the earth,

Of rank, privation, privilege of birth,

False honor, fraud, corruption, civil jars,

The rage of conquest and the curse of wars,

Pandora's total shower, all ills combined

That erst o'erwhelm'd and still distress mankind,

Box'd up secure in your deliberate hand,

Wait your bequest, to fix or fly this land.

Equality of Right is nature's plan ;

And following nature is the march of man." ]

Rallying from this strong and not inharmo
nious digression, the poem once more resumes
its natural course, and flows on and on to
its many-membered close, through two more
books, — during which our most affable, erudite,
and philosophical Titan reveals to Columbus
the gradual advancement of mankind in all the
great elements and attributes of civilization ;
likewise explains to him nature's law of pro
gress, " from the birth of the universe to the
present state of the earth and its inhabitants " ;
and after much more instructive discourse on
politics, philosophy, history, chemistry, physics,
constitutional law, and mechanical inventions,

'Book viii., 335-364.

JOEL BARLOW l6$

not altogether omitting the Hanseatic league,
Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Herschel,
Descartes, Bacon, the magnetic needle, and the
printing-press, he exhibits to him with a lim
ning of quite undisturbed optimism, the com
plete success of the federal system in America, /
the extension of that system over all the earth,/
and at last, in one august dissolving view]
the millenium of cosmopolitan statesmanship
through " a general congress of all nation's,
assembled to establish the political harmony
of mankind." l

V.

However great may be the faults to be found
with the execution of this poem, it is hardly
possible to deny that its idea, at any rate, is
both poetic and noble ; it is to connect, in a
work of high imaginative literature, all that is
beneficent and soul-stirring in the aggregate
contribution made by America to the general
stock of the world's welfare, with all that is
heroic and pathetic in the career of him, the
undismayed idealist, the saint, the admiral of

1 Book x., Argument.

1 66 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

boundless faith and sorrow, who made Amer
ica known to the rest of the world.

Barlow's earlier and less ambitious project
for his poem, as seen in his draft written in
1779, was the wiser one : " The poem will be
rather of the philosophic than epic kind." '
Even eight years afterward, at the time of its
first publication, he still saw that, as the stu
pendous consequences of the discovery of
America could be represented to Columbus
only in vision,2 so such representation would
be likely to produce, not a real story, but
merely a succession of scenes painted on the
air, too impalpable and flitting, as well as too
disconnected, for the purposes of an epic. No
title for the poem, therefore, could have been
better than its first title, " The Vision of Colum
bus " ; because, being perfectly accurate, it was
also quite unpretentious, and involved no haz
ards by a challenge which might result in dis
comfiture and derision. Unfortunately, in his
final reconstruction of the poem, this sane
thought seems to have yielded to the cravings

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 15.

2 " The Vision of Columbus," Introcl., 20, fifth ed. London :
1794.

JOEL BARLOW IO/

of an inordinate literary ambition ; and by the
new title which he gave to his work, and by its
new prelude, and by its new supernatural ma
chinery of river gods and other clumsy and
incongruous imitations of Homer and Virgil,
he claimed for his poem the awful honors
of an epic, and thereby invoked upon it liter
ary comparisons and critical tests which it
could not endure. Nay, it may perhaps be
said, that the very pomp and opulence of typo
graphical costume which attended its re-en
trance into the world, its grandiose and too
prosperous equipment, even its physical mag
nitude — its arrogant and preposterous bigness,
as a mere book, — all had the effect of averting
sympathy and of inviting scorn, as though it
were an attempt by mere bulk and bravado
and good clothes to overawe the sentinels who
guard the approaches to Parnassus.

Better would it have been, both for the poem
and for the poet, if, in his later revision of the
work, he had attempted no change in its essen
tial character. A philosophical poem exhibit
ing, under the device of a vision seen by the
discoverer of America, the vast and benign

l68 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

function assigned to the New World in the
development of mankind, might have deserved
and received in our literature the homage at
least of serious consideration. Of course,
never upon any plan could the poem have
taken rank as a work of genius, or have es
caped the penalties of the author's great liter
ary defects. Under any character, it would
have had no tender or delicate qualities, no
lightness of touch, no flashes of beauty, not a
ripple of humor, no quiet and dainty charm ;
a surfeit, rather, of vehemence and proclama
tion, — sonorous, metallic, rhetorical ; forced
description, manufactured sentiment, sublimity
generated of pasteboard and starch ; an ever-
rolling tattoo of declamation, invective, eulogy;
big, gaudy flowers of poetry which are also
flowers of wax. Moreover, not even genius
could have saved this poem from the literary
disaster involved in its adoption of that con
ventional poetic diction and of that worn-out
metrical form from which, after a whole century
of favor, English literature was just then turn
ing away in a recoil of weariness and disgust.
And yet, with all his limitations as a poet,

JOEL BARLOW 169

the author of " The Columbiad " is entitled to
the praise due to a sturdy and effective ethical
teacher in verse. In didactic expression, the
poem is often epigrammatic, trenchant, and
strong ; nay, in strenuous moral exposition and
enforcement, it is at times even noble and im
pressive. Everywhere is the author faithful
to the great object of his poem, namely, " to
inculcate the love of rational liberty, and to
discountenance the deleterious passion for vio
lence and war ; to show that on the basis of the
republican principle all good morals, as well
as good government and hopes of permanent
peace, must be founded ; and to convince the
student in political science that the theoretical
question of the future advancement of human
society ... is held in dispute and still unset
tled only because we have had too little
experience of organized liberty in the govern
ment of nations, to have well considered its
effects." ' Everywhere in the poem one finds
an invincible hope for human liberty, for the
victories of reason, for the ultimate conquest
of moral evil in the world. It represents, too,

1 " The Columbiad," Preface, x.

A

THREE MEN OF LETTERS

the manifold intellectual aspirations of the time
in which he lived, its scientific progress, its
mechanical ingenuity and daring, its wish to
reject all degrading forms of faith, the un
quenchable confidence of human nature in the
final and happy solution of all those problems
that then pained the earth with their unutter
able menace. Finally, there breathes through
the poem the most genuine love of country.
In the eyes of this writer America is, by favor
of Heaven, the superior land of all the earth.
His love for America is something more than
a clannish instinct, something better than the
mere greed of provincialism ; and this huge po
litical and philosophical essay in verse, the writ
ing of which formed the one real business of
Barlow's life, may be accepted by us, whether
we are proud of the fact or not, as an involun
tary expression, for that period, of the Ameri
can national consciousness and even of the
American national character itself, as sincere,
and as unflinching as were, in their different
ways, the renowned state-paper of Jefferson,
the constitution of 1789, and Washington's
farewell address.

JOEL BARLOW 17!

VI.

Respecting the minor writings of Joel Barlow,
we may note, in passing, two products of his
callow academic muse : " An Elegy on the late
Honorable Titus Hosmer, Esquire," in 1780' ;
and "A Poem" spoken at the Public Commence
ment at Yale College, in I78i.2 Eleven years
after the latter date, when he had acquired
something like reputation by his " Vision of
Columbus," and something like notoriety by
his active political radicalism in England and in
France, he published a poetical diatribe entitled
" The Conspiracy of Kings." : The poem is of
the kind called satire ; attempts to catch the
tone of Juvenal ; aims to be very exasperating,
even appalling ; somehow succeeds in being only
abusive ; emits mere howls of metrical vituper
ation against those unhappy gentlemen—

" for blood and plunder famed,
Sultans, or Kings, or Czars, or Emp'rors named,"

1 "American Poems," 108-117.

2 Ibid., 94-107.

3 " The Columbian Muse," i-io, where it is printed without
the " Preface " and " Note on Mr. Burke," both of which are
given in " The Political Writings of Joel Barlow," 237-258.

172 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

and especially against their triumphant literary
champion, Edmund Burke.

Late in the year 1792, Barlow, who had been
made by the National Convention a citizen of
France — an honor then bestowed on no other
American except Washington and Hamilton
—went by invitation into Savoy, in the hope
of being returned for the new Department
of Mont Blanc as one of its deputies in
the National Convention. At Chambery he
remained several weeks, captivated by its
scenery, finding great refreshment in the sim
ple life of its people, and every day, amid
its green mountain slopes and its pretty farm
houses, reminded of his own early life among
the hills of western Connecticut. Writing to
his wife, he said: " With you and a little
farm among these romantic mountains and
valleys, I could be happy, content ; I would
care no more for the pleasures of the plain.
But America — the word is sweetness to my
soul ; it awakens all the tenderness of my
nature." ' In this mood of patriotic reminis
cence and of longing for home, it happened

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 99.

JOEL BARLOW 173

to him, one evening, as he sat down to supper
" under the smoky rafters of a Savoyard inn,"
to find steaming hot upon the table the favor
ite dish of his own New England — " Hasty-
Pudding," — a dish for which he had many a
time enquired in vain in London and Paris.
The exile's heart was touched ; and with
genuine enthusiasm, and in lucky disregard
of his usual poetic stilts, he then produced the
one really popular poem he ever wrote, — the
famous mock pastoral which bears the name of
the dish that had so inspired him, and which
in its opening lines preserves a glimpse of
the romantic Italian scene wherein it was
written, even as it is pervaded throughout
by the homely tones and tints of domestic
life in colonial New England :

" Ye 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 unfurled,
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.

Dear Hasty-Pudding, what unpromised joy

1/4 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

Expands my heart to meet thee in Savoy !
Doomed o'er the world through devious paths to

roam,

Each clime my country, and each house my home,
My soul is soothed, my cares have found an end,
I greet my long-lost, unforgotten friend.

For thee through Paris, that corrupted town,
How long in vain I wandered up and down,
Where shameless Bacchus, with his drenching

hoard

Cold from his cave, usurps the morning board.
London is lost in smoke, and steeped in tea ;
No Yankee there can lisp the name of thee.
The uncouth word, a libel on the town,
Would call a proclamation from the Crown.

But here, though distant from our native shore,
With mutual glee we meet and laugh once more.
The same ! I know thee by that yellow face,
That strong complexion of true Indian race,
Which time can never change, nor soil impair,
Nor Alpine snows, nor Turkey's morbid air ;

My song, resounding in its grateful glee,

No merit claims, — I praise myself in thee.

My father loved thee through his length of days !

For thee his fields were shaded o'er with maize ;

From thee what health, what vigor he possessed,

Ten sturdy freemen from his loins attest.

Thy constellation ruled my natal morn,

1

• ' f

JOEL BARffiw

175

And all my bones were made of Indian corn.

Delicious grain ! whatever from it take,

To roast or boil, to smother or to bake,

In every dish 't is welcome still to me,

But most, my Hasty-Pudding ! most in thee." '

VII.

The field of literature in which Barlow seems
to have been capable of real mastership was
that of prose, — particularly in the forms of his
tory and argumentative discussion ; and his
laborious and life-long devotion to poetry
merely illustrates a tendency occasionally to
be seen in the history of men of letters — the
tendency to mistake the whispers of ambition
for the invitations of genius. Certainly Barlow
was a robust, sagacious, and very able man ;
he had wide and enlightened sympathies, an
extraordinary capacity for practical affairs
either in finance, politics, or diplomacy, and a
many-sidedness of intellectual activity and ac
complishment which might, perhaps, justify

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 99-108, where the poem is given
entire. A better copy, as having the " Preface" and the
original division into three Cantos, may be read in Burton,
" Cyclopaedia of Wit and Humor," i,, 19-22,

i;6 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

the title of " universal genius," which an emi
nent historian has lately given to him1 ; but, as
a man of letters, his real aptitude lay in a di
rection in which his work, at the time of his
premature death, had been only incidental.
Had his life been spared — and it was laid down
deliberately in the cause of his country and for
the peace of the world — he would probably
have found his true literary vocation in the
writing of that history of the American Revo
lution, which Jefferson had long urged him to
undertake.

Perhaps the two least significant specimens
of his work as a prose writer are a pair of ora
tions, which were produced under special temp
tations to rhetorical effusion and aridity, — the
one for the Fourth of July, i^S/,2 the other for
the Fourth of July, iScx).3

During his long residence abroad, he had two
or three periods of activity as a prose writer,
and chiefly in the discussion of political ques
tions. His year of greatest productiveness
seems to have been 1792, during which he

1 H. Adams, " Hist. U. S.," i., no-ni.

2 Niles, " Prin. and Acts," etc., 384-389.

3 Pamphlet, 1809.

JOEL BARLOW 1 77

wrote portions of the notes, and perhaps the
preface, for a London edition of Trumbull's
" M'Fingal " ; likewise, " Advice to the Privi
leged Orders in the Several States of Europe,
resulting from the Necessity and Propriety of a
General Revolution in the Principle of Govern
ment,01— the most elaborate, and upon the
whole, the ablest of his prose writings ; also,
"A Letter to the National Convention of
France, on the Defects in the Constitution of
1791, and the Extent of the Amendments
which ought to be Applied ; " 2 finally, "A Let
ter to the People of Piedmont, on the Advan
tages of the French Revolution, and the Neces
sity of adopting its Principles in Italy." 3

Toward the close of the last decade of the
eighteenth century, his mind seems to have
turned with uncommon interest to the affairs

1 Part I., London, 1792. Part II., though written in 1792,
was not published, owing to the interference of the govern
ment, until 1795, when it was " Printed and Sold by Daniel
Isaac Eaton, Printer and Bookseller to the Supreme Majesty
of the People, at the Cock and Swine, No. 74 Newgate Street."
Part II. did not complete the work. A copy is in " The
Political Writings of Joel Barlow," pp. iii.-xvi., 17-157.

2 London, 1792. Also in Barlow's " Political Writings,"
156-198.

3 Barlow's " Political Writings," 199-235.

1/8 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

of his own country, as is shown, for example,
by his pamphlet published in London in 1800,
entitled "A View of the Public Debt, Receipts,
and Expenditures of the United States," as
well as by his first and second " Letter from
Paris to the Citizens of the United States,"
the one in 1800 and the other in 1801.

In 1806, after his return to America, he pub
lished " Prospectus of a National Institution to
be established in the United States," ' — an ably
written and a very impressive scheme for a
grand national university, to be founded at the
capital, with the most enlightened and liberal
provision both for original research and for in
struction.

Perhaps nowhere else in his writings does
Barlow appear to better advantage than he
does in nearly the last product of his pen, — his
" Letter to Henry Gregoire, Bishop, Senator,
Compte of the Empire, and Member of the In
stitute of France, in reply to his Letter on the
Columbiad."2 This brochure, which is an ex
pression of the author's whole mind and char-

1 Pamphlet, printed anonymously. Washington, 1806.

2 Washington, D. C., 1809; and reprinted, though without
the full title, in " Life and Letters," etc., 221-233,

JOEL BARLOW 179

acter at a time when both had reached their
highest point of ripeness and of gentle wisdom,
can hardly fail to renew and to enlarge one's
impression, not only of Barlow's intellectual
ability, but of the breadth and beauty of his
spirit. It is a model, also, of courteous theo
logical discussion, furnishing, as he himself said,
" one example of the calmness and candor with
which a dispute may be conducted, even on the
subject of religion." ' Moreover, it is of espe
cial interest for the authentic indications it
affords as to Barlow's attitude toward Christian
ity, — a matter upon which he had been greatly^

/ /' '
misrepresented. He avows himself as still ad- f

hering, " from a conviction that they are right,"^u vvt
to the religious sect in which he was born and ^u%Jj
educated 2 ; and he solemnly denies the charges
of religious apostasy which had been made
against him in America by his political ene-(J~^^u
mies. " It has even been said and published.
. . . that I went to the bar of your Con
vention, when it was the fashion so to do, and
made a solemn recantation of my Christian
faith, declaring myself an atheist or deist, or

J " Life and Letters," etc., 233. 2 Ibid., 223.

180 THREE MEN OF LETTERS

some other anti-Christian apostate. . . . Now,
as an active member of that Convention,
a steady attendant at their sittings, and my
most intimate friend, you know that such a
thing could not have been done without your
knowledge ; you know therefore that it was not
done ; you know I never went but once to the
bar of that Convention, which was on the oc
casion to which you allude in the letter now
before me, to present an address from the Con
stitutional Society in London, of which I was
a member. You know I always sympathized
in your grief, and partook of all your resent
ment, while such horrors and blasphemies were
passing, of which these typographical cannibals
of reputation have made me a participant."
" You will see that I have nothing to do with
the unbelievers who have attacked the Chris
tian system, either before the French Revolu
tion, or during, or since that monumental
period. I am not one of them."2

1 " Life and Letters," etc., 230-231. 2 Ibid., 228.

LIST OF BOOKS,

AND OTHER PRINTED DOCUMENTS, CITED IN

THE FOREGOING WORK, WITH PLACES

AND DATES OF PUBLICATION.

ADAMS, HENRY, History of the United States of America.
Nine volumes.
New York : 1890-1891.

AMERICA, or, A Poem on the Settlement of the British
Colonies addressed to the Friends of Freedom and their
Country. By a Gentleman educated at Yale College.
New Haven : n. d.

[The only copy of this poem known to me is in the Public
Library of Boston].

AMERICAN POEMS, Selected and Original.

Litchfield : 1793.
[Only one vol. was issued. This was published anonymously ;

but the editor is known to have been Elihu Hubbard

Smith].

BARLOW, JOEL, Dr. Watts's Imitation of the Psalms of David,
Corrected and Enlarged by Joel Barlow. To which is
added a Collection of Hymns ; the Whole applied to the
State of the Christian Church in General. The Third Ed.
Hartford : n. d.

181

1 82 LIST OF BOOKS CITED

BARLOW, JOEL, A Translation of Sundry Psalms which were
omitted in Doctor Watts's Version ; To which is added a
Number of Hymns. The whole contained in the New
Edition of Psalms and Hymns.
Hartford : 1785.

[Separately printed thus, to show just what Barlow had done
for the new edition. Not given in Todd's list].

BARLOW, JOEL, The Vision of Columbus. A Poem, in Nine
Books. The Fi
London : 1794.

Books. The Fifth Ed. Corrected.

BARLOW, JOEL, Editor, with others, of M'Fingal : A Modern
Epic Poem, in Four Cantos. The Fifth Ed., with Ex
planatory Notes.
London : 1792.

[Author's name given in Preface. Names of editors not given].

BARLOW, JOEL, A Letter to the National Convention of
France, on the Defects of the Constitution of 1791, and
the Extent of the Amendments which ought to be
Applied.
London : 1792.

BARLOW, JOEL, Advice to the Privileged Orders in the several
States of Europe, Resulting from the Necessity and
Propriety of a General Revolution in the Principle of
Government.

Part i., without author's name. London : 1792.
Part ii., with author's name. London : 1795.

[The last three Chapters of the work, as originally projected,
appear never to have been published].

BARLOW, JOEL, The Political Writings of. Containing
Advice to the Privileged Orders, Letter to the National
Convention, Letter to the People of Piedmont, The
Conspiracy of Kings. A New Ed. Corrected.
New York : 1794.

LIST OF BOOKS CITED 183

BARLOW, JOEL, Letter from Paris to the Citizens of the
United States on the subject of the fallacy heretofore
pursued by their government relative to the commercial
intercourse with England and France.
London : 1800. 4

BARLOW, JOEL, View of the Public Debt, Receipts and
Expenditures of the United States.
London : 1800.

BARLOW, JOEL, Second Letter to his fellow-citizens of the
United States on certain political measures proposed to
their consideration.
New York : 1801.

BARLOW, JOEL, Prospectus of a National Institution to be
established in the United States.
Washington : 1806.

BARLOW, JOEL, The Columbiad, A Poem.
Philadelphia : 1807.

BARLOW, JOEL, An Oration, delivered at Washington, July
4th, 1809.
Washington : 1809.

BARLOW, JOEL, Letter to Henry Gregoire, Bishop, Senator,
Compte of the Empire, and Member of the Institute of
France, in reply to his Letter on " The Columbiad."
Washington : 1809.

[A copy of this Letter is in the Library of the New York
Historical Society, where I read it ; but in quoting from
it, I have used the reprint as given by Todd, in his " Life
and Letters of Joel Barlow," 221-233].

BEARDSLEY, EBEN EDWARDS, Life and Correspondence of
Samuel Johnson, D.D., Missionary of the Church of Eng
land in Connecticut, and First President of King's Col
lege, N. Y.
New York : 1874.

1 84 LIST OF BOOKS CITED

BERKELEY, GEORGE, The Works of. Edited by A. C. Fraser.
Three volumes. Oxford : 1871.

BURTON, WILLIAM EVANS, The Cyclopaedia of Wit and
Humor.
•Two volumes. New York : 1858.

THE COLUMBIAN MUSE. A Selection of American Poetry,
from Various Authors of Established Reputation.
New York : 1794.

COWPER, WILLIAM, The Works of, Comprising his Poems,
Correspondence, and Translations, With a Life of the
Author by the Editor, Robert Southey.
Eight volumes. London : 1854.

D WIGHT, TIMOTHY, The Conquest of Canaan ; A Poem, in
Eleven Books.
Hartford : 1785.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, The Triumph of Infidelity: A Poem.

Printed in the World : 1788.
[Without the name of author or publisher, or of the exact

place of publication],

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, Greenfield Hill : A Poem, in Seven
Parts.
New York : 1794.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, The Nature and Danger of Infidel
Philosophy, Exhibited in Two Discourses, Addressed to
the Candidates for the Baccalaureate in Yale College.
. . . September gth, 1797.
New Haven : 1798.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, A Discourse, delivered at New Haven
Feb. 22, 1800, On the Character of George Washington,
Esq. At the Request of the Citizens.
New Haven ; 1800.

LIST OF BOOKS CITED 185

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, A Discourse on Some Events of the Last
century, Delivered in the Brick Church in New Haven,
on Wednesday, January 7, 1801.
New Haven : 1801.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY : The Psalms of David, Imitated in the
Language of the New Testament, and applied to the
Christian Use and Worship. By I. Watts, D.D. A new
Edition, in which the Psalms omitted by Dr. Watts are
versified, Local Passages are altered, and a Number of
Psalms are versified anew, in proper Metres. By Timothy
Dwight, D.D., President of Yale College. At the Re
quest of the General Association of Connecticut. To the
Psalms is added a Collection of Hymns.
Hartford : 1801.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, Observations on Language, Published
in Memoirs of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and
Sciences, vol. i., part iv., 365-386.
New Haven : 1816.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, On Light. Published in Memoirs of the
Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, vol. i., part
iv., 387-392.
New Haven : 1816.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, Travels in New England and New York.
4 volumes. London: 1823.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, Sermons.

2 volumes. Edinburgh : 1828.

DWIGHT, TIMOTHY, Theology Explained and Defended in a

Series of Sermons. With a Memoir of the Life of the

Author.

4 volumes. New York : 1854.
[The Memoir was written by President Dwight's two sons,

Sereno Edwards Dwight, and William Theodore Dwight.]

1 86 LfST OF BOOKS CITED

FISHER, GEORGE PARK, Discussions in History and Phi
losophy.
New York : 1880.

FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, Life and Letters of George
Berkeley, D.D., Formerly Bishop of Cloyne.
Oxford: 1871.

FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, editor. See the Works of
George Berkeley.

FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL, Berkeley.

Philadelphia and Edinburgh : 1881.
[Of the series of Philosophical Classics for English Readers.]

GILMAN, DANIEL COIT, Bishop Berkeley's Gifts to Yale
College. A Collection of Documents Illustrative of
' The Dean's Bounty.' In Papers of the New Haven
Colony Historical Society, i., 147-170.
New Haven : 1865.

[Contains list of the Berkeleyan " scholars of the house " from
1733 to 1865, — thus supplementing the list given in The
Yale Literary Magazine for 1852].

GOODRICH, SAMUEL GRISWOLD, Recollections of a Lifetime.
Two volumes. New York : 1857.

GRISWOLD, RUFUS WILMOT, The Poets and Poetry of
America. With an Historical Introduction.
Fourth Edition, Revised.
Philadelphia : 1843.

HAYLEY, WILLIAM, The Life and Letters of William Cowper,
Esq. With Remarks on Epistolary Writers.
A New Edition. 4 volumes. Chichester : 1809.

HUMPHREYS, DAVID, The Miscellaneous Works of.
1st ed. New York : 1790.
2d ed. New York : 1794.

LIST OF BOOKS CITED 1 87

HUMPHREYS, DAVID, An Essay on the Life of the Honourable
Major-General Israel Putnam. With an Appendix con
taining an historical and topographical Sketch of Bunker
Hill Battle, by S. Swett.
Boston : 1818.

HUMPHREYS, FREDERICK, The Humphreys Family in America.
New York : 1883.

JOHNSTON, HENRY PHELPS, Yale and Her Honor Roll in the
American Revolution. 1775-1783.
New York: 1888.

KETTELL, SAMUEL, Specimens of American Poetry, With
Critical and Biographical Notices.
Three volumes. Boston : 1829.

MORRIS, GEORGE S., British Thought and Thinkers ; Intro
ductory Studies, Critical, Biographical, and Philosophical.
Chicago: 1880.

THE NEW HAVEN COLONY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, PAPERS OF.
New Haven : 1865.

NILES, HEZEKIAH, Principles and Acts of the Revolution in
America.
Baltimore : 1822.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA :
Their History, Condition, and Management. Special
Report. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Edu
cation.
Part I. Washington : 1876.

THE RHODE ISLA'ND HISTORICAL SOCIETY, COLLECTIONS OF.
Volume iv. Providence : 1838.

SPRAGUE, WILLIAM BUEL, Life of Timothy Dwight. The
Library of American Biography. Conducted by Jared
Sparks. Second Series, iv., 223-364.
Boston: 1845.

1 88 LIST OF BOOKS CITED

SPRAGUE, WILLIAM BUEL, Annals of the American Pulpit.
Volume ii. New York : 1859.

TODD, CHARLES BURR, Life and Letters of Joel Barlow,
LL.D. Poet, Statesman, Philosopher. With Extracts
from his Works and hitherto unpublished Poems.
New York and London : 1886.

TURELL, EBENEZER, The Life and Character of the Reverend
Benjamin Colman, D.D.
Boston : 1749.

UEBERWEG, FRIEDRICH, A History of Philosophy, From
Thales to the Present Time. Translated from the Fourth
German Edition, by George S. Morris. With Additions
by Noah Porter.
New York : vol. i., 1872 ; vol. ii., 1874.

UPDIKE, WILKINS, Memoirs of the Rhode Island Bar.
Boston : 1842.

UPDIKE, WILKINS, History of the Episcopal Church in Narra-
gansett, Rhode Island.
New York: 1847.

THE YALE LITERARY MAGAZINE, for February, 1852.
New Haven : 1852.

INDEX.

Abercrombie, James, 153

Adams, John, the poet, 50

Addison, Joseph, his friendship for Berkeley, 17

"Advice to the Privileged Orders," ablest of Barlow's prose
writings, 177

" Alciphron," Berkeley's most famous literary work, written at
" Whitehall," 9, 62 ; shows reaction upon Berkeley's mind
of his American visit, 43-44

"America, A Poem," criticism of Griswold's statement attri
buting this to Dwight, 79-80, note

Amherst, Jeffrey, 153

Andre, Major John, his arrest, 138-139; his execution, 139-
140

Aquinas, Thomas, 13

Arfevedsen, 63

Arnold, Benedict, 138, 139 ; Barlow's sermon on his treason,
140-142

Arnold, Matthew, 63

Atterbury, Francis, Bishop of Rochester, praises Berkeley, 18

Atwater, Jeremiah, 55

Augustine, 13

Austin, Samuel, 55

Bacon, 165

Baldwin, Abraham, 55

189

1 90 INDEX.

Barlow, Joel, in New Haven in 1779, 152-133 ; his letters to
Noah Webster on the difficulties of a literary career in
America, 133-134 ; David Humphreys intercedes for him
with General Greene, 135-136 ; he becomes chaplain in
the army, 136; his experiences as depicted in his own
letters, 136-142 ; witnesses the execution of Major Andre,
139-140 ; works on his poem, " The Vision of Columbus,"
141-142 ; his earliest plan for this poem, 142-143 ; fails
to get it published in 1782, 143, 144 ; his miscellaneous
employments for the next five years, 144-145 ; his revi
sion of Dr. Watts's psalm-book, 98-99, note, 144 ; pub
lishes his "Vision of Columbus" in 1787, 145 ; its final
revision and publication in 1807 as " The Columbiad,"
146-147 ; outline of the poem, 147-165 ; the idea of
"The Columbiad" both poetic and noble, 165-166; his
mistake in abandoning the earlier and simpler form of the
poem, 166-168 ; its faults, 168 ; its merits, 168-170 ; its
true character that of a huge philosophical and political
essay in verse, 170; both in its merits and in its defects a
fair expression of American national consciousness and
character at that time, 170 ; his minor writings, 171-
172; his " Conspiracy of Kings," 1792, 171-172; is
made a citizen of France by the National Convention,
172 ; candidate for the Convention from the Department
of Mont Blanc, 172 ; at Chambery writes his one popular
poem, " Hasty Pudding," 172-175 ; his true literary work,
in prose, especially in history and argumentative discus
sion, 175-176 ; by Jefferson's advice he plans a History
of the American Revolution, 176 ; his chief work as a
prose writer, 176-180; "Advice to the Privileged
Orders," 177 ; "A Letter to the National Convention of
France," 177; "A Letter to the People of Piedmont,"
177 ; later writings addressed to his own countrymen,
177-178 ; his " Letter to Henry Gregoire," in disavowal
of anti-Christian opinions or acts, 178-180

Barrow, Isaag. 13

INDEX. IQI

Bathurst, Lord, gives anecdote of Berkeley's enthusiasm,
31-32

Beardsley, The Rev. E. E., his historical and biographical
works, jo, note

Beattie, James, imitated by Dwight in " Greenfield Hill," 97

Beecher, Edward, 55

Benson, Joseph, 17

Berkeley, George, his early life, 12 ; distinct-ion as a student
and fellow at Trinity College, Dublin, 12 ; chief materials
relating to, 10, note ; his benevolent enthusiasm, 12-13 ;
the great range of his talents and accomplishments, 13 ;
as a preacher, 13-14 ; his early philosophical writings, 14,
note ; his ideal theory of the universe, 14 ; uses it to
refute atheism, 14-15 ; leaves college to study men and
their ways, 16 ; his acquaintance with Swift, Addison,
and Steele, 16-17 ; is admired by Pope, 17 ; is praised
by Atterbury, 18 ; his brilliant success in London society,
17-18 ; becomes chaplain and secretary to the Earl of
Peterborough, 18 ; his long sojourn upon the continent,
1 8, 19 ; direction of his thoughts fixed by the state of
affairs in Europe, 19 ; publishes " An Essay towards pre
venting the Ruin of Great Britain," 20 ; is convinced that
the corruptions of the Old World are incurable and por
tend some dire catastrophe, 20-21 ; turns from the Old
World to the New, 21 ; his plan for saving the latter from
the follies and crimes of the former, 21, 24-27 ; his belief
in America as the predestined seat of the world's civiliza
tion, 21—24 ; his celebrated poem embodying this dream,
22-23 ; believes religion and education are the two things
needful for realizing this dream, 24-25 ; resolves to found
a great American university, 25 ; his preparations therefor,
25-27 ; returns to Dublin as chaplain to the Lord-Lieuten
ant of Ireland, 27 ; becomes lecturer and preacher in Trin
ity College, 27-28 ; is made Dean of Dromore, 28 ; his
legacy from Dean Swift's " Vanessa," 28 ; becomes Dean
pf Derry in 1724, 28 ; goes to London to arrange for his

1 92 INDEX.

great project, 28-29 ; Dean Swift's letter to Lord Carteret
on his behalf, 28-30 ; his character, 29 ; publishes his
" Proposal," 30; his success, 31-33 ; his earnestness and
enthusiasm, 31-32 ; Parliamentary grant, 32-33 ; Wai-
pole's promise of twenty thousand pounds, 33 ; his reasons
for leaving England, 33-34 ; sails for America, 34-35 ;
his arrival at Newport in 1729, 4-6 ; his personal appear
ance and ways, 6 ; his settlement at " Whitehall," 6-7 ;
his manner of life here, 7-11 ; his sojourn here a subject
of mystery and suspicion at the time, 7-8 ; real import of
his American visit, 11-12 ; Walpole's delay and final
refusal to give the promised aid, 33-36 ; returns to Lon
don in 1731, 9, 37, 47 ; becomes Bishop of Cloyne, 37 ;
his disappointment, 37-38 ; the reaction upon his mind of
his American visit, 38-47 ; this reaction seen in his ser
mons, 38-43 ; his criticism upon New England life and
thought, 38-39 ; his teachings adjusted to the needs
of the people, 40-41 ; his social criticism, 41-42 ; this
reaction shown in " Alciphron," 43-44; in "Siris,"
44-47 ; publishes "Siris" in 1744, 44-45 ; character and
influence of this treatise, 45-46 ; his confidence in the
medicinal efficacy of tar-water becomes his master enthu
siasm, 46-47 ; effects of his visit as regards American life
and civilization, 47-59 ; effects upon intellectual activity
in the colonies, 48-59 ; his influence on the cultivated
society of Newport, 49-50 ; visited by philosophical and
other pilgrims, 50 ; gives stimulus to higher education in
America, 51-59 ; his friendship for existing American
colleges, 52-56 ; his generosity to Yale and Harvard,
53-56 ; Berkeleyan scholars at Yale, 54-55 ; his perma
nent interest in America, 56-59 ; suggests the plan of
King's College, 58-60 ; later American recognitions of his
influence, 60-62; his place in the long line of distinguished
European visitors to America, 62-64 ', failure of his dream
of preventing corruption in the New World, 64-65 ; his
remedy for corruption, 65-68

INDEX. 193

Berkeley, Lord, of Stratton, 12
Bernhardt, 63
Braddock, General, 153
Bremer, Fredrika, 63
Brissot de Warville, 63
Bristed, Charles Astor, 55
Brown, Daniel, 8
Bryce, James, 63
Buckminster, Joseph, 55

Burgoyne, invasion of, 156 ; Dwight's reputed sermon in con
nection with this event, 81-82, note
Burke, Edmund, 172

Burr, Aaron, President of Princeton College, 55
Butler, Joseph, 13

Carteret, Lord, letter from Dean Swift to, on behalf of

Berkeley, 28-30
Chastellux, 63
Chillingworth, William, 53
Chubb, Thomas, no
Clap, President of Yale, his estimate of the value of books

given to Yale by Berkeley, 56 ; his correspondence with

Berkeley, 57, 58
Collins, Anthony, no
Colman, Benjamin, letter to President of Yale in regard to

books given by Berkeley, 53
" Columbia," war-song by D wight, 82-84
Columbia College, founded by Samuel Johnson, 50 ; its plan

suggested by Berkeley, 58-59 ; its name, 58-60
"Columbiad," Barlow's "Vision of Columbus" as finally

revised and published in 1807 (see " Vision of Columbus"),

147-170

Combe, George, 63
" Conquest of Canaan," heroic poem by Dwight, written

between 1771 and 1774, 79, 85 ; published in 1785, 85-91
"Conspiracy of Kings," a satire by Barlow, 171-172
'3

194 INDEX.

Copernicus, 165

Cormvallis, surrender of, 156 ; D wight's sermon in connection

with this event, 82, note
Cowper, William, his criticism of " The Conquest of Canaan,"

87-91 ; praises Dwight's sermon on "The Dignity and

Excellency of the Gospel," 115
Cudworth, Ralph, 13
Cutler, Timothy, President of Yale College, 8

Daggett, Naphtali, 55

Deane, Silas, 55

Denham, Sir John, his "Cooper's Hill" furnishes plan for
Dwight's " Greenfield Hill," 92-93

Descartes, 165

Dickens, Charles, 63

Dwight, Sereno Edwards, President of Hamilton College, 55 ;
together with his brother, William T., writes "Memoir
of the Life of President Dwight," 72, note

Dwight, Timothy, 55 ; outline of his life, 72-73 ; chief sources
for biographical facts about, 72, note ; his precocity in
learning and aspiration, 73-75 ; his career as a student at
Yale, 75-78 ; his great influence as a tutor at Yale, 78-
79 ; at nineteen begins the writing of an epic poem, 79 ;
chaplain in the army of the Revolution, 72-73, 80-84 ;
his reputed sermon in connection with Burgoyne's inva
sion, 81-82, note ; a writer of patriotic songs, 82-84; his
song of "Columbia," 82-84; retires from the army in
1778, 84; farmer, legislator, pastor, 73, 84-85; his
"Conquest of Canaan," in 1785, 85-91 ; contemporary
English criticism of it, William Cowper, 87-91 ; his at
tempt at satire in " The Triumph of Infidelity," in 1788,
91-92 ; his best poem, "Greenfield Hill," 1794, 92-97 ;
his minor poems, 97-99 ; as a writer of hymns, 98-99,
note ; the quality and power of his personality as an
explanation of his vast contemporary influence, 99-101 ;
his varied and minute knowledge, 101-102 ; his intellect-

INDEX. 19$

ual interests and sympathies, 101-103 ; his life the
triumph of a sufferer, 103 ; his extraordinary command
over his own mental possessions, 103-106 ; composed by
dictation, 104-105 ; the defects of his literary work, 106-
107 ; his career culminates in the presidency of Yale at
the age of forty-three, 107 ; the range of his labors there,
107-108 ; his ascendancy, 108-109 ; his pre-eminence .as
a champion of Christianity, 109-115 ; his brilliancy in
conversation, 100-101, 113 ; his services as a preacher,
113-116; "Theology Explained and Defended," 114-
115 ; other sermons, 115-116; his discourse on Washing
ton, 116-120; his "Travels in New England and New
York," 120-124 ; its merits and defects, 122-124 ; his
intellectual activity during the last two years of his life,
125-127 ; "Remarks on the Review of Inchiquin's Let
ters," 125 ; other writings then executed or planned,
125-127 ; his death, 73, 125
Dwight, William T. (see Dwight, Sereno Edwards)

Edwards, Jonathan, his relation to Berkeley, 50, 51 ; grand
father of Timothy Dwight, 72

Elton, Professor Romeo, his statement in regard to Berkeley's
verses criticised, 23, note

England, condition of, in 1720, 19

Fenelon, 13

Fisher, George P., 51, note

Fraser, A. C., works by, relating to Berkeley, 10, note

Fronde, James Anthony, 63

Fulton, paints designs for " The Columbiad," 146

Galileo, 165

Gay, John, imitated by Dwight in " Greenfield Hill," 97

Gilman, President Daniel C., 56, note, 61, note

Goldsmith, Oliver, imitated by Dwight in "Greenfield Hill,"

97
Goodrich, Samuel G., 81-82, note

196 INDEX.

Greene, General, 141 ; letter to, from David Humphreys
interceding for Barlow, 135—136

"Greenfield Hill," Dwight's best poem, published in 1774,
92 ; its plan, 92-93 ; its seven cantos, 93-96 ; its charac
ter as a whole, 96-97

Gregoire, Henry, Barlow's letter to, 178-180

Griswold, Rufus W., criticism of his statement attributing
"America, A Poem," to Dwight, 79-80, note

Hall, Basil, 63

Hall, Robert, praises Dwight's " Theology Explained and

Defended," 115
Hamilton, Alexander, 172
" Hasty Pudding," poem by Barlow, 173-175
Herschel, 165

Hillhouse, James Abraham, 55
Holland, William Moseley, 55
Holmes, Abiel, 55
Honyman, the Rev. James, Episcopal minister at Newport, 7 ;

receives notice of Berkeley's arrival, 5-6
Hooker, Richard, 13, 53
Hugo, Victor, quoted, 67
Hume, David, 92, no
Humphreys, David, 98, 142 ; his letter to General Greene

interceding for Barlow, 135-136

Ingersoll, Jared, 55
Irving, 63

Jefferson, Thomas, 170 ; urges Barlow to write a history of the
American Revolution, 176

Jeffrey, Francis, 63

Johnson, Samuel, founder of Columbia College, goes over to
the English Church, 8 ; becomes Berkeley's disciple in
philosophy, 50 ; letter to, from Berkeley, 53 ; asks and
receives counsel from Berkeley respecting plans for Co
lumbia College, 58

INDEX. 197

Johnson, William Samuel, 55
Jones, Joel, 55

Jonson, Ben, his "Penshurst" gives the hint followed by
Denham in " Cooper's Hill," 93

Kalm, Peter, 63

Kepler, 165

King's College (see Columbia College)

Kingsley, Rev. Charles, 63

Kohl, Johann Georg, 63

Kossuth, Louis, 63

Lafayette, 63
Lakieren, 63
"Letter to the National Convention of France," by Barlow,

177

" Letter to the People of Piedmont," by Barlow, 177
Louis Philippe, 63
Lyell, Charles, 63

Macready, 63

Malebranche, 13

Martineau, Harriet, 63

Montgomery, James, 155

Moore, Edward, imitated by Dwight in " Greenfield Hill," 97

Moore, Thomas, 63

More, Sir Thomas, 27

Murdock, James, 55

Newton, Sir Isaac, 165
Origen, 13

Paine, Tom, no

Pennsylvania, University of, Berkeley's influence on its organi
zation, 58
Percival, Lord, receives letter from Berkeley, 26-27, 35~3°

198 INDEX.

Peterborough, Earl of, ambassador to Sicily, appoints Berkeley
his chaplain and secretary, 18

Philadelphia, College of (see Pennsylvania, University of)

Pinney, Norman, 55

Plato, 27, 45

Pope, Alexander, his admiration of Berkeley, 17 ; his numbers
imitated in " The Conquest of Canaan," 89 ; his " Wind
sor Forest " follows the hint given in Denham's " Cooper's
Hill," 93

Raumer, Friedrich von, 63

Redwood Library, a result of Berkeley's American visit, 49 ;

the parent and model of other institutions, 49-50
Rousseau, no

Saint Paul, The College of, projected by Berkeley, 25-26

Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the Duke of, 63

" Siris : A Chain of Philosophical Reflections and Enquiries
concerning the Virtues of Tar-Water, and Divers other
Subjects Connected together and Arising one from An
other," 43 ; published in 1744, 44-45 ; its character, 45-
46 ; shows the reaction upon Berkeley's mind of his
American visit, 44-47

Smirke, paints designs for " The. Columbiad," 146

Smith, Goldwin, 63

Sprague, William B., his " Life of Timothy Dwight " and
" Annals of the American Pulpit," 72, note

Steele, Richard, his friendship for Berkeley, 17

Swift, Jonathan, Dean of Saint Patrick's, 28, 30 ; his friend
ship for Berkeley, 16-17 ; writes to Lord Carteret on
behalf of Berkeley, 28-30 ; his character, 29

Talleyrand, 63
Thackeray, 63

" Theology Explained and Defended," collection of Dwight's
theological discourses, 114-115

INDEX. 199

Thompson, George, 63

Thomson, James, imitated by Dwight in " Greenfield Hill,"

97

Tindal, no

Tocqueville, 63

Todd, Charles Burr, his " Life and Letters of Joel Barlow,"
134, note

"Travels in New England and New York," Dwight's itiner
ary, its inception, 120-121 ; its scope, 121-122 ; its
merits and defects, 122-124

"Triumph of Infidelity," published by Dwight in 1788, 91;
its character, 91-92

Trollope, Mrs., 63

Trumbull, John, 55

Vanhomrigh, Esther, Dean Swift's " Vanessa," leaves legacy to
Berkeley, 28

"Vision of Columbus," philosophical poem by Barlow, 135-
136, 141-142 ; its earliest plan, 142, 143 ; its attempted
publication in 1782, 143, 144 ; published in 1787, 145 ; its
final revision and publication in 1807 as " The Colum-
biad," 146-147 (see " Columbiad")

Volney, 63

Voltaire, 92, no

Wales, the Prince of, 63

Walpole, Sir Robert, his friendly forbearance towards Berke
ley, 32-33 ; his promise of twenty thousand pounds to the
projected American University, 33 ; delays and finally
refuses to give the above, 33-36

Washington, George, 109, 137, 142, 153, 155, 170, 172; dis
course on, by Dwight, 116-120

Watts, Dr. I., his psalm-book revised and enlarged, 98-99,
note, 144

Webster, Noah, Barlow's letters to, on the difficulties of a
literary career in America, 133-134

2OO INDEX.

Wesley, Charles, 63
Wetmore, James, 8
Wheelock, Eleazer, 55
Whitefield, George, 63
Wolfe, James, 153
Wurtemberg, the Duke of, 63

Yale College, receives gifts of books and land from Berkeley,
53-56 ; its progress, 57-58 ; Dvvight as student, 72, 75-77 ;
Dwight as tutor, 72, 76, 78-79 ; Dwight as president,
73, 107-127

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