Addressed to Lieutenant-Colonel ELEAZER OSWALD, of the A monument I've rais'd that shall surpass, Who tun'd to Grecian sounds the Roman lyre. In the preface there is further mention of this, where Mr. Parke tells us that "he has made free to address the ode to his very worthy friend and fellow-soldier, Lieutenant Oswald, &c., not only on account of his ushering this work into the world, but for his many eminent virtues as a brave soldier and good citizen. The hardships he has suffered, the toils he has endured, and the many trying vicissitudes he has experienced in the defence of his country, entitle him to the esteem of every patriotic and virtuous American." This preface shows Parke to have been a man of reading, and we may suppose him to have had access for its composition to the stores of the Loganian library. He is quite learned and critical in a miscellaneous way, and has brought together a considerable stock of interesting notices, biographical and critical, of the poet. He appears to have kept a scrap-book on this favorite topic, in which he copied such poetical versions of Horace as came to his hand from the magazines and other English sources. He has included a number of these among his own, sometimes taking the whole ode, and at others interpolating lines and verses, but scrupulously pointing out his indebtedness in each case, in his preface.* A We have seen John Adams, the clergyman of Newport, employing his pen upon Horace (ante, p. 134), and Logan translating the Cato Major. There is another early instance in the specimen of the latter is the ninth ode of the third book, in which the first, second, third, and seventh stanzas belong to Alexander Pope. TO LOLLIUS. Imitated-Addressed to his Excellency BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Esquire, LL.D. F.R.S., Minster Plenipotentiary from the United States to the Court of Versailles, &c. &c. Lest you should think that verse shall die, Sages and chiefs long since had birth By an unlawful passion fir'd; Of a young royal spark admir'd. Were not the first in battle fam'd: Columbia more wars could boast, Ere mighty Washington was nam'd. Heroes there were who for their wives, In vain they schem'd, in vain they bled, Your patriotic toils conceal: Exalts above the rabble's voice. Rev. Caleb Alexander's Works of Virgil Translated into literal English prose, with some Explanatory Notes Printed st Worcester, Mass., by Leonard Worcester, for David West, of Boston. 1796. 8vo. pp. 678. The Latin is on one side and the English on the other. The book is, doubtless, in the memory of the schoolboy days of some of the older scholars of the country. In the preface, Alexander remarks naively, By some it may possibly be said, that, in several instances, I have wholly mistaken the sense of Virgil. If I have it is no surprise. For, when there is such a variety of meanings to many Latin words, it is extremely difficult to ascertain, in every instance, the sense affixed to each word by the author. In reading English books, we often find it difficult to understand the true meaning of the writer. And surely it can be no wonder, if a translator of a Latin book should mistake the original sense of many words." Alexander was born in Northfield, Mass., and was a graduate of Yale in 1777. He was settled at Mendon, as a clergyman, made "an ineffectual attempt to establish a college at Fairfield, in New York," took charge of an academy at Onondaga Hollow, where he died in 1828. He published a Latin and English Grammar, and some other writings.-Allen's Biog. Dict. Nor can we rank him with the blest, To whom large stores of wealth are giv'n; But him, who of enough possest, Knows how t' enjoy the gifts of Heav'n. Who poverty serenely bears, With all the plagues the Gods can send; Who death to infamy prefers, To save his country or his friend. Dover, 1781. To one of the odes, the fourteenth of the third book, he has given quite an American turn. It is that one in which Horace celebrates the return of Augustus from his Spanish expedition, where he calls upon Livia, the wife of the hero, to greet his arrival, and claims the joyful time as a true holiday for himself, to banish black cares-while he summons his valet to bring ointment, and garlands, and a cask, with its old memories of the Marsian conflict, if indeed such a cask could have escaped that nefarious stroller, Spartacus, and to call the witty Neæra-while, doubtful if she will come to such an old gentleman as himself, he thinks how age compensates for neglect by its indifference, and heaves a gentle sigh as he recalls the different treatment he would have exacted in his days of young blood, in "the consulship of Plancus." We have some compunctions at introducing Parkes's platitudes in connexion with this delicately touched effusion; but something is due to antiquarian curiosity, and the reader may be amused at the substitution of Martha Washington for the spouse of Augustus, the return of her husband after the surrender of Cornwallis in lieu of the Cantabrian conquest, and feel the force of the comparison between the marauding Spartacus and the depredating itinerant British officers, who drank up so much of the best old wine stored in the country. The remonstrance to the But join the great eclat of joy, Well pleas'd I give each anxious care, That 'scap'd the plund'ring Briton's gripe. With hair perfum'd in jetty curl! The seventh ode of the first book, "To Munatius Plancus," is familiar, with its splendid eulogy of the echoing waters of Albunea and the groves of Tiber, with that kindling story of old Teucer. This is Mr. Parke's substitute for it : TO MUNATIUS PLANCUS. A Fragment Imitated. Addressed to RICHARD HOWELL, Esq., of New Jersey, late Let other bards, in sonorous, lofty song, Tell of New York, on ev'ry side begirt, With Hudson's bleak, tempestuous, briny wave: porter is a vigorous, but perhaps undignified Of Abram's Plains their tuneful powers exert, translation of the Roman poet's Si per invisum mora janitorem ON THE RETURN OF AUGUSTUS FROM SPAIN. Paraphrased on General Washington's Return from Virginia. Addressed to Major-General HENRY KNOX, late Commander of Artillery, and Secretary-at- War, New York. Rejoice, Columbia, for thy son, As great Alcides did of yore, With laurels crown'd, and fame in battles won, Cornwallis vanquish'd and our country sav'd, Chaste Martha shall embrace her spouse, Ye maids in blooming beauty's pride, Say not, alas! your dearest friends have dy'd, The fall of heroes and of vet'rans brave: Of Kent, far distant, with a farmer blest, Whose Muse, oppression's out-stretch'd canvas furl'd; Of Pennsylvania, happy in a West, The great Apelles of this infant world. Some praise Madeira for its gen'rous wine, And Schuylkill's pleasant shades and silver stream; Or with pedantic pride, in strains divine, Dwell on the Muses' Seat-their fav'rite theme. Then with a feign'd, patriotic zeal, Affect the soldier, and Virginia praise,- Nor Boston's police, or the high-ting'd bowers Where Swanwick's lofty trees, their summits raise, N-C-e seems to rear its ancient head, And point its lustre to the passing clouds. I ask not riches, or a mighty name, But there, in sweet content, to end my days. The volume which contains these translations from Horace has also a copious stock of Miscellanies the compositions of Parke and his friends. Several of them are by a young British officer, John Wilcocks, who appears from an elegy, after Tibullus, dedicated to his memory, to have belonged to "the eighteenth, or Royal regiment of Ireland," and to have died at the early age of twenty-two. Parke tells us that "the genius of this young soldier seemed to be entirely adapted to pastoral elegy and satire, of the last of which he was a master." The verses which bear his signature are creditable to his powers, though they are but trifles; for example— THE TWO PEACOCKS. How oft, dear Jack, we others blame Yet blames her own in Delia's pride. Nor ferula fears, nor birch most dire. His task to write. Thus let me live, thus life enjoy, Until to manhood I arrive; And thus, like me, sure ev'ry boy To live will strive. Mr. John Prior, of Delaware, is another writer of verses, who figures in this collection, in an ambitious patriotic way, as the writer of a "New Year Ode, in 1779, for the Return of Peace," and in several minor effusions, "To Chloe stung by a Wasp," and in some lines "Written in a Young Lady's Pocket-book." The volume "winds up" with Virginia; a Pastoral Drama, on the Birth-day of an Illustrious Personage, and the Return of Peace, Feb. 11, 1784, with the motto Quo nihil majus, meliusve terris Nec dabunt, quamvis redeant in aurum which appears to be from the patriotic if not poetical pen of Colonel Parke. JOHN TRUMBULL, THE author of M Fingal, the humorous epic sketch of the Revolution, was born in the present township of Watertown, Connecticut, April 24, 1750, of a family each branch of which has contributed its share of honor to the state. The American head of the house came from England to Ipswich in Massachusetts, in 1645. His son removed to Connecticut. Of the three grandsons, his children, John Trumbull the poet was the representative of the first in the third generation; the second gave the first governor to the state, Jonathan Trumbull,* in the second generation, and another Jonathan Trumbull, governor, with his brother the distinguished painter, in the third; while the grandson of the third Benjamin wrote the history of the state. The father of our author was the minister of the Congregational Church of his district; his mother is spoken of as possessed of superior education. A delicate child and fond of books, of which the supply in general literature was very limited at home, being confined to the Spectator and Watts's Hymns, he * Jonathan Trumbull passed half a century in public life, for the last fifteen years of which he was Governor of Connecticut, declining the annual election in 1758. after the close of the war, of which he had been a zealous supporter. Washington wrote of him "as the first of patriots; in his socia! duties yielding to none." He died in 1785, aged 74. M. Chastellnx, the traveller, who saw him when he was seventy, describes him as possessing all the simplicity in his dress, all the importance and even all the pedantry, becoming the great magistrate of a small republic. He brought to my mind the burgomasters of Holland, the Heinsiuses and the Barneveldts." + Benjamin Trumbull was a graduate of Yale College, and was assisted in his education by Dr. Wheelock, the energetic founder of Dartmouth College, who preached the sermon at his ordination, commending him to the people as not “a sensual. sleepy, lazy, dumb dog, that cannot bark." From that time till his death, he passed nearly sixty years in the ministry at North Haven, Connecticut. His publications were, besides several occasional sermons and discourses on the divine origin of the Scriptures, A Complete History of Connectient, Civi and Ecclesiastical, from the emigration of its first planter from England, in the year 1630, to the year 1764; and to the close of the Indian wars. 2 vols. 8vo. 1797, 1818, and a History of the United States to 1765. Vol. i. in 1519. Birth-place of Trumbull. was early trained by his father for Yale College, of which institution he was admitted a member on examination at the precocious age of seven,* though his actual residence at college was wisely adjourned till six years afterwards. During this period he became acquainted with some of the best English classics, and subsequently took up their defence, as a branch of study, in opposition to the exclusive preference of the college for the ancient languages, mathematics, and theology. He was a fellow-student with Timothy Dwight, with whom he formed an intimate and lasting friendship. They wrote together papers in the style of the Spectator, then the standard model for this class of compositions, which they published in the journals of Boston and New Haven. The two friends in 1771 became tutors together in the college, and the next year Trumbull published his Progress of Dulness, a year after enlarging it by a second and third part. The literary quartette was completed by the junction of Humphreys and Barlow. Under cover of the tutorship, Trumbull studying law was admitted to the bar in Connecticut, in 1773, and as he had entered college first and prepared himself afterwards, so upon his admission as an attorney, he proceeded to Boston and became a student in the office of John Adams, the subsequent President of the United States. In this patriotic society he learnt the lesson of American Independence in its elements, and learnt it well; recording his impressions of the rising spirit of freedom and resistance in An Elegy on the Times, a poem of sixty-eight stanzas, which celebrates the Port Bill and non-consumption of foreign luxuries, the strength of the country, and its future glories contrasted with the final downfall of England. At the end of 1774, Trumbull returned to New Haven, and wrote what now stands as the first, second, and third cantos of M'Fingal. The period of the war was chiefly passed by him in his native place. In 1781 he took up his residence at Stratford, and at the termination of the war in 1782 completed M'Fingal, revising his early sketches, and adding the concluding canto. Its "With Trumbull, Dr. Emmons was particularly intimate, and held him in his lap when, at the age of seven or eight, the author of MFingal passed a satisfactory examination on the studies required for admission to College."-Prof. Park's Notices of Dr. Emmons. popularity was very great. There were more than thirty different pirated impressions, in pamphlet and other forms, which were circulated by the newsmongers, hawkers, pedlars, and petty chapmen" of the day. 66 Having served his country during the Revolution, he employed his pen again in the second and not inferior work of preserving it for union and the constitution. He was one of the writers of the Anarchiad, a newspaper series of papers at Hartford, a production levelled at the irregularities of the day, and of which an account will be found in the life of his associate in the work, Lemuel Hopkins. He was afterwards called into public life as a member of the State Legislature, and in 1801 became Judge of the Superior Court of the State, continuing to reside at Hartford till 1825, when he removed to Detroit, Michigan, the residence of his daughter, Mrs. Woodbridge, where he died, May 12, 1831, of a gradual decline, at the age of eighty-one, a mature period for a life which had been visited by ill health at intervals from childhood. The collection of his Poems* appeared at Hartford in 1820, with a prefatory memoir closing with a broken sentence, interrupted by asterisks which, with the absence of critical commendation, suggests that the author himself was holding the pen. This edition was published by subscription, and it is not to the credit of the public of that year that only a small subscription was obtained. The publisher, Mr. S. G. Goodrich, lost money by the undertaking, but a thousand dollars and a hundred copies of the work had been secured to the author. Of the miscellaneous productions of Trumbull, The Progress of Dulness, a satirical poem, composed in his twenty-second year, is the most important. It is in the octosyllabic measure, in three parts. The first recounts the adventures of Tom Brainless. That hero is sent to college, where his natural dulness is rather strengthened than abated by his smattering of unprofitable studies, and the cheap protection of his diploma. Finding it necessary to do something for himself in the world, he learns "the art of preaching," and of stealing judiciously out of Pool and Henry, which accomplishments acquired, he ascends the pulpit. Now in the desk, with solemn air, *The Poetical Works of John Trumbull, LL.D., containing M'Fingal, a Modern Epic Poem, revised and corrected, with copious explanatory notes; the Progress of Dulness; and a collection of Poems on various subjects, written before and during the Revolutionary war. 2 vols. Hartford: Printed for S. G. Goodrich. 1820. Dick Hairbrain is introduced to us in the second part, a town fop, the son of a wealthy farmer, ridiculous in dress, empty of knowledge, but profound in swearing and cheap infidelity picked up second-hand from Hume and Voltaire. His college course was as dull in point of learning, though a little more animated in profligacy, than that of his predecessor. What though in algebra, his station He becomes a travelled fool, of course, and runs through his coxcombry and dissipation, till the jail and the palsy relieve him, and the poor creature sinks out of sight, to give place to another shifting of the poet's drop-scene, when the counterpart of this delectable gentleman, Miss Harriet Simper, makes her appearance on the stage. She illustrates the slender stock of female education, formerly in vogue, and the life of the coquette in those good old times of our forefathers, when, among the many who were valiant and industrious, and led simple honest lives, there was room as usual for some who were indolent and conceited. The fops and beaux surrounding this lady present a curious scene of the day when the Sunday meeting was the battle-field for the artillery of love and fashion: As though they meant to take by blows So once in fear of Indian beating, Who fight with quills, like porcupines;when the fortunes of gallantry and domestic happiness were read out of tea-cups; when the ladies grew ecstatic over the hazards of virtuous Pamela, and the gentleman swore by Lovelace, or sported philosophy out of Tristram Shandy-for whose humors, by the way, our author should have had a better fellow-feeling. He speaks, in a note, of the transitory reputation of that not yet quite or likely soon-to-be-forgotten publication. Miss Harriet Simper, after jilting her admirers by scores, falls a victim to Hairbrain, who proves as great a flirt as herself, and rejects her advances. Thrown off by the beau, she finally accepts our dull old friend of the first canto, Brainless, for whom, in consideration of the marriage, The parish vote him five pounds clear The manners of this poem are well painted, the satire is just, and the reflections natural and pointed. It may still be read with pleasure. The plea for the humanities, as opposed to the dry abstractions and pedantries of college education, is not yet exhausted in its application; and the demand for higher studies and a more profound respect for woman, have been enough agitated of late to commend the early effort of Trumbull in this enlightened cause. In his case, as in many others of the kind, the perceptions of the wit outran the slower judgments of duller men. John Trumbull The poem of M'Fingal is Trumbull's lasting work for fame. The author himself has described its purpose and method in a letter written in 1785 to the Marquis de Chastellux, who had complimented him, from the French capital, upon fulfilling the conditions of burlesque poetry according to the approved laws from the days of Homer. In reply, Trumbull says he would have been happy to have seen the rules alluded to before he composed the poem; but he had not written it without design or attempt at construction. It had been undertaken "with a political view, at the instigation of some leading members of the first Congress, who urged him to compose a satirical poem on the events of the campaign in the year 1775," and he had aimed at expressing, "in a poetical manner, a general account of the American contest, with a particular description of the character and manners of the times, interspersed with anecdotes, which no history could |