Missionary of the Society for the propagation of the gospel in foreign parts. He was afterwards rector at Queen Ann's county, Maryland. His political sentiments were with the loyalists, and he removed from his parish to Yorktown, where he kept a school. In 1785 he took charge of a new Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia, and in 1791 was made Vice-Provost of the College. In December, 1810, he succeeded Dr. McDowell as Provost. He withdrew from the office in 1813 in ill health, and died in that year at the age of sixty-seven.* The Rev. Frederick Beasley, a presbyter of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University from 1813 to 1828, and is favorably known for his metaphysi cal work in defence of the philosophy of Locke, which he published in 1822, entitled "A Search of Truth in the Science of the Human Mind." He lived many years after his retirement, dying at Elizabethtown, N. J., at the age of sixty-eight, in 1845. The present University Buildings in Ninth street, originally erected for the accommodation of Congress, were in 1800 purchased by the University. The general course of instruction is embraced in the Faculties of Arts and of Medicine, while the original distinctive features of the College, the Academy or Grammar-school, and the Charity schools, are severally maintained under the organization. JOEL BARLOW. JOEL BARLOW, whose carcer presents a greater variety of circumstances than the history of any of his fellow litterateurs in the early records of America, was born the son of a respectable farmer, and the youngest of a family of ten children, at Reading, in Connecticut, in the year 1755. His father died while he was at school, leaving the son means sufficient to acquire a college education. In 1774, he was sent to Dartmouth, and thence removed to Yale, where he found Dwight, who had been installed tutor three years before, and with whom he shared both his patriotism and his poetry. During the vacations of the college, Barlow was off handling a musket with the militia in the opening scenes of the Revolution, being present, it is said, and fighting bravely, in the action at White Plains. His poetic first appearance was made on Commencement day, when he took his degree, in 1778, and delivered a poem, The Prospect of Peace, which was published the same year in New Haven, and which reappeared, with another poem spoken at the college three years afterwards on taking his degree of Master of Arts, in the Litchfield collection of "American Poems" by Elihu H. Smith, in 1793. In 1780, he published an elegy on his friend, the accomplished statesman of Connecticut, Titus Hosmer.t In these early productions, we notice Wood's Historical Discourse. Sabine's Loyalists. +Titus Hosmer, the friend of Barlow, was a lawyer and patriot of great distinction in Connecticut, whose education and manners procured him great respect and affection. David D. Field, in his Middletown Historical Address, has given a notice of his career: "Noah Webster numbered him among the three mighties; and these three he designated as William Samuel Johnson, LL.D., of Stratford, Oliver Ellsworth of a certain breadth of philanthropy, and extension of the local limits of American patriotism, which the author, in after life, was destined to display on an ampler field. It is curious to note at this time, in advance of the dreams of the French Revolution, the universal claims of humanity engaging his attention. He was even then an enthusiastic visionary looking for an early Millennium. He already saw the advancing conquests of America What wide extent her waving ensigns claim, On this broad theatre unbounded spread, In different scenes, what countless throngs must tread! Soon as the new-form'd empire, rising fair, Calms her brave sons now breathing from the war, Unfolds her harbors, spreads the genial soil, And welcomes freemen to the cheerful toil. With war and discord around him, he sang the universality of peace and union; nations growing fraternal under the general impulse Till each remotest realm, by friendship join'd, Link in the chain and harmonize mankind, The union'd banner be at last unfurl'd, And wave triumphant round the accordant world. From college Barlow went to the study of law, but the Massachusetts line wanting chaplains, he turned to divinity, and putting himself through a diligent six weeks course of theology, was duly licensed a Congregational minister, and joined the army as Dwight had done before him; and like Dwight, he cheered the spirits of the soldiery with animating odes from the camp. He remained in the army during the war, meditating and composing his Vision of Columbus, which was a well written poem for the times; some of the difficulties of which, to the scholar, may be estimated from Barlow's statement that he had long sought in vain in the country for a copy of Camoens' Lusiad, and had not been able to obtain it till his poem was ready for the press. The Vision was published by subscription in 1787, and was reprinted in London and in Paris. The dedication to the first edition was to Louis XVI., in a strain of superfluous eulogy and humility.* Windsor, Chief Justice of the United States, and the Hon. Titus Hosmer of Middletown." The general Congress had just conferred the appointment of Judge of a Court of Appeals upon Hosmer, when he died suddenly, August 4, 1780, at the age of forty-four. Barlow, who was encouraged by Hosmer to write his Vision of Columbus, speaks of his orphaned muse on this event: At thy command she first assumed the lyre, And bear her voice with thy lost form away. If all that he says of the Bourbons is true, the French Revolution ought never to have occurred. "The illustrious line of your royal ancestors have been conspicuous in seizing those advantages (proceeding from the discovery of America) and diffusing their happy effects. The great Father of the House of Bourbon will be held in the highest veneration till his favorite political system shall be realized among the nations of Europe and extended to all mankind. ** Your Majesty's permission, that the unfortunate Columbus may once more enjoy the protection of a royal benefactor, has added a new obligation to those I before felt-in common with a grateful country." At the close of the struggle he left the church and army together, and returned to the law, settling at Hartford, and engaging in a weekly newspaper, The American Mercury. He was admitted to the bar in 1785, in which year he was also employed by the "General Association of Connecticut, in the adaptation of Watts's version of the Psalms,* the same task which was subsequently performed by the more orthodox hand of his friend Timothy Dwight. The work was received with satisfaction, and used in the churches by authority. Barlow's additions consisted in versions of twelve of the Psalms which Watts had omitted, and several others were altered by him. One from his pen was much admired; this version of Psalm cxxxviii.: THE BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY. Along the banks where Babel's current flows Her friends, her children mingled with the dead. The tuneless harp that once with joy we strung, When praise employ'd and mirth inspir'd the lay, In mournful silence on the willows hung; And growing grief prolong'd the tedious day. The barbarous tyrants, to increase the woe, With taunting smiles a song of Zion claim; Bid sacred praise in strains melodious flow, While they blaspheme the great JEHOVAH's name. But how, in heathen chains and lands unknown Shall Israel's sons a song of Zion raise? *Doctor Watts's Imitation of the Psalms of David, corrected and enlarged, by Joel Barlow, to which as added a Collection of Hymns; the whole applied to the state of the Christian Church in General. Luke xxiv. All things must be fulfilled which were written in the... Psalms concerning us. Hart. ford. Printed by Barlow & Babcock, 1785. +They are the 28th. 43d, 52u, 54th, 59th, 64th, 70th, 79th, 88th, 108th, 137th, and 146th. A story is told of an effusion in verse on Barlow the versi fier of Watts, perpetrated by a local poet of reputation for a knack at extempore rhyming. This personage was Oliver, a cousin of Benedict Arnold, and is commemorated in a History of Norwich, Connecticut, by Miss F. M. Caulkins (1845), where the following is narrated: In a bookseller's shop in New Haven, he was introduced to Joel Barlow, who had just then acquired considerable notoriety by the publication of an altered edition of Watts s Psalms and Hymns. Barlow asked for a specimen of his talent; upon which the wandering poet immediately repeated the following stanza: You've proved yourself a sinful cre'tur'; And for your pains deserve a halter. Oliver was also a sailor and a patriot, and cordially despised the course taken by his cousin Benedict, in betraying his country. Local tradition ascribes to him the following acrostic on the traitor's name, and it is even added that being on a visit to his cousin after the war, and called upon by him to amuse a party of English officers with some extemporaneous effusion, he stood up and repeated this Ernulphus curse, which would have satisfied Dr. Stop himself. The composition itself, however, contradicts such a report, as it bears no resemblance to other short and unstudied efforts of the native rhymester, which have been preserved. Born for a curse to virtue and mankind, Earth's broadest realm ne'er knew so black a mind. Defunct, your cursed memory will live, In all the glare that infamy can give. Almighty vengeance sternly waits to roll O hapless Salem, God's terrestrial throne, If my cold heart neglect my kindred race, To dispose of the literary wares which he had now on hand, the Psalm Book and the Vision, Barlow, who appears with no lack of personal liberality to have been always of a mercantile, speculating turn, opened a book-store at Hartford, which he closed when he had accomplished his purpose, and began the practice of the law. He was at this time associated with Trumbull, Humphreys, and Hopkins, in penning the patriotic effusions of the Anarchiad. In 1787, he delivered an oration on the 4th July at Hartford, in which he urged the adoption of a general government. The law does not appear to have suited his disposition and temperament; he is described as too stiff and unyielding for its requirements; so that when a Land Company was formed, called "The Scioto Company," Barlow accepted a part in its management, and was sent as agent to England in 1788, to dispose of the property. The title to the lands was stolen, and the company were swindlers, but Barlow was unconscious of the skilfully concealed deception. When he found it out he resigned. effect something soon, I would advise him to write The Visions of Barlow,' as a sequel to those of Columbus and McFingal." On revisiting London from Paris, in 1791, Barlow published, at the end of the year, the first part of his Advice to the Privileged Orders, and in the February following, a poem, The Conspiracy of Kings, on the alliance against France. These are both vigorous productions. In the first he considers the state of Europe under the five heads of the Feudal system, the Church, the Military, the Administration of Justice, and Revenue, and Public Expenditure, supporting each topic with great vehemence of stateinent. The poem, with a stirring preface at the beginning and uncompromising note at the end, was mainly levelled at Mr. Burke, who is solemnly arraigned as almost exclusively the author of the war with all its train of calamities. This piece of prose is clear, vigorous, and sonorous, with many of the most striking qualities of expression. If Barlow had given the same attention to composition in this department which he bestowed upon his verses, his reputation would have been greater. He denounces the transfer of Burke from the side of liberty to kingcraft in unmeasured terms. "Here," says he, "is a man who calls himself a philosopher, not remarkable for his avarice, the delight and ornament of a numerous society of valuable friends, respected by all enlightened men as a friend of peace and preacher of humanity, living in an age when military madness has lost its charms, and men begin to unite in searching the means of avoiding the horrors of war; this man, wearied with the happiness that surrounds him, and disgusted at the glory that awaits him, renounces all his friends, belies the doctrines of his former life, bewails that the military savageness of the fourteenth century has passed away, and, to gratify his barbarous wishes to call it back, conjures up a war, in which at least two millions of his fellow-creatures must be sacrificed to his unaccountable passion." His verse is hardly equal to this in force, but the reader may be interested in a portrait drawn nearly twenty years after Goldsmith had pencilled his mild sketch of his friend who To party gave up what was meant for mankind. But Burke's prophecies were at least as philosophical as Barlow's: both had their credulities, and time, which amendeth all things, will correct many errata in their writings. It was Barlow's misfortune to be carried away by French theory, and set too little value on the sterling though more slowly moving facts of England and America. Ie confounded the abstract truths of morality with their practical applications among men as exhibited in society. Morals are one thing, men quite another. When he says that "Many truths are as perceptible when first presented to the mind, as an age or a world of experience could make them; others require only an indirect and collateral experience; some demand an experience direct and positive;" and that "it is happy for human nature, that in morals we have much to do with this first class of truths, less with the second, and very little with the * Gibbs's Oliver Wolcott, 1. 25. third; while in physics we are perpetually driven to the slow process of patient and positive experience;"-it may be all very true of moral philosophy as a science, but the remark is valueless as respects the conduct of men in political government-which is of much slower growth, and more painful development than even the tedious facts of physics. A year or two later, when Barlow was preparing for a History of the French Revolution, which he never wrote, he commends to Wolcott the example of that great effort for American imitation. "I do not mean," says he, "that a revolution, or anything like it, will be necessary with us, but that many principles for the general diffusion of information, the preservation and improvement of morals, and the encouragement of such a degree of equality in the condition of men as tends to their dignity and happiness, will certainly be established by them, and will be equally necessary for us." In French politics Barlow was a visionary, but he shared his enthusiasm with many sober-minded men. In 1791, the French philosopher Volney's Ruins or Reflections on the Revolutions of Empires was published in Paris, and a translation from Barlow's pen appeared the next year in London. Barlow's Letter to the National Convention of France, offering some suggestions in constitutionmaking, is dated London, Sept. 16 1792. He was then associated with the reformers in England, a member of the Constitutional Society, which body delegated him to carry an address to the Convention, which in turn conferred upon him the honor of French citizenship. It is in these relations that a story is told of a supper at which Barlow was present. The famous song attributed to his pen, in eulogy of the Guillotine, which was afterwards revived to his disadvantage on his return to New England, when he fell among the Federalists, was originally written, it is said, for the amusement of some of his revolutionary friends at Hamburgh, assembled after the execution of Louis XVI. It was a parody on the English national anthem, "God save the king," and ran Biographie Universelle, Art. Barlow. Hildreth, Second Series, ii. 551. The song, with the comments to which Hildreth alludes, will be found in the Columbian Centinel, Nov. 16, 1805. A somewhat similar effusion to this has been attributed to Akenside, the poet, as an ode written for the Calf Head Club, on the 30th January, the anniversary of the beheading of King Charles I. Freneau prints it in his Jersey Chronicle, page A calf's head, it is stated, was brought in with a crown of pastry after dinner, with daggers or sharp-pointed knives 838 In December, 1792, he was with the Abbé Gregoire and a deputation sent to organize the territory of Savoy, whence, from its capital, he dated A Letter Addressed to the People of Piedmont, on the advantages of the French Revolution, and the necessity of adopting its principles in Italy; a revolutionary proceeding which he varied by the composition of his pleasant American dietetic lay, The Hasty Pudding. The original American edition of this poem was printed at New Haven in 1796. An advertisement dated April of that year sets forth its "republican virtue recommended with republican freedom and boldness," and the design expressed in its preface for which "it ought to be owned and studied by every family in New England." The reprint which follows this article preserves the original title and preface, with several passages omitted in later editions.* By this time his pecuniary prospects were improving. His position and knowledge of affairs gave him the advantage in the midst of the changing fortunes of the Revolution. In 1795 he was employed as a private legal or commercial agent to the north of Europe, and in the same year was appointed consul at Algiers for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with the Barbary powers, which he effected with many brave and successful exertions in behalf of the prisoners confined there. On returning to Paris he made a fortune in some commercial speculations, and purchased the hotel of the Count Clermont de Tonnerre, where he lived in sumptuous style. During his French residence, the administration of Adams brought Barlow out in opposition to the government at home, in two Letters to the People of the United States. His language in that time of heated politicians was rash and intemperate. One of Barlow's letters to his brother-in-law Baldwin was obtained from him by Matthew Lyon, the extravagant democratic member of Congress from Vermont, who published it. It contained violent denunciations of Adams and Washington, and furnished one of the counts of Lyon's arraignment under the sedition law, for which he was thrown into prison. In a memoir to the French Government at this time, he denounced the system of privateering, to each member. A couple of stanzas of the "ode" will explain their use. On this renown'd illustrious day, This day a faithless tyrant fell; Nor warm, nor brave, sunk he to hell, * We vow the tyrant justly fell To ratify the deed; Without all scruple, doubt or awe, We are indebted for this copy as well as for the opportu nity of presenting a portrait not hitherto ergraved, from an original by Vanderlyn, to the Rev. Lemuel G. Ölmstead of this city, a gentleman connected by birth and marriage with the families of three distinguished revolutionary worthies, Joel Barlow, Timothy Dwight, and Col. Humphreys. He is the grandnephew of Barlow on the mother's side. He has taken in charge the collection of the writings of Barlow with a view to the publication of a complete edition, which is much needed. + Letters from Paris to the Citizens of the United States of America on the System of Policy hitherto pursued by their Government, relative to their Commercial Intercourse with England and France. London, 1800. Svo. with a view to its prevention in the new constitution. In 1805, having been absent from home seventeen years, Barlow returned to the United States. After a few months of travel, he turned to Washington, and built a fine house for his residence in the district of Columbia, which he called Kalorama. He projected a national academy to be founded by government, but Congress did not act upon his plan. As an illustration of the feeling entertained for Barlow at this time by the Federal party in New England, we may give an account of a copy of verses which he produced for a public dinner at Washington, with the treatment they received in Boston. On the 14th of January, 1807, a dinner was given at Washington by the citizens to Captain Meriwether Lewis, in congratulation of his safe return from the Rocky Mountains, Robert Brent presided, and Captain Tingey and Colonel Wharton were vice-presidents. "At an early period of the entertainment," as the report of the National Intelligencer* tells us, "the following elegant and glowing Stanzas, from the pen of Mr. Barlow, were recited by Mr. Beckley":— ON THE DISCOVERIES OF CAPTAIN LEWIS. Let the Nile cloak his head in the clouds, and defy Columbus! not so shall thy boundless domain With the same soaring genius thy Lewis ascends, O'er the sky-propping hills and high waters he bends And gives the proud earth a new zone. Potowmak, Ohio, Missouri had felt Half her globe in their cincture comprest; His long curving course has completed the belt, And tamed the last tide of the west. Then hear the loud voice of the nation proclaim, And all ages resound the decree: Let our occident stream bear the young hero's name Who taught him his path to the sea. These four brother floods, like a garland of flowers, Shall entwine all our states in a band, Conform and confederate their wide spreading In the Monthly Anthology for March, 1807, appeared the following parody of this affair, complimentary neither to Barlow nor to Jefferson, which is known to be from the pen of John Quincy Adams :— ON THE DISCOVERIES OF CAPTAIN LEWIS. Good people listen to my tale, "Tis nothing but what true is; How starting from the Atlantick shore To travel through the woods, sir; His person and his goods, sir! The things he did not find, sir. And from the day his course began, He never found an Indian tribe He never dreamt of taming tides, Like monkeys or like bears, sir- They had but mov'd his laughter- And must we then resign the hope Must Forests still be form'd of Trees? We never will be so fubb'd off, By G-, we'll change their names, sir! Let old Columbus be once more Degraded from his glory; Compar'd to that which new is? Tom Pain may be when drunk, sirAnd Joël call the Prairie-dog, Which once was call'd a Skunk, sir. And when the wilderness shall yield To bumpers bravely brimming, A nobler victory than men ;While all our heads are swimming, We'll dash the bottle on the wall And name (the thing's agreed on) And work, by butchery and blood, Yet, still we can turn inside out It In 1807 the magnum opus of Barlow, the Columbiad, appeared, dedicated to the author's intimate friend Robert Fulton; the most costly work which had been published in America. was issued in Philadelphia. It has eleven engravings after original designs by Smirke, executed by the best line engravers in London, Goulding, Parker, Anker Smith, Raimbach, and others. Of these, Hester Appearing to Columbus in Prison, The Murder of Lucinda, Cruelty Presiding over the Prison Ship, and The Initiation to the Mysteries of Isis, may be instanced for the force of the conception and beauty of handling. The portrait of Barlow prefixed was painted by Fulton, and is admirably engraved. From the dedication we learn that Fulton "designated the subjects to be painted for engravings," and, intent upon the "expensive and splendid decorations " of the work, ordered them to be executed in Barlow's absence, and at his own expense. The plan of the ten books of the Columbiad is simple enough. Columbus is introduced to us in prison, suffering the ingratitude of his country, in Spain, when Hesper appears to him and conducts him to a mount of vision commanding the western continent. The geography of the vast region is described, and Hesper relates at length the story of Mexico and Peru. The colonization of North America by Raleigh and others is passed in review, when we enter upon the old French war and the scenes of the Revolution which form the central portion of the work. The companions of Washington in the struggle have poetical justice done them : Here stood stern Putnam, scored with ancient scars, |