These scenes our sires from rugged nature wrought, Since what dire wars their patriot race have fought! Witness yon tract, where first the Briton bled, Driven by our youth redoubted Percy fled : There Breed ascends, and Bunker's bleeding steeps, Still o'er whose brow abortive victory weeps; What trophies since! the gaze of after times, Rear'd freedom's empire o'er our happy climes!
But hence, fond stranger, take a nobler view,
See yon shorn elm,* whence all these glories grew.
Here, where the armed foe presumptuous trod,
Trampled our shrines, and even mouth'd our God,
His vengeful hand, deep as the parent root,
Lopt each grown branch, and every suckling shoot;
Because beneath her consecrated shade
Our earliest vows to liberty were paid.
High from her altar blew the heaven-caught fire,
While all our wealth o'erhung the kindling pyre.
How at the deed the nations stood aghast,
As on the pile our plighted lives we cast!
O! if an alien from our fair domains,
The blood of Britain, hapless, taint your veins,
Pace o'er that hallow'd ground with awful tread,
And tears, atoning, o'er yon relic shed;
But if, American! your lineage springs,
From sires, who scorn the pedigree of kings,
A Georgian born, you breathe the tepid air,
Or on the breezy banks of Delaware,
Or hardy Hampshire claim your haughty birth,
Revere yon root, and kiss its nurturing earth:
O be its fibres fed by flowing springs,
Whence rose our empire o'er the thrones of kings:
E'en now descend, adore the dear remain,
Where first rear'd liberty's illumin'd fane.
There all her race, while time revolves, shall come,
As pilgrims flock to Mecca's idol'd tomb.
ON WASHINGTON'S VISIT TO BOSTON. 1789.
DID human eye e'er see so fair a day?
Behold thy genius, freedom, lead the way.
Rude kings of old did Russian armies wait,
And swell with barb'rous port the pomp of state.
*The stump of liberty tree.
While the proud car, bedeck'd with guilty gold,
On freedom's writhing neck triumphant roll'd.
The nobles proud, who led the gorgeous train,
Wore slavery's badge and drew a gilded chain,
While the loud shouts which pierced the troubled air,
The tongue of nations, only thrilled with fear.
The eye adoring, scarce could check its flow,
For all their trophies swell'd but human wo.
The paths of triumph thus the nations trod,
And thought the sovereign power derived from God.
Hence o'er the historic roll what hateful crimes
Were wrought, the model of succeeding times.
But now fair liberty illumes the age,
And reason tints renown's recording page,
Blots from her eye the fierce barbarian's name,
And even Cæsar blurs the page of fame.
Who wrought the wond'rous change? what power divine?
The wond'rous change, O Washington! was thine.
'Tis thine own era graced the radiant page,
The fostering parent of a filial age.
Thou too, illustrious Hancock, by his side
In every lowering hour of danger tried,
With him conspicuous o'er the beamy page,
Descend the theme of every future age.
When first the sword of early war we drew,
The king presaging fix'd his eye on you.
'T was your dread finger press'd the sacred seal,
Whence rose to sovereign power the public weal.
Then, Washington! Oh dearly honor'd name,
From callow youth the favorite of fame,
When hovering navies, haughty Albion's boast,
Pour'd her dread armies o'er our trembling coast,
Your country beck'd you from the rural bower,
And nerved your mighty arm with all her power.
The tyrant saw, and sickening at the view,
In fancy bade his frantic hopes adieu.
But urged by fate, still bade his armies dare,
Blew the vain trump, and waged abortive war.
At length you drew the tyrant from his throne,
And bade his seal your course of glory crown.
When polish'd wisdom seem'd her seats to fly,
On thee again the public cast her eye.
How rose the model from your forming hand!
The proud palladium of our happy land.
Ah! gentle parent of the cradled states,
On whose fond eye an infant nation waits,
While now affection seems your steps to stay,
And swarming concourse checks your laboring way;
Perhaps among the loud acclaiming throng,
Your ear may heed the muse's transient song;
The high-born muse from adulation free,
Attunes, Oh chief! her haughty lyre to thee.
No vulgar theme could ever tempt her strain,
Perhaps the proudest of the tuneful train.
Apart from busy life her hours are led,
And her lone steps the shades of science tread.
Her years revolving roll a playful flow,
Nor ever care o'erhung the muse's brow.
From the recess where her own roses twine,
How oft her fancy drew a form like thine.
Ere morning waked she wing'd her early way
To hail the dawn of this auspicious day.
SOME wit of old-such wits of old there wereWhose hints show'd meaning, whose allusions care, By one brave stroke to mark all human kind, Call'd clear blank paper every infant mind; Where still, as opening sense her dictates wrote, Fair virtue put a seal, or vice a blot.
The thought was happy, pertinent, and true;
Methinks a genius might the plan pursue.
I (can you pardon my presumption?) I-
No wit, no genius, yet for once will try.
Various the papers various wants produce,
The wants of fashion, elegance, and use.
Men are as various; and if right I scan,
Each sort of paper represents some man.
Pray note the fop-half powder and half laceNice as a band-box were his dwelling-place:
He's the gilt paper, which apart you store,
And lock from vulgar hands in the 'scrutoire.
Mechanics, servants, farmers, and so forth,
Are copy-paper, of inferior worth;
Less prized, more useful, for your desk decreed,
Free to all pens, and prompt at every need.
The wretch, whom avarice bids to pinch and spare,
Starve, cheat, and pilfer, to enrich an heir,
Is coarse brown paper; such as pedlars choose
To wrap up wares, which better men will use.
Take next the miser's contrast, who destroys Health, fame, and fortune, in a round of joys. Will any paper match him? Yes, throughout, He's a true sinking-paper, past all doubt.
The retail politician's anxious thought
Deems this side always right, and that stark naught;
He foams with censure; with applause he raves-
A dupe to rumors, and a tool of knaves;
He'll want no type his weakness to proclaim,
While such a thing as foolscap has a name.
The hasty gentleman, whose blood runs high,
Who picks a quarrel, if you step awry,
Who can't a jest, or hint, or look endure:
What is he? What? Touch-paper to be sure.
What are our poets, take them as they fall,
Good, bad, rich, poor, much read, not read at all?
Them and their works in the same class you'll find;
They are the mere waste-paper of mankind.
Observe the maiden, innocently sweet,
She's fair white-paper, an unsullied sheet;
On which the happy man, whom fate ordains,
May write his name, and take her for his pains.
One instance more, and only one I'll bring;
'Tis the great man who scorns a little thing,
Whose thoughts, whose deeds, whose maxims are his own,
Form'd on the feelings of his heart alone:
True genuine royal-paper is his breast:
Of all the kinds most precious, purest, best.
JOHN TRUMBULL, the author of M'Fingal, was born on the 24th day of April, 1750, in the parish of Westbury, then a part of the town of Waterbury, in New Haven county, Connecticut. The place is now called Watertown, and is included in the county of Litchfield. His father was the first minister of the congregational church in that town, a man of good classical attainments and for many years one of the trustees of Yale College. The subject of this memoir was an only son, and of a very delicate and sickly constitution. He received the strictest care from his mother, who was a woman of superior education for those of her day. Young Trumbull gave early manifestations of his poetical turn by studying and committing to memory all the verses contained in the Spectator and Watts's Lyric Poems, which comprised the department of English literature in his father's library. This slight initiation into the rudiments of polite letters enabled him to exert his propensity to verse by making rhymes of his own, an exercise in which he was encouraged by his parents. His father, in conformity to a practice common at that time, had taken under his tuition a youth of seventeen years of age for the purpose of directing his studies previous to his entering college. Trumbull took notice of the student's method of learning Latin, and unaided and unperceived by any one except his mother, set about the study of the language himself. His father after some time discovered it, and finding he made a more rapid progress than his fellow student, encouraged him to proceed. He was examined and admitted at the college in 1757, but owing to his extreme youth and ill health, was not sent to reside there till 1763.
He employed this interval of time in the study of the Greek and Latin classics, and such English writers as were to be procured in his native village, consisting of few beside Milton, Dryden, Pope and Thomson. Upon entering college he found little attention paid to polite literature, except in the department of the ancient languages, and as his proficiency in
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