JOHN TRUMBULL (1750-1831)
Of the once-famous "Hartford Wits," or "Yale School of Poets" as sometimes they have been called,-Dwight, Trumbull, Barlow, and the others,-Trumbull was the most popular, and during the Revolution the most effective. In college, like Barlow and Freneau, he had had dreams of literature as a profession. With Dwight he wrote a series of Addisonian essays, and in 1771-1773, while a tutor in his alma mater, had produced a long Hudibrastic satire upon the educational methods of his day, entitled The Progress of Dulness. A littlc later, in 1775, catching the spirit of the times, he had continued on in Hudibrastic satire, directing his wit and bitterness now against the tory element that was stubbornly standing against the rising tide of revolution. This second satire he called M'Fingal: A Modern Epic Poem, issuing in January, 1776, what are now the first two cantos of the poem in a forty page book that became one of the most popular of American publications.
This tremendous mock heroic production which Moses Coit Tyler pronounced "one of the world's masterpieces in political badinage," was like Paine's pamphlets, one of the leading forces that won American independence. It sent men laughing into the armies of Washington. Paine appealed solely to reason; Trumbull appealed to the sense of humor and was almost as effective. It was this earlier half of the poem which served as propaganda and which molded so markedly patriot thought and morale. The two concluding cantos, which bring the total of lines of the poem to over three thousand, were added after the surrender. of Cornwallis, and the poem in its final form was not issued until 1782. It did not die with the times that called it forth. No less than eighteen different editions have been issued, the last as late as 1881.
The latter half is the more finished and the more brilliant. From it have come most of the quotations that have wrongly been attributed to Butler, as for instance the Squire's pregnant speech just before his punishment at the liberty pole. The poem as a whole undoubtedly is one of the best specimens extant of a sustained mock heroic satire. The similes are elaborate travesties of Homer's style, but most of them are made from native materials, as, when covered with newly-melted tar, the Tory squire is said to have
"glitter'd to the western ray,
Like sleet-bound trees in wintry skies."
Canto Four is after the Miltonic pattern: M'Fingal, after his tremendous fall, like Satan, finds himself in the lower regions of darkness surrounded by his crew, or, more correctly speaking, in a vegetable cellar mid cider barrels and ale kegs. Here in the darkness the redoubtable chief, still unconquered, like Satan on the fiery marl,
"Rose solemn from the turnip-bin.
Nor yet his form had wholly lost
Th' original brightness it could boast.
Nor less appear'd than justice quorum,
In feather'd majesty before 'em," etc.
Then, like Satan, he too began to harangue his host in sorry plight:
"Brethren and friends, the glorious band
Of loyalty in rebel land!"
Only in this case, gifted with true Scotch second sight, he could see no hope. He proph esies disaster at real length and it speedily comes in the form of a Whig invasion of the cellar.
Trumbull's dream of poetry as a profession faded quickly as did Freneau's and Barlow's. The times were rude and far from ready for professional poets. Reluctantly he bade farewell to the muse and gave himself up to the practice of the law, which led him ever farther and farther from the dream of his youth. Connected vitally as it is with the great American struggle for liberty, his one poem undoubtedly will never be wholly forgotten.
Now arm'd with ministerial ire,
Fierce sally'd forth our loyal squire,
And on his striding steps attends,
His desp'rate clan of tory friends;
When sudden met his angry eye
A pole ascending to the sky,
Which num'rous throngs of whiggish race
Were raising in the market-place;
Not higher school-boys' kites aspire,
Or royal mast, or country spire,
Like spears at Brobdingnagian tilting,
Or Satan's walking-staff in Milton;
And on its top the flag unfurl'd,
Wav'd triumph o'er the prostrate world,
Inscrib'd with inconsistent types
Of liberty and thirteen stripes.
Beneath, the crowd without delay,
The dedication rites essay,
And gladly pay in ancient fashion,
The ceremonies of libation;
While briskly to each patriot lip
Walks eager round th' inspiring flip:
Delicious draught, whose pow'rs inherit
The quintessence of public spirit!
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Which whoso tastes, perceives his mind 25
To nobler politics refin'd,
Or rous'd for martial controversy,
As from transforming cups of Circe;
Or warm'd with Homer's nectar'd liquor,
That fill'd the veins of gods with ichor. 30
At hand for new supplies in store,
The tavern opes its friendly door,
Whence to and fro the waiters run,
Like bucket-men at fires in town.
Then with three shouts that rend the sky, 35 'Tis consecrate to liberty:
To guard it from th' attacks of tories,
A grand committee cull'd of four is,
Who foremost on the patriot spot,
Had bought the flip, and paid the shot. 40
But now M'Fingal with his train,
Advanc'd upon th' adjacent plain,
And fierce with loyal rage possess'd,
Pour'd forth the zeal, that fir'd his breast.
"What madbrain'd rebel gave commission 45
To raise this maypole of sedition?
Like Babel rear'd by bawling throngs,
With like confusion too of tongues,
To point at heav'n, and summon down
The thunders of the British crown?
Say, will this paltry pole secure
Your forfeit heads from Gage's pow'r? ·
Attack'd by heroes brave and crafty,
By plunder rise to pow'r and glory,
And brand all property as tory;
Expose all wares to lawful seizures
Of mobbers and monopolizers;
Break heads, and windows, and the peace,
For your own int'rest and increase;
Dispute, and pray, and fight, and groan,
For public good, and mean your own;
Prevent the laws, by fierce attacks,
From quitting scores upon your backs;
Lay your old dread, the gallows, low,
And seize the stocks, your ancient foe;
And turn them as convenient engines
To wreak your patriotic vengeance:
While all, your claims who understand,
Confess they're in the owner's hand:
And when by clamours and confusions,
Your freedom's grown a public nuisance,
Cry, Liberty, with pow'rful yearning,
As he does, fire, whose house is burning,
Tho' he already has much more,
Than he can find occasion for.
While ev'ry dunce, that plough'd the plains,
Tho' bankrupt in estate and brains,
By this new light transform'd to traitor,
Forsakes his plough to turn dictator,
Starts an haranguing chief of whigs,
And drags you by the ears, like pigs.
All bluster, arm'd with factious licence, 115
Transform'd at once to politicians ;
Each leather-apron'd clown, grown wise,
Presents his forward face t' advise;
And tatter'd legislators meet
From ev'ry workshop thro' the street;
His goose the tailor finds new use in,
To patch and turn the constitution;
The blacksmith comes with sledge and grate,
To iron-bind the wheels of state;
The quack forbears his patient's souse,
To purge the council and the house;
The tinker quits his moulds and doxies,
To cast assembly-men at proxies.
From dunghills deep of sable hue,
Your dirtbred patriots spring to view,
To wealth, and pow'r, and pension rise,
Like new-wing'd maggots chang'd to flies;
And flutt'ring round in proud parade,
Strut in the robe, or gay cockade.
See Arnold quits for ways more certain, 135
His bankrupt perj'ries for his fortune,
Brews rum no longer in his store,
Jockey and skipper now no more;
Forsakes his warehouses and docks,
And writs of slander for the pox;
And purg'd by patriotism from shame,
Grows gen'ral of the foremost name.
For in this ferment of the stream,
The dregs have work'd up to the brim,
And, by the rule of topsy-turveys,
The scum stands swelling on the surface.
You've caus'd your pyramid t' ascend,
And set it on the little end;
Like Hudibras, your empire's made,
Whose crupper had o'ertopped his head; 150
You've push'd and turn'd the whole world up-
Side down, and got yourselves a-top:
While all the great ones of your state,
Are crush'd beneath the pop'lar weight;
Nor can you boast, this present hour,
The shadow of the form of pow'r.
For what's your congress, or its end?
A pow'r t' advise and recommend:
To call for troops, adjust your quotas,
And yet no soul is bound to notice;
To pawn your faith to th' utmost limit,
But cannot bind you to redeem it;
And, when in want, no more in them lies
Than begging of your state-assemblies;
Can utter oracles of dread,
Like friar Bacon's brazen head;
But should a faction e'er dispute 'em,
Has ne'er an arm to execute 'em.
As though you chose supreme dictators,
And put them under conservators;
You've but pursued the self-same way,
With Shakespeare's Trinclo in the play,
'You shall be viceroys here, 'tis true,
But we'll be viceroys over you.'
What wild confusion hence must ensue,
Tho' common danger yet cements you!
So some wreck'd vessel all in shatters,
Is held up by surrounding waters;
But, stranded, when the pressure ceases,
Falls by its rottenness to pieces:
And fall it must-if wars were ended,
You'll ne'er have sense enough to mend it:
But creeping on with low intrigues,
Like vermin of a hundred legs,
T will find as short a life assign'd,
As all things else of reptile kind.
Such is the government you chose;
For this you bade the world be foes;
For this, so mark'd for dissolution,
You scorn the British constitution,
That constitution form'd by sages,
The wonder of all modern ages:
Which owns no failure in reality,
Except corruption and venality;
And only proves the adage just,
That best things spoil'd, corrupt to worst:
So man supreme in mortal station,
And mighty lord of this creation,
When once his corse is dead as herring,
Becomes the most offensive carrion,
And sooner breeds the plague, 'tis found,
Than all beasts rotting 'bove the ground.
Yet for this gov'rnment to dismay us,
You've call'd up anarchy from chaos,
With all the followers of her school,
Uproar and rage and wild misrule;
For whom this rout of whigs distracted
And ravings dire of every crack'd head,
These new-cast legislative engines
Of county-musters and conventions,
Committees vile of correspondence,
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