ST. GEORGE TUCKER. [Born about 1750. Died 1827.] species of literary accomplishment was more practised and admired than it is at the present day. His rhymed epistles, epigrams, complimentary verses, and other bagatelles, would fill several volumes; but he gave only one small collection of them to the public in this form. When Dr. WOLCOTT's satires on GEORGE the Third, written under the name of "Peter Pindar," obtained both in this country and in England a popularity far beyond their merits, Judge TUCKER, who adinired them, was induced to publish in FRENEAU'S" National Gazette" a series of similar odes, under the signature of "Jonathan Pindar," by which he at once gratified his political zeal and his poetical propensity. His object was to assail JOHN ADAMS and other leading federalists, for their supposed monarchical predilections. His pieces might well be compared with WOLCOTT's for poetical qualities, but were less playful, and had far more acerbity. Collected into a volume, they continued to be read by politicians, and had the honour of a volunteer reprint from one of the earliest presses in Kentucky. ST. GEORGE TUCKER was born in Bermuda | particularly successful in vers de societé, when that about the middle of the last century. His family had been in that island ever since it was settled, and one of his ancestors, DANIEL TUCKER, who had lived a while in Virginia, was its governor in 1616. His father came into Virginia while still a young man, but spent much of his time in England, where he was agent for the colony. He there met Dr. FRANKLIN, with whom he occasionally corresponded. He had four sons, two of whom adhered to England on the breaking out of the revolution, and two joined the Americans, and continued through life stanch republicans. These were THOMAS TUDOR TUCKER, many years representative of South Carolina in Congress, and ST. GEORGE, who lived and died in Virginia. The latter was graduated at the College of William and Mary, and afterwards studied the law, but, tired of the silence of the courts, on the approach of the war, resorted to arms. In the early part of the contest he is said to have planned a secret expedition to Bermuda, where he knew there was a large amount of military stores, in a fortification feebly garrisoned. The perilous enterprise proved entirely successful, and it appears from a recent biography of his nephew, HENRY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, one of the directors of the East India Company, that he personally aided in it. He was with the army at Yorktown, holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and received during the siege a slight scratch in the face, from the explosion of a bomb; upon which General WASHINGTON, in a more jocular mood than was his wont, congratulated him on his honorable scar. He was soon afterwards appointed to a seat in the General Court; while a judge, was professor of law in the College of William and Mary; was next advanced to the Court of Appeals; and finally to the District Court of the United States. He was one of the commissioners of Virginia who met at Annapolis, in 1796, and recommended the convention which formed the present federal constitution. By his first wife, Mrs. RANDOLPH, mother of JOHN RANDOLPH, he has numerous descendants; by his second, he had none who survived him. Judge TUCKER had a ready talent for versification, which he exercised through life, and he was DAYS OF MY YOUTH. DAYS of my youth, ye have glided away: Judge TUCKER was capable of better things than these political trifles. He wrote a poem entitled "Liberty," in which the leading characters and events of the revolution are introduced. Of his numerous minor pieces some are characterized by ease, sprightliness, and grace. One of them, entitled Days of My Youth," so affected JOHN ADAMS, in his old age, that he declared he would rather have written it than any lyrie by MILTON or SHAKSPEARE. He little dreamed it was by an author who in earlier years had made him the theme of his satirical wit. In prose also Judge TUCKER was a voluminous writer. His most elaborate performance was an edition of BLACKSTONE'S "Commentaries," with copious notes and illustrative dissertations. He lived to a great age, and through life had numerous and warm friends. He was an active and often an intolerant politician, yet such was the predominance of his kindly affections and companionable qualities, that some of his most cherished friends were of the party which in the mass he most cordially hated. Eyes of my youth, you much evil have seen: JOHN TRUMBULL. [Born 1750. Died 1831.] JOHN TRUMBULL, LL.D., the author of "McFingal," was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on the twenty-fourth day of April, 1750. His father was a Congregational clergyman, and for many years one of the trustees of Yale College. He early instructed his son in the elementary branches of education, and was induced by the extraordinary vigour of his intellect, and his unremitted devotion to study, to give him lessons in the Greek and Latin languages before he was six years old. At the age of seven, after a careful examination, young TRUMBULL was declared to be sufficiently advanced to merit admission into Yale College. On account of his extreme youth, however, at that time, and his subsequent ill health, he was not sent to reside at New Haven until 1763, when he was in his thirteenth year. His college life was a continued series of successes. His superior genius, attainments and industry enabled him in every trial to surpass his competitors for academic honours; and such of his collegiate exercises as have been printed evince a discipline of thought and style rarely discernible in more advanced years, and after greater opportunities of improvement. He was graduated in 1767, but remained in the college three years longer, devoting his attention principally to the study of polite letters. In this period he became acquainted with DWIGHT, then a member of one of the younger classes, who had attracted considerable attention by translating in a very creditable manner two of the finest odes of Horace, and contracted with him a lasting friendship. On the resignation of two of the tutors in the college in 1771, TRUMBULL and DWIGHT were elected to fill the vacancies, and exerted all their energies for several years to introduce an improved course of study and system of discipline into the seminary. At this period the ancient languages, scholastic theology, logic, and mathematic were dignified with the title of "solid learning," and the study of belles lettres was decried as useless and an unjustifiable waste of time. The two friends were exposed to a torrent of censure and ridicule, but they persevered, and in the end were successful. TRUMBULL wrote many humorous prose and poetical essays while he was a tutor, which were published in the gazettes of Connecticut and Massachusetts, and with DWIGHT prosfuced a series in the manner of the “ Spectator,” which extended to more than forty numbers. The Progress of Dulness" was published in 1772. It is the most finished of TRUMBULL'S poems, and was hardly less serviceable to the cause of education than "MeFingal" was to that of liberty. The puerile absurdity of regarding a knowledge of the Greek and Hebrew languages as of more importance to a clergyman than the most perfect ac 66 quaintance with rhetoric and belles lettres, then obtained more generally than now, and dunces had but to remain four years in the neighbourhood of a university to be admitted to the fellowship of scholars and the ministers of religion. In the satire, Tom BRAINLESS, a country clown, too indolent to follow the plough, is sent by his weakminded parents to college, where a degree is gained by residence, and soon after appears as a full-wigged parson, half-fanatic, half-fool, to do his share toward bringing Christianity into contempt. Another principal person is DICK HAIRBRAIN, an impudent fop, who is made a master of arts in the same way; and in the third part is introduced a character of the same description, belonging to the other sex. During the last years of his residence at College, TRUMBULL paid as much attention as his other avocations would permit to the study of the law, and in 1773 resigned his tutorship and was admitted to the bar of Connecticut. He did not seek business in the courts, however, but went immediately to Boston, and entered as a student the office of JOHN ADAMS, afterward President of the United States, and at that time an eminent advocate and counsellor. He was now in the focus of American politics. The controversy with Great Britain was rapidly approaching a crisis, and he entered with characteristic ardour into all the discussions of the time, employing his leisure hours in writing for the gazettes and in partisan correspondence. In 1774, he published anonymously his " Essay on the Times," and soon after returned to New Haven, and with the most flattering prospects commenced the practice of his profession. 66 The first gun of the revolution echoed along the continent in the following year, and private pursuits were abandoned in the general devotion to the cause of liberty. TRUMBULL Wrote the first part of McFingal," which was immediately printed in Philadelphia, where the Congress was then in session, and soon after republished in numerous editions in different parts of this country and in England. It was not finished until 1782, when it was issued complete in three cantos at Hartford, to which place TRUMBULL had removed in the preceding year. McFingal" is in the Hudibrastic vein, and much the best imitation of the great satire of BUTLER that has been written. The hero is a Scotish justice of the peace residing in the vicinity of Boston at the beginning of the revolution, and the first two cantos are principally occupied with a discussion between him and one HONORIUS On the course of the British government, in which McFINGAL, an unyielding loyalist, endeavours to make proselytes, while all his arguments are directed against himself. His zeal and his logic are together irresistibly ludicrous, but there is nothing in the character unnatural, as it is common for men who read more than they think, or attempt to discuss questions they do not understand, to use arguments which refute the positions they wish to defend. The meeting ends with a riot, in which MCFINGAL is seized, tried by the mob, convicted of violen toryism, and tarred and feathered. On being set at liberty, he assembles his friends around him in his cellar, and harangues them until they are dispersed by the whigs, when he escapes to Boston, and the poem closes. These are all the important incidents of the story, yet it is never tedious, and few commence reading it who do not follow it to the end and regret its termination. Throughout the three cantos the wit is never separated from the character of the hero. After the removal of TRUMBULL to Hartford a social club was established in that city, of which BARLOW, Colonel HUMPHRIES, Doctor LEMUEL HOPKINS, and our author, were members. They produced numerous essays on literary, moral, and political subjects, none of which attracted more applause than a series of papers in imitation of the Rolliad," (a popular English work, ascribed to Fox, SHERIDAN, and their associates,) entitled "American Antiquities" and Extracts from the Anarchiad," originally printed in the New Haven Gazette for 1786 and 1787. These papers have never been collected, but they were republished from one end of the country to the other in the periodicals of the time, and were supposed to have had considerable influence on public taste and opinions, and by the boldness of their satire to have kept in abeyance the leaders of political disorganization and infidel philosophy. TRUMBULL also aided BARLOW in the preparation of his edition of WATTS's version of the Psalms, and wrote several of the paraphrases in that work which have been generally attributed to the author of "The Columbiad." TRUMBULL was a popular lawyer, and was appointed to various honcurable offices by the people and the government. From 1795, in consequence of ill health, he declined all public employment, and was for several years an invalid. At length, recovering his customary vigour, in 1800 he was elected a member of the legislature, and in the year following a judge of the Superior Court. In 1808 he was appointed a judge of the Supreme Court of Errors, and held the office until 1819, when he finally retired from public life. His poems were collected and published in 1820, and in 1825 he removed to Detroit, where his daughter, the wife of the Honourable WILLIAM WOODBRIDGE, recently a member of the United States Senate for Michigan, was residing, and died there in May, 1831, in the eighty-first year of his age. III. Descend, and, graceful, in thy hand, That in the Elysian land of dreams, O bowery maze, that shades the purple streams, IV. But drive afar the haggard crew, That haunt the guilt-encrimson'd bed, Or dim before the frenzied view Stalk with slow and sullen tread; While furies, with infernal glare, Wave their pale torches through the troubled air, And deep from Darkness' inmost womb, Sad groans dispart the icy tomb, And bid the sheeted spectre rise, Mid shrieks and fiery shapes and deadly fantasies See a note on this subject appended to the Life of BARLOW in this volume. V. Come and loose the mortal chain, That binds to clogs of clay the ethereal wing; And give the astonish'd soul to rove, Where never sunbeam stretch'd its wide domain; And hail her kindred forms above, In fields of uncreated spring, Aloft where realms of endless glory rise, And rapture paints in gold the landscape of the skies. VI. Then through the liquid fields we'll climb, Where daring Homer sits sublime, And Pindar rolls his fiery car; Where high Parnassus lifts his airy head, Flow gently through the warbli..g glade; day. VII. Or call to my transported eyes Lead the rivulet through the glade. Where opening roses taste the honey'd dew, Bid Time's inverted glass return The scenes of bliss, with hope elate, And burst the iron bands of fate Just to her vows and faithful to her fame. VIII. Hymen's torch, with hallow'd fire, Rising beams the auspicious ray. Warbling sweet the nuptial lay; Bid the bright enchantress move, On her glowing breast reclining, I clasp the fair, and, kindling at the view, IX. Hence, false, delusive dreams, Fantastic hopes and mortal passions vain Ascend, my soul, to nobler themes Pierce yon blue vault, ingemm'd with golden fires: X. And find that mansion of the blest, Where, rising ceaseless from this lethal stage, Heaven's favourite sons, from earthly chains released, In happier Eden pass the eternal age. The newborn soul beholds the angelic face Of holy sires, that throng the blissful plain, Or meets his consort's loved embrace, Or clasps the son, so lost, so mourn'd in vain. There, charm'd with each endearing wile, Maternal fondness greets her infant's smile; Long-sever'd friends, in transport doubly dear, Unite and join the interminable train And, hark! a well-known voice I hear I spy my sainted friend! I meet my How again. XI. Hail, sacred shade! for not to dust consign'd, Lost in the grave, thine ardent spirit lies, Nor fail'd that warm benevolence of mind To claim the birthright of its native skies. What radiant glory and celestial grace, With heart expansive, through this scene improve * Rev. JOSEPH HOWE, pastor of a church in Boston, some time a fellow-tutor with the author at Yale College. He died in 1775. The conclusion of the ode was varied by inserting this tribute of affection. THE COUNTRY CLOWN.* BRED in distant woods, the clown The half-heard compliments, whose note Poor DICK! though first thy airs provoke THE FOP.t How blest the brainless fop, whose praise The lowest dunce, without despairing, For now, by easy rules of trade, * From the "Progress of Dulness." To tailors half themselves they ove, On folded skirt, or straiten'd sleeve, And who for beauty need repine, And lend those airs, would lure a duchess. To grace his speech, let France bestow Soft, simpering tales of amorous pain, This passage alludes to the mode of dress ther in fashion. |