Many years later, when preparing a chapter on the literature of the county for the “Memorial History of Hartford,” I came to close quarters with the sweet influence of the Pleiades. I am one of the few men—perhaps I am the only man—now living who have read the whole of Joel Barlow’s “Columbiad.” “Is old Joel Barlow yet alive?” asks Hawthorne’s crazy correspondent. “Unconscionable man! . . . And _does_ he meditate an epic on the war between Mexico and Texas, with machinery contrived on the principle of the steam engine?” I also “perused” (good old verb—the right word for the deed!) Dwight’s “Greenfield Hill”—a meritorious action,—but I cannot pretend to have read his “Conquest of Canaän” (the diaeresis is his, not mine), an epic in eleven books and in heroic couplets. I dipped into it only far enough to note that the poet had contrived to introduce a history of our Revolutionary War, by way of episode, among the wars of Israel. It must be acknowledged that this patriotic enterprise of creating a national literature by _tour de force_, was undertaken when Minerva was unwilling. These were able and eminent men: scholars, diplomatists, legislators. Among their number were a judge of the Connecticut Supreme Court, a college president, foreign ministers and ambassadors, a distinguished physician, an officer of the Revolutionary army, intimate friends of Washington and Jefferson. But, as poetry, a few little pieces of the New Jersey poet, Philip Freneau,—“The Indian Student,” “The Indian Burying Ground,” “To a Honey Bee,” “The Wild Honeysuckle,” and “The Battle of Eutaw Springs,”—are worth all the epic and Pindaric strains of the Connecticut bards. Yet “still the shore a brave attempt resounds.” For they had few misgivings and a truly missionary zeal. They formed the first Mutual Admiration Society in our literary annals. Here gallant Humphreys charm’d the list’ning throng. Sweetly he sang, amid the clang of arms, His numbers smooth, replete with winning charms. In him there shone a great and godlike mind, The poet’s wreath around the laurel twined. This was while Colonel Humphreys was in the army—one of Washington’s aides. But when he resigned his commission,—hark! ’tis Barlow sings:— See Humphreys glorious from the field retire, Sheathe the glad sword and string the sounding lyre. O’er fallen friends, with all the strength of woe, His heartfelt sighs in moving numbers flow. His country’s wrongs, her duties, dangers, praise, Fire his full soul, and animate his lays. Humphreys, in turn, in his poem “On the Future Glory of the United States of America,” calls upon his learned friends to string _their_ lyres and rouse their countrymen against the Barbary corsairs who were holding American seamen in captivity:—