Timothy Dwight would probably have rested his title to literary fame on his five volumes of theology and the eleven books of his “Conquest of Canaän.” But the epic is unread and unreadable, while theological systems need constant restatement in an age of changing beliefs. There is one excellent hymn by Dwight in the collections,—“I love thy kingdom, Lord.” His war song, “Columbia, Columbia, in glory arise,” was once admired, but has faded. I have found it possible to take a mild interest in the long poem, “Greenfield Hill,” a partly idyllic and partly moral didactic piece, emanating from the country parish, three miles from the Sound, in the town of Fairfield, where Dwight was pastor from 1783 to 1795. The poem has one peculiar feature: each of its seven parts was to have imitated the manner of some one British poet. Part One is in the blank verse and the style of Thomson’s “Seasons”; Part Two in the heroic couplets and the diction of Goldsmith’s “Traveller” and “Deserted Village.” For lack of time this design was not systematically carried out, but the reader is reminded now of Prior, then of Cowper, and again of Crabbe. The nature descriptions and the pictures of rural life are not untruthful, though somewhat tame and conventional. The praise of modest competence is sung, and the wholesome simplicity of American life, under the equal distribution of wealth, as contrasted with the luxury and corruption of European cities. Social questions are discussed, such as, “The state of negro slavery in Connecticut”; and “What is not, and what is, a social female visit.” Narrative episodes give variety to the descriptive and reflective portions: the burning of Fairfield in 1779 by the British under Governor Tryon; the destruction of the remnants of the Pequod Indians in a swamp three miles west of the town. It is distressing to have the Yankee farmer called “the swain,” and his wife and daughter “the fair,” in regular eighteenth century style; and Long Island, which is always in sight and frequently apostrophized, personified as “Longa.” Then on the borders of this sapphire plain Shall growing beauties grace my fair domain * * * * * Gay groves exult: Chinesian gardens glow, And bright reflections paint the wave below. The poet celebrates Connecticut artists and inventors:— Such forms, such deeds on Rafael’s tablets shine, And such, O Trumbull, glow alike on thine. David Bushnell of Saybrook had invented a submarine torpedo boat, nicknamed “the American Turtle,” with which he undertook to blow up Lord Admiral Howe’s gunship in New York harbor. Humphreys gives an account of the failure of this enterprise in his “Life of Putnam.” It was some of Bushnell’s machines, set afloat on the Delaware, among the British shipping, that occasioned the panic celebrated in Hopkinson’s satirical ballad, “The Battle of the Kegs,” which we used to declaim at school. “See,” exclaims Dwight,—