The FRIENDLY CLUB & OTHER PORTRAITS Francis Parsons

The FRIENDLY CLUB And OTHER PORTRAITS

Citation of authorities, except so far as they appear in the text, has been considered inappropriate in the case of such informal articles as these. It would be ungracious, however, to omit mention of the writer's indebtedness in connection with the second essay to Mr. Charles Knowles Bolton's "The Elizabeth Whitman Mystery," which is the latest and most comprehensive document on this baffling incident of New England social history.

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I: The Friendly Club

How good this literature was considered in its day is not readily understood by the modern reader, for from the Hudibrastic imitations and heroic couplets of these writers, whose brilliance was dimmed so long ago, the contemporary flavor has long since evaporated. Indeed there is no[16] modern reader in the general sense. It is only the antiquarian, the literary researcher, the casual burrower among the shelves of some old library who now opens these yellow pages and follows for a few moments the stilted lines that seem to him a diluted imitation of Pope, Goldsmith and Butler. Professor Beers of Yale ventures the surmise that he may be the only living man who has read the whole of Joel Barlow's "Columbiad."

Yet in their time this coterie of poets, who gathered in the little Connecticut town after the close of the war for independence, became famous not only in their own land but abroad, and the community where most of them lived and met at their "friendly club"—was it at the Black Horse Tavern or the "Bunch of Grapes"?—shone in reflected glory as the literary center of America. No Boswell was among them to record the sparkling epigrams, the jovial give and take, the profound "political and philosophical" debates of those weekly gatherings. Yet imagination loves to linger on the old friendships, the patriotic aspirations, the common passion for creative art, the wooing of the Muses of an older world, thus dimly shadowed forth against the[17] background of the raw young country just embarking on its mysterious experiment.

Do not doubt that these personages whose individualities are now so effectually concealed behind the veil of their sounding and artificial cantos were real young men who cherished their dreams and their hopes. One can see them gathered around the great wood fire in the low ceiled room redolent of tobacco, blazing hickory and hot Jamaica rum.

Here is Trumbull, the lawyer, the author of "M'Fingal" which everybody has read and which has been published in England and honored with the criticism of the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews. He is a little man, rather frail, rather nervous, not without impatience, with a ready wit that sometimes bites deep. Here is Lemuel Hopkins, the physician, whose lank body, long nose and prominent eyes are outward manifestations of his eccentric genius. His presence lends a fillip to the gathering for he is an odd fish and no one can tell what he will do or say next. Threatened all his life with tuberculosis he is nevertheless a man of great muscular strength and during his days as a soldier he used to astonish his comrades by his ability to fire a heavy[18] king's arm, held in one hand at arm's length. In his verses he castigates shams and humbugs of all kinds, whether the nostrums of medical quacks or the irreverent vaporings of General Ethan Allen—

Perhaps Colonel David Humphreys, full of war stories and anecdotes of his intimacy with General Washington, on whose staff he served, is in Hartford for the evening. A well dressed, hearty, sophisticated traveler and man of the world is Colonel Humphreys, who would be recognized at first glance as a soldier, though not as a poet. Nevertheless he is addicted to the writing of verse which is apt to run in the vein of comedy or burlesque when it is not earnestly patriotic. To look at him one would know that he enjoys a good dinner, a good story and a bottle of port.

We may be sure that Joel Barlow is here, the vacillating, visionary Barlow who has tried, or is to try his hand at many pursuits besides epic poetry—the ministry, the law, bookselling, philosophy,[19] journalism and diplomacy—but who is pre-occupied now, as all his life, with his magnum opus, "The Vision of Columbus," later elaborated into "The Columbiad." He is a good looking, if somewhat self-centered young man, a favorite in the days of his New Haven residence with the young ladies of that town. Perhaps it was there that he first met the charming and talented Elizabeth Whitman, the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Elnathan Whitman, sometime pastor of the South Congregational Church in Hartford, who often visited her friend Betty Stiles, the daughter of the president of Yale College. A few of Elizabeth Whitman's letters that have survived—the packet bearing an endorsement in Barlow's handwriting—are evidence that he made her a confidante of his literary schemes and hopes and welcomed her assistance with his great epic. A strong friendship and entire harmony seem to

have existed between her and Ruth Baldwin of New Haven, whom Barlow married during the war, and who is said to have "inspired in the poet's breast a remarkable passion, one that survived all the mutations of a most adventurous career, and glowed as fervently at fifty as at twenty-five." For nearly a year the marriage[20] was kept a secret, but parental forgiveness was at last secured and Barlow has now brought his wife to Hartford where he is continuing his legal studies, begun in his college town. But the law will not engross him long. Soon, with his friend Elisha Babcock, he is to start a new journal, "The American Mercury," of which his editorship, like all of Barlow's early enterprises, is to be brief, though the paper is to continue till 1830.

A tall, slender man, Noah Webster by name, a class-mate of Barlow at Yale, though four years his junior, sits near him, relaxing for the moment in the informality of these surroundings his strangely intense powers of mental application, divided just now between the law and the preparation of his "Grammatical Institute." To the "poetical effusions" of his friends he contributes nothing, but he was an intimate of them all and no doubt often attended their gatherings.

Perhaps, now and later, something of the poet's license in the matter of chronology may be granted. Let us assume, then, that young Dr. Mason Cogswell is in town for a day or two, looking over the ground with a view of settling here in the practice of medicine and surgery in[21] which he is now engaged at Stamford, after his training in New York where he served with his brother James at the soldiers' hospital. It is true that the fragments of his diary, which by a fortunate chance were rescued from destruction, do not mention any visit to Hartford as early as this, though his journal does describe a short sojourn here a few years later. Still, his presence is by no means impossible. He is a companionable youth, as popular with the young ladies as Barlow, but with an easier manner, a readier humor. Delighted at this opportunity to sit for an evening at the feet of the older celebrities, he is a welcome guest, for already he has a reputation for versatility and culture and the fact that he was valedictorian of the Yale Class of 1780—and its youngest member—is not forgotten.

Richard Alsop, book-worm, naturalist and linguist, who is beginning to dip into verse, has locked up his book shop for the night and is here. Near him sits a man who is, or is soon to be, his brother-in-law, a tall, dark youth, Theodore Dwight, the brother of the more famous Timothy, whose pastoral duties detain him at Greenfield Hill, but who is sometimes numbered as[22] one of this group. Theodore is now studying law, but he has a flair for writing and makes an occasional adventure into the gazettes.

These more youthful aspirants have their spurs to win. A little later they, with their friend Dr. Elihu Smith, who published the first American poetic anthology, are to get into print in a vein of satirical verse ridiculing the prevalent literary affectation and bombast. After journalistic publication these satires will appear in book form under the title of "The Echo," in the introduction to which the anonymous authors state that the poems "owed their origin to the accidental suggestion of a moment of literary sportiveness." "The Echo" was "Printed at the Porcupine Press by Pasquin Petronius."

That particular sportive moment is still in the future. Now it is sufficient for these younger men to shine in the reflected luster of the established luminaries. These greater lights are worthy indeed of the worship of the lesser stars. Three of them have achieved, or are soon to acquire, an international as well as a national reputation. That "M'Fingal" had provoked discussion in England has been noted. Humphreys's "Address to the Armies of America," written in camp at[23] Peekskill, and dedicated to the Duke de Rochefoucault, was issued with an introductory letter by the poet's friend, the Marquis de Chastellux, in a French translation in Paris, after its publication in England where the Monthly and Critical Reviews gave it a fair amount of praise, though they could not refrain from the statement that the poem was "not a very pleasing one to a good Englishman." Barlow's "Vision of Columbus" was published almost simultaneously in Hartford and London in 1787.

In short these men had attained a genuine intellectual eminence in their generation. They were the cognoscenti of their day. Like most young intellectuals their gospel concerned itself with reform, with the ridicule of shams, with the refusal to accept the popularity of new doctrines as a final test of their value. Trumbull and Barlow, both Yale graduates, had fought with their friend Timothy Dwight their first reform campaign which was an effort to introduce into the somewhat archaic and outworn body of the Yale curriculum the breath of the humanities and of modern thought. Trumbull, according to Moses Coit Tyler, was an example of a "new tone coming into American letters—urbanity,[24] perspective, moderation of emphasis, satire, especially on its more playful side—that of irony."

Their interests were not only literary. They were publicists, political satirists, social philosophers, not without their religious theories. In all these matters their search was for the true standards and as champions of causes and enthusiasts of ideals they exhibited a variation from type in that their warfare was waged, not against the recognized conventions in government, religion and society, but in favor of them. Priding themselves on untrammelled and direct thinking, their reasoning led them to support the established, the orderly, the stable. Temperamentally aristocrats, theoretically republicans—in the broad sense of the term—they were practically federalists. "The Anarchiad," a series of poems they were contributing anonymously about this time to "The New Haven Gazette," dealt satirically with the dangers of national unrest and instability, of selfish aggrandizement and of a fictitious currency. In these verses Hesper addresses "the Sages and Counsellors at Philadelphia" as follows:

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And in the same passage occur some lines, attributed to Hopkins, that Daniel Webster may have read:

They ridiculed unsparingly the dangers hidden under the cloak of "Democracy"—dangers imminent and menacing in the days following the end of the war in which most of them had served. In fighting these perils they were sagacious in making use of the means frequently employed by advocates of radicalism—invective, irony and ridicule. For these methods secured, as they naturally would secure if cleverly managed, a wide appeal. Yet the efficiency of such weapons depends very largely upon the occasion. Their potency is contemporary with the events against which they are directed and with the passing years their force weakens. Who reads nowadays the political diatribes of Swift, the tracts of Defoe, or the letters of Junius? Here perhaps is in part an explanation of the great temporary influence of the Hartford Wits, as well as of their complete modern obscuration. The brilliant[26] blade they wielded had a biting edge, but the rust of a century and a half has dulled it.

This general leaning toward the established canons, this impatience with the new doctrines that in the judgment of these men made for disunion and disaster, should be qualified, at least in the religious aspect, in two interesting particulars, each contradictory to the other. Hopkins began adult life as a sceptic but became a defender of the Christian philosophy. Barlow, on the other hand, deserted in later life the orthodox ideals of his youth, never, perhaps, very enthusiastically championed, and during his sojourn in France became a rationalist and free-thinker.

In general, however, the Hartford Wits fought for the established order against the forces of innovation and disintegration and thus when they sat down to unburden their minds of their visions of their country's future greatness, or of their impatience with demagoguery and political short-sightedness, it was natural that their sense of tradition and order should lead their thoughts to seek expression in the verse forms lifted into fame by the masters of an older and greater literature and accepted as the conventional vehicle[27] of poetic expression. Here is another reason, if they must be catalogued, for the forgetfulness of the Hartford Wits. These balanced, formal lines, so expressive of the artificial modes and manners of the subjects of Queen Anne and her successors, are to us prosy, old-fashioned and imitative. Their charm has fled. Can you imagine Miss Amy Lowell reading Hudibras? And we must admit that "M'Fingal," though it has given to literature some still remembered aphorisms, such as—

It is significant that the distinction of the individuals united in the "friendly club" was not confined to their literary activities. In an age sometimes esteemed narrow and limited in its cultural aspects they are refreshing in their versatility. Trumbull was a well-known lawyer and served on the bench for eighteen years, part of his legal training having been pursued in the office[28] of John Adams. It was a strange combination, not unprecedented but nevertheless arresting, of this talent for the law associated with the artistic temperament. For with all his practical attributes Trumbull was essentially an artist. His early poem entitled "An Ode to Sleep," says Tyler, "is a composition resonant of noble and sweet music and making, if one may say so, a nearer approach to genuine poetry than had then [1773] been achieved by any living American except Freneau." And in the following bit of autobiography, quoted by Tyler, may be discerned the self-distrust and depression to which no soul that longs and strives for the beautiful in this imperfect world is entirely a stranger:

"Formed with the keenest sensibility and the most extravagantly romantic feelings . . . . I was born the dupe of imagination. My satirical turn was not native. It was produced by the keen spirit of critical observation, operating on disappointed expectation, and revenging itself on real or fancied wrongs."

This is an extraordinary item of self-revelation to come from a man who at various times held office as State's Attorney for Hartford County, member of the General Assembly and Judge of[29] the Superior and Supreme Courts of his State. It may not be an entirely fanciful surmise to attribute a partial cause of the delicate health that followed Trumbull all his long life to the warring elements that strove to unite in his brilliant mentality.

With Dr. Hopkins poetizing was distinctly a by-product. His chief concern was the practice of medicine and in his profession he won a reputation that is not entirely forgotten today by members of the faculty, for he was probably the first American physician to assert that tuberculosis was curable and his success as a specialist in this field was so marked that, says Dr. Walter R. Steiner in a monograph upon him, "patients with this disease came to him for treatment from a great distance—one being recorded to have made the trip all the way from New Orleans." In his treatment he was unique in his day in very largely discarding the use of drugs and relying more upon pure air, good diet and moderate exercise when strength permitted. His theory that fresh air was better for colds than the warm air of houses was revolutionary, but so was almost everything he did—or so it seemed to his contemporaries. At one time he evidently considered[30] that New York City might offer a wider field of practice than the Connecticut capital, for in December, 1789, Trumbull wrote to Oliver Wolcott,

"Dr. Hopkins has an itch of running away to New York, but I trust his indolence will prevent him. However if you should catch him in your city, I desire you to take him up or secure him so that we may have him again, for which you shall have sixpence reward and all charges." In spite of his malady he lived till almost fifty-one, dying in April, 1801, the head of the medical profession in Connecticut.

It is to be noted that though Dr. Cogswell was one of the chief contributors to "The Echo" his main business in life was as a surgeon rather than a poet, and he became one of the most skillful surgical practitioners in the country, being the first to introduce into the United States the operation for cataracts and the first to tie the carotid artery. Closely associated with him is the pathetic memory of his daughter Alice who became stone deaf in early childhood and whose infirmity led to the establishment at Hartford of the first school in this country for the education of the deaf. Of this institution Dr. Cogswell was one of the founders and he was a leader in other[31] philanthropic enterprises. He lived till 1830. To the last he wore the knee breeches and silk stockings customary in his youth and which he considered the only proper dress for a gentleman. His death broke the heart of his daughter Alice, to whom he had been a never-failing protection and support, and she died within a fortnight after her father.

In contrast with the activities of their colleagues, the careers of Theodore Dwight and Alsop are associated solely with the product of their pens. Dwight, however, was more of a publicist and editor than a creative literary worker. He had the brains with which nature had endowed his family and his history of the unjustly maligned Hartford Convention is a thoughtful and able piece of work—an original historical document that is illuminating and suggestive. Such distinction as Alsop attained was strictly literary, yet one gets the impression that he worked at writing rather as an amateur than a professional. He was really a student, a scholar, a research worker, and seems to have sought his reward more in the pleasure of following his interests than in the quest of public recognition. Much that he wrote was never published.

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