domestic intimacy with Washington, Humphreys, in his Mount Vernon, an Ode, has left a grateful reminiscence. Indeed, in his verses the reader is never long out of sight of Washington. His gratitude never tires of expressing itself, and this is a most amiable feature of his character. The man was formed for friendship. His countenance is full of benevolence, which in his long bachelor days before he married Miss Bulkley, an English lady of wealth at Lisbon, when he was about forty-five-overflowed in kind remembrances of his associates. In a pleasant poetical epistle written to a young lady in Boston, and dated at New Haven in 1780, he celebrates a sleigh-ride journey which brought him among his friends in Connecticut.

Some days elaps'd, I jogg'd quite brave on
And found my Trumbull at New Haven;
Than whom, more humour never man did
Possess nor lives a soul more candid-
But who, unsung, would know hereafter,
The repartees, and peals of laughter,

Or how much glee those laughters yield one,
Maugre the system Chesterfieldian!
Barlow I saw, and here began

My friendship for that spotless man;

Whom, though the world does not yet know it,

Great nature form'd her loftiest poet.

But Dwight was absent at North-Hampton,

That bard sublime, and virtue's champion.

To whom the charms of verse belong,
The father of our epic song.

During his war scenes he had written his Address to the Armies of the United States of America in 1782, when he was encamped at Peekskill, and the foe was in possession of New York and Charleston. In this address he refers to President Davies's celebrated early prophecy of the greatness of Washington in Virginia, in the old French

war.

Oh! raised by heaven to save th' invaded state, So spake the sage long since thy future fate.*

His battle-pieces are in an animated style, and that he could fight as well as write, is witnessed by the sword which Congress voted him for his bravery at the siege of Yorktown, of the standards taken at which place he was the honored bearer to the government. His poem, the Address, was translated into French by the accomplished courtier and soldier of the early period of the war, the Marquis de Chastellux. From the pictures of war in this production, the death

Ante, p. 271.

+"This memorable event, his presenting the standards, was painted by a Danish artist, when the poet and soldier was in Europe, between 1784 and 1786, as Secretary of Legation to Mr. Jefferson."-Dunlap's Am. Theatre, p. 59.

Marquis de Chastellux to Franklin, Paris, June 21, 1786."When you were in France, there was no need praising the Americans. We had only to say, look, here is their representative. But however worthily your place may have since been filled, it is not unreasonable to arouse anew the interest of a kind-hearted but thoughtless nation, and to fix, from time to time, its attention upon the great event to which it has had the happiness of contributing. Such has been my motive in translating Colonel Humphreys's poem. My success has fully equalled, and even surpassed, my expectation. Not only has the public received the work with favor, but it has succeeded perfectly at court, especially with the king and queen, who have praised it highly.

"I have taken more pains to render my work an agreeable one to read, than to make it an exact and faithful translation." -Sparks's Works of Franklin, x. 263.

D Humphreys

tary of Legation, sailed for Europe with Jefferson then proceeding to join his fellow commissioners, Franklin and Adams, in Paris. The vessel, the Courrier de l'Europe, left Boston in July, and Kosciusko was one of the passengers. Humphreys, always ready with his verses for the occasion, wrote on board ship a poetical epistle of the voyage to his friend Dr. Dwight, in which he celebrates

Our Polish friend, whose name still sounds so hard.
To make it rhyme would puzzle any bard;
That youth, whom bays and laurels early crown'd,
For virtue, science, arts, and arms renown'd.

The description of the cabin scenery would appear to have anticipated the glories of a Collins

steamer.

See the great cabin nigh, its doors unfold, Show fleeting forms from mirrors fix'd in gold! O'er painted ceilings brighter prospects rise, And rural scenes again delight our eyes. Showing how a little elegance may be more profitable to a man with a faculty of being pleased, than a great display to a dull ob-erver. Facts are so sumptuous now, on a voyage to Liverpool, that there is no room left for the imagination, and the man who should write verses about plush or gilded carving would be justly accounted a snob.

Dwight met this epistle by another dated Greenfield, the next year, in which he takes a

higher strain of eloquence, and cautions his friend against the seductions of Europe. His picture of the Travelled Ape in this production, is one of the most vigorous passages of American satire. A Poem on the Happiness of America, addressed to the Citizens of the United States, was written by Humphreys during his residence abroad, and is the longest of his productions, extending to more than a thousand lines. It puts Washington's Farewell to the Army in verse, celebrates the purity and simplicity of American life, glances at the men of the old Continental Congress.

His list'ning sons the sire shall oft remind, What parent sages first in Congress join'd; The faithful Hancock grac'd that early scene, Great Washington appear'd in godlike mien, Jay, Laurens, Clinton, skill'd in ruling men, And he, who earlier, held the farmer's pen. 'Twas Lee, illustrious at the father's head, The daring way to independence led. The self-taught Sherman urg'd his reasons clear, And all the Livingstons to freedom dear; What countless names in fair procession throng, With Rutle lge, Johnson, Nash demand the song! And urges a naval crusade against the Algerines, in those days the tyrants of the sea, and concluding poetically, and prophetically as it turned out when Decatur took hold of them, with a brilliant triumph over those marauders. In Humphreys's volume of 1804, the copy of this poem is set down as the tenth edition. Several of its topics are again handled in the author's Poem on the Future Glory of the United States of America; indeed a certain monotony of subjects and treatment runs through all his verses. He had little variety in thought or execution.

Humphreys returned in 1786 to Connecticut, where he was elected to the State Legislature, appointed to the command of a regiment for the western service, and where he joined his poetical friends in the composition of the Anarchiad.* We next find him on his second residence at Mount Vernon, about this time employing his leisure in translating, or, as his title-page calls it, “imitating" from the French of M. de Mierre, a tragedy (with a very happy ending) entitled, The Widow of Malabar, which was acted by Hallam's old American Company at Philadelphia, in 1790. It is a showy sketch of a play for stage purposes, full of intensity in italics, and shrieks ascending to small pica capitals. The lady, having just buried a husband whom she never loved, is about to be sacrificed, according to the custom of the country, on the funeral pile. The young Brahmin whom the high priest, in a brief summary stage style, orders to look to the performance of the ceremony, turns out her brother, which is crisis number one: then there is opportunely an invading army on hand, with one of whose officers the lady had once been in love when travelling from the Ganges. The preparation goes on with passionate arguments and expostulations touching the rite pro and con. The widow is at the pile, which she has ascended, when at the last moment for interruption the French general steps in to the rescue, and the curtain falls, but not until a very

As the chief hand in this production was borne by HopElas, we have placed our account of it in our notice of him.

clever epilogue written by the author of M'Fingal
is recited, which laughs at the agreeable termina-
tion of the painful affair, and pleasantly tells the
audience, with a travesty of Pope's verses, how
much better off Columbia's daughters are than
ladies subjected to such heathen dispensations.
For here, ye fair, no servile rites bear sway,
Nor force ye-(though ye promise)—to obey:
Blest in the mildness of this temp'rate zone,
Slaves to no whims, or follies-but your own.-
Here custom, check'd in ev'ry rude excess,
Confines its influence to the arts of dress,
O'er charms eclips'd the side-long hat displays,
Extends the hoop, or pares away the stays,
Bedecks the fair with artificial gear,
Breast-works in front, and bishops in the rear:-
The idol rears, on beanty's dazzling throne,
Mankind her slaves, and all the world her own;
Bound by no laws a husband's whims to fear,
Obey in life, or burn upon his bier;

She views with equal eye, sublime o'er all,
A lover perish-or a lap-dog fall—
Coxcombs or monkeys from their chains broke

loose

And now a husband dead-and now a goose. Mrs. Henry, who recited the prologue, had a word to the men, which marks the time.

Your vict'ries won-your revolution ended—
Your constitution newly made-and mended-
Your fund of wit-your intellectual riches-
Plans in the closet-in the senate speeches-
Will mark this age of heroes, wits, and sages,
The first in story to the latest ages!-
Go on-and prosper with your projects blest,
Till your millennium rises in the west:-
We wish success to your politic scheming,
Rule ye the world!-and then-be rul'd by

women!

Humphreys also wrote a comedy, which he failed in his attempts to get upon the stage. Dunlap, who saw the author and the play in Boston in 1805, relates how Humphreys endeavored to persuade the manager, Bernard, to bring it out, how "it was extremely unlike those comedies Bernard owed his fame to, and repaid by imparting the vivifying influence of his art," and how the wary comedian heard the poet read, drank his Madeira, said 'very well' now and then-but never brought out the play."

In 1794 Humphreys was appointed the first American ambassador to Lisbon,* where he resided for six years till 1797, when he became

*Of Humphreys's diplomatic business the author of M'Fingal has some pleasant raillery in a letter to Oliver Wolcott, dated Hartford, December 9, 1789:-"Pray, congratulate Colone! Humphreys, in my name, on his late promotion in the diplomatic line. If I understand the matter rightly, he holds the same post which Crispe promised George in the Vicar of Wakefield. You remember Crispe told him there was an embassy talked of from the Synod of Pennsylvania to the Chickasaw Indians, and he would use his interest to get him appointed secretary. Tell him not to be discouraged too much at his want of success. The President has tried him on M'Gillivray first, and he did not suit the skull of the savage, but we cannot argue from that circumstance that he could not fit as easy as a full-bottomed wig upon the fat-headed, sot-headed, and crazyheaded sovereigns of Europe. Tell him this story also for his comfort, and to encourage his hopes of speedy employment: A king being angry with an ambassador, asked him whether his master had no wise men at court, and was therefore obliged to send him a fool? Sire,' said the other, my master has many wise men about his court, but he conceived me the most proper ambassador to your Majesty. Upon this principle I am in daily expectation of hearing that he is appointed minister plenipo. to George, Louis, or the stadtholder."-Gibbs's Memoirs of the Administrations of Washington and John Adams.

minister to Spain, a post which he held till he was succeeded by Pinckney in 1802. He then returned to America, and engaged in the importation of merino sheep from Spain. He wrote a dissertation on the subject in prose, and employed it capabilities in verse, in his poem On the Industry of the United States of America, which was composed, he tells us, on the delightful banks of the Tagus, where his days were pleasantly passed in the enjoyment of health, happiness, and content."

66

Oh, might my guidance from the downs of Spain,
Lead a white flock across the western main;
Fam'd like the bark that bore the Argonaut,
Should be the vessel with the burden fraught!
Clad in the raiment my Merinos yield,
Like Cincinnatus fed from my own field;
Far from ambition, grandeur, care and strife,
In sweet fruition of domestic life;
There would I pass with friends, beneath my trees,
What rests from public life, in letter'd ease.

His wish was gratified. He imported a hundred of the "white flock," a fact which the Massachusetts Agricultural Society records on a medal. When Madison, in 1809, took his oath of office as president, he was dressed in a full suit of American woollens, of which Colonel Humphreys's manufactory furnished the coat, and Chancellor Livingston's the waistcoat and smallclothes.* He was also employed in agricultural improvements. The village of Humphreysville, situated on Naugatuc river, in Connecticut, the seat of a considerable manufacturing interest, was named after him. He was a native of the town: hip.

Death of General Washington, pronounced at the house of the American legation at Madrid, on the 4th July, 1800. He had already written a letter to Mrs. Washington, dated on the 220 February

the day, says he, "signalized by his birth, and which was accustomed to be celebrated with heartfelt festivity throughout the United States;" -and so may it ever be!

In 1812 he was appointed to the command of two regiments of Connecticut soldiery, the "Veteran Volunteers." The rest of his life was passed in retirement. He died at New Haven, February 21, 1818.

PUTNAM'S ADVENTURE WITH THE WOLF.-FROM THE LIFE OF GENERAL PUTNAM.

In the year 1739, he removed from Salem to Pomfret, an inland fertile town in Connecticut, forty miles east of Hartford. Having here purchased a considerable tract of land, he applied himself successfully to agriculture.

The first years on a new farm are not, however, exempt from disasters and disappointments, which can only be remedied by stubborn and patient i dustry. Our farmer, sufficiently occupied in building an house and barn, felling woods, making fences, sowing grain, planting orchards, and taking care of his stock, had to encounter, in turn, the calamities occasioned by drought in suminer, blast in harvest, loss of cattle in winter, and the desolation of his sheep-fold by wolves. In one night he had seventy fine sheep and goats killed, besides many lambs and kids wounded. This havock was committed by a she-wolf, which, with her annual whelps, had for several years infested the vicinity. The yong were commonly destroyed by the vigilance of the hut ers, but the old one was too sagacious to come within reach of gun-shot: upon being closely pursued, she would generally fly to the western woods, and return the next winter with another litter of whelpa.

This wolf, at length, became such an intolerable nuisance that Mr. Putnam entered into a combination with five of his neighbours to hunt alternately until they could destroy her. Two, by rotation, were to be constantly in pursuit. It was known, that, having lost the toes from one foot by a steeltrap, she made one track shorter than the other. By this vestige the pursuers recognised, in a light Show, the route of this pernicious animal. Having followed her to Connecticut river, and found she had turned back in a direct course towards Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten o'clock the next morning the blood-hounds had driven her into a den, about three miles distant from the house of Mr. Putnam. The people soon collected with dogs, guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack the common enemy. With this apparatus, several unsuc

cessful efforts were made to force her from the den. The hounds came back badly wounded, and refused to return. The smoke of blazing straw had no effect. Nor did the fumes of burnt brimstone, with which the cavern was filled, compel her to quit the retirement. Wearied with such fruitless attempts, (which had brought the time to ten o'clock at night,) Mr. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter, but in vain. He proposed to his negro man to go down into the cavern and shoot the wolf: the negro declined the hazardous service. Then it was that the master, angry at the disappointment, and declaring that he was ashamed to have a coward in his family, resolved himself to destroy the ferocious beast, lest she should escape through some unknown fissure of the rock. His neighbours strongly remon strated against the perilous e:.terprise: but he,

THE SHEPHERD: A SONG.

(Translated from the French.)

It rains, it rains, my fair,

Come drive your white sheep fast:

To shelter quick repair,

Haste, shepherdess, make haste.

I hear the water pours,

With patt'ring on the vines: See here! see here! it lours— See there the lightning shines. The thunder dost thou hear?

Loud roars the rushing storm:
Take (while we run, my dear,)
Protection from my arm.

I see our cot, ah, hold!
Mamma and sister Nance,
To open our sheep-fold,
Most cheerily advance.
God bless my mother dear,
My sister Nancy too!
I bring my sweetheart here,
To sleep to-night with you.
Go dry yourself, my friend,
And make yourself at home-
Sister, on her attend:

Come in, sweet lambkins, come.
Mamma, let's take good care

Of all her pretty sheep; Her little lamb we'll spare

More straw whereon to sleep. "Tis done-now let us haste

To her;-you here, my fair!
Undress'd, oh, what a waist!

My mother, look you there.
Let's sup; come take this place,
You shall be next to me;
This pine-knot's cheerful blaze
Shall shine direct on thee.

Come taste this cream so sweet,
This syllabub so warm;

Alas! you do not eat:

You feel e'en yet the storm. "Twas wrong-I press'd too much Your steps, when on the way; But here, see here, your couchThere sleep till dawn of day, With gold the mountain tips:— Good-night, good-night, my dove! Now let me on your lips Imprint one kiss of love.

Mamma and I will come,

As soon as morn shall shine, To see my sweetheart home, And ask her hand for mine.

THE MONKEY,

Who shaved himself and his Friends.
A Fable.

Addressed to the Hon.

A man who own'd a barber's shop
At York, and shav'd full many a fop,
A monkey kept for their amusement;
He made no other kind of use on't-
This monkey took great observation,
Was wonderful at imitation,
And all he saw the barber do,
He mimic'd straight, and did it too.

It chane'd in shop, the dog and cat, While friseur din'd, demurely sat, Jacko found naught to play the knave in, So thought he'd try his hand at shaving. Around the shop in haste he rushes, And gets the razors, soap, and brushes; Now puss he fix'd (no muscle miss stirs) And father'd well her beard and whiskers, Then gave a gash, as he beganThe cat cry'd "waugh!" and off she ran.

Next Towser's beard he tried his skill in, Though Towser seem'd somewhat unwilling: As badly here again succeeding,

The dog runs howling round, and bleeding.

Nor yet was tir'd our roguish elf;
He'd seen the barber shave himself;
So by the glass, upon the table,
He rubs with soap his visage sable,

Then with left hand holds smooth his jaw,-
The razor in his dexter paw;

Around he flourishes and slashes,
Till all his face is seam'd with gashes.
His cheeks dispatch'd-his visage thin
He cock'd, to shave beneath his chin;
Drew razor swift as he could pull it,
And cut, from ear to ear, his gullet.

Moral.

Who cannot write, yet handle pens, Are apt to hurt themselves and friends. Though others use them well, yet fools Should never meddle with edge tools,

JAMES THACHER,

THE author of the American Medical Biography, was born at Barnstable, Massachusetts, in 1754, of a New England family, which figures conspicuously in the lists of Harvard College. The close of his medical education with Dr. Abner Hersey, a noted Massachusetts physician, brought him to the opening of the War of Independence. He eagerly stepped forward in the cause, and secured the post of surgeon's mate in the provincial hospital at Cambridge. He next became attached to one of the Eastern regiments, and was engaged in the hospital duties after the field at Saratoga. He was afterwards stationed at the Highlands of the Hudson, and was at West Point in 1780, at the time of the treason of Arnold, and witnessed the execution of André. He was also present at the surrender of Cornwallis. Of these and other incidents of the campaigns, he gave an interesting account, in his Military Journal during the American Revolutionary War, from 1775 to 1783, which was published in 1824. After the war he settled in Plymouth, Massachusetts, where he remained engaged in the practice of his profession, and in the composition of his numerous writings, till his death, at the advanced age of ninety-one, in May, 1844. Besides the Military Journal already mentioned, he was the author of an American New Dispensatory, 1810; Observations on Hydrophobia, 1821; the Modern Practice of Physic, 1817; the American Orchardist, 1822; a Practical Treatise on the Management of Bees, 1829; an Essay on Demonology, Ghosts, Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions, 1831; a History of Plymouth, 1832; besides various contributions to the journals on medical and scientific topics. American Medical Biography, or Memoirs of Eminent Physicians who have flourished in

His