THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE, AND NOTES AND QUERIES, CONCERNING THE ANTIQUITIES, HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY AMERICA. VOL. III. SECOND SERIES. MORRISANIA, N. Y. HENRY B. DAWSON. 1868. PREFATORY NOTE. The close of another volume of the MAGAZINE-the third of the New Series-affords another opportunity for a tender of our sincere thanks to those who have continued to favor us with their good-will, whether as contributors to our pages of literary material or as subscribers to the work. We have been harassed, it is true, by long-continued sickness, by provoking delays in the receipt of necessary "copy," and by other matters which we were unable to control, all tending to delay the issue of the work with the regularity which we have earnestly desired and endeavored to to secure, yet we have so far overcome our hindrances, that we are enabled to present our volume, perfected, to our readers with less delay than some of our neighbors have sometimes experienced, and without the least diminution in its value and importance to the student of our country's history. We are again at our post, in tolerable good health, and with an abiding confidence in our entire capability to establish THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE, during the coming year, in line with its contemporaries, both in the regularity of its publication, in the importance of its contents, and in its influence among those of our countrymen whose good opinion is worth possessing. MORRISANIA, N. Y, HENRY B. DAWSON. AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY, Worcester, Mass. | KELBY, WILLIAM, New York City. Secretary of the Maine Historical Society. President of the Maine Historical Society. President of the L. I. Historical Society. Author of Life of Nathaniel Ward, etc. The historian of Lake George, etc. The historian of the Town of Boston, etc. The historian of the Dutch School, in N. Y. DUYCKINCK, EVERT A. New York City. Author of Encyclo. of Amer. Literature, etc. EWBANK, HON. THOMAS, New York City. V. P. of The American Ethnological Society. FISH, HON. HAMILTON, New York City. President of the New York Historical Society. FRANCIS, The late JOHN W. LL.D. New York. GIBBS, GEORGE, Washington, D. C. Author of The Administration of Washington and Adams. GILLETT, D.D., Rev. E. H. Harlem, N. Y. The historian of the Presbyterian Church. Author of Life of Gen. Nathaniel Greene, etc. The historian of Elizabeth-town, N. J., etc. Tarrytown, New York. KAPP, FRIEDRICH, New York City. Biographer of Generals Steuben, DeKalb, etc. Of the New York Historical Society. Librarian of New York Historical Society. The historian of Minnesota. Historian of New Netherland. PAINE, NATHANIEL, Worcester, Massachusetts. Treasurer of the Amer. Antiquarion Society. PERRY, REV. WILLIAM STEVENS, Litchfield, Conn. Secretary of House of Lay and Clerical Dele gates of General Convention of P. E. Church. SARDEMANN, REV. J. G. Weser, Germany. SHEA, LL.D. John Gilmary, Elizabeth, N. J. Librarian of N. E. Historic Genealog. Society. Author of History of Windsor; History of STONE, REV. E, M. Providence. Secretary of R. I. Historical Society. Author of Ancient Pemaquid, Landing on TIEDEMAN, H. Amsterdam, Holland. President of the Connecticut Historical Society. Author of WILLIAMSON, HON. JOSEPH, Belfast, Maine. Late President Maine Historical Society. Editor of The Westover Papers, etc. THE HISTORICAL MAGAZINE. Vol. III. SECOND SERIES.] JANUARY, 1868. I-THE ORIGIN OF "M FINGAL." Gage's Proclamation of June 12th, 1775, in Burlesque Verse, by John Trumbull. BY HON. J. HAMMOND TRUMBULL, PRESIDENT OF THE CONNECTICUT HISTORICAL SOCIETY. JOHN TRUMBULL, the author of M'Fingal, after his admission to the bar in Connecticut, 1 prosecuted the study of law at Boston, in the office of John Adams, from November, 1773, till September, 1774. During this period, as the 1. For the Life of Trumbull, see the Memoir prefixed to the Hartford Edition of his Poetical Works (1820, two vol ames, octavo), EVEREST's Poets of Connecticut, and DUYOKINCK's Cyclopedia of American Literature, i. 30S-312. The following Notes, preserved by President Stiles in his Itinerary [MS.), make a considerable addition to what the poet has elsewhere told us of himself and to the gleanings of his biographers: "Memoirs Jno. Trumbull Esq., Poet. (Ex ore John Trum"bull, May 14, 1789.) "1750, Apr. 24 N. S. born at Westbury [now Watertown]. "E: 2. Began Primer and learned to read in half-year, "without school. Mother taught him all the primer verses, and Watts' Children's Hymns, before [he could] "read." "Et. 4. Read the Bible thro'-before 4. About this time "began to make Verses. First poetry" [he read was] "Watts' Lyrics, and could repeat the whole,-and the "only poetical book he read till æt. 6. "E. 5. Attempted to write and print his own verses. "Sample, large hugeous letters. This first attempt "at writing, by himself, and before writing after copy. "Scrawls. "Et. 6. In Spring began to learn Latin and learned half "Lilly's Grammar before his father knew it: catched it, "as his father was instructing Southmayd" [William; grad. Yale, 1761; son of Capt. Danil, of Waterbury.] "Same Spring, was 6 yrs. old. Learned Que genus by "heart in a day. Tenacious memory: quick, too. "Et. 9. On a wager laid-to commit to memory one of "Salmon's Pater Nosters in a quarter of an hour-he ef"fected it, reciting by memory the P. N. in Hungarian "and Malabar, in Salmon; and retains it to this day. I "heard him repeat the Hungarian. "E. 7%. In Sept. 1757, entere 1 Yale College-having fitted "for College in one year and half; having learned Cor"dery, Tully's XII Select Orations, Virgil's Eclogues, and all the Eneid (not Georgies,) and 4 Gospels in Greek." 66 66 [No. 1 Memoir prefixed to the revised edition of his Works informs us, "he frequently employed his "leisure hours in writing essays on political sub'jects, in the public gazettes; which had, perhaps, a greater effect from the novelty of the manner, and the caution he used to prevent any discovery of the real author." Shortly after to the Hartford Courant, then published by his return to Connecticut, he became a contributor Ebenezer Watson, and afterwards by Hudson & Goodwin.2 Gage,-whose early confidence in his ability to play the lion' had much abated since his arrival at Boston, in May, 1774,—was now apparently relying more upon the pen than the sword, to awe America to submission. In M Fingal (Canto ii., p. 31) Trumbull retraces "The annals of his first great year: "While strokes alternate stunn'd the nation, "Et. 8. Read Milton, and Thompson's Seasons-Telemachus "-the Spectators. These, all the poetical and belles [lettres] "books till æt. 13. "Et. 13. Sept. 1763. Entered College again and resided "there. Before this, read Homer, and Horace, and Tully "De Oratore. Versified half the Psalms before æt. 9, when "he first saw Watts' Psalms, and laid aside (and burnt) his "OWII. Before 4 æt., upon first reading Watts' Lyrics, he "cried because he despaired of ever being able to write "Poems like Watts. "Et. 17. Grad. at Y. C. and resided as Dean's Scholar till [he] "took [his] 2d degree. Then lived one year at "Wethersfield. "1732. Jan. to April, wrote the rest of M'Fingal; printed, "September." 2. In 1772, while a Tutor of Yale, he published the first Part of The Progress of Dullness, -a poem "designed to expose "the absurd methods of education which then prevailed;" a second Part, with another Edition of the first, was printed in January, 1773; and the third Part appeared in July. In May, 1772, he had published in the Courant, An Elegy on the Death of Mr. Buckingham St. John, one of his earliest and most intimate friends. Shortly before leaving Boston, (August, 1774,) he wrote An Elegy on the Times, which was printed in one of the Boston papers. All these publications were anonymous. |