Connecticut Wits

Connecticut Wits:

Intimations of American Romanticism

By Matthew Richardson

"No subject can be more important in itself, or better suited to the present occasion, and the exercises of this day, than the Use and Advantages of the fine Arts, especially those of Polite Literature," wrote John Trumbull, one of the leading members of the Connecticut or Hartford Wits, in an essay on literature.[1] Trumbull continued, waxing philosophical about how whenever the "unconquered spirit of freedom" mixed with "heroic deeds" nations have risen not only in glory but also in fine arts.[2] After going through History discussing some of the great Greek, Roman, and British poets, he mentions that America has the opportunity to rule the world "both in arts and arms."  Trumbull then stated that the "late struggles" with England had awakened the necessary ingredients for an explosion of literature in the British American Colonies. He implied that the poems and essays in America would rival the poetry and prose of the Greeks, Romans, or British at their height.[3] When the British started taxing their American Colonies, Trumbull and other men of Connecticut choose the pen and the creation of poetry as their primary weapon against perceived tyranny. Connecticut's poets wrote epic poems, mock epic poems, satiric poems, elegies, and odes. These poetic forms are often associated with neoclassic period. Given the poetic forms and the use of poetry as a weapon against a corrupt government as other neoclassic writers, like Swift, Pope, and Thompson, most scholars place all of the Connecticut poets into the neoclassical era of poetry.[4] Clearly there were neoclassic elements in the poetry of the revolutionary writers of Connecticut; however, there were also elements of Romanticism, sometimes even in the same poem. In the fine art from Connecticut one will find themes, forms, and styles that are usually associated with Romantic art. For example, some of the Connecticut Wits wrote sonnets. The poetry in Connecticut displays enough Romantic style to refrain from referring to it as purely neoclassic. The Connecticut or Hartford Wits took the poetry in Connecticut slowly from neoclassic poetry to Romantic poetry. This thesis will analyze various poems by the Connecticut Wits, including the Minor Connecticut Wits, and show what is neoclassical about their poetry and what is Romantic about their poetry.

Reliance on Reason and Logic

Neoclassic art and literature had a number of distinguishing qualities. A few of these qualities were: rationalism, classical imitation, good taste, formalism, and educational entertainment. Rationalism is a reliance on reason and logic while controlling emotion and imagination. Classical imitation is using the Greek and Roman art as the perfect exemplar in form, theme, and style. Good taste refers to the abandonment of the extravagance of Baroque art in favor of "a strict subjection to the conventional." Formalism is the complete observance of the rules and the classic literary conventions. Educational entertainment is the idea and practice of art having a purpose to both teach and amuse the audience.[5] While the neoclassical period is recognized for its strict adherence to logic, rules and classical form, the Romantic poets and artist valued imagination, egalitarianism,[6] and medieval art forms[7].  The emphasis on imagination would lead to works of exoticism. It also allowed for the Romantic poet to see himself or herself as a prophet. The egalitarian ideal mixed with the poetic prophet lead to calls for abolition of slavery, education for all—including women, and democracy[8] or in many cases nationalism.[9] Romantic literature often values the common man: the peasant, the slave, the soldier, the sailor, the shepherd, and other outcasts from polite society.[10] William Dowling, an English professor at Rutgers, wrote Poetry and Ideology in Revolutionary Connecticut. Dowling argues that the literary circle known as the Connecticut or Hartford Wits were ideologues that wrote satirical poems similar to British poets from a generation before like Swift, Pope and Bolingbroke. He called the Connecticut Wits' poetry "literary Augustanism."[11] This assertion would place the Hartford Wits perfectly into the neoclassic period.  This paper argues that the Connecticut Wits were merely mostly neoclassic. Their satires often resembled the great English Augustans; however, they also often displayed romantic forms, ideas, and styles.  Dowling's work is used to show the standard placement of the Connecticut Wits. A book that deals with Timothy Dwight, a prominent preacher and more importantly a Connecticut Wit, is The Devil & Doctor Dwight: Satire & Theology in the Early American Republic by Colin Wells. Wells wrote Dwight's poem, The Triumph of Infidelity, "as perhaps the preeminent example of American Neoclassical or Augustan satire."[12] Wells explained the background of the poem. The poems main target was Charles Chauncy and Universalism or the belief that damnation was not eternal and all would eventually be saved.[13] The background provided by Wells was helpful. Wells, like Dowling, placed Dwight as a neoclassic writer. Peter Kafer wrote "The Making of Timothy Dwight: a Connecticut Morality Tale," that named Timothy Dwight as both neoclassic and Romantic.[14] Kafer wrote that Dwight wrote with a neoclassic aesthetic but with non-neoclassic influences, like his grandfather's, Jonathan Edwards', theology.[15] Kafer wrote about Dwight what I am writing about Dwight and his contemporaries—they had elements of neoclassic and Romantic art in their poetry. The introduction to A Century of Sonnets by Paula Feldman and Daniel Robinson was another useful book. Feldman and Robinson explained the history of the sonnet: its creation in the Middle Ages by Petrarch, its rise to popularity during the time of Shakespeare, to its disappearance from the poets repertoire in the neoclassic period, to its revival in the Romantic period.[16] Given the sonnets important place to Romantic poets, the background information this book provided made it an constructive tool.

Inward Refinement

In Richard Bushman's The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities he analyzed two of the poems by Connecticut Wits. The first one was John Trumbull's The Progress of Dullness." The other was Timothy Dwight's Greenfield Hill. Bushman's emphasis was their relation to a type of refinement that both poets disapproved. Bushman showed how Trumbull and Dwight opposed outward shows of refinement but favored true inward refinement.[17] While bushman never mentioned neoclassicism or Romanticism, some of his analysis could be aimed either direction. Amongst the first poets of the Connecticut Wits was John Trumbull. His most known works were mainly satiric mock epic poems but he wrote other poems also. At the conclusion of his essay entitled "An Essay on the Use and Advantages of Fine Arts" John Trumbull included an untitled poem.  Trumbull's poem was in form was neoclassic for it stuck exactly to the formal heroic couplet or iambic pentameter with each couplet rhyming.[18] The couplets lacked enjambments and thus followed Alexander Popes' standard of heroic couplets. Popes' ideas about couplets became a standard neoclassic poetic form.[19] The same nameless poem also displayed Romantic themes. Trumbull showed he valued freedom and showed a strong bit of nationalism when he wrote:

Fair Freedom now her ensigns bright displays, And Peace and Plenty bless the golden days. In mighty pomp America shall rise; Her glories spreading to the boundless skies.[20]

John Trumbull went on to write about the extraordinary authors and poets America will be blest with: "some future Shakespeare,"  "another Watts," and "some Rowe." Trumbull thought the poets out of America would with "lofty Milton vie" and "shine with Pope, with Thomson, and with Young."[21] Trumbull believed that Americans would thrive in the "Sister-arts" too. America would produce a "new Apelles" who make exquisite sculptures and breathtaking paintings that would rival the beauty of nature itself.[22] The Music produced by Americans was to be "heav'n born" that would "[rise] on the raptur'd wing."[23] Trumbull wrote, "o'er the happy land shall Genius reign."[24] Trumbull's poem was nationalistic in a few ways.  It talked about America's future glory in literature, art, and music.  From the poem it appears that America was destined to not only shine artistically, but it was destined to be considered, at least culturally, its own entity or possibly even nation. It was significant that Trumbull did not write the British American Colonies or American Colonies, but rather he used the term America without reference to its colonial status. Six years prior to the declaration of Independence John Trumbull wrote this poem as if America was not a colony. It is also nationalistic because of the way it described the greatness of America in arts and literature but also in freedom.[25] The next important work by John Trumbull was The Progress of Dullness. This poem told the story of three ridiculous figures. The First is Tom Brainless who was a lazy farm boy who grew up and became a preacher who hid his idiotic nature behind the pulpit. The second was Dick Hairbrain. Dick was the son of a rich thieving farmer. He was sent away to school where he learned to be a fop. He eventually blew his money. The third figure in the poem was Harriet Simper. Harriet was a girl trained by her aunt to care only about the superficialities like fashion and appearances. She was a coquette that eventually fell in love with Dick Hairbrain. Dick Hairbrain rejected her so she settled and married Tom Brainless.[26]

Criticizing the Universities

The Progress of Dullness is Hudibrastic or it was written in tetrameter. This was the typical neoclassic style to write a mock-heroic poem.  Trumbull stuck to the formalized style for a mock-heroic poem. The poem was also didactic which also would fit well in neoclassic art. Richard Bushman explained that Trumbull was criticizing the educational system that produced fops instead of gentlemen and coquettes instead of refined ladies in this great satire.[27] Trumbull was attempting to show Yale and other universities that something was missing in the studies provided there. There was little in this The Progress of Dullness that appears Romantic; however, there was a few nuggets of Romanticism buried in the poem. One of the elements of Romanticism was the rebellion against a couple of the great neoclassic minds. One of Trumbull's criticisms of Dick Hairbrain was his espousal of both David Hume's and Voltaire's doctrines of empiricism and doubt.[28] Another element of Romanticism was the implied belief in women's rights and the dignity of women. Trumbull expressed the belief in dignity in women through his condemnation of Dick Hairbrain for quoting pope who called women "rakes of the heart." He also showed his respect through his disapproval of Hairbrain quoting Voltaire's Mahomet, which said, "That women ne'er were born with souls."[29] When Trumbull wrote about Harriet Simper he implied that women deserved the right to an education that included more than just fashion. Trumbull achieved this by mocking Harriet's education that taught her not to worry about learning and "reading paves the way to wrinkles."[30] Trumbull went on to write about Harriet and other women like her "of sense which reading might bestow, / And time, whose worth they never know."[31] Here Trumbull was calling for a true liberal education for women just as the Romantic writer Mary Wollstonecraft would a few years after this poem.[32] John Trumbull also wrote a poem morning the British policy in its American colonies called "An Elegy on the Times." Based on form this work would be difficult to place into a artistic period because ancient Greeks and Romans poets wrote elegies, but so did poets in the Middle Ages. Neoclassical poets wrote elegies, as did Romantic poets.  This poem had a rhyme scheme of a b a b c d c d e f e f etc. "An Elegy on the Times" started describing Boston and the wonderful commerce and the markets full of cheerful customers. But that all changed when the "tyrant Vengeance waved her magic wand."  The markets became "desolate," "silent," and "gloomy." Trumbull criticizes Great Britain for having it's "strong fleets, with awful sails unfurl'd, / On Freedom's shrine th' unhallow'd bend."  The poem continued to decry the Boston Port Act as it compared it to slavery. The poem described how British tyranny had robbed Boston of its smile would not e permanent. Boston would smile again. Virginia and Charlestown would show their pride. Great Britain would end of in ruins. According to Trumbull, "Virtues sad withdrew" from Great Britain and because of the corruption "reluctant Freedom bid her last adieu, /And Devastation swept the vassal'd land." The Poem ended with the following four lines:

On her white cliffs, the pillars once of fame, Her melancholy Genius fits to wail; Drops the fond tear, and o'er her latest shame, Bids dark oblivion draw her sable veil.[33]

There were plenty of Romantic aspects to this poem. Clearly it was extremely nationalistic. Two years prior to the Declaration of Independence and a year prior to the Battle of Lexington and Concord Trumbull's poem envisioned an America that is free of British tyranny and a Great Britain with little to call great left in shambles without virtue or genius.[34] The same passage displayed the poet as a prophet motif often found in Romantic art.

Trumbull's Most Famous Poem

The poem John Trumbull was most famous for writing was M'Fingal. M'Fingal was another mock-heroic poem that, like The Progress of Dullness, was Hudibrastic. Occasionally broke out of the Hudibrastic form leaving the tetrameter behind for nine or ten syllables in a line.[35] Mock epic indicates that the poem would be neoclassic but the fact that Trumbull did not stick precisely to the Hudibrastic form suggests slight Romantic deviation from the formalism of neoclassic art. M'Fingal gave an abundance of both neoclassic and Romantic ideas and images. On the neoclassic side there are numerous references to Classical Greek and Roman mythology and authors. One example Ulysses.[36] He also mentioned the mountain nymph, Echo.[37] A battle between Whigs and Tories was compared to a battle in Ovid's Metamorphoses.[38] Trumbull compared one fight of Squire M'Fingal and a Whig "to Paris and Menelaus in Homer, Aeneas and Turnus in Virgil," and the non-classical characters of "Michael and Satan in Milton."[39] Trumbull mentioned Socrates and other Greeks and Romans.[40] M'Fingal was neoclassical art because of is satiric nature and the plethora of Ancient Greek and Roman figures it mentions. M'Fingal also had a number of Romantic elements in it. For one thing it mentioned items from the Middle Ages like the Philosopher's Stone.[41] A person from the medieval age that Trumbull mentioned was the legendary Pope Joan.[42] The poem claimed that the main character was descended from the ancient Scottish poet Ossian.[43] The alleged translation of Ossian's poems would inspire a number of great Romantic poets like Poe, Goethe, Coleridge, and Byron.[44] Another aspect of Romantic thought in M'Fingal was the nationalism. One way that Trumbull showed nationalism in M'Fingal was by the name Honorius, which he gave to the Whig who debated the Scottish squire.[45] By using the name Honorius for a Whig, the author implied that the patriot cause was honorable and by extension the Tory cause was not.  Trumbull further pointed this out by the arguments Honorius and Squire M'Fingal used in their debate. Honorius contended that the colonist had the utmost respect for their Mother Country. The British American colonies prospered "unharrass'd by maternal care." Honorius stressed that Great Britain was "by far overpaid" by its colonies but both were happy until England changed its policies. Great Britain "quite forgot her nearest friend" and "lost all her former sense and knowledge." In Honorius eyes Great Britain had "took a whim to be Almighty." After essentially declaring itself God Britain abused its American children. It "sent fire and sword and called it Lenity; /Starved us and called it Humanity."[46] M'Fingal conceded the point that the king had oppressed the British American Colonies; however, he argued that the king has a God given right to oppress his people. M'Fingal continued by saying that a tyrannical king was one of God's great teaching tools.  For the Jewish nation God used a king to teach lessons after "famine, slavery, and Philistines" did not get through to them.[47] Evidently, Trumbull was attempting to point out the silliness of the position of the loyalist on royal oppression.

No Connection With God

Honorius next blasted the Tories for not honoring the public decree for fast and prayer. He claimed the reason the Tories did not participate in the day of fast and prayer was the fact that they had no "connection" with heaven or God.[48] M'Fingal replied:

Will heaven reward with posts and fees, Or send us tea, as consignees, Give pensions, salaries, places, bribes, Or chuse us judges, clerks or scribes? Has it commissions in its gift, Or cash to serve us at a lift? Are acts of parliament there made, To carry on the placeman's trade, Or has it pass'd a single bill To let us plunder whom we will?

» Continued on page 2

Selected Bibliography

Primary Sources

Alsop, Richard. The Charms of Fancy, in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. Dwight, Theodore. "Lines Addressed to a Mother, Who had Been Absent from Home Several Weeks, on Her Seeing Her Infant Child Asleep," in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. ________. Untitled poem about slavery, in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. Dwight, Timothy. Greenfield Hill, in The Connecticut Wits, Ed by Vernon Parrington. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963. ________. The Triumph of Infidelity, In The Connecticut Wits, Ed by Vernon Parrington. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963. Humphreys, David. "An Ode Addressed to Laura," in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963. ________. A Poem on the Industry of the United States of America, in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963. ________."Sonnet I: Addressed to my Friends on my Leaving them to Join the Army," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804. ________."Sonnet IV: on Disbanding the Army," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804. ________. "Sonnet V: on Life," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804. ________. "Sonnet X: On the Murders Committed by the Jacobin Faction in the Early Period of the French Revolution," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804. ________."Sonnet XII:on Receiving the News of the Death of General Washington," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid. New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804. Smith, Elihu. "Sonnet VI: To Egwina,"" in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. ________. "Sonnet IX: To Mr. John Trumbull." in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. ________. untitled sonnet, in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin. Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970. Trumbull, John. "An Elegy on the Times: First Printed in Boston." New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1775; accessed online at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.erl.lib.byu.edu; last accessed 6 June 2008. ________. "An Essay on the Use and Advantages of Fine Arts." New Haven: T. and S. Green, 1770. Accessed online at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.erl.lib.byu.edu; last accessed 21 February 2007. ________. M'Fingal, 1775; accessed online at http://www.poemhunter.com; last accessed 21 March 2007. ________. "The Progress of Dullness" in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963.

Secondary Sources

Bushman, Richard. The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities. New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc, 1992. Dowling, William. Poetry and Ideology in Revolutionary Connecticut. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990. Feldman, Paula and Daniel Robinson, A Century of Sonnets: The Romantic-Era Revival, 1750-1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Kafer, Peter. "The Making of Timothy Dwight: a Connecticut Morality Tale," in William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 47, No. 2 (April 1990) 189-209. Wells, Colin. The Devil & Doctor Dwight: Satire & Theology in the Early American Republic. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.

References

[1] John Trumbull, "An Essay on the Use and Advantages of Fine Arts," (New Haven: T. and S. Green, 1770) 3; Accessed online at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.erl.lib.byu.edu; last accessed 21 February 2007.  There is another John Trumbull known for his paintings of the Revolutionary war. This is not that John Trumbull. [2] Ibid, 5. [3] Ibid, 8-13. [4] William Dowling, Poetry and Ideology in Revolutionary Connecticut, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1990) ix. [5] Alessandra Luiselli, "La Literatura del Fin de la Colonia y el Comienzo de las Independencias: El Siglo de las Luces," in Huellas de las literaturas hispanoamericanas, 2^nd ed, ed by John F. Garganigo and others (Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall, 2002) 170. [6]Susan Wolfson and Peter Manning, ed, The Romantics and Their Contemporaries, Vol. 2a, The Longman Anthology of British Literature, 2^nd ed, (New York: Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers, 2003) 4. [7] "The Romantic Period: The Gothic" in The Norton Anthology of English Literature: Norton Topics Online, (Norton and Company, 2003 – 2008); accessed online at http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/romantic/topic_2/welcome.htm; last accessed 20 May 2008. [8] Susan Wolfson and Peter Manning, ed, 7. [9] Paul Davis and others, Western Literature in a World Context: The Enlightenment Through the Present, vol. 2, (Boston: St Martin's Press, 1995) 538. [10] Susan Wolfson and Peter Manning, ed, 8. [11]William Dowling, Poetry and Ideology in Revolutionary Connecticut, ix. [12] Colin Wells, The Devil & Doctor Dwight: Satire & Theology in the Early American Republic, (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002) 3. [13] Ibid, 7. [14] Peter Kafer, "The Making of Timothy Dwight: a Connecticut Morality Tale," in William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 47, No. 2 (April 1990) 189. [15] Ibid, 198. [16]Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson, A Century of Sonnets: The Romantic-Era Revival, 1750-1850, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999) 4-7. [17] Richard Bushman, The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Alfred A Knopf Inc, 1992) 188-197. [18] Trumbull, "An Essay on the Use and Advantages of Fine Arts," 13-16. [19] Wallace Cable Brown, "Gay's Mastery of the Heroic Couplet," in PMLA, 61, no. 1 (March 1946) 114. [20] Trumbull, "An Essay on the Use and Advantages of Fine Arts," 14. [21] Ibid, 15. [22] Ibid. [23] Ibid, 16. [24] Ibid. [25] Ibid, 14, 16. [26] Tom Trumbull, "The Progress of Dullness" in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 3-49. [27] Bushman, The Refinement of America, 188-190. [28] Trumbull, "The Progress of Dullness," 23. [29] Ibid, 28. [30] Ibid, 32. [31] Ibid, 36. [32] Mary Wollnstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women was originally published in 1792. "The Progress of Dullness" was published in 1772. [33] John Trumbull, "An Elegy on the Times: First Printed in Boston,"  (New Haven: Thomas and Samuel Green, 1775) 5-15; accessed online at http://infoweb.newsbank.com.erl.lib.byu.edu; last accessed 6 June 2008. [34] Ibid, 14. [35] John Trumbull, M'Fingal, 1775; accessed online at http://www.poemhunter.com; last accessed 21 March 2007. [36] John Trumbull, "M'Fingal," in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 54. It is interesting that Trumbull used the name Ulysses instead of Odysseus. Trumbull wrote in his own footnote that it was Homer's character it seems he should have used the Greek name or give credit to Virgil instead. [37] Ibid, 62. [38] Ibid, 107. [39] Ibid, 108. [40] Ibid, 112. [41] Ibid, 148. [42] Ibid, 57. [43] Ibid, 50. [44] Jack McLaughlin, "Jefferson, Poe, and Ossian," in Eighteenth-Century Studies, 26, No 4, (Summer, 1993) 631. [45] Trumbull, M'Fingal, 55. [46] Ibid, 55-58. [47] Ibid, 62, 64. [48] Trumbull, M'Fingal, 67. [49] Ibid, 67, 68. [50] Ibid, 69. [51] Ibid. [52] Dowling, Poetry and Ideology in Revolutionary Connecticut, 6. [53] Ibid, 16. [54] David Humphreys, A Poem on the Industry of the United States of America, in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 393. [55] Ibid, 391. [56] Ibid, 390. [57] Ibid, 392. [58] Ibid, 386. [59] Ibid. [60] Ibid, 389. [61] Humphreys, A Poem on the Industry of the United States of America, 387. [62] Ibid, 390. [63] Ibid. [64] Lewis George Sterner, The Sonnet in American Literature, (Philadelphia: 1930) vi. [65] Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson, A Century of Sonnets, 3-7. [66] David Humphreys, The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid, (New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804) 232. [67] Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson, A Century of Sonnets, 4, 5. [68] Ibid, 5. [69] David Humphreys, "Sonnet I: Addressed to my Friends on my Leaving them to Join the Army," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, Late Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Madrid, (New York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-street, 1804) 232. [70] Humphreys, "Sonnet IV: on Disbanding the Army," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, 234. [71] Humphreys, "Sonnet V: on Life," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, 234. [72] Shakespeare, "Sonnet 73" in The Sonnets, Ed by Gwynne Blakemore Evans, (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1999) 7. [73] Humphreys, "Sonnet X: On the Murders Committed by the Jacobin Faction in the Early Period of the French Revolution," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, 237. [74] Humphreys, "Sonnet XII: on Receiving the News of the Death of General Washington," in The Miscellaneous Works of David Humphreys, 238. [75] Humphreys, "An Ode Addressed to Laura," in The Connecticut Wits, ed by Vernon Parrington, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 408, 409. [76] Paula R. Feldman and Daniel Robinson, A Century of Sonnets, 4. [77] Dowling, Poetry and Ideology in Revolutionary Connecticut, 16. [78] Vernon Parrington, The Connecticut Wits, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 183. [79] Kafer, "The Making of Timothy Dwight: a Connecticut Morality Tale," 189. [80] Timothy Dwight, Greenfield Hill, in The Connecticut Wits, Ed by Vernon Parrington, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 211. [81] Ibid, 190. [82] Dwight, Greenfield Hill, 246, 247. It is interesting that Dwight compared lawyers to the fox that took the kid from the fighting bear and lion. [83] Vernon Parrington, The Connecticut Wits, 183. [84] Dwight, Greenfield Hill, 187. [85] Ibid, 189, 216. [86] Ibid, 189. [87] Ibid, 216. [88] Wells, The Devil and Doctor Dwight, 156, 157. [89] Dwight, Greenfield Hill, 206, 207. [90] Ibid,186, 208, 220, and 223. [91] Wells, The Devil and Doctor Dwight, 3. [92] Ibid, 24. [93] Timothy Dwight, The Triumph of Infidelity, In The Connecticut Wits, Ed by Vernon Parrington (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1963) 248-272. [94] Ibid, 270. [95] Wells, The Devil and Doctor Dwight, 24. [96] Dwight, The Triumph of Infidelity, 249, 250, and 262. [97] Ibid, 262. [98] Ibid, 261. [99] Dwight, The Triumph of Infidelity, 256, 257. [100] Ibid, 248. [101] Theodore Dwight, untitled poem about slavery, in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin, (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970) 958-960. [102] Theodore Dwight, "Lines Addressed to a Mother, Who had Been Absent from Home Several Weeks, on Her Seeing Her Infant Child Asleep," in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin, (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970) 966. [103] Ibid. [104] Ibid, 967. [105] Richard Alsop, The Charms of Fancy, in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin, (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970) 398-534. [106] Ibid, 400. For Information on Spenser's use of Archaic language see M. H. Abrams Ed, he Norton Anthology: English Literature, vol 1 7^th Ed (New York: Norton & Company, Inc, 2000) 614. [107] Ibid, 413. [108] Ibid, 496-534. [109] Elihu Smith, untitled sonnet, in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin, (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970) 895. [110] Elihu Smith, "Sonnet VI: To Egwina,"" in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin, (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970) 895. [111] Wells, The Devil and Doctor Dwight, 156, 157. [112] Elihu Smith, "Sonnet IX: To Mr. John Trumbull." in The Poetry of the Minor Connecticut Wits, Ed by Benjamin Franklin, (Gainesville: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1970) 914. This work was about the painter and not the writer.