(1754-1812)
One morning late in the July of 1778, a select company gathered in the
little chapel of Yale College to listen to orations and other exercises
by a picked number of students of the Senior class, one of whom, named
Barlow, had been given the coveted honor of delivering what was termed
the 'Commencement Poem.' Those of the audience who came from a distance
carried back to their homes in elm-shaded Norwich, or Stratford, or
Litchfield, high on its hills, lively recollections of a handsome young
man and of his 'Prospect of Peace,' whose cheerful prophecies in heroic
verse so greatly "improved the occasion." They had heard that he was a
farmer's son from Redding, Connecticut, who had been to school at
Hanover, New Hampshire, and had entered Dartmouth College, but soon
removed to Yale on account of its superior advantages; that he had twice
seen active service in the Continental army, and that he was engaged to
marry a beautiful New Haven girl.
[Illustration: Joel Barlow]
The brilliant career predicted for Barlow did not begin immediately.
Distaste for war, hope of securing a tutorship in college, and--we may
well believe--Miss Ruth's entreaties, kept him in New Haven two years
longer, engaged in teaching and in various courses of study. 'The
Prospect of Peace' had been issued in pamphlet form, and the compliments
paid the author incited him to plan a poem of a philosophic character on
the subject of America at large, bearing the title 'The Vision of
Columbus.' The appointment as tutor never came, and instead of
cultivating the Muse in peaceful New Haven, he was forced to evoke her
aid in a tent on the banks of the Hudson, whither after a hurried course
in theology, he proceeded as an army chaplain in 1780. During his
connection with the army, which lasted until its disbandment in 1783, he
won repute by lyrics written to encourage the soldiers, and by "a
flaming political sermon," as he termed it, on the treason of Arnold.
Army life ended, Barlow removed to Hartford, where he studied law,
edited the American Mercury,--a weekly paper he had helped to found,---
and with John Trumbull, Lemuel Hopkins, and David Humphreys formed a
literary club which became widely known as the "Hartford Wits." Its
chief publication, a series of political lampoons styled 'The
Anarchiad,' satirized those factions whose disputes imperiled the young
republic, and did much to influence public opinion in Connecticut and
elsewhere in favor of the Federal Constitution. A revision and
enlargement of Dr. Watts's 'Book of Psalmody,' and the publication
(1787) of his own 'Vision of Columbus,' occupied part of Barlow's time
while in Hartford. The latter poem was extravagantly praised, ran
through several editions, and was republished in London and Paris; but
the poet, who now had a wife to support, could not live by his pen nor
by the law, and when in 1788 he was urged by the Scioto Land Company to
become its agent in Paris, he gladly accepted. The company was a private
association, formed to buy large tracts of government land situated in
Ohio and sell them in Europe to capitalists or actual settlers. This
failed disastrously, and Barlow was left stranded in Paris, where he
remained, supporting himself partly by writing, partly by business
ventures. Becoming intimate with the leaders of the Girondist party, the
man who had dedicated his 'Vision of Columbus' to Louis XVI., and had
also dined with the nobility, now began to figure as a zealous
Republican and as a Liberal in religion. From 1790 to 1793 he passed
most of his time in London, where he wrote a number of political
pamphlets for the Society for Constitutional Information, an
organization openly favoring French Republicanism and a revision of the
British Constitution. Here also, in 1791, he finished a work entitled
'Advice to the Privileged Orders,' which probably would have run through
many editions had it not been suppressed by the British government. The
book was an arraignment of tyranny in church and state, and was quickly
followed by 'The Conspiracy of Kings,' an attack in verse on those
European countries which had combined to kill Republicanism in France.
In 1792 Barlow was made a citizen of France as a mark of appreciation of
a 'Letter' addressed to the National Convention, giving that body
advice, and when the convention sent commissioners to organize the
province of Savoy into a department, Barlow was one of the number. As a
candidate for deputy from Savoy, he was defeated; but his visit was not
fruitless, for at Chambéry the sight of a dish of maize-meal porridge
reminded him of his early home in Connecticut, and inspired him to write
in that ancient French town a typical Yankee poem, 'Hasty Pudding.' Its
preface, in prose, addressed to Mrs. Washington, assured her that
simplicity of diet was one of the virtues; and if cherished by her, as
it doubtless was, it would be more highly regarded by her countrywomen.
Between the years of 1795-97, Barlow held the important but unenviable
position of United States Consul at Algiers, and succeeded both in
liberating many of his countrymen who were held as prisoners, and in
perfecting treaties with the rulers of the Barbary States, which gave
United States vessels entrance to their ports and secured them from
piratical attacks. On his return to Paris he translated Volney's 'Ruins'
into English, made preparations for writing histories of the American
and French revolutions, and expanded his 'Vision of Columbus' into a
volume which as 'The Columbiad'--a beautiful specimen of typography--was
published in Philadelphia in 1807 and republished in London. The poem
was held to have increased Barlow's fame; but it is stilted and
monotonous, and 'Hasty Pudding' has done more to perpetuate his name.
In 1805 Barlow returned to the United States and bought an estate near
Washington, D.C., where he entertained distinguished visitors. In 1811
he returned to France authorized to negotiate a treaty of commerce.
After waiting nine months, he was invited by Napoleon, who was then in
Poland, to a conference at Wilna. On his arrival Barlow found the French
army on the retreat from Moscow, and endured such privations on the
march that on December 24th he died of exhaustion at the village of
Zarnowiec, near Cracow, and there was buried.
Barlow's part in developing American literature was important, and
therefore he has a rightful place in a work which traces that
development. He certainly was a man of varied ability and power, who
advanced more than one good cause and stimulated the movement toward
higher thought. The only complete 'Life and Letters of Joel Barlow,' by
Charles Burr Todd, published in 1888, gives him unstinted praise as
excelling in statesmanship, letters, and philosophy. With more assured
justice, which all can echo, it praises his nobility of spirit as a man.
No one can read the letter to his wife, written from Algiers when he
thought himself in danger of death, without a warm feeling for so
unselfish and affectionate a nature.