The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-10-23


 manent influence upon it is a captivat
 ing record. Jeremiah Drummer, little more than name to most of us, was
 called by Charles Chauncey one of the l three greatest New Englanders. The story of Liberty Hall, where William 1 Livington lived with his charming fam fly of daughters, might be commended
 as the basis of novel to the author o1 l Hugh Wynne. Rector Clap, the fight ing rector led life full of racy incl | dents, and certainly we have no more picturesque character on the roll than | Dr. Stiles, now re-introduced by Pro-
 lessor Dexter to the society of which ! he was once a distinguished ornament that extraordinary polyhistor to | whom all knowledge was attractive, all | tongues appetizing and all events preg- , nant.
 | Before the middle of our first century there appeared in New York volume I containing seven hundred lines of verse entitled Philosophical Solitude; or the choice of rural life--by a gentleman educated at Yale College" This
 anonymity did not long conceal the au-
 thorship of William I.ivlngton, one of
 
 tinguished in many ways-once as the
 Presbyterian lawyer" and later as gov-
 ernor of New Jersey and member of
 the constitutional convention. His
 brother, also a Yalensian, WAS signer
 Of the Declaration.
 In the Revolutionary War two of our brethren, while acting as chaplains,
 werecomposers of patriotic songs. Many years later, the inspiration of the muses
 descended upon a number of recent graduates, who became known as the Hartford wits''-"four bards with Scripture names" John, Joel, David and Lemuel, any one of whom could produce an epic as surely, if not as quickly, as the writer of to-day would compose an article for the Yale Review. The group included John Trumbull, precocious youth fitted for college at the age of seven, whose burlesque treatment of the Revolutionary war, called "McFingal," ran through thirty unauthorized editions; the versatile Joel Barlow. author of "Hasty Pud- ding who worked for half his life, we are told, upon the "Columbiad,' hay ing in the interval of his engagements adapted Watts Psalms to the use of Connecticut churches and added sever al original hymns; David Humphreys, who translated French tragedy, en- titled the Widow of Malabar," and composed several ambitious poems; and finally, Lemuel Hopkins, an hon. orary graduate. The Harvard historian whom I have already quoted has said that at the time the Hartford wit wrote, no Harvard man had produced literature half as good as theirs.
 At the beginning of our second cen tury we come upon the name of John Pierpont, preacher, patriot advocate of every cause which would improve his fellow men, whose verses are at the front of two recent anthologies. Bryant just missed enrolment among us. He took a dismissal from Williams in or- der to enter Yale, but he did not fulfil his purpose. Fitz- Green Halleck, na- tive of this country, did not go to any college. Not long after Plerpont, the two Hilhouses were graduated, The elder, James, w1s author of "Percy's and three other dramas His name is dear to us as the poet of Sa- chem's wood the beautiful park at the head of Hillhouse avenue--the park and the avenue alike commemorating his father. to whom the city of Films is beyond estimate indebted. For East Rock and West Rock he sug- eested the names of "Sassacus" and ''Regcide. "' ;"
 Later came Brainard. cut down in his youth and brought to life at the call of Whittier; and William Croswell, son of the rector of Trinity church, one of the most cultivated of churchmen, whose poems, ten years after he died, were edited by Bishop Coxe. In the class of 1920 were two men whom we honor for so many other reasons that We forget their poetry, Woolsey and Bacon As the first quarter of the century closed, the college diplomas was given to James c. PercWal, that unique, eccentric. impracticable com : oination of science and literature, i earned to supernuity. versatile to in | ,onstancy, loving nature books, words, i yet dlsliking men as he met them; seographer, geologist, linguist lexieo- | yrapher. Next came N. P. Willis, f graceful in prose and verse. remember d by some for his Biblical lyrics, and ,y others for lines in praise of New Haven elms and soon. Ray Palmer, whose sacred song has been translated nto twenty languages. and sung in Arabic, Tamil, Tahitian, Mahratta and as well as in the tongues of George H. Cotton cSo of
 family that has cultivated the muses, published a poem on Tecumseh soon af- CT he graduated in 1S40. Twenty years ater came Weeks and Sill-Weeks, vho died before he had stretched his wings for the flights of which he was apable; and sill, bright and beloved ,ill whose verses, collected since his eath, exhibit as do his essays and let CTS, an intellect strong, unconventional nd suggestive. These are not all the eparted whom we may hold in honor ble remembrance.
 It is no part of my plan to say much bout the living. but there are two writ IFS entitled to special mention.-iFnch, he author of stanzas which have frightened the fame of Nathan Hale; nd Stedman, anthologlst and hist torian f Victorian poetry, the poet of yester- ay and tomorrow, the youth who won is laurels as an undergraduate writer I the Yale Literary Magazine: the finger who wears them still upon his , rosty hrow. It is certainly true that hundreds of