Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 1.djvu/113

102 taste between 1663 and 1784 changed less than in any twenty years of the following century. "McFingal" was a success, and laid a solid foundation for the coming school of Hartford wits. Posterity ratified the verdict of Trumbull's admirers by preserving for daily use a few of his lines quoted indiscriminately with Butler's best:—


 * "What has posterity done for us?"


 * "Optics sharp it needs, I ween,
 * To see what is not to be seen."


 * "A thief ne'er felt the halter draw
 * With good opinion of the law."

Ten years after the appearance of "McFingal," and on the strength of its success, Trumbull, Lemuel Hopkins, Richard Alsop, Theodore Dwight, Joel Bar­low, and others began a series of publications, "The Anarchiad," "The Echo," "The Guillotine," and the like, in which they gave tongue to their wit and sarcasm. As Alsop described the scene,­—


 * "Begrimed with blood where erst the savage fell,
 * Shrieked the wild war-whoop with infernal yell,
 * The Muses sing; lo, Trumbull wakes the lyre.
 * Majestic Dwight, sublime in epic strain,
 * Paints the fierce horrors of the crimson plain;
 * And in Virgilian Barlow's tuneful lines
 * With added splendor great Columbus shines."
 * With added splendor great Columbus shines."

Perhaps the Muses would have done better by not interrupting the begrimed savage; for Dwight, ­