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

 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, ­