It is significant that the distinction of the individuals united in the "friendly club" was not confined to their literary activities. In an age sometimes esteemed narrow and limited in its cultural aspects they are refreshing in their versatility. Trumbull was a well-known lawyer and served on the bench for eighteen years, part of his legal training having been pursued in the office of John Adams. It was a strange combination, not unprecedented but nevertheless arresting, of this talent for the law associated with the artistic temperament. For with all his practical attributes Trumbull was essentially an artist. His early poem entitled "An Ode to Sleep," says Tyler, "is a composition resonant of noble and sweet music and making, if one may say so, a nearer approach to genuine poetry than had then [1773] been achieved by any living American except Freneau." And in the following bit of autobiography, quoted by Tyler, may be discerned the self-distrust and depression to which no soul that longs and strives for the beautiful in this imperfect world is entirely a stranger: "Formed with the keenest sensibility and the most extravagantly romantic feelings . . . . I was born the dupe of imagination. My satirical turn was not native. It was produced by the keen spirit of critical observation, operating on disappointed expectation, and revenging itself on real or fancied wrongs."
This is an extraordinary item of self-revelation to come from a man who at various times held office as State's Attorney for Hartford County, member of the General Assembly and Judge of the Superior and Supreme Courts of his State. It may not be an entirely fanciful surmise to attribute a partial cause of the delicate health that followed Trumbull all his long life to the warring elements that strove to unite in his brilliant mentality.
With Dr. Hopkins poetizing was distinctly a by-product. His chief concern was the practice of medicine and in his profession he won a reputation that is not entirely forgotten today by members of the faculty, for he was probably the first American physician to assert that tuberculosis was curable and his success as a specialist in this field was so marked that, says Dr. Walter R. Steiner in a monograph upon him, "patients with this disease came to him for treatment from a great distance—one being recorded to have made the trip all the way from New Orleans." In his treatment he was unique in his day in very largely discarding the use of drugs and relying more upon pure air, good diet and moderate exercise when strength permitted. His theory that fresh air was better for colds than the warm air of houses was revolutionary, but so was almost everything he did—or so it seemed to his contemporaries. At one time he evidently considered that New York City might offer a wider field of practice than the Connecticut capital, for in December, 1789, Trumbull wrote to Oliver Wolcott, "Dr. Hopkins has an itch of running away to New York, but I trust his indolence will prevent him. However if you should catch him in your city, I desire you to take him up or secure him so that we may have him again, for which you shall have sixpence reward and all charges." In spite of his malady he lived till almost fifty-one, dying in April, 1801, the head of the medical profession in Connecticut.
It is to be noted that though Dr. Cogswell was one of the chief contributors to "The Echo" his main business in life was as a surgeon rather than a poet, and he became one of the most skillful surgical practitioners in the country, being the first to introduce into the United States the operation for cataracts and the first to tie the carotid artery. Closely associated with him is the pathetic memory of his daughter Alice who became stone deaf in early childhood and whose infirmity led to the establishment at Hartford of the first school in this country for the education of the deaf. Of this institution Dr. Cogswell was one of the founders and he was a leader in other philanthropic enterprises. He lived till 1830. To the last he wore the knee breeches and silk stockings customary in his youth and which he considered the only proper dress for a gentleman. His death broke the heart of his daughter Alice, to whom he had been a never-failing protection and support, and she died within a fortnight after her father.
In contrast with the activities of their colleagues, the careers of Theodore Dwight and Alsop are associated solely with the product of their pens. Dwight, however, was more of a publicist and editor than a creative literary worker. He had the brains with which nature had endowed his family and his history of the unjustly maligned Hartford Convention is a thoughtful and able piece of work—an original historical document that is illuminating and suggestive. Such distinction as Alsop attained was strictly literary, yet one gets the impression that he worked at writing rather as an amateur than a professional. He was really a student, a scholar, a research worker, and seems to have sought his reward more in the pleasure of following his interests than in the quest of public recognition. Much that he wrote was never published.
There was a great deal in life that Colonel Humphreys enjoyed besides composing verses and a great many activities other than poetry for which he may be remembered. Not the least hint of any paralyzing self-distrust, no subtle questionings as to whether it was all worth while, disturbed his equanimity. And fate rewarded his zest in life by furnishing him with a variety of experiences. They began in the war from which he emerged with a reputation for gallantry and daring and, what was perhaps more valuable, with the firm friendship of George Washington. He participated in the raid into Sag Harbor by Colonel Meigs in '77 and the next year raided the Long Island shore on his own account, burning three enemy ships and getting away without the loss of a man. It was only a freak of the weather that perhaps withheld from him a more glorious exploit for on Christmas night, 1780, he headed a desperate venture that had for its object no less an achievement than the capture of Sir Henry Clinton at his headquarters in New York. The rising of the wintry northwest gale drove the boats of the little group of adventurers away from the intended landing near the foot of Broadway and swept them down through the British shipping in the harbor to Sandy Hook. After Yorktown he was ordered by Washington to carry the captured colors to Congress which in the enthusiasm of the moment voted him a handsome sword.
"See Humphreys, glorious from the field retire.
Sheathe the glad sword and string the sounding lyre,"
wrote Barlow in his "Vision of Columbus," The lyre accompanied songs in praise of his country, tributes to his commander-in-chief, political satires, and even love lyrics—
"Enough with war my lay has sung
A softer theme awakes my tongue
'Tis beauty's force divine;
Can I resist that air, that grace,
The charms of motion, figure, face?
For ev'ry charm is thine."