The Hartford poets notice him thus:—
"This beast within a few short years
Was purchased for a yoke of steers;
But now the wise Vermonters say
He's worth six hundred cents a day."
Other leaders of the Anti-Federal party fare no better. Mr. Jefferson's literary and scientific whims came in for a share of ridicule.
"Great sire of stories past belief;
Historian of the Mingo chief;
Philosopher of Indians' hair;
Inventor of a rocking-chair;
The correspondent of Mazzei,
And Banneker, less black than he," et seq.
The paper containing this paragraph had the felicity of being quoted in Congress by the Honorable John Nicholas, of Virginia, to prove that Connecticut wished to lead the United States into a war with France. The honorable gentleman read on until he came to the passage,—
"Each Jacobin began to stir,
And sat as though on chestnut-burr,"
when he stopped short. Mr. Dana of Connecticut took up the quotation and finished it, to the great amusement of the House.
The last number was published in 1805. As we look over the "Echo," and find nothing in it but doggerel,—generally very dull doggerel,—we might wonder at the applause it obtained, if we did not recollect how fiercely the two great parties engaged each other. In a riot, any stick, stone, or ignoble fragment of household pottery is valuable as a missile weapon.
While the constellation was shining resplendent over Connecticut, each bright star had its own particular twinkle. Trumbull had his "Progress of Dulness," in three cantos,—an imitation, in manner, of Goldsmith's "Double Transformation." The title is happy. The decline of Miss Harriet Simper from bellehood to an autumnal marriage, in Canto III., is more tiresome than the progress of Tom Brainless from the plough-tail to the pulpit, in Canto I. The Reverend Mr. Brainless, when called and settled,—
"On Sunday in his best array
Deals forth the dulness of the day."