David Humphreys.

BORN in Derby, Conn., 1753. DIED at New Haven, Conn., 1818.

HIS BATTLES O'ER AGAIN.

["On the Happiness of America."-Miscellaneous Works. 1804.]

HERE some old warrior, grown a viilage sage,

THE

Whose locks are whitened with the frosts of age, While life's low-burning lamp renews its light,

With tales heroic shall beguile the night;

Shall tell of battles fought, of feats achieved,

And sufferings ne'er by human heart conceived;
Shall tell the adventures of his early life,
And bring to view the fields of mortal strife;

What time the matin trump to battle sings,

And on his steed the horseman swiftly springs,

While down the line the drum, with thundering sound,
Wakes the bold soldier, slumbering on the ground;
Alarmed he starts; then sudden joins his band,

Who, ranged beneath the well-known banner, stand:
Then ensigns wave, and signal flags unfurled,
Bid one great soul pervade a moving world;
Then martial music's all-inspiring breath,
With dulcet symphonies, leads on to death,
Lights in each breast the living beam of fame,
Kindles the spark, and fans the kindled flame:
Then meets the steadfast eye, the splendid charms
Of prancing steeds, of plumed troops and arms:
Reflected sunbeams, dazzling, gild afar
The pride, the pomp, and circumstance of war;
Then thick as hailstones, from an angry sky,
In vollied showers, the bolts of vengeance fly;
Unnumbered deaths, promiscuous, ride the air,
While, swift descending, with a frightful glare,

The big bomb bursts; the fragments scattered round,
Beat down whole bands, and pulverize the ground.

Then joins the closer fight on Hudson's banks;

Troops strive with troops; ranks, bending, press on ranks:

O'er slippery plains the struggling legions reel;

Then livid lead and Bayonne's glittering steel,

With dark-red wounds their mangled bosoms bore;

While furious coursers, snorting foam and gore,
Bear wild their riders o'er the carnaged plain,
And, falling, roll them headlong on the slain.
To ranks consumed, another rank succeeds;
Fresh victims fall; afresh the battle bleeds;

And naught of blood can stanch the opened sluice;
Till night, o'ershadowing, brings a grateful truce.
Thus will the veteran tell the tale of wars,
Disclose his breast, to count his glorious scars;
In mute amazement hold the listening swains;
Make freezing horror creep through all their veins;
Or oft, at freedom's name, their souls inspire
With patriot ardor and heroic fire.

ER

ON LIFE.

RE we can think of time, the moment's past,
And straight another since that thought began:
So swift each instant mingles with the last,
The flying now exists no more for man.

With consciousness suspended even by sleep,
To what this phantom, life, then likest seems?
Say, thou, whose doubtful being (lost in dreams)
Allows the 'wildered but to wake and weep,
So thoughtless hurried to the eternal deep!

"Tis like a moonlight vision's airy shade,
A bubble driving down the deep beneath-
Then, ere the bubble burst, the vision fade,
Dissolved in air this evanescent breath!

Let man, not mortal, learn true life begins at death.

IN

the

PUTNAM AND THE WOLF.

[Essay on the Life of General Putnam. 1788.]

year 1739, he removed from Salem to Pomfret, an inland fertile town in Connecticut, forty miles east of Hartford. Having here purchased a considerable tract of land, he applied himself successfully to agriculture.

The first years on a new farm are not, however, exempt from disasters and disappointments, which can only be remedied by stubborn and patient industry. Our farmer, sufficiently occupied in building an house and barn, felling woods, making fences, sowing grain, planting orchards, and taking care of his stock, had to encounter, in turn, the calamities occasioned by drought in summer, blast in harvest, loss of cattle in winter,

and the desolation of his sheep-fold by wolves. In one night he had seventy fine sheep and goats killed, besides many lambs and kids wounded. This havoc was committed by a she wolf, which, with her annual whelps, had for several years infested the vicinity. The young were commonly destroyed by the vigilance of the hunters, but the old one was too sagacions to come within reach of gun-shot: upon being closely pursued, she would generally fly to the western woods, and return the next winter with another litter of whelps.

This wolf, at length, became such an intolerable nuisance that Mr. Putnam entered into a combination with five of his neighbors to hunt alternately until they could destroy her. Two, by rotation, were to be constantly in pursuit. It was known, that, having lost the toes from one foot, by a steel-trap, she made one track shorter than the other. By this vestige the pursuers recognized, in a light snow, the route of this pernicious animal. Having followed her to Connecticut river, and found she had turned back in a direct course towards Pomfret, they immediately returned, and by ten o'clock the next morning the blood-hounds had driven her into a den, about three miles distant from the house of Mr. Putnam. The people soon collected with dogs; guns, straw, fire, and sulphur, to attack the common enemy. With this apparatus, several unsuccessful efforts were made to force her from the den. The hounds came back badly wounded, and refused to return. The smoke of blaz ing straw had no effect. Nor did the fumes of burnt brimstone, with which the cavern was filled, compel her to quit the retirement. Wearied with such fruitless attempts (which had brought the time to ten o'clock at night), Mr. Putnam tried once more to make his dog enter, but in vain. He proposed to his negro man to go down into the cavern and shoot the wolf: the negro declined the hazardous service. Then it was that the master, angry at the disappointment, and declaring that he was ashamed to have a coward in his family, resolved himself to destroy the ferocious beast, lest she should escape through some unknown fissure of the rock. His neighbors strongly remonstrated against the perilous enterprize: but he, knowing that wild animals were intimidated by fire, and having provided several strips of birch-bark, the only combustible material which he could obtain that would afford light in this deep and darksome cave, prepared for his descent. Having, accordingly, divested himself of his coat and waistcoat, and having a long rope fastened round his legs, by which he might be pulled back, at a concerted signal, he entered head-foremost, with the blazing torch in his hand.

The aperture of the den, on the east side of a very high ledge of rocks, is about two feet square; from thence it descends obliquely fifteen feet, then running horizontally about ten more, it ascends gradually sixteen feet toward its termination. The sides of this subterraneous

cavity are composed of smooth and solid rocks, which seem to have been divided from each other by some former earthquake. The top and bottom are also of stone, and the entrance, in winter, being covered with ice, is exceedingly slippery. It is in no place high enough for a man to raise himself upright, nor in any part more than three feet in width.

Having groped his passage to the horizontal part of the den, the most terrifying darkness appeared in front of the dim circle of light afforded by his torch. It was silent as the house of death. None but monsters of the desert had ever before explored this solitary mansion of horror. He, cautiously proceeding onward, came to the ascent, which he slowly mounted on his hands and knees, until he discovered the glaring eyeballs of the wolf, who was sitting at the extremity of the cavern. Startled at the sight of fire, she gnashed her teeth, and gave a sudden growl. As soon as he had made the necessary discovery, he kicked the rope as a signal for pulling him out. The people at the mouth of the den, who had listened with painful anxiety, hearing the growling of the wolf, and supposing their friend to be in the most imminent danger, drew him forth with such celerity that his shirt was stripped over his head, and his skin severely lacerated. After he had adjusted his clothes, and loaded his gun with nine buck-shot, holding a torch in one hand and the musket in the other, he descended the second time. When he drew nearer than before, the wolf, assuming a still more fierce and terrible appearance, howling, rolling her eyes, snapping her teeth, and dropping her head between her legs, was evidently in the attitude, and on the point of springing at him. At the critical instant he levelled and fired at her head. Stunned with the shock, and suffocated with the smoke, he immediately found himself drawn out of the cave. But, having refreshed himself, and permitted the smoke to dissipate, he went down the third time. Once more he came within sight of the wolf, who appearing very passive, he applied the torch to her nose; and perceiving her dead, he took hold of her ears, and then kicking the rope (still tied round his legs), the people above, with no small exultation, dragged them both out together.

I have offered these facts in greater detail, because they contain a display of character; and because they have been erroneously related in several European publications, and very much mutilated in the history of Connecticut, a work as replete with falsehood as destitute of genius, lately printed in London.

Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford.

BORN in Woburn, Mass., 1753. DIED at Auteuil, France, 1814.

HOW COUNT RUMFORD RECLAIMED THE BEGGARS OF BAVARIA,

TH

[Essays, Political, Economical, and Philosophical. 1796.]

HE number of itinerant beggars, of both sexes and all ages, as well foreigners as natives, who strolled about the country in all directions, levying contributions from the industrious inhabitants, stealing and robbing, and leading a life of indolence and the most shameless debauchery, was quite incredible; and so numerous were the swarms of beggars in all the great towns, and particularly in the capital, so great their impudence, and so persevering their importunity, that it was almost impossible to cross the streets without being attacked, and absolutely forced to satisfy their clamorous demands. And these beggars were in general by no means such as from age or bodily infirmities were unable by their labor to earn their livelihood; but they were, for the most part, stout, strong, healthy, sturdy beggars, who, lost to every sense of shame, had embraced the profession from choice, not necessity; and who, not unfrequently, added insolence and threats to their importunity, and extorted that from fear which they could not procure by their arts of dissimulation.

These beggars not only infested all the streets, public walks, and public places, but they even made a practice of going into private houses, where they never failed to steal whatever fell in their way, if they found the doors open and nobody at home; and the churches were so full of them that it was quite a nuisance, and a public scandal during the performance of divine service. People at their devotions were continually interrupted by them, and were frequently obliged to satisfy their de mands in order to be permitted to finish their prayers in peace and quiet. In short, these detestable vermin swarmed everywhere, and not only their impudence and clamorous importunity were without any bounds, but they had recourse to the most diabolical arts and most horrid crimes in the prosecution of their infamous trade. Young children were stolen from their parents by these wretches, and their eyes put out, or their tender limbs broken and distorted, in order, by exposing them thus maimed, to excite the pity and commiseration of the public; and every species of artifice was made use of to agitate the sensibility, and to extort the contributions of the humane and charitable.

Some of these monsters were so void of all feeling as to expose even their own children, naked, and almost starved, in the streets, in order