University of Virginia Library

PREFACE.

In presenting The Anarchiad to the public, now for the first time in book form, the editor feels that he is in the performance of a duty—that he becomes, as it were, an instrument of justice— a justice delayed for more than half a century, to the genius and loyalty of its authors, who were among the noblest and most talented sons of the American Revolution.

Why a work possessing the merits of The Anarchiad has not, ere this, been called up from its oblivious sleep to take its appropriate place among the honored volumes in the homes of the people—by what strange oversight it has not before been brought to public view, and placed within the reach of all, we will not attempt to say.

In 1786, Hartford was the residence of a number of the most celebrated poets of the eighteenth century—among whom, were David Humphreys, Joel Barlow, John Trumbull, and Dr. Lemuel Hopkins;—and the veins of satire which were given forth in many of their literary productions, gained for them the appellation of “the Hartford wits.”

In The New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine of October 26th, 1786, appeared the initial paper of The Anarchiad. The projector of this work was Colonel Humphreys, to whose mind the plan was suggested from having seen, while in England, “The Rolliad,” attributed to Fox, Sheridan, and others. This series of papers, embracing twelve in number, were published complete in the Gazette, during the years 1786–7, and in no other journal. The last number of the series was published in the

issue of September 13th, of the latter year. Drs. Kettel and Griswold, as well as Mr. Everest, each of whom make mention of the poem, in connection with the authors above referred to, have alike fallen into error, in saying that The Anarchiad “was published in the New Haven and Hartford gazettes;” and a writer in Appleton's Encyclopedia, as we perceive, has also, through misapprehension of the fact, been led to make the same erroneous statement. But while The Anarchiad was published originally and complete only in the Gazette, still many numbers of it were reprinted in the Hartford, and, indeed, in most of the Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island papers.

The Anarchiad is universally conceded to have been written in concert by Humphreys, Barlow, Trumbull, and Hopkins; but what particular installment or number was written by either, has never been definitely ascertained. The fact that the papers were anonymously communicated to the publishers at New Haven, and that the authorship of any given portion of the work was never divulged by the members of this literary club, renders it almost impossible to fix upon any particular paper, or portion of a paper, and arrive at a certain knowledge in relation to its writer.

The Anarchiad is a mock-critical account of a pretended ancient epic poem, which a member of a society of critics and antiquarians had accidentally found among some recently discovered ruins, imbedded with “utensils more curious and elegant than those of Palmyra or Herculaneum,” and whose preservation, through such a long lapse of years, and amid marks of hostility and devastation, was indeed little short of miraculous. The author assumes to have taken possession of this poem in the name and for the use of the society of which he was a component part.

Being passionately fond of poetry, he immediately set about cleansing it from the extraneous concretions in which it was enveloped; and by means of a chemic preparation made use of in restoring oil paintings, he soon succeeded in rendering it tolerably legible. It was then that he ascertained the production to be styled The Anarchiad: A Poem on the Restoration of Chaos and Substantial Night.

When this fabulous announcement was first made in the print of the Gazette, it was received with a remarkable degree of credulity by many readers. The plan was well conceived, and the details relating to it were narrated in a plausible manner; and, upon the whole, it was not half as absurd as the celebrated “moon hoax” perpetrated by the New York Sun newspaper, many years afterwards, and readily believed by multitudes in all parts of the country. Besides, public attention, but a few months previous to the announcement of the exhuming of The Anarchiad, had been somewhat aroused by the discovery of several ruined Indian fortifications, with their singular relics: the story of the early emigration of a band of Britons and Welch to this country, and of an existing tribe of their descendants, in the interior of the continent, had also quite recently been revived and circulated.

The Anarchiad is pre-eminently a New England Poem. Its publication, at a time when New England was convulsed by the evils growing out of the war of our Revolution, and when insurrectionary mobs had arisen in various parts of the land, and fears were entertained of their proceedings being imitated in others— at such a time, this fearless satire, being scattered broadcast into the homes of the people, through the columns of the weekly press, is supposed to have exerted great and beneficial influence upon the public mind, and to have tended in no small degree to check the leaders of insubordination and infidel philosophy.

But when we say that it is a New England Poem, treating mainly of affairs in that part of the Union, as they existed at the

time when it was written, we say, also, that it is no less a National Poem, battling nobly for the right universal, for the majesty of law, and for the federal government. Many passages in it seem peculiarly adapted to the exigencies of the present time; and the wholesome sentiments which everywhere pervade its pages can hardly fail of being as heartily endorsed by every lover of his country, and every loyal citizen, as they will unquestionably be regarded with feelings of the most bitter execration by every traitorous and degenerate son of this brightest and fairest of lands. But these soul-inspiring sentiments are too numerous for us to particularize. The reader will find them in plenteous profusion as he reviews its pages.

Explanatory and historical Notes, as will be seen, intersperse the work. The editor hopes that his efforts, in this direction, to make the poem intelligible to the reader of to-day, will meet with the approbation of an appreciative public.

In the Appendix are given, in detail, and yet in as condensed a form as practicable, an account of the Disturbances in New England; of the Paper Money period; and some information concerning the Hon. William Williams, who occupies so prominent a position among the worthies immortalized in The Anarchiad. It has been our purpose, as far as convenient, to give, in these appendices, accounts of the various circumstances as they are recorded in the papers and correspondence of the time in which they occurred, instead of accepting modernized versions in the more elegant diction of the historians of our own day. While this feature will tend to gratify the antiquarian tastes of many readers, it cannot prove objectionable to any.