He is best known by some lines from his less
ambitious _Hasty Pudding_:--
"E'en in thy native regions, how I blush
To hear the Pennsylvanians call thee _Mush!_"
JOHN TRUMBULL (1750-1831).--The greatest of the Hartford wits was John
Trumbull. His father, a Congregational clergyman living at Waterbury,
Connecticut, prepared boys for college. In 1757 he sent two candidates to
Yale to be examined, one pupil of nineteen, the other of seven. Commenting
on this, the _Connecticut Gazette_ of September 24, 1757, says, "the Son of
Rev'd. Mr. Trumble of Waterbury ... passed a good Examination, altho but
little more than seven years of age; but on account of his Youth his father
does not intend he shall at present continue at College." This boy waited
until he was thirteen to enter Yale, where he graduated in due course.
After teaching for two years in that college, he became a lawyer by
profession. Although he did not die until 1831, the literary work by which
he is known was finished early.
Trumbull occupied the front rank of the satiric writers of that age. Early
in his twenties he satirized in classical couplets the education of the
day, telling how the students:--
"Read ancient authors o'er in vain,
Nor taste one beauty they contain,
And plodding on in one dull tone,
Gain ancient tongues and lose their own.
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