The New International Encyclopædia/Barlow, Joel

BARLOW, Joel (1754-1812). An American poet and man of affairs. He was born at Redding, Conn., March 24, 1754, and was educated first at Dartmouth, then at Yale, developing early great poetical aspirations. In 1780, two years after graduating, he entered the army as chaplain, and after the peace studied law at Hartford, where, in 1786, he was admitted to practice. In the previous year he had edited a Book of Psalmody for the Congregational churches of Connecticut, which was used until his religious opinions became heterodox. He also took part in political and literary journalism, and wrote verses with the other "Hartford Wits." In 1787 his rather pompous poem, The Vision of Columbus, greatly admired at the time, made him very well known. It brought him also the European agency of the Scioto Land Company, which had acquired redemption rights in 3,500,000 acres of land in Ohio, and sought to market them abroad. On this fraudulent mission Barlow innocently went in 1788 to France, beginning a long exile, in which his religious and political opinions were much liberalized. He also passed some time in London, associating with the advanced liberals; and here, as well as in France, he published political works, the most noteworthy of which is Advice to the Privileged Orders, proscribed by the British Government. Late in 1792 Barlow returned to France, and was active in politics till his defeat as candidate for the Convention in 1793. At this period he obtained the hint for Hasty Pudding, his most popular poem, a mock-heroic that is still readable. He now embarked in commerce and made a considerable fortune. In 1795, with great self-sacrifice, he became consul at Algiers and rendered valuable services to American prisoners. Returning to Paris, he led a literary life, preparing historical works on the American and French Revolutions, which were never completed, and expanding his Vision of Columbus into an epic. The Columbiad, which, when published in 1807, in a magnificent quarto, fell absolutely flat. In 1805, having never lost his patriotism, which he had shown during the X. Y. Z. Affair, he returned to America, where he was cordially received by the Republicans, but vituperated by the Federalists. Until 1811 he resided at Kalorama, near Washington, cultivating literature and farming. He was then appointed commissioner to Napoleon, and accepted the office only from a sense of duty. Going to meet Napoleon at Vilna, he became involved in the disastrous retreat of the French Array from Russia, and died of exposure at a small Polish village, December 24, 1812. Barlow's merits as a poet were small, but he was a fair prose writer, a cultivated and enterprising man of affairs, and a true patriot. Consult Todd, Life and Letters of Joel Barlow (New York, 1886).