h the performance of their clerical duties, wrote in
connection with Humphreys stirring patriotic lyrics that were set to
music and sung by the soldiers around the camp-fires and on the weary
march, and aided largely in allaying discontent and in inducing them to
bear their hardships patiently.

For four years, or until the peace of 1783, Barlow continued to serve
his country in the army: he left the service as poor as when he entered
it, and a second time the question of a vocation in life presented
itself. He at length chose the law, but before being admitted to
practice performed an act which, however foolish it may have seemed to
the worldly wise, proved to be one of the most fortunate events of his
life. Although poor and possessing none of the qualities of the
successful bread-winner, he united his fortunes with those of an amiable
and charming young lady--Miss Ruth Baldwin of New Haven, daughter of
Michael Baldwin, Esq., and sister of Hon. Abraham C. Baldwin, whom the
student will remember as a Senator of note from Georgia. After marriage
the young husband settled in Hartford, first in the study, and later in
the practice, of the law. In Hartford we find him assuming the duties of
lawyer, journalist and bookseller, and in all proving the truth of the
fact often noted, that the possession of literary talent generally
unfits one for the rough, every-day work of the world. As a lawyer
Barlow lacked the smoothness and suavity of the practised advocate,
while the petty details and trickeries of the profession disgusted him.
As an editor he made his journal, the _American Mercury_, notable for
the high literary and moral excellence of its articles, but it was not
successful financially, simply because it lacked a constituency
sufficiently cultured to appreciate and sustain it. His bookstore, which
stood on the quiet, elm-shaded main street of the then provincial
village, was opened to dispose of his psalm-book and poems, and was
closed when this was accomplished.

As a poet, however, he was more successful, and it was here that the
assurance of literary ability, so dear to the heart of the neophyte,
first came to him. Dr. Watts's "imitation" of the Psalms, incomplete and
inappropriate in many respects, was then the only version within reach
of the Puritan churches, and in 1785 the Congregational Association of
Connecticut applied to the poet for a revised edition of the work.
Barlow readily complied, and published his