revision the same year,
adding to it several psalms which Dr. Watts had omitted. This work was
received with marked favor by the Congregational churches, and was used
by them exclusively until rumors of the author's lapse from orthodoxy
reached them, when it was superseded by a version prepared by Dr.
Dwight.

Two years after, in 1787, Barlow published his _Vision of Columbus_, a
poem conceived while in the army and largely written during the poet's
summer vacations at Reading. It was received with unbounded favor by his
patriotic countrymen, and after passing through several editions at
home was republished both in London and Paris, and made its author the
best known American in the literary circles of his day. There was in
Hartford at this time a coterie of literary spirits whose sprightliness
and bonhomie had gained for them the sobriquet of the "Hartford Wits."
Dr. Lemuel Hopkins was doubtless the chief factor in the organization of
this club: Barlow, John Trumbull, Colonel Humphreys, Richard Alsop and
Theodore Dwight--all of whom had gained literary distinction--were its
chief members. The principal publications of the club were the
_Anarchiad_, a satirical poem, and the _Echo_, which consisted of a
series of papers in verse lampooning the social and political follies of
the day. To both of these, it is said, Barlow was a prominent
contributor. He was also a prominent figure in the organization, about
this time, of the Connecticut Cincinnati, a society formed by
Revolutionary officers for urging upon Congress their claims for
services rendered in the Revolution.

In these varied pursuits and amid such pleasant associations three years
passed away, but during all this time the grim spectre of Want had
menaced the poet--first at a distance, but with each succeeding month
approaching nearer and nearer, until now, in 1788, it stared him in the
face. His patrimony had been nearly exhausted in his education; his
law-business was unremunerative; his paper, as we have said, was not a
success financially; and his poetry brought him much more honor than
cash. And thus it happened that at the age of thirty-four he found
himself without money or employment. At this trying juncture there came
from the West--fruitful parent of such schemes!--the prospectus of the
Scioto Land Company, furnished with glaring head-lines and seductive
phrases, and parading in its list of stockholders scores of the
best-known names in the communit