THE RECLUSE
*******
Still shall the banner of the King of Heaven
Never advance where I’m afraid to follow:
While that precedes me, with an open bosom,
War, I defy thee!
Life for my Country and the Cause of Freedom
Is but a trifle for a worm to part with;
And, if preserved in so great a contest,
Life is redoubled.
This first, or national, period was in some ways the golden epoch of Vermont poetic activity. The “Spirit of ’76”, with the mental and spiritual excitement it engendered among those who were conquering a new land and carving out a new nation in the northern fastnesses of nature, amid the liberty-breathing hills and fertile valleys of Vermont, led to a literary activity little less than marvelous. Idealism—greater than any that we have since experienced—was rampant in the land. The spirit of freedom and candor, of activity and questioning thought and inventive daring, walked abroad among these newly settled sons and daughters of Liberty.
In this day of ferment and active idealism there sprung up what Vermont has never since produced—a distinct Local School of Expression, comparable in a sense, to such later schools as that of N. P. Willis in New York—a literary association or coterie which, because of its location in the oldest town of the state, we will call
THE GUILFORD LITERARY SCHOOL
This movement revolved around the personality and directing genius of Judge Royall Tyler of Guilford, later of Brattleboro. He has the distinction, so far as we know, of being the only Vermont poet who, in his own day, directed a distinct school of literary, or poetic, expression; the only one, at least, who consciously established such a school. But during the period between 1790 and 1805 he gathered about him in Guilford a number of friends and pupils who made an enduring impress on both the poetry and prose of later generations, in the state. His influence, in fact, through the Phelps, Hampden, Cutts and Bradley families, as well as through the Pecks and Elliotts, may be traced down even to this generation of the twentieth century.
Royall Tyler was born in Boston, July 18, 1757, of an old and wealthy family. His father, Royall Tyler, Sr., was a graduate of Harvard and became a prominent merchant in Boston. Young Tyler entered Harvard in 1772, graduating in 1776. He studied law with Hon. Francis Dana of Cambridge, and was admitted to the bar in 1779. He fought in Sullivan’s army in the Revolution; and, later, in 1787, when Shays’ Rebellion broke out, he served under General Lincoln as aide, with the rank of Major. When Shays fled into Vermont, Tyler pursued him as far as Bennington; but was brought to a halt here by the authority of Gov. Chittenden and the opposition of Ethan Allan, who not only refused to help in intercepting Shays, but declared the governing officials of Massachusetts to be “a set of damned rascals.” Though failing in his official mission, Tyler became acquainted with Vermont and with many prominent people who were later to become his neighbors.
Tyler’s father had died in 1772, at the age of 48; but despite this loss, he pursued his college course; and at the time of his graduation, his reputation for wit, genius and scholarship was recognized by a wide circle. Yale College, in recognition of his scholarship and abilities, in 1776, conferred on him (then only nineteen years old) the degree B. A.—an unprecedented honor. In Boston he mingled with a remarkably brilliant set of young men, who formed a Club, meeting at the rooms of John Trumbull, the young painter. Among these men were Rufus King, Christopher Gore, William Eustis, Aaron Dexter and Thomas Dawes—all personages of distinction in later life.
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