THE RECLUSE
ship with Dennie, his influence on the poetic history and idealism of Vermont rests almost solely upon his activities as founder and leader of that remarkable coterie of literary associates and pupils whom we have denominated “The Guilford School.” Tyler was not only the father of this school, but he was their inspirer, patron and guide. For he was not only a prodigious worker himself; he inspired others to work. While he composed a very large number of poems himself (most of which, unforunately, became lost after his death), his genius is to be traced through the lives and products of his pupils. Among these pupils were Samuel Elliot, orator, humanitarian and poet; James Elliot, brother to Samuel, who published in 1798 his “Poetical and Miscellaneous Works”, the second book of verse ever issued by a Vermont author, consisting of essays, sketches and poems, and who later honored his state as its representative in Congress; John Phelps, an honored lawyer and poet of Guilford; Almira Phelps, his wife, who not only wrote excellent verse, but was author of a very fine text-book on botany, and many other works; Elizabeth Peck, also a poet; John Shepardson; and, finally Henry Dennison, whose verse (fine in quality) has come down to us only through the fragmentary portion put into print after his death in “The Columbian Lyre”, a small volume, published in Glasgow, in 1828. Some of the poetical works of this coterie of poets may be found in Hemenway’s Gazetteer, Volume 5; but most of it has become lost to us through the ravages of time, change and neglect.
In 1800 Tyler, after ten years of life in Guilford, moved to Brattleboro, then becoming the business center of the county; and, in 1801, was appointed by the legislature a member of the Vermont Supreme Court, and, in 1806, he was appointed Chief Justice, retaining this position until 1812, party strife and ill health causing him to be retired in that year. He had been appointed by an adverse political legislature solely on his merits, he being a Democrat in a Federalist state. He was one of the first patrons and founder of the University of Vermont. From 1815 to 1821, he was Register of Probate for Windham County. His later years were made miserable by the presence of a cancer on the left side of the nose, near the eye. This disease hastened his death, which occurred August 16, 1826. His widow survived till 1865, dying at the age of 94.
In the realm of poesy, Tyler’s reputation (aside from his dramas) rests principally on the few lyrics that were rescued from oblivion by reason of their having been printed in periodicals. It is doubtless a great loss to the literature of this state that his voluminous collection of poetic MSS. were not retained in the family and given to the press after his death. Some of them are now in possession of Helen Tyler Brown, of Brattleboro; but most of them have disappeared, no one knows whither. His “Ode”, delivered at Windsor, 1799, is doubtles his best known production; but his little lyric, “Love and Liberty”, is a work of far greater merit, showing the finish and imagination of the practised poet. This lyric is one of the first (perhaps the first) instances we have in Vermont poesy of finished and melodious versification.
LOVE AND LIBERTY
Royall Tyler, Guilford
In briery dell or thicket brown,
On mountain high, in lowly vale,
Or where the thistle sheds its down,
And sweet fern scents the passing gale,
There hop the birds from bush to tree;
Love fills their throats,
Love sweils their notes—
Their song is love and liberty.
No parent birds their love direct;
Each seeks his fair in plumy throng,
(ten)
