Excerpt from The Connecticut Wits and Other EssaysMany years later, when preparing a chapter on the literature of the county for the Memorial History of Hartford, I came to close quarters with the sweet in¿u ence of the Pleiades. I am one of the few men - perhaps I am the only man - now living who have read the whole of Joel Barlow's Columbiad. Is old Joel Barlow yet alive? Asks Hawthorne's crazy correspondent. Un conscionable man! And does he medi tate an epic on the war between Mexico and Texas, with machinery contrived on the prin ciple of the steam engine? I also perused.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.