Lemuel Hopkins

Lemuel Hopkins (1750-1801). Courtesy Connecticut Museum Quest.

Dr. Lemuel Hopkins (June 19, 1750 - April 14, 1801) was an American poet and physician.

Life

by Samuel Kettell

Youth

Hopkins was born at Waterbury, Connecticut. His father was a farmer in easy circumstances, and while he reared all his children to the labor of the field, took care to bestow upon them a good education. Dr Hopkins is said to have been determined to the study of physic when young, by observing the gradual decline of some of his connexions, who were sinking under a consumption. This inclination to medical pursuits was strengthened by the circumstance of a hereditary predisposition to the same disorder which existed in the family.

His education, it seems, had not been classical, and having resolved upon the medical profession, he applied himself to Latin and other preliminary studies, and after proper qualification, placed himself under the care of a physician in Wallingford.

Career

He began regular practice in Litchfield, Connecticut, about the year 1776, and was for a short time in the American army as a volunteer. About 1784, he moved to Hartford, Connecticut, where he passed the rest of his life, devoted to the labors of a physician, and man of letters.

Hopkins was a physician of great skill and reputation. His memory was so retentive, that he could quote every writer he had read, whether medical or literary, with the same readiness that a clergyman quotes the Bible. In his labors for scientific purposes, he was indefatigable. The Medical Society of Connecticut is indebted to him as one of its founders. In his person he was tall, lean, stooping and long-limbed, with large features and light eyes, and this uncouth appearance, added to a great eccentricity of manner, rendered him at first sight a very striking spectacle.

He fell a victim, we are told, to the exercise of an improper remedy in his own case, occasioned by his dread of a pulmonary complaint.

Writing

by Samuel Kettell

In his literary character Hopkins was eminent among the distinguished writers of the place where the most of his life was spent. Trumbull, Barlow, Humphreys, Dwight – the "Hartford Wits" – and others, were his associates; Hopkins wrote the Anarchiat with Trumbull and Barlow. He also had a hand in The Echo, The Political Greenhouse, and many satirical poems of that description, in which he had for his associates, Richard Alsop, Theodore Dwight, and a number of others. Besides these, there are a few short pieces which were written by him exclusively.

The Anarchiad

The Anarchiad was published in portions in the Connecticut Magazine, during 1786 and 1787. It is a political satire, referring to the state of the country at the period immediately preceding the adoption of the federal constitution. The American states were at that time loosely connected, each pursuing its own separate policy, without any regard for the plans of the other members of the confederacy, or the general welfare of the country. This led to embarrassments in the public affairs, which by the instrumentality of factious and violent persons, occasioned great disorders. Against the promoters of these political troubles, the Anarchiad is pointed.

The poem is represented in the introduction as having been discovered in digging among the ancient aboriginal fortifications in the western country, and by the aid of vision and prophecy, it is made to bear on modern events. A strain of grave moral expostulation is mixed up with satirical touches in a very able manner. Dr Hopkins suggested the plan of the work, and has always borne the credit of having written the most striking passages.

Publications

Poetry

• The Anarchiad: A New England poem, 1786-1787 (by David Humphreys. Joel Barlow; John Trumbull, & Lemuel Hopkins). New Haven, CT: New Haven Gazette and Connecticut Magazine, October 26th, 1786 - September 13, 1787;
  • (with preface by Luther G. Riggs). New Haven, CT: Thomas H. Pease, 1861; Gainesville, FL: Scholars' Facsimiles & Reprints, 1967.
• poems in American Poems. Litchfield, CT: Collier & Buel, 1793.
• Guillotina; or, The annual song of the tenth muse: Addressed to the readers of the 'Connecticut Courant'. Hartford, CT: Hudson & Goodwin, 1795
  • also published as The Guillotina; or, A Democratic dirge: A poem. Philadelphia: printed by Thomas Bradford, 1796.
• The Democratiad: A poem, in retaliation, for the "Philadelphia jockey club." Philadelphia: printed by Thomas Bradford, 1796.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• The Hartford Wits
• List of U.S. poets

References

• Samuel Kettell, "Critical and Biographical Notice: Lemuel Hopkins (1750–1801)," Specimens of American Poetry, Boston: S.G. Goodrich, 1829. Bartleby.com, Web, Nov. 21, 2106.

External links

Poems

• "On a Patient Killed by a Cancer Quack"
• "They Hypocrite's Hope"
• The Anarchiad

About

• Critical and Biographical Notice: Lemuel Hopkins (1750–1801) in Specimens of American Poetry