good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts."

Trusting in the judgment of a man who had every virtue under heaven, the
God of Song shipped with the tuneful Nine for America. Owing, perhaps,
to insufficiency of transportation, the Graces were left behind. The
vessel sailed past Rhode Island in a fog, and disembarked its precious
freight at New Haven, in the Colony of Connecticut. In the pleasant
summer weather, the distinguished foreigners travelled northward as far
as Litchfield Hill, and thence to Hartford, on the banks of the
beautiful river. They found the land well wooded and well watered; the
natives good-natured, industrious, and intelligent: but the scenery was
monotonous to the Pierian colonists, and the people distasteful. The
clipped hair and penitential scowl of the men made heavy the hearts of
the Muses; their daughters and wives had a sharp, harsh, pert "tang" in
their speech, that grated upon the ears of Apollo, who held with King
Lear as to the excellence of a low, soft voice in woman. Each native
seemed to the strangers sadly alike in looks, dress, manners, and
pursuits, to every other native. Of Art they were absolutely ignorant.
They built their temples on the same model as their barns. Poetry meant
Psalms sung through their noses to the accompaniment of a bass-viol. Of
other musical instruments, they knew only the Jews-harp for home
delectation, and the drum and fife for training-days. Doctrinal religion
furnished them with a mental relaxation which supplied the place of
amusement. Sandemanians, Adamites, Peterites, Bowlists, Davisonians, and
Rogereens, though agreeing mainly in essentials, found vast
gratification in playing against each other at theological dialectics.
On one cardinal point of discipline only--the necessity of administering
creature comfort to the sinful body--did all sects zealously unite. They
offered copious, though coarse, libations to Bacchus, in the
spirit-stirring rum of their native land.[B]

After careful observation, the nine ladies conferred together, and
decided that in this part of the world their sphere of usefulness was
limited and their mission a failure. Polymnia, Urania, and Clio might
get into good society, but Thalia and Terpsichore were sure to be set in
the stocks; and what was poor Erato to expect, but a whipping, in a
commonwealth that forbade its women to uncover their necks or to expose
their arms above the wrists? They m