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(LITERATURE.) Trumbull, John (1750-1831). Letter including 21 lines of his verse, apparently unpublished. Autograph Letter Signed "J Trumbull" to Miss Sally Lloyd of New York. 8 pages, 9 x 7 1/2 inches, on 2 folding sheets; moderate foxing and wear, a mounting strip on both sheets, 3 early paper repairs to the final leaf, one touching Trumbull's paraph. (MRS) New Haven, CT, 30 November 1772
The early American poet John Trumbull (1750-1831), not to be confused with the painter of the same name, was best known for McFingal, a satirical poem on the Revolution published in 1782. This letter was written to Sarah "Sally" Lloyd (1753-1779) of Long Island's prominent Lloyd's Neck family; she was apparently the leader of a small poetry club (see Grasso, Speaking Aristocracy, page 295). Trumbull was a tutor at Yale University at the time, and was not yet well-known. Here he shares his thoughts on poetry and relations between the sexes at length, and also includes two snippets of verse, one beginning "On you, ye Fair, depends each gentler art, / To form the manners & refine the heart." He also mentions Timothy Dwight, his fellow Yale tutor. Provenance: Hamilton auction, 22 September 1966, lot 376, to the consignor.
