Canaan_, written shortly after his graduation from college, but not
published till 1785, was, like the _Columbiad_, an experiment toward
the domestication of the epic muse in America. It was written like
Barlow's poem, in rhymed couplets, and the patriotic impulse of the
time shows oddly in the introduction of our Revolutionary War, by way
of episode, among the wars of Israel. _Greenfield Hill_, 1794, was an
idyllic and moralizing poem, descriptive of a rural parish in
Connecticut of which the author was for a time the pastor. It is not
quite without merit; shows plainly the influence of Goldsmith, Thomson,
and Beattie, but as a whole is tedious and tame. Byron was amused that
there should have been an American poet christened Timothy, and it is
to be feared that amusement would have been the chief emotion kindled
in the breast of the wicked Voltaire had he ever chanced to see the
stern dedication to himself of the same poet's _Triumph of Infidelity_,
1788. Much more important than Dwight's poetry was his able _Theology
Explained and Defended_, 1794, a restatement, with modifications, of
the Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards, which was accepted by the
Congregational churches of New England as an authoritative exponent of
the orthodoxy of the time. His _Travels in New England and New York_,
including descriptions of Niagara, the White Mountains, Lake George,
the Catskills, and other passages of natural scenery, not so familiar
then as now, was published posthumously in 1821, was praised by
Southey, and is still readable. As President of Yale College from 1795
to 1817 Dwight, by his learning and ability, his sympathy with young
men, and the force and dignity of his character, exerted a great
influence in the community.

The strong political bias of the time drew into its vortex most of the
miscellaneous literature that was produced. A number of ballads,
serious and comic, whig and tory, dealing with the battles and other