Poet and Author
Humphreys enjoyed writing and had a voluminous correspondence with Washington, now in the Library of Congress. He also wrote for the public and was the author of a "Life of General Israel Putnam," whose staff he served on. He was one of the writers called the Hartford Wits (the others were Joel Barlow, Timothy Dwight IV, John Trumbull and Lemuel Hopkins). In 1802, he wrote an anti-slavery poem entitled "A Poem on the Industry of the United States of America."
He also served again as a member of the Connecticut state house of representatives, from 1812 to 1814. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in June 1807
Read more about this topic: David Humphreys (soldier)
Famous quotes containing the words poet and, poet and/or author:
“It is rare to find one who was so much of a poet and so little of an artist.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The civilized nations—Greece, Rome, England—have been sustained by the primitive forests which anciently rotted where they stand. They survive as long as the soil is not exhausted. Alas for human culture! little is to be expected of a nation, when the vegetable mould is exhausted, and it is compelled to make manure of the bones of its fathers. There the poet sustains himself merely by his own superfluous fat, and the philosopher comes down on his marrow-bones.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“An author must be nothing if he do not love truth; a barrister must be nothing if he do.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)