Trumbull, John, 1750–1831, American poet, b. Westbury (now Watertown), Conn. He passed the entrance examinations to Yale when he was seven, but did not enter until he was thirteen. While tutoring at Yale he wrote The Progress of Dulness (1772–73), a satire on educational follies. In 1773 he entered the law office of John Adams and was drawn into the political fervor of his times, writing the bombastic An Elegy of the Times (1774) and the mock-epic burlesque of Tory politics, M'Fingal (1775–82). One of the Connecticut Wits, he contributed to the Anarchiad and the Echo and was an ardent Federalist.
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