179 



TRUMBULL, JOHN. 



TRURO, LORD. 



ISO 



rescued from oblivion, were it only as a contribution to the history 

 of English metaphysical theology. It is described by Mr. Rogers as 

 " being the first systematic and elaborate attempt, not so much to 

 establish the doctrine of man's moral inability (still less the doctrine 

 of moral necessity generally), as to illustrate the wide distinction 

 between that and natural inability, to reconcile the former with the 

 idea of human accountability, and to vindicate it from the pernicious 

 consequences which some of its advocates, and all its opponents, would 

 fain attach to it." 



Truman was a hard student, and was distinguished for his profound 

 and varied learning. One of his favourite studies was English law : 

 he is fond of introducing a legal illustration in his metaphysical expo- 

 sitions and deductions. With all his sharpness of intellect however 

 it is admitted that ho had very little perception of anything out of 

 the province of mere logic. His style is singularly rugged and inarti- 

 ficial, to the extent of being sometimes nearly inexplicable upon any 

 syntactical principle. Though puritanical in the general complexion 

 of his theology, Truman is said to have regarded many of the points 

 upon which his party took their stand in opposition to the established 

 church as sufficiently insignificant ; he evinced his conscientiousness 

 by the sacrifice he made in giving up his living rather than comply 

 with all the demands of the law ; but after he thus became what was 

 called a nonconformist, although when opportunity served he was 

 always ready to preach to those of his own way of thinking, he con- 

 tinued, we are told, usually to attend the services of the establish- 

 ment ; nor did he drop his intimacy with any of his old friends among 

 the clergy. Among his particular associates are mentioned, besides 

 Baxter, Stillingfleet and Tillotson, the latter of whom had been his 

 fellow-student at Clare Hall. For these particulars we are indebted 

 to the memoir of Truman by Mr. Rogers, who has collected all that 

 is to be found respecting him in Calamy's ' Account of the Ejected 

 Ministers ; ' Nelson's ' Life of Bishop Bull ; ' and other sources of 

 information. 



TRUMBULL, JOHN, an American painter, the son of the governor 

 of Connecticut of that name, was born at Lebanon, Connecticut, on 

 the 6th of June 1756, and educated at Harvard University, where he 

 graduated in 1772. He early turned his attention to art, but the revo- 

 lution occurring, he was led to take an active part in the war of inde- 

 pendence, and he became adjutant of the first regiment raised in 

 Connecticut, was afterwards aide-de-camp to Washington, and received 

 the rank of colonel ; but fancying his claims slighted, he threw up Ida 

 commission and quitted the army. In 1780 he proceeded to England, 

 with a view of perfecting himself as a painter under West, in order 

 to carry into execution a favourite design of painting a series of pic- 

 tures of the principal heroes and events of the revolutionary war. 

 West received him kindly ; but Trumbull fell under the suspicion of 

 the government, was arrested, and only released on giving security 

 that he would immediately leave the country. He returned to 

 America in 1782. When peace was firmly established he came back 

 to England (November 1783), and renewed his studies under West. 

 He did not return to America till 1786. He completed many of his 

 series of revolutionary pictures,- and several of them have been 

 engraved. The first of this series painted by Trumbull was the 

 so-called 'Battle of Bunker's Hill,' in, which General Warren was 

 killed; it was engraved by the celebrated J. G. Miiller, at Stutt- 

 gardt, in 1796. The death of General Montgomery, another of the 

 series, was engraved by the Danish engraver F. Clemens, in London, 

 in 1798 : it is considered Clemens's finest plate. G. Ketterlinus, at 

 St. Petersburg, commenced copies of both these plates, but their 

 completion was interrupted by his death in 1803. Others of the 

 series are the four large pictures now in the rotunda of the Capitol at 

 Washington ' Signers of the Declaration of Independence,' ' Surren- 

 der of Burgoyne,' ' Surrender of Cornwallis,' and ' Washington 

 surrendering his Commission.' Valentine Green scraped in mezzotint 

 a picture "by Trumbull of Washington standing on the sea-shore, with 

 a black in the background holding his horse ; and likewise a portrait 

 of Washington. A very fine standing half-length portrait of Washing- 

 ton was engraved by J. Cheesman after Trumbull. There are other 

 plates by other engravers after this painter. But Trumbull did not 

 apply himself solely to painting. For awhile, after completing the 

 studies for his revolutionary pictures (1792), he acted as private secre- 

 tary to Mr. Jay. Afterwards he was engaged in commercial pursuits in 

 Paris; and between 1796 and 1804 he was employed as a commissioner 

 to the British government for carrying out the provisions of an article 

 in Jay's treaty. He then re-commenced the practice of his profension 

 in New York, but not meeting with the success he anticipated, he 

 again came to England, where he remained till 1815. He then went 

 to America to paint the four pictures for which he had received com- 

 missions from the United States government, and on which he was 

 engaged for some years. In 1817 he was elected president of the 

 American Academy of the Arts, an office he held for many years. 

 Before his death he presented his pictures to Yale College, and a 

 building has been erected for them at New Haven called the Trumbull 

 Gallery. He died at New York, on the 10th of November 1843, aged 

 eighty-seven. 



TRUMBULL, SIR WILLIAM, a diplomatist and statesman of some 

 eminence, and during the reign of William III. for some time secre- 

 tary of state, was born in 1636, at Easthampstead in Berkshire. He 



was the son of William Trumbull, Esq., of Easthampstead, who repre- 

 sented Berkshire in parliament; and his grandfather, who had the 

 same names, was one of the clerks of the privy council in the rei^n of 

 James I., and envoy to the court of Brussels from that king and from 

 Charles I. He was brought up at a school at Oakingham, and after- 

 wards went to St. John's College, Oxford, but subsequently became a 

 fellow of All Souls' College. He took the degree of LL.B. in 1659, 

 and of LL.D. in 1667. In the interval between these two degrees he 

 had travelled in France and Italy. After taking the degree of LL.D. 

 he practised as an advocate in Doctors' Commons, and enjoyed an 

 extensive practice. In 1671 he was appointed chancellor and vicar- 

 general of the diocese of Rochester, and in 1672 he obtained the 

 reversion of the clerkship of the signet, then held by Sir Philip 

 Warwick, which came to him on the death of the latter in 1682. In 

 1683 he accompanied Lord Dartmouth to Tangier in the capacity of 

 judge-advocate of the fleet ; and on his return to England he was 

 knighted, and in November 1685 sent as envoy extraordinary to the 

 court of France. 



" He was sent envoy to Paris," says Burnet, "on Lord Preston's being 

 recalled. He was there when the edict of Nantes was repealed, and 

 saw the violence of the persecution, and acted a great and worthy part 

 in harbouring many, in covering their effects, and in conveying over 

 their jewels and plate to England, which disgusted the court of France, 

 and was not very acceptable to the court of England, though it was 

 not then thought fit to disown or recall him for it. He had orders to 

 put in memorials complaining of the invasion of the principality of 

 Orange, which he did in so high a strain, that the last of them was 

 like a denunciation of war." Trumbull was recalled from Paris in 

 1686, when James II. had thrown off the mask from his designs to 

 establish Popery in England with the aid of France ; and he was then 

 sent by James II. as ambassador extraordinary to the Ottoman Porte. 

 He remained at Constantinople until 1691, the revolution having 

 occurred while he was there. On his return to England he was 

 appointed a lord of the Treasury, and in May 1695 secretary of state. 

 He was also governor of the Turkey Company. He resigned the 

 secretaryship of state in December 1697, and retired to Easthampstead 

 to pass the remainder of his days in quiet. At the time of his with- 

 drawal from public life, he represented the University of Oxford in 

 parliament. Lord Hardwicke says, in a note to Burnet's ' History of 

 his Own Times' (vol. iv., p. 366, ed. 1833), "Secretary Trumbull 

 resigned about this time in disgust with the lords of the regency, who, 

 he said, had used him more like a footman than a secretary," A 

 similar account of the reason of his retirement is given in the 'Shrews- 

 bury Correspondence.' 



Sir William Trumbull occupies a place in literary as well as political 

 history, and has the distinction of having aided Dryden with his 

 counsel while he was engaged in translating the ' ^Eneid,' and of having 

 been the first to recommend to Pope the translation of Homer. Dry- 

 den thus gracefully mentions him in his 'Postscript to the ^Eneis :' 

 " I must also add, that if the last ^Eneid shine among its fellows, it is 

 owing to the commands of Sir W. Trumbull, one of the principal 

 secretaries of state, who recommended it as his favourite to rny care, 

 and for his sake particularly I have made it mine ; for who could 

 confess weariness when he enjoined a fresh labour!" 



Pope's father lived at Binfield in Windsor Forest, in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Sir William Trumbull's place at Easthampstead ; 

 and here, as is well known, Pope's boyhood and commencing manhood 

 were passed. The old retired statesman and the young poet were 

 constant companions : they read the Greek and Roman authors 

 together, and were in the habit of riding with one another three or 

 four times a week, and latterly every day. The first of Pope's pas- 

 torals was addressed to Sir W. Trumbull. When Pope went to 

 London in 1705 he corresponded with " the amiable old statesman." 

 Some of the letters which passed between them are printed in Pope's 

 works (Roscoe's edition, vol. viii.). Pope in 1709 published some 

 specimens of translations from Homer, which he had previously com- 

 municated in manuscript to Sir William Trumbull. The latter wrote 

 to him (April 9, 1708), " I am confirmed in my former application to 

 you, and give me leave to renew it upon this occasion, that you would 

 proceed in translating that incomparable poet, to make him speak 

 good English, to dress his admirable characters in your proper, signifi- 

 cant, and expressive conceptions, to make his works as useful and 

 instructive to this degenerate age as he was to our friend Horace, when 

 he read him at Prseneste : 



1 Qui quid sit pulchrum quid turpe, quid utile, quid non.' " 



(Pope's ' Works,' Roscoe's edition, vol. viii., p. v.) 



When Pope visited Binfield to bid it adieu before taking up his 

 residence at Twickenham, he found Sir William Trumbull dying, and 

 parted from him, as he wrote to his friend Mr. Blount, " as from a 

 venerable prophet, foretelling with lifted hands the miseries to come, 

 from which he is just going to be removed himself." Sir William 

 Trumbull died on the 14th of December 1716, aged eighty years. 

 Burnet says of him, that "he was the eminentest of all our civilians, 

 and was by much the best pleader iu those courts, and was a learned, 

 a diligent, and a virtuous man." Pope's laudatory character of him 

 in his ' Epitaph on Sir William Trumbull ' is well known. 



TRURO, THOMAS WILDE, FIRST LORD, the son of a respectable 



