UC-NRLF 
 
 B M S^k Itl 
 

 
LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Class 
 
PASSAGES 
 
 FROM THE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 RUFUS W. GRISWOLD, 
 
 No scitur a /So c i is . 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., 
 
 W: M. GRISWOLD, 
 
 1898. 
 
It is not expected that many persons will be interested in the 
 small-talk of authors and journalists of fifty years ago, especially 
 as the literary history of the time is neither respected by scholars 
 nor favored by fashion. It is possible, however, that the time 
 may come when this period will be thot deserving of more careful 
 study, and in that case these documents may be found of value. 
 
 Copyright, 1898, by W: M. Griswold. 
 
SELECTIONS FROM LETTERS. 
 
 Rufus Wilmot Griswold was born on the loth of February 
 1815, at Benson, Vermont, where his father, also named Rufus, 
 was a small farmer. He claimed descent from G: Griswold, 
 of Kenilworth, one of wh6se sons settled in Windsor, and 
 another at Say brook, Conn. On his mother s side he was of 
 the ninth generation of the descendants of T: Mayhew, the 
 first settler of Martha s Vineyard. The character of his early 
 surrroundings may be inferred from the tw6 letters which 
 folio : 
 
 Dear Rufus : 
 
 We received your letter on the 21 Dec. [1838], and 
 could 1 write now as I could once I should have answered it 
 before this ; but I am old and not capable of writing at all. I 
 have a desire to write once more to you. . . We expect Silas is 
 dead , and where and how he died we know not ; but if we had 
 evidence that he was prepared how it would blunt the keen 
 edge of affliction! Rufus, are you a Christian? Are you pre 
 pared to meet your God ? If not be entreated to set about 
 that important work. Look away to the blessed Saviour for 
 help . . . You cannot think how glad we should be to see you 
 and your family you know not how lonesome we are. Our 
 family are all gone seemingly. Chauncy has not been home 
 since some time in the fall. Permelia has been home once since. 
 Merrill comes often t6 see how we get along; he is very good 
 
 224381 
 
6 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 to help your father. Marcus is living with us. Chauncy is 
 likewise very kind he has caused our house 16 be made very 
 warm and comfortable. Your father and I enjoy good health 
 for people of our age. . . 
 
 Your affectionate mother, 
 
 Deborah Griswold. 
 
 The next letter was written in Feb., 1841. 
 
 "Although it is a long time since we wrote to you, be 
 assured, there is no day passes that I do not think of all my 
 Children. . . Our family the most of them, are gone so far 
 from us, it makes us feel very lonesome. Our little family, 
 consisting of your father, myself and Elizabeth are, through 
 Divine favor, in usual helth and enjoying the necessary Com 
 forts of life. Merril s family have been sick, the two yongest 
 very sick. . . Your uncle Samuel Griswold, his wife and family, 
 are well. He will be eighty years old in March. Permelia and 
 family are well. Eveline was married the 7th of January to 
 Mr. Moody, Merchant in Whitehall. We have received a 
 letter from Edwin . . . Chauncy is in Ticonderoga working at 
 [ his? ] trade. We likewise had a letter from Orra in the fall. 
 . . . Randolph, we know nothing of him. Rufus, it will be but 
 a little while when there will be no father s house to visit ; your 
 father lacks but two years of seventy, I am only two years 
 yonger. . . May God bless you, my son, and gide you by 
 His holy Spirit into all truth. 
 
 Your mother and friend, 
 
 Deborah Griswold. 
 
 In West-Haven, the town joining Benson on the south, Horace 
 Greeley, born four years earlier than Griswold, spent his boy- 
 
PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 7 
 
 hood. At fifteen we find Rufus a student at the Rensselaer 
 school at Troy, which he was enabled to attend by the kind 
 ness of his brother Hemau, wh6 had prospered in business in 
 that town. In consequence of detection in a school prank, he 
 was placed in his brother s counting-room. While there he 
 became intimate with G : G. Foster, his elder by five years, and 
 already well-known, locally, ns poet and journalist. Griswold 
 soon fell out with his kinsfolk; (the cause of the disagreement 
 is unknown) and joined Foster at Albany. In a memorandum 
 written some twenty years afterward, he thus describes their 
 friendship : 
 
 "We remained, occupying the same room, and sharing each 
 other s enterprises, pleasures and ambitions, for nearly a year. 
 It was here that we both commenced and pursued our first 
 course in reading in romantic and poetical literature. All the 
 masters of literary art who had written in the English language 
 contributed to our entertainment and were subjected to our 
 critical discussions. We generally agreed very well, in our 
 estimates of books and authors, but sometimes had warm 
 controversies, as in the cases of Pope and Goldsmith and a 
 few other classical models, wh6m I preferred t6 the romantic 
 and passionate school. The only discussion, however, in 
 which our disagreements were of a sort t6 endanger our ami 
 cable relations was one which arose from my preference of 
 certain passages in a manuscript Poem of his own, entitled 
 the 17th Canto, t6 the parts of Byron s Don Juan which were 
 nearly in the same vein. I thought then, as I still think, that 
 for the humorous and satirical style of Beppo, Foster s abilities 
 and temper fitted him to attain the greatest success. "The 17th 
 
8 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 Canto" contained about 3000 lines, and was full of genuine 
 wit, playful burlesque and good feeling. The loss of the man 
 uscript was a misfortune, since nothing that he has since done 
 has illustrated a more sustained, quick, brilliant or sensuous 
 intelligence. We parted in the spring of 1831, and though we 
 occasionally corresponded, did not meet again in ten years. 
 He had led a life of various fortune, in the South and West. 
 I was Editor, with Mr. Park Benjamin, of the % Brother Jona 
 than" newspaper, and while congratulating with some acquain 
 tances one day, at our office upon the success of a scheme 
 which we supposed was to revolutionise the publishing Econ 
 omy of the Country was surprised by the appearance of Foster, 
 in the grotesque costume of the South- West, but otherwise 
 
 scarcely changed from what I had known him." 
 
 
 
 [The " Museum" mentioned was u The American Museum, or Repository 
 of Ancient and Modern Fugitive Pieces, etc.. Prose and Poetical;" Philadel 
 phia, 1787-92, 12 vols., 8. ] 
 
 J: TRUMBULL [1750-1821] TO MATHEW CAREY. 
 
 Hartford. June 4, 1785. 
 gir: 
 
 My absence from home, and other avocations, have till now pre 
 vented my completing the corrections and transcriptions I forward with this 
 letter. Those of my writings already published are out of my hands, and I 
 can make no reasonable objection t5 their republication by any person who 
 shall think they will repay his risque and expense; and I shall be particu 
 larly pleased if they should be of any advantage to a gentleman who by his 
 repeated exertions for the encouragement of American literature has merited 
 the thanks of aTl its friends. 
 
 The Progress of Dulness [published 1772 ] , from its locality, as well as 
 from other reasons, I had determined long since t5 suppress, but I find it 
 impracticable. I have transcribed the elegy to which Col. [ D : ] Humphreys 
 
PAPERS OF K. W. GRISWOU). 9 
 
 [1752-1818] added the title, "The Vanity of Ambition," which does not well 
 apply to it, as it now stands, and still less to the real occasion on which it 
 was composed. I do not see that it needs any title. 
 
 I propose hereafter the publication of McFingal [first part issued in 
 1775, last in 1782 ] , with my alterations, and a complete set of notes, which it 
 certainly w r ants, with the addition of all my other poems, of which I have 
 many, both in the serious and humorous style, that have Jain by me for many 
 years. But I mean t5 secure the copyright, which may be an object worth 
 my attention. I should have no objection to the sale of the copyright, and 
 would give you, if you wish it, the first offer of the purchase. 
 
 I am pleased to learn by a letter from our friend Mr. [Ebenezer] Hazard 
 [1744-17] , that you propose to publish an edition of all the American poets of 
 reputation. In the list he gives me, I find no mention made of [ Rowland ] 
 Hugely of S. C., a poet certainly superior to Evans [Nathaniel Evans, 1742- 
 67, ? ] . He published a volume of poems in London near twenty years ago, 
 chiefly in the name of Prim [ ?] many of which are well worth preserving; 
 and since that a travesty of the 4th Book of Virgil, which for delicacy and 
 true humor is superior to Colton s. 
 
 You may collect some poems particularly "The Choice of a Rural 
 Life," or "Philosophic Solitude," by Governor [ W : J Livingston [ 1723-90] , 
 which do credit to American genius. I have found among my papers an 
 elegy by Samuel Quincy of Boston, which you may perhaps think worth 
 inserting in your Museum. He was certainly a poet above mediocrity. I 
 have seen many other of his productions, which I have never seen printed. 
 Many fugitive poems by him, Mayhew, Pratt and others might be collected 
 in Boston which are worth preserving ( in the Museum. ) 
 
 I send you also a little epistolatory Poem of Col. Humphreys which 
 may be inserted in the Museum. He was about to publish it in a way I 
 think much less proper. I wish it might not be known that he proposed its 
 publication, but appear to have fallen into your hands by accident. 
 
 I shall be happy to afford you any assistance in my power in the col 
 lection of such fugitive pieces as may deserve publication. A brother of Mr. 
 Hazard s was a poet of genius. Perhaps Mr. H. would furnish you with 
 some of his productions. When he avoided the licentious style his writings 
 had much merit. 
 
 I am sir, Your most obedient and humble servant, 
 
 John Trumbull. 
 
10 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 I find no trace of Griswold s dftings during the years 1832- 
 33, but in July, 1834, as appears from the address of a letter, 
 he was in Calais, Maine. This letter was written by his 
 brother Silas, and stated that there was an opening for him on 
 a paper about t6 be started at Dunkirk, N.-Y., where Silas 
 then dwelt. Silas repeated his invitation Oct. 14, sending his 
 letter to Syracuse, N.-Y. where Griswold was working in the 
 office of " The Constitutionalist." 
 
 J. K. PAULDING TO T : W. WHITE. 
 
 [ At the date of this letter the writer was 55. He was secretary of the 
 navy 1837-41, and died in I860. The Brown mentioned is probably James 
 Brown, born in Virginia in 1766, senator 1813-23, envoy in France 1823-29. 
 He died in 1835.] 
 
 New York, 19th April, 1835. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 I am greatly obliged to you for your friendly attention in sending 
 me, occasionally, the speeches of some of your distinguished orators, and am 
 most especially pleased with that of Mr. Brown, which I have just finished 
 reading. Of all the states of this union Old Virginia is the one which I con 
 sider the great Bulwark of Constitutional principles. It is th&re that my 
 observation has convinced me they are best understood and practiced, and 
 the"rethat I look for the great security for their preservation, and it gives 
 much satisfaction to think that all her great points of opinion and policy are 
 such as I myself cherish more devoutly every day of my life. 
 
 As a clear, temperate and masterly exposition of those principles I 
 think the speech of Mr. Brown one of the most admirable I have ever read, 
 though in some respects I differ with him in his application of those great 
 principles to the present times. It is not necessary for me t5 say in what 
 these differences consist, though had I time at present I might point them 
 out to you. My leisure will not permit it just now and therefore I pass 
 them by. * 
 
 In justice however t5 my native state, I cannot forbear some remarks 
 on that part of the speech which relates to the mode of managing our Elec 
 tions. I admit that it is liable to objections as in some degree checking if not 
 
PAPERS OF R. \V. GRISWOLD. 11 
 
 overcoming the free suffrage of the People, in so far as it interferes with the 
 personal predilections of perhaps a great portion of the voters. But so far 
 as my observation and experience extends, it does not interfere with prin 
 ciples. No nomination of Committees has ever yet, nor in my opinion ever 
 will, force down the throats of the others an obnoxious candidate, or one 
 who they do not believe will support their own interests and principles. It 
 may serve to concentrate their suffrages on one they like, but never in favor 
 of one they do not like. It is not dictation but advice; not despotism but 
 friendly counsel; not a command but a recommendation. 
 
 As our system, or machinery as it is called, seems to puzzle the South 
 ern politicians, I will take the opportunity of showing what it really is. In 
 the first place, meetings of the people friendly to regular nominations, as the 
 phrase is, are called to appoint an equal number of delegates from each 
 ward for the purpose of choosing a General Kominatory Committee, which 
 is to designate or recommend the persons who are thought worthy to repre 
 sent them in any elective office. The nominations are laid before the People 
 in a General meeting and adopted or rejected as they choose. The only 
 influence considered is that which operates, in all circumstances and situa 
 tions of life, the influence of record [?], persuasion, or example. The 
 Committees, it is true, have influence, but they are chosen by the people and 
 the people, in the last resort, exercise the right of reversing their proceed 
 ings. If they do, they become null and void; if they do not it is the best 
 proof, to my mind, that though all are not equally satisfied, all are willing to 
 acquiesce. 
 
 Such is the abstract view of this system of Regular nominations. In 
 practice, like every thing else in this world, it is liable to great abuses and 
 perversions. That the People are liable to be deceived, overawed, or influ 
 enced by the acts, the authority, or the reasonings and persuasions of those 
 whom they respect, or fear, is certain ; bulf this is one of those inevitable 
 influences which extend to every department of life, and cannot be avoided. 
 ThSre are always men in every little circle of society who give tone to opin 
 ion and direction t5 action. Influence must come from somewhere or other, 
 and it would seem to be sufficient for the protection of human rights that 
 every man has the moral and physical right t5 act as he pleases. If he 
 pleases to act under the influence of a friend or a neighbor who [m] he con 
 siders wiser than himself, he is only following the law of nature, and can not 
 
12 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLJ). 
 
 be charged with submitting to dictation when he has the right of acting just 
 as he pleases. 
 
 I agree entirely with Mr. Brown, in his estimate of the possible, nay 
 probable evils of an amalgamation [ ?] of this species of Influence, pervading 
 the United States and receiving its impulse and direction from one single 
 person. But whatever they may be, if we look to the other side of the ques 
 tion, are not the dangers equally great, if not greater? The principle of our 
 Government, that, within the limits of the Constitution, the majority has a 
 right to govern, seems to imply the right to take the measures necessary to 
 enable it to govern. If every State, and every [city?] even, should indulge 
 their preference and nominate a[nd] vote for that one for President who is 
 most peculiarly their choice, what would be the inevitable consequence? 
 Unless in the rare accident of having a Citizen of such vast and paramount 
 merit or popularity as to concentrate in his favor the suffrages of the whole 
 or a majority of the People, there would never be any choice of the People. 
 The choice would always fall on Congress, and the Lord deliver us from such 
 an alternative. That would become the centre of intrigue and corruption, 
 and the voice of the People would be as that of one crying in the wilderness. 
 Under our present Constitution I can see no refuge from the greater evil but 
 the lesser one of uniting, if possible, the suffrage of a Party on some one 
 person, who, though not the general choice of every Citizen of that Party, is 
 neither obnoxious [n]or suspected. If some such mode is not adopted, this 
 Government will sometime be one of the minority, and though this might 
 not be disagreeable to the minority, the result would be certain a delegated 
 power acting in direct opposition to the wishes of a majority of those who 
 conferred it; a President representing a mass of contradictory principles, 
 and opposing on all occasions a majority of his Constituents, and opposed by 
 the other Branches of [the] Government. This, to my mind, would be 
 equivalent to no government at all. 
 
 My paper is full, or I would speculate deeper into this subject. I have 
 no objection that Mr. Brown should know the high gratification his admir 
 able speech has afforded me, notwithstanding his [opinion?] of New York. 
 He may make himself quite easy about the [ illegible ] over the Union. She 
 is not homogeneous like Old Virginia. She is a party-coloured coat like that 
 of Joseph. Foreigners, Yankees and Cesmopolites make up a large portion 
 of her population, and she never looks long enough in one direction to see 
 her way clear, beyond her nose. By the time the next succeeding Election, 
 
PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 13 
 
 r the approaching one, arrives, her politics, notwithstanding the <4 ma- 
 ery" of regular nominations, will just as likely as not have undergone a 
 plete French Revolution. She will never govern the Union for she can- 
 keep her helm steady long enough to arrive at that Port. 
 
 I am, Dear Sir, Yours very truly, 
 
 J. K. Paulding. 
 m t use my name publicly in connection with this letter. 
 
 W: J: DUANE TO T: W. WHITE. 
 
 Ir. Duane was secretary of the treasury in 1833, but was removed by 
 :son for refusing to take the government deposits from the U. S. Bank, 
 louse of Representatives having voted, three to one, that the deposits 
 )t to be removed. Mr. Duaiie died in 1865. ] 
 
 Philadelphia, April 24, 1835. 
 Sear Sir. 
 
 I have thankfully received the favors which you had the good- 
 to send to me; and have read with pleasure and instruction the speech 
 r ered by Mr. Brown. The copies of it which you have placed at my 
 3sal shall be carefully and usefully disposed of. By this I mean that 
 
 shall be put into the hands of those who are competent to estimate 
 t. As to producing any politically useful effect, through the press, at 
 in this state, it is not to be expected at present. Indeed I think the 
 ber of purely patriotic men is small everywhere. Not that such men 
 tot in existence, but that we do not see them. This is probably owing tft 
 old reception they meet with ; and this cold reception is attributable to 
 lisappointments the people have met with. The actual practice of Gen. 
 son, for instance, has been the very reverse of his professions. So that, 
 
 such an instance of turn-coatism, the people have some apology for 
 ust. We want, I think, a class of men who would labor to serve their 
 try solely from the delight which serving it would yield. I mean men 
 would not seek or accept offices or other selfish considerations. No 
 t there have been and are such men, but if you will look over the list 
 ublic men, for fifty years past, you will trace in almost every instance 
 
 lurking motive besides the bare love of country and of liberty. . . 
 
 With kind wishes, truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 W. J. Duane. 
 
12 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 be charged with submitting to dictation when he has the right of acting ji 
 as he pleases. 
 
 I agree entirely with Mr. Brown, in his estimate of the possible, n 
 probable evils of an amalgamation [ ?] of this species of Influence, pervadi 
 the United States and receiving its impulse and direction from one sin; 
 person. But whatever they may be, if we look t5 the other side of the qu 
 tion, are not the dangers equally great, if not greater? The principle of c 
 Government, that, within the limits of the Constitution, the majority ha 
 right to govern, seems to imply the right to take the measures necessary 
 enable it t5 govern. If every State, and every [city?] even, should indu 
 their preference and nominate a[nd] vote for that one for President whc 
 most peculiarly their choice, what would be the inevitable consequent 
 Unless in the rare accident of having a Citizen of such vast and paramoi 
 merit or popularity as t5 concentrate in his favor the suffrages of the wh 
 or a majority of the People, there would never be any choice of the Peop . 
 The choice would always fall on Congress, and the Lord deliver us from su 
 an alternative. That would become the centre of intrigue and corrnpti< 
 and the voice of the People would be as that of one crying in the wilderne 
 Under our present Constitution I can see no refuge from the greater evil t 
 the lesser one of uniting, if possible, the suffrage of a Party on some o 
 person, who, though not the general choice of every Citizen of that Party, 
 neither obnoxious [n]or suspected. If some such mode is not adopted, tl 
 Government will sometime be one of the minority, and though this mig 
 not be disagreeable to the minority, the result would be certain a delegat 
 power acting in direct opposition to the wishes of a majority of those w 
 conferred it; a President representing a mass of contradictory principl 
 and opposing on all occasions a majority of his Constituents, and opposed 
 the other Branches of [the] Government. This, to my mind, would 
 equivalent to no government at all. 
 
 My paper is full, or I would speculate deeper into this subject. I ha 
 no objection that Mr. Brown should know the high gratification his adm 
 able speech has afforded me, notwithstanding his [opinion?] of ~$e\\ Yoi 
 He may make himself quite easy about the [ illegible ] over the Union. S 
 is not homogeneous like Old Virginia. She is a party-coloured coat like tl 
 of Joseph. Foreigners, Yankees and Cesmopolites make up a large porti 
 of her population, and she never looks long enough in one direction to s 
 her way clear, beyond her nose. By the time the next succeeding Electic 
 
PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 13 
 
 after the approaching one, arrives, her politics, notwithstanding the ma 
 chinery" oi regular nominations, will just as likely as not have undergone a 
 complete French Revolution. She will never govern the Union for she can 
 not keep her helm steady long enough to arrive at that Port. 
 
 I am, Dear Sir, Yours very truly, 
 
 J. K. Paulding. 
 Don t use my name publicly in connection with this letter. 
 
 W: J: DUANE TO T: W. WHITE. 
 
 [Mr. Duane was secretary of the treasury in 1833, but was removed by 
 Jackson for refusing to take the government deposits from the U. S. Bank, 
 the House of Representatives having voted, three to one, that the deposits 
 6t not to be removed. Mr. Duane died in 1865. ] 
 
 Philadelphia, April 24, 1835. 
 My dear Sir. 
 
 I have thankfully received the favors which you had the good 
 ness to send to me; and have read with pleasure and instruction the speech 
 delivered by Mr. Brown. The copies of it which you have placed at my 
 disposal shall be carefully and usefully disposed of. By this I mean that 
 they shall be put into the hands of those who are competent t5 estimate 
 merit. As to producing any politically useful effect, through the press, at 
 least in this state, it is not to be expected at present. Indeed I think the 
 number of purely patriotic men is small everywhere. Not that such men 
 are not in existence, but that we do not see them. This is probably owing td 
 the cold reception they meet with ; and this cold reception is attributable to 
 the disappointments the people have met with. The actual practice of Gen. 
 Jackson, for instance, has been the very reverse of his professions. So that, 
 after such an instance of turn-coatism, the people have some apology for 
 distrust. We want, I think, a class of men who would labor to serve their 
 country solely from the delight which serving it would yield. I mean men 
 who would not seek or accept offices or other selfish considerations. No 
 doubt there have been and are such men, but if you will look over the list 
 of public men, for fifty years past, you will trace in almost every instance 
 some lurking motive besides the bare love of country and of liberty. . . 
 
 With kind wishes, truly and respectfully yours, 
 
 W. J. Duane. 
 
14 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 In May, 1835, Griswold was editor of " The Democrat and 
 Inquirer" of Fredonia, and in 1836 of the Olean " Advocate." 
 
 New York, Oct. 16th, 1836. 
 
 Friend Griswold, 
 
 . . . You ask ine in your letter how I like your paper. I answer 
 very much indeed. Now I do not wish to flatter you in the Jeast when I say 
 that, in my humble opinion, it is as good [ as ] if not superior to any country 
 paper in the state. . . 
 
 A penny paper called the "Era" was started a few days since, by Mr. 
 Locke, the author of the "Moon Story," and Mr. Price, a very popular con 
 tributor of the Mirror they are both very talented men and the paper so 
 far is well conducted. I think it will equal, if not surpass, any paper in the 
 city. The Herald came out on them the first day the paper made its appear 
 ance ; but the way they used him up for it was a caution the Era cut him all 
 t5 pieces Bennett could not begin to hold his own ! I w T ill try to send you 
 the papers that contain the articles they give a complete sketch of his life 
 from the time of his arrival in this country up to the present time and a 
 chronological table of all the "floggings," "kickings" and "buffetings" he has 
 received I am glad of it he is a great rascal, and deserves it. 
 
 I send you . . . the "Merchant Clerk." Bulwer s drama is not received 
 yet; we expect it every day we have our cases filled, and all the quads and 
 italics in the office collected together ready for the contest, as soon as we 
 receive the copy. We executed the entire work of "Lucien Bonaparte" and 
 published it in forty hours after we received the copy, and sold it at three 
 shillings. We did not leave the office from Tuesday noon until Wednesday 
 morning nine o clock; I was pretty well used up, I assure you ; Fletcher 
 Harper gave all the hands a splendid supper at his house (which is a few 
 doors from the office) during the night; it was the most magnificent affair 
 that I have seen for a long time; Fletcher went the whole "figure." 
 
 We have received part of the copy of a new novel by James, called the 
 "Desultory Man" we expect the remainder every day. I see that Saunders 
 and Otley have announced it as also in press no matter I think our John 
 Bull friends will become tired of their opposition, and will be glad to go 
 home after they lose a little more money. Harpers are determined to strike 
 And spare not. 
 
HARPERS. H: J. RAYMOND. 16 
 
 We have likewise commenced the "Memoirs of Col. Burr" in 2 vols. 
 8vo. We have also announced as in press, "Rambles in Europe by Edwin 
 Forrest, with a memoir of the author by William Leggett, Esq." it will be 
 very popular. We have just published "Bryant s Poems" it is a beautiful 
 work. . . Write soon. 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 Marcus B. Butler. 
 
 Ip March, 1837, Griswold married Caroline Searles, and for 
 some months dwelt with her family at 51^ Clinton St., New- 
 York. Before the close of this year, he was licensd t6 preach. 
 In those days, however, clergymen, particularly Baptists, 
 rarely had a systematic training, and it is not probable that 
 his studies wer either thoro or long-continued. 
 
 [ Thinking that the autograph mentioned in the folloing letter might hav 
 literary interest, I asked the librarian of the university about it. His reply 
 states that " In the GOties the society came to be neglected, and its library 
 was pillaged to some extent by the members. . . What became of the auto 
 graph in question no one can now tell." ] 
 
 University of Vt., Burlington, Dec. 23, 1837. 
 Sir, 
 
 The Phi Sigma Nu Society of the University of Vt. have elected 
 you to an honorary membership of their fraternity. Should you think fit 
 to accept this testimony of their regard you will please signify it to them 
 through me. 
 
 The Society would also present their sincerest thanks for the valuable 
 autograph of Washington Irving which was given by yourself to the society. 
 With great respect and esteem [ etc. ] , 
 
 H. J. Raymond, See. 
 
 In September, 1837, Griswold ( aged 22 ) issued the pros 
 pectus of a magazine t6 be called "The Anthology." He was 
 then secretary of "The Antiquarian Society of New-York." 
 In Feb., 1838, " The Vermonter" was started at Vergennes 
 with Griswold as editor. 
 
16 PAPERS OF R. W. GRI8WOLD. 
 
 New York, 13th Feb., 1838. 
 Rufus 
 
 Your paper came to hand yesterday, and I protest it s one of the 
 best Sues I have got hold of this many a day. You have got it out a month 
 earlier than I expected, and made it one hundred per cent, better than I 
 fancied you would. 
 
 You do stick it into the miserable pirates of the South good ! and you 
 don t let off their dirty Tory apologists and pimps at the North without some 
 good solid kicks. Go it, Rufe ! it s the cause of both God and man : I feel 
 positive of this fact, if I never did of anything else. Your salutatory is an 
 excellent article : you never wrote a better : I have read it three or four 
 times. Greeley . . . has gone to Albany for a week now, and we have Park 
 Benjamin in his place ! Park is a steamboat, I promise you. Have you seen 
 our last No.? The literary notices are his, and the Congress. Dr. Eldridge, 
 a new owner, writes the articles over the dagger nothing very bright. But 
 Park is the boy for you. Don t he saw up the gag "Gentleman s Magazine" 
 though ! Did you notice a little article of his on the outside (from the Amer 
 ican) "The Nautilus?" It s very beautiful and we have another this week, 
 which was originally published a few days since under the editorial head of 
 the Commercial Advertiser "The Stormy Petrel" is the title. Park is a 
 splendid writer. The Yorker of this week will contain an original " Hymn 
 at Midnight " by P. B. and an excellent one it is too. . . 
 
 Bowe. 
 
 [ Park Benjamin was born in 1809 in British-Guiana. He began the prac 
 tice of law in 1833, but soon relinquishd it for the pursuit of literary journal 
 ism, in which, for a dozen years or more, he was conspicuous. He edited 
 the last tw5 volumes ( 1835 ) of the New-England Magazine, and when that 
 was merged in The American Monthly Magazine, he transferrd his services 
 t5 this. Allibone agrees with oTir friend Bowe as to the merit of Benjamin s 
 poems, saying of them that they ar " of exquisit beauty. " I thot it of inter 
 est to inquire whether the judgment of his contemporaries had been con 
 firmed by later critics, and to this end examind all the anthologies within 
 reach with the folloing result : No poem is quoted by C : A. Dana ( 1857 
 and 1866), Palmer (1866), W: C. Bryant (1876), Fields and Whipple 
 ( 1878), or Epes Sargent ( 1884 ). A. C. Kendrick, however ( 1871 ), prints 
 "The Sexton," C. F. Bates (1882), "Press On," and Stedman, in his 
 " Library," givs " A Great Name." This is a curious outcome, since the 
 
BKNJAMIX. GOODRICH. 17 
 
 last two can not hav recollected the attention which the verses originally 
 receivd, while the first six would naturally hav been affected by their mem 
 ory of it. 
 
 It is probable, however, that Benjamin s accomplishments as a poet 
 brot him into notice less than did his feats as a journalist and critic. 
 In the Southern Literary Messenger for Dec. 1835, Poe had begun his slash 
 ing criticisms, and won thereby considerable applause. Benjamin may hav 
 thot that there was room for him in the same field , but he seems to hav 
 picked out a victim with less discrimination. It was S : G. Goodrich whom 
 he attackd, and tho Goodrich, as a poet, is even more completely forgotten 
 than Benjamin is, the public then did not approve the fun Benjamin tried to 
 hav with him. The Boston " Gazette " remarkd that his criticism was " evi 
 dently dictated by personal pique, is unjust, abusive, sour and dirty, and 
 disgraces the magazine in which it appears; "and the New-York "Tran 
 script" said : " Some of them [the reviews ] are written in monstrously bad 
 taste and still worse temper. They are flippant, partial, unjust and abusive. 
 We know not when we have seen a number combining so much ill-temper, 
 prejudice and unfairness as that on The Outcast by S. G. Goodrich." 
 
 The aggrievd author, moreover, took the offensiv in a long letter which 
 was printed in leaded type on the editorial page of the Boston "Courier" of 
 5 May 1836. It shos curiously how small wer the interests of those days that 
 such a matter should receive so much attention. The letter ran thus : 
 
 " As I have been the theme of frequent discussion in the American 
 Magazine, it seems to me a matter of necessity that I take some notice of it. 
 . . . The May number has . . . the same strain of ridicule and vituperation. 
 A few mouths ago he placed me on a level with a vender of quack medi 
 cines, insinuated that I was guilty of rapacity in money matters, and there 
 fore worthy of the fate of Midas. Now, I am a " patcher up of books and 
 pictures in multifarious shapes," a literary cobbler," who is advised "t5 
 stick to his last," etc. . . 
 
 Mr. Benjamin has doubtless the same independence in morality that he has 
 in criticism. Where his passions on his convenience are concerned, he 
 probably sees no turpitude in indulged malice, and no lack of dignity in a 
 lie. He doubtless thought himself peculiarly fitted to edit the Token. . . In 
 attempting, therefore, to ruin me first with the public, then to deprive me of 
 the confidence of my publisher, and finally t5 take a place which, in his 
 
18 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 estimation, I unworthily filled, he probably only thought of bringing things 
 to their right arrangement. . . I think I have said enough to show the true 
 character of this Mr. Benjamin, enough to enable the public to understand 
 the spirit which guides him in private life, and presides over him in his 
 critical capacity." ] 
 
 Batavia, Feb. 26, 1838. 
 Dear Brother: 
 
 Having a moment of leisure I hasten to forward you such in 
 formation as I have been able to gather relative to the movements of the 
 Patriots in the province of Canada. A Gentleman of this village received a 
 Letter from Detroit this morning stating that twenty-one hundred Patriots 
 had crossed over from Michigan in three divisions to Canada under the com 
 mand of Gen. Sutherland and McLeod and that they would be able to carry 
 all before them. 
 
 On Saturday evening about eight a body crossed over eight miles above 
 Buffalo and proceeded direct to Hamilton. Col. Worth having notice of their 
 movements proceeded to the point from whence they were to start but the 
 Patriots having information of his movements took up their line of march 
 earlier than they anticipated. All reached Canada safe save about fifty who 
 were taken by Worth together with four cannon , which by the way the patri 
 ots could well spare having more of that kind than they could use to advan 
 tage. I received a letter from a Gentleman at Lockport stating that one 
 hundred sleighs passed through that place on Friday night [going] west and 
 Saturday a number more. They reported that they were a going out on a 
 Wolf hunt. The number of men was not mentioned but some says a number 
 of hundred. The Arsenal at this place has been broken open within the last 
 week and eighty stands of arms and nineteen hundred and fifty pounds 
 powder was taken out. They are ere this undoubtedly at Hamilton or 
 Toronto. A rumor well authenticated is in circulation that Van Rensselaer 
 has taken Kingston, Maiden, Toronto. Hamilton and Queenstown are ere 
 this beyond a doubt in the hands of the Patriots. The above information 
 you may rely upon as being substantially correct. . . The greatest excitement 
 prevails on this frontier. . . Ever your Brother, etc., 
 
 S. Parsons Griswold. 
 
POETICS AM) TRAVEL. 19 
 
 New York, 14 March, 1838. 
 My dear Rufe 
 
 ... Oh you rascalle ! how you spoiled my verses "On the Death of 
 a Friend" by your poor emendation of the second line ! I wouldn t have 
 had it done for two shillings ; and I am positive you would have let it alone 
 had you bestowed a thought and a half upon it. Let me illustrate : I had 
 it "Forever closed on earth her radiant eye; " meaning, evidently, that she 
 saw no longer the things of time and sense; but Lord, man! I wished to 
 leave her vision of the heavenly world clear and cloudless: and now see 
 what you have done with it! "Forever closed her meek and radiant eye!" 
 Damn that word "meek" how I do hate it! I hate it anywhere and every- 
 wh6re, but above all things in that line. Don t you see it is utterly incon 
 sistent with the other adjective radiant? To say that an eye is radiant means 
 that it is bright and sparkling; to call the same eye meek is arrant nonsense 
 for meek is mild, soft, subdued. Moreover your improvement ( !) has 
 materially injured the effect of some of the subsequent lines, by weakening 
 their connection with the second as you have now got the eyes fully and 
 totally sealed, alike upon Time and Eternity. . . 
 
 Bowe. 
 
 New York, 22 April, 1838. 
 
 . . . Rufus! take the name of that scoundrel, Henry Clay, out of 
 your paper! He is too mean a foe to the Abolitionists ever t5 deserve a vote 
 from you or I, or any other man who has any regard for the right. Do you 
 have Whittier s paper? If not, read the extracts from it on the first page of 
 the last "Emancipator" and be ashamed of Clay! . . . Your ob t serv t, 
 
 Obadiah Allen Bowe. 
 
 Vergennes, [ 10 May, 1838. ] 
 My Dear Mothe r and Brother : 
 
 Tis Sunday, one week ago tonight we were together. Now, 
 many a mile separates us ! But I have arrived at my journey s end, safe, and 
 as well as could be expected. . . The Packet [canal-boat] leaves [Troy] once 
 a day, eleven o clock [A.M.]. I got at Whitehall by five o clock the next 
 morning, the Packet was uncomfortable from the great number of passen 
 gers, we had shelfs to lay on, wide enough to sit a plate. I sat up all night 
 and held Sis. God grant I may not pass another such a night very soon. 
 
20 PAPERS OF R. W. GRISWOLD. 
 
 The people at Troy were very kind, I like them much. Elizabeth 
 Grisvvold and Mrs. Richards went as far as Waterford with me, it being clear 
 for about two hours the morning I left Troy, the only time the sun visited 
 me on my lonely way. On my arrival at Whitehall I awaited the coming of 
 the steamboat most anxiously that was to bear my good husband to me, but 
 in vain, he came not. I felt as though I was friendless, alone, at a hotel, in 
 a strange place with a sick babe, and myself not much better, but I thought 
 of Mrs. Cairns old friend, Providence, by that try to drive away melan 
 choly. I found many who knew Rufus, among the best one Mr. Huntington, 
 a merchant from Yergennes, the name of Mrs. R. W. Griswold was all suffi 
 cient, it commanded attention from all quarters. I accepted the protection 
 of Mr. Huntington, from whom I received every attention. We got at Ver- 
 gennes about nine o clock Saturday evening. Rufus did not receive my 
 letter in time to take the boat ; it stops at Vergennes about ten o clock in the 
 evening and gets to Whitehall in the morning, leaves again at one, it does 
 not go but once a day from either place. I found that I had made wrong 
 calculation. I regretted not taking the line boat, they are much more com 
 modious, and attended with less expense, the fare in Packet two dollars, in 
 Steamer from Whitehall two dollars. Meals extra, then you go seven miles 
 by stage that is one dollar I believe. Never mind, I got here safe with two 
 shillings in my pocket, to the very great astonishment of Rufus. Had he been 
 us, he would spoil the face of thirty dollars. Nothing like stretching funds. 
 I fear mother, that I shall weary you, but you must bear with me, I have 
 much to tell you, oh ! if you were here, you must come, indeed. [ Wednes 
 day ] I like our house very much, it is two story brick, very convenient, 
 every time I go down to it I make a discovery, another closet or bedroom 
 meets my eye. Mother, you had better move here, and we would open a 
 boarding-house. I don t know when I shall get my things in order, that is 
 if we ever get them. . . I must content myself here [at the inn] for the 
 remainder of the week, much against my will, though the people are very 
 kind, somewhat too much so for my comfort. I would rather be to myself 
 more. It takes all my time to dress Sis and myself. She almost worships 
 [me?]. I cannot scarce breathe a wish ere it s gratified. The people here 
 are very fashionable, and all whom I have met with appear very intelligent 
 and well educated. I but too sensibly feel my inability to fill the place, in 
 that sphere in which I am to move, every word and action of the Editor s 
 wife is noted. No matter! I ll play off the Lady so far as my better moni 
 tor, judgment, will allow; there are many Ladys and Gentlemen boarding 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION. 21 
 
 here. 1 am obliged to dress for dinner; another for tea, in the intermedium 
 be prepared for visitors. Pianofortes are quite as common as in New- 
 York. . . 
 
 Caroline Griswold. 
 
 U. V., June 3, 1838. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . Can you find out who wrote an article in the New Yorker of 
 April 28, entitled "Thoughts on Poetic Excellence," wherein my review is 
 somewhat [severely] handled. I believe the first writing I can get time to 
 do must be for Greeley to answer that. If you have a chance to do it with 
 out inconvenience I would also be obliged to you if you would procure from 
 Greeley for me 3 or 4 copies of those Nos. of the "N. Yorker" that contain 
 my notice of Dana. I have no copy now, and I should like one t5 send to 
 Dana, as well as one or two for some friends. . . Yours sincerely, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 " Telegraph" Office, Brandon, June.28, 1838. 
 Friend Griswold : 
 
 We want you to come to Brandon and give us an Anti-Slavery 
 address on the 4th proximo. . . You have doubtless some arrangement, in 
 part at least, of ideas on this great and momentous subject, that will enable 
 you to do the cause a good service by coming to Brandon on that day. We 
 will bear your expenses. Most truly yours, 
 
 O. S. Murrav. 
 
 [ Bowe had become editor and publisher of a paper at Herkimer, a town 
 in the Mohawk valley fourteen miles from Utica. ] 
 
 Herkimer, 10 July, 1838. 
 
 . . . Had a confab with Thurlow Weed in Albany. Thurlow 
 says you are an imprudent dog, and will ruin the Whig cause in Vermont. 
 I told him it would take half a dozen pretty smart fellows to do that. . . 
 
 Bowe. 
 
 Ashland [postmarkd Lexington ], 28th July, 1838. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 1 have received your letter informing me that at the Whig Con 
 vention lately held in Vermont, some of the members who were friendly to 
 
HENRY CLAY. 
 
 me determined to eause an enquiry to be made of me whether, should it be 
 deemed necessary at a Convention to be holden in the fall, to ask my senti 
 ments on the Slavery question, I will [would?] answer, and permit the 
 answer to be published? And the particular enquiries which you state it is 
 desired to put to me are. Has Congress power over slavery in the District of 
 Columbia? Has it power to regulate the Slave trade between the States, &c? 
 
 I have, at the last Session of Congress, expressed, in the Senate, my 
 sentiments fully on the subjects of your letter, in the form of a series of 
 resolutions, and of speeches, which I addressed to that body. As to the D. 
 of Col. I thought that Congress could not abolish slavery th6re without a 
 violation of good faith ; and that Congress had no power to prevent the 
 rein5val of slaves from one Slave state to another. 
 
 Having thus so recently publicly expressed my views, I confess that 
 I do not perceive the necessity of any new expression of them. I will not 
 say that I should not answer such a letter as you describe to be the intention 
 of some of my friends to address to me ; but I must think it not necessary. 
 
 It is remarkable that, at the very moment when I am replying to you, 
 I have before me several letters from the South stating that I am charged 
 there with being an Abolitionist. With great respect, I am Yours faithfully, 
 
 H. Clay. 
 
 Herkimer, Aug., 1838. 
 
 ... I haven t seen the Locofoco report of your speech at Montpelier, 
 though I should like to for I saw the allusions of the Vermont Patriot 
 thereto in Whittier s paper. .. Do you have Whittier s "Freeman?" I get 
 that and the "Emancipator" and the "Friend of Man" the Liberator won t 
 send, but I don t care no great about it. I can t go the figure against the 
 
 d d pirates, as I should like most dearly; our friends here, some of them 
 
 are shocked to death if you name the name of Abolition the fools ! But I 
 did announce the Freedom of the British West Indies in yesterday s paper. 
 . . . Curse this miserable, this shameful fear of the topic of Abolition! it s 
 all ignorance, every atom! 
 
 Bowe. 
 
 Burlington, Vt., Sept. 24, 1838. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 ... On my journey homeward I saw Greeley and was very much 
 pleased with him. Your letter of introduction came too late, so I was forced 
 
ANTI-SLAVERY AGITATION. 23 
 
 t5 introduce myself : but as he is not very much devoted to ceremonious 
 observances, it made but little difference. He made many inquiries about 
 you, all of which I satisfied as well as I could. 
 
 Do you know anything about the probable result of your projected 
 "Anthology?" I sincerely hope that you will not give it up. Cannot you 
 enlist someone with you who would carry through the business part of it? 
 It is needed and I believe desired, which with booksellers is more t5 the 
 purpose. How comes on your History of Vt.? Yours sincerely, 
 
 Henry J. Raymond. 
 
 [ " * My own position touching slavery, wrote Clay in Nov. 1838, is singu 
 lar enough. The abolitionists are denouncing me as a slaveholder, and 
 slaveholders as an abolitionist, while both unite on Van Buren . . . His 
 course with regard to the anti-slavery petitions, as well as his occasional 
 profession of sentiments unfriendly to slavery, had injured his popularity 
 with the slaveholders. . . arid it is probable that Southern Whigs, many 
 of whom, while his friends, were firm pro-slavery men, suggested t5 him the 
 policy of setting himself right with the South. In February, 1839, he made a 
 speech which had all the appearance of an attempt on his part to do this. " 
 Schurz " Clay," ii, 164.] 
 
 " Old Democratic Herkimer, " Feb. 28th, 1839. 
 I say, Rufus ! 
 
 - How do you prosper on an average? Do the Varmounters pat 
 ronize, pay up, and let you live? or do you drag along barely from hand t5 
 mouth and not hardly that, some of the time getting cursedly in debt, and 
 
 your customers not caring a d n for anything else, so they get their own 
 
 turn served regularly once a week? That s the way some of mine patron 
 ize" me and among them are sundry of the most vociferous Whigs in this 
 section, the d d impostors! "I have a theory" as the fellow said, that the 
 term "Whig," in its genuine, legitimate sense, means an honest, intelligent, 
 decent man : consequently all the cursed loafers who pretend to hail under 
 the title, swindling and lying you out of your just dues (for promising 
 eternally, without the shadow or design of performance, is the meanest lying 
 I know r of), are so many blasted, infernal pirates, against whom it is the duty 
 of every decent man to set his face aye, and kick his foot, too ! . . . 
 
 What the devil has become of your Abolition? publishing that cursed, 
 lying, slanderous speech of Clay s without a word of comment! I gave in 
 
24 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 the Journal an abstract which I found in one of the papers, and made a 
 remark or two upon the foolish lies which Clay is guilty of and, Heaven 
 defend us! what a kicking and squirming there is among the " Whigs " of 
 this county! I am throwing " fire brands" into the party, and fairly raised 
 h 11. But it won t do. While I am prepared to go for Clay in preference 
 to Van Buren, " if worst comes to worst," I never will stand tamely by, and 
 see the True Friends of Freedom assailed with lousy lies from any quarter. 
 That s what I am and where I am: do you take? Come, let us see you 
 " chaw up " that speech as it deserves : None of your winking and blinking : 
 come up to the scratch ! You can safely say five words in Vermont against 
 the hellish system of slavery, where I can say one here, among these benight 
 ed pagans. . . 
 
 Bowe. 
 
 Herkimer, Mar. 12, 1839. 
 Rufus, my friend : 
 
 Yours of the 4th . . . was perused with mingled emotions of pain 
 and pleasure; pain that the Whigs of the Green Mountain State my own 
 state should so nearly resemble their delinquent, office-seeking, pro-slavery 
 brethren of this benighted region ; and pleasure, not that you seemed no 
 better, but that after all my trials and troubles and tribulations, I am not 
 worse off than some others. . . 
 
 Sundry of our Whig leaders hereabouts kicked terribly at my 
 remarks upon Clay, brief as they were ; but I don t and didn t care a damn ! 
 Clay is making an everlasting booby of himself, and (if he don t look out) 
 ruining his chance at the North, all for the sake of conciliating the blood 
 hounds of the South. . . 
 
 O. A. Bowe. 
 
 In March, 1834, Gieeley, then 23, in company with Jonas 
 Winchester, started The New Yorker. "It was," he says 
 (writing in 1867 ) , " a large, fair, and cheap weekly folio (after 
 ward changed t6 a double quarto ) , devoted mainly t6 current 
 literature, but giving regularly a digest of all important news. . . 
 The New Yorker was issued under my supervision, its editori 
 als written, its selections made, for the most part, by me, for 
 
HORACE GHEKLKY. 25 
 
 7*/ years. . . It was, at length, extensively liked and read. 
 It began with scarcely a dozen subscribers ; these steadily 
 increased t6 9000, . . . but it was sent to subscribers on credit, 
 and a large share of them never paid . . . while the cost of 
 collecting from others ate up the proceeds. . . I worked hard 
 and lived frugally during its existence." 
 
 From his earliest youth, Greeley lovd farming, for the moral 
 and physical advantages connected with it, while he pain 
 fully realized, as he had good cause to, how difficult it was 
 t6 gain even the barest living in a purely agricultural commun 
 ity. Hence his ingraind belief in the need of diversified indus 
 tries, which could be gotten, hethdt, only by means of protectiv 
 taxes. So bred in the bone was this idea that, tho The New 
 Yorker claimd t6 be non-partisan, Thurlow Weed clearly 
 perceivd the editor s bent. " In casting about for an editor 
 [of a Protectionist campaign paper]," he says, "it occurred 
 t6 me that there was some person connected with the New 
 Yorker possessing the qualities needed. In reading the New 
 Yorker I felt sure that its editor was a strong tariff man. . . I 
 repaired to the office . . . and inquired for its editor. A young 
 man with light hair and blond complexion, with coat off and 
 sleeves rolled up, standing at the case, stick in hand, replied 
 that lie was the editor. This youth was Horace Greeley." 
 FROM H. GREKLEY, AGED 28. 
 
 New York, March 18, 1839. 
 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq. 
 
 I say! I haven t any good reason for writing to you at present ; 
 but there is an unanswered letter from you in the bottom of my hat, and a 
 few minutes to spare before I must go to my dinner and the Daily Whig, so 
 here goes : . . . Your poem Ben swears he never received. Perhaps he did 
 and perhaps he didn t, but he loses things worse than I d5, even. 
 
26 POLITICS. THE NEW-YORKER. 
 
 You appear to have resolved to stick at Vergemies. Well, be it so; 
 I rejoice that you find reason for so doing, but you could be much more ser 
 viceable in Essex. We want a smart paper in the"re. With such a one we 
 could not have lost the District so shamefully. I could cry about it now. 
 Some one wh5, like yourself could conciliate the Abolitionists, with a little 
 of the sagacity and discretion which I trust you are learning, would be inval 
 uable there. 
 
 What will you do in Vermont about President: Anybody but Clay is 
 out of the question; and yet his Abolition speech will, I fear, prove insuper 
 able there. What is to be d5ne? Run a Harrison ticket? I should terribly 
 hate to see Vermont vote for Van Buren now : An apostacy to Toryism at 
 
 r 
 
 its last gasp would be so besotted an act that I should have to forsw&ir Ver 
 mont as my parent state and fall back upon New Hampshire. -What can you 
 do? I pray that as little as possible be risked in any event. I think this will 
 be the best plan : Hold a strong Whig Convention and nominate an Electoral 
 Ticket that will command public confidence; then let every Whig vote the 
 ticket headed " For Pres t : Wm. H. Harrison " or ; Henry Clay," as he shall 
 prefer, and let the [men on the electoral] ticket be pledged to vote as the 
 majority of the people shall decide. Wouldn t that do? Please suggest it 
 among your People. I wish Vermont could find it in her heart to vote for 
 Clay, but at any rate she must not vote for Van Buren. Do let the matter be 
 earnestly considered with a sincere desire on all hands to avert the great 
 calamity. 
 
 As to our own prospects here ( New Yorker ) I hardly know what to 
 say. Our subscription [list] is rather on the increase, but payments are 
 slack still and we have rather hard sledding. We shall do better, I hope, 
 now that the Rivers are opening and our New Volume commencing. I have 
 had toil and anxiety enough with that paper to make it profitable some time, 
 but I never expect to find it so. I would gladly sell my interest in it for a 
 song, to any one who possessed talent and capital to carry it on. 
 
 I think better of my new pet, the Whig. I write the Editorial for that, 
 and edit it generally. Don t you think it s better than formerly? If not it s 
 wretched bad, that s a fact. It is rather gaining in patronage. . . 
 
 My wife has seen sorrow enough within the last year. Broken in 
 health and borne down with dyspepsia for years, she sustained a severe 
 injury before the birth of her child [who died in infancy ], and was nearly 
 killed when that birth took place. She has not yet recovered, but now lies 
 helpless from cruel surgical operations ( recent ) by which she hopes to re- 
 
C. W. KYKHEST. 27 
 
 cover. She has to be lifted from bed to bed, but I trust will soon be about 
 and hearty. 
 
 I mean t5 go West this summer, if I can possibly raise the funds. 
 How that will be I cannot tell. I get nothing from the Yorker, as that never 
 pays Editors a farthing, but Wilson gives me $12 a week to edit the Whig, 
 and I live upon that. I have some hopes to get a little funds from the sale 
 of the third quarter of the New Yorker: if so I m off. . . Yours truly, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 [C: W: Everest was born In Conn, in 1814, and died there in 1877. His 
 name, as that of a magazine poet, was familiar in the forties, but is not to be 
 found in the Library of American Literature. ] 
 
 Fayetteville, N. C., April 5, 1839. 
 
 . . . Here I am in North Carolina, engaged in the " delightful 
 task" of thumping some faint " idea " of Latin Grammar into the youthful 
 skull. My " school " is comprised of 5 boys in all tw5 pupils besides, young 
 gentlemen advanced, with whom I was acquainted at the North, and one of 
 whom was in College with me. The duties, in all, engage me about seven 
 hours in the day and the situation is a pleasant one. . . I am in a charming 
 family, and the society is good. As to the South, from what little I see of it, 
 I like it very well but have not much idea of becoming a Southerner. I am 
 wedded to the hills and dales of my own New England. Warm skies, and 
 evergreen woods, and singing birds are delightful, but the velvet turf the 
 .swelling upland the rolling river and the rock and the mountain for me! 
 Write me soon write me long and believe me ever to remain. . . 
 
 C. W. Everest. 
 
 Richmond [Vermont], May 15, 1839. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . The Tories have of course expended their malignity in piti 
 ful tilts and knowing quotations from your columns ( perverted, of course), 
 and seem to lay hold of the Argus lies with an avidity which manifests but 
 too clearly how they feared and hated you, and how relieved they were by 
 your departure. The fact is you have been an ever present thorn in the 
 sides of the Tories and some of the Whigs in this State. And you must of 
 course expect the concentrated thunder of malediction from the whole corps 
 of ragamuffin scribblers. . . 
 
 [E. A.J Stansbury. 
 
28 VERMONT POLITICS. 
 
 [Since the last date, Griswold. doubtless thro Greeley s help, had gotteu a 
 place on the The Daily Whig. 
 
 At the time of the incident referred to. Greeley f aged 17) was au 
 apprentice in the office of a paper published in Poultney ; he writes of it r 
 in his Recollections, as follows : " Our paper was intensely Adams 
 and Clay in the Presidential struggle of 1828, and our whole community 
 sympathized with its preference. The defection of our State s foremost 
 politician, Governor Cornelius P. Van Ness, after he had vainly tried, 
 while professing to be an Adams man, to vault from the Governor s chair 
 into the U. S. Senate, created a passing ripple on the face of the current, 
 but did not begin to stem it." Van Ness received the reward of his 
 treachery in the appointment, March, 1829, as envoy to Spain, which he held 
 eight years. Tn 1844-45 he was collector of New- York. He died 15 Dec., 
 1852. ] 
 
 Richmond [Vermont], June 13, 1839. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 ...I am pleased to perceive that you have " lighted" on an 
 Editorship so adroitly, and cannot but congratulate you on having relinquish 
 ed a precarious country hebdominal for the more steadfast and dependable 
 daily which now claims the fruits of your quill. . . That old Renegade C. P. 
 Van Ness came here yesterday, and all the faithful turned out in shoals to 
 salute him guns were fired speeches made, and a fearful fuss created 
 and all for the man who went over to a corrupt party, as it were to take 
 vengeance on his native state, for refusing to gratify the immediate wants 
 of his grasping ambition ! and then disgraced the nation . . . for two or 
 three years after he was recalled as ambassador! Shame, I say, on 
 such cursed proceedings. He will do now for a Vanite of the first water. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Stansbury. 
 
 The publication of The Brother Jonathan was begun by 
 Wilson & Co., 1 July, 1839, with Benjamin as editor and 
 Griswold as his assistant. It was a paper of only four pages, 
 but occasionally these wer of immense size. The Tattler 
 was a daily issued under the same management. Before long 
 the editors had some difficulty with the publisher which causd 
 
" THE BROTHER JONATHAN. " 29 
 
 them to withdraw, and they induced Winchester t6 start rivals 
 both of the weekly and the daily paper under the names of 
 The New World and The Signal. The tw6 weeklies differd 
 from Greeley s paper in that they wer more exclusivly literary ; 
 but only an insignificant part of their contents was original. 
 After 1841 and 1840 they appeard in quarto and "library" 
 editions. 
 
 Burlington, July 20, 1839. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 The first intimation I had of your whereabouts determined me to 
 write to you : lacking time just then, I delayed it for a few days, when the 
 arrival of the " Tattler" called my resolution to mind; and the subsequent 
 reception of that up-to-the-sky-to-be-lauded, biggest-of-all-possible-news- 
 papers, and most beloved of all brethren, " Brother Jonathan" made me 
 resolve " in the gloomy recesses of a mind capacious for such things "to 
 despatch an epistle to your address about the quickest. How do you flourish? 
 How I would like to shake your dexter, and see you shake your sides, as of 
 old ! And wouldn t I like to ramble over your Library again, and hear you 
 tell your stories and talk scandal as is your wont? " 1 no certainly not" I 
 How on airth do you expect to find matter enough to keep Brother Jonathan 
 alive for any length of time ! He is even infinitely more rapacious than other 
 Yankees. In the course of about a year you will have published all that has 
 ever been written : and at the same rate in just about another year you will 
 get through with all that you can write : and then what will do? The appear 
 ance of this hugest of mammoths caused no small stir among the good citi 
 zens of this unaccustomed-to-large-sights seeing place. Winslow ( he of the 
 Sentinel) was in the P. O. when I received it: and you would have laughed 
 t5 have listened to his exclamations as I unfolded the sheet to his wonder 
 struck eyes, and announced old Kufus W.,of the Vermonter, as Editor. 
 He ended his outburst by this sober sentiment: " Well," said he, " no one 
 
 can deny that Griswold is talented and industrious : but he is too d d 
 
 unscrupulous ! You were not very scrupulous in your notices of the Bur 
 lington Sentinel ! Stacy s eyes stuck out just one mile. And Harrington s 
 too : you ought t5 have seen him. The copy you sent me has been the rounds 
 of the College. A deputation from each class of 10 made an attack upon it in 
 
30 VERMONT UNIVERSITY. 
 
 full and solid phalanx, and after a hard siege of 10 hours retired from the 
 field and encamped for the night. The battle was renewed at daybreak with 
 increased vigor and proportionate success. And now we are waiting for 
 another number. Please to consider me a subscriber. Stansbury has not 
 been here since the 4th of July. He will not stay away long, however: for 
 there is a certain pair of gold spectacles here that fit his eyes exactly. He 
 wants to get them : you recollect the Yankee that ( on a wager ) would sell 
 his house for a penny, but the buyer must take his cat for $100. There s 
 just such a fixture t5 Ed s spectacles; I guess he ll take both and be content 
 with the bargain. (The comparison is not good but twill do). What an 
 abominably stupid thing the Vermonter is now ! Pierpont and Grandey, I 
 think, write most of the Editorials. Grandey has not shown himself this long 
 time. . . 
 
 College matters jog on with their usual monotony. Our Commence 
 ment happens the 6th Aug. We are expecting something worth while in the 
 way of an oration before our Societies from Prof. Taylor Lewis of your 
 University. We received a letter from your friend J. G. Whittier declining 
 the invitation to deliver a poem on account of his health. He spoke of an 
 intention-to visit Europe soon. I think the probability is that Park Benja 
 min will be asked to give us a Poem next year. I hope he will come. He 
 would do it up in style and could be depended upon. Immediately after 
 Commencement you may expect Mann and myself in New York. We shall 
 stay two or three days and we hope to see you as often as your leisure will 
 permit. Have you any part of that collection of American poetry under 
 your control yet? By the way, who wrote that article on American Poetry iu 
 the Democratic Review? I thought it essentially heterodox. 
 
 Geo. Combe and Lady and Thad. Stevens passed through here a few 
 days since towards Boston. Thad. is a fine looking man, but Combe is a 
 Scotchman. (Vide Dr. Johnson for the inference.) Your old and tried 
 friend A ... C ... is about town as usual with his habitual mahogany counte 
 nance. He swears occasionally about you. We expelled him from the Phi 
 Sigma Nu Society on account of his Washington scrape. H . . . A ... cor 
 roborated all your allegations. May I depend upon you for an introduction t5 
 Benjamin and some other of your N". Y. worthies? Bishop Hopkins returned 
 from England with an empty pocket. He expected to raise about 150,000 and 
 got some 5,000 1 Tis said that he will be obliged to sell his establishment. Our 
 University lately had a donation of some 20,000 from one Mr. Williams in 
 the eastern part of Vermont. Harrington and all your friends send their 
 
I " THE NEW WORLD. " 31 
 
 respects. Can not you send me a few lines in return by Mr Weaver? I am 
 ever, Yours sincerely, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 Burlington, Vt., Oct. 31, 1839. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I have long had it in mind to write you an epistle : but the lack 
 of anything special to make a letter interesting, in conjunction with a lack of 
 time, has hitherto prevented me from putting this sufficiently laudable reso 
 lution into practice. But a truce to apologies, both for not having written 
 before and for writing now. So you are out of The Tattler and are now 
 [pitching] into it, daily, christening your shots, a la militaire, " evening 
 signals. Well ! go head marte virtute, ( don t laugh at the aproposness of 
 the u ablative of manner"). What the deuce should put it into the heads of 
 you and Benjamin to cast your own bantling, the youngest and at the same 
 time the smartest of your children, upon the parish, and actually to com 
 mence so deadly a warfare upon it, I am at a loss to imagine. Mann has told 
 me that twas in consequence of a difference with Wilson [the publisher] : 
 and I presume you had ample reason for cutting loose. I own that upon 
 first learning of your change, I feared the issue of it. I feared that any new 
 paper, however well conducted, would hardly be able to strike the public, so 
 exactly t5 a T., as the Brother Jonathan had done : and to step in ahead of it 
 and to undertake to turn the current of favor from its deepening channel 
 into your own way, I thought was an attempt, which, for any other men 
 than you two, would have been hopeless. But one might as well try to stop 
 the devil himself, as either of you, when fairly under way : who then shall 
 hinder you when united? Go ahead ! tell Mr. Columbus that he may go the 
 devil with his New World ; and as for Bro. Jonathan and Co. when you 
 once get upon the same ground as to your country circulation, you may tell 
 them to follow Columbus. I honestly think The New World the hand 
 somest and the best paper of the kind I ever saw. Long may it w6ar the 
 crown ! . . . 
 
 What a mass of the most unmitigated stupidity the Boston 
 Notion inm cts upon the unoffending community, weekly ! The man who 
 superintends its deliverance into the world ought to be hung, for producing 
 an abortion. There s a frog trying to come the ox, for you. Heaven 
 grant it may burst 1 I am sorry that Benjamin has left the New Yorker. If 
 he had exerted himself but a little he could have made that, infinitely the 
 
32 VERMONT AFFAIRS. 
 
 best weekly in the U. S. Who [sic] will Greeley associate with him? I 
 hope ( but do not expect), that he will get one to fill B s place. The Sen 
 tinel here a few weeks since undertook to use up Benjamin instanter and 
 the New-Yorker with him, on account of his critique of Irving. I gave it a 
 decent rap for it in the Free Press, and since that they have let B. alone and 
 gone to pome! ling me ! If the author was not quite so great an ass, I d have 
 some fun with him: If they say another word about Ben. I ll mount them. 
 I believe that stupendous nincompoop Houghton ( who used to write for the 
 Vermonter ) is the valiant Philistine ! ... Stansbury was rejoiced to learn 
 of your doings among the people of Gotham. He is a capital fellow ; full of 
 fun, and, latterly, of politics. The rise of Locofocoism in Vermont has 
 inspired him with the most ardent hatred to everything that looks that way. 
 Van Ness is making a fool of himself by spending his time in electioneering. 
 He has been over the whole state, and is making desperate exertions. What 
 can be his object? You know what a capital manager Harry Bradley is. He 
 is going at it soon, and says that " Slade for Gov." will sweep Vermont 
 from one end to the other at the next trial. They hope to prevail on him to 
 stand. I do not know where Woodbridge is : he left college some time since. 
 Roberts still carries on the Vermonter. If we are to be bored with it for 
 ever, I shall almost regret that you ever started. When twas young it was 
 a child not to be l sneezed at, but it has lost every glimmer of its original 
 brightness and is now behind the Free Press or even the Sentinel. Do you 
 remember that Dictionary you used to covet so much at Goodrich s book 
 store? I think I could get it for you at a moderate price, though I cannot say 
 for how much. If you want it, let me know, and I ll negotiate for you. D5 
 you see much of Mann? He is one of the finest fellows that ever lived: 
 when you know him well you ll say the same. Can you make him write for 
 your Signal ? So Jim Otis has at last reached the acm6 of his ambition, a 
 place at the Tattler s Editorial table ! Is it true that he is writing a life of 
 Gen. Scott? If it is, it seems to me they might have made a better choice. 
 Mann says that you talk of starting a Monthly: can you make it go? How 
 soon will Benjamin s Poems be out? I long to get a sight at them. If 
 Greeley will let me I ll tell the public what The New Yorker thinks of 
 Benjamin. Who the deuce is the Gent, in the C. Colored coat? Benjamin 
 himself isn t he? I have written you a sheet of devilish nonsense, but I 
 cannot afford to try at another, so you must be content with this for the 
 present. . . Yours truly, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. 33 
 
 Mr R : H : Stoddard givs the folloing account of the enter 
 prise t6 which Mr. White devoted his life. He died 19 Jan. 
 1843. 
 
 "There were [then] no periodicals that were worth speaking 
 of. Mr. N. P. Willis had commenced the * American Monthly 
 Magazine four or five years before, but it was now merged int6 
 the New York Mirror . . . Mr. Charles Fenno Hoffman had 
 commenced the Knickerbocker Magazine the previous 
 year (1833), and had edited a few numbers of it when 
 it passed int6 the hands of the Rev. Timothy Flint. . . 
 There may have been other ventures wh6se names have 
 dropped out of our literary history, but these, with two or 
 three heavy quarterlies, the North American Review, the 
 Christian Examiner, and so on, represented the periodical 
 literature of the country. It was doubtless honorable t6 write 
 for them, but it was certainly not profitable, for the prices 
 which they paid (when they paid at all), would hardly have 
 satisfied the copyists of the authors manuscripts ; there was 
 more money in the legal narratives of John Doe and Richard 
 Roe than in the dissertations of the North American Review, 
 wh6se honorarium for years was tw6 dollars per printed page. 
 It was not a propitious season for writers, as I have said, and 
 it could not be considered a very promising one for publishers. 
 So it seems t6 us now, but so it did not seem t6 Mr. Thomas 
 W. White, a printer of Richmond, wh6 projected a new maga 
 zine a magazine which should represent the literature of the 
 South, which so far had escaped recognition in the magazines 
 of the East. He was not encouraged by his friends, we are 
 told, but being a determined man, he refused t6 be discouraged, 
 and set resolutely t6 work t6 obtain the endorsement of some 
 
84 THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. 
 
 of the leading authors of America. . . It is instructive t6 turn 
 from the American magazines of t6day, popular or otherwise, 
 t6 the first number of the Southern Literary Messenger, which 
 bars the date of August, 1834, and the imprint of T. W. 
 White, Printer and Proprietor. It consisted of 32 double- 
 column octavo pages, and its subscription price was $5. I am 
 not prepared t6 say that it was worse than the average periodi 
 cal literature of the time, but it was pretty bad, though it con 
 tained a piece of verse by Mrs. Lydia H. Sigourney Colum 
 bus at the University of Salamanca" and Mr. Richard Henry 
 Wilde s best known lyric, " My life is like the summer rose," 
 the authorship of which was attributed to, though not fixed 
 upon him. It contained, also, a number of dull book-notices, 
 the perfunctory work of some unintelligent hack-writer. Two 
 months passed before the second number appeared, and it 
 could hardly be said t6 be superior to its predecessor. Mrs. 
 Sigourney contributed another poem, "Death among the Trees," 
 and Mr. William Wirt a " Letter to a Law Student." Unintel 
 ligent hack furnished a dull notice of Bulwer s " Pilgrims of 
 the Rhine," and padded it out with an extract seven or eight 
 pages in length. The third number, which was extended t6 64 
 pages, was instructive, if not entertaining. The piece de 
 resistance was the first of a series of papers on the Present 
 Condition of Tripoli; the side-dishes were a Letter from a 
 Virginian in New England, [the first of a series afterwards 
 printed by J. R. Lowell in the Atlantic in ignorance that they 
 had been publishd] and an article on Mr. N. P. Willis (copied 
 from the Norfolk Beacon ) ; the dessert was a sonnet on 
 Byron, attributed (and justly) t6 Mr. Wilde. . . By whate\ 7 er 
 standard it was measured, it was a failure, as anyone but Mr. 
 
r: w . WHITE. 35 
 
 White would have seen, and as he probably saw, though he 
 determined t6 continue it. He had not been sustained by the 
 leading writers of America, further than by their good wishes, 
 for not one of them had contributed a line t6 the luckless peri 
 odical. Among those wh6 had promised t6 d6 so, was Mr. 
 Kennedy, who, early in the winter of 1835, recommended Poe 
 t6 him as a contributor." 
 
 Richmond, Va., Nov. 23, 1839. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 Mr. Greeley has recommended that I take from you an article . . . 
 for my January Messenger. Much as I should like to have such a contribu 
 tion from your pen, I shall be obliged to forego the pleasure, unless you 
 choose to present the MS. to me. To confess the truth. I am confoundedly 
 hard run and, what is still worse, I am confoundedly in debt. This is the 
 plain, unvarnished truth. Yours, Th. W. White. 
 
 Richmond, Va., Dec. 23, 1839. 
 My dear Friend : 
 
 I am in great trouble today, greater than I could give you any 
 idea of, even if I were disposed to lay my sorrows and my grievances at your 
 feet. But I will go ahead at all hazards. God alone shall break me down. 
 Man cannot do it. 
 
 It grieves me to hear you say that you cannot make a living in New- 
 York, and that you must go "somewhere where bread is to be earned." I 
 wish I was so situated that I could offer you a good living. But my hands 
 are tied, as it were, for the present. The friends that I would serve, and 
 have around me, I cannot. I know your capacity I know that you have 
 fine talents and I know that you are a hard-working, brave man. And, if 
 it were possible, I would have you here tomorrow. 
 
 Your article on the "Rights of Authors" is a strong piece of composi 
 tion. No man Jiving can controvert your arguments. It is thought, from 
 beginning to end. 
 
 I wish you, my dear fellow, to set to work about another piece for me. 
 Choose any subject you please and get it to me as soon as possible. 
 
 ... I am unable to write. My head aches to desperation, and my heart 
 is filled almost to overflowing with sorrows. Your Friend, 
 
 T. W. White. 
 
36 J: KEESE ON GRISWOLD. 
 
 A glimps of Griswold at this date is given in the Recollec 
 tions of J : Keese publishd in his son s biography : 
 
 "... The next figure coming before the mind s eye from the 
 grouping of one of these notable evenings, belongs t6 a man 
 wh6 during many years created and endured as much excite 
 ment connected with the world of literature as any other wh6 
 could be named. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, ex-minister of the 
 gospel, editor and literary worker in general, t6 wh6m the 
 country really owed much, for a considerable period, and wh6 
 was treated by that country more than a trifle irregularly before 
 his death, as he has been, since that event, with a blending of 
 neglect and captiousness. Mr. Griswold, at the time under 
 notice, was about twenty-five years old, and had produced as 
 yet very little work in the world of letters. . . He was a man of 
 rather small figure, a very intelligent face, with the eyes deep- 
 set, good forehead showing an early inclination t6 the loss of 
 front hair, sharp and trenchant nose, short, full beard and 
 moustache, and a habit of holding down the head a trifle and 
 looking keenly out from beneath the overhanging brows, not a 
 little impressive when he was very much in earnest. Never 
 profound, Mr. Griswold had a large fund of current intelli 
 gence, and was an exceptionally interesting talker, as possibly 
 he had been a speaker of corresponding caliber. He was at 
 that time connected with Horace Greeley s New Yorker . . . 
 It was a little -later that he became editor of Graham s Maga 
 zine, d6ing more than any American had previously done t6 
 draw around a single publication the labor of the best thinkers 
 of the country, and ably seconded, in d6ing so, by the far-seeing 
 liberality of the publisher, Mr. George R. Graham, really the 
 father of American magazines of the first class . . . From 1842 
 
GKISWOLI) EDITOR OF THE NEW-YORKKR. 37 
 
 till the time of his death, he was laboriously engaged in a 
 series of compilations requiring that industry and that persist 
 ence of which he had so much, and demanding little of that 
 absolute talent and that ripe scholarship, in both of which he 
 was deficient. That Rufus Wilmot Griswold . . . did gretit and 
 meritorious services t6 our growing literature, and assisted in 
 fostering many writers, wh6, without his encouragement, 
 would hopelessly have laid down the pen, there is no question 
 whatever ; and it is something of a privilege, now that he has 
 already been dead for nearly a quarter of a century, t6 call 
 back, however dimly, his presence, and bear even this slight 
 testimony to his labors." 
 
 Albany, Feb. 17, 1840. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Esq. 
 
 I understand by the last Tattler that you have abandoned Boston 
 and returned to New York very good. Very well: I write to say that I 
 shall probably want you the coming season, if your services are purchasable, 
 as I believe they generally are. I do not wish you to forego any good offer 
 you may have or receive; but I shall probably be glad to hire your services 
 from the first of May ( probably sooner ) to the first of December next if they 
 can be hud on reasonable terms. My plans may fail ; but I should like t5 
 know how you stand at present. Address me a line on the receipt of this, 
 defining your position. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Please state what you will ask me per week for the time above men 
 tioned. Don t get in any more scrapes till I come down, which will be the 
 first Saturday after the River opens. Yours, 
 
 H. G. 
 
 New York, Apr. 26 [ 1840. ] 
 My dear Fields, 
 
 I now " do " the New Yorker, under a tw6 year s engagement, 
 in place of Hoffman. Greeley comes out next week with a "Log Cabin" 
 paper, to which he intends to devote his entire attention, until the autumn 
 election at least. . . I am going on with my plans relative t5 " American 
 Poetry" heretofore expressed. 
 
T: W. WHITE. 
 
 Albany, [June?], 1840. 
 
 R. W. Griswold : 
 
 I wanted to see you Friday night bad : why did you [ word 
 omitted] Swartwout? You must have known it would embarrass me. 
 
 Please take care and save the articles I left out on my table ; among 
 others, one containing an abstract of a speech of Hon. Elisha Whittlesey 
 which I want to go inside in this week s Log ( bourgeois ). Also one on Gen, 
 Harrison s poverty and its causes, which save carefully, as I want to make 
 an Editorial out of it. Some others ditto. I shall try to be down on Wed 
 nesday morning. . . The last Yorker was a very fair number, bating typo 
 graphical errors, such as Dugal for Dugald Stuart, which is awful, as 
 insinuating ignorance against us. I saw From whence, in your own verse r 
 too. Don t you know that is shocking, positively shocking ! . . . Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Richmond, Va., June 9, 1840. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 ... It pleases me much to learn that you think well of my pet. 
 I know not what to say about receiving your labors. To take them without 
 some remuneration, I will not. And, on the other hand, I am really so 
 heavily in debt, that I dare not offer you such encouragement as I should like 
 to do, if I were not so much under the [illegible]. But, throwing all this 
 aside, if you choose to give me your labors for $1.50 per page, Bourgeois 
 type, and $2.00 for the Minion page, why, in that case, I say "go ahead !" 
 And even at these rates, my dear friend [you] will have to be most patient 
 with me. Indeed you will be obliged to suffer me to take my own time to 
 pay you this pittance. But pay you, eventually, I assuredly will. 
 
 I am glad to learn that you are connected with Mr. Greeley you could 
 not have made a better selection. He is exactly a man after my own heart- 
 noble, generous and brave. I know not his superior anywhere. And as for 
 his talents, they are of the highest and most useful kind. . . 
 
 I am sick of hard work sick of this dog s life; and yet strange to say, 
 I believe I should go to the dogs if I did not lead this more than slavish life. 
 Adieu! my dear fellow. Yours, 
 
 Th. W. White. 
 
WAR IN TEXAS. 39 
 
 Linnville, Laba Bay [Texas ] , July 30. 1840. 
 Dear Brother, 
 
 . . . The Mexican federalists are still encamped on the Rio 
 Grande. They appear to me more like a band of marauders than an army 
 fighting for the liberty of their country. Many who had great confidence iu 
 their success begin to lose that confidence, and many who would have joined 
 their standard two months since now look upon them as unworthy the con 
 fidence of any one. . . Ever your friend and Brother, 
 
 S. P. Griswold. 
 
 Passo de Cabello, Aug. 15, 1840. 
 My dear Brother : 
 
 Ere this reaches you I presume you will have heard of the 
 destruction of Linnville on Labaca Bay, and as I have dated my letters to you 
 from that place I hasten to inform you of my safety and the facts so far as 
 they have come to my knowledge of the affair. 
 
 On the morning of the 8th inst. a party of Indians were discovered 
 about 2 or 2% miles from the town forming in order of attack ; our first 
 impression was that it was a part of the Mexican Federal Army, coming t5 
 that place for supplies, but on taking a view of them through a glass and 
 observing their numbers, a man was despatched to meet them and ascertain 
 whether they were friends or foes, he had advanced about % mile when the 
 advanced guard filed off and in 4 minutes we were completely surrounded 
 by land, and all chance of escape save by water cut off. All made their 
 escape but two whites and three negroes by taking the Boats. Three whites 
 were killed, Major Watts, the collector of the Port of Labaca, a Mr. 
 Owen [?] and a man whose name is not recollected. And Madam Watts 
 taken prisoner. Three Blacks are missing. Soon after the Indians had pos 
 session of the town they commenced burning the town, one building at a 
 time. We lay in sight until the last building was burned, which was done 
 about 9 P. M. from Linnville they made their way again for the mountains 
 by way of Victoria which they attacked twice, and were both times repulsed 
 from that place they were closely pursued by the Texians and were once 
 whipped with considerable loss. From the last accounts from the army in 
 pursuit, the Texians were 700 strong in view with parties on both flanks and 
 the Major General Felix Huston with about 200 Regulars at a narrow pass t5 
 the mountains to which they were making. From the last Express their 
 
40 THE POETS OF 1840. 
 
 destruction is almost inevitable. Should they be cut. off, western towns will 
 be safe from any further invasion. The number that took Linnville was riot 
 less than 8 nor more than 12 hundred men they were led by Mexicans or 
 Indians. . . All that was saved was what we had on our backs. My loss was 
 not less than four and I fear not less than eight thousand dollars, but it was 
 made in Texas. I am now destitute, all I have is my land and credit, one 
 thing 1 have to console, that is, I am out of debt. Since the fight I have had 
 no regular sleep. I am nearly used up. I leave here in a few hours for the 
 Lavaca and Victoria. . . God be with you and yours, 
 
 S. Parsons Griswold. 
 
 "I have already," wrote Bayard Taylor in 1871, "seen one 
 generation [ of poets ] forgotten, and I fancy I now see the 
 second slipping the cables of their craft, and making ready t6 
 drop down stream with the ebb tide. I remember, for instance, 
 that in 1840 there were many well-known and tolerably popular 
 names which are never heard now. Byron and Mrs. Hemans 
 then gave the tone t6 poetry, and Scott, Bulwer and Cooper t6 
 fiction. Willis was by all odds the most popular American 
 author ; Longfellow was not known by the multitude, Emerson 
 was only that Transcendentalist, and Whittier * that Aboli 
 tionist. We young men used t6 talk of Rufus Dawes, and 
 Charles Fenno Hoffman, and Grenville Mellen, and Brainard 
 and Sands. Why we even had a hope that something wonder 
 ful would come out of Chivers ! . . . Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers, 
 of Georgia, author of Virginalia, The Lost Pleiad, Facets 
 of Diamond and * Eonchs of Ruby/ also of Nacoochee, the 
 Beautiful Star, and there was still another volume, six in all !* 
 The British Museum has the only complete set of his works. . . 
 I remember a stanza of his * Rosalie Lee : 
 
 * It will be seen from the folloing list that Chivers works number more 
 than six volumes. Numbers 2, 8 and 9 ar in the library of Harvard College, 
 
T: HOLLEY CHIVER8. 41 
 
 Many mellow Cydonian suckets, 
 
 Sweet apples, anthosmial, divine, 
 From the ruby-rimmed beryline buckets 
 
 Star-gemmed, lily-shaped, hyaline; 
 Like the sweet golden goblet found growing 
 
 On the wild emerald cucumber-tree, 
 Rich, brilliant, like chrysoprase glowing, 
 
 Was my beautiful Rosalie Lee. 
 
 The refrain of a poem called The Poet s Vacation was : 
 In the music of the morns, 
 Blown through the Conchimarian horns, 
 Down the dark vistas of the reboantie Norns, 
 To the Genius of Eternity 
 Crying * Come to me I Come to me ! " 
 
 Dr. Chivers, according t6 a statement made t6 me by one of 
 his dauters, was born at Washington, Georgia, in 1807, and 
 died at Decatur, Georgia, in 1858. Having inherited wealth, 
 however, he practicd but little. "While in Springfield, Mass., 
 
 having belongd to J. R. Lowell. Numbers 1 and 3 ar taken from the catalog 
 
 of the Harris collection. 
 
 ( 1 ). Conrad and Eudora, or the Death of Alonzo, Phil a, 1834, 144 pp. 
 
 ( 2 ). Nacoochee [etc. ] with other poems, by T. H. Chivers, M. D. . . New 
 York : W. E. Dean, Printer, 2 Ann St., 1837; 18, 143 pp. 
 
 ( 3 ) . The Lost Pleiad, N.-Y., 1845. 
 
 ( 4 ). Facets of Diamond. 
 
 (5 ). Eonchs of Ruby, N.-Y., Shepard & Spalding, 1851, 168 pp. 
 
 (6). Virginalia, or Songs of my Summer Nights. Phil a, Lippincott, 
 Grambo & Co., 1853. 
 
 ( 7 ). Atlanta, or the True Blessed Island of Poesy : a Paul [ Prose? ] Epic 
 in three Lustra. Macon, 1855, 8. 
 
 ( 8 ). Memoralia, or Phials of Amber full of the Tears of Love. A Gift for 
 the Beautiful. By T. H. Chivers, M. D. . . Philadelphia: Lippin 
 cott, Grambo & Co., 1853, 18, 168 pp. This consists of * Eonchs of 
 Ruby preceded by a single 12 page poem. The copyright date is 
 1851, so that it is probably the same as No. 5. 
 
 The Sons of Usna, a Tragi-Apotheosis, in Five Acts. By T. H. 
 Chivers, M. D. . . Philadelphia, C. Sherman & Son, Printers, 1858; 
 8, 92 two-column pages. 
 Heroes of Freedom. 
 
42 T: HOLLEY CHIVERS. 
 
 he fell in love with a Yankee girl sixteen years old. They 
 traveled from one place to another, New York, Boston, New 
 Haven, etc." This second marriage probably took place about 
 1850. In 1853-54 Chivers dwelt in or near Boston and was a 
 frequent contributor t6 The Waverley Magazine and The 
 Literary Museum. It is singular that not only Richardson s 
 and the minor histories of American literature ignore Chivers, 
 but that even L.. Manly s book, which is devoted exclusivly t6 
 Southern authors, does the same. 
 
 I insert a letter from Chivers t6 Poe, since it illustrates the 
 spirit of the time, and shos that the influence of transcendent 
 alism was not limited t6 New-England and " The Tribune." 
 Chivers style is here tame and commonplace, having little of 
 the verbal effulgence which later distinguishd it, when, even in 
 prose, it unconsciously surpassd the efforts of those most skil 
 ful in burlesque. Aside from his poetical pretensions, Chivers 
 seems t6 hav been a person worthy of great respect. His verses 
 appeared in some of the best periodicals of the day, and if we 
 may trust the extracts quoted by the publishers of his Eonchs 
 of Ruby he was not entirely without appreciation on the part 
 of the critics. Here is the advertisment as it appeard in The 
 Literary World : 
 
 Eonchs of Ruby. 
 
 A Gift of Love. 
 
 By T. H. Chivers, M. D. 
 
 Opinions of the Press. 
 
 " We might quote passages of even beauty throughout the 
 book passages replete with the loveliest developments of the 
 divine poetic idea in the man s soul. From his harp proceed 
 
T: HOLLEY CHIVERS. 43 
 
 master strains, which seem struck out often in a sort of 
 Pythonic delirium." Message Bird. 
 
 " The Eonchs of Ruby is a treasure of classic and sublime 
 poetry a rara avis of a rich and ardent imagination. The 
 author s ideas partake more of the celestial than of the terres 
 trial ; and many of the best productions of this book are 
 dedicated t6 beings wh6 were once dear t6 him in life, but wh6 
 were called away in the flower of their age t6 enjoy a world 
 more glorious and perfect than this miserable earth. These 
 lamentations of an afflicted parent, so charmingly and. truth 
 fully expressed, may truly be called superior t6 anything of 
 the kind ever written by any American or English poet." From 
 L Eco d Italia. 
 
 The New York Quarterly, however, took a somewhat differ 
 ent tone : 
 
 "The quaint conceits of these title pages [Nos. 6 and 7] 
 are a warning of the affectation and absurdity which nestle 
 within the covers of the present astounding volumes. Such a 
 farrago of pedantry, piety, blasphemy, sensuality, and delirious 
 fancies has seldom before gained the imprint of a respectable 
 publisher. If the reader can imagine the fusion of the Hebrew 
 Prophets, Solomon s Song, Jacob Bohme, Edgar A. Poe, 
 Anacreon, Catullus, Coleridge, and Isaac Watts int6 one seeth 
 ing, simmering caldron of abominations, he may form some 
 idea of these fantastic monstrosities. The prose run mad in 
 the prefaces prepares for the demoniac-celestial-bestial 
 character of the poety." 
 
 The editor of * The Knickerbocker paid his respects to the 
 work as folios : 
 
 " We have read a little book of poems by a Mr. Chivers 
 
44 T: HOLLEY CHIVEK8. 
 
 ( what a crisp, sparkling name ! ) which is a casket over 
 brimming with the most incomparable gems that ever sparkled 
 in Heaven s light. The author remarks in his preface, which 
 is itself a prosaic bewilderment of all that is most precious in 
 the verbal domain : As the diamond is the crystalline Revela- 
 tor of the acromatic white light of Heaven, so is a perfect poem 
 the crystalline revelation of the Divine Idea. There is just the 
 difference between a pure poem and one that is not, that there 
 is between the spiritual concretion of a diamond and the mere 
 glaciation of water int6 ice. For as the irradiancy of a dia 
 mond depends upon its diaphanous translucency, so does the 
 beauty of a poem upon its rythmical crystallization of the 
 Divine Idea. We concur with the author in these views, 
 although we never had the power t6 express them. A single 
 verse from Mr. Chivers will show that he does not lay down 
 principles by which he is not himself guided : 
 On the beryl-rimmed rebecs of Ruby 
 
 Brought fresh from the hyaline streams, 
 She played on the banks of the Yuba 
 
 Such songs as she heard in her dreams. 
 Like the heavens when the stars from their eyries 
 
 Look down through the ebon night air. 
 Where the groves by the Ouphantic Fairies 
 
 Lit up for my Lily Ad air, 
 
 For my child-like Lily Adair, 
 
 For my heaven-born Lily Adair, 
 
 For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair. 
 
 There is immortality in these verses, unless immortality is a 
 figment. " 
 
 No. 47, Canal Street, N. Y., Aug. 27th, 1840. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I received your letter this evening, containing a Prospectus of 
 the "Penn Magazine," which you intend publishing in the City of Philadel- 
 
T: HOLLEY CHIVERS. 46 
 
 phia. My absence from the City, among the emerald highlands of the 
 beautiful Hudson, prevented my answering it sooner than to-day. In answer 
 to your solicitation for my support for the forthcoming Journal, I must say 
 that I am much pleased with your "Prospectus" the plan which you have in 
 view and hope sincerely that you may realize all your anticipations. As it 
 regards myself, I will support you as long as you may continue the Editor of 
 the above-named work. In the Paradise of Literature, I do not know one 
 better calculated than yourself to prune the young scions of their exuberant 
 thoughts. In some instances, let me remark, you seemed to me to lay aside 
 the pruning-knife for the tomahawk, and not only to lop oft the redundant 
 limbs, but absolutely to eradicate the entire tree. In such cases there is no 
 hope of its ever afterwards bearing any fruit. In surgical operations we 
 always use a sharp knife, and wish to be as expeditious as possible ; but we 
 never go so far as t5 cut away so much of a part as to endanger the vitality 
 of the whole. If we find, as in cases of gangrene, that the vital part is so 
 affected that an operation would be unsafe, we then choose to let the patient 
 die a natural death, rather than hasten it by our surgical art. I have seen a 
 little sapling transplanted before now, which had every appearance of dying 
 until it had undergone a gentle pruning and watering, when, to the astonish 
 ment of the Gardener, it towered above all the rest in the grove, and 
 remained a living monument of his skill and kind attention. The same thing 
 is true in regard to the literary world. Bad treatment to the human economy 
 will make a chronic disease sooner than a functional one, [and] by its own 
 process, will terminate in organic derangement. 
 
 I consider the publication of such a work as you have suggested 
 infinitely above any other undertaking. There can be no equivalent given to 
 a man for the payment of divine thought. It is as far above every other 
 consideration as the soul is more immortal. He who has never wandered 
 amid the labyrinthine vistas of the flower-gemed solitudes of thought knows 
 nothing of the capabilities of the soul in its aspirations after the Beautiful in 
 Natural Truth, which it, thereby, perceives will be fully manifested to it, in 
 all its glory, in the enjoyment of the Hereafter. He knows nothing of that 
 delightful Eden which remains immortal in the soul, whose flowers are the 
 amaranths of celestial thought. The fruit of the ignorant seems sweet to the 
 eye, but " turns to ashes on the lips." The garden of literature, to the wise, 
 is a " Paradise Regained" wherein his thoughts, like the swan of Socrates, 
 can soar up to the celestial regions, and become the soul s heralds of the 
 divine T5-come. For, as thought is the offspring of the spiritual, which is 
 
46 TRANSCENDENTALISM. 
 
 but the unfolding of the soul to itself, as the disporting of the bud i8 but 
 the display of its many folds, at the same time that it gives out its fragrance 
 whereby it becomes cognizant of the external world so, the more it knows 
 of the spiritual, the more it assimilates itself to the Author of its Spirituality. 
 
 What do you think of the " Dial " ? The Boston papers have attempted 
 to criticise it ; but they have failed entirely. As we all bear definite relations 
 to the external world, so language is the manifestation of these relations. 
 But if we never made use of language in any other sense, we should never 
 soar up from the palpable and the material, to the impalpable, spiritual, and 
 immaterial which, I think, is one of the chief provinces of human thought. 
 This, the materialist would call " Transcendentalism." Well, let him call it 
 so he has no better name for it. And what is it, after all? It is taking the 
 swan of thought, which has floated on the crystalline waters of the familiar 
 in this world, and giving it wings, whereby it may ascend into the regions of 
 the unfamiliar, and there, in that divine altitude become the recipient of that 
 lore which is the harmony of the Angels. All our knowledge comes from 
 the relations which subsist between us and the external world. And what 
 is Eevelation but Transcendentalism? It is the effect of inspiration. What 
 then is inspiration, if it is not a power given to the soul to recognize the 
 beautiful of a truth which is transcendent in its nature, when compared 
 with other truths? We may convey the idea of a heavenly truth by an 
 earthly one that is, we may make an earthly truth the representative of a 
 truth beyond expression. This shows the power of language. This shows 
 that language has a higher office than to manifest the relations which subsist 
 between us and the external world although all our knowledge comet" 
 therefrom. We may express the existence of a truth which is beyond 
 expression. We do this whenever we attempt to explain the attributes of 
 God. You see with what presumption vultures will aspire to the dignity of 
 angels. I do not mean by this that everything which the "Dial" asserts is 
 true. Far from it. But I do mean that its sapient Critics know nothing of 
 the power of language in the reflection of ideas, which are the twilight 
 presence of God living in the soul. They know nothing of anything but 
 what amounts to nothing. All that is invisible is spiritual, and all that is 
 spiritual is lasting; and all that is lasting is alone valuable. 
 
 You must excuse this digression, for I had no idea of wandering so 
 far iut5 the meanderings of metaphysic thought, when I commenced. In 
 conclusion, therefore, let me assure you that I will do everything in my 
 power to benefit you in the progression of your forthcoming work hoping, 
 
T: w. WHITE. 47 
 
 at the same time, that your life may be long and prosperous, and that you 
 may enjoy in this world all the pleasures that wealth can purchase and fancy 
 can invent. Yours very truly, 
 
 Thos. H. Chivers. 
 
 [ The B : Franklin Butler here mentioned was attorney-general under 
 Jackson and Van Buren. The letter was addressd to Greeley. ] 
 
 Richmond, Va., Oct. 30, 1840. 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 Be so good as to have the enclosed bill sent to B. F. Butler, Esq. 
 for collection. I presume it will be paid at sight, he is not drove as we poor 
 devils of printers are. Oh no, he has indeed luxuriated on the loaves and 
 fishes. Seeing his claim is fixed I presume he will discontinue. 
 
 I regret to tell you, and I assure you I utter the truth I regret to tell 
 you that I am not near so well off, in pecuniary matters, as I was when we 
 last shook hands. It is useless to speculate on the causes it is enough for 
 me to know that the fact is so. . . 
 
 Your Mr. Griswold is certainly . a very excellent writer, as he is a 
 gentlemanly man. . . Your friend, 
 
 T. W. White. 
 
 Richmond, Va., Oct. 30, 1840. 
 My Dear Friend : 
 
 I duly received your favor of 2d inst., and honestly assure you 
 that I would have replied to it long since, if I could have spared the time. 
 The truth is, my dear fellow, I am, I fear, a bad manager, and possibly a 
 worse economist. Instead of working myself out of difficulties, I seem t5 
 [ have] created a new batch of them in the past 12 months : and just now I 
 am particularly beset, particularly annoyed. Still I am nothing daunted, 
 and I mean t5 push my barque, frail and weak though she be, ahead, at al) 
 hazards. If I perish, I perish that s all. . . 
 
 [ Griswold went to Philadelphia to become editor of The Daily Standard. ] 
 
 New York, Nov. 29, 1840. 
 R. W. Griswold, 
 
 Man, what s your hurry? I got home this morning expecting t6 
 find you here these two days, or till Monday evening at least; but behold 1 
 
48 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 you are off these tw5 days ! Well, it will all do ; but I would have liked to 
 see you anyhow. I calculated to spend this afternoon up at your place, and 
 was rather disappointed in having no pretext for so doing. 
 
 Well, you are off, and I suppose you will stay till it suits your conven 
 ience to return. But let me hear from you anyhow. I talked with [ G : ] 
 Roberts about you yesterday for some time. R. is rather in a quandary. 
 Purdy and young Haughton are going to start an opposition, to be called 
 The Daily Mail, and Purdy has left Roberts. R. talked with me about you, 
 and concluded that you were the right chap to assume the principal tragical 
 business in his concern. I thought you would have no objection to an extra 
 string to your bow, so I encouraged him in it. I doubt not you are well 
 situated as you are, yet I think you may as well write a frank, kindly letter 
 to Roberts, stating that you are now fast, but if you happen to get loose you 
 will be glad t5 go with him. That can do no harm, anyhow. 
 
 I wish you would write me each Wednesday evening a junk of 
 Literary Intelligence . . . But you have a good place where you are don t 
 jeopard it to serve anybody. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Log and Yorker, N. York, Dec. 3, 1840. 
 Gris. : 
 
 I believe there is a chance t5 send you a line today without cost; 
 and I embrace it for three purposes. 
 
 1. You need not send me any Literary Notices, such as I have begged 
 of you. I have engaged Raymond, temporarily, though hardly able to do so, 
 and have now two assistants. Of course, we ought to be a whole team, take 
 us altogether, and must do. 
 
 2. I want to thank you for the excellent manner in which the outside 
 of the New Yorker was done up during the two weeks I was away. It could 
 hardly have been better. 
 
 3. I want to curse you for going off so abruptly as you did, without 
 leaving any directions. It has ruined The New Yorker for this week dead 
 as a hatchet. Raymond is a good fellow, but utterly destitute of experience 
 or knowledge of where magazines, etc. are to be procured, as you well knew. 
 He says he asked you about magazines, and you told him we could not have 
 any more than we then had, Black wood and Dublin. So he went to work 
 as a novice would, shears in first, and cut out the most infernal lot of news 
 paper trash ever seen. He got in type a column of < Lord Chatham, which 
 
HI J. RAYMOND. 49 
 
 you published a month ago ; three or four column articles of amazing an 
 tiquity and stupidity, and then gave out an original translation of a notorious 
 story which I fear we have once published three columns and over of 
 this, for a magazine week ! Thus The New Yorker is doomed for this week, 
 and you are to blame for it. You are habitually reckless of whatever is not 
 likely to subserve your future purposes. 
 
 Gris, you must reform this altogether. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 30 Ann Street, Saturday, [5 Dec., 1840. ] 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I have taken it into my head to write to you, although I have 
 nothing special to write about. So you may make up your mind to endure 
 the affliction of an epistle, which may not pay you for the trouble of wading 
 through it. Let me warn you, however, not to burn it unread ; cause vy the 
 best part will be towards the latter end. 
 
 I believe I told you that Greeley had written to Roberts t5 see if he 
 wanted me in the [ Boston ] Times office. I have not yet received any an 
 swer, and therefore know nothing of the prospect. Have you had any oppor 
 tunity t5 make enquiries about the Philadelphia Weeklies? I understood 
 that a writer was wanted for the [ Saturday] Evening Post there; know you 
 ought of this? I should much prefer being in Philadelphia to pitching my 
 tent in Boston especially in the Times office. . . 
 
 . . . Greeley wants to write to you, so I ll stop my yarn and let him 
 occupy the rest of the sheet. As ever, thine truly. 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 New York, Dec. 5, 1840. 
 Dr. Gris : 
 
 My Book of Political Returns (which you mainly made up) is 
 not to be found. We need it. Do you know anything about it? 
 
 Also, Herbert s articles on Mrs. Hemans and Fragment of a Play. I 
 cannot imagine what has become of them. Can you help us find them? 
 
 I am doing pretty well on the Log, only it is a stormy day to-day, and 
 we shall sell next t5 none in the City. But we are getting in a good list from 
 the Country. Thank you for your offer to help sell the Science of Numbers. 
 It is an excellent work, and I am interested in it. . . 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
50 BRYANT, RAYMOND, GREELEY. 
 
 The title of the work of Bryant mentiond belo is Selections 
 from the American Poets by William Cullen Bryant : New 
 York, Harpers; 1 vol., 316 pp., 18. Raymond wrote of it: 
 
 "Six short poems are given from Jones Very, and this a 
 greater number than we have from the works of any other of 
 the 78 authors introduced into this collection. . . Eleven pages 
 are given t6 Wilcox, but tw6 and a half t6 Longfellow. . . 
 Elizabeth Park has twelve pages, Mrs. Sigourney five, and 
 Maria Davidson tw6. . . On many accounts we think it inferior 
 t6 the * Selections published by Mr. Cheever some years ago, 
 for that was accompanied by some brtef but excellent notices 
 both critical and biographical." 
 
 Office of The New Yorker, Friday evening [19 Dec., 1840. ] 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . Things are going on finely here : there is some probability 
 that Greeley will have to take charge of the Democratic Press : if so, we 
 shall have business enough. I had a letter from the South the other day, 
 offering $600 for teaching a school 10 months. I wrote about it and am 
 awaiting an answer. I think it not unlikely that I shall go. Did you get 
 Bryant s Poets? I wrote a review of it in the Yorker this week. Benjamin 
 is getting out an awful New World for Christmas. It is to be Folio, twice 
 as large as now. . . Yours ever, 
 
 H. J. Kaymond. 
 
 [ Of the poets named by Greeley, Burleigh is the only one mentiond in the 
 Library of American Literature. ] 
 
 New York, Dec. 21, 1840. 
 Kuf e Gris : 
 
 Yours of yesterday reached me this morning. Thank you for 
 your attention to the Wedgewood business . . . Get a right notice in the 
 Ledger if you can. Swain would like t5 do me a kindness. But pay for it 
 rather than not get a good one. 
 
 Your book is going on all right. I wrote [for * The Biographical 
 Annual, article on Timothy] Flint yesterday, as well as I could, with great 
 
POETS OF EIGHTEEN-FORTY. 51 
 
 tribulation ; but it is hard making brick without either mortar or straw. I 
 could only get a few facts beside those in your Yorker notice, which are 
 abominably vague ... I took good care that my name should not appear over 
 the article. I put in some flummery and the article will pass well enough, 
 with all but those who know something. . . 
 
 Kemember some Yorker poets in your volume of Poetry if consistent 
 with the quiet of a good conscience, which is to be regarded above all things. 
 In especial, <Ri/pah by B. F. Ransom, something by J. H. K. or J. H. S. 
 (formerly Julia H. Kinney, now Mrs. Julia H. Scott of Towanda, Pa.), a 
 scrap from Mary Emily Jackson if it will do, and something from Wm. H. 
 Burleigh anyhow. "W. H. C. Hosmer and Mrs. E. J. Eames ought to be 
 considered and not kicked aside because they have never been in a volume. 
 Try to give a fair chance to the unknown to fame, but don t spoil your 
 volume with them. Dorft Raym quietly poke it into Bryant s volume in the 
 last Yorker? Don t forget some Biographical notation, very brief and 
 expressive, at least to a few who are really Poets. 
 
 Raym has a good offer to go South to teach school, but I shall try t5 
 keep him. I can train him up in the way he should go shortly. 
 
 I met Grund Saturday in Mr. Clay s room at the Astor. We spoke 
 but a few minutes. I bragged on you and he heartily concurred ; but won t 
 you catch it (somebody tells me that thinks he knows) for serving up Dr. 
 Thomas Dunn English the way you have? Ah, Gris! Gris! shave your 
 horrid claws! Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 4 Yorker and Cabin, New York, Dec. 26, 1840. 
 R. W. G. 
 
 I have five minutes to write you, and two things to say; so I will 
 write them and be done as soon as possible. . . 
 
 I shall walk right into your Philadelphia publishers, very brisk, if they 
 don t behave themselves. They have sent me three or four of their ordinary 
 rye-and-Indian novels this week, and not Mrs. Norton s Poems, which you 
 know The New Yorker has done as much to sell as any other paper. You 
 have become god-father for their good behaviour; I pray you look to your 
 responsibility. 
 
 I thank you for your kindness in respect to my Postmaster General 
 ship ! ! ! ! but Gris., I pray you to have a care t5 your practice with the long 
 
52 THE CABINET OF 1841. 
 
 bow. It is too adventurous, I assure you, and spoils the marksmanship. 
 The things you have-said of me there are more incredible than anything in 
 Munchausen, and every intelligent man will know it. 
 
 I understand Thad. Stevens is t5 be Postmaster General. Well, he s a 
 trump, and will do good service, but a leetle too savage a politician. I reckon 
 your Philadelphia folks will kick at it; but better Stevens P. M. G. than John 
 Sergeant Secretary of the Treasury, in my opinion. I shall be right glad t5 
 hear that old Tip finds at least half of his Cabinet elsewhere than in Con 
 gress. Yours, abundantly," 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 New York, Jan. 15, 1841. 
 Friend Gris : 
 
 Your letter opens up a world of Greek to me. In the first place, 
 I have never said that Stevens would be P. M. G. to my knowledge. I may 
 have said that if Ewing does not take it Thad. will probably get it, as a guess 
 merely. I am anxious that a good, thorough, efficient, capable man may get 
 that particular place one that will know how to effect the great Reforms so 
 much needed. Thad. possesses many of the qualifications, but he would be 
 too prescriptive, and I fear he has the reputation (right or wrong) of being 
 an unscrupulous politician. I have feared that he would not make the best 
 kind of a P. M. G. I mean the most judicious and popular that he would 
 be capable and efficient I fully believe. The question is, Where will a better 
 man be found? I mean, if Ewing declines, as it is said he will. I think in 
 such case Old Tip would do himself great credit by restoring John M Lean 
 of Ohio, or taking Elisha Whittlesey. This is the great post for the next two 
 years, and I pray that it be well filled. What do you know or think of John 
 V. L. McMahon of Maryland? Do let me know quickly if you hear any 
 thing new on this point; for I pray that it go right, and then all will be well. 
 Our Clay folks here want Gulian C. Verplanck called into the Cabinet 
 as Secretary of the Treasury. I fear it won t d5 to take both the big ones 
 from this side of the Delaware ; though Verplanck is most capable. As to 
 John Sargeant, it must not be thought of. Better Kick Biddle at once, if 
 that rotten concern the Monster, is to be represented in the Cabinet at all. 
 It would be terribly odious here to have J. S. in the Treasury. My man is 
 Hugh S. Legare, but I know he won t get it. Clayton ( J. M. ) is able, but 
 too lazy. I think Benj. W. Leigh is too much of a gentleman of leisure and 
 
JAMES WATSON WEBB. 53 
 
 courtesy to rake up all the rate bales of the Treasury as they ought to be 
 raked. Enough of air-castleing. 
 
 As to the [ J : ] O. Sargent flare-up. I never read the proceedings of the 
 Montgomery festival, and never dreamed that 1 and Thurlow were there 
 immortalized. (Pray send me a paper). But the explanation of Sargent s 
 furor is simply this. James Watson Webb wants to be Postmaster of this 
 city! It is the most awfully unpopular idea that ever entered any man s 
 head that of putting him into that office : it would raise a rebellion here as 
 sure as tomorrow. But he has been round boring every big-bug in the State 
 to bone for him, and he feels confident of success. The idea of such an 
 appointment is enough to raise a cold sweat on a statue of Washington. 
 Well, Mr. Webb (who has lately paid off his Courier and personal debts 
 $100,000 at the rate of just on the dollar, by an assignee s juggle), is alarmed 
 at seeing other Editors spoken of as most efficient, for that places him else 
 where than in the forefront of the battle. He dictated and John wrote all 
 vich accounts, you see, gentlemen and ladies, for the milk in the Cocoanut. 
 I learn that the Biographical Annual does not sell well in fact, Gris., it is 
 not well designed or got up. If it were to sell as a Gift-Book, it ought t5 
 have been more nicely embellished, and much better printed. It ain t in 
 good keeping. I have done all I could for it. I will call at Feuuell s tonight, 
 and tell him what to do for you. . . 
 
 I will write you a letter on York affairs or a leader soon probably 
 tomorrow. See if the Yorker and Cabin are not both good this week. 
 
 Raymond is clever but careless. He don t feel the grave importance 
 of our vocation, and the necessity of throwing earnestness, power into every 
 thing. I am afraid he has hurt me by the ultra-Federalism of his remarks 
 on Hamilton this week, though I have softened and qualified them, especially 
 by my note. You will be startled by my article on Social Reform no 
 matter. We are going to issue a specimen paper of that faith soon. Revtew 
 it. I shall also publish a new Politician s Register, Feb. 1st. . . Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 The references to social reform in the foregoing and folloing letters 
 ar explaind by Thurlow Weed thus : 
 
 " In 1841 a young man by the name of Brisbane returned home with a 
 mission. That mission was to reform our social system, converting individ 
 uals and families into communities upon the Fourier plan. Mr. Greeley 
 was his first convert, and devoted his paper so zealously t5 the French plan 
 
54 GREELEY ON FOURIERISM. 
 
 of overthrowing our social system as to occasion serious alarm. Alter 
 remonstrating privately and earnestly but in vain with Mr. Greeley, I pub 
 lished an able article written by the late Cicero Loveridge against Fourierism. 
 That article provoked the folloing letter [dated 19 Feb., 1841] from Mr. 
 Greeley in vindication of his raid against what he regarded as fundamental 
 errors in our social system :" 
 
 Thurlow Weed, Esq. : I thank you for publishing my reply to your ( or 
 rather Loveridge s ) harsh criticism on < The Future, and on me as connected 
 with it. I do not doubt that Loveridge s article was well intended, but it was 
 calculated to give countenance t5 the wrong impressions created by Bennett s, 
 the Courier s, and others base misrepresentations of The Future, which 
 were not dictated by kindly intentions. To have you join in the cry was 
 more than I could relish ; though I did not expect you to look with favor on 
 the new notions of our little band of reformers, and had carefully kept the 
 paper away, lest it should provoke you to fall upon it. 
 
 To show you that my reply t5 L. s criticism was not uncalled for, let 
 me quote the following passage from a letter I received yesterday from one 
 of the ablest and best young men of Albany. " I do not recollect distinctly 
 the article in question, but I remember the regret I felt at the conviction 
 pressed upon me that H. G. s head was turned awry, and his usefulness 
 likely to be impaired by an unhappy misdirection of purpose. I am glad, 
 therefore, that you have done yourself and your doctrine justice.* . . . 
 
 I think you take the wrong view of the political bearing of this 
 matter, though I act without reference to that. Hitherto all the devotees 
 of social reform of any kind all the advocates of a higher destiny for labor 
 all the combatants against unjust and false social principles in short, all the 
 social discontent of the country has been regularly repelled from the Whig 
 party and attracted to its opposite. This forms a heavy dead-weight against 
 us. It strikes me that is unwise to persist in this course, unless we are 
 ambitious to be considered the enemies of improvement and the bulwarks of 
 an outgrown aristocracy in the country. But I will not ask you to think as I 
 d6. I only want a chance to think for myself. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 " Mr. Greeley s delusion in reference to Fourierism," continues Weed, 
 " cost him dearly in more ways than one. For a season it lessened the cir 
 culation and influence of his paper, and impaired public confidence in his 
 judgment; while the time, labor, and money given to phalanxes and 
 
RAYMOND ON FOURIERI8M. 5ft 
 
 Brook Farms resulted in personal mortification and pecuniary loss. 
 Long before his death, not only the Fourierite reform, but table-rappings 
 and other " isms" which had attracted and misled him, had passed away. " 
 
 At the date of the next letter, Raymond had begun his twenty-first year. 
 His want of sympathy with Greeley s affinity for "isms" (except 
 ing Abolitionism, and even that with reserves, since he thot it threatend the 
 success of the Whig party ) was probably the principal cause of his retire 
 ment from The Tribune. In regard to Socialism, in particular, the views 
 here expressd foreshado the famous discussion in 1846 between the tw5 
 in their respectiv papers. 
 
 Office of The New-Yorker, Feb. 7, 1841. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 Greeley and I have been wondering for a century whether you 
 had forgotten us in Gotham entirely, and as I see no probability that our 
 doubts will be soon resolved in the ordinary course of events, I am deter 
 mined to thrust a scrawl under your nose, so that you needs must be 
 reminded of our existence, at least. We are getting along grandly, and I 
 wish you could some morning peep in upon us. I thought you were to be 
 here long time ago ? I am getting considerably naturalized in the New- 
 Yorker, and I am glad to see that I succeed so well in picking up Literary 
 Intelligence that you think it worth stealing. How does the Standard 
 flourish? It s much like a jewel in a swine s snout, among the Philadelphia 
 trash. It looks fresh, there s always something in it that every one did not 
 know before. I noticed that your New York correspondent has stopped his 
 letters. Do you want another and don t you want me? If I can write you 
 such as you d like, I d be glad to do it cheap. I ll try and pick up all the 
 commercial news, etc., etc., to your liking. How does your Annual sell? I 
 have been afraid that my commission was very bunglingly discharged with 
 regard to it, especially in not getting in the Foreign Necrology : but Wright 
 said that t would overrun the number of pages, and Greeley said that it 
 would delay the book too much. So yielding to his advice I concluded to 
 let it go and get it out as soon as possible. . . 
 
 Don t you think the Future a stupendous humbug? Greeley got 
 himself into a scrape by connecting himself with ^it, and the city, especially 
 the Sunday, papers came down upon him with a vengeance. He s rather 
 
56 H: J. RAYMOND. 
 
 sorry that he enlisted, and is trying to take the curse off by advertising 
 Brisbane s name as Editor. It does not sell at all. They had a meeting here 
 the other night to organize a society for the promotion of their objects, and 
 found themselves embarrassed by the unexpected co-operation of sundry 
 Owenists, whose alliance of course will make their schemes as popular as 
 anything could be. They re bust up some I don t believe another number 
 of their paper will ever see the light. 
 
 [Epes] Sargent has left the Signal and Ben [jamin] is alone. They 
 sponge nearly all their editorial from Greeley, who makes up the Congress 
 and writes all the political part. In return he gets occasionally the use of 
 their type, and the strong competition of the [New] World. They send off 
 specimen Nos. to his subs., and run him as much as possible. He s worth a 
 million of them, in any way they can fix it. I shall probably stay with him 
 through the year, until May at any rate, and then if he s satisfied I ll stay 
 longer. He pays me $10 a week now and says he ll advance presently. 
 This is not very lucrative, but if I could get in addition the l Correspondence 
 of one or two papers I could make a very fair go of it. Do you know of 
 any in Phil, who wishes oner 1 Mann and I room together and have great 
 times. "We board in Vesey St. near the Astor. 
 
 But the bell is ringing for church, and as you know my habits, I need 
 not say that I must be off. If you can divine no other reason for my send 
 ing such a brief and contemptible scrawl, just charge it to my extreme 
 solicitude lest you should some day be publishing my demise. Give my best 
 regards to your lady, poke it into the Phil, jackanapes and believe me 
 ever, Yours truly. 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 P. S. Don t forget to write me a letter even if it be no better than 
 this : I shall yet have the satisfaction that it can t be worse. I sent to 
 [T:W. ] White the other day an enormously long and enormously stupid 
 review of Hillhouse. Greeley bored me a long while to have me write it, 
 and I consented. Farewell, 
 
 H. J. R. 
 
 New York, Feb. 9, [1841 ]. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Esq. Dear Sir, 
 
 I hasten to answer your favor of Sunday. I am quite willing 
 that you should use my pieces in the preparation of your work, and I leave 
 
H: j. RAYMOND. 57 
 
 you to select such as you like best having full confidence in your ability to 
 prepare such a book with honor to yourself and to the authors whose pro 
 ductions you propose to collect. When I can find time, I will give you my 
 views concerning those offerings which I think less poor than others, and 
 you can be guided by my taste or not, as you please. If you wish a memoir 
 I will send you such information as may be necessary and available. 
 
 As you speak about portraits and some time ago spoke to me about 
 letting you have that taken by Harding, I surmise that you may wish mine; 
 if you do, pray don t think of using Harding s ; there is a far better one, just 
 taken, from which Dick or Prudhomme could make an excellent engraving. 
 
 I have not received the Naval and Military Magazine. I doubt not the 
 Sketch will be quite good for us to publish : and I will have the two pictures 
 you mention engraved for the New World by Butler immediately, provided 
 the $50 be immediately forwarded. As we are making headway in getting 
 out a second Leviathan sheet, the sketch and the pictures shall appear in 
 that as well as regular paper, provided the Magazine and money be for 
 warded within a week s time. I am very faithfully Yours, 
 
 Park Benjamin. 
 P. 8. We print 35,000 copies of Leviathan sheet. 
 
 The remark in the folloing letter about college graduates is probably the 
 earliest version of Greeley s famous saying, the form in which it is best 
 known being : "Of all hornd cattle a college graduate is the worst." 
 
 Greeley s later opinion of Raymond, tho they remained together only a 
 few years, was much hier than the one here expressd : " I had not much 
 for him to do," he wrote in 1867, " till the Tribune was started : then I had 
 enough: and I never found another person, barely of age and just from his 
 studies, who evinced so signal and such versatile ability in journalism as he 
 did. Abler and stronger men I may have met; a cleverer, readier, more 
 generally efficient journalist I never saw." Raymond wrote: "I was with 
 him less than four years, instead of eight, as he says : and though I did 
 work, I believe, quite as hard during that time upon the Tribune as he now 
 gives me credit for having done, I think I have worked still harder for a 
 good many years since that time. But I certainly deserve no special credit 
 for it in either case. I did it from no special sense of duty, still less with 
 any special aim or ambitious purpose. I liked it." 
 
H: J. RAYMOND. 
 
 New York, Feb. 20, 1841. 
 
 B. W. Gr. 
 
 You ve heard, I reckon, of the chap who, after much terrible 
 swearing, turned out of the road because the other fellow wouldn t turn out 
 for him. Well, his case is mine. I ve waited a spell to hear from you, and 
 now I write to persecute you into writing. However, take your own time 
 for it, and write just when you have something to say and time to say it. 
 
 Gris, I ll bet you a York shillin you re sorry you left me. Cause why? 
 Your paper don t look as though it had the bump of payology very strongly 
 developed, and the only principle that I have ever found you tenacious of 
 is that of having your pay at least as fast as you earn it. Yet I ve no doubt 
 that it will be best for you in the end. Here you were a good deal a chimney 
 corner man, while in P [hiladelphia] you see more of the great world, and 
 live on a larger scale ; and though you won t do for a politician, and will 
 damage yourself if you attempt it, yet you are rather tall in your own depart 
 ment of Literature, and Philadelphia is the place where you are needed. If 
 the animals who run the Saturday Courier would secure your services as 
 Editor, give you $1200 a year, and 100 dollars additional for every 1,000 
 increase on their subscription, they would do a wise thing. But then, if 
 they get a million subscribers for a mean paper, who knows but they might 
 run down if they printed a good one? Doubtless the children of this world 
 are wiser than the children of light. 
 
 I suppose it is best for me, too, that you left me, but it has been hard 
 to find out. My new hands were terribly raw. The most useless animal 
 endued with the power of ratiocination, I will maintain, is a young man just 
 out of college. Raym. is one of the best of his class, but that class is awful. 
 He can write rather better than you can ( though slovenly English and often 
 on uninteresting themes ) but he knows ( or did know ) nothing of the details 
 of Editorship, nothing about making up a paper in the head before it is 
 transferred to type, and has no judgment with regard to selections. There 
 you are unrivaled ; I was never afraid that you would down the paper unless 
 by writing in it ; but he catches up a pair of shears and dives into a pile of 
 exchanges like a rat in a scrap-book, making his selections on about the same 
 principle. O I have had a weary time of it! for my other man, Darlington, 
 is dull and heavy, and neither of them delights in working over-hours. But 
 things are looking better now. Both are learning what is to be done and 
 how t5 do it; two proof-readers are better than one, I mean to learn the 
 
HORACE GREELKY. 59 
 
 art of condensation and the system of compiling a newspaper and on the 
 whole I am not sorry for the change. 
 
 The great beasts [" Brother Jonathan " and " New World " ] murder 
 me in the way of circulation. They make so much noise and bluster that 
 they bully people into buying their trash if not reading it. Did you ever see 
 more unmitigated humbugs than they now are in the general? Why do you 
 puff them? Show me a valuable editorial in either of them ! The Jonathan 
 is best of the two ; but how can folks take thousands of The Quarto World 
 and more of the Yankee folio? Do look through a tile of the two and see if 
 I am so grossly deceived. 
 
 Epes [Sargent] you know, is out of the World, and now in your city, 
 on his way to Washington. He was poked out, I guess, pretty much like 
 another chap. They talk of selling a third of the Concern for some $5,000 or 
 so. All is arranged except the purchaser and the funds. Them s the chaps 
 I haven t seen yet. They profess t5 have made $5,000 the first year : then 
 how is Epes ejected for not paying in his share of the capital invested? But 
 mum s the word ; whisper to no one. They mean to gag the world with their 
 next double. 
 
 We are likely to sell the copyright of the Science of Numbers (I and 
 Wedgewood ) to the Harpers at what promises to be a remunerating price. 
 We have sent on a few copies to try at your coming Trade-Sale. Now I 
 want you to find out just when this sale is to be, and directly before it send 
 books to different Editors and get it noticed if possible. Manage this neatly 
 for me, if you have to write the notices or cut them from old papers, and I ll 
 puff your book when it comes out. 
 
 My friend W. Falconer is coming out from Paris. I want to get him 
 some employment. If he can produce a real good translation of the decent 
 Songs of Beranger, don t you think one of the Philadelphia Houses could be 
 induced t5 publish them on fair terms? I know you don t like him as an 
 original writer, but he can translate, and you know it. Witness The Mid 
 night Review, My Old Coat, etc. I wish you would sometime show these 
 to somebody. Falc. would make a rich volume, of such a size as might be 
 desired, pretty cheap. Think of it. 
 
 My candle is out, paper ditto, and I fear I am too late t5 pay the 
 postage so I close without saying half. I must write again. My wife has a 
 very severe illness. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
60 " THK POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. " 
 
 New York, Feb. 26, 1841 
 My dear Gris : 
 
 I have twenty minutes before Mail-time, and fifty things to do, 
 but I think I must devote them to answering your letter. And first, of 
 Hosmer. I have no doubt he would be glad to d5 what you desire. If you 
 prefer it, I will write to him, which will put the matter beyond doubt. But 
 I presume you will have no difficulty if you write yourself. Command me 
 in all things. If I could do any thing for your work, I would with pleasure. 
 We have announced it; if you will send me a Prospectus I will publish it. 
 Aren t you going to have an appendix to your volume containing one or 
 more pieces from such writers as may have casually written a good thing or 
 so, but have no claim or desire to be considered Poets? Depend on it this 
 will be better than to cram them into such company as you must otherwise 
 do. For instance, Edward Everett, J. Q. Adams, Flint, E. H. Wilde, A. H. 
 Everett, etc., have written fair things; but to jumble them in with your 
 Poets will be murder. Then you should have another compartment, consist 
 ing of a selection or tw5 from the writings of promising young writers, who 
 deserve something better than absolute neglect; but wh5 do not deserve a 
 biographical notice with selections. This might be in smaller type and 
 merely refer to the place of birth, time of ditto, and residence of these bard- 
 lings. Wm. Wallace, Mrs. Esling, G. P. Morris, etc. ( specimens of different 
 classes ) will not do to run into the body of your work ; nor will it quite do 
 not t5 know them. I recommend a middle course, as at once politic and 
 just. Think of it. 
 
 Mind have one or two classes ; casual writers of fair verse ; and per 
 sons aiming to be poets who have not quite accomplished it. Don t attempt 
 to mix them ; you will offend the former and damage your work. Enough 
 for this once, Gris, I mean that work of yours shall be the basis of fortune 
 and fame for you. It must be not only good but in some respects original, 
 to overbalance CheeVer s, and one or two other compilations. Perhaps you 
 had better make another class of those who were once Poets, but by lapse of 
 time and change of taste have ceased to be so regarded. Think. 
 
 Mind that your good Poets and Poetry, duly set off must come first, 
 and make quite half your work. . . 
 
 You are displeased that I am not an applicant for office. I can t help 
 it. That road is too muddy now; it is thoroughly cut up with the throng of 
 hungry travelers. I do not believe that even you would have respected me 
 if I had been among them ; certainly I could not have respected myself. I 
 
GREELEY ON OFFICE-SEEKING. 61 
 
 d5 not regard either Office or Money as the supreme good ; and though I 
 never had either, I have been so near to each as to see what they are worth 
 very nearly. I regard principle and self-respect as more important than 
 either. I could not have run around begging support for an application 
 without doing myself what I despise and condemn in others; so I hold off. 
 I wished to aid efficiently in carrying into execution the Retrenchment and 
 Reform we promised ; I have done, am doing, and will d5 it; I could not, 
 had I been a candidate for office. I have asked nothing, and will have 
 nothing, but not simply because I have not asked it; I might have obtained 
 something perhaps, but it is better so. I will not have the world say that I 
 have given hours that were needed for rest and for bread t5 the Whig cause 
 with the expectation or design of getting office. I never thought of it. If 
 the public shall ask why I am not an applicant, is not that better than though 
 they should inquire why I am? Enough. 
 
 Don t- I rejoice at the passage of the cutting-down clauses in the 
 General Appropriation Bill? Glory! I hope they will yet sweep every 
 thing in proportion. If the Whigs won t be honest, I trust the Tories will 
 walk them right square up to the bull-ring. 
 
 As to The Future the great mistake on your part is that you do not 
 begin to understand our system. You are [as] ignorant as a hoe-handle. Sup 
 pose you as editor, Grund as publisher, another good fellow as printer, a 
 fourth as papermaker, etc., were to combine in a great newspaper establish 
 ment, each having his share of the profits according to his hours of labor, 
 his capital and skill, couldn t you work as heartily as though you were 
 a hireling? You defy all common sense. Then about home. We propose 
 that each man shall have his own exclusive home not in the cellar or garret 
 of some rich man s edifice, but a good wholesome suite of rooms. Do under 
 stand what we propose before you attempt to proselyte. Yours. 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 We have Weed s testimony that Greeley s opinion of office-seeking at 
 this time, was not expressd only in letters. "Viewed," he writes, "in the 
 light which subsequent years and events shed upon his character 
 and conduct, my earlier impressions must have been erroneous, or 
 the Horace Greeley of 1840 was not the Horace Greeley of 1870. For exam 
 ple : Up to and for several years after 1840, Mr. Greeley had no patience 
 with and could not endure the importunity of office-seekers. His greatest 
 annoyance after a successful election was that " office-beggars " ( as he stig- 
 
62 GREELEY ON OFFICE-SEEKING. 
 
 matized them ) bored him for letters to governors and presidents. The idea 
 that men sought office as a reward for political service disgusted him." 
 
 On the 19th of the month Greeley had written to Weed : " We have 
 nothing new here in politics, but large and numerous swarms of office- 
 hunting locusts sweeping on t5 Washington daily. All the rotten-land spec 
 ulators, and broken-bank directors, swindling cashiers, etc., are in full cry 
 for office ! office ! and even so humble a man as I am is run down for letters ! 
 None of your half-way things ! Write strong ! Curse their nauseous im 
 pudence ! Some of them I give such a blessing as will stick in their crops 
 these many days ; some of them, God knows most reluctantly, I give letters 
 for, because I can t help it. I ve a good mind t5 advertise in the " National 
 Intelligencer" that all persons are forbid harboring or trusting office-seekers 
 on my account after this date. Shall we never be rid of this infernal rush 
 for spoils? My soul is sick of it." 
 
 New York, Feb. 28, 1841. 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq., My dear Sir : 
 
 I have an opportunity tomorrow morning by Swain, and I write 
 you a line on a subject that I overlooked in my last letter. It is this : I have 
 heard that the professorship of chemistry, etc. is vacant in Jefferson Medical 
 College of your City, while I have a friend whom I wish to see located in 
 some northern city. I refer to Dr. Wm. H. Ellet, Prof, of Chemistry, etc., 
 in the University of S. C. at Columbia, and who enjoys I think a good repu 
 tation. But of that I don t pretend to judge. You know he is the husband 
 of Mrs. Ellet, and she, I am confident, would prefer a more Northern 
 location, and I don t think the Doctor would object. He is a great favorite 
 where he is, and a few years since his salary was raised unsolicited from 
 $2,000 to $2,500. I think he would answer, even in fastidious Philadelphia. 
 Now I wish when you can you would inquire about this professorship ; 
 whether vacant; w T ho is spoken of for it; how much it pays; what steps are 
 proper to place Prof. Ellet s name favorably before the appointing power, 
 etc. etc., and write me directly. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 P. S. Letter from Bowe ; has been sick a month ; I shall meet him in 
 Albany on the 19th prox. My wife has had a hard time with the Varioloid, 
 but is now nearly well. 
 
CLARK AND PARTON ON GREELEY. 63 
 
 The publication of The Tribune was begun 10th April, 1841. " We 
 never think of our old friend Horace Greeley," wrote Clark in The Knick 
 erbocker, " or read his journal, which we do every day, without wishing 
 that those distant editors who take the cue of their impressions from parti 
 san or rival journals, could really see and know the man as he is; a man 
 careless, it may be, of the style of his dress, preferring comfort to fashion, 
 but yet of scrupulous cleanliness in person and habiliments always ; possess 
 ing a benevolent heart, and clothed with charity as with a garment ; bestow 
 ing with a free hand to the truly needy and deserving, whether political 
 friend or foe ; frank and fearless in the expression of his opinions, whether 
 such opinions are to be praised or execrated ; of indefatigable industry, and 
 unpretending, kindly manners this is Horace Greeley. We speak the 
 things which we do know ; for we have been acquainted some sixteen years ; 
 dur printing-offices connect, and we meet almost every day. We were before 
 Mr. Greeley in the literary field hereabout; remembering well the initial 
 number of the New-Yorker, his first venture. " 
 
 In reference to the separation of Greeley and Eaymond, Parton wrote in 
 1854 : "Greeley is not a born journalist . . . Raymond has the right notion of 
 editing a daily paper, and when the Tribune lost him it lost more than it had 
 the slightest idea of. However, Horace Greeley and Henry J. Raymond, 
 the one naturally liberal, the other naturally conservative, the one a Univer- 
 salist, the other a Presbyterian, the one regarding the world as a place to be 
 made better by living in it, the other regarding it as an oyster to be opened, 
 and bent on opening it, would have found it hard to work together on 
 equal terms." This view of Raymond s character that he was ready to 
 sacrifice principle to policy, or that he had no principles to interfere with his 
 advocating whatever course of action seemed likely to pay best is not sup 
 ported by anything in these early letters, nor by his apparent motivs in 
 resigning from Webb s paper in 1851, or in opposing his party in 1867. 
 
 New York, Apr. 19, 1841. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 It affords me pleasure to comply with your request, relying upon 
 your own discretion as to the use you are t5 make of the catalogue. My 
 first editorial article was written in March 1811, before I was nineteen years 
 old, [in] the Valley of the Mohawk. 
 
 In the book line I wrote for the Canal Book, published by the Corpor 
 ation of New York, in 1825, a history of the Great Pageant of October 1825, 
 
64 w: L. STONE. 
 
 on the marriage of Lake Erie with the Ocean. About 100 pages quarto. In 
 1828 and 29, 1 wrote a history of the legislation of New York, and on the 
 subject of the Erie and Champlain Canals, together with a historical account 
 of Clinton s removal by the Van Buren party from the Canal Board. About 
 60 pages, quarto, published in Hosack s Life of Clinton. In 1832 I wrote a 
 history of Freemasonry, and of the Great Anti-Masonic controversy, in a 
 series of Letters to John Quincy Adams. This is an impartial historical 
 work, and was written at the suggestion of several distinguished gentlemen 
 in Philadelphia; 1 vol. 8 vo. 650 pages. From 1829 to 1837 I wrote for 
 several of the Annuals, English and American. In 1834 I published two vol 
 umes, entitled " Tales and Sketches, Such as They Are,"" The Mysterious 
 Bridal" and "Mercy Disborough," [being] of pretty good length. The 
 stories were generally historical and legendary. In 1835 1 wrote and published 
 the work entitled " Matthias and His Impostures." The clergy say this work 
 has done more to put down fanaticism than any other in the language. In 
 1836 I published a small satirical volume entitled " Ups and Downs in the 
 Life of a Distinguished Gentleman." This, although literally true as a 
 biography, was intended as a satire upon the folly of parents in taking 
 stupid boys from the plough and sending them to college. In 1838 I pub 
 lished the " Life of Brant, including the Border Wars of the Revolution," 
 2 vols., 8 vo. Of this you need no information. In March 1841 1 published a 
 history of Wyoming, from the discovery to the year 1800. As a copy of this 
 small but very beautiful volume has been sent to you, I need say nothing 
 further concerning it. In addition to these I published further several 
 occasional pamphlets. Very truly yours, 
 
 William L. Stone. 
 
 Washington, D. C., April 23, 1841. 
 Sir: 
 
 Perceiving by the March Number of the Knickerbocker, that you 
 are " preparing for the press a volume of poetry, by native writers ;" will 
 you allow me to inquire of you whether, among the " specimens " it is in 
 tended to embrace, you have or purpose to have any from "Escalala; an 
 American Tale?" 
 
 This may seem, and indeed is, not only an awkward but an odd ques 
 tion. It may serve to explain if not to excuse it, however, that it comes 
 from the Author of the Work in question : which was written by me in 
 poverty and sickness ( the greater part of it when in jail for debt ), and pub- 
 
NKWSPAl KRS OF THE DAY. 65 
 
 lished, if I rightly remember, in 1824, in a small edition, by William Williams, 
 Utica, N. Y. The small number published, in that inland place, coupled 
 with the fact that on its appearance it was " damned with faint praise " by 
 the North American Review, may have prevented it from ever having come 
 under your notice, or perhaps, from having ever traveled as far as Phila 
 delphia. 
 
 Had I reason to suppose that the Public had ever condemned the 
 Work, I should be the last to endeavor to rake it from its obscurity. But 
 the truth is, "the public" do not and never did know anything about it. 
 Faults, as a whole, it doubtless has; the greatest of which, perhaps, is that 
 it is occupied with a story and a subject that do not and cannot be made t5 
 interest them. If , however, I can trust to the judgments of the late N. H. 
 Carter and Solomon Southwick, Esq., as well as to those of Gen. Dearborn 
 of Boston and the Hon. Lewis Cass, it contains some genuine poetic gems; 
 such as would do no discredit either to the humble author or to the poetic 
 talent of his country. . . 
 
 Samuel B. Beach. 
 
 ( : Tabor Congdon, writing, in 1879, of the periodicals of this period, 
 has the folloing: "There were two of the large weekly newspapers 
 published in New York < The [New] World and < Brother Jonathan 
 and both of them were well edited and well printed. Their general literary 
 make-up was excellent . . . There must have been either bad management or 
 some fatal discrepancy between the cost of manufacture and the price ob 
 tained, for these big sheets, with a similar one printed by George Roberts in 
 Boston, disappeared." It is singular that Mr. Congdon faild to remember 
 the New-Yorker. 
 
 Times and Notion Office, Boston, Apr. 23, 1841. 
 Friend Griswold : 
 
 I hasten t5 answer your letter. I am glad that you have at 
 length made up your mind to come with me, for I truly believe it will prove 
 to be to your own interest as well as mine. I shall probably find some 
 difficulty in freeing myself of the person now with me, but I will give him 
 good and liberal notice, and will even go so far as to pay him something if 
 he grumbles. I know it is for my interest to make the change, and must 
 therefore do it. I shall expect you will consider it a permanent berth, for 
 I shall. I prefer you would commence on Saturday, May 8th, as about that 
 
66 F: w: THOMAS. 
 
 time I commence work on the Quadruple Notion, and in that you can of 
 course render me a great deal of assistance. Truly Yours, 
 
 Geo. Roberts. 
 
 [ Printed by permission of Mrs. J. T. Fields. The Smiths wer Seba 
 Smith and his wife E . . Oaks ( Prince ) Smith. ] 
 
 New York, 6th June, 1841. 
 Dear Fields : 
 
 ... I am pleased you are interested for the poor Smiths. They 
 are very deserving. Their residence is No. 65 Murray St. . . Charley 
 Hoffman has a nice place in the Custom House. I am sorry it is only tem 
 porary. E. Sargent is at Washington office-seeking. 
 
 H. T. Tuckerman. 
 
 Washington City, June 8th, 1841. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 My friend Edgar A. Poe, of Graham s Magazine, Philadelphia, 
 wrote me the other day informing me that you were about publishing a 
 volume of American poetry, and that you were desirous of having sketches 
 biographical of Pinckuey of Baltimore and "Amelia "of Kentucky. He 
 also stated to me that he had replied to you that I could furnish you the 
 sketches, and he advised me to write to you on the subject. 
 
 Pinckney I formerly knew, and I have the pleasure of knowing per 
 sonally as well as poetically " Amelia." Having been a Baltimorean and 
 being lately of the West I feel a natural interest in the fame of both those 
 individuals. 
 
 It would give me pleasure to furnish you the sketches, as my friend 
 Poe writes me that you * pay well and promptly." A thing as excellent in a 
 man, as silence, according to old Lear, is excellent in a woman. If you 
 should like me to furnish you the sketches aforesaid I should be glad to hear 
 from you in the premises. 
 
 Prentice of Louisville I also know, and "Moina" ( Mrs. Dinnies ) of 
 St. Louis. I should think that favorable sketches of these individuals would 
 tend much to increase the sale of your work in the West and that section 
 of country, like all young mothers, feels a pride in her first born in literature 
 as well as in other matters. If you publish the work on your own account 
 I could perchance furnish you with some information with regard to our 
 Western publishers which might be of service to you. I know the editors 
 
F: w: THOMAS. 67 
 
 "all along shore" there, and, in any event, for the sake of western literature 
 I should be happy to advance your interests. With respect, Yours truly, 
 
 F. W. Thomas. 
 
 The writer of the foregoing letter seems to have been a man of singular 
 amiability. In a letter to Poe, dated Washington, 3 August, 1841, he givs 
 the folloing account of himself: 
 
 " My family, by the father s side, were among the early settlers of 
 New England. Isaiah Thomas, the founder of the American Antiquarian 
 Society at Worcester ( Mass. ), and the author of " The History of Printing," 
 was my father s uncle. . . My Father. E. S. Thomas, . . . emigrated t5 
 Charleston, S. C., where he, after establishing himself in the book-business, 
 met my mother, who was then on a visit from Baltimore, of which city she 
 was a native. Shortly after the marriage of my father he removed from 
 Charleston to Providence, Rhode Island, where I was born in, I think, the 
 fall of 1808. [ Duyckinck says he was born in Baltimore, and Coggeshall 
 that he was a nativ of Charleston. ] I left Rhode-Island a child in the nurse s 
 arms and have never been back so I hold myself to be a Southerner as my 
 parents returned to Charleston with me. ( My family consists of myself, then 
 Lewis, Frances, Susan, Mary, Martha, Belle and Calvin. ) I was a delicate 
 child, and, at the age of four, I fell from a furniture box on which I was play 
 ing, and injured my left leg. I went into the house crying, as a child would, 
 and soon returned to play again. My limb, a few weeks afterwards, became 
 very painful, my health gradually declined, and the physicians advised my par 
 ents to send me to a healthier climate. In charge of my aunt I was sent to 
 Baltimore, and placed under the care of my aunt Foulke. There I grew 
 robust and recovered from my lameness except an occasional weakness in 
 my limb, when I over-exercised myself at play. When about eight or nine, 
 in running to the window, over a wet floor, to look at the soldiers passing, I 
 got a fall, which, after long confinement (a year or more ), threw me, a 
 skeleton, on crutches. I used them until five years since, when the con 
 trivance I now use was suggested to me. I went to school very little in 
 consequence of my lameness and frequent indisposition, and when I was 
 seventeen I commenced the study of the law. I have never been to college. 
 The first attempt I made at scribbling was at this time. I wrote a poetical 
 satire on some fops about town, and they became exasperated with the 
 printer of the paper, I forget its name a scurrilous penny-sheet and tore 
 his office to pieces, making Pi of his type. I attended at this time a debating 
 
68 F: w: THOMAS. 
 
 society, which had a great many visitors, and there I used t5 hold forth with 
 the rest. I was invited one Fourth of July to make a speech before the 
 society on a steamboat excursion, and, getting some little credit for it I was 
 invited by my political friends to address their meetings which I did, being 
 then rated with Jacksonism. . . Your brother and I were then intimate and 
 rather rivals in a love affair. Scott, my fellow student studied hard, I often 
 stole out to the Baltimore Library and devoured the works upon Poetry, 
 Oratory and Biography. Just after I was admitted to practice, my father, 
 who had lost a handsome fortune, emigrated with his family, leaving myself, 
 to Cincinnati and established " The Commercial Advertiser." I practiced a 
 few months, and then from ill health, retired to the country, where after a 
 year s sojourn I emigrated to Cincinnati in 1832 and assisted my father in 
 editing his paper. We soon differed upon political matters, and I com 
 menced the practice of the law, but in bad health. I defended a great many 
 criminals, I believe with some success, and lectured before the Lyceum. In 
 descending the river I wrote several stanzas expressive of my feelings, which 
 I published in my father s paper. They were noticed and complimented by 
 the contemporary press, and I wrote out some farther impressions which the 
 new scenes, had made on me, and upon invitation delivered them before the 
 Lyceum, in the shape of a rambling poem called " The Emigrant, or Reflec 
 tions in descending the Ohio." This took, if I may so say, before the 
 Lyceum and I was requested to publish it, which I did in 1833. . . 
 
 After this, when Judge McLean was brought out for the Presidency, 
 I was selected to publish his organ in Cincinnati, which I called the " Intelli 
 gencer." I had it for about six months, and was compelled to quit the 
 editorial chair, in consequence of bad health. While confined to my house 
 and bed, I remarked one day to my sister Frances that I felt like trying t5 
 write a novel. She insisted upon my doing it, and daily brought paper and 
 pen to my bedside, where most of Clinton Bradshaw was written. I should 
 have mentioned that my best friend in Cincinnati was Charles Hammond of 
 the Cincinnati " Gazette," wh5 is now dead, but who was esteemed the best 
 editor and lawyer in Ohio. To him I dedicated my "Emigrant," and he 
 defended me with true chivalry against all critical attacks. In his paper, 
 too, I wrote many satires upon folks about town, which made me some 
 enemies. 
 
 When I had finished " Clinton Bradshaw," with letters of introduction 
 in my pocket to Mathew Carey, from Mr. Hammond and General Harrison, 
 I started for Philadelphia which I reached in the dusk of the evening. 
 
F: w: THOMAS. 69 
 
 Unknown and unknowing, in bad health and worse spirits, I wandered out 
 not knowing what to do with myself, and shall never forget stopping before 
 a house in Chestnut street struck with a tune that some fair one was playing, 
 as if with a familiar voice. The discovery that the song was mine, " Tis 
 said that absence conquers love," changed the whole current of my feelings. 
 
 Mr. Carey, (this was in 1835 ), introduced me to Carey, Lea & Co. and 
 they undertook the publication of my work. Let me say that Mr. Carey 
 treated me with the greatest kindness. He was lame too, but a philosopher, 
 and he felt and expressed a real sympathy for me. I was frequently his 
 guest, and he often came to see me. In proof of his benevolent character 
 let me say that he often annoyed me, or rather provoked my sensitiveness, 
 by sending some lame man or other whom he had picked up in the street, to 
 consult with me upon my superior powers of locomotion. Most of the char 
 acters in Clinton Bradshaw were drawn from persons living in Baltimore. 
 "Glassman" was meant for Charles Mitchell, a very distinguished lawyer, 
 who was dissipated. " Old Nancy" for old Nelly, who is still an apple 
 woman in Baltimore. " Cavendish " was drawn from a young, eccentric 
 friend of mine, named Kelley, wh5 is since dead. " Shaffer" was a portrait 
 ure of Jennings, etc. 
 
 "East and West" was published in 1836. It was an attempt to pour- 
 tray the every day scenes of life occurring t5 a fallen family emigrating from 
 the east to the west, most of the characters there were from life. " Howard 
 Pinckney " was published in 1840. I have by me in MS. the poem which you 
 have seen called ( I believe I will so call it ) " The Adventures of a Poet " 
 which consists of 1800 lines ; and two volumes of sketches of such persons as 
 Wirt, John Randolph, Simon Kenton, (the Last of the Pioneers ), with 
 tales, etc. . . 
 
 In the May number of " The Southern Literary Messenger, " for 1838, 
 you will find a sketch of your humble servant written by Ingraham. 
 
 While writing my books I travelled through the west to Louisville, 
 St. Louis, &c., and in the last canvass held forth in those places on the 
 Harrison side. Sometimes upon invitation, in these cities and in Cincinnati, 
 I delivered lectures upon literary subjects such as Oratory, Poetry, etc., Odd- 
 Fellow addresses, and Fourth of July addresses. I was a delegate to the 
 Baltimore May convention in 40, where I held forth, and after which I made 
 your acquaintance in Philadelphia and got pelted by the people as you 
 remember or rather by the Locos. 
 
 I came on East last March to get my books out, but the death of Gen- 
 
70 v : w : THOMAS. 
 
 eral Harrison, and the uncertainties about the currency and the bank have 
 prevented my publishing. Here I was invited t5 lecture before different 
 societies, and in Alexandria, and did so to full houses, gratis which were 
 followed by empty puffs ; but you know what Goldsmith says about the Muse 
 " Thou source of all my bliss and all my woe 
 
 That found me poor at first and keeps me so. " 
 ( Don t say of me that I am in office, as it is only a temporary appointment. ) 
 
 I am now engaged in writing a novel upon the events of the present 
 day, many of the scenes of which are Iai4 in Washington. My object is to 
 describe life in the varieties in which I have seen it in Missouri, New Orleans 
 and here among the office holders and seekers. I have written occasionally 
 for these three or four years past for the Knickerbocker, Graham s, the 
 Ladies Companion and the Southern Literary Messenger. . . 
 
 One of the first persons who noticed me in the West was General 
 Harrison, who shortly after my arrival in Cincinnati invited me to the Bend, 
 where I went and was his guest for some weeks, I was engaged there in one 
 of my first law cases against his eldest son ( now dead ), William Harrison. 
 
 It is singular that my great uncle, my father, my brother and myself 
 have all played editor. Yours, 
 
 F. W. T. 
 
 As regards Thomas later career, Mr. W. F. Felch, in " Literary Life," 
 May, 1884, says that " In 1850 he returned to Cincinnati and entered the min 
 istry of the Methodist Church ; he was afterward Professor of Rhetoric and 
 English Literature in the Alabama University. In 1860 he took charge of the 
 literary department of the Richmond ( Va. ) Enquirer, and continued in that 
 capacity until his death." Some further information will also be found in 
 this volume. 
 
 Bangor, June 9, 1841. 
 My clear Sir [Roberts] : 
 
 ... I fear you have made an error in advertising " The Fortunes 
 etc." as originally written for the Notion. Some adverse paper may recog 
 nize the old work in it, and charge you with plagiarism, or me with fraud in 
 selling you an old-story-in-part, as one wholly new. It might be better t5 
 say "for the first time collected and revised, with several new chapters 
 expressly written for the Notion ! " ... By the way, if you care to have a 
 collection of my poetical works, I should be glad to compile them for you 
 gratis. They would make, I think, two such articles as you published of 
 
ALBERT PIKE. 71 
 
 Hoffman s. Shall you publish The Fortunes in the Semi-monthly Magazine 
 or No? If you d5, 1 will correct a copy and return it to you. I am, Dear 
 Sir, Ever Yours most truly, 
 
 Henry Wm. Herbert. 
 
 [Autobiographical memorandum by Albert Pike sent to Griswold for 
 sketch to be publishd in The Poets and Poetry of America. ] 
 
 Born in Boston, Mass., Dec. 29, 1809 father removed when four years 
 old to Newburyport. My father was a journeyman shoemaker, and worked 
 hard, paid his taxes and gave all his children the benefit of an education. 
 From the age of 4 to 16 I was at school, partly in the public schools at 
 Newburyport and a private school there, and last at Framingham. About 
 that time I entered (passing a fair examination ) at Harvard. I do not now 
 recollect in what year. Our funds being scarce I became the assistant 
 teacher in the grammar-school at Newburyport and after about a year and 
 half, Principal, which I held some three months. Then traveled to Fair- 
 haven, where taught an Academy during one winter then on foot to 
 Newburyport, wh6re I opened a private school which I taught for a year. 
 During this time I had kept up my studies, always intending to have entered 
 [sic] at Harvard in advance. In March, 1831, started off for the West by 
 stage to Niagara, Cleveland and Cincinnati, thence by steamboat to Nashville, 
 on foot to Columbia, Tennessee; thence on foot to Paducah, whre took 
 steamboat to St. Louis and thence in August, started to Santa-Fe, together 
 with two young men from Newburyport, in a company of about 40 men. 
 Reached Santa-Fe, Nov. 28, 1831, half starved and whole frozen. Remained 
 there till September, 1832 part of the time as clerk in a store and the 
 residue traveling about the country, selling goods. In September, left Taos 
 with a trapping party, traveled S. E. round the head of Red River to the 
 head-waters of the Brasos Starved for food and water and at last on the 
 Brasos, with four men, left the company and came on to Arkansas, the last 
 500 miles on foot. Reached Fort Smith in November, without a rag of 
 clothes, a dollar in money, nor knowing a ferson in the Territory. Re 
 mained near Fort Smith, part of the time teaching a school, until July 1833 
 then went still lower down the country (my school having netted me but 
 14 dollars, which kept me in debt for board ), and opened another school at 
 three dollars a quarter half money and half pigs Taught it six weeks for 
 the fever and ague, and three dollars in money. Having in the meantime 
 written some rhymes for the Advocate, printed at Little Rock, the Editor 
 
72 C: FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 sent for me to go there and assist in editing. Crossed the Arkansas in 
 October, and landed at Little Rock, paying my last bit for the passage of a 
 soldier who was a Yankee and had known my father. Edited the Advocate 
 until October, 1834. During which time studied law married, Nov. 13, 
 1834, and purchased the Advocate. Edited it and practiced law at the same 
 time until the Summer of 1836, and sold it out. Since then have been prac 
 tising law. 
 
 I wrote the poetry which I published in my little book printed by 
 George W. Light, partly in Santa-F6, partly in the mountains and prairie, 
 and partly imntediately on my arrival in Arkansas. The Hymns t5 God, as 
 originally published in Willis Magazine in Boston, I wrote while keeping 
 school at Fairhaven, in the schoolroom, during school hours. The poetry 
 published in the Pearl I wrote in 1833, while keeping school all of it. To 
 the Mocking-bird I wrote a day or two after my marriage. I have written 
 nothing since. Nothing of any importance, I mean. Nor do I think I ever 
 shall. If I should even collect the scattered leaves, and publish what I have 
 written, and published, it will be solely t5 get it together so that I can have it 
 in a volume for my own pleasure. 
 
 New York, June 19, 1841. 
 My Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . Our friend Hoffman has felt as nervous as the Devil ever 
 since you toJd him that that precious piece of " biography" was to go into a 
 book. He is anxious that you should cool it down at least fifty degrees of 
 Fahrenheit before you print it there. The fact is, Hoffman has desired me 
 to become his biographer for you and at his suggestion. I [ am to ] say that he 
 was never distinguished for anything either at school or college except for 
 swimming further, diving deeper, and coming up dryer than his comrades. 
 To be sure he has had masters for every accomplishment under God s 
 Heaven, but he never mastered one except that in which a duck and a 
 spaniel beat him. Would it not be well therefore to eschew all sorts of 
 flourish ? Charley says his father was four times as distinguished at five and 
 twenty as he shall ever be with all our kind aid yet he is now forgotten 
 save by the few gray beards who remember him as the friend and some 
 times the rival of Hamilton. It seems mockery therefore to build anything 
 upon this thin foundation of particulars to eke out your pages. I can 
 supply you as well as H. ( who feels sensitive, rather ridiculously so ) upon 
 this point. He has no European associations or connections to stock that 
 
CfFENNO HOFFMAN. 73 
 
 same page of glory as our friend B. has. His family, though German in 
 their origin (they sprouted from Martin Hoffman, a Lutheran Clergyman 
 wh5 immigrated into the Province of the Knickerbockers about 1670 ) , soon 
 lost all identity with the Fatherland by intermarrying at first with the Dutch 
 and subsequently with the Huguenots and early English settlers. He him 
 self, though, prides himself no little upon having New England blood in his 
 veins, his maternal Grandfather being John Fenno of Boston, the original 
 proprietor and editor of the old Federal United States Gazette. I mention 
 this because I have often heard Hoffman say that he felt a sort of pride in 
 being an American through and through, belonging t5 the soil of old, and 
 as he sprang from such a jumble of races that he can claim an origin 
 nowhere but here. 
 
 I am thus particular with this matter because I know that our friend 
 dislikes any kind of flourish. Will you allow me to quote from a brief note 
 I received from him in answer t5 a request that I might prepare for you a 
 brief biography of his mind and character? After remarking how much he 
 felt gratified at the kind notice of yourself and other friends he adds : " But 
 for God s sake make no flourish keep the aroma of puff for those whose 
 nostrils it regales. I am," he continues, " unaffectedly gratified that my 
 scribblings should be thought worth exhuming and reclaiming. But that 
 pleasure, I tell you truly, was much circumscribed by Mr. Griswold s ultra 
 praise. In the way of business I have no objection to a book of mine being 
 puffed until the publisher is content. But praise of one man is a different 
 thing, and his poetry, the tears of his heart the blood of it, sometimes, is a 
 part of himself." So much for Greyslaer s feelings and allow me t5 add 
 that all this may seem very impertinent on his part toward one wh5 has done 
 so kindly for him, and argues most probably acute self love. But so it is. 
 Hoffman wants your notice of him to be the quietest in your Book. Will 
 you permit me, by the way, to select for it a single piece which I know to be 
 a pet of his "Lines on the Bob o Linkum" they were written and pub 
 lished before Mr. Irving made the theme a popular one, and of course those 
 notes have lost no value from his endorsement. You will find the poem in 
 Goodrich s 4th Class Header. 
 
 I told Hoftman that I was going to be the organ of his feelings and 
 would write to you on the subject. He wishes you t5 omit in your volume 
 " Raise the Heart " and " The Declaration "the phraseology of those above 
 being his, the thoughts belong to others. So much for Hoffman s matters, 
 and now a word as t5 my own. My volume is very nearly completed, and I 
 
74 C : FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 shall be able t5 publish it about the 10th of August ( 41 ). The illustrations 
 are exceedingly beautiful, and with your kind aid I think I have made a 
 clever volume. [This refers to a volume of the Annual type, except that its 
 contents wer not original, calld The Poets of America Illustrated by one 
 of her Painters. ] . . . 
 
 I cannot sufficiently thank you, my Dear Sir, for the pleasure you gave 
 me of knowing Mr. Tuckerman he is decidedly the cleverest specimen of 
 the New England Literati that I have met with, really intellectual, and 
 with all right modest. We Knickerbockers, I fear, do not sufficiently appre 
 ciate the leaven of Eastern scholarship. ( God bless Benjamin, the Sargents 
 and " all that ilk" ). Excuse this long rigamarole and believe me, 
 
 Truly and gratefully yours, 
 
 John Keese. 
 
 At the time of Hoffman s death, in 1884, G : W : Curtis 
 wrote of him with the kindly grace for which he was so well 
 known. He was in error, however, in crediting the invention 
 of the phrase Knickerbocker Literature t6 J : R : Dennett, 
 the article on Schools in American Literature in " The 
 Church Review " for October, 1850, having contaiml the fol- 
 loing : 
 
 " In recognizing another, and, in some respects, antagonist, school as 
 existing in New York, we must not be understood as supposing that thre is 
 anything answering t5 the compact, mutual-assurance confederacy, which 
 exists at Boston. The Knickerbockers for such must be their nickname, 
 have ... no common focus. . . When we mention the names of Irving, 
 Paulding, Cooper, Verplanck, Sands and Hoffman we think we strike a 
 chord in the hearts of our readers which vibrates with a more tender feeling 
 than that which would respond to our mention of their cleverest Eastern 
 contemporaries. These writers have . . . been industrious without parade of 
 effort, scholarly without ostentation, active without bustle, and efficient with 
 out self-conceit; and, altSgether, there is about them a unity of manner, 
 thought, and moral principle, and even a negative quality of style, which 
 constitute them, with others, a literary school." Viewed at a distance of 
 fifty years, however, it appears that moral earnestness, even if sometimes 
 misdirected, makes for fame more successfully than these uegativ virtues. 
 But to come back to Mr. Curtis remarks on Hoffman : 
 
C: FENNO HOFFMAN. 75 
 
 " The Easy Chair has more than once alluded 16 Charles 
 Feimo Hoffman, one of the chief figures in the " Knickerbocker 
 literature " of forty years ago, and the founder of the * Knick 
 erbocker Magazine. The felicitous phrase Knickerbocker 
 literature was first used in the Nation by Mr. Denny [ sic ] 
 an admirably accomplished writer, wh6 gave it a satirical turn 
 as describing a kind of cockney or local and ephemeral litera 
 ture, and his article had the tone of the Boston sexton wh6 
 politely informed the stranger seeking a pew in the church for 
 the afternoon service that it was hardly worth his while t6 go 
 in excellent man, sir, but no talents : a New York man, sir. 
 
 But while many of the noted writers in the Knickerbocker 
 circle of half a century since are no longer famous nor even 
 much known to the New York readers of t6-day, yet the great 
 Knickerbocker names are great still, and Irving. Cooper, 
 Bryant, and perhaps Halleck, although Halleck is fading, still 
 hold the place they held with our fathers. Willis is probably 
 rapidly passing out of the public mind. . . The misfortune of 
 his fate was tw6fold, that he was tempted t6 turn his bright 
 talent into ready money, and that he did it. His gayety and 
 his graceful fluency made him the first of our proper " magazin- 
 ists." He had the lightness and ease of touch which are 
 traditionally characteristic of the distinctive writer for the 
 magazines, and whose success contradicts the old saying that 
 easy writing is hard reading. But Willis s ease became at last 
 a mannerism, and a certain tone of affectation and apparent 
 insincerity crept over his page. . . 
 
 Hoffman was a year older than Willis, and he belonged t6 
 the same Knickerbocker group. Willis came from Boston, but 
 Hoffman was of an old Knickerbocker family. Willis had a 
 
TO C: FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 certain European tone and character, but Hoffman was com 
 pletely American. Willis died seventeen years ago, when he 
 was sixty years old. Hoffman died the other day at the insane 
 retreat in Pennsylvania where he had been secluded for more 
 than thirty years so absolutely secluded, indeed, that Bart- 
 lett s book of Familiar Quotations records him as dying in 
 1850. Hoffman s books, like Willis s, are read no more, ajid 
 his name survives only in his familiar song, " Sparkling and 
 bright." That alone will give his name yet a longer date than 
 Willis s, and the sad story of his life will be long tenderly told 
 in our American literary biography. 
 
 Those wh6 still recall his manly figure, and his fresh, breezy, 
 gay manner, will remember the sense of profuse vitality with 
 which he impressed those who saw him. He was a lover of 
 the woods and waters, a natural sportsman, and this taste is 
 reflected in his tales and sketches. His poems, as is always 
 true of a great multitude of poems in every period, were echoes 
 of the greater poets of his time. But they show his poetic 
 feeling and facility, and a certain heartiness of nature which 
 was his characteristic quality. The mental calamity which 
 arrested his career, and practically ended his life nearly forty 
 years ago, was not the only sorrow which this brave and gen 
 erous man endured. As a boy of eleven a sore misfortune 
 befell him in the loss of a leg. . . At seventy-seven the poet 
 walked alone in the rural neighborhood of Harrisburg, pleased 
 t6 hear the sounds and to see the sights of the fields and the 
 woods, harmless and murmuring t6 himself. But for more than 
 thirty years he had had no actual human companionship. The 
 generation t6 which he belonged had passed away, and t6 the 
 new generation his name was unknown." 
 
W: GILMORK SIMM*. 77 
 
 Charleston, June 20, 1841. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 . . . Of your proposed publication I have received some intima 
 tion. . . The selections hitherto made from my verses for publications of this 
 sort ( Bryant s included ) , have always seemed to me the very worst I have 
 written ; yet when you ask me to designate the best, I am at nonplus. I 
 must leave this solely to your own taste and judgment. I dare not venture 
 to depend on my own. I am conscious, too, that there arc very few of my 
 pieces not impaired by blots, deficiencies, [and] crudities. To choose those 
 which are least so would be a very different thing from choosing the best, 
 and 1 should be divided between the desire to appear correct, and the greater 
 desire t5 be original and true. My verses have usually been overflowings 
 rather than workings. Like all overflowings they bear in their passage a 
 great deal that is unseemly, they are themselve.s too frequently turbid. I 
 know this truly. I could wish that the public taste or my own independence 
 would enable me to direct, guide and work a stream within proper channels, 
 which now does nothing but overflow its banks. But the wish is sufficiently 
 idle, as your own estimate of the public taste declares. You must choose the 
 most bold among my verses which are at the same time the most clear. 
 These perhaps will better represent my mind than any other. The list of 
 my publications will tell you where to look for them. . . My first publication 
 was a volume entitled " Lyrical and Other Poems" published when I was 
 about 18. This was followed a year after by another called " Early Lays," a 
 third called 4< The Vision of Cortez and Other Poems : " a fourth, written in 
 1830. at a few sittings, or rather, goose-like, standing on one leg, was called 
 " The Tri-Color, or Three Days of Blood in Paris." Of these volumes little 
 can be said. They were the performances either of boyhood or of extreme 
 youth. I commenced doggrelizing, I think at 8 or 9, began to accumulate 
 my doggrel in books even at that early period, and at 15 was printing it in 
 newspapers whenever a good-natured Editor could be found to give me 
 admission in what, among newspapers, is facetiously called * The Poets 
 Corner, a corner which I think does a great deal of mischief, except in a 
 purely literary Journal. All these books, the last, perhaps, excepted, were 
 made up of the stuff accumulating from the earliest beginnings of my poeti 
 cal infancy. T need not say t,5 you that they contained a great deal of very 
 sorry stuff. Still, I fancy that they had something in them, and I have been 
 amusing myself, in later days, by revising, trimming them here and there, 
 ami stringing them tSgether, by the batch, in Magazines, under the appro 
 priate head of " Early Lays." 
 
78 W : GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 Of myself, in this time, the history is no pleasant one to nie. My 
 mother died when I was an infant. My father failed as a merchant, and 
 emigrated to the West about the same time, leaving me with an aged 
 grandmother, and a small maternal property which the latter hoarded 
 so religiously as to withhold the appropriations necessary to my educa 
 tion. In consequence of this, the utmost of my attainments were those 
 of a grammar school, irregularly attended, for I was so frequently sick 
 in boyhood that it was almost the conviction with all that I could not be 
 raised. But even sickness had its advantages. I got books, devoured them 
 books of all kinds without order or discrimination, and probably, in this 
 way, acquired a thousand times more than I could have done under the 
 ordinary school advantages. I grew apace in some things, singularly back 
 ward in others, studied law after a fashion and was admitted to practice 
 when I was 21, the very day in fact. Before this I had taken to edit [ing] 
 magazines, and soon after I involved myself in the meshes of debt by the 
 purchase of a political newspaper, which failed, swallowing up my little 
 maternal property and leaving me considerably involved. By this time I 
 had lost my father and my wife. I had married before I was of age. In 
 1832 1 visited the north for the first time. I had previously made two 
 journeys, on horseback, to the South-west ; traversing some very wild regions. 
 At the North, at the town of Hingham, I prepared Atalantis [5] for the press. 
 I wrote the last part of that poem at Hingham. The first portion had been 
 written several years before. It was published at New York in the winter 
 of 1832. In 33, I published " Martin Faber " [8] , portions of which had been 
 published in a maga/ine in Charleston some 8 years before. The same year 
 I published u The Book of My Lady." In the summer of 1834 I published 
 Guy Rivers [10] , the first volume of which was written in 32. This was fol 
 lowed by " The Yemassee" [11] , " The Partisan" [12] , " Mellichampe" [13] , 
 " Pelayo" [14] , " Carl Werner" [15] , " Southern Passages and Pictures" [16] , 
 " The Damsel of Darien" [17], "TheKiowah" and "The History of South 
 Carolina" [19] . Besides this I have written Tales and Reviews without num 
 ber, verses ad nauseam, I fear, and matters of one sort or another which it 
 almost shocks me to think upon. I am afraid to think of what I ve done. 
 The unclassed and inedited materials in my hands now would make a matter 
 of 20 vols. more in print. A considerable portion of this is in print a 
 greater still in ms. You have a specimen in the Poem of " Florida " [21] sent 
 you the other day. I am of opinion that much of this stuff is superior t5 
 anything I have ever published. I should be sorry to think otherwise. . . In 
 
W : (ilLMORK SIMMS. 79 
 
 the Book of My Lady" published by Key and Biddle in Phila. you will find 
 several specimens of my early poetry which I think needs revision only to be 
 as good as anything I have done. Some of my reviews have been consid 
 ered fortunate. Such are those upon Mrs. Trollope and Miss Martineau. 
 "Atalantis" I have entirely rewritten. 
 
 You have here a correct list of my labors, so far as 1 am at present 
 able to communicate them. I will not conceal from you the fact . . . that 
 I have been engaged in other toils which will be claimed in due 
 season labors which have had their successes, after the fashion of literary 
 successes in our country. In enumerating these numerous performances, 
 d5 not, my dear Sir, fancy that I speak of them with any feeling of " boyish 
 brag." 1 sincerely wish that I could have had leisure to do less, of a differ 
 ent kind, and in another fashion. You have the un licked efforts of an 
 uneducated boy, gradually teaching himself by exposing his ignorance to 
 his neighbours. I should be sorry if I could not add my conviction that I 
 have improved and that [ am still improving. At least, my humility is 
 increasing, and that is sometimes a sign of wisdom : I trust not a delusive 
 one in my case. . . My habits are retiring perhaps quite as much from 
 active self-esteem as humility. I am again a married man, the father of 
 three children, all girls, one of whom is now at school in Massachusetts... 
 Do not, however, suppose me insensible to the sweet solicitings of fame. 
 It has been the dream of my life, the unnamed inspiration of my boyhood 
 dearer than life, for which I take cheerfully to toil, and toil on, though I see 
 not the reward. Let me add, however, that Mr. James La wson of New 
 York may assist you in your biography. If not a very distinguished, he 
 is a very worthy, kind-hearted and honorable gentleman. 
 
 Thus far, in answer to your inquiries, I trust I have answered you 
 with sufficient distinctness. It is scarce necessary, but I may add that I am 
 a native of Charleston my father came from Ireland when a boy. My 
 mother s family came from Virginia. They were all (the males) actively 
 engaged on the Whig side in the Revolution bore arms in the defence of 
 Charleston, and a portion of them tasted the sweets of the British Prison 
 Ship. My father was a volunteer in the Creek War under Jackson in 
 Coffee s Brigade of mounted men. . . With friendly consideration, 
 believe me, Your faithful and obedient Servant, 
 
 W. G. Simms. 
 
80 W: GILMORE SIMMS. 
 
 The folloiug letter being upon same subject, it is inserted here. The 
 numbers in brackets indicate respectivly, 1st, the order of Simms books as 
 here mentiond, 2nd, thir order in the previous letter, 3d, order in Prof. 
 Trent s bibliography. 
 
 Woodlands, Dec., 1846. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 . . . Though exceedingly busy, and subject t5 frequent interrup 
 tions of care and business, I seize a moment of respite though not of ease, 
 t5 respond to the request which you make. . . I commenced writing in 
 rhyme at a very early period. At eight or nine years of age, while the eventi 
 were in progress, I rudely versified the achievements of our navy in the last 
 war with Great Britain [1 = = 0]. At fifteen I was a scribbler for the 
 first time in the newspapers, and about the same time wrote a narratire 
 poem in four cantos entitled The Ring a tale of Italy [2 = = 0]. Be 
 fore I was twenty-one I had published tw5 collections of miscellaneous 
 verses [3 = 1=2, and 4 = 2 = 3] and had written portions of numerous 
 things, besides ballads and epics and dramas, some of which I have subse 
 quently turned to account in print. 
 
 I had discretion enough to suppress most of these things which now it 
 would be scarcely possible for even such an industrious collector as yourself 
 t5 find. Two other collections [5 = 3 = 4, and 6 = 4 = 5] followed between 
 my twenty-first and twenty-fourth years, prepared and published while I was 
 in the arduous toils of a newspaper Editor. These were in a more ambitious 
 vein, but are also beyond your reach, and almost of my own. In 1832, I 
 published * Atalantis [7 = 5 = 6] a Story of the Sea a poem in the 
 dramatic form. This production received the favorable notice of the London 
 Metropolitan, then under the control of the poet Campbell. . . Among the 
 numerous favorable notices of this poem in the United States, it may be 
 sufficient t5 mention that of the New England Magazine. . . Mr. Flint, then 
 editing the Knickerbocker Magazine, said of the same work, It is a clear 
 and well got up Arabian Night affair, a real sea-goblin concern, with enough 
 imagination and eloquence, and beautiful figures, and splendid conceptions, 
 and wild paintings of such stuff as dreams are made of, thrown away upon 
 it t5 have woven and embellished a real painting of life and living things, 
 etc. The error of the poem was in the dramatic form, and in the redund 
 ancy of the descriptive portions. I have lately revised or rewritten it. 
 
 While I am in for the poetry, I may as well place in this connection 
 the names of my subsequent publications in verse. These are : a volume 
 
W: G1LMOKK SIMMH. 81 
 
 entitled Southern Passages and Pictures [8 = 16 = 7], the name of which 
 will probably be found t5 describe its character. This was succeeded by a 
 poem ( incomplete ) entitled Donna Florida [9 = 21 = 8] which has been 
 unjustly assumed t5 be an imitation of Don Juan, and which is not distin 
 guished by any of the grossnesses of that poem. Four Cantos of Donna 
 Florida left the work still incomplete the story, with the exception of the 
 last Canto, being pretty well sunk in the digressions. Here, if you please, 
 you might quote, as a sample, the opening verses of the 4th Canto, in which 
 the Muse of the Nation is invoked, and the country personified. So also, if 
 you think proper, might be given from the same Canto the conflict between 
 De Lave, a Spanish adventurer, and the Chief of the Jenundes. At all 
 events, you may say of the poem that it is playful and mischievous, and the 
 allusions all inoffensive. 
 
 Grouped Thoughts and Scattered Fancies [ 10 = = 9 ] forms the 
 next publication, which is a collection of sonnets. This volume is either 
 imaginative, moral, or contemplative, or all mixed. For a sample or tw5 of 
 each of these characteristics, you might quote Progress in Denial at p. 42, 
 * First Love, at 44, and Home Service at 20. T5 these succeeded Areytos, 
 or Songs of the South [11=0 = 10]. The object of these poms is not 
 simply to associate the sentiment with a local habitation and a name, but t6 
 invest with an atmosphere of fancy such as distinguish the passion of love 
 in days of chivalry, the ordinary utterance of this first emotion of the open 
 ing heart. As specimens of this volume, you might quote the song at 15, 
 that on 19 and 20, and that on 74. These will all be found to embody equally 
 the supposed warmth of a southern temperament with the refining fancies 
 which are assumed to have distinguished the loves of a Sidney and a 
 Bayard. 
 
 But the work which, in my literary career, succeeded to the publication 
 of Atalantis was Martin Faber [ 12 = 8 = 24 ] a gloomy and passionate 
 tale which, assumed by certain European critics, as well as American, t5 
 have been provoked by the British tale Miserrimus was in fact expanded 
 from a tale which I published ten years before in a magazine in Charleston, 
 and which contained all the distinguishing traits and scenes of the subse 
 quent romance. * Martin Faber belongs t5 the family of which Godwin s 
 Caleb Williams is the best known model. But those wh5 read the tw5 
 works will fail t5 see any imitation on the part of the American author. Of 
 the work, the New York American, then edited by C. F. Hoffman, says . . . 
 All admitted the power and interest of the work, but some cavilled at the 
 
82 W : GILMOKK SIMMS. 
 
 moral. The hero charges his crimes upon fate an ordinary habit with such 
 persons, and this is charged upon the author. He uses crime for his mate 
 rial, and in his case, as a young American beginner, the practice, unavoid 
 able for any writer of fiction that ever lived, was supposed to be criminal. 
 This work had several brethren of the same order, which followed at inter 
 vals. Among them may be mentioned * Castle Dismal [18 = = 39 J a tale 
 which has been supposed to be particularly original. Confession, or the 
 Blind Heart [U = = 36] . Carl Werner [ 15 = 15 = 31 ] , Wigwam and 
 Cabin [16 = = 42]. 
 
 These publications, forming in all some ten volumes, were marked 
 chiefly by the characteristics of passion and imagination by the free use, in 
 some cases, of diablerie and all the machinery of superstition, and by a 
 prevailing presence of vehement individuality of tone and temper. They 
 constitute, in all probability, the best specimens of my power of creating and 
 combining, to say nothing of a certain intensifying egotism, which marks all 
 my writings written in the first person. There are yet other tales belonging 
 to this category, and perhaps not inferior in merit to any of these, which 
 have appeared in annuals and magazines, but which I have not yet collected 
 in book form. Of one of these stories the London Examiner spoke in 
 terms of the highest commendation. . . 
 
 But, anterior to the publication of most of these, and soon after the 
 publication of Martin Faber, I gave my first novel to the public. This was 
 Guy Rivers [17 = 10 = 26]. It was meant to illustrate the border and 
 domestic history of the South. The first volume of Guy Rivers was 
 written some time before the second, and the style betrays the labor and 
 anxiety of a young author, highly ambitious of his tools, but as yet unprac 
 tised in the use of them. The difference between those portions of the work 
 whe~re he forgets himself in the excitement of the story is apparent at a 
 glance. The work was highly successful, was stereotyped, and soon passed 
 to a second, third, and fourth edition. Of this work the critics spoke very 
 indulgently. At the time of its appearance Mr. Cooper had sole possession 
 of the field. Mr. Paulding had not confirmed the impression made by his 
 Dutchman s Fireside in his subsequent novel of Westward Ho. Guy Rivers 
 rose to instant favor. It was republished in London in three volumes. Of 
 the thousand notices of the press, mostly favorable, which it received, I 
 refer you t5 that of Mr. Clark, of the Knickerbocker. This gentleman, wh5 
 since I pronounced him a liar and refused to know him, has spared no 
 occasion t5 lie about and disparage me, spoke of Guy Rivers as * superior in 
 
w: GILMOKK SIMMS. 83 
 
 many respects to the general work of Mr. Cooper ... Belonging to the 
 same family with Guy Rivers are some ten or a dozen volumes, distinguished 
 by great activity of plot, vehement and passionate personality, and pictures 
 and sketches of border character and border scenery, in which I claim to be 
 equally true and natural. There are running through all these works a 
 strong penchant to moral and mental analysis, such as led Hoffman, in one of 
 his notices, to suggest that I would do well to devote a work entirely to the 
 business of working out my metaphysical v(Mn. These works were not 
 published consecutively. 
 
 Guy Rivers made some enemies for me in New England, simply 
 because Jared Buuce, a Yankee Pedlar, was not made the hero of the novel, 
 and was kept simply what he set out to be, a Yankee Pedlar. In this humble 
 character he is yet a good fellow, humane, intelligent, and steadfast, and 
 only, like all pedlars, cunning. It is not true, as you have thought and 
 taught that I got my rogues from New England. Guy Rivers himself is a 
 South Carolinian, and he is the monster of the book. By the way, whole 
 pages of Guy Rivers have been stolen by Seatsfield [ As to this, Mr. A. B. 
 Faust has shown that Simms, not " Seatsfield," was the thief. See page 47 
 of his dissertation on Sealsfield, published in 1892. Griswold naturally 
 assumed the correctness of Simms remark, and Prof. Trent, referring to 
 Griswold s note, says his statement was an exaggeration. Commenting on 
 this Mr. Faust says : u The truth is that Sealsfield borrowed neither much 
 nor little, he borrowed nothing. This is proved by the fact that Sealsfield s 
 book appeared earlier than Guy Rivers, " viz., in U. S. newspapers in 
 1827-28. ] and have been quoted abroad as superior to what could be d5ne by 
 an American, even describing his own country. My Jared Bunce is his 
 Jared Bendell so close is the plagiarism. Richard Hurdis [18 = = 30] 
 was published anonymously and instantly went to a second edition. Border 
 Beagles [19 = = 34] and Beauchampe [20 = = 37] were also published 
 anonymously. 
 
 But these works, though of the same order, did not follow the publica 
 tion of Guy Rivers. That work was succeeded by The Yemassee 
 [21 = 11 =27], the first of my Historical Romances. The sucgess of the 
 Yemassee was even more decided than that of G. R. . . . But it was reserved 
 for the Evening Post to discover what seems to have escaped all the other 
 critics, that the entire mythology of the Yemassee, which they took for 
 Gospel History, was of the author s pure invention, elevating his claims to 
 originality, and that of the work to the standard of pure romance. . . The 
 
84 W: GILMORK SIMMS. 
 
 Yemassee was the first of a class t5 which belongs three other works, viz. 
 The Damsel of Darien [ 22 = 17 = 33 ] Pelayo [23 = 14 = 32] and Count 
 Julian [24 = = 41]. These three works are all founded on Spanish 
 stories, though the scene of the first is in our own country, and the events 
 belong t5 modern times. I d5 not think that the D. of D. ever had justice 
 done it, though it received high praise from certain quarters. The theme 
 was too stately for the taste of our day, which at that time ran on the rough 
 and tumble. Pelayo and Count Julian, though full of scenes and passages of 
 which I should never be ashamed, are yet, in design, not the things that I 
 would make them now. Their history is given in the preface to the latter 
 work. These did not follow the Yemassee in direct order. The Partisan 
 [25 = 12 = 28] a tale of the Revolution, succeeded the Yemassee, a book 
 that sold better and was better liked by readers than by critics. Though 
 distinguished by delineations and scenes which satisfy me, the design was 
 feeble, the parts clumsily put together. Tn truth the printing of the work 
 was begun before the first fifty pages were written. Wherever the action 
 was in progress, the story told, but there were frequent breaks and lapses 
 which spoiled the effect. . . Mellichampe [ 26 = 13 = 29 ] was a continua 
 tion of the Partisan and succeeded it. It was, as a whole, a better work and 
 better written, but possibly had not so many scenes of power. The Kins 
 men, or the Black Riders of the Congaree [27 = = 35 ] belonging to the 
 same family, followed these after some interval. It was, as a story, a better 
 work than either, and an edition ( I think ) of 2,000 or 2,500 copies were sold 
 at $2 retail, when Bulwer or James were retailing at 25 cents. 
 
 In History and Biography I have written a History and Geography of 
 South Carolina [27 = 19 = 60 and 28 = = 61] 2 vols. ; a Life of Gen. 
 Marion [29 = = 62] and one of John Smith, the Founder of Virginia 
 [ 30 = = 63 ] , the last not yet published but printed. The History of South 
 Carolina, though limited in circulation to this state, has already in five years 
 gone t6 three large editions. The MS. of Marion you probably know as well 
 as myself. I have been guilty of tw5 orations, which have been published 
 one delivered before the Erosophic Society of the University of Alabama, 
 entitled The Social Principle, the True Source of National Permanence 
 [31 = = 70] the other before the citizens of Aiken, entitled * The Sources 
 of American Independence [32 = = 71]. As a writer of criticism, I 
 have contributed generously t5 Periodicals North and South, reviewing Mrs. 
 Trollope in the American Quarterly, Miss Martineau in the Messenger, 
 Montgomery s Messiah in the Knickerbocker ( under Flint ) arid Prescott s 
 
W: GILMOKK SIMMS. 85 
 
 Mexico, Home s Spirit of the Age, Alston s and Mathews writings, etc., in 
 the Southern Review, and an immense variety of the same sort of writing in 
 the Southern Literary Journal, the Magnolia, Western and Southern Re 
 view, etc. Of these contributions, the Reviews of Mrs. Trollope and Miss 
 Martineau have been republished in Pamphlet form, and a selection devoted 
 entirely to American topics has been made in two volumes for Wiley and 
 Putnam s Library. I have now gone over the list of books which I have 
 published and which 1 care to acknowledge, and may as well recapitulate. 
 
 Of the novels imaginative you have a large collection of tales 
 gome of which made an entire volume, vix. : 1, Martin Faber: 2, Castle 
 Dismal; 3, Carl Werner, etc. ; 4, Wigwam and Cabin. These make eight 
 volumes. Of the Border Domestic Novels you have : Guy Rivers, Border 
 Beagles, Beauchampe, etc., 10 vols. In Historical Romances you have: 1, 
 The Yemassee,2, Damsel of Darien,3,Pelayo, 4, Count Julian ; 8 vols. Of the 
 Revolutionary Novels : 1, The Partisan, 2, Mellichampe, 3, The Kinsmen, 6. 
 In Biography and History you have: The Life of Marion, Life of Smith, 
 History and Geography of South Carolina, 4 vols. In Criticism 2 vols. and 
 in Pamphlets 2. In Poetry there is: Atalantis, Southern Passages, Donna 
 Florida, Grouped Thoughts, Areytos. 
 
 Talking of Poetry, and of the suppressed volumes, let me remark that 
 Jas. G. Brooks ( Florio ) reviewing one of them published when I was 19, 
 opens thus It is with more than ordinary pleasure that we have to pass 
 judgment on the volume before us. Mr. Simms is entitled to take his place 
 among the first of American poets. The fire of true genius burns in his 
 song, and its light is pure, warm and brilliant. We have read his poetry 
 with unqualified pleasure. We like its very faults, for they are the bold, 
 generous faults of high genius and lofty feelings. This was published in the 
 New York Literary Gazette and American Athenaeum. The review and 
 extracts occupied several pages. Of another of these boyish volumes [" The 
 Vision of CorMs " ; 33 = 3 = 4 ] , John Neal says in his Yankee The man 
 who could write this poetry, could, if he would wait awhile and take time 
 for it do so much better, that instead of speaking highly of what he has done, 
 we are resolved to say nothing in its favor : although if he had not excited 
 such high expectations by here and there a brief passage, a line or two a 
 thought or a simple word, mayhap we should be among the first to say 
 here we have another poet, springing up in the busy solitude of our country, 
 among the ten thousand other neglected flower-bearers of a similar root and 
 a similar growth, born to perish if they do not hold back their strength till 
 
86 W : GILMOKE SIMMS. 
 
 the day of their maturity. I .send you, t5 close fitly this long detail, a sonnet 
 which was published anonymously, but which is supposed to be by Rev. Mr. 
 S. Bulfinch, on the appearance of Atalantis. 
 
 Simms ! thou hast woven a garland tit to wreathe 
 
 Thy country s brow of glory; all things fair 
 
 And wonderful are blent together there 
 
 The flower of Spring, the smooth-lipped shell. There breathe 
 
 Forth from their mystic twines sweet spirit voices, 
 
 And in the spirit are they heard. The heart 
 
 Of one young brother of the lyre rejoices 
 
 In thee and blesses thee ; for thy high art 
 
 Hath wakened thought, and made the feelings dart 
 
 Up to their birthplace, where in boundless light 
 
 Dwell the realities of our visions bright, 
 
 And where thy inspirations have a part. 
 
 Go on then in the brightness of thy mind, 
 
 And in thy country s praise, thy crown of glory find. 
 Of another suppressed work the Knickerbocker, conducted by Flint, 
 writes thus : We admire the spirit in which the book is written. It conies 
 on us in " this age of calculations like a sunbeam from the days of Frois- 
 sart. We like the chivalrous gallantry, the romantic devotion, the generous 
 enthusiasm; all bespeak, not the cold respect of an economizing, calculating 
 generation, but the high, and to us congenial, feeling of some southern and 
 sunny land, where hearts beat with a prouder and loftier sympathy than in 
 these colder climes. 
 
 This summary has been written stampede in uuo, and I have neither 
 the taste nor leisure to run my eye over it after writing. Excuse faults, and 
 try to repair deficiencies as you read. . . Meanwhile hold me very truly, 
 
 Yours, etc., 
 
 W. Gilmore Simms. 
 
 In Prof. Trent s excellent biography of Simms, which is the 
 best of the many works on Southern literature, may be found 
 some remarks on Griswold s relations t6 Southern authors. 
 This compiler, wh6, the professor tells us, is now mentiond 
 only with good-natured contempt or positive scorn, would 
 seem t6 have been an especial nuisance to writers belo Mason 
 
"THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA." 87 
 
 and Dixon s line. Simins was not the only sufferer: "Pink- 
 ney," adds Mr. Trent, "was to die in a year, and, worse fate, 
 was t6 fall into the hands of ... Griswold. Virginia could 
 say much the same thing of the unfortunate Richard Dabney, 
 but he, at least, escaped Griswold." As Griswold had no 
 power t6 injure authors except by making their names familiar 
 t6 a larger number of persons, or, as in the case of Cooke, by 
 getting a publisher for them, it argues great stupidity on their 
 part that they did not avoid the annoyance to thernselvs and 
 their admirers by the simple course of refusing his requests for 
 information and declining his offers of professional help. 
 
 Singularly enuf, Poe and Young America, of wh6m more 
 presently, wer alone among Griswold s contemporaries in see 
 ing what a literary humbug he was, and even Poe did not 
 perceive it till after Griswold had been offerd his place as 
 editor of Graham s Magazine. It is perhaps not so strange, 
 tho, considering that even in our time, in spite of the clear vision 
 enjoyd by posterity, there ar persons unable to understand 
 the true state of the case. One of these persons was the late 
 H : Morford, whdse opinion was quoted on page 36. Another 
 is that of a writer in the Evening Post of 8 July 1893 : 
 
 " An adjoining shelf holds Rufus Wilmot Griswold s familiar 
 work The Poets and Poetry of America, which Poe bitterly 
 assailed in the satire [ as well as in a lecture given shortly after 
 its publication], and concerning which he says in a note, * It 
 is in the invaluable collection of Griswold that I have found 
 the plot and groundwork of the tale . . . The fact seems t6 be 
 generally forgotten that his [Griswold s] literary labors far ex 
 celled in volumnity, research, and intrinsic value those of any 
 other American writer of his time. No man did more than he 
 
88 "THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA." 
 
 to present the claims of American literature to the attention of 
 the American people ; and he made many a thorny path of 
 investigation smooth for the future historian, without receiving 
 any other reward for his industry than the praise of the few 
 wh6 shared his peculiar enthusiasm, and the satisfaction of 
 successful research." 
 
 The metrical satire referred to had the same title as Gris- 
 wold s book. " The poem," continues the Post writer, " which 
 is signed Lavante, is written in heroic couplets and comprises 
 about 950 lines. The fact of Poe s authorship was pretty clearly 
 shown a few years ago by an enterprising gentleman, hiding 
 himself behind the nom de plume of " Geoffrey Quarles," who 
 unearthed the original Philadelphia edition in some out-of-the- 
 way place and carefully edited a reprint." 
 
 Similarly perverse ar the views of Messrs R : H : Stoddard 
 and T : Dunn English. I add them, as literary curiosities, tho, 
 aside from the critical incapacity which they betray, the writers 
 evidence would be thron out of any court on account of their 
 well-known incapacity t6 appreciate Poe s moral worth. 
 
 Here is what Mr. Stoddard had to say as late as 13 Aug. 
 1894 : " Among all the early friends of [ Griswold ] there is no 
 one wh6 . . . remembers him with more kindness. I knew him 
 as well as a young man can know an older man, and only knew 
 him as a kindly gentleman whose delight it was to discover 
 merit where he could, and t6 serve his friends to the utmost. . . 
 I cannot but cherish the memory of Rufus Wilmot Griswold. 
 I write clumsily, but I am sure you will understand my motive 
 and feeling." The re is no excuse for Mr. Stoddard s writing 
 thus in 1894, for he had been told by The Critic in 1889, 
 apropos of an article in * Lippincott s Magazine, that t6 
 attempt t6 defend Griswold was " love s labor lost." 
 
"THE POKTS AND roi-vntY OK AMERICA." 89 
 
 "The charges against him [ Griswold ], " wrote Mr. English 
 1 Oct. 1895, "arose from the disappointed ambition of other 
 parties ; when he prepared his work on The Poets and Poetry 
 of America, the best ever seen of its kind, he made enemies 
 not only of those wh6m he omitted, but of those he did admit 
 wh6re he did not give them great prominence or tickle their 
 vanity. They followed him not only to the day of his death 
 but after it, and slandered him most abominably, as I know. . . 
 [Griswold ] . . . had a great reserve whe~re he could have done 
 much mischief without passing the bounds of truth, and where 
 he could do a service for another he always rendered it freely." 
 The Critic, however, knos better than this : so late as 20 
 Feb. 1897, it [ " J. L. G." ] casually refers t6 Griswold as a 
 person "who made himself famous, or infamous, by his criti 
 cisms of Poe and other poets." 
 
 It is refreshing, after reading such silly remarks as these, t6 
 turn to the candid and judicial commentary of Mr. Edmund 
 Gosse. Mr. Gosse, being an Englishman, writes with entire 
 impartiality, as well as a hi degree of acumen. His restraind 
 and dignified style is worthy of the precision of his views : for 
 sweetness and light where can be found a passage which 
 exceeds this?: 
 
 " It did not occur to our innocent mind, that the world could 
 produce an insect so ingeniously wicked [as Griswold]." As 
 t6 " this infamous person ... we leave the particulars of his 
 life to those painstaking naturalists that make the hemiptera 
 the subject of their special study. If he has a grave may the 
 toad pour out her poison the 1 re ; if he lives, may he live long 
 yet t6 enjoy the execration of all well-disposed persons. . . 
 Such conduct requires a motive. The bewildered reader asks 
 why? The answer is that the biographer was also a maker of 
 
90 "THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA." 
 
 books, of very trumpery books, that Foe was a trenchant and 
 fearless reviewer, and that he had occasion to show Griswold 
 up as an impostor. " 
 
 This theory, started by Mr. W : F. Gill, has been adopted 
 by Poe s other admirers, Messrs Didier and Ingram. Yet 
 these writers can hardly hav overlookd the facts mentiond by 
 Mr. W : J. Stillman in * The Nation of 11 Apr. 1878 : 
 
 " As if finally to refute his own theory of the malice of the previous 
 biographer, Mr. Gill prints a review by Poe of Grisvvold s * Poets of Amer 
 ica ... Now, not only is the criticism itself in the very worst style of that 
 crude and abusive early period of American literature; not only does it show 
 us Poe as introducing puffs of himself, over and over again . . . but it specifi 
 cally refutes the precise argument* for whose sake it is introduced. This 
 review by Poe was aimed at the third edition of Griswold s tedious book; 
 whereas anyone who will refer to the first edition will find that the author 
 had already implied there, very distinctly, the same low moral estimate of 
 Poe which he later showed. In short, it was Poe, not Griswold, who wrote 
 under a grudge. " 
 
 It is possible that the views of Mr. Trent and Mr. Gosse 
 upon Griswold s book wer not based on independent examina 
 tion, but wer merely echoes of Poe s opinion. How the latter 
 came to write his review, and his animus in doing it, may be 
 read elsewhere ; and, whatever his motiv, his opinion of the 
 book may have been the right one. But it is well t6 take int6 
 consideration the principle on which his reviews wer written, 
 as shon in Burton s letter t6 him of 30 May 1839 : 
 
 I am sorry that you thought necessary to send me such a letter 
 as your last. . . I cannot agree to entertain your proposition, either injustice 
 to yourself or t5 my own interest. The worldly experience of which you 
 speak has not taught me [to] conciliate authors of whom I know nothing 
 and from whom I can expect nothing. Such a supposition is but a poor 
 comment upon my honesty of opinion, or the principles of expediency 
 which you would insinuate as actuating my conduct. I have been as severely 
 handled in the world as you can possibly have been, but my sufferings have 
 
THE POKTS AND POETRY OF AMERICA." 91 
 
 not tinged my mind with a melancholy hue, nor do I allow my views of my 
 fellow creatures to be jaundiced by the fog of my own creation. . . You must 
 get rid of your avowed ill-feelings towards your brother authors you see 
 that I speak plainly indeed, I cannot speak otherwise. Several of my 
 friends, hearing of our connexion, have warned me of your uncalled-for 
 severity in criticism. 
 
 Mr. J : H. Ingram saw that this letter threw an undesired 
 light on his hero s literary character, and suppressd it. When 
 calld t& account for so d6ing, in Temple Bar for August 
 1883, he replied in The Academy that "Griswold inserted a 
 letter the authenticity of which I have every reason to doubt, 
 and which I did not, therefore, republish." Under these cir 
 cumstances it is fitting t6 remark that the above quotations hav 
 been made from the autograph. 
 
 That Poe experiencd no change of heart in this matter is 
 clear from the folloing : 
 
 " Poe," we read in k The Literary World of 21 Sept. 1850, " was, in the 
 very centre of his soul, a literary attorney, and pleaded according to his fee. 
 To omit, when properly invited to do so, to retain Poe, by an advance of his 
 peculium, was to incur his everlasting hostility ; and it is a striking illustra 
 tion of this, that the author who is made the most constant occasion, through 
 out these six hundred pages [ The Literati volume ] , of malevolent abuse 
 and misrepresentation, is one who, both from principle and necessity, never 
 allowed himself to be taxed by the late Poe to the extent of a dollar. And 
 yet the author of The Literati was not without a gleam of consciousness of 
 the peculiar course he was pursuing. For instance, we have here ... a 
 particularly personal and impertinent review . . . which Poe himself, subse 
 quently, when sober, characterized, in a letter to Mr. Mathews now before 
 us, Could I imagine that, at any moment, you regarded a certain impu 
 dent and flippant critique as more than a matter to be laughed at, I would 
 proffer you an apology on the spot. Since I scribbled the article in question, 
 you yourself have given me fifty good reasons for being ashamed of it. " 
 
 Griswold seems t6 have knon what wer the vulnerable points 
 of his book, for in the preface to the edition of 1855 he has the 
 folloing : 
 
92 " THE POETS AND POETRY OF AMERICA. " 
 
 "The book was in the first place too hastily prepared. The re was 
 difficulty in procuring materials, and in deciding, where so many had some 
 sort of claim to the title, whom to regard as Poets. The re had been publish 
 ed in this country about five hundred volumes of rhythmical compositions of 
 various kinds and degrees of merit, nearly all of which I read with more or 
 less attention. From the mass I chose about one-fifth, as containing writings 
 not unworthy of notice in such an examination of this part of our literature 
 as I proposed to make. I have been censured, perhaps justly, for the wide 
 range of my selections. But I did not consider all the contents of the vol 
 ume Poetry. I aimed merely to show what had been accomplished toward a 
 Poetical Literature by our writers in verse before the close of the first half 
 century of our national existence. A\ r ith much of the first order of excel 
 lence, more was accepted that was comparatively poor. But I believe 
 nothing was admitted inferior to passages in the most celebrated foreign 
 works of like character. I have also been condemned for omissions. But 
 on this score I have no regrets. I can think of no name not included in the 
 first edition which I would now admit without better credentials than were 
 before me when that edition was printed." 
 
 A continuation of the work was prepared by^Ii : H : Stoddard in 1872. 
 A passage in his preface indicates that the work, even at that date, was not 
 without value : 
 
 " The reasons which determined this . . . intention to leave Dr. Gris- 
 wold s own work intact were submitted to some of the editor s literary 
 friends, who acquiesed in their justice. If I were in your place, was the 
 advice one gave, I should not mix my work and Griswold s, but leave the 
 latter precisely as he left it. Every reader now will want Griswold s book 
 (at least I do ), with his biographies, critical remarks, and selections. The 
 latter are as good as is necessary; giving in almost all cases, the author s best 
 and most characteristic poems ; while his criticisms would lose their histori 
 cal value if meddled with. T5 be sure he got into a good deal of hot water 
 ( the re, by the way, is a warning to you, in dealing with the new names,) 
 but all that has passed away. No one can complain if you let his articles 
 stand, while th^re might be a great deal of complaint if you meddle with 
 them. " 
 
 New York, July 10, 1841. 
 Rufe Gris : 
 
 ... I am poor as a Church mouse and not half so saucy. I have 
 had losses this week, and am very perplexed and afflicted. I feel limber as 
 
HORACE GREELEY. 93 
 
 a rag. But better luck must come. I am fishing for a partner in The 
 Tribune, and have hopes of securing one. A week will show. 
 
 Raymond has gone up the river tonight, on his way to Utica to report 
 the decision in the McLeod Case. Meantime I am on double duty, and shall 
 hardly have time to wink, let alone sleeping. 
 
 . . . About my account with Haughton s estate. It will be perfectly 
 easy for the executors by turning to the file of the Atlas for 1839 ( commenc 
 ing with two or three letters from Albany ) to see what my account is against 
 the concern. I was to have $50 a month for correspondence Haughton s 
 own offer. How much he paid me will easily be seen by turning to his 
 Ledger for that year. I kept no account the Atlas is my ledger ; I only 
 know that I was not paid into about one month, or $50. That balance I 
 should like, either with or without interest; but if I don t get it, I shall do 
 without. I hope, however, the Executors will at least do me the favor to 
 look into the matter, and adjudge me what they find due me. 
 
 Gris, I hope you and Demorest will find it convenient and think it 
 advisable to take the old Yorker, in September. I know I could do as well 
 with it pecuniarily in another shape; but I feel a pride in the old paper, and 
 hate to see it go down. It has a sort of reputation and character on which 
 talent, energy, industry and business tact can build a fortune, I hope. . . 
 
 I suppose I have bored you enough with my sorrows, etc. Luck t5 
 you, boy, and may you find a faithful guardian one day ; if you belonged to 
 somebody you would be worth a whole India Rubber Company. The mis 
 fortune of being born free has ruined you. Yours, tolerably, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Richmond, Va., July 17, 1841. 
 R. W. Gris wold, Esq., My dear Friend, 
 
 I wish you to write " all sorts" of an article for the Messenger 
 not on the lawless outrage committed on Lud low s property, an outrage that 
 would justify a result to arms on our part to recover his property, but I 
 wish you to pen a paper for me on Mount Auburn, tell us of the thoughts 
 that pass in your mind, as you tread that consecrated spot. Give us with it, 
 too, your own reflections on Death. Or, if you do not fancy a subject so 
 rife with melancholy, send me a Sketch of Longfellow. I love the man, 
 and therefore I wish my friends to love him likewise. 
 
 Or, if you fancy neither of these subjects, choose one for yourself. I 
 care not what you write on, so you put your varied power into full requisi- 
 
94 JAMES T : FIELDS. 
 
 tion. And, mind, I do not ask you to do this work for me for naught. You 
 shall take some remuneration for the labor. 
 
 . . . All your notices will grace its pages, and I regret, deeply regret, 
 that you had not sent me as many more. God Bless, Prosper, and Protect 
 you from all danger, is the prayer of Your Friend, 
 
 Th. W. White. 
 
 ;Portsinouth, July 20, 1841. 
 My Dear Griswold, 
 
 Just out of bed, and before shaving (think of that, Master 
 Brooke ) I am inditing a very brief epistle to each of my particular cronies 
 on Tri-Mountaiu. 
 
 Imprimis, I send you for insertion in the Times and afterwards in the 
 Notion or vice versa, a copy of verses which were enclosed in a letter 
 addressed to your humble servant at our Portsmouth Fair last week. I can 
 just guess the author, but dare not put her name to the piece. It has been 
 shown to a few only and has never been printed, so it will come out capitally 
 in your paper, which by the bye, is the only solace in the way of literature I 
 have known since my sojourn. 
 
 I would write you a long letter setting forth how I have fished in the 
 streams^ sailed on the rivers, rode [sic] on the beach, kissed the girls under 
 the hedges, and made rhymes for commencement, but time fails me and the 
 Engine, like " Time and Tide," waits for no man. 
 
 That I have enjoyed every moment since Wednesday last, a clear con 
 science and a sun-burnt phiz amply will testify. . . Here are the lines, and a 
 benison on R. W. G. Yours very truly, 
 
 J. T. Ffields]. 
 
 NewjYork, July 26, 1841. 
 Ruf e Gris : 
 
 Why in thunder did you go off on Saturday without seeing me 
 or seeing Demorest? I anxiously wished something to be resolved on about 
 our entangled business, but never a syllable did I get, or was there to get. 
 Why didn t you think of it? I beg you t5 do so at once. If Dem. and you 
 don t want to take The New-Yorker, very well ; but I want to know it soon, 
 so that I may look out in other quarters. One way or another, I must dis 
 pose of it, and that speedily. Write me. 
 
 Another matter: You wrote me for a Kedge-Anchor something, and 
 I got it and forwarded it promptly. But you promised me a copy of 
 
INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 95 
 
 Parker s Sermons long since and I have not seen the shadow of it yet. What 
 can you say to that? No matter : This you must do : send me the value of 
 my Kedge- Anchor ( price $2 ) in Parker s Sermons, and do it right off. I 
 want them for distribution. I have read a borrowed copy, and I like it 
 scandalously. Now don t disappoint me, I pray you, and write me what 
 you think about the New-Yorker. 
 
 I have a letter this morning from W. H. Burleigh, with a good Poem. 
 Do him justice in your medley ; his friends don t ask any favors. He tells 
 me his book sells, which I marvel at, knowing its unmistakable excellence. 
 
 Let me know anything of interest. Yours, etc., 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Washington, July 28, 1841. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 Yours of the 6th I duly received. It will give me great pleasure 
 to furnish you the biographies you mention upon the terms stated ( for my 
 circumstances will not suft er me to pursue^my inclination in such matters ). 
 
 ... I have a poem by me of some 1800 lines which I should be glad to 
 publish in Boston, for they get such things up well there, and there is a 
 credit, of itself, in appearing in the poetical line from the press of the 
 " literary Emporium." 
 
 Prentice, Poe, Ingraham and others have seen the poem and pronounce 
 It decidedly the best thing I have accomplished. I have had it by me three 
 years awaiting the movement of the waters in the literary world. Have you 
 ever thought of the international copyright Law? I trust in God that after 
 we get a bank and a bankruptcy] bill, that this law will not be forgotten. 
 In ev?ry other country but ours literary men are at the top of the heap. 
 Look at France: Thiers, Guizot, etc., see England. Here we are the 
 poorest devils under the eye of "God s shadow," the sun. Hoping that 
 these things may not always be, I sincerely sympathize with you, in your 
 ardent desire to advance the interest of American Literature. Yours truly, 
 
 F. W. Thomas. 
 
 Have you seen " Specimens of Western Poetry?" [" Selections from 
 the Poetical Literature of the West." Cin ti, U. P. James, 264 pp. ] I am 
 told the work is edited by W. D. Gallagher, who has put Mr. Gallagher s 
 poems first and longest! This may be Gallagher s opinion of his own merits, 
 but Prentice is the first poet of the West, if not Amelia. G. is behind 
 either of them. Don t vou think so? 
 
GREELEY AND WHITE. 
 
 New York, August 4, 1841. 
 Rufe (iris wo Id. 
 
 Just hear me : If you let other People get Extras another time 
 and I none, I ll blow you up, now mind ! If you had sent me 200 off the 
 Atlas yesterday, they would have been worth $10 to me. Now don t make 
 any excuses, but send me the Extras next time without fail. Send me as 
 many as they will give you for $10 from the Atlas or any other decent paper, 
 and put them through by Harnden or Adams, even though an Express has 
 gone on before. . . 
 
 Now about the Yorker ; Demorest has given up all idea of taking it. 
 I suspected he would do so from the first. Such an undecided, timid, shilly 
 shally fellow I never attempted to deal with, and I felt relieved when he 
 gave up. Now if you can find any capable person who will take The New 
 Yorker I shall be glad ; if not, I don t care. I shall break it down and start 
 a weekly Tribune next month. . . 
 
 Nothing new here. The New World goes about like a rover, and The 
 Tribune is doing better. I have great hopes of it, if you won t continue to 
 murder me in the matter of Extras. Do you hear? Also the Parker s ser-. 
 mons. I understand the Jonathan is making money. 
 
 Raym. is away, and I have an awful sawney to help me. It gives me 
 the toothache to look at him, let alone anything farther. He s no good. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Richmond, Va., Sept. 12, 1841. 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq., My Friend, 
 
 The notices you were kind enough to send me from Philadelphia 
 came to hand, much to my regret, too late for my Sept. No. They are all in 
 type and will be in the October number, ( along with your just tribute t5 
 Goodrich ) , which I hope to have in as early at any rate as the first of Octo 
 ber. The last form will go to press next Friday, before I could get a few 
 more fresh notices from your pen. . . 
 
 Griswold, I have seen enough of you to make me Jove you. I have my 
 eye on you, and, it may be, if you and I live a year or two longer, that I 
 may have t5 call on you for help help that I shall be able to pay you for. 
 
 In haste, Your Friend, 
 
 Th: W. White. 
 
JAMES T! FIELDS. 97 
 
 Boston, Sept. 15, 1841. 
 My Dear Boy : 
 
 This is Epistle No. 3. Think of that and weep, oh, Rufus! 
 What has become of the other 2 ? Heaven only knows. . . In regard to 
 B[radbury] and S[oden], poor Soden, I fear, is on his death bed. His 
 partner told me this morning that matters had been arranged before his 
 illness and you was to be co-editor of the new Mag. [ The Boston Miscel 
 lany ] at $1250 per annum. But as affairs stand now, I cannot tell what will 
 be done. 
 
 The poem went off like a volcano: more anon. I am to repeat it at 
 our Lyceum, 7th October and at Salem, the same week. 
 
 I send with this a package from Mr. Norton. Today I saw Dana at 
 Brackett s room. B. has finished a fine bust of him and also of Sprague. 
 
 All well and glad to hear of your recovery. Kiss the small Edition for 
 Your friend and fellow sinner, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Boston, September 15th, 1841. 
 Friend Griswold : 
 
 . . . Roberts has engaged [T : P. ? J Kettell, I believe, who com 
 mences today. . . Of how much advantage will it be t5 Roberts to change his 
 editors so often? Yours, etc., 
 
 A. G. Tenny. 
 
 New Brighton, 22 September, 1841. 
 Sir, 
 
 I ... rejoice that before your work goes to press I shall be able to 
 correct some errors. " Truth and Falsehood " is not mine, and I know not 
 even whose it is. The lines in answer to some of Willis are my brother 
 John W. Wilde s. Very Resp y, Your Obedient Servant, 
 
 R. H. Wilde. 
 
 Washington, Sept. 23, 1841. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 ... I knew [ E : Coate ] Pinkney slightly. He was a very hand 
 some man, punctilious to a fault, wayward, and Byrouic, chivalrous and 
 enthusiastic. . . I have always thought him the most original of our Poets. . . 
 
98 F: w: THOMAS. 
 
 I think certainly that Flint and [ J. H. ] Perkins should have a place in your 
 book. The former I never knew. Perkins I know very well. He is decid 
 edly a man of original genius. He has written often and powerfully for the 
 North American and other periodicals, and is the author of many sketches, 
 which have much of the point of Charles Lamb in them. They are, if I may 
 BO express myself, between Lamb and Dickens, without imitating either. His 
 poetry is not equal, at all, to his prose, I scarcely have a poem of his impress 
 ed upon any memory. 
 
 With regard to your humble servant I was born in October 25, 1810, 
 (I think it was October, but the family bible is in the far west, and I cannot 
 compete with T. Shandy, Esq., who tells the hour he was begotten. * Have 
 you wound up the clock, Mr. Shandy?" etc. ) [In letter of 3 Aug., Thomas 
 wrote that he was born in 1808; the figures ar distinct in both letters. ] 
 
 ... By the bye I have a song by me, which has been set to music by a 
 friend of mine here. The tune meets the approbation of several of the fair 
 ( his pupils and others, for he is a teacher of music ) and I am anxious to 
 have it published. I will give the copyright of it gratis to any music pub 
 lisher who will publish it. If to make the inquiry in the matter would not 
 give you trouble may I ask it of you? The song is of four verses, four 
 lines in a verse. If instead of " No song no supper " in these troublous times 
 songs cannot even be given away will you learn for me the cost of printing 
 it? I would not ask you to make the inquiry for me, were there a music 
 publisher here, but there is not. 
 
 By the bye Kobert Tyler, one of the President s sons, is a poet did 
 you know it? I do not say it because of his situation or his politics; but I 
 say it because I have seen the MS. of a poem which he is now writing, and I 
 think, sincerely, he is a man of fine genius and will, I believe, make a hit 
 with this effort. 
 
 Let me hear from you soon. All that concerns literature or literary 
 men is to me of the deepest interest particularly that and those of " mine 
 own countrie. " Yours truly, 
 
 F. W. Thomas. 
 
 Concord, Sept. 25, 1841. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Jones Very is a native of Salem, the son of a sea-captain who 
 made many voyages to the north of Europe, in two of which he was accom- 
 
R. W. EMERSON. 99 
 
 panied by his son. He wrote his Essay on Hamlet with the more interest 
 from having twice seen Elsineur [sic]. After his father s death, he pre 
 pared himself for college, and entered Harvard University in 1832, was 
 graduated in 1836, and was appointed Greek Tutor in the College in the 
 same year. Whilst he held this office, a religious enthusiasm took possession 
 of his mind, which gradually produced so great a change in him that his 
 friends withdrew him from Cambridge [ and placed him for a short time in 
 the M Lean Asylum at Charlestown. His residence there produced little or 
 no alteration and ] he soon after went to Salem, where he wrote most of the 
 poems in the little volume. He is now in a state of somewhat firmer health, 
 I believe, but rarely writes any verses. In the Dial, No. V., you will find a 
 brief notice of his Poems, written by me, to which I know not that I can add 
 any thing excepting the few dates above written. 
 
 In regard to my own verses, I have printed them all either in the 
 " Western Messenger," in the same Number which contained the Humble- 
 Bee, or the two or three following numbers, where they appeared with my 
 name, or in the Dial. As I do not happen to have in the house a copy of 
 either of these Journals, I can only indicate those which I remember in the 
 Dial. Th ey are " The Problem; " Stanzas " O fair and stately maid, whose 
 eye etc. ; " " Suum cuique ; " " The Snow-storm ; " " The Sphinx ; " "Wood- 
 notes No. I ; " and " Wood Notes No. II " which appears in the forthcoming 
 number for October, with a little piece called " Fate," and another " Paint 
 ing and Sculpture." There may be more than these few, but I do not 
 remember them. In answer to your request for dates of birth and educa 
 tion, I reply, I was born in Boston in 1803, and was graduated at Cambridge 
 in 1821. 
 
 Will you allow me to call your attention to the few pieces in the Dial 
 signed H. D. T. ( or, by mistake, D. H. T. ) which were written by Henry D. \ 
 Thoreau, of this town, a graduate of Cambridge in the year 1837. Unless I 
 am greatly mistaken, Mr. Thoreau already deserves and will .more and more 
 deserve your attention as a writer of American Poetry. 
 
 I hope these few facts may suffice as a reply to your inquiry. In re 
 gard to Mr. Very I draw bracketts over the lines which I think ought not now 
 to be published. With good wishes for your success in your enterprise, I am 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 R. W. Emerson. 
 
100 THE SOUTHERN LITERARY MESSENGER. 
 
 New York, Oct. 19, 1841. 
 My dear Sir [ Graham ] : 
 
 . . . Would you like to have an occasional poem from Professor 
 Longfellow? I think I could get him to write for you at $20. He asks $25. 
 I thank Mr. Poe heartily for his just notice just as regards censure. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 Park Benjamin. 
 
 We read in Godwin s life that Bryant, when asked to put a price upon 
 the poems he contributed to the U. S. Gazette in 1823-25, suggested $2. each. 
 This rate was raised by the publisher to 16 cents per line. 
 
 Richmond, Va., Oct. 20, 1841. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Esq., My Dear Friend, 
 
 " Tis true and pity tis, tis true," that I am confoundedly 
 hard pressed still. For eight long years, have I been toiling for naught. 
 All my energies, all my industry, all my tact, all my funds, all all, have 
 been given to this pet [the Messenger] of mine. And for what? Fora 
 little Fame for having it said that I had achieved what no one else could 
 accomplish in our Southern States. Well, I have succeeded at last, I believe, 
 in placing my publication on a solid foundation on a foundation that will 
 last, at least, as long as I shall last. Next year I mean to go for making 
 money, and make it I will, if application can accomplish so desirable a 
 desideratum. [ He died 19 January 1843. ] 
 
 Thank you for your occasional help. Your notices of publications, 
 pithy as they are, give information that is desirable and much needed. All 
 that you have sent me I have used. . . 
 
 If I had not become so accustomed to disappointments, you would 
 have caused my " mouth to water " for the delicious food you have promised 
 me, for my next. If it comes, I shall roll it " under my tongue " as a most 
 precious morsel. 
 
 Presuming you will have no objection to a little help, I send you a 
 check for $6.25, and my note for $14.75. Take the trouble, if you please, to 
 call on the Harpers. I will ask them to cash it for you. It will, I hope, be 
 worth to you in it s full face, $13.75, which will make $20, 1 will have sent 
 you. ( Mind the Harpers do not owe me a dollar on earth, nor have I any 
 claims on them. Still they are my friends, and therefore it is that I think 
 they will accommodate you and m ). In great haste, Your Friend, 
 
 Tb : W. White. 
 
MRS. 8IGOUKNEY. 101 
 
 Richmond, Va., Oct. 29, 1841. 
 Kufus W. (Jris wold, Esq., My Dear Friend, 
 
 . . . Let me get the favor of you to read " The Hunchback," so 
 far as it goes and to give your opinion of it, freely and candidly. It strikes 
 me as being very fine very far superior to any novel-writing that has issued 
 from the American press for the 20 past years. I have here an able co- 
 laborer Heath [?J ... Your Friend, 
 
 Th : W. White. 
 Griswold had become one of the editors of the Philadelphia Gazette. 
 
 Near the Sources of Salt River, New York, Nov. 5, 1841. 
 Friend Gris : 
 
 I haven t done anything I promised you and why ? Because I 
 couldn t. I went to see Mr. Root on Tuesday, but could find nothing out. 
 Root did not know her [Mrs. Sigourney] till she lived in Hartford. Sol 
 have no data; and where can J get any? I don t know, I m sure. So I do 
 nothing, and wait to hear from you. 
 
 Raymond is still down on his luck; I fear he will never be well. "We 
 apprehend he has Bronchitis tending to Consumption. 
 
 Aren t we horribly smashed up in this State? We haven t a grease- 
 spot left Assembly, Senate, Canal-Board, Appointments, all All gone, 
 and forgot the light we saw breaking. Yours, with a broken back and a 
 heavy heart, 4 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 [10 Nov., 1841. ?] 
 My dear Gris : 
 
 I return herewith Brainard with a sketch of his life comprising 
 what I wished to say of him though ofttimes not expressed as I w r ould have 
 it. You must look it over, reconcile any inconsistences and correct any 
 errors, either in thought or style, which you may discover. The opinions 
 expressed are such as I really entertain, tho if they don t suit your notions 
 or your purposes, of course you must change them till they do so. I m 
 getting well fast and shall soon be able to take my seat in the office again. I 
 shall leave this with Greeley and it will go to Philadelphia sometime tho I 
 know not when. I trust it will not be too late. Do you wish me to do any 
 thing for the Southern Literary Messenger? If so what? I can do it now 
 at any time. Yours faithfully, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
102 MRS. SIGOURNEY. 
 
 New York, Nov. 13, 1841. 
 Dear Gris : 
 
 Your note and book received. Having got the right sort of a 
 letter from Burleigh, I have set right down and written you an upset of it, 
 so as to be sure of it. I know this is not the thing you want, it is too diffuse 
 and flowing ; but I think you need only strike out a portion here and there, 
 and change a few words to make all right. I can t tell just what will be your 
 fashion of treating living writers, so I put in all, and leave you to cut out at 
 your discretion. How could I do better? I shall try to plaster over Mrs. 
 Sigourney tomorrow; but you know how bad a job it is. As it won t do t5 
 say a word of her real history, how will it be possible to say any think? . . . 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 New York, Nov. 17, 1841. 
 R. W. Gris wold, Esq., My Friend : 
 
 Have you got my Biography of Burleigh? It is too long and 
 precise, but you can cut it down, I think, with little trouble. 
 
 I have just done up Mrs. Sigourney by neglecting my own business 
 entirely. . . This isn t a good biography; I ve lost the list of her works, but 
 that is no loss at all. The biography is less humdrum without it. You can 
 carve and plaster to suit your taste. 
 
 Raymond is getting up, but good for nothing yet. I have Mrs. Ellet 
 t5 write for you that is all, I believe. I will try to do that sometime soon, 
 and have it off my mind. 
 
 Now write me a few racy, spicy not personal, far less malignant 
 [letters] depicting Society and Life in Philadelphia. S T oo?i,mind. Where s 
 Eldredge? 
 
 Gris, don t have it known that you are connected with the Philadel 
 phia Gazette. It will kill you. I never knew such a Thersites. You could 
 not have written that attack on Rob. Walsh, certainly. Write me. 
 
 [H. Greeley.] 
 
 Boston. 18 Nov., 1841. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 Some time since you and I had a conversation upon the subject 
 of the Editorship of the Boston Transcript, at which time you expressed 
 yourself in favor of some arrangement with this Paper. I should be happy 
 t5 hear from you upon the subject and learn your views in relation to an 
 
BOSTON AFFAIRS. 103 
 
 arrangement, such particulars, I mean, as to enable me to juuge of the terms 
 on which an arrangement with you could be effected. . . Yours truly, 
 
 James A. G. Otis. 
 
 New York, Nov. 23, 1841. * 
 Dear Gris : 
 
 Keep up heart and hope. I trust you are not so ill as you think, 
 though you are bent on killing yourself with calomel and carelessness ere 
 long. But you must not go until your great work is out : after that you can 
 afford to die. If you are taken dangerously ill I mean in danger of not 
 being able to oversee it be sure you leave it in good hands. . . 
 
 We are d5iug middling well not more. Be careful of what life is left 
 in you, and turn Grahamite. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 12,1841. 
 My dear Kufus : 
 
 ... In regard to the ages of those individual poets, not one will 
 tell in what year he saw the light, so you will be obliged to say nothing on 
 that head. . . 
 
 Dana was in a few days since and asked for you, was very sorry t5 
 hear you had been ill. Longfellow has been out of health but is now, I 
 believe, recovered. He always inquires for you. Tuckerman is now at my 
 elbow and says " my best regards to R. W. G. " 
 
 T cannot get out of those fellows when the Lord made them, or I 
 would gladly give you the dates. They all seem delicate as a spinster on 
 that point, so you must give it up. 
 
 Allston has just accepted the office of President of a new Artists 
 society, got up in this city, a few days since. Braham is here, antiquating 
 melody most abominably. Jane Sloman carries everything before her, and 
 the " Circus is now open. " This is all of news I can indite. We are dull on 
 that point. One of our largest houses is in hot water. If they ( the firm ) 
 get out it will be with a scald at least. I refer td Billiard, Gray & Co. . . In 
 great haste, Very truly Yours. 
 
 J. T. F field*]. 
 
 1 Jan.. 1842. 
 My Dear Friend [Keesej : 
 
 Positively Mr. Griswold is the kindest, most generous and 
 amiable man I ever yet knew. The impression he made on me the first 
 moment I ever saw him, has continued in all its warmth and force. 
 
104 C: FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 He made an excuse that it was too late to call ou Mr. Benjamin, in 
 order to get me to go home with him. I have just returned loaded with 
 books, autographs and engravings, rich and rare, and yet I feel as if they 
 were the least the manner of conferring the favors, the sweet amiable 
 manner, increased them tenfold. I could do anything to serve such an 
 amiable being. I feel indeed your debtor, for introducing me to Mr. 
 Griswold, and only wish I knew how to show my gratitude both to you and 
 him. . . Ever gratefully and faithfully yours, 
 
 R. Balmanno. 
 
 37 Murray St., New York, Jan. 11, 1842. 
 My Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . That scrap which I gave you for the Memoir omit or shape 
 it as you think best. I am sorry now I suggested the Mirror for if every 
 one mentions his year of editorship poor Morris, I fear, would be marked as 
 the court gallant in the play when one claims the cloak, one the feathered 
 beaver, and a third his doublet, until the unlucky Magnitico is only left a 
 shirt to shrive in. 
 
 You might lump the matter in this way" became the proprietor of the 
 American Monthly in March, 35, and during the three or four following 
 years, while the chief editor of the same, as well as subsequently, his pen 
 was also busy in the Mirror, New Yorker, and other journals, in all of which, 
 among a variety of subjects, he wrote zealously in favor of international 
 copyright." 
 
 Now for God s sake don t keep this to put into your curiosities of 
 literature under the head of "whimwhams of egotistical authors. My 
 friend, it is no whimwham ! I have a deep design in it. The fact is, I have 
 such a devil of a bad reputation for laziness that I want to get credit in your 
 book for every atom of industry that really belongs to me, and that without 
 jostling the fame of others. Who has worked harder . . . than Morris? Tell 
 me, thou biographical Warwick, " the setter up and puller down of 
 Kings " ( poetic ones ) . Ever yours truly, 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
 New York, Feb. 18, 1842. 
 R. W. Griswold, 
 
 I have delivered my Lecture here, and got a few copies printed 
 for my own use. I send you one by this mail, which you will keep out of 
 
HORACE GKKKLKY. 105 
 
 the dirty hands of all type-stickers, for the present. I am going to repeat it 
 at Newark a week from Monday evening, and of course don t mean to pub 
 lish it yet, nor before the 1st of April. But it has some good thoughts, and I 
 would like a chance of trying it on to a Philadelphia audience, if I could get 
 a right good one. Is this thing practicable? I know there are hardly a 
 hundred persons in Philadelphia who know of me, yet if one of your Lecture 
 Associations should have a hole in their programme, they might call me to 
 fill it, if suggested. Now, mind ; I don t want a chance begged ; I don t want 
 to come to Philadelphia t5 lecture to a school-room full of loafers. But if 
 the right thing is practicable within a fortnight or so, you will know it, and 
 can arrange it. If not, say no more about it, but keep my Lecture close. If 
 I come, I should expect t5 be paid my expenses at least, though that would 
 be no object. What I want is a hearing. So much for fun : Now to busi 
 ness. Bisbee dunned me today to write sketches of the leading Editors of 
 the Country for a new monthly periodical. I told him I would do it only 
 with your co-operation that I could rather lick you in solid writing, but in 
 universal knowledge of men and things in Literary cooperism, you were 
 boss, decidedly. Well, he agreed t5 write you today. Now, Gris, I write to 
 say ; ask a fair price for doing it, and stipulate how it is t5 be done. I think 
 about two pages to each person, and six editors to a number, would be the 
 load. They will probably be illustrated. Now if this thing is to be done, it 
 ought t5 be worth $>o a biography or Portrait (to be divided between 
 Sternhold and Hopkins ) and it must be kept utterly a secret. If it is known 
 to these persons who is doing it, it won t be done at all. The Biog s must be 
 perfectly impartial and conscientious, or they will be drivel and fall dead. 
 This is all for once. Read my Lecture tSmorrow evening; take a 
 strong cup of tea and put a piece of ice in the back of your neck, and you ll 
 get through it. Then give me a thorough criticism in one page. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Richmond, Va., 9th March, 1842. 
 Dear Gris wold, 
 
 Tis not every man who ought to have influence that has it. I 
 have known Upshaw [the Secretary of the Navy ] long and intimately. I 
 ever have been, as I still am, his warm friend and admirer. Still I have not 
 the vanity t5 believe that I have the least influence with him. 
 
 What I think of yourself , and of your claims, I shall endorse in this. 
 If not what you desire, fashion a paper for yourself, send it on to me and I 
 
106 HORACE GKEELEY. 
 
 will adopt it as my own. I like you much, and liking you am willing t5 do 
 all for you that lies in my power. . . In great haste, Your friend, 
 
 T. W. W [bite]. 
 
 New York. March 22, 1S42. 
 Dear Gris, 
 
 . . . We got out our double sheet Daily this morning, and I 
 respectfully submit that it is no small potatoes. ( 25,000 to 30,000 copies.) I 
 had to fight to get in the tall puff of < The Poets which you will find in the 
 best place in the paper, but I did get it in, while a great many others were 
 left out, which I had promised, and meant to get in. If The Poets do not 
 sell, the fault shall not be mine. 
 
 When will you be on ? I want you to bring me a right good copy to 
 keep, and an ordinary one to write notices from, which I don t mind paying 
 cost for. I want to write a Review for the Southern Literary, but don t 
 know how to begin on the proof-sheets I have with me. However, I must 
 try, if you are not here by Saturday. 
 
 Can you find any materials in Philadelphia for my Life and Eloquence 
 of John Randolph? or for my * Life of Capt. John Smith? which you have 
 not already? The latter is to be got up soon, between you and I, as soon as 
 you are a free man. 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 April 20, 1842. 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq., Dear Sir: 
 
 Have you fully determined on assuming the Chaplaincy and t5 
 abandon the editorial chair? Or could you find it in your heart to locate in 
 Philadelphia? Let me hear from you as I have a proposal to make. 
 
 I like your book much. We received it from Carey and Hart yester 
 day, and although it will give offence t5 a few, it will be popular, and please 
 every man of taste. Yours, 
 
 G. R. Graham. 
 
 May 3, 1842. 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq., Dear Sir, 
 
 Your letter I should have acknowledged ere this but have over 
 looked the closing sentence. I am glad that you agree to our proposal, and 
 we shall be ready to give you the "right hand of fellowship," as soon as 
 orders are taken. Mr. P[eterson ] is right. The salary [is J to be $1,000 
 
UNBIASSKD CRITICISM. 107 
 
 per annum. We shall hope to see the light of your countenance soon. Do 
 you know how I could get full length drawings of Longfellow, Bryant, 
 Irving, and other authors? Yours, 
 
 G. R. Graham. 
 
 New York, May 16, 1842. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Reverend Sir: 
 
 Can t you contrive to be in the City next week a few days just t5 
 kiss your babies and attend to my business? Raymond wants to be off; I 
 have had lawsuits to attend to, and want to be able to be off, and I fear The 
 Tribune will suffer. I will give you $20 to work for me four days, com 
 mencing Tuesday morning and ending Friday night. Now don t come t6 
 oblige me; but if you can spare yourself, and happen t5 want to come t6 
 York, why you will accommodate me, and not at your own charge. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 P. S. Why didn t you ask me to announce your connection with 
 Graham? Raym hasn t half done it. Always come to headquarters. Yours, 
 
 H. G. 
 
 New York, May 19th, 1842. 
 My dear Griswold, 
 
 I have requested the Harpers to send you a copy of my little 
 book. Please keep the authorship a secret, and if you can get the accom 
 panying notices published, one in the North American, and the other in the 
 Evening Journal, without betraying it, do so. I shall be much obliged, and 
 will cheerfully reciprocate the favor at any time. Nothing new. Pray send 
 me the [ Saturday Evening ] Post occasionally. I have an article for the 
 Mag. in preparation. Yours truly, My dear G., 
 
 Epes Sargent. 
 
 New York, May 20, 1842. 
 R. W. Gris. 
 
 I came down from Dutchess County this morning. I went up 
 night before last to attend a Tariff Convention, and we had a right good one. 
 I have hardly ever enjoyed a more refreshing season. 
 
 I found yours here. All right; I shall get along perfectly well. Ray 
 mond went off to see somebody night before last; so the T. had t5 go pretty 
 much alone yesterday. It did it very well, however. 
 
 I mean to start on my Western tour a fortnight from tonight. I have 
 
108 N. P. WILLIS. 
 
 two libel suits next week, one of them at Saratoga. So you see business is 
 brisk, notwithstanding the hard times. 
 
 Gris., do you know I am going West soon, and want my copy of the 
 Poets to take along; That s the fact, anyhow. You know 1 gave mine up 
 to Seaton, and you have postponed replacing it. Send me a decent copy and 
 I ll take my Library copy when you get out your corrected edition. 
 
 Remember me and don t fail to write. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 The portraits of authors ( steel engravings ) published in Graham s 
 Magazine wer, for the greater part, failures, both as likenesses and as pict 
 ures. But that of Willis was an exception, a handsomer man than he was, 
 according to this view, never was sketchd. 
 
 [ By permission of Mrs. J. T : Fields. ] 
 
 New York, May 20, 1842. 
 My dear Sir [Graham] : 
 
 I send you a tale ad punctum temporis two months before, as 
 
 <? 
 
 per order. If you do not like this story I am in despair. It is my best, says 
 Mrs. Willis. . . Will you trouble yourself to look at the New Mirror. With 
 this number I began to edit it, and I trust it will please you. I have not yet 
 begun to write the literary notices, but shall. 
 
 By the way, three weeks ago I gave Mr. Dick a Sketch to take on to 
 you. He did not go, however, and I took Griswold in to see it. He thought 
 it excellent, and I think it could not be bettered. In haste, 
 
 Yours very faithfully, 
 
 N. P. Willis. 
 
 Considering how often our literary periodicals proclaim this 
 t6 be the age of magazines, it is interesting to notice that the 
 same opinion was held, by the same class of persons, fifty 
 years ago. Mr. J : Inman, wh6, after long service on a daily 
 journal, took charge of The Columbian Magazine in 1843, 
 introduced it by the folloing remarks : 
 
 " We have said that this is the age of magazines ; adverting 
 not merely t6 their number, but even more especially to their 
 excellence. They are the field, chiefly, in which literary repu- 
 
MAGAZINE LITERATURE. 109 
 
 tation is won. . . In fact, the magazine is the true channel into 
 which talent should direct itself for the acquisition of literary 
 fame. The newspaper is too ephemeral ; the book is not of 
 sufficiently rapid and frequent production. The monthly mag 
 azine just hits the happy medium, enabling the writer to pre 
 sent himself twelve times a year before a host of readers, in 
 wh6se memories he is thus kept fresh, yet allowing him space 
 enough t6 develop his thought, and time enough to do his talent 
 justice in each article. Then, too, on the score of emolument, 
 justly recognized now as a very essential matter, and legiti 
 mately entitled to grave consideration, the magazine offers 
 advantages not within the reach of either book or newspaper. 
 . . . But the great point is, that magazines are more read than 
 any other kind of publications. They just adapt themselves to 
 the leisure of the business man, and the taste of the idler; t6 
 the spare half hours of the notable housewife and the languid 
 inertia of the fashionable lady. They can be dropped iut6 a 
 valise or a carpet-bag as a welcome provision for the wants of 
 a journey by steam-boat or railroad, when the country through 
 which the traveller passes offers nothing attractive t6 be seen, 
 or the eyes are weary of seeing ; they while delightfully the 
 tedious hours of a rainy day in summer, and afford the most 
 pleasant occupation through the long evenings of winter. " 
 
 After quoting the above, the editor of The Knickerbocker 
 continues the subject as folios : " Touching the matter of 
 payment for magazine articles : Mr. Willis informs us that 
 many of the American magazines pay to their more eminent 
 contributors nearly three times the amount for a printed page 
 that is paid by English magazines to the best writers in Great- 
 Britain ; and he instances Godey and Graham as paying often 
 twelve dollars a page t6 their principal contributors. This 
 
110 AUTHORS PAY. 
 
 refers t6 a few principal writers only, as we have good rea 
 son t6 know, having been instrumental in sending several 
 acceptable correspondents to those publications, who have 
 received scarcely one-fourth of the sum mentioned. Mr. Willis 
 adds, however, that many good writers write for nothing, and 
 that the number of clever writers has increased so much that 
 there are thousands wh6 can get no article accepted. All this 
 is quite true. There is no magazine in America that has paid 
 so large sums to distinguished native writers as the Knicker 
 bocker. The books of this Magazine show that independent 
 of the Editors division of its profits as joint proprietor, or his 
 salary as editor, annual sums have heretofore been paid for 
 literary materiel greater than the most liberal estimate we have 
 seen of any annual literary payment by our widely-circulated 
 contemporaries. To the first poet in America we have repeat 
 edly paid fifty dollars for a single poem, not exceeding, in any 
 instance, two pages in length ; and the cost of prose papers 
 from sources of kindred eminence has in many numbers ex 
 ceeded fifteen dollars a page. Again : we have in several 
 instances paid twice as much for the MS. of a continuous novel 
 in these pages us the writer could obtain of any metropolitan 
 book-publisher ; and after appearing in volumes it has been 
 found that the wide publicity given to the work by the Knick 
 erbocker has been of the greatest service t6 its popularity. We 
 should add, however, that we have had no lack, at any period, 
 of excellent articles for our work at moderate prices ; while 
 many of our more popular papers have been entirely gratuitous, 
 unless indeed the writers consider the honorable reputation 
 which they have established in these pages as some reward for 
 intellectual exertion." 
 
ANN S. STEPHENS. Ill 
 
 The editor discreetly avoids saying whether he means Bryant 
 or Longfellow when he speaks of * the first poet in America. 
 But while these authors, as well as Irving and Willis, got prices 
 which were very large for the time, it appears from a letter of 
 Thoreau that most writers got little or nothing : " Literature," 
 he wrote on the 14 Sept. of the same year in which The 
 Knickerbocker made these boasts, "comes to u poor market 
 here, and even the little that I write is more than will sell. I 
 have tried the Democratic Review, the New Mirror, and 
 Brother Jonathan. The last tw6, as well as the New World, 
 are overwhelmed with contributions which cost nothing and are 
 worth no more. The Knickerbocker is too poor, and only the 
 Ladies Companion pays. (X Sullivan is printing the manu 
 script I sent him some time ago. . . " 
 
 Snowden, the oner and editor of the only periodical which 
 paid, was joint oner of the Bowery Theatre. He died not 
 long after, and it would appear from the remarks of the 
 Knickerbocker on his death that his habit of paying was 
 due t6 his goodnature rather than t6 business exigencies. 
 "Mr. Snowden," it says, "was a frank, ingenuous man, and 
 his death will be lamented by numerous contributors, good, 
 bad and indifferent, wh6m his kindness has heretofore be 
 friended." 
 
 New York, June 3 [1842]. 
 My Dear Sir [ Graham ] : 
 
 ... I have been greatly annoyed and really kept ill by a false and 
 unpleasant rumor, started in the Aurora of this city, that I had become an 
 editor of the Sunday News. This rumor has been copied and commented 
 on throughout the Union ouce or twice in a manner that has wounded me 
 very deeply, so deeply that if it were not that I am compelled t5 write for 
 my bread I would never put my pen td paper again for an American paper 
 
112 WOMEN AS JOURNALISTS. 
 
 after my present contract has expired. No one but myself knows bow 
 earnestly I have persevered in my profession, how much of mere profit I 
 have sacrificed rather than sacrifice anything of its respectability. I have 
 never yet written a line which it would give me pleasure to recall from a fear 
 of the injury it may d5 and, knowing this, I feel indignant and wounded 
 that any member of the press should believe me capable of accepting a situ 
 ation proper only for the other sex. 
 
 ... I know that I may be feeling this subject too sensitively but no one 
 knows how keenly I feel anything calculated to represent me as unwomanly. 
 My husband has purchased a share of the News and that is all. 
 
 I am grieved to see the review of Mrs. Ware [by Benjamin] and I am 
 sure your own generous heart never prompted the publication. She is a 
 woman, and to such, a poetical temperament brings its own curse without 
 harsh criticism. The man who wrote that review should remember that a 
 woman cannot strike back without unsexing herself. 
 
 Remember me to Mrs. G. and Mr. Peterson and let me hear from you 
 all soon. You see I write in a fit of the blues. Yours truly, 
 
 Ann S. Stephens. 
 
 [Referring to a short article on Niagara. It was published in the 
 August number. ] 
 
 Niagara, June 13th, 1842. 
 Dear Gris : 
 
 I have fulfilled my promise to you though at the cost of violating 
 some other promises or at least deferring their fulfillment. I hope this will 
 reach you seasonably for August. . . It has been written very hastily and 
 uncomfortably, but I think it will answer. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 [The spelling of these letters corresponds to that of the originals.] 
 
 Boston, June 13th, 1842. 
 My Dear Sir, 
 
 Agreeable to promise I take this early opportunity of trans 
 mitting to you the views of our firm, in refterence to the subject of editing 
 the [ Boston ] Misselany. 
 
 We are decidedly of the opinion that a change of editor is nessessary 
 for the permanent suxcess of the work, and as Mr. Hale[ s] time ex 
 pires with the Dec. no. of the present year we are anxious to make an early 
 arrangement for the next. 
 
MARIA BROOKS. 113 
 
 We have no hesitation in saying that you possess our fulest con 
 fidence as being every way calculated to give a popularity t5 the work 
 nessessary to ensure a large circulation. Will you d5 us the favour to 
 address a line to the writer stateing your terms for furnishing the whole 
 matter of the Miscelany and taking the e[n]tire charge of the editorial 
 department of the same. . . Your obedient Servant, 
 
 S. S. Soden. 
 
 Philadelphia, 10th July, 42. 
 My dear James [Fields ] : 
 
 ... I have been to New York for a few days and saw all the 
 people, breakfasted with Willis, smoked with Halleck, took tea with Keese, 
 dined with Maria * del Occidente, chatted with Hoffman, Balmanuo, Mrs. 
 Embury, Seba Smith, Miss Thayer ( an old Boston friend of yours, who is 
 one of the greatest of living characters, ) etc. Touching Maria Brooks she 
 is a wonderful woman I have never seen her compeer. She talked as volu 
 bly as any woman, but not as women talk ; but what I have to say of her 
 must be addressed to Whipple, concerning whom, and Macaulay, we held 
 appreciative converse. You have seen, I doubt not, the new arrangements 
 for the magazine. I had little to do with the July No., as it was nearly all 
 printed before I came hither; but the August is better, and the Sept. will be 
 better still. Cooper, Bryant, Longfellow, all the while! besides Fields and 
 Tuckerman ! of course you will send me something in time for it. Speak 
 ing of Longfellow the MS. of his Spanish Student I shall have bound in 
 green and gold would you not like to have it? Such autographs are not to 
 be picked up every day. . . 
 
 R. W. Griswold. 
 
 Boston, July Hth, 1842. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 ... I sent White a brief notice of your book. What has become 
 of it? ... You have heard me speak of a poem, prepared with some care, I 
 believe. I am invited to deliver it before the " Literary Fraternity " of 
 Waterville College in August, and have accepted the invitation. Rev. F. H. 
 Hedge of Bangor is the orator. He is a very fine writer. Fields leaves 
 tomorrow for an excursion to the White Hills. How beautifully Tickuor 
 has published Tennyson. There are some most exquisite things in the work 
 and some very careless ones. 1 had no idea until I read his collected poetry, 
 how many bare-faced imitators he had in this country. F[ields] has made 
 a very pretty affair of your "Poets" having inserted about one hundred 
 
114 COOPKR ON IRVING. 
 
 very appropriate engravings and made two volumes, elegantly bound. You 
 remember my copy of the 1st never reached me. I understand Pier- 
 pont poetizes at Brown University this commencement, and Wm. Cutter at 
 Dartmouth. J. Q. Adams is the orator at Bowdoin. . . Whipple is mightily 
 amused at some lines addressed to me in the June Literary Messenger by a 
 young lady. I suppose he thinks the title of "gifted English writer be 
 longs rightfully only to Babington ! However, as the praise was as unex 
 pected as flattering, it s no fault of mine and was intended to be anonymous, 
 I am told. White, indelicately enough, attached the real name of his cor 
 respondent to the lines! Truly thine, 
 
 H. T. T [ uckerman ] . 
 
 Otsego Hall, Cooperstown, August 7th, 1842. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 ... I never met with any person of so bad : memory as Mrs. 
 Keen. I am glad to get the copy of the register, however, which determines 
 one important fact about poor Somers, concerning whom so little is known. 
 I fully appreciate your motives in what you say about Mr. Irving. 
 Bryant, however, does not understand me, instead of my not understanding 
 Irving. My opinion has been independent of what that gentleman might 
 have said of me, or my writings, or character. It has been solely formed on 
 what are admitted to be his acts and what I think of them. I never under 
 stood that Irving was severe on me, either as a man or an author; if I bad, 
 pride might cause me to suppress what I think of him, but, when we meet 
 I will give you facts, and leave you to form your own opinion. A published 
 eulogy of myself from Irving s pen could not change my opinion of his 
 career. His course in politics is of a piece with all the rest, and was pre 
 cisely what had been predicted of him, by those who knew him. Cuvier had 
 the same faults as Irving, and so had Scott. They were all meannesses, and 
 I confess I can sooner pardon crimes, if they are manly ones. I have never 
 had any quarrel with Mr. Irving, and give him full credit as a writer. Still, 
 I believe him to be below the ordinary level, in moral qualities, instead of 
 being above them, as he is cried up to be. I believe the same to have been 
 the case with Scott, whom I know for a double-dealer. If you know the 
 Carvills, ask them to give you the history of the manner in which they 
 re-sold to Irving their right in his Columbus. I did not get the circum 
 stances from them, but they doubtless will recollect them, if they dare tell 
 them. 
 
KNTCKKHIHH KKR LITKKATURTC. 115 
 
 Bryant is worth forty Irvings, in every point of view, but he, runs a 
 little into the seemly [ V] school. 1 see he begins to fire a little at Dickens, 
 wh5, by the way, is doing precisely what I looked for, from him. This 
 country must outgrow its adulation of foreigners. Englishmen in particular, 
 as children outgrow the rickets. It will not happen in your day, much less 
 in mine. . . Very truly yours. 
 
 J. Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 Cooper used t6 call on Bryant when in New York, and 
 Godwin, with happy alliteration, characterizes the effect he 
 made on these occasions. He came in, he says, " burly, 
 brusque and boisterous, like a bluff sailor, always bringing a 
 breeze of quarrel with him." Some observations of Mr. Den 
 nett form an amusing commentary on Cooper s remark condemn 
 ing adulation of Englishmen. "It is so true/ says the Na 
 tion writer, " as t6 be truisrnatically true that, to the end of 
 their days, the writers wh6 produced it [ the Knickerbocker 
 literature ] were colonists and provincials ; as literary men they 
 had no right t6 any Fourth of July. . . Imitation was the life 
 and breath of the Knickerbocker literature. . . Cooper was 
 Scott whenever he could be, so far as he could be, and was 
 himself only when he came to backwoods and prairies which 
 Sir Walter had not seen." 
 
 New York, Aug. 8, 1842. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Esq. 
 
 . . . You asked me for some autobiographical notes, which I 
 promised. I do not expect ever to have more leisure than now and now I 
 have not half an hour. But you do not want much on so obscure a subject. 
 So here I map you the voyagings of my little cock-tail boat thus far. 
 
 Born Feb. 12, 1804, South Canaan, Ct. Removed to Ohio, 1810. 
 Learned letters, figures, etc., from my father and his books. He has been a 
 bookish man rather mathematical a classmate of Chancellor Kent. Still 
 lives in Elyria, Ohio. He was one of the most active and liberal of the 
 founders of the Western Reserve College, though with a large family and 
 
116 ELIZUR WRIGHT. 
 
 not a man of wealth. I loved reading, but had no ambition for a college 
 education till friends, working on the religious enthusiasm which was 
 kindled in me at about the age of 16, persuaded me to fit for college, in 
 order to become a preacher a vocation for which I never considered myself 
 naturally qualified. I labored in summer and studied in Winter, attending 
 the Tallmadge Academy which my father generally taught. In the summer 
 of 1822, being considered "fit for college" the question was, how to get 
 there. The Erie Canal was not then done. Farmers in Ohio had no market 
 for their wheat or anything else. Money was out of the question. My father 
 gave me a deed of 100 acres of wild land and five dollars one brother added 
 another dollar, another gave me a horse, and my mother, God bless her. gave 
 me lots of good things for the journey. Two other chaps who were bound 
 on the same errand, furnished a wagon and harness. We accomplished the 
 pilgrimage to Canaan in three weeks partly on the plan which is described 
 by the phrase " ride and tie." That is to say, two of us started at the crack 
 of day from the lodging place, leaving the other two, (for we had taken in 
 a passenger) to follow with the wagon. They overtook us at the end of 
 two or three miles and, having gone ahead as much further, tied the horse 
 in some safe place by the roadside and walked on. Overtaking the horse, 
 we untied him, rode on, overtook, passed by, tied etc. Our expenses in 
 cash were $3.47 each, as near as I can remember, and I seldom forget figures. 
 By the sale of my horse, mortgaging my land to some benevolent person for 
 perhaps $150, ringing the college bell, sawing wood, keeping school two 
 quarters, and running in debt considerably, I attained to the dignity of the 
 first sheep-skin. After this important achievement, I became preceptor of 
 the Academy in Groton, Mass., at the salary of $600 per annum, where I 
 remained two years, and nearly ruined my health. 
 
 I then travelled in Pennsylvania six months as an agent for the Amer 
 ican Tract Society. From this I was appointed Prof, in Mathematics, etc., in 
 the W. R. College at Hudson, Ohio then in the bud. In Sep., 1829, 1 was 
 married to Miss Susan Clark, ( one of my former pupils in the Academy) of 
 Groton, Mass. Her constitution was not suited by the climate of Ohio, and 
 regard for her health at last obliged us to return to the sea air. 
 
 In the year 1832 I had become interested in the Anti-Slavery question 
 and the advocate of immediate emancipation, so that in 1833, when I had 
 concluded to resign my place, half the trustees, who were the opponents of 
 that doctrine, were quite willing I should go. I was appointed secretary of 
 the American Anti-Slavery Society at its formation and continued so till 
 
GRAHAM S MAGAZINE. 117 
 
 1839. Then rem5ved to Dorchester, Mass., where I now Jive. I am not a 
 rhymer, much less a poet, by nature. Indeed the only attempt which I 
 made at rhyming before beginning to " fit for college " was so unpromising 
 that I threw my verses away and never after thought of repeating it, till 
 about five years ago, when I did it to gratify my family. The translation of 
 La Fontaine was undertaken purely as a little sidewise pecuniary adventure 
 for the benefit of my family, and its completion and publication are alto 
 gether due to the untiring perseverance and self-denial of my wife. My 
 hope of a sale was built on the pictures with which it was possible to adorn 
 the work. 
 
 No doubt there are many other particulars of my life very important 
 and interesting to the public, but they do not occur to me. If the mighty 
 achievements which I have already recorded have wrongfully abstracted me 
 from the plough-tail, one thing is certain, I am sincerely anxious to get 
 back there. Yours cordially, 
 
 E. Wright, Jr. 
 
 If we may trust The Tribune s opinion, publishd 1 Octo 
 ber 1842, Griswold was a successful editor; but as Greeley and 
 Raymond wer disposd, from friendship, t6 say the best they 
 could of him, their evidence is not, perhaps, t6 be deemd 
 decisiv : 
 
 Graham s Magazine, under the editorial supervision of Mr. Griswold, 
 has become one of the very best monthlies in the country. It contains, reg 
 ularly, the contributions of the best and most popular American writers, and 
 presents monthly many articles not only well fitted for a leisure hour s 
 pleasant recreation but conferring honor on the literature of the land. The 
 plates . . . have ceased to be the chief attraction ; puerile love tales, maudlin 
 sentiment and stupid verse are not allowed to monopolize its pages. The 
 nervous pen of Cooper, the classic verse of Bryant and the delicate but pow 
 erful genius of Longfellow are enlisted in its support and furnish a work 
 fitted to please the taste and delight the mind of the most fastidious reader. 
 Mr. Griswold has done much in this way to elevate the standard of our peri 
 odical literature : he has already greatly raised its tone and increased its 
 worth while he has preserved all its pleasing and popular features. 
 
 The leading article in the present number is a valuable biography by 
 Cooper of Richard Somers. . . The best thing in the number is the continua- 
 
118 GRAHAM S MAGAZINE. 
 
 tion of the Spanish Student, by Longfellow. Bryant contributes a thought 
 ful Poem, and Mrs. Kirkland . . . furnishes a racy and amusing Sketch. . . 
 [Th. S. ] Fay comments on Macbeth, not half as well, t5 be sure, as it has 
 been done a dozen times before and Mrs. Embury writes a very pleasant 
 tale. Besides these articles there is a thrilling tale of a * Night at Haddon 
 Hall a Criticism by Poe of Dawes Poetry [the same which Burton refused 
 to publish, and which Lowell objected to. It was doubtless tiled for inser 
 tion before Griswold became editor. ] true in the main but supercilious and 
 rather commonplace ; an Essay on Characterless Women, by Mrs. Seba 
 Smith, and several other brief and agreeable papers. 
 
 The Editor s Table contains two interesting features; first, to our 
 minds, and of most value, the announcement that the Magazine will in future 
 contain papers from the pen of Richard H. Dana, in our judgment the most 
 powerful and gifted writer of prose and poetry in this country. There are 
 few things in the language which seem t5 us half so worthy a comparison 
 with Hamlet, in the thrilling power of its delineations and the profound 
 philosophical insight with which the most subtle passions of the soul are 
 traced to their home, and developed in all their strength and terror, as the 
 wild and sombre tale of Paul Felton. Mr. Dana has written but little for 
 many years, and we shall look with deep and delightful interest for his 
 re-appearance in the pages of this Magazine. . . " 
 
 [ In the same issue is to be found a criticism of Graham s chief rival : ] 
 The Lady s Book seems to us sadly misnamed, for it is of late uni 
 formly filled with trash, the most unmeet offering in the world for those to 
 whom the book is professedly addressed. . . The Editor s Table seems uni 
 formly written for children under twelve years old, and sadly lacks both 
 dignity and sense. 
 
 Poe expressd his opinion qf Griswold and his brother editors 
 in The New World of 11 March 1843. He had previously 
 sent the same remarks, except that he then professd t6 hold 
 The Knickerbocker in hi esteem, t6 that periodical, but Clark 
 refusd t6 print them, and in mentioning their rejection added a 
 few contemptuous words relativ t6 their author, tho without 
 naming him. 
 
 We commence our article with a list of the most prominent monthly 
 periodicals of the country, which are as follows : The Democratic Review, 
 
POE ON THE MAGAZINES OF THE DAY. 119 
 
 The Knickerbocker, Graham s Magazine, The Lady s Book, Sargent s Maga 
 zine, The Pioneer, The Lady s Companion, and the Southern Literary Mes 
 senger. In the above order we purpose to offer a few thoughts concerning 
 the character of each, and shall conclude with a remark or two touching the 
 tendency of this kind of literature. . . The glory of the Knickerbocker is for 
 ever departed. Once it was a thrice welcome messenger of intellectual 
 entertainment to everybody, ladies, gentlemen, and all. Nearly all our dis 
 tinguished literary men have at times made it the medium of their commun 
 ications to the public. But, alas ! the good names now connected with it are 
 few and far between. . . But the principal cause of its melancholy decline 
 may be traced to the peculiar and unappreciated talents of its editor, Lewis 
 G. Clark. The only redeeming quality which we ( mind we don t say the 
 public ) can find in this gentleman is in the fact that he is the brother of the 
 late Willis G. Clark, who was one of the most gifted of our poets, and an 
 exceedingly pleasant prose writer. Mr. Lewis Clark has made a consider 
 able noise in the literary world, but how he has made it would be difficult for 
 his best friends to explain. One of our readers might remark, Why, don t 
 you know, it was by a long newspaper discussion, several years ago, between 
 himself and his partner, Mr. Edson, wherein each one called the other all the 
 hard names in the world. Another, and a friend of his, points us to the 
 Editor s Table of the Knickerbocker, with the significant assertion, That is 
 the monthly production of Mr. Clark. Our answer t5 this remark is that it 
 is not so. But allowing it to be true; what is the Table but a lot of de 
 tached sentences culled from various newspapers, together with extracts from 
 rejected articles which the gentleman passes off as original? The present 
 condition f)f this periodical is that of a poorly cooked-up concern, a huge 
 handsome-looking body, but without a soul. The sooner it dies, the better will 
 it be for the proprietors ; but if they will secure an able and efficient editor 
 [Edgar A. Poe, for instance], we doubt not but that it might be placed 
 in the noble station which it once occupied. The most popular of all 
 the magazines is that published by Mr. Graham, who is a practical business 
 man and a friend to men of talents of every cast. Every article which he 
 prints is liberally paid for and he has the honor of patronizing a large [r] 
 number of eminent writers, in prose and verse, than any other publisher in 
 the country. Can we say more in his favor or in favor of his magazine? 
 But a word or two on the other side. The embelishments of Graham are 
 not quite as good as they might be, because they are too many. It would 
 suit our fancy better, though perhaps not that of the public, to receive one gem 
 
120 CRITICISMS ON THE POETS AND POETRY. 
 
 of an engraving every month, instead of three or four of an inferior quality. 
 Neither do we like the nominal editor of Graham s Magazine. And why? 
 Because, though a pretty good compiler, he possesses too many of the pecu 
 liar characteristics of Mr. Lewis G. Clark. Mr. Rufus W. Griswold is wholly 
 unfit, either by intellect or character, to occupy the editorial chair of Gra 
 ham s Magazine. . . The Lady s Companion is a milk and water concern 
 edited by a penny-a-liner and foreigner named Hamilton. It is a receptacle 
 of nonsense from first to last, of picture nonsense, fashion nonsense, poetical 
 nonsense, and prose nonsense. Of course we do not allude to the occasional 
 productions of Mr. and Mrs. Seba Smith, Mrs. Embury, and one or tw5 
 other writers of reputation. It is a work of no beneficial influence whatever, 
 and ought to be annihilated. . . 
 
 Philadelphia, Sept. 7, 1842. 
 My Dear Fields : 
 
 Yours per Ticknor was received this morning, and I sit down to 
 write a hasty expression of thanks for all your good offices in my behalf. 
 Perhaps Poe s article will not affect the book at all, but I am rather pleased 
 that it is to appear, lest Poe should think I had prevented its publication. 
 The review in The Examiner, I infer from what Ticknor says, and from 
 your own brief notice, is a scorcher.- I am sorry Dwight had not the sec 
 ond edition, which has been a long time printed, but will not yet be issued 
 for a week or two. The N. A. I anticipate with as much dread as I can feel 
 in regard to any criticism. If I supposed it was yet unwritten I would send 
 the corrected edition to Dr. Palfrey. Do you see Simms Magnolia? He is 
 very severe, though courteously so, on me for omitting Southern Poets ! 
 Ditto the Southern Quarterly Review. I hope Palfrey will find something 
 omitted so that the wind may come in from all quarters. The Christian 
 Examiner has not yet arrived in our city, which will account for my not 
 having seen it. Our October number is good very with Bryant, Cooper, 
 Longfellow, Hoffman, etc. That Peterson imposed on me a Clam Bake 
 the most wretched stuff. Your To Almeda is in, with < James over it, in 
 full, for your letter of the 15th came to me only yesterday. 
 
 In November we have Longfellow, Cooper, Bryant, R. H. Dana, Sr., 
 Tuckerman, Hoffman, Osgood, etc. In October read my notes on the 
 Minstrelsy of the Revolution, and see if you cannot get from friend Ditson 
 those ballads he promised me, for a second article. 
 
POE ON < THE POETS AND POETRY. 121 
 
 Present my regards to Tuckerrnan, Macaulay [Whipple] and others, 
 and believe me, Very sincerely, your friend, 
 
 R. W. Griswold. 
 
 [ C : J. Peterson was Graham s man-of-all-work, and a novel by him 
 was running when Griswold took charge. It is evident from Griswold s letter 
 of 7 Sept. that he was blind to Peterson s merits.] 
 
 Poe privately agreed with Simms ; writing t6 Daniel Bryan, 
 6 July 1842, he said : " I shall make war t6 the knife against 
 the New England assumption of * All the decency and all the 
 talent which has been so disgustingly manifested in the Rev. 
 Rufus W. Griswold s * Poets and Poetry of America. " 
 
 The history of Poe s article, or what he wishd to pass for its 
 history, is very curious. He wrote at least tw6 reviews of 
 Griswold s book, the second of which, publishd in the Satur 
 day Museum, in 1843, is referred t6 on page 90. The first 
 came out in The Boston Miscellany for October 1842. On 
 September 12th, Poe had written t6 Thomas as folios : 
 
 He [Griswold] is a pretty fellow to set himself up for an honest 
 judge or even as a capable one. About two months since [say July] we 
 were talking of the book, when I said I thought of reviewing it in full for 
 the Democratic Review, but found my design anticipated by an article from 
 that ass O Sullivan, and that I knew no other work in which a notice would 
 be readily admissible. Griswold said in reply : l You need not trouble 
 yourself about the publication of the review, should you decide upon writing 
 it, for I will attend to all that. I will get it into some reputable work, and 
 look t5 it for the usual pay, in the meantime handing you whatever your 
 charge would be. This, you see, was an ingenious insinuation of a bribe t5 
 puff his book. I accepted his offer forthwith, and wrote the review, handed 
 it to him, and received from him the compensation, he never daring to look 
 over the MS. in my presence, and taking it for granted that all was right. 
 But that review has not yet appeared, and I am doubtful if it ever will. I 
 wrote It precisely as I would have written under ordinary circumstances, 
 and be sure the~re was no predominance of praise. 
 
122 POE ON THE POETS AND POETRY. 
 
 Dr. T : Dunn English, in The Independent of 5 Nov. 1896, 
 describes the incident thus : 
 
 But while his occasional lapses from sobriety may be readily excused, 
 his constant mendacity and deceit are capable of only one explanation. The 
 intellectual faculties of Poe overbalanced all the rest, and the animal faculties 
 dwarfed the moral. A reference to some of his acts will show that he had 
 little sense of right and wrong whenever need or resentment provoked him, 
 and could no more be held responsible for many things that he did than 
 could a lunatic or an idiot. His audacity in asserting that I had borrowed 
 money from him from time to time when he, poor fellow, rarely received 
 five hundred dollars a year for his work, and I, especially at the time he lays 
 his charge, was in receipt of a large salary and perquisites from official 
 sources; when all our common acquaintances knew the facts, shows that he 
 was perfectly reckless in his statements a recklessness only excusable on 
 the ground of moral idiocy. Two instances selected out of others are quite 
 enough, as in these he himself furnishes the evidence. 
 
 One of these was his obtaining under a false pretense, through Gris- 
 wold, a sum of money from the publishers of the latter s book, " The Poets 
 and Poetry of America." One day in Philadelphia Poe met me, and said : 
 " I have a good joke on Griswold ; " and then proceeded to detail it. " I told 
 him," said he, " that I thought he had made a capital book of his Poets and 
 Poetry of America, and I d like to write a favorable review of it; but I was 
 pressed for money, and couldn t afford the time. He bit at the bait like a 
 hungry gudgeon, and told me to write the notice, and as his publishers could 
 use it he would pay for them my price. So I wrote, and handed it to him, 
 and he paid me." 
 
 " Well ?" I asked ; for I saw nothing in that but one of the tricks of 
 the trade. 
 
 " I knew he wouldn t read it until he got home," continued Poe ; " but 
 I should like to have seen his face when he did. " 
 
 " Wasn t it favorable, then?" 
 
 "Favorable? Yes, to the amateur in scalping. I abused the book and 
 ridiculed him, and gave him the most severe using up he ever had or ever 
 will have, I fancy. I don t think he ll send that to his publishers ; and I m 
 quite sure they wouldn t print it if he did." 
 
 " It is a good joke of its kind," was my answer. " You did not keep 
 the money?" 
 
 " Keep it? No, indeed ; I spent it at once." 
 
THE DEMOCRATIC REVIEW. 123 
 
 New York, Sept. 8, 1842. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 The recollection of my unperformed promise of sending you a 
 short note on the subject of the establishment and history of the Democratic 
 Review at this moment recurs to me, and I lay aside the occupation of the 
 hour, while the idea is fresh in my mind. 
 
 The project of establishing a work of this kind, to strike the hitherto 
 silent string of the democratic genius of the age and the country as the 
 proper principle of the literature of both, had often been a subject of con 
 versation between Mr. Langtree and myself, both very young, very sanguine 
 and very democratic. Being, as you know, brothers-in-law, and resident in 
 Washington, we at last felt induced to start it in the fall of 1837, the year of 
 the total prostration of our party, and the first No. was issued in October of 
 that year. Our resolution to undertake it had been matured in the spring of 
 that year. Old General Jackson took a great deal of interest in it, and was 
 its first subscriber. More than any other individual Mr. B. F. Butler, an 
 intimate personal as well as political friend, sympathized with the views 
 which animated us, and united with us in the counsels which resulted in our 
 determination. . . The disasters which everywhere at about that period over 
 threw our party stimulated us to strenuous efforts to counteract the influ 
 ences that produced them. The testimony of friends and foes was pretty 
 general that these labors were very influential on public opinion. . . The 
 truth is that we spoke from convictions and feelings equally strong and 
 enthusiastic. Mr. Langtree attended chiefly to the publishing business ; the 
 political editorship was entirely mine the literary editing being divided 
 between us. From inexperience, dishonest agents, widely extended credit 
 in the subscriptions, and the depreciation and irregularity of the currency in 
 which we received payment ( often at 50 per cent, discount ) we sustained 
 very heavy losses, though with a large circulation, and sank a great deal of 
 money. We had expected to receive a sufficient amount of the printing 
 patronage of the public offices, in accordance with the immemorial practice 
 prevailing there of giving it to political friends, to cover these risks and 
 losses of the enterprise ; but as we never could nor would take the means 
 necessary to get this, and as, from a proper delicacy in a matter of that kind, 
 Mr. Van Buren, who could alone control it, would not interfere to direct it 
 even if we had asked him to do so, these expectations were for the most 
 part disappointed, and we suffered in no slight degree in the possession and 
 management of an extensive printing establishment through which our pub- 
 
124 j: L: O SULLIVAN. 
 
 lication and business were conducted. . . Private circumstances led me to 
 remove from Washington to the North in the summer of 1839 [Mr. O Sullivan 
 was appointed secretary of legation at Paris in June of that year ] of course 
 withdrawing my active attention from the work, though I retained my 
 interest in it. So it continued through 1840. After this period, I determined 
 to resume its publication and remove it to New York. Being elected to the 
 Legislature ... I determined to intermit a half-year in the course of the 
 work, and to recommence in July with a new series. The Langleys became 
 the publishers. In the new series there is a much larger proportion of gen 
 eral literary matter, though there is a certain general pervading political 
 tinge or bearing through the whole work. . . A Whig competitor started once 
 in Washington, but it was in poor hands and soon broke down. Since its 
 removal to New York, Mr. Langtree has had nothing to do with it. . . Yours, 
 
 J. L. O Sullivan. 
 
 Mr. J: L: O Sullivan was born in 1813, and died, in his 82d year, 
 24 March 1895. Poe refers to him as " that ass O Sullivau," but Hawthorne 
 had a different opinion. The folloing lines ar abridged from The Evening 
 Post : "He was born on an English war-ship in the Bay of Gibraltar, and 
 received his earlier education at the military school of Loreye. He com 
 pleted his education at Columbia College. In the Legislature, he made per 
 sistent efforts to obtain the passage of a measure abolishing capital punish 
 ment. He was appointed minister to Portugal in 1854, and relinquished that 
 office in 1863. He afterwards spent several years in England and France, 
 returning to New York in 1881. He was intimately associated with Haw 
 thorne, and his friendship with that author is frequently spoken of in 
 Bridge s < Eecollections of Hawthorne. " Mr. Langtree died the day this 
 letter was written. 
 
 New Orleans, Sept. 29, 1842. 
 Dear Brother : 
 
 . . . The Santa Fe Expedition well nigh broke my constitution, 
 but I have some hope that the wild breezes of Texas will soon, in a great 
 measure, restore me. There is a little fun now going on with a few hundred 
 Mexicans, and if we can believe reports from Mexico the Mexicans will give 
 us a plenty of amusement this winter. I hope it will be so, for if they 
 attempt to reconquer Texas I will have my turn with the yellow skins and 
 show them how good it is to march 40 miles a day. I shall give them a turn 
 as soon as I am able to take the field. I am no soldier and can boast of no 
 
RAYMOND S LIFE OF CLAY. 125 
 
 uncommon courage, but I believe I can risk my life in the defence againit 
 such beings as Mexicans with as much nerve as almost any other man. You 
 have probably, ere the receipt of this, seen the account of their having taken 
 Bejar, and their determination to blockade all our ports. The latter there 
 will be two to talk about. Com. Moore will be out in a few days, and if the 
 Mexicans show themselves in this part of the Gulf you may look for a total 
 defeat of the Mexican fleet. . . Yours truly, 
 
 S. P. Griswold. 
 
 New York, Oct. 21,1842. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I will write you the notice of which you speak and send it to you 
 as soon as Wednesday at any rate. Will you want it sooner? I hardly know 
 in what shape you want it but will try and suit you. 
 
 I have just finished my Life of Clay for Swain. It makes 198 octavo 
 pages. It has been written in haste and " to order" but it has merits of 
 impartiality, of better method, etc., which previous biographies have lacked. 
 That article in the Foreign Quarterly [on the newspapers of the U. S.], I 
 suppose, is written by Dickens beyond all doubt. . . Greeley is in Albany 
 preaching the Tariff, though I m sorry to say he cannot speak of the " accept 
 able year" in connection with it so far as Clay is concerned. Prof. [Tayler] 
 Lewis has be,en writing a pamphlet about Government, but it will not be pub 
 lished soon. He told me about it and wants to lecture it. . . Yours truly, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 The Boston Miscellany, I see, has a good puff of your Poets by Poe. 
 
 In the folloing note to Fields, Mr. Griswold refers to his wife s death. 
 
 196 Clinton St., New York, Nov. 10, 1842. 
 
 The kindness of your former friendship leads me, my dear James, to 
 believe you will sympathize with me in my present terrible affliction. . . 
 Five years ago last March, since we were married ! 
 
 Newark, New Jersey, Nov. 25, 1842. 
 My dear Sir [ Graham ] : 
 
 I have this evening seen a copy of your December number, and 
 I cannot avoid expressing to you my surprise at whatlhave observed therein. 
 I know myself not to be in the least degree jealous of the literary reputation 
 of others, or captious concerning my own, but the total omission of all men- 
 
126 H: w: HERBERT. 
 
 tion of my name either in your title page, whereon you have published the 
 names of all your principal subscribers, or in your editor s table, is so 
 remarkable that it is scarcely possible for me to believe that it is not inten 
 tional. Its being also coupled with the fact that you have suppressed a story 
 of mine which you have in your hands, and which is probably not inferior to 
 the bulk of your magazine, makes it the more extraordinary. You have 
 unquestionably in your list of contributors some two or three names with 
 which I have not the presumption to class my own, but with the remainder 
 of your principal contributors I must claim at least an equality. You must 
 pardon my requesting some explanation of this strange omission ; I have no 
 wish whatever to take offence, nor can I conceive any motive on your part 
 for wishing to hurt my feelings, but you must permit me to say that I cannot 
 write for any work in which I am considered a secondary writer, not worthy 
 to be classed with the other contributors ; and further I believe that, both in 
 merit and quantity, my contributions to this volume are superior to several of 
 those set above me. I understood moreover, that you had no regular liter 
 ary subscribers for the ensuing year, although this a matter with which I 
 have nothing to say. 
 
 I shall hope to hear from you at your convenience, and have the honor 
 to remain, Your obedient servant, 
 
 Henry Win. Herbert. 
 
 We read with amusement of the eagerness with which stroll 
 ing actors gaze at the posters of their troop to learn the exact 
 size of type used t6 announce their names, but it is uncommon 
 for authors t6 sho such vanity even if they hav it. Two years 
 after this, Willis ( no other coultf have done it with equal grace) 
 wrote in The Mirror : " The list of contributors to Graham is 
 a particularly strong one, but, while touching it, may we ven 
 ture t6 insinuate a suggestion? It occurs t6 us now, and has 
 often occurred t6 us, and t6 others before. Authors are sensi 
 tive plants, and for this reason there should be no list of 
 principal contributors. The omitted, rightfully or wrongfully, 
 will be sure t6 feel the sting of the insult." 
 
 Herbert s career was almost as wretched as that of Poe, and, 
 
H: w: HERBERT. 127 
 
 apparently, without the excuse of inability to withstand the 
 grosser temptations. His father (1778-1847) was the third 
 son of the earl of Carnarvon, and he was born in 1807. He 
 came t6 this country in 1831, and till 1839 was teacher of 
 Greek in a private school. He married twice in this country, 
 but his second wife deserted him, and shortly after (17 May 
 1858 ) he killd himself. Tho he wrote a great number of 
 books, all in this country he is not mentioned in Beers , 
 Hawthorne s, Pattee s, Richardson s or Underwood s Ameri 
 can Literature ; his name is to be found in Sted man s. 
 
 Brooklyn, Nov. 28th, 1842. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I see Willis writing every month for three magazines this 
 grasping disposition as you might call it, or as he and I might designate it, 
 industry I thought was the cause of his exclusion from Graham s. I was 
 surprised therefore to see that he is to be a regular contributor, a monopo 
 lizer of four magazines. Hamilton, some time since, told me Willis drew 
 $1200 per annum from three periodicals he is likely to be well informed 
 being editor of one of them [ The Ladies Companion ] . For the future 
 we may safely say when he writes for Mr. Graham that he will draw $1600, 
 or, say he gives one up, then he would have doubtless more than $1200, or 
 what does he gain by the exchange? Now rating my merit to be as com 
 pared with Willis as 6 is to 12, that is that I have half the ability of Willis, I 
 find myself continually grumbling that I can only earn, as hitherto, at the 
 rate of $23 per month average, or 276$ or 280$ per annum, not the fourth of 
 Willis earnings. . . Here is another matter which would go far to make me 
 reconciled to restricted space, and that is, if the payments were monthly, 
 say by the loth of each month, three weeks after the appearance of the 
 article. . . Yours very truly, Dear Sir, 
 
 J. H. Mancur. 
 
 [Not even the name of Mancur is now familiar, but he must hav been 
 a writer of importance at this time, for he is among those principal contrib 
 utors whose honors Herbert envied. The other men authors in the list 
 were, in this order, Bryant, Cooper, Dana, Longfellow, Hoffman, and Fay.] 
 
128 HILLARD ON LONGFELLOW. 
 
 New York, Dec. 12th, 1842. 
 My dear Cousin [ Mrs. Osgood ] : 
 
 I enclose first number of my new magazine. 
 
 I very much covet the beautiful poem you sent me for my magazine 
 but our expenses for plates, etc., at present are so enormous, that I feel com 
 pelled t5 reduce our editorial expenses to their lowest possible scale in fact 
 to get along for a few months as I best can with such articles as are gratuit 
 ously furnished. I will therefore re-enclose you your piece, as I know it is 
 worth to you, at least its weight in gold. By and by I hope to offer you solid 
 inducements to aid me with your contributions. I am, my dear cousin, 
 
 Yours Faithfully, 
 
 Epes Sargent. 
 
 Boston, Dec. 19, 1842. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I send you herewith my paper on Longfellow to which you may 
 prefix such title as you think proper. I have spent a good deal of time upon 
 it and have written it with much care, and it has turned out much longer 
 than I expected, but you must contrive to find room for the whole. In 
 regard to Compensation, I have only to say that that was by no means the 
 motive from which I wrote, but after having written it for love, I know not 
 why I should not be paid for it, and without affixing any price to it, I will 
 thank you to send me such sum by way of compensation as you may think 
 proper. I also depend upon seeing a proof. . . Being an intimate personal 
 friend of Mr. Longfellow I might seem t5 have spoken of him in terms of 
 praise too strong for good taste. Yours truly, 
 
 Geo. S. Hillard. 
 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 You cannot think how very disagreeable it is to tease you, partic 
 ularly when you have been so kind to me, but the truth is that I am very 
 poor. The little balance between us for the review . . . would just settle 
 this. Pray do not think me unkind, troublesome you must think me, but I 
 cannot help it. Ever Yours, 
 
 H. W. H[erbert]. 
 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I was very sorry not to see you on Friday, and hope that you 
 will give us the pleasure of your company whenever you find it convenient 
 
H: w: HERBERT. 129 
 
 t5 do so, as we always dine at home and shall always be but too happy to 
 see you. 
 
 With regard to the little ballad, I beg you to settle therefor definitely 
 with Mr. Graham today. It is at his service at the price I mentioned to you 
 the other day. My terms for that which I write are necessarily in these hard 
 times cash on delivery, dealing as I am dealt with and allowing due time 
 for examination of the article I must abide by it. 
 
 Unfortunately for me my pen is strictly my profession, and when I am 
 in want of money ( instead of drawing a draft ) I write an article, and if I 
 cannot sell it to one I can to another at better or worse terms. 
 
 I enter into these little explanations to you, which I would not of 
 course do except to a friend, and to excuse myself from the appearance of 
 importunity, and further, in plain English, these Publishers show no indul 
 gence in money matters to us authors and I cannot to them. . . Yours Ever, 
 
 Henry Wm. Herbert. 
 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 The cause of my wishing to see you was as follows. We are 
 invited tonight to a great ball and fte champetre at Woodvale Cottage and I 
 am particularly anxious to take Sarah to it, as it is the only gaiety she has 
 had an opportunity of seeing this winter, and as I am very glad of an occa 
 sion of her being introduced a little into society here. 
 
 I cannot however manage this without a little ready money of which I 
 am at this moment utterly short. . . My object was to entreat you to devise 
 some means of advancing me the loan of ten dollars until Monday next on 
 which day I can most certainly repay you. Ever Yours, 
 
 Henry Wm. Herbert. 
 
 January 1, 1843. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 I have obtained for you a copy of Mrs. Smith s "Captive." It 
 was, you know, written some years since, but only printed within the last 
 two or three. I think it shows in many parts the promise of the remarkable 
 powers she has since developed, and is daily maturing. As for good grounds 
 to put her in the book the fact of so few of her things having been collected 
 into a volume, I think, has nothing to do withjlt. That is an affair of Book 
 sellers, not of Editors. It belongs t5 the trade of publishing, not the art of 
 writing. 
 
130 E. . CAKES SMITH. 
 
 I yesterday looked over a bundle of her printed articles which would 
 fill several volumes, though less than half of what she has written. Her finest 
 tale is, I think, " The Flower Girl of Antioch" (in the Opal). Her most 
 original one "Machineton" while " The Love Quarrel," differing as much 
 from both of them as they do from each other, makes a remarkable trinity of 
 varied powers in this department of art. Her " Riches Without "Wings," 
 one of the first of those little books for young people which have since be 
 come so popular, still continues to run, T am told, side by side with the best 
 of them. Yet how different the style and object of this little treatise from 
 those of her multitudinous essays ! 
 
 No, I think the author of "Riches Without Wings," "The Sinless 
 Child "and "The Western Captive" (three regular volumes) upon the 
 score of delicate humor alone, the rarest trait among American authors, 
 will have no occasion to feel awkward on your list. 
 
 Why, Charles King, one of the most fastidious critics I know, thought 
 " The Witch of Endor" "perfectly sui generis," and I should like to know 
 another woman in the country, (or man out of it since Charles Lamb is 
 dead ) who could have written " the Sentiment of Friendship." See, too, the 
 graceful and tender metaphysics of the " Sentiment of Self Sacrifice." I 
 send you herewith all of these pieces, and I have tried, but in vain, to get her 
 essay on "Egypt," which for richness and fullness of language and descrip 
 tion would make a fine oriental accompanyment of " The Flower Girl of 
 Antioch." I have been unable to get either of her papers upon Shakspere, 
 which, though unsatisfactory from their brevity, are singularly happy. I do 
 hope you will find room for all I have mentioned, for "fame is money" to 
 an author, and so much industry and so much desert with all the surround 
 ings so uncheering make but I know your feelings about this matter and 
 that the fact of Mrs. S. having none of those advantages of position which 
 enable her to command a publisher, and being therefore compelled to 
 " utter " herself in the magazines, derogates with you in no way from her 
 claims as an approved woman of genius. Thine ever, 
 
 [C. F. Hoffman.] 
 
 Poe, as well as Hoffman and C : King, held a high opinion 
 of Mrs. Smith s merits ; but it may well be doubted any of the 
 forgotten writers of Griswold s graveyard, as his "Poets " has 
 been aptly calld, is more totally forgotten. That she was an 
 
E. . OAKKS SMITH. 131 
 
 interesting character is evident from the obituary notice pub- 
 lishd in the local paper of Patchogue, Long-Island, 24 Novem 
 ber 1893: 
 
 The modest announcement of the death of Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith 
 and her burial in Patchogue Sunday would not suggest to the casual reader 
 that the varied life of one of the most extraordinary women of the century 
 had at last gone out. 
 
 When only sixteen years of age, at the time she was married to Seba 
 Smith, she contributed poems to the magazines, and later on achieved a na 
 tional reputation as an authoress and lecturer. She and her husband came 
 here about 1860. . . Mrs. Smith was a woman of aristocratic mien and a 
 woman of surpassing talent not always directed to noble ends. She stopped 
 at nothing in carrying out her plans. All was not lovely in the family circle, 
 and when the gallant Mr. Smith died here in 1868 his wife refused to come to 
 his death bed. When she married him she objected to the name of Smith 
 and wanted him to change it, but he refused to do so, saying it was good 
 enough for him. When her children were born she got a special permit from 
 the Legislature to change the names to Oaksrnith. Her four sons married 
 and the mother had a lively time in running the four household t5 suit her 
 self. Alvin married a Spanish lady in Monte Video, but he maltreated her 
 so shamefully that the law stepped in and separated them, giving, however, 
 all the children to their father. Afterward they all ran away from him and 
 returned to their mother. Strange to relate, Alvin and his wife are now liv 
 ing together in Maryland, having recently met and agreed to let the dead 
 past bury the dead. 
 
 Appleton Oaksmith, the gentlemanly desperado, highly educated, and 
 a man of daring projects, was a picturesque figure during the stirring times 
 of the war. He is said to have owned several slave vessels and to have 
 scuttled one with tw5 hundered slaves on board when pursued, while he 
 escaped on his consort ship. He was captured at Fire Island, while waiting 
 for the bark Augusta which was supposed to be fitted out for a slaver. He 
 was in Fort Lafayette, Fort Warren and the Boston jail. While in Lafay 
 ette an interesting story is told of how his mother visited the Commandant 
 to plead for her son. She denied every thing and refused to believe the 
 charges against her boy. At last Gen. Burke losing his patience said, " Well 
 madam if you don t believe it look at the positive proof in those papers." 
 Mrs. Smith took them, called the general s attention to something and coolly 
 
132 E. . OAKES SMITH. 
 
 threw them into the fire, saying, " Well, general, if these papers are proofs 
 we will burn them." [A good story, but why should the commandant of a 
 fort hav such papers?] Appleton escaped from the Boston jail and a great 
 furor was occasioned throughout the country by the rumor that a fellow 
 Mason had helped the prisoner escape. It was thought, however, that the 
 woman he afterwards married gave him assistance. It is said that Mrs. 
 Smith appealed to Lincoln to pardon Appleton but he refused to do so. 
 When Lincoln was shot Mrs. Smith said she was glad of it and that J. Wilkes 
 Booth was a gentleman. Some place a good deal of credence in the state 
 ment that possibly Edward Oakesmith was one of the conspirators who 
 assassinated Lincoln. After the war Appleton was prominent in the South, 
 representing the New Berne district in Congress. He died some years ago. 
 
 Madam Oakes Smith was a prominent figure in Patchogue history dur 
 ing the time she lived here. She was interested in all the enterprises of the 
 town, and at one time was Critic of the Patchogue Lyceum. She gave the 
 Band Boys a grand supper, and distributed blankets and rubber coats to the 
 army boys, who were about to go to the front. When Appleton s schemes 
 fell through, and the family became impoverished, they lived in the little 
 " green house," but she never lost her queenly bearing, even though her 
 throne was nothing but a soap box. So notorious became the actions of 
 Appleton, in the interests of the South, while her sympathies became so 
 antagonistic to the sentiment of the community, that audiences would leave a 
 hall if she arose to speak. The schemes she carried out in separating her 
 sons and their wives, and in cruelly taking the latter s children away, would 
 make rich material for a sensational novel. . . 
 
 The history of the family would make a book of intense interest. 
 Whatever their opinions of the character of the Madam every one agrees 
 that intellectually she was the most remarkable woman they ever knew. 
 About 1876 the Madam went South, to Hollywood, N. C., and afterward re 
 turned and resumed her literary work. About 1888 she again went to Holly 
 wood and died there last week Thursday. . . After a varied life of 87 years 
 this strange woman, who had many friends, and whose intense affection for 
 her sons was her chief virtue, was buried unattended by a single mourner. 
 
 New York, Jan. 5, 1843. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 You left me very abruptly when you were last here, when I was 
 expecting to have a farther conversation with you, much to my disappoint- 
 
HORACE GREKLEY. 133 
 
 ment. . . I had seen Atwell at New Haven some days before, and learned of 
 him your intention to go to Europe next Spring. 
 
 Today I met at dinner at our house Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, a lady of 
 your sometime acquaintance, and learned from her, ( by getting up a sham- 
 fight with her in regard to your merits and starting her temper a little ) that 
 she is very intimately apprised of the internal politics of your office by some 
 good friend in Philadelphia. I learned from her not only that you were to 
 leave for Europe in March, but that Graham would edit the Magazine him 
 self after that time; but she evidently anticipates having her finger very 
 prominently inserted in one corner of it. All this is none of your business 
 nor mine; I know you will have too much sense to say anything to Graham 
 about it; and if any letter is written to Philadelphia relative to my criticisms 
 on Graham, Peterson, Weld [now editor of Graham s Post ], etc., you 
 simply know nothing of the matter. I was only curious to know, like Paul 
 Pry, how much this lady knew of your business, and how she came to know 
 it. I was satisfied. After you have gone, I will help Mr. Graham to see the 
 difference in his circulation between your editing and his. Say nothing. 
 
 Write me a line to say what you think of doing, how and why ; and 
 when you will be here. How does the Poets travel off? I am deeply 
 interested in that. . . You must have small editions of that book printed, 
 revising and extending it every year, so as to keep it the Poets for ten years 
 yet. . . 
 
 I want you to prepare for me before you leave the country an edition 
 of Praed s Poems, with a Biography; and I will get it published somehow if 
 I have to run in debt for it. Can you add to it The Poems of Barry Corn 
 wall? I mean to get them printed here yet. Is there anything you think of 
 that you would like to get published? Can you pick up any materials for a 
 Life of Randolph in Philadelphia? But don t trouble yourself about this, 
 for very likely I shall never attempt it. 
 
 Now, Gris, write me as promiscuous a letter as this directly, mind 
 and let me realize that you are still in the Land of the Living. 
 
 I have finished my Lecture on Human Life to my liking. It has 
 some criticisms on Education that I know you would like, and is fearless and 
 dashing throughout. I suppose I can never get a chance to Lecture in 
 Philadelphia, and I don t care; for Lecturing is said to be down at the heel 
 there. . . Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
134 G: R. GRAHAM. 
 
 Philadelphia, Jan y 8th, 1843. 
 Frances S. Osgood, Dear Madam : 
 
 ... I sometimes wish that I had gone on quietly in my little law 
 office, using my pen modestly as a writer for a few more years, instead of 
 embarking, on the stormy sea of publishing, heart and I sometimes fear- 
 Soul. I do not expect I should have made much more in the world, either 
 as a lawyer, or a writer, certainly I should not as both for I had a happy 
 faculty of shoving off the responsibilities of one onto the shoulders of the 
 other, but I fancy, I should have had more moments of delight than can be 
 possibly stolen from the bustle of an active and successful business life. Do 
 you know, that among my forty thousand readers, there are but few, and 
 among several score of agents, there are none, who do not think a publisher 
 bound to answer all their impertinence, as well as to furnish them books for 
 their money? 
 
 If you* should see me, with from 30 to 40 business letters daily, on an 
 average, before me to read and answer, you would not only understand the 
 necessity of my turning over all proper correspondence to others, but would 
 pity as well as forgive me. 
 
 I have written you a long letter as a sort of atonement for a very short, 
 and I fear, as I have no copy, a tart one to Mr. Osgood. Will you explain to 
 him, and give him my respects. . . Yours truly, 
 
 Geo. R. Graham. 
 
 I shall be happy t5 receive stories at $25., and poetry at $10. per arti 
 cle, one or the other monthly. 
 
 Tribune Office, Jan. 10, 1843. 
 Dear Gris : 
 
 Only a word : Mac [ Elrath ] and I think of publishing an Edi 
 tion of d Israeli s Curiosities of Literature in numbers next summer. Will 
 you just do us $100 worth of work toward the Curiosities of American 
 Literature as an Appendix? The manner and length will be pretty much 
 as you choose. Please do it before you leave for Europe, the money may 
 be a comfort to you at some odd spell. I know you will be here soon, but I 
 thought you might want to ransack something in Philadelphia first. There 
 is no hurry; take your time, even if it runs int5 your voyage, unless you 
 would like the money sooner. It shall be paid on the receipt of the MS. . . 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
LONGFELLOW, PAULDING. 135 
 
 Cambridge, Jan. 10, 1843. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I am sorry I have not a portrait by Cheney in readiness. Must 
 the engraving be ready for the April No.? Would the delay of a month or 
 two make any difference t5 Mr. Graham? 
 
 As soon as I received your letter I went into town to see Cheney. He 
 is confined by indisposition ; and I do not know when he can get the likeness 
 ready. Let us not do the matter in haste. . I certainly do not wish to have 
 Thompson s head engraved again. My friends all dislike it; and I am 
 anxious now to have something that will please them. I will therefore have 
 a portrait painted at my own expense, and as soon as possible. Will you 
 wait? and not hurry the matter? If you can, we shall get something worth 
 having. Do you prefer Parker to Cheney as an Engraver? 
 
 I fear I can send you nothing for the March No. but will send a poem 
 as soon as I can. I have several in my mind; but have not yet felt in the 
 right mood to put them upon paper. 
 
 Thanks for your word about the " Poems on Slavery." I hope, how 
 ever, you have said nothing to injure your Magazine ; for I should be sorry 
 to do that; and I did not think you would like to speak of the book in any 
 way. Very truly yours, 
 
 Henry W. Longfellow. 
 
 New York, 31st Jan y, 1843. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 ... I frankly confess, I don t like Mr. Cooper s agreement with 
 you, and though having expressed myself willing to be placed on the same 
 footing with him, I am bound to stand to my word, yet I would much prefer 
 the original terms proposed, namely : ten dollars a page for all contribu 
 tions, within the compass of five pages, or not exceeding it, and five dollars 
 a page for all over that number ; by which I understood that the former 
 sum was to be allowed for the first five pages, and the latter for the remain 
 der; not that the whole should be averaged at Five Dollars. I don t know 
 now, whether t5 understand you so or, not; but will express myself fully 
 and frankly on the subject. 
 
 It is my design, while I remain in my. present state of idleness, to 
 devote my leisure hours to your Magazine exclusively, though I may possi 
 bly occasionally apply them to other objects not interfering with this. It is 
 therefore my wish to contribute an article to every number, t5 be regularly 
 
136 CAPTAIN JESSE D. ELLIOTT. 
 
 inserted, if transmitted in time, and approved by you, as containing nothing 
 unfit for a respectable periodical, or which may probably injure its circula 
 tion. I am in the habit of condensing my ideas in few words, and it will be 
 seldom my articles exceed four or five pages; and for all within, or not 
 exceeding that limit, I should prefer being paid the price you settled at our 
 first interview. For all beyond this limit you may allow what you please. 
 The last article, and one on a somewhat similar subject, will considerably 
 exceed five pages, and the same rule may be applied to these. After that, I 
 shall probably seldom transgress in this way. I am Dear Sir, Your Friend 
 and Servant. 
 
 J. K. Paulding. 
 
 West Chester, Feb y 3, 1843. 
 Chas. R. Grayham, Esq., Dear Sir: 
 
 I did not distinctly understand at the short conversation of Mr. 
 Cooper and Mr. Griswold on the morning of Mr. Cooper s departure for 
 home, at what time his article [ ?] in answer to Mr. Kinsey s life of Perry 
 and of [illegible] Burgess s Lecture on the battle of Lake Erie would appear 
 in your Saturday Courier. It is my wish to have a copy sent to each member 
 of the Legislature of the two states of Pennsylvania and New York with 
 many other persons both in and out of our Country. . . I have neither seen 
 the manuscript, nor the Diagrams which Mr. Cooper informed me would 
 accompany them, thus I can t be charged, as in the compilation of his Naval 
 History, of dictating to him. Had I, surely I would not have placed myself 
 on board the Madison of which ship I was flag captain, then drawing too 
 much water to join in the attack on the batteries [ ?] After landing Pike 
 and his Brigade, 500 of which I had on board my ship, I volunteered to lead 
 in all the schooners to the assault of the Batteries in the Conquest, did so, 
 and lost one fine young officer killed, Hatfield [ ? J of Albany, and four men 
 wounded, here we were opposed to the fire of the Forts on beating up to the 
 head of the Harbor, and when fired on were called on patiently to brave 
 [illegible]. Would not a Knowledge of this fact tend t5 fix the seal of 
 falsehood indelibly on McHenry? Be pleased to mention this subject to my 
 old friend Mr. Weld. Very Respectfully Yours, 
 
 J. D. Elliott. 
 
 [Jesse Duncan Elliott, second hi command at the battle of Lake Erie. 
 Cooper ascribed to him a larger share in the victory than other writers had 
 done. He died in 1845. ] 
 
K. H. WILDK. 137 
 
 New York, Feb. 4, 1843. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 You requested m.e some months since to furnish you with an 
 occasional contribution for the magazine of which you are editor. Having 
 just finished a poem of some hundred and fifty or sixty lines, I venture to 
 make you the first offer of it, though not as a gratuity. It has cost me some 
 considerable time, and not a few " poetic pains," to render it worthy your 
 magazine ; and though I should be sorry to be deemed a mercenary a mere 
 mercenary rhymer, yet these are trying times, and certain little folks at 
 home must be cared for. . . 
 
 W. P. Palmer. 
 
 Providence, Feb. 5, 1843. 
 [To Mrs. Osgood] : 
 
 Do you see the Boston Pioneer? It is very fine. I. B. Wright 
 is W. W. Story. I have lately written two or three " Sketches" which have 
 been published but am too much ashamed of them to let you see them. . . I 
 am yours, 
 
 H. Fuller. 
 
 Washington, 6 Feb. 1843. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 . . . My contributions to journals, reviews and magazines have 
 always been gratuitous. I have not time for such engagements, and shall 
 soon have less than ever, for 1 am about to change my residence and resume 
 my profession, a source of income too important to be neglected in the pres 
 ent depressed state of the country, when all property is unproductive. 
 
 The uninterrupted and laborious course of study which my new career 
 will require on a theatre [ Louisiana] and under a system of law utterly 
 unfamiliar, must necessarily cut my literary amusement off at once and 
 entirely. It might very possibly be years ere I take pen in hand for any 
 such purpose, even to finish the Italian Lyrics or the Life and Times of 
 Dante. Under such circumstances all I can do to evince my sense of your 
 too flattering interest in my pursuits, is to send you the enclosed specimen of 
 the former, a brick from the edifice, which may perhaps be built into the 
 pages of your magazine without disturbing its symmetry. . . 
 
 You are mistaken in supposing the bill has passed allowing me a copy 
 right altho my work should first be published in England. 
 
138 HOFFMAN ON MAGAZINE LITERATURE. 
 
 It has merely passed the Senate. Whether it will go thro the ordeal 
 of the House I know not and since it became apparent that I must devote all 
 my time to other occupations, it has ceased to interest me. . . 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 R. H. Wilde. 
 
 New York, Feb. 10, 1843. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 I am pained to have you write so about your health. " Death," 
 as you say, may be " no unwelcome friend of yours." But your living 
 friends think so much more of you than he can that he has no claim upon 
 our hospitality or good feeling. Death and you friends ! The proposition s 
 absurd. Think only of the lives you have attempted, and the many more 
 you will yet succeed in taking ! You are rivals, man ! and must keep as far 
 aloof from each other as possible. 
 
 Seriously, though, you are just at the period of life when a man s con 
 stitution changes, and if you fight the next 18 months through with a stout 
 heart, you will live to be as burly as a Bishop, and publish at 80, " Griswold s 
 Recollections of His Own Times." " This," says a review of 1890, " is one 
 of the most curious works that the venerable and respected author has given 
 to the public. The two or three great poems which the present generation 
 has produced has not made us unmindful of that genial glow of letters which 
 suffused the face of the country during the youth and memorable early man 
 hood of the illustrious writer. Poetry seems then to have been so univer 
 sally the language of sentiment that the semi-fabulous stories of the Italian 
 improvisatori of a former age became almost realized in that springtime 
 
 season of our yet nascent Republic. . . Perhaps, indeed, no fraction of the 
 
 
 present work will more interest the philosophical reader than Mr. Griswold s 
 
 curious account of the sudden and wonderful growth of that periodical liter 
 ature which now constitutes the greater portion of" American letters. Our 
 readers must examine for themselves to see how this venerable authority 
 disposes of the much vexed question whether or not his associate Graham 
 was really the founder of a system of publication [ See page 36] which pro 
 duced such wonderful results, or only attained his present celebrity by con 
 veying it farther than others. As is the case with all other distinguished 
 names we think it can be shown that much of Graham s reputation is owing 
 to circumstances of which he had the energy and ability to take advantage. 
 Mr. G. admits that in the year 1842 his famous magazine had not yet attained 
 
HORACE GREKLKY. 139 
 
 a circulation of above 100,000 copies. It was at time merely a work of taste 
 and entertainment, but early in the year 1843 a now forgotten publication 
 which we learn from these memoirs was entitled "The Lady s World of 
 Fashion " having attempted to compete with him in the matter of fictional 
 illustration, he instantly took new and stronger ground and became, through 
 his vigorous corps of contributors, the leader of literary opinion instead of 
 the successful follower of public taste. It would seem that at that time there 
 was really no other acknowledged organ of literary opinion in the country, 
 and the coolness with which Graham seized upon the position and the 
 almost miraculous success with which he maintained it has indissolubly 
 interwoven his name with the existence of American letters." Ever yours, 
 
 C. F. H[offman]. 
 
 P. S. Do send me that [Saturday] Museum. I had so much fun in 
 laughing at the first one that I must see the second. . . If funds are floating 
 about you I wish you would send me $25. I owe my cook for the last dinner 
 I gave to poor critics, and my banker is out of town. 
 
 New York [22 Feb., 1843.] 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 The hand of Affliction is upon me. I have had one of the hard 
 est sieges over a l cold as it is called, I ever heard of; and now I have a 
 severe ear-ache, a constant ringing in the ear, and a general debility which 
 causes me to fear that I shall be compelled to break my appointment in 
 Philadelphia. The left side of my head is all one maze and crowd, as though 
 it had been struck by the falling wall of a house; and I have been operating 
 upon it for days with no hope as yet. I still hope that a tumor in my ear 
 will break by tomorrow, and thus enable me to fulfil my Philadelphia 
 appointment ; if not, God help me ! You know how anxious I am to im 
 prove this opportunity, which has occurred so accidentally, and which may 
 never be renewed. . . 
 
 How could you go off without seeing me? Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Dorchester, Feb. 24, 1843. 
 Deaj Sir, 
 
 Would anything I could write, either in prose or rhyme, be con 
 sidered worth printing and paying somewhat for, by the editors of Graham s 
 Magazine? I send a thing ( which has amused my wife, at whose suggestion 
 it was written ) as a sort of sample, which, if you want it you may have for 
 
140 WRIGHT AND LA FONTAINE. 
 
 whatever you think it is worth. I am so little acquainted with Graham s 
 Magazine, that I hardly know whether I am doing a thing mal apropos or 
 not. 
 
 Have you seen the extermination 1 have met with at the hands oi the 
 New York Observer? It has finished old Jean and me at one blow, and 
 when my flesh quivered a little after death, then the pious editor raised his 
 serpent-crushing heel and trod into the dust my mortal remains. 
 
 So I am doubly dead. If you have seen or can see these papers ( Jan. 
 14 and Feb. 4th ) and can say anything anywhere in favor of my resurrection, 
 I shall be much obliged to you t5 do so. Observe, you are in the same con 
 demnation. You are one of my "endorsers" and the Observer has a rod in 
 pickle for your special use. You must look out or you will be squelched or 
 perhaps you will be set upon the dunce-block with a split pen upon your 
 nose, or perhaps you will have your nose rubbed in your own article in 
 which you recommended the " filthy" fables of La Fontaine for the young! 
 Bah ! It was in the Evening Post that I ventured to say a word in my own 
 behalf. The Observer itself was far too pure and pious to admit a reply from 
 my corrupt pen. I have sent another piece to Bryant which he will prob 
 ably insert. 
 
 For the present, the Observer has frightened away my customers very 
 much. I am going to expurgate, but with very little hope of satisfying my 
 censors who seem to have the gift of smelling obscenity afar off. . . Very 
 respectfully and cordially yours, 
 
 Elizur Wright, Jr. 
 [The "thing" was probably the poem calld 
 
 A Eulogy 
 
 On the Great Unknown Mr. John Frost 
 which was publishd in the magazine for March, 1844. ] 
 
 It was about this time that Griswold s acquaintance with 
 Taylor began. The latter, we ar told in Scudder s Life, "had 
 published several poems in the Saturday Evening Post . . . and 
 out of the correspondence with Mr. Griswold there came the first 
 literary friendship which the young poet formed. When writing 
 in March, 1843, t6 a school friend, he speaks with a shy and 
 happy pride of the little opening which he had made : I have 
 met with strange things since I wrote last. Last November I 
 
BAYARD TAYLOR. 141 
 
 wrote t6 Mr. Griswold, sending a poem t6 be inserted in the 
 Post [ond by Graham, and edited in connection with his 
 magazine ] . However, I said that it was my highest ambition 
 to appear in Graham s Magazine. Sometime ago I got an 
 answer. He said he had read my lines To the Brandywine, 
 which appeared in the Post , with much pleasure, and would 
 have put them in the magazine if he had seen them in time. 
 He said the poem I sent him would appear in April in the mag 
 azine, and requested me to contribute often and t6 call on him 
 when I came t6 town. I never was more surprised in my life. 
 Mr. Griswold was one of the literary magnates in that thin but 
 promising period of our literature. He was editor of the lead 
 ing literary magazine, he had edited " Poets and Poetry of 
 America," and if his dimensions have shrunk in the course of 
 time he was then an important personage, wh6se advice and 
 help were sought and valued. T6 Bayard Taylor he was a 
 serviceable friend just when the young author desired intro 
 duction t6 the larger world of literature, and he helped him to 
 the publication of his first volume of verse. * I called on 
 Griswold, he writes October 10, 1843, and had an interview 
 with him. He had part of a Romance in poetry [ Rosalie, 
 renamed Ximena ] which I have been writing, and strongly 
 advised me t6 publish it with my other poems in a volume. I 
 have it nearly done, about a thousand lines ; I have not con 
 cluded whether t6 d6 so or not. . . I place great confidence in 
 his judgment." It appeared in February 1844. "It was dedi 
 cated to Rufus W. Griswold, as an expression of gratitude for 
 the kind encouragement he has shown the author." 
 
14:2 GREELEY, FIELDS. 
 
 New York, April 6, 1843. 
 R. W. Griswold, Dear Sir: 
 
 I regret to say, what you will doubtless have heard before 
 directly, that Ralph W. Emerson has concluded not to deliver his Lectures 
 in Boston till next Fall, and so declines t5 let his Introductory be printed in 
 your Magazine at present. This is too bad, but how can I help it? He 
 wrote me to this effect yesterday. I suppose I am more vexed than you are, 
 but I had set my heart on your having it, and am sorely disappointed. 
 
 I wish iny own lecture on Human Life would answer instead, but it 
 won t. Some parts of it would read well ; others are unfitted. 
 
 I have threatened to write a Sketch of the leading Transcendentalists, 
 after the manner of John Neal ; but I don t know that I could make it attract 
 ive. Yet Emerson, and Bronsbn Alcott and Margaret Fuller are great char 
 acters if a body could only bring them out in bold colors. If I were not t5 
 be known as the writer, I could do a tall thing; but, being known, I should 
 be very apt to fail. So let it go. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Boston, April 12th, 1843. 
 My Dear Griswold : 
 
 My heart beat as the familiar hand writing of my old friend met 
 my eye at the Post Office just now, and I hasten to say, this very hour, that 
 so far from your being forgotten by me, there is not a day during some part 
 of which your name is not mentioned at the Corner. Forgotten ! no indeed 
 never for a moment ! . . . 
 
 We are about as usual here. H. T. T. is in N. Y. and Whipple is 
 writing clever articles for the papers. Often, very often we talk of you and 
 how much we wish to see you cannot be written down in ink. Ever Yours, 
 
 J. T. F[ields.] 
 
 New York, May 1, 1843. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I am extremely obliged t5 you for your kind notice in the Maga 
 zine, and for your very friendly letter. . . I was afraid that some of the 
 piratical publishers, who abound in these days, might . . . get out a very 
 incorrect edition. 
 
 I thank you for the good opinion so courteously expressed in your 
 letter. Of course, I am perfectly aware what is the reason that I am not 
 invited to write for the popular periodicals of the day ; for it requires no 
 
LYDIA MARIA CHILD, E. A. POE. 143 
 
 extraordinary vanity to suppose that I could write better articles than some 
 who are invited. 
 
 But this effect of unpopularity is no inconvenience to me; for I could 
 not write for such publications if I were ever so much urged. Life is grow 
 ing too earnest with me to admit of my writing " pretty stories. " 
 
 The Letters probably will not be out till the middle or last of June; as 
 I am obliged to be out of the city a few weeks. Yours very gratefully and 
 respectfully, 
 
 L. M. Child. 
 
 A somewhat different tone is struck in a letter from Poe s 
 friend Wilmer t6 a Mississippi poet named Tomlin : 
 
 Philadelphia, May 20, 1843. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I have not heard from you for several weeks. J sent on in vari 
 ous packages, a dozen copies of Recantation which I hope came to hand. 
 Any numbers of that, or the " Quacks" are always at your service. 
 
 Literary affairs are at a very low ebb in this city at present. Sumner 
 Lincoln Fairfield, who once ranked high among the writers of our country, 
 has become a common loafer about the streets. It is distressing to view such 
 a change. 
 
 Edgar A. Poe (you know him by character, m> doubt, if not person 
 ally), has become one of the strangest of our literati. He and I are old 
 friends, have known each other since boyhood, and it gives me inexpressi 
 ble pain to notice the vagaries to which he has lately become subject. Poor 
 fellow ! he is not a teetotaller by any means, and I fear he is going headlong 
 to destruction, moral, physical and intellectual. 
 
 T. S. Arthur, another old friend of mine, has acquired great popular 
 ity by a certain kind of writing and is getting along prosperously. 
 
 The " Philadelphia Clique" as it is called, composed of Robt. C. Con 
 rad, R. Morris, J. C. Neale and several others, has seen its palmiest days and 
 is falling into disrepute; their association to hold each other up will not 
 avail them. Jos. C. Neale, nevertheless, is a man of splendid talents, and 
 Conrad has some excellent points; but the political unpopularity of the latter 
 affects his literary reputation. Neale is indolent. 
 
 My next publication will be " Preferment." a political satire, not par 
 tisan or very slightly so. Much of it is already written and I expect to bring 
 
144 E.. OAKES SMITH, HAWTHORNE. 
 
 it out sometime within the present year. Favor me with a few lines when 
 ever you have time to waste. Your obliged and sincere friend, 
 
 L. A. Wilmer. 
 
 New York, June 12, 43. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . Mrs. Oaksmith s story was also duly attended to what a 
 grand affair it is ! Most affluent in language, most finished in expression. 
 She must, according to your prophecy, take a stand out of hooting distance 
 of any other of our writing women. That is if her constitution be strong 
 enough for the necessary mechanical labor of triumphant authorship. . . 
 
 Ever yours truly, 
 
 0. F. H[offman]. 
 
 Concord, July 2d, 1843. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 There is a mistake as to my having refused t5 write for Graham s 
 Magazine; the truth is, I have heretofore had no opportunity to refuse, even 
 had I been so inclined your own letter being the first intimation that any 
 contributions might be acceptable. 
 
 I am never a very diligent penman in the summer time; and, more 
 over, I had projected a little work for children as this summer s literary 
 labor and amusement, which is still t5 be begun. I have likewise one en 
 gagement to fulfill for a Magazine, before I can undertake any other of the 
 kind. These matters being first disposed. of, I shall be very willing to send 
 you an article, and will agree to the terms you propose, rather than take 
 upon myself to settle the marketable value of my productions. 
 
 I am advised that the publishers of Magazines consider it desirable to 
 attach writers exclusively to their own establishments, and will pay at a 
 higher rate for such monopoly. If this be the case, I should make no diffi 
 culty in forswearing all other periodicals for a specified time and so much 
 the more readily, on account of the safety of your Magazine in a financial 
 point of view. Should you desire an arrangement of this kind, be pleased, 
 at your leisure, to state the terms of it. I hope to free myself from other 
 engagements by October, at furthest, and shall then be happy to become one 
 of your contributors. With much respect, truly yours, 
 
 Nath. Hawthorne. 
 
L. A. GOBRIGHT. 145 
 
 It would appear from the above that Hawthorne had a very 
 short memory. We ar iuformd by Mr. Albert H. Smyth, in 
 his book on Philadelphia Magazines, that " Lowell was a sub 
 ordinate editor of the magazine [Graham s] as early as 1843, 
 and in April of that year communicated t6 Nathaniel Hawthorne 
 the desire of the editor, Edgar Allan Poe, that he too should 
 become a contributor." Mr. Smyth further tells us that 
 * Hawthorne included many of his early contributions to this 
 magazine in his Twice Told Tales." This shos great industry 
 on Hawthorne s part, for he was not askd t6 contribute 
 (Smyth) before April 1843 ( or, himself , June 1843), while 
 the second and last series of Twice Told Tales was publishd 
 in 1842. The Student is under obligations t6 Mr. Smyth, also 
 for discovering that Poe edited the magazine in 1843, and that 
 Lowell, at any time, was his assistant. 
 
 Washington, August 4, 1843. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 Perhaps you will remember an old acquaintance when you glance 
 your eye at the bottom of this, or at the top of the opposite page. I know 
 you will, and therefore I can, with the utmost propriety, ask you t5 publish 
 the lines herewith sent, in Graham s Magazine. But, in the first place, I 
 should have consulted your judgment, for which I have much respect. You 
 know that when we lived together, " long time ago," I used to carpenter a 
 little in verse. I d5 little of it now, for various reasons. The lines before 
 you were written by request of a friend, somewhat reluctantly, I confess; 
 for I feared that I might mar beauty, or " blot the rainbow." But what s 
 the use of all this talk. If you think the humble lay worthy of an obscure 
 corner in your able magazine, please let it appear. If you reject my attempt, 
 please return it to me as soon as you shall have considered about the matter 
 and compared it with the scripture. 
 
 I should be pleased t5 receive a letter from you at any time. Yours 
 respectfully, 
 
 L. A. Gobright. 
 
146 HOLMES, BERANGER. 
 
 Boston, Sept. 1st, 1843. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I read a Poem at the dinner table of the Phi B6ta Kappa at Cam 
 bridge the other day which I should like to publish in Graham s Magazine if 
 the Editors want it and are willing to pay for it. 
 
 It consists at present of 166 lines in the heroic measure but I should 
 be inclined to make it about two hundred, or very nearly that, by certain 
 additions. I believe that for me it was remarkably happy, but you may 
 think it no great thing. At any rate it has more point in it than most things 
 of the kind I have done lately. 
 
 Tw5 or three weeks ago Mr. Frost, on the part of Godey s Lady s 
 Book, made me some liberal offers for anything I would give him. I ans 
 wered that I felt bound to offer them to you first but without the least idea 
 that I should so soon have anything to publish. I therefore mention it to you 
 and end my proposals with these questions. 
 
 1. Do you want such a poem? 
 
 2. What will you give me for it? 
 
 3. Are you afraid of a hit at repudiation in it? 
 
 4. Can it be published in your Magazine * word for word, letter for 
 letter, comma for comma?" 
 
 5. Do you want to see it before you meddle with it? 
 
 This is a very straight-forward business letter, and does not require 
 any answer unless you want the Poem. If so I shall hear from you. Be 
 lieve me very truly, Your Friend, 
 
 O. W. Holmes. 
 
 P. S. No tender feelings are concerned which might interfere with 
 Editorial interests. 
 
 [ The poem, then calld Terpsichore, appeard in the magazine for Jan 
 uary 1844. ] 
 
 New York, Nov. 13, 1843. 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq., Old Friend, 
 
 I want to thrash you for the way you have done Beranger [ pub- 
 lishd by Carey, 148 pages] . O Gris., you have not taken sufficient time with 
 that work! Your choice of translations is often dreadful. The Garret 
 kills me. Jo Price s version 
 
 espying the world with its sages and asses, 
 
 In a Garret at twenty how cheerly time passes ! 
 ie worth a million of that you have given. 
 
MARIA BROOKS. 147 
 
 Then My Old Coat, * And part shall we never, my trusty old Friend ! 
 by Falconer is better than that you give. 
 
 So Falconer s * My Vocation is probably less faithful but a great deal 
 more spirited than the one you have. 
 
 So The Cossack ( Come forth, my proud steed, ) is better than the 
 one you have. Where is Gauls and Franks, Close your ranks ! 
 
 * A song for Bonaparte returned from Elba? Gris. you must not get 
 up books so jobbingly. You never will get above journeyman s wages unless 
 you amend. O if you only caught me once reviewing you in right earnest, 
 you would imagine your hide was off and you in a hogshead of brine. Now 
 if B6ranger goes to a second edition you must mend it. I will [illegible] it 
 if you don t. 
 
 What about Praed? As he is English, you haven t a chance t5 show 
 your bad taste or carelessness by choosing wrong translations. But you may 
 omit something, and completeness is vital. Don t overlook the gem of all 
 Josephine . . . 
 
 As to letters, let us have them as soon as may be. About half a col 
 umn in length spirited and lively, but not spiteful. Satirize Society and 
 customs, if you must, but don t touch individuals. Two a week will be 
 about right. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Fort Columbus, New York, Dec. 12, 1843. 
 Dear Sir: 
 
 . . . My fever of last summer, with many other circumstances, 
 has prevented me from doing much that I wished t5 do in this country ; if 
 however, you will d5 me the favor, sir, of attending a little to it, I will en 
 deavor to forward a bill of exchange after my arrival for the purpose of 
 getting out an edition of " Idomen " either in Philadelphia or Washington. 
 The Harpers say " it is too elevated to sell" an expression which is rather 
 libelous to the American public. I think, however, it will be read if proper 
 means are taken. . . I do not think that any effort of my humble imagination 
 can be " too elevated," or even elevated enough, for the better part of the 
 public as it really is in these North American States, but I absolutely know 
 that my little works have been nearly suppressed by the vilest impositions 
 which can possibly be practiced. 
 
 In the words of poor Spurzheim ( which were uttered a very short 
 time before his death occurred in New England ) I solace myself by saying, 
 
148 MARIA BROOKS. 
 
 " stupidity ! stupidity ! the knowledge of that alone has saved me from mis 
 anthropy ! " 
 
 I feel for you sir, a sincere gratitude on account of your having taken 
 pains to see me in person after having read a few of the effusions of my soli 
 tude. Whatever I may write to you in private letters you are at perfect 
 liberty to publish ( in case you may wish to do so ); I look upon myself as a 
 being out of this world, yet in it at the same time. The few pleasures 
 accorded to me have been absolutely heavenly in their natures ; and in all 
 the creation of this world, there is scarcely a pain which my heart has not 
 proved, either in reality or apprehension. 
 
 If Heaven permit me to arrive safely at Cuba, I may commit to paper 
 my epic poem, which I now call Beatrix, the beloved of Columbus; if 
 death come before the completion of my intention, what exists only in my 
 mind will of course be naught, and the little, the very little, I leave 
 will be so spoiled and mutilated by this steam-engine generation as t5 be 
 good for nothing to those who may respire, afterwards, the. breath of the 
 land where I was born. From the Heavenly powers, alone, comes all that 
 is possible on earth ! That these powers may protect and make you happy is 
 the heartfelt wish of Sir, your obedient servant, 
 
 Maria Brooks. 
 
 P. S. Mr. Wordsworth has sent to this country for all the letters of 
 the late Dr. Robert Southey, and particularly mentioned those few in my 
 possession. I cannot part with the originals; for it soothes me whenever I 
 read them ; but I have just got copies of them made. . . 
 
 " * Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven, is by far the most original 
 poem that this generation has produced. So said (writes 
 Andrew Lang, in 1896) the British Poet Laureate, the late Mr. 
 Robert Southey. The author of Zophiel was Mrs. Brookes 
 of New England. Remembering all this, I [Lang] turned eager 
 ly t6 Professor Brander Matthews Introduction t6 the Study of 
 American Literature in search of facts about * The Bride of 
 Seven ... for Southey did not praise all poetry at random . . . 
 Therefore it is extraordinary that Professor Matthews leaves 
 Zophiel out of his * Introduction in which I expected The 
 
MARIA BROOKS. 149 
 
 Bride of Seven ( what a woman ) t6 be the most conspicuous 
 jewel. Mrs. Brookes, of New England, is not in the Index; 
 not with Priscilla Alden, Charles H. Farnham, John Jay, E. P. 
 Whipple and the other literary swells [Priscilla Alden ^literary 
 character ! ] I call it cruel ! I demand justice for Mrs. 
 Brookes and The Bride of Seven. " 
 
 A very interesting, (chiefly because of its original letters ) tho 
 fragmentary, account of Mrs. Brooks, by Mrs. Zadel Gnstafson, 
 was publishd in Harpers Magazine in 1879. 
 
 New York, Jan. 24, 44. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 ... I really have a great curiosity no, an interest to see you 
 just at this moment. How go the sentimentalities? How the women have 
 affected your condition it irks me to know. They handle all of us hardly 
 enough, but God ! when they get hold of a chap of your poetic temperament 
 they use him up completely at least for a while. But it is in that interval, 
 those off days of the ague of female bedevilment, that you . . . doth the most 
 work. A capital relief you have from the excitement [of] Turning round 
 at once to attempt peoples lives. How many biographies have you written ? 
 But I won t say a word more lest you forget that this is a business letter, 
 although from lack of change it will cost you a shilling. Ever yours truly, 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
 P. S. I received lately a letter from Mr. Graham which I have de_ 
 ferred answering only because I wished to write to him at length. The story 
 he asks for shall be forthcoming. 
 
 C. F. H. 
 
 New York, Jan. 27, 44. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 1 was just roaring over an article in the Foreign Quarterly upon 
 " The Poets and Poetry " when I received your melancholy letter. I pray 
 you turn to that paper at once and it will put you in good humor. John 
 Bullism in perfection is to me always the most amusing thing in the world. 
 My bump of benevolence is unfortunately so great that fond as I am of the 
 grotesque, human absurdity more often awakens compassion than fun in me. 
 
150 THE KOREIGN QUARTERLY ON AMERICAN LITERATURE. 
 
 I feel greater pity than diversion at Don Quixote s troubles, but 
 the fanatical conceit of a real Sancho Panzoac Englishman is to me always 
 delicious. I have only as yet read the first part of the article as copied ( " to 
 be concluded ") into the New World. Bryant tells me that I get a more 
 savage mauling than anyone else in the article. I plagiarize, it seems, from 
 Tom Moore ! a devilish good fellow to steal from : shows my taste. I won 
 der they don t appreciate him more in that way at home. Hope the article 
 will bring Moore int5 notice there. I must tell you though, that this mad Bull 
 who, with the most solemn unconsciousness lashes his brother Briton, of 
 the 13". Y. Herald, for writing with the same choice reserve of language that 
 he himself uses this mad Bull, I say [illegible] upon our capital while 
 thrusting his horns into you : " Mr. Griswold admits that in America util 
 ity was all in all at the beginning and Poetry nothing. They began at the 
 wrong end ! In all other countries poetry appears first and utility afterward, 
 the slow fruit of necessity and experience." 
 
 But you must read the article, tis the best advertisement of your 
 book yet out, for the fellow abuses the country so roundly that the people, 
 roused to a discriminating ire, must at last take the Poets under their protec 
 tion, as a part of themselves. Here s a remark that will show you the fel 
 low s frantic stupidity. "This journal failed, and Freneau went to sea in 
 command of a Merchant vessel; qualification being as little required in com 
 manding an American vessel as in writing American poetry." Ah, my 
 nervous friend, our corners are rubbed off so in this country by habitual 
 attrition with emigrants from every nation that we should not judge these 
 redoubtable islanders too harshly. Yet I admire your boldness in going as 
 missionary among them what in God s name can you do for them? Take 
 them out of their mechanicism and shop-keeping, and they are of Beotian 
 stupidity. Genius, transcendant as it has been there, is but an excrescence, 
 refinement but a veneering, neither of them permeating or forming any 
 essential part of the coarse grained character of the noble, useful and most 
 powerful, but most ungenial race that the world has ever produced. You 
 should ask your friend Herbert about this matter before you go there. Any 
 Englishman of Rank (that is, belonging to the " excrescency " or the 
 " veneery " ) will tell you the same thing when put upon his " voir dire " 
 over a cup of mononghelela, though he might fight you the next morning for 
 reminding him of it. . . Ever yours, 
 
 H[offman]. 
 
THE ENGLISH CHARACTER. 151 
 
 This article in The Foreign Quarterly attracted great 
 attention. Lowell comments on it in a letter to Poe dated 
 "Elmwood, June 27, 1844" : 
 
 ... I agree with you that the article on Griswold s book iii the Foreign 
 Quarterly Review was fair enough as far- as the conclusions the author came 
 to were concerned though at the same time I think him as ignorant in poet 
 ical matters as a man can well be in short ignorant to the full to be a 
 Reviewer. But you are mistaken as to the authorship of it. It was not (I 
 am quite sure) written by Dickens, but by a friend of his named Forster ( or 
 Foster ) the author of a book named " Statesmen of the time of Cromwell." 
 Dickens may have given him hints. Forster is a friend of some of the Long 
 fellow clique here which perhaps accounts for his putting L. at the top of 
 our Parnassus. These kinds of arrangements do very well, however, for the 
 present. . . 
 
 [Boston, 12 Feb. 1844. 
 Fields to Grisvvold. ] 
 
 Distant, secluded, down in the isle of Manhattan, lives Rufus the thought 
 ful! 
 Into the hands of the parson from Newport many days since placed he a 
 
 letter 
 For one he regardeth. The Doctor, fat, fruitful, forgetful, failed then to 
 
 deliver it. 
 But coming to Boston on business parochial he took from his pocket the 
 
 glorious hexameters. 
 Thanks reverend and learned! Thanks most grave and most potent! 
 
 thanks, Gallic Translator! 
 
 I thought thee dead, dead, Rufus, and Doge-like declined to the dust, Sir. 
 But at sight of thy writing I leaped like a man in a mad fit. 
 Sometime in the Spring, that is coming upon us I go to the city, 
 The city of New York. There hoping to meet thee, and pour in thy bosom 
 Fresh comfort and whiskey, we ll talk of old times, Rufe 
 And banish our sorrow. Bespeak me some oysters and hot steaks from 
 
 Florence, 
 Some liquor Falernian and fixin s to match them. Adieu, Gentle Doctor, 
 
 we meet at Phillippi. 
 
152 MAGAZINE RATES. 
 
 Philadelphia, 10 April, 1844. 
 Mrs. F. S. Osgood, Dear Madam : 
 
 ... I cannot really aftbrd to pay my new ones more than I pay 
 Miss Orne, Miss Davenant, and indeed all my other writers, except you and 
 Mrs. Stephens, wh5 are above all rule. For prose I give them $2.00 per 
 printed page : for poetry $5.00 a poem. This is, perhaps, no remuneration 
 for them ; but it is all the publishers here, excepting Graham, give, and all 
 we can afford. . . Very respectfully, 
 
 Chas. J. Peterson. 
 
 New York, Apr. 20, 44. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 . . . What a warm, earnest and excellent friend that gentlemanly 
 young Janvier is of yours. If you can get a woman to understand you as 
 thoroughly, and be at the same time as really attached as he is, you will not 
 have loved the sex in vain. 
 
 Tuckerman and I have both taken to him exceedingly. I pray you 
 write soon to Yours ever, 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
 Miss Smith, a sister of Thomas H. Smith, connected with the N. Y. 
 Hospital, long a distinguished merchant and member, subsequently, of the 
 legislature, and as an author connected with Wm.,the brother of Wash. 
 Irving, who was tw5 terms in Congress. 
 
 The Morning Chronicle, projected in 1802 by Dr. Irving, was long 
 marked for the elegance of its manner, its literary tone, and indeed occupied 
 a position not unlike that of Mr. Charles King s American in a subsequent 
 period. Among the contributors to the Chronicle were many who afterward 
 became eminent. 
 
 Irving published here his "Oldstyle" Letters, Paulding his first 
 essays, and Dr. James Smith, the brother of the historian, imitated Auacreon 
 in clever epistles to women and wine. 
 
 But the chief star of the Chronicle was a lady who wrote under the 
 signature of "Clara", and she was as celebrated there as "Amelia "or 
 " Norma " or " Kate Cleveland " have ever been since. This was Miss Smith, 
 who married Mr. Will Lucius Rose, wh5se irregular habits brought him to 
 beggary, and for his abilities and his connections with the old associates of 
 other Burrites, waa connected in sympathy with the Burr faction. 
 
THE PROTESTANT REVIEW. 153 
 
 The marriage of Miss Smith was not a happy one, and it is unneces 
 sary here to lift the veil from her domestic life further than to disclose her 
 subsequent divorce from Rose, intimacy and marriage with the late Justice 
 Wyman. She died within the past two years. 
 
 New York, June 11, 1844. 
 My Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . Don t sneer at my ruled paper Tis the latest " fashion," as 
 Willis may perhaps tell the world in his lecture tonight on that Estate at the 
 Tabernacle. I do hope you have not abandoned the idea of coming to live in 
 Brooklyn. Tis delightful there now though we really miss Janvier; cool, 
 fragrantly airy, and no mobs ! I am really in a state of anxiety in expecta 
 tion of a paragraph like this : 
 
 " Signal vengeance and irremediable devastation ! The destruction of 
 Dr. Moriarty s library wounded most deeply the literary sensibilities of our 
 Irish population, and though from policy hitherto silent upon the subject, 
 we have rightly anticipated such a catastrophe as that which it is our sor 
 rowful duty to have to commemorate. 
 
 The valuable library of the Reverend R. W. Griswold, the distinguish 
 ed Protestant clergyman, who lately abandoned all his other literary labors 
 t5 devote himself to an anti-Catholic Review [The Quarterly Review of the 
 American Protestant Association: Phil a, Hooker.] was last night con 
 sumed by an Irish mob. The light from the blazing books and MSS. 
 illuminated the Delaware and part of Chestnut Street, and was seen by every 
 train within a mile of Philadelphia. We regret to hear that Mr. G. was slightly 
 injured by throwing himself into the scene of devastation. It seems that 
 some of the most precious MSS. were kept in a bathing tub, and attempting 
 to gain the house through the back way, his hands were terribly cut while in 
 the act of dashing in the windows. The presence of mind of his friend 
 D. H. Janvier, Esq., in seizing him by the skirts of his coat at this instant, 
 alone prevented the Reverend Gentleman from being smothered by the 
 tainted smoke which at once poured through the aperture. 
 
 N. B. Since writing the above we learn that at least one half of Mr. 
 G s MSS. are safe. They were in the pockets of old coats, hats, etc., left 
 from time to time at the houses of friends. We need not say that all good 
 citizens should frown upon this not unprovoked but somewhat disorderly 
 conduct of our generous but somewhat excitable adopted citizens. The 
 
154 COOPER S GENIUS. 
 
 exemplary character of our beloved city must ultimately suffer from these 
 occasional outbursts of misdirected energy." 
 
 C. F. H[offman]. 
 
 Thursday, June 12, [ 44?] 
 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 ... I send you today a copy of Monday s Gazette with my re 
 marks on Scott, regarding whom I know you have never been at the pains to 
 form an opinion, thoug"h you have permitted yourself to imbibe a prejudice 
 from some of the shallow dogmas of the critics of Poedom and the Lowell 
 Institute. Read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest what I have written here. 
 The critics upon Scott make exactly the same blunders that they do about 
 Cooper s genius. They call Cooper, too, " only a daguerreotype painter of 
 external life." Now to prove that he is a creator by a brace of arguments 
 that would mortally offend Mr. Cooper himself : 
 
 Imprimis One of the most sailor-like old salts in the navy once said 
 in my hearing" Sir, Mr. Cooper is one of the first geniuses that ever lived. 
 He is no sailor sir, no sailor at all, but his sea scenes are so much like truth, 
 and they give so much poetry to the details of my profession that I love 
 every line he writes." 
 
 Again A Vermonter, who is a great Hunter and Woodman, called in 
 my office last week with a note of introduction and at once commenced 
 talking about Cooper. " People," said he, " don t dream what that man s 
 genius is why now, for instance, he is a mighty poor Woodman and often 
 wrong, wrong altogether, but I take his books with me on my tramps, and 
 whenever he gets in the woods I could read what he has to say forever. 
 That s what I call genius. He makes a Nature of his own that you are will 
 ing to substitute for real Nature." 
 
 Read my paragraph about Scott, and you will see the application of 
 these remarks to his poetry. Your indulgent friend, 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
 Saint Louis, 19th June, 1844. 
 My dear Mrs. Osgood, 
 
 Mrs. Bill informs me in a recent letter, that you have done me 
 the honor to request my autograph. Will you pardon the method I take in 
 conveying it to you, when I confess that the selfish desire of numbering 
 among my correspondents one with whose pure and beautiful thoughts I 
 
AMELIA WELBY. 155 
 
 have long been familiar, has often crossed my mind? Many years ago, Mrs. 
 Gilman pointed out to me, in the Boston papers, several poems under the 
 signature of " Florence" as " the productions of a little girl about my own 
 age, whom I would do well to keep before my mind as a model " if I wished 
 to write for the public. Now you must know, I always love those t5 whom 
 I look up with anything like respect and admiration ; and the natural result 
 of seeking out every thing from your pen has been, to draw me towards 
 you as invisibly as the magnet draws the steel. How far Mrs. Bill s charm 
 ing letters, (in many of which you are so fully discussed ) have contributed 
 t5 strengthen my predilections, I leave you to determine; only adding, as a 
 conclusive motive for this letter, the wish I feel to thank you for the kind 
 ness you have extended to me by interesting yourself in my behalf with 
 Messrs. Graham and Peterson. 
 
 Mrs. Bill tells me you are desirous of obtaining some description of 
 " Amelia" [ Welby ] ; an elderly gentleman, a friend of mine, speaks of her 
 thus in a letter I received yesterday : 
 
 " I saw Amelia at Louisville, and had the honor of being presented to 
 her by one of the most elegant and accomplished ladies in the City, Mrs. G. 
 D. Prentice. She lives in a sweet little cottage, in the midst of a small court 
 beautifully cultivated in flowers and shrubbery, some of the flowers she did 
 me the honor to present me with her own poetical hand ! I shall preserve 
 them. Her parlour is plainly but neatly furnished, a well toned piano is 
 one of the ornaments, and a neat round table well filled with choice works, 
 among which is a small volume of her own poems. Amelia s figure is 
 slender atid tall, but her manners are not graceful, indeed there is a rusticity 
 and awkwardness about them that plainly indicates the want of early culture 
 and good society. She required too much persuading to sing, for one who 
 sings so well, and would only consent after Mrs. Prentice had sung some 
 thing from Xorma. Amelia has a fine, liquid, silvery voice, and need not 
 fear to sing before Kings. She warms up with her singing, and her eye, 
 which is a large dark hazel, tells as plainly as eye can tell the emotions of 
 her heart. She sang several of her own pieces, among the number, " Sweet 
 memories of thee." While at the piano I had an opportunity of examining 
 her head, as far as the fascination of her music would allonv. She has a 
 glorious head ! a forehead broad and expansive like that of the Gods. The 
 upper head capacious, evincing an ample development of the moral and 
 intellectual organs. The posterior portions of the brain would point her out 
 as a genuine daughter of Eve ; having all the qualities necessary to make her 
 
156 AMELIA WELBY. 
 
 an affectionate wife and fond mother. If my theory is correct, she is natu 
 rally religious, and has a lively sensibility to the beauty and grandeur of 
 God s glorious works. Her head is very much like that of the lion S. S. 
 Prentiss, the orator of Mississippi. If I have not impressed you with the 
 belief that she is a favorite with me, I wish now to state it. I like her ex 
 ceedingly, and have only to regret that she has not those elegant and comely 
 manners that would so well become her genius and her fame ; for I am com 
 pelled to say in all truth and solemnness, that she has an awkward way of 
 putting her fingers in her mouth, and other little unbecoming ways which do 
 not impress one with a high idea of her merits." Pardon me, my dear Mrs. 
 Osgood, this long extract, but it may serve better than a less minute detail to 
 give you an accurate idea of our "Western Star." . . . Your sincere friend, 
 
 Anna Peyre Dinnies. 
 
 Ingress Abbey, Greenhithe, Kent, Sunday, July 25, 1844. 
 [ To Mrs. Osgood ] : 
 
 And so at last you did remember that Eliza Cook was alive? Oh 
 I should so like to scold you for the uncivil forgetfulness with which you 
 have treated my poor name. If I had known where to address a letter I 
 should certainly have inflicted a yarn on you long since, but America is a 
 big place, and so I was forced to be content with thinking of you now and 
 then. Right glad am I of this opportunity to gossip with you. How are you 
 getting on? How is Mr. Osgood and how is little Ellen? the fairy imp who 
 was just beginning to walk into the rough road of Life? I should so like to 
 come to the land of Washington but my lungs will not look " old Nep " in 
 the face, and " I guess " if I ventured to float in his large pickling tub I 
 should soon be salted down myself. Even the soft breezes of the Isle of 
 Wight and the still more southern clime of Jersey are poison to me. I can 
 not Jive where saline particles are found, so I never hope to reach your land. 
 If I could breathe on the blue wave, this coming summer would find me at 
 New York, and you would see that your old friend would be just the same 
 " strange fish " as ever. 
 
 You have told me nothing of yourselves. I want to learn how you are 
 thriving whether Dame Fortune is " smiling or smiting or kissing or bit 
 ing." Do not think I am rude or impertinent in this curiosity. I am certain 
 there is much in our natures and feelings to promote sympathy, and nothing 
 would be more grateful to my feelings than to hear that you were happy and 
 prosperous. You must write a very long letter and tell me more of your- 
 
ELIZA COOK. 157 
 
 selves. I have not seen the youth who bore your welcome favour yet, but I 
 intend to ask him to meet me if agreeable to himself, and then I may gain a 
 little more Yankee news than you have afforded me. Now to tell you how 
 the world treats me. I believe you have a kind interest in my fame, and I 
 shall rattle on just as the humour prompts. Fortune has never once knit her 
 brow when gazing at me. I may consider myself blest as far as poetic 
 success can bless. 
 
 The Editions of my work have sold well, and my last Edition is just 
 out of print. But I must tell you that Bogue, the successor of my late pub 
 lisher, has not used me fairly. Letters were received by him from the 
 Langleys in your city relative to an Edition of the plates in my volume being 
 sent them. One letter addressed to me, containing a fair and flattering 
 arrangement as regarded my own views, was detained by Mr. Bogue for two 
 months and at length given to me opened, thereby shutting me out from all 
 co-operation with the American people, when I should have been most 
 happy to have aided them in any way. But Mr. Bogue availed himself of 
 the correspondence, and entered into agreements which I dispute the jus 
 tice of. 
 
 I instantly wrote to " Langley," New York, explaining the whole 
 affair in, as I thought, a very frank and kindly manner, requesting an answer 
 as soon as convenient this I have never had, and my opinion is that some 
 dishonourable and secret jockeying has taken place between them and 
 Bogue. Now surely, as a lady, I have a right to some consideration, and a 
 formal acknowledgment should have at least been allowed me. I am strong 
 ly prejudiced in favour of the Americans, and extend my warmest wishes t5 
 them they are heartily welcome to any use of my works, and the more my 
 poems are promulgated among them, the better I am pleased. . . If you see 
 Mr. Griswold, present my compliments, with the assurance that he has 
 highly flattered me by deeming my simple compositions worthy his atten 
 tion. . . 
 
 The English are crammed to the skull top with Daniel O Connell, Irish 
 Repeal, League Meetings, Cornlaws, and Mesmerism, slightly relieved by 
 Concerts, new Operas, Charles Kean and Charity Balls. Thomas Campbell 
 has gone to reside in Boulogne, being much shattered in health. Dickens is 
 a vast " lion" here, but I presume he has done for himself with your people 
 indeed I think his * American Notes" a very inferior work, even in a liter 
 ary point of view, and I suppose the detail of matter is not quite just. He 
 
158 GRAHAM S MAGAZINE. 
 
 has published a " Carol" this Christmas which is " a rare bit," and has very 
 considerably advanced his reputation thereby. . . 
 
 They say I write such stern and sometimes horrible things, but I like 
 such things best. If I could but get int5 some of the American dells and 
 dingles and forest shades, how I should become imbued with the beauty of 
 the vast country, and what huge overgrown stanzas I should commit ! What 
 a monster sonnet I should get up ! ... 
 
 I must cut and run, for my brother has just entered my " sanctum " 
 with my American style of pet " Tell," who stands something about even 
 with the table, and threatens to blot this with his mighty tail. . . 
 
 Give my love to Mr. Osgood, and tell him he is not forgotten by me. . . 
 
 Eliza Cook. 
 
 New York, Aug. 16, 1844. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 ... I wrote to Mr. Graham some time since mentioning to him 
 that I had some poems by my brother tw5 pteces which I should like to 
 dispose of for his magazine. As you, I believe, still interest yourself some 
 what in the affairs of his periodicals, will you, if you see him soon, remind 
 him of the matter? Yours truly, 
 
 W. C. Bryant. 
 
 The cause of Griswold s inability to keep his place in Gra 
 ham s office is hinted in Greeley s letter of 5 January. Ingram, 
 in his " Poe," makes a more specific statement, viz., that " R. 
 W. Griswold was an employe of Mr. Graham, and, it is alleged, 
 was dismissed for dishonesty." One would suppose that such 
 a, discovery would have put an end to all relations between 
 them, but it seems not t6 have done so, as Griswold continued 
 to act, off and on, as assistant editor for several years. His 
 portrait, as one of "Our Contributors," ("Our Dishonest 
 Employe " would have attracted more attention ) appeared in 
 the magazine for June 1845. 
 
 New York, Aug. 22nd, 1844. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I am vexed with myself, that I have so long neglected to write 
 you when I promised. My only apology is my extreme press of employ- 
 
G: H. COLTON. 159 
 
 ment. I doubt whether at this time it is not too late to furnish any data 
 respecting myself. If so, it is no matter, as far as I am concerned. 
 
 The data are simply as follows ; Born among the mountains of Otsego 
 Co., N.-Y., in the town of Westford (about 12 miles from Cooperstown ) 
 Oct. 25th 1818, the fifth of nine children. Parents from New England. 
 Father native of West Hartford. 
 
 Father a clergyman of the Congregational order. At the age of three 
 years I was removed with my father s family to Koyalton, Niagara Co. 
 Lived there nine years. 
 
 Principal early advantages during this period were an indifferent dis 
 trict school, a large library belonging to my father, an unbounded love of 
 reading shared in common with the rest, and a disposition on my father s 
 part to indulge it to the utmost. By the age of twelve had read a large por 
 tion of English classical literature. 
 
 From Royalton my father removed to Elba, Genesee Co. After 
 spending three years there in desultory reading, English studies and labor 
 ing on a farm, I went to New Haven, to prepare, under my oldest brother, a 
 tutor in Yale College, now deceased, for my collegiate course. Entered Yale 
 in 1835, at the age of 17. Graduated with next the highest honors in 1840, at 
 the age of 21. During the next year kept a classical school at Hartford and 
 wrote " Tecumseh." Yours very truly, 
 
 Geo. H. Colton. 
 
 [ Mr. Colton died three years later at the age of twenty-nine. J 
 
 Boston, Sep. 13, 1844. 
 Dear Ruf us : 
 
 The stupid hackman who drove us to the Cemetery at Fair- 
 mount so miscalculated his time that instead of getting us in at 12 as we 
 anticipated and he promised, it was nearly 3. We called at your house but 
 you was missing and we did not see you again. I regret this exceedingly as 
 I had many things to say to you touching your plans of publication and other 
 matters of general interest. I wanted to say many things which I cannot 
 write ; in short to suggest among others the propriety of checking your pub 
 lishing ambition rather than urging the horses onward, etc. This I was 
 prevented from doing by the two-legged sinner who kept us on the road so 
 long. * 
 
 With regard to the " Christian Ballads" it will be for the interest of 
 L. and B. to send them at once to us for Editors. I should prefer they 
 
160 KEY, XEAL. 
 
 would be sent from you to Mary, as she thinks you a tremendous clever 
 fellow, preferring you, I think, to the literary tribe generally. 
 
 I am very busy just now with recent importations or I would write 
 more touching what news I found on my arrival home but as I am sur 
 rounded with Invoices and new Books you will be less bored than I have it 
 in my heart to do. 
 
 Let me hear from you often. I think you are very pleasantly situated, 
 and wish I could have remained longer in my favorite quaker city, though 
 "fore God "I think it has fallen off vilely since I saw it last. Regards to 
 H. T. T. and all friends. Yours always, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Avondale, Oct. 20th, 1844. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 ... I might possibly be of some service to you in procuring for 
 you some of the poetical remains of the late Francis Key, author of the 
 Star-Spangled Banner. I am well acquainted with the family, and have 
 frequently heard his sons say that the " old man " ( as they called him ) had 
 written much better things than his renowned national song, and that he has 
 left behind him a large number of poems, principally of a Devotional order. 
 Now, my dear Sir, if you think these would be of any service to you, I have 
 not the least doubt but that I might be instrumental in procuring them. . . 
 Excuse haste and believe me ever Your sincere friend, 
 
 Thomas E. Van Bibber. 
 
 Oct. 24, 1844. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . Mr. John Neal, who, according to the standing advertise 
 ment on the cover of his publication, has rare power of discovering talent 
 and a most condescending liberality in fostering it when found, speaks of 
 you in his last Jonathan as " a Mr. Griswold, we believe that is the man s 
 name." I am really sorry for you, poor fellow ! how do you get along with 
 out being either " discovered " or " fostered" by this Portland magnate? 
 Yet you are not alone in your pitiable condition the hapless author of 
 Charles O Malley was crushed last Saturday by the same piece of Maine 
 Timber. Yours ever, 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
THE PROSE-WRITERS. 161 
 
 111 Fulton St., N. Y M 28th Oct., 1844. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I have already said my say of Barrett s Poems in the Demo 
 cratic Review for Oct. (where you will find I have also made suitable 
 acknowledgment to Graham s Magazine ) , and Duyckinck has said his in 
 the new [American ] "WTiig Review. Aside from this, judging as in my own 
 case, I am sure it would please the authoress better to have each Critique by 
 an independent hand : and I shall take care to let her know the service you 
 have done her when you write. . . 
 
 I see that Godey is disposed to give Mr. Graham a run for it in the 
 Portrait Gallery ! Every author in the country ( if things go on at this rate ) 
 will have to set his face against these undertakings. Yours Truly, 
 
 C[ornelius] M[athews]. 
 
 [ An interesting series of letters from Mrs. Browning to Mr. Mathews 
 relativ to the publication of her poems in this country, reviews, etc., was 
 publishd in The Collector, Nov. 1891 Mar. 1892. ] 
 
 New York, Dec. 28, 44. 
 
 Your plan is a famous one, my dear Griswold. . . I certainly 
 would balance the florid style of Bancroft with the directness of Sparks 
 nor would your book be complete without quotations from Gouverneur 
 Morris, whom the men of his day thought a master of elegant writing. In 
 making my selections, I would choose the passages which are most charac 
 teristic of the writer ( which in some instances are not the best that might 
 be culled), Timothy Flint s description of Red River, for instance, in his 
 " Francis Berrien " is happily the most Flintish as well as the finest passage 
 you could quote from him. 
 
 Irving s Bracebridgc Hall has a passage which is the very tip-toppery 
 of his elegance. 
 
 In Frisbie s review of Byron there is a passage of rare musical cadence. 
 In Gouverneur Morris you will find a blending of the epigrammatic style of 
 Junius with much of the polished facility of the old French memoirs and in 
 John Randolph you have more than the biting sarcasm of Wilkes. . . Ever 
 yours truly, 
 
 C. F. H[offman]. 
 
162 THE PROSE-WRITERS. 
 
 Cambridge, 7 Jan. 1845. 
 My dear Sir [W: H: Furness] : 
 
 I should be very glad to comply with your request in a more 
 satisfactory manner than it is possible for me to do. My information is not 
 sufficiently extensive, nor is my memory ready enough, to enable me, at 
 least without a fortnight s thought and examination, to make out even a very 
 imperfect list of those writers whose claims may deserve consideration. 
 Nor, while it is clear that some writers should be admitted into the work 
 proposed, and others rejected, should I find it easy to draw any tolerably 
 definite line separating one class from the other. Wherever I might stop in 
 the selection of writers, after proceeding beyond a very few of the most 
 eminent, I should apprehend that some half-dozen would rise up before me, 
 having claims so nearly equal t5 some half-dozen admitted, that it would be 
 hard to say why the latter were taken and the former rejected. But without 
 suggesting any further difficulties, I will show, at least, my desire to comply 
 with any request of yours by throwing out some hints and bringing together 
 some names just as they occur to me; though I am sure my recollection will 
 be often at fault. 
 
 The oldest writer who might be thought of, so far as 1 happen to 
 remember, is Cotton Mather, from whom some striking or, perhaps, I 
 should say, remarkable passages might be taken. If the reputation and 
 merit of an author, supposing him to have no eloquence nor beauty of style, 
 may be a reason for giving him a place, Dr. Chauncy should not be over 
 looked. There are eloquent passages, I am told, in the writings of Mayhew, 
 with which I am not acquainted. James Otis of course would not be for 
 gotten. How is it with Dickinson, the author of the Farmer s Letters? 
 What is to be done with the elder Adams? and his wife Mrs. Adams? John 
 Quincy Adams, I presume, would not be omitted. There would be no ques 
 tion, I suppose, about Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, 
 Ames, Webster, or Clay. Dr. Belknap may deserve consideration, the 
 historian of New Hampshire, and the author of the " Foresters" and other 
 works. President Edwards, Dr. D wight, Dr. Mason of New York, and for 
 aaything I know to the contrary, President Nott, must all be candidates for 
 admission. I came near forgetting General Henry Lee. I wish I had some 
 book at hand containing reading lessons or pieces for declamation to help 
 my memory, but as I have not I will now mention without comment, and 
 without order, a host of names just as they happen to present themselves. 
 Dr. Channing, Buckminster, Greenwood, Thacher, Dr. Ware the elder, Dr. 
 
THE PROSE-WRITERS. 163 
 
 H. Ware, I think Dr. John Ware, William Ware, Dr. Kirkland, Mr. Frisbie, 
 Noah Worcester, Dr. and Mrs. Gilman, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. H. Lee, the 
 two Abbots, whose books have been so popular, Edward Everett (how 
 could I have left him to this place?) Alexander Everett, Irving, Cooper, 
 Brockden Brown, Hoffman, Kennedy, and other novelists whose merits I am 
 not acquainted with, Verplanck, Paulding, our minister Mr. Wheaton, per 
 haps DeWitt Clinton. Mr. Bowen, the present editor of the N. A. Review, 
 Mr. Prescott, Mr. Ticknor, Mr. Hillard, H. R. Cleveland, Burnap TJpham, 
 the two Peabodys (brothers), Legar6, Wirt, Sparks, Palfrey, Dr. Walker, 
 Professor Channing, Judge Story, Washington Allston, the two Danas, 
 father and son, Dr. Freeman, Rev. Mr. Coleman, Dr. Lathrop of West 
 Springfield, Bancroft, Brownson, Emerson, Willis. 
 
 On running over the preceding list I perceive at once many names 
 that should be, or that may be, added, and when I have added these, I pre 
 sume many will still be omitted Longfellow, Hawthorne, Mrs. Kirkland 
 (Mrs. Clavers ), Timothy Flint, Dr. Dewey, President Quincy, Commander 
 Mackenzie, Rev. B. R. Hall ( author of the " New Purchase" ), Schoolcraft, 
 Stephens (the traveller), Warren Burton ( author of the " District School 
 as it Was " ) Dr. and Mrs. Follen, Audubon, Wilson the Ornithologist and 
 Nuttall, if they are to be considered as Americans, Robert Walsh, Dennie, 
 the editor of the Portfolio, William Dunlap, William Tudor, Mrs. Childs, 
 t5 go back again to older times, Dr. Rush, Rev. Mr. Putnam, the last year s 
 Phi Beta Kappa orator at Cambridge, Mrs. Theodore Sedgwick ( author of 
 Alida, etc. ) % 
 
 But the contracting space of my paper admonishes me to stop. I can 
 hardly hope that my suggestions will be of any further service than to prove 
 my unwillingness to neglect any request of yours. 
 
 Very truly, my dear Sir, yours, 
 
 Andrews Norton. 
 
 New York, Jan. 15, 1845. 
 Friend Griswold : 
 
 I send you on the other leaf a notice of Miss Fuller s book 
 meagre and vague enough, as a notice in twenty lines could hardly fail to be. 
 I want this, as much better as you can make it, in Graham for March, and 
 no mistake. Don t disappoint me. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 P. S. Margaret s book is going to sell. I tell you it has the real stuff 
 in it. . . 
 * 
 
164 WILLIS AND RAYMOND. 
 
 Knickerbocker Office, [11 Feb. 1845.] 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I write this at our friend Clark s elbow who ( Clark, not the 
 elbow ) tells me that eight years ago, just about, his brother, then editing the 
 Philadelphia Gazette, wrote in that paper a column about N. P. Willis 
 scoring him savagely and putting in some facts which would be of use to 
 me. I was, and still am, loath to trouble you with the matter, but I made 
 an unsuccessful attempt through another person to have it looked up : and I 
 now must trouble you. Please look it up either yourself or send somebody 
 (to the Phil. Library, whe"re is a full file, ) have it copied and leave it with 
 Mr. Hart at the U. S. Gazette office to be sent to me. You of course have 
 seen my squabble with Willis. If you ll do this, I ll meet any expense you 
 may incur, and will repay the obligation in any way you please. Yours, as 
 ever, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 The Rev. B : T. Onderdonk, Bishop of New- York, was sen 
 tenced by the court of bishops t6 suspension from his office on 
 3 Jan. 1845, the same sentence which had recently been im 
 posed on the bishop of Pennsylvania. Allowing for the differ 
 ence in newspapers then and later, the case attracted even 
 greater attention than that in which H : Ward Beecher was 
 concernd thirty years afterward. A few months before this, 
 Willis (with Morris as business manager), had started The 
 Daily Mirror, which claimed, apparently with justice, t6 treat 
 the events of the day from the point of view of the well-to-d6 
 and educated class. Willis said he at first decided t6 ignore 
 the Onderdonk affair, but having expressd the opinion that the 
 verdict was unjust, because the offense was unprdved, he was 
 forcd t6 establish the correctness of this view by an examina 
 tion of the evidence for the prosecution. From this he argued 
 that their witnesses wer not worthy of belief, a position which 
 at once drew the fire of Raymond. Those wh6 think that per 
 sonal journalism is something new may read with interest the 
 
WILLIS AND RAYMOND. 165 
 
 folloing extracts from The Mirror ( weekly edition ) of 
 15 Feb. 1845 : 
 
 A paper that, of all American journals, has the most consideration 
 ( measured by the country s standard of representing more wealth than any 
 other) the New York Courier and Enquirer came out, unprovoked and 
 unexpectedly, a few days since, with a paragraph containing two vile insin 
 uations against my private character no less than libertinism, and most 
 discreditable motives for the boldness with which I defended the Bishop. . . 
 A second most injurious attack immediately appeared in the Courier, and a 
 country paper was brought in the same day, with a still more low-bred 
 assault upon me to the same purport, both certified to be from the pen of a 
 diminutive and busy little reporter [Raymond was 25, Willis 39] who saves 
 the cleaner side of his pen for the Courier, and, with the other, writes 
 "spicy scandal" for a country paper. . .The simple taking off of the little 
 man s borrowed brass . . . resulted in his giving immediate proof of his 
 ungentleman-like breeding and quality. I am saved all further trouble as to 
 an appreciation of the Courier s Raymond. . . But . . . this little viper, be 
 sides what is born under his tongue, has started up, from the grass, as he 
 crept toward me, the hidden slanders that were brooding unseen in the nests 
 of prolific envy. Offensive as such foul birds are, it is as well to have them 
 served up and named in the daylight for recognition. . . My defense of 
 Bishop Onclerdonk is next called a " public display of profligacy, written 
 after dinner, when not in a condition from which prudence is expected. . . 
 This long libel winds up with a tirade against the Mirror, which Raymond 
 calls "the pet of pimps, and himself (myself) the coward leader of all the 
 profligacy that seeks a higher resting-place than the gutter." It is extra 
 ordinary that with "intemperance" and " libertinism," health shows as 
 freshly on my cheek as it did at sixteen ! extraordinary that I am one of the 
 happiest men on earth in my well-known and much visited home, that a 
 more industrious editor does not exist in this hardworking land, and that I 
 can show invitations to pulpits all over the country to lecture, to firesides 
 by hundreds that I have no time to visit. . . Once for all I declare myself a 
 good citizen, a good husband and father, and a moral and capable editor. . . 
 
 After this one concludes that only shrinking modesty pre 
 vented Willis from getting heavy damages by means of a libel 
 suit. 
 
166 WILLIS AND RAYMOND. 
 
 On the 17th May, Raymond gave Griswold his view of the 
 squabble : 
 
 I believe I have never yet thanked you for your labor in looking for 
 that article concerning Willis for which I wrote. I procured it afterwards 
 through another channel, but I was none the less obliged to you. You were 
 quite right in supposing that my quarrel with W. was not at all t5 my taste. 
 I would have given a good deal to avoid it but after the manner in which 
 he treated me, what could I do? His position, compared with mhje, gave 
 him power to injure me very much : and it was not until I saw he was 
 determined to use it, without stint or remorse, that I made up my mind to 
 turn the tables and put him on the defensive. This, I believe, I did effec 
 tually enough : and yet I am heartily sorry for the whole affair, and would 
 give a good deal even now to have it reconciled, could it be done with pro 
 priety. But I think W. treated me very badly, and I do not think he had a 
 right to expect any thing else than I gave him. From remarks I know he 
 made, in private, I am sure he counted on abusing me with impunity first 
 because I was not able t5 repel his attack, and next because "Webb would not 
 let me if I wished. This certainly added meanness to his malice. 
 
 Tribune Office, Sunday, Feb. 16, 1845. 
 R. W. Griswold, Old Fellow, 
 
 . . . Margaret [ Fuller ] s book is out. I tell you it will make its 
 mark. It is not elegantly written, but every line talks. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 New York, Feb. 19, 1845. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . You asked me when I last saw you for my opinion of some 
 of Fay s writings. You will find it in the American Monthly in a review of 
 "Norman Leslie" and "Clinton Bradshaw," which review, by the way, 
 contains the passage upon the resources of American Romance which I 
 spoke to you about. Have you seen that new work by Vivian, " Vestiges of 
 the Natural History of Creation," ? Tis a good deal of a book, written in a 
 style of delightful simplicity, and condensing, digesting, and arranging most 
 admirably the best received knowledge of the day on the subject so as to 
 secure a well defined system from it. 
 
 Miss Fuller s "Woman in the Nineteenth Century" begins to make 
 some talk. There s a good story afloat about her and your friend Ralph 
 
EMERSON AND MARGARET FULLER. 167 
 
 Waldo. They were at the theatre looking at Fanny Elsler for the first time 
 "Margaret, that is Poetry!" observed he. "No, Ralph, that is Religion," 
 rejoined his friend with mingled enthusiasm and rebuke. 
 
 We have a live Yankee here now by the name of Hudson who makes 
 some stir among the Shakesperians. There must be something in the fel 
 low a great deal, he is so strongly praised and so indignantly damned by 
 different parties. His reputation, like his style, is so excessively antithetical 
 that there must be at least two strong points about him. I shall try not to 
 miss his next night. 
 
 Onderdonkery seems gradually to become quiescent notwithstanding 
 the new pamphlets which continue the row among a few. But there is no 
 truth in the report that the Bishop has gone as a Moravian Missionary t5 
 the Pawknees. Do let me hear from you soon. Truly yours, 
 
 C. F. H[offman]. 
 
 Portland, Feb. 27,1845. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Your plan I saw mentioned in the papers, and having had a 
 similar thought in my head years ago, I was prepared to understand the 
 difficulties you would have to encounter. My plan was to take up one writer 
 of the country, worth meeting, and give a just notice of what he was good 
 for, with samples. Yours, I take it for granted, is a better and safer plan. 
 You will make no enemies and I no friendj. I should stir up ten thousand 
 communities the busiest and the noisiest of the land with here and there a 
 disciple or an imitator who wouldn t care one single snap what became of 
 me or my book, after he had been heard in my defence. In your Poets of 
 America you were certainly not just to me but then you were unjust to so 
 many more, who could not bar it half so well, that I never gave the matter 
 a second thought. Your injustice to me however was not so much in what 
 you did not do of that I should never complain as in what you did do. 
 You adopted the second hand opinions of other people who had never read 
 my poetry; and you praised or quoted, which amounts to pretty much the 
 same thing, a parcel of stuff I had been ashamed of ever since it was written. 
 The poetry I refer to was something about a soldier and his wife, on the 
 shore of Lake Ontario which had been borrowed by some half dozen people 
 before to show what I was made of. The simpletons ! That Birth of Poetry 
 was worth a cartload of such trumpery and so were the lines to Ambi 
 tion. . 
 
168 j: NEAL. 
 
 As for you, now, if you have a hearty relish for poetry, sincere and 
 generous and beautiful poetry, as distinguished from conventional poetry, 
 classical rhythm, and all that, which between ourselves, I very much doubt, I 
 tell you that you have no idea of what I have done ( to say nothing of what 
 I can do ) in that way, than if you had never heard my name in your life. 
 
 But you " admire my novels." Not all of them, I hope for if you 
 do I must give you up. I can stomach a good deal of my own writing in 
 that way ; but really when I come to think of some that I have written, I 
 feel the blood mount to my temples and " go a rippling to my finger ends. " 
 The only comfort I have is in the reflection that by doing it, I have learned 
 to do better; and that I never should have been what I am now, had I not 
 been what I was, when they were thrown off, like eruptions from a volcano 
 in full blast; my notion being that we learn quite as much in this world by 
 failure as by success. 
 
 I wish I could put you in the way of getting the volumes you want 
 and at a reasonable price, but I cannot. They are all out of print, and I hope 
 will remain so, at least, until I can meet with a publisher worth giving them 
 to, and leisure for putting them into a new and better shape. 
 
 Brother Jonathan was never published here and the only copy I 
 have is so disfigured by alterations, in trying to make the whole worthy of 
 facts, that I am afraid to let any mortal see it. Seventy-Six I hold to be 
 the best by far, both as a story, and as a whole. Bating some errors and a 
 great many extravagances, that I should be willing to see republished in its 
 original shape. Randolph contains some bold and generous writing, but I 
 can call to mind nothing, now, which would suit you or your readers, except 
 perhaps a criticism on Shakespeare and the poets of Great Britain. If you 
 should extract that or any part of that, pray allow me to see the proof. 
 
 I dare not furnish you with a biography of myself. I never did such 
 a thing but once in my life and that was in a frolic ; and then I could not 
 bear to let it go for another s ; and so I said, in so many words, this is what 
 Mr. N. says of himself. I was writing for Blackwood and reviewing our 
 whole prose literature from recollection, without having a single book to 
 refer to. Wishing not to be known as the author, and having reviewed 
 everybody else, I could not overlook myself without betraying the secret; 
 and having once undertaken it, I durst not flinch or falter, but gave my 
 opinion of my own writing just as I would of another s, acknowledging how 
 ever ( that others might not be misled ) where I had picked them up, namely 
 from the author himself. You will find them in Blackwood about 1824-5 in 
 
j: NEAL. 169 
 
 a series of papers by me. In the New York Mirror about 1826 or 8 a 
 sketch appeared, by James Brooks of the Express, embodying a variety of 
 personal facts, very few errors, so far as I can remember now, and some very 
 good, because very natural, writing. There are some fifty more, I might 
 refer you to but you would only lose your time in consulting them. Write 
 as you feel write from your own judgment of me, without the least refer 
 ence to others, but however unjust or severe you may be, in my own opinion, 
 I will forgive you with all my heart, and like you all the better for it. . . 
 
 I thank you heartily for your kind invitation, and if I should pass 
 through your city ( which I vowed some twenty years ago, never to d5 if 
 there was any way of getting round it! no easy matter, I acknowledge, if 
 getting round Philadelphia means getting round the Philadelphians ) I shall 
 make it a point to drop in upon you and take a peep at your library and 
 your wife. Yours with respect, 
 
 John Neal. 
 
 Portland, March 8, 1845. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I see plainly I shall have to lend you a hand. Your letter has 
 satisfied me that we have long misunderstood each other. 
 
 If you get Brother Jonathan well : but for Heaven s sake don t fol 
 low the punctuation. That was one of my idiosyncrasies at the time trying 
 to carry out a system, at the sacrifice of many things worth more than the 
 system itself. Should you fail to get a copy, you shall have mine. If you 
 get one I hardly know where to point you for an extract, not having looked 
 into it, I verily believe, these ten years and being really afraid to do so lest 
 I should lose my patience, and peradventure not a little of my self-respect. 
 Still, there is a description of Edell Cummin a creature people have sup 
 posed I got from Goethe s Mignonne ; I hardly know why, for there is no 
 earthly resemblance that I can see, and h?r character was painted long before 
 I had ever read a line of Goethe or knew that he had ever conjured up such 
 a character, or apparition rather, as Mignonne. So, too, perhaps you might 
 take a fancy to a description of the breaking up of a river or a flooding of 
 low lands in the first vol. I rather liked it if I remember. But after 
 all, I do not know that, so far as Edell is concerned, you would not save 
 yourself some breath and get just about as good a notion of all I was after in 
 her character, by running your eye over the first volume of my last novel, 
 written for the Brother Jonathan paper, but never finished. It is called 
 
170 J: NEAL. 
 
 may I be hanged if I can remember the name just now ! but I began it for 
 Morris to help start the Mirror. I literally finished it in the B. J., and the 
 Brother Jonathan with it. Kuth Elder ! that s the name. I wrote it at 
 a hand gallop, and was not a little astonished, the other day, at seeing a for 
 eign extract from the story of Brother Jonathan which satisfied me that I 
 had been stealing from my.self recovering the very dross of the mould, 
 "where the imagery of my youth was smelted. 
 
 There s one pretty little fairy story which your Mr. Charles Naylor 
 is raving mad about, entitled Goody Gracious, and which I think might be 
 worth your attention. It appeared in the N. Y. Mirror six years ago, per 
 haps. I might mention several others clear, simple, and straightforward, 
 one published in a sort of anti-slavery book called the Envoy, 1840, Paw- 
 tucket, R. I. which a slaveholder might read, I think with tears in his eyes, 
 and a swelling of the heart if he were so disposed ; and another, which I 
 am sure you would be pleased with, called Idiosyncracies. It appeared in 
 the Brother Jonathan, about a year ago May 6 and July 8, 1843. I have 
 written volumes of such things, but can recall none just now which seem 
 adapted to your purpose, except these and one called Children, what are 
 they? which was the arch-type of many a volume that has appeared since in 
 the shape of Magazine writing about children. 
 
 The duel you mention is in 76 at the end of the first vol. I remem 
 ber it for its bad French the printer playing the Very mischief with my 
 revise. 
 
 Tomorrow my son shall copy off a poem or two not over long, which 
 will give you a better idea of the ore than you have had an opportunity of 
 acquiring. If you lay your hand upon a copy of the ( Yankee . . . you will 
 find some lines to an Idiot Boy, which I have had the misfortune to hear 
 declaimed, where it ought to have been "said or sung," more than once 
 and the lines, rather lengthy as we say here, to Byron, written just after my 
 return from his funeral in England. They are bold, but want retouching 
 here and there. The poems I shall send are, * The Dying Husband to his 
 Wife, and perhaps * The Marriage Ring if I can find a copy. 
 
 As you promise me a look at the proofs, I begin to feel easy. A word 
 or two, here and there, may serve me at least for another generation and 
 help you. 
 
 The second edition of Niagara, preface and all, you ought to have. It 
 contains a great deal of poetry not to be found in the first. . . I want you to 
 read the preface ; and to overlook if you can for I cannot the affectation 
 
j: NEAL. 171 
 
 and extravagances of some parts, for the strength and sweetness of others. 
 
 I have not a copy of Ambition but when I last saw it going the 
 rounds, I wanted to pull the hair out of somebody s head I didn t care much 
 whose for two or three lines like these : < I loved to hear the war-horn 
 cry instead of Pve loved, etc. . . 
 
 No, I did not dream that you wanted me to review myself, though 
 your language might have admitted such an interpretation, much less that 
 you wanted my opinion of myself, though I might have said so, but simply 
 to state the truth as I might perhaps without unseemly bragging : for in 
 good faith [?] I have had uncommon hardship to grapple with, all along 
 through life, with nobody to help me and fewer still to encourage or sympa 
 thize with me. Hence I have been always at war, in one way or another. 
 And yet I acknowledge that I have always been happy that no man had 
 ever more to be thankful for [cut out] life of worldly comfort, health, 
 strength and household affections or [cutout] for making war upon its 
 fellowmen. Your lot I see, has been altogether more trying, and you may 
 be sure you are sure that my ignorance of your domestic state led to the 
 untimely question about your lost wife. . . I had a sort of notion -that you 
 were a bachelor, for which I felt rather sorry, and somewhat vexed, having 
 a horror of such cattle with a house over their heads and the means of mak 
 ing some dear woman happy. Yes, depend upon it, if I go to Philadelphia, 
 I shall hunt you up. Meanwhile, be thankful, if you can, that you lost her 
 so suddenly that she and you and your children were spared the wasting 
 separation of protracted illness that the cord of life was not slowly un 
 twisted but snapped and the spirit set free with a bound. God comfort you 
 and your dear children. If you are led this way, of course you will see me 
 and mine, [cut out] 
 
 It has just occurred to me that a psalm of the death of Edell Cummin 
 the death chamber I mean would be likely to suit you. According to my 
 present recollection it is an affecting and faithful picture. 
 
 On the whole, as there is no time like the present, I believe I shall go 
 to work myself and send you such samples as lie in my way at once and in 
 as great variety as I can part warlike and part of a time of peaceable tem 
 per but American at any rate, whatever else they may be. 
 
 [John Neal]. 
 
 P. S. Your determination to go through all my novels reminds me of 
 a similar act of heroism by Longfellow, after his return from Sweden. He 
 had never read one before and had no just idea of anything but my faults 
 
172 EDWIN P. WHIPPLE. 
 
 and follies, but he began and read through thick and thin, and without 
 stopping, I believe. 
 
 Neal s genius was not everywhere appreciated : * The Knick 
 erbocker , of June 1842, had the folloing : 
 
 In London Assurance there is a character called Cool, and his part 
 is one which might be well filled by Mr. John Neal, a victim of the cacoethes 
 scribendi who has contributed more spoiled paper to line trunks and singe 
 fowls than any other writer in the United States. A friend has called our 
 attention to an insinuation, in one of his late crazy communications to a city 
 journal, that he had declined heretofore to write for the Knickerbocker, 
 because he was fearful that he should not be sufficiently rewarded for his 
 pains ; as two of our favorite correspondents ( whose very last brief com 
 munications to these pages brought to the one twenty-five and to the other 
 fifteen dollars ) had advised him of old Diedrich s defalcation in their case ! 
 Now we desire explicitly to say, injustice to our reputation for a respectable 
 taste, that we never in our lives saw an article from the pen of Mr. John 
 Neal, in prose or verse, with which we would have encumbered the pages of 
 the Knickerbocker, even had we been paid for so doing ; that we never in 
 vited him to write a line for our Magazine, nor has his name ever been men 
 tioned or alluded to in any way as one of our contributors. We have been 
 once or twice asked, indeed, by a friend (and doubtless at Mr. Neal s own 
 instance) t5 solicit his contributions; but sharing the indifference of the 
 public to his bedashed, inflated, and affected 4 tattlements, or rather twattle- 
 ments, we always very respectfully declined the proposition. 
 
 Midnight, March 18, 1845. 
 Dear Grisvvold : 
 
 . . . Mary remains comfortable, but I think she is fading daily. 
 Her disease is consumption, for which, I am persuaded, there is no cure. 
 
 We all often speak of you, Griswold, and wonder what you are doing 
 in these vexatious days. Whipple is still in nubibus. Now and then he 
 descends, but his visits earthwards are but seldom. You may catch him 
 over his coffee at his accustomed " Haven " but he rarely tarries long. At 
 the Exchange Reading Room hangs one who gathers subscribers, but heis 
 not himself when thus engaged. Tis only when " daylight dies " you may 
 look at him through smoked glass. For women he has no " pangs." Now 
 
LITERARY AMENITIES. 173 
 
 and then he mumbleth " Mowatt" but this is his only sign of remembrance 
 of the sex. 
 
 Let me have Alfred soon and believe me always, Yours most truly, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 A glimpse of the literary manners of the period is given in 
 the New-York correspondence of The National Intelligencer 
 for 20 March : 
 
 The jury, in the case of Park Benjamin and J. W. Judd, indicted for 
 an alleged libel in the New "World newspaper, brought in a verdict of "not 
 guilty " on Saturday afternoon. Owing to the positions of the parties in the 
 suit, considerable interest was attached to it. The history may be briefly 
 stated. Mr. Cooley of this city, wrote and published a book " The American 
 in Egypt." Mr. Gliddon, son of our late consul at Alexandria, saw, or fan 
 cied he saw, some unworthy reflections upon his father in said book, and he 
 wrote a severe review of it, exposing in a caustic style its defects and mis- 
 statements. Mr. Cooley feeling himself aggrieved, made a personal assault 
 upon Mr. Gliddon, under circumstances which did not impugn the latter s 
 courage or capacity to defend himself. Mr. Cooley was indicted, tried, and 
 sentenced to pay a fine of $5. The New World , in commenting on the 
 affair, remarked that " Mr. Cooley had acquired his skill in knocking down 
 as a Chatham Street auctioneer." For this and other remarks of rather a 
 playful than a severe character, Mr. Benjamin was indicted and tried. The 
 jury, in acquitting him, took occasion to add that the article complained of 
 was " ill-judged and uncalled for." And thus a suit, which should never 
 have been commenced, was terminated. 
 
 Benjamin seems t6 hav been a man of good morals and cor 
 rect habits, but he had queer notions of literary ethics. In 
 August 1842, The Brother Jonathan (then edited by H. H. 
 Weld ) publishd the folloing from The Boston Post : 
 
 The New York Union, in alluding t5 the exposure of a system of 
 puffing in vogue among a certain class of writers, says : "The Brother 
 Jonathan gives five letters of Park Benjamin, which are piquant models of 
 epistolary composition, brief, bold, admirably qualified to startle a man out 
 of a twenty-dollar bill. The Ladies Companion was to be reviewed in the 
 4 Southern Literary Messenger, the New World and the New Yorker by 
 contract; besides which the following stimulant, a kind of whet to the pub- 
 
174 LITERARY " STRIKING. " 
 
 lisher s sated appetite, was held out in a postscript : What say you to a first 
 rate notice in the Boston Post? Et tu quoque ! " 
 
 We [ The Post ] beg to say to the Union, and to the public, that 
 Mr. Benjamin has never written a review for the Post, and had no more 
 authority for putting the above interrogatory to the < Ladies Companion, 
 respecting this journal, than he has to ask a similar question respecting the 
 Union, or any other paper. Our " Literary ]Sotices, v published as editorial, 
 all emanate from our own establishment, entirely uninfluenced by authors or 
 publishers, and express nothing more nor less than the reviewer s unbiassed 
 opinion of the contents of the volumes and periodicals laid before him. 
 
 We [< The Brother Jonathan, ] publish the above in justice to the 
 Post, and should have said when the letters were published that we knew 
 enough of that establishment t5 know that Mr. B. does not do his puffing 
 there. We know where he has done it, though, and will publish the proofs 
 if he desires it. The Aurora pertinently asks, " Mr. Benjamin, what do you 
 say to a first rate notice in the Boston Morning Post?" 
 
 In its September issue * The Companion vigorously replied 
 t6 its assailant in language which reminds the reader that these 
 wer the days of the Eatanswill Gazette : 
 
 As we always avoid making our pages the vehicle of scurrility, we have 
 to request the forgiveness of our readers, if in noticing a gross attack recent 
 ly made upon ourselves and the Companion, by the notorious Park Benja 
 min in the New World, we for once sully them with language repugnant to 
 our feelings. . . Like the viper which was warmed into existence, and repaid 
 its benefactor with its bite, were we repaid by this literary reptile. The 
 Companion, which had hitherto been the idol of his warm laudation, all at 
 once became the victim of his falsehood and scurrility. . . Were aught re 
 quired to exhibit the nefarious system pursued by this literary hedgehog for 
 a subsistence, we need only inform our readers that it is his constant prac 
 tice to entice unfortunate authors to entrust their compositions to his care 
 for supervision ( ? ) and sale. If he should be fortunate enough to find a 
 purchaser for them, a heavy discount is then exacted from the unlucky 
 wight ; if not, the publisher who declines the negotiation immediately be 
 comes the victim of his scurrilous attacks. For a full development of his 
 conduct towards the Companion we refer our readers to the publication of 
 certain letters of this " Literary Algerine" in the Brother Jonathan of the 
 13th ultimo. 
 
H: J. RAYMOND. 175 
 
 New York, May 17, 1845. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 You are so universally known to be plenipotent with booksellers, 
 that I suppose you are never surprised at being called on to transact with 
 them the business of others : and I know that your kindness will excuse a 
 commission from me. I have been wanting for some time to prepare for the 
 Courier a review, or rather extended summary, of the History of the Explor 
 ing Expedition, but I have not got the book. A copy was sent to Col. Webb, 
 who copied Chandler s notice of it, and of course he will do no more. King 
 also has a copy but he has so deep a prejudice against Wilkes that he would 
 never say anything in his favor. And I, who am the only one likely to do or 
 say anything about it, have not the materials wherewith to d5 it. And 
 moreover I need not tell you wh5 are perfectly au fait in newspaper mat 
 ters, that there is no great inducement for one to write labored and extended 
 reviews when one has not seen the book to pay for his trouble. Now if 
 L[indsay ] and B[lakiston] think it worth while to let me have one of the 
 $25 copies, I will write at least six, and more likely ten, articles about it, for 
 the Courier. It strikes me that this would be for them a better investment 
 than they have yet made, at least, so far as this paper is concerned. If you 
 can mention this matter t5 them incidentally not as by request from me, 
 but as what you know of my wishes, and my ability concerning it, I should 
 be greatly obliged to you, and I will very gladly write extended notices of 
 any books of which they may send me a copy ; but when they come to Col. 
 W. ( who of course is always entitled to a copy when but one comes ) , or to 
 King, I shall of course only write such notices as are matters of course, 
 Carey and Hart used to send me ( through your mediation too, ) their books 
 when I was in the Tribune, and I noticed them accordingly. I know it s 
 hard to make a publisher or any one else believe that a subordinate Editor 
 is an Editor at all: but you know enough of the proportion of labor they 
 perform, and of the discretion they have, to understand the matter better. 
 
 Now, my dear Griswold, don t go a step out of your way to attend t5 
 this ; but should you have a good chance to speak to L. and B., or C. and H., 
 about it, you would do me a good service, and, I think, them also. 
 
 I was very sorry not to see more of you when you were here. I want 
 ed to know more what you are at and how you flourish. I hope you are 
 working at your Biographical Encyclopaedia, for I think you can make that a 
 matter worth a good many years labor, not only in fame but in cash. There 
 is not one extant, I believe, which could compete with it at all, and still it is 
 
176 CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 
 
 precisely one of those books which everyone would want. The Harpers are 
 in the way of publishing a good many valuable books of reference, and would 
 be anxious, I should think, to secure that. Could you not make better terms 
 with them than elsewhere? I merely suggest it, because I am anxious that 
 it should yield you the uttermost farthing. And why cannot you get it 
 underway? Published in numbers with a respectable interval between 
 you could easily follow it up, and it would be " kept before the public" more 
 than if issued in any other way. . . 
 
 But I will not bore you with this matter. I hope to see you whenever 
 you come to N. Y. I am boarding now at the N". Y. Hotel, but shall soon be 
 housekeeping at 107 Nineteenth St. You probably saw the Herald s state 
 ment that C. Mathews had fallen heir to a large estate. I am told it s hum 
 bug but Duyckinck has [ illegible ] his new novel into Wiley & Putnam s 
 series ! Pray drop me a line as soon as convenient, and believe me, as ever, 
 
 Most truly Yours, 
 
 H. J. Raymond. 
 
 Cornelius Mathews was a man-of -letters wh6se like has not 
 been seen before or since. He was for many years the con 
 stant subject for snubs and ridicule in almost every organ of 
 opinion except those in which he or his friend Duyckinck had 
 a proprietary interest. But the more absurd he was made t6 
 appear, the more, apparently, he enjoyd the situation, think 
 ing, apparently, that fame being unattainable, notoriety was a 
 fair substitute. He died 25 March 1889. Concerning the 
 book mentiond by Raymond, The Knickerbocker discoursed 
 thus, beginning with a quotation from an article by C. C. 
 Felton in the North American Review : 
 
 Wiley and Putnam s Library of American Books is a series which 
 with the exception of a few of the volumes, is not likely to d5 much honor to 
 American Literature. It is difficult to imagine what can have seduced those 
 respectable publishers into printing, as one of the series, that indescribably 
 stupid imitation of Dickens, entitled and called Big Abel and Little Man 
 hattan . [ Here The Knickerbocker interrupts its contemporary to say that 
 " In justice to the enterprising publishers, it is proper to explain, that Big 
 Abel and Little Manhattan was announced through a misunderstanding, or 
 
CORNELIUS MATHEW8. 177 
 
 without their knowledge, upon the cover of a previous issue, as one of their 
 forthcoming American Books. The author was offered a cheque for a 
 hundred dollars if he would withdraw it from the series ; but as it had been 
 printed at his risk, he would not consent to surrender an opportunity of 
 adding to his literary laurels. It is worthy of remark also, in this connec 
 tion, that the silly and affected motto, to which reference is had by the 
 reviewer, is from the same luminous pen that traced of * Big Abel and Little 
 Manhattan the wondrous history. A library, however, which includes 
 among its volumes such excellent and attractive works as Mosses from an 
 Old Manse . . . should not be tabooed on account of -two or three worthless 
 or uninteresting publications ] a contribution to the patriotic native Ameri 
 can Literature a good deal worse than the very worst things of The Yemas- 
 see and Guy Rivers. Surely, surely, this dismal trash cannot have been 
 seriously chosen as a fit representative of American originality, in a Library 
 of American Books ; though it does very well to follow the silly and affected 
 motto which some evil-disposed person has persuaded them to adopt from 
 the Address of the American Copyright Club. " 
 
 A year before the North- American had paid its respects to 
 Mathews as folios : 
 
 Mr. Mathews has shown a marvellous skill in failing, each failure be 
 ing more complete than the last. His comedy of The Politician is the 
 most lamentable comedy; and the reader exclaims, with Hippolyta, ; This 
 is the silliest stuff that ever I heard. The * Career of Puffer Hopkins is an 
 elaborately bad imitation of Dickens ; and must be ranked in fiction where 
 The Politicians stands in the drama. It aims at being comical, and satiri 
 cal upon the times. The author studies hard to portray the motley charac 
 ters which move before the observer in a large city; but he has not enough 
 of the vision and the faculty divine to make them more than melancholy 
 ghosts of what they profess to be. The attempts at humor are inexpressibly 
 dismal ; the burlesque overpowers the most determined reader, by its leaden 
 dulness. The style is ingeniously tasteless and feeble. He who has read it 
 through can do or dare anything. Mr. Mathews suffers from several errone 
 ous opinions. He seems to think that literary elegance consists in the very 
 qualities which make elegance impossible. Simplicity and directness of 
 language he abominates." 
 
 After quoting the foregoing, * The Knickerbocker con 
 tinues : 
 
178 CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 
 
 There are two things for which we applaud the author of * Big Abel ; 
 first, his choice of American subjects in composing his books, although his 
 bald imitations of foreign authors make his merits in this respect of very 
 little account; and secondly, his advocacy of an international copyright. 
 By the by, it may not be amiss to remark here, that there have been 
 some amusing illustrations of the necessity of an international copyright 
 law by two or three of the new dynasty of litterateurs, whose pen-and-ink 
 works are without demand, as the prices-current have it. These < minor 
 writers, who lament that their book-making efforts are rendered 
 nugatory solely by the want of an international copyright law, are very justly 
 rebuked in these words, by the Courier and Enquirer : We dislike the 
 prevalent cant about the hopeless condition of American authors. Ameri 
 can books are not now published for the first time, nor have books worthy 
 of favor failed in general to receive it; as the works of Irving, Prescott, 
 Cooper, Bancroft, Story, Wheaton, and at least a score of others, can abun 
 dantly testify. These we regard as the red-letter names of American lit 
 erature ; and although we are glad to see the productions of some of our 
 minor writers about to be issued we dislike the effort to hide greater and 
 brighter names beneath their shadow. There is no patriotism or family 
 pride, which should lead an American to prefer a bad book, or one of 
 mediocre merit, to a thoroughly good one. These are our Knickerbocker s 
 sentiments precisely ; for the expression of which, when we have had occa 
 sion, we are denounced by one of the scribes whom we have exposed, as an 
 enemy in the camp of American literature. American literature I 
 Pish ! ] ; although his pertinacity in obtruding his name in connexion with 
 this object has done it infinite harm, by preventing influential men from 
 giving it their countenance, as they naturally felt unwilling, in a cause like 
 this, to play second fiddle to the author of * Puffer Hopkins. But enough : 
 let it suffice to say, in conclusion, that Mr. Mathews has been so often, and 
 in such a variety of ways, tried in the literary balance, and found wanting, 
 that we have no alternative left us but to dismiss him to the unsatisfactory 
 notoriety or the enviable oblivion which awaits him ; for as an author he 
 can only pass without ridicule when he passes without observation. 
 
 In January 1847, The Knickerbocker had the folloing 
 amusing squib : 
 
 We have seldom seen a better satire than is conveyed in one of the 
 recent English Letters, written from London to the Evening Mirror, by 
 
J-AMBS AND SIMMS. 179 
 
 a most veracious gentleman who signs himself * F. M. Pinto, probably a 
 relative of the great Ferdinand Mendez himself. Mr. Pinto is a guest at 
 Eton-Hall, not a great way from Liverpool, where all Americans make it a 
 point to go shortly after landing in England ; and there he encounters James, 
 the novelist, each having been apprised that they were to meet : 
 
 " Sauntering into the library, after having taken a stroll through the 
 conservatories, I saw a slender gentleman, dressed in a rather jaunty man 
 ner, with a light blue coat and silver buttons, with a green shade over his 
 eyes, examining an illuminated copy of Froissart. Thre was no other per 
 son th6re, and as I entered, he looked up from the book and said : 
 
 Ah ! I presume this is the celebrated Mr. Pinto, from America? 
 
 The same, I replied, with an honest blush at hearing myself Called 
 celebrated by a stranger. 
 
 "Well, he said, I am the celebrated Mr. James, the novelist. I am 
 happy to see the countryman of Cooper, Ingraham and Hopkins. 
 
 1 "What! I exclaimed, grasping him by the hand, do I behold the real 
 G. P. E. James, the author of that prolific Novel which has appeared under 
 so many different names? 
 
 The same, Sir, he replied, embracing me warmly. Pray, Mr. Pinto, 
 are my works read in America? 
 
 Your work, I presume you mean, I replied : ( why, my dear Sir, it 
 is published once a month regularly by one of our great publishers, and 
 always with a new title. The last time I think it was called Morley 
 Ernstein. Can you tell me what it will be called next? 
 
 I have already chosen the name of Beauchamp , he replied ; * don t 
 you think it a good novelesque name? 
 
 Admirable, said I. * Now let me ask you, Mr. James, whSre you 
 obtained that brilliant idea of beginning your novel by describing elaborately 
 a horseman and so forth, who might have been seen at the close of an 
 autumnal day? And also allow me to inquire whether or not anything of 
 the sort ever was seen ? 
 
 Oh, I understand, said the great author; why, that is a trick of my 
 confounded amanuensis, who is a shocking mannerist. I observe that your 
 distinguished countryman, Mr. Simms, has copied that, as well as the other 
 little faults of my novels, very faithfully. Do you know that my publisher 
 once accused me of issuing one of my novels under the name of Simms? 
 Fact. Somebody sent him a copy of * Guy Rivers, and he swore I wrote it ! " 
 
 It strikes us that the power of the burlesque in association could no 
 
180 CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 
 
 farther go than in Mr. James s classification of our distinguished authors, 
 Cooper, Ingraham and * Puffer Hopkins ! 
 
 [In a later letter, Pinto ] "describes a breakfast at Bogers , where the 
 following, among other conversation, took place : 
 
 " Bulwer, who had been watching his opportunity to say a word, now 
 remarked that he had just received a copy of the Literary World [then 
 edited by Mathews and Duyckinck ] from New-York, and was happy to see 
 from the booksellers , as well as by the editorial matter, that the Americans 
 still gave the preference to English books. That was an excellent idea, 
 of establishing a paper of your own, to review our books after they have 
 been noticed in the forty or fifty literary journals of this country ; because 
 your critic will have the benefit of all the opinions that have been expressed 
 abroad before he ventures to give his own, if he should happen to have any. 
 I suppose that your critic, instead of reading the book which he criticizes, 
 just takes and reads some half a dozen or more reviews of it in our journals, 
 and then makes a review out of them. I replied, indignantly, that my liter 
 ary countrymen were entirely independent of foreign criticism, and that 
 they put no value whatever on English reviews in particular. To which he 
 replied, Walker! evidently being very much disconcerted, and not know 
 ing what else to say. " 
 
 Wholesome and just satire this, which nobody can deny. 
 
 Later in the same year * Blackwood s expressd a like opin 
 ion of Mathews : 
 
 How it happens that the publishers have admitted to the Library of 
 American Books as if it were a book a thing called * Big Abel and the 
 Little Manhattan, is to us, at this distance from the scene of operations, 
 utterly inexplicable. It is just possible that the author may have earned a 
 reputable name in some other department of letters ( ! ) ; pity, then, he 
 should forfeit both it and his character for sanity by this outrageous attempt 
 at humor. Perhaps he is the potent editor of some American broadsheet, 
 of which publishers stand in awe. We know not; of this only are we sure, 
 that more heinous trash was never before exposed to public view. We read 
 two chapters of it more, we are persuaded, than any other person in Eng 
 land has accomplished and then threw it aside with a sort of charitable con 
 tempt. For the sake of all parties, readers, critics, publishers and the 
 author himself, it should be buried at once out of sight, with other things 
 noisome and corruptible. 
 
CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 181 
 
 Griswold, meanwhile, had publishd his Prose Writers, and 
 his view of Mathews is summarized by * The Knickerbocker 
 thus : 
 
 Mr. Griswold joins the North-American Review, the Knickerbocker, 
 and we may now add, the Democratic Review, * in animadverting upon 
 those distinctive characteristics of these writers which we have heretofore 
 been compelled, in the conscientious discharge of our duty to our readers, t5 
 condemn. For example, Mr. Griswold observes that in the writings of Mr. 
 Simms our attention is sometimes engrossed by actions, but, he adds, we 
 feel no sympathy with the actors. He gives us too much of ruffianism. The 
 coarseness and villany of many of his characters have no attraction in works 
 of the imagination. If true to nature, which may be doubted, it is not true 
 to nature as we love to contemplate it, and it serves no good purpose in 
 literature. Mr. Simms does not discriminate between what is irredeemably 
 base and revolting, and what by the hand of art may be made subservient to 
 the exhibition of beauty. This is almost the very language of the Knicker 
 bocker. Concerning Mr. Mathews, our author speaks with equal justice and 
 severity : The style of Mr. Mathews is unnatural, and in many places indicates 
 a mind accustomed to the contemplation of vulgar depravity. Who would 
 think of finding such names as Hobbleshank, Greasy Peterson, Fish- 
 blatt, or * Flab, in Washington Irving or Nathaniel Hawthorne? But they 
 are characteristic of * Puffer Hopkins, His language is sometimes affectedly 
 quaint, and when more natural, though comparatively fresh, it is rude and 
 uncouth. Some writers are said to advance on stilts; our author may be 
 said to proceed difficultly, jerkingly through mire. The charge of a want of 
 nationality is somewhat stale ; but as copies of the works of Mr. Mathews 
 have gone abroad, it is proper to say that nothing has ever been printed in 
 this country that exhibits less the national character. It is not intended here 
 to say that The Politician and Puffer Hopkins are German, French, or 
 
 * The Democratic Review for March, in a commendatory notice of 
 . . . Library of Choice Reading, considers it as unfortunate that the pub 
 lishers should have provoked a comparison with that series and one so 
 unfavorable to our national pride as their Library of American Books. It 
 would have been better, the writer contends, not to have published any of 
 the several books in this series than to have given to the public the lame 
 and impotent efforts of Mr. Mathews, and the intolerable diffuseness and 
 endless drawl of words which distinguish the writings of Mr. Simms. 
 
182 CORNELIUS MATHEWS. 
 
 English, but merely that they are not ill any kind or degree American. The 
 most servile of all our copyists have thus far been those who have talked 
 most of originality, as if to divert attention from their felt deficiencies in this 
 respect. Young America had not wit enough to coin for himself a name, 
 but must parody one used in England ; and in its pronunciamento in favor 
 of a fresh and vigorous literature it adopts a quaint phraseology, that so far 
 from having been born here, or even naturalized, was never known among 
 us, except to the readers of very old books and the Address of the Copy 
 right Club. 1 In all its reviews of literature and art, the standards are Eng 
 lish, which would be well enough, perhaps, if they were English standards, 
 but they are the fifth. rate men with whose writings only their own can be 
 compared. . . Their very clamor about Americanism is borrowed from the 
 most worthless foreign scribblers, and has reference chiefly to the compara 
 tively unimportant matter of style. Of genuine nationality they seem to 
 have no just apprehension. It has little to do with any peculiar collocation 
 of words, but is the pervading feeling and opinion of a country, leavening 
 all its written thoughts." 
 
 This not only hits the nail on the head ; it drives it home, and buries 
 it. We quite agree with Mr. Griswold in the remark, that of all absurd 
 schemes, the absurdest is that of creating a national literature by inventing 
 tricks of speech, or by any sort of forced originality; of which fact, proof 
 enough may be found in the writings of Mr. Mathews. 
 
 Naturally, Mathews and his friends ( Duyckinck and W : 
 A. Jones ) s6t to minimize the influence of a work which held 
 such views, but their success seems not to hav been great : 
 
 We [ Knickerbocker, May 1847 ] quite agree with the * Courier and 
 Enquirer daily journal, that the reviews of Griswold s Prose-Writers of 
 America which have appeared in the Democratic Review > and The Liter 
 ary World are very shabby, very weak, and show only uneasy malice. 
 We understand that the Southern Literary Messenger has been hired, by a 
 species of literary dicker of no particular value, to republish one or both 
 of those notices. It is well remarked by the Boston Courier, that Mr. 
 Griswold and the public know too well how this * independent criticism is 
 prepared and managed, * to be at all affected by malevolence in the mask of 
 candor, or to have any difficulty in detecting the whine of whipped conceit 
 or the howl of mortified vanity in the disguise of affected sneer. Mr. Gris 
 wold s book has been executed honestly, ably and well ; and is a valuable 
 contribution to the original literature of the country. 
 
CARLYLE ON COPYRIGHT. 183 
 
 International copyright had often been discussed, but the 
 public took no interest in it before the visit of Dickens in 1(842. 
 No statement of the case equalld in vigor and simplicity 
 Carlyle s letter, which, throu Dickens, receivd wide atten 
 tion : 
 
 Templand,* (for London, ) 26 March, 1842. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 We learn by the newspapers that you everywhere in America 
 stir up the question of International Copyright and thereby awaken huge 
 dissonance where all else were triumphant unison for you. I am asked my 
 opinion of the matter and requested to write it down in words. 
 
 Several years ago if memory err not, I was one of many English 
 writers who, under the auspices of Miss Martineau, did sign a petition to 
 Congress, praying for an International Copyright between the two nations, 
 which, properly, are not two nations but one indivisible by Parliament, 
 Congress, or any kind of human law or diplomacy, being already united by 
 Heaven s act of Parliament, and the everlasting law of Nature and Fact. To 
 that opinion I shall still adhere, and I am like to continue adhering. 
 
 In discussion of the matter before any Congress or Parliament, mani 
 fold considerations and argumentations will necessarily arise, which to me 
 are not interesting nor essential for helping me to a decision. They respect 
 the time and manner in which the thing should be, not at all whether the 
 thing should be or not. In an ancient Book, reverenced, I should hope, on 
 both sides of the Ocean, it was thousands of years ago written down, in the 
 most decided and explicit manner, Thou shalt not steal. That thou be- 
 longest to a different nation and canst steal without being certainly hanged 
 for it, gives thee no permission to steal. Thou shalt not in anywise steal at 
 all ! So it is written down for Nations and for Men, in the Law Book of the 
 Maker of this Universe. Nay poor Jeremy Bentham and others step in 
 here, and will demonstrate that it is actually our true convenience and 
 expediency not to steal ; which I, for my share on the great scale, and on the 
 small, and in all conceivable scales and shapes do most firmly believe it to 
 be. For example, if nations abstained from stealing, what need were there 
 of fighting with its butcherings and burnings decidedly the most expens- 
 
 * Templand was a farm in Nithsdale which was the home of Mrs. 
 Carlyle s mother. She had died in the winter of 1842. 
 
184 INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT. 
 
 ive thing in this world? How much more tw5 nations which, as I said, are 
 but one Nation knit in a thousand ways by Nature and Practical intercourse; 
 indivisible brother elements of 4he same great Saxendom, to which in all 
 honorable ways be long life ! 
 
 When Mr. Robert Roy McGregor lived in the district of Menteith, on 
 the Highland border, two centuries ago, he, for his part, found it more con 
 venient to supply himself with beef by stealing it alive from the adjacent 
 glens, than by buying it killed in the Stirling butcher s Market. It was Mr. 
 Roy s plan of supplying himself with beef in those days this of stealing it 
 In many a little Congress in the district of Menteith, there was debating, 
 doubt it not, and much specious argumentation this way and that before 
 they could ascertain that, really and truly, buying was the best way to get 
 your beef, which, however, in the long run they did with one assent find it 
 indisputably to be, and accordingly they hold by it to this day. 
 
 Wishing you a pleasant voyage, and a swift and safe return, I remain 
 always, My dear sir, yours, very sincerely, 
 
 Thomas Carlyle. 
 
 Here was a new opportunity for Mathews t6 attract atten 
 tion, and he was not slo in seizing it : 
 
 We [ < The Knickerbocker, Sept. 1842 ] say it in no spirit of vain 
 glory ; but all the arguments advanced in P. s paper on * Copyright have 
 already been employed by Ollapod, Mr. Washington Irving, and the Edi 
 tor, in these pages. International Copyright is founded on the immutable 
 laws of truth and justice, and it will sooner or later be incorporated in our 
 national statute-book. It is not impossible, however, that the period of its 
 adoption may be retarded by the crude and violent advocacy of certain 
 small litterateurs among us who are riding it as a hobby ; whose apparent 
 aim for the protection of their own < works against British competition 
 gives the w r hole question an air of burlesque in the eyes of many here, and 
 exerts a positive influence against ( the right. 
 
 New York, May 23, 1845. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Old Friend : 
 
 Our friend [G: G.] Foster has got up Shelley s Poems in the 
 best style, with appropriate introductions, etc. There is not a copy of them 
 to be had here, and I presume not in the Country. You know they ought to 
 be published, and yet there is no house here that is fit to do it. Won t you 
 
HOFFMAN ON FRENEAU. 185 
 
 speak to Carey and Hart about it? There is no risk, and Foster don t stand on 
 terms, unless they ask pay from Mm, and that you know is inadmissible. 
 Just have them brought out, or write me about the matter anyhow. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 June 28th, 1845. 
 
 . . . How stand you Philadelphia air" now? It must be as hot 
 as tophet. Here we have the thermometer at 85 in the shade, but a sea 
 breeze night and morning that refreshes one mightily to go through the day. 
 At Brooklyn there has not been a night when I could not sleep under a 
 blanket, and this morning in crossing the ferry the water was so rough that 
 the steamers actually careened to the wind. 
 
 Yet I am dripping from " exuding pores " while writing this. I would 
 bet now that at the very hours when we have the breezes you have a sort of 
 leaden, " muggy," sky at Philadelphia, and then you have a kind of sticky 
 feeling under your clothes all day, feeling, the while, as if you would like to 
 be stripped and rubbed with lime juice and. sweet oil to lubricate you. 
 Come to the ocean banks, come to the sea-foamy tide come snuff the brine 
 and see the porpoises in motion come hither my friend while you have any 
 liver to bring along with you, and the sea air will pickle it into health in a 
 trice. Yours always, 
 
 C. F. H[offman]. 
 
 New York, June 30, 1845. 
 My Dear Griswold : 
 
 ... I may here add, as you d5 not mention the place of his birth, 
 that Philip Frenau was born in Beekman Street, New York, as Dr. Francis 
 and, I think, Mr. Rapelje will tell you. 
 
 Do you know, I think you missed it in not giving him more room; 
 that piece " His blanket tied with yellow strings," etc. should have been in. 
 There is more of nature and poetry about him than in all the Yankees that 
 follow till you come to Hillhouse. D wight, Barlow etc., were men of great 
 intellectual vigor but their poetry was an exercise of mental ingenuity merely. 
 Freneau, if half an idiot, would still have had more poetry in the other 
 half than could have been squeezed out of all the others boiled down to a 
 consomme". I am my Dear Doctor, Yours, etc., 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
186 POE AND TUCKERMAN. 
 
 Tribune Office, New York, July 3rd, 45. 
 R. W. Griswold, Esq., My Reverend Friend : 
 
 Miss Fuller and I greatly desiderate a set of " Hood s Works," 
 or so near them us you can come, preliminary to an article on Hood for The 
 Tribune. Will you send us by Express a set of those works, as soon as you 
 can, whether your own or some goodnatured friend s? Yours, in the love 
 
 of Cheap Postage, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 P. S. I will thank you not to be out of town when this reaches the 
 Quaker City. 
 
 New York, July 11, 1845. 
 MyJ)ear Doctor: 
 
 I saw Tuckerman last night, who told me that he had rec d a 
 letter from you in which you spoke of expecting one from me in reply to 
 something you had written lately. I really do not know t5 what this alludes 
 for I have answered all your letters for some months the moment I received 
 them. They generally contain something about my getting proof "next 
 week " a phrase that seems to have about as much meaning as " your Humble 
 Servant" when the writer has no idea of serving at all. 
 
 And so, as I learn from Tuckerman, you publish your letters on Liter 
 ature in the Intelligencer. I saw an extract from one in the Mirror, and 
 expected daily [more of ?] them from you to copy into the Gazette. The 
 Intelligencer I do not see. The Alleghanian, as I told Tuckerman, would be 
 a good paper for them to appear in. This paper [ R : Grant] White, who is 
 the sole Editor, tells me is getting along bravely. The Broadway Journal 
 stopped for a week t5 let Briggs step ashore with his luggage, and they are 
 now getting up steam to drive it ahead under Captains Poe and Watson. I 
 think it will soon stop again to land one of these. Let me tell you a good 
 joke. Poe and Tuckerman met for the first time last night, and how? 
 They each, upon invitation, repaired to the Rutgers Institute, where they 
 sat alone together as a Committee upon young ladies compositions. Odd, 
 isn t it, that the women, who divide so many, should bring these two to 
 gether ! . . . 
 
 H [ offman ] . 
 
 New York, July 17, 1845. 
 Reverend and Dear Sir : 
 
 Greeley informs me that you are the only antiquarian to whom 
 to apply for old books I want a set of Brown s Novels ( Charles Brockden). 
 You have got them of course you will send them t5 me. 
 
C: BROCKDEN BROWN. 187 
 
 I propose to republish them in 25 cent volumes, and from what I have 
 read of them (I am now reading Arthur Mervyu), I feel sure they will sell 
 as well as any modern novel. The last edition was Goodrich s, Boston, 1827, 
 and copies are very scarce. 
 
 An introduction, original, ought to be given, and you could write it 
 and if you give me the books and Preface, I will give you $25. Recollect I 
 am now as poor as Job s Turkey, and wish to strike when I can d5 so with 
 out molestation. 
 
 Suggest some good, old, rare and standard book, none knows better 
 what will go. 
 
 I can get all but " Ormond " here but would like a complete set I 
 cannot find that at any of the old libraries. 
 
 Please t5 give me an early answer, for if I begin, I wish to begin soon, 
 yet not to publish till fall. Yours truly, 
 
 [Jonas] Winchester. 
 
 New York, July 29, 1845. 
 My Reverend Friend : 
 
 The clock strikes eight P. M., the stage starts for Harlem; and I 
 let it go and leave me here to scrawl you a hasty note. I am debtor to the 
 Greek and t5 Barbarian in the matter of letters, and I must take the benefit 
 of the act, there is no help for it. The work I have promised to do would 
 br6ak an elephant s back, and here I am, badgered to death by all sorts of 
 people from 9 A. M. to late in the afternoon before I can begin to write; 
 then the paper must be attended to, and eight strikes, the stage goes, and I 
 must go with it, leaving letters to take care of themselves, such is my daily 
 life. 
 
 Let me try to give you, in my own loose way, my ideas of our Political 
 Economists. Alexander Hamilton was the first of them, in more senses 
 than one, as indeed he was first in a good many things. Hamilton essen 
 tially founded our Government; Marshall cemented and preserved it. 
 Jefferson has written some very shrewd, strong things on this as on other 
 questions, but he always wrote what the exigencies of the moment ( that is, 
 his interests or his prejudices) required, and he is consequently glaringly 
 inconsistent. See his letters to B. Austin, 1816, and one he wrote in 23 or 
 >4. Madison has written ably and luminously on this subject, and some 
 things he has said have a permanent value. Much of Hamilton s great 
 Report combats objections t5 the Protective policy which are no longer 
 
188 POLITICAL ECONOMISTS. 
 
 urged, and so has only a historic value remaining. Old John Adams wrote 
 nothing on the subject worth speaking of; and John Quincy, though he has 
 written considerably upon it, sometimes ably, does not well understand it, 
 or did not when he came into Congress. Monroe knew very little, as we all 
 know ; Jackson ditto to Jefferson in all respects. Matthew Carey has written 
 a good deal on the subject very good practically, though without a very 
 profound acquaintance with his subject. Hezekiah Niles ditto ; Niles has 
 done great good. Condy Raquet [1784-42] has written ingeniously and 
 acutely on the extreme Free Trade side ; his writings were formerly known 
 in Europe; Dr. Cooper of Pa. wrote forcibly in favor of Protection, Dr. 
 Cooper of S. Carolina ( the same coon) wrote very strongly against Protec 
 tion. Messrs. Clay, Tod of Pa., and Baldwin ( late Judge 1, have been emin 
 ent among the practical expositors of the subject. Mr. Clay has discussed it 
 with a consistency and lucid ability very rarely surpassed. No man has been 
 more happy in his treatment of the subject in what I consider its secondary 
 aspect; but he has written little that will not war out in the change of 
 times. C. C. Cowley has written and spoken voluminously on the subject. 
 Rollin C. Mallory of Vermont was the successor of Tod, Baldwin and Clay 
 in Congress, and sustained the Protective policy with industry and ability. 
 Mr. Webster has spoken ably on both sides of this question, as the circum 
 stances of the country were favorable before 1824 for Free Trade, since then 
 for Protection, Mr. Calhoun vice versa. Mr. Calhoun, however, takes a 
 deeper view of the subject than any of the public speakers of our time. 
 
 Of our books on the subject little is to said. McVickar stole what little 
 he professes to say on his own hook from McCulloch, etc. But Francis 
 Wayland has written about the best Free Trade book extant, very cogent, 
 clear and taking. There has been no better summary of the question since 
 Say s. These are my crude notions, they may be erroneous; say what you 
 please. 
 
 I have your Hoods and will try to return them tomorrow. 
 
 What can you send us of Robert Browning, published by Moxon? 
 Miss Fuller wants Paracelsus, Sordello, etc., especially Sordello. Can you 
 lend it to us? 
 
 We have begun your letters, though awfully crowded. Luck to you. 
 Write. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
THEODORE PARKER. 189 
 
 New York, Aug. 5, 1845. 
 My Dear Doctor : 
 
 I have received a Philadelphia paper containing one of your 
 letters to the National Intelligencer which I was upon the point of handing in 
 as "copy " for the Gazette, when upon a second look at it I found it was 
 "No. III." of the series. It is eloquently written but ( in a degree ) I find 
 the same fault with it that I did with your lecture it is too oracularly posi 
 tive. 
 
 For example : it may be true that " the learning of Webster is more 
 varied and profound than that of Burke," but I " doubt it most damnably;" 
 and I or no other man would have any hesitation in giving a flat denial to so 
 positive an assertion without troubling myself to look farther. But had you 
 said " and surprising as were the well known general acquisitions of Burke, 
 it is believed by many, equally familiar with the rich mental resources of 
 both these great men, that Webster, alike in variety and profundity of learn 
 ing, is not inferior to the all-accomplished Englishman, while some, not 
 without reason, insist that he is immeasurably his superior. And however 
 it may trouble some of his readers, who are unfamiliar with the extent of 
 Mr. Webster s acquirements, the writer of this essay has no hesitation in 
 classing himself with those who have challenged this comparison in favor of 
 the gifted American. . . 
 
 I have been reading lately a very eloquent and injurious book "Par 
 ker s Discourses," and shocking as the man s infidelity ought to be to me, 
 upon my word, it did not stir me as much as the Yankee effrontery of the 
 cool taking-for-grantedness of some of his positions. He mistakes assump 
 tion for courage and positiveness for vigor. But the book is a great one 
 in its way, so far as ability and earnestness are concerned. 
 
 " Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re," is the tone maxim in writing as well 
 as in life. In passages of mere eloquence, wherein one is supposed to carry 
 the reader or listener on with him in his impassioned excitement, positive- 
 ness or " oracularity " is of course in place, for the man speaks as a prophet, 
 as one having authority ; but in didactic or character writing the case is 
 different, and if he uses his ipse dixit too often or too strongly, people always 
 d5, always have, and always will revolt at it. You say in a public room 
 " GeneralJackson was the greatest man that ever Jived" "The H 11 he 
 was," answers a voice from the crowd ; another man. wh5 is of the same 
 faith in the matter with yourself, observes aloud, " How old Jackson s fame 
 seems to grow I upon my word we don t know but that he may figure in 
 
190 PERSUASIVNESS VS. ORACULARITY. 
 
 history a thousand years hence with Julius Caesar or the best of em. I have 
 always been an out and out Jackson man and therefore my opinion may not 
 go for much, but I do really believe that his reputation will go on growing 
 until its greatness is acknowledged the world over, and stamped by the 
 historian for all time. Yes, a reputation perhaps not inferior to that of any 
 man who ever lived." 
 
 But this sentence, you say, has no " vigor" in it compared with the first 
 brief assertion. The vigor, my friend, is in the result fifty men would 
 entertain your suggestion, would give a lodgment to your idea, when thus 
 presented, while in the other case not one would think of discussing, much 
 less of receiving your proposition they would think only of the manner of 
 the man that made it not of the man to which it referred. 
 
 Have I bored you to death? Well, I am most anxious to get this thing 
 into your mind, for I think your writings too important to have their 
 efficiency marred by a blemish which must limit their influence unless you 
 will permit yourself to be brought to see the defect and to use care in avoid 
 ing it. 
 
 And now one word as to my proofs. The book you know was to be 
 ready to send copies to my nephew in England by the first of August. He 
 returns in the Autumn. 
 
 C. F. H[offman]. 
 
 Vineyard, Millwood, Clarke Co., Va., Oct. 15th, 1845. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 ... I was born Oct. 26th, 1816 in the town of Martinsburg, 
 Berkeley Co., Virginia. My father, John R. Cooke, of Richmond, Va., is 
 and has long been a man of honorable distinction in the bar of the state. 
 My mother, Maria Pendleton, whom he married in Martinsburg, is sister to 
 Mr. J. P. Kennedy s mother. I spent several years at Princeton College, 
 N. J., and I believe graduated, although I was not finally examined with my 
 class, and never distinguished myself or took an honor. Whilst at Princeton 
 I contributed several pieces of verse to the Knickerbocker, then, I think, 
 conducted by Mr. Hoffman. On my return to Virginia, to Winchester, 
 where my father then resided, I began (then 18) to write prose and verse 
 for the Messenger, then just started. Before 21 I was a lawyer and 
 married ; my wife was Willianne Burwell ; I am happy by my fireside at this 
 place on the banks of the Shenandoah, in view, and within a mile, of the 
 Blue Ridge. I go to county towns, at the sessions of courts, and hunt and 
 
PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 191 
 
 fish, and make myself as happy with my companions as I can. I have lately 
 spurred myself again into continuous composition and mean to finish books. 
 I have always projected several. And this is the " sum and story "of this 
 "human life" of mine. If you can make anything out of such material, I 
 shall wonder at your skill. I thank you seriously for the favorable estimate 
 you seem to have put upon my random and not much studied poetry. Be 
 lieve me, very truly yours, 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 As* Cooke s letters hav few allusions to the events of the 
 day, it seems best t& print them tdgether : 
 
 Nov. 8,1846. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 You were so kind as to offer me assistance with the publishers 
 in the publication of my poems. I have at last got them ready for the 
 printer, and will probably place the MSS. with Mr. J. P. Kennedy in a few 
 days as soon as I hear from him. 
 
 Will you be kind enough to give me your advice, and whatever other 
 aid, with the publishers, your convenience may permit? I am quite as 
 ignorant as any country gentleman ever was of the business part of litera 
 ture, and no doubt if my ballads are not to be printed until I ( personally ) 
 induce a publisher to print them, they will be converted into gun wads 
 first. . . Believe me, my dear Sir, Your obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 P. S. Mr. Poe holds himself ready to review my book saying all that 
 fairness will let him say in favor of it. And [B. B.] Miner will give my 
 friends the freedom of the S. L. Messenger for the same purpose. Judge 
 B[everley] Tucker of Williamsburg or J. B. Heath of Richmond will 
 doubtless stand godfather to me here and in the south. So that if there is 
 any spark in my poems it will not be left to die out for want of blowing- 
 puffing perhaps would be the better word. 
 
 November 26, 1846. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I have just received your letter, and find the difficulty I antici 
 pated realized the difficulty of getting a publisher for my poetry. 
 
 I sent the MSS. of the Ballads, etc., to Mr. Kennedy two days ago; 
 they are doubtless by this time in hands. I leave you to do with them 
 
192 PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 
 
 entirely as you see fit to publish them for me in Graham, if you can induce 
 him to take them or to put them aside for any chance of the future. I leave 
 you to make whatever arrangement with Graham ( as to prices etc. ) you 
 choose or can. See how much trouble your kind proffer of aid in these 
 matters, has entailed upon you ! 
 
 The serious drawback to the publication of the poems in Graham is 
 the fact that the best of them contains about 1500 lines rather a long Bal 
 lad. There are five Ballads in all. Three of the others are about as long as 
 the Proem the remaining one quite short. Doubtless you have formed 
 some idea that they were like Lockhart s Spanish Ballads, in length. If 
 they were they would suit better for magazine publication. 
 
 I will not forestall your critical judgment by saying that I consider my 
 Ballads bad but, rest assured, I will d5 better things hereafter. When Mr. 
 K. writes to me, I will answer his letter putting all matters touching the 
 poetry under your joint control. If opportunity occurs in the meantime, 
 please get the MS. from him. 
 
 Accept, my dear Sir, assurances of my gratitude, and disposition to 
 requite the kindness I have received at your hands. Very cordially yours, 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 P. S. You will scarcely perceive how my poems should be called 
 Ballads." You are somewhat responsible for the name. I designed to 
 make them ( originally ) short poems of the old understood ballad cast. I 
 sent you the Proem which you published as a preface to the " Froissart 
 Ballads." Words in print have a look of perpetuity ( or rather of fixedness ) 
 about them; and what I would have changed, if only my pen and portfolio 
 had been concerned, your type deterred me from changing. The term 
 " Froissart Ballads," however, is after all correct even with the poems as 
 they are. The Master of Bolton is as much a " song" as the lay of the last 
 minstrel, altho I have no prologue, interludes etc., to show how, etc., it was 
 sung. And as for Orthone, etc., Sir John Froissart may as easily be imagined 
 chaunting them as talking them. 
 
 P. P. C. 
 
 December 3, 1846. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 ... Be so good as to write to me, here in regard to the fate of 
 my pieces how you have selected amongst them when your Book will be 
 out, etc. etc. I perceive that Rosalie Lee and The Proem have been 
 
PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 193 
 
 published in Graham s Magazine. . . Believe me, my dear Sir, Your obedi 
 ent servant, 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 January 20, 1847. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 I received a letter from Mr. Kennedy some time since informing 
 me that your kind offices had secured the publication of my poems by Carey 
 and Hart, and that you would write to me on the subject. Will you be kind 
 enough to do so? You have already manifested so great a willingness to 
 serve me that I am reluctant even to ask the trouble of a letter from you. 
 
 The Froissart Ballads sent you are certainly not in the high key of a 
 man warm with his subject, and doing the thing finely ; I wrote them with 
 the reluctance of a turkey-hunter kept from his sport only Mr. Kennedy s 
 urgent entreaty and remonstrance whipped me up to the labor. This year, 
 however, I will fan the fires, and make a rush for fame. 
 
 Will you have the kindness to put as a note to the mention of Actaeon 
 in the ballad Sir Peter of B6arn the following, or something like it : 
 
 * Shakspere, and the old writers generally, Lord Berners amongst the 
 rest, spell Actaeon as I have done above ; the delay on the dipthong in pro 
 nunciation, is discordant in verse of rapid measure, and for that reason I 
 have retained the ancient English spelling. 
 
 This note you may not deem necessary, but I dread an inelegance- 
 add it or not as you think best. 
 
 If Mr. Graham publishes any of the poetry do not be too exacting as 
 to price. Tell him to send me his magazine if he publishes them. Believe 
 me, my dear Mr. Griswold, highly complimented by your approbation of my 
 verses, and sincerely desirous to serve you in any way in my power. Yours 
 sincerely, 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 February 1, 1847. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 ... I gave you full power to contract with the publishers, and 
 would not have hesitated, an instant, to sanction your giving them the work. 
 Of course therefore, the offer of ten per cent, by Carey and Hart is accepted. 
 Indeed I am somewhat mortified that my limited means and family obliga 
 tions make it impossible to issue the book at my own charge. 
 
194 PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 
 
 I am not surprised at what you say concerning Graham and Godey. 
 Whatever may be my literary rank hereafter, I am yet in obscurity, and 
 magazine articles derive nine-tenths of their pecuniary value to publishers 
 from the known and famous names attached to them. Longfellow s worst *^ 
 poem, however [much?] a chance effort of mine might excel it, would be * 
 vastly more valuable to Graham than anything I could send him. Before 
 hearing of the prize-poem mode of getting supplies, these were my views on 
 the subject, and I expected very little from the magazines pecuniarily. . . 
 
 Believe me, my dear sir, ever grateful for your kindness, and earnestly 
 desirous to serve you in turn. You have earned a right to command me. 
 Your obliged and obedient servant, 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 19 February, 1847. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 I received your kind and exceedingly satisfactory letter yester 
 day evening. I cannot too much thank you for the remarkable courtesy you 
 have shown me, in this whole matter of publication. 
 
 In regard to the ten copies of the poems please retain a copy for your 
 self. As t5 the rest I wish one of them presented to H. "William Herbert 
 Esq. (Frank Forester) if it can be got to him ( with my compliments). (I 
 have a sportsman s leaning toward this gentleman altho I think he writes 
 in the white kid glove style and has a taint of cockneyism.) The other eight 
 copies Messrs. Carey and Hart will please send to Messrs. Bell and Entwistle, 
 Alexandria, who will pay their carriage. B. and E. are in the habit of send 
 ing me books by our road wagons rather different from Harnden s ex 
 press ! but very sure. 
 
 You are probably right in your preference for the Proem. It was 
 written with excessive care. The Master of Bolton was written not so 
 lingeringly but still quite slowly. Orthone et id omne genus were dashed 
 off with as much rapidity as I write this altho , of course, slowly revised 
 and pruned afterward. The story of Ugolino I think the best thing in the 
 book. 
 
 My literary life opens now, If the world manifests any disposition t5 
 hear my "utterances" it will be abundantly gratified. I am thirty; until 
 forty, letters shall be my mind s calling avoiding however to rely on them 
 pecuniarily then ( after forty ) politics will be a sequitur. 
 
PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 195 
 
 Always command me, my dear Mr. Griswold, as one who owes you 
 service and friendly regard. Very sincerely yours, etc., 
 
 P. P. Cooke. 
 
 P. S. You may know how tardy the current of the world s business 
 is in this country neighborhood by perceiving from my dates that your letter 
 was nine days in reaching me. 
 
 Richmond, June 6, 1851. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I find that any delay in writing what I promised you some 
 particulars of my brother s life would answer no purpose, inasmuch as what 
 I know, I can communicate as well now as at any other time, and I have no 
 means of gathering more information on the subject. The article in the 
 Illustrated Courier which I send as a probable convenience to you, will 
 furnish the outline. 
 
 I know scarcely anything more than that he was born on the 26th of 
 Oct. 1816, that he went to Princeton at fifteen and after graduation studied, 
 and commenced the practice of law in the counties of Frederick, Jefferson 
 and Berkeley. As to his graduation you will find in the Literary Messenger 
 of March 1850 a copy of Resolutions of the American Whig Society of 
 Princeton, of which he is stated therein to have been a graduate member. 
 
 I scarcely know how to commence the few words I have to say on my 
 brother s writings, and must beg you to pardon the rude manner in which 
 they will be thrown together my recollections, I mean. Of course my in 
 formationif I give any would not do to quote for which it will be totally 
 unfit, but I hope to present the matter in such a way that you can embody 
 it. My brother s mind, altho it bloomed early, was essentially a late- 
 maturing intellect. Many of his most pleasing poems were certainly written 
 at College and soon after his return that is between his fifteenth and eight- 
 teenth year; namely Dim Nowas, The Song of the Sioux Lovers, The 
 Consumptive, Count Herman and the Moss-troopers ballads these all 
 appearing in the Knickerbocker and the Winchester papers, where also were 
 published Golnon, * Isabel, Kemp, The Glider, etc. A Song of the 
 Seasons, The Last Indian, The Creation of the Antelope, Young Rosalie 
 Lee, The Huma, etc., appeared in the first and second volumes of the 
 Messenger. He had written many prose pieces also, among which three 
 elaborate chapters on English poetry presenting a resum6 of the elder 
 poets and their writings. This also appeared in the Messenger and was 
 
196 PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 
 
 highly spoken of by an able critic, Judge Tucker, in his late critique on the 
 Froissart Ballads. It was written at eighteen. 
 
 My brother s tastes ran most towards the old poets and prose writers ; 
 The dearest books as Sir Walter Scott says, in his library were a fine 
 English edition of Chaucer in fourteen volumes, and Lord Berners Frois 
 sart, also English, in four large volumes. Keats, Shelley and Coleridge were 
 also favorites with him ; not Southey or Byron. When the Ballads were 
 published he had not seen Tennyson, but his poems afterward were favorites 
 with him more especially Morte D Arthur and Ulysses. 
 
 Of his own writings he liked Florence Vane, Autumn Woods, The 
 Mountains, and To Lily most. The ballads, he told me, were written very 
 rapidly, but, he always said, were true to Froissart. The lines Young 
 Rosalie Lee were scribbled on the back of one elaborate poem, the Last 
 Indian sent t5 Mr. [ T : W. ] White in 1834-5. 
 
 He early commenced his historical novel, to be called <Liitzen, in 
 which that great battle wound up the adventures of young Maurice, the 
 hero. It was thrown aside however for years, and his love for that age and 
 its men appeared only in Merlin. The plan of Merlin he said was to carry 
 his hero from a Norse hill to Bender and back to Gothland. 
 
 If you have examined the Virginia tales which we looked over at Mr. 
 F. s you will have seen, my dear sir, that the same mind which produced the 
 prose poem of Merlin also delineated, with a total abnegation of poetry, the 
 homeliest Virginia scenes and characters. John Carper and * The Two 
 Country Houses show this more especially. These tales were the com 
 mencement of a series which were to dramatize the whole life and manners, 
 history and all, of Virginia and her people. The chivalric poetry had filled 
 my brother s mind early and long, and he was only banishing it at thirty- 
 three. His intellect a late-maturing one, as I said had only commenced 
 training itself, and his untimely death destroyed the hope of that fruit which 
 his early poems preceded like the blossom. I consider his success, you will 
 pardon my saying, wonderful, considering the profound poetry of his organ 
 ization. Poets hardly ever make tale-writers. 
 
 You will find in the Messenger for June 1850 a very interesting Letter 
 about Florence Vane a gentleman named Hunt, living on the Ohio having 
 named his daughter Florence Vane . He wrote asking for an autograph of 
 the song and he quotes in his communication a part of brother s reply. I 
 think it would form a most graceful and appropriate part of your article. 
 
 Literature with my brother was a recreation and he would never 
 
PHILIP PENDLETON COOKE. 197 
 
 write unless he felt the desire and could take pleasure in embodying his 
 thoughts ; he manifested great carelessness as to his literary reputation ; of 
 numberless critiques of the Froissart Ballads, he did not, for instance, pre 
 serve one. I refer you to the editorial notice of his death in the Messenger 
 for Feb. 1850, for a quotation on this subject from one of his letters. He 
 was at his death writing, or about to write, The Women of Shakspere, 
 4 The Chariot Race, and a political and literary satire. 
 
 A few words more and I have done. My brother s character may be 
 best gathered from his own writings. In the lines to My Daughter Lily 
 you may discover his warm and affectionate heart, in his ballads the fiery 
 and chivalrous phase of his intellect, in Ugolino his pathos, and in all his 
 writings his thoroughly wholesome and healthy character of mind. As a 
 boy and young man he was full of the poetic character apart, original, and 
 always looked up to by his associates. As he grew older and married, his 
 character became more practical, and long before his death, I can thankfully 
 say, no man was ever more just and practical in his views that hiatus so 
 often seen in the mind of genius. His feeling toward his family including 
 my father, mother, brothers and sisters amounted to a blind devotion, and 
 nowhere is his pure and noble character more evident than in his letters to 
 my father. 
 
 A short time before his last illness he introduced into his family of his 
 own accord morning and evening prayer. He died as he had lived, a lofty 
 and pure-hearted gentleman and a humble Christian. God, I feel, has taken 
 him into his holy keeping. 
 
 I know nothing more to add. Of the personal traits which distin 
 guished him I can hardly trust myself to speak. His carriage was graceful 
 and upright; his frame vigorous and active, trained as he was by constant 
 hunting in the Blue Ridge. His hair was black and curling, his eye dark, 
 clear and bright, his expression calm and thoughtful, his manner impressed 
 with a dignity which at times almost amounted t5 stateliness. But I do not 
 know how to continue this cold catalogue, when he rises to me again as he 
 was the love and admiration of my life. You may find some who knew 
 him well the Kennedys and others and they will tell you what I cannot, 
 
 I hope you will find s5mething in this long letter to use, tho I scarcely 
 expect it. My recollections, I find, cannot be put on paper, even if they 
 were of use. I am afraid they will be of none. With the request that I 
 may hear from you at your earliest convenience, I remain, my dear sir, with 
 
 great respect, Most truly yours, 
 
 Jno. Esten Cooke. 
 
198 J: PIERPONT. 
 
 In October 1845, the literary world was amused by a clever 
 article in T : Dunn English s magazine " The Aristidean," a 
 part of which I reprint, as it indicates, more or less accurately, 
 the prevailing opinion of the authors mentiond. 
 
 Anxious t5 present our readers with the best specimens of the poetry 
 of this country, we addressed notes to various of our poets, requesting them 
 to furnish us, without charge, the means of fulfilling our desire. This, we 
 conceived, to be a very modest request. To our surprise, some of these 
 notes were returned, and others were retained, but no reply made. To 
 some we received answers, with the required poems. We print, below, the 
 whole of the latter. Our readers will enjoy these sublime effusions : 
 
 Boston, Sept. 3rd, 1845. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I am happy to oblige you. I send you the enclosed, written in 
 my usual terse, epigrammatic style. The high opinion you express of my 
 powers as a poet are [sic] but just; and show you have more taste than the 
 Hollis street congregation. I am, very truly, 
 
 John Pierpont. 
 
 ODE TO THE MUSES 
 BY THE REV. JOHN PIERPONT. 
 
 * Ye gentle muses ! make me first 
 
 Of bards like Harry Hirat! 
 To me the tire afford, 
 . Of William W. Lord ! 
 And be my songs like Coxe s "Saul," 
 Filled up with most abundant fol 
 lol, 
 fol 
 
 de riddle dol ! 
 
 
 Ye gentle muses ! let my rhymes 
 
 Ring like the chinking chimes 
 
 Of those Campanalo- 
 
 gian ringers, whom you know, 
 Within the Tabernacle Hall. 
 
c: J. PETERSON. 199 
 
 Present abundantly the fol 
 lol, 
 fol 
 de riddle dol I 
 
 Ye gentle muses ! if you will, 
 With fire my verses fill ; 
 Permit this lamp of mine 
 O er other lamps to shine ; 
 And, if you won t, confound ye all ! 
 I ll treat you to abundant fol 
 lol, 
 fol 
 de riddle dol ! 
 
 Philadelphia, Sept. 25th, 1845. 
 My very dear Sir : 
 
 I am pleased to see that you are inclined to do me justice ; al 
 though the Rev. Dr. Griswold, and be (a) to him, never gave my works 
 
 a place in his collection of American poetry. I send you a sonnet, of a de 
 cidedly original construction as original as any thing I ever wrote. It is 
 heartily at your service. Could you not contrive to say something about my 
 great talents," etc.? I will do as much for you. Very truly, yours, 
 
 Charles J. Peterson. 
 
 SONNET 
 BY CHARLES J. PETERSON, ESQ. 
 
 Author of" Cruizings in the Late War," &c. 
 Remote, unfriended, melancholy, slow 
 Upon her breast a sparkling cross she wore, 
 Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore 
 She roamed where crept the brooklet still and slow. 
 That too relentless, too obdurate fair 
 Who saw was lost. Ah ! would he ne er had seen! 
 Full many a gem of purest ray serene 
 The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear 
 And she was one whose brightness shamed the sun, 
 
 Whose eye the sky at noon whose Voice so bland 
 (a) We have concluded not to print the word which was written at 
 this place; but have piously supplied its place with a dash. Ed. of Aristidean. 
 
200 POE, ARTHUR C. COXE. 
 
 Twas " Yankee Doodle," played by Scudder s band 
 And well that voice an angel might have won 
 Why did she love him? Curious fool ! be still ; 
 Is human love the growth of human will ? 
 
 New York City, Sept. 28th, 1845. 
 My dear Sir: 
 
 For old acquaintance sake, I comply with your request; but your 
 attempt will be a failure. Eeasoning a priori, I could demonstrate that it 
 cannot succeed. But I will not waste my logic on an obstinate man. Your 
 obedient servant, 
 
 Edgar A. Poe. 
 
 THE MAMMOTH SQUASH. 
 BY EDGAR A. POK. 
 
 Green and specked with spots of golden, 
 
 Never since the ages olden 
 
 Since the time of Cain and Abel, 
 
 Never such a vegetable, 
 
 So with odors sweetest laden 
 
 Thus our halls appearance made in. 
 
 Who oh ! who in kindness sent thee 
 
 To afford my soul nepenthe? 
 
 u 
 
 Rude men seeing thee, say" Gosh! 
 
 Tis a most enormous squash ! " 
 
 But the one who peers within, 
 
 Knowledge of himself to win, 
 Says, while total silence reigns, 
 
 Silence, from the Stygian shore 
 
 (Grim silence, darkling o er) 
 
 " This may perchance be but the skull 
 
 Of Arthur Cleveland Coxe so dull- 
 Its streaked, yellow flesh his brains." 
 
 New York City, Sept. 18th, 1845. 
 My dear boy : 
 
 With the greatest of pleasure. I am always happy to serve my 
 friends. God bless you. Cordially, yours, 
 
 Geo. P. Morris. 
 
G: POPE MORRIS, WHITTIER. 201 
 
 LINES FOR MUSIC. 
 BY GEORGE P. MORRIS. 
 
 Where Nassau street right-angles Ann, 
 
 And newsboys voices clear 
 Shout out" The Evening Mirror, sir?" 
 
 Where apple stands are near 
 Next door to where a shop is kept 
 
 For books at second-hand 
 I sit, and think upon " mi-boy," 
 
 Far in a foreign land, 
 
 M 
 
 No more t5 my good-humor now, 
 
 His ready tongue replies 
 My heart with bitter grief is full, 
 
 And even fuller sighs. 
 My handsome partner strives in vain, 
 
 My general grief to cheer; 
 " Mi-boy" to foreign shores has gone, 
 
 And weeps the " Brigadier." 
 
 Worcester, 9th Mo. 3rd, 1845. 
 Esteemed friend : 
 
 Thy favor of the first of the last month has been received to-day. 
 I send thee a trifle of mine ; and hope the proceeds of thy proposed publica 
 tion will be devoted to the cause of the poor slave. Touching the free 
 negroes, of whose sufferings thou writest, they must wait for relief until 
 slavery be abolished. They should willingly defer their sensual gratification 
 for the benefit of their brethren in bondage, and be content to live in wretch 
 edness, and die of starvation, for the good of the cause. Thine truly, 
 
 Jno. G. Whittier. 
 
 APPEAL TO THE NORTH. 
 BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. 
 A sound upon old Plymouth rock; 
 
 Tossing, the giant reels ! 
 Those fearful clanks our senses shock 
 
 There s fetters on the negro s heels. 
 Those heels so long with chains are marred ; 
 Those backs so broad with lashes scarred ; 
 
202 C: FENNO HOFFMAN. 
 
 And human fiends, with faces grim, 
 Dig holes in every negro s limb, 
 Then fill them up with salt for him, 
 And fry him, all alive, in lard. 
 
 Awake 1 ye cotton-spinners, wake ! 
 
 Cobblers of Lynn arouse ! 
 Your shuttles and your lapstones take, 
 
 And knit in wrath your honest brows. 
 And if your curses nought avail 
 To make these haughty Southrons quail ; 
 If tar and feathers come t5 daunt 
 The soul within your forms so gaunt- 
 Just tell them that s not what you want ; 
 
 And run, like Hubbard, home again. 
 
 We have presented our readers with such a collection of gems as were 
 never before brought together. If they, and the correspondence, be not 
 genuine then we have been most shamefully imposed upon ; and we would 
 like to catch the rascal who did it. 
 
 New York, Dec. 29, 45. 
 Dear Griswold : 
 
 . . . My poems are just beginning to recover a little. They have 
 so many errors which both you and I overlooked that I hope they may yet 
 reach another edition to receive my final corrections. If they do, I shall 
 restore the greater portion of the letter addressed to yourself in " Borrowed 
 Notes" [Phil a, 1844] with its original date. An ordinary dedication to 
 you, after the amiable things you have said of them in print, would have 
 been in the worst possible taste, and I did not wish to incorporate in a per 
 manent volume my remarks upon the Quarterly intended for a passing 
 occasion. I consider it proper, too, t5 detach your name entirely from the 
 collection, while it has one fair trial on its own merits. As I should prob 
 ably, however, never have thought seriously of collecting these pieces unless 
 your instrumentality had first brought them together, the merit of the publi 
 cation must be yours if it ever proves worth a permanent claim. . . That 
 review of Ingersoll in the Courier worthy of Macaulay, as I hear many say, 
 What was it? Is there any other R. W. G. but yourself? 
 
MISS FULLER, LONGFELLOW, R: GRANT WHITE. 203 
 
 Did you see Margaret Fuller s notice of Longfellow in the Tribune? an 
 admirably d5ne thing so far as pointing out his deficiencies, but wanting in 
 justice to his merits. An additional paragraph pointing out wherein lay hia 
 real source of poetic power, clear and undeniable, his power of person 
 ificationwould have set all right. 
 
 [R:G.] White says he will set this forth in the Gazette of today or 
 tomorrow. He had yesterday a column upon Mrs. Embury, and I believe is 
 going to give the week to the " poets of the season." His musical criticisms 
 have made a great stir this winter. Ever, my Dear Griswold, truly yours, 
 
 C. F. Hoffman. 
 
 Baltimore, Jan. 6, 1846. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 . . . Who wrote Jeremy Levis and the Vision of Rubeta? Who 
 wrote Old England by a New England Man? . . . 
 
 As to your Prose Authors I will endeavor to comply with your re 
 quest in the matter of a portrait, at an early day. . . 
 
 I have suggested to Cooke that it might serve his turn to publish his 
 poems in our new press here in Baltimore. You are aware that Park Ben 
 jamin has started a publishing concern here which is intended to have great 
 occupation with the South and West. How will it do to put our young poet 
 to this venture? Yours truly, 
 
 J. P. Kennedy. 
 
 Portland, Feb. 23, 1846. 
 Dear Madam f Mrs. Osgood ] : 
 
 In the name of my father, John Neal, who has authorized me to 
 do so, I take the liberty of begging a favor at your hands. I am making a 
 collection of the hair of our distinguished authors, poets, and painters; and 
 am unwilling to have it so incomplete as it would be without yours. May I 
 hope to possess yours? The tress will, I assure you, be in company of which 
 it would have no reason to be ashamed. Your sincere admirer, 
 
 Mary Neal. 
 
 Portland, April 25th, 1846. 
 Dear sweet Mrs. Osgood : 
 
 I guess I do want a lock of Mr. Poe s hair ! and I guess I am an 
 admirer of his Raven ; I think it is I hardly know what word to use it is 
 strange, grotesque and very beautiful; but I also want a line of his writing 
 
204 MISS FULLER, GREELEY, WHJPPLE. 
 
 with a lock of his hair, I will enclose in this letter a note for him and then I 
 shall be sure of having an answer don t you think so? 
 
 Although your letter is dated February 27th I received it only to-day, 
 and am exceedingly obliged to you for the hair as well as for your kind note ; 
 and, Mrs. Osgood, we shall all be "tickled to death" to have that book of 
 yours, particularly Your sincere admirer, 
 
 Mary Neal. 
 
 New York, July 22, 1846. 
 Friend Griswold, 
 
 I bore you with a few lines only because Schofield is going on 
 tonight, and will take a line to you. 
 
 I want to bother you with a word about Literary personalities. Miss 
 Fuller s book will be out soon, I understand ; try t5 see it before you write 
 about her. See what she has said of Emerson in her notice of his Essays, 
 second series, in the Tribune of December or January, 44-5. I wish she 
 was to write you a few words about the Unitarian notables. She knows 
 them well, and says what she knows very forcibly. But it takes her a good 
 while to say it, and she leaves for Europe on Wednesday. 
 
 I doubt your finding anything of mine that will justify your putting 
 me in your book, and it were better to omit me than seem to thrust me in on 
 personal grounds. Still, look over and be sure you judge impartially. I 
 think you have not seen a little piece which I hastily wrote one evening last 
 year for a Connecticut Annual, in which it appears entitled Humanity . 
 The Annual was very provincial, very dull, and rather shabby, and I guess 
 did not get far from the publisher. Please look for it in some hospital for 
 foundered annuals, and glance over this little piece. If I recollect aright, it 
 was a more condensed, clear and satisfactory statement of our Reform 
 notions than I have made elsewhere, and would be worth referring to here 
 after. 
 
 D5 write me and let me know how you get on. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Boston, August 3rd, 1846. 
 Dear Griswold: 
 
 I have just received your favor of the 30th. The sight of your 
 hand again is cheering. I am glad to see you write in such good spirits. 
 Thank you for your congratulations on a certain event. I hope you will be 
 
EDWIN PERCY WHIPPLE. 205 
 
 in Boston before you leave Phila. for the south, and it will give me great 
 pleasure to introduce you to the lady. 
 
 I am quite curious to see your book. Do send me the proofs as you 
 suggest. I sympathize with you in the hard reading you have had to wade 
 through to make the work complete. That s a good joke about your conver 
 sation with "Black Dan." If ever I make a figure in the world, it will be 
 the figure 0. I take it that the whole affair is purely the creation of your 
 teeming fancy, and that " Black Dan" is some waiter at the Hotel. O you 
 wicked rogue dost ever read the interesting tradition of Ananias and 
 Sapphira? I have too small a swallow to my self-esteem to take down that 
 story. " t prithee d5 not mock me, fellow student." 
 
 With regard to giving me a ticket of admittance to your gallery of 
 prose writers, I shall be very happy to appear in such company, provided I 
 am not cut dead by the rest. My biography is very short, not much taller 
 than my person. I was born at Gloucester, Mass., March 8,1819. I don t 
 know when I shall die, but as I am at the end of your list, I trust I shall 
 survive all that go before me. Of the first three years of my life I preserve 
 but an indistinct recollection, a recollection which I do not desire to make 
 distinct, as a contemplation of the infants I see around me makes me asham 
 ed I was ever a baby. Two things, connected with my head, may be inter 
 esting to the future historian of American letters. At the age of thirteen 
 months I had a brain fever; and at the age of three, my schoolmistress 
 ( devil take her! ) nearly cuffed my head off my shoulders, because I did not 
 discriminate with sufficient exactness between the letters E and A. Glou 
 cester is my native town, but at the age of four, I was withdrawn from that 
 sphere of usefulness, and carried to Salem, Mass., where I went to school 
 until I was fifteen. As soon as I left school I stepped into the Bank of 
 General Interest, Salem, as a clerk, and stayed there three years. In the 
 year 1837, at the age of eighteen, I made my triumphant entrance into Bos 
 ton in an humble stage which ran between Salem and this city. Since then, 
 you know, I have been in mercantile pursuits. My genius broke out upon 
 me, like a fit of the measles, when I was fourteen. I have scribbled, as you 
 know, though it is a most profound secret to all the world, ard in spite of 
 friendly notices will probably always remain so, in various newspapers, 
 magazines and reviews. My first article in a magazine was that on Macaulay, 
 published in the Boston Miscellany, Feb y, 1843. A singular circumstance 
 deserves to be noted in this connection, that the said Miscellany died with 
 the number for that month. . . 
 
206 GREBLEY ON THOREAIT. 
 
 In the American Whig Keview, I wrote an article in the number for 
 Feb y, 1845, entitled Words ; in July, on Griswold s British Poets ; in June, 
 1846, on Coleridge as a Philosophical Critic ; in July, 1846, and August, 1846, 
 a long article, continued in August, on Beaumont and Fletcher. 
 
 I have written also for Sargent s Magazine, for the Columbian, for 
 Graham, and one article in the Democratic Eeview. The best of these are 
 two articles in Graham; one on Egotism in Great and Little Men, another, 
 published some time last year, on the Literature of the Present Day. . . 
 
 I do not care what you say of my articles, if you don t hit me over the 
 mazard about Macaulay. Don t say that I imitate him, because imitation is 
 the worst kind of worthlessness. Say that my essays are worthless in some 
 other form of contempt. The peculiarities of my style, if it have any pecu 
 liarities, are peculiar to my mind. They are indicated in my school com 
 positions before I ever heard of Bab., or read him. Here is something from 
 a composition on The Miser, written when I was a green boy : " While he 
 lives, he lives despised and hated ; and when he dies he is remembered only 
 by those whom he has cheated." Besides there is hardly a prose-writer in 
 English literature that I have not read, and though I have a large admiration 
 of Macaulay s powers and attainments, I should not think of taking him as a 
 model, more than many others. You must discriminate between admiration 
 of an author and slavish adulation of him. If I aimed at imitation I should 
 take John Milton s " Reason of Church Government against Prelaty " or his 
 speech for the liberty of Speech, rather than Macaulay s articles. I think it 
 possible to be a mediocre writer without being a copyist. I say of any one 
 of my articles, as Touchstone says, " a poor thing, sir, but my own." Now, 
 therefore, I say to you, with this one imputation excepted, ram down your 
 critical cannons, old fellow, and fire away! As I am at the latter end of 
 your work, excuse me if I omit saying, the " devil take the hindmost." 
 
 Fields has not yet returned from his tour to Niagara. All the b hoys 
 are well. Come on and see us one of these fine days. We will treat you 
 well. Good-by ! God bless you, and may all good fortune and blessed 
 spirits be your portion. Very Sincerely, 
 
 E. P. Whipple. 
 
 T5 dear Koof ! 
 
 New York, Aug. 25, 1846. 
 G. R. Graham, Esq., Dear Sir : 
 
 I send you herewith an account of the Life, Character, Genius 
 and Works of Thomas Carlyle, by one of the only two men in America 
 
THOREAU S ADMIRERS. 207 
 
 capable of giving it. The very best man to do this is, of course, Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson, and this is by the second-best, Mr. Emerson s pupil, friend 
 and daily companion, Henry D. Thoreau, whose essays and translations of 
 some of the grand Greek Tragedies in The Dial made a deserved sensation. 
 Thoreau is a young man, a scholar, poor of course, and sends this to me to 
 get utterance and bread. I know it is unlike the general staple of your 
 Magazine, but I think it will on that account be relished and give a zest to 
 the work. That it is a brilliant as well as vigorous essay, and gives a 
 Daguerreotype of Carlyle and Carlylism which no man living but Emerson 
 could excel, I believe any scholar would say, and I am confident it would 
 attract many new readers to the Magazine. It would make about a sheet or 
 sixteen pages of the Mag. and would probably have to be divided I hope 
 but once. If you choose to publish it, and pay as much as you pay others 
 for right good prose ( where you are not buying a name ) I will make it sell 
 a pile of Magazines, anyhow. 
 
 I offer it first to you, and ask you to let me have your decision upon it 
 as soon as practicable. Keep the MS. till I send for it, as I may think best t5 
 offer it to Godey if you don t want it. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Had Greeley knon that Mr. Julian Hawthorne was t6 sit in 
 judgment on Thoreau and incidentally on himself forty 
 years later, he would doubtless have written less positivly in 
 his friend s praise : 
 
 The friends of Thoreau have distorted him by interpreting his limita 
 tions and defects as virtues and gifts, and magnifying them until their poor 
 possessor becomes unintelligible. Thoreau was neither a child nor a man ; he 
 had the narrowness but not the ingenuousness of the former, and the vanity 
 and self-consciousness of the latter, without the redeeming tolerance and 
 common-sense. He had a good, though ultra-bilious, physical organization ; 
 his nature was bitter, selfish, jealous and morbid. His human affections 
 were scarcely more than rudimentary; his intellect was sharp and analytical, 
 but small in scope and resource ; he shunned society because he lacked the 
 faculty of making himself decently agreeable ; and yet no man ever hankered 
 more insatiably after social notice and approbation. No prudent well-wisher 
 of this forlorn and pathetic personage would have permitted the greater part 
 of the contents of this volume ["Winter"] t5 appear in print. Almost 
 
208 THOREAU AND GREELEY. 
 
 * 
 
 every page is defaced with his vapid and morbid sentimentality. He tries to 
 make himself believe that he is a philosopher, a moralist, a grand, misappre 
 hended soul ; he writes interminably in the Emersonian dialect, but thereby 
 only renders his unlikeness to that generous and joyful sage more excruciat 
 ing. It is evident that he seldom succeeded in deceiving even himself in 
 regard to the emptiness of his pretentious. Thoreau was the most dismal 
 fraud of the New England transcendental group. He observed natural 
 phenomena well, and described them with laborious minuteness; but he has 
 added no fact of importance to natural science. Of the books that he pub 
 lished the best thing that can be said is that they are better than the journals 
 published after his death. Such being the man, it would be interesting to 
 ask how he acquired so much notoriety and mistaken adulation. He and 
 Margaret Fuller may be bracketed together in this connection : neither of 
 them was of any actual use or value in the world ; and yet a number of ami 
 able and near-sighted people, upon the theory that whoever is exceptionally 
 ugly, self-conceited and disagreeable must possess a superior nature, have 
 made golden calves of these poor mortals, and fallen down and worshipped 
 them in the wilderness. A future generation will correctly appraise the 
 calves ; but the worshippers will puzzle them. 
 
 The further history of Thoreau s article is thus narrated by 
 Mr. F. B. Sanborn: 
 
 On the 30th of September Mr. Greeley again wrote, saying, 
 "I learned today, through Mr. Griswold, former editor of Graham s Maga 
 zine, that your lecture is accepted, to appear in that magazine. Of course it 
 is to be paid for at the usual rate, as I expressly so stated when I enclosed it 
 to Graham. . . The pay, however, is sure, though the amount may not be 
 large. . . 
 
 On the 26th of October, 1846, he continued the adventures of the 
 wandering essay as follows : 
 
 "My Friend Thoreau, I know you think it odd that you have not 
 heard further, and perhaps blame my negligence or engrossing cares, but, if 
 so, without good reason. I have today received a letter from Griswold, in 
 Philadelphia, who says : The article by Thoreau on Carlyle is in type, and 
 will be paid for liberally. Liberally is quoted as an expression of Gra 
 ham s. . . 
 
 It would seem that "Griswold" (who was Eufus W. Griswold, the 
 biographer of Poe) and " Graham" did not move so fast either in publica- 
 
THOREAU AND GREELEY. 209 
 
 tion or in payment as they had led Mr. Greeley to expect ; and also that 
 Thoreau became impatient and wrote to his friend that he would withdraw 
 the essay. Whereupon Mr. Greeley, under date of February 5th, 1847, 
 wrote thus : 
 
 " My dear Thoreau, Although your letter only came to hand today, I 
 attended to its subject yesterday, when I was in Philadelphia, on my way 
 home from "Washington. Your article is this moment in type, and will 
 appear about the 20th inst., as the leading article in * Graham s Magazine 
 for next month. Now don t object to this, nor be unreasonably sensitive at 
 the delay. It is immensely more important to you that the article should 
 appear thus ( that is, if you have any literary aspirations ) than it is that you 
 should make a few dollars by issuing it in some other way. . . But its appear 
 ance there is worth far more to you than money. . . 
 
 The Carlyle essay did appear in two numbers of " Graham s Maga 
 zine" (March and April, 1847), but alas, no payment came to hand. After 
 waiting a year longer, Thoreau wrote to Greeley again (March 31,1848), 
 informing him of the delinquency of Griswold and Graham. At once, his 
 friend replied (April 3), "It saddens and surprises me to know that your 
 article was not paid for by Graham; and since my honor is involved in the 
 matter, I will see that you are paid, and that at no distant day." Accord 
 ingly on the 17th of May, 1848, he writes again as follows : 
 
 ... I finally found the two numbers of the work in which your article 
 was published ( not easy, I assure you, for he has them not, nor his brother, 
 and I hunted them up, and bought one of them at a very out-of-the-way 
 place), and with these I made out a regular bill for the contribution; drew 
 a draft on G. R. Graham for the amount, gave it to his brother here for 
 collection, and today received the money. Now you see how to get pay 
 yourself, another time ; I have pioneered the way, and you can follow it 
 easily yourself . There has been no intentional injustice on Graham s part ; 
 but he is overwhelmed with business, has too many irons in the fire, and we 
 did not go at him the right way. Had you drawn a draft on him, at first, 
 and given it to the Concord Bank to send in for collection, you would have 
 received your money long since. Enough of this. I have made Graham 
 pay you $75. . . " 
 
 [ Undated. ] 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I have just returned from a three months tour in the woods 
 where I have been to regain my health. This long absence has broken up all 
 
210 J. T. HEADLEY. 
 
 my New York arrangements and I am afloat. I should like to spend the 
 winter in Philadelphia and now do you know of any way I could clear my 
 expenses there? The field of literature I take it is pretty well known by 
 you as well as most other fields and if you could wheel me into any of your 
 multifarious plans I should be glad. If not into your plans if you know of 
 any place I could fit in or something I could do, please drop me aline. You 
 know me pretty well how much influence I have with the press, what I can 
 [do] , etc. If you can do me a favor in this respect I shall feel myself much 
 obliged. . . Truly yours, 
 
 J. T. Headley. 
 
 Burlington, August 1st, 1846. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I have just received your note, written I must confess, worse 
 than anything I ever saw except a letter which I received of Gen. Cass a 
 few days since. The change in your plan respecting the place I should 
 occupy in your book was quite unexpected and yet gave me much pleasure ; 
 not so much from the immortality you design me as for the advance I have 
 evidently made in your good opinion as a writer. . . 
 
 I wish before you guage me as a writer you would look at some things 
 of mine not merely descriptive writing as, for example, my review of 
 Alison in the 2nd number of the American Review, my " Thiers Revolu 
 tion " in the April number of 1845, and my review of Carlyle s Cromwell in 
 the April or May number of this year. . . Such kind of writing as these arti 
 cles contain are more peculiarly my style and my penchant. Descriptive 
 writing is easier and sells better and so I have done more at that. My biog 
 raphy is quickly written. My ancestor on my father s side was the oldest 
 son of an English baronet. He quarreled with his father and came here and 
 refused the estate after it rightly became his. Mr. Francis Headley is the 
 present proprietor, [ and ] the author, I see, of a work of some note on 
 Chemistry. My father was a clergyman, and I was born December 30th, 
 1814 in Walton, Delaware Co., N. Y. My mother and Doctor Taylor of 
 N. Haven are own cousins and so was she and Dr. Nott s first wife by 
 whom he had his children. I grew up like most boys fond of sports, espe 
 cially of the field, and hence my great love at the present day of hunting and 
 fishing. It is a wild and romantic spot on thue banks of the Delaware where 
 I first saw the light and I attribute to the glorious and grand scenery of my 
 birthplace much of my love of mountain-climbing and indeed my descriptive 
 
J. T. HEADLEY. 211 
 
 power. I commenced my studies with the law in view but changed my 
 plan. I graduated at Union College and studied theology at Auburn. I was 
 licensed in New York city and had a large church offered to me, but my 
 health was miserable and my physician told me I never could preach. I 
 half believed him but still unwilling to abandon my profession without an 
 effort I took charge of a small church in Stockbridge, Mass., where I thought 
 I could give myself the most favorable trial. After two years and a half I 
 broke down completely and planned a European tour and residence for my 
 health. I went to Italy in the summer of 1842 designing to spend the winter 
 there, the summer in Switzerland, and the next winter in the East. But the 
 climate disagreeing with me entirely giving me severe attacks on the brain, I 
 was afraid to trust myself in the East so far away from my friends. So I 
 remained in Italy only about eight months, when I went to Switzerland and 
 travelled over it, cut off a slice of Germany and the Netherlands went into 
 Belgium, from thence to France, then t5 England, through England to 
 Wales and back again to England and so home, having been gone between 
 one and two years instead of three or four as I intended. My health being 
 worse than when I left home I gave up all idea of following my profession 
 and turned my attention to literature. My first book was a German transla 
 tion entitled " Scenes and Adventures in Mexico" [by " Sealsfield " ] . It 
 was published by Winchester in the spring of 1844 just before he failed and 
 it was lost. My name was not attached to it but it was a good translation. 
 Wiley and Putnam have wanted t5 republish it in their series of American 
 books but I will not allow them to put my name to it as there is a good 
 quantity of German swearing, et-cetera, in it which would do me more hurt 
 than good. I mention the work simply that you may learn all that I have 
 written and not for material to be used up. My next was Letters from 
 Italy, next Alps and the Ehine, last Napoleon and his Marshals. My next 
 will be, I think, an illustrated work entitled " The Sacred Mountains." The 
 design of the work is to fill up the outline sketches of the great scenes enact 
 ed in some of the mountains on the earth or described in the Bible. . . I 
 mean my next important work shall be a history of the last war. What do 
 you think about it? Could I beat Ingersol? I forget to say one thing in my 
 praise I was a better speaker than writer when I preached, and I think I 
 am still. I could get more reputation in that department but my health, and 
 especially the bronchitis, now uses me tip. I am thirty-two years old, un 
 married, and without children. I have given mere heads because I won t 
 puff myself. As to my studies I have read pretty thoroughly I think the 
 
212 IRVING, GREELEY. 
 
 Greek, Latin, Hebrew, German, French and Italian languages. In haste, 
 truly and affectionately yours, 
 
 J. T. Headley. 
 
 Mr. Headley livd till the 16th of January 1897. 
 
 Sunnyside, Oct. 21, 1846. 
 Sir: 
 
 I have repeatedly of late declined to sit for my portrait : partly 
 from a great dislike to the operation itself, and partly because I think there 
 are already portraits sufficient of me before the public. I could not comply 
 with your request, therefore, without the risk of displeasing those whose 
 requests I have heretofore refused. I hope, however, you may find one or 
 other of the portraits by Leslie and Newton sufficient for your purpose. 
 There is one in the possession of my sister in New York, taken by Newton 
 shortly before we parted, some years since, in England. It is an excellent 
 painting, and was thought at the time a good likeness. It has never had 
 justice done to it by the engraver. I enclose you a copy of an engraving of 
 it published some time since in this country. It misses the character and 
 expression of the original, and is in face and person out of drawing. . . I am 
 sir, very respectfully, 
 
 Washington Irving. 
 
 New York, Nov. 21, 1846. 
 R. W. Griswold : 
 
 I send you some hasty thoughts about Emerson on the other 
 leaf mere suggestions for your own article. If you wish further, write 
 confidentially to H. D. Thoreau, Concord, Mass., who can write a much 
 account of him than I can, as I have no time to read or think. He has lei 
 sure and talent. Tell him when his article is to appear in Graham if you 
 can. He will be glad to hear from you. 
 
 I wish, if you are to put me in your book, you had seen some things I 
 have written my manuscript Lectures and the article I spoke of. You 
 could find the latter at any rate by writing to Hartford for it. An orthodox 
 clergyman edited it. 
 
 I mean to be at Philadelphia for the "Webster dinner on the 2d prox. 
 Please not to run off that morning. Either come on the 1st, or stop till the 
 3d. Write me. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
WILLIS, POE, GREELEY. 213 
 
 I am not well since election ; have a daughter three weeks old ; am 
 trying to write some on a lecture, and make very slow progress. Yet it 
 must be done. 
 
 New York, Nov. 23rd, 1846. 
 [ Miss Mary L. Seward (?) to Mrs. Osgood ] : 
 
 . . . Mrs. Hewitt is still absent, greatly to my regret, for I like 
 her; her husband s name is again entered upon the list of volunteers for 
 Mexico. Miss Lynch drew a pretty picture for me of her visit to Willis and 
 his bride at their rooms in Seventeenth Street. Everything was couleur de 
 rose. They detained her to tea, and she left quite charmed with the un- 
 afiected grace and goodness of her new acquaintance. Willis, I imagine, is 
 trying to woo back, from the past, the better hours of life, but to such as he, 
 already satiated and listless, only their pale phantoms re-appear to mock at 
 and extinguish hope. . . I have heard nothing of the Poe family except that 
 they are in great poverty. Mrs. Ellet has been very ill at the South. Do 
 you see Miss Fuller s letters? And have you read her adventures on Ben 
 Lomond? Such a blessed mishap for an authoress. . . 
 
 Mary. 
 
 New York, Dec. 16, 1846. 
 Friend Griswold, 
 
 Why don t Graham publish my friend Thoreau s article on 
 Carlyle? He has nothing in the January number that would be read with 
 greater interest. I am disappointed at its non-appearance. Please find out 
 what its prospect is, and advise me. 
 
 Mac [Elrath ] says you were to write a notice of Lardner for Graham, 
 and Graham excuses its non-appearance by saying you have not written it. 
 M. says he gave you the book on purpose. He wished me to write about it. 
 
 When are you coming on? I have been asked to attend your Anti- 
 Capital-Punishment meeting next Monday evening, but don t want to. Bus 
 iness so presses and I am behind with so many things. I have half a lecture 
 written, and want to write another this winter, but get no time. 
 
 I don t see that book yet. Why is his chariot so long in coming? By 
 the way, you don t happen to have a MS. lecture of mine, do you? It is idle 
 to ask, but I have lost one somehow, and it seems as if nobody could have 
 stolen it, so that I must have lent it to someone. Yours, write, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
214 POE, MISS LYNCH. 
 
 New York, 20 Dec., 1846. 
 [Mrs. Mary E. Hewitt t5 Mrs. Osgood] : 
 
 . . . Miss Bogart was there [ at the reception of Miss Lynch ] 
 just returned from her European tour. How well she looks! And oh, 
 Fanny ! She has seen Mont Blanc and all the places that you and I would 
 give so much to see I 
 
 The Misses Sedgwick were present. They have changed their even 
 ing from Wednesday to Monday. All regret that you are not to be one of us 
 this winter. 
 
 The Poes are in the same state of physical and pecuniary suffering 
 indeed worse, than they were last summer, for now the cold weather is 
 added t5 their accumulation of ills. I went to enquire of Mr. Post [ pub 
 lisher of the Columbian Magazine] about them. He confirmed all that I 
 had previously heard of their condition. Although he says Mrs. Clemm has 
 never told him that they were in want, yet she borrows a shilling often, to 
 get a letter from the office but Mrs. Gove had been to see the Poes and 
 found them living in the greatest wretchedness. I am endeavoring t5 get 
 up a contribution for them among the editors, and the matter has got into 
 print very much to my regret, as I fear it will hurt Poe s pride to have his 
 affairs made so public. . . 
 
 Did you get my letter enclosing a reply t5 Grace Greenwood? Let me 
 know everything at your earliest convenience. I have removed from the 
 Athenzeum two weeks since to Mrs. Kice s, No. nine Murray St. the 
 next house to the Murray St. House so you see I am quite in our friend 
 Miss Seward s neighborhood still. I am most comfortably situated, and my 
 little parlor would suit your idea of a parlor exactly. . . 
 
 Mary. 
 
 In "The Independent" of 1 Feb. 1894, Mr. Stoddard pleas 
 antly describes Miss Lynch s "evenings" : 
 
 " The best preparation for reading these Memoirs of Mrs. 
 Botta [he says] is a glance over the first forty or fifty names 
 in the series of papers which Edgar Allan Poe contributed, in 
 1846, t6 * The Lady s Book, of L. A. Godey. Familiar with the 
 reputation of the ladies and gentlemen who figure in this list, 
 my acquaintance with Mrs. Botta dates back only forty-four 
 years, when, a timid young person of twenty-four, I was intro- 
 
MISS LYNCH AND HER FRIENDS. 215 
 
 duced int6 her salon, either by Dr. Rufus Wilmot Griswold, or 
 by Mr. Bayard Taylor. I had scrawled some immature verse, 
 which Mr. Seba Smith and Mrs. Caroline M. Kirkland thought 
 not entirely unworthy of the places which they gave it, one in 
 * The Rover, a little weekly, the other in The Union Maga 
 zine, a monthly of larger size, with illustrations on wood and 
 steel, mezzotints, if my memory is not at fault, by Mr. John 
 Sartain. Mrs. Botta, wh6 was then Miss Anne Charlotte 
 Lynch, was known t6 me before the date I have specified 
 through her poems in Graham s Magazine and other periodi 
 cals, which were copied in The Evening Mirror, of which Mr. 
 Nathaniel Parker Willis was editor-in-chief, and in The New 
 York Tribune, the critical chair of which was filled by Mr. 
 George Ripley. T6 meet this accomplished gentlewoman was a 
 distinction, since in meeting her one met her friends, the least of 
 whom was worth knowing. She lived, as nearly as I now 
 recollect, on the south side of Ninth Street, not far from Fifth 
 Avenue, and with her was her elderly mother, and a young 
 woman wh6 is now Mrs. S. M. C. Ewer, and was a sister of 
 Mr. Charles Congdon, a brilliant humorist, wh6m I did not 
 know until ten years later. Wh6 witnessed my awkward en 
 trance int6 Miss Lynch s well-lighted parlor? I have forgotten 
 who they were. I only know that the night was a cold one; 
 late in November, I fancy, and that, chilled through and 
 through, in spite of a thick cloak which I wore, I stooped and 
 chafed my hands before her glowing coal fire. Many a day 
 passed before I heard the last story about my blundering 
 gaucherie on that woful night a gaucherie which worsened 
 itself in the sharp eyes of Phyllis. wh6 declared that she won 
 dered at her foolish Corydon. The Willises were there, the 
 poet wh6 wrote "Scripture Sketches" in his youth, and had 
 written much versatile poetry and prose since letters from all 
 quarters of the world his second wife and his daughter Imo 
 gen. But before these I see Miss Lynch, tall, gracious, kind 
 ly, the woman that she remained until the cold March morn 
 ing tw6 years ago when she wandered out int6 the worlds 
 
216 MISS LYNCH AND HER FRIENDS. 
 
 beyond this workaday world of ours. Present, also, were tw6 
 of the swarming sisterhood of American singers, an elderly 
 spinster [ Miss Bogart ] wh6 was remembered through one of 
 her solemn lyrics, entitled, I think, " He Came too Late," and 
 a more hopeful married woman, wh6se songs were of a more 
 cheerful cast. . . On a later occasion, early in the following 
 spring, I met another singer of tender melodies. She came of 
 a poetic family, for, besides herself, I can recall a sister wh6 
 wrote fairly well. Born in Boston, children of a merchant 
 there named Locke, Frances Sargent spent a portion of her 
 girlhood where I passed my boyhood, in Hingham, Mass., 
 where, iu my seventh year, Mr. William Gilmore Simms im 
 provised his "Atalantis: A Tale of the Sea." Miss Locke 
 married a painter named Osgood, with whom she sailed for 
 London, where he drew many celebrities, and she warbled her 
 way into their affections, remembering her native land in her 
 first book, "A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England." 
 When I met this gentle lady, seven-and-thirty, or it may be 
 thirty-eight summers had touched her, lightly, as it seemed, 
 but heavily, as it proved ; for, always fragile, she was in a 
 decline, reminding her friends, after her soul had taken its 
 flight, of Young s Narcissa 
 
 "She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to Heaven." 
 
 Mrs. Osgood was a paragon. For, loved of all men who knew 
 her, she was hated by no woman who ever felt the charm of 
 her presence. Poe was enamored of her, or fancied that he 
 was, which with him was the same thing. He dedicated a copy 
 of verses t6 her, a trifle which had served the same purpose 
 twice before. He concealed her name in an effusion of twenty 
 lines, and he reviewed her in his glowing fashion, and no one 
 disputed the accuracy of his verdict, in her case. But Poe had 
 a rival in her affections in Dr. Griswold, wh6m she transform 
 ed for the moment int6 an impassioned poet. When Edgar 
 Allan was drugged t6 death at Baltimore, about six months 
 before the time of which I am writing, I scribbled some verse 
 in his memory ; and she was good enough t6 think some of it 
 
MRS. OSGOOD. 217 
 
 not unworthy of its theme. She died a few weeks later, and 
 was buried in a hillside grave at Hingham [ as a matter of fact, 
 Mrs. Osgood was buried at Mt. Auburn, 15 May, 1850, having 
 died in New York the 12th. ] . . . 
 
 I return to the list of names in Foe s " Literati of New York 
 City," and recover others wh6m I saw at Miss Lynch s even 
 ings at home. Constantly there was Mr. W. M. Gillespie, a 
 mathematician of eminence, wh6 stammered in his speech ; 
 Dr. J. W. Francis, wh6 knew and was known t6 everybod} T , a 
 florid gentleman with flowing white locks ; and Ralph Hoyt. 
 Then came Mrs. Ann 8. Stephens, poetess, writer of stories, 
 and, later, of three or four novels; and next Mrs. Kirkland, 
 Mrs. Embury, Miss Sedgwick, Mrs. Hewitt, Mrs. Elizabeth 
 Oakes Smith, and Dr. Thomas Ward, who, under the Horatian 
 signature of Flaccus, celebrated " Passaic, a Group of Poems 
 Touching that River, with other Poems." Greater names were 
 those of Bryant and Halleck, and one lesser, in the person of 
 the bard wh6 entreated the woodman t6 spare the tree." 
 
 The chronology of the Mr. Stoddard s account is mixd, 
 Willis, for instance, having ceased to edit The Mirror in 
 November 1845. 
 
 I append the "effusion of twenty lines" to which Mr. Stod- 
 dard refers. It was read at a Valentine party at the house of 
 Miss Lynch, on the 14th of February 1846, and was published 
 in " The Evening Mirror" of the 21st, which fact did not pre 
 vent Poe s selling it as original t6 tw6 other periodicals three 
 years later. The letters ar not italicised in the author s copy. 
 To 
 
 1 For her these lines are penned, whose luminous eyes, 
 
 2 Bright and expressive as the stars of Leda, 
 
 3 Shall find her own sweet name that, nestling, lies 
 
 4 Upon this page, enwrapped from every reader. 
 
 5 Search narrowly these words, which hold a treasure 
 
 6 Divine a talisman an amulet 
 
218 MRS. OSGOOD. 
 
 7 That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure 
 
 8 The words the letters themselves. Do not forget 
 
 9 The smallest point, or you may lose your labor. 
 
 10 And yet there is in this no Gordian knot 
 
 11 Which one mi^ht not undo without a sabre 
 
 12 If one could merely comprehend the plot. 
 
 13 Upon the open page on which are peering 
 
 14 Such sweet eyes wow, there lies, I say, perdu, 
 
 15 A musical name oft uttered in the hearing 
 
 16 Of poets, by poets for the name is a poet s too. 
 
 17 In common sequence set, the letters lying, 
 
 18 Compose a sound delighting all to hear 
 
 19 Ah, this you d have no trouble in descrying 
 
 20 Were you not something of a dunce, my dear : 
 
 21 And now I leave these riddles to their Seer. 
 
 If this is meritorious as a poem, some rimes which Mrs. 
 
 Osgood addressed to Griswold, 3d March 1849, ar more curi 
 ous as an intellectual exercise : 
 
 1 For one, whose being is to mine a star, 1 
 
 2 Trembling I weave in lines of love and fun 2 
 
 3 What Fame before has echoed near and/ar. 3 
 
 4 A sormet if you like, I ll give you one 4 
 
 5 To be cross-questioned ere its truth is solv d 5 
 
 6 Here veiled and hidden in a rhyming wreath 6 
 
 7 A name is turned with mine in cunning sheath 7 
 
 8 And unless by some marvel rare evolved 8 
 
 9 Forever folded from all idler eyes 9 
 
 10 Silent and secret still it treasured lies 10 
 
 11 Whilst mine goes winding onward, as a rill 11 
 
 12 Thro a deep wood in unseen joyance dances 12 
 
 13 Calling in melody s bewi/dering thrill 13 
 
 14 Whilst thro dim leaves its partner dreams and glances. 14 
 
JAMES T: FIELDS. 219 
 
 Dear Rufus, while the " midnight chimes" 
 In belfrys weave their merry rhymes 
 Why may not I ( you know the place 
 In Suffolk chambers) join the race, 
 And while the Christmas bells are waking, 
 Give my old Pegasus a shaking ! 
 
 And first, why don t you write us, Gris? 
 And second, why not show your phiz 
 Where School Street corners Washington, 
 And books, just born, begin t6 run ; 
 Where Dr. Choules drops in t6 smoke, 
 And Whipple stops t6 have his joke ; 
 In short, where all the women join 
 T6 swell the bulk of Ticknor s com ! 
 
 Why don t you come? tis many a year 
 
 Since Gris. and all that s gay were here ; 
 
 Since laughter, we remember well, 
 
 In number 2 like music fell ; 
 
 And since at " Haven s gay saloon," 
 
 You stirred with us the coffee spoon ! 
 
 Why can t you come? tis but a step, 
 A railroad ride, a steamboat trip ; 
 A parting glance at Walnut Street, 
 And on the Tremont plant your feet ! 
 Swift Olmstead waits with ready pen 
 T6 chronicle the best of men ; 
 You must, you shall, you can t refuse 
 Again with us t6 drink and muse ! 
 
 Come while you re young ; we re getting old, 
 Our blood is growing thin and cold, 
 Poor Tom Gould limps and Whipple goes 
 With spectacles upon his nose. 
 Even I, so sound of wind and limb 
 When last we met, am wasting slim ; 
 
220 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 
 
 And if, dear Gris., you long delay, 
 You ll find us packed in huts of clay. 
 
 Then boys for copy cease to call ! 
 Cut printers, Rufus, one and all ! 
 Our native oracles, a week 
 Can wait, before they learn to speak. 
 Tie up your knocker, say you re sick, 
 And Hart will never learn the trick ! 
 Come ! Rufus, Come ! tis our behest, 
 Give those dead Prosers one more rest ! 
 
 Our oysters from their shells exclaim 
 
 " Stewed, Broiled, or Roast, tis all the same, 
 
 As he may choose, when Gris. arrives 
 
 We give our bodies t6 the knives, 
 
 We long t6 die, for fill we shall 
 
 The belly of this Prodigal !" 
 
 J. T. F[ields] 
 Christmas Week, 1846. 
 
 My dear Sir [Fields ?], 
 
 I hope you will do whatever you can to favor Mr. Poe in the 
 matter of which he spoke to you in his letter. I suppose you will send him 
 a copy of my poems and one of " Urania, " and refer him for the little facts 
 of my outward existence to the preface to my volume and to Mr. Griswold s 
 book. I cannot think that he would be much interested to know that I have 
 a little family growing up about me since friend Rufus posted up my history. 
 This is almost the only change in my circumstances which has occurred since 
 that date. But if there is anything about me which a friend might say and a 
 well-wisher publish, say it and trust to Mr. Poe s discretion. I really believe, 
 however, that I have nothing at present to show for the last half a dozen 
 years of my life, which however have not been idle, and may some time or 
 other bear their fruit. 
 
 I have always thought Mr. Poe entertained a favorable opinion of me 
 since he taught me how to scan one of my own poems. And I am not 
 ashamed, though it may be very unphilosophical, to be grateful for his good 
 
THE PROSE-WRITERS OF AMERICA. 221 
 
 opinion, and even venture to hope that he may find something to approve in 
 one or two of my last poems in the one you will send him and in the Pil 
 grim of last year if he ever sees it. 
 
 As for the autograph, that is a ticklish matter. I intend trying for 
 one on the next page, but this sheet has a hot-pressed, repulsive kind of 
 polish more genteel than agreeable to the ambitious designs of one wh5 
 would desire to be enrolled upon the list of calligraphers. Like my eldest 
 boy, it does not stick to its letters ; like some of my Southern friends it 
 seems to have a natural antipathy to the blacks. But the attempt must be 
 made. 
 
 Modestly, therefore, yet firmly, avoiding equally the pretentious bold 
 ness of John Hancock, and the voluntary self-diminution of those who write 
 their names in the circumference of the same sixpence which already covers 
 a copy of the Lord s prayer in full, I subscribe myself Yours very truly, 
 
 Oliver Wendell Holmes. 
 Boston, Dec. 29, 1846. 
 
 Philad a, 29 Dec., 1846. 
 Dear James, 
 
 ... My book . . . will be published in two or three weeks. I 
 dread its appearance. "Young America" will be rabid; and what will be 
 worse, you and my kind friends will be disappointed. I have worked upon 
 it pretty steadily for nineteen months, but it is incomplete, and poor indeed 
 in so many ways, that I grow sick with the fear that it will be read by those 
 who know how such a book should be made. Apologise for me in advance 
 to "Macaulay" [Whipple]. In truth I grew conscientious as I drew near 
 the end of my labors, and felt that I must make an example of somebody, 
 and of whom could I write honestly but of a friend ? . . . 
 
 R. W. G. 
 
 New York, Jan. 12, 1847. 
 Friend Gris. : 
 
 As you don t come along at all, and are entirely invisible, be so 
 good as to send me my Lecture, and tell me when is likely t5 be the advent 
 of your book, when you are coming here, etc., etc. I am going East soon 
 perhaps on Friday to lecture, and want to take my lectures with me, for 
 use and reference. Hereof fail not, but send and write promptly, and 
 receive the thanks of Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
222 j; PENDLETON KENNEDY. 
 
 Have you seen Emerson s Poems? Of course you have. Guess you 
 wish some of em were in that new Edition of the Poets? 
 
 Washington, Jan. 24, 1847. 
 Dear Sir 
 
 The subject of international copyright is one towards which I 
 have not directed my attention sufficiently to form a deliberate and settled 
 opinion ; nor shall I have leisure to do so during the remainder of this short 
 and busy session. 
 
 But should you and other American authors and literary gentlemen 
 think it proper to commit the subject to my charge, at the next session, I 
 would direct my attention to it in the recess and endeavor to carry it through 
 Congress, should my opinion, on a careful examination, be in its favor. 
 
 I would in the meantime be glad to be put in possession of such docu 
 ments as would present fully both sides. With great respect, Yours etc., 
 
 J. C. Calhoun. 
 
 Annapolis, Md., Jan. 13, 1847. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 What of your book? What of my portrait? What of the Frois- 
 sart Ballads? and what of yourself ? I thought you were to be "along our 
 way" in December? I have heard nothing of you. 
 
 . . . Have you seen that ox-faced thing in the American Eeview, en 
 graved from a damaged and condemned daguerreotype in Edwards collec 
 tion, New York? This was done without the slightest intimation to me, and 
 when I saw it very much to my discomposure. But I couldn t control it, 
 and was obliged to make the best of it. 
 
 ... If you pass through Baltimore before the 10th of March, make 
 your visit there on Saturday and Sunday, as only on those days can I get 
 away from here. They have made me Speaker of the House of Delegates, 
 and I am obliged to be punctually at my post every morning. Yours truly, 
 
 J. P. Kennedy. 
 
 It will be noticed that many of the letters mentioned in the 
 Diary ar not printed. This is because they wer not among 
 those received by the editor from Mr. Griswold s executor, nor 
 has the former any means of learning in wh6se hands they 
 now ar. 
 
HORACE GREELEY. 223 
 
 Diary : Feb. 22. Furness told me of Johnson s informing John Frost 
 he was not mentioned in u The Prose Writers": an amusing scene. . . Am 
 invited to write "Washington and his Generals." 
 
 Diary : Feb. 23. A letter from Raymond, in a most friendly spirit. . . 
 
 Diary : Feb. 25. Busy all day at Graham s office. 
 
 New York, March 1st, 1847. 
 K. W. Griswold, Esq., Dear Sir: 
 
 I send you herewith a copy of Daggett s "New York Adver 
 tiser," in a business point of view. I have told D. that you would make him 
 up a column of choice Literary matter for his next number better than any 
 other man can do it, and you must justify my recommendation. Give him a 
 good day s work, send him the copy by Saturday of this week, and charge 
 him $10. 
 
 You understand what is wanted. A column not of puffs of your books,- 
 nor Carey s, nor anybody s, but of stuff that will cause the paper to be read 
 and preserved. You can put it together if you will. No odds about origin 
 ality, only it must not be common, and yet it must be adapted to general 
 tastes, not special. Try to do it well. A square or two of Literary Intelli 
 gence, very compact, might form a part, only it must be impartial. 
 
 Gris. make up for me a brief collection of the best Epigrams in the 
 Language say three folio sheets of MSS. A page may be given to Epitaphs 
 if you please, though I don t care. Why did you run off without saying 
 Go db y e? Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 I shall leave the city for N. H. Thursday morning. 
 
 Diary : Mar. 3. ... The Prose Writers of America published today. 
 Diary : Mar. 4. ... Letter from Halleck . . . 
 
 Philadelphia, 7th March, 1847. 
 Dear James [Fields], 
 
 The book [ Prose Writers ] is not received with kindness, and I 
 persuade myself that it receives something less than justice, though I am as 
 sensible as any one of its faults. One of our editors here says it is a bundle 
 of puffs of my friends. . . Another says it is a partial compilation, but there 
 is enough original matter in it such as it is for a brace of duodecimos. 
 Another declares it is edited by me perhaps because he does not know the 
 use of words, perhaps because he supposes it is an old book, of which I have 
 
224 THE PROSE WRITERS. 
 
 been giving the world a new impression. .. Mr. Chandler here and Mr. 
 Jno. Frost, Mr. "Table Beer" Morris and Messrs, the 70 ... are aston 
 ished, and more indignant even than surprised. Greeley is angry 
 at what I offer under the name of Margaret [Fuller], which is very 
 badly written though all true. Inman, Parke Godwin, W. A. Jones 
 (how could Whipple puff that miserable diluter of old New Monthly 
 articles?) E. A. Duyckinck, J. B. Auld, and the whole mob of "Young 
 Americans," "swear terribly" that they re omitted and that the amiable 
 Cornelius, centurion of the sect, is so " abused." Then there is Mrs. Em 
 bury, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, Mrs. Sigourney, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. 
 Ellet, they all have warm admirers, and could bring witnesses into court, 
 every one of them, to prove that they are equal to De Stael . . . and they are 
 believed. Talking of women who make books, we have had but one in 
 America who merited her reputation Maria Brooks. Mrs. Smith has talent 
 for writing, and quick apprehension but the literature of women, every 
 where, is, for the most part, sauzle an expressive word from the feminine 
 vocabulary. . . I call these names to your memory that you may know why 
 my book is damned by all the newspapers so. It has not yet received as 
 civil a notice as the U. S. Gazette here usually gives to a two-penny book of 
 nursery rhymes. You will pardon my weakness in thinking of the failure I 
 have made, for you know it cost me much time and toil. It deserves indeed 
 no great success, but it is condemned for the very reasons of the little excel 
 lence it has. . . 
 
 I am going to New York early in May to translate for Harper, and 
 edit, The Biographic Universelle. It will occupy me a year and a half or 
 two years, constantly. . . 
 
 R. W." G. 
 
 Boston, March 9, 1847. 
 My dear Griswold, 
 
 I intended to have written to you a week ago, but have been pre 
 vented by a thousand things. As soon as I received the sheets of your new 
 book I prepared a hasty notice for Graham, which I supposed you would 
 see. I think your work is the best you have done in respect to the literary 
 execution, and the general independence and decidedness of the opinions. 
 I have read it with a great deal of interest. I think that a number were 
 omitted who should have appeared, especially Sumner, Hillard and a few 
 others in these diggin s. I tell people that your work was to have been 
 
E. P. WHIPPLE. 225 
 
 a hundred pages more, but was cut down by the publishers. There is a cer 
 tain sulky, sullen magnificence about portions of your introductory essay 
 which especially takes me. You kick more in this book than any other. I 
 have noticed some errors which I shall not trouble you with, being errors of 
 opinion. Boweu desires me to review the book for his July number a task 
 which I think I may do. I should treat it more tenderly than any body else 
 among his contributors. 
 
 I owe you an acknowledgement for the undeserved panegyric you so 
 bountifully pour upon me. Probably many of the gentlemen who are 
 omitted will pounce upon me for my good luck. They will have the devil 
 upon them if they do. The truth is, from my connection with literary 
 organs, I enjoy a great deal of power, which would make me a dangerous 
 gentleman to abuse. Seriously, I think you have d5ne me, relatively, too 
 much honor. It would not be kind, however, to run you down for that. 
 
 What think you of Duyckinck s new journal? ["The Literary 
 World " ] It is better than any thing we have had in the United States, and 
 if it succeeds, and cuts clear from all sectional and personal predilections, 
 will be a valuable aid to American literature. 
 
 In the next number of the North American, Bo wen has an article 
 directed against Emerson s Poems. By the way you once wrote me about a 
 review of Simms, in the N. A. ; I thought you might suppose I was the au 
 thor. It was not so. Felton did that business. 
 
 Fields is chirping. I hope to see you on here soon. I am not married 
 yet, but hope to be before the year is out. The lady is the best in the world, 
 of course, and I am the luckiest of men. 
 
 All happiness to you, my boy, and good luck to all your brain-children, 
 and good riddance to all your troubles these are the blessings of Yours 
 Werry Kespectably, 
 
 E. P. W. 
 
 Diary : Mar. 12. ... Am criticised severely for omitting J. H. Ingra- 
 ham, T. S. Arthur, and Wilmer! from the P. W. 
 
 One of the above named was thus characterized in * The 
 Knickerbocker for December of this year : Professor 
 Ingraham, wh6 has within the last ten years written more im 
 moral works than any other of the many penny-a-line scribblers 
 to wh6m the cheap and nasty school of ephemeral publica- 
 
226 HORACE GREELEY. 
 
 tions have given birth, has taken t6 the Church for a * living. 
 
 * We don t know, says the lively and clever * Sunday Dispatch, 
 
 * whether t6 sympathize with the Public, the Church, or the 
 Professor himself. We resign the man wh6 wrote * The Cigar- 
 Girl of Broadway and * The Dancing Feather, thankful that 
 he has escaped from the thick smoke of sin and emerged int6 a 
 purer atmosphere. " 
 
 New York, March 13, 1847. 
 R. W. G., 
 
 Yours received this day, but I had written and brought in my 
 notice of your book last night. I wrote very hastily, with half a dozen 
 jawing at me and my boy raising all sorts of mischief in my office, whereby 
 there are several tautological expressions in the notice, but it is pretty fair 
 nevertheless, though it would have been better if I could have read the proof. 
 
 Why did you ask about the delay? Didn t I tell you in my last that I 
 was off to New Hampshire to take a hand in the fight there going on? I 
 only got home Wednesday morning, and despatched your book as soon 
 thereafter as possible. It had not come to hand when I left, a week ago 
 Thursday morning. That s the whole story. 
 
 Your scraps for Daggett, were a little late, but in season, I hope. You 
 must have seen the 1st No. of his Advertiser; I asked you to write for the 
 second and you should have sent to him forthwith. Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Read Raymond s and my last in Friday s Tribune. 
 
 In his autobiography Mr. Greeley touchingly refers t6 the 
 death of this son, which took place in July 1849. 
 
 New York, March 13, 1847. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Many thanks for your kind intention in regard to the Prose 
 Writers. No copy has been received at the Mirror Office, and W. and P. 
 say that none has been received by them for the Mirror or me. It will give 
 me much pleasure to receive a copy and I will say a word about it in the two 
 or three papers for which I occasionally write. But I shall be prevented the 
 pleasure of saying anything ill-natured about it, as people would suspect me 
 
CHARLES F. BRIGGS. 227 
 
 of being influenced by spite because my own name is not included among 
 the Authors. I hope, however, that you will not for a moment believe that 
 I ever anticipated seeing my name among the prose writers of America. 
 I never had such a thought, and should have been greatly astonished at 
 seeing it there. I remember having heard you say that you have the fullest 
 collection of American books in the country, and it was my intention to send 
 you two or three volumes of mine, which were anonymously published, but 
 as our acquaintance was slight, I feared that you might mistrust my motives. 
 But your book having appeared I will, at a convenient season, make a small 
 addition to your already large library. I have not yet seen the < Prose- 
 Writers, but I believe you have not included in your list the prominent 
 Newspaper Authors of the Country. This I think is a double mistake ; in 
 the first place they are the real writers of the country who are, at least, the 
 Exponents of National thought, if they are not directors of it; and in the 
 second place you lose the favorable feeling of an influential class, which, in 
 these days of dollars and cents should always be secured when it can with 
 out a sacrifice of principle. You will excuse the freedom of my remarks, 
 and believe them well intended, if they are not well in themselves. 
 
 I have just received a letter from Lowell announcing the death of his 
 only child, a beautiful girl little more than a year old. It is altogether the 
 most beautiful piece of prose writing that I have ever read. I do not know 
 whether or not you have included him in the Catalogue of American prose 
 writers, but my partiality for him is so great that I should be tempted to put 
 his name in the front rank of them all. The only person who has expressed 
 an opinion of the book in my hearing was Jones who, of course, thought 
 that certain persons were left out who had a right to a place in it. I see 
 that Dana gives a very generous, but rather slight notice of it in the Tribune 
 of this morning. With much esteem, Your friend and ob t servant, 
 
 Charles F. Briggs. 
 
 Diary : Mar. 23. Kind letters from Raymond and Hoffman. 
 Diary : April 8. Letter from R. W. Emerson, in which he says he 
 does not think a philosopher [ ?] is obliged to understand his own opinions. 
 
 Boston, April 26, 1847. 
 My dear Griswold, 
 
 I have rec d your favor and make haste to answer it. I hope the 
 book will be tenderly received in England, though the Examiner and Spec- 
 
228 H: NORMAN HUDSON. 
 
 tator newspapers are sure to attack it. The chief objection will be the 
 general tone of your composition, and the occasional dogmatism with which 
 your opinions are expressed also a certain sulky magnificence of style in 
 some parts a clerical way of saying u I don t care a damn for anybody" 
 which is open t5 criticism. If you desire t5 avoid the objections to these you 
 must carefully go over your portions, and soften a little here and there. 
 You had better leave out that portion of your remarks about Burke as com 
 pared to Webster. It would be impossible for me to suggest alterations to 
 any extent in a letter. The best way would be for you to take some literary 
 friend who understands the feeling of the London public and have him go 
 over the book with you. 
 
 I wish you could manage in some way not to have me come last in the 
 collection as it will expose me particularly to the shots of critics. Also leave 
 out of your notice of me all biographical matter except the time when and the 
 place whSre I was born, and the fact that I am engaged in Commercial pur 
 suits. Cut out likewise the tremendous puff about my style being Milton 
 and Addison fused together. 
 
 I have seen [H: Norman] Hudson and will send you in a day or two 
 some extracts from his lectures and marked extracts from his articles. Give 
 him a fine notice. Speak of his mind as singularly keen, penetrating, pow 
 erful and brilliant, with a corresponding sharpness and strength of expres 
 sion. Eefer to his fluency in apt illustration, fanciful, satirical and humor 
 ous. Say that his lectures on Shakespeare are great both as specimens of 
 splendid composition and [of] exhausting analysis. Refer particularly to his 
 analyses of characters especially, Lear, lago, Macbeth, Othello and Des- 
 demona which are really the greatest extant on those distinguished persons. 
 
 Mr. Dana has the highest possible opinion of Hudson and his writings. 
 Don t put in anything about " cribbing," because it is not the fact. Dana, 
 who has gone over the ground, don t think so, neither do I. The only 
 things he has published are an article on Education in the Democratic Re 
 view for May and July 1845, one on Reading in the Whig Review for May, 
 45, and on Festus in the Whig Review for Jan y and Feb y 1847. You don t 
 know what a splendid fellow Hudson is, somewhat crabbed and individual, 
 but a regular b hoy of letters for all that. 
 
 I am glad to hear that you are well. I am sorry that Duyckinck pub 
 lished that article in the [Literary] World. It is very one-sided and harsh. 
 However, you drew down the lightning on your own head by your shabby- 
 genteel damnation of Mathews. 
 
BURKE AND WEBSTER. 229 
 
 I always make it a rule never t5 join in when there is a cry of con 
 demnation against a fellow creature and author. Mathews has not had 
 justice done him and therefore he is to be tenderly touched. You may de 
 pend upon it that his influence across the water will be against you if you do 
 not modify your criticism upon him. I wish you would take out some of 
 the eulogy on me and put it on to Cornelius. You would not in that case 
 increase the aggregate of your praise. I will write again as soon as I get the 
 material from Hudson. Very truly yours, 
 
 E. P. W[ hippie]. 
 
 Boston, April 30, 1847. 
 My dear G. 
 
 I have received yours of the 27th. I wrote you the day before I 
 got it about Hudson. The objection to your remark about Burke is that 
 though Webster has more in him of the qualities of a practical statesman, 
 and more closeness and rapidity of argumentation, he cannot be compared 
 to Burke in fertility of intellect, both philosophical and imaginative. Burke 
 has supplied or digested the principles, and a good portion of the declama 
 tion, of two great parties in Great Britain. Webster more resembles Fox. 
 Perhaps his weight of nature is greater than either, and he may have greater 
 possibilities in his mind ; but he can only be compared with Burke in the 
 manner I do it in my article on Webster, viz., in showing that the influence 
 of Burke s passions and imagination did, in particular instances, interfere 
 with the sobriety of his understanding. You say that the genius of Webster 
 is more various. This is a mistake. Burke s Works supply more philosoph 
 ical reflections, more splendid imagery, and a greater variety of thoughts, 
 than those of any man since Bacon and Milton. You are not so fresh from 
 Burke as I am. I have had him on my table for the last five years, and know 
 him through and through. My copy is marked on every page. Besides, in 
 any event, your remark will be considered ridiculous in England. . . In 
 great haste, 
 
 E. P. W. 
 
 Diary : April 30. Prof. Allen called this evening to invite me t5 
 deliver the annual address at Dickinson College. 
 
 Diary : May 16. Letter from Simms, which I gave to Miss Allen, as 
 an autograph. 
 
230 J. M. LEGARE. 
 
 Aiken, May 31st, [1847 ?]. 
 My dear Sir : 
 
 I learned your arrival in Charleston only this afternoon, and let 
 me say how much pleasure it will give me to receive you here as a guest. 
 We live here in most primitive style pretty much as one would on a 
 maroon ; for this place is noted as a resort for health ; and residing here for 
 the present with that end in view, we cannot consider it a home. So if a 
 small room (heartily at your service ) and plain enough entertainment will 
 content you, I will endeavor for my part to render what time you may spare 
 me as little wearisome as possible. Aiken is on the R-Road terminating 
 at Augusta, and I would like to hear from you a day or two before you leave 
 the city, that I may meet you at the cars, and avert a mistake in the place of 
 landing not unusual where there is an upper and a lower village of the 
 same name. 
 
 In hope of making your acquaintance, my dear Sir, in person before 
 long, I remain Your ob t servant, etc., 
 
 J. M. Legar6. 
 
 Diary : June 30. In the street today met Poe, who was extremely 
 civil. . . 
 
 Diary : July 6. Letter from Prescott. 
 
 Diary: July 18 [Philadelphia]. Joseph C. Neal committed suicide 
 this morning at his house in Seventh Street, near by. It is given out that he 
 died of congestion of the brain. 
 
 Diary : Sept. 16. Tonight have finished Washington and the Gener 
 als of the Revolution, of which I have written about one third, for little 
 money and no reputation. 
 
 Diary : Sept. 17. At Harper s had a disagreeable altercation with 
 [Spencer W. ] Cone, who was angry that Jefferson should be treated with 
 disrespect, and reviled Clay as if he were a common cutthroat. 
 
 Steamer Britannia, Off Halifax, Friday, Sept. 17, 1847. 
 Dear Rufus, 
 
 I promised to write you from Europe, but my rapid flight gave 
 me no leisure for correspondence. What I have seen we will talk over some 
 fine day at Jones or elsewhere, but at present " I cannot enlarge," as the 
 Alderman said to the Mayor. I have visited many spots of great historical 
 and literary interest, to which my feet made no unwilling pilgrimage, I 
 assure you. I have sailed the Rhine from Cologne to Mayence ; stood at the 
 
JAMES T: FIELDS. 231 
 
 tombs of great warriors from Richard Coeur de Lion to Napoleon ; walked 
 over Waterloo and Runnymede ; loitered at Pere la Chaise ; mused at Abbots- 
 ford and Newstead ; talked at Rydal with Wordsworth, at " Our Village" 
 with Miss Mitford, in his sanctum with Christopher North, who by the way 
 mentioned your Poets of America as a Book on his shelves and one which he 
 loved to read ; you will see by the enumeration from my catalogue that I was 
 not idle during my sojourn in distant lands. I have escaped by the good 
 blessing of God a death at Sea ; the account of our disaster you will read in 
 the papers. It was a slight thread to hang a ship s company s lives upon, 
 but the time had not come for us to make our departure from the lower 
 world. It is a terrible experience, that of seeing two hundred souls fearfully 
 looking out upon a rocky shore uncertain of the issue. 
 
 I write this hasty line that you may see I have not forgotten you. We 
 will no doubt meet before long either in Philadelphia or Boston, where we 
 will talk things over. I come home with every wish gratified as far as relates 
 to those countries I have visited, and with a firm conviction that where our 
 lines are cast thSre blessings most abound. America is the world s picked 
 garden and I thank Heaven I am 5ne of her sons and 
 
 Your old friend, always most truly, 
 
 James T. Fields. 
 
 Diary : Sept. 24. Met Headley in the street. He is angry at a review 
 I printed in the Literary World of his Washington and his Generals. 
 
 Philadelphia, Oct. 13, 1847. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Your favor of the llth duly received with list of Contributors to 
 " Washington and His Generals " which leaves you only 96 pages ( provided 
 you are not the author of the Essay on " Washington " ) for $75. but as you 
 have had, we acknowledge, a great deal more trouble with the work than I 
 expected, we will place to your credit $150. instead of $96. ; please state if 
 this is satisfactory. 
 
 You have received from us in cash on account of the 96 pages $75., 
 leaving a balance of $75. to your credit. We have also credited you with 
 $93.75 for the second edition (1,000) of Prose Writers of America one half 
 of which, say 500 copies, were sent t5 England, on which you were to receive 
 $31.25 copyright, and on the 500 for sale in this country, $62.50. . . 
 
 Yours respectfully, 
 
 A. S. Hart. 
 
232 THE HEADLEY CONTROVERSY. 
 
 The article mentiond was reprinted in The Tribune, 29th 
 October, as by R. W. G-riswold ; this would seem to settle 
 the question of authorship. 
 
 Diary : Oct. 16. Converse with [ Gen. Edmund Pendleton ] Gaines 
 after dinner. He says he was 70 last March, and that he first knew Jefferson 
 in 1804, when he was a subaltern. ( Query : was J. his father? ) He devotes 
 the evening to me, giving many entertaining reminiscences of his life and 
 opinions. Mrs. G. says she governs him easily in domestic affairs. 
 
 Diary : Nov. 2. Did not go down town. About 3 o clock Briggs 
 came up and told me of Headley s attack upon Hoffman and me in the 
 C[ourier] & Enquirer. 
 
 Diary : Nov. 3. Hoffman replies to Headley this morning, and I have 
 left a reply to him at the Courier office. 
 
 Diary : Nov. 5. Headley attacks me in the Courier, which refuses t5 
 print my reply, and I carry it to Greeley. 
 
 Diary : Nov. 8. Meet at Hoffman s Mr. Thompson, the new editor of 
 the Southern Literary Messenger. 
 
 Philadelphia, Nov. 10, 1847. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Headley could not have done our book more service if he had 
 tried than by the stir his communications have made in the sale of it. 
 
 Your letter in the Tribune was well written and to the point we learn 
 he will make a further attack on us tomorrow. . . Yours etc., 
 
 A. S. Hart. 
 
 Diary: Nov. 11. J. T. H. again in the Courier & Enquirer. . . Pass 
 an hour with Prof. Bush, with whom I discuss the whole subject of the 
 Headley controvery, and he proposes very kindly a card with the names of 
 several of my old acquaintances. After dinner Senator Folsom speaks to me 
 of the subject in a very kindly manner. 
 
 Diary : Nov. 12. The Headley controversy continues, but I am no 
 longer alluded to in it. 
 
 Philadelphia, Nov. 24, 1847. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 Pray what think you of the way Mr. Headley and his publishers 
 have been shown up? ... Yours truly, 
 
 Carey & Hart. 
 
MRS. ELIZABETH ELLET. 
 
 Yours of yesterday just rec d. Send on the Review; we will try to 
 get it in the N. American even if we pay for it. C. & H. 
 
 Diary: Nov. 30. ... Met S. S. Phelps [Senator from Vermont] 
 who advises me to turn politician. He regrets that he did not denounce the 
 Mexican war in the Senate. 
 
 Boston, January 6, 1848. 
 My dear Griswold, 
 
 . . . The only answer he vouchsafes is, that he made the engage 
 ment with Mrs. Ellet before the book was published, and before she could 
 see what was said in it about herself. It is all nonsense to pretend t5 do 
 anything with Bowen when his mind is once fixed. It is like trying to puff 
 back a hurricane with the breath of human nostrils . . . Besides I don t be 
 lieve the lady will do any intentional injustice to any of you . . . However 
 much she may dissent from your opinions, she cannot help acknowledging 
 that you have, in the mere collection of the matter, aud the making out of 
 the biographies, done what nobody else would have had patience or ability 
 to do. You may depend upon it, also, that Bowen will not allow any clique 
 injustice to be perpetrated in his Review. 
 
 I am sorry to find that you and the New-Yorkers are on such bad 
 terms with Mrs. Ellet. I always thought that she was considered by you all 
 a lady of great ability, acquirements, and excellence. The truth is, I have 
 no patience with the New York literati. They are all the time quarreling 
 with each other. Why not kiss and be friends? You have a precious lot of 
 feuds on your own hands. A plague on both your houses, say I. . . 
 
 I am glad you like the Essays and Reviews. I see that they are begin 
 ning to blackguard me in New-York ; and in Phil a, I have been treated very 
 shabbily. They seem to be apprehensive that the book may prove interest 
 ing to the public. . . 
 
 E. P. W[ hippie]. 
 
 Concord, May 19, 1848. 
 My friend Greeley, 
 
 I received from you fifty dollars to-day. 
 
 For the last five years I have supported myself solely by the labor of 
 my hands. I have not received one cent from any other source, and this 
 has cost me so little time, say a month in the spring and another in the 
 autumn, doing the coarsest work of all kinds, that I have probably enjoyed 
 
234 H: D: THOREAU. 
 
 more leisure for literary pursuits than any contemporary. For more than 
 two years past I have lived alone in the woods, in a good plastered and 
 shingled house entirely of my own building, earning only what I wanted and 
 sticking to my proper work. The fact is man need not live by the sweat of 
 his brow unless he sweats easier than I do he needs so little. For two 
 years and two mouths all my expenses have amounted to but 27 cents a 
 week, and I have fared gloriously in all respects. If a man must have 
 money and he needs but the smallest amount, the true and independent way 
 to earn it is by day labor with his hands at a dollar a day I have tried many 
 ways and can speak from experience. Scholars are apt to think themselves 
 privileged to complain as if their lot was a peculiarly hard one. How much 
 have we heard about the attainment of knowledge under difficulties, of poets 
 starving in garrets depending on the patronage of the wealthy and finally 
 dying mad. It is time men sang another song. There is no reason why the 
 scholar who professes to be a little wiser than the mass of men, should not 
 do his work in the ditch occasionally, and by means of his superior wisdom 
 make much less suffice for him. A wise man will not be unfortunate. How 
 then would you know but he was a fool ? 
 
 This money therefore comes as a free and even unexpected gift to me. 
 
 My Friend Greeley, I know not how to thank you for your kindness 
 to thank you is not the way I can only assure you that I see and appreciate 
 it. To think that while I have been sitting comparatively idle here, you 
 have been so active in my behalf ! 
 
 You have done well for me. I only wish it had been in a better cause, 
 yet the value of good deeds is not affected by the unworthiness of their 
 object. Yes, that was the right way, but who would ever have thought of 
 it? I think it might not have occurred even to somewhat of a business man. 
 I am not one in the common sense at all, that is I am not acquainted with the 
 forms, I might have waylaid him perhaps. I perceive that your way has 
 this advantage too, that he who draws the draft determines the amount 
 which it is drawn for. You prized it [ word illegible ] that was the exact 
 amount. 
 
 If more convenient, the Maine article might be printed in the form of 
 letters ; you have only to leave off at the end of a day, and put the date be 
 fore the next one. I shall certainly be satisfied to receive $25.00 for it that 
 was all I expected if you took it but I do not by any means consider you 
 bound to pay me that, the article not being what you asked for, and being 
 sent after so long a delay. You shall therefore, if you take it, send me 25 
 
WHIPPLE AND FIELDS. 235 
 
 dollars now, or when you have disposed of it, whichever is most conven 
 ient that is; after deducting the necessary expenses which I perceived you 
 must have incurred. This is all I ask for it. 
 
 The carrier it is commonly who makes the money. I am concerned to 
 see that you as carrier make nothing at all, but are in danger of losing a 
 good deal of your time as well as some of your money. 
 
 So I got off or rather so I am compelled to go off muttering my in 
 effectual thanks. But believe me, my Friend, the gratification which your 
 letter affords me is not wholly selfish. 
 
 Trusting that my good genius will continue to protect me on this 
 accession of wealth, I remain Yours, 
 
 Henry Thoreau. 
 
 P. S. My book is swelling again under my hands, but as soon as I 
 have leisure I shall see t5 those shorter articles, so look out. 
 
 Boston, June 1, 1848. 
 My dear Rufus, 
 
 Whipple has done the thing in a most brown and beautiful 
 manner. The package contains the whole matter and we hope it will please 
 you. Don t lose the document, Eufus, for I cannot put my hands on the 
 verses again if you should mislay them after your usual careless style. You 
 know your weakness, my dear Doctor, and I am not afraid to tell you so to 
 your head that your papers lie strewd about your den like Yallombrosa s 
 Leaves, only a great deal more so. . . 
 
 You should see Whipple s boy. The little rascal daily peruses a back 
 volume of the Edinburgh Keview, and a day or two since got aground on a 
 Macaulay paper. He is a rare youth and bids fair to rival his father in the 
 literary world. . . 
 
 Mrs. Haven s Coffee Room is swept and garnished. Will you drop in 
 some day, not distant, and imbibe her smoking beverage as it comes reeking 
 by the hand of a maiden unrivalled out of Paradise? 
 
 Always most truly yours, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Referring to the Whig nomination for the presidency in 
 1848 Greeley wrote in his autobiography as folloes : 
 
 I non-concurred in this view, most decidedly. General Taylor, 
 though an excellent soldier, had no experience as a statesman, and his 
 
236 ZACHARY TAYLOR. 
 
 capacity for civil administration was wholly undemonstrated. He had never 
 voted; had, apparently, paid little attention to, and taken little interest in 
 politics ; and, though inclined toward the Whig party, was but slightly ident 
 ified with its ideas and its efforts. Nobody could say what were his views 
 regarding Protection, Internal Improvement, or the Currency. On the 
 great question which our vast acquisitions from Mexico had suddenly in 
 vested with the gravest importance of excluding Slavery from the yet 
 untainted Federal Territories, he had nowise declared himself; and the fact 
 that he was an extensive slave-holder justified a presumption that he, like 
 most slave-holders, deemed it right that any settler in the Territories should 
 be at liberty to take thither, and hold there as property, whatever the laws 
 of his own State recognized as property. We desired to "take a bond of 
 fate" that this view should not be held by a Whig President, at all events. . . 
 In- the event, I think the anticipations of those who had favored and 
 those who had opposed General Taylor s nomination . . . were both realized. 
 He proved an honest, wise, and fearless public servant, true to his convic 
 tions, but yielding all proper fealty and deference to those whose votes had 
 placed him in the White House. None more keenly regretted his sudden, 
 untimely death, which occurred on the 9th of July, 1850, after he had been 
 sixteen months President than those who had most strenuously resisted his 
 nomination. . . He was a man of little education or literary culture, but of sig 
 nal good sense, coolness, and freedom from prejudice. Few trained and 
 polished statesmen have proved fitter depositaries of civil power than this 
 rough old soldier, whose life had been largely passed in camp and bivouac, 
 on the rude outskirts of civilization, or in savage wastes far beyond it. Gen 
 eral Taylor died too soon for his country s good, but not till he had proved 
 himself a wise and good ruler, if not even a great one. 
 
 Clay himself wrote : " Magnaminity is a noble virtue, and I 
 have always endeavored t6 practise it ; but it has its limits, and 
 the line of demarcation between it and meanness is not always 
 discernible. . . I think my friends ought t6 leave me quiet and 
 undisturbed in my retirement. My race is run. During the 
 short time that remains t6 me in this world I desire t6 preserve 
 untarnished that character which so many have done me the 
 honor t6 respect and esteem." 
 
THOMAS COR WIN. 237 
 
 Washington, July 20. 1848. 
 Dear Sir [Greeley]: 
 
 I have not made my first speech for Taylor. I have not imag 
 ined it. I listen to all that can be said, and is said, of that sort, but I hear of 
 nothing, think of nothing, by which I could move the heads or hearts of my 
 sincere, sensible friends in Ohio. Yet I feel that Taylor is better than Cass, 
 a parallel after the manner of Plutarch (which you can draw better than I) 
 must be my apology for preferring the rude, ignorant, honest soldier to the 
 swindling demagogue, the hollow, heartless, dishonest humbug, Cass. 
 ThSre is in Taylor something positive (I speak not of his writings, episto 
 lary or other), but he is a man who can do, has done a thing. He did fight 
 and kill men, and with a sort of infernal manliness, he did go right on from 
 Palo Alto to Buena Vista. He has a will, badly educated, tis true, and 
 from his Bulldog defence of Ft. Harrison to his insane fight at Buena Vista, 
 he seems to have resolved within, to his own mind, " Thy work is given to 
 Zachary Taylor to do it seems the duty of Zachary Taylor to do this, and it 
 shall be done." Now, instruct such a man, and he would do glorious good 
 work in his day. 
 
 But what can you make of such a miserable rogue as Cass, no con 
 science, no sentiment even, which he would not sacrifice for a puffin your 
 Tribune as long as his finger. What can we do ! I ask you what can we do 
 else? Can we take Martin Van Buren? He the representative of a great 
 principle ! ! ! Is not this hypothesis a phenomenon to be wondered at, to be 
 astonished at? How or when or where did he stand fire, wh6re great prin 
 ciples fought against temporary party expediencies? Has he repented of 
 his ways ! It is possible ! But has he brought forth fruits meet for repent 
 ance! ! Not yet, till now, that I have seen. And shrewd men suggest re 
 venge as his motive. I doubt, and so ( as to him ) am damned. Again I 
 ask what can we do but take a nominal Whig, trusting somewhat to Whig 
 affinities, Whig associations, and even antipathies to Loco-focoism. 
 
 Elder Eoot is yet in the gall of bitterness. "Achilles remains in his 
 tent. He will not fight for Agamemnon, nor yet will he join the Trojan 
 Host." I fear he will plunge in his madness into more abolitionism. His 
 good heart and manly sense are my hope of him. The rights of the Hudson 
 Bay Co. are to be looked to, as at present advised. I am not sure they may 
 not be bought of that corporation. A treaty would be the natural and easy 
 way to do this; I have no fears of collision with England, unless Cass or 
 such as he get power, and will fear to do right with England. In sorrow 
 and truth I am Your friend, 
 
 Tho. Corwin. 
 
238 HENRY CLAY. 
 
 Ashland, 21st Sept., 1848. 
 My dear Sir [ Greeley ] : 
 
 Mr. Stevenson of Cincinnati addressed a letter to you ( of which 
 he sent me a copy ) which I should be glad might appear in the Tribune, if 
 you see no sufficient objection against it. It serves to sustain the grounds on 
 which I was induced to consent to the submission of my name to the Phila 
 delphia Convention, and that is a point about which I feel some solicitude. 
 
 I regret the movements made to bring out my name as a Candidate, 
 both on my own account and that of my friends who made them. I do not 
 think that they can effect any good. After the nomination of the Convention 
 there was but 5ne alternative for me, either to show that it was not the 
 result of the " fair and full deliberations " of the Convention, or to acquiesce. 
 Whatever I might have believed, I could not establish the first, and there 
 fore felt that I ought to submit. I have accordingly quietly submitted, rig- 
 ously abstaining from giving to any person, on any occasion, the least 
 encouragement to the further use of my name. But I felt no obligation to 
 go any farther. Both honor and self-respect forbade that I should come out 
 in the active support of a Candidate, who, in a reversal of conditions, had 
 avowed his determination to oppose me. 
 
 As to what the Louisiana delegation said and did there is a mystery 
 about their conduct which has never been unravelled. Why has the letter 
 which one of them asserted he had from Genl. T[aylor] never been pub 
 lished ? Why was that withheld from the public which was addressed to 
 the Independent party of Maryland? His approval of what that delegation 
 did, after he secured the nomination, was playing the safe game of " Heads 
 I win, tails you lose." 
 
 Under this view, I feel no obligation to step forth as an active partizan 
 of Genl. Taylor. If I saw in his election greater good than I do, I might 
 suppress all sense of private wrong, and appear openly in his support. But 
 besides the military objection, I fear that his success may lead to the forma 
 tion of a mere personal party. 
 
 I have written an answer to a letter from the Executive Committee of 
 the Whig D. Committee of N. York, expressing in strong terms my disin 
 clination to the further use of my name as a Candidate. 
 
 I feel most sensibly for my friends wh5 made the Vauxhall movement. 
 Would it not be their best course to discontinue the use of my name, upon 
 the ground that I am unwilling to be placed in that attitude? 
 
 What is to be the issue of the contest? I now think. that Taylor will 
 
ALICE GARY. 239 
 
 get the Whig States of N. England, and that if he obtains the vote of Ohio 
 he will be elected. The contradictory accounts from the latter State render 
 it difficult to judge; but it is favorable for him there that the election for 
 Governor first comes on. I am ever truly, Your friend, 
 
 H. Clay. 
 
 Lowell, Mass., July 20th, 1848. 
 Eev. Rufus W. Griswold, N. Y., My dear Sir. 
 
 I take the liberty of an old New York acquaintance to address 
 you on a matter of business which may be worth your attention. 
 
 Messrs. Merrill & Hey wood, publishers of good standing in this city, 
 wish to publish a work t5 be called the " Poets and Poetry of Massachu 
 setts " and have had such a work compiled by a young man of no particular 
 literary reputation. They would be glad to have your distinguished name 
 in the title page of the book, if it should be compatible with your other 
 duties to give the matter attention. The Manuscript being furnished, would 
 you, after giving it your supervision, permit your name to be used in the 
 title page and at what price? ... I remain as ever Your friend, 
 
 Charles J. Gillis. 
 
 July 3, 1848. 
 Mr. Griswold : 
 
 It gives me great pleasure to comply with the request of your 
 very obliging letter by placing at your disposal the poems in your posses 
 sion. I have also taken the liberty of sending you some other specimens, 
 which, to quote Willis, I prefer to remember as my own. Not that I wish t5 
 press for the admission of a larger number, or dictate to your better judg 
 ment, but that you may have an ampler field from wbich to select. Should 
 you elsewhere meet with anything from either of our pens in time to serve 
 you, it will be at your disposal. 
 
 With regard to the prefatory notes I have only to say that we are sis 
 ters, and were born in a pretty and secluded district in the vicinity of 
 Cincinnati, where we still live. 
 
 Our educational attainments are limited to the meagre and infrequent 
 advantages of an obscure district school whence we were removed altogether 
 at a very early age. With nothing from which t5 draw but our own hearts, 
 subjected to the toils and privations of poverty and orphanage, with neither 
 books nor literary friends t5 encourage our predilections, we have been, and 
 still are, humble-worshippers of the glorious Temple of Song. 
 
240 LOWELL AND PAGE. 
 
 We write with great facility, often producing two or three poems in 
 a day, and never elaborate. Very Kespectfully, 
 
 Alice Gary. 
 
 P. S. Permit me to add a word with reference to publishing our 
 poems in a collected form. We have some three hundred and fifty, exclu 
 sive of our early productions, which those in your possession, as to length 
 and abiMty, fairly represent. 
 
 I think they would make a readable book, and our circumstances urge 
 their publication if it would be in the least to our pecuniary advantage. We 
 can engage fifteen hundred or two thousand copies. Would you engage to 
 publish the work on your own terms? 
 
 Be kind enough to return the poems I send you, when they shall have 
 served your purpose, as I have no other copies. Those you have collected 
 are, I fear, marred with typographical errors. 
 
 A. C. 
 
 August 6, 1848. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 Lowell arrived in town this morning and will remain until next 
 Monday; I told him that I had engaged him to dine with you but that I did 
 not know whether you were in town or not ; as he will be on the run nearly 
 all the time that he is here, if you will let me know when you can meet him 
 I will try to catch him for you. He is not stopping at any particular place, 
 as he has a brother at Newark and friends in Staten Island, he will be some 
 times at one place and sometimes at another. Do me the favor not to make 
 allusion to the poem, or satire [A Fable for Critics] , that I told you of when 
 you see him, as it is, for the present, a secret which he does not want known. 
 I had forgotten about your Broadway sketches, and now that I think 
 of it I do not think that there is enough of me to make a figure in such a 
 series. I have not the least objection to sitting to you for my portrait, nor 
 to your displaying me in your collection of Curiosities, but I do not see that 
 there is anything about me worth making a note of. As my only intimate 
 friends are Page and Lowell, and as you will see us together in Broadway, 
 perhaps you might sandwich me between my two illustrious companions, 
 and I should be better remembered for being served up with them. Lowell 
 you know all about, and I regret that you do not know more about Page, 
 for he is the kind of person, I think, that you would be likely to reverence. 
 Page is a native of Albany, he has lived the greater part of his life in New 
 York, and has never been abroad. He was a pupil of Morse s and early dis- 
 
CHARLES F. BRIGGS. 241 
 
 tinguished himself by the correctness of his drawings and the richness of his 
 coloring. He became popular at once when his portraits were first exhibited 
 and has continued to impr5ve in his manner, never remaining long in the 
 same stage; he is a devoted student of his art, works hard, reads a good 
 deal, and impresses all his works with the elevated tone of his own mind; 
 hence his portraits all have an air of historic dignity which is seen in the 
 portraits of Van Dyke and Titian. He is not a mannerist. He has painted 
 several historical pieces, and has a strong tendency to represent scriptural 
 subjects. He has painted an Ecce Homo, now in the possession of Henry 
 Caygill, Esq., of this City, a Holy Family in the Boston Athenseum; a very 
 large composition, still unfinished, of Jeptha s Daughter, a Ruth and Naomi, 
 a St. John, and other scriptural subjects. The solemnity and earnestness of 
 Old Testament subjects seem peculiarly genial to his feelings. He is an ad 
 mirable talker, and ever ready to assist or instruct the tyro of art who seeks 
 his instruction; but he is averse to general society, and is rarely seen in the 
 company of artists. All the rest you know. 
 
 As for me, I was not regularly bred to the trade of authorship, al 
 though I have always indulged " on the sly," but as my early occupations 
 were mercantile I carefully hid all my literary efforts so effectually under a 
 bushel that I could not lay my hand on the half of them if I were desirous of 
 doing so, as I am not. The first book I published was " Harry Franco," 
 which brought me so many invitations to write, that, happening to undergo 
 a revolution in my business affairs, I was induced to try my luck at making 
 my sustenance through a quill and have succeeded, so far as the sustenance 
 goes. Poe said, in his absurd sketch of me, that " Harry Franco " was pub 
 lished in the Knickerbocker, but not a line of it was ever published in that 
 Magazine. The book sold well, and was well enough received, but really I 
 do not think it has merit enough to deserve any particular notice. Since 
 then I have written a great number of Magazine articles, some of which have 
 appeared with my name, but the greater part without. I published the 
 " Haunted Merchant," and a little book for Young Travellers called " Life in 
 a Liner, or Working a Passage." This little opuscule was very popular, and 
 a good many editions of it have been sold. I don t know how many, nor 
 who, at present, is the owner of it. I believe that these are all the books 
 that I care to name, unless the letter in answer to John Campbell, which 
 was published by the Copyright Club, be worth noticing. This latter trifle I 
 would like to have alluded to, if you say anything at all about me, because 
 the Centurion [Mathews] has contrived to monopolise all the credit of that 
 
242 THE COPYRIGHT CLUB. 
 
 Copyright Club business, when, in fact, I did, myself, get up the Club, 
 organized it [ 23 Aug. 1843] and kept it going until I saw that the Centurion 
 was bringing disgrace upon it, and then I abandoned it. The history of this 
 business is rather funny. 1 had invitations sent to a few individuals request 
 ing them to meet at the Athenaeum Hotel to form a club for the purpose of 
 promoting an international copyright act; when we met there were only 
 Hoffman, Mathews, Duyckinck, and myself present. I proposed Hoffman 
 for chairman, D. for recording sec y and M[athewsJ for corresponding 
 sec y ; a treasurer was wanted and I proposed Bradford for that office, and 
 so the club was formed. We afterwards had some very good meetings at 
 the Athenaeum, Bryant consented to act as President, and had it not been 
 for the ridicule brought upon the affair by the monkey shines of Little Man 
 hattan [Mathews] , I believe that before this an international Copyright law 
 would have been passed. You know all the rest. By the way, as to my 
 nativity, I am a Yankee like yourself, and if my ancestors did not come over 
 in the Mayflower they did in the very next ship. 
 , Yery truly, your friend and obedient servant, 
 
 Chas. F. Briggs. 
 
 P. S. To enable you to say that you encountered Page, Lowell and 
 myself in Broadway, suppose that you invite him to come with L. ? 
 
 Boston, Aug. 15, 1848. 
 My Dear Rufus, 
 
 I should have answered your letter long ago had I been at home 
 to do so. My mother has been and is now very ill at Portsmouth where I 
 have been for many days at her bedside. She is now, thank God, more 
 comfortable, and may yet be spared to us longer. 
 
 I heartily approve your Female Poets plan. Your names are good, all 
 of them. Touching the doubtful ones I should, I think, retain Mrs. Mowatt 
 and Jane Lomax. Of W. (?) Allen I know nothing. She is a woman of 
 stamina I judge from her "Leip ( ?)." 
 
 I have some beautiful poems by me by Mrs. Barnes of New-Hampshire 
 which I will send you if it is not too late for their insertion. They are No. 
 1, full of passionate feeling and eminently worthy of a place. Let me hear 
 from you at once and I will forward immediately if it is yet in season. 
 
 Brief let me be as the mail is just at its last moment of Boston exist 
 ence. God bless and keep you, my dear Griswold. Kindest remembrances 
 from Whipple and all your friends here. Always Yours, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
WOMEN AUTHORS IN NEW YORK. 243 
 
 Washington, Dec. 7, 1848. 
 Friend G. 
 
 Seeing in last, or rather Tuesday evening s Tribune, a decidedly 
 good * Song, by H. E. G. Avery, reminds me to say to you that I think the 
 writer worth thinking of in any future collection of Am. Female Poets. I 
 think I cannot be mistaken in assuming that she is the one known to me as 
 Harriet E. Groussis, of Cleveland, Ohio, whom I once met in that city, 
 and who has written some remarkably good verses for The Tribune, mostly 
 three or four years ago. Should you care to know anything farther about 
 her, please address J. A. Harris, Ed. Cleveland Herald, who is intimately 
 acquainted with her. She is by trade a school ma am, rather well looking 
 for a writer of verses, and not now above thirty, I guess. 
 
 I thought you were going to send The Sacred Poets to me, but I see 
 it is very well noticed in Tuesday Evening s Tribune. All right. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 H. Greeley. 
 
 Sandusky, O., Dec. 10th, [18481. 
 Dear Dr. Griswold : 
 
 We hear nothing more of les dames through the press. Are the 
 birds seriously frightened? Mrs. E. F. E[llet] has written to a friend of 
 hers in this place making inquiry as to who I am? probably mistrusting a 
 Foster : and asking that friend if it were possible Dr. Griswold and myself 
 were mutually concerned in that article? The friend, being also my inti 
 mate, asked me what answer she should make? I told her to present my 
 compliments to Mrs. E. F. E. and say that the "out West Editor" would 
 inform her, in due time, as to who he is and who edits the Register. I sent 
 the papers containing that 1st article to downeast persons and papers gener 
 ally, and hear from it in various sources and ways. Rest assured it has 
 caused a flutter among the birds of the common kind. 
 
 When in N. Y. I heard of Mrs. Ellet s, Mrs. Ann S. Stephens , [and] 
 Anne Lewis purposes in regard t5 " writing you and Alice Cary down" 
 and made up my mind to catch them at their game. The letter to which the 
 Rochester article referred, wherein " certain imputations were made against 
 the early writers of N. Y. who had become well known at the West " had 
 particular reference to this very trio, and Mrs. Ellet probably mistrusted it: 
 hence her editorial in the American, drawing me (?)out. I mistrust the 
 result of the first tilt don t conduce particularly to her comfort. She prob 
 ably will not answer the queries propounded. 
 
244 MRS. ELIZABETH F. ELLET. 
 
 Why is it your new volume is not out West? I have sent to Cleveland 
 and Cincinnati for a copy and the copy is, not there ! Your publishers are 
 negligent, I fear. Yours Sincerely, 
 
 O[rville] J. Victor. 
 
 [Mrs. EllettoGriswold.] 
 
 Notices which the Editor of "The Poets" &c., will of course 
 put into his own language : Mrs. Ellet s father was Dr. Win. N. Lummis, a 
 physician, and a pupil and friend of Dr. Benjamin Eush, whom in person he 
 strikingly resembled. He resided for some time at Woodbury, N". J. (near 
 Phil a ) but afterwards gave up the practice of his profession and removed 
 to Sodus Bay, New York, where he purchased lands, and spent his fortune 
 in improving them. He was a scholar, a man of taste and refinement, and 
 one of the most highly respected citizens in that portion of the state. He 
 died many years since. His second wife was Sarah Maxwell, the daughter 
 of John Maxwell, a revolutionary officer and the niece of Brigadier General 
 William Maxwell. (This Revolutionary officer has been underrated, and 
 his services passed over, in many historical books. He served to within the 
 last two years of the peace, then resigned his commission in displeasure be 
 cause an inferior officer was promoted over him. In early life he was an 
 officer in the colonial service, was at Braddock s defeat and in other battles. 
 He continued in the army after the Revolutionary war commenced : was at 
 the storming of Quebec the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Mon- 
 mouth, etc., etc.) 
 
 Mrs. Ellet married very young and removed to South Carolina, where 
 she has since resided. 
 
 Writings. [ 1 ] Poems, Translations from the French and Italian, 
 some original. [2] Teresa Contarini, a Tragedy represented with success 
 at the Park Theatre and in the western cities. . . [ 3 ] Papers in the Amer 
 ican Quarterly Review on " Italian Tragedy " " The Italian Lyric Poets " 
 " Lamartine s Poems" and " Hugo s Dramas," "The Troubadours," "An- 
 dreini s Adam," etc. [4] " The Characters of Schiller" ... [5] "Jo 
 anna of Sicily "... It may possibly be worth notice that the paper in the 
 American Quarterly Review on " Andreini s Adam," reviewed the Italian 
 drama, which confessedly gave Milton the idea of his Paradise Lost. The 
 conception of character in this drama is worthy of Milton the language in 
 parts highly poetical ; though its merits are obscured by the artificial taste 
 and conceits peculiar to the scientisti, as they were called the writers of 
 
H: CAREY BAIRD. 245 
 
 the 17th century). [6] Country Rambles... [7] Some poems and 
 tales have been published in monthly magazines ; but they are not worth 
 noticing. Also some papers have been published in the North American 
 Review and the Southern Quarterly Review, New Series. [8] The Women 
 of the Revolution. . . 
 
 Philad a, Dec. 16, 1848. 
 My dear Fellow, 
 
 . . . One of these days I shall be enabled to write your " mem 
 oirs," and do you justice, which is more than the world has ever done for 
 you, although they have evinced a disposition that way in buying nine edi 
 tions of " The Poets of America." 
 
 Your letter indicates that you must be exceedingly under the weather 
 or under the " rules " as you say you feel as though you had taken a chapter 
 of Lippard. I know how I should feel after attempting so much. 
 
 I have just been writing an article which is to go into the no. ol 
 "Godey" after the next, entitled, "Brig. Gen. Wm. A. Washington, An 
 Historical Sketch, by Kirk wood," which I wish you particularly to read and 
 give your opinion on. I have shown it to Wm. B. Reed who has pronounced 
 favorably of it. W. A. W., in my opinion, was a man whose name was too 
 little known for the services he rendered, and I attempted to rescue his im 
 mortal remains from mortality in an article of from four to five pages 
 " Lady s Book." I am Mr. Griswold, Yours Truly, 
 
 H. C. Baird. 
 
 December 18, 1848. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 C[arey] and H[art] sent me this afternoon a copy of your 
 " Female Poets of America," which they say is the first copy which has 
 come from the binder s hands. It is admirable and beautiful in all respects. 
 I have written the accompanying notice. I would send it to Morris, but his 
 paper generally goes to press on Tuesday, and it would be too late for this 
 week. I therefore send it on t5 you, that you may have it inserted in the 
 Tribune or any other influential paper at once so that C. and H. may quote 
 it when they announce the book. 
 
 You might try whether it is in time for Morris. Tell him confiden 
 tially the facts, or show him this note. If you d5 not get It in time for his 
 paper, I will write another for him, for next week. I will send you some 
 
246 "THE FEMALE POETS." 
 
 more notices in the course of a day or two. It is the best book you have yet 
 made. I predict great popularity for it. Most truly yours, 
 
 H[orace] B[inney] W[allace]. 
 
 Mr. Wallace s opinion was not universally held : 
 
 It is melancholy to have to make these quotations ; it is a poor business 
 to break a butterfly upon a wheel, one which we should not have undertaken 
 as long as such effusions had remained confined to a newspaper corner, or a 
 hard-to fill page of our own and brother monthlies ; but presented to us in a 
 solid and durable shape, and announced as a body of literature exhibiting 
 " a pervading aspiration for the beautiful," we feel bound to say that the 
 beautiful has not been attained, and to show why we think so. It is the 
 duty of the Critical journals to protest against stupidity, and against what is 
 worse, the self-sufficient middling class. Utter incapability, when not amus 
 ing, excites our anger or contempt, but placid mediocrity stagnates and 
 leaves us to perish of ennui. . . 
 
 Moreover, tacit treaties are entered into between authors, the terms of 
 which are" Puff my ballads and I will praise your Epics." We have been 
 informed that several clever persons in Boston have been spoiled by this 
 log-rolling in literature. Thus it is, that so many poetical flowers who were 
 born to blush unseen, and to waste their sweetness in manuscript, have been 
 unnaturally forced into the full bloom of print, where they look as sadly 
 misplaced as buttercups in a bouquet. There are some indeed who are 
 possessed with a scribblo-mania of seven devil power. The love of notoriety 
 buzzes about them, as the gadfly tormented lo, and drives them to wander 
 in the fields of literature with Griswold for an Argus : an Argus, who can 
 not see any more clearly than themselves, that what is well enough in Vers 
 de Societ6 is trash in a volume. 
 
 "We object to Mr. Griswold as a critic. Because he brought out this 
 book. The reading-life of the oldest is short and full of weak eyes, and 
 shelves groan with first-rate books. Has a man any right to endeavor to 
 make his fellows waste precious time over "Types of Heaven," "Dream 
 Melodies," and " Soul Music" ? . . . 
 
 We may have been tedious, but we do not think we have been unjust. 
 . . . We can get the good, if we refuse to be pleased with the passable. If 
 we cannot, let us have none. Above all, let us keep before us the important 
 fact, that geese are not swans, not even American geese, and that verses and 
 rhymes d5 not constitute poetry. The donkey was twice as asinine as before 
 
MRS. ELIZABETH ELLET. 247 
 
 when he donned the lion s skin. And let Mr. Griswold, if he brings out a 
 new edition for the California market, modify the title, and borrowing an 
 expressive word from the Turkish, call it the Bosh-Book, or the Female 
 Poets of America. [ Democratic Keview, March, 1849. 
 
 New York, Jan. 14, 1849. 
 Dear James [Fields] : . . . 
 
 Because I did not print her own estimate of her genius she [Mrs. 
 Ellet] has tried her hand at cutting me up, in sundry quarters. She is in 
 diting a paper upon the book for the North American having contracted t5 
 do so several months ago, immediately after seeing my proof-sheets embrac 
 ing her. . . Not a bit abashed by the consideration that she is herself a subject 
 treated in each of the books nor by that, that she has quarreled with and 
 has been cut by Fanny Osgood, E. Oakes Smith, and half a dozen others wh5 
 and whose are most especially and particularly subjects for such an article. 
 I dread no honest reviewal, but am nervous about this. . . 
 
 K. W. Griswold. 
 
 "The American Publisher" of June 1868 givs a glimps of 
 Mrs. Ellet s literan* activity in her later years. She died in 
 1877: 
 
 A curious little case of literary imposition has recently come out in 
 New York. . . In Putnam s Monthly, in 1853, appeared a sketch of western 
 adventure entitled Mary Spears, written by Mrs. Elizabeth F. Ellet, a per 
 son somewhat known in literature, but who, a little while ago, printed an 
 angry note in a New York paper, violently denying that she had anything t5 
 do with literature as a business. She, however, as it appears by Mr. Put 
 nam s books, received the money for the sketch. So far, so good ; but in 
 February, 1868, Mrs. Ellet sold to Harper s Monthly a sketch of western ad 
 venture, entitled Mary Nealy, which was, word for word, the same as 
 Mary Spears, except a few verbal alterations. This looked as if Mr. Ellet 
 ( doubtless from that lack of acquaintance with the business side of litera 
 ture which she so vigorously insists on ) had not only been willing t5 receive 
 pay for her work, but to receive it twice for the same work. These facts 
 were observed upon, and Mrs. Ellet squarely denied, in a printed letter, 
 having anything to do with the article in Putnam in 1853. Mr. Putnam then 
 stating the case on his side, she again comes out with the story that a friend 
 of hers took the sketch out of one of Mrs. Ellet s books and sent it t5 the 
 
248 MRS. WHITMAN AND POE. 
 
 magazine. Mrs. Ellet does not state who this * friend was. Meanwhile the 
 debit of cash paid to Mrs. Ellet for the article in 1853 becomes in consequence 
 very mysterious, as the friend must apparently have counterfeited Mrs. 
 Ellet to get the money. These absences of mind will now and then happen. 
 A little while ago Dr. J. W. Palmer contributed, a original, a very lively 
 article to the Atlantic, which, as soon appeared, he ( or some friend ) had 
 mainly extracted from a book of travels. 
 
 Boston, January 17, 1849. 
 Dear Rufus. . . 
 
 Don t -you be alarmed, my Dear Boy, about Ellet & Co. There is 
 nothing to be feared. You stand as fair and honorably before the public as 
 any literary man could reasonably desire. Your books have made you a 
 name among the best sort of people that all the itinerants in York state can 
 not permanently harm. 
 
 I am called away. Let me hear how I may serve you always and be 
 lieve me your old friend, Most Truly, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Washington, January 21, 1849. 
 Friend G. 
 
 I received your Female Poets yesterday, and am greatly 
 obliged for it. I believe it has been amply noticed in the Tribune, but I will 
 d5 the worth of it somewhere. It is a good collection, though your style is 
 stiff, and a critic can readily detect samenesses in the notices can detect 
 them easier than he could avoid them, I fancy. Your touch to T. B. Read 
 and Miss C. May is cruelly severe I don t say it is not just, but it will add t5 
 the already respectable list of your enemies. 
 
 What I write for is simply to compliment you on the admirable exe 
 cution of the work in a secondary sense not really typographical, nor 
 mechanical, but something above but including these. How could you make 
 the pieces fill out columns and the different subjects square out pages so well 
 without being present in Philadelphia? I had to fight desperately with the 
 Whig Almanac for some approximation to this, and only succeeded so long 
 as I made it myself. 
 
 Do you know Sarah Helen Whitman? Of course, you have heard it 
 rumored that she is to marry Poe. Well, she has seemed to me a good girl, 
 and you know what Poe is. Now I know a widow of doubtful age will 
 
GREELEY, MISS GARY. 249 
 
 marry almost any sort of a white man, but this seems to me a terrible con 
 junction. Has Mrs. Whitman no friend within your knowledge that can 
 faithfully explain Poe to her? I never attempted this sort of thing but once, 
 and the net product was two enemies and a hastening of the marriage ; but I 
 do think she must be deceived. Mrs. Osgood must know her. . . 
 
 I never knew till yesterday that Mrs. Osgood was that sister of Alaric 
 A. Locke of whom he talked with me so many years ago. 
 
 Only six weeks more here, and I care not how fast they fly. I have 
 divided the House into two parties one that would like to see me extin 
 guished and the other that wouldn t be satisfied without a hand in doing it 
 [ in consequence of his exposure of the mileage frauds by which members of 
 congress added largely to their salaries.] I have to write about myself to 
 a most disgusting extent, but I don t see how I can help it when every day 
 starts some lie like that of my taking Long Mileage, voting for the Books, 
 etc. And as neither the Intelligencer nor Union will say a word for me, and 
 the Intelligencer refused to print the only note I ever sent it, I have no utter 
 ance but through The Tribune. If they would give me the floor but one half 
 hour on the Mileage Question, and let me speak without incessant interrup 
 tion, I would ask no odds ever after. But I don t suppose I shall get another 
 chance to speak on it at all, and I haven t had half a one yet. Yours, 
 
 Horace Greeley. 
 
 Mt. Healthy, Jan. 26, 1849. 
 Mr. Griswold . . . 
 
 I can never sufficiently thank you for the kind interest you take 
 in myself and sister. . . 
 
 We think of visiting the eastern cities next summer when I hope for 
 the happiness of seeing you in the meantime, I shall not fail to exert myself 
 to more fully merit the very flattering opinion you are pleased to express 
 of me. 
 
 I am very happy t5 avail myself of your obliging offer to secure for us 
 a more available disposal of our poems. Any arrangements you may find it 
 convenient to make will be gratefully endorsed by us but I must protest 
 against your giving yourself any trouble on our account. 
 
 We have until quite recently written gratuitously, but are now receiv 
 ing a trifling remuneration for our correspondence to give you an idea of 
 its amount, I will state that we write alternately for The National Era every 
 week for two dollars an article I We have several other engagements on 
 
250 MISS CARY, FIELDS. 
 
 terms a trifle in advance of those stated, and as we are dependent on our 
 poems almost exclusively, it is advisable that we make the best disposal of 
 them. 
 
 Be assured that I shall be most happy to number you among my cor 
 respondents, and shall gratefully and proudly receive any communication 
 with which you may be pleased to favor me, but business must plead my 
 excuse for so early an intrusion upon your notice. It would certainly be a 
 gratification to me to have our poems, or rather a selection from them, issued 
 by one of our eastern publishers, and if you can dispose of the copyright so as 
 to ensure you a compensation for editing the work, and will consent to edit 
 it, we shall be content to receive whatever more there may be, or if nothing 
 more, to receive nothing. Should you be able to make such arrangements, 
 we will immediately set about the preparation of the volume. We have 
 selected " Woodnotes " as a title what do you think of it? Any suggestions 
 you may make with reference to the proposed volume will be gratefully 
 received. 
 
 I cannot close without again offering my grateful acknowledgements 
 for the kind favor with which you have been pleased to honor me, and ex 
 pressing the hope you may be speedily restored to perfect health, 
 
 I am, with sincere regard, very truly yours, 
 
 Alice Cary. 
 
 Boston, Feb. 28, 1849. 
 Dear Grissy : 
 
 Thank you for your admirable letter. I enclose with this the 
 proof sheets of my volume as far as it is printed. It will be a handsome 
 book as regards paper and printing and I hope will not disgrace the friends 
 of the author. Write me by return of mail if you have time to look at the 
 sheets and how you like the new poems. Whittier, Longfellow and Holmes 
 praise the unpublished lyrics, especially "The Tempest" and "The Ant 
 lers." If you don t like them I shall burn my book and drown myself. 
 
 How sad is poor Hoffman s fate. Write me the cause, don t fail, by 
 return of mail. 
 
 Longfellow s new Bk. Kavanagh is fine. Better than Hyperion. Why 
 in Time don t you come our way and see the boys? E. P. Whipple, Essayist, 
 has the fattest baby with the largest head in the States. J. T. F. has the 
 nicest little woman at his elbow ( who says, " remember me to Mr. Gris- 
 wold " ) in all Boston. 
 
JOHN G. SAXE. 251 
 
 We are all well and I hope to be at Trade Sale and go to Miss Lynch s 
 and look upon the notorieties of the great city with you and Fanny Osgood. 
 Till then adieu. Yours always, Dear Rufus, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Burlington, Vt.. May 11, 1849. 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 I got your letter of the 6th inst. last evening ( being here on a 
 visit ) whither it followed me from Highgate. As there is no time for 
 11 manners," let me say at once that I thank you heartily for your proposal 
 and cheerfully accept it though I could wish that I had a little time to pol 
 ish up my "minor" pieces, which, I fear will hardly afford " specimens " 
 that will warrant you in speaking as well of the writer as the longer and 
 more elaborate articles. If you can make room for so much, I hope you will 
 not f ail to print" Miss McB[ ride]" entire. This, with " The Legal Bal 
 lad," or a few extracts from " Progress " will probably fill all the space you 
 can spare if not, add the " Sonnet" or the "Rhyme of the Rail" or the Dog 
 Days, or what you will only remembering to get in " Miss McB." bodily 
 and consult your taste for the rest. Pray take care of the punctuation and 
 the like " what you d have it, make it." I send you another copy of 
 " Progress" with corrections and marked passages also a correct copy of 
 "MissMacB." for your use. I have no copy of the New Rape of the 
 Lock" you will find that, if you choose to see it in the Deer. Knick. 1847. . . 
 As to making a collection, I may do so by and by, when you shall find 
 me a publisher ( which I have never sought as yet) who will do it up neatly 
 with illustrations in the Darley way. . . Yours very truly, 
 
 John G. Saxe. 
 
 P. S. My friend Mr. Stansbury says he shall send you by to-day s 
 mail some pleasant remarks personal to myself which will a little relieve the 
 barren figures I have put together for you. Yours &c., 
 
 J. G. Saxe. 
 
 John G. Saxe born at Highgate, on the 2nd day of June, 1816, son of 
 late Hon. Peter Saxe (a German with a Yankee wife) worked on the 
 homestead in H. up to the age of 17 then at the Academy in St. Albans 
 then 3 years in Middlebury Coll. Vt., graduating in the summer of 1839. 
 Read Law in Lockport, N. Y. and St. Albans, Vt. four years and admitted 
 t5 the Bar at the latter place Sept. 1843 since then residing at St. A. and 
 
252 ESTELLE ANNA LEWIS. 
 
 Highgate, practicing Law for a living. Quiet, pleasant life with nothing 
 remarkable in it but the fact that he wrote no verses till after his marriage in 
 Sept. 1841, his wife being the first of his " muses" of any consequence. 
 Read but few books in general literature and chiefly of the old English 
 Essayists and Poets. . . 
 
 Diary: Aug. 23. Begin the preparation of the Am[ericanJ Hist[or- 
 ical] Mag[azine] for Graham. Walking up town encounter [Lewis Gay- 
 lord] Clark, and go to his house in 22nd St. 
 
 Diary: Aug. 24. Met this morning Ripley, Tuckerman, and G. G. 
 Ffoster ] , the latter telling me a hugh story about " Major Byron," who pre 
 tends to be a bastard of " my Lord." Dine at the Park Hotel, in Newark, 
 where I visit the Kinneys, and by the evening cars come to Philadelphia. 
 
 Brooklyn, Sept. 3d, 1849. 
 Dear Doctor : 
 
 You said to me, when I saw you last, that you intended to re 
 write the Sketch of Mrs. Lewis, for your new Edition of the " Female 
 Poets." This I assure you will be most gratifying to her numerous friends 
 and admirers; and, therefore, I am certrin, increase the sale of the Book. 
 
 It will incur, I think you said, an expense of about $2.60 per page. If 
 you prepare the sketch, and do the proof-reading I think it no more than 
 fair that I should be at the expense of the new Stereotyping. You will 
 please, therefore, let me know, as soon as you can ascertain, the number of 
 pages, and I will send you my check for the amount. 
 
 Mrs. L. s baptismal name is Estelle Anna. Her family preferred the 
 latter for its simplicity ; and if they used the former, they always shortened 
 it to Stelle ; which led her sometimes to write it S. Anna. Almost as soon as 
 her writings appeared under this signature, an officious Editor wrote it out 
 Sarah; and others copied. She never wrote her name Sarah in her life, or 
 signed it that to anything she ever wrote. After the manuscript of the 
 " Records," left her for the printer, written as usual S. Anna, I foolishly 
 wrote out Sarah in full supposing that Estelle could not be restored to her, 
 and thus it has gone to the great vexation of the mis-named. Is there any 
 remedy, in foot-note or otherwise? . . . 
 
 S. D. Lewis. 
 
 Diary : Oct. 8. Wrote, hastily, two or three colums about Poe, for 
 the Tribune. 
 
j: T. s. SULLIVAN. 253 
 
 Diary: Oct. 16. Call on Mrs. Lewis, to assort, at her home, Foe s 
 papers. 
 
 Diary : Oct. iT. The affairs of Poe. . . 
 
 Diary: Oct. 25. Eecommence Biographical] Dictionary. Letter 
 from Wallace. Walk with Willis. Letters from J. Russell Lowell, Whipple, 
 Wallace, Thompson, &c. . . 
 
 Diary : Oct. 27. Attended T. L. Clingman, of N. C., to Miss Lynches, 
 where I met Willis, Giles, &c. 
 
 Diary : Oct. 29. Sat to Elliot. 
 
 Philad a, 29 Oct., 1849. 
 Dear Sir [ W : H. Graham ] : 
 
 I enclose the notice upon Dr. Griswold for your gallery. You 
 have undoubtedly made a very bad bargain, and the memoir is not worth 
 what you have paid for it. However, I am under the mortifying necessity 
 of avowing that it is the best that I can d5. Very respectfully, .your obe 
 dient servant, 
 
 Jno: H. Meredith. 
 
 [Jan., 1849.] 
 My dear James [Fields] : . . . 
 
 Poor Jack Sullivan is gone. . . He was a fellow of infinite humor, 
 as was shown in the suitable obituary I printed upon the occasion of his 
 departure, in the Tribune. . . He was probably the handsomest man in these 
 United States. He was the best raconteur in the world, and of amateur 
 singers, in some half a dozen languages, I don t know that thre is now liv 
 ing any one deserving to be compared to him. As a story-teller ( I d5 not 
 suspect you, James, mind, of ever having told a story ! ) but as a story-teller 
 nevertheless, I think you were heir-apparent, and inevitably, recollecting 
 that Frenchman s supper, you appear to me to be his successor. . . 
 
 R. W. Griswold. 
 
 San Francisco, Cal., Nov. 15 , 1849. 
 My dear Dr. Griswold : . . . 
 
 Since I last wrote you vast alterations have taken place both as 
 relates to the growth of the city and the state of business. The buildings 
 increase faster, and the demand for house carpenters has caused some of our 
 young lawyers t5 take up the hammer and plane, as more money can be 
 made thus, than in smoothing down the rough characters of the town. 
 
254 SAN FRANCISCO. 
 
 But to speculation there is an end for the present. Nearly every land 
 property has fallen. Lots which readily brought $1500 a week ago are now 
 selling for $500. This is owing to the rains which have now really com 
 menced, and are far too full of rheumatism to be encountered by our mon 
 eyed speculators. Money is plenty, and as everyone has enough to pass 
 thro the winter, business must necessarily pursue but an even way till 
 spring, when no doubt things will take a fresh and higher start. 
 
 Order reigns supreme, and I doubt if there is a more quiet city on the 
 other side of the mountains than this. Gambling, I am happy to state, is 
 fast eating itself up. A month or two ago these gamesters alone controlled 
 the money market; but now men of worth and integrity manage such affairs. 
 During the past month one murder has been committed. It speaks well, I 
 think, for the order of a city of 20,000 souls. 
 
 Bayard Taylor, who, by the way, is one of the most companionable 
 and interesting individuals extant, left us for the valley of the Sacramento 
 last week. It is a sure thing that this is a genial soil for him. Every one 
 likes him, and you can rely on his statements, as he is not at all addicted to 
 branching off into the whirlpool of imagination. 
 
 I have raked up several old Spanish and Latin manuscripts, among 
 which is the lubrications of a San Jose padre, in relation to the discovery 
 and settlement of this part of our continent; also some rare and spicy logic : 
 all of which I shall send home soon. With the highest consideration I am 
 yours truly, and about so, 
 
 Frank Moore. 
 
 [ H : B. Hirst to Griswold. ] 
 
 I was born on the 23d day of August, 1817. . . I owe my birth to 
 Philadelphia. My father, Thomas Hirst, Esq., was a shipping Merchant. . . 
 He subsequently became unfortunate in business, a fact which, of course, 
 interfered materially with my early advancement, and will explain some 
 matters which occur hereafter in my notes. 
 
 At the age of nine or ten years, with no other education than that re 
 ceived previously at an infant school, I entered the office of my half brother, 
 Win. L. Hirst, Esqr., since a distinguished member of the Philadelphia Bar. 
 At the age of sixteen I was sent to the Preparatory school of our University, 
 where I remained nine months. I carried off the leading honors in all my 
 classes and was looked upon by my preceptor, the Principal of the Acad 
 emy, Revd. Saml. W. Crawford, as one of the best boys, if not the best boy 
 
HENRY B. HIRST. 255 
 
 in school. At the end of this time my half-brother thinking that I had re 
 ceived a sufficient classical education, recalled me to his office. My classical 
 acquirements since have been the result of my own industry. 
 
 My boyhood was enlivened by a passionate fondness for Natural 
 History. I studied Ornithology, Botany, Mineralogy and Conchology very 
 closely made drawings from Nature in the two first studies and corres 
 ponded and exchanged specimens with some of the most distinguished 
 savans of Europe. During all this time I received no assistance, pecuniary 
 or otherwise, from my half-brother, although all my time was spent in his 
 service, but remained, as I have ever since done, dependent on my own per 
 sonal exertions for support. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one not satisfied to remain any longer with that 
 gentleman I left his office without taking my certificate of studentship, which 
 I obtained from him in 1842 with very great difficulty. In February, 1843, 1 
 passed a most honorable examination and was admitted to the Bar. I was 
 tolerably successful even at first, but now I have a very excellent practice. 
 
 My first poetical efforts, to the best of my recollections, occurred either 
 in my 21st or 22nd year. They were crude and unmusical and I at once sat 
 down t5 master the difficulties of English versification. You know how far 
 I have succeeded. At school my scansion of the Latin Poets was always 
 perfect. 
 
 I commenced my public contributions in " Graham," and have since 
 contributed t5 all the leading magazines and annuals. In 1845 I published 
 my first volume " The Coming of |the Mammoth, the Funeral of Time and 
 other Poems." Phillips and Sampson, Boston were my publishers. The 
 volume was highly praised both in England and America, and is now out of 
 print. A second edition will be published during the ensuing year. In 
 July, 1848, 1 published "Endymion. A Tale of Greece," an epic poem in 
 four cantos, a second edition of which will appear during the present year; 
 the first is almost if not quite exhausted. I have now in the press of the 
 same house " The Penance of Roland, A Romance of the Peine Forte et 
 Dure; Florence, with other Poems." This volume will appear in a very 
 few weeks. 
 
 I am the author of various sporting articles ( prose ) which appeared 
 in the New York " Spirit of the Times" under the nom deplume of Harry 
 Harkaway. . . I have always been an enthusiastic sportsman both in field 
 and on flood, and am perhaps, one of the best " shots" in the country. 
 
256 MRS. OSGOOD ON POE. 
 
 The letters from Foe and his wife referred t6 belo hav not 
 been found ; they wer probably among those destroyed ( as he 
 tells us in his Memoirs ) by Mr. C : G. Leland, in 1853. 
 
 [Mrs. Osgood to Griswold, 1850] . . . 
 
 I trust you will write that life of Poe. I will d5 as you wished : 
 I will write, as far as is proper, in a letter to you, my reminiscences of that 
 year, and try to make it interesting and dignified, and you in introducing it 
 by one single sentence can put down at once my envious calumniators. You 
 have the proof in Mrs. Poe s letter to me, and in his t5 Mrs. Ellet, either of 
 which would fully establish my innocence in a court of justice certainly Tiers 
 would. Neither of them, as you know, were persons likely to take much 
 trouble to prove a woman s innocence, and it was only because she felt that 
 I had been cruelly and shamefully wronged by her mother and Mrs. E[llet] 
 that she impulsively rendered me that justice. She, Mrs. Poe, felt grieved 
 that she herself had drawn me into the snare by imploring me to be kind to 
 Edgar, to grant him my society and to write to him, because, she said, I 
 was the only woman he knew who influenced him for his good, or, indeed, 
 who had any lasting influence over him. I wish the simple truth to be 
 known, that he sought me, not I him. It is too cruel that I, the only one 
 of those literary women who did not seek his acquaintance, for Mrs. Ellet 
 asked an introduction to him and followed him everywhere, Miss Lynch 
 begged me to bring him there and called upon him at his lodgings, Mrs. 
 Whitman besieged him with valentines and letters long before he wrote or 
 took any notice of her, and all the others wrote poetry and letters to him, 
 it is too cruel that I should be singled out after his death as the only victim 
 t5 suffer from the slanders of his mother. I never thought of him till he 
 sent me his Raven and asked Willis to introduce him to me, and immediately 
 after I went to Albany, and afterwards to Boston and Providence to avoid 
 him, and he followed me to each of those places and wrote to me, imploring 
 me to love him, many a letter which I did not reply to until his wije added 
 her entreaties to his and said that I might save him from infamy, and her 
 from death, by showing an affectionate interest in him." 
 
 When Mrs. Osgood went t6 Albany it was t6 visit her sister, 
 the wife of the Rev. Henry F. Harrington, a gentleman wh6 
 had begun life as a magazine writer, and wh6 ended it, in 1887, 
 as the highly respected superintendent-of-schools in Kew Bed 
 ford. In 1885 Mr. Harrington published his recollections of 
 
POE AND MRS. O8GOOD. 257 
 
 these events : " It might have been about a year afterward," he 
 says, " when, returning t6 my home in Albany, after an absence 
 in the city of New York, Mrs. Osgood, wh6 was then on a visit 
 to my family, related that while I had been gone Poe had 
 sought an interview with her alone in my parlor, and in pas 
 sionate terms had besought her t6 elope with him. She de 
 scribed his attitudes as well as reported his words how he 
 went down on his knee and clasped his hands, and pleaded for 
 her consent ; how she met him with mingled ridicule and re 
 proof, appealing t6 his better nature, and striving t6 stimulate 
 a resolution t6 abandon his vicious courses ; and how finally he 
 took his leave, baffled and humiliated, if not ashamed. Not 
 long after, when again in New York City, I sought the home 
 of a family of which I had repeatedly been a guest. It con 
 sisted of a husband and his beautiful wife, wh6 loved each 
 other with confiding affection ; and their home was bright with 
 the sunshine of innocence and peace. I learned from mutual 
 friends that it was now no more. It had been ruthlessly 
 destroyed. Poe had marked the poor unsuspecting woman for 
 his victim, and wound his insidious snares about her, weaned 
 her affections from her husband, and accomplished her ruin. " 
 
 Custom House, Jan. 4, 1850. 
 My dear friend : 
 
 "It is very easy for sugar to be sweet," says Emerson, and that 
 is the reason why you were so sweet upon me in the Home Journal. It was 
 kindly and handsomely done, and I am grateful for it. I only regret that I 
 do not deserve it. 
 
 I intended some time since to ask the privilege of writing you up in 
 Holden s Magazine, but a multiplicity of engagements prevented. If you 
 will lend me a Duguerreotype I will have a good wood portrait cut, and write 
 myself a sketch to accompany it. ... Very truly, 
 
 Chas. F. Briggs. 
 
 Philad a, 24th January, [ 1850] . 
 Dear James [ Fields ] : . . . 
 
 Can you possibly get Daguerreotype of Hawthorne t5 be engraved 
 for the "International"? I want t5 do Hawthorne (who is, as I have 
 
258 LADY LYTTON. 
 
 printed it a dozen times, decidedly the greatest living literary man in this 
 country, greatest, in romance, now writing the English language). I want 
 tS do Hawthorne s life for the occasion of a reviewal of the " Seven 
 Gables" . . . 
 
 R. W. G. 
 
 Gentlemen [ Stringer & Townsend, Publishers ] : 
 
 I have long had a great wish to visit your country ; first because 
 I consider it a great one, rapidly rising into the Mistress of the World, and 
 as Such, think that the promising youth of what will eventually be so glo 
 rious a maturity, deserves better of its collateral relatives the Elder Na 
 tions, than to have, from time to time, its " Domestic Manners " caricatured 
 because they may differ from our own, or its kind letters of introduction 
 converted into base coin " for general circulation." Nor could I afford to 
 do so on my own account. I could gladly go to the United States, for the sake 
 of writing an impartial ( unprejudicial is the fitter word), Statistical, 
 work upon America, in short, a sort of Else and Progress of this great 
 people : as free from Hogarth and Punch, as Gibbon s Decline and 
 Fall" is from Pasquale or Juvenal. 
 
 But I have been so involved in legal expenses by a series of Marital 
 conspiracies in which my little Reptile of a Brother in law, Sir Henry 
 Bulwer whihn they have now sent you out to Washington : ( though Aus 
 tralia would have been a more fitting destination for him ) took an active 
 part that rendered him more infamous, than famous : but with the details 
 of which I am not of course going to bore you, but merely to ask if you 
 would be willing to guarantee me Eighteen Hundred pounds for such a 
 work as the one I have mentioned? paying 800 of the sum previous to my 
 leaving England? I should think by subscription, even very small subscrip 
 tions, such a sum would easily be realized ; and I confess it would afford me 
 sincere gratification to owe my liberation from my unmerited and over 
 whelming difficulties to your really free, and generous, and consequently 
 not merely nominally Moral country, for our soi-disant Moral (?)and 
 very Pharisaical England has, God bless it, reached such a pitch of sordid 
 corruption and venal slavery as must ( without some great and vital 
 change) soon cause it to totter to its fall. Trusting to your courtesy for a 
 speedy reply, 
 
 I have the Honor to be, gentlemen, Your Obedient Servant, 
 
 Rosiua Bulwer Lytton. 
 5 A Sloane St., Hyde Park corner, London, February 6th, 1850. 
 
THOMAS JEFFERSON. 259 
 
 Philadelphia, Jan. 31, 1850. 
 Dear Sir 
 
 . . . Mrs. Osgood s Poems has not sold as yet as well as Mrs. 
 Sigourney. Of the latter 200 were sold in Boston the first month, wheTeas 
 out of 200 sent to Phillips & Sampson they write us they wish to return 
 100. . . Mr. Putnam had sold but 11 copies. . . Yours etc., 
 
 A. S. Hart. 
 
 Chestertown, Kent County, Maryland, Feb. 14, 1850. 
 To the Editor of the Tribune. . . 
 
 A few days ago a friend sent me a number of your paper which 
 contained some remarks on the character of Mr. Jefferson. I thank you for 
 your boldness in telling some plain, and to some of our modern Democrats, 
 startling truths. All that you say, with the exception of the closing scene of 
 Lear s life, was known to me before. But I rejoice to find that other people 
 know these things and are not afraid to speak of ... the character of a man 
 who, for selfishness, duplicity and insincerity, stands without an equal in the 
 age in which he lived. 
 
 You are willing, you say, to give Mr. Jefferson all credit for his great 
 political forecast and an ardent patriotism. In this you are more liberal than 
 I. . . Tell us more about his secret connection with the private, and of course 
 confidential Secretary of Gen. Washington, Tobias Lear; with . . . I. T. 
 Callender and his encouragement of the Pennsylvania Whiskey Insurgents. 
 Trace him in all his windings and doublings from the Retreat to Carter s 
 Mountain to the 4th July 1826, when he killed himself by taking Laudanum, 
 that he might end his career on the anniversary of the most memorable act 
 of his life. I must tell you my authority fer this fact which I have never 
 seen in print. A friend of mine, the late Henry Page of Cambridge, Md., 
 told me that, while on a Tour to the Medicinal Springs in Virginia, he was 
 informed by the Keeper of a bridge in sight of Monticello, that the whole 
 neighborhood well knew that Mr. J. took a quantity of Laudanum on the 
 morning of July 4th and that he died under its influence. He further said 
 that the friends endeavored to hush the matter, but could not. It was well 
 known. . . . Your obliged and respectful servant, 
 
 Peregrine Wroth. 
 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 I have to-day your letter touching Jefferson ; but I have not 
 received the Tribune containing your article. 
 
260 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 
 
 I read the article some days ago . . . and think it admirable. I never 
 read anything in a newspaper which I think superior. 
 
 Now allow me to advise you as to the mode of reply. Wait until the 
 enemy has printed all that he intends to print. Then do not make a new 
 article in the shape of a mere answer to the Ledger s articles; but revise and 
 extend your original article, taking notice of any new matter introduced by 
 the Ledger, and replying to it, in connexion with the matter in your origi 
 nal paper. You will thus avoid the directly controversial form, which I 
 think is always to be shunned, for there is no end to it, and a mendacious, 
 half-crazy penny-a-liner like Jarvis can always have the last word. . . 
 
 Can you obtain certain evidence about the articles in Freneau s paper? 
 Where is the copy of the paper which you allude to? It would be worth a 
 journey to Kamskatka to see it. . . In haste Yours, 
 
 H[orace] B[inney] W[allace]. 
 Phil a, 18 Feb., 1850. 
 
 This advice was folloed, and in addition to articles in The Tribune 
 on 2 March and other dates, one on Freneau appeared in Graham s Maga 
 zine for Sept. 1855. Respecting the copy of the paper about which Mr. 
 Wallace askd, Griswold wrote: " Freneau made oath to a statement that 
 Mr. Jefferson did not compose or suggest any of the contents of his paper, 
 but in his old age he acknowledged to Dr. John W. Francis that the secre 
 tary wrote or dictated the most offensive articles against Washington . . . 
 and t5 Dr. James Mease he exhibited a file of the * Gazette in which what 
 were alleged to be his contributions were marked." 
 
 Boston, Feb. 19,1850. 
 Dear Ruf us : 
 
 I write a line confidentially t5 ask at what Hotel I can bring my 
 wife some time during next month when we shall visit New York for a day 
 or two. We intend to be married about the 20th of March. . . 
 
 Very Truly, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 P. S. The little brevity touching your new Ed. which I put int5 the 
 Transcript here seems to be travelling about and I read no longer ago than 
 yesterday in a St. Louis paper that * no man in Am [ erica] stands higher at 
 the present time than R. W. G. in public estimation." 
 
HENRY C: CAREY. 261 
 
 Boston, Feb. 20 , 1850. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 In a recent article of yours on Jefferson, you state that Philip 
 Freneau positively charged Jefferson with the authorship of certain articles 
 in the " National Gazette," and that a file of that paper existed in which 
 Jefferson s articles had been marked by Freneau s own hand. I wish you 
 would inform me of the authority for this statemeet, which has so important 
 a bearing on Jefferson s character for truth, seeing that he wrote more than 
 once to Washington denying the having anything to do with any publication 
 whatever bearing on the policy of his administration. The character of 
 Jefferson, a subject I have now in hand, is one that needs all the light that 
 can possibly be thrown upon it. Yours, &c., 
 
 R. Hildreth. 
 
 Burlington, March 15, 1850. 
 Dear Sir [ Griswold ] : . . . 
 
 A rumor reached me last night that I was to be put in nomina 
 tion by the anti-monopolists in the Legislature, for the Senate perhaps t5 
 run against Stockton. Whether it will be done or not, I cannot tell. The 
 idea has never occurred to myself, but if I can do anything towards defeat 
 ing Stockton, I shall be glad. Of my own election, there would be no 
 chance, for the Whig leaders hate me worse than the Monopolists. If it be 
 done, however, I should, of course, like to have as many votes as possible, 
 and the appearance of your article before the election might do, and prob 
 ably would do, good. Prophets, you know, are honored in their own coun 
 try td the extent that they appear to bear honor elsewhere. Think of this, 
 and let me hear from you, and oblige Yours truly, 
 
 Henry C. Carey. 
 
 Mount Healthy, March 25, 1850. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 . . . Well, how could I hope that it would be otherwise. I am 
 but a simple and uncultured girl, and am perhaps best off in the shadow of 
 my native hills. Again I beg your forgiveness, and promise that I will not 
 listen to my heart again not in this letter, certainly. 
 
 I half envy you the privilege of going abroad. I have sometimes 
 hoped t5 see something of the great world beside in dreams, but I never 
 shall. You must not, my dear Mr. Griswold, flatter yourself that I look any 
 better than my daguerreotype it is very correct, the expression not perfectly 
 
262 ALICE CARY. 
 
 so, perhaps, as I changed countenance a little during the sitting. I hardly 
 know how to describe myself and am half inclined to cut from the letter of 
 a friend a description which he tells me he has just been giving Whittier of 
 me, for strange to say, he has not flattered me. . . I am five feet, two inches 
 in height, not heavy, and not very thin, don t know how much I weMgh, have 
 black eyes, and hair darkly brown, am a brunette, and decidedly plain, hav 
 ing seen my twenty-ninth birthday. . . I am sometimes passionately fervent 
 in piety, and sometimes rebellious as the fallen. I love with deepest inten 
 sity, but do not hate, those I do not like I am indifferent to. . . Mr. Whittier 
 kindly proffers his aid and assistance in the getting up of the proposed work 
 advises me not to be in a hurry, which I shail not be; strongly recom 
 mends Ticknor. . . 
 
 And so you do not like my rhymeless efforts. The two pieces you 
 speak of are in my own opinion among the best things I have written, as 
 also in the opinion of some whose judgment I value highly. I am glad you 
 have told me what you think. I agree with you that lyrical composition is 
 my forte, if I have any, but I am accustomed to let my thought flow as it will. 
 Among literary artists I have no place. Mr. Whittier has just favored me 
 with some very good advice, I hope I shall profit by it. He extends us a 
 cordial invitation to visit himself and sister at Amesbury, which I hope to be 
 able to accept. 
 
 I am sensitive to a painful degree, and have never had a correspond 
 ent, save yourself, of whom I could say they have written nothing I could 
 wish unwritten. . . 
 
 You think Phoebe more grave than I. She is less so. Her daguerreo 
 type does not do her justice. Her countenance in conversation is almost 
 mirthful. She has dimples which show themselves constantly, is very sar 
 castic ( tho she denies it ) , and enjoys the reputation of being a wit. She is 
 less ( sic ) and younger than I. . . Ever sincerely yours, 
 
 Alice Cary. 
 
 Phil a, April 2nd, 1850. 
 My dear Doctor . . . 
 
 I have read your criticism on E. A. Poe ; it is terrific, but not 
 more so than the moral aspects of your subject. In literary execution it 
 rivals the best passages in Macaulay. I knew something of Poe something 
 of the unfathomed gulfs of darkness out of which the lightning of his genius 
 sent its scorching flashes. . . 
 
ARTICLES ON POE. 263 
 
 When you visit us again you must come and dine with me my book 
 on California is delayed by my bad health. Your very sincere friend, 
 
 Walter Colton. 
 
 " In March, 1850," writes Mr. J : H. Ingram, " was published in The 
 Southern Literary Messenger ... a still more dastardly attack on the dead 
 man than the unsavoury Ludwig article. It had evidently been written 
 and printed in hot haste, and was so disgraceful and cowardly that the edi 
 torial proprietor of the magazine deemed it necessary to append a short note 
 to the effect that it had been inserted during his absence. Who w r rote this 
 article? . . . Was not this miscalled (by Griswold ) defender then, Gris- 
 wold himself, or some one acting under his inspiration?" 
 
 Richmond, 2 April, 1850. 
 My dear Sir . . . 
 
 I can scarcely express the mortification I felt, upon my return, 
 at finding in the sheets of the forthcoming Number of the Messenger the 
 coarse abuse of yourself and Willis which disfigured the article on Poe. At 
 first I ordered it suppressed, at any expense, but being informed that this 
 would delay the number most unreasonably, I was compelled to send it forth 
 with my personal disclaimer by way of amende honorable. I had indeed 
 given the writer of the article [Daniel] a carte blanche to say what he 
 pleased, but I had not the faintest conception that this freedom would have 
 been abused by attacks upon my esteemed friends. I am sure you did me 
 the justice, before reading the Editorial Note, to suppose that I had no hand 
 in the preparation of such vulgar and unmerited strictures. The sentiment 
 of mortification was inspired also by the cruel treatment of poor Poe him 
 self, and I felt this so keenly that I sent to Willis for the Home Journal an 
 article, by an intimate friend of mine, tending to remove some of the nettles 
 cast by my contributor on the poet s grave. . . Most truly yours, 
 
 Jno. R. Thompson. 
 
 Canandaigua, June 5, 1850. 
 Mary E. Hewitt, Dear Madam : 
 
 I learn by the papers that you are about editing a work, the 
 profits arising from the sale of which are to be applied towards the purchas 
 ing of a monument, in memory of Mrs. Osgood. 
 
 I am well aware that you will find in others and those who are known 
 t5 fame glad co-operators in your noble undertaking but if you have room 
 
264 GRISWOLD S INJUSTICE. 
 
 for one more contributor, I have a story which I will most gladly give for 
 there is no other way in which I can aid, or express my affection and admir 
 ation for a poetess whom I so much wished to see and to know. . . I have 
 contributed a good deal to the magazines as Caroline C and mention this 
 as you may perhaps have seen sketches under that signature in Graham s 
 and Holden s. . . I remain, dear madame, Most respectfully yours, 
 
 Caroline Chesebro . 
 
 61 Federal St., Boston, June 13 [1850]. 
 Mrs. M. E. Hewitt, 
 
 I thank you. dear Madam, for the kindness and promptness with 
 which you have answered my note of the 6th inst. especially do I thank you 
 inasmuch as you inform me that the cause of the omission into which I, 
 with some anxiety, enquired is precisely what I believed it, and yet why I 
 so believed, I can hardly tell except, that I at times have had, as by intuition, 
 a sort of weird-like perception of hidden truths startling to myself ! Still so 
 utterly and entirely a stranger as I am to Mr. Griswold, I cannot account for 
 the injustice, unkindness and wrong which seems like design with which he 
 pursues me. I have no feelings of unkindness toward him, I have never 
 had, and all I know of him may be told in few words and apologize in 
 some degree for my own feelings. Of the publication of his ( Female Poets 
 I was entirely ignorant until it was announced from the press. My own 
 name was not there. I secretly felt, I confess, that it should have been, all 
 who knew me felt the same, as I was variously assured. But I did not blame 
 him, for I presumed it was an inadvertence, as I was a stranger to him, a 
 volume of Poems of 290 pp. I had published having run thro the first edi 
 tion without ever requiring a notice from a New York paper. I did not 
 regard it then as I have since, for I did not see the influence that such an 
 omission would have and has had on my reputation ; no not on my repu 
 tation as a poet but on my claim to consideration as such, in ways that I 
 cannot now mention, but which with my extremely delicate health ( for 
 thro my life nothing but stern mental energy has kept me out in the world ), 
 and all too sensitive heart, with an irrepressible shall I call it Genius? 
 struggling for recognition, if nothing more, despite my determined efforts 
 many a time to tread it out from my soul, I say this influence under these 
 considerations has made me often pause, and faint, and despair, and hon 
 estly pray heaven to avert from my children the price of this world-coveted 
 gift, which for myself I early craved, but which I have learned to believe is 
 
JANE E. LOCKE. 266 
 
 woman s curse. Still pride and delicacy forbade me to complain, nor did I 
 ever speak of it to my nearest friend, until many of the very persons whose 
 names Mr. G. had included in his book, expressed to me their surprise and 
 dissatisfaction both verbally and by letter as I can at this moment show, at 
 what they deemed an injustice from him to me. Even this I felt it would 
 illy befit me to complain of it, or scarcely to assent to their words. But as 
 time passed on I felt more and more the effect ; as that was taken for a 
 standard reference [ book ] . Thus now not quite a year ago I, with a feeble 
 hand which I soon firmly expected would be stiffened and nerveless in the 
 grave, ventured to write to Mr. Griswold [ letter not found by editor] for 
 the double purpose of letting him know that there was such a person in 
 existence ( for I did not know that he had recognized the fact, ) and to be 
 queath to him a manuscript work of much labor which I had already pre 
 pared for publication, believing in case of my decease that he might make it 
 of some consequence t5 himself and to the world. I at the same time hinted, 
 in the gentlest and kindest possible manner, at the omission of my name in 
 the " Poets," secretly hoping that when I was dead he might correct the 
 error, though never saying it to him. But what was my surprise to find that 
 weeks and months passed away, and no notice was taken of my letter, not so 
 much as to acknowledge the receipt of it. I had directed it to Philadelphia 
 and, not knowing his place of residence, I presumed my letter had failed to 
 reach him, for I could not believe he would be so discourteous and unmanly 
 as not to make some mention of it had he received it, especially at that time 
 when my heart was burthened with sadness and anxiety for the only legacy 
 I could leave my family a humble poet s name ! As you are aware I par 
 tially recovered my health, came back from the sepulchre to tread its weary 
 way again more resolutely, turning the torch of Genius downward but it 
 would flame up. At length the u Memoirs of Edgar A. Poe " were published 
 by Mr. G., or edited I should say, and in the " preface" to that terrible 
 history I noticed part of a letter referring to an injustice done Mrs. L. I 
 felt at once confident that Mrs. L. was myself and the " less than justice" in 
 Mr. G. was the omission I am talking about. And I also noticed in that 
 Memoir the copy of part of a letter from Mr. Poe to myself with an impor 
 tant sentence omitted, that is important if any part was permitted to be 
 published there. Not knowing whether Mr. G. possessed any more of that 
 letter, ( for I still have the manuscript in my own possession, with his other 
 letters ), and wondering, if he had, why he should strike it out, I therefore, 
 with a caution not natural to me, for I am too confiding in my nature and I 
 
266 JANE E. LOCKE. 
 
 think you have here proof, again wrote to Mr. G., simply asking him if in 
 the first instance I was the person referred to. and in the second if what was 
 there published of the letter to myself was all of that letter in his posses 
 sion. I did mention that I had previously written to him " and presumed 
 he did not receive my letter," not so much as repeating any part of what I 
 wrote before and from that time to this he has not deigned to answer me a 
 word, tho I directed my letter to the care of Stringer & Townsend. 
 
 Now I should not feel grieved at the omission in the " Memorial " had 
 not all this gone before, and did I not see that he may in this manner stand 
 in my way forever and over-rule my literary destiny for no earthly reason, 
 but, as it appears, to justify his first error before the public. It has grieved 
 me beyond expression, I may not appeal directly to him, it would be vain, 
 and I have no heart to appeal to the kind public w T ho have, so far as they 
 might, in my own case out-criticised him. He might have thought my mo 
 tives were unkind in putting the enquiries I did relative to the Memoir of 
 Mr. Poe. But he misjudges me if so, for I wished simply to satisfy myself 
 on these points without designing any harm to any. Could he or you, 
 Madam, know my heart, ever careful, and sparing the feelings of others to 
 the very torture of fire upon its own and its exceedingly weak and sensitive 
 powers, he would grant me kind consideration, and you forgiveness for thus 
 wearying you with a history that may not in the main interest yourself. To 
 me indeed, tho I have wept, as I have written, in bitterness of spirit, this 
 matter has but one important feature. It is, as I have said, already, that 
 unkindness and injustice (for the words of six or eight of the best names 
 he has enrolled in his book, not to speak of any others in the reading public 
 warrant me in using the term injustice ) may, as in the case of the " Memo 
 rial" [to Mrs. Osgood, a gift-book edited by Mrs. Hewitt] control my 
 loftiest and purest efforts to my own despair and the utter disappoint 
 ment of my friends. Again Dear Madam, pardon me for wearying you 
 with these particulars, but the fullness of my heart compelled me to it, for 
 it was a relief to speak my grievances. And hoping for absolution from 
 one whose poet soul I am sure will exactly comprehend me and see that 
 from the first I did not blame her, I remain Yours very truly, 
 
 Jane E. Locke. 
 
 Amesbury, 21st June, 1850. 
 My Dear fr. Griswold : 
 
 I learn from my friend F. W. Kellogg that Alice and Phoebe 
 Carey, of Ohio, are on their way to the East, and would be glad to see them 
 
GRISWOLD ON POE. 267 
 
 at my place if they come to Boston. Presuming that thou wilt see them in 
 N. Y. I have taken the liberty to invite them, through thee, to call on me. I 
 have been quite ill this spring and my sister also is an invalid, and we see 
 little company, but I should feel sorry to have the "sweet singers" of the 
 West so near and not see them. 
 
 Dost ever come to Boston? I should be very glad to see thee at Ames- 
 bury. I have a pleasant and grateful recollection of our acquaintance in 
 N. Y. and Boston. I shall be obliged to thee if thou wilt kindly remember 
 me to Tuckerman. I like his last book exceedingly, and shall notice it soon 
 in the Era. Thine cordially, 
 
 John G. Whittier. 
 
 New York, Aug. 12, 1850. 
 Dear James [Fields] : . . . 
 
 I am doing Poe s third volume the " criticisms " he called them 
 very remarkable, and a few, as Headley, Mathews, Mrs. Ellet, and some 
 others, truly refreshing, as you will see. Peace to his manes! . . . 
 
 R. W. G. 
 
 New York, 25th Sept. [1850 ]. 
 My dear James [Fields] : 
 
 I thank you very heartily for that notice in " The Bee." These 
 attacks on me for the Life of Poe are certainly undeserved. Everybody who 
 knows anything about Poe s life, understands perfectly well that I have sup 
 pressed much more than I have printed against him, and the preface to 
 " The Literati " shows that I was absolutely compelled to write what I have 
 written, by the assaults of Graham and Neal. . . 
 
 R. W. G. 
 
 This statement will sound hily hypocritical t6 Messrs. Gill, 
 Ingram, Morgan, et al., but Griswold is not the only witness : 
 
 " If Dr. Griswold had not been restrained by a foolish deli 
 cacy," wrote C: F. Briggs, twenty years after Gris wold s 
 death, " he might have given some startling evidences of the 
 utter contempt which the poet entertained for persons who 
 trustingly believed they were passionately beloved by him. 
 He could write the tenderest and most touching letters, which 
 he would bedabble with real tears, as he folded the paper, t6 
 women upon whom he had no other designs than an intention 
 
268 GRISWOLD ON POE. 
 
 of sending his wife or her mother t6 them t6 solicit a loan of 
 $50." In 1894, R: H: Stoddard wrote of Griswold s life: 
 "It was hotly assailed on all sides ; by those who knew Poe 
 well, and knew how truthful the mirror of Dr. Griswold was ; 
 by those who knew Poe a little, and suddenly felt a great ad 
 miration for his genius, and pity for his failings ; and by those 
 wh6 knew Poe not at all, and wh6 were consequently the most 
 violent of all. There was not a biographic crime which was 
 not charged t6 his account, including the invention of incidents 
 which never occurred, and the forging of documents which 
 happily are extant still, in the hand-writing of their designated 
 writers. . . Wh6ever had a grudge against Dr. Griswold, and 
 the kindly, good-natured man had made many grudges when he 
 edited his " Poets of America," went for him ... in all possi 
 ble ways through which they could get int6 print." In the 
 same year Prof. G : E : Woodberry went on record t6 this 
 effect : " In writing a biography of Poe some years ago, the 
 present writer had occasion t6 investigate the charges made 
 against Griswold. The result was a conviction that the docu 
 ments he quoted were genuine, and that the impressions he 
 gave of Poe s character and career was just, while his errors 
 were due t6 Poe s own falsehoods. . . As will be seen, these 
 papers [first published in Aug. -Oct. 1894.] fully vindicate 
 Griswold s veracity in essentials, and sustain Redfield s [fav 
 orable ] view of his temper ; it must also be allowed that, so 
 far was he from blackening Poe s memory, he might easily 
 have made a worse use of his opportunity had he been actuated 
 by malice. . . It is a gratification that such tardy justice can be 
 done t6 a man wh6 has so long been vilified . . . without sound 
 critical grounds." 
 
 Boston, Nov. 11, 1850. 
 Dear Eufus . . . 
 
 Next let me ask when " The Memorial" is to come out, and if 
 Hawthorne has been paid lor his article. It is important to him just now I 
 doubt not. Next, I beg t5 say, if you would like it I can give you a very 
 
CHIVERS ON POE. 269 
 
 sweet little poem by G. P. R. James which he wrote in my wife s Album. 
 He told me I might print it where I chose. Of course you being A. 1. in my 
 memory I ask you if you would like it. If you would my wife shall copy it 
 and send to you. Of course in printing it you would simply say it was given 
 you by a friend, but mention no names. . . In haste but very Truly Yrs., 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Monday noon [1851 ?] 
 [ Alice Gary to Griswold ] . . . 
 
 I am out of humor and indignant this morning two or three 
 things have made me so, one of which was a eulogy of three columns length 
 in the Era, of Grace Greenwood. Dr. Bailey takes every occasion to praise 
 her, and me he never notices and pays me so little that I am ashamed t5 
 mention the sum. Of course he has a right to his preference, but I wish to 
 attain a position that will enable me to ask more or cease writing for him 
 and I will do it. . . 
 
 No. 116 Leonard St., March 28th, 1851. 
 Dear Sir . . . 
 
 If Poe ever left any letter in which he speaks ill of me, the fault 
 was his own not mine and he will have to answer to God for the injustice. 
 He, no doubt, felt piqued when I accused him of having stolen his " Raven" 
 from my Poem "To Allegra Florence in Heaven" which you know he 
 did if you know anything at all about it. The same is true of his Lectures 
 on Poetry besides many other things. 
 
 You are very much mistaken if you suppose that I endorse everything 
 that Poe did. He married the Venus Urania in early life; but afterwards 
 committed adultery with the Venus Pandemos. Yours truly, 
 
 Thos. H. Chivers. 
 
 Hall, Cooperstown, Apr. 27, 1851. 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I have delayed answering your letter because I expected to have 
 been in town before this. I had a fall, a day or two since, owing to a foot s 
 slipping. That has prevented my travelling, but the ill effects are disappear 
 ing, and I hope to be sound, quoad that difficulty, in a day or two. 
 
 I know of no female on my side, for your book. I had a sister, she 
 [sic] that was killed, who was very highly appreciated and is very gener- 
 
270 THE CALAMITIES OF AUTHORS. 
 
 ally known in Philadelphia, but it must have been at a later day than during 
 Washington s time, In Adams presidency. But Mrs. Ralph Izard is your 
 woman. She was Alice, daughter of Peter De Lancey of West Farms and 
 Elizabeth Colden, a daughter of Lt. Gov. Cadwallader Colden. Her sisters, 
 all distinguished women, were Mrs. John Watts, Mrs. Thomas Barclay, wife 
 of the late and mother of the present consul, Mrs. John Cox, the uncle ( he, 
 I mean ) of the Beekman. 
 
 Mrs. Izard was a beauty and a very elegant woman. She was with 
 her husband in Europe during the Revolution ( see her daughter s, Mrs. 
 Deas book ) and when he was elected to the first senate, accompanied him 
 to the seat of government. She must have been a very conspicuous woman 
 there, as she was, long after her husband s death, in the society of Phila 
 delphia. 
 
 Gen. Izard was her son. But all this I can give you by word of 
 mouth, I trust, next week. Adieu. 
 
 J. Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 New York, April 29th, 1851. 
 Rufus Wilmot Griswold, Esqre., Dear Sir: 
 
 With this note you will be handed my book ; accept it from me 
 as a tribute to your worth. By the sale of the writings contained in it I have 
 managed to support a large family for the last eighteen months ; I am now 
 starving, and if, through your influence, you could get me the situation even 
 of a porter I would be proud to fulfil its duties ; I have labored long and 
 vainly for a permanent stipend, but without success, for my dear wife and 
 little children I will accept of anything. I beg of you therefore for their 
 sake to make some exertion for me. I am in dire want, and on the " knees 
 of my heart " I entreat you ; if you cannot do it for me, I will not say it was 
 because of want of inclination but set it down rather to the numerous appli 
 cants who beseige you from hour to hour. Hoping to hear from you at your 
 earliest convenience. I am, Dear Sir, Yours sincerely, 
 
 William Pembroke Mulchinock. 
 
 Riverside, June 10th, 1851. 
 Rev. Rufus W. Griswold, Dear Sir, 
 
 The prominent position which you have always occupied in the 
 literature of our country ; as well as the esteem and friendship which my 
 Father has so often expressed towards [ you ] embolden me to address you 
 although I have not the pleasure of your acquaintance. 
 
DONALD G. MITCHELL. 271 
 
 I have been in the habit for some time of writing verses for my own 
 amusement some of which, ( copied from the Missionary, a paper which I 
 used to edit) you may have seen in the newspapers over the signature 
 of " D." 
 
 I take the liberty now of writing to ask your advice with regard to the 
 publication of such fugitive pieces as I may write from time to time, in ref 
 erence to receiving some remuneration for them. 
 
 Hoping that you will excuse the liberty I take in thus troubling you. 
 I remain, dear Sir, Very Respectfully, 
 
 W. C. Doane. 
 
 Norwich, Conn., June 27, 1851. 
 Mr. Townsend, Sir, 
 
 I shall draw on you next week for $200., and I hope the draft 
 will be duly honored. I shall probably not have occasion to draw again 
 until the time of settlement in November unless you could meet a further 
 demand for 100 or 150 in August say the 20th. 
 
 I hope the Lorgnette is selling well : As you may wish to advertise a 
 " book for the watering places," I write an advertisement which I think 
 would be taking. 
 
 " Book for Newport, Saratoga and Sharon." Whosoever wishes to 
 find sketches of the modes at the several watering places, and portraits of 
 such famous characters as he would like to know, would do well to provide 
 himself with a copy of The LORGNETTE. The book is specially commended 
 t5 all belles who wish to make a sensation, to all old ladies who have not 
 lived out their time, and to such men about town as wish to multiply their 
 triumphs. They will find in this book a catalogue of all their essential qual 
 ities, with plain directions for multiplying their attractions, and for enlarg 
 ing the sphere of their action. The Fourth Edition is just issued in beautiful 
 style, and contains portraits of many distinguished members of refined 
 society, drawn from life by that accomplished physiognomist, Mr. Felix 
 Darley. The price, $2.50, is precisely what one pays for a bottle of Lafitte 
 at his dinner, and we are confident that the book will help a man s digestion, 
 better than the wine. 
 
 Please to copy the advertisement before sending t5 the paper. 
 
 I remain Yours, etc., 
 
 Don. G. Mitchell. 
 
272 DONALD G. MITCHELL. 
 
 [Unknown to Griswold.] 
 
 D. G. Mitchell was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on 12 April, 1822. 
 His father, pastor of the Second Congregational Church in this town, and 
 ranking high for his natural endowments and scholarly acquirements among 
 the clergy of the State, was youngest son of the Hon. Stephen Mix Mitchell, 
 chief justice of our Supreme Court, and at one time Senator from the State 
 in, 1 think, the tirst congress. S. M. M. was of a Scotch family, and married 
 a daughter of Donald Grant of Invernessshire, Scotland, who came to this 
 country in 1732. On the mother s side, D. G. M. descends from Nat. Shaw 
 of New London, Ct., Government agent during the Revolution, whose only 
 daughter married Rev. Ephraim Woodbridge. Nat Shaw Woodbridge was 
 the grandfather of D. G. M. He died in 1792. When D. G. M. was about 
 eight years old, and absent from home, he lost his father. He was for six or 
 seven years at the Ellington Schools, entered Yale College in 1837, gradu 
 ated in 1841. Allusions to school and college are given in the Reveries of a 
 Bachelor. His mother died while he was in college. He had lost besides an 
 elder brother and two sisters. Although he maintained a handsome stand 
 ing as a scholar, his health was very poor, and immediately on leaving college 
 he retired to his farm in Salem, Ct., a part of an estate that had long been in 
 the family. He spent a year here hunting and fishing when health and 
 the weather permitted. 
 
 On coming of age he assumed the management of the farm which he 
 continued till the autumn of 1844. During this period he rarely went off the 
 premises of his own and an adjoining estate. He became expert both in the 
 practice and theory of agriculture, for which he still retains an almost 
 enthusiastic liking. 
 
 I was much amused one day last summer when we had strolled into a 
 field where mowers were at work, to see their admiring looks at his skillful 
 wielding of a scythe. A stretch of stone fence that he built entirely with 
 his own hands around one of his lots, is considered a model of its kind 
 among the Salem farmers. The readers of the Lorgnette and Reveries have 
 not seen Ik Marvel s most finished work yet. Old Hodges ( you will find 
 him at the Carletou House ) can tell you of his acquirements as a sportsman 
 with gun and angle. During his farming period he contributed to Agricul 
 tural journals, and gained a prize offered by the New York State Agricul 
 tural Society for a plan of farm buildings see its vol. of Transactions for 
 1842. He also contributed a long article on Field Sports to the North Amer 
 ican Review. In 1844 he went t5 Europe, where he remained two years, 
 
DONALD G. MITCHELL. 273 
 
 walking through nearly every county of England. Very much of Switzer 
 land and France was also traversed on foot. The winter of 44-5 was passed 
 in the island of Jersey, the summer of 1845 in Scotland, France and Switzer 
 land ; the following winter was spent in Italy. In the spring he came up 
 through Germany and sailed for America in early Autumn. During all this 
 time Mr. M. corresponded regularly on agricultural subjects with the Culti 
 vator Newspaper. On his return he was strongly urged to write an extend 
 ed work on European Agriculture. The following winter, 46-7, was passed 
 in Virginia, So. Carolina, and Washington, whence he wrote letters to the 
 Courier and Inquirer over the signature of Ik Marvel. The ensuing summer 
 the letters were continued from Saratoga and other parts of the United 
 States. The Fresh Gleanings appeared from the press of the Harpers this 
 summer, under the assumed name of Ik Marvel. The winter was passed in 
 a law office at New York. 
 
 Here the idea of the Lorgnette first suggested itself, and an initial 
 chapter was prepared in the first instance for the columns of the Courier and 
 Enquirer, but was afterward withdrawn. In the spring of 1848 he sailed 
 again for Europe. He was in London three weeks during the Chartist 
 troubles, then passed over to Paris, where, excepting a brief visit to Bor 
 deaux, he stayed till the summer of 1849. During this visit he wrote largely 
 to the Courier and Enquirer. On his return he wrote the first part of the 
 Battle Summer, covering a period prior to his last visit to Paris the sequel, 
 containing his observations while on the ground, is not yet published. The 
 ill success of this last book induced the attempt to mystify the public by the 
 trial of a new style. The Lorgnette was accordingly begun, as much in jest 
 as earnest, and with no very definite plan as to the length of its continuance. 
 Indeed, partly from original indifference, and partly from its slow sale at 
 the outset, my friend twice determined to abandon it. He once or twice 
 failed t6 have the MS. ready in time for the regular day of publication, and I 
 do not think he would have written No. 9 and onward but for my urging 
 him to keep on. Up to that time there were not more than half a dozen in 
 the secret. Others were from time to time made acquainted with or dis 
 covered it. But on the publication of the New Series, and indeed at the 
 close, there were but very few who knew who the author was. D. G. M. 
 himself was not in the city half of the time, and the different nos. were 
 written at almost as many places. By the way, we knew that you knew, 
 Dr., early in May. Who told? or was it by observation of style? M. s 
 most intimate friends were as much in the dark as the rest. Wherebv came 
 
274 LYMAN C. DRAPER. 
 
 much food for laughter. He does not yet publicly acknowledge it anywhere 
 but it is now so well known, or rather understood, that his friends make no 
 hesitation of charging it on him. 
 
 The publication of his first Reverie brought such favorable notices as 
 to induce him to develop the idea still further in a book, and he continued 
 them up to their present shape while engaged upon the closing papers of the 
 Lorgnette. It appeared about the same time as the second volume of the 
 Lorgnette. He is now busily engaged upon various literary enterprises. Of 
 the nature of these, as of his habits of mind etc., I hardly feerat liberty t5 
 speak, as I only know of them because of our long and confidential inti 
 macy. I will say, however, that if God gives him health for the next ten 
 years, he will at the end of that time show a result of his stewardship that 
 will prove large talents to have been put out at good usury, and which will 
 add a new class of readers to those who admire either the Lorgnette or the 
 Eeveries. Neither of these books gives his best strength. Works of a lighter 
 nature, on one of which he is already specially engaged, will occupy his 
 by-time. 
 
 Leverington, Phil a Co., Pa., July 10, 1851. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 I send for your acceptance a copy of Brantz Mayer s Address 
 on Logan and Cresap, before the Md. Histl. Society. You will discover by 
 it, if you find time for its perusal, that 1 am engaged in some border histori 
 cal and biographical researches and, God permitting, I hope, some of these 
 days, to be able to send you some of my crude productions. 
 
 As you take so much interest in the present and prospective literature 
 of the country, you may not be uninterested if I specify somewhat my de 
 signs. I will briefly say that I contemplate a work on the Life and Times 
 of General George Rogers Clark whSse old papers I have, and a large num 
 ber of whose old Indian fighters and contemporaries I have seen, and whose 
 reminiscences I have fully noted : a Life of Col. Daniel Boone Memoirs of 
 Gen l Simon Kenton Life and Campaigns of Gen l John Sevier of East 
 Tennessee Life of Gen l James Robertson, with Sketches of the early settle 
 ment of the Cumberland country, now Middle Tennessee, Life and Adven 
 tures of Capt. Samuel Brady, with Sketches of the Pioneers and Border 
 Wars of the Upper Ohio Valley. Life of Col. Wm. Crawford of Col. Wm. 
 Whitley etc., etc. Another on the early settlement, Pioneers, and Indian 
 Wars of West Virginia, and yet another on the Life and Adventures of the 
 
LYMAN C. DRAPER. 275 
 
 Wetzels, with notices of the early history of the Wheeling region. And I 
 half incline to attempt a work on the Border Warfare of New York or a 
 History of the Senecas, which would cover the same ground. For all these 
 works I have or think I have, a sufficiency of original materials, together 
 with a very complete collection of border works, pamphlets, magazines, 
 newspapers Pioneer Manuscript Journals, correspondence, etc. I have 
 some 20 vols. of my manuscripts bound and I think I have manuscripts 
 enough when arranged and bound to make some 30 or 40 more. . . 
 
 I may add, that I am a Baptist and thus claim a fraternity of feeling 
 with and for you. I have long desired to make your acquaintance, but have 
 been restrained from obtruding myself on your notice from feelings of deli 
 cacy. Beside, I have had little time that I could devote to literary friend 
 ships, having for some fifteen years, as health would permit, been a complete 
 slave to my border researches. The enclosed "circular," published, as you 
 will see, over five years ago, will tend to give you some idea of my labors I 
 have fully doubled my collections since its issue. . . I remain, dear Sir, your 
 friend and Christian brother, 
 
 Lyman C. Draper. 
 
 P. S. When I got up my circular I designed a single work Lives of 
 the Pioneers: Since procuring the Clark papers, and greatly augmenting 
 my collection otherwise, I changed my plan, and design, as already intimat 
 ed, separate and distinct works, each complete in itself. If I live to com 
 plete this design, I shall still hope to condense them into a single work, 
 Lives of the Pioneers and a counterpart work, Lives of Western Indians. 
 The work on Clark, with a preliminary sketch of the Aboriginal occupancy 
 of Kentucky, and early Anglo-American Explorations of the West, will 
 reach a couple of thick octavos the other works will be single volumes. 
 You see I have a large amount of labor laid out whether I shall ever per 
 form it all, or any considerable part of it, Time must determine. If life and 
 health are spared me, I hope my energy will carry me through. Pardon, 
 my dear Sir, this egotism. . . 
 
 4 August, 1851. 
 My dear Dr. Griswold, 
 
 I enclose t5 you the lines of which you write, " Stand, like an 
 anvil, when it is beaten upon;" which, in my case, have " more truth than 
 poetry." As is the way with men,wh5m kindness always emboldens, I 
 suggest, at the suggestion of my two sons ( now both in holy orders ) that 
 
276 FIELDS, COLTON. 
 
 for " The Voice of Rama," " The Waters of Marak," and " The Christian s 
 Death " you substitute these or some of them. With many desires for your 
 prosperity, and every blessing on yourself and all you would have blessed r 
 I am faithfully your friend, 
 
 G. W. Doane. 
 
 Dear Sir ... 
 
 During my absence I called at Toronto and spent a couple of 
 days very agreeably. I saw nearly all the principal people and talked with 
 many of them on this subject. As a matter of course Lord Elgin was op 
 posed to protection, but I was surprised to find so little tendency towards it 
 among the Canadian members of the government. They have no idea of 
 improvement except in connection with roads by which to enable the pro 
 ducer to go to the consumer instead of at once bringing the consumer to 
 him. With great regard, I am Yours very truly, 
 
 H. C. Carey. 
 Burlington, August 5, 1851. 
 
 Boston, August 18, 1851. 
 My Dear Griswold : 
 
 I have never thanked you for your kind letter received during 
 my wife s illness. Since she has passed away my mind has not been calm 
 enough to allow of my writing to any of my friends. I begin now to see 
 more sunlight through the black clouds of affliction which have surrounded 
 me. It is a severe blow, Griswold, to all my hopes of happiness, but I make 
 strong efforts to think all is Eight. We shall know all sooner or later. I 
 hope to meet you before long. Till then and always, dear Rufus, 
 
 Yours Sincerely, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 August 19, 1851. 
 Dear Griswold . . . 
 
 Cheever has made considerable of a book out of> [Walter] Col- 
 ton s remains. He makes him out one of the finest, frankest and most gen 
 erous of men. This I never thought. On the contrary, I thought, of all 
 men, he was the last to come directly to an object. He would set a trap to 
 catch anything when he could secure it by putting out his hand. There 
 was, as it seemed to me, a petty strategic interwoven with the texture of his 
 mind, which spun itself out in his every day action, and fairly showed 
 
JAMES FENIMORE COOPER. 277 
 
 sometimes in the cock of his eye ( Inter nos) ... he was a better man 
 than many, but not perfect. I think the range of his mind direct the circle 
 it ran in, small. No man ever did more or got more credit by a mere play of 
 words. He had an ear for the song of words. The clatter of sentences was 
 the inspiration of his composition. 
 
 As an Alcalde he did himself more credit than by all the other parts of 
 his life. In this office he was doing well for himself, and acted well, and, as 
 far as I can see, justly for others. It was this part, and his conduct therein 
 which is the chief support of his name, and gives a chief respectability to all 
 of him that goes before and after it. 
 
 I think your sketch of C. Colton a good one it is discriminating as t5 
 his merits he has made a great deal out of a few principles of common 
 sense. As a writer he seems to have regarded the bulk more than execu 
 tiona big book, with him, is the same as a great one. I shall be glad t5 
 hear from you. Very truly your friend, 
 
 H. Hooker. 
 
 Cooperstown, Oct. 2, 1851. 
 Dear Sir ... 
 
 For my own part I have never doubted that my Father s posi 
 tion with another generation would be higher than that accorded to him 
 while he was still among us ; but I was scarcely prepared for such an imme 
 diate expression of public feeling with regard to the loss, which, as Ameri 
 cans, has fallen upon us all in common. 
 
 There is no country, however rich in talent, which can afford to 15se 
 from her ranks a man of high genius, unclouded integrity, and generous 
 heart. Like his own Harvey Birch, he whom we mourn, carried in his 
 bosom a disinterested love of America none the Jess real because too often 
 misunderstood, and diligently belied by patriots of the market-place. 
 
 But those who were pleased to traduce him are thoroughly forgiven : 
 the end of the upright was peace. 
 
 You allude to the affection he merited. Ah, sir, there indeed he was 
 sorely misrepresented ! No man had warmer sympathies, stronger affec 
 tions, or a more social temper. Yet with the exception of those who knew 
 him intimately, he was no doubt usually considered as a gloomy, dis 
 appointed cynic a character wholly foreign to his nature, as you must be 
 well aware, from your own intercourse with him. But I shall be led too 
 far, though less I could not say. 
 
278 ALICE GARY, Jl R. THOMPSON. 
 
 For your kind sympathy in the grief of his family we beg you will 
 receive our sincere acknowledgement. To us the loss is indeed irreparable. 
 He had the respect and affection of our whole hearts. Believe me sir, 
 
 Very respectfully, 
 
 Susan Fenimore Cooper. 
 
 Amesbury, 10th 10th mo., 1851. 
 My dear friend, 
 
 I was glad to get thy note relative to Alice Carey s book : I 
 think very highly of her genius I do not think thou hast at all overrated 
 her. Some of her prose pieces are unique in their simplicity, beauty and 
 pathos. 
 
 I would be glad to aid in the publication of her volume : but am now 
 forbidden to write : indeed I have not been able for months to answer, even 
 briefly, my correspondents. The cooler weather I trust will in some degree 
 benefit me, but I cannot depend upon it. 
 
 If my opinion, however, could have any weight with your public here 
 I have no hesitation in saying that it is not often that so rich and valuable 
 material is offered for an American book, as might be prepared from the 
 prose sketches of Alice Carey. I am not able to do justice to her or myself, 
 now ; and on that ground must decline writing a preface ; but, I do not think 
 well of such things. The public look upon prefaces of this kind as an at 
 tempt to pass off, by aid of a known name, what otherwise would not pass 
 current. This would d5 injustice t5 such a writer as Alice Carey. She can 
 stand by herself, on her own original merits. Let me know if anything 
 which I can do is needed to facilitate the publication. Very truly thy friend, 
 
 J. G. Whittier. 
 
 P. S. I will call attention to the proposed publication in some of the 
 Boston papers as soon as I feel able to send or go there ; or what will per 
 haps be better I will notice it in the Era. I think if I were Alice I would 
 leave out all poetical quotations as a general thing they injure and weaken 
 the effect of her admirable prose. 
 
 Miss Gary is almost as completely forgotten as the previous 
 generation of woman poets, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Osgood, Mrs. 
 Lewis, etc. When she died, in 1871, she had already outlivd 
 her literary popularity, such as it was. Within tw6 years of 
 their deaths The Christian Union wrote of the sisters : 
 
SOUTHERN AUTHORS. 279 
 
 They began early to write verses which treated of sorrowful experi 
 ences, of unrequited love, of painful illnesses, of hopes and fears plaintively 
 mingled, and of untimely deaths. It was linked sadness long drawn out. 
 Tender regret and weak sentiment seem to us we say it unwillingly the 
 staple of what they wrote. Their sobbing lyrics do not melt ; they ruffle 
 and vex us. 
 
 The elder sister wrote more, was better known and her talent thought 
 to be greater than the younger s. With this opinion, we cannot agree. . . 
 Phoebe seems to have been freer from false sentiment, less given to gentle 
 preaching, and less affected in style than Alice. . . Phoebe has a more natural, 
 a plainer tone; is far less morbid, and shows us now and then something 
 very like humor, of which we find no trace in her sister. 
 
 Richmond, 2 December, 1851. 
 My dear Doctor . . . 
 
 The Messenger is almost " gone." I look into the future to see 
 nothing but disaster; my affairs are really so much embarrassed that the 
 sale of my library hangs over me like an impending doom, and with no 
 coryphaeus of the red-flag fraternity like Keese to "knock down" my dar 
 lings. Four years of hard labor find me in debt, my small patrimony ex 
 hausted, and myself utterly unfitted for any sort of employment. I have 
 followed the will-o -the-wisp, literary fame, into the morass, and it has gone 
 out, leaving me up to the armpits in the mud. Eh bien, I snap my fingers 
 and whistle care down the wind ! . . . 
 
 Jno. R. Thompson. 
 
 P. S. I remark your hit at me [ in " International" ] about " Injustice 
 to the South." Nevertheless the fact is so, and the " Scarlet Letter " hailing 
 from Charleston would have lined portmanteaus. Why can t LegarS find a 
 publisher? Depend upon it, if another De Foe should emerge from the 
 pine-barrens of Carolina, with a Robinson Crusoe under his arm, he would 
 find an Edmund Carll in every back shop of Northern publication houses. 
 Legar6 is not De Foe, to be sure, but if he lived in New England it would be 
 different. Why did Ik Marvel s Reveries, first and second, excite no re 
 mark when first published in the Messenger? Because the Messenger is 
 Southern and for no other reason in the world. God help us I 
 
280 NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. 
 
 West Newton, Dec r 15th, 1851. 
 My dear Sir, 
 
 As regards the proposition for twelve short tales, I shall not be 
 able t5 accept it ; because experience has taught me that the thought and 
 trouble, expended on that kind of production, is vastly greater, in propor 
 tion, than what is required for a long story. 
 
 I doubt whether my romances would succeed in the serial mode of 
 publication ; lacking, as they certainly do, the variety of interest and char 
 acter which seem to have made the success of other works, so published. 
 The reader would inevitably be tired to death of the one prominent idea, if 
 presented to him under different aspects for a twelve-month together. The 
 effect of such a story, it appears [to] me, depends on its being read continu 
 ously. If, on completion of another work, it should seem fairly and natu 
 rally divisible into serial portions, I will think further of your proposal. 
 
 I have by me a story which I wrote just before leaving Lenox, and 
 which I thought of sending to Dr. Bailey of the National Era, who has offer 
 ed me $100 for an article. But, being somewhat grotesque in its character, 
 and therefore not quite adapted to the grave and sedate character of that 
 Journal, I hesitate about so doing, and will send it to the International, 
 should you wish it at the price mentioned. The thing would make between 
 twenty and thirty of such pages as Ticknor s editions of my books hardly 
 long enough, I think, to be broken into two articles for your magazine; but 
 you might please yourself on that point. I cannot afford it for less than 
 $100. and would not write another for the same price. Very truly yours, 
 
 Nath l Hawthorne. 
 
 Randolph, S. Y., December 27th, 1851. 
 Rev. Dr. Griswold : . . . 
 
 As you commenced your editorial career in this county, at an 
 early day, you may feel interested in knowing the progress of the press in 
 this region since your departure. There are now five papers printed in this 
 county, viz. : three in Ellicottville, one at Lodi ( now Gowanda) and one in 
 this place. R. H. Shankland still continues in the Republican, while Sill, 
 his predecessor in that office, is publishing a Whig paper in the same place. 
 The other papers have been started quite recently. Olean, the name of 
 which has been changed is now growing very fast. Though never destined 
 to realize the anticipations of its early settlers, it is yet bound to be a place of 
 some little importance. The Erie Railroad has proved of more benefit to it 
 
C : G. LELAND. 281 
 
 than the hopes formerly inspired from its being the head of navigation of 
 the Ohio and its tributaries. 
 
 This county has grown very fast of late, and will yet be noted for its 
 resources and agricultural wealth. It is no longer known by the name of 
 " Cold Cattaraugus." But I am wearying you with something in which you 
 may feel no interest whatever, and I will close. 
 
 Begging pardon for obtruding myself upon your notice, I remain, 
 Dear Sir, Very truly yours, 
 
 Chas. Aldrich. 
 
 London, January 6, 1852. 
 Rufus W. Griswold, Esq., Dear Sir, 
 
 I duly received your favor of the 6th December, your article, 
 though it necessarily bore the marks of the haste under which it was written, 
 was very acceptable, and as you will perceive, was printed. "We should be 
 glad of your article on American women, providing you think you can make 
 it very amusing ; the English writers selected for the April No. are for the 
 most part of so grave a cast, that we look to America for fascinating matter, 
 and I trust I am not mistaken in supposing that the Continent cannot sup 
 ply it in any form so perfect as in that of u American w^omen." But we 
 hope you will not be too severe on the " female emancipationists," and we 
 consider they have, despite their eccentricities, much sense and reason on 
 their side. The dress question, i. e., Bloomerism, gains many converts in 
 opinion here, by the way in which our ladies sweep the streets with their 
 silks. The article should not be more than 24 pages. Yours very truly, 
 
 John Chapman. 
 
 In 1850, writes C : G. Leland in his Memoirs, "I went now 
 and then t6 New York, which I liked better than Philadelphia. 
 I was often a guest of Mr. [ R : Burleigh ] Kimball. He intro 
 duced me t6 Dr. Rufus Griswold, a strange character and a 
 noted man of letters. He was, t6 his death, so uniformly a 
 friend t6 me, and so untiring in his efforts t6 aid me, that I 
 cannot find words t6 express his kindness nor the gratitude 
 which I feel. . . T6 the end of his life I was always with him a 
 privileged character, and could take, if I chose, the most ex 
 traordinary liberties, though he was one of the most irritable 
 and vindictive men I ever met, if he fancied that he was in any 
 way too familiarly treated." 
 
282 G: R. GRAHAM. 
 
 Phil a, Jan y 30, 1852. 
 Dear Doctor : 
 
 I don t know the first thing about the editors of Arthur s Ga 
 zette, either by sight or name, and don t want to. I only know that George 
 Graham, d n him !, and birds of his feather, will throw mud at anybody or 
 anything. Nor can I imagine anything about any conversation, but suppose 
 that this is one of the thousand filthy squibs fired off every week in the stu 
 pid weeklies of our city at somebody on any pretence. May the Lord keep 
 me clear of them ! Herewith I send some Notices, and will dispatch enough 
 on Monday to satisfy an ultra demand for German. . . Yours truly, 
 
 Leland. 
 
 P. S. I had well nigh forgotten to state the first thought with which 
 I sat down to write, viz., to thank you for your kindness while with you in 
 New York on so many occasions, and to beg you to give my regards t5 
 Stoddard. . . What do you think of Graham s courteous allusions to me? 
 D d little did George R. [ Graham ] ever do towards helping me on or out, 
 and now that he finds me getting on, notwithstanding I have not received 
 the stamp of his approbation, voila the consequences ! Therefore, oh my 
 friends, let us drink, and come what may, joy or grief , take our wine cool, 
 for it doth greatly comfort the heart. " Caro Dottore," as Don Pasquale 
 says, when are you coming on this here way? Remember me to all and 
 believe me, Yours truly, 
 
 C. G. Leland. 
 
 New York, Feb. 14, 1852. 
 My dear Sir. . . 
 
 I like the sample of Mr. Hetherwold s poetry, which you have 
 sent me. The sentiments are generous, the imagery poetical, and the versi 
 fication sonorous. Yet I doubt its success with the public, if it appears as 
 Mr. Hetherwold s. I fully believe that the best verses in the world publish 
 ed in a volume by an author not yet known to fame, would be inevitably 
 neglected. . . 
 
 W. C. Bryant. 
 
 Diary, Feb. 22 : Dined with Mr. Prescott, whose daughter is about to 
 be married to a son of Abbott Lawrence, who was present. Passed the 
 evening with George Ticknor, at whose house met the veterans of the Hist. 
 Society Savage, Buckingham, Whipple, Hudson, &c. 
 
PROTECTION IN COLLEGES. 283 
 
 Feb. 24: Busy with preparations for the Cooper demonstration. 
 
 Feb. 25 : This evening the long expected meeting came off at Metro 
 politan Hall. Kimball and I went after Webster and afterward attended 
 him to the Century Club, and about two o clock down to the Astor. The 
 whole affair succeeded well. 
 
 Dear Sir. . . 
 
 You have no doubt seen that my old book is being translated in 
 Italy. Truth makes its way by degrees, everywhere except into our col 
 leges. Could you not assist in an effort to impress upon the minds of the 
 Harvard people the necessity that exists for reconstructing the historical and 
 politico-economical department by emancipating themselves from the do 
 minion of Ricardo, Malthus, and Old-fogyism? By so doing you would d5 
 much good. With great regard I am Yours very truly, 
 
 Henry C. Carey. 
 Burlington, Feb. 25, 1852. 
 
 Rome, Feb. 29, 1852. 
 Dear Griswold, 
 
 I write you a friendly letter herein enclosed. You may make 
 any extracts you choose from it. . . Ever Yrs., 
 
 J. T. Fields. 
 
 I have written to the author ( a friend of mine in London ) of a new 
 Poem called Verdicts which is now going through the press and asked him 
 to send you the early sheets at once for the International. It is capitally 
 done and in the style of Lowell s " Fable for Critics." The author s name I 
 can not reveal as he means to keep it a secret. I have read the Ms. and 
 think the idea a capital one. 
 
 Washington, May 4, 1852. 
 My Dear Sir : 
 
 Your letter found me upon my back prostrate of Inflamatory 
 Rheumatism. I have had a long, weary, painful month of it, in which I 
 have suffered almost everything but the loss of my spirits. I am fairly out 
 again, now, however, and although not yet well, am in a fair way soon to 
 recover entirely. 
 
 I hardly remember what your letter contained for I had. it enveloped 
 immediately and sent off to Shreve. I d5 recollect, however, that it was full 
 of the right sort of feeling for him ; and I take pleasure in saying, that I have 
 
284 H: c: CAREY. 
 
 just received a letter from him, full of the right sort of expressions as to 
 you. He is a noble man, Mr. Griswold ; and although " Drayton" is in sev 
 eral respects not worthy of him, it has a great deal in it that is good, and I 
 want you and him to have a reciprocal regard and confidence. 
 
 I had a painfully interesting letter from Alice [ Cary ] written the 
 afternoon before she left New York for her home in the West. I respect 
 Mr. Hine, for many things in his life and character; but I cannot but regret 
 that he should have been so busy with other matters as to have left the 
 shafts that wounded a good and sensitive heart to have been thrown by 
 others if thrown they had to be, by anyone. I have not yet answered her 
 letter, but shall so soon as I feel able. . . 
 
 I read in the Mirror, last night, your successful vindication of Alice 
 from the criticism of the Boston Transcript, with much pleasure. To her 
 you have certainly proved the " friend in need " who is " a friend indeed "... 
 
 Very Truly Yours, 
 
 W. D. Gallagher. 
 
 Dear Sir ... 
 
 My friend Smith ... is the only man that has made himself mas 
 ter of my political economy, and is the man that will have to teach it when I 
 pass off the stage. He writes me that he would greatly like to furnish for 
 the Westminster an "independent" article containing a full exposition of 
 the system, and the question is, would it be published? He can, and will, 
 furnish one that will certainly interest the readers of the Review as much as 
 any other its editors can give, and I feel assured that they will do well to 
 have it. If it be objected that protection enters into my system, I would 
 remark that it comes in only as a consequence of previous error elsewhere, 
 and as a mode of bringing about freedom of trade and that it is not essen 
 tially necessary ever to mention the word. An exposition of the several 
 laws that I have propounded for consideration would furnish matter suffi 
 cient for an article, leaving the readers to work out protection or free trade 
 for themselves. Mr. Smith understands this matter perfectly. . . 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 Henry C. Carey. 
 Burlington, May 13, 1852. 
 
 Dear Sir. . . 
 
 I agree with you fully about Bishop Doane. He has done wrong, 
 but he has not filled his pockets by wrong-doing, as our Railroad kings have 
 
C: G. LELAND. 285 
 
 done. His fellow Bishops would now crush him after he has done penance 
 by spending three years in Purgatory, but I trust they will fail. . . 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 H. C. Carey. 
 
 Burlington, May 17, 1852. 
 
 The charge against the bishop was that he had diverted from 
 its legal use $250,000. which he controlled as trustee. The 
 Tribune was unable to see that this was any the less reprehensi 
 ble because the person wh6 committed the act was a clergyman, 
 and it had a good deal t6 say on the subject on the 18th July 
 1849 and later. 
 
 Burlington, May 18, 1852. 
 Dear Sir. . . 
 
 At your suggestion I have read the article in the North Ameri 
 can. It is the veriest trash that is possible precisely the sort of protection 
 ist rubbish that convinced me many years since that there was no foundation 
 for protectionist doctrines. Hoping to see you, I am Yours very truly, 
 
 H. C. Carey. 
 
 Diary, Dec. 8 : Began to edit Illustrated News. 
 
 " The author of Gossip of the Century, " again t6 quote 
 Mr. Leland, " has well remarked that * it has been said that 
 however quickly a clever lad may have run up the ladder, 
 whether of fame or fortune, it will always be found that he was 
 lucky enough t6 find some one who put his foot on the first 
 rung, which is perfectly true, as I soon found, if not in law, 
 at least in literature. I went more than once t6 New York, 
 hoping t6 obtain literary employment. One day Dr. Rufus 
 Griswold came t6 me in great excitement. Mr. Barnum the 
 great showman and the Brothers Beach were about t6 estab 
 lish a great illustrated weekly newspaper, and he was t6 be 
 the editor and I the assistant. It is quite true that he had 
 actually taken the post, for which he did not care twopence, 
 only t6 provide a place for me, and he had tramped all over 
 New York for hours in a fearful storm t6 find me and t6 an 
 nounce the good news. . . 
 
286 GRISWOLD ON POE. 
 
 Dr. Griswold was always a little " queer," and I used to 
 scold and reprove him for it. He had got himself int6 great 
 trouble by his remarks on Edgar A.*Poe. Mr. Kimball and 
 others, wh6 knew the Doctor, believed, as I d6, that there was 
 no deliberate evil or envy in those remarks. Poe s best friends 
 told severe stories of him in those days me ipso teste and 
 Griswold, naught extenuating and setting down naught in 
 malice, wrote incautiously more than he should. These are 
 the words of another than I. But when Griswold was attack 
 ed, then he became savage. One day I found in his desk, 
 which he had committed t6 me, a great number of further 
 material collected to Poe s discredit. I burnt it all up at once, 
 and told the Doctor what I had done, and scolded him well 
 into the bargain. He took it all very amiably. . . It is a pity 
 that I had not always had the Doctor in hand though I must 
 here again repeat that, as regards Poe, he is, in my opinion, 
 not so much t6 blame as a score of writers have made out." 
 
 [ G : W : Curtis to Griswold.* ] 
 
 I was born in Providence, R. I., on the 24th of February, 1824. 
 My maternal grandfather was James Burrill, Jr., a man famous in the an 
 nals of the State, wh5 died at Washington in 1821, while senator from Rhode 
 Island, and he had made his mark in Congress by a speech upon the 
 Missouri Compromise. My father, so long as he lived in the State, was a 
 prominent political man, Speaker of the House of Representatives, etc., 
 but never so situated as to be willing to accept the nomination for governor 
 and for Congress. I lost my mother when I was two years old. She left 
 only my elder brother and myself. 
 
 At six, I was sent to school near Boston, in the pretty village of 
 Jamaica Plain. I remained there between four and five years, had a very 
 good time in general, so far as I remember, and was called quite generally 
 " Deacon " by the boys. I returned to Providence upon the occasion of my 
 father s second marriage, and was at school there until he removed te New 
 York, in the year 1839. It was during the time between my return from 
 
 * Copyright, 1894, by J. P. Walker, as part of contents of Cosmopolitan 
 Magazine for Oct. 1894. 
 
G: w: CURTIS. 287 
 
 school and coming to New York that I made my first essay, like everybody 
 else, in print. I sent an anonymous poem to the newspaper, and was so 
 frightened at seeing it in print that I kept the secret so closely that no one 
 else knew it, nor knows it. I wrote several pieces in this way, and sent one 
 or two to the New York American, all anonymous, of course, which were 
 duly printed, and dazzled me. 
 
 When I came to New York, I was so struck by the whirl of business 
 and the high, dark, narrow streets, especially, I remember, Pine street, 
 that I was ready to abandon all my studies and go into a counting-room. 
 The idea enchanted me, and I had no rest until I persuaded my father to let 
 me do it. So, for a year, I was a clerk in a German and English importing 
 house ; at the end of the year stepped nimbly out of it, nor ever wanted t5 
 enter it again. So great was my distaste that I afterward, for a long time, 
 avoided all the business parts of the city. 
 
 I resumed my studies with tutors, reading the usual college course, 
 though not in college, until I began, with my brother, t5 be interested in 
 Emerson, Brownson, and the other Boston philosophers, which interest 
 resulted in our going to Brook Farm in the spring of 1842. I was merely a 
 boarder, having made an arrangement of half work, half pay. At Brook 
 Farm I made many of my best friends and tried all the asceticisms, the no 
 meat, the long hair, the loose dress, etc., but was not a proper member. I 
 left in the autumn of 1843 ; I returned to New York. But the country life 
 had become so fascinating that I was glad t5 run off to Concord with my 
 brother, in the following spring, and to pass a year there in a farmer s fam 
 ily, working hard upon the farm. It was during this year that I made 
 friends with Hawthorne, and that the club was formed at Emerson s, of 
 which I have spoken in the " American Authors." I knew also, here, 
 Alcott, Thoreau, and Ellery Channing, the poet. 
 
 The next year my brother and I rented a single room in a farmer s 
 house, and an acre of his land. We took the whole charge of the land, ma 
 nuring it, plowing, harrowing, and planting. As we had so little, we gave 
 it garden cultivation, and were well repaid. In the house we lived like 
 Essenes. I was on the edge of a wood, and the baker came every day. We 
 had no servant, and, as it was too much trouble to cook meat, I lived entirely 
 upon baked apples and milk, with bread and biscuit, and we had a royally 
 jolly and free time, except that our compassionate hostess would insist upon 
 occasionally thrusting in plates of meat and vegetables, but not often. I 
 grew fat and hearty during these months, and sent an occasional bit of verse 
 
288 G: w: CURTIS. 
 
 to the Harbinger, which was published by my Brook Farm friends. We 
 had a good many books, and I read a great deal. 
 
 The next summer we passed in Concord, but at the house of an old 
 Brook Farmer, whom we had known. In the winter I came home to New 
 York, and we agreed to go to Europe during the following year. Circum 
 stances detained my brother, but on the 1st day of August, 1846, 1 sailed for 
 Marseilles. 
 
 We arrived after a long, but beautiful, summer passage. I went, with 
 Cranch and his wife, who sailed with me, to Genoa and Leghorn, and thence 
 to Florence. The winter I passed in Rome, with my brother, who came 
 afterward ; the spring in Naples, the summer in Florence and Venice. I 
 was in Italy a little more than a year, then crossed into the Tyrol, and so 
 into Germany. At Berlin I passed the winter and was matriculated at the 
 university, where I attended several courses of lectures. 
 
 In the spring of 1848, when the French revolution broke out, I was in 
 Berlin, and saw the famous fight of the 18th of March, in the streets. I 
 wrote home an account of it, which Mr. Raymond, then editor of the Cour 
 ier and Enquirer, chanced to see and obtained for publication, and imme 
 diately requested me to correspond regularly with that paper. I was too 
 busy flying about Europe to promise to do so ; but I wrote a few letters for 
 him, which were published. 
 
 In the summer, in company with my brother and two others, I made a 
 genuine pedestrian tour of Switzerland ; in the winter to Paris, whence I 
 regularly corresponded with the Tribune. The next summer again into 
 Switzerland, where I met an old friend, who wished me to go to the East 
 with him for the winter. I had decided to pass the winter in Spain, but was 
 only too glad to visit the region of my dreams in the society of a friend. We 
 descended the Alps to Genoa, went along the coast to Leghorn and Florence, 
 thence to Civita Vecchia, and Rome, which was much changed from the 
 Rome I had left by the presence of the French, and, crossing over from 
 Naples to Palermo, travelled through Sicily, by Enna, to Catania; skirted 
 Mount Etna to Messina, and passed down to Malta. After a few days in 
 Malta we sailed for Alexandria, and left Cairo for the tour of Upper Egypt 
 and the Nile on the 22d of December, 1849. We reached Cairo, upon our 
 return, on the 26th of February, 1850, and the book was already written in 
 my mind. I kept a journal for some time, but relinquished it, and wrote 
 several of the chapters, just as they now stand in the book, but without any 
 regular sequence. 
 
G: w: CURTIS. 289 
 
 We crossed the desert and went to Jerusalem and Damascus, crossed 
 the Lebanon to Beyrout, and sailed for Malta in the early part of May, 1850. 
 I went to England and staid with a friend two months, and reached Boston, 
 upon my return, in August, 1850. 
 
 The following autumn I wrote " Nile Notes of an Howadji," which 
 were published in March, 1851. The book was issued by Bentley, under an 
 arrangement with my publishers, but with a changed/ title" Nile Notes by 
 a Traveller." He has since issued another and cheaper edition, and still 
 another has been published, with the true title, as one of Vitzitelly s cheap 
 series a shilling book, with a multitude of wood-cuts made for the work. 
 During the winter 1 was somewhat engaged with the Tribune. 
 
 In the summer of 1851 I went lotus-eating, and wrote letters, which 
 were published in the Tribune under the name of " Summer Notes of a 
 Howadji." They were written at the various spots. In the autumn I staid 
 in Providence and wrote " The Howadji in Syria," which was thus written 
 after the "Lotus-Eating." 
 
 The following winter I accepted an engagement on the Tribune, and 
 remained there five months. The most important things I did were the 
 critiques upon the Academy Exhibition. 
 
 The Howadji in Syria" was published in April, 1852, and during the 
 time I was connected with the Tribune I revised the summer letters, which 
 were exquisitely illustrated by my friend Kensett, and were published late 
 in the summer. " The Howadji in Syria" was issued in London by Bentley, 
 who again changed the title ( I know not by what right) and called it " The 
 Wanderer in Syria." He also published a pretty edition of the " Lotus- 
 Eating." 
 
 I left the Tribune on the 1st of July and passed the summer in New 
 port, and wrote only the four articles for Putnam s book [ " Homes of 
 American Authors" ] Bancroft, Longfellow, Emerson, and Hawthorne. 
 
 This autumn and winter I have been collecting and editing Downing s 
 contributions to the Horticulturist, and writing a preparatory memoir of 
 him ; writing for Putnam s Monthly, of which contributions thus far "Our 
 Best Society" has made the most stir, and am busy all the time in reading 
 and studying for a " Life of Mehemet Ali," which will be ready as soon as 
 possible. 
 
 Voila tout! and Shelley died when he was no older than I am. 
 
290 THE BOSTON BARD. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Herewith you have a copy of the book, sewed, being the first I 
 have myself been able to see. It has swelled, as you see, t5 420 pages, but I 
 am in hopes that its readers will not find it too long, presenting, as it does, a 
 sort of coup d oeil of the condition of man throughout a large portion of the 
 world. 
 
 You will find that I have almost everywhere taken my facts from 
 Englishmen, and among them all there is not one given on the authority of 
 men holding opinions similar to my own, while most of them are from peo 
 ple diametrically opposed to me. 
 
 There is one thing in relation to it to which I should be glad to call 
 your attention. To a considerable extent it will meet the approbation of our 
 friends of the Tribune, but that will be a reason why the Herald will be 
 likely to take the opposite side, which I should regret, as I am very anxious 
 the book should circulate among Southern men. This might be avoided, if 
 both Journals could be made to speak of it at the same time, and as you see 
 Dana constantly, you might readily so arrange it. Think of this. 
 
 You will find that I am not of either the slavery or anti-slavery party. 
 The latter are right in the object they desire to obtain, but totally wrong as 
 to the mode by which it is t5 be attained. The former are wrong as to their 
 object, but the fault is not with them, as I have desired to show. I am anx 
 ious that both should read, and while the Tribune can do much with one 
 party the Herald can do as much with the other, for which reason I should 
 be very glad to have it well noticed in both. . . Yours very truly, 
 
 H. C. Carey. 
 Burlington, Apr. 20, 1853. 
 
 Memphis, Tenn., May 30, 1853. 
 Eev. and Respected Sir. . . 
 
 I would suggest t5 you the collecting and editing of the works of 
 an American author of genius, and genius of the kind hardly to be surpass 
 ed by that of any other author our own country has produced, who is long 
 since dead, and whose works ever since have been "scattered to the four 
 winds." I refer t5 Coffin, the "Boston Bard." The only collection of any 
 of his works that I know of, was that of a small volume of his poems during 
 his life. What he wrote, (prose and poetry) was generally writte n for 
 magazines ; and has remained scattered ever since. He wrote some most 
 exquisite poetry, as you are probably aware. His " Sunrise of the Soul" is 
 
HOOKER ON GUIS WOLD. 291 
 
 one of the most beautiful poems in the language. His prose is equally fine. 
 His "Ruins of Time" and " Christ on Calvary" for beauty of diction and 
 sublimity of language are probably not to be surpassed in the language. . . 
 
 It is true that he was an inebriate, at least occasionally, and it was his 
 great misfortune, but so was Edgar A. Poe, and so, unfortunately, have 
 been other fine writers. . . Yours, etc., 
 
 John R. Howard. 
 
 P. S. I was mistaken in asserting that Coffin, the " Boston Bard " was 
 the author of " Ruins of Time" and " Christ on Calvary." In looking over 
 " Field s Scrap-Book I see that it was the " Milford Bard," who is the 
 author of these two splendid prose articles. . . 
 
 Washington, 27th July, 1853. 
 My dear Sir, . . . 
 
 The author of the North American article is a little puffed up 
 man, who has figured a good deal, lately, in New York circles, as an archae 
 ologist [according to the index, the author was Prof. Bowen, the editor] I 
 am informed that he was one of the firm of Squier & Chappell who were 
 tailors in Philadelphia about 1840. Yours most truly, 
 
 Henry R. Schoolcraft. 
 
 Mrs. Griswold, Dear Madam. . . 
 
 I have just seen in the Bulletin of this city, copied from a New 
 York Paper, a notice of the dangerous illness of your husband. 
 
 It is not, it seems as if it must not be, that Mr. Griswold is now t5 
 have his last trial. A great deal of sympathy is everywhere felt for him. 
 He has many friends : he has made his mark on the age : he has done more 
 important service to Literature and literary men than any other man that 
 lives, or has lived in the United States. He lived in, and cultivated the 
 largest range of American sympathy with heart always ready to make a 
 boast of every gift in his fellow countrymen that could be turned to any 
 account in promoting the general credit and welfare. He is the most re 
 markable man of the times for the number and efficiency of his services and 
 gratuities in behalf of obscure merit and struggling genius. In these and 
 [other ] ways too numerous for me to sketch he has enshrined himself in the 
 memory of genius. His monument will be as enduring as the best of the 
 works he has stamped with his approbation, and many will ever look t5 him 
 as the author and spring of all the aspiring and credit they have. . . 
 
292 PAULDING, FOSTER. 
 
 Desiring for you and him the best supports, I subscribe myself Your 
 and his earnest friend, 
 
 H[erman] Hooker. 
 Philadelphia, Aug. 10th, 1853. 
 
 Mr. Hooker was a publisher, chiefly for anglican authors. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 I send you [for the article in "Homes of American Authors" ] 
 a brief sketch of the scenery about us to accompany a view of my place, 
 with some few particulars, of which you may make what use you please, 
 either by leaving them where they are, incorporating them with the bio 
 graphical notice, or omitting them altogether. I have an insuperable disin 
 clination t5 writing about myself, except for the special gratification of my 
 friends, instead of the public which, I apprehend, feels little interest in my 
 character, habits or opinions; but have departed from my uniform course to 
 oblige Mr. Putnam and yourself. 
 
 I omitted to mention in its proper place that the name of Placentia 
 was given to my residence long ago by a former proprietor and has not been 
 changed. Yours very truly, 
 
 J. K. Paulding. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 Your letter respecting G. G. Foster does honor to your heart, 
 and I regret that the philanthropic plan you have proposed for his regener 
 ation is rendered impossible by the extent of his crimes. We have know 
 ledge of feur distinct forgeries of my name to notes of 350, 350, 350 and 250 
 dollars. Three of them have been cashed, at fearful sacrifices. 
 
 One of them is now in the hands of J. M. Smith, the newly elected Re 
 corder of New York. Foster has also forged three notes of the various 
 amounts of 850, 800 and 350 dollars, on Mr. Heyleman of Penna. 
 
 I am not his prosecutor, but a witness. He cannot escape the States 
 Prison, I fear. Yours very truly, 
 
 W. E. Burton. 
 Chambers St., Jan. 12, 1854. 
 
 New York, 28th Jan., 1854. 
 Dear James . . . 
 
 You did not send me " Mrs. Mo watt," but I have read it with 
 some disappointment. She might have put in so many entertaining remini- 
 
j. T: FIELDS. 293 
 
 scences of " the old days we remember." There are great passages in " Pas 
 sionflowers," but for the most part I agree with Whipple about the book. 
 Bryant, (who is sitting forme to Elliot) discoursed of it largely yesterday 
 in the main with approval. Tuckerman, you know, wrote the notices in 
 Eve. Post, Times, and Home Journal, and he has sent a long reviewal of it 
 t5 Simms, for the Southern Quarterly. [Theodore] Parker will attend t5 
 its celebration in the Westminster, I understand. Bryant says that it would 
 be " preposterous " that was his word to compare Mrs. Howe with Alice 
 Carey. He had been looking over " Lyra," &c. with admiration and sur 
 prise at its extraordinary beauties. . . Can t you order some copies of Mrs. 
 Hewitt s Poems, just printed by Lamport, Blakeman & Son? It is really a 
 charming book, full of the best love songs written by any woman in this 
 country. The edition is small only 500 and every cent of the proceeds, 
 except actual cost of production, goes to Mrs. H[ewitt] who needs money, 
 and is a most admirable woman. Yours, 
 
 R. W. G. 
 
 Boston, January 30, 1854. 
 My dear Rufus : 
 
 Many thanks for your kind letter, just handed me, warm and 
 hearty from your pen. It is now my intention to be with you this day week. 
 I intend, D. V., to leave here on Monday (Feb. 6) morning and arrive at 
 your door about 5 or 6 in the evening. Don t be blown up my dear fellow 
 about the time. If you do I shall not attempt N. Y. again. 
 
 Would you had been here last evening. We dined Geo. Curtis; and 
 the following order of gentlemen sat at table: [head] J. T. F.; [right] 
 H. W. L[ongfellow], Dwight, Parker (H. T. P. ), Hillard, Reed; [left] 
 W. D. Ticknor, Curtis, Holmes, Whipple, Parsons, Giles [foot]. It seems 
 to me we had a good time, very. The dinner being given by W. D. 
 T[icknor] & Co., I was obliged to preside. I am nothing at such things, 
 being of a serious turn of mind, but I got on after the oysters and hock not 
 disgracefully. E. P. W. was glorious and Giles rampant. Hillard, genial as 
 an Italian afternoon, discoursed of all he had seen and known. Curtis was 
 fine and silvery ; Holmes balmy and golden. Longfellow was only kept from 
 another Evangeline by the potent spells of a bottle of sherry which he held 
 flowing before him. Rufus ! thou shoulds t have been there ! 
 
 But all these things we will prate of next week when we sit face t5 
 
294 G: G. FOSTER. 
 
 face. I write now in great haste. With best regards to Mrs. Griswold and 
 all friends, Yours always most sincerely, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Moyamensing Prison, Feb. 20, 1854. 
 My dear Griswold 
 
 It is only today, through Dudley Bean, that I heard of your 
 magnanimous offer to assist me in my strait. His visit to my cell, and your 
 kindness, are all the gleam of sunshine that has visited me, from all those 
 who were once my friends. My wife my only real, legal wife, and the 
 noblest and most devoted of God s creatures has come on to New York, to 
 see what can be done. I beg you to see her, and hear her explanation of my 
 situation. A very small sum of money would probably save me, and com 
 pletely change my destiny. I have resources from which I could soon repay 
 it, if I were once free from this place. I had not thought of making any 
 application to you, least of all, who I know have cause of unkind feeling to 
 me ; but as the remembrances of our childhood seem to still hold a place in 
 your heart, I venture to appeal to them. Listen to my wife, and do what 
 you can, and what your heart prompts. Your friend of many years, 
 
 G. G. Foster. 
 
 New York, 20th May, 1854. 
 Dear James : 
 
 I have been very ill since you were here and am now just "get 
 ting about" again. For four weeks I was unable to leave my room. Now, 
 the only position in which I can write, on account of the pain in my side, is 
 that of kneeling beside the table. In this way I have succeeded in writing a 
 couple of hours today, and nearly as long on Friday and Saturday. 
 
 Dr. Francis told me last evening that Duyckinck s project of a cheap 
 one vol. abridgement of my [books on] American Literature was viewed 
 by all the literary men as a very small business. A friend from whom I get 
 at the clique s secrets told me a few days ago that Whipple was also to suffer 
 largely from this pilfering. Scribner has bought and had bound from them 
 a complete set of [ Whipple s contributions to?] Graham s Magazine. . . 
 
 Yours, 
 
 E. W. G. 
 
F: w: THOMAS. 295 
 
 Idlewild, June 1854. 
 My dear Sir, . . . 
 
 I fear I have nothing relative to Poe, or by him, relative to my 
 self. I preserve nothing. Finding the present hour always more than I 
 have attention for, I get rid of all that is past as expeditiously as memory 
 will allow. My father, who was here a week ago, gave me some curious 
 facts as to our descent from Puritan clergymen, etc., etc., and these I will 
 shape for you, when my eyes are better. As to Marryat the facts were 
 always correctly stated, I believe, and that is all that is important. Any 
 particulars of the matter, I would give you with pleasure. Too blind t5 
 write more, I remain Yours truly, 
 
 N. P. Willis. 
 
 Jubilee College, Robins Nest Post Office, Illinois, June 1st, 1854. 
 Dear Sir ... 
 
 I have a good many very interesting letters from Poe. Interest 
 ing as expressive of his feelings and struggles rather than of his opinions. 
 Poor fellow ! some of them written when he was in hopes of obtaining an 
 office in th*e Custom House, Philadelphia ; which the powers that then were 
 had promised his friends for him. Some of those letters are in Cincinnati, 
 some here. By what time do you want them? Of course there are portions 
 of them which I ought not to permit to be published, but they certainly pre 
 sent him in a favorable light the letters vary. . . 
 
 I am at present occupying the chair of Rhetoric in Jubilee College, and 
 am preparing myself, in connection with it, to take orders in the Episcopal 
 church, which I expect to do in the fall or spring. I would write -a sketch 
 of Poe but don t feel like it now I may do it hereafter. 
 
 Will you do me a favor? Last November I sent to Putnam for his 
 Magazine an article entitled " How I came to be displaced, and what was the 
 result." . . . Now, I think the article one of my best it was descriptive of 
 life in Washington City. At any rate I would not 15se it. I have no copy 
 of it. Will you be so kind as to call upon Putnam and get the MS. for me? . . . 
 
 Can you tell me anything of Charles Fenno Hoffman? I was with him 
 in Washington when this last visitation fell upon him. How I pitied him. . . 
 
 I am truly your friend, 
 
 F. W. Thomas. 
 
296 POE AND THOMAS. 
 
 Boston, July 21, 1854. Mercury at 365 in the shade, 1365 in the sun. 
 My dear Ruf us : 
 
 I am just putting my last dry dickey into my carpet-bag prior to 
 a run t5 the seaside for 24 hours. Here is your kind note of yesterday and 
 I hasten to say " Glad to hear you are better and that hot weather agrees 
 with you. Alice Carey s Clovernook Children is the hands of the stereo- 
 typers and too far advanced for alteration. Don t send Leland s Bk. We 
 have too much on hand to think of opening our eyes on anything more. D5 
 you like my lines in Clarke s Bk? And shall I send an engraved head to 
 accompany them? This question is nonsense, of course, as I have no copy 
 of my phiz that I would like to be engraved. Stick to cod-liver oil. I know 
 several cases where it has done wonders. 
 
 On Wednesday I am to poetize at Dartmouth. Pity me. I am melt 
 ing but I am always 
 
 Yours, Dear Rufus, 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Boston, August 11, 1854. 
 My dear Rufus . . . 
 
 Nothing new here. All our friends are away and scarce a famil 
 iar face dodges in at the Corner to say " How are you?" or " God bless you." 
 I saw [ R : B. ] Kimball at Hanover. He is a fine fellow all over and full of 
 good things. He spoke of you fraternally and affectionately. 
 
 Smith is engraving my phiz ! We hit upon a portrait which is consid 
 ered so good that people know it. Will it be wanted for Clarke s Bk? Let 
 me know. Yours always, my dear R. W. G., 
 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Jubilee College, August 22d, 1854. 
 My dear Sir ... 
 
 In looking over the letters I found so many comments upon men 
 and things personal to Poe and myself, and which I could not with delicacy 
 publish that I did not know what at first to do. I however have made a 
 selection of the least objectional ones (for Poe wrote to me pretty much as 
 he felt and had a great deal to say about individuals ) and the most charac 
 teristic. You have the cream of the letters. I several times took up my 
 pen to write you an article upon Poe, but I found that I could not do it to 
 my satisfaction. I have appended two or three explanatory notes to the 
 letters which, as you please, you can publish or not, or make just such use 
 
J. H. INGRAHAM. 297 
 
 of them as suits you. If there is anything in the letters about which you 
 wish any explanation let me know. . . You ask me if you should say any 
 thing about [J. H. ] Ingraham, as to his defects, etc. Ingraham and I in 
 our literary career were very great friends he once acted towards me 
 badly, but he was sorry for it afterwards and I forgave him long ago. I like 
 Ingraham. He has talents ( genius rather if you make a distinction ) and I 
 think will be of great usefulness in the church. Some of his books are capi 
 tal "The Southwest, by a Yankee," for instance. A man s bad works, in 
 the literary or any other line, being repented of, are forgiven by the higher 
 power; and if he shows his true repentance by emendation and example 
 (and particularly, like Ingraham, by putting on the armour of the Christian 
 soldier) we should try to forget them. So I agree with what you say of 
 speaking personally kind of him, and so deal gently with him in all re 
 gards. . . Very truly yours, 
 
 F. W. Thomas. 
 
 Ellicott s Mills, Sept. 29, 1854. 
 My dear Sir 
 
 It was a sincere gratification to me to see your handwriting once 
 more in a letter. . . I wrote a- note to Mrs. MacTavish, the daughter of Mrs. 
 Caton, for the information you desired, and I now enclose you her letter 
 [not found]. I have said to her in badinage that as Mrs. Carroll was not 
 yet off the stage she might not wish to be set down as of the Washington 
 era 15 which in truth she does not belong. She was Henrietta Chew, a 
 younger sister of Mrs. John Eager Howard of Baltimore. Her husband was 
 Charles Carroll, son of the signer and brother of Mrs. Caton, and Mrs. Rob 
 ert Goodloe Harper of course the uncle of Lady Wellesley, the Duchess of 
 Leeds and Lady Stafford the three sisters who married in England. Mrs. 
 MacTavish is another sister of theirs. 
 
 Charles Carroll died before his father, leaving the present Charles 
 Carroll, the heir of Doughoregan Manor ( the old residence of the Signer on 
 Elk Ridge about five miles from here. ) Charles is the only son of Charles 
 the 2nd. He has several sisters, Mrs. Bayard of Philadelphia, Mrs. John 
 Lee of this state, Mrs. Jackson, and Mrs. Tucker, who is dead. These are 
 the children of the Henrietta whose portrait you sent me. She was married 
 to Charles Carroll on the 17th of July 1800. I suppose under 20 years of age 
 at that time. She is still living in Philadelphia with her daughter Mrs. Bay 
 ard, I believe. 
 
298 ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
 
 This is all I suppose you wish to know. If you desire more, Charles 
 Carroll is my neighbor and would doubtless tell me anything of his mother 
 you might require to know. 
 
 I shall take great pleasure in your book when it sees the light. With 
 the kindest remembrances and regard, Very truly yours, 
 
 J. P. Kennedy. 
 
 Moyamensing, March 12, 1855. 
 Sir- 
 There was a time when I should have dared to write, " my dear 
 Griswold " there was a time when what I am going humbly to beg, as a 
 last mercy to a broken-hearted, helpless and friendless human being, I 
 should have boldly claimed of my friend the companion of my boyhood 
 the brother, whose thoughts, feelings and interests were my own. That has 
 all gone by. I am now nothing but a poor creature standing on the verge of 
 destruction. I am come, therefore, to make a last plea for my life for it is 
 my life I am about to ask of you : and I have only to show you how you can 
 save me, and then to leave my fate in your hands. 
 
 The two notes upon which the accusation against me is founded, have 
 been provided for as follows : the one in New York by an assignment of my 
 wife s copyright of her book, the " Ins and Outs of Paris," of which I en 
 close the announcement,) the publisher having assured the negotiator of the 
 New York note, of the validity of the security for the amount of the claim. 
 For the $140 claim against me here, I have assigned the copyright of my 
 " Philadelphia by Gas-Light," which abundantly covers it. 
 
 And now for my request. I can get bail, and leave my prison, for 
 $200 not for a dollar less. Will you help me?" Yours, 
 
 G. G. Foster. 
 
 Dr. T : Dunn English writes me that Griswold s efforts in 
 behalf of Foster wer successful. He died 16 April 1856. 
 
 May 27th [1855.] 
 
 Mrs. Hamilton s compliments to Mr. Griswold and requests 
 him, if agreeable, to get from the person the statement that was made re 
 specting the opening of General Hamilton s drawers and examining his 
 papers [;] also the names of the persons who employed him. This commun 
 ication is for myself, not for the newspapers, so that he may not have any 
 scruples. With great regard, 
 
 Eliz th Hamilton. 
 
NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. 299 
 
 Excuse the writing for I am near ninety. Direct to Mrs. General 
 Hamilton near Dobbs Ferry. 
 
 Portsmouth, N. H., Dec. 8, 1855. 
 My dear Sir ... 
 
 I am sorry to say that it is out of my power to offer anything like 
 an adequate compensation for such an article as you would furnish. My 
 publishers pay my contributors at the rate of one dollar per page of original 
 matter. Were I deriving any actual income from the review, I should add 
 for articles such as you propose something approaching a quantum meruit; 
 but my arrangements are such that, though with the hope of ultimate profit, 
 debt and embarrassment are my only editorial revenue for the present. 
 I am, my dear Sir, Very sincerely yours, 
 
 A. P. Peabody. 
 
 Boston, Mass., June 8, 1855. 
 My Dear Sir ... 
 
 Let ,me take this opportunity to remind you that one of the 
 poems which you have published as mine, beginning "It touched the earth" 
 was written by a person of far greater poetic power the late Mrs. Dr. 
 Hooper of this city a lady whose verses, if they could be printed, would be 
 seen to equal in their peculiar beauty almost anything we have from 
 woman s pen. Very truly yours, 
 
 Jas. Freeman Clarke. 
 
 Riverside, 31 July, 1855. 
 Dear Dr. Griswold : 
 
 Sir Walter Scott used to say that the happiest moment of his life 
 was when he put his feet under his son s " mahogany ;" I think I am hap 
 pier in sending you some of Willie s verses. He has it in him. But he is 
 hard at pastoral work, and does not cultivate that gift. 
 
 Your faithful friend, 
 
 G. W. Doane. 
 
 Mayor s Office, Philadelphia, Aug. 4, 1855. 
 My dear Doctor- 
 Do not believe me so seriously in default as I seem to be. Un 
 able, from my official engagements, t5 hunt up the No. of Graham that we 
 are in quest of, I have set not less than half dozen of my men a strange 
 police duty ! in search of it. Their reports give evidence of what lawyers 
 
300 GRISWOLD S PARTIALITY. 
 
 call a " due and diligent search.," but I have not yet secured it. I have, 
 however, ascertained positively that I will be able to send it to you on 
 Monday. . . 
 
 I have been strangely unfortunate in my sincere wish to show you 
 some attention while in the City. My family at our Country place, my house 
 closed, and myself a sort of official vagabond, living as best I may, I have 
 not been able to extend to you the hospitality which my feelings so sincerely 
 prompt. You will, I am sure, appreciate these unfortunate disabilities, and 
 " bide your time." . . . 
 
 Very truly yours, 
 
 R. T. Conrad. 
 
 Philadelphia, Nov. 8, 1855. 
 E. W. Griswold, Dear Sir, 
 
 I was surprised in looking over your last edition of the " Poets 
 and Poetry of America," to find my name, which had been noticed in a 
 former edition, entirely excluded from this. 
 
 Of this omission I suppose I have no right to complain, as I did not 
 ask you for a niche in your "Temple of Fame," though if my memory 
 serves me, I handed you a volume of my poems. 
 
 Perhaps I have been too modest. I certainly never begged the honor, 
 or claimed it as a right : and yet I feel that an Author who has been favor 
 ably noticed by the press, both in England and America; some of whose 
 poems have become as familiar as Household words, and may be found in 
 the school Books of both countries ; and in almost every catalogue of music, 
 deserved that much consideration at the hands of an American in the land 
 that gave him birth. 
 
 As you are doubtless aware of the popularity of some of my poems, 
 will you be kind enough to inform me why I have been treated with appar 
 ent neglect, as I am not conscious of having ever wronged you in thought, 
 word or deed. Very Respectfully, 
 
 David Bates. 
 
 Boston, November 12, 1855. 
 Dear Rufus. . . 
 
 I have only today learned the real reason why my notice has not 
 appeared in the Transcript. It seems the Correspondent of the Transcript 
 itself is an American Poet who does not like your notice of him and so 
 Haskell has been instructed by him to be chary of praise in noticing the new 
 Ed. I told H. today what I thought of the matter and he is now consider- 
 
C: G. LELAND. 301 
 
 ing whether he will print my notice or no. I dare say if he does he will add 
 something of his own which neither you or I will like. At any rate Haskell 
 knows he will offend me if he says aught disparaging to you. 
 
 In haste, Yours always, 
 J. T. F[ields]. 
 
 Office Evening Bulletin, [Philadelphia] Monday, Nov. 26, 1855. 
 Dear Sir 
 
 I am right down vexed at your letter real grieved . I can not 
 help admitting the justice and truth of your remarks, and as you know better 
 than I how these things work, have very poutingly done as you requested. 
 The fact is that I never thought of anything but of trying to show as well as 
 I could my thankfulness for the great kindness which you have shown me 
 not only in "Meister Karl" but in a great many other things. And I men 
 tioned in the dedication that you had been the first to notice it and the first 
 to recommend it, because I thought that it would look as if I had some grati 
 tude, and also I must admit because I thought that if the public could see 
 that you had taken such an interest in it, it would help it along. I suppose 
 it s all right, but for all that I wish that the public or "folks" would see 
 things as I mean them. For I meant the dedication kindly and I worded it 
 so as to show that I had an appreciation of what you had done for the book ; 
 and finally I don t believe that anybody who knows me will accuse me of 
 any but " straight out" motives, and finally I don t believe that anybody but 
 those who know me personally will buy the book any way. I don t believe 
 it s going to have such a h 1 of a sale ( begging your pardon) particularly 
 since you ve knocked that dedication out of it, which was one of the main 
 pillars. It s some comfort anyhow to know that the only way of getting it 
 out is to tear it out, for I am cock-sure that the whole edition is printed by 
 now. That ll bother somebody, and make them swear. As for dedicating 
 it to anybody else it shan t be done. Nobody ever did so much for it, and 
 if it can t be dedicated to you why a blank silence must express my ideas. . . 
 If, on mature deliberation, you have come to the conclusion that Meister 
 Karl s Book is a little too rowdy and slangy, you needn t be afraid to say so. 
 It was for that reason that my brother has frequently begged me not to put 
 my own name to it. I ll bet a hat that if we were in conversation you would 
 own that to be the true reason, and that on mature reflection you have be 
 come terrified at hearing such a profane affair nailed t5 your name. . . 
 
 Yours very truly, 
 
 C. G. Lelaud. 
 
302 PHCEBE CARY. 
 
 Bangor, Dec. 22, 1855. 
 Dear Fields : 
 
 I did not suspect, when reading the Traveller s paragraph about 
 Hiawatha, that it was to produce any serious consequences to myself. You 
 have however seen the Tribune s brutal attack upon me, in an article on the 
 controversies educed by the great epic. Nothing more groundless, more 
 entirely unprovoked, ever appeared in print. I do not know I never 
 gaw Mason and Brothers ; and I have no recollection of ever having seen 
 Mr. Underwood, though it is possible that I have at some time been intro 
 duced to him when calling at Phillips and Sampson s. I never expressed or 
 felt any dissatisfaction at Ripley s notices of my own books ; I have never 
 accused him of venality ; and though I have regarded his connections with 
 Harpers, Derby, etc., as in some sort a disqualification for his office in the 
 Tribune, I have never said so except as I have assented, now and then to 
 observations on the subject by other parties. I believed Ripley was friendly 
 to me, as I was to him and never was more astounded than by his wanton 
 and malevolent libel. . . 
 
 K. W. G. 
 
 New York, Dec. 23rd, 55. 
 My dear Friend : 
 
 Though I have always yet failed to interest you personally when 
 here, and surrounded by friends, yet in your now comparative exile I have 
 sometimes thought that you might send " a wish or a thought after me," and 
 remembering my feelinks, even welcome a letter if not too tedious; and 
 upon this supposition I have acted tonight. The weather is so warm here 
 that I am now sitting without fire, and it has scarcely been colder yet. Alice 
 and Elmira, who are both well, have gone out, and my beau (of course I 
 wish you to think I have one ) has not yet come, so I am " alone in my 
 glory," and should much better like to have you here than be using this mis 
 erable apology for talking. . . 
 
 Of course you have heard of Osgood s [S. S. Osgood, the husband of 
 the poet] marriage. Do you know the age of the lady? You have doubtless 
 seen more of the quarreling between the editors and publishers than I have, 
 and the very unfair manner in which you were treated in the Tribune. I 
 expect you let " your angry passions rise." Did you see the criticism on 
 Duganne in the last Putnam, and the various opinions of Hiawatha? . . . 
 
 Your friend always, 
 
 Phoebe Gary. 
 
THACKERAY AND GRISWOLD. 303 
 
 During Thackeray s second visit t6 this country occurred an 
 incident which has been written about to an extent out of all 
 proportion t6 its importance. Mr. J : H. Ingram thus de 
 scribes it : " Thackeray, having pr6ved him a liar, told him 
 so publicly, and would not touch his proffered hand ; while 
 Dickens convicted him of fraud, and made his employers pay 
 for it." 
 
 Mr. Ingram s statement, as regards Dickens, appears to 
 have been founded on an anecdote told by G : P. Putnam t6 
 this effect : an agent was sent t6 secure for " The International 
 Magazine" advance sheets of a novel by Dickens. The Har 
 pers also sent an agent, and their man, understanding his bus 
 iness better, went t6 the author, while his rival wasted time in 
 trying t6 negotiate throu his publishers. The result of the 
 failure of the " International" people was that their magazine 
 was stopped. 
 
 Mr. R : B. Kimball ( in The Brooklyn Magazine, Oct. 1884) , 
 narrates the Thackeray anecdote more in detail : " While I 
 was enjoying a conversation with Thackeray ... at the Put 
 nam reception, in company with several ladies and gentlemen, 
 the conversation touching mainly upon the merits of American 
 and English literature . . . Mr. Putnam advanced, bringing 
 Doctor Griswold with him, wh6m he introduced to Thackeray. 
 The great English novelist, after acknowledging the introduc 
 tion with a certain degree of courtesy, drew himself up t6 his 
 full height, and, with an air of self-consciousness, exclaimed : 
 Doctor Griswold, I am told that you say I am a snob. Tell 
 me, d6 I look like a snob? Not in the least discomposed, 
 Doctor Griswold looked his querist full in the face and replied 
 in his low, quiet tone : Mr. Thackeray, I have not as yet 
 printed my opinion of you. This little passage had the effect 
 of materially subsiding the conversation int6 which we had 
 entered, presently becoming only moderately agreeable, and 
 we all, I think, felt relieved when it was brought to a close. I 
 confess the incident left its disagreeable opinion of Thackeray 
 in my mind so far as a certain self-assumption and conceit 
 
304 THACKERAY AND GRISWOLD. 
 
 were concerned which a further acquaintance with him upon 
 subsequent occasions did not serve t6 remove." 
 
 Thackera} was a shining light, and Mr. Griswold, in com 
 parison, but a tallo-dip, but in respect t6 good manners there 
 was not a corresponding difference. This fact strikes one in 
 Mr. Putnam s version ( in Putnam s Magazine, Dec. 1869), of 
 the scene more than in Mr. Kimball s: "At one of the little 
 gatherings of bookmen, editors and artists at my house, Mr. 
 Thackeray was talking with a lady when Dr. Rufus W. Gris 
 wold came up and asked me t6 introduce him, which of course 
 was done. Thackeray bowed slightly, and went on talking t6 
 the lady. Presently, the Doctor having slipped away for the 
 moment, the novelist said to me, inquiringly, " That s Rufus, 
 is it?" "Yes, that s he." "He s been abusing me in the 
 Herald," pursued the satirist. " I ve a mind to charge him 
 with it." " By all means," I replied, " if you are sure he did 
 it." " Positive." So he stalked across t6 the corner where 
 Griswold stood, and I observed him looking down from his 
 six-foot elevation on t6 the Doctor s -bald head and glaring at 
 him in half-earnest anger through his glasses, while he pum- 
 meled him with his charge of the Herald articles. The Doctor, 
 after a while, escaping, quoted him thus : " Thackeray came 
 and said t6 me, Doctor, you ve been writing ugly things about 
 me in the Herald, you called me a SNOB ; do I look like a 
 SNOB? and he drew himself up and looked thunder-gusts at me." 
 
 Boston, Jan y 26, 1856. 
 Dr. Griswold, Dear Sir: 
 
 Permit me to recal to your remembrance our brief, but very 
 pleasant acquaintance some twenty years since in Calais, Maine. I was then 
 in the prime of life, and you a boy. "We have changed positions. I am in 
 my second childhood or near it, and have watched your steady and firm 
 growth expand till the whole nation takes note of it. " Non equidem in- 
 video, miror magis." 
 
 I have written a book called Wolfsden, and requested the Publishers 
 t6 send you a copy. If it has merit, your friendly judgment will d5 it more 
 
THE TUCKER FAMILY. 305 
 
 than justice. If it has none, you will receive it not the less kindly as an 
 expression of the continued respect and good will of an old friend who 
 would have done better if he could. 
 
 I shall be particularly pleased with a line of recognition from you. 
 My residence is at Oakdale, Mass., though I spend the winter in Boston. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 Daniel Mann. 
 
 Philadelphia, Feb. 7, 1856. 
 Dear Sir ... 
 
 The prose works of the late Judge Henry St. George Tucker are 
 1. Commentaries on the Laws of Virginia, 2 vols. 2. Lectures on Natural 
 Law, 12 mo. Besides numerous essays in the Journals and Periodicals of 
 the day. 
 
 Beverley Tucker, his brother, wrote : 1. George Balcombe, a novel, 
 2 vols. 2. The Partisan Leader, a novel. 3. A Treatise on the Constitu 
 tion of the U. S. 
 
 The works of G. Tucker : 1. Essays by a Citizen of Virginia on sub 
 jects of morals and national topics [ ?] 1822. 2. The Valley of Shenandoah. 
 Hastily written in two months while riding from court to court in Virginia, 
 1824. 3. Voyage to the Moon, 1827. 4. Life of Jefferson, 1837. 5. Pro 
 gress of the United States, 1843. Besides numerous contributions to peri 
 odicals in England and the U. S. 
 
 Both H. S. G. Tucker and his brother Beverley were Judges and both 
 natives of Virginia. . . I am very respectfully yours, 
 
 George Tucker. 
 
 Baltimore, Feb. 10, 1856. 
 My dear Sir ... 
 
 The book [ The Partisan Leader ] is not at all like Upshur, 
 who, though an abstractionist of the straitest sect, was of too temperate and 
 mild a constitution for such a dreary prophecy. . . With kind regards, 
 
 Very Truly, 
 
 J. P. Kennedy. 
 
 Feb. 13, 1856. 
 My dear Griswold : 
 
 I have read your review of the [Duyckinck] Cyclopedia with 
 great interest, and admiration of your industrv, extensive knowledge, and 
 energy of style. It would be a great loss to our literature, and a great piece 
 
306 GRISWOLD ON DUYCKINCK. 
 
 of injustice to yourself t5 permit such a performance to perish in the col 
 umns of an ephemeral publication. By all means put it into book form. It 
 will be well received, and find a permanent place in our repertoire of learn 
 ing, which else will never know it. Put it at once in the printer s hands. 
 I only regret that you could not let me use it in the Times. 
 
 Most truly yours, 
 
 C. F. Briggs. 
 
 February 21st, 1856. 
 Dear Griswold : . . . 
 
 I saw your notice of the Encyclopedia in the Herald and I never 
 saw a more complete end made of anything. The fires of the last day could 
 not have made a cleaner work of destruction. Many have read it and admit 
 its incomparable ability and pure justice. It was known to be yours, be 
 cause known no other one could write it. It ought to be reduced to form 
 for a class book on Style, History, and Literature. My wife has preserved it 
 for reference in such like matters. If I was the author of the book I should 
 want to get into so little a place that no one could find me, or put my eyes 
 out, so that I could see no one. So much to be said justly of a book, and yet 
 that book generally paised by the editors of our papers ! ! ! . . . 
 
 Your friend truly, 
 
 H. Hooker. 
 
 New York, March 28, 1856. 
 My dear Doctor . . . 
 
 I congratulate you upon the termination of the proceedings to 
 which you refer. They, however, have not changed my opinions in any 
 respect, as you seem to more than insinuate in the note before me ! ... 
 
 [H. B.] Wallace has paid you a deserved and a delicate compliment in 
 the extract I have taken from his book, and it will shine upon you like a 
 star, when all the slanders that have assailed you have perished with their 
 authors and have been forgotten. . . 
 
 I remain, my dear Doctor, yours very truly, 
 
 Geo. P. Morris. 
 
 Philadelphia, Nov. 22, 56. 
 My dear Dr. Griswold . . . 
 
 We hope you may change your mind and write us a great book, 
 one that will make a fortune for you. We expect t5 pay Dr. Kane $50,000 
 
LAST DAYS. 307 
 
 on the first of January. We have offered Mr. Allibone $10,000 for his copy 
 right. We have 7,000 copies already ordered. Our first edition will be 
 10,000. With high esteem, Truly your obliged friend, 
 
 George W. Childs. 
 
 Boston, Jan. 26, 1857. 
 My dear Griswold, 
 
 I should have written you long ago, t5 ask after your health, but 
 during several months past, I have had a lame hand, which is still disabled. 
 Pray let me hear from you. It is an age since I was in New York, and I get 
 no account of you from any friend. No one thinks of you with more friend 
 ly interest than your ancient and very sincere correspondent and well 
 wisher, 
 
 J. T. Fields. 
 
 March 30th, 57. 
 Dear Doctor. 
 
 It was with the sincerest grief that I heard from Messrs. Dins- 
 more and Bean, as they passed through Philadelphia, that your health was so 
 very low. When I wrote you I had in fact no idea how sick you were and I 
 have since been grieved t5 think that you might possibly have found in my 
 letter something which seemed like out of time levity. 
 
 Dear Sir, I trust from my very heart and soul that this will find you 
 relieved or perhaps better. I wish that I could visit New York and see you. 
 You have, I know, many friends eager to aid you but I would gladly go on 
 anyhow if I thought that I could be of service t5 you. You have however 
 such miraculous vitality and have weathered so many severe attacks that I 
 continue to hope that with the warm weather you will be found going about, 
 all right or nearly so. 
 
 Possibly there may be something I could do for you in the literary 
 way, or in Graham. Perhaps you will only smile at the request but I am so 
 accustomed to make such offers and you have so often gratified me by giving 
 me some opportunity to oblige you that I cannot help doing it now. . . 
 
 Graham s Magazine is getting on slowly, very but still advancing. 
 I would like to be able t5 give all my time t5 it. I have found out that by 
 editing such an affair conscientiously and properly one can d5 a great deal 
 towards improving the tone and quality of popular writing that a literary 
 editor can in fact d5 as much as several schoolmasters, so far as teaching the 
 art of writing is concerned. It is really a matter of regret to see that so 
 
308 DEATH. 
 
 many editors seem to care so little for this, or in fact for anything but them 
 selves. Dear Doctor, I must conclude. I fear that you are too weak to 
 answer this, but I will write again when an opportunity of my sadly busy 
 life occurs. With sincerest and best regards, hoping that you will soon be 
 better, I remain Yours most respectfully, 
 
 Charles G. Leland. 
 
 Dr. Griswold died 27th August 1857. The event was thus 
 chronicled by Mr. Leland in Graham s Magazine : 
 
 " T6 the reader of our magazine his death is a matter of in 
 terest, since it was under his care and direction that it first 
 achieved a high literary tone and rank and acquired authority. 
 T6 us individually, the loss is that of one of our nearest and 
 dearest friends. . . . Few persons ever possessed warmer, more 
 enthusiastic or more steadily devoted friends ; and amid the 
 many trials, changes and darker days t6 which the life of the 
 purely literary man is so liable, Dr. Griswold never wanted 
 those wh6 pr6ved themselves most truly attached t6 him. As 
 a friend, no man ever exerted himself more than Dr. Griswold, 
 and it may be said with the utmost truthfulness that of the 
 many literary passages of arms in which he was engaged, a 
 striking proportion were inspired by a chivalrous and almost 
 incredible spirit of devotion to the interests of others. When 
 he thought it possible t6 aid a friend he would spare no exer 
 tion, and would d6 everything in the most unselfish and noble 
 spirit. The writer has had frequent and personal proof of 
 this, during the course of an intimacy of years, and can testify 
 t6 the remarkable earnestness with which Dr. Griswold was 
 wont t6 exert himself in benefiting a friend. 
 
 Few men ever lived wh6, t6 so truly kind a heart, t6 ease of 
 manner, conversational ability, and genial humor . . . added 
 such varied learning." 
 
I N D EX. 
 
 NAMES OF WRITERS OP LETTERS ARE PRINTED IN SMALL CAPITALS. 
 
 ALDRICH, C:, 280 
 Allibone, S. A., 307 
 Arthur, T. S., 143 
 Authors, memorials of, 203 
 
 , names, 239 
 
 , vanity, 126 
 
 in England, see Carlyle, Cook, 
 
 Lytton, Thackeray 
 
 in United-States [see Maga 
 zines, Literature], 161-63 
 
 , amenities, 173 
 
 , pay, 231 269 
 
 , women, "224 243 276 
 
 , New-England, 121 
 
 , New- York, 214 216 233 
 
 Philadelphia, 143 
 
 , Southern, 279 
 
 BAIRD, H:C., 245 
 
 BALM ANNO, E., 104 
 BATES, D :, 300 
 BEACH, S:B., 64 
 Benjamin, Park, 8 16-18 31 
 56 112 173 203 
 
 , LETTERS, 56 100 
 
 Bennett, Ja. G., 14 
 
 Beranger, 146 
 
 Bishops of anglican church, 164 284 
 
 Bogart, Miss, 214 216 
 
 Books, see Literary-Criticism 
 
 pay for, 110 
 
 , reprints of, 14 
 
 Boston Bard, 290 
 
 Miscellany, 97 112 205 
 
 Notion, 31 65 97 
 
 Transcript, 102 300 
 
 Bowe, O. A. [t, 20 March 1859] 62 
 
 , LETTERS, 16 19 21 23 24 
 
 BRIGGS, C:F:, 226 240 257 305 
 Brisbane, A., 53 56 
 Brook-Farm, 287 
 Brooks, Maria, 224 
 
 , LETTER, 148 
 
 Brown, C:B., 186 
 
 , James, 10 
 
 Bryant, W:C., 115; works, 50 
 
 , LETTERS, 158 282 
 
 Bulwer, SirH:, 258 
 Burke, Edmund, 229 
 Burleigh, W:H., 95 
 BURTON, W: E., 90 292 
 Butler, B : F., 47 
 Butler, M. B., 14 
 Byron, major, 47 
 CALHOUN, J: C., 222 
 California in 1849, 253 
 Canada, insurrection in, 18 
 CAREY & HART, 231-2 259 
 
 , H:C., 261 276 283-5 290 
 
 , Mathew, 68 
 
 CARLYLE, T:, 183 
 Carroll family, 297 
 CARY, ALICE, 239 249 261 269; 
 
 works, 278 
 , Phoebe, 279 
 
 , LETTER, 302 
 
 CHAPMAN, J:, 281 
 
 CHESEBRO, C., 264 
 
 CHILD, LYDIA M., 142 
 
 CHILDS, G:W., 306 
 
 Clark, L:G., 82 119 quoted, 63 
 
INDEX. 
 
 CLARKE, JA. F., 299 
 Clay, H :, 236 on slavery, 19 
 21-24 26 
 
 - , LETTERS, 21 238 
 
 College-graduates, Greeley on, 57-58 
 COLTON, G:H., 158 
 
 - , Walter, 276 
 
 - , LETTER, 262 
 
 Combe, G:, 30 
 
 Congdon, C: T., 215; quoted, 65 
 
 Conrad, R. T., H3 
 
 - , LETTER, 299 
 
 COOK, ELIZA, 156 
 195 
 190-97 
 114 269 
 
 277; 
 
 COOKE, J : E., 
 
 - , PH. P., 
 COOPER, JA. F., 
 
 works, 154 
 Copyright, 138; international, 178 
 
 183 222 241 
 CORWIN, T:, 237 
 Curtis, G:W:, 293 quoted, 74 
 
 - , LETTER, 286 
 Dana, R:H:, 118 
 Democratic Review, 123 
 Dial, 46 
 
 Dinnies, Anna P., 66 
 -- , LETTER, 154 
 Doane, G : W., 284 
 -- , LETTERS, 275 299 
 299 
 
 270 
 
 274 
 13 
 
 Duyckinck, E. A., works, 294 305-6 
 Ellet,E..F., 102 213 233 243-5 
 
 247 256 
 
 Elliott, J. D., 136 
 Emerson, R. W., 167 
 
 -- , LETTER, 98 
 
 English, T: D., 51 quoted, 89 
 
 122 198 
 
 EVEREST, C:W., 27 
 Fairchild, S. L., 143 
 Falconer, W., 59 
 Felton, C. C., quoted, 176 
 
 DOANE, W:C., 
 
 - , LETTER, 
 
 Draper, Lyman C. 
 DUANE, W:J:, 
 
 FIELDS, JA. T:, 94 97 103 
 142 151 159 172 219 
 230 235 242 248 250 
 268 276 
 
 , wife, 160 172 250 260 276 
 
 Forster, J:, 151 
 
 Foster, G:G., 7 184 292 
 
 , LETTERS, 294 298 
 
 Fourierism, 53-6 
 
 Francis, J: W., 217 
 
 Freneau, Ph., 185 260 
 
 FULLER, HIRAM, 137 
 
 , Margaret, 163 166 203-4 
 
 208 224 
 
 Gaines,E. P., 232 
 
 GALLAGHER, W: D., 95 283 
 
 Gillespie, W:M., 217 
 
 GOBRIGHT, L. A., 145 
 
 Goodrich, S : G., 17 
 
 Gosse, Edwin, quoted, 89 
 
 Gove, M. . , 214 
 
 Graham, G:R., 36 134 282 
 
 , LETTERS, 106 134 
 
 Graham s Magazine, 36 117 119 
 
 126 138 307 
 Greeley, Horace, 6 22 24-6 28 38 
 
 51 63 quoted, 235 on socialism, 
 
 53 53 61 wife, 26 59 
 , LETTERS, 25 37-8 47-54 58 
 
 62 92 94 9 
 
 106-7 112 132 
 
 101-2 
 
 134 
 
 103-4 
 142 
 
 146 163 166 184 186-7 204 206 
 212 221 223 226 248 
 
 Greenwood, Grace, 269 
 
 Griswold,Rufus W., 5 10 14 
 20 in Vermont, 24 27 on 
 slavery, 16 21 in N.-Y., 29 
 recollections of, in 1840, 36 in 
 Phil a, 47 55 58 102 106 
 habits, 153 235 enemies, 
 199 248 268 death, 308 
 
 f wife, 15 19 125 
 
 , compilations of U.S. liter 
 ature, 23 87 92 221 223 
 246 248 291 partiality, 
 264-6 300 other works, 230- 
 
INDEX. 
 
 31 as editor of Graham s, 36 
 106 117 133 158 
 , opinion on of R. Balmanno, 
 
 103 of T: D.English, 89 of 
 J. L. Gilder, 89 of E. Gosse, 89 
 of H. Greeley, 51 of H. Hooker, 
 291 of J : H. Ingram, 91 158 
 262 303 of C : G. Leland, 281 308 
 of H: Morford, 36 of G: P. 
 Morris, 306 of F. . S. Osgood, 
 216 218 of E. A. Poe, 120-1 
 125 of R : H : Stoddard, 88 of 
 T: W. White, 47 of G: E: 
 Woodberry, 268 
 
 , LETTERS, 37 292 294 302 
 
 Griswold, S. P., 18 39 124 
 HAMILTON, MRS. ALEX., 298 
 Hammond, C :, 68 
 Harper & Bros., 14 
 Hawthorne, Julian, quoted, 207 
 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 257 268 
 
 , LETTERS, 144 280 
 
 Headley, J. T., 231-2 
 
 , LETTERS, 209-10 
 
 Hedge, F:H:, 113 
 
 HERBERT, H: W:, 70 125 128 
 
 HEWITT [STEBBINS], MARY E.,214 
 
 HILDRETH, R:, 261 
 
 HILLARD, G:S., 128 
 
 HIRST, H:B., 254 
 
 Hoffman, C:F., 37 66 72 74 
 
 104 250 295 
 
 , LETTERS, 104 129 138 
 
 144 149 153-4 160-1 166 
 185-6 189 202 
 HOLMES, OLIVER W., 146 220 
 HOOKER, HERMAN, 291 306 
 Hooper, mrs., 299 
 Hudson, H:N., 167 228 
 Ingraham, Joseph H., 225 297 
 Ingram, J : H., see Griswold 
 Inman, J :. quoted, 108 
 Irving, Washington, 114 
 
 , LETTER, 212 
 Izard, mrs., 270 
 James, G: P. R., 179 269 
 Janvier, F. de H., 152-3 
 
 Jefferson, T:, 259-61 
 Jones, W: A., 224 
 Kane, E. K., 306 
 Keese, J :, 36 
 
 KENNEDY, J: P., 203 222 297 305 
 
 Key, Fr. S., 160 
 
 Kimball, R: B., 281 296 303 
 
 Knickerbocker literature, 75 115 
 
 Magazine, 109 
 
 Lafontaine, 117 140 
 
 Lang, Andrew, quoted, 148 
 
 Legare, J. M., 52 
 
 LELAND, C:G., 282 285 301 307 
 
 Letters, preservation of, 295 
 
 Lewis, Estelle A., 252 
 
 Literary criticism 
 abusiv, 17 91 112 182 229 
 genial, 50 173 245-6 300 302 
 
 Literary World, 180 225 
 
 Literature [see Authors], original 
 ity in, 182 206 
 
 in United-States 
 
 English views of, 125 149 180 
 schools in, 75 115 182 206 
 
 LOCKE, JANE E., 264-6 
 
 Locke, R: A., 14 
 
 Longfellow, H:W., 100 103 151 
 203 250 302 
 
 , LETTER, 135 
 
 Lowell, Ja. R., 145 227 240 
 
 quoted, 151 
 
 Lynch [ Botta ] , Anne C., 213-17 256 
 LYTTON, LADY, 258 
 Magazines in U. S., 33 109 118 123 
 
 pay, 109 127-8 134-5 144 
 
 152 194 299 
 MANCUR, J. H., "" 127 
 Mann, Mr., 30 32 
 MANN, DANIEL, 304 
 Mathews, Cornelius, 91 176 180-82 
 
 224 229 
 
 , LETTER, 161 
 
 Meredith, J:H., 253 
 Mitchell, D. G., 272-4 
 
 , LETTER, 271 
 
 MOORE, FRANK, 253 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Morf o rd , H : , quoted . 36 
 Morris, G: P., 201 
 
 , LETTER, 306 
 
 MULCHINOCK, W. P., 270 
 
 Neal. J:, 160 172 
 
 , LETTERS, 167-72 
 
 NEAL, M. . , 203 
 Neale,J. C., 143 230 
 New-York, politics, 12 
 New-Yorker, 24 26 31 93 
 New World, 29 31 59 65 
 Newspapers in U. S. : 
 
 scandal in, 165 
 
 writers, 227 pay, 93 
 
 , Boston, 31 48 New 
 
 York, 152 164-5 PhiPa, 102 
 Nominations, machine for, 10 
 
 , Presidential, how to make, 26 
 
 North- American Review, 176 299 
 NORTON, ANDREWS, 162 
 Office-seeking, 61 
 Ohio, life in 1820, 116 
 Onderdonk, B:T., 164 167 
 Osgood,F..S., 134 216 259 
 
 , LETTER, 256 
 
 302 
 
 Osgood, S. S. 
 
 O SULLIVAN, J: L., 123 
 OTIS, J. A. G., 103 
 Page, W :, 240 
 Palmer, W. P., 137 
 Parker, Theodore, 95 189 
 PAULDING, J. K., 10 135 
 PEABODY, A. P., 299 
 Periodicals in 1835, 33 
 Perkins, J. H., 98 
 Persuasion, art of, 189 
 Peterson, C:J., 120-1 199 
 
 , LETTER, 152 
 
 Phelps, S. S., 233 
 
 Philadelphia, climate, 185 
 
 Pierpont, J:, 198 
 
 Pike, Albert, 71 
 
 Pioneer, 137 
 
 Pinkney, E: C., 97 
 
 Pinto, F. M., 179 
 
 Plagiarism, 247-8 269 
 
 Poe, Edgar A., 186 214 220 230 
 
 269 quoted, 118 121 217 
 as critic, 17 45 88 90-1 121 
 works, 200 Griswold s alleged 
 enmity to, 90 120 252 267-8 286 
 
 , opinions on, of Briggs, 
 
 267 ofColton,262 of Greeley, 
 249 of Harrington, 257 of 
 Osgood, 256 ofWilmer, 143 
 Poetry, U. S., works on, 50 51 60 
 246 pay for, 100 110 282 
 
 , parodies, 198 
 
 , macaronic, 199 
 
 Political-Economy in U. S., 187 
 Politics in U. S., 13 [see Nom 
 inations, Slavery, Whigs 
 Prophets in their own country, 261 
 Protection in U. S., 188 285 
 Putnam, G : P., quoted, 303-4 
 Raymond, H:J., 48 51 53 58 
 93 101 165 
 
 , LETTERS, 21 22 29 31 
 
 49 50 55 57 63 101 125 164 
 166 175 
 Roberts, G:, 48 65 
 
 Root, " Elder," 
 Sargent, Epes, 
 
 237 
 
 56 
 
 128 
 
 , LETTERS, 107 
 
 Sargent, J: O., 52 53 
 Saxe, J:G., 251 
 Schoolcraft, H : R., 291 
 Sealsfield, C:, 83 211 
 292 Sedgwick, Miss, 214 
 
 SEWARD, MARY L., 213 
 SIMMS, W:G., 77-86 
 
 , works, 177 179 181 
 
 Slavery agitation, 16 22 116 290 
 Smith, E. . Oakes, 66 129-32 144 224 
 Smith [Rose], miss, 152 
 Smyth, Albert H., quoted. 145 
 Soden,S. S., 113 
 Southern States, life of teacher in, 27 
 
 , literature of, 120-21 
 Southern Literary Messenger, 33-35 
 
 47 279 
 
 Squier, E. G., 291 
 Stansbury, E. A. [t, 4 nov. 1873] 
 
 27 32 
 
INDEX. 
 
 STEPHENS, MRS. A. . S., 133 
 Stevens, Thadeus, 30 52 
 Stoddard , R : H : , quoted , 33 88 
 
 92 214 268 
 Stone, W:L., 63 
 Sullivan, J: T. S., 253 
 Taylor, Bayard, 140-1 254 quoted, 40 
 
 , Zachary, 235 237-8 
 
 TENNY, A. G., 97 
 
 Tennyson, works, 113 
 
 Texas, war in, 39 125 
 
 Thackeray, 303 
 
 THOMAS, F:W:, 66 95 97 295-6 
 
 THOMPSON, J: E., 263 279 
 
 Thoreau,H:D:, 99 206-9 212-3 
 
 LETTER, 233 
 
 Transcendentalism, 46 
 Traveling in 1838, 19 
 Trent, W : P. , quoted , 86 
 TRUMBULL, J:, 8 
 Tucker family, 305 
 Tuckerman, H: T., 74 186 
 
 , LETTERS, 66 113 
 
 Tyler, Robert, 98 
 
 United-States, English views of, 150 
 
 VAN BIBBER, T: E., 160 
 
 Van Buren, M., 237 
 
 Van Ness, C. P., 28 
 
 Vergennes, 20 
 
 Verplanck, G. C., 52 
 
 Very, Jones, 98 
 
 Vestiges of Creation, 166 
 
 VICTOR, O. J., 243 
 
 WALLACE, HORACE B., 245 260 
 
 Webb, Ja. Watson, 53 
 
 Webster, Daniel, 229 
 
 Weed, Theodore, 21 quoted, 53 61 
 
 Welby, Amelia, 66 155 
 
 Westminster Review, 281 
 
 Whig party, 23 
 
 Whipple, Edwin P., 172 235 
 
 LETTERS, 204 224 227-9 233 
 Whitman, Sarah H., 248 256 
 White, R : Grant, 186 203 
 , T:W., 33 
 
 , LETTERS, 35 38 47 
 
 93 96 100-1 105 
 Whittier, J: Greenleaf, 30 201 
 
 , LETTERS, 266 278 
 
 WILDE, R: H:, 97 137 
 Willis, Nathaniel P., 75 108 127 
 
 164-66 213 215 quoted, 109 126 
 
 165 
 
 , LETTERS, 
 
 108 295 
 
 Wilmer, L. A., 143 
 
 Wolfsden, 304 
 
 Women in journalism, 111 
 
 poets, 112 
 
 Words, incorrect use, 38 
 WRIGHT, ELIZUR, 115 139 
 
Passages from tlie Correspondence and Other Papers of Rufus 
 W. Oriswold. Cambridge, Mass.: W. M. Griswold. 
 1898. Price $2., postpaid. 
 
 Apart from the merit of his work, his [Griswold s] position 
 as the Rhadamanthus of contemporary poetic ambitions, then 
 perhaps more numerous even than now, made him the centre 
 of much correspondence, and resulted in his papers becoming 
 the repository of an unusual amount of literary information 
 about books and their authors, biographical data at first hand, 
 and other matters of transitory nature, such that this selec 
 tion from them by his son is well described in the prefatory 
 note as the " small-talk of authors and journalists of fifty 
 years ago." The volume . . . contains a more vivid and 
 more intimate view of the atmosphere and state of literature 
 in the early manhood of our more important writers, as they 
 proved to be, than is elsewhere to be obtained. 
 
 It is true that the world of letters depicted seems to have 
 little to do with Longfellow, Lowell, and Hawthorne. . . . 
 It is the world of the magazines and journals and their brief 
 and flimsy reputations, of coteries and circles in the city and 
 visita.nts from the Southwest and the Illinois prairies the 
 world which seems now more malicious and now more humor 
 ous, but which was the environment, in taste, feeling, and 
 culture, of the pursuit of letters here for a generation. The 
 talk is " small-talk "; and the names of the speakers come like 
 faint echoes of a " ruined Paradise." . . . But, after all, 
 though humorous surprise will intrude upon the reader, there 
 is a great deal of reality in this literary past. . . . Boston is 
 sketched out a bit by Fields, who contributes to the volume 
 two familiar epistles in verse to " Kufe," as the great editor 
 is companionably called (or " Gris ") throughout by his 
 friends. . . . The whole volume, it must be understood, 
 though thoroughly edited, is piecemeal in character; 
 and it is only by an extract here and there that one can in 
 dicate rapidly that vivid and intimate quality which has been 
 already mentioned as characterizing it and giving it salt. . . . 
 Though Griswold s personality is thus fully suggested, it can- 
 
not be said that he is particularly noticeable for imperfection 
 in comparison with the crowd upon the page. It would be 
 an interminable task were one to try to survey that crowd in 
 detail. Strange and wonderful persons abound in it, intel 
 lects manque and morals very much in the same deplorable 
 state, drivers is easily the first . . . The tribute of John 
 Esten Cooke to his brother Philip Pendleton is charming, 
 and George William Curtis s account of himself, ending 
 " Viola tout! and Shelley died when he was no older than 
 I am," is interesting; so is John NeaFs similar communi 
 cation. In the way of curious literature, those who remem 
 ber Poe s Valentine " to Mrs. Osgood in which he wove her 
 name into the verse, will read the similar effusion she ad 
 dressed to Griswold with a touch of surprise. It is an illus 
 trative document in regard to the literary group. . . . Mrs. 
 Osgood s letter showing her real relations with Poe will also 
 be found in the volume. But to draw to an end in this maze 
 of extraordinary and minute matter, enough has been shown 
 of the contents of the volume to impress any student of the 
 times on their literary or social side with its rare documentary 
 value. 
 
 Of the editor s work (except constructively) it is im 
 possible to speak too highly. He has done it thoroughly, 
 frankly, and with impenetrable justice; and he deserves the 
 credit of giving to us the most important, lasting, and illumi 
 nating work, outside of the biographies of our greater authors, 
 upon the literary annals of the nation in its days of nonage. 
 The Nation, 17 Nov. 1898. 
 
 This crown octavo of a few over three hundred pages is the 
 loyal effort of a son to honor the memory of a father. Hap 
 pily the present generation have nearly outlived the unpleas 
 ant times of the bitter controversies over the names of Gris- 
 wold, Ingram,* and Poe, though echoes of those times have 
 come down to us through the lips of Gill and Didier and 
 others, who, on one side or the other, have taken up the 
 cudgels of rhetoric for a friend or against a foe. . . 
 
 Coming to the contents, we will tell the reader . . . that in 
 it are collected about 318 letters, long and short, from about 
 
 * Mr. Ingram will be amused when he sees that a literary periodical sup 
 poses him to have been a contemporary of Griswold and Poe. W. M. G. 
 
123 different persons, fastened together by a mosaic of nar 
 rative, biographical statement, and illustrative citation from 
 numerous periodicals. Dr. Rufus W. Griswold was born in 
 1815 and died in 1857, and these letters run to the latter date 
 from 1835. They may therefore be said to relate to the liter 
 ary life of the middle third of the present century. That was 
 a time of high tide. Dr. Griswold had a wide acquaintance, 
 many friends, and extremely frank correspondents; and his 
 son seems to have had no compunctions at the printing of his 
 letters letters to him, not by him, for there are only oome 
 fourteen by him in the whole volume, and they are of slight 
 importance. His most productive correspondent is Horace 
 Greeley, who was then at the beginning of his career. Those 
 were the days of the founding of the New York Tribune. 
 Between forty and fifty letters from Greeley are given, and 
 some of them are such as must make the writer turn over in 
 his grave to think of their being in print. Henry J. Ray 
 mond, Greeley s comrade in the stony paths of early journal 
 ism, contributes thirteen letters to the collection; James T. 
 Fields and Charles Fenno Hoffman seventeen, Henry C. Carey 
 seven. The rest are very widely scattering. There are only .two 
 from Whittier, one from Longfellow, one each from Irving, 
 Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau. There are two each 
 from Henry Clay, H. T. Tuckerman, Wm. Gilmore Simms, 
 W. E. Burton, Cooper, Bryant, John and Mary Neal, Holmes, 
 Epes Sargent, Saxe and Willis. Charles F. Briggs has four; 
 Alice Gary, J. P. Kennedy, C. G. Leland, and F. W. Thomas 
 four each; James K. Paulding, C. R. Graham, A. S. Hart two 
 each; and the large number remaining are for the most part 
 single letters from an army of the comparatively obscure, 
 though there are some bright exceptions, such as Jonathan 
 Trumbull, Albert Pike, Tom Corwin, George S. Hillard, 
 George P. Morris, Andrews Norton, Carlyle, Calhoun, Lydia 
 Maria Child, Ann S. Stephens, Mrs. Ellet, and John Esten 
 Cooke. Many of these letters are all of what would be called 
 " racy reading." . . . Not a few afford glimpses and sugges 
 tions of, if they do not actually convey a taste of, the vulgarity, 
 the profaneness, the scurrility that infested even the selectest 
 circles. A few rise high above this level, and many contain 
 passages of real interest. . . . That the letters as a whole throw 
 much light upon the literary life of their time is not to be 
 
gainsaid. But it is not always an agreeable life to look upon. 
 We are taken into a good many backyards, where no little 
 dirty linen is being washed or is hanging up to dry; and we 
 learn that the authors and journalists of the former genera 
 tion were not always the cultivated, refined, and well-bred 
 gentlemen that their successors are supposed to be. It must 
 be that authors are sometimes to be found in undress, not to 
 say in dishabille; and such is their fate on more than one 
 page of this volume. It is a matter for thankfulness that 
 manners have improved. Here are reputations in the process 
 of the making, and others that to us are bright and unsullied, 
 spattered and sullied by the mire of jealousy and envy; here 
 are resurrections of names long buried and forgotten; here 
 are uncovered the foundations of enterprises long since aban 
 doned; here are data that have escaped the search of the dic 
 tionary makers and the compilers of literary histories. That 
 much of all this matter is interesting and some of it important 
 can be readily discerned. That much of it tends to present in 
 a favorable light the personalty and services of the elder Gris- 
 wold will be expected. . . . That the book as a whole, despite 
 its faults and imperfections, is a contribution of note to the 
 history of American literature all must admit. The secrets 
 of some dark corners of this field cannot be fully and exactly 
 written without reference to points which this book contains. 
 Literary World, 3 Sept. 1898. 
 
 [It is] Replete with matters of the first literary importance 
 to Americans. . . . From one cover to the other the work 
 abounds in the most fascinating revelations of the personali 
 ties which made up the American world of letters in the 
 forties and fifties; letters, notes, autobiographies, confessions, 
 self -laudations, wails of despairing and neglected geniuses 
 now forgotten, in brief, all the curiosities of literature which 
 the foremost critical writer of an interesting period might be 
 expected to accumulate during his life-time. Not letters 
 alone, but the early journalism is given us in what scientists 
 call " preparations " innumerable, notes from Greeley and 
 Raymond, and correspondence with half the magazine editors 
 in the country, the whole forming a collection quite without 
 parallel. The Dial, 1 Nov. 1898. 
 
UNIVE; 
 
 R 
 
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