^ 1)761 PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE Drake Memorial Celebration MAY 29, 1915 TOGETHER WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF DR. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE BY VICTOR HUGO PALTSITS NEW YORK THE BRONX SOCIETY OF ARTS AN. 1919 _..CES I PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE (Drake Memorial Celebration MAY 29, 1915 TOGETHER WITH A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF DR. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE BY VICTOR HUGO PALTSITS NEW YORK THE BRONX SOCIETY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES 1919 Four hundred separata reprinted from Tkansactions, Part 4, Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences Copyright, 1919, by The Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences PRCSt OP THf NKW ERA PRINTINQ COMPANY LAN0AS1CR. PA. ^ ^onifmxx l^xo^xnmmt ^ag 29% 1915 B^6 M543976 A TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF DR. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE THE BRONX POET ON THE NINETY-SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FIRST PUBLICATION OF HIS CHARACTERISTICALLY AMERICAN POEM THE AMERICAN FLAG GIVEN UNDER THE AUSPICES OF On Saturday, May 29th, 1915 DR. HENRY M. MacCRACKEN. President ALBERT E. DAVIS. Chairman of the Council DRAKE MEMORIAL COMMITTEE HON. VICTOR HUGO PALTSITS. Chairman DR. NATHANIEL L. BRITTON GEORGE E. STONEBRIDGE LITERARY EXERCISES In the MORRIS HIGH SCHOOL At Two O'clock 1. MUSIC — By the Morris High School Orchestra. 2. WELCOME— By Principal John H. Denbigh. 3. RESPONSE— By Rev. Dr. Henry M. MacCracken, President of The Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. 4. ADDRESS—" The Bronx in Drake's Time and To-day " — by the Hon. Douglas Mathewson, President of the Borough of The Bronx. 5. PAPER— "Drake as a Poet"— By Professor John Ers- kine, of the Department of English and Comparative Literature in Columbia University. 6. PAPER— "The Culprit Fay: A Criticism "—By Dean Archibald L. Bouton, of the College of Arts and Pure- Science of New York University. 7. SONG — "The American Flag"— words by Joseph Rod- man Drake, music especially composed for this occa- sion by Edwin S. Tracy, Director of Music in the Morris High School— Sung by One Hundred Pupils of the School, accompanied by the Morris High School Orchestra. 8. PAPER—" The Family of Drake "—By Charles de Kay, Esq., Author, Poet and Critic; grandson of Joseph Rod- man Drake. 9. MUSIC— By the Morris High School Orchestra. Automobiles have been provided for the Council and its Guests and others who have automobiles are invited to fall in line for the ride to Joseph Rodman Drake Park and Bronx Park, to witness the unveiling and other exercises. 6 UNVEILING EXERCISES JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE PARK, HUNTS POINT AT 4.15 O'CLOCK. 1. PAPER—" The Hunt Family and Hunts Point "—by the Hon. James L. Wells, Treasurer of the State of New York. 2. UNVEILING OF TABLET AT DRAKE'S GRAVE— By Miss Helena van Brugh de Kay, a Great-grand- daughter of the Poet. 3. ADDRESS of Acceptance of the Railing and Tablet on Behalf of the City of New York — by the Hon. Thomas W. Whittle, Park Commissioner of The Bronx. 4. NATIONAL SALUTE TO THE FLAG— By Battery E, Second Artillery, N. G., N. Y. Lieutenant Robert W. Marshall, commanding. Immediately after the conclusion of the Salute the auto- mobiles will proceed to Bronx Park. UNVEILING EXERCISES BRONX PARK GORGE BELOW THE OLD SNUFF MILL AT 5-15 O'CLOCK. 1. ADDRESS— By Mr. Albert E. Davis, Chairman of the Council. 2. READING OF DRAKE'S POEM " BRONX "—By the Hon. Victor Hugo Paltsits, Chairman of the ^Drake Memorial Committee. 3. UNVEILING OF TABLET— By Miss Sylvia de Kay, a Great-grand-daughter of the Poet. 4. ACCEPTANCE OF TABLET on behalf of the City of New York — By Commissioner Whittle. EXHIBITION OF WORKS BY AND RELATING TO DRAKE IN THE SOCIETY'S MUSEUM IN THE LORILLARD MANSION BRONX PARK PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS May 29, 191 5 The preceding programme, a pretty souvenir, was issued in an edition of one thousand copies for free distribution. The exercises were carried out as planned with no gaps and a few impromptu additions, as revealed in the following proceedings. For many years the grave of Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake had lain neglected and no adequate recognition was given his memory as an American poet — the first native poet of the city of New York whose writings continued to hold undiminished favor in the American literary pantheon. Time was when the grave was in jeopardy of obliteration by a street; but protests from a small number of wideawake citizens and editorial writers led to a cancellation of this unholy design and the perpetuation of the graveyard and abutting land as Joseph Rodman Drake Park, at Hunts Point. In the spring of 1906, when the preservation of the site was being considered by the city authorities, the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences co- operated actively and was represented at a hearing before the local board of Bronx Borough by a special committee consist- ing of Victor Hugo Paltsits and Charles W. Stoughton. By The American Flag Drake is a national poet; by his charming poem on the Bronx he is peculiarly our poet ; whilst The Culprit Fay belongs to the English-speaking peoples every- where. So it was most appropriate that his memory should be honored at home where his mortal remains had been interred. This duty the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences fulfilled after six months of untiring efforts by its Drake Memorial Committee and at an expense of more than six hundred dol- lars secured from its members and interested friends in Man- lO hattan and the Bronx ; particular thanks are due to the Board of Managers of the New York Botanical Garden who paid for the large bronze tablet and cost of erection in the gorge of Bronx Park on land in the jurisdiction of the Board. By a happy coincidence, the 96th anniversary of the first publication of The American Flag in the New York Evening Post fell on the eve of the day dedicated to the memory of the men who, in our Civil War, gave their lives that not one star should be lost from that flag. The exercises of Drake Me- morial Day began in the Morris High School at 2 125 P.M. The music under the direction of Director Tracy was very much enjoyed. Principal John H. Denbigh welcomed the Society and its guests, which was responded to by the Rev. Dr. Henry Mitchell MacCracken, President of the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. After paying tribute to the work of Albert E. Davis, chairman of the Council, and Victor Hugo Paltsits, Chairman of the Drake Memorial Committee, Dr. MacCracken said: The Bronx is the borough of parks and parkways. Out of its wealth of parks, exceeding four thousand acres, it estab- lishes one little park primarily to encircle forever and defend the resting-place of Joseph Rodman Drake. Not alone be- cause his ashes have lain here near one hundred years. Nor because, born in this city, he lived in this neighborhood a good portion of his brief life of only five and twenty years. But especially because here he meJt nature most lovingly. His form is buried, yet he lives here still as the voice of the natural world all around us. From the bank of yonder little river he sings of "my own romantic Bronx," "Thy face, more pleasant than the face of men; Thy waves are old companions. I shall see a well-remembered form in each old tree And hear a voice long-loved in thy wild minstrelsy." On my library shelf for half a century has stood his fairy tale of the great river which is in part the western boundary II of our Borough. I have read it again this week, a well- bound volume given my wife in her girlhood, with a hundred illustrations and more than a hundred well printed pages. It claims to tell the story of a culprit fay. But the real, the essential story, reveals that a youth but a little over twenty years of age, living here, had come to know nature in count- less beautiful forms, had communed with nature as living in each flower and varied leaf, in every winged thing in the air, every creeping thing in the earth, every swimming thing in the water, till each became alive with a fairy soul, or with a fairy tenant of the material shape which seemed ito him, as it were, a living soul. Upon another shelf of my library for near a half century have stood two larger volumes, printed in New York just sixty years ago, bearing the title "American Literature," by Duyckinck. This cyclopedia gives eleven or twelve of its closely printed columns to Joseph Rodman Drake. Nearly all of the space is devoted to telling of how this young man gave voice to nature. The little poem from which I have repeated only four lines furnishes, for nearly every one of its forty- eight lines, a subject for a picture which might be transferred by a skilful painter of landscapes to his canvas. Drake revealed himself more truly when he sang of nature than when he wrote of the flag of Amercia. His country was fighting Great Britain from the time he was seventeen till he was twenty, when the war ended with the Battle of New Orleans. Little of the imagery that is called forth by war, when judged by men who are not affected by temporary in- sanity, can be pronounced beautiful. Here was an ensign made of woven pieces of various colors and shapes, called the American flag. What is its real symbolism? Its thirteen stripes stand for the thirteen self-governing colonies on the Atlantic shore. The stars, however many, stand both for the States into which these were transformed and all the new States that were added thereto. The pure hearts required of their citizens are symbolized by the color of pure white; the 12 true hearts, by the color of blue; the living, throbbing, self- sacrificing hearts, by the color of red. That the States are represented as a constellation of stars was symbolic of the mission of our nation to the whole world. To the thoughtful mind, the true poet of our American flag has not yet shown himself. Both Francis Scott Key and Joseph Rodman Drake, a century ago, by reason of that bitter war with England, sing of the flag as if it were chiefly a war flag. Just as Key names " the rockets' red glare," " the bombs bursting in air," " the havoc of war," " the battle's confusion," "the blood washing out their foul footsteps' pollution." "the terror of fright," "the gleam of the grave," — so Drake, "the lightning lances driven, " " the thunder drum of heaven," " the sulphur smoke," "the battle stroke," "the life blood warm and wet," "dimming the glistening bayonet," "the gory sabres," and " the cannon mouthings." In Drake, as in Key, is successful rhythm, vivid imagery, and impressiveness. Just now, unhappily, we must remember that one part of what every flag may signify, even though it is waving over a schoolhouse, is brute violence as an argument that must be used when nothing else will do. What our flag ought to stand for, what some new poet needs to tell eloquently that it does stand for, above all else, is the white color for righteousness in every-day life; the blue, for faithfulness, of not only men, but loving women, in busi- ness or in the home ; the red, for a spirit of sacrifice, whether for God or for man. In closing, I think that some slight vision of this highest symbolism of the American flag is hinted by these four final lines of the poet whom we honor to-day : " Flag of the free hearts' hope and home, By angel hands to valor given," (valor, bear in mind, is effort for any good cause) " Thy stars have lit the welkin dome, And all thy hues were born in heaven." 13 Dr. MacCracken was followed by the Hon. Douglas Mathewson, President of the Borough of the Bronx, whose address follows: THE BRONX OF TODAY AND THE LAND IT WAS A HUNDRED YEARS AGO Before the world's first artists with crude materials made pictures that other men could see, other men saw pictures, colored by the light of their own dreams, that none could see exactly alike. Art has improved. With better materials, better training and the consequent superior technique, the painter, and indeed, the mechanical reproducer of scenes, pre- sent to the eye pictures which seem to tempt one into the un- rolling perspective which they hold, where the ancients pre- sented drawing in but one plane. Mental pictures still are much the same. They differ, perhaps, to everyone who con- jures them into being, even though there be the most gifted attempt to portray them in word painting. So it must be with us as we endeavor to bring within the ken of our mental vision the fair land of one hundred years ago that has now become The Bronx. Where teeming thou- sands of a population congested in many places, now go about their multitudinous ways of business and pleasure, few people then inhabited what was a truly rural area. What Jonas Bronck, nearly two centuries before, had described as this beautiful country, the land covered with virgin forest, and of unlimited opportunities, the veritable paradise that needed but the industrious hand of man to make it the finest and most beautiful region in all the world, had received, to only a limited extent, the care of man. But as there still may be seen in our parks and in those parts of the Borough to which we may still retire from the haunts where men do most congregate, beau- tiful hillsides, limpid streams, rolling meadows, glorious woods, — aye, forests almost primeval, so a hundred years ago could Nature in all her loveliness be seen all over our broad H miles, from where the waters of the Sound rippled on the east and south, to where the Hudson pursuing its course to the sea, rolled on the west. Men had arrived in but limited numbers; life was more leisurely. There was more time to enjoy and appreciate the beauties and the healthfulness and the content that was every- where when Nature was enjoying her calmer moods. When Nature was in her rougher moods, her very roughness com- pelled men to appreciate their own content and blessings about the firesides of the big old houses, if they would, because they would, and if they wouldn't, because they couldn't get awa)^ Where in this busy workday of ours, from the time that each returning day wakes us with the consciousness that we must hastily eat a morning meal, then to rush away and be hurtled, perhaps, through space, or perhaps through an ill-smelling underground cavern at the rate of forty miles an hour, to reach some objective point, maybe fifteen or twenty miles away in but little over an hour after we have risen, — then, the inhabitant of our land rose perhaps earlier in the morning than we do, serene and confident in the knowledge that there was no great haste, and no necessity for a speed which it is doubtful if he ever contemplated. If he had thought of it, he who lived here one hundred years ago v^ould have known that he was a long journey from the places that we count on reaching in sixty minutes or thereabouts. There was no crowding in all these forty square miles that are now ours,— there were probably not over 175 families with their dependents.— and withal there was probably not more than one settlement that amounted to the dignity of a village. The whistle of a locomotive had no more been heard than had the clang of a trolley car. But three means of locomotion were possible: by one's own exertion, through the propelling i)owcr of animals, and ov^r the water; and over the water, means of propulsion other than by human exertion or the winds, were not greatly used. Even roads were but few. \\ hc-n the traveler from lower Manhattan crossed the Coles 15 Bridge, about where the present Third Avenue Bridge stands, but one road lay before him, — Coles Road, now Third Avenue. If by this route the poet Drake was proceeding to Hunt's Point, he must have proceeded by this same road to where now, as in the old days, Westchester Avenue branches off to the right, then proceeded along that avenue to the old road which ran from West Farms to Hunt's Point, and then turn- ing sharply back, taken that road to the Leggett home. Partly over this same route, either by stage-coach or upon steeds, the traveler to Boston went, when he did not avail himself of the somewhat more leisurely but perhaps more comfortable method, of water craft, which favoring breezes sent on and unfavorable winds retarded as they moved along the waters of Long Island Sound. The Motts had not yet come to Mott Haven ; the Lorillards had not come to West Farms; the names of other families destined to become the foremost of the region, its leading citizens, and its benefactors, were as yet unknown. To him who in the love of Nature would hold communion with her various forms, old West Farms and Westchester, and indeed Morrisania and Kingsbridge must have presented alluring charms. The place was full of natural beauty undis- turbed by the hand of man. From the time that saffron-hued morn appeared in the east until the azure robe of night spread over everything, every hour, indeed every minute, to the ob- servant presented some new combination of beauty, — new lights, new shades never seen before and never to be seen again. And now how different the scene ! Where then were quiet country roads, hoof deep with dust in summer, hub deep with mud in winter, few and far between, are the broad and regular streets of a great city. Where then in The middle watch of a summer's night; The earth was dark but the heavens were bright; where glimmered and died the fire-fly's spark, and the stars i6 on the moving stream flung, as his ripples gently flowed, a burnished length df wavy beam, where naught was heard on the lonely hill but the cricket's chirp and the answer shrill of the gauze-winged katydid and the plaint of the wailing whip- poorwill, now in the middle watches of every night, whether the heavens are dark or bright, far flung is the great illumina- tion that speaks of the onward march of man in the building of one of his great centers; the reflected light in the skies, pro- ceeding from the efforts of man is so great as to darken the light of the stars on the water; the crickets' chirp and the katy- did's answer and the whipporwill's plaint have been succeeded by the crash of traffic propelled by power that men had not then dreamed of. Then and now, what mighty changes man and man's mind and man's energy have wrought ! Yet some things change but little. We are working slowly but surely toward the same ends. We still have appreciation of the beautiful hampered at times, perhaps, by that utilitarian spirit which is the spirit of the age. We still have that spirit of tolerance and breadth which has seemed innate in our soil. We are still, as has recently been said by a distinguished but somewhat cynical Englishman, inhabitants of *'a place to which the fit will be attracted and where the fit will survive;" where efficiency in physical essentials no less than efficiency in mental acquirements is inculcated; where the vigor of American civilization and progress is strongly evident ; where the Americanism and the patriotism that is Americanism is being disseminated and embraced and proclaimed; where art is cherished and education in the finer things valued; a com- munity which as it points with pride to its captains of industry, points also with pride to men who, in lives long or brief, have done things because of which their grateful kind have in- scribed their names upon the scrolls of fame; a community which will never fail to be proud of the fact that "The Amer- ican Flag" is associated with its soil and that lying within its confines is all that remains mortal of that frail young frame which housed the mind that wrote those verses which will not 17 perish while American Hterature and American patriotism survive. The next speaker was Prof. John Erskine, of The Depart- ment of EngHsh and Comparative Literature in Columbia Uni- versity, whose subject was : DRAKE AS A POET The man whose memory we honor today would not care to be praised above his merits. He knew that he was not a great poet, and if we in a moment of enthusiasm should call him great, we have but to read his Croaker satires to remind ourselves how he would have ridiculed such uncritical patriot- ism. In fact, Drake was over modest. Before his death, when all his poems that could be found were collected and copied by Dr. de Kay, Drake told his friends to burn the manuscripts, since they were valueless. Among the poems that he would have burned was The Culprit Fay. It is but just to Drake to begin an appreciation of his work with a warning against overpraise. At his death in 1820 he was but twenty-five years old, and the fact of his youth, taken with the other facts that he was a physician, and that he died of consumption, has persuaded some critics that he was the American Keats. A comparison so trying makes Drake as well as his admirers seem ridiculous. If on his deathbed he would have destroyed the manuscript of The Culprit Fay, it may be recalled that the dying Virgil expressed the same wish for his great epic; yet even the enthusiastic patriot will hesi- tate to call The Culprit Fay the American Aeneid. Drake was a very minor poet; we might almost say, an occasional poet; the man was better than anything he wrote. It is to the advantage of his fame that while paying this deserved tribute to his memory, we should not measure him by stand- ards he never pretended to meet. His true immortality is an immortality of friendship. i8 "None knew thee but to love thee, nor named thee but to praise," says the poet-friend whose name is inseparable from his. We have long since accepted this tender, if somewhat transparent, estimate of Drake; he enjoys a clear fame; he is a crystalline spirit. What he owes to these lines of Halleck's we observe when we reflect how earthly in comparison seems Halleck's memory, who was a far abler poet, but who lacked a poetic epitaph to transfigure him. This quality of Drake's fame— its spirit-like clearness—is derived in part at least from his best known poem, The Culprit Fay, the title of which, even if one knows no more of it, evokes a disembodied world, and the felicity of which, if one has read it, seems curiously blood- less. But all that we can recover of the actual Drake, even without the testimony of this poem, bears out Halleck's praise. Drake was essentially a youthful poet, a poet of joy and enthusiasm, a beauty-lover; he was also, what many young poets have not been, personally admirable and loveable, and he had much common sense. He was, moreover, typical of American poets in that his life, though short, was happy. To appreciate his achievements we have only to study him through the eyes of his admiring friends and acquaintances. The first observation that should be made of his work is that, though he wrote verses from his very childhood, he usually wrote, as one might say, accidentally or occasionally. It fits well with our conception of him as an untroubled nature that he was urged to write by no unquenchable, passionate flame. His poems almost always were suggested or stimu- lated by some social encounter, or by the small talk of friend- ship. If it is true that his earliest composition, at the age of fivt, was a versified conundrum, a critic who looks for omens might remark that conundrums are preeminently sociable. The Culprit Fay, as we have often been told, arose out of a conversation in 1816, **in which Drake, de Kay, Cooper, the novelist, and Halleck, were speaking of the Scottish streams and their adaptation to the uses of poetry by their numerous romantic associations. Cooper and Halleck maintained that 19 our own rivers furnished no such capabiHties, when Drake, as usual, took the opposite side of the argument, and, to make his position good, produced in three days The Culprit Fay. The scene is laid in the Highlands of the Hudson, but it is noticeable that the chief associations conjured up relate to the salt water, the poet drawing his inspiration from his familiar haunt on the sound at Hunt's Point." This is Duyckinck's account; and Drake himself can be quoted to support the theory that he did not take his work with passionate serious- ness, for in a m'anuscript of '' The Culprit Fay " he wrote, "The reader will find some of the inhabitants of the salt water a little farther up the Hudson than they usually travel, but not too far for the purposes of poetry." Next to this poem, Drake's best known work appeared in The Croakers, the series of satires and patriotic verse which he and Halleck contibuted to "The Evening Post," in 1819. Halleck's biography tells how these poems started from a bit of nonsense. " Halleck and Drake were spending a Sunday morning with Dr. William Langstaff, an eccentric apothecary and an accomplished mineralogist, with whom they were both intimate . . . when Drake, for his own and his friend's amusement, wrote several burlesque stanzas ' To Ennui,' Hal- leck answering then in some lines on the same subject. The young poets decided to send their productions, with others of a similar character, to William Coleman, the editor of 'The Evening Post.' If he published them, they would write more; if not, they would offer them to M. M. Noah, of the ' National Advocate'; and if he declined their poetical progeny, they would light their pipes with them. Drake accordingly sent Coleman three pieces of his own, signed ' Croaker ' a signature adopted from an amusing character in Goldsmith's comedy of 'The Good-natured Man.' To their astonishment, a para- graph appeared in the ' Post ' the day following, acknowledg- ing their receipt, promising the insertion of the poems, pro- nouncing them to be the products of superior taste and genius, and begging the honor of a personal acquaintance with the 20 author. The lines ' To Ennui ' appeared March lo, 1819, and the others in almost daily succession; those written by Halleck being sometimes signed 'Croaker Junior/ while those which were their joint composition generally bore the signature of ' Croaker & Co/" The best known of Drake's contributions to the series was "The American Flag," which appeared on May 29. In the first draft the poem concluded with the lines — As fixed as yonder orb divine, That saw thy bannered blaze unfurled, Shall thy proud stars resplendent shine, The guard and glory of the world. But not satisfied with this ending, Drake asked Halleck to suggest a substitute, whereupon Halleck improvised the stanza now chiefly quoted from the poem — Forever float that standard sheet ! Where breathes the foe but falls before us, With freedom's soil beneath our feet. And freedom's banner streaming o'er us? Indeed, many of the Croaker poems were the result of col- laboration; we are told that either poet would draft the original idea, and the other would modify it, until both were satisfied. It was essentially a social muse that the young men cultivated, and we must think it was a happy comradeship as well as a poetic enthusiasm which made Drake one day lay his cheek down upon the manuscript and exclaim " O, Halleck, isn't this happiness ! " The impression that Drake's poetry sprang from his daily life among his friends, rather than from an inner ambition, such as Keats had, to be a poet, is borne out by the picture wc get of him in the New York society of his time. He was a handsome young doctor, who had married well, and would have a career in his profession; incidentally he was a poet. One thinks of Oliver Wendell Holmes, who resembled Drake in more than one respect— in his wit, his delicacy of taste, his social gift, his lovablencss. The affectionate regard in which he was held in the various New York homes where with Hal- leck he was a welcome visitor, is reflected in all of Halleck's accounts of those days; but the best sketch of Drake occurs in a letter from Halleck to his sister in 1817; "I send you herewith two manuscript poems, written by a friend of mine,. Mr. Drake, whose name, I believe, I once mentioned to you. He is a young physician, about twenty. *''' The Culprit Fay " was written, begun, and finished in three days. The copy you have is from the original, without the least alteration. It is certainly the best thing of its kind in the English language, and is more strikingly original than I had supposed it possible for a modern poem to be. The other " Lines " were written to a lady, after an evening's ramble near a river, on whose opposite bank a band of music was playing. 'Tis a hackneyed subject, but he has given it beauty and novelty. . . . The poem was written in August last, since which its author has married, and, as his wife's father is rich, I imagine he will write no more. He was poor, as poets, of course, always are, and offered himself a sacrifice at the shrine of Hymen to shun the * pains and penalties ' of poverty. I officiated as groomsman, though much against my will. His wife is good-natured, and loves him to distraction. He is, perhaps, the handsomest man in New York." This is Drake as his best friends knew him. His limitations are so obvious in the picture, as well as his attractive quaHties, that he ought to have been spared the doubtful compliment of comparison with Keats or any other giant of poesy. Had he lived a few years earlier or later, when vital ideas of different kinds were stirring in American literature, he might have felt as deeply as any of the young English poets, and might have used his genius as an instrument for some large purpose, but he came to young manhood at a moment of pause, when litera- ture, at least in New York was merely an accomplishment, and when there was no great example of complete devotion to a life of letters. An exception need not be made of Words- worth, whose consecrated work had not then found the vast 22 audience it now has in America. To Drake contemporary English poetry meant Campbell and Scott and Byron, gentle- manly poets, who had much business in the world besides writ- ing. In 1816, when The Culprit Fay was composed, Keats had not yet published, and Shelley had published, besides his juvenilia, only Queen Mob and Alastor. Drake had before him, as possible models, Campbell's Gertrude of Wyoming, Scott's various longer poems, Byron's Childe Harold, and his oriental tales. In all of these works the scene and the plot counted for more than the idea; if the poet expressed himself also, as Byron certainly did, it was his personality, his mood, rather than his ideas, that got expressed. The distinction may not at first be evident, but we recognize in a broad way a dif- ference between such poets as Milton or Shelley or Emerson or Whitman, who use poetry to express their profound con- victions, and those poets who write chiefly for amusement, to entertain themselves or their readers, without much wish to mold opinion on any subject. Drake was a poet of this second kind. But even within the kind there are differences ; Keats, for example, loved beauty with such intensity that his worship of it seems almost to be a kind of propaganda; he seems as much a preacher as Shelley, though with a different subject matter. Drake, obviously, had no such passion. His tem- perament was somewhat like Scott's or Campbell's, perhaps like Thomas Moore's ; he did not live for poetry, but he prac- tised the art as an accomplishment, and had he lived, he might have raised the accomplishment to a noble importance. To speculate on what Drake might have written had he been spared, helps us to place him in the history of our literature. Fcnimore Cooper was one of the friends out of whose con- versation grew The Culprit Fay. The future novelist was then visiting in the city, for in 1816 he had temporarily left Westchester and had move his home back to Cooperstown. As yet he had no thought of writing. In the famous conversa- tion he and Halleck contended that the American rivers could not be made the subject of romance, as the Scotch rivers had 23 been made by Burns and Scott. That Drake should have held the other view shows not only his patriotism but his good judgment. He did not celebrate the Hudson, after all, in The Culprit Fay; — he did not take his own experiment seriously enough; but at least he made the attempt, before Irving suc- ceeded, to endow the river and its landscape with romance. We may well suppose that the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle were easier to create after Drake's poem was written and circulated among his friends. That Cooper should have argued against the suitability of our landscape for romantic treatment is at first astounding, since his prose was shortly to endow that landscape with more romance than any American verse ever conferred on it. But Cooper was slower than Drake to see the possibilities, for American art; his first novel, Precaution, was deHberately English, and it was only the remonstrances of his friends, as he tells us, that turned him in his second book to an American subject. Were not these remonstrances aided at least by the reputation of what Drake's poem had tried to do? Would the American forests and lakes have been so magically portrayed in the Deerslayer and in the Last of the Mohicans, if Drake's fairy poem had not come first? These questions cannot be answered, but to ask them is a recognition of Drake's leadership in a field where his great successors, his friends Irving and Cooper, have en- joyed most of the fame. When we read the lines in which he expressed the hope that the American scene would create its own poetry, we think how many of his countrymen since have dreamt of a native world, no longer seen through the glass of European traditions. The emancipation that Emerson and Whitman proclaimed and pro- moted, is heralded in these words of Drake's — Are there no scenes to touch the poet's soul? No deeds of arms to wake the lordly strain? Shall Hudson's billows unregarded roll? Has Warren, has Montgomery died in vain? Shame! that while every mountain stream and plain Hath theme for truth's proud voice or fancy's wand, 24 No native bard the patient harp hath ta'en, But left to minstrels of a foreign strand To sing the beauteous scenes of nature's loveliest land. 'Tis true no fairies haunt our verdant meads, No grinning imps deform our blazing hearth; Beneath the Kelpie's fang no traveler bleeds, Nor gory vampire taints our holy earth, No spectres stalk to frighten harmless mirth. Nor tortured demon howls adown the gale; Fair reason checks these monsters in their birth Yet have we lay of love and horrid tale Would dim the manliest eye, and make the bravest pale. Romantic Wyoming! could none be found Of all that rove thy Eden groves among, To wake a native harp's untutored sound. And give thy tale of woe the voice of song? Oh I if description's cold and nerveless tongue From stranger harps such hallowed strains could call, How doubly sweet the descant wild had rung, From one who, lingering round thy ruined wall. Had plucked thy mourning flowers and wept thy timeless fall. The Huron chief, escaped from foemen nigh. His frail bark launches on Niagara's tides, " Pride in his port, defiance in his eye," Singing his song of death the warrior glides; In vain they yell along the river sides. In vain the arrow from its sheaf is torn, Calm to his doom the willing victim rides, And, till adown the roaring torrent borne, Mocks them with gesture proud, and laughs their rage to scorn. But if the charms of daisied hill and vale, And rolling flood, and towering rock sublime. If warrior deed or peasant's lowly tale Of love or woe should fail to wake the rhyme. If to the wildest heights of song you climb, (Tho* some who know you less, might cry, beware!) Onward! I say— your strains shall conquer time; Give your bright genius wing, and hope to share ' Imagination's worlds— the ocean, earth, and air. When we read this stirring advice to the American muse, we think what Drake mij^du liave done had he lived a few years 25 longer, when Irving had invested the Hudson with romance, and Cooper had made our landscape part of the literary inheritance of the world. Our prose-writers have interpreted our visible country, and have invested certain spots with imagination so that to visit them is to come under a spell; but our verse writers, for the most part, have occupied themselves with moral and philosophical ideas. Drake might have been the exception. In his short career he revealed no remarkable genius ; he had no prophetic message for a chosen few ; he had none of those estranging gifts that set the great poets apart. But he had the gift of lovableness, and he saw the poetic possibilities in the daily world around him, in the conversation of his friends and in the familiar landscape. The beauty that he uncovered for us in the old town of New York, now in the press of the vast city seems a fragile thing; but it has not died. Today as we remember him we are aware of its fine enchantment. Next came a scholarly paper by Dean Archibald L. Bouton of the College of Arts and Pure Science of New York Uni- versity, whose subject was : THE CULPRIT FAY: A CRITICISM. From today we go back ninety-nine years to the time when in 1816 Drake wrote The Culprit Fay. In the same year the " North American Review " published Thanatopsis. This double beginning of a new American poetry looked in two directions. Long ago Thomas the Rymer wrote of two great highways of poetry: O see ye not yon narrow road So thick beset with thorn and brier? That is the Path of Righteousness, Though after it but few enquire. And see ye not that bonny road That winds about yon fernie brae? That is the road to fair Elf-land Where you and I this night maun gae. 26 Out upon the one path Bryant led the way for the new poetry of America; down the other, toward the way of Glamour, Drake started when he wrote The Culprit Fay. In point of length, in the novelty of its material, in the ambi- tion of its design, The Culprit Fay is Drake's most conspicuous poem. It is probably the earliest native poem of distinct length to attain anything like a general popularity in America. The facts about the composition of the poem are tolerably certain, though it is interesting at such an occasion as this to offer one or two minor corrections of the legendary account. The poem, I have said, was written in 1816. Halleck fixes the date by his endorsement of a manuscript copy of the poem which he enclosed in a letter to his sister written January 29, 181 7. "The following lines were written by Joseph Rodman Drake in New York in August 181 6, and copied from the author's manuscript in January 181 7 by FitzGreene Halleck." The fact that such men as Willis, Poe, Griswold, and Duyck- inck, in writings still readily accessible, give the date of com- position as 1819, makes the repetition of Halleck on this point worth while. Drake's motive for literature was not commercial. Singu- larly enough, the poem existed and was circulated in manu- script only for many years even after Drake's death in 1820. In an issue of the "Weekly Mirror" published in this city in 1828,* William Leggett, in a paper on Halleck, speaks of Drake's Culprit Fay as " withheld from the public." Early in 1835 Nathaniel Parker Willis, at the time an attache with the Paris Legation, published a series of four papers on con- temporary American literature in the "Athenaeum" of Lon- don. In the third of these papers, published February 7th, Willis gives the chief place to Drake, and publishes a para- phrase of the poem with selections amounting to 356 lines of the 640 in the original. Willis states that the poem had never been published, and we have Halleck's word to General James > The Weekly Mirror, January 26, 1828. 27 Grant Wilson that this was the first pubH cation of any sub- stantial part of The Culprit Fay.^ Many manuscript copies were in circulation^ however. Drake himself is said to have made as many as six copies for friends. No collation of these has, I believe, ever been at- tempted. In a manuscript letter written by W. I. Paulding to E. A. Duyckinck, January 22, 1868, and preserved in the New York Public Library, Paulding quotes Mr. C. Graham Tillou, Drake's nephew, as saying '*" The Culprit Fay has never been published as written by Drake. "^ In the circumstances Tillou can hardly have meant more than that not all of Drake's versions are alike. In the "Athenaeum" Willis re- marks that "great numbers of manuscripts are abroad, and with every new copy it is . . . becoming more and more mangled and incorrect." This fact no doubt contributed to the motive which led Mrs. De Kay, Drake's daughter, to pub- lish through Dearborn, in New York in 1835, the thin and beautiful volume which contains the first complete and authori- tative edition of The Culprit Fay, together with such other poems as she cared to include in this permanent record. This edition established the text of the poem. What is the theme of the poem? It is the story of the ex- piation by a fairy ouphe of the crime of loving a mortal maiden. The scene is laid in the Highlands of the Hudson, not far from West Point. 'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night The earth is dark but the heavens are bright; The moon looks down on old Cronest. The monarch of the Elfs has summoned his court for trial of the Culprit Ouphe for the capital offence of loving an earthly 2 Century Magazine, 80 : 439. 3 I wish here to acknowledge the help in obtaining material for the preparation of this article rendered by Hon. Victor H. Paltsifs, Keeper of MSS. in the New York Public Library. This occasion is in many of its aspects a testimonial to his deep interest in Drake. 28 maid. The sentence usually imposed for the offence is read to the criminal : Tied to the hornet's shardy wings ; Tossed on the pricks of nettles' stings ; Or seven long ages doomed to dwell With the lazy worm in the walnut-shell; Or every night to writhe and bleed Beneath the tread of the centipede; Or bound in a cobweb dungeon dim, Your jailer a spider huge and grim, Amid the carrion bodies to lie, Of the worm, and the bug, and the murdered fly: These it had been your lot to bear. Had a stain been found on the earthly fair. In consideration of the "sinless mind" of the maiden, the penalty is softened; and a pardon is granted upon two condi- tions. The offending sprite must first capture a drop of water as it is flung from the sturgeon in his graceful leap in the moonlit sea ; this will cleanse the assoiling of his wings. Next he must watch in the heavens for a shooting star, and pursue its flight until he can capture the last spark sprayed forth in its gleaming flight ; this spark alone can rekindle his extinguished torch. The goblin marked his monarch well. He spake not, but he bowed him low. Then plucked a crimson colen-bell. And turned him round in act to go. The way is long, he cannot fly. His soiled wing has lost its power, And he winds adown the mountain high, For many a sore and weary hour. Through dreary beds of tangled fern, Through groves of nightshade dark and dern, Over the grass and through the brake. Where toils the ant and sleeps the snake; For rugged and dim was his onward track, But there came a spotted toad in sight. And he laughed as he jumped upon her back; He bridled her mouth with a silk-weed twist; He lashed her side with an osier thong; And now through evening's dewy mist, With leap and spring they bound along. 29 Coming at last to the brink of the stream that is the home of the sturgeon, he plunges in. Straightway the denizens of the river spring up to defend their realm against the invad- ing Fay. Against him — Their warriors come in swift career and hem him round on every side; On his thigh the leech has fixed his hold, And quarl's long arms are round him roll'd, The prickly prong has pierced his skin, And the squab has thrown his javelin, The gritty star has rubbed him raw, And the crab has struck with his giant claw; He howls with rage, and he shrieks with pain, He strikes around, but his blows are vain ; Hopeless is the unequal fight, Fairy ! naught is left but flight. Fleeing back to the land again, gashed and v^ounded, he lay down, and looking behind ... he saw around in the sweet moonshine. Their little wee faces above the brine. Giggling and laughing with all their might At the piteous hap of the Fairy wight. Reviving at length, he spies a purple mussel shell of which he makes him a boat with an oar of a bootle blade. In the boat, beyond the reach of the river imps, who are powerless above the surface of the river, he sails on till he finds the brown- backed sturgeon. Then ... he skulled with all his might and main. And followed wherever the sturgeon led. Till he saw him upward point his head; With sweeping tail and quivering fin. Through the wave the sturgeon flew, And, like the heaven-shot javelin, He sprung above the waters blue. Instant as the star-fall light. He plunged him in the deep again, But left an arch of silver bright The rainbow of the moony main. 30 A moment and its lustre fell, But ere it met the billow blue, He caught within his crimson bell, A droplet of its sparkling dew- Joy to thee, Fay I thy task is done. Thy wings are pure, for the gem is won— Cheerly ply thy dripping oar. And haste away to the elfin shore. The first quest of the Culprit Fay is ended. The cricket calls the second hour of the night as the Fairy starts heaven- ward, with wings now unstained, on his second quest — that of the fiery spark with which alone he can re- illumine his flame-wood lamp. Donning his accoutrements for his second great adventure the Fay sets forth astride of a fire-fly steed. Up to the vaulted firmament His path the fire-fly courser bent, And at every gallop on the wind, He flung a glittering spark behind ; Through cold and drizzly mist, storm and darkness, evading shadowy hands that twitch at his rein, and flame-shot tongues and fiendish eyes, he valiantly plunges onward, with his bent grass blade in action, until he arrives at the milky-way and the home of the sylph queen. But oh ! how fair the shape that lay Beneath a rainbow bending bright. She seemed to the entranced Fay The loveliest of the forms of light; Her mantle was the purple rolled At twilight in the west afar ; Twas tied with threads of dawning gold, And buttoned with a sparkling star. Her face was like the lily roon That veils the vestal planet's hue; Her eyes, two beamlets from the moon, Set floating in the welkin blue. Her hair is like the sunny beam, And the diamond gems which round it gleam Arc the pure drops of dewy even That ne'er have left their native heaven. 31 The elf awakens the love of the sylph queen and she begs him to give up his quest and dwell forever with her ; with her " to hang upon the rainbow's brim," "to dance upon the orbed moon," to " rest on Orion's starry belt." She was lovely and fair to see, And the elfin's heart beat fitfully: but here the remembrance of his earthly love keeps him true. " Lady," he cried, " I have sworn to-night, On the word of a fairy knight. To do my sentence-task aright; My honour scarce is free from stain, I may not soil its snows again ; Betide me weal, betide me wo, Its mandate must be answered now." Right generously then the sylph queen aids him in his further quest. She gives a fiend-proof sable car, and he speeds away till he finds the place of the falling star and at last catches a glimmering spark with which he re-illumines his fairy lamp. Then he turns abruptly to the long downward gallop to earth and . . . wheeled around to the fairy ground. And sped through the midnight dark. The poem" closes with a roundelay chorus by all the fairies : Ouphe and goblin ! imp and sprite ! Elf of eve! and starry Fay! Ye that love the moon's soft light. Hither, hither wend your way; Twine ye in a jocund ring. Sing and trip it merrily. Hand to hand, and wing to wing, Round the wild witch-hazel tree. Hail the wanderer again With dance and song, and lute and lyre, Pure his wing and strong his chain, And doubly bright his fairy fire. Twine ye in an airy round, Brush the dew and print the lea; Skip and gambol, hop and bound, Round the wild witch-hazel tree. 32 This paraphrase has served two purposes; it has given the story, and it has revealed to you something of the quality of the poem. Contemporary criticism of the work, seldom very well balanced, ran in general to consummate laudation. Hal- leck said of it : " It is certainly the best thing of the kind in the English language, and is more strikingly original than- T had supposed it possible for a modern poem to be." But that was the language of enthusiastic friendship. Knowledge of this poem as well as of the " Croaker " poems may have been in the mind of Coleman, ihe editor of the '' Evening Post " when he exclaimed on meeting Drake and Halleck, " My God ! I had no idea that we had such talents in America ! " The writer of a criticism in the " American Monthly Review " for September, 1835, comments upon the newly published poem more specifically; but with hardly less glowing emotions : " For luxuriance -of fancy, for delicacy of expression, for glowing imagery, and for poetic truth, it is rivalled by no poem that has appeared upon this side of the Atlantic. Our author . . . studied nature — studied her not as she appeared in books . . . he studied her in her own virgin retreats, by the mighty rivers and mossy forests of his own fresh land. ... Its whole atmosphere is American. It is a fairy tale of our clime, and its imagery and accessories are applicable to no other beneath the sun." H. L. Tuckerman is said to have declared that The Culprit Fay is superior to any " fanciful poem " by Moore or Shelley.* Some called Drake the American Keats. In much of this comment it is easy to see the habit of ex- uberant and assertive over-praise which America has not even yet outgrown. It is a fault of youth which has not yet learned to measure its freedom. Not many years before The Culprit Fay was published, the "Quarterly" had made its famous re- mark "Who reads an American book?" And the next gen- eration of American critics rallied resentfully to the defence of every new American book, for the most part not wisely but 33 too well. The Culprit Fay has obviously suffered from an inherited tradition of over-praise. It is easy to find echoes of Scott and Moore, and perhaps of Shelley, conceivably even of Keats, in The Culprit Fay, but the echoes are far more from the minor -matters of theme and intention, and the lesser matters of the line, than from the major matters of treatment and of appeal. We do better for The Culprit Fay when we do not urge these fatal judicial comparisons. The ambition to aid in building an American fairy lore was certainly in Drake's mind. Legend, however, has done its work here. Practically every one who has written about The Culprit Fay since Griswold — and this includes the Duyckincks, R. H. Stoddard, General Wilson and Francis R. Tillou, Drake's brother-in-law — records a charming moonlight meet- ing of friends at Cold Spring in the Hudson Highlands in 1816, at which Drake, the novelist Cooper, De Kay, Halleck, and Charles Fenno Hoffman were discussing the power of scenery to impress the imagination. Cooper and Halleck claimed for the Scottish Highlands supreme power to inspire the poet and the novelist; and they lamented that American scenery could not similarly inspire the man of letters. That night, before morning, the legend runs, Drake wrote The Culprit Fay, as a reply; and in three days had perfected the poem. The legend seems not supported by facts. In the Halleck correspondence, preserved in the New York Public Library, is an unpublished letter from Halleck to E. A. Duyckinck, dated May 13, 1866, evidently relating to the revision of this paragraph for a new edition of the Cyclopedia of American Literature. It reads: *' In acknowledgment of the compli- ment you are paying to the writings of Dr. Drake and myself, I have looked over the proof sheets you sent me some years ago, which I have kept subject to your order, and hand you herewith two extracts for the purpose of explanation," The second of these extracts concerns The Culprit Fay. ''The Culprit Fay was written in 1816," it runs, " DeKay was then in Europe. Drake was never acquainted with Cooper. The 34 whole paragraph is a fiction." The revised Cyclopedia went to press a year before Halleck returned his proof, and the cor- rection was never made. Halleck had long before borne testi- mony, in the letter to his sister in January, 1817, that Drake wrote the poem in New York, and that it was completed m three days.' There is however essential, if not literal, truth in the story. Like Charles Brockden Brown, like Irving, like the Cooper of the Deerslayer stories, Drake did seek literary values in Amer- ican scenes. Is there nothing in America, he asks in his poem addressed to Halleck, " to touch the poet's soul " ? No deeds of arms to wake the lordly strain? Shall Hudson's billows unregarded roll? Shame 1 that while every mountain stream and plain Hath theme for truth's proud voice or fancy's wand, No native bard the patriot harp hath ta'en." The laudation of Drake's contemporaries constantly pro- claimed that the poem was "American"; that through this masterpiece, the Hudson had now taken its place among the storied rivers of the world. The scene of the poem, it is true, is local; the materials of animal and vegetable life, from which so much of the fabric of the poem is made, were to be found in or by the Hudson ; or else they swarm in the salt waters off Hunt's Point. Drake's use of these materials sufficiently testifies to his love for nature, and the accuracy of his ob- servations in local natural history; my biological friends say that it is all quite impeccable save for the typical circumstance that only a poet could people the Hudson at West Point with star-fish and porpoises. These, however, are particulars, it is fair to say, concerning which Drake requested the poet's proper privilege, *' the willing suspension of his reader's disbelief."^ »P. 169: Life and Letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck, by James Grant WiUon, N. Y. • In a MS. note on a copy of The Culprit Fay, Drake says : " The reader will find some of the inhabitants of the salt water a little further up the Hudson than they usually travel: but not too far for the purposes of poetry." Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of Awcrican Literature, article, Joseph Rodman Drake. 35 But such demonstrations of the " Americanism " of the poem seem to leave something out of account. Nothing American can be Hterature that does not first have in it some- thing a good deal greater than America. The question is not at bottom one of the local realism of the poem. Are the Elf Monarch and his company really dancing still in the woodlands of the Hudson by the light of the mid-summer moon? Are they of the same fibre with the crew that Rip Van Winkle knew ? The question goes deeply into the -nature of Drake's poem. Any attentive reader of The Culprit Fay can feel the daintiness, the lightness, and the melody with which the ma- terials of the story are compounded. This for example is the portrayal of Fay accoutred for his second quest: — He put his acorn helmet on; It was plumed of the silk of the thistle down: The corslet plate that guarded his breast Was once the wild bee's golden vest ; His cloak, of a thousand mingled dyes, Was formed of the wings of butterflies; His shield was the shell of a lady-bug queen. Studs of gold on a ground of green And the quivering lance which he brandished bright, Was the sting of a wasp he had slain in flight. Swift he bestrode his fire-fly steed; He bared his blade of the bent grass blue; He drove his spurs of the cockle seed. And away like a glance of thought he flew, To skim the heavens, and follow far The fiery trail of the rocket-star. Poe in an early review of Drake's poems^ invites attention to the curiously mechanical way in which the details of this picture are selected and combined. To prove that it is me- chanical he wrote a parody of the stanza substituting other details of accoutrement for those presented : "His blue-bell helmet, we have heard Was plumed with the down of the humming-bird, The corslet on his bosom bold 7 Southern Literary Messenger, April, 1836. 36 Was once the locust's coat of gold, His cloak, of a thousand mingled hues, Was the velvet violet, wet with dews, His target was the crescent shell Of the small sea Sidrophel, And a glittering beam from a maiden's eye Was the lance which he proudly wav'd on high. Such a picture, says Poe, can be made by any one tolerably acquainted with the qualities of the objects to be detailed, and possessing a very rftoderate endowment of the faculty of com- parison. Fancy, said Coleridge, combines the facts of experi- ence into new forms ; and the stanza which I have quoted from The Culprit Fay is plainly what Coleridge would have called a product of fancy, rather than a work of creative imagina- tion, like Tint em Abbey, blending its materials into ideal visions touched with " the light that never was on land or sea." To Poe this distinction between fancy and imagination was unreal ; and his favored example, as it happened, for exempli- fying the lack of poetic ideality in a poem composed appar- ently within the provisions of the Coleridgean definition, was none other than The Culprit Fay.^ Frankly speaking, the limitation of The Culprit Fay, from the point of view of larger and permanent things, lies in a relative deficiency in what Poe calls ideality, or "the Poetic Sentiment"; in what today we frequently call the connotation of spiritual values. It is the relative deficiency of this quality that fixes a gulf between Keats and Drake, so broad that any real comparison is im- possible. It is this that essentially differentiates the Fairy magically bodied forth in Shelley's Queen Mab — the passage is quoted by Poe— from the Culprit or the Sylph in the poem of Drake. This is Shelley : The Fairy's frame was slight; yon fibrous cloud That catches but the faintest tinge of even. And which the straining eye can hardly seize When melting into eastern twilight's shadow, •Cf. review by Foe of Moore's Alciphron, in Burton's Gentleman's Magaxine. January. 1840. 37 Were scarce so thin, so slight; but the fair star That gems the glittering coronet of morn, Sheds not a light so mild, so powerful. As that which, bursting from the Fairy's form, Spread a purpureal halo round the scene, Yet with an undulating motion. Swayed to her outline gracefully. And yet I have the feehng that, in the last analysis, Poe denied too much to The Culprit Fay. It was Poe's way to emphasize the negative in all his criticisms. It is true that the unevenness and inconsistency of youthful workmanship are there. Technically the work does need pruning, and it does lack proportion; and Drake did not revise; he improvised. And there had been too high praise. But Drake was only twenty-one when he wrote the poem. He was the first of our American poets to seek to find the Way of Glamour; and he journeyed on his pathway alone. The wonder is that such a poem should have been written in America at all in 1816. Such lightness and airiness of touch, such musical verse were well nigh unique in our earlier poetry; they are rare in our later. As I read the poem today the music of its verse and the daintiness of its story seem to me to blend in a charm that brings a sweet and genuine, if not a powerful appeal of poetic reality across the century to this day of our commemoration. At this point of the memorial exercises Drake's poem The American Flag was sung to stirring music composed for the occasion^ by Edwin S. Tracy, musical director of the Morris High School; one hundred pupils of the school participating in the mixed chorus were accompanied by the Morris High School orchestra of several dozen instruments. The audience greeted this number by rising and giving the composer an ovation. Charles de Kay, Esq., the well-known author, poet, and critic, as well as grandson of Drake, then presented a valuable paper on the lineage of our poet, which follows: 1 The music with piano accompaniment has been published by Mr. Tracy, who also provided full score orchestration for his pupils in manu- script. 38 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE His Ancestry Of Joseph Rodman Drake the poet, who, Hke Keats, died too early, it may be said that he was his own ancestor. Good American doctrine, that, and well suited to the boy who wrote The American Flag. With the exception of Sir Francis Drake, from whose family he descended, none of the name seems to have made any great noise in the world, although many there were on both sides of the Atlantic who upheld the name by their con- duct and attainments as soldiers, sailors and citizens of emi- nence and worth. In Berlin during the reign of the firsi; German Emperor there lived a sculptor of note, named Drake, who was an offshoot of this widely spread and efficient stock. He is best known for the winged figure on the Victory Column that overtops the statues along the Sieges Allee in the Thier- garten, statues which represent the ancestors of the German autocrat. However we Americans, in our ambition to make good use of the present and prepare for the future, may neglect the past, it is only natural that we should like to know about the an- cestry of men of genius and of mark. Though we may reject the extreme to which China, for instance, has pushed the worship of ancestors, we can not shut our eyes to the value of inherited traits, and so are led to acknowledge that it is well for a man to have fore-bears whom their fellows applauded. This is only to maintain a just poise and keep the true per- spective in our attitude toward men, neither permitting our- selves to give undue weight to the forefathers of a stock, nor allowing ourselves to be hurried to the other extreme by our preference for democracy. One of the wisest among the Greeks under Roman rule, Plutarch, as you may remember, kept always to that dignified moderateness. Whenever he could, he recounted the family origin of the men who live 39 again in his wonderful books. Yet the celebrity without known ancestry, or one of a base descent receives the fairest and most impartial treatment at his hands. Joseph Rodman Drake was the son of Jonathan Drake of Westchester County, one of a very prolific branch of the family. Many relatives of his name bore their share of victory and disaster in the Revolution. Joseph's mother was Hannah Lawrence of the Effingham Lawrence family on Long Island. John and Joseph were favorite names among the Drakes. At a meeting in 1706 of the justices, churchwardens and vestry of the parish which at that time included Westchester, East- chester and Yonkers, John Drake is one of the justices and Lieutenant Joseph Drake is one of the vestry. Jonathan, the poet's father, who died when Joseph Rodman was a child, was the son of Moses Drake of Dutchess County, who died during the Revolution. One of the brothers of Moses was Colonel Joseph Drake of New Rochelle who long outlived his famous grandnephew. Their father was Benjamin Drake, third in descent from Samuel Drake of Fairfield, Conn., he having received a grant of land in 1650 from the freeholders of that settlemient, and fourth from John Drake who came over from Plymouth to Boston in 1630, and settled in Windsor, Conn., soon after that date. He was the son of another John of Plymouth, England. Thus these Drakes of Eastchester, Westchester and Dutchess hark back to a John Drake of Plymouth in England who was of the council of that seaport in 1606 and one of a company empowered by James the First to attend to the settling of New England. So far as known, this John Drake did not cross the Atlantic. He was closely affiliated to the Drake family at Ashe, that of Sir Francis Drake. He is said to have had twelve children, of whom at least two sons came to America. Notably was it the John Drake mentioned who came to Boston from Plymouth in 1630 and settled in Windsor from whom the Westchester Drakes derive. The coat of arms of Sir Francis Drake is what the French 40 call annes parlantes and the English " Canting arms " which means that the object emblazoned refers to the sound of the name. We might call such a charge a rebus. Now a "drake" in Shakesperian English is a dragon, in Latin draco. So the charge on the shield of Sir Francis was a dragon, called in the jargon of British heraldry a wivern, a winged lizard such as Germans would call a Lindwurm. After the Revolu- tion the American branches kept the monster as the charge on the shield, but substituted for the wivern in the crest an eagle, thereby asserting with emphasis their independence of the mother country, that independance for which so many Drakes in Connecticut, New York and New Jersey had fought and suffered. And especially those nearest to the poet — his father, uncles and cousins — since their homes lay within that tormented and bloody ground where the raiders from the patriot and British lines, the "cowboys" and "skinners" plundered everybody with sinister impartiality. The Drake coat of arms was singularly appropriate to sea- farers in southern England who may well have descended from the vikingr or baymen of a much earlier age, heathen who harried and in many spots founded towns on the south and east shores of Britain. Drake or dragon was a well-known word for the long rowing and sailing galley of the vikingr, so named because the prow and stern were carved in the form of the head and tail of the monster. By virtue of his name a Drake was ordained as a seagoer and seafighter. The Drakes of Eastchester and Westchester were related, naturally, to many other landed families, notably the descend- ants of Thomas Hunt who as early as 1652 owned portions of Throgmorton's Neck on the East River, called Throgg's Neck for short, as well as the Rodmans of Rodman's Neck in East- chester. Born in 1795 and losing his father at an early age, Joseph Rodman Drake had a sad childhood, which was darkened still further when his mother married again and with his sisters left for New Orleans, where his stepfather lived. Intensely 41 affectionate in his character and finding among his more im- mediate relatives no congenial souls, it was with his relatives at Hunt's Point, less closely allied, that he felt and found sympathy. Judging from a miniature painting when he was about twenty-two, a handsomer mortal was not easily found. Golden hair, dark 'blue eyes, beautifully modelled features, a slender but well knit figure — he must have attracted others as he did Dr. James B. de Kay and Fitz-Greene Halleck. As we know, the latter's enthusiasm was profound, not merely for his friend's mind and character, but for his physical comeliness. The old grange of the Hunts at Hunts Point contained young people as well as old, amongst others the late Mrs. John Rush of Philadelphia, in whose honor Joseph wrote various poems expressing admiration if not exactly love. But these made on the young girl a deep impression. In later life she delighted in recalling those early scenes of childhood at Hunt's Point and tell her hearers about the poet and Fitz his friend. Thus, during his school days and later, when studying medi- cine in the office of a New York physician, Joseph was wont to take boat on the East River and, braving the baffling cur- rents of Hell Gate, land at the old house which still stands, looking out on the wide stretches of the bays. There he found a true home among the kind aunts and uncles ; he could come and go at will, row about the shining reaches, explore the Harlem River, or else ramble along the sylvan banks of the Bronx. To these outings we owe the pensive, charming lines on the Bronx, to these visits we owe the fact that when, tardily, he came to realize that his malady was fatal, he begged his wife to lay him, not in the Drake tomb near the church at Eastchester, but in the little private burying ground of the Hunts and Leggetts, on a knoll shaded with cedars and nut- trees, within sight of the grange which had given a home to the orphan. Had it not been for this, the Borough of the Bronx might never have had a Joseph Rodman Drake Park, 42 nor is it likely that the other American poets whose names are now given to adjacent streets, would have been thus honored by the Borough. After the literary exercises at the Morris High School had been concluded with the singing of "The Star Spangled Banner," the members of the Society and guests proceeded by automobiles to Joseph Rodman Drake Park, at Hunts Point, where the graves of Drake and his sister had been substantially restored by the Society, having been enclosed by an eliptical iron fence set upon eight granite fence blocks, whilst a Tiffany bronze tablet containing lines from Halleck's elegiac poem on Drake had been placed upon the tombstone. The total expense of this work was $273.25. A large and attentive audience witnessed the unveiling exer- cises. The Hon. James L. Wells, Treasurer of the State of New York, read an important paper on "The Hunt Family and Hunt's Point," which revealed a remarkable knowledge of local history, deduced from much research and personal in- formation. It is expected that this paper, which should not be lost, will be prepared for future publication when Ml-. Wells can find more time than is available now with his arduous duties in the service of the State. The unveiling of the tablet was gracefully performed by Miss Helena van Brugh de Kay, a great-granddaughter of the poet. As the folds of the American flag were drawn aside. revealing the first verse of Halleck's tribute to Drake, Chair- man Paltsits read the touching poem, which follows : Joseph Rodman Drake Park, May 29, 191 5. GREEN BE THE TURF. Fritz-Greene Halleck. Written at the old Hunt Grange in memory of his friend and companion, JOieph Rodman Drake, a few days after his death, Sept. 21, 1820. Green be the turf above thee, Fj-iend of my better days 1 43 None knew thee but to love thee, Nor named thee but to praise. Tears fell when thou wert dying, From eyes unused to weep, And long, where thou art lying, Shall tears the cold turf steep. When hearts whose truth was proven, Like thine, are laid in earth, There should a wreath be woven To tell the world their worth. And I who wake each morrow, To clasp they hand in mine. Who shared thy joy and sorrow. Whose weal and woe were thine — It should be mine to braid it Around thy faded brow; But I've in vain assayed it And feel I cannot now. While memory bids me weep thee. Nor thoughts, nor words are free. The grief is fixed too deeply ' That mourns a man like thee. Then Mr. Davis on behalf of the Society formally pre- sented the tablet and railing to the city of New York through the Hon. Thomas W. Whittle, Park Commissioner of the Borough of the Bronx, who accepted the transfer in a few well-chosen words. No sooner had he finished speaking than the first gun of the National Salute to the Flag was fired by Battery E, Second Field Artillery, N. G., N. Y., Lieutenant Robert W. Marshall commanding. As the last gun was fired, the Battery bugler sounded " Taps " at the tomb. The mem- bers of the Society and guests returned to the automobiles and rode to Bronx Park, the gorge of the river below the old snuff-mill being reached at six o'clock. The veil of evening was soon to fall as a fit termination of a glorious memorial day. Daylight lingered long enough for the unveiling of the 44 Tiffany bronze tablet at the gorge and for an inspection of the exhibition of works by and relating to Drake in the Society s museum in the Mansion above the gorge. At the unveiling exercises in the Bronx Park gorge, Mr. Davis, as chairman of the Council, spoke as follows : Fricftds of the Beautiful in Nature and in Language:^ Thinking in the ideal, expressing the workings of imagina- tive minds, poets live at an altitude and breathe an atmosphere far removed from the valley of fog wherein the struggling millions wear their. lives away. " Pained with the pressure of unfriendly hands, Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness " they fail to find in their fellows that responsive sympathy and understanding which their spirits crave, and seek solace in these "shades where none intrude, To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude." The frail body of him whom we honor today yielded up its spirit at the early age of twenty-five. Too young to have experienced much of the bitterness of life, of gentle manners and winning ways, yet even this amiable young man, so well beloved by his fellows as we know him to have been, found in this river " a face more pleasant than the face of men," and in its waves found " old companions." A century ago Drake loved to come and sit upon these banks ; he loved this " gentle river " ; talked to it as though it understood him; called it **my own romantic Bronx." Many thousands, in the intervening years, have come and sat upon these banks, have looked upon this river and have here found that respite from the troubles of a weary life which makes existence more endurable. His master-piece a fairy-tale, no wonder Drake was charmed by this fairyland of sylvan loveliness ! Under the spell of its magic beauty, as we stand here today and look around us, it requires no poet's imagination to appreciate his poetic ecstasy: 45 " Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, Oh ! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet's dwelling." If we may conceive that the spirit of Drake hovers over this gathering at the close of this beautiful May day, hov^ his soul must rejoice that this enchanted ground has been preserved inviolate and is dedicated in perpetuity to all the people, not alone of this great city, but of the world at large, for the beauties of the Bronx bring pilgrims from everywhere. On the bank of the river which inspired his charming poem, the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences now dedicates one verse in imperishable bronze, as a tribute alike to the poet and to the source of his inspiration. Dr. Nathaniel L. Britton, Director of the New York Botanical Garden and a member of the Drake Memorial Com- mittee, presided at the gorge exercises. He next presented Chairman Paltsits, who read Drake's poem on the Bronx, which follows : BRONX. I sat me down upon a green bank-side, Skirting the smooth edge of a gentle river. Whose waters seemed unwillingly to glide. Like parting friends who linger while they sever ; Enforced to go, yet seeming still unready, Backward they wind their way in many a wistful eddy. Grey o'er my head the yellow-vested willow Ruffled its hoary top in the fresh breezes. Glancing in light, like spray on a green billow. Or the fine frost-work which young winter- freezes ; When first his power in infant pastime trying, Congeals sad autumn's tears on the dead branches lying. From rocks around hung the loose ivy dangling. And in the clefts sumach of liveliest green, Bright ising-stars the little beach was spangling, The gold-cup sorrel from his gauzy screen Shone like a fairy crown, enchased and beaded. Left on some morn, when light flashed in their eyes unheeded. The hum-bird shook his sun-touched wings around, The bluefinch caroll'd in the still retreat; The antic squirrel capered on the ground 46 Where lichens made a carpet for his feet: Through the transparent waves, the ruddy minkle Shot up in gUmmering sparks his red fin's tiny twinkle. There were dark cedars with loose mossy tresses, White powdered dog-trees, and stiff hollies flauntmg Gaudy as rustics in their May-day dresses, Blue pelloret from purple leaves upslanting A modest gaze, like eyes of a young maiden Shining beneath dropt lids the evening of her wedding. The breeze fresh springing from the lips of morn, Kissing the leaves, and sighing so to lose 'em. The winding of the merry locust's horn. The glad spring gushing from the rock's bare bosom : Sweet sights, sweet sounds, all sights, all sounds excelling, Oh! 'twas a ravishing spot formed for a poet's dwelling. And did I leave thy loveliness, to stand Again in the dull world of earthly blindness? Pained with the pressure of unfriendly hands, Sick of smooth looks, agued with icy kindness? Left I for this thy shades, where none intrude. To prison wandering thought and mar sweet solitude? Yet I will look upon thy face again. My own romantic Bronx, and it will be A face more pleasant than the face of men. Thy waves are old companions, I shall see A well-remembered form in each old tree. An hear a voice long loved in thy wild ministrelsy. As the last verse was being read, the verse which had been cast in bronze, Miss Slyvia de Kay, a winsome maid of twelve summers and a great-granddaughter of the poet, drew aside the American flag and revealed those words which so pecu- liarly signalize Drake as *' The Bronx Poet.'* The setting of these unveiling exercises will not be effaced from the memory of those who had the good fortune to be present. The quiet of the scene was broken only by the echo of the river's rapids, rustling trees, and the song-notes or twitter of birds engaged in the vespers of the fainting day. The exercises closed with a view of the Drake exhibition already alluded to. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE WRITINGS OF DR. JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE AND SOME REFERENCES TO WORKS RELATING TO HIM BY VICTOR HUGO PALTSITS FOREWORD WHEN some years ago I first conceived the plan of form- ing a collection of the writings of Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake to be presented to the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences, as has since been done, I had no idea that so much could be brought together. The usual catalogues and bibliog- raphies of American poetry mentioned only a few editions. It is gratifying, therefore, to be able to announce that the Society's collection now lacks only a few titles and is. so far as known to me, the fullest complement of Drake editions in any public or private possession. The bibliography presented here is not definitive, but it is nearly complete for separate publications of Drake. V. H. P. August, 1918 48 BIBLIOGRAPHY Order of Arrangement 1. Writings of Drake. 3. Some Books and Articles 2. Notes on some Manu- about Drake. scripts of Drake. 4. Miscellany. I. WRITINGS OF DRAKE The Croakers The Poetry of the Portfolio. Collected by Oliver Old- school [i. e., Joseph Dennis]. Philadelphia: H. Hall, 1818. 18°. Includes for the first time in book form three poems by Drake and Halleck, signed " Croaker & Co.," as follows : "To . Esq."; "Abstract of a Surgeon-General's [Dr. Mitchill's] Report," and "A Loving Epistle to Mr. Wm. Cobbett of North Hempstead, L. 1." Poemis, / by / Croaker, Croaker & Co. / and / Croaker, Jun. / as published / in the Evening Post. / {Parallel lines and quotation from Shakespeare'] / Published for the Reader. / New York — 18 19. 16°; title, verso blank; text, headed "Poems," pp, [3] — 36. Signatures : A — C in sixes. The first edition in book form. The copy described is owned by Alfred T. White, Esq., of Brooklyn, N. Y., and has pasted on the front flyleaves three of the original Croaker poems cut from the " New York Evening Post." One of these is a squib " To E. Simpson, Esq. Manager of the Theatre," annotated in a contemporary hand with the names of the persons lampooned, as follows: S — Sanford; V — B — Van Buren; C — Clinton; "Justice 49 50 Shallow'* Judge Woodward; T— Tompkins; old R— Ross; S- Spencer; P— R— Peter R. Livingston; W— B— Walter Bowne; M— Mayor; C— n and W— r Christian and Warner, Police Justices; B— r Buckmaster; H— Haff; M— Meigs; V— W— Van Wyck; G— n Gelston; M— 11 and G— r Max- well and Gardinier; B— n Bolton; G— t Gilbert; P— H. W— Peter H. Wendover; P— 11 F. Pell; M— 11 Mitchell [sic for Mitchill]. In the text of the book, identifications of names have been written with lead pencil on many of the pages, thus: p. 13, Baron V— H— Van Hoffman;, p. 14, M— rr— y's Guards Murray; p. 14, J— rv— s Jarvis; p. 14, I^- Lynch; p. 21, R*** Rose; p. 23, P***** Primes; p. 25, B* ****** Bogardus; p. 25, Doctor M— 11 Mitchell [sic for Mitchill]; p. 25, T— s Tompkins; p. 25, D— k— y R— r Dicky Riker; p. 26, B— s Bogardus; p. 26, Doctor M— 11 Mitchell [for Mitchill] ; p. 27, Dr. F— s Francis; p. 27, Col. M— Murray; p. 28, J— n H— ff, and B— n B— 1— y, and Chr— st— n, and Br — ck — t John Hoff, Ben Bailey, Christian, Brackett ; p. 28, Colonel W— rn— r Warner; p. 28, M — p — s Mapes; p. 28, M — gs Meigs. There is no copy of this edition in the collection of the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. In 1893, A. S. Clark, a bookseller, offered a copy for $10; the McKee copy was sold in 1900 for $36; Dodd, Mead and Co. offered an uncut copy in 1908 for $125 ; an uncut copy was sold in the Maier sale, on Nov. 16, 1909, for $49; and the Chamberlain copy.. sold also in November, 1909, with a defective title and some pages spotted, fetched only $7.50. These poems were reprinted on pp. 498-507 of Waldie's Octavo Library, no. 22, for May 31, 1836, and of this issue the Bronx Society has a copy. See also Holden's "Dollar Magazine," for June, 1848, p. 324. The / Croakers / by / Joseph Rodman Drake / and / Fitz Greene Halleck / First Complete Edition / [Seal of Bradford Club] I New York / MDCCCLX. 51 Royal 8°; half-title of "Bradford Club Series. Number two,' verso blank; title-page, with copyright, etc. on verso; "Club Copy," verso blank; "Preface," pp. [v]— vi; "Con- tents," pp. [vii] — viii; text, pp. [I] — 133; 134 blank; "Notes," PP- [135] — 179; 180 blank; "Index," pp. [181] — 191; orna- ment on verso of p. 191. Steel-engraved portraits of Drake and Halleck as frontispieces. The Society has a "Club Copy" presented by John B. Moreau to Dr. L. R. Koecker, but lacks the Drake portrait. Other copies seen are in the New York Public Library, which has also copies of the " Sub- scriber's Copy " issue, in yellow wrappers with paper label and in green pocked cloth, with gilt lettering on the back. These issues are identical save for the leaf which indicates their issue. The Club edition was for members and limited to one hundred copies. The other copies were sold to sub- scribers. The editors state in the preface: "More than once since their first appearance in the columns of the daily newspapers, efforts have been made for their collection in print, and one or two unauthorized gatherings have thus been made, while numerous copies more or less complete, prepared with con- siderable trouble, have been circulated in manuscript. . . . The collection will be found to contain several original Croakers by Mr. Halleck, which, though written at the period of the others, have not hitherto seen the light, while several additions of a similar nature have been made from the manu- scripts of Drake." The best edition of these pleasant satires, with indispensable explanatory notes. In the Manuscript Division of the New York Public Library there is a neatly- written collection of the Croaker poems, in two pocket-size volumes, the paper of one having a watermark date of 1802, and the other a watermark date of 1815. They belonged to Mr. James Lenox, whose autograph is on the front flyleaf of one of the volumes and may have come to him in his youth, as he was born in the city of New York in the year 1800, son of Robert Lenox, one of the chief merchant princes of 52 the city in that day. These volumes are interesting as con- temporary compilations, circulated in this form among the elite of the city of New York when the poems were fresh and the talk of the town. The Bradford edition has been an extra-illustrator's hobby. In the John D. Crimmins sale, Nov. lo, 1916, there was a copy extended to four volumes by the insertion of about 460 portraits and plates, as well as some autograph letters. It sold for $75. Less interesting extra-illustrated copies have been sold for $50 or less. There is an extra-illustrated copy in the New York Public Library. The Culprit Fay The Culprit Fay. By the late Joseph Rodman Drake. This poem was circulated in manuscript for many years before it was printed. Extracts, more or less garbled, had found their way into the London Athenceum and also in American periodicals. It seems to have been printed entire for the first time in the Boston Pearl, from which it was re- printed, with the addition of an important head-note, in the New-York Mirror, of July 11, 1835, pp. 12-14. A portion of the poem had aleady appeared in the Mirror some years before, but the above printings seem to have been the first complete presentations and preceded its appearance in the authorized collection of Drake's poems which Dearborn pub- lished in 1835 for the poet's daughter. It was in the Mirror, too, that the authorized volume received attention by an excel- lent review, in the issue of November 21, 1835, pp. 164-165. The / Culprit Fay / and / other Poems. / By Joseph Rod- man Drake. / New- York: / George Dearborn, Publisher. / 1835. 8**; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece portrait of Drake, painted by Rodgers and engraved on steel by T. Kelly, with in- scription giving incorrectly the dates of birth and death of Drake; steel engraved title-page by James Smillie after Robert t [HI r AND OTHER POEMS BY J)®SE^&fl IR '^^Sr FROM ABOVE WEST POINT ON THE HUDSON (GEORGE - DEAMB€)]RM. PUBLISHER Engraved Title Page of First Collection of Poems. I Portrait from the 1835 Edition of his Poems. 53 W. Weir, dated 1835; printed title-page dated 1835, with copyright of " October 31, 1835 " in the name of the publisher, on the verso, and below the imprint of Scatcherd and Adams; dedication by Drake's daughter " To her father's friend Fitz- Greene Halleck," with verso blank; ''Index," with verso blank; text, pp. [i] — 84. Figured blue cloth binding, with gilt lyre on both covers. There is a copy in the Society's col- lection. Halleck's own interesting copy, with numerous mar- ginal corrections, alterations, and notes in his hand, was sold on Nov. 4, 1909, at the auction of the J. Chester Chamberlain collection of American first editions. This edition was also issued by Dearborn as a composite with Halleck's "Alnwick Castle, with other Poems," published by him in 1836. The Bronx Society has a copy presented by Dr. Britton. Its bind- ing is ornamental cloth with a gilt lyre on both covers and the back is lettered simply DRAKE | & | HALLECK. A copy in the New York Public Library is bound in dark blue morocco, with the gilt lyre on both covers within a gilt panel, and with the edges gilt. Analysis of contents : " The Culprit Fay," pp. [ i ] — 32 ; '' To a Friend" [Fitz Greene Halleck], pp. [33]— 39; "Extracts from Leon. An unfinished poem," pp. [41] — 56; "Niagara," pp. 57-59; two songs, pp. 60 and 61; "Written in a lady's album," p. 62; "Lines To a Lady" [Miss Eliza McCall], p. 63; "Lines Written on leaving New Rochelle," p. 64-65; "Hope," pp. 65-66; "Fragment," pp. 67-70; "To ," p. 71; "Lines," p. 72] "To Eva," p. 73; "To a Lady [Miss Eliza McCall] with a withered violet," p. 74; "Bronx," pp. 75-77; "Song," pp. 78-79; "To Sarah," pp. 79-81; "The American Flag," pp. 81-84. The / Culprit Fay, / and / other Poems. / By Joseph Rod- man Drake. / New-York: George Dearborn, Publisher. / 1836. * 8°; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece portrait, same as 1835 edition; steel engraved title-page, same as 1835 edition 54 and so dated; printed title-page dated 1836, with verso as in 1835 edition; dedication, verso blank; "Index," verso blank; text, beginning with sig. B on p. [9] and ending on p. 92. This. is the second edition entirely reset and with slight cor- rections. The Society's copy is bound in plain dark brown cloth with a gilt vase and flowers on both covers. The copy in the New York Public Library is bound in dark blue floriated cloth, with a gilt title on the back, and a gilt lyre on both covers. " The New-York Book of Poetry," also published by Dearborn, in 1837, contains some poems of Drake. It is the first collection of New York verse. There is a copy in the Society's collection. The Rococo : / containing / the Culprit Fay, / by Joseph Rodman Drake; / Lillian, / by WilHam Macworth Praed; / and / The Eve of St. Agnes, /by John Keats; / (Three of the most delicious poems ever written.) / With original notes / by N. P. Willis. / New York: / Morris, Willis, & Co., Pub- lishers, / No. 4 Ann-Street. / 1844. 8° ; cover-title, verso blank; text, pp. [i] — 16. Back cover, advertisements. In the Mirror Library, being the "New Mirror Extra — No. 8." Page 16 has a valuable note by Willis. The Bronx Society has it in a set of "The New Mirror," the original wrappers having been wasted in binding. The New York Public Library has a copy in the original wrappers, stitched, as issued. These literary extras were issued with the periodical edited by George P. Morris and N. P. WilHs, entitled : " The New Mirror, of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction," which began on April 8, 1843, and ran till September 28, 1844, when its form was changed. In the number for September 21, 1844, (vol. 3, no. 25), on p. 398, a poem by Drake was pre- sented, entitled : " To the Defenders of New-Orleans," which had made its first appearance in a little New Jersey paper called Young Hickory. The first three verses of this poem, omitting the fourth, were printed in the " Magazine of His- 55 tory," vol. 5 ( 1907), p. 274, ostensibly as an unpublished poem of Drake, notwithstanding its earlier appearance in print so many years before. The original manuscript of the poem was formerly in the collection of the late John D. Crimmins, of New York City. At the time of its sale, on April 8, 1907, some critics had questioned its authenticity as a Drake item. The / Culprit Fay, / and / other Poems. / By Joseph Rod- man Drake. / New- York : / Van Norden and King, 45 Wall Street. / 1847. 8° ; portrait frontispiece of Drake, same plate as in 1835 edition; half-title, verso blank; printed title, with copyright of 1847 by George C. De Kay on verso; engraved title, with date 1847, verso blank; "Index," with verso blank; dedication to Halleck by Drake's daughter, verso blank; text, pp. [9] — 92. Page [48] is blank. Black cloth, blind stamped borders and gilt urn on both covers. De Kay was the poet's son-in- law, who had married Janet Halleck Drake, the poet's only child. The copy owned by the Bronx Society has a presenta- tion inscription, thus: "For C. J. Stille from the Author's grandchild. New York — 1855." Charles Janeway Stille was, from 1 868-1 880, the eminent provost of the University of Pennsylvania. The New York Public Library has a copy with "Mrs. F. F. Bryant, August, 1847" on a flyleaf, from the William Cullen Bryant collection. The / Culprit Fay. / By / Joseph Rodman Drake. / New York : / Rudd & Carleton, 130 Grand Street, / (Brooks Build- ing, cor. of Broadway.) / MDCCCLIX. 12°; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece of the Fay, with recto blank; title-page, with copyright of 1859, and imprint of R. Craighead, on verso; "Advertisement," with verso blank; quotation from Tennant, with verso blank; half-title to " Poem," with verso blank; text, pp. [13]— 62; blank leaf; "Catalogue of the Publications of Rudd & Carleton," con- sising of title, with two children on verso, and pp 1-5 ; verso 56 of p. 5 blank. There are also copies which have a catalogue of six pages, differing in content. Brown pocked cloth, gilt lettering on back and blind stamped monogram- of the pub- lishers on both covers. This is the first separate edition of " The Culprit Fay," but unauthorized. On p. 6 of the "Catalogue" is an announce- ment of "a charming edition" of the poem "printed on col- ored plate paper," bound in muslin. Presumably it is the edition described above. J. R. D. De Kay, a grandson of the poet, writing about this publication to the editor of The Home Journal, on March 30, 1859, said: "Gentlemen: An edition of Joseph Rodman Drake's poem, ' The Culprit Fay,' having been recently issued by a publishing house in this city, and ex- tensively advertised for sale, I hereby announce that the edi- tion was published without the consent of the family of the late Mr. Drake, and that the sale is peremptorily stopped. It was the desire of the Author that his poems should not be pub- lished, and, to pervent it, a few copies of this, and others, were printed some years since [/. e., 1847], for private circulation, and a copyright registered. It is doubtless in ignorance of these facts that these gentlemen [i. e., Rudd and Carleton] now issue it. Several other editions of 'The Culprit Fay' have appeared at various times, which have as in this case been immediately suppressed." Notwithstanding this declara- tion, Rudd and Carleton, or their successors, continued to bring out editions and the record thereof, so far as ascertained, is given in this bibliography. The text of all editions with the imprint of R. Craighead is from the same stereotype plates, which show the natural wear in later impressions. The Bronx Society copy has the 5 page catalogue; two copies in the New York Public Library have a 6 page catalogue but varying in make-up. The / Culprit Fay / By / Joseph Rodman Drake. / New York: / Rudd & Carleton, 130 Grand Street, / (Brooks Building, cor. of Broadway.) / MDCCCLX. 57 12°; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece of the Fay, with recto blank; title, with copyright of 1859 and imprint of R. Craighead on verso; "Advertisement," verso blank; quota- tion from Tennant, verso blank; half-title to "Poem, verso blank; text, pp. [13] — 62; blank leaf; "Catalogue of the Publications of Rudd & Carleton," consisting of half-title, with cut of two children on verso, and pp. [i] — 6. Binding, brown pockmarked cloth, like the 1859 issue. Description made from a copy in the New York Public Library. The / Culprit Fay / By / Joseph Rodman Drake. / New York: / Rudd & Carleton, 130 Grand Street, / (Brooks Build- ing, cor. of Broadway.) / MDCCCLXII. 12°; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece of the Fay, with recto blank; title-page, with copyright of 1859, and imprint of R. Craighead, on verso; "Advertisement," with verso blank; quotation from Tennant, with verso blank; half-title to "Poem," with verso blank; text, pp. [13] — 62. Brown pocked cloth, gilt lettering on back and blind stamped mono- gram of the publishers on both covers. A manuscript inscrip- tion on the front flyleaf of the copy owned by the Bronx Society bears the date of " December 2d — 1861," which proves that the issue was printed off late in 1861, the title-page being dated ahead as of 1862. There is also a copy in the New York Public Library. The / Culprit Fay / By / Joseph Rodman Drake. / [Pub- lisher's anagram] / New York: / Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway. / (late Rudd & Carleton.) / MDCCCLXIV. 12°; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece of the Fay, with recto blank; title, with copyright of 1859 and imprint of R. Craighead, on verso; "Advertisement," with verso blank; quotation from Tennant, with verso blank; half-title to "Poem," verso blank; text, pp. [13]— 62; "A new Catalogue of Books issued by Carleton," with date 1864 at top, pp. [i] — 8. Indigo colored cloth, embossed with wave-lines and panels, 58 gilt lettering on back. Described from copy in Brown Uni- versity (Harris Collection). The / Culprit Fay / By / Joseph Rodman Drake. / New York: / Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway. / (late Rudd & Carleton.) / M DCCC LXV. 12°; half-title, verso blank; frontispiece of the Fay, with recto blank; title-page, with copyright of 1859, and imprint of R. Craighead, on verso; ''Advertisement," with verso blank; quotation from Tennant, with verso blank; half-title to "Poem," with verso blank; text, pp. [13]— 62. Red cloth, gilt lettering on back and gilt title in a panel on front copy. Copy owned by Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The / Culprit Fay / By / Joseph Rodman Drake / New York: / Carleton, Publisher, 413 Broadway. / (late Rudd & Carleton.) / MDCCCLXV. 16°; half-title, with announcement of "An Illustrated Edi- tion" as in press, in verso; title-page, with copyright of 1859, and imprint of R. Craighead, on verso; "Advertisement,' with verso blank; quotation from Tennant, with verso blank; half-title to "Poem," with verso blank; text, pp. [13] — 62. Green cloth, gilt lettering on back and gilt title in panel on front cover. Copy owned by Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The illustrated edition promised in the announcement for the Christmas holidays of 1865, I have not seen. It was the first edition "with nearly one hundred exquisite illustrations by Lumley" and was "beautifully bound in quarto." The copyright was registered as of 1866. At the Charles C. Moreau sale, on April 16, 191 5, there was sold a complete set of the engraver's proofs of the illustrations on India paper. They were bound in a volume, half morocco, with a special finely-executed title-page. The / Culprit Fay. / A Poem / By Joseph Rodman Drake. / With One Hundred Illustrations, by Arthur Lumley. / 59 [Circular cut of the Fay] / New York: / Carleton, publisher. / MDCCCLXVIL 12°; half-title, with frontispiece on verso; title-page, with copyright of 1866 and imprint of Alvord, on verso; ''Adver- tisement," with verso blank; "List of the principal illustra- tions," pp. [9] — 10; quotation from Tennant, with verso blank; half-title, illustrations and text of poem, pp. [13] — 118. Illustrated throughout. Red cloth, imitation morocco, gilt lettering on back and front cover, with gilt circular design of the Fay, copied from the engraving on p. 65, lacking the moon. Described from .copy owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The Culprit Fay. / A Poem / by Joseph Rodman Drake. / With One Hundred Illustrations, by Arthur Lumley. / [Cir- cular cut of the Fay,] / New York: / Carleton, publisher. / MDCCCLXXI. 12°; half-title, with frontispiece on verso; title-page, with copyright of 1866 on verso; "Advertisement," illustrations. half-title to "Poem," and text, pp. [11] — 118. Illustrated throughout. Binding in green cloth, gilt lettering on back and gilt figure of the Fay on upper lefthand corner of the front cover. The Bronx Society's copy is internally im- perfect. The / Culprit Fay. / A Poem / By Joseph Rodman Drake. / With One Hundred Illustrations, by Arthur Lumley. / [Cir- cular cut of the Fay] / New York : / Carleton, publisher / MDCCCLXXV. 12°; half-title, with frontispiece on verso; title-page, with copyright of 1866 and imprint of John F. Trow & Son, on verso; "Advertisement," with quotation from Tennant on verso; half-title, illustrations, and text of poem, pp. [13]— 118. Illustrated throughout. Light brown cloth, gilt letter- ing on back; front cover with title and in its lower righthand corner a gilt circular design of the Fay with a silver moon, 6o in imitation of the engraving on p. 65. Copy owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The Culprit Fay. / By / Joseph Rodman Drake. / New York: / Kilbourne Tompkins, 16 Cedar Street. / 1875. Square 16°; title, with verso blank; text, 22 unnumbered pages. Grey cloth, with title in gold on front cover. De- scribed from copy in New York Public Library. The / Culprit Fay. / A Poem / By Joseph Rodman Drake. / With One Hundred Illustrations, by Arthur Lumley. / [Cir- cular cut of the Fay] / New York : / Carieton, publisher. / MDCCCLXXXIII. 12°; half-title, with frontispiece on verso; title-page, with copyright of 1866 and imprint of Trow's Printing and Book- binding Co., on verso; ''Advertisement," with quotation from Tennant on verso; half-title, illustrations, and text of poem, pp. [13] — 118. Illustrated throughout. Limp tan-colored imitation morocco, with black silk binding cords, and gilt script title on front cover. Copy owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. Literary Gems / The Culprit Fay / By / Joseph Rodman Drake / New York and London / G. P. Putnam's Sons / The Knickerbocker Press / 1891. 24° ; "^37 PP-» text printed on one side only. Frontispiece of the Fay by W. de Meza, 1889. Copy owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The Culprit Fay, and other Poems, by Joseph Rodman Drake. With a title-page and vignettes by Edmund H. Garrett. Printed for the Rowfant Club, Cleveland: MDCCCXCIII. 8°; pp. 96. The second publication of this private book club. The edition consisted of five copies on vellum and ninety-five copies on handmade paper. I have not seen this edition. The Culprit Fay. Illustrated by Ross and Turner. [New York:] George D. Sproul, 1902. 4° ; text beautifully printed, one side only, on 49 leaves of genuine vellum, with illuminated initial letters, and having a separate leaf of vellum for the highly illuminated title-page; also blank leaves of vellum at the beginning and end of the book. This is the edition of the St. Dunstan Illuminated Classics, of which perhaps not more than ten copies were issued. They were elaborately bound. A copy was sold at auction by Stan V. Henkels, of Philadelphia, on Dec. 21, 1904, for $77.50; another sold at the American Art Galleries, on March 27, 1917, fetched $100. I have not seen this edition. The American Flag The / American / Flag. / By Joseph Rodman Drake. / Illustrated from original drawings by F. O. C. Darley. / Illuminated cover by John A. Hows. / Music from Bellini, by Geo. Danskin. / New York: / James G. Gregory, No. 46 Walker Street. / 1861. 4°; cover-title, verso blank; text of poem, with head illus- trations, four leaves, with the versos blank; music, pp. (4); advertisements, p. (i), with head of liberty and imprint of C. A. Alvord, on verso. The Bronx Society has a copy. I have also examined three copies in the New York Public Library. The American Flag. / By J. R. Drake. 8° ; broadside, two columns of text on one sid'e only This very rare broadside edition, measuring ghy sH inches, is un- dated. It was probably printed during the Civil War, and the word free in the last verse is emphasized by italics. Copy owned by the Bronx Society and is the only one I have ever seen. It was formerly in the collection of American first editions formed by J. Chester Chamberlain. 62 The / American Flag / Cantata / for / Bass and Tenor soli / Chorus / and / Orchestra / words by / Joseph Rodman Drake (A. D. 1815) / Music / by / Antonin Dvorak / Op. 102 / Vocal Score, Pr. $1.00 Net / New York: G. Schirmer / Copyright, 1895, by G. Schirmer / [three lines in cartouche]. 8°; ornamental cover-title; title-page, with verso blank; text of "The American Flag," verso blank; music, pp. 3-47. Copy owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The American Flag / Words by / Joseph Rodman Drake / Music by / Edwin S. Tracy. / [Music] / Published by E. S. Tracy 1195 Boston Road N. Y. / Price 8p / Copyright 1915 by E. S. Tracy Royal 8°; music with words, pp. [i] — 13. Blank outer wrapper. This original setting was composed by Professor Tracy, Director of Music in The Morris High School, Bronx, New York City, especially for the Drake Memorial Celebra- tion of May 29, 191 5, given under the auspices of the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. Copy owned by the Society. Miscellaneous Writings Selections from the poetry of Drake have appeared in many anthologies as, for example, the New-York Book of Poetry (New York, 1837) ; Bryant's Selections from the American Poets (New York, 1840) ; Griswold's Readings in American Poetry (New York, 1843), and his Poets and Poetry of America (various editions) ; Tuckerman's Thoughts on the Poets (New York, 1846), with an appreciative critique of "The Culprit Fay"; Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature; Waldron's Irving and Cotemporaries (New York, n. d.), and their many successors. Poems have been printed in literary periodicals and the newspapers, from time to time, and the following are some of the principal references: "To Fitz-Greene Halleck, Esq. A poem by Dr. Joseph Rodman Drake," in The New York 63 Mirror, March 3, 1832; poems in American Monthly Magch dne, vol. 6, p. 65 ; Southern Literary Messenger, vol. 2, p. 326; Democratic Review, vol. 14, p. 202; Holden's Dollar Magor zine, June, 1848, p. 324; "To my Sister Caroline" was first printed in The Independent, in 1872; and a collection based upon the manuscript volume owned by Judge Tillou, Drake's brother-in-law, in the New York Daily Tribune, January 6, 1881. A continuation of " The Culprit Fay," signed '' Oberon," appeared in The New York Mirror. Interesting is a fine poem, written in the spirit of Drake's "The Culprit Fay," and intended as an introduction to it. The author, Dr. Harry Lyman Koopman, now librarian of Brown University, has presented a copy to the Drake Col- lection owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences, from which the following description has been made, viz. : The Crime / of the / Culprit Fay / Introductory to Drake's Poem / By / Harry Lyman Koopman / 300 Copies Printed as Manuscript / for Private Distribution / Burlington Ver- mont / 1890. 12°; title, with printer's name on verso; dedication, with verso blank; text of poem, pp. [5] — 22; blank leaf. Yellow paper cover; on front cover: "The Crime of / The Culprit Fay / H L Koopman's / Yule Gift to his / Friends 1890." The copy owned by the Bronx Society is inscribed : " For the Drake Collection, a token of life-long homage from Harry Lyman Koopman." Judge Gedney arranged in libretto "The Culprit Fay" for an operetta, as performed about 1883. An ambitious attempt to set to music " The Culprit Fay " was made by the composer Frederick Grant Gleason (b. 1848; d. 1903), in his opus 15, a cantata for soli, chorus, and orchestra. Dudley Buck, the American composer (b. 1839, d. 1909) » was called to Chicago as an organist in 1869. During the great fire he lost many manuscripts, among them being a concert overture on " The 64 Culprit Fay,"— Cited from "American Composers," by Ru- pert Hughes (Boston, 1914), P- 167. It has also been set as a rhapsody for grand orchestra, by Henry Kimball Hadley, as follows : Henry Hadley / Op. 62 / The Culprit Fay / A Rhapsody / for / Grand Orchestra / after Joseph Rodman Drake's Poem / Score / Parts / New York : G. Schirmer /.../.../ .../.../.../ [Copy. 1910]. F°; cover-title, verso blank; title, verso blank; insert "Pro- gramme Sketch," by Arthur Farwell, English and German, one leaf; music score, no words, pp. 1-59; verso of p. 59 and recto of end cover, blank ; verso of cover has publisher's trade- mark. Copies described in New York Public Library (Music Division) and the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The description above is for the full score. The rhapsody was published also in the parts for the instruments. Hadley began the composition at Mayence in April, 1908; and com- pleted his work in the spring of 1909. It won the prize of $1,000 offered by the National Federation of Music Clubs, for which twenty-five competitors entered. The rhapsody was first performed on May 28, 1909, at Powers Theatre. Grand Rapids, Mich. The composer himself led the Theo- dore Thomas orchestra on this occasion of its production, as he did the Boston Symphony Orchestra on November 18 and 19, 191 o. It was played by the Theodore Thomas orchestra, with Mr. Stock as conductor, at regular concerts of October 29 and 30, 1909, and in other cities, as Detroit, Cleveland, and Memphis. It was also included as a repertoire number by the Seattle Symphony orchestra and has been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra Association. Another American composer, Henry Schoenefeld (b. 1857) produced a festival overture based on his own setting of Drake's " The American Flag." It has not been ascertained whether the score was ever published. 65 2. NOTES ON SOME MANUSCRIPTS OF DRAKE Original manuscripts of Drake are uncommon. In the fol- lowing record, which is not intended to be complete, may be found some of the most interesting manuscripts that have survived. The New York Public Library has the original autographic manuscript of Drake's Croaker poem, entitled: "To Esquire," whose first line is, " Come, shut up your Blackstone, & sparkle again." It is written on paper with a watermark date of 1812. A poem written in 1818, for Miss Halleck, 16 lines; with another poem on the reverse, being "A true and faithful in- ventory of goods belonging to Doctor Swift," together two pages, folio, was offered by Dodd, Mead and Co., in Novem- ber, 1901 (Catalogue No. 61, item 100) for $10. The poem to Miss Halleck begins : " In a fair lady's heart once a secret was lurking." A Drake manuscript poem, in the sale of Gen. James Grant Wilson, by the Merwin-Clayton Sales Co., on April 13, 1905, fetched $52. A poem of four verses of eight lines each, written on two quarto pages, headed: "Lines addressed to the Defender of New Orleans, the Day before the Battle of the 8th of Janu- ary, 181 5. By Dr. J. R. Drake," was sold by the Anderson Auction Company, on April 8, 1907, in the autograph collec- tion of John D. Crimmins, of New York City, for $46. It begins, " Hail ! Sons of gen'rous Valour ! " It was bought by William Randolph Hearst, the newspaper publisher. It was first printed in a little New Jersey paper called Young Hickory, and reprinted in The New Mirror, edited by Morris and Willis, on Sept. 21, 1844 (vol. 3, no. 25, p. 398). Its incom- plete printing in the Magazine of History, vol. 5 {1907), p. 274, as though hitherto unpublished, was an error. Dodd, Mead and Co. offered, in Catalogue No. 90, May, 1908, item 106, an antograph manuscript, four pages, quarto. 66 being a prose literary criticism by Drake of a poem entitled, ''The Faithless Heart," for $40. It was derived from the papers of Fitz-Greene Halleck and came into the possession of Gen. James Grant Wilson, Halleck's literary executor. Ap- parently not sold by Dodd, Mead and Co., it appeared in a sale of effects of General Wilson, at the rooms of the Merwin- Clayton Sales Co., May ia-12, 1910, item 268 of catalogue 322. An autograph poem, three verses of eight lines each; fol- lowed by another of two verses of four lines each in a different handwriting, together two pages, octavo, was sold by the Anderson Auction Co., of New York City, on December 2, 1909, in part i of the library of Louis J. Haber, of New York City, item 524, for $6.50. The Drake poem, entitled: "Abe- lard to Eloise," is the identical manuscript which was repro- duced in Gen. James Grant Wilson's Bryant and his Friends. It has been offered recently (1917), in a catalogue of George D. Smith, the well-known bookseller, item 224, for $50. A holograph letter of Drake to his sister, in regard to the death of his grandmother, dated at New York, September 18, 1812, two pages, was sold at the Anderson Galleries, on March 27, 1916, for $115. The first place of Drake manuscripts is easily held by a volume sold by the Anderson Galleries, on May i, 19 16, in the Sanderson sale; but the volume did not come from that collection, being added from a private source. It was bought by a bookseller for $985 and has since been held at a much higher price. Some time before the sale it was offered to me for $500 through another dealer in autographs. This chief Drake memento is an autograph manuscript note-book, en- titled : " Trifles in Rhyme, by J. Rodman Drake, New York, 181 7." It has fifty closely written pages and title, octavo size, all In Drake's hand, comprising autographic originals of "The Culprit Fay," "The American Flag" (with Halleck's last verse in autograph), "Niagara," and shorter poems. The rest of the volume, more than 135 pages, have poems in 6; the autograph of Francis R. Tillou, Drake's brother-in-law. Several of these refer to Drake and, I believe, some are Tillou's copies of poems by Drake. This is the volume which has been known, particularly from the facsimiles in Gen. James Grant Wilson's Century article on Drake. The New York Public Library has an important literary letter from W. I. Paulding to Evert A. Duyckinck, dated, January 22, 1868. which makes mention of Tillou and this volume. An original poem, " One happy year has fled," consisting of four verses of eight lines each, on two octavo sheets, was sold in the Hollis French sale, by the Anderson Galleries, of New York City, on Nov. 8, 19 16, for $37.50. It was offered in 191 7 by Thomias F. Madigan, an autograph dealer, in a cata- logue for $60. 3. SOME BOOKS AND ARTICLES ABOUT DRAKE No single writer has contributed more to our knowledge of Drake than the late General James Grant Wilson. The suc- cessive steps of his contributions may be traced in the follow- ing volumes and periodical articles. The / Poetical Writings / of / Fitz-Greene Halleck, / with extracts from those of / Joseph Rodman Drake. / Edited by / James Grant Wilson. / New York : / D. Appleton and Com- pany, / 90, 92 & 94 Grand Street. / 1869. 12°; frontispiece portrait of Halleck; engraved title, verso blank; printed title, with copyright of 1868 on verso; dedica- tion to William H. Seward, with verso blank; ^'Preface," pp. [v]— xiv; "Contents," pp. [xv]— xviii; half-title to "Mis- cellaneous Poems," with verso blank; text, pp. [13] — 365; 366 blank; half-title to "Notes," with verso blank; the "Notes," pp. [3691—386; "Index to first lines," pp. [387]— 389; verso of 389 blank; "Recent Publications of D. Appleton & Company," pp. (8) ; a plate of "Young America," facing p. [177]. Green cloth, gilt lettering on back and on centre of 68 front cover. The Croaker poems occupy pp. 253-365. The Bronx Society has a reissue of 1873. The New York PubHc Libarry has issues of 1869 and 1885. The Boston PubHc Library has a reissue of 1899. All have the copyright of 1868. A large paper edition, limited to 1 50 copies, was also issued in 1869. The collection is like the duodecimo regular issue, except the dedication which is here to Hamilton Fish; it has also steel-engravings facing pp. [13], [18], 20, 29, [46], [57], and [loi] ; a good Woodbury type portrait of Drake, from a miniature in the possession of Drake's daughter, facing P- [257] ; a similar process portrait of Halleck, facing p. [331]. There are no advertisements at the end of this issue. Both varieties are in the New York Public Library. The / Life and Letters / of / Fitz-Greene Halleck. / By James Grant Wilson. / [Quotation] / New York: / D. Apple- ton and Company, / . . . / 1869. / 12°; also large paper, royal 8°, of which 100 copies were printed. This work is the best source for information about the life of Drake, as well as of Halleck. Gen. Wilson was Halleck's literary executor. The volume contains also two pleasant poetical epistles written by Drake to Halleck from Scotland. A large paper copy is owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. Bryant and his Friends : some Reminiscences of the Knicker- bocker Writers. By James Grant Wlison. New- York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 1886. 12° ; also large paper, royal 8°, of which 195 copies were printed. A good biography of Drake is given on pp. [280] — 311, accompanied by a steel portrait, engraved by Williams after the painting by Rodgers, and between pp. 292-293 there is a facsimile of the original autographic manuscript of Drake's " Abelard to Eloise," signed by him. This work is in the New York Public Library. Rogers, Pi nxlt. Bnrt. Seulpl C^/z '^ue.^^ 'x/u//^^. Portrait of Halleck in his Younger Years. 69 Joseph Rodman Drake. By James Grant Wilson, in Harper's Magazine, vol. 49, p. 65. In an address on New York authors, by James Grant Wilson, in New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, vol. 24 (January, 1893). Joseph Rodman Drake, the author of "The American Flag." By James Grant Wilson, in Century Magazine, vol. 58 (July, 1910), p. 439. It has portraits of Drake and Hal- leck, and important facsimiles. Recollections of Joseph Rodman Drake. By James Grant Wilson, in Book News, vol. 30, p. 410. Other biographical or critical articles have been located, as follows : Drake's Poems, in The New York Mirror, 1835. It is a four-column review of the first collected edition of Drake's writings and was written, perhaps, by N. P. Willis. Alnwick Castle, with other Poems. [By Fitz-Greene Hal- leck] . New York : George Dearborn, MD CCC XXXVI. In this first edition of Halleck, his remarkable elegiac poem " On the Death of Joseph Rodman Drake^ of New- York, Sept. 1820," is printed on pp. 37-39. A copy is owned by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. The Muses of Manhattan, with Drake's portrait in the margin, is an article in the Cosmopolitan, January, 1893. Honoring an American Poet. By F. M. White, in Harper's Weekly, vol. 54, p. 13- Joseph Rodman Drake. By Richard Henry Stoddard, in The Critic, vol. 24, also called vol. 27, p. 83. Joseph Rodman Drake. By M. A. D. Howe, in The Book- man, vol. 5, p. 304. Also relates to Halleck. An American Poet Honored at Last. Joseph Rodman Drake. By G. W. Harris, in The Book News Monthly, vol. 33, no. 7, March, 191 5. A good compilation. Poetry of Joseph Rodman Drake. By A. E. Corning, in The Bookman, vol. 41, P- 574- A carefully written apprecia- tion by a student of the Knickerbocker School. 70 Joseph Rodman Drake. The Poet of The Bronx. By Victor Hugo P^altists, in Bronx. Journal of the Bronx Cham- ber of Commerce, vol. i (October, 1916). 4. MISCELLANY (A). Drake Park and Drake's Grave A Poet's Grave, in The New-York Mirror, March 4, 1837; with a woodengraved view of the Hunt cemetery by Adams. Grave of Drake. By Henry B. Dawson, in Historical Magazine, vol. 21 (3d series, vol. i), February, 1872, pp. 105-107. Grave of Joseph Rodman Drake, with picture of the monu- ment and surroundings, in The Four-Track News, January, 1902, p. 48. To run a Street over a Poet's Grave. Proposed desecration of the Tomb of the Author of '' The American Flag," in the Evening Sun, Sept. 27, 1902. Poem on " The Grave of Joseph Rodman Drake," by Henry G. Kost, in The North Side News, June 7, 1908. Friends who honor Drake's memory should also read Clinton Scol- lard's poem, entitled, "At the Grave of Joseph Rodman Drake," published originally in the New York Sun. An interesting picture of the tomb of Drake and the old cemetery gate at Hunts Point, after a drawing by E. Eldon Deane, copyright 1904, is in The American Architect, Janu- ary 23, 1904. Joseph Rodman Drake Park. Address of James L. Wells, September 16, 1904. Printed pursuant to a Resolution of the North Side Board of Trade. [New York, 1904.] 8°; pp. 15 (i). Tinted paper covers. Drake's The American Flag is given on p. 13. A copy is in the collection of the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. Joseph Rodman Drake Park, in Tenth Annual Report of the American Scenic and Historic-Preservation Society, 1905, 71 pp. 44-49; also report of the Drake Memorial Celebration by the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences, in Twenty-first An- nual Report y 1916, pp. 135-138. Communications about Drake's grave by H. A. Guiremand are in the New York Times, Sept. 28, 1907, and Dec. 4, 1909. Grave of Drake in Peril. March of Progress threatens to v^ipe out the Hallowed Landmark, in New York Times, Dec. 27, 1908. (B) Drake Portraits The portrait painted by Rodgers and engraved by T. Kelly as a frontispiece to the first collected edition of Drake's poems, 1835, has often been reengraved or reproduced by process. Charles de Kay, Esq., grandson of the poet, is the owner of a pretty painted miniature of Drake by Metcalf. The Society of Iconophiles, of New York, published, in 1903, a portrait of Drake engraved by Francis S. King, from an oil painting by John Paradise, in an edition of 103 copies, seven impressions having been taken as proofs before letter. The plates were destroyed when the edition was completed. A copy of this print is in the collection of the Bronx Society of Arts and Sciences. HOME USE CIRCULATION DEPARTMENT MAIN LIBRARY This book is due on tlie last date stamped below. 1 month loans may be renewed by cailins 642-3405. 6-montb loans may be recharged by bringing books to Circulation Desk. Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. 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