1 » - >7 «v ^V £ip N y m V0^ £^ \ ^ •3 OQ ! 1 fi^ ffii> C/3 <^1 < ^>N. ^ y <s ' H S vo t * ^s> ^ <« 'S (T .k P^ h a^ U >vV O > / . ^. ^ C. g sens Q Pm 1 :z; OS i < 1 *4 1 Digitized by tlie Internet Arcliive in 2007 witli funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.archive.org/details/bryantliisfriendsOOwilsuoft ^"f^iyMBmi i.Scns- Hm'^'^ TOPtI 3, TOWARD ScH'JLBERT.N.T. BRYANT,^^'H1S FRIENDS: SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE KNICKERBOCKER WRITERS. Me thinketh it accordautit to resoun To telle yow al the cotidicioun Of eche of hem so as it semede me. And whiche they weren, and of what degre; And eek in what arraie that they were inne. — Geoffrey Chaucer. By JAMES GRANT WILSON, AUTHOR OF "POETS AND POETRY OF SCOTLAND"; "LIFE AND LETTERS OF FITZ-GREENE HALLECK," ETC. NEIV-YORK: FORDS, HOIVARD, & HULBERT. 1886. Copyright, 1885, by Fords, Howard, & Huldert. P5 When a man sits down to write a history, though it be but the history of Jack Hickathrift or Tom Thumb, he knows no more than his heel what lets and confounded hindrances he is to meet with in his way. — Laurence Sterne. That which a man saith well is not to be re- jected because he hath some errors. No man, no hook, is void of imperfections. And therefore, reprehend who will in God's name, that is, with sweetness and without reproach. — John Cowell. /79y^ PREFACE, The present volume might perhaps properly be called " Some Literary Recollections," for it has been the writer's peculiar privilege to have enjoyed more or less intimacy with all the " Old Guard " of Ameri- can authors mentioned in the following pages, ex- cepting only Joseph Rodman Drake, and with most of those introduced in the concluding chapter on " Knick- erbocker Literature." All but one of these have joined Cooper and Irving and Bryant, having deserted the ranks of those De Quincey described as " the not inconsiderable class of men who have not the advan- tage of being dead." There is a natural tendency among biographers to contract what Lord Macaulay sneeringly designates "the disease of admiration." This the author has endeavored to avoid in the brief notices of Bryant and his brilliant Knickerbocker contemporaries. Madame de Stael used to say that the highest hap- piness she had experienced was derived from her con- versations and correspondence with great and gifted 4 PREFACE. men. The writer is fully disposed to share this be- lief, and he deems it among the happiest circum- stances of his life, that he has had the good fortune to enjoy the friendship of so many literary men, " On Fame's eternall bead-roll worthie to be fyled." If he has in any instance appeared to give too much prominence to himself, some apology may possibly be found in the fact that, relating occurrences or conver- sations in which he bore a part, it was unavoidable, and scarcely less so in making use of the epistles of his gifted correspondents. Should the well-read meet with many familiar facts in " Bryant and His Friends," still, in the words of the old scholar, " the unlearned will thank me for informing, and the learned will for- give me for reminding them" of interesting matters they may have met with before. To the brief biography of William Cullen Bryant, originally prepared for the Memorial Edition of his popular " Library of Poetry and Song," a chapter has been added, and also an unpublished poem ; while to the monograph on Drake an interesting anonymous communication has been appended since its first ap- pearance in Harper's Magazine. The papers on Paulding and Dana, originally contributed to Scribner's Monthfy,ha.ve. been greatly extended by extracts culled from a goodly sheaf of letters, addressed among others to the author, by those literary pioneers. PREFACE. 5 For the use in this work of the fine steel portrait of James K. Paulding the writer desires on behalf of his publishers to return their thanks to his son and biog- rapher, William Irving Paulding; and also to Eger- ton L. Winthrop for the loan of his private plate of Fitz-Greene Halleck, engraved for his father, the late Benjamin R. Winthrop. On his own behalf the author wishes to express his grateful acknowledg- ments to Miss Henry for kindly placing at his disposal the series of letters addressed to her father, the Rev. Dr. C. S. Henry, by Richard H. Dana, between the years 1832 and 1878; and to add, in conclusion, that verj'^ many communications and poems contained in the following pages now appear in print for the first time. Of these may be especially mentioned the lines on " Abelard and Heloise," appearing in fac-simile of Drake's manuscript ; while the writing of the vener- able Dana is shown in his transcription of "The Little Beach Bird," copied for the author, as he says, " by a more willing than able old hand " in his ninetieth year. Lenox Hill, New York, September, 1885. DEDICATED TO Mrs. ROBERT L. STUART. BY HER FRIEND, THE AUTHOR. ; CONTENTS. PAGE WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT (1794-1878) 11 JAMES K. PAULDING (1778-1860) 129 WASHINGTON IRVING (1783-1859) 157 RICHARD HENRY DANA (1787-1879), . 179 JAMES FENIMORE COOPER (1789-1851), . .230 FITZ-GREENE HALLECK (1790-1867) 245 JOSEPH RODMAN DRAKE (1795-1820) 280 NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS (1806-1867) 3" EDGAR A. POE (1809-1849), 334 BAYARD TAYLOR (1825-1878) 347 KNICKERBOCKER LITERATURE 376 Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842), 377 ; Gulian C. Verpi-anck (1786-1870), 383 ; James A. Hillhouse (1789-1841), 387 ; John W. Francis (1789-1861), Howard Payne (1791- 388 ; John ; William P. 1852), 389 L. Stone (1792-1844), 393 ; Charles Clinch (1797-1880), 394 ; MacDonald Clark (1798-1842), 398 ; Robert C. Sands (1799-1832), 399; Caroline N. Kirkland (1801-1864), 401 ; James G. Brooks (1801-1841), 402 ; George P. Morris (1802-1864), 403 ; William Leggett (1802-1839), 406 ; John Inman (1805-1850), 408 ; Charles Fenno Hoffman (1806-1884), 409 ; Laughton Osborn (1808-1878), 413 ; Alfred B. Street (1811-1881), 414 ; Henry T. Tuckerman (1813-1871), 416; Evart a. Duyckinck (1816-1878), 417; William A. Jones (b. 1817), 419 ; Frederick S. Cozzbns (1818-1869), 421 Richard Grant White (1822-1885), 424. INDEX, 435t0 44J ILLUSTRATIONS. STEEL PORTRAITS: William Cullkn Bryant, Frontisfiece (Sarony, Phot. ; H. B. Hall & Sons, Eng.) Jambs K. Paulding, 129 (Eng. by F. Halpin, from a Drawing by Joseph Wood.) Fitz-Grehne Halleck, 245 (Thomas Hicks, Pinx. ; H. Wright Smith, Eng.) MANUSCRIPT FAC-SIMILES; William Cullen Bryant, Face 11 Washington Irving, 157 (From last page of " Bracebridge Hall;" signed "Geof- frey Crayon.") Richard Henry Dana, 179 ("The Little Beach-Bird." Copied December, 1876.) Joseph Rodman Drake, 280 ("Abdlard and Elolse ;" heretofore unpublished.) Nathaniel Parker Willis, 312 Edgar A. Poe, 334 Bayard Taylor, 347 John Howaru Payne, 390 George P. Morris, 404 Alfred B. Street, 4'6 — BRYANT AND HIS FRIENDS. WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. CHAPTER I. The gravity and stillness of your youth The world hath noted, and your name is great In mouths of wisest censure. William Shakespeare. O charming youth ! in the first op'ning page: So many graces in so greeen an age! John Dryden. He had the wisdom of age in his youth, and the fire of youth in his age. Mark Hopkins. Sir Walter Scott relates that, when some one was mentioned as a "fine old man" to Dean Swift, he exclaimed with violence that there was no such thing. " If the man you speak of had either a mind or a body worth a farthing, they would have worn him out long ago." In refuta- tion of this theory, which it may be presumed has nothing to do with thews or stature, may be 12 BRYANT AND HIS FRIENDS. cited B6ranger and Brougham, Goethe and Guizot, Humboldt and Sir Henry Holland, Lyndhurst and Palmerston, Earl Russell and Field-Marshal Moltke, and among Americans, J. Q. Adams and Taney, Professors Henry and Hodge, Horace Binney and Richard Henry Dana, who passed ninety-one—the age at which Titian said that genius never grows old. But if we were asked for a bright and shining example of faculties, and faculties of a high order, re- maining unimpaired in mind and body till long past the grand climacteric, we might name Wil- liam Cullen Bryant, the beloved patriarch of American poetry, and " the most accomplished, the most distinguished, and the most universally honored citizen of the United States," who, having lived under twenty Presidential adminis- trations of our country, down to that of Garfield and Arthur, until the last week of May, 1878, completed his fourscore years and three, cheerful and full of conversation, and continued to the end to heartily enjoy what Dr. Johnson happily calls " the sunshine of life." No name in our contemporaneous literature, either in England or America, is crowned with more successful honours than that of William Cullen Bryant. Born among the granite hills of Massachusetts, at a period when our colonial literature, like our people, was but recently under the dominion of Great Britain, he lived to 3 WILLIAM CULLEM BRYANT. 1 see that literature expand from its infancy and take a proud place in the republic of letters, and he survived to see the Republic itself, after triumphantly crushing a giant rebellion, spring up to a giant power. Surrounded by such his- toric and heroic associations, men like Bryant^ who survive, embody in their lives the annals of a people, and represent in their individuality the history of a nation. Pursuing beyond the age of fourscore an ener- getic literary career, the poet was also an active co-labourer in all worthy movements to promote the advancement of the arts and literature.