octavo volumes. His labors consisted in a thorough revision of the text, which he did with independence as well as carefulness. An excellent feature of his work is the pointing out of colloquial expressions, often called Americanisms, which, obsolete in England, are yet preserved in this country. He gives original prefaces to the plays, characterized by the ease and finish common to all his compositions. This ripe scholar, able writer, wise statesman, and highly-gifted conversationalist divided his time between the city of New York and his ancestral home at Fishkill, on the Hudson, a well-preserved old mansion in which was founded the Society of the Cincinnati, an order established in 1783 by surviving officers in our Revolutionary army, "to perpetuate their friendship and to raise a fund for relieving the widows and orphans of those who had fallen during the war." Washington, Hamilton, the Pinckneys, Lafayette, and many other distinguished men were of its early membership. It still exists, and preserves its historical and social characteristics; while the well-known Tammany Society, originated to oppose the possible aristocratic tendencies of the Cincinnati, has become the synonym of factional local politics in the city of New York.

In conversation with the speaker, Bryant remarked: "As a young man, Verplanck took no part in the Cockloft Hall and other frolics of his friends Irving, Paulding, and Kemble; but, on the contrary, he was held up by the elder men of the period as an example of steady, studious, and spotless youth." To the Analectic Magazine, edited by Irving, he contributed articles on Commodore Stewart, General Scott, Barlow the poet and diplomat, and other distinguished Americans. Verplanck married, in 1811, Mary Eliza Fenno, the aunt of Matilda and Charles Fenno Hoffman, who bore him two sons, and died in Paris in 1817. "She sleeps," says Bryant, "in the cemetery of Père la Chaise, among monuments inscribed with words strange to her childhood, while he, after surviving her for sixty-three years, yet never forgetting her, is laid in the ancestral burying-ground at Fishkill, and the Atlantic ocean rolls between their graves."

Mr. Verplanck was a frequent guest in my father's family, and in later years I constantly met him at the New York Society Library and elsewhere. Among the last meetings with him that I recall was an evening at the Century Club, when he talked for several hours almost uninterruptedly, although his friends Bryant and Samuel B. Ruggles were of the party of half a dozen delighted listeners. Art, literature, the drama, and old New Yorkers were among the topics of his talk. A few months after his death a brochure appeared, entitled "Proceedings of the Century Association in Honor of the Memory of Gulian C. Verplanck;" and in May, 1871, Bryant delivered an admirable address on his old friend before the New York Historical Society.

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851), whose writings are instinct with the spirit of nationality, stands at the head of American novelists. The Edinburgh Review long ago said: "The empire of the sea has been conceded to Cooper by acclamation; and in the lonely desert or untrodden prairie, among the savage Indians, or scarcely less savage settlers, all equally acknowledge his dominion.

"Within this circle none dare move but he.'"

Cooper was born at Burlington, New Jersey; entered Yale College in 1802, and having obtained a midshipman's warrant in the navy three years later, he for six years followed the life of a sailor. Resigning from the naval service in 1811, he married Miss De Lancey, a sister of the late Episcopalian Bishop of Western New York, and soon after entered upon a literary career by the publication of his first novel, Precaution." His second work, "The Spy," displayed more skill and power. This charming story, founded upon incidents connected with the American Revolution, appealed strongly to the sympathies of his countrymen, and became a great favorite, as it is still, after a lapse of more than seventy years. It was first published in New York in 1821. The Spy" was speedily translated and reissued in several European languages, including the Russian, and it made the name of Cooper almost as well known in the Old World as in the New. His reputation was confirmed by the appearance, in 1823, of "The Pioneers" and "The Pilot," works which shared public attention at home and abroad with the Waverley Novels. From that time until the publication, in 1850, of his twenty-eighth and last work of fiction, being one more than Scott wrote, Cooper enjoyed an uninterrupted career of literary prosperity. Several years after his death a noble uniform edition of his novels was issued in thirty-two octavo volumes, with illustrations by Darley, of which, it is said, fifty thousand copies are sold annually.

In 1827 Cooper visited Europe, the fruit of which was a manly vindication of the land of his birth, from many current misrepresentations, in his "Notions of Americans." Halleck in his admirable poem, “Red Jacket," refers, in this wise, to this work and its author:

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Cooper also wrote while abroad, "Gleanings in Europe,' Sketches of Switzerland," and several other similar works which enjoyed a large measure of popularity half a century ago, American books of Old World travel being less common at that period than the present. Soon after his return from Europe, Cooper gave to the world his elaborate work on the "United States Navy," which has passed through numerous editions, and is still the standard history of the American naval service. Besides this valuable work, which was republished in England and led to considerable controversy, he published two volumes of "The Lives of American Naval Officers." The distinguished author died at his residence, Cooperstown, in his sixty-second year, and since that time his beautiful home, known as Otsego Hall, has been destroyed by fire. Six months after his death a public meeting (as many of my readers will remember) was held in honor of his memory, an occasion which no one who had the good fortune to be present will be likely ever to forget. The place of meeting was in New York, and the presiding officer was Daniel Webster, with Irving and Bryant seated by his side. The great statesman addressed the large assemblage, speaking for the last time in New York, and was followed by Bryant in an appreciative and poetical. discourse, now included in his volume of public addresses.

Perhaps Irving and Cooper are the best known of American authors

in the Old World. During a year and a half spent abroad, I visited some two hundred of the principal public libraries of Europe, containing about 25,000,000 of books, or enough to extend, if placed in a row, from New York to the city of Richmond. Everywhere I observed the writings of Cooper and Irving, and even at Helsingfors in Finland, in their collection of books, chiefly Russian, I found "The Spy" and "Sketch Book ” translated in that language.

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867), who enjoys the proud distinction of being the first American poet honored by a public statue, left his native town of Guilford, Connecticut, for New York City in 1811. Here he resided for twoscore years, and during a large portion of that period was perhaps the most popular poet of this country. During the second war with Great Britain, Halleck joined a New York infantry company,

"Swartwout's gallant corps, the Iron Grays,"

as he afterward wrote in "Fanny," and excited their martial ardor by the composition of a spirited ode. This and occasional poems which appeared in the papers were Halleck's only claim for poetic fame. till the appearance of "The Croakers," in 1819. electrified the town. Their happy blending of wit, humor, satire, and sentiment, threw the whole city in a blaze of excitement. Of this series of satirical and quaint chronicles of New York life more than seventy years ago, Halleck, in 1866, said, "that they were good-natured verses, contributed anonymously to the columns of the New York Evening Post from March until June, 1819, and occasionally afterward." The writers* continued, like the author of Junius, the sole depositaries of their own secret, and apparently wished, with the minstrel in Leyden's "Scenes of Infancy," to

"Save others' names, but leave their own unsung."

Halleck's longest poem, "Fanny," the perpetual delight of John Randolph, was written during the summer and autumn of 1819, while the poet was residing for a few months at Bloomingdale. It was issued anonymously and a few months after its first appearance in December of that year,Fanny " enjoyed the unusual distinction of being printed in full in a London journal. A second edition enlarged by the addition of about fifty stanzas, for which the poet was paid five hundred dollars, appeared early in 1821. The following year Halleck visited Europe, carrying with him letters to Lord Byron, Campbell, Moore, Scott, Southey, and Wordsworth, and the manuscript of his friend Fenimore Cooper's "Pioneers" for publication in London. While abroad he Alnwick Castle," 99 66 Home," etc., etc.,

wrote

66

"Home of the Percys' high-born race,"

and the song he sang in praise of his brother-bard Burns. "Nothing finer has been written about Robert than Mr. Halleck's poem," said Isabella, the youngest sister of the Scottish minstrel, as she gave your speaker, in the summer of 1855, some rose-buds from her garden, and leaves of ivy plucked from her cottage door, near the banks of the

* Fitz-Greene Halleck and Joseph Rodman Drake.

bonny Doon, to carry back to his gifted friend. In 1827 the first collection of Halleck's poems was published, containing among others, his immortal lines, "Marco Bozzaris." Other editions followed, and in 1832 he appeared as the editor of a complete edition of Byron's poems, for which he wrote an admirable memoir. Halleck died at seventyseven and was buried in his native town, where a noble obelisk, erected by New York friends and admirers, now marks his grave. Dr. Holmes sent me a beautiful lyric to read on the occasion, beginning,

In 1867 his Life, prepared by his literary executor, was published; in 1877 his statue in the Central Park was unveiled by the President of the United States in the presence of fifty thousand spectators, and since that time a memorial volume has appeared containing the addresses and poems, delivered at the monument and statue dedication, by Bryant, William Allen Butler, and Bayard Taylor, by John G. Whittier, and Oliver Wendell Holmes. In the judgment of Alfred B. Street, "Halleck Is the greatest poet the New World has yet produced." His poetry affected him as it did Bryant, like the strain of martial music, making his heart beat quicker. No other American poet's writings had a similar effect. Another writer remarks that it is a curious fact that Halleck, who never studied the classics in their original, should have been, in some cases, so severely classical, while his Connecticut contemporary, Percival, (1795-1856,) who was steeped in classics, often followed the romantic school.

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." Voltaire, Titian, Goethe, Lyndhurst, Brougham, Humboldt, Moltke, and among Americans, Adams, Taney, Horace Binney, and Richard H. Dana, may be cited in refutation of this theory, which, I presume, has nothing to do with thews or stature. Another bright and brilliant example of faculties, and faculties of a high order, remaining unimpaired in mind and body till long past the grand climacteric, is William Cullen Bryant, born in Massachusetts, November 3, 1794, and for fifty-three years a citizen of New York; who, till his death, at eighty-four, remained cheerful, happy, and full of conversation, continuing heartily to enjoy what Dr. Johnson happily calls "the sunshine of life." Having early in the century written "Thanatopsis," a poem which a popular clergyman says is the only one yet produced by an American that is likely to live five hundred years, the venerable poet, after an interval of

* Professor William C. Fowler, of Connecticut.

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seventy years, enriched the world with such noble lines as The Flood of Years," and the sonnet in memory of his friend John Lothrop Motley. In April, 1867, Mr. Bryant expressed to your speaker a wish that he might not survive the loss of his mental faculties like Southey, Scott, Wilson, Lockhart, and the Ettrick Shepherd, who all suffered from softening of the brain, and mentioned his hope that he should be permitted to complete his translation of Homer before death or mental imbecility, with a failure of physical strength, should overtake him. On another occasion he said, "If I am worthy, I would wish for sudden death, with no interregnum between I cease to exercise reason and I cease to exist.” In these wishes he was happily gratified, as well as in the time of being laid away to his final rest, as expressed in his beautiful and characteristic lines to June :

"I gazed upon the glorious sky,

And the green mountains round,
And thought that when I came to lie
At rest within the ground,
'Twere pleasant that in flowery June,
When brooks send up a cheerful tune,
And groves a cheerful sound,

The sexton's hand, my grave to make,

The rich, green mountain turf should break.

"I know that I no more should see

The season's glorious show,

Nor would its brightness shine for me,
Nor its wild music flow;

But if, around my place of sleep,

The friends I love should come to weep,

They might not haste to go.

Soft airs, and song, and light and bloom
Should keep them lingering by my tomb.

"These to their softened hearts should bear
The thought of what has been,

And speak of one who cannot share
The gladness of the scene;

Whose part, in all the pomp that fills

The circuit of the summer hills,

Is that his grave is green;

And deeply would their hearts rejoice
To hear again his living voice."

The day after his death, which occurred at half-past five in the morning of June 12, 1878, I was taken up to the little front chamber in which the poet lay, and the covering being removed, saw his counte

nance

"All cold and all serene."

Never shall I forget the beauty of that wondrously beautiful face, almost buried in snowy hair, and so marble-like in the sleep of death. As Washington Irving said of the old sexton who crept into the vault where the myriad-minded Shakespeare was entombed, and beheld the ashes of ages, "It was something to have seen the dust" of Bryant. Assuredly no sculptor ever modelled a more majestic and beautiful image of repose.