Woodworth, Poet and Historian

Samuel Woodworth (1785-1842), who may be called a single-song poet, was the youngest son of one of the patriot band that achieved American Independence. He moved from Massachusetts, his native State, after serving an apprenticeship as a printer in Boston, and established a weekly newspaper in New York, entitled "The War," in 1812, to the columns of which he contributed patriotic songs and odes on the victories won on land and sea by the Americans. These and other poetical pieces were published in a volume in 1818, and a second collection, including his most popular poem, "The Old Oaken Bucket," appeared in 1826. At this time Woodworth was one of the notable citizens of New York, and his house in Duane Street was the resort of the leading literary men of the day, such as Cooper, Halleck, and Verplanck.

In 1823 Woodworth, with George P. Morris, established the "New York Mirror." In this popular literary journal there appeared, in 1827, after his retirement, a fine steel engraving containing a group of portraits of the most popular American poets of that period, in which appear the amiable features of Samuel Woodworth, while among the others are James G. Brooks, Fitz-Greene Halleck, Washington Irving, James G. Percival, John Pierpont, Edward C. Pinckney, and Charles Sprague, the last survivor of this group.

Woodworth was the author of a "History of the War of 1812-14," and of several dramatic pieces, chiefly operatic. Of these, perhaps, the most popular was "The Forest Rose." In 1861 his son edited and issued an edition of his father's poetical writings, accompanied by a memoir from the pen of George P. Morris. Woodworth's fame rests chiefly on his fine lyric of "The Old Oaken Bucket," which has preserved so many of the touching recollections of rural childhood.

Gulian C. Verplanck

Gulian Crommelin Verplanck (1786-1870), for sixty years prominent in American literary circles, began his literary life by the delivery in New York of the first of the series of scholarly addresses on which his fame is mainly founded. As early as 1814 he wrote a dozen or more articles against the war with England then in progress, followed by a volume of essays on the "Nature and Uses of the Various Evidences of Revealed Religion." In 1827, in connection with William C. Bryant and Robert C. Sands, he engaged in the production of an annual called the "Talisman," which was illustrated with engravings on steel from paintings by American artists. Three annual volumes of the "Talisman" were issued for the years 1828, 1829, and 1830, to all of which Verplanck was a contributor. Verplanck is described as an indolent man, and his mode of composition was singular. Nearly all his contributions to the "Talisman" were written in Sands's library. There, seated in a chair, with his arm resting on another, while his feet were supported by a third, he dictated to one of his confreres. All the articles and poems in the second of the series were written by Verplanck, Sands, or Bryant, with three exceptions: "The Little Old Man of Coblentz" is from the pen of John Inman, a brother of Henry, the painter; "Red Jacket" was written by Halleck; and the sonnet beginning: "Beautiful streamlet by my dwelling side" is by John Howard Bryant, an Illinois farmer, and the only surviving brother of William Cullen. The preface to the volumes, signed "Francis Herbert," is the joint production of the three literary partners.

In 1847 Verplanck completed his scholarly illustrated edition of Shakespeare, which was issued by the Harpers in three handsome royal octavo volumes. His labors consisted in a thorough revision of the text, which was done with independence as well as carefulness. An excellent feature of this 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 finish common to all his compositions. Verplanck divided his time between the city of New York and his ancestral home at Fishkill-on-the-Hudson, an old mansion in which was founded the Society of the Cincinnati, an order established in 1783, by officers of the 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."

As a young man, Verplanck, it is recorded by Bryant, took no part in the Cockloft Hall and other frolics of his friends Irving, Paulding and Kemble; but, on the contrary, was held by the elder men of the period as an example of steady, studious, spotless youth. To the "Analetic 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 Pere la Chaise, among monuments inscribed with words strange to her childhood, while he, after surviving her for fifth-three years, yet never forgetting her, is laid in the ancestral burying-ground at Fishkill, and the Atlantic Ocean rolls between their graves."

Cooper, American Walter Scott

James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) represents the high water mark of achievement by American novelists in that era, and his reputation became world-wide at an early date. Cooper had been at Yale College and had been a sailor six years before the publication of his first novel, "Precaution." His second work, "The Spy" (1821), displayed more skill and power. This charming story, founded on incidents of the American Revolution, appealed strongly to the sympathies of his countrymen, and became a general favorite. It was speedily translated and reissued in several European languages, including the Russian, and 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 Waverly novels.

 From that time until the publication, in 1850, of his twenty-eighth and last work of fiction, 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 that for some years 50,000 copies were sold annually. Many other editions have since appeared in this country and in Europe, where his novels are still popular. Cooper died at his residence, Cooperstown, in his sixty-second year, and some years after his beautiful home, Otsego Hall, was destroyed by fire. Six months after his death a public meeting was held in honor of his memory, in New York City, the presiding officer being Daniel Webster, with Irving and Bryant seated by his side. The illustrious statesman addressed the large assembly, speaking for the last time in New York, and he was followed by Bryant in an appreciative and poetical discourse, now included in his volume of public addresses.

Fitz-Greene Halleck, Popular Poet

Fitz-Greene Halleck (1790-1867) enjoys the distinction of being the first American poet to be honored by a public statue. He left Guilford, Connecticut, where he was born, for New York, in 1811, residing for forty years in the metropolis, and becoming in time the most popular poet in the country. During the second war with Great Britain. Halleck joined a New York infantry company, "Swartout's gallant corps, the Iron Grays," as he afterwards described the company 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. Of this series of satirical and quaint chronicles of New York life as it existed more than a century 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 afterwards."

Halleck's longest poem, "Fanny," was written during the summer and autumn of 1819, while the poet was residing for a brief period at Bloomingdale. It was issued anonymously and 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 $500, 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 wrote "Alnwick Castle," 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. 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 the age of seventy-seven, and was buried in his native town, where a noble obelisk, erected by New York friends and admirers, marks the grave. In 1867 his biography, prepared by his literary executor, was published; ten years later his statue, in Central Park, New York, was unveiled by President Hayes in the presence of 50,000 spectators.