(John Pierpont. Airs of Palestine, and Other Poems. Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1840; pp. 24-30.)

Washington Allston, the descendant of a family of much distinction in South Carolina, was born at Charleston, November 5, 1779. He was prepared for college at the school of Mr. Robert Rogers, of Newport, T. I.; entered Harvard in 1796, and on the completion of his course delivered a poem.

He returned to South Carolina; sold his property; sailed for England, and on his arrival in London became a student of the Royal Academy, then under the presidency of Benjamin West. Here he remained for three years, and then, after a sojourn at Paris, went to Rome, where he resided for four years, and became the intimate associate of Coleridge.

In 1809 he returned to America for a period of two years, which he passed in Boston, and at this time married the sister of the Rev. Dr. Channing. He also delivered a poem before the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In 1811 he commenced a second residence in London, where, in 1813, he published a small volume, The Sylphs of the Seasons, and other Poems, which was reprinted in Boston the same year. The date is also marked in his career by the death of his wife, an event which affected him deeply.

During this sojourn in Europe, which extended to 1818, several of his finest paintings were produced. On his return home he resumed his residence at Boston. In 1830 he maried a sister of Richard H. Dana, and removed to Cambridgeport. His lectures on Art were commenced about the same period. …

In 1841 he published Monabli, an Italian romance of moderate length, which had been written as early as 1821 when Dana published his Idle Man, and, but for the discontinuance of that work, would probably have appeared there. In the latter part of his life he was chiefly engaged on his great painting of Belshazzar’s Feast. After a week’s steady labor on this work, he retired late on Saturday night, July 8, 1843, from his studio to his family circle, and after a conversation of peculiar solemnity, sat down to his books and papers, which furnished the usual occupation of a great portion of his nights. It was thus, sitting alone about midnight, near the dawning of Sunday, with scarce a struggle, he was called from the temporary repose of the holy day to the perpetual Sabbath of eternity. …

His poems, though few in number, are exquisite in finish, and in the fancies and thoughts which they embody. They are delicate, subtle, and philosophical. Though and feeling are united in them, and the meditative eye

broods over all. In The Sylphs of the Seasons he has pictured the successive delights of each quarter of the year with the joint sensibility of the poet and the artist, bringing before us a series of images of the iamgination blended with the purest sentiment.

If the other poems may be described as occasional, it should be remarked they are the occasions not of a trifler or a man of the world, but of a philosopher and a Christian, whose powers were devoted to the sacred duties of life, to his art, to his friends, to the inner world of faith. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 12-14)

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 180)

Ebenezer Bailey, is a native of Newbury in Massachusetts, and was graduated at Yale College in 1817. He is now Principal of the Young Ladies’ High School in Boston. His prize ode, recited at the Boston Theatre in 1825, is the only performance by which he is known to the public as a poet. He has, however, produced a great number of poetical effusions of high merit, which have obtained anonymously a wide circulation in our various repositories of fugitive verse. If only Mr Bailey had written with a view to distinction, he might at this moment have been one of the most popular and esteemed poets of our country. The Triumphs of Liberty is a chaste and spirited production, superior to anything of the kind which our national anniversaries have called forth. His lighter pieces are thrown off with an ease and playfulness of fancy that we do not often see equalled in the hasty rhymes of a leisure moment. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 370)

Born 25 June 1795; died 5 Aug 1839

James N. Barker was born at Philadelphia; he was a captain in the artillery, and served on the frontiers during the late war with Great Britain. When the war was over, he returned to his native city, where he continues to live at present. He has been an Alderman, and was for one year Mayor of the city of Philadelphia. Mr Barker is better known by his dramatic than by his other productions. As early as 1807, he produced a comedy at the Philadelphia Theatre, entitled “Tears and Smiles,” and a melo drama founded on the story of Pocahontas, which he called “The Indian Princess, or La Belle Sauvage.” These were represented with success. He dramatised Scott’s Marmion, which was a very popular play, and still keeps possession of the stage. In 1817, he published a remarkably neat and sprightly comedy, entitled “How to try a Lover,” which was never performed, and in 1823, he produced a tragedy, entitled “Superstition,” the scene of which is laid in New England, and one of the principal character is Goff, the regicide. This is the last of Mr Barker’s dramatic efforts, and possesses considerable merit. It was performed but twice at the Chesnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. Mr Barker is also the author of several occasional pamphlets, the most interesting of which is entitled “Sketches of the Primitive Settlements on the River Delaware.” He has written also in the Atlantic Souvenir. His writings are characterised by good taste, simplicity of language, and adherence to nature. His fancy is playful, and his images are such as are calculated rather to delight than startle. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 337-338)

Died 9 March 1858

Brainard, the gentle poet of the Connecticut, the sylvan, placid stream which happily symbolizes his verse, was born in the state of that name at New London, October 21, 1796. His father had been a judge of the Superior Court, and the son for a while, after his education at Yale was completed, pursued the study of the law, but it was little adapted to his tastes and constitution, and after a brief trial of its practice at Middletown he abandoned it in February, 1822, for the editorship of a weekly paper at Hartford, the Connecticut Mirror. He is said to have neglected the politics of his paper, dismissing the tariff with a jest, while he displayed his ability in the literary and poetical department. His genius lay in the amiable walks of the belles-lettres, where the delicacy of his temperament, the correspondence of the sensitive mind to the weak physical frame, found its appropriate home and nourishment. His country needed results of this kind more than it did law or politics; and in his short life Brainard honored his native land. His genius is a flower picked from the banks of the river which he loved, and preserved for posterity.

Before entering on the Mirror Brainard wrote a few pieces for a literary paper published by Cornelius Tuthill at New Haven, called The Microscope. His composition in the Mirror were at once relished and appreciated. Though they were mostly on trite and occasional subjects, such as time out of mind had occupied with little notice the corner of the country newspaper, yet they had a freshness of spirit infused in them, a fine poetical instinct, which charmed the youths and maidens of Connecticut. This instinct of Brainard led him to the employment of the ballad, in which he gave rare promise, as he embodied the patriotism or the superstition of the country, in such poems as Fort Griswold and the Black Fox of Salmon River. The annual new year carrier’s address of the newspaper, in place of the usual doggerel, became a poem in his hands. Even album verses assumed a hue of nature and originality. …

In 1825 a first volume of Poems was published by Brainard at New York, mostly made up from the columns of his newspaper, which was favorably received. Not long after, in 1827, the poet was compelled by the inroad of consumption on his constitution to retire from his editorship. He went to the east end of Long Island for his health, and has left a touching memorial of his visit to the sea, in which the animation of his genius overcomes the despondency of his broken frame. He suffered and wrote verse until his death at his father’s home, at New London, September 26, 1828.

After his death a second edition of Brainard’s poems appeared in 1832, enlarged from the first, with the title Literary Remains, accompanied by a warmly written sketch of the poet’s life, by Whittier. This has been since followed by a third edition, with a portrait, an elegant and tasteful volume, published by Edward Hopkins, at Hartford, in 1842.

To the indications we have given of the poet’s genius we have only to add a few personal traits. He was a small man, and sensitive on that score. His friends noticed the fine expression of his countenance when animated. He was negligent of his dress and somewhat abstracted. He wrote rapidly, and was ready in conversation, with playful repartee. His biographer, in the last edition of his poems, gives an instance of his wit. A preacher had come to New London, and labored heavily through a discourse, complaining all the time that his mind was imprisoned. When this difficulty was urged in defence of his dulness Brainard would not allow it, since “the preacher’s mind might easily have sworn out.” At another time he replied to a critic, who had pronounced the word “brine” in his verses on “The Deep,” “to have no more business in sentimental poetry than a pig in a parlor,” that the objector, “though his piece is dated Philadelphia, lives at a greater distance from the sea, and has got his ideas of the salt water from his father’s pork barrel.” (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 226-227)

James Gordon Brooks, the son of David Brooks, an officer of the Revolutionary army, was born at Claverack on the Hudson, September 3, 1801. He was graduated at Union College in 1819, and studied law at Poughkeepsie, but never engaged actively in the practice of the profession. It was in this place that he commenced his poetical career by the publication in the newspapers of the place of a few fugitive poems, with the signature of Florio, which attracted much attention. Various conjectures were made respecting their authorship, but the author succeeded in maintaining his incognito not only among his neighbors, but also in his own household.

In 1823 Mr. Brooks removed to New York, where he became the literary editor of the Minerva, a belles-lettres journal which he conducted about two years. He then started the Literary Gazette, a weekly journal on the model of the English publication of the same name, which, after being continued for a few months, was united with the Athenaeum, and conducted under the care of Mr. Brooks and Mr. James Lawson for two years. He then became an editor of the Morning Courier, with which he remained connected for about the same period. In these journals, and in the Commercial Advertiser, most of his poems were published, with the signature of Florio. They were great favorites, and placed the author in the popular estimate of his day in the same rank with Drake and Halleck as one of the poetical trio of the town.

In 1828 he married Miss Mary Elizabeth Akin, … who had been from an early age a writer of verse for periodicals under the signature of Norna. The year after a volume entitled The Rivals of Este and other Poems, by James G. and Mary E. Brooks, appeared. …

Mr. Brooks died at Albany in 1841. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 323-324)

William Cullen Bryant was born at Cummington, Hampshire County, Mass., on November 3, 1794. His father, a physician, and a man of strength of character and literary culture, took pride in his son’s early ability, and cherished the young poet with paternal affection. We have heard the anecdote of his reciting the poem “Thanatopsis” at the house of one of his friends, with tears in his eyes. “The father taught the son,” we are told in a valuable notice of the poet’s life and writings, “the value of correctness and compression, and enabled him to distinguish between true poetic enthusiasm and fustian.” …

Bryant early displayed the poetic faculty, and fastened upon the genial influences of nature about him. He began to write verses at nine, and at ten composed a little poem to be spoken at a public school, which was published in a country newspaper. At the age of fourteen he prepared a collection of poems, which was published in Boston in 1809. …

Bryant studied at Williams College, which he left to prosecute the study of the law, a profession in which he was engaged in practice at Plainfield for one year, and afterwards for nine years at Great Barrington. In 1816 his poem of Thanatopsis, written in his nineteenth year, was published in the North American Review. … In 1821 he delivered the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard …. This he published in that year with other poems at Cambridge. In 1825, abandoning the law for literature, he came to New York and edited a monthly periodical, the New York Review and Athenaeum Magazine, which in 1826 was merged in a new work of a similar character, also conducted by him, the United States Review and Literary Gazette …. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 183-185)

Died 12 June 1878

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 242-243)

(Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 26-27)

tomcats, which prowl in search of a mate

The play was unpublished except for the last scene, which appeared in the Saturday News and Literary Gazette; it was reprinted in 1930.

(American Literature. 2 [1930]: 150-156.)

The twin brothers Clark were born at Otisco, Onondaga county, New York, in the year 1810. Their father had served in the Revolutionary war, and was a man of reading and observation. Willis, on the completion of his education, under the care of this parent and the Rev. George Colton, a relative on his mother’s side, went to Philadelphia, where he commenced a weekly periodical similar in plan to the New York Mirror. It was unsuccessful and soon discontinued. He next became an assistant of the Rev. Dr. Brantley, a Baptist clergyman …, in the editorship of the Columbian Star, a religious newspaper. He retired from this position to take charge of the Philadelphia Gazette …. He became its proprietor, and continued his connexion with it until his death.

One of the most successful of Clark’s literary productions was the Ollapodiana, a series of brief essays, anecdotes, and observations, continued from month to month in the Knickerbocker Magazine, of which his brother Lewis had become the editor. …

[He fell] a victim to a lingering disease in June, 1841.

Clark’s poems, with the exception of The Spirit of Life … are brief, and were written for and published in his own journals and the magazines and annuals of the day. …

Mr. Lewis Gaylord Clark is the editor of the Knickerbocker Magazine, having conducted that periodical since its third volume in 1832. He has become widely known by his monthly Editor’s Table and Gossip with Readers and Correspondents, embracing a collection of the jests and ondits of the day, connected by a light running comment. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 534-535]

Died 3 Nov 1873

Willis Clark published poetry in The Token in 1830 and 1832.

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 348)

William, the third child of the Rev. Harry Croswell, was born at Hudson, New York, November 7, 1804, and graduated from Yale College in 1822. The next four years were passed in desultory reading and study. His preference was early formed for a clerical career, but from a distrust of his fitness for the holy office, a distrust arising solely from the modesty which characterized him through life, it was not until 1826 that he finally decided to enter the ministry. He commenced his preparatory studies at the General Theological Seminary in New York, where, owing to ill health, he remained but a short time. After passing a brief period at New Haven he went to Hartford, where he edited, with Mr. now Bishop Doane, a religious newspaper, The Episcopal Watchman. He commenced his poetical career in the columns of this journal with a number of sonnets and short poems, which were much admired and widely copied. At the end of the second year of their joint editorship Mr. Doane removed to Boston to become the rector of Trinity church, and Mr. Croswell retired to devote himself exclusively to his studies.

In 1828 he was ordained deacon by Bishop Brownell of Connecticut. …

In 1829 Mr. Croswell was admitted to the priesthood, and became rector of Christ church, an ancient edifice in the vicinity of Copp’s Hill burial-ground, Boston. He continued his poetical contributions, which were almost exclusively on topics connected with church ordinances, or the duties and affections of Christian life. A portion of these were collected and appended by Bishop Doane to the first American edition of Keble’s Christian Year.

… [I]n the delivery of a sermon to the children of the congregation at the afternoon service of Sunday, November 9, 1851, the rector’s voice was observed to falter. He brought his discourse to an brupt close, and gave out the first stanza of the hymn—

This he announced instead of the lxxxviii., as the clxxxviii., which contains the following stanza:—

The choir, however, following directions previously given, sang the former. At its conclusion he knelt in his ordinary place at the chancel-rail, and said from memory, his book having dropped from his hand, a collect. He then, still kneeling, in place of as usual standing and facing the congregation, delivered, in a faltering voice, the closing benediction. A portion of the auditory went to his assistance, and bore him helpless to the vestry-room and in a carriage to his home. He was conscious, but unable to speak distinctly, and uttered but a few words. Apprised by his physicians of his imminent danger he closed his eyes as if in slumber. His friend, the Rev. Dr. Eaton, was soon by his bedside, and finding him unable to speak, and apparently unconscious, took his hand, and offered the “commendatory prayer for a sick person at the point of departure,” provided by the Book of Common-Prayer. “As the word, amen, was pronounced by the venerable priest, the last breath was perceived to pass, gently, quietly, and without a struggle.” … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, pp. 394-395)

Richard Henry Dana was born at Cambridge, November 15, 1787. His early years were passed at Newport, in the midst of the associations of the Revolution and the enjoyments of the fine sea views and atmosphere of the spot. He entered Harvard, which he left in 1807. He studied law in the office of the his cousin Francis Dana Channing, the eldest brother of Dr. Cahanning. After admission to the Boston bar he spent about three months in the office of Robert Goodloe Harper at Baltimore, where he was admitted to practice. He returned home in 1811 and became a member of the legislature, where he found a better field for the exercise of his federal politics and opinions. His first literary public appearance was as an orator on the Fourth of July celebration of 1814.

The North American Review was commenced in 1815. It grew out of an association of literary gentlemen composing the Anthology Club who for eight years, from 1803 to 1811, had published the miscellany entitled The Monthly Anthology. Dana was a member of the club. …

Dana wrote in the period of two years five papers, one an essay on “Old Times,” the others on literary topics, chiefly poetical. In 1824 Dana began the publication of The Idle Man, a periodical in which he communicated to the public his Tales and Essays. …

[W]hen this publication was discontinued Dana wrote for … The New York Review of 1825, and afterwards the United States Review of 1826-7. … From 1828 to 1831 he contributed four papers to The Spirit of the Pilgrims. …

The first volume of Dana’s Poems, containing The Buccaneer, was published in 1827. In 1833 he published at Boston a volume of Poems and Prose Writings, reprinting his first volume with additions, and including his papers in the Idle Man. … In 1850 he published an edition of his writings in two volumes at New York, adding several essays and his review articles ….

His writings possess kindred qualities in prose and verse; though and rhythm, speculation and imagination being borrowed by each from the other.

The Buccaneer is a philosophical poem; a tale of the heart and the conscience. The villainy of the hero, though in remote perspective to the imagination, appeals on that account the more powerfully to our own consciousness. His remorse is touched with consummate art as the rude hard earthy nature steps into the region of the supernatural, and with unchanged rigidity embraces its new terrors. The machinery is at once objective and spiritual in the vision of the horse. The story is opened by glimpses to the reader in the only way in which modern art can attain, with cultivated minds, the effect of the old ballad directness. The visionary horror is relieved by simple touches of human feeling and sweet images, as in the opening, of the lovely, peaceful scenes of nature. The remaining poems are divided between the description of nature and a certain philosophical vein of thought which rises into the loftiest spculative region of religion, and is never long without indications of a pathetic sense of human life. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 90-91)

Died 2 Feb 1879

Rufus Dawes, the youngest but one of a large family of sixteen, was born at Boston, January 16, 1803. He entered Harvard in 1820, but was refused a degree, in consequence of his supposed participation in a disturbance of the discipline of the institution, a charge afterwards found to be unjust. The incident furnished the occasion of his first published poem, a satire on the Harvard faculty. Mr. Dawes next studied law, was admitted, but never practised the profession. He contributed to the United States Literary Gazette, published at Cambridge, and conducted for a time at Baltimore, The Emerald, also a weekly paper. In 1830, he published The Valley of the Nashaway and Other Poems, and in 1839, Geraldine, Athenia of Damascus, and Miscellaneous Poems.

… In 1840, Mr. Dawes published Nix’s Mate, a spirited and successful historical romance. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 353-354)

The later years of Mr. Dawes’s life were passed as a clerk in one of the Government departments at Washington, in the District of Columbia. He died in that city, at the age of fifty-six, November 30, 1859. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. 1875; vol 2, p. 164)

[C]ergyman, b. in Mansfield, Mass., 30 March, 1784; d. 9 Aug., 1834. He was graduated at Brown in 1805, and in 1810 became pastor of the second church at Scituate, Mass., a charge which he retained for twenty-four years. He published “Populous Village,” a poem (1826); a “History of Scituate” (1831); and a number of sermons and short poems. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 53-55)

George Washington Doane was born in Trenton, N. J., May 27, 1799. He was partly educated in New York by the Rev. Edmund D. Barry, a classical instructor …. Pursuing his studies at Geneva in Western New York, Mr. Doane entered Union College, where he was graduated in 1818. He was then for a short time a student of law in the city of New York, in the office of Richard Harrison. In 1821 he was ordained deacon in the Episcopal Church by Bishop Hobart, and was for four years an assistant minister in Trinity church, New York. In 1821 he was appointed Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the new Washington, now Trinity, College, Hartford, Ct. In 1828 he went to Boston as assistant minister of Trinity church, of which he became rector in 1830. In 1829 he was married to Eliza Greene Perkins. On the 31st of October, 1832, he was consecrated Bishop of New Jersey, and the next year became rector of St. Mary’s Church at Burlington.

At this beautiful town on the banks of the Delaware Bishop Doane, in addition to the more immediate duties of his diocese, has devoted himself to the cause of education, in connexion with two institutions known as St. Mary’s Hall and Burlington College. …

The literary productions of Dr. Doane have been numerous, though mostly confined to sermons and charges, and church periodical literature. He has edited the Missionary, a monthly religious newspaper and journal of his diocese. In 1832 a volume of his sermons was published by the Rivingtons in London.

He is the author of numerous short poems chiefly of a lyrical or simple devotional character, which have appeared from time to time in the journals. In 1824 he published a volume of his early poetical writings entitled Songs by the Way, chiefly devotional; with Translations and Imitations. Several of them have been included in the collection of hymns in use in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The translations are of Latin hymns, from the Italian of Metastasio, and from the odes of Horace. He has also edited Keble’s Christian Year, introducing additions from additions from Croswell and others, and a Selection from the Sermons and Poetical Remains of the Rev. Benjamin Davis Winslow, his assistant in St. Mary’s Church.

In all these, and in the prose writings of Bishop Doane, there is an elegant taste, evidence of good English scholarship, and spirited expressions. His pulpit style is marked by brevity and energy; witnessing to an activity of mind which has characterized his numerous labors in his diocese and in the cause of education. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 199-200)

Bishop Doane died at his episcopal residence at Burlington, N. J., April 27, 1859, in the sixtieth year of his age, and twenty-seventh of his episcopate. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. 1875; vol 2, p. 79)

Doane published poetry in The Token in 1829.

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 89-91)

[P]olitician, b. in Tennessee in 1790; d. in Washington, D. C., 17 Nov., 1856. He received a thorough education, studied law, and was admitted to the bar, begining to practise in Nashville, Tenn. He was elected to the U. S. senate as a Democrat, and served till his resignation in 1829. He was a personal friend of Andrew Jackson, and was appointed by him secretary of war, holding the office from 1829 till 1831. … His wife, Margaret L. O’Neill, b. in 1796; d. in Washington, D. C., 8 Nov., 1879, was the daughter of … an Irish hotel-keeper in Washington. After the death of his first husband, … she married Mr. Eaton in 1828. She possessed great beauty and fascination of manner united to a persistent will and high ambition. The appointment of Mr. Eaton to the cabinet gave her a social position that she had long desired, but owing to reports unfavorable to her reputation, she was refused recognition on equal terms by the families of the other members of the cabinet. The feud in society caused by this involved the president, who warmly supported his “little friend Peg,” as he was accustomed to call her. … Finally the president demanded of his secretaries the recognition of the social status of Mrs. Eaton, and was refused by all of them excepting Mr. Van Buren. As a compromise it was suggested that her public status should be conceded, while each lady should act as she chose in regard to private recognition. … The quarrel culminated in a general disruption of the cabinet n 1831. … (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

Truth is, as the reviewer for the Boston Literary Magazine pointed out, an “attempt at an imitation of Lord Byron’s English Bards and Scotch Reviewers”—a far more adept piece of literary satire which appears to have inspired also the name of Snelling’s work:

Occasionally, Byron provides the structure for Snelling’s verse. Byron writes

Snelling mocks Nathaniel Parker Willis:

Byron eulogizes Kirke White in lines 831-848:

Mr Everett was born in Dorchester, Mass. His father was pastor to the New South Church in Boston. He studied at Harvard University, and was ordained as a minister over the Brattle Street Church in Boston, at the early age of eighteen. Upon the foundation of the professorship of Greek literature of Cambridge, he was called upon to fill the office, in consequence of which, he relinquished his pastoral duties in Boston. After making a visit to Europe, he entered upon his business as professor, and continued in that station till 1825. Since that time he has been a representative in Congress.

Mr Everett’s reputation, both as a statesman and a scholar, is too widely extended to need any comments from us. Among the great variety of his labors, he has found moments to devote to the muse. [“Dirge of Alaric, the Visigoth”] and a Phi Beta Kappa poem, written in his youth, are, we believe, all that have appeared in public. (Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 52)

Died 15 Jan 1865.

Sumner Lincoln, the son of Dr. Abner Fairfield, a physician of Warwick, Massachusetts, was born in that town on the twenty-fifth of June, 1803. In 1806 his father, who had previously removed to Athens, a village on the Hudson, died, leaving a widow and two children in humble circumstances. The family retired to the home of the mother’s father, a farm house in Western Massachusetts, where Fairfield remained until his twelfth year. After a twelvemonth passed at school he entered Brown University. Here he studied so unremittingly, that, after a few months, he was attacked by a severe fit of sickness. On his recovery he endeavored to eke out his support by teaching, but failing in this was forced to leave college and seek a living as a tutor at the south. He passed two years in this occupation, and in preparation for the ministry, but in consequence of the death of his friend and instructor, the Rev. Mr. Cranston of Savannah, he changed his plan of life and returned to the north. He had during this period published “two pamphlets of rhymes,” which, as we are informed in his biography by his widow “he ever after shrunk from reading,” were probably of indifferent merit.

He returned to the north, with the determination to pursue a literary life, and in December, 1825, sailed for London. He carried letters of introduction to the conductors of periodicals, and obtained engagements as a writer. His poem, The Cities of the Plain, a description of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, appeared in the Oriental Herald …. He returned home in July, 1826, and soon after published a volume of poems, entitled The Sisters of Saint Clara, a Tale of Portugal, which was followed in 1830 by Abaddon, the School of Destruction, and other poems, another volume of poetry.

The next event in his life was his marriage to Miss Jane Frazee. He removed with his wife to Elizabethtown, with the intention of forming a classical school, but before the honeymoon was over the sheriff levied on their furniture and they were set adrift. They afterwards resided at Boston, Harper’s Ferry, and Philadelphia, the husband gaining a precarious subsistence by writing for the press, and becoming somewhat soured by want of success. In 1828 he republished in a volume The Cities of the Plain, with a few miscellaneous pieces. A few months after, by the influence of his Philadelphia friends, he was placed at the head of Newtown Academy, about thirty miles from that city. The situation pleased him, and his affairs went on with unwonted serenity until one July afternoon a favorite pupil, while bathing with him in the river, was unfortunately drowned. The event caused a temporary disarrangement of the duties of the school, and threw such a gloom over the mind of the teacher that he insisted upon leaving his situation and removing to New York. By the exertions of his wife, in personally soliciting subscriptions, the means were secured, principally in Boston, whither the pair resorted in 1829, for the publication of a new poem, The Last Night of Pompeii, which appeared on their return to New York in 1832. It was maintained by Mr. Fairfield that he had anticipated in this poem the leading material of Bulwer’s novel, bearing a similar title, published in London in 1834. His next enterprise was a monthly periodical. His wife was again his canvasser, and the North American Magazine was started in Philadelphia in 1833. He continued to edit it for five years, when, the enterprise proving unproductive, he disposed of the property to Mr. James C. Brooks of Baltimore.

The poet now became completely disheartened, fell into irregularities, and with a family of five children was often straitened in his finances. His health rapidly failed, and in the fall of 1843 he left Philadelphia with his mother for New Orleans. He arrived in the following spring, and was cheered by meeting with his old friend Mr. George D. Prentice. He died soon after, on the 6th of March, 1844. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 376-377)

Henry J. Finn was born in the city of New York, in the year 1782. When a boy he sailed for England, on the invitation of a rich uncle resident there. The vessel sank at sea, and the passengers and crew were for many days exposed in small boats until they were picked up by a ship which landed them at Falmouth. Finn resided in London until the death of his uncle, who made no mention of him in his will. He then returned to New York in 1799, studied law for two years,—became tired of the profession, returned to London, and made his first appearance at the Haymarket Theatre “in the little part of Thomas in the Sleep Walker.” He continued on the stage with success, and in 1811 returning to America made his first appearance at Montreal. He next performed in New York, and afterwards became a member of the stock company of the Federal Street Theatre, Boston. Here he remained for several years, and was at one time manager of the theatre. He was extremely successful here, and in every part of the country which he subsequently visited, as a comic actor, and accumulating a handsome fortune, retired in the intervals of his engagements to an elegant residence at Newport. He was on his way to his pleasant home, when with many others he met a sudden and awful death, in the conflagration of the steamboat Lexington on the night of January 13, 1840.

Finn was celebrated as a comic writer as well as a comic actor. He published a Comic Annual, and a number of articles in various periodicals. The bills of his benefit nights were, says Mr. Sargent, “usually made up of the most extraordinary and inconceivable puns, for which his own name furnished prolific material.” He wrote occasional pathetic pieces, which possess much feeling and beauty, and left behind him a MS. tragedy, portions of which were published in the New York Mirror, to which he was a contributor in 1839. He also wrote a patriotic drama entitled Montgomery, or the Falls of Montmorenci, which was acted at Boston with success and published. He was a frequent versifier, and turned off a song with great readiness. He also possessed some ability as a miniature and landscape painter. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 28)

Hannah Flagg Gould is the daughter of a soldier of the Revolution, who fought in the battle of Lexington, and served in the army throughout the war. She was born at Lancaster, Vermont, but removed soon after to Newburyport, Mass. While yet a child she lost her mother. Her father survived for several years, his declining age being tenderly cared for and cheered by his constant companion, his daughter, whose subsequent poems contain many touching traces of their intercourse.

Miss Gould’s poems, after a favorable reception in several periodicals, were collected in a volume in 1832. By 1835, a second had accumulated, and a third appeared in 1841. In 1846, she collected a volume of her prose contributions, entitled Gathered Leaves.

Miss Gould’s poems are all short, and simple in subject, form, and expression. They are natural, harmonious, and sprightly. She treats of the patriotic themes of the Revolution, and the scenes of nature and incidents of society about the ordinary path of woman; and her household themes have gained her a widely extended audience. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 497)

Miss Gould died at the age of seventy-seven, at her residence in Newburyport, Massachusetts, September 5, 1865. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. 1875; vol 2, p. 343)

Gould published poetry in The Token in 1830-1840 and 1842.

(Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 342-343)

Fitz-Greene Halleck was born at Guilford, in Connecticut, August, 1795. He early wrote verses. One of his effusions—it is said there were some earlier—was published in a New York Paper, in 1809, when he was fourteen. At the age of eighteen, in 1813, he came to New York, and entered the banking-house of Jacob Barker, with which he was associated for many years, subsequently performing the duties of a book-keeper in the private office of John Jacob Astor. Not long after the decease of that eminent millionaire, he retired to his birth-place, where he has since resided.

It is said that Halleck’s first appearance in print was in the columns of Holt’s Columbian, New York, where, in 1813, a poem appeared, with the signature of “A Connecticut Farmer’s Boy,” which the editor introduced with the remark that he did not credit that authorship—“the verses were too good to be original!” …

Halleck, however, gained his first celebrity in literature as a town wit, one of the producers, in connexion with his friend Drake, of the poetical squibs which appeared in the columsn of the Evening Post in 1819 ….

The characteristic of Halleck’s poetry is its music; its perfection of versification, whether embalming a trifle of the hour or expressing a vigorous manly eloquence, a true lyric fire and healthy sentiment. … In some of his poems he appears to have been led by dislike to even the suspicion of sentimentality to fasten a ludicrous termination to a serious emotion; but this is more dangerous to his imitators than injurious to his own powers. In Connecticut, which appears to be indebted to a happy idea struck out by Brianard, in his New Year’s verse on the same theme, his subtle humor has happily blended the two qualities. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 207-209)

Died 19 Nov 1867

James Abraham, … poet, b. in New Haven, Conn., 26 Sept 1789; d. there, 5 Jan., 1841, was graduated at Yale in 1808, after which he spent three years in Boston, preparing for a mercantile career. He engaged in business in New York, and in 1819 went to Europe, where he met many distinguished men. Zachary Macaulay, father of the historian, spoke of him “as the most accomplished young man with whom he was acquainted.” In 1822 he married Cornelia, daughter of Isaac Lawrence, of New York, and retired to his country-seat, “Sachem’s Wood,” near New Haven, where he spent the remainder of his life, devoting his attention to literature. He published “The Judgment, a Vision,” a poem delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa society of Yale (New York, 1812); “Percy’s Masque,” a drama (London, 1819; reprinted, with additions, New York, 1820); “Hadad,” a sacred drama (New York, 1825); and a collected edition of his writings, containing the additions of “Demetria,” a domestic Italian tragedy, written in 1813; “Sachem’s Wood,” a poem; and several discourses, under the title of “Dramas, Discourses, and other Pieces” (2 vols., Boston, 1839). (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

(Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 360-361)

Edwin C. Holland, a lawyer of Charleston, S. C., published in 1814 a volume of Odes, Naval Songs, and other occasional Poems, suggested for the most part by the war with England pending during their first publication in the Port Folio. His style is fluent, and occasionally somewhat too ornate and grandiloquent. One of the most spirited compositions is his prize poem [“The Pillar of Glory”]. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 139)

Born 1794; died 11 Sept 1824. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

Oliver Wendell Holmes, whose polished verses and playful satiric wit are the delight of his contemporaries, as they will be cherished bequests of our own day to posterity, is a son of the author of the Annals, the Doctor of Divinity at Cambridge. At that larned town of Massachusetts, he was born August 29, 1809. He was educated at the Phillips Academy at Exeter, and graduated at Harvard in 1829. He then gave a year to the law, during which time he was entertaining the good people of Cambridge with various anonymous effusions of a waggish poetical character, in the Collegian, a periodical published by a number of undergraduates of Harvard University in 1830 ….

As a lawyer, Holmes, like msot of the American literati who have generally begun with that profession, was evidently falling undder the poets’ censure, “penning a stanza when he should engross;” when he turned his attention to medicine, and forswore for a time the Muses. He was, however, guilty of some very clever anonymous contributions to a volume, the Harbinger [in 1836] ….

The muse of Holmes is a foe to humbug. … He clears the moral atmosphere of the morbid literary and other pretences afloat. People breathe freer for his verses. They shake the cobwebs out of the system, and keep up in the world that brisk healthy current of common sense, which is to the mind what circulation is to the body. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 511-512)

Holland published poetry in The Token in 1831, 1833, 1837, and 1838.

(Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 325-326)

Samuel Kettell, an author to whom American literature is much indebted for his researches into its early history, was born in Newburyport, Mass., in 1800. He was early engaged in literary pursuits, and assisted the late Samuel G. Goodrich in the preparation of his Peter Parley series of juvenile works. He was a good linguist, and, it is stated, in the course of a voyage to Malta, translated one of the Peter Parley books into modern Greek, and it was afterward published in the language. The work by which he is best known, entitled, Specimens of American Poetry, with Critical and Biographical Notices, was published by S. G. Goodrich & Co., in Boston, in 1829. It is in three volumes, contains an historical introduction, noticing various minor authors of the seventeenth century, and fairly opens with Cotton Mather and Roger Wolcott. The series is continued to the author’s own day. The critical observations are acute, and the whole work, which embraces many minor writers not noticed elsewhere, is of an interesting character. All subsequent writers on the subject are under obligations to the author’s diligence, and much aid has been derived from his labors in the preparation of the present work.

During a considerable portion of his life, Mr. Kettell was connected with the newspaper press of Boston. He was brought into notice in this relation as a contributor of occasional articles to the Boston Courier. They were chiefly of a humorous cast, as, satirical letters of “Peeping Tom,” from Hull. When Mr. Buckingham retired from the editorship of the Courier, in 1848, Mr. Kettell became its principal editor, and so continued till his death, December 3, 1855, at his residence in Malden. … (Duyckinck, ed. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. 1875. vol 2, p. 76)

([James K. Paulding.] Lay of the Scottish Fiddle. London: James Cawthorn, 1814; pp. 1-3.)

William Leggett, an able and independent political writer, was born in the city of New York in the summer of 1802. He entered the college at Georgetown, in the district of Columbia, where he took a high scholastic rank, but in consequence of his father’s failure in business, was withdrawn before the completion of his course, and in 1819 accompanied his father and family in their settlement on the then virgin soil of the Illinois prairies. The experience of western pioneer life thus acquired, was turned to good account in his subsequent literary career.

In 1822 he entered the navy, having obtained the appointment of midshipman. He resinged his commission in 1826, owing, it is said, to the harsh conduct of the commander under whom he sailed, and shortly after published a volume of verses, written at intervals during his naval career, entitled Leisure Hours at Sea. The poems show a ready command of language, a noticeable youthful facility in versification, and an intensity of feeling; beyond this they exhibit no peculiar merit, either of originality or scholarship. … He also wrote in the Atlantic Souvenir, one of the earliest of the American annuals, a prose tale, The Rifle, in which he portrayed with spirit the scenes and incidents of western adventure. This met with such great success, from the novelty of the subject as well as its excellence of execution, that it was speedily followed by other tales of sea as well as land. The whole were subsequently collected under the title of Tales by a Country Schoolmaster.

[Leggett edited The Critic, the Evening Post, and The Plaindealer]

In May, 1839, he was appointed by Mr. Van Buren Diplomatic Agent to the Republic of Guatemala, an event which gave pleasure to his friends, not only as a recognition of his public services, but from their hopes that a residence in a southern climate would be beneficial to his health. It was but a few days after, however, that the public were startled by the announcement of his death, in the midst of his preparations for departure, from a severe attack of bilious colic, on the evening of May 29, 1839. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 343-344)

(George B. Cheever, ed. The American Common-place Book of Poetry. Boston: American Stationers’ Company, 1831. p. 310-311]

Born 28 Aug 1794

Mr Lewis is a native of Lynn, Massachusetts, where he is now employed as an instructer. A volume of his poems was published in 1823, and he has since contributed others for the newspapers. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 332)

Died 21 Jan 1861. Lewis published poetry in The Token in 1830.

A bigger-than-life Westerner, Nimrod Wildfire provides a humorous contrast with the effete Easterners and snobbish Europeans he meets when he visits the East Coast.

(Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 338)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine, February 27th, 1807, “In an old square wooden house, upon the edge of the sea.” He entered Bowdoin College, where in due time he was graduated in the class with Hawthorne, in 1825. He wrote verses at this time for the United States Literary Gazette, printed at Boston.

For a short time after leaving college, he studied law in the office of his father, the Hon. Stephen Longfellow; but soon fell into the mode of life he has since pursued as a scholar, by the appointment to a Professorship of Modern Languages in his college, to accomplish himself for which he travelled abroad in 1826, making the usual tour of the continent, including Spain. He was absent three years; on his return, he lectured at Bowdoin College, as Professor of Modern Languages and Literature, and wrote articles for the North American Review ….

He also at this time penned the sketches of travel in Outre Mer, commencing the publication after the manner of Irving in his Sketch Book ….

The elegance of the manner, the nice phrases and fanciful illustrations—a certain decorated poetical style—with the many suggestions of fastidious scholarship, marked this in the eye of the public as a book of dainty promise. …

The first volume of original poetry published by Longfellow, was the Voices of the Night at Cambridge in 1839. It contained the “Psalm of Life,” the “Midnight Mass for the Dying Year,” the Manrique translation, and a number of the early poems of the Gazette. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 443-444)

Died 24 March 1882. Longfellow published poetry in The Token in 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1842.

George Lunt was born at Newburyport, Massachusetts. After completing his collegiate course at Harvard in 1824, he studied law at Boston, and has since practised the profession at Newburyport.

In 1839 he published a volume of Poems, followed in 1843 by The Age of Gold and other Poems, and in 1854, by Lyric Poems, Sonnets, and Miscellanies. He is also the author of Eastford, or Household Sketches, by Westley Brooke, a novel of New England life, published in 1854. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 438)

… He has evidently high powers as a poet, which require only the developement [sic] that study and a mature taste will afford, to be duly appreciated. He shows deep sentiment, reminding us occasionally of Percival.” (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 341)

Died 17 May 1885. Lunt also published The Grave of Byron and Other Poems, in 1826. He published poetry in The Token in 1830 and 1842.

apparently J. L. Martin; died 1848. Author of Native Bards

(Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 5)

John C. M’Call, is a native of Philadelphia, and received an education for the bar, but we understand is not at present engaged in practice. He is known as the author of The Troubadour, The Condottier, Fleurette, and other small poems. This first named of these is the only one we have had an opportunity of seeing. It has many passages of rich and graceful description, which dispose us to think highly of the author’s poetical talent. We must add, that this poem is marked by some of the strangest metrical anomalies that have ever come in our way. Mr M’Call we are informed, writes only for amusement, and does not seem to bestow the necessary attention upon the more mechanical department of poetry. We should be gratified to see him put forth his strength upon a work of higher character, with a studied and persevering effort. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 314)

Died 3 Oct 1846

[P]hysician, b. in Larne, County Antrim, Ireland, 20 Dec., 1875; d. there, 21 July, 1845. He was the son of a cloth-merchant, who died when the son was but a lad. He was graduated in medicine at the college in Dublin, and also received a diploma from the college at Glasgow. He began practice at Larne, then removed to Belfast, where he also carried on a drug business until he came to the United States in 1817. After living in Baltimore, Md., and Pittsburg, Pa., he came in 1824 to Philadelphia, where he practiced medicine and carried on a mercantile business. From 1842 till his death he was U. S. consul at Londonderry. He was of a romantic disposition, early developed considerable poetic genius, and became noted for his rural stanzas in Ireland, and, on coming to this country, took deeper interest in literary works than in the business of his profession. His house in Philadelphia was much frequented by literary men. His earliest publication in the United States was “The Pleasures of Friendship” (1822), which poem, with others, was reprinted (Philadelphia, 1836). In 1824 he edited at Philadelphia the “American Monthly Magazine,” for which he wrote “O’Halloran, or the Insurgent, a Romance of the Irish Rebellion” …. [Also wrote “The Wilderness, or Braddock’s Times, a Tale of the West” (1823); “A Spectre of the Forest, of Annuals of the Housatonic” (1823); “The Betrothed of Wyoming” (2d ed., 1830); “Meredith, or the Mystery of the Meschianza, a Tale of the Revolution” (1831); “Waltham, an American Revolutionary Tale” (1823)] (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

I. M’Lellan, of Boston; he was graduated at Bowdoin College, in 1826, and is now a student at law. His poetry has appeared in various periodicals. (Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 330)

Born 21 May 1806; died 20 Aug 1899. McLellan published many poems in The Token 1828, 1829, 1832, 1834-1837, and 1842.

Grenville Mellen was born at Biddeford, Maine, June 19, 1799. He was the eldest son of Chief-justice Mellen, of the court of common pleas in that state. He was graduated at Harvard in 1818: studied law with his father, and settled at Portland, Maine. In 1823 he removed to North Yarmouth, in the same state, where he remained for five years. His poems at this period and subsequently to his death, appeared frequently in the periodicals, the magazines and annuals, of the time. In 1826 he pronounced before the Peace Society of Maine, at Portland, a poem, The Rest of Empires, and in 1828 an Anniversary Poem, before the Athenian Society of Bowdoin College, The Light of Letters. He wrote for the United States Literary Gazette, supported by Longfellow and others of Cambridge. In 1827 he published Our Chronicle of Twenty-Six, a satire, and in 1829 Glad Tales and Sad Tales, a volume in prose, from his contributions to the periodicals. The chief collection of his poems appeared in Boston in 1833, The Martyrs’ Triumph, Buried Valley, and other Poems.

From Boston he came to reside in New York. His health, which was always delicate, was now much enfeebled; he was lingering with consumption when he made a voyage to Cuba, from which he returned without benefit, and died in New York, September 5, 1841, at the residence of his friend, Mr. Samuel Colman, for whose family he felt the warmest affection, and whose house he had called his home for the latter years of his life. Before his death he was engaged upon a collection of his unpublished poems, which still remain in manuscript.

A glance at his poems shows a delicate susceptibility to poetical impression, tinged with an air of melancholy. He wrote with ease, often carelessly and pretentiously—often with eloquence. With a stronger constitution his verse would probably have assumed a more condensed, energetic expression. With a consciousness of poetic power he struggled with a feeble frame, and at times yielded to despondency. The memory of his tenderness and purity of character is much cherished by his friends. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 277-278)

Mellen published poetry in The Token in 1828-1836, 1838, 1840, and perhaps 1841.

The play was a solid money-maker for tragedian Edwin Forrest, who played the title character off and on for decades. A portrait of Forrest as Metamora was published with a poem in The Token in 1842.

(John Augustus Stone. Metamora. In America’s Lost Plays, ed. Ralph H. Ware and H. W. Schoenberger. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1940; reissued 1965; vol XIV, pp. 24-25, 39-40)

George P. Morris was born in Philadelphia in 1802. He came early in life to New York, and formed an association with the late Samuel Woodworth, with whom he commenced the publication of the Mirror in 1823.

Mr. Morris conducted this journal with distinguished success till the completion of his twentieth volume in 1842, when its publication was interrupted by the universally spread financial disasters of the times. …

One of the earliest productions of Mr. Morris was his drama of Brier Cliff, which was produced at the Chatham Theatre, New York, in 1837, and acted for forty nights. It was constructed on incidents of the American Revolution. … In 1842, he wrote the libretto of an opera, The Maid of Saxony, which was set to music by Mr. C. E. Horn, and performed for fourteen nights at the Park Theatre.

The songs of Mr. Morris have been produced at intervals during the whole term of his literary career. They have been successfully set to music, and popularly sung on both sides of the Atlantic. The themes include most varieties of situation, presenting the love ballad, the patriotic song, the expression of patriotism, of friendship, and numerous occasional topics. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 347-348)

Review in New England Magazine:

John Neal … is a native of Portland, Maine. He was born about 1794, and was of a Quaker family, but does not appear to have inherited any Quaker placidity of mind. In his boyhood he was “read out” of the drab fraternity for “knocking a man, who insulted him, head over heels; for paying a militia fine; for making a tragedy, and for desiring to be turned out, whether or no.” He was brought up as a shop-boy, and when he became a man, became also a wholesale dry-goods dealer, in partnership with Pierpont, afterwards the poet. The concern failed, and Neal commenced the study of law, and with it the profession of literature, by an article on the poetry of Lord Byron, who had then just published the third canto of Childe Harold. …

Next came Keep Cool, his first novel. …

The Battle of Niagara, with other Poems, by John O’Cataract, was published in 1818. … Otho, a five act tragedy, was written about the same time. …

These poems possess vigor, spirit, and ease in versification. They consist of the “Battle of Niagara,” which contains some fine passages of description of the scenes and conflict which supply its title; “Goldan, or the Maniac Harper,” a narrative poem, suggested in part by the celebrated slide of the Rossberg, Switzerland, in 1806; and Ode delivered before the Delphians, a literary society of Baltimore, and a few brief miscellaneous pieces. …

The favorable reception of a portion of [his] novels in England, on their republication, induced their author to try his literary fortunes in that country. With his characteristic promptitude he closed up his business affairs, transferred his clients to a professional brother, borrowed cash, and was off in three weeks. He arrived in England in January, 1824, and remained three years, writing for Blackwood … and other periodicals. …

In 1828 he published Rachel Dyer, a story, in a single volume, the subject of which is “Salem Witchcraft.” It is much more subdued in style than his earlier novels, and is a carefully prepared and historically correct picture of the period it presents. …

It was followed in 1830 by Authorship, by a New Englander over the Sea. It is a rambling narrative, whose interest is dependent on the mystery in which the reader is kept until near its close, respecting the character of the chief personages. The Down Easters, and Ruth Elder, which have since appeared, close the series of Mr. Neal’s novels. …

Mr. Neal has written much for the periodicals, and some of his finest poems have appeared in this manner since the publication of his early volume. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 161-163)

Died 21 June 1876

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 343)

James K. Paulding is a native of the state of New York, and resides at present in the city of New York in the capacity of Navy Agent of the United States. Mr Paulding is well known to the public as one of the writers of Salmagundi, and the author of many other popular prose compositions. He wrote during the late war with Great Britain, The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle, a springly and entertaining parody of one of Scott’s poems. His poem of “The Backwoodsman,” published in 1818, was written with the view of pointing out to our native writers the rich materials for poetry with which our country abounds. The most striking characteristic of this work is its distinct and decided nationality. The author has aimed at giving a patriotic and vernacular cast to the train of sentiment which prevails throughout the poem, as well as at preserving the truth and identity of his local descriptions. The design of the work is carried into effect with a proper attention to all the circumstances necessary to give it success so far as the plan can be pronounced suitable; but the writer has not succeeded in giving sufficient interest to his performance to obtain for it any considerable popularity. There is in the story too little attempt to chain our attention by variety and novelty of incident, or striking delineation of individual character. Had more care been bestowed upon the narrative, The Backwoodsman might have been a favorite work. The descriptive parts are the best, and are entitled to much commendation for spirit and fidelity. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 179)

William B. O. Peabody, a native of Exeter, New Hampshire, was graduated at Cambridge, in 1816. He is now settled in the ministry of Springfield, in Massachusetts. His poems, which have appeared anonymously in various periodicals, show superior talent and good taste. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 325)

Peabody published poems in The Token in 1828 and 1831.

James Gates Percival was born in Kensington, Connecticut, a town of which his ancestors had been among the earliest inhabitants, on the 15th of September, 1795. He was the second son of Dr. James Percival, a physician of the place, who, dying in 1807, left his three sons to their mother’s care.

An anecdote is related of his early childhood, indicative of strength of mind and purpose. He had just begun to spell, when a book, in compliance with the custom of the district school to which he belonged, was lent to him on Saturday, to be returned on the following Monday. He found, by spelling through its first sentences, that a portion of it related to astronomy. This so excited his interest, that he sat diligently to work, and, by dint of hard study, with the aid of the family, was able to read the portion he desired on the Monday morning with fluency. This achievement seemed to give him confidence in his powers, and he advanced so rapidly in his studies, that he soon compassed the limited resources of the school. At the age of sixteen he entered Yale College, and during his course frequently excited the commendation and interest of President Dwight. He was at the head of his class in 1815, and his tragedy of Zamor, afterwards published in his works, formed part of the Commencement exercises. He had previously begun his poetical career by the composition of a few fugitive verses during his college course, and yet earlier, it is said, had written a satire in his fourteenth year. In 1820 he published his first volume, containing the first part of Prometheus, a poem in the Spenserian stanza, and a few minor pieces. It was well received. …

The poems of Percival have spirit, freshness, and a certain youthful force of expression as the author harangues of love and liberty. The deliverance of oppressed nations; the yearnings and eloquence of the young heart ready to rejoice or mourn with a Byronic enthusiasm; the hour of exaltation in the triumph of love, and of gloom as some vision of the betrayal of innocence or the inroads of disease came before his mind; these were his prominent themes. …

In those days he struck the lyre with no hesitating hand. There is the first spring of life and passion in his verse. It would have been better, sometimes, if the author had waited for slow reflection and patient elaboration—since fancy is never so vigorous as to sustain a long journey alone. Percival, however, has much of the true heat. His productions have been widely popular, and perhaps better than the well filled compositions of many others who deserve more consideration at the hands of the judicious and critical. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 212-213)

Died 2 May 1856. Percival published poetry in The Token in 1836 and 1842.

Henry, the third son of Colonel Timothy Pickering and Rebecca Pickering, was born on the 8th of October, 1781, at Newburgh, in the Hasbrouck house, memorable as having been the headquarters of General Washington. …

In 1801, after a long residence in Pennsylvania, Colonel Pickering returned with his family to his native state, Massachusetts; and subsequently Henry engaged in mercantile pursuits in Salem. In the course of a few years he acquired a moderate fortune, which he dispensed most liberally; among other things, contributing largely towards the support of his father’s family and the education of its younger members. In 1825, in consequence of pecuniary losses, he removed from Salem to New York, in the hope of retrieving his affairs; but being unsuccessful in business, he retired from the city, and resided several years at Rondout, and other places on the banks of the Hudson, devoting much of his time to reading, and finding in poetical composition a solace for his misfortunes. His writings take occasionally a sombre tint from the circumstances which shaded the latter years of his life, although his natural temperament was cheerful. He was a lover of the beautiful, as well in art as in nature, and he numbered among his friends the most eminent poets and artists of our country. …

The following just tribute to his memory appeared in the Salem Gazette, in May, 1838:—“Died in New York on the 8th instant Henry Pickering. … His remains were brought to this city on Friday last, and deposited at the side of the memorial which filial piety had erected to the memory of venerated parents—and amid the ancestral group which has been collecting since the settlement of the country. …”

The poems of Pickering are suggested by simple, natural subjects, and are in a healthy veing of reflection. A flower, a bird, a waterfall, childhood, maternal affection are his topics, with which he blends his own gentle moods. The Buckwheat Cake … first appeared in the New York Evening Post, and was published in an edition, now rare, in Boston, in 1831. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 25-26)

Pickering published poetry in The Token in 1829 and 1833.

The Rev. John Pierpont was born at Litchfield, Connecticut, April 6, 1785. … His early years were watched over with great care by an excellent mother, to whom he warmly expressed his gratitude in his subsequent poems. Entering Yale College he completed his course in 1804, and passed the succeeding four years as a private tutor in the family of Col. William Allston of South Carolina. On his return home he studied law in the celebrated school of his native town, and was admitted to practice in 1812. About the same period, being called upon to address the Washington Benevolent Society, Newburyport, where he had removed, he delivered the poem entitled “The Portrait,” which he afterwards published, and which is included in the collection of his “Patriotic and Political Pieces.” He soon, in consequence of impaired health, and the unsettled state of affairs produced by the war, relinquished his profession and became a merchant, conducting his business at Boston and afterwards at Baltimore. He was unsuccessful, and after a few years retired. In 1816 he published the Airs of Palestine, at Baltimore. It was well received, and was twice reprinted in the course of the following year at Boston.

In 1819 Mr. Pierpont was ordained minister of the Hollis Street Unitarian church in Boston. He passed a portion of the years 1835-6 in Europe, and in 1840 published a choice edition of his poems.

In 1851, on occasion of the centennial celebration at Litchfield, he delivered a poem of considerable length, with the mixture of pleasantry and sentiment called for in such recitations, and which contains, among other things, a humorous sketch of the Yankee character.

Besides his poems, Mr. Pierpont has published several discourses. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 72)

Died 26 Aug 1866. Pierpont published poetry in The Token in 1828, 1838, and 1842.

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 328-329)

The Rev. Norman Pinney was born at Simsbury, in Hartford County, on the 21st of October, 1804. He was graduated at Yale College, in 1823; and, after a course of theological study, was admitted to the ministry of the Protestant Episcopal Church, by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Brownell. For several years he was connected with Washington College, in Hartford, first as Tutor of Mathematics, and afterward as Professor of Ancient Languages. Subsequently, he removed to the city of Mobile, where he relinquished the ministry, and devoted himself exclusively to the instruction of youth. …

The poetical writings of Mr. Pinney are of a pleasing character. But few of them have been committed to the press …. They were mostly contributed … to the columns of the “New York Weekly Review,” and the “Episcopal Watchman,” at that time published in Hartford. (Charles W. Everett, ed. The Poets of Connecticut, 6th ed. Philadelphia: J. & J. L. Gihon, 1851; p. 335.)

Died 1 Oct 1862

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 222)

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 398-399)

The editor of the Louisville Journal, is a native of Connecticut, born at Preston, New London county, December 18, 1802. He was educated at Brown University, studied law but did not engage in the profession, preferring the pursuits of editorial life. In 1828 he commenced the New England Weekly Review at Hartford, a well conducted and well supported journal of a literary character, which he carried on for two years, when, resigning its management to Mr. Whittier, he removed to the West, established himself in Kentucky at Louisville, and shortly became editor of the “Journal,” a daily paper in that city. In his hands it has become one of the most widely known and esteemed newspapers in the country; distinguished by its fidelity to Whig politics, and its earnest, able editorials, no less than by the lighter skirmishing of wit and satire. …

Mr. Prentice’s own poetical writings are numerous. Many of them first appeared in the author’s “Review” at Hartford. A number have been collected by Mr. Everest in the “Poets of Connectict.” They are in a serious vein, chiefly expressions of sentiment and the domestic affections. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 400)

The poem appeared originally in The Token for 1829.

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 330-331)

James O. Rockwell was, to a great extent, a self-made man. He was born at Lebanon, Conn., in 1807, and at an early age placed as an operative in a cotton factory at Patterson, New Jersey. When he was fourteen the family removed to Manlius, N. Y., and James was apprenticed to a printing establishment at Utica. He remained there about four years, writing for as well as working at the press, and then after a short sojourn in New York removed to Boston. After working a short time as a journeyman printer he obtained the situation of assistant editor of the Boston Statesman, from which he was soon promoted, in 1829, to the exclusive charge of a paper of his own, The Providence Patriot. “He continued,” says his biographer Everest, “his editorial labors until the summer of 1831, when a ‘card apologetic’ announced to the readers of the Patriot that its editor had been ‘accused of ill health—tried—found guilty—and condemned over to the physicians for punishment.’ The following number was arrayed in tokens of mourning for his death.” [Note in Duyckinck: See also a further notice from the same pen, South[ern] Lit[erary] Mess[enger], July, 1838, in which a suspicion of suicide is hinted at.]

His poems are scattered through his own and other periodicals, having never been collected. They are all brief, and though bearing marks of an ill regulated imagination and imperfect literary execution, are animated by a true poetic flame. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 437)

Rockwell published poetry in The Token in 1830 and 1833.

One of the most original of American humorists, a fine scholar, and a poet of ardent imagination, was born in the city of New York, May 11, 1799. His father, Comfort Sands, was a mechant of the city, who had borne a patriotic part in the early struggles of the Revolution. Sands early acquired a taste for the ancient classics, which his education at Columbia College confirmed, to which he afterwards added a knowledge of the modern tongues derived from the Latin. One of his college companions, two years his senior, was his friend and partner in his poetical scheme, James Wallis Eastburn. They projected while in college two literary periodicals, The Moralist and Academic Recreations. The first had but a single number; the other reached a volume;—Sands contributing prose and verse. Graduating with the class of 1815, he entered the law office of David B. Ogden, and contrary to the habit of young poets, studied with zeal and fidelity. His talent for writing, at this time, was a passion. He wrote with facility, and on a great vareity of subjects; one of his compositions, a sermon, penned for a friend, finding its way into print, with the name of the clergyman who delivered it. In 1817 he published, in the measure which the works of Scott had made fashionable, The Bridal of Vaaumond …. His literary history is at this time interwoven with that of his friend, Eastburn, with whom he was translating the Psalms of David into verse, and writing a poem, “Yamoyden,” on the history of Philip, the Pequod chieftain. This was planned by Eastburn, while he was pursuing his studies for the ministry, during a residence at Bristol, Rhode Island, in the vicinity of the Indian locality of the poem. It was based on a slight reading of Hubbard’s Narrative of the Indian Wars. The two authors chose their parts, and communicated them when finished to each other; the whole poem being written in the winter of 1817 and following spring. While it was being revised, Eastburn, who in the meantime had taken orders in the Protestant Episcopal Church, died in his twenty-second year, December 2, 1819, on a voyage to Santa Cruz, undertaken to recover his health.

The poem was published the year following, in 1820, with an advertisement by Sands, who, on a further study of the subject, had made some additions to the matter. The proem, which celebrates the friendship of the two authors, and the poetical charm of their Indian subject, is justly considered one of the finest of Sands’s literary achievements. The basis of the poem belongs to Eastburn. …

In 1822 and 1823, Sands was writing for the Literary Review, a monthly New York periodical, in conjunction with some friends, associated in a junto known as the Literary Confederacy. They were four in number, and had already contributed the series of papers, “The Neologist” to the Daily Advertiser, and “The Amphilogist” to the Commercial Advertiser ….

In May, 1824, Sands commenced the Atlantic Magazine, which he edited, and for which he made many of the articles during its first volume; when it became the New York Review he again entered upon the editorship, which he continued, supplying many ingenious and eloquent papers till 1827. …

The “Dream of the Princess Papantzin,” first published in the Talisman, founded on a legend recorded by the Abbe Clavigero, on a poem of more than four hundred lines of blank verse, is considered by Mr. Verplanck “one of the most perfect specimens left by Mr. Sands of his poetic powers, whether we regard the varied music of the versification, the freedom and splendor of the diction, the nobleness and affluence of the imagery, or the beautiful and original use he has made of the Mexican mythology.” …

At the very instant of his death he was engaged upon an article of invention for the first number of the Knickerbocker Magazine upon Esquimaux Literature, for which he had filled his mind with the best reading on the country. It was while engaged on this article on the 17th December, 1832, that he was suddenly attacked by Apoplexy. He had written with his pencil the line for one of the poems by which he was illustrating his topic,

—some uncertain marks followed from his stricken arm; he rose and fell on the threshold of his room, and lived but a few hours longer. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 271-273)

Sands published poetry in The Token in 1830.

Richard Penn Smith was born in Philadelphia, and was educated as a lawyer. His father, William Moore Smith, who transmitted a taste for literature to his son, is spoken of as a poetical writer of reputation. The first appearance of Richard Penn Smith as an author was in the contribution of a series of Essays entitled “The Plagiary” to the Union. He was for five years, from 1822, the proprietor and editor of the Aurora, in which he succeeded Duane. He then returned to his profession of the law, still pursuing his literary tastes. In 1831 he published a novel of the American Revolution, The Forsaken. He is also the author of two volumes of short stories, The Actress of Padua and other Tales. He was a frequent writer of poetical pieces for the newspapers; but chiefly known as a ready writer of dramatic pieces for the stage. His tragedy of Caius Marius, written for Edwin Forrest, was brought out by the latter on the stage. He wrote numerous other successful plays, some of the titles of which are, Quite Correct, The Eighth of January, The Sentinels, William Penn, [T]he Water Witch, Is she a Brigand? &c. Rees, in his Dramatic Authors, enumerates these, and tells an anecdote illustrating his equanimity while turning off these hasty productions for ready money. Leaving the theatre one night at the close of the performance of a piece of his composing, he met an old schoolfellow who, ignorant of his friend’s share in it, saluted him, “Well, this is really the most insufferable trash that I have witnessed for some time.” “True,” replied Smith, “but as they give me a benefit tomorrow night as the author, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you here again.”

He died at his residence on the Schuylkill, August 12, 1854. He had ceased to write for some years before his death, having suffered from a dropsical affection. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 382)

Born 17 March 1799. Several of his plays are reprinted in volume 13 of America’s Lost Plays, ed. Ralph H. Ware and H. W. Schoenberger. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1940; reissued 1965.)

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 357-358)

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 216)

Charles Sprague was born in 1791, in Boston, where he has always resided. He was educated at one of the public schools in his native town, and during the early part of his life, gave his attention to mercantile pursuits. He is at present the Cashier of the Globe Bank, which situation he has held for several years. He has ever been actively devoted to business, and has cultivated letters only during hours of leisure.

Mr Sprague, we believe, was first introduced to the public, as a poet, on the occasion of obtaining a prize for a theatrical prologue. He has since written several others, which have not only been adjuged worthy of prizes, but are esteemed superior to all productions of the kind, excepting only those of Pope and Johnson. These, however they may be the principal things by which this author is known to the public at large, are not all that he has written, nor in our opinion, are they the best. …. (Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 185)

John Augustus Stone, the author of Metamora, was born in 1801, at Concord, Mass. He was an actor as well as dramatic writer, and made his first appearance in Boston as “Old Norval” in the play of Douglas. He acted in New York in 1826, and in Philadelphia afterwards at intervals. He received five hundred dollars from Mr. [Edwin] Forrest for Metamora. He wrote two other plays in which Mr. Forrest performed, The Ancient Briton, in which he took the part of Brigantine, and for which he paid the author a thousand dollars; and Fauntleroy, The Banker of Boston, a version of the story of the English personage of that name. … Stone also wrote La Roque the Regicide, The Democrat, Tancred, and other pieces.

The circumstances of his death were melancholy. In a fit of derangement he threw himself into the Schuylkill and was drowned. The date of this event is recorded on a monument over his remains which bears this inscription: “To the memory of John Augustus Stone, who departed this life June 1, 1834, aged thirty-three years,” and on the reverse, “Erected to the Memory of the Author of Metamora, by his friend Edwin Forrest.” (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 280-281)

A robin strews leaves over the dead children in the English story, “The Babes in the Woods.”

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 342-343)

Benjamin B. Thatcher was born in the state of Maine in the year 1809. His father was a distinguished lawyer, and for many years a representative in Congress. The son, on the completion of his course at Bowdoin College in 1825, commenced the study of law, and was admitted to practice at Boston, where he resided during the remainder of his life. He was a constant contributor to the leading literary periodicals of the day, and in 1832 published a work entitled Indian Biography, which forms two volumes of Harpers’ Family Library. He afterwards prepared two volumes on Indian Traits, for a juvenile series, “The Boys’ and Girl’s Library,” issued by the same house. He also wrote a brief memoir of Phillis Wheatley. In 1838 he visited Europe for the benefit of his health, but returned after passing nearly two years in England, in a worse state than that in which he left home. He died on the fourteenth of July, 1840. His poems are numerous, and mostly of a meditative and descriptive character. They are all brief, and like most of his prose productions, are scattered over a number of annuals and magazines. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 496-497)

Thatcher published poetry in The Token in 1830-1837.

Perhaps Charles West Thompson, who published two poems in The Token in 1834.

or

Perhaps Daniel Pierce Thompson, author, b. in Charlestown (now a part of Boston), Mass., 1 Oct., 1793; d. in Montpelier, Vt., 6 June, 1868. … He was brought up on a farm, prepared himself for college under difficulties, taught for one winter, and then entered Middlebury college, where he was graduated in 1820. Going to Virginia as a family tutor, he studied law there, and was admitted to the bar in 1823, after which he returned to Vermont and settled in Montpelier. … He was a popular lecturer before lyceums and orator on public occasions. Mr. Thompson began to contribute poems and sketches to periodicals while he was in college, and continued to write frequently for the newspapers and magazines besides publishing political pamphlets. … (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, blind soothsayer Tiresias was for seven years a woman and then changed back into a man:

(Ovid. Metamorphoses, trans. Rolfe Humphries. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1955, 1973; p. 67)

(Samuel Kettell. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 2, p. 316-318)

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 118-120)

Robert Walsh was born in the city of Baltimore in 1784. His father was by birth an Irishman, bearing the same name; his mother was of Quaker Pennsylvanian origin. He received his early education at the Catholic College at Baltimore, and the Jesuit College at Georgetown. He was sent to Europe after passing through the usual school course to complete his education, and remained abroad until his twenty-fifth year, when he returned, married, and commenced the practice of the law, having prosecuted his studies under the superintendence of Robert Goodloe Harper. Owing in part, probably to his deafness, he soon abandoned this profession.

He commenced his literary career as a writer in the Port Folio, and in 1809 published A Letter on the Genius and Disposition of the French Government, including a View of the Taxation of the French Empire, in which he commented with severity on the measures of Napoleon. …

In 1811 he commenced with the year the publication of the first quarterly attempted in America, The American Review of History and Politics. Eight numbers appeared, carrying the work through two years. Most of the articles were from the pen of the editor.

In 1813 his Correspondence with Robert Goodloe Harper respecting Russia and Essay on the Future State of Europe appeared. He also furnished several biographical prefaces to an edition of the English poets, in fifty eighteenmo. volumes, then in course of publication in Philadelphia. …

In 1821 he commenced, with Mr. William Fry, the National Gazette, a small newspaper, published on alternate afternoons. It was soon enlarged, and published daily. Mr. Walsh remained connected with this journal for fifteen years, and during that period did much to enlarge the scope of the newspaper literature of the country by writing freely and fully upon books, science, and the fine arts, as well as politics ….

Mr. Walsh was also connected with the editorship of The American Magazine of Foreign Literature, the forerunner of the Museum and Living Age of Mr. Littell, but in 1822 resigned that charge for the more agreeable task of the resuscitation of his original Review. The first number of the American Review was published in March, 1827. It was continued with great ability for ten years, and among its many excellent qualities is to be commended for its frequent and thorough attention to home literature and other subjects of national interest. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 37-38)

Died 7 Feb 1859

[C]lergyman, b. in Hingham, Mass., 21 April 1794; d. in Framingham, Mass., 22 Sept., 1843, was graduated at Harvard in 1812. He was assistant teacher at Phillips Exeter academy in 1812-’14, studied theology under his father’s direction, and was ordained pastor of the Second church (Unitarian) at Boston, 1 Jan., 1817. He took an active part in organizing the Unitarian body, and edited its organ, the “Christian Disciple,” whose name was subsequently changed to the “Christian Examiner” in 1819-’22. He visited Europe in 1829-’30 for the benefit of his health, resigned his pastorate soon after his return, and was appointed Parkman professor of pulpit eloquence and pastoral care in the divinity-school of Harvard in 1830, which chair he resigned in 1842. He … published “Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching” (Boston, 1824); “Sermons on the Offices and Character of Jesus Christ” (1825); “The Formation of Christian Character” (1831); “The Life of the Saviour” (1832); memoirs of Joseph Priestley, Noah Worcester, and others; and separate sermons, essays, and poems. (Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, ed. James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. NY: D. Appleton & Co., 1888.)

Prosper Montgomery Wetmore was born at Stratford on the Housatonic, Connecticut, in 1799. At an early age he removed with his parents to New York. His father dying soon after, he was placed, when scarcely nine years of age, in a counting-room, where he continued as a clerk till he reached his majority. He has since that period been engaged in mercantile business in the city of New York.

With scant early opportunities for literary culture, Mr. Wetmore was not long in improving a natural tendency to the pursuits of authorship. He made his first appearance in print in 1816, at the age of seventeen, and soon became an important aid to the struggling literature, and, it may be added, writers of the time. He wrote for the magazines, the annuals, and the old Mirror; and as literature at that period was kept up rather as a social affair than from any reward promised by the trade, it became naturally associated with a taste for the green-room, and the patronage of the theatrical stars of the day. Mr. Wetmore was the companion of Price, Simpson, Brooks, Morris, and other members of a society which supported the wit and gaiety of the town.

In 1830 Mr. Wetmore published in an elegant octavo volume, Lexington, with other Fugitive Poems. This is the only collection of his writings which has been made. Lexington, a picture, in an ode, of the early revolutionary battle, is a spirited poem. It has fire and ease of versification. The Banner of Murat, The Russian Retreat, Greece, Painting, and several theatrical addresses possessing similar qualities, are aimong the contents of this volume.

In 1832 Mr. Wetmore delivered a poem in Spenserian stanza on Ambition, before one of the literary societies of Hamilton College, New York, which has not been printed.

In 1838 he edited a volume of the poems of James Nack, prefaced with a brief notice of the life of that remarkable person.

Mr. Wetmore, however, has been more generally known as a man of literary influence in society than as an author. He has been prominently connected with most of the liberal interests of the city, both utilitarian and refined—as Regent of the University, to which body he was appointed in 1833, promoting the public school system; as chairman of the committee on colleges and academies in the State Legislature, to which he was elected in 1834 and 1835; as member of the City Chamber of Commerce; as an efficient director of the Institution for the Deaf and Dumb; as President of the American Art-Union, which rapidly extended under his management to a national institution; and as a most active member and supporter of the New York Historical Society. …

The military title of General Wetmore, by which he is widely known, is derived from his long and honorable service in the militia organization of the state, of which he was for many years Paymaster-General. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 279)

Died 16 March 1876. Wetmore published poetry in The Token in 1830 and 1831.

(Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. Boston: S. G. Goodrich & Co., 1829; vol 3, p. 352-353)

In “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers”

John Greenleaf Whittier is of a Quaker family, established, in spite of old Puritan persecutions, on the banks fo the Merrimack, where, at the homestead in the neighborhood of Haverhill, Massachusetts, the poet was born in 1808. Until his eighteenth year he lived at home, working on the farm, writing occasional verses of the Haverhill Gazette, and turning his hand to a little shoemaking, one fo the industrial resources with which the New England farmer sometimes ekes out the family subsistence. Then came two years of town academy learning, when he became editor, in 1829, at Boston, of the American Manufacture, a newspaper in the tariff interest. In 1830 he became editor of the paper which had been conducted by Brainard at Hartford, and when the “Remains” of that poet were published in 1832, he wrote the prefatory memoir. In 1831 appeared, in a small octavo volume, at Hartford, his Legends of New England, which represents a taste early formed by him of the quaint Indian and colonial superstitions of the country, and which his friend Brainard had delicately touched in several of his best poems. The Supernaturalism of New England, which he published in 1847, may be considered a sequel to this volume. There was an early poem published by Whittier, Moll Pitcher, a tale of a witch of Nahant, which may be classed with these productions, rather poetical essays in prose and verse on a favorite subject than, strictly speaking, poetical creations. …

Mr. Whittier has written too frequently on occasional topics of local or passing interest, to claim for all his verses the higher qualities of poetry. Many of them are purely didactic, and serve the purposes of forcible newspaper leaders. In others he has risen readily to genuine eloquence, or tempered his poetic fire by the simplicity of true pathos. Like most masters of energetic expression, he relies upon the strong Saxon elements of the language, the use of which is noticeable in his poems. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 472-473)

Died 7 Sept 1892

Nathaniel Parker Willis was born in Portland, Jan. 20, 1807. His father removed to Boston when he was six years of age. He was for a year or two a pupil of the Rev. Dr. McFalane of Concord, N. H.; but at the Latin School of Boston and at the Phillips Academy at Andover, he received his principal education, previous to entering college. He was graduated at Yale in 1827. While in college he published several religious pieces of poetry under the signature of “Roy,” and gained the prize of fifty dollars for the best poem, offered by “The Album,” a gift book published by Lockwood. …

After his graduation, Mr. Willis first became the editor of “The Legendary,” a series of volumes of tales published by S. G. Goodrich. He next established the “American Monthly Magazine,” which he conducted for two years, then merging it in the “New York Mirror,” conducted by Geo. P. Morris—that he might carry out a cherished purpose of a visit to Europe. His “Pencillings by the Way,” contributed to the Mirror, give the history of his next four years of travel and adventure. …

The contributions of Mr. Willis to the various periodicals upon which he has been engaged, have been written with that invariable care and finish, which enable him now, in their collected form of nine volumes, to look upon them as the even and steady product of a career of literary industry, varying only in place and circumstances. They are severally characterized by their acute perception of affairs of life and the world; a delicate vein of sentiment, an increased ingenuity in the decoration and improvement of matters which in the hands of msot writers would be impertinent and wearisome; in fine, their invention which makes new things out of old, whether among the palled commonplaces of the city, or the scan monotony of the country. …

The poetry of Mr. Willis is musical and original. His Sacred Poems belong to a class of compositions which critics might object to, did not experience show them to be pleasurable and profitable interpreters to many minds. The versification of these poems is of remarkable smoothness. Indeed, they have gained the author reputation where his nicer powers would have failed to be appreciated. In another view, his novel in rhyme, of Lady Jane, is one of the very choicest of the numerous poems cast in the model of Don Juan; while his dramas are delicate creations of sentiment and passion, with a relish of the old poetic Elizabethan stage. … (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 439-440)

In the latter years of his life, Mr. Willis was an invalid. He suffered so intensely from the ravages of chronic disease as to live in the continual anticipation of death. Yet, although repeatedly warned by his physician, he would not intermit his regular and choicely-written contributions to his paper. … “ ‘I have made up my mind to die in the harness,’ he would say; and he kept his word.” He died at Idlewild, January 20, 1867, on his sixty-first birthday. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. 1875; vol 2, p. 274)

Willis published poetry in The Token in 1828-1832 and edited the volume for 1829. He appears in Fern Leaves from Fanny’s Portfolio and Ruth Hall, by his sister, Sara Payson Willis (“Fanny Fern”).

The author of the Old Oaken Bucket, was the youngest son of a farmer and revolutionary soldier, and was born at Scituate, Mass., January 13, 1785. He had but few educational advantages, as, according to the memoir prefixed to his poems in 1816, no school was taught in the village, except during the three winter months; and as a mistaken idea of economy always governed the selection of a teacher, he was generally as ignorant as his pupils.

Some juvenile verses written by young Woodworth attracted the attention of the vilage clergyman, the Rev. Nehemiah Thomas, who gave him a winter’s instruction in the classics, and endeavored to raise an amount sufficient to support him at college, but without success. He was soon after apprenticed to a printer, the trade of his choice, Benjamin Russell the editor and publisher of the Columbian Centinel, Boston. He remained with his employer a year after the expiration of his indentures, and then removed to New Haven, where he commenced a weekly paper called the Belles Lettres Repository, of which he was “editor, publisher, printer, and (more than once) carrier.” The latter duty was probably one of the lightest, as the periodical, after exhausting the cash received in advance, was discontinued at the end of the second month.

Several of Woodworth’s poems first appeared in The Complete Coiffeur …. By J. B. M. D. Lafoy, Ladies’ Hair Dresser, 1817. This is a small volume of about two hundred pages, one half being occupied with a French translation of the other. M. Lafoy was probably ambitious to follow in the footsteps of the illustrious Huggins, or perhaps regarded the affair as a shrewd mode of advertising. It is to be hoped he paid Woodworth well for this literary job.

Woodworth left New Haven, and after a brief sojourn in Baltimore, removed to New York in 1809. … During the contest of 1812 he conducted a quarto weekly paper entitled The War, and a monthly Swedenborgian magazine, The Halcyon Luminary and Theological Repository. Both were unsuccessful. His next literary undertaking was a contract in 1816 “to write a history of the late war, in the style of a romance, to be entitled The Champions of Freedom.” The work was commenced in March, and the two duodecimos were ready for delivery in the following October. It possessed little merit as history or novel.

In 1818, a small volume of Woodworth’s poetical contributions to various periodicals was published in New York. A second collection appeared in 1826.

… He was a frequent contributor of occasional verses to the newspaper, and his patriotic songs on the victories of the war of 1812- 14, and on other occasions, were widely popular. He was the author of several dramatic pieces, mostly operatic, which were produced with success. One of these, The Forest Rose, keeps possession of the stage, on account of the amusing Yankee character who forms one of the dramatis personae.

In the latter years of his life he suffered from paralysis. …

He died on the 9th of December, 1842. “The Old Oaken Bucket” is by far the best of his numerous lyrics. It will hold its place among the choice songs of the country. (Evert & George Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature. NY: Charles Scribner, 1855; vol 2, p. 70-71)

(George B. Cheever, ed. The American Common-place Book of Poetry. Boston: American Stationers’ Company, 1831. p. 117-118]