FREDERIC S. COZZENS. [Born, 1818.] THE writer of the pleasant magazine papers under the signature of "RICHARD HAYWARDE" was born in New York in the year 1818. RICHARD HAYWARDE was the name of his father's maternal grandfather. He was born in Hampshire in England in 1693, and was one of the earlier Moravian missionaries to America. In 1740 he entertained some of the Brethren, who had come from the old world, at his house in Newport. In a little pamphlet published in 1808, giving an account of the Moravian settlements in this country, he is referred to familiarly as "Old father HAYWARDE." LEONARD COZZENS, his great grandfather in another line, came from Wiltshire, in England, and settled in Newport in 1743. His grandfather, immediately after the battle of Lexington, joined the Newport volunteers, commanded by Captain SEARS, and fought at Bunker Hill. He was himself educated in the city of New York, and has always resided there. He has been a curious student of American literature, and in the winter of 1544 livered a lecture upon this subject. His ver mainly of articles previously published in entitled "Prismatics," printed in 1853, cons "Knickerbocker Magazine," to which he has a frequent contributor for several years. Han ed originally in "The Knickerbocker” and “P recent work, the "Sparrowgrass Papers," app nam's Monthly." He is an importer and drug in wines, of which he has written some admit little periodical which he publishes himself, an essays, both in "Putnam's Monthly," and in i the title of "The Wine Press." In a certain frest and whimsical humor, and a refined and agree sentiment, expressed in prose or verse, Mr. Cozza always pleases. He is indeed, a delightful sp ist, in a domain quite his own, and his poetry has 23 easy flow, and a natural vein of wit and pat that can meet the eye of the desultory reader. which render his signature one of the most welcome A BABYLONISH DITTY. On the merry old "South-side;" Old primeval forest trees, To the salt salubrious breeze. Oh, I loved her as a sister, Her slender, soft, seductive hand; 540 Thus, till summer was senescent, Of what was shortly coming on, Flings her spars and spidery outlines, Yes, thou transitory bubble! ZZENS 1 GEORGE H. COLTON. [Born, 1818. Died, 1847.] GEORGE H. COLTON, the fifth of nine children fa Congregational clergyman who had emigrated o that place from Connecticut, was born in Westord, about twelve miles north of Cooperstown, mong the mountains of Otsego county, in New York, on the twenty-fifth of October, 1818. When bout three years of age he was removed with his ather's family to Royalton, near Lockport, where he remained three years, and then was carried to 1 new home in Elba, in the county of Essex. In this early period he attended indifferent district schools, but his chief means of education was the library of his father, in which he lingered, with an insatiable love of reading, so that before the close of his twelfth year he had made himself familiar with a large portion of English classical literature. He In 1830 he was sent to New Haven to pursue his studies under an elder brother, the Rev. JOHN O. COLTON, then a tutor in Yale College, which he himself entered in 1836, and left, with the degree of bachelor of arts, and next the highest honors of his class, in the summer of 1840. Soon after opened a grammar school in Hartford, but found teaching a disagreeable occupation, and gave it up. He had indeed determined already to devote himself entirely to literature. While an undergraduate he had been a frequent contributor to the college magazine, and in his senior year had written the first canto of a long poem entitled "Tecumseh, or the West Thirty Years Since." This work he now resumed, and completed, with great rapidity, that it might possess on its publication all the advantages which could arise from the political eminence of one of its principal characters, General HARRISON, who was at that time a candidate for the presidency. It was brought out in New York in the spring of 1842. "Tecumseh" is a narrative poem, founded on the nistory of the celebrated chief whose name is chosen for its title, and whose efforts to unite the various divisions of the red race into one grand confederacy, to regain their lost inheritance, though unsuccessful, constitute the most striking and sublime episode in the aboriginal history of this country. The measure of the main part of the poem, which extends through nine long cantos, and nearly fourteen thousand lines, is octo-syllabic. The versification is free, and generally correct, though in some cases marred by inexcusable carelessness, and phraseology more tame and unmeaning than, had he kept his manuscript the Horatian period, the author would have permitted to go before the critics. There are scattered through the work many passages of minute and skilful description of external nature, and interwoven with the main story is one of love, resulting, like most tales of the kind, in the perfect felicity of the parties. Considered as the production of an author but twenty-three years of age, commenced while he was still in college, and finished soon after, under circumstances most unfavorable for poetical composition, it was generally praised, but it was not successful; it was read by few, and the first and only American edition was sold very slowly. In the autumn of 1844 Mr. COLTON issued in New York the first number of "The American Review, a Whig Journal of Politics, Literature, Art, and Science," and of this work, which was issued monthly from the commencement of the following year, he remained editor and proprietor until his death, which occurred after a long and painful illness, induced by too severe mental and physical labor, on the evening of the first of December, 1847. Mr. COLTON was an accurate scholar, and a very rapid and industrious writer. Besides numerous papers, in prose and verse, printed in his periodicals, and a few weeks before his death own magazine, he contributed frequently to other wrote to me that his poems had accumulated so fast that he should print a new volume, nearly as large as "Tecumseh," in which the leading and title-giving piece would be "The Forsaken❞—the story of a young girl, nurtured in the forest, and abandoned by a stranger, from the city, who had won her heart-which he had published in the eleventh volume of the "Democratic Review." Nearly all his poems are diffuse, and they all need- The distinguishing and most poetical element in Mr. COLTON's character was an intense love of nature. This is evident from his poems, and was much more so from his demeanor and conversation. Beautiful scenery and the more remarkable phenomena of the seasons, produced in him fre quently a species of intoxication. "I shall never do myself justice," he said, referring to a discourse which he had delivered on the Eloquence of the Indians, "until I can write in the woods, and by the untrodden shores of the lakes. Let me become rich enough for this, and you shall see what I was made for." GEORGE H. COLTON. EXTRACTS FROM "TECUMSEH." TECUMSEH AND THE PROPHET. NEVER did eye a form behold Beauty and strength in every feature, As stood he there, the stern, unmoved, And yet, though firm, though proud his glance, Of him, who on that summit bare And dew from all the mound's green sod As if were open to their view THE DEATH OF TECUMSEH FORTH at the peal each charger sped, Shone with their armor's light: But, rallying each dark steed once more, With foamy crests in air, And swift swords brandish'd bare. The bloody sun below! There moves no secret foe!... A thousand death-bolts sung! Its miry roots among; One fearful whoop was rung.... I see, where swells the thickest fight, - A FOREST SCENE. WITHIN a wood extending wide Some verdant lines, though crossed and stained, Fell noiselessly; nor any sound, TO THE NIGHT-WIND IN AUTUMN. WHENCE art thou, spirit wind- Thou tell'st not of thy birth, When time seems part of vast eternity, Thou dost reveal them with a magic power, Saddening the soul with thy weird minstrelsy. All nature seems to hear The woods, the waters, and each silent star; What, that can thus enchain their earnest ear, Bring'st thou of untold tidings from afar? Is it of new, fair lands, Of fresh-lit worlds that in the welkin burn? Or the lost Pleiads to the skies return? Nay! 't is a voice of grief, Of grief subdued, but deepened through long years, And peopled cities through the outspread earth, Again thou hast gone by City and empire were alike o'erthrown, In time-long solitudes, Grand gray old mountains pierced the silent air, Fair rivers roll'd, and stretch'd untravers'd woods: "T was joy to hope that they were changeless there. Lo! as the ages passed, Thou found'st them struck with alteration dire, The streams new channel'd, forests headlong cast, The crumbling mountains scathed with storm and fire. Gone but a few short hours, Beauty and bloom beguiled thy wanderings, And thou mad'st love unto the virgin flowers, Sighing through green trees and by mossy springs. Now, on the earth's cold bed, Fallen and faded, waste their forms away, Vain is the breath of morn; Vainly the night-dews on their couches weep; Ah! now by thee I hear The earnest, gentle voices, as of old; They speak in accents tremulously clear— The young, the beautiful, the noble souled. The beautiful, the young, The form of light, the wise, the honored headThou bring'st the music of a lyre unstrung!. Oh cease! with tears I ask it-they are dead.... While mortal joys depart, While loved ones lie beneath the grave's green sod, May we not fail to hear, with trembling heart, In thy low tone the "still small voice of God." ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE. [Born, 1818.] MR. COXE is the eldest son of the Reverend FATHER, as he of old who reap'd the field, The first young sheaves to Him did dedicate And if of hours well saved from revels late This work was followed in the spring of 1838 by 66 "Athwold, a Romaunt;" and in the summer of the same year were printed the first and second cantos of "Saint Jonathan, the Lay of a Scald." These were intended as introductory to a novel in the stanza of « Don Juan," and four other cantos were afterward written, but wisely destroyed by the author on his becoming a candidate for holy orders, an event not contemplated in his previous studies. He was graduated in July, and on the occasion delivered an eloquent valedictory oration. From this period his poems assumed a devotional cast, and were usually published in the periodicals of the church. Taught, from sweet childhood, to revere in the In the autumn of the same year appeared M COXE'S "Christian Ballads," a collection of re gious poems, of which the greater number ha previously been given to the public through the columns of "The Churchman." They are ele forties, and rites of the Protestant Episcopu gant, yet fervent expressions of the author's love for the impressive and venerable customs, cere Church. While in the university, Mr. Coxx had, besides acquiring the customary intimacy with ancient literature, learned the Italian language; and he now, under Professor NORDHEIMER, devoted two years to the study of the Hebrew and the Get man. After passing some time in the Divicity School at Chelsea, he was admitted to deacon's orders, by the Bishop of New York, on the twen ty-eighth of June, 1841. In the following July, on receiving the degree of Master of Arts from the University, he pronounced the closing oration. by appointment of the faculty; and in August be accepted a call to the rectorship of Saint Anne's church, then recently erected by Mr. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS, on his domain of Morrisiana. He was mar ried the same year to his third cousin, Miss CATHE RINE CLEVELAND, daughter of Mr. SIMEON HYDE Mr. COXE was several years rector of St. John's Church, in Hartford; in 1851 he visited Europe, and in 1854 became minister of Grace Church, in Balti more. He has published, besides the works already mentioned, in verse, "Saul, a Mystery," "Advent, a Mystery," and "Halloween;" and in prose," Sym pathies of the Continent," "Impressions of Eng land," "Sermons," and, from the French of the Abbe LABORDE, "The New Dogma of Rome." pronounced before the alumni of Washington His "Athanasion" was College, in Connecticut, in the summer of 1840. It is an irregular ode, and contains passages of considerable merit, but its sectarian character will prevent its receiving general applause. The following allusion to Bishop BERKELEY is from this poem: Oft when the eve-star, sinking into day, *Among them "The Blues" and "The Hebrew Muse," in "The American Monthly Magazine." 544 |