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MARCH 12

THOS. BUCHANAN READ

I

Thomas Buchanan Read was born March

12, 1822, in Ches

[graphic]

ter county, Pa.,

BAYARD TAYLOR, 1825-1878

nati, where he entered the

not far from where Bayard Taylor was born three years later. He was early bereft of his father. In his twelfth year his family removed to Cincin

studio of Cleven

ger, a sculptor. When his master went to Europe he turned from sculpture to painting, engaged himself to a house and sign painter, doing shop work in the day time and paint

ing portraits at night. He became a wandering portrait-painter. In 1840 he removed to Boston and married. He painted portraits of Longfellow's children in a group which he called "The Morning Glories". This and his portrait of Mrs. Browning are the best known of his pictures. In 1846 he moved to Philadelphia, and edited a selection from the American female poets, with steel engravings from portraits he painted himself. In 1850 he sailed for Italy, where he spent a year, making the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Browning, and he went back again in 1853 to reside for a time in Florence and Rome. In 1858 he returned to Cincinnati, and he died in New York, May 11, 1872.

II

He also began at an early age to write verses, but without much encouragement until the timely and generous praise of Longfellow decided him to persevere. He began to write for magazines, and in 1846 he published his first volume.

Longfellow writes in his journal, Nov. 2,

1846:

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and always spoke of him with reverence. In "A Leaf from the Past", inscribed to Longfellow, he says:

In dreams like these, of calm delight,

I live again the wintry night,

When all was dark without, but all within was bright

When she, fit bride for such as thou,

She with the quiet, queenly brow,

Read from the minstrel's page with tuneful voice and low3.

IV

The first of his "Poems in Italy" is "To H. W. L."

TO H. W. LONGFELLOW

Oh thou, the laureate of our western realms,
Singing at will beneath your Cambridge elms,
Charming that sacred mansion where the grand
Paternal Cincinnatus* of our land

Dwells, a majestic shadow-more than king;
Who, staidly smiling, hearkens while you sing,
Wouldst thou but build in Rome, we should behold
O'er Nero's ruins rise the enduring house of gold.

But I, a Troubadour born out of time,

From shrine to shrine, pour out my idle rhyme,
Impelled still onward with a love intense,
Singing for love (the only recompense),
Of one sweet lady, and perchance to be
But spurned at last by scornful Poesy3.

V

He published a second volume of poems in Philadelphia in 1848, and when he returned from Italy in 1850 he made the acquaintance of the literary circles of London. Referring to this visit Mary Howitt says in her "Reminiscences of My Later Life" that Dante Rossetti had been much impressed by some lyrics in the Philadelphia Courier signed "A Miner ", and a friend of his undertook to find out from Mr. Read who

* Craigie House where Longfellow lived, had been the headquarters of Washington.

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