associated with the founding and early history of the "North American Review," and some of his first writings appeared in that journal. He published essays on critical topics - being one of the first to recognize the genius of Wordsworth - and two novels. His verse, however, is his most important contribution to Literature. It is good, but not great. It is verse of the kind that the critics praise, but the general public does not read. He published a volume of "Poems" in 1827; "Poems and Prose Writings" in 1833; "The Buccaneer, and Other Poems' in 1844. "The Buccaneer" is written with spirit and in strong and correct verse; but it has not held the attention of the public, and it fails in the musical quality of the best poetry.

Rodman

born in New

York, 1795; died, 1820.

Joseph Rodman Drake is one of the most interest- Joseph ing personalities in our early Literature. He cannot Drake, be called a great poet; but he had the poet's feeling for musical sound and for the beauty of nature, and he had a delicate gift of expression. Moreover, he loved Literature. He and his friend Halleck were lovers of Burns and Campbell, and their poetry shows the influence of these poets. But there is an original strain of music in both of them. Drake's best-known pieces are the "American Flag" and "The Culprit Fay." The last is our first important narrative poem. There is a story that some one in conversation with Drake asserted the impossibility of writing a readable composition on a supernatural or fairy topic, without introducing human characters, and that the poem was written partly for the purpose of proving the contrary.

The offence of the culprit Fay is that he has loved a mortal maiden; but the mortal never appears on the scene. The poem is a graceful, tender, fanciful story in verse. It gives beautiful pictures of the scenery of the Hudson Highlands. It well deserves all the popularity it ever received. It is possible that Drake might not have written anything better if he had lived longer; but as he was only twenty-two years old when this was published, one cannot help feeling that later years might have given us greater things, and that American Literature suffered a severe loss in his early death.

'Tis the middle watch of a summer's night
The earth is dark, but the heavens are bright;

Naught is seen in the vault on high

But the moon, and the stars, and the cloudless sky,

ΙΟ

15

The moon looks down on old Cronest,

She mellows the shades on his shaggy breast,

And seems his huge gray form to throw

In a silver cone on the wave below;

His sides are broken by spots of shade,
By the walnut bough and the cedar made,

And through their clustering branches dark
Glimmers and dies the fire-fly's spark—

Like starry twinkles that momently break,

Through the rifts of the gathering tempest's rack.

These lines are meant to place the reader in the scene of the poem, - the Highlands of the Hudson

on a moonlight night.

Cronest is one of the best

- as the

known mountains of the region. Some character-
istic features of that scenery are introduced,
walnut and cedar trees and the fire-flies. The meas-
ure is the rimed iambic tetrameter. But notice how
variety of effect and lightness are gained by the fre-
quent introduction of other feet, as in lines 8, 10, 14.
In lines 8 and 10, anapests are introduced which give
a peculiar tripping effect to the measure; and in line
14 a trochee at the beginning emphasizes the glim-
mer of the fire-fly.

In connection with his friend Halleck, Drake was interested in a series of satirical poems, called "The Croakers," which were published in New York in 1819, and afterwards. This literary and personal

friendship continued as long as Drake lived, and is

embalmed in a little poem of Halleck's, one stanza of Fitz-Greene

which is among the perfect lyrics of our Literature:

Green be the turf above thee,

Friend of my better days;

None knew thee but to love thee,

None named thee but to praise.

Fitz-Greene Halleck spent almost all his active life in New York. His longest poem was a satire on New York society, called "Fanny." But probably his best work is in the lyrical vein. "Marco Bozzaris" has been a favorite piece for school declamations. It is a spirited Ode, and has the qualities of vigorous life and musical movement. The American people were at this time intensely interested in the Greek Revolution, as is illustrated by the publication, nearly

Halleck,
born in
Connecticut,
1790;
died, 1867.

at the same date as the issue of Halleck's poem, of a Historical Sketch of the Greek Revolution by Dr. S. G. Howe. Halleck, therefore, cannot be accused of seeking a foreign subject when he celebrated the Greek hero. The passage in this poem describing Death in its various aspects has been praised as among the very finest of its kind; and the Ode closes with lines that cling to the memory:

For thou art Freedom's now, and Fame's;
One of the few, the immortal names,

That were not born to die.

Some of the most perfect lines of Halleck's verse are found in the poem on Burns, which is a generous acknowledgment of what our earliest imaginative poets owed to the great Scotch Bard.

20

25

30

What sweet tears dim the eye unshed,
What wild vows falter on the tongue,
When "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled,"
Or "Auld Lang Syne" is sung!

Pure hopes, that lift the soul above,
Come with his "Cotter's " hymn of praise,
And dreams of youth, and truth, and love,
With "Logan's" banks and braes.

And when he breathes his master-lay

Of Alloway's witch-haunted wall,

All passions in our frames of clay

Come thronging at his call.

Imagination's world of air,

And our own world, its gloom and glee,
Wit, pathos, poetry are there,

And death's sublimity.

This is simple verse and the better fitted by its simplicity to its theme. Notice how the shorter fourth line is made to carry the culminating thought of each quatrain. Notice how easily, because skilfully, the references to Burns' most famous and familiar poems are introduced (see lines 19, 20, 22, 24, 26), and how well the test of all great poetry is given in lines 13 and 14:

And his that music, to whose tone

The common pulse of man keeps time.

We have not yet found the American poet of whom this could be truly said. It is not true of Halleck; it is not true of Drake. It is true of very few, and those of whom it is true are the great poets. Charles Charles Sprague published poems, some of which Sprague, express warm, true feeling in smooth and graceful Massachuverse. He was a man of business whose literary died, 1828.

H

born in

setts, 1791;