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By Root 16361 0

any one so blind as not to see that Mr. Cooper, for example, owes much, and Mr. Paulding nearly all, of his reputation as a novelist to his early occupation of the field? Is there any one so dull as not to know that fictions which neither of these gentlemen could have written are written daily by native authors, without attracting much more of commendation than can be included in a newspaper paragraph? And, again, is there any one so prejudiced as not to acknowledge that all this happens because ­there is no longer either reason or wit in the query, “Who reads an American book?”

I mean to say, of course, that Mr. Halleck, in the apparent public estimate, maintains a somewhat better position than that to which, on absolute grounds, he is entitled. There is something, too, in the bonhommie of certain of his compositions — something altogether distinct from poetic merit — which has aided to establish him; and much, also, must be admitted on the score of his personal popularity, which is deservedly great. With all these allowances, however, there will still be found a large amount of poetical fame to which he is fairly entitled.

He has written very little, although he began at an early age — when quite a boy, indeed. His “juvenile” works, however, have been kept very judiciously from the public eye. Attention was first called to him by his satires, signed “Croaker” and “Croaker & Co.,” published in “The New York Evening Post,” in 1819. Of these the pieces with the signature “Croaker & Co. “ were the joint work of Halleck and his friend Drake. The political and personal features of these jeux d’esprit gave them a consequence and a notoriety to which they are entitled on no other account. They are not without a species of drollery, but are loosely and no doubt carelessly written.

Neither was “Fanny,” which closely followed the “Croakers,” constructed with any great deliberation. “It was printed,” say the ordinary memoirs, “within three weeks from its commencement;” but the truth is, that a couple of days would have been an ample allowance of time for any such composition. If we except a certain gentlemanly ease and insouciance, with some fancy of illustration, there is really very little about this poem to be admired. There has been no positive avowal of its authorship, although there can be no doubt of its having been written by Halleck. He, I presume, does not esteem it very highly. It is a mere extravaganza, in close imitation of “Don Juan “ — a vehicle for squibs at cotemporary persons and things. Our poet, indeed, seems to have been much impressed by “Don Juan,” and attempts to engraft its farcicalities even upon the grace and delicacy of “Alnwick Castle. [[;]]” as, for example, in — ­

Men in the coal and cattle line,

From Teviot’s bard and hero land,

From royal Berwick’s beach of sand,

From Wooler, Morpeth, Hexham, and

Newcastle upon Tyne.

These things may lay claim to oddity, but no more. They are totally out of keeping with the tone of the sweet poem into which they are thus clumsily introduced, and serve no other purpose than to deprive it of all unity of effect. If a poet must be farcical, let him be just that; he can be nothing better at the same moment. To be drolly sentimental, or even sentimentally droll, is intolerable to men and gods and columns.

“Alnwick Castle” is distinguished, in general, by that air of quiet grace, both in thought and expression, which is the prevailing feature of the muse of Halleck. Its second stanza is a good specimen of this manner. The commencement of the fourth belongs to a very high order of poetry.

Wild roses by the Abbey towers

Are gay in their young bud and bloom —

They were born of a race of funeral flowers

That garlanded, in long-gone hours,

A Templar’s knightly tomb.

This is gloriously imaginative, and the effect is singularly increased by the sudden transition from iambuses to anapæsts. The passage is, I think, the noblest to be found in Halleck, and I would be at a loss to discover its parallel in all American poetry.

“Marco Bozzaris” has much lyrical, without