In an age on ages telling,
To be living is sublime.
The free poetic temperament of the two poets revolted at the rigid doctrines powerfully and dogmatically expounded by Dr. Cox, and they amused themselves by delivering sermons of a very different theology to a very small but highly appreciative audience of two intimate friends. Unfortunately, these productions, which would have made a highly original contribution to sermonic literature, have not been preserved.
The friendship of Halleck and Drake, compounded of love and laughter, of work and wit, was severed by the death of Drake in September, 1820. There is no more winning and unworldly chapter in the story of New York than the generous and loyal comradeship of these two young men, who, like Irving and Paulding, conspired against the dullness of the town and made it smile at its own follies. Neither poet had genius, but both had talent; and Drake, like Hamilton, belongs to the group of men of brilliancy and personal charm whose presence has given distinction to New York in every decade since it was founded.
Halleck had written “Fanny” in 1819, a satirical poem which dealt with contemporary manners and men with a freedom that stopped short of impertinence, but afforded much amusement to all save the solemn-minded. The poem passed through several editions and carried Halleck’s reputation to distant parts of the country. A visit in Europe gave the young poet themes like “Burns” and “Alnwick Castle” and “Marco Bozzaris,” which he treated with spirit and metrical effectiveness. Few boys have grown up in America since 1827 who have not heard of the Turk who dreamed in his guarded tent of the hour when Greece, “her knee in suppliance bent, should tremble at his power.” Perhaps no song written in this country has had wider currency than this spirited lyric, born at a time when the Greek struggle for independence appealed to the imagination of the world. In 1848, when his service in the office of John Jacob Astor was terminated by the death of that adventurous capitalist, with whom Irving had also had very pleasant relations, Halleck went back to Guilford and spent nineteen peaceful years in a house which bore the impress of colonial taste in its dignity and spaciousness. He had comfortable means and the leisure so dear to a man of literary taste and habit; but he never lost his love for the city which had given him such wealth of friendship. “I shall never cease to ‘hail,’ as the sailors say, from your good city of New York, of which a residence of more than fifty years made me a citizen,” he wrote to an admirer who wished to reproduce a view of his home in Guilford. “There I always considered myself at home, and elsewhere but a visitor. If, therefore, you wish to embellish my poem (‘Fanny’) with a view of my country-seat (it was literally mine every Sunday for years), let it be taken from the top of Weehawk Hill, overlooking New York, to whose scenes and associations the poem is almost exclusively devoted.”
Halleck died at Guilford, November 19, 1867, and has been commemorated by substantial memorials both there and in New York. A granite pillar was dedicated to his memory in his native town, in the presence of a great multitude, Bayard Taylor delivering the address and Dr. Holmes contributing one of his happy occasional poems. In May, 1877, a bronze statue of Halleck was unveiled in Central Park by the President of the United States. Bryant, the head of the guild of American poets, and William Allen Butler, the accomplished and versatile author of “Nothing to Wear,” delivered addresses, and a poem by Whittier was read.
Poets of far greater genius than Halleck have been far less adequately honored than he; for he was the poet of a half-century and of a city, not of an age and a nation. But he lived in a fortunate time; he was singularly happy in his associations; and he was a delightful companion, genial and witty, scornful and satirical only in dealing with impostors and pretenders.
* * * * *
