Hiram Powers, the American sculptor, who so heartily welcomed the young pedestrian to Florence, Italy, and who through the years which followed, showed a most kindly spirit, making Taylor his guest and confidant, passed away from the contemplation of beautiful earthly forms to figures angelic, in 1873.
Mrs. Kirkland, on whose magazine, in 1848, he began to regain the literary prestige which the failure of the “Phœnixville Pioneer” took from him, and who, with Halleck, so kindly opened the way for him to teach a school in New York, to repair his shattered fortunes, was gone, together with a large number of their mutual acquaintances in the literary circles of New York.
Although the ranks were so sadly depleted, there are still living a most brilliant company of his early literary friends.
John G. Whittier, who still resides in Amesbury, his patriotism unabated, his Quaker simplicity unchanged, and his fame as a poet increasing, as civilization and freedom extend. To him Mr. Taylor dedicated his poem of “Lars,” and in it thus mentioned his first meeting with Whittier:—
“Though many years my heart goes back,
Through checkered years of loss and gain,
To the fair landmark on its track,
When first, upon the Merrimack,
Upon the cottage roof I heard the autumn rain.