A hand that welcomed and that cheered,
To one unknown didst thou extend;
Thou gavest hope to song that feared;
But now by Time and Faith endeared,
I claim the right to call the Poet, Friend!”
Thus did a Quaker write of a Quaker in dedicating a Quaker poem.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lives and sings as in those days when Taylor read the story of “Hyperion” and the poetry of “Voices of the Night,” and resolved to visit Boppart and to be a poet. Mr. Longfellow had a name to be envied in the annals of literature, when the man of whom we write was a rollicking, mischievious boy. Yet Taylor has appeared on the stage of life, has enacted a very important part, and is gone. His friend and benefactor remains, loved and honored in the old Washington mansion at Cambridge.
That marvellously versatile and skilful man, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, though born long before Taylor, still walks the halls of learning, and, while enjoying the deserved rewards of “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” “Old Ironsides,” and the numerous other publications in the shape of essays, poems, and medical text-books, was not ashamed to be called the friend of Mr. Taylor, and recalls his association with him in the most affectionate terms.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, the poet and essayist, who, like Mr. Holmes, enjoys a world-wide reputation as a man of letters and thoughts, moves among men as of yore, while his younger acquaintance has passed on before.