It was good-naturedly hinted on one occasion that his “impromptus” were prepared beforehand, and he was asked if he would submit to the application of a test of his poetic abilities. He promptly acceded, and a most difficult one was immediately proposed.
Among his intimate friends were Col. J. B. Van Schaick and Charles Fenno Hoffman, both of whom were present. Said Van Schaick, taking up a copy of Byron, “The name of Lydia Kane” (a lady distinguished for her beauty and cleverness, who died a few years ago, but who was then just blushing into womanhood) “has in it the same number of letters as a stanza of Childe Harold has lines: write them down in a column.” They were so written by Bogart, Hoffman, and himself. “Now,” he continued, “I will open the poem at random; and for the ends of the lines in Miss Lydia’s Acrostic shall be used the words ending those of the verse on which my finger may rest.” The stanza thus selected was this:—
And must they fall, the young, the proud, the brave,
To swell one bloated chief’s unwholesome reign?
No step between submission and a grave?
The rise of rapine and the fall of Spain?
And doth the Power that man adores ordain
Their doom, nor heed the suppliant’s appeal?
Is all that desperate valor acts in vain?
And counsel sage, and patriotic zeal,