RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
POET AND JOURNALIST.
ITH no commanding antecedents to support him, Richard Henry Stoddard has, step by step, fought his way to a position which is alike creditable to his indomitable energy and his genius. Stoddard was born July 2, 1825, at Hingham, Mass. His father was a sea-captain, who, while the poet was yet in his early youth, sailed for Sweden. Tidings of his vessel never came back,—this was in 1835. The mother removed, the same year, with her son to New York, where he attended the public schools of the city. Necessity compelled the widow, as soon as his age permitted, to put young Stoddard to work, and he was placed in an iron foundry to learn this trade. “Here he worked for some years,” says one of his biographers, “dreaming in the intervals of his toil, and even then moulding his thoughts into the symmetry of verse while he moulded the moulten metal into shapes of grace.” At the same time he pursued a course of private reading and study, and began to write poems and sketches for his own pleasure.
It was in 1847 that the earliest blossoms of his genius appeared in the “Union Magazine,” which gave evidence that his mind as well as his body was toiling. In 1848 he issued a small volume of poems entitled, “Footprints,” which contained some pieces of merit; but he afterwards suppressed the entire edition. About this time his health failed and, to recuperate, he gave up, temporarily, his mechanical vocation; but literature took such possession of him that he never returned to the foundry.
In 1852 he issued his second volume entitled, “Poems,” and became a regular contributor to the magazines. In 1860 he was made literary editor of the “New York World,” which position he retained until 1870, and since 1880 he has held a similar position on the “New York Mail and Express.” He, also, from 1853 to 1873 held a government position in the Custom House of New York. During this time Mr. Stoddard also edited a number of works with prefaces and introductions by himself, among which may be mentioned the “Bric-a-Brac Series.” Prominent titles of the author’s own books are “Songs of Summer,” which appeared in 1856; “The King’s Bell,” a series of most delicate suggestive pictures, (1862); “Abraham Lincoln, A Horatian Ode,” (1865); “The Book of the East,” poems, (1871); a collective edition entitled, “Poems,” (1880), and “The Lion’s Cub,” poems, (1890).
One of our most eminent literary critics declares: “Mr. Stoddard’s mind is essentially poetical. All his works are stamped with earnestness. His style is characterized by purity and grace of expression. He is a master of rythmical melody and his mode of treating a subject is sometimes exquisitely subtle. In his poems there is no rude writing. All is finished and highly glazed. The coloring is warm, the costumes harmonious, the grouping symmetrical. His poetry always possesses a spiritual meaning. Every sound and sight in nature is to him a symbol which strikes some spiritual chord. The trees that wave at his window, and the moon that silvers his roof are to him things that play an intimate part in his existence. Thus in all his poems will be found an echo from an internal to an external nature, the harmony resulting from the intimate union of both.”
Mrs. Elizabeth Stoddard, the wife of the author, has shared heartily in the literary labors of her husband, assisting him in his compilations, and is, herself, author of numerous contributions to the magazines and a number of pleasing poems. She has also written several novels.
A dinner was given to Mr. Stoddard by the Author’s Club at the Hotel Savoy on March 25th, 1897, at which more than one hundred and fifty persons gathered to do honor to the venerable poet. Mr. E. C. Stedman, the poet, presided, and good talk abounded. It is impossible in this space to give any extended note of the addresses. Letters of regret were received from many friends of Mr. Stoddard who were unable to be present, including Bishop Potter, Professor Charles Eliot Norton, Dr. Andrew D. White, William Allen Butler, Donald G. Mitchell, James Whitcomb Riley and others.