Where, save as ghosts, we come no more,
May know what sweet majestic face
The gentle Prince of Players wore!
[¹] The club-house in Gramercy Park, New York, was the gift of Mr. Booth to the association founded by him and named “The Players.”
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
“POET, EDITOR AND REFORMER.”
MONG the current poets of America, few, perhaps, deserve more favorable mention than the subject of this sketch. His poetry is notable for its purity of sentiment and delicacy of expression. The story of his life also is one to stimulate the ambition of youth, who, in this cultured age, have not enjoyed the benefits of that college training which has come to be regarded as one of the necessary preliminaries to literary aspiration. This perhaps is properly so, that the public may not be too far imposed upon by incompetent writers. And while it makes the way very hard for him who attempts to scale the walls and force his passage into the world of letters—having not this passport through the gateway—it is the more indicative of the “real genius” that he should assay the task in an heroic effort; and, if he succeeds in surmounting them, the honor is all the greater, and the laurel wreath is placed with more genuine enthusiasm upon the victor’s brow by an applauding public.