FITZ-GREENE HALLECK was born at Guilford, Connecticut, July 8, 1795, and died in his native town, November 19, 1867.
On his mother's side he was descended from John Elliot, who will be remembered as the great apostle of the Indians.
Halleck was a self-made man, not having enjoyed the advantages of extended training in schools. At an early age he became clerk in a store at Guilford, which position he held till he was eighteen. In 1823 he became connected with a banking house in New York, and for the greater part of his life he was connected with mercantile or banking business. John Jacob Astor recognized Halleck's eminent business ability in 1824 by making him his confidential agent for five years. That great merchant named him one of the trustees of the famous Astor Library, and settled upon him an annuity of two hundred dollars. This amount, added to the profits of his literary labor, enabled him to retire to his native town, where he lived with his sister.
In 1819 he met Joseph Rodman Drake, and a warm and mutual friendship sprang up almost at the first meeting. The young friends were of the same age, both having been born in 1795. Both possessed strong literary tastes and fine poetical sensibilities. Their lives blended so perfectly that upon the death of his friend in 1820 Halleck became a life-long mourner. In 1819 Halleck assisted Drake, under the assumed name of Croaker Junior, in a series of articles contributed to the "New York Evening Post," and known as the humorous series of "Croaker Papers." In 1821,
"Fanny," his longest poem, was published. This poem, a good satire on local politics and fashions, was written in the measure of Byron's
"Don Juan." In 1822-`28 he visited Europe, where the beauty and finish of his verses soon attracted attention and secured for him many marks of distinction. But very few of his poems, however, were printed till 1827, when his
"Poems" in one volume appeared. The book contained many pieces of great beauty written in England. Notable among these are
"Alnwick Castle" and "Burns." The following which appears in his history of the Scottish poet, will serve to illustrate Halleck's charming style.
Strong sense, deep feeling, passions strong,
A hate of tyrant and of knave,
A love of right, a scorn of wrong,
Of coward and of slave?
A kind true heart, a spirit high,
That could not fear, and would, not bow,
Were written in his manly eye,
And on his manly brow,
Praise to the bard!-his words are driven,
Like flower-seeds by the far winds sown,
Where'er beneath the sky of heaven
The birds of Fame are flown!
"Young America," a poem of three hundred lines, was published in 1864 in the "New York Ledger." He is also author of an edition of Byron with notes and a memoir, and two volumes of
"Selections from the British Poets."
This poet is not distinguished so much by the extent of his literary work as by the quality. His fame was won before he had attained the age of thirty-five; and, although he lived till 1867, he added nothing to the celebrity of his manhood. Although purely a self-made man, he yet acquired all the polish of a finished scholar. His writings are noted for their care and finish and they show the author to have been possessed of a fine sense of harmony and of genial and elevated sentiments. His martial lyric,
"Marco Bozzaris," is known almost in every English home; in fact, the English language contains no finer poem of its kind. Our only regret is that he wrote so little.
A handsome obelisk has been erected over his grave at Guilford, and a full-length bronze statue is erected in Central Park, New York.
< British and American Poets
of the 19th Century >