A Visit from St. Nicholas
specifications there set down. Clarence Cook well called it "a true piece of Dutch painting in verse." No homely detail is overlooked, and each is drawn with rare precision. St. Nicholas is painted for all time as a jolly, fun-loving, rotund old elf, whose ruddy skin and bright eyes belie his snow-white beard, who dimples with merriment and makes one laugh just to look at him. Clad in furs, his sack of toys slung across his back, he skims over the housetops in his little sleigh, whistling and shouting to his reindeer. That sleigh drawn by reindeer was pure inspiration!
For two or three years following, the Sentinel used the poem in its Christmas number, and then issued it as a broadside to be distributed by its carriers on their Christmas round. In this form, it was embellished by a clever woodcut engraved by Myron King, of Troy, showing the old saint flying in his sleigh above the housetops on his merry errand.
During all this time, there had been no disclosure of its authorship, but on January 1, 1829, the New York Courier published the poem with an inquiry as to who wrote it, and on January 20, Mr. Holley, who was still editor of the Sentinel, gave the following hint:
A few days since, the editors of the New York Courier, at the request of a lady, inserted some lines
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