far exceeded my own efforts, that I was frequently tempted to give up the Muse in despair, and probably I would have done so, had not the poetic passion been too strongly implanted in my nature. The indulgence of this love for embodying my thoughts and feelings in verse, was the happiness of my life. It was often cherished in the place of friends or lovers. It was my resource in solitude, my consolation in trials, my reward for disappointments, my relief in weariness, my recreation in idleness, and my delight in every change of residence, by which new scenes and scenery have been presented to my view.”
Miss Bogart was born in the city of New York, which was also the birth-place of her father and his ancestors for several generations back. They are descended on the paternal side from the Huguenots who fled to Holland after the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and emigrated from Holland to America.
Her father was the Rev. David Schuyler Bogart, a graduate of Columbia College, and a minister of the gospel. In his profession, he was highly respected and esteemed, and exceedingly beloved by the people of his charge. Soon after entering on his profession he accepted a call to a Presbyterian church at Southampton, an isolated town, on the eastern part of Long Island, where he resided for fifteen years. There, in the village school-house, Miss Bogart received all her education, excepting what was given her by her father, whose instructions were continued even to the close of his life. From Southampton they removed, in 1813, to Hempstead Harbour, a wild and lovely spot, some eighty miles further west, and on the north side of the island.
“The scenery of the two places,” says Miss Bogart, in the letter already quoted, “presented a perfect contrast. The country at Southampton was entirely level, and the town situated immediately on the Atlantic, within sight of its foaming surf, and sound of its ceaseless roar—while Hempstead Harbour was located at the head of a beautiful bay running in from the Long Island Sound, and surrounded with high hills, covered with forest trees and evergreens. It was truly a place to charm the eye, and enrich the imagination; and thus it was, that while my first love was for the grand and magnificent ocean, my second was for the more fascinating and picturesque beauty of nature’s scenery; amid which the early romance of my disposition was nurtured into an enduring character. The name of the little village of Hempstead Harbour has since been changed to that of Roslyn, but it seems to me an unmeaning appellation, and no improvement; although it will doubtless receive an eclat from the fact of our poet Bryant having fixed his residence there.
“It was from my home in that place, in 1825, that I sent forth my first poem, simply headed ‘Stanzas’ on a venture to the press. It was published in the ‘Long Island Star,’ under the signature of ‘Adelaide’ and made the subject of a complimentary poetical address in the same
