“and with a bitter satire, reminded Halleck of it in his will.”
The commercial life of Halleck is interesting, insomuch that it exhibits a chivalric sense of duty, and a noble disinterestedness. His first experience in New York brought him in contact with much subtle trickery and artful manœuvering; his later years exposed him to all the allurements which the accumulation of vast wealth, under his eyes, could furnish. But he was superior to either; and could alike honestly stand by Jacob Barker amid the wreck of his financial machinery, and indulge in quiet sarcasms on John Jacob Aster while the latter was building his colossal fortune.
In fact, he had a platform of his own, and he stood upon it! Money, whether honestly or dishonestly acquired, had no part in his aspirations. His birth-gift was poetry. He was a poet born, not made by circumstances. Not that he despised wealth, not that he despised rank, not that he despised power.
“No—a born poet;—at his cradle-fire
The Muses nursed him—as their bud unblown,
And gave him, as hid mind grew high and higher,
Their ducal strawberry leaf’s enwreathed renown.”
It was that wreath he coveted. He wrought for it earnestly, he won it honestly, but in his sweet humility he never wore it.
One of the greatest charms of Halleck’s character was his innate modesty. He did not care to rush into print. In the earlier part of his life, his poems were published anonymously. Like Irving, and
