is an imitation of Don Juan. Now, if you turn to Murray’s edition of Byron’s works, you will find that the first part of Don Juan was published in London in 1819, and if you turn to the edition of “Fanny,” printed in 1839, you will see that it is reprinted from the edition of 1821, which had been enlarged and reprinted from the original edition of 1819. So that “Fanny” was published in the same year with Don Juan, and, of course, could not be an imitation. In fact, Mr. Halleck told me that “Fanny” was published before Don Juan had crossed the Atlantic, and that he had adopted the versification of Beppo, one of Byron’s minor poems. But the story of Beppo is entirely different from either Fanny or Don Juan.
The last effort of Halleck is, I believe, a little epigrammatic quatrain, which he banded me one day. It was written in a lady’s album:
“All honor to woman, the sweet-heart, the wife,
The delight of the fireside by night and by day,
Who never does any thing wrong in her life,
Except when permitted to have her own way.”
Mr. President, and fellow-members of the Historical Society: I could employ your time for some hours longer upon this interesting theme, but the hour allotted to me has expired, and I must close with a brief personal sketch of the subject of this memorial.
Mr. Halleck was of medium stature; his real height was probably five feet nine inches, although a slight inclination of the body forward, in what might be called a deferential attitude, made him appear less tall than he really was. He was always scrupulously
