in America!” Halleck, with his characteristic modesty, was disposed to give to Drake all the credit; but as it chanced that Coleman alluded in particularly glowing terms to one of the Croakers that was wholly his, he was forced to be silent, and the delighted editor continued in a strain of compliment and eulogy that put them both to the blush. Before taking their leave, the poets bound Coleman over to the most profound secrecy, and arranged a plan of sending him the MS., and of receiving the proofs, in a manner that would avoid the least possibility of the secret of their connection with “The Croakers” being discovered. The poems were copied from the originals by Langstaff, that their handwriting should not divulge the secret, and were either sent through the mail, or taken to the Evening Post office by Benjamin R. Winthrop, then a fellow-clerk with Mr. Halleck, in the counting-house of the well-known banker and merchant Jacob Barker, in Wall Street.
Hundreds of imitations of “The Croakers” were daily received by the different editors of New York, to all of which they gave publicly
