8o 



whole paragraph is a fiction." The revised Cyclopedia went 

 to press a year before Halleck returned his proof, and the cor- 

 rection was never made. Halleck had long before borne testi- 

 mony, in the letter to his sister in January, 1817, that Drake 

 wrote the poem in New York, and that it was completed in 

 three days. 5 



There is however essential, if not literal, truth in the story. 

 Like Charles Brockden Brown, like Irving, like the Cooper of 

 the Deerslayer stories, Drake did seek literary values in Amer- 

 ican scenes. Is there nothing in America, he asks in his poem 

 addressed to Halleck, " to touch the poet's soul " ? 



No deeds of arms to wake the lordly strain? 

 Shall Hudson's billows unregarded roll? 



Shame ! that while every mountain stream and plain 

 Hath theme for truth's proud voice or fancy's wand, 

 No native bard the patriot harp hath ta'en." 



The laudation of Drake's contemporaries constantly pro- 

 claimed that the poem was " American " ; that through this 

 masterpiece, the Hudson had now taken its place among the 

 storied rivers of the world. The scene of the poem, it is true, 

 is local; the materials of animal and vegetable life, from which 

 so much of the fabric of the poem is made, were to be found 

 in or by the Hudson; or else they swarm in the salt waters 

 off Hunt's Point. Drake's use of these materials sufficiently 

 testifies to his love for nature, and the accuracy of his ob- 

 servations in local natural history; my biological friends say 

 that it is all quite impeccable save for the typical circumstance 

 that only a poet could people the Hudson at West Point with 

 star-fish and porpoises. These, however, are particulars, it is 

 fair to say, concerning which Drake requested the poet's proper 

 privilege, " the willing suspension of his reader's disbelief." 6 



• r ' P. 169 : Life and> Letters of Fitz-Greene Halleck, by James Grant 

 Wilson, N. Y. 



fi In a MS. note on a copy of The Culprit Fay, Drake says : " The reader 

 will find some of the inhabitants of the salt water a little further up the 

 Hudson than they usually travel ; but not too far for the purposes of 

 poetry." Duyckinck's Cyclopedia of American Literature, article, Joseph 

 Rodman Drake. 



