Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

Born in Ireland, 1789, brought a child to America by his emigrating parents, reared in poverty, but at every step making the most of his opportunities until at last he arose to eminence as a lawyer in New Orleans, Wilde lives among the American poets by virtue of a single pathetic lyric that has secured a permanent place in the American anthology. He was a true poet with a fervid Celtic soul, a lover of art and beauty, and under kindlier conditions might have won a larger place among the poets.

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

ton, and then, after a brief stay at Union College, which he left in 1809 to go upon the stage, condemned by his chosen vocation to a life of wandering, he became at length a familiar figure in all the cities of America, as well as in London and Paris. In all he wrote upwards of sixty dramatic pieces, only one of which, however, Brutus, may claim literary merit. The song Home, Sweet Home' which occurs in his opera Clari, or the Maid of Milan, was first sung at the Covent Garden Theater, London, in 1823. He died in Tunis in 1852. In 1883 his remains were removed to Washington, D. C.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

There's no place like Home! there's no place like Home! (1823)

MARIA GOWEN BROOKS (1795-1845)

[ocr errors]

Few have ever written of Maria Brooks without quoting the poet Southey, who hailed her as 'Maria del Occidente' and in Chapter LIV of his The Doctor styled her the most impassioned and most imaginative of all poetesses.' She was born at Boston in a family of wealth and culture. After the death of her father and the failure of his business, her education was continued by Mr. Brooks, a Boston merchant, who later became her husband. After his death in 1823 she lived for a time in Cuba and then in London where, under the supervision of Southey, was issued in 1833 her chief poetical work, Zophiel, or the Bride of Seven, an oriental romance of the Byron-Moore type, its theme undoubtedly suggested by the book of Tobit in the Apocrypha, In 1842 she published an autobiographical romance entitled Idomen; or, the Vale of Yumuri. If all her poetical work were at the impassioned height reached by a few of her lyrical passages, critics still might echo, perhaps, the somewhat sweeping judgment of Southey.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
« ZurückWeiter »