Nathaniel Parker Willis, a native of Massachusetts, and a
fellow-student with myself at Yale College, I come now to
speak. Of him I shall speak familiarly, as of an intimate
friend; and impartially and justly, as one who wishes him
well. Willis, I venture to pronounce the most remarkable
genius our country has yet produced. I do not call him
remarkable merely for his unusual precocity of song, but
remarkable for the possession of that rare genius, which by
any man, young or old, in our land, I do not think has ever
been displayed. Nature has done wonderful things for him;
but alas! he has thus far done but little for himself. The
great pieces he has sometimes given us have cost him but
little effort, and he has thrown out his productions, in
prose as well as poetry, with a profusion and a variety that
seem miraculous; and yet, of all our bards, he has met with
the most severe and merciless censures. In some measure he
has deserved the treatment. In College he would not
condescend to study, and charity only for his high genius
enabled him to gain a degree. Besides, he gained his first
and best reputation by pieces founded upon scriptural
subjects, and he stood committed to the world as a
_religious_ man. Many who had never seen aught of him but
his productions, and had formed the loftiest estimate of his
personal character from the pure tendency of his effusions,
were astonished and grieved when introduced to the
author.--His head made giddy by the praises of young and
old, he forgot himself, and possessing most shrewd good
sense, he would talk the reverse. He became fantastic in
apparel, as he did likewise in his style of writing; made
himself too common, and almost broke a pious father's heart
by deserting the altar of that divine Jesus upon whose Bible
he had founded the fairest fabric of his fame. My friend, of
whom I so sternly speak, is now in Italy; and should these
remarks, per chance, ever meet his eye, I beseech him by our
past friendship, by our walks "by moon or glittering
star-light," through the Eden groves and avenues of
New-Haven, by the love he bears to his parents, and above
all, by the love he bears that Saviour, upon whose image and
the scenes of whose mortal pilgrimage he is rapturously
gazing, in the matchless pictures of the Italian masters,