ld you with mine own eyes.
God bless you for ever and ever! I have come eleven hundred miles, from
the banks of the Miami in Ohio, mainly for that purpose, and I have been
compensated for my pains."'

"Mr. Halleck told me that he had been solicited to write a life of his
early and beloved friend Drake. 'But,' said he, 'I did not well see how
I could grant such a request: I had no lever for my fulcrum. What could
I say about one who had studied pharmacy, dissection, written a few
poems, and then left the scene of action? I had no material, and a mere
meaningless eulogy would have been out of the question.'

"In personal appearance Halleck was rather below the medium height and
well built: in walking he had a rather slow and shuffling gait, as if
something afflicted his feet; a florid, bland and pleasant countenance;
a bright gray eye; was remarkably pleasant and courteous in
conversation, and, as a natural consequence, much beloved by all who had
the pleasure of his acquaintance. But to that brilliancy in conversation
which some of his admirers have been pleased to attribute to him in my
opinion he could lay no claim. His library was sold at auction in New
York on the evening of October 12, 1868. If the collection disposed of
on that occasion was really his library in full, it must be confessed it
was a sorry affair and meagre in the extreme. In surveying the
collection a judge of the value of such property would perhaps pronounce
it worth from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty
dollars. The books brought fabulous prices--at least ten times their
value. The company was large, good-humored and just in the frame of mind
to be a little more than liberal, doubtless stimulated to be so from a
desire to possess a relic of the departed poet who had added fame to the
literature of his country. The following are the names of a few of the
books and the prices they brought: _Nicholas Nickleby_, with the
author's autograph, $18; Bryant's little volume of poems entitled
_Thirty Poems_, with the author's autograph, $11; Campbell's _Poems_,
with Halleck's autograph, $8.50; _Catalogue of the Strawberry Hill
Collection_, $16; _Barnaby Rudge_, presentation copy by the author to
Halleck, $15; Coleridge's _Poems_, with a few notes by Halleck, $10;
_Fanny_, a poem by Mr. Halleck, $10. The sum-total realized for his
library was twelve hundred and fifty dollars."

Aaron Burr is the subject of some interesting reminiscences: