ides. At
that time the polls were kept open for three days, and each day the
excitement increased; disorders took place; some heads were broken, and at
last it appeared that Lawrence was elected Mayor by a majority of about
two hundred votes.

While in Congress, Verplanck had leisure, during the interval between one
session and another, for literary occupations. He wrote about one-third of
an annual collection of miscellanies entitled, the "Talisman," which was
published by Dr. Bliss in the year 1827 and the two following years. To
these volumes he contributed the "Peregrinations of Petrus Mudd," a
humorous and lively sketch, founded on the travels of a New Yorker of the
genuine old stock, who when he returned from wandering over all Europe and
part of Asia, set himself down to study geography in order to know where
he had been. Of the graver articles he wrote "De Gourges," a chapter from
the history of the Huguenot colonists of this country, "Gelyna, a Tale of
Albany and Ticonderoga," and several others. In conjunction with Robert C.
Sands, a writer of a peculiar vein of quaint humor, he contributed two
papers to the collection, entitled "Scenes in Washington," of a humorous
and satirical character. He disliked the manual labor of writing and was
fond of dictating while another held the pen. I was the third contributor
to the "Talisman," and sometimes acted as his amanuensis. In estimating
Verplanck's literary character, these compositions, some of which are
marked by great beauty of style and others by a rich humor, should not be
over-looked. The first volume of the "Talisman" was put in type by a young
Englishman named Cox, who, while working at his desk as a printer,
composed a clever review of the work, which appeared in the "New York
Mirror," and of which Verplanck often spoke with praise.

In 1833, Verplanck collected his public speeches into a volume. Among
these is one delivered in August of that year, at Columbia College, in
which he holds up to imitation the illustrious examples of great men
educated at that institution. In one of those passages of stately
eloquence which he knew so well to frame, he speaks of the worth of his
old adversary, De Witt Clinton, the first graduate of the College after
the peace of 1783, and pays due "honor to that lofty ambition which taught
him to look to designs of grand utility, and to their successful execution
as his arts of gaining or redeeming the confidence of a generous