In accomplishment of mind and person, he was probably second
to no man. His poems show the first. They are fully conceived, nicely
balanced, exquisitely finished--works for the highest taste to relish,
and for the severest student in dramatic style to erect into a model.
Hadad was published in 1825, during my second year in college, and to
me it was the opening of a new heaven of imagination. The leading
characters possessed me for months, and the bright, clear, harmonious
language was, for a long time, constantly in my ears. The author was
pointed out to me, soon after, and for once, I saw a poet whose mind was
well imaged in his person. In no part of the world have I seen a man of
more distinguished mien, or of a more inborn dignity and elegance of
address. His person was very finely proportioned, his carriage chivalric
and high-bred, and his countenance purely and brightly intellectual.
Add to this a sweet voice, a stamp of high courtesy on everything he
uttered, and singular simplicity and taste in dress, and you have the
portrait of one who, in other days, would have been the mirror of
chivalry, and the flower of nobles and troubadours. Hillhouse was no
less distinguished in oratory.
... Hillhouse had fallen upon days of thrift, and many years of his life
which he should have passed either in his study, or in the councils of
the nation, were enslaved to the drudgery of business.
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