William Davis Gallagher, poet and critic, was born at Philadelphia, August 21, 1808. When he was but eight years old he removed to Cincinnati with his mother, a widow. In 1821 he was apprenticed to a Cincinnati printer. At the age of twenty years Gallagher journeyed through Kentucky and Mississippi, and his letters concerning the country and the people won him his first fame as a writer. In 1831 he became editor of the Cincinnati _Mirrow_, the fifth or sixth literary journal published in the West. Three years later Thomas H. Shreve joined Gallagher in editing the paper. Like all Western magazines, the _Mirrow's_ high hopes were utterly dashed upon the old rocks of failure from one cause or another. In 1835 Gallagher published _Erato No. I._, and _Erato No. II._, which were two small pamphlets of poems.
_Erato No. III._ was published at Louisville, two years later. The chief poem in this was upon a Kentucky subject. Gallagher's anthology of Western verse, without biographical or critical notes, entitled _The Poetical Literature of the West_ (Cincinnati, 1841), the first work in that field, was well done, and it strengthened his claim as a critic. In 1854 he became one of the editors of the _Louisville Courier_; but he shortly afterwards purchased a farm near Pewee Valley, Kentucky, some twelve miles from Louisville, and as a Kentucky farmer he spent the final forty years of his life. He took keen interest in agricultural pursuits, but he made nothing more than a meager living out of his farm. His essay on _Fruit Culture in the Ohio Valley_ attracted the attention of persons interested in that subject.
As a poet Gallagher submits his claim upon a rather long pastoral poem, entitled _Miami Woods_. This work was begun in 1839, and finished seventeen years later. This gives the title of his book of poems, _Miami Woods, A Golden Wedding, and Other Poems_ (Cincinnati, 1881). _A Golden Wedding_ is not an overly skillful production, and the poet is best seen in his shorter lyrics. Perhaps _The Mothers of the West_, which appeared in the _Erato No. III._, is the best thing he did, and the one poem that will keep his fame green. Gallagher began his literary career with great promise, and he pursued it diligently for some years, but when he should have been doing his finest work, he was winning some prize from an agricultural journal for the best essay on _Fruit Culture in the Ohio Valley_! He failed to follow the gleam. William D. Gallagher died at "Fern Rock Cottage,"
Pewee Valley, Kentucky, June 27, 1894.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Poets and Poetry of the West_, by W. T. Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860); _Blades o' Bluegrass_, by Fannie P. Dickey (Louisville, 1892).
THE MOTHERS OF THE WEST
[From _Miami Woods, A Golden Wedding, and Other Poems_ (Cincinnati, 1881)]
The mothers of our Forest-Land!
Stout-hearted dames were they; With nerve to wield the battle-brand, And join the border fray.
Our rough land had no braver In its days of blood and strife-- Aye ready for severest toil, Aye free to peril life.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!
On old Kentucky's soil, How shared they, with each dauntless band, War's tempest, and life's toil!
They shrank not from the foeman, They quail'd not in the fight, But cheer'd their husbands through the day, And soothed them through the night.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!
_Their_ bosoms pillow'd Men; And proud were they by such to stand In hammock, fort, or glen; To load the sure old rifle-- To run the leaden ball-- To watch a battling husband's place, And fill it should he fall.
The mothers of our Forest-Land!
Such were their daily deeds: Their monument--where does it stand?
Their epitaph--who reads?
No braver dames had Sparta-- No nobler matrons Rome-- Yet who or lauds or honors them, Ev'n in their own green home?
The mothers of our Forest-Land!
They sleep in unknown graves; And had they borne and nursed a band Of ingrates, or of slaves, They had not been more neglected!
But their graves shall yet be found, And their monuments dot here and there "The Dark and Bloody Ground!"
THOMAS H. SHREVE
Thomas H. Shreve, poet and journalist, was born at Alexandria, Virginia, in 1808. In early life he removed to Louisville, Kentucky, and entered mercantile pursuits. In 1834 Shreve became a Cincinnati editor; but four years later he returned to Louisville to again engage in business. Throughout his business career, Shreve was a constant contributor of poems and prose sketches to the best magazines. He finally abandoned business for literature, and he at once became associate editor of the _Louisville Journal_. He was not a rugged journalist of the Prentice type, but a cultured and chaste essayist who should have written from his study window, rather than from such a seething hothouse of sarcasm and invective as Prentice maintained. He was a mild-mannered man, a Quaker, who spent his last months on earth in crossing swords with Thomas Babington Macaulay concerning the character of William Penn. In 1851 Shreve's _Drayton, an American Tale_, was issued by the Harpers at New York. This work won the author much praise in the East as well as in the West, and it started him upon an honorable career, which was soon cut short by disease. Thomas H. Shreve died at Louisville, December 23, 1853. Prentice penned a splendid tribute to the memory of his dead friend and associate; and some years later a collection of his verse was made as a fitting memorial of his blameless life and literary labors.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Poets and Poetry of the West_, by W. T.
Coggeshall (Columbus, Ohio, 1860); _History of Kentucky_, by R. H.
Collins (Covington, Kentucky, 1882); _The Shreve Family_, by L. P.
Allen (Greenfield, Illinois).
I HAVE NO WIFE
[From _The Knickerbocker Magazine_ (August, 1838)]
I have no wife--and I can go Just where I please, and feel as free As crazy winds which choose to blow Round mountain-tops their melody.
On those who have Love's race to run, Hope, like a seraph, smiles most sweet-- But they who Hymen's goal have won, Sometimes, 'tis said, find Hope a cheat.
I have no wife--young girls are fair-- But how it is, I cannot tell, No sooner are they wed, than their Enchantments give them the farewell.
The girls, oh, bless them! make us yearn To risk all odds and take a wife-- To cling to one, and not to turn Ten thousand in the dance of life.
I have no wife:--Who'd have his nose Forever tied to one lone flower, E'en if that flower should be a rose, Plucked with light hand from fairy bower?
Oh! better far the bright bouquet Of flowers of every hue and clime; By turns to charm the sense away, And fill the heart with dreams sublime.
I have no wife:--I now can change From grave to joy, from light to sad Unfettered, in my freedom range And fret awhile, and, then, be glad.
I now can heed a Siren's tongue, And feel that eyes glance not in vain-- Make love apace, and, being flung, Get up and try my luck again.
I have no wife to pull my hair If it should chance entangled be-- I'm like the lion in his lair, Who flings his mane about him free.
If 'tis my fancy, I can wear My boots unblessed by blacking paste, Cling to my coat till it's threadbare, Without a lecture on bad taste.
I have no wife, and I can dream Of girls who're worth their weight in gold; Can bask my heart in Love's broad beam, And dance to think it's yet unsold.
Or I can look upon a brow Which mind and beauty both enhance, Go to the shrine, and make my bow, And thank the Fates I have a chance.
I have no wife, and, like a wave, Can float away to any land, Curl up and kiss, or gently lave The sweetest flowers that are at hand.
A Pilgrim, I can bend before The shrine which heart and mind approve;-- Or, Persian like, I can adore Each star that gems the heaven of love.
I have no wife--in heaven, they say, Such things as weddings are not known-- Unyoked the blissful spirits stray O'er fields where care no shade has thrown.
Then why not have a heaven below, And let fair Hymen hence be sent?
It would be fine--but as things go, _Unwedded, folks won't be content_!
ORMSBY M. MITCHEL
Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, the celebrated American astronomer and author, was born near Morganfield, Kentucky, August 28, 1809. He graduated from West Point in the famous class of 1829 which included Robert E. Lee and Joseph E. Johnston, Mitchel was professor of mathematics at West Point for two years; but he later studied law and practiced at Cincinnati for a year. In 1834 he was elected professor of mathematics and astronomy in Cincinnati College. By his own efforts he raised sufficient funds with which to establish an astronomical observatory in Cincinnati, in 1845--now the Mitchel Observatory--the first of the larger observatories in this country. In 1860 Professor Mitchel was chosen as director of the Dudley observatory at Albany, New York, and there he remained for two years. The Civil War coming on, he entered the Union army, and rose to the rank of general. General Mitchel was placed in command of the "Department of the South," but before the war was well under way, almost, he contracted yellow fever and died at Beaufort, South Carolina, October 30, 1862. General Mitchel was the most distinguished astronomer ever born on Kentucky soil; and in the army the men knew him as "Old Stars." He was a popular lecturer, but it is as an author that his great reputation rests. His books are: _The Planetary and Stellar Worlds_ (New York, 1848); _The Orbs of Heaven_ (1851); _A Concise Elementary Treatise of the Sun, Planets, Satellites, and Comets_ (1860); and _The Astronomy of the Bible_ (New York, 1863). From 1846 to 1848 General Mitchel published an astronomical journal, called _The Sidereal Messenger_.
Harvard and Hamilton Colleges conferred honorary degrees upon him; and he was a member of many scientific societies in the United States and Europe.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Ormsby MacKnight Mitchel, Astronomer and General_, by his son, F. A. Mitchel; biographical sketch in _The Astronomy of the Bible_ (New York, 1863); _Old Stars_, by P. C. Headley (Boston, 1864).
ASTRONOMICAL EVIDENCES OF GOD
[From _The Astronomy of the Bible_ (New York, 1863)]
If we extend our researches beyond the limits of the solar system, and, passing across the mighty gulf which separates us from the starry heavens, inspect minutely the organizations which are there displayed, we find the dominion of these same laws extending to these remote regions, and holding an imperious sway over revolving suns. Thus we perceive, that in one most important particular, the objects which compose the mighty universe are obviously alike, and seem to have sprung from a common origin. We are, moreover, compelled to admit a sun in every visible star; and if a sun, then attendant planets; and if revolving planets, then, likewise, some scheme of sentient existence, possibly remotely analogous to that which is displayed with such wonderful minuteness in our globe. Thus if the being of a God can be argued from the admirable adaptations which surround man in this nether world, every star that glitters in the vast concave of heaven proclaims, with equal power, this mighty truth. If we rise still higher, and from the contemplation of individual stars, examine their distribution, their clusterings, their aggregations into immense systems, the fact of their mutual influences, their restless and eternal activity, their amazing periods of revolution, their countless millions, and their ever-during organizations, the mind, whelmed with the display of grandeur, exclaims involuntarily, "This is the empire of a God!"
And now, how is the knowledge of this vast surrounding universe revealed to the mind of man? Here is, perhaps, the crowning wonder. Through the agency of light, a subtle, intangible, imponderable something, originating, apparently, in the stars and suns, darting with incredible velocity from one quarter of the universe to the other, whether in absolute particles of matter shot off from luminous bodies, or by traces of an ethereal fluid, who shall tell? This incomprehensible fluid falls upon an instrument of most insignificant dimensions, yet of most wonderful construction, the human eye, and, lo! to the mind what wonders start into being. Pictures of the most extravagant beauty cover the earth; clouds dipped in the hues of heaven fill the atmosphere; the sun, the moon, the planets, come up from out of the depths of space, and far more amazing still, the distant orbs of heaven, in their relative magnitudes, distances and motions, are revealed to the bewildered mind.
We have only to proceed one step further, and bringing to the aid of the human eye, the auxiliary power of the optic glass, the mind is brought into physical association with objects which inhabit the confines of penetrable space. We take cognizance of objects so remote, that even the flashing element of light itself, by which they are revealed, flies on its errand ten times ten thousand years to accomplish its stupendous journey.
Strike the human eye from existence, and at a single blow, the sun is blotted out, the planets fade, the heavens are covered with the blackness of darkness, the vast universe shrinks to a narrow compass bounded by the sense of touch alone.
Such, then, is the organization of the universe, and such the means by which we are permitted to take cognizance of its existence and phenomena. If the feeble mind of man has achieved victories in the natural world--if his puny structures, which have survived the attacks of a few thousand years, proclaim the superiority of the intelligence of his mind to insensate matter--if the contemplation of the works of art and the triumphs of human genius, swells us into admiration at the power of this invisible spirit that dwells in mortal form,--what shall be the emotions excited, the ideas inspired, by the contemplation of the boundless universe of God?