ART. XV.-WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER.

THE name of WILLIAM D. GALLAGHER has been, for the last twenty years, familiar to all persons who have taken interest in Western Literature. During that period, Mr. Gallagher has produced a succession of poems, tales, essays and criticisms, which have attracted much attention. He has also been connected with numerous literary periodicals which have been started mainly for the purpose of promoting the literature of the West. No man takes a deeper interest in all that concerns that literature, neither has any one been more assiduous in efforts to urge its claims and to advance its character. His devotion to literature has been passionate, and it has led him to give more time and labor to it than he has been rewarded for. While numerous coadjutors who have started up from time to time in the Republic of Western Letters,--if we may be pardoned an expression so formidable when speaking of what is so nearly an abstraction,-have despaired of success and deserted him, he has held on to his first love manfully. Like poor Goldsmith, he has a "knack of hoping," and beyond all the clouds that have gathered gloomily over his path, he has seen, or fancied he saw, a light which would certainly introduce an era of gladness and glory in the annals of Western Literature.

Mr. Gallagher is so thoroughly western in his feelings, that he is generally thought to be a native of the West. This is not so, however, for he was born in the city of Philadelphia, in August, 1808. He is now forty years of age, and is one of the best preserved specimens of that age we know. He is very youthful in appearance; and his experience is in excellent keeping with his feelings and tastes, which are as fresh and simple as they were twenty years ago. He has in an eminent degree that quality of genius which Coleridge was fond of dilating on, namely, the running out of the simplicity of childhood into the different stages of manhood. To him the universe is now as full of wonders as ever, and he has not exhausted the treasures that things familiar hold in store for the

simple-hearted. The bird by the wayside, and the insect sporting in the summer beam, continue to yield him unalloyed delight. He sees as much

"Glory in the grass, and splendor in the flower,"

His

as he did when he first began "to lisp in numbers." familiarity with the beautiful in nature has not bred contempt, but, reversing the stale old adage, the more familiar he has grown with the visible glories of earth and heaven, the deeper has become his affection for them. His is the true poetic temperament, which defies the ravages of time and the canker of experience, and, living in an atmosphere of love, is ever fresh, ardent, glowing, and full of the uncalculating devotion of youth.

He comes of heroic and patriotic stock, both on the paternal and maternal side. His father was one of three Irish brothers who were deeply "tainted" with the "leprosy of rebellion" in that cause in which the the noble and eloquent Emmet was a martyr, and the only one of the three who survived that illfated struggle. His mother's father was one of the gallant band of "Jersey Blues," so distinguished in our war of Independence by their indomitable heroism. Leaving his farm at the call of his country, he served out three full terms in the revolutionary army, and would have served other three had it been necessary. Though coming of warlike stock, our friend is well known as a devoted advocate of peace, and is most thorough in his hostility to all wars not strictly defensive; not, however, because the heroic element which marked the character of those whose blood flows in his veins is extinct in him, for in more than one of these interesting occurrences which give a zest to editorial life in the West, he has exhibited ample proof that there is in him that sort of stuff of which heroes are made.

Mr. Gallagher was the third of four sons with whom their widowed mother came to the West in the summer of 1816. They reached Cincinnati in September of that year, on a huge flatboat fitted up for the accommodation of passengers, in the company of two other families coming to what was then considered the "far West," in hope of bettering their condition. The Queen City at that time was a filthy and unhealthy village -the bud by no means giving promise of the flower which has since bloomed. William was considered by far too roving

in his disposition and erratic in his tastes for town-life, and he was sent, after living a couple of years in the village, into the country, where the "road to ruin" presents fewer facilities to juvenile travellers. For three years he led a country life, "sowing his wild oats," and performing hard labor in the open fields. During his sojourn in the country, that his education might not be neglected, he was sent three months each winter to a log school-house, where he picked up a few grains of learning which were most faithfully scattered during the ensuing nine months of hard work. From the "Columbian Orator," the "American Reader," and one or two other classbooks at that time in vogue, which he read on Sundays, he acquired a love for written poetry; and in the light thus shed on his mind, his love for the "unwritten poetry" of nature, for the woods, winds, clouds, stars, birds, flowers and waterfalls, began to express itself musically and in verse form. While at work alone, he composed numerous poems that were never written out, which he made useful by adapting them to hymn tunes, with which he beguiled the laborious hours of the long summer day. The love of poetry thus awakened he has ever since cultivated most sedulously, and it continues to be one of his most unfailing sources of pleasure, consolation and hope.

In 1821 he returned to the city, and entered a printing office to learn the "art and mystery" of printing. His fondness for rambling about on the neighboring hills returned, and again became a fixed habit and necessary of life with him. Books were at that time his companions, and he became much more devoted to those mute yet eloquent instructors than he had previously been to flower-hunting and nut-gathering. His brothers were immeasurably ahead of him in learning; his ambition was fired, and he resolved to "catch up" with them. In 1824, while yet an apprentice, he commenced the publication of a small literary paper which lived but a short time. The necessity of writing for his paper gave him a fondness for and a facility in the use of his pen, and he became a constant contributor to different papers, over a variety of signatures, frequently changing the signature to avoid detection. He preserved his incognito until the year 1828, when, having occasion to visit Kentucky and Mississippi, he wrote regularly during the several months of his absence for the "Saturday Evening Chronicle," edited by the late Benjamin Drake, Esq., a most amiable and gifted gentleman, who, for a series of years, con

ducted the Chronicle, and made it one of the most readable of newspapers. Mr. Drake revealed the name of his correspondent to several of his friends, and being thus discovered, Mr. Gallagher soon afterwards began to write over his own initials, for various newspapers and periodicals. Thus prepared for the career of an editor, he was invited to take charge of a Clay paper in Xenia in 1830, and removed to that town. That paper, THE BACKWOODSMAN, was edited with industry and ability, and its editorials were frequently republished by Mr. Hammond in the Cincinnati Gazette, which was a very substantial compliment to one so young, as all who know Mr. H.'s peculiarity will admit. The paper was bitterly partizan in its tone, and did not meet with any great success. At the end of nine months he left it in charge of an elder and a younger brother, who were less ardent in temperament and more discreet in its management than himself.

In 1831, Mr. Gallagher married Miss Adamson, of Cincinnati, by whom he has had seven children, six of whom are now living.

Dr. Johnson says that the lives of students and scholars are generally devoid of striking incidents. It is around the careers of adventurers, of men of enterprise, of men of action, that the embellishments of romance are thrown. The laborers in the fields of thought, for the most part, spend their days in seclusion, away from the busy thoroughfares of life, and their course is not often marked by incidents on which the masses dwell with admiration. It is not with the incidents of the outward lives of those who are known by their thoughts, that mankind are particularly interested. What we wish to know in relation to an intellectualist is, under what circumstances he has grown from infancy to maturity of mind-what obstacles he has surmounted-what fears have weighed him down, and what hopes have lifted up his heart,-in fine, how he has conducted himself through those vicissitudes which are the common lot of the many. It is the inner and not the outward circumstances of such a man, with which the world is concerned. His distinction springs from mind, and it is of his mental struggles that others wish to be informed. The stories of the lives of the pioneers who felled the first trees, built the first cabins, and ploughed the first fields in the West, are full of wild and romantic interest, while the pioneers in Western Literature are undistinguished by deeds on which poets and novelists love to

linger. The times that are best to live in, says Lord Bacon, are the worst to write about. What is true of nations is also true of individuals, and the lives that have been quiet are those which afford the fewest stirring themes to the pen of a biographer.

Mr. Gallagher's life has been so completely identified with Western Literature, that to write a full account of the one involves the necessity of giving a history of the other. Before he began to write there were but few Western men who had distinguished themselves by the brilliancy or profundity of their literary productions. The Mississippi Valley had its Orators and its Statesmen long before it was known to contain men worthy to be considered Authors. In Cincinnati, literary periodicals had been started, which, though their merits entitled them to success, had been attended with very little profit to those connected with them. The first literary paper published in that city was the "LITERARY GAZETTE," a weekly quarto periodical, started in 1824. It was edited by John P. Foote, Esq., a gentleman in every sense of the word, whose well-stored and well-disciplined mind qualified him for the responsibilities of an editor. He continued it for two years, when having satisfied himself that the community would not reward his labors, he suffered it to pass out of existence.

Mr. Foote, who was the pioneer of the Literary editors of Cincinnati, still lives, and has seen a large number of unsuccessful efforts made around him to accomplish what he failed to do,—namely, to establish a popular and profitable literary paper. Soon after the discontinuance of the Gazette, the 66 SATURDAY EVENING CHRONICLE" was ushered into existence. This weekly was conducted by the late Benjamin Drake, Esq., a gentleman who had been a constant, graceful, and popular contributor to Mr. Foote's paper. The Chronicle was continued until 1835, when it was merged into the Cincinnati Mirror, of which we come now to speak.

In 1831, Mr. John H. Wood, at that time an extensive bookseller in Cincinnati, projected a literary periodical, and invited Mr. Gallagher to take the editorial charge of it. He accepted the invitation, and as soon as the necessary arrangements were completed, the "CINCINNATI MIRROR" made its appearance. It was a semi-monthly paper, and in all its externals was superior to any previous periodical published in that city. It was a small quarto of eight pages, printed on