Near the village of Coldspring, his " summer seat" (as it used to be the fashion to call one's country home), commanded a noble view of the Highlands, and was the goal of many a pilgrimage. "America's best lyric poet," as Benson J. Lossing calls him, was in intimate relations with most American men of letters in his day. His long

Literary Associations of the Hudson 269

association with TJic Home Joitnial, together with the

wide |)0|)ularity of his songs, made Morris's name a household word where\^er our somewhat embr>'onic literature found its way. One of the best descriptive stanzas by a Hudson

River poet was inspired by Morris's memory of his home in the Highlands:

Where Hudson's wave o'er silvery sands Winds through the hills afar, Old cro'nest like a monarch stands, Crowned with a single star.

One needs only to consult Griswold's Poets of America, the best anthology of half a century ago, to api^reciate the fact that, with few exceptions, sweetness rather than strength characterised even the best of the work of our native poets ; while in prose the names of Prescott, Cooper, Hawthorne, and Irving stood like towers upon a flowery plain. A man greatly valued by his literary cotemporaries and hand in glove with the leading spirits of the Knickerbocker school was that delightful humourist, Frederick Swartw^out Cozzens, author of the Sparron'grass Papers. He was younger than Irving and Halleck, of the generation to w^hich Willis and Hoffman belonged ; a New Yorker by birth and a wine merchant b\' occupation. The Sparrowgrass Papers, which w^ere exaggerated accounts of his experiences at his country home, Chestnut Cottage, in Yonkers, were published first