The Hudson, from the Wilderness to the Sea

456 THE HUDSON.

the grave of M 'Donald Clarke, known in New York, twenty years ago, as the "Mad Poet." His monument is seen upon a little hillock in our sketch of Sylvan Water, Clarke was an eccentric child of genius. He

became, in his latter years, an unhappy wanderer, with reason half dethi'oned, a companion of want, and the victim of the world's neglect. His proud spirit disdained to ask food, and he famished. Society, of

THE HUDSON. 457

whom liis necessities asked bread, " gave him a stone " -- a monument of white marble, with his profile in las-relief. He died in March, 1842, " He was a poet," says his biographer, " of the order of Nat Lee ; one of those wits, in whose heads, according to Dryden, genius is divided from madness by a thin partition." *•

From two or three prominent points in Greenwood Cemetery fine views of New York city and bay may be obtained, but a better comprehension of the scenery of the harbour, and adjacent shores, may be had in a voyage down the Bay to Staten Island. f This may be accomplished

G0VEEK0E"S and liEKLUt'S LSLANDS.

many times a day, on steam ferry-boats, from the foot of "Whitehall Street, near "The Battery." As we go out from the "slip," we soon obtain a general view of the harbour. On the left is Governor's Island, with Castle Williams upon its western extremity, and Port Columbus

* Duyckinck's Cj'clopsedia of American Literature."