Poet; born in
Guilford, Conn., July 8, 1790; became a clerk in the banking-house of
Jacob Barker at the age of eighteen years; and was long a confidential clerk with
John Jacob Astor, who made him one of the first trustees of the
Astor Library.
From early boyhood he wrote verses.
With
Joseph Rodman Drake, he wrote the humorous series known as
The Croker papers for the
Evening post in 1819.
His longest poem,
Fanny, a satire upon the literature and politics of the times, was published in 1821.
The next year he went to
Europe, and in 1827 his
Alnwick Castle, Marco Bozzaris, and other poems were published in a volume.
Halleck was a genuine poet, but he wrote comparatively little.
His pieces of importance are only thirty-two in number, and altogether
comprise only about 4,000 lines.
Yet he wrote with great facility.
His
Fanny, in the measure of
Byron's
Don Juan, was completed and printed within three weeks after it was begun.
Late in life he joined the
Roman Catholic Church.
He died in
Guilford, Nov. 19, 1867.
