SOURCE: "Fitz-Greene Halleck," in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine, Vol. 43, June, 1889, pp. 886-97.

R. H. Stoddard was a prolific late nineteenth-century American poet, editor, and literary critic. In the following excerpt, he reflects on Halleck's career and writings, presenting him as an unusually gifted poet for his time and place who never fulfilled his early promise.

Shortly after his coming to New York [Halleck] made the acquaintance of a young gentleman who was qualifying himself for the medical profession, and for whom he at once entertained a feeling of friendship. This was Joseph Rodman Drake.…

[Their] contributions to the Evening Post, which consisted of a number of squibs in anonymous verse, and which were dignified by the name of "The Croaker Papers," from the signature which the writers adopted, were highly thought of by the editor of that sheet, who, in acknowledging the receipt of the first three, pronounced them...