The newspapers received dozens of replies or imitations, Coleman once showing Halleck a sheaf of fifteen that had come in during a single morning. In spite of their local subjects, many of the poems were reprinted all over the North, and as far south as Washington. Woodworth, who himself wrote not a little on New York affairs, successfully begged a contribution from Halleck for his magazine. It may be mentioned that Coleman took some liberties with the series. To one he prefixed a humorous letter, in another he inserted a couplet, and in a third he altered the overworked name Chloe to Julia.
To modern readers the allusions to persons and events have lost their wit, and the historical interest they have gained is only partial compensation. We find little humor in the contretemps which occurred when Gen. Jackson, entertained by the city leaders, and already a Presidential possibility, threw the dinner into confusion by toasting De Witt Clinton, who as a former Federalist was heartily hated by many New York Democrats. Hence those numbers seem the freshest which are most general in theme. The “Ode to Fortune” is better than the lines “To Simon,” who was caterer at fashionable balls and weddings. “The Man Who Frets” is more interesting than “To Capt. Seaman Weeks,” who was leading an independent political movement against Tammany. Only here and there are jests that we still appreciate, as the advice to the theatrical manager to discharge his comedians and hire the side-splitting legislators at Albany, and satire still comprehensible, as the verses upon Trumbull’s florid Revolutionary paintings, which now hang in the national Capitol:
Go on, great painter! dare be dull---- No longer after Nature dangle; Call rectilinear beautiful; Find grace and freedom in an angle; Pour on the red, the green, the yellow, “Paint till a horse may mire upon it,” And while I’ve strength to write or bellow, I’ll sound your praises in a sonnet.
But the skits are almost a catalogue of the worthies of the town. The prominent merchants were represented by such names as Henry Cruger, Nathaniel Prime, John K. Beekman, and John Jacob Astor. The politicians--Henry Meigs, who voted for admitting Missouri, Clinton, Morgan Lewis, Rufus King, and others--had more attention than any other group. Croaker had much fun at the expense of the chief hotel-keepers: Abraham Martling, owner of the Tammany Hall Hotel, and a political figure of importance, William Niblo, whose restaurant at William and Pine Streets was popular, and Cato Alexander, to whose tavern on the postroad four miles out all the young bucks made summer excursions. The stage folk received generous space, among them James W. Wallack and Miss Catherine Lesugg, later Mrs. James Hackett, whose family names were to figure so prominently in American theatrical history. Fifty years later James Hackett himself contributed to the _Evening Post_ an interesting chapter of reminiscences of Halleck, recalling how they had first become friends when they were both admirers of the blooming Miss Lesugg, then fresh from England, and how they maintained the friendship till Halleck’s death. Even the editors--Coleman, Lang, Woodworth, “whose _Chronicle_ died broken-hearted,” and Spooner of Brooklyn--were not spared by Croaker.