Hiram Powers, the American sculptor, who so heartily welcomed the young pedestrian to Florence, Italy, and who through the years which followed, showed a most kindly spirit, making Taylor his guest and confidant, passed away from the contemplation of beautiful earthly forms to figures angelic, in 1873.
Mrs. Kirkland, on whose magazine, in 1848, he began to regain the literary prestige which the failure of the “Phœnixville Pioneer” took from him, and who, with Halleck, so kindly opened the way for him to teach a school in New York, to repair his shattered fortunes, was gone, together with a large number of their mutual acquaintances in the literary circles of New York.
Although the ranks were so sadly depleted, there are still living a most brilliant company of his early literary friends.
John G. Whittier, who still resides in Amesbury, his patriotism unabated, his Quaker simplicity unchanged, and his fame as a poet increasing, as civilization and freedom extend. To him Mr. Taylor dedicated his poem of “Lars,” and in it thus mentioned his first meeting with Whittier:—
“Though many years my heart goes back, Through checkered years of loss and gain, To the fair landmark on its track, When first, upon the Merrimack, Upon the cottage roof I heard the autumn rain. A hand that welcomed and that cheered, To one unknown didst thou extend; Thou gavest hope to song that feared; But now by Time and Faith endeared, I claim the right to call the Poet, Friend!”
Thus did a Quaker write of a Quaker in dedicating a Quaker poem.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow lives and sings as in those days when Taylor read the story of “Hyperion” and the poetry of “Voices of the Night,” and resolved to visit Boppart and to be a poet. Mr. Longfellow had a name to be envied in the annals of literature, when the man of whom we write was a rollicking, mischievious boy. Yet Taylor has appeared on the stage of life, has enacted a very important part, and is gone. His friend and benefactor remains, loved and honored in the old Washington mansion at Cambridge.
That marvellously versatile and skilful man, Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, though born long before Taylor, still walks the halls of learning, and, while enjoying the deserved rewards of “The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table,” “Old Ironsides,” and the numerous other publications in the shape of essays, poems, and medical text-books, was not ashamed to be called the friend of Mr. Taylor, and recalls his association with him in the most affectionate terms.