Richard Henry Stoddard

He is quoted as saying about Stoddard, "No poet is more unequal; few have more plainly failed now and then. On the other hand, few have reached a higher tone, and a selection could be made from his poems upon which to base a lasting reputation. 'The Fisher and Charon,' 'The Dead Master' and 'The Hymn to the Sea' are noble pieces of English blank verse, the secret of whose measure is given only to the elect; one is impressed by the art, the thought, the imagination, which sustain these poems, and the Shakespeare and Lincoln odes" (5).

Stoddard passed away May 12, 1903. The obituary states he "is justly reckoned one of the chief poets of his age" (5).

Stoddard was born July 2, 1825, in Hingham, Mass. His father was a sea captain and was lost at sea. As a result, Stoddard was sent to work, and he eventually became steadily employed at an iron foundry in New York City. The obituary states that "By the best of his leisure he struggled up into self-education, and the companionship of such men as Bayard Taylor and Henry Clapp" (5).

Stoddard published his first book of poetry at age 27. He was employed at the New York Custom House from 1853 to 1870. He married Elizabeth Drew Barstow in 1852. Their home on Fifteenth Street "for many years was the centre of the most brilliant literary society of the metropolis" (5).

The obituary states that "Few men have made more of their resources and opportunities than Stoddard, and the defects of his work are those incident of the want of calmness and leisure, impossible to one who is driven by the necessity of earning his daily bread by the fact of his imagination or by uncongenial hack work. The idea that the necessity of struggling against poverty strengthens the poet's flight is not borne out by facts" (5-6).