A Discourse on the Life, Character and Writings of Gulian Crommelin Verplanck | Page 5

"that
the thanks of the audience be given to Mr. Maxwell for his spirited
defence of an injured man." It was some time before the tumult could
be allayed, the audience taking part with the disturbers; but the result

was that Maxwell, Verplanck, and several others were prosecuted for
riot in the Mayor's Court. DeWitt Clinton was then Mayor of New
York. In his charge to the jury he inveighed with great severity against
the accused, particularly Verplanck, of whose conduct he spoke as a
piece of matchless impudence, and declared the disturbance to be one
of the grossest and most shameless outrages he had ever known. They
were found guilty; Maxwell, Verplanck, and Stevenson were fined two
hundred dollars each, and several others less. An appeal was entered by
the accused but afterwards withdrawn. I have heard one of our judges
express a doubt whether this disturbance could properly be considered
as a riot, but they did not choose to avail themselves of the doubt, if
there was any, and submitted.
There is this extenuation of the rashness of these young men, that Dr.
Mason, to whom was attributed the attempt to suppress certain
passages in Stevenson's oration, was himself in the habit of giving free
expression to his political sentiments in the pulpit. He belonged to the
federal party, Stevenson to the party then called republican.
I have said the accused submitted; but the phrase is scarcely accurate.
Verplanck took his own way of obtaining redress, and annoyed Clinton
with satirical attacks for several years afterward. Some of these
appeared in a newspaper called the Corrector, but those which attracted
the most attention, were the pamphlets styled Letters of Abimelech
Coody, Ladies' Shoemaker, the first of which was published in 1811,
addressed to Dr. Samuel Latham Mitchell.
The war went on until Clinton or some friend was provoked to answer
in a pamphlet entitled An Account of Abimelech Coody and other
celebrated Worthies of New York, in a Letter from a Traveller. The
writer saterizes not only Verplanck, but James K. Paulding and
Washington Irving, of whose History of New York he speaks
disparagingly. In what he says of Verplanck he allows himself to refer
to his figure and features as subjects of ridicule. This war I think was
closed by the publication of "The Bucktail Bards," as the little volume
is called, which contains The State Triumvirate, a Political Tale, and
the Epistles of Brevet Major Pindar Puff. These I have heard spoken of

as the joint productions of Verplanck and Rudolph Bunner, a scholar
and a man of wit. The State Triumvirate is in octo-syllabic verse, and in
the manner of Swift, but the allusions are obscure, and it is a task to
read it. The notes, in which the hand of Verplanck is very apparent, are
intelligible enough and are clever, caustic and learned. The Epistles,
which are in heroic verse, have striking passages, and the notes are of a
like incisive character. De Witt Clinton, then Governor of the State,
valued himself on his devotion to science and literature, but he was
sometimes obliged, in his messages and public discourses, to refer to
compends which are in every body's hands, and his antagonists made
this the subject of unsparing ridicule.
In the family of Josiah Ogden Hoffman, lived Mary Eliza Fenno, the
sister of his wife, and daughter of John Ward Fenno, originally of
Boston, and afterwards proprietor of a newspaper published in
Philadelphia, entitled the Gazette of the United States. Between this
young lady and Verplanck there grew up an attachment, and in 1811
they were married. I have seen an exquisite miniature of her by
Malbone, taken in her early girlhood when about fifteen years
old--beautiful as an angel, with light chestnut hair and a soft blue eye,
in the look of which is a touch of sadness, as if caused by some dim
presentiment of her early death. I remember hearing Miss Sedgwick say
that she should always think the better of Verplanck for having been
the husband of Eliza Fenno. Several of her letters written to him before
their marriage are preserved, which, amidst the sprightliness natural to
her age, show a more than usual thoughtfulness. She rallies him on
being adopted by the mob, and making harangues at ward meetings.
She playfully chides him for wandering from the Apostolic Church to
hear popular preachers and clerks that sing well; which she regards as
crimes against the memory of his ancestors--an allusion to that part of
the family pedigree which traced his descent in some way from the
royal line of the Stuarts. She rallies him on his passion for old books,
remarking that some interesting works had just appeared which must be
kept from him till he reaches the age of