Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/263

 EDWARD A. M'LAUGHLIN. In October, 1841, Edward Lucas of Cincinnati published a duodecimo volume of 312 pages, which was entitled "The Lovers of the Deep," in four cantos, to which is added a variety of Miscellaneous Poems, by Edward A. McLaughlin. Li his Preface Mr. McLaughlin said: I am a native of the State of Connecticut,* and from my youth have been rather of a lively and roving disposition. At an early age I absconded from home, with an intention of joining the army ; but was reclaimed, and shortly afterward bound an apprentice to the printing business. At the age of twenty-one, I indulged my military enthusiasm, and joined the Missouri expedition. At the reduction of the army in 1821, I received my discbarge at Belle Fontaine, and, descending the Mis- sissippi, commenced a new career on the ocean. I liked this element better than the land ; and the desire of seeing foreign countries, induced me to follow, for some years, the life of a sailor. Being discharged at one time from the La Plata frigate, in Carthagena, Colombia, I was forcibly impressed into the Patriot service. After many vicissitudes of fortune, I was enabled, through the gen- erous assistance of George Watts, British Consul for that Republic, to return home. I subse- quently entered the American Navy, in which I served about three years and a half. My last voy- age was in the Hudson frigate, on the Brazil station, from which ship I was sent home an invalid, to Washington, where I was finally discharged from the service in 1829. I have written under many and great disadvantages. With a mind not characterized by any great natural force ; stored with but little reading, and that mostly of a local and superficial char- acter ; without books of any kind — not even a dictionary — I was thrown altogether upon my own slender resources. The leading poem was begun and concluded under circumstances never above want : though a regard to truth constrains me to acknowledge, that these circumstances were not unfrequently the consequence of a want of moral firmness and stability, on my own part — to say the least of it — induced by the sudden and uulooktd-for overthrow of cherished hopes and desires. Tlie " Lovers of the Deep " was dedicated to Nicholas Longworth, and the miscel- laneous poems, which the author said were nearly all written in Cincinnati, were in- scribed to Richard F. L'Hommedieu, Peyton S. Symmes, Bellamy Storer, Jacob Burnet, and other well-known citizens. As described by the author : The principal poem was founded upon an incident, supposed to have occurred in connection with the destruction of the steamer Pulaski, by the bursting of her boiler, while on her passage from Savannah to Charleston. Among those who happily escaped immediate death or injury by the ex- plosion, were a young gentleman and lady, who were thrown near each other. The gentleman suc- ceeded in placing his fair partner upon a floating fragment of the wreck, on which they were tossed at the mercy of the waves for three days ; suffering intensely from thirst, and exposure to the tropic sun, and momentarily in danger of being overwhelmed by the billows, and swallowed up in the abyss. Their mutual distress doubtless excited mutual tenderness of feeling, for misery sym- pathizes with misery : they became tenderly attached to each other ; and when scarce a hope of safety was left them — when nature was nearly exhausted, and they were fast sinking under their sufferings, with no other prospect but that of perishing together : — in that incomprehensible union of love and despair, of which human life is not wanting in examples ; they pledged their faith to each other, to wed, should Heaven in mercy grant them deliverance. They were subsequently res- cued from their perilous situation, and, happily, redeemed at the altar the pledges given in the houi" of adversity and trial. ( 247 )
 * He was born at North Stamford, on the ninth of January, 1798.