Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/449

 HORACE S. MINOR. Horace S. Minor was a native of Tennessee. I believe that he was born on the seventeenth of June, 1822. His parents, whose names I do not remember ever to have heard, were in humble circumstances, and his opportunities for education were very limited. I became acquainted with him in Cincinnati about 1845. He was then, or soon after, employed in making and painting Venetian window-blinds. He was a frequent contributor to the daily papers of Cincinnati, and subsequently en- gaged in contributing to and editing a small weekly called The Shooting Star. He wrote over and under various pseudonyms for the Star, the Morning Message, the Daily Nonpareil, and other papers. In the summer of 1846 he went to Illinois, and married Hortensia Rockwell. Returning, he resided for several years on Walnut Hills, near Lane Seminary. There he formed the acquaintance, and by his amiability and intelligence won the friendship, of several literary gentlemen. In person, mind and writings, he constantly reminded me of my conceptions of Shelley. That physical gentleness, combined with intense love of the ideal beautiful, good and free, with its rebellious wai'fare upon the dwarting and deforming conventionalities of life, were liis ; but he committed no breach of those conventionalities, and his morals were irreproach- ably pure. His spirit as a man, and his taste as a poet were well expressed in a poetical epistle to his friend, Yiva Mona, from which we quote : "My grief! how many bards there be In that great class, the human mocking-bird— Their quills the very same — alike their glee ! 'Tis well they mock, else were they never heard. Those mimic tongues do save them, like the word Shibboleth of the True ; But O, the free ! The free, bold key-notes are my soul's loved strains, The rough, the rude, or soft, so they scorn chains."' He was a diligent writer, and wrote much that was never offered for publication. Of the merit of those writings I cannot now speak advisedly. Thei'e was probably much chaff, but certainly some golden grain that wanted only the winnowing of a more matter-of-fact critical mind, to entitle him to a prominent place among the poets of the West. His-Jagt contribution to the press, so far as my knowledge goes, was a prose story, of graphic satirical character, entitled "Tom O'Hurry," published in Sackefs Parlor Paper, in December, 1849 or '50. Mr. Minor's health having been for some time failing — consumption had marked him for its own — he took his wife and his young son, Harold R. Minor, and went to Illi- nois, and there laid him down to rest. The accompanying poems are from manuscript placed in my hands by my friend. They are evidently some of his earliest productions, and do not do justice to his abilities. (433) 28