 | Sporting scenes and sundry sketches |  |
MEMOIR
OF
THE LATE WILLIAM P. HAWES, Esq.,
BY
HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT.
To commemorate the talents, depict the character, and erlogise
the virtues of a departed friend, although a melancholy
task, must ever be, in some sort, pleasurable to a survivor;
and for the most part biographers have been so sensible of this
sad pleasure, that they have but too often departed from their
proper line of duty, and degenerated into mere panegyrists. So
far is this, however, from being in accordance with the views of
the writer, that he considers such adulatory notices equally
useless as regards the reputation of the dead, and discreditsble
to the motives of the living. It is, then, his intention merely to
lay before the public such brief facts, concerning the deceased,
as may suffice to render them acquainted with the individual
who ministered so often and so long to their amusement,
still retained in the title of these volumes.
William Post Hawes, the author of the fugitive pieces now
for the first time collected, was the son of Peter Hawes, Esq.,
a distinguished member of the New-York bar, and subsequently
secretary of the Washington Insurance Company in
this city. He was born on the 4th day of February, 1803, and,
at a very early age, commenced a course of study in all the
branches of a liberal education, in several—the first—schools
of the day. In due course of time he entered at Columbia
college, and on the 7th day of August, 1821,—when but 18
years of age—was admitted bachelor of arts, with all the
honors; and on the 7th day of August, 1824, master of arts in
the same institution, of the Philolexian society of which he
had been an honorary member during the greater part of his
terms.
Having determined on the honorable profession of the law,
as the career most congenial to his habits, he became a student
in the office of John Anthon, Esq., now a celebrated
member of the New-York bar, and was successively admitted
attorney in August, 1824, solicitor in March, 1826,
counsellor in the supreme court in May, 1828, and in the court
of chancery in May, 1830. It may not be superfluous here
to state that Mr. Hawes served in the militia of the state of
New-York, from the grade of ensign in January, 1825, through
all the successive ranks, to that of colonel of the 222d regiment
of infantry, in January, 1836.
From the commencement of his practice as a lawyer at the
age of 21, to his untimely end, he continued in that eminent
profession; in which he occupied by his talents, industry, and
kindly disposition, a highly honorable situation.
In the year 1826 he contracted a matrimonial alliance with
Miss Priscilla Morris, by whom he had an interesting family,
to which he was ever bound by the kindliest and sweetest
ties, not of relationship alone, but of affectionate and earnest
solicitude. His premature death, the consequence of a severe
and sudden cold, neglected—he was engaged on Saturday
in the duties of his office, dead on the following Tuesday, and
actually buried before the writer of this brief memoir was
aware that he had a friend less in this world of care and disappointment—robbed
his young daughters and untimely widow
of their best earthly friend and only true protector.
The literary career of Mr. Hawes, which with a sensibility
characteristic of the man, he ever wished to keep out of sight,
commenced at a very early period, the first of his extant papers
bearing date of February, 1827, and consisting of a series
of articles published in the Gazette, on the then interesting
subject of the abduction and supposed murder of the
free mason Morgan.
From that period until the day of his death he continued to
write, at short and constant intervals, fugitive articles for various
periodicals and papers; the principal of which were the
American Monthly Magazine, the Mirror, the New-York Standard,
and afterwards, the New-York Times. Subsequently,
he became a regular contributor to the New-York Spirit of
the Times and Turf Register, both issued from the office of
those thorough sportsmen and most enterprising publishers,
the Messrs. Porter of this city.
With characteristic order and minuteness, all Mr. Hawes'
writings were found, after his death, regularly entered and corrected,
in a large blank book, kept by him for that purpose
from a very remote date, so that the duty, devolved on the editor,
has been merely that of selection and arrangement.
Mr. Hawes was a moderate but a steady democrat; never
a leveller or disorganizing radical; and almost all his earlier
literary productions, whether in prose or verse, are of a political
character. These the editor has judged it best to suppress,
for several reasons, which he feels it here his duty to
lay before the public. First, they are generally of a partizan
character, and do not relate to any grand measures of political
principle, or such as possess any lasting interest. Second,
although clear, sound, and sometimes richly fraught with humor,
they are generally inferior to the others, both in character,
spirit, and the peculiar racy naivete, which is the most remarkable
attribute of his miscellaneous writings.
The papers, of which this little work is composed, were
published, with but the exception of one or two original posthumous
articles, either in the pages of the American Monthly,
and Turf Register, or in the columns of the Mirror, and the
Spirit of the Times. Farther than this it is not for the writer
to say; his own estimate of the writings, the character and
genius of his friend, has already been recorded in a paper entitled
“To the Memory of `Cypress”' published in the
Turf Register for May, 1841, which is appended to this memoir
as being the embodiment of first impressions, before the
writer had the least conception, that on him would fall the lot
to be the supervisor and collector of writings, which he so
sincerely and enthusiastically admires. The labor which he
has undertaken, he has undertaken as being indeed a labor of
love; he has brought to it the whole of his energies, the best
of his abilities; and though unused to sue for public favor, he
does so far deviate from his accustomed practice as to crave
this indulgence—that all the censure of the critics may fall
upon his head, while all the praise may be awarded, where it
is only due, to his departed friend. The profits of this little
to orphans and a widow. The following is the tribute of his
editor.
| Sporting scenes and sundry sketches | |