CHARLES GRAHAM HALPINE

POET, EDITOR AND SOLDIER.

LDCASTLE, in the County Meath, Ireland, is the birth-place of the subject of this memoir. The Halpines originally belonged to County Louth, where the Clan Halpine held an honorable place among the well-to-do farmers for many generations. Nicholas Halpine, the father of the future litterateur, was educated at old Trinity College, Dublin, and, after graduation, became a minister of the Established Church. Appointed to a living near Oldcastle, he resided there for many years; and there his oldest son, Charles, first drew vital breath, in the year 1829. When this boy was eleven years old the Rev. Nicholas Halpine, growing weary of country life, moved to Dublin where he became editor-inchief of the Evening Mail, at that time the organ of Protestantism in Ireland. Young Charles accompanied his father to the metropolis, and, having attained the proper age, entered Trinity College, where he became not only very popular with the students but also a distinguished classical scholar and a linguist of no mean parts. Having finished his course at the University he graduated with honor,

and then turned his mind for some time to the study of medicine. This he discovered to be very uncongenial to his taste and talent, and, for another short period, his attention was given to the study of Blackstone. But law proved as distasteful to him as medicine. The natural bent of his mind was towards literature, and most of his after years were devoted to writing for the press.

When only nineteen years of age he married an amiable and accomplished Irish lady, and thought for a while of leading a quiet life in his native land. Assiduously devoting himself to journalism he found a ready market for his work both in London and Dublin. His poetic contributions were always in high demand at the offices of the English periodicals, and the Irish newspapers cheerfully paid for his prose articles on the issues of the time.

But the Greater Ireland was rising in the West, young, vigorous and progressive. The priests, physicians and poets of the Gael were following the Star of Empire in the track of the great Irish exodus; and Halpine, young and hopeful, was drawn into the current and swept along by the outgoing tide.

Reaching New York in the summer of 1852, about the same time as his college-mate Fitz-James O'Brien, he became connected with the New York Herald. His large literary attainments and prolific genius in a short time asserted themselves and enabled him to

take a prominent place among the distinguished writers of the country. The leading journals throughout the Union paid him handsomely for articles on various subjects. For some great daily he wrote a leader on the politics of the time; to some leading weekly he contributed a stirring song brimful of Irish wit, and for one or other of the high-standard monthlies he translated some short story that was going the rounds of the French, Italian or German press.

After a few busy and successful years spent in New York, Mr. Halpine went down to the metropolis of New England to occupy the editorial chair of the Boston Post. Having infused new blood and vigor into the old journal and given it a long lease of life, he formed a partnership with the poet Shillaber, and started a comic paper called the Carpet Bag. This literary venture did not prove a pecuniary success, however, and Halpine returned to New York where he was immediately installed as associate editor of the Times.

In 1858 Mr. John Clancy and our author commenced the publication of the Leader, which in a short time, under their joint control, became a journal not alone of great influence in politics, but also a high-grade literary paper. In the office of the Leader Mr. Halpine labored assiduously until Col. Michael Corcoran began to recruit for the