166
             Reminiscences of Welden
of this diary.   We had pleasant book-talks
and ale or spirits of evenings, all in moderation;
either at my poor cockloft at 270 Broadway
(the number comes back to me as I write � five
minutes ago I should have recalled it with
difficulty) or at his home.       He got a posit on
the �Times,� at its commencement.   The wretched
vice that was to 
          wreck a life that might have been use-
ful and honored, had some hold on him then,
but not an omnipresent one.      He was com-
paratively in good esteem, commanded a much
better position than that into which he sunk
of late years.      He wrote editorials, did
a singular, thoughtful, semi-metaphysical series
of papers entitled �The City-Hall Bell-Ringer,�
which I read eagerly and liked immensely.   They
were talked about at the time.      He wrote a
good poem, now and then, too.   I have heard
him speak of his �Tribune� experience in part;
though he neither liked the paper nor its editors.
I suspect he had been discharged, possibly in
consequence of his habits.      His introduction to the
�Tribune� was as narrated in the subjoined ex-
tract from the �Times�; he sent the poems as trans-
lations from the Swedish or Norwegian.          I used