Point, he came back to his native city about the year 1830. He wrote an
article on Bryant's Poems for the "North American Review," and another on
the famous Indian chief, Black Hawk. In this last-mentioned article he
tells this story as the great warrior told it himself. It was an
incident of a fight with the Osages.

"Standing by my father's side, I saw him kill his antagonist and tear the
scalp from his head. Fired with valor and ambition, I rushed furiously
upon another, smote him to the earth with my tomahawk, ran my lance
through his body, took off his scalp, and returned in triumph to my
father. He said nothing, but looked pleased."

This little red story describes very well Spelling's style of literary
warfare. His handling of his most conspicuous victim, Willis, was very
much like Black Hawk's way of dealing with the Osage. He tomahawked him
in heroics, ran him through in prose, and scalped him in barbarous
epigrams. Bryant and Halleck were abundantly praised; hardly any one
else escaped.

If the reader wishes to see the bubbles of reputation that were floating,
some of them gay with prismatic colors, half a century ago, he will find
in the pages of "Truth" a long catalogue of celebrities he never heard
of. I recognize only three names, of all which are mentioned in the
little book, as belonging to persons still living; but as I have not read
the obituaries of all the others, some of them may be still flourishing
in spite of Mr. Spelling's exterminating onslaught. Time dealt as hardly
with poor Spelling, who was not without talent and instruction, as he had
dealt with our authors. I think he found shelter at last under a roof
which held numerous inmates, some of whom had seen better and many of
whom had known worse days than those which they were passing within its