Nathaniel Parker Willis

The materials for a life of Willis are rich enough to be embarrassing. Most of his writings are, in a greater or less degree, autobiographical; and it would be possible to make a very tolerable life of him, by arranging passages from these in the right order, and linking them together with a few paragraphs of cold facts. Then, he lived very much in the world's eye, and was constantly talked and written about, so that there is abundant mention of him in newspaper files, and in volumes of "Re...