[Illustration:  CRO’ NEST.]

To the City Hotel came Morris again with Dana, Cooper, and his friend,
Samuel Woodworth, author of “The Old Oaken Bucket”—­to plan “The
Mirror,” in 1823.

[Illustration:  SAMUEL WOODWORTH.]

[Illustration:  THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET.]

The story of the old song’s writing is:  At noon on a summer’s day in 1817 Woodworth, whose pen-name was “Selim,” walked home to dinner from his office at the foot of Wall Street.  Being very warm, he drank a glass of water from his pump, and after drinking it said, “How much more refreshing would be a draught from the old bucket that hung in my father’s well!” Then his wife—­whom the poet called his inspiration—­exclaimed, “Why, Selim, wouldn’t that be a pretty subject for a poem?” Thus urged, he began writing at once, and in an hour’s time finished the heart-stirring song so well known as “The Old Oaken Bucket.”

At this City Hotel Cooper himself in 1824 founded “The Bread and Cheese Club”—­so named because membership was voted for with bits of bread, and against with bits of cheese.  He called it the “Lunch.”  Later on, the “Lunch, or Cooper’s Club,” met in Washington Hall, corner of Broadway and Chambers Street.  Among its distinguished members were Chancellor Kent, DeKay, naturalist, King, later president of Columbia College, the authors Verplanck, Bryant, and Halleck, Morse the inventor, the artists Durand and Jarvis, and Wiley the publisher.  They met Thursday evenings, each member in turn caring for the supper, always cooked to perfection by Abigail Jones—­an artist of color, in that line.  It was at one of these repasts that Bryant “was struck with Cooper’s rapid, lively talk, keen observation, knowledge, and accurate memory of details.”  Said he:  “I remember, too, being somewhat startled, coming as I did from the seclusion of a country life, with a certain emphatic frankness of manner, which, however, I came at last to like and admire.”  Many an attractive page might be written of these talks with Mathews, rambles with DeKay, and daily chats with his old messmates of the sea, and this “Bread and Cheese Club.”  Cooper was scarcely in France before he sent frequent missives to his friends at the club to be read at their weekly meetings; but it “missed its founder, went into a decline, and not long afterward quietly expired.”  General Wilson says that it was at Wiley’s, corner of Wall and New Streets, in a small back room christened by Cooper “The Den”—­which appeared over the door—­that he first met “The Idle Man,” R.H.  Dana.  Here Cooper was in the habit of holding forth to an admiring audience, much as did Christopher North about the same time in “Blackwood’s” back parlor in George Street, Edinburgh.