"In personal appearance Halleck was rather below the medium height and well built: in walking he had a rather slow and shuffling gait, as if something afflicted his feet; a florid, bland and pleasant countenance; a bright gray eye; was remarkably pleasant and courteous in conversation, and, as a natural consequence, much beloved by all who had the pleasure of his acquaintance. But to that brilliancy in conversation which some of his admirers have been pleased to attribute to him in my opinion he could lay no claim. His library was sold at auction in New York on the evening of October 12, 1868. If the collection disposed of on that occasion was really his library in full, it must be confessed it was a sorry affair and meagre in the extreme. In surveying the collection a judge of the value of such property would perhaps pronounce it worth from one hundred and twenty-five to one hundred and fifty dollars. The books brought fabulous prices--at least ten times their value. The company was large, good-humored and just in the frame of mind to be a little more than liberal, doubtless stimulated to be so from a desire to possess a relic of the departed poet who had added fame to the literature of his country. The following are the names of a few of the books and the prices they brought: _Nicholas Nickleby_, with the author's autograph, $18; Bryant's little volume of poems entitled _Thirty Poems_, with the author's autograph, $11; Campbell's _Poems_, with Halleck's autograph, $8.50; _Catalogue of the Strawberry Hill Collection_, $16; _Barnaby Rudge_, presentation copy by the author to Halleck, $15; Coleridge's _Poems_, with a few notes by Halleck, $10; _Fanny_, a poem by Mr. Halleck, $10. The sum-total realized for his library was twelve hundred and fifty dollars."