Introduction

Biography

Maxim was an ec­cen­tric, but the tra­di­tion that an un­for­tu­nate af­fair of the heart once drove him in­to the woods to make away with him­self, but a bird on the roof of a log­ger’s hut, mak­ing plaint­ive sounds, in­ter­rupt­ed him, and he sat down and wrote the tune Hal­lo­well, on a strip of white birch bark, is more like­ly le­gend­a­ry.

The fol­low­ing words, said to have in­spired his mi­nor tune, are still set to it in the old col­lect­ions:

As on some lonely build­ing’s top
The sparrow makes her moan,
Far from the tents of joy and hope
I sit and grieve alone.

Brown, pp. 282–83

Works

• The Ori­ent­al Har­mo­ny (Exe­ter, New Hamp­shire: Hen­ry Ran­let, 1802)
• The North­ern Har­mo­ny (Exe­ter, New Hamp­shire: Hen­ry Ran­let, 1805)